Esteemed Reader of Our Magazine:
My son was born just days before the 2004 election. It was an intense and joyful event that outshined political preoccupations. My frustration over the injustice of the rigged election with its implicit confirmation that democracy in the US is a pleasant fiction designed to opiate the oppressed masses with the illusion of involvement in their governance and keep the already powerful in power was eclipsed. In the event of birth the two of us became three, and not just a baby but a whole new unit was born. A child, the "third force" finding manifestation in the relationship of a man and woman made us a Father and Mother, parents, and together, a Family!

Three-ness is everywhere. The Law of Three is even represented in the system designed by America's cosmic-law abiding founding fathers who designed a government with three branches. This system was to be self-balancing and self-correcting. It would protect its underlying principles through its organization. Though abused, it was a pretty good system, until its demise in the 2000 election, when the judiciary "picked sides." And at the time of this writing the Supreme Court is probably about to receive its final death-blow at the hands of the majority party that would reduce the court to yet another instrument of the executive branch through the removal of the for them inconvenient filibuster.

The annihilation of the possibility of the Supreme Court functioning as an objective arbiter in government is significant. The image of Lady Justice shines light on the role that the judiciary should play as a third, or reconciling force. She is the holder of the scales, balancing and bringing together opposing interests. Because she is blind-folded to sentimentality and partiality her sword can cleave the knot of ignorance.

Our nation has become third-force blind, reduced to sets of simplistic dualities—Republicans and Democrats, Good and Evil, Us and Them. Our erstwhile tripartite system is now material for the yet to be written history books relating to the downfall of the short-lived American empire and its role in the destruction of the world.

If it has any merit at all the new episode of Star Wars portrays the neocon revolution in America well and accurately:

ANAKIN: I have brought peace, justice, freedom, and security to my new Empire.

OBI-WAN: Your new Empire?

ANAKIN: If you're not with me, you're my enemy.

OBI-WAN: Only a Sith Lord deals in absolutes.

Sound familiar? Certainly more graceful than "If yer not with us, yer aginst us."  The underlying cause of such simplistic dualistic thinking is also well-expressed in the film:

YODA: Careful... Anakin. The fear of loss is a path to the dark side.

We live in a society governed by men who fear loss; that oppress humanity through policies, legislation, and through the fostering of ignorance.  And this has given rise to much larger problems.

The world is on fire, and it is too late to do anything. Even if we stop burning fossil fuels today, the gigatons of carbon dioxide already belched into the atmosphere will do their work. The planet is hotter now than it has been at any point in the last two thousand years and it's getting hotter. Huge and unknowable climactic shifts are imminent (see "The Climate of Man," by Elizabeth Kolbert, published in the New Yorker in three parts: April 25, May 2, and May 9, 2005).

And then there's Peak Oil. Production can no longer keep up with demand. The world's economy—notably food production and distribution—depends on oil. The slowing and stoppage of its flow is inevitable whilst we thirst for ever more of this malignant black beverage and make no preparation for its depletion.

Not to mention the world's vast and unaccounted nuclear arsenal...

Big changes are afoot in our collective life on the planet. How do we consider our individual lives in this context? Should we plant gardens and move off the grid? Or should we find the third, reconciling force in ourselves—the peaceful force that brings newness and possibility to each event? It is conducted in us by the Observer—that intelligence which sees without judgment; that doesn't try to change what is sees, but paradoxically transforms through seeing. Yes, I think this is the way. As my son demonstrated with his arrival, so too can we find that transformative, reconciling force being born and manifest through us.

—Jason Stern