Making Sense of These Times

2002-11-18T20:11:00.000-08:00

THE SOCIAL FORUM
Florence, Italy
6-10 November, 2002

Conference: Is a Dialogue between Civilizations Possible?

"What Would the Grandmothers Say?" by William Pennell Rock, M.Litt. (Cantab.), PhD

The present conflict of civilizations will never be resolved by the use of force.

I make this blanket statement with full conviction, and I want to declare it outright as the bias of my presentation. I believe that it is the faith of everyone present at this conference that no matter what the conflict may be, economic as seen by Marx, cultural, as seen by Sam Huntington, or personal as seen in our everyday life, that there is a way to find resolution through peaceful and cooperative means.

On this basis I would like to present several theoretical perspectives, primarily based upon the play of opposites, in the current world situation and to use these theoretical bases as a possible approach to a solution. These perspectives will open up the situation much in the same way that one peels an onion to reach its core.

The Recent Resurgance of Partisan Force
Since the time of the early Greeks, the cosmos has been seen in terms of equilibrium. We live in a reality that is governed by deep internal forces which move events and reflection between polarities, like the swing of a pendulum, tending towards a middle. We find this also in Hegel and his basic premise that History moves between polarities: thesis producing antithesis and finding new balance in a synthesis which then itself posits an antithesis.

In the 90’s and into this century a conspicuous polarity has been one of global vision and cooperation vs. partisan force. During the Clinton years, with the end of the Cold War, we enjoyed an atmosphere of international cooperation and movement towards global unity. Many of us entered the new millennium with a heightened sense of optimism. But the three zeros had barely appeared before we saw significant signs of another tendency, the ethos of partisan force. We saw this ignite in the Middle East, beginning with Sharon’s visit to the Temple Mount, soon flaring up into the new Intifada and the rise of a government committed to partisan force, ethos and tactics.

Then came the Bush phenomenon in which the unabashed philosophy of partisan force began to change the face of the world. How deep this tendency goes is open to question: last week I read a statement by Gore Vidal, a perennial radical thinker in the USA, who voices the view of many in the world who see a coup in American politics on the part of the “Bush Junta”. Whether things are actually this dire or not, the tendency is alarmingly present, forcing every other government in the world, out of self-protection, to take a similar stance.

The Bush Phenomenon
Speaking as an American coming from a similar background to Bush, I would like to make some observations about his modus operandi on the basis of the influences which shaped him. These can be described in terms of reflexes modified by education.

Bush’s reflexes are pure Texas. Every macho Texan has a pickup truck with a rifle in it. It is the ethos of the latter day cowboy, who is still fighting Indians on the side of good over evil. This is a mode of behavior and style that has considerable appeal to Americans in our monocultural naivete and ignorance of other cultures and languages. America--God’s Country--is first, and anyway the rest of the world doesn’t really count. As a response to the events of 911, this stance has had particular emotional appeal, and Bush’s cowboy posturing has played well to the masses, as we see in his unprecedented approval ratings and electoral success.

If Bush’s reflexes are Texan, his education is Ivy League. The mascot of Yale, his undergraduate college and that of his father, is a bulldog, much loved for his belligerent ugliness. At Yale, we were taught to wear a suit, be rational, but underneath, be a bulldog, tough and ferocious when necessary. Bush believes in war.

Counter to this, fortunately, is a third, tempering element coming from Bush’s three years at Harvard Business School. During this course, students are given business problems to solve. They are supplied with only partial information about the case, and must form teams to decide upon a course of action. The world can be grateful for this element of Bush’s education, as it was this tendency which held him in restraint after 911 until he could build an international coalition, and it is holding him in restraint now as he modifies his bulldog cowboy posture towards Saddam Hussein according to the restraints of the UN Security Council.

The fourth element in his background is his long familial and personal history in the oil industry. There are many who speculate that the belief in this form of energy and the secret profit motive of Bush’s family and their cronies, are the unstated, but determinative motivation for his Middle Eastern policy.

These four tendencies constitute a kind of diagnosis of Bush as a whole, for they each play a role in the composite of his administration towards a politics of force.

The Politics of Force will Fail
The politics of force carries special weight in the case of America, because of its economic and military prowess. In fact, however, the massive armory, designed for technological ascendancy over the armies of other states, is practically irrelevant as far as the present adversary is concerned. Yes, it did rout the regime of the Taliban, but there is every reason to believe that the real Taliban just dispersed, where it hides under different names, ready to regroup and continue the next phase of its war on Satan.

But the use of the massive armory of the US is more than irrelevant; it is counterproductive. Wherever it is used, it breeds more anger and antagonism than it can possibly dispel. In fact, wherever it is used, it will only feed the counter partisan force

But even more, the massive armory is irrelevant because the terrorists will never engage it directly. On the contrary, the major terrorist attacks will always be directed where that force is not present, as has been the case in New York, Washington, and Bali.

This last irrelevance constitutes what I consider to be the most grave danger to the West. Let us call it the David and Goliath phenomenon. Florence is famous for its masterpiece by Michelangelo, David as he contemplates his defeat of the massive Goliath. We should take heed. Fearless David, infused with an unstoppable faith in God, is able to bring down the unbeatable giant with one true, well-placed shot.

It is the strength of this phenomenon of integrity versus mass that created America in the first place: a ragtag bunch of passionate patriots was able to defeat the massive power of the British Crown. America has seen this phenomenon in reverse in Vietnam. Our vastly superior armed forces, whose leaders thought they were fighting communism, were brought down by the Vietnamese people in their unstoppable passion for national self -determination. Look at America’s great epic, Star Wars. Every American child knows that it is precisely this kind of integrity on the part of a few righteous warriors on a desert planet that brings about the downfall of the hi-tech forces of the Universal Empire.

The seminal fear of all is the fear of death. The dedicated terrorist, devoted to God and committed to martyrdom, becomes a formidable enemy of a culture which values life over all else and is preoccupied with its own power and pleasure. Righteousness of conscience is a greater power than hi-tech massiveness. Like David fighting Goliath, it has but to strike not to destroy, but to disorient. The disorientation undermines the very massive complexity of the machine and its system, a weakness in its own right. Eventually it collapses of its own weight and inherent contradictions.

In fact the very massiveness of the giant is a distinct disadvantage. In the face of the disorientation caused by the well-aimed shot, the giant is distracted as it flails about trying to see where to apply its massive force, thereby exposing its weaknesses at every turn.

But the worst thing of all in the present situation is this: the absorbing spectacle of David and Goliath locked in mortal combat is effectively a distraction from the greatest threat of all: the ecological juggernaut of unconscious technological development, hurtling with ever increasing volition towards rendering the field of battle, the planet itself, uninhabitable.

Hubris and Nemesis
A third, and deeper level of analysis of the situation is to be made in terms of the ancient notion of hubris and nemesis. For this we hearken once again back to the Greek conception of the Cosmos--of reality as a dynamic that always adjusts back unto its intrinsic equilibrium, an unfolding reality regulated by deep internal forces tending towards balance. Hubris, known to the Greeks as arrogance before the gods, means defying this intrinsic equilibrium and pushing one tendency to such an extreme that it creates, out of nowhere, nemesis, the inevitable consequence in which the violated equilibrium re-establishes itself.

Over the last centuries the hubris of the white man has dominated nature and the peoples of the earth. The age of colonialism has intensified and become planetary through American led corporate globalization, or market totalitarianism, fortified as it is by America’s military force. To the winners on the stock market in the last decade it has been looking very good, but, unfettered by Communism, the general trend is contributing to the ever-widening gap between haves and have nots. Karl Marx analyzed the physics of such an imbalance, but he was looking at the phenomenon in the industrialization of Europe. In the present world this imbalance has reached planetary proportions. The hubris is, in a word, massive, and its inherent instability is manifesting in every way.

The present world crisis is the activation out of the soil of things as it were, out of the core of the dispossessed, the nemesis. Just look at the most significant terrorist targets and contemplate their meaning: the gravity defying assertiveness of theTwin Towers of Mammon, the seat of military might in Washington, and the den of exotic Western pleasure in Bali. These are the tokens of our hubris.

In the light of these considerations, the strategy for dealing with the present situation is not at all one of partisan force. In its rigid self-interest, it is irrelevant and counterproductive. Far from the use of massive force, any effective strategy should involve a combination of infiltration and Intelligence work. But this needs to be backed up by a concerted international effort to redress the terrible imbalance between exploiter and exploited in corporate globalization with an eye to forms that serve the common good, the well being of humanity one, and the course of circumstances that threaten our true home.

The Grandmothers and the Mediation towards the Middle Value in Civil Society
The title of this paper remains mysterious. Why do I ask what the Grandmothers would say?

According to Noam Chomsky the Western hubris of Imperialism began to manifest itself about five centuries ago when European explorers began to discover and despoil the New World. At that time, in what is now the North East of the American Continent, five warring tribes of Indians, under the inspired leadership of “the Peacemaker”, forged what came to be known as the Iroquois Nation. The constitution of this Nation was a masterpiece of the balance of power. It provided three bodies: one of these was composed of the chiefs of all the tribes, another was headed by a chief elected from among them. There was a third body, which oversaw both of the others and, in recognition that the greatest danger to appropriate governance is the excesses of greedy males, was composed of elder females representing each tribe, the Grandmothers. The mandate of this third body was to appraise and censor any decisions made by the other two bodies. The criterion for this appraisal was the general care of life, expressed very specifically as what regards seven generations before and seven generations to follow.

The world of the Iroquois was governed by the two male bodies, but it was regulated and overseen by the grandmothers who stood for the values of life.

For five centuries this Iroquois Nation lived in peace. When the founding fathers of the United States came upon it, they were so impressed that they took over its basic form for the Constitution of their new nation. But in their white man prejudices they made certain fundamental changes. They found the body of Grandmothers to be quaint, but primitive and irrelevant. The three bodied form was adopted, but the third council was replaced by the elected House of Representatives and the Supreme Court. The function of the Grandmothers was replaced with more white men. With this, the view of World (that created by men) completely eclipsed the view of Life (that protected by women). The future leadership of the world was decisively placed in the hands of male values untempered by female values. This is the world we now find ourselves in.

Let us consider the values of life represented by the grandmothers. The mandate was to evaluate and censor governance on the basis of the long view; seven generations preceding and following: continuity, priority of quality of life over the exercise of power, sustainability in the dispersion of resources and goods, and care for the life of the earth. This constitutes a central value which has been lost in our reckoning: well-being and the quality of life.

Here is a truly awesome thought. As we watch the international news, we have all seen grandmothers screaming their grief over the latest terrorist atrocity. If the wisest of these grandmothers were to be assembled and allowed the authority they had in the Iroquois Nation, how would the affairs of the world change? How would the Palestinian question be settled? How would the issues behind world terrorism be dealt with?

With some desperation we now sense that it is these very qualities and values which must be reinstated if humanity is to survive. We are here meeting in Florence to redress this imbalance. What the grandmothers would say is how to regard the central value, that all beings desire happiness and the avoidance of pain.

There are many of us here who are devoted to reestablishing these values: in the ecological movements and the motions toward civil society. The sane place in the play of opposites is never to be found at the extremes, but rather towards the middle, that which has been extolled in the West by Socrates and in the East by Buddha. The Middle Way regards the need of every conscious being to achieve happiness and reduce suffering just as it regards a balance of world development and the values that foster and support life.

But what are the institutional methods available to us for finding the middle way?

Since the Sixties, many alternative communities in the United States have looked past the institutions dominated by world over life to traditional tribal forms of the peoples indigenous to American soil. An example of this is called “Council”. Council is a set of practices which provides a comprehensive means for co-visioning and making decisions in a group context. In Council, group decisions are made by first hearing the voice of each individual involved in the question and on this basis, an elected body committed to these values makes a final decision. Many communities are turning to this form of decision- making.

The practices balance speaking and listening. The combination of speaking authentically and listening attentively inspires deeper communication, intercultural understanding and the non-violent resolution of conflict. Through attentive listening, Council inspires a non-hierarchical form of deep communication that reveals the group vision and purpose. It offers effective means of resolving conflicts because it focuses on discovering the deeper, often unexpressed needs of individuals and groups. Through deepening trust, council supports the clarification of values, co-visioning, and community building.

The strength of governance lies with individuals who are both empowered and accountable. In Council, it is through the decisions and actions of each member of the community that the disparate needs of individuals in the circle finds its fruitful wisdom. Initiative, responsibility and leadership are shared. Thus Council is effective in organizations, communities and families that want to move from a hierarchical structure to a partnership model, where initiative, responsibility and leadership are shared. Through deepening trust, Council supports the clarification of values, co-visioning and community building.

If you want to know more about council, contact the Ojai Foundation, which is entirely run on principles of council and offers training in the practices of Council.

The value of discovering the middle way between two parties in dispute has grown up also in the conception of Mediation, and the gathering faith and experience of its practitioners, that where both parties are willing to look to the middle, a way can be found to deal with any conflict. Here we return to the basic faith of this endeavor: the hypothesis that in any conflict, Mediation can arrive at the place where the basic needs of life, the happiness of humans and the avoidance of pain can be brokered. These are not extreme values, but the values at the forgotten middle. In these initiatives we hearken to the forgotten voice of the grandmothers.

Council and mediation are two innovative democratic forms that embody the basic premise that underlying all human actions are needs that people are seeking to meet, and that understanding and acknowledging these needs can create a shared basis for connection, cooperation, and, more globally – peace.

This allows the inherent equilibrium to express itself and be comprehended. It is the antidote to partisan force.

Through practices such as Council and Mediation the center is allowed to arise.

May we all tune ourselves to the forgotten voice:

What would the grandmothers say?

2002-11-18T00:14:00.000-08:00

FROM LISTMEMBERS

From newcomer Richard Taubinger [Richard@Johannaho.com]

I signed up because of the format and logic behind the site; and also the belief that intelligent forums need to be brought forth to share alternate views – rather than to sell products or one-side ideas.

One personal effect of 911 was that I realized that my critical thinking skills were numb. Without logic one swims in a sea of confusion as evidenced by most of the alternative sites out there. The schooling system and continual media bombardment obviously do not help in this respect. I have also continually searched for sources that can balance of all this new age light (things will be okay and fine; just love everyone; Look at me and all my goodness) with a strong dose of accepting the dark denied aspects individually and collectively, to see everything in our path and world as a mirror of what is inside myself. Look forward to seeing your site evolve.

From old friend Rosalind Robinson [twosherpas@yahoo.com]

Have you had any contact with Paul Ray and this cultural creative concept? I think it's relevant to what you're trying to do. I do question his optimistic statistics though.

I answered:

Paul is a listmember. I'm with you on a significance to what he's done. He made a huge contribution with the idea of the Cultural Creatives, and by noting that there were enough of these consciousness oriented people to elect a president. It gave everyone hope that we could prevail -- like Michael Moore showing us there's a constituency of political progressives. If we think we don't have a chance, we don't even try, but both of these men have served to activate us.

I posted this in June Quotes, from Ray's newest work, The New Political Compass
[http://www.culturalcreatives.org/Library/docs/NewPoliticalCompassV73.pdf] Kucinich stuff always catches my eye -- he's a loner, bringing spirit into government. (Maybe he shouldn't take small airplanes.)

Everyone asks, so I have to tell you: In the U.S. I have seen just one national politician running on a "North" platform of the kind that Cultural Creatives and New Progressives will like: Rep. Dennis Kucinich, a Democrat of Cleveland, Ohio. In the 2000 election, in a district that had previously voted 61% and 68% Republican, looking safely Gingrich-ite before Kucinich, he ran a pure "North" campaign and won with 75% of the vote, far ahead of the standard bearer of his party. His platform was entirely that of the North, and the Cultural Creatives: Create a cabinet department of Peace for both home and abroad; do everything we can to live up to the Kyoto Accords, i.e., make the economy subservient to the ecology; and run a citizens campaign without the influence of big money. Notice that it’s "not news" in the Modernist media. Kucinich’s recent speech condemning the Bush administration’s war policy and destruction of civil liberties, reminding voters that they’re an unelected bunch at that, is also a pure North position. His speech fits a movement-based position, and fits the revival of the peace movement in 2002.

From Daniel Pinchbeck [Dpinchbeck@aol.com] (See our archived conversation http://www.mightycompanions.org/cropcircles/wired/wheatgraffiti.html.)

The New York Times Book Review is reviewing my book ["Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism"] next Sunday - and it is a good, thoughtful piece. Much better than I hoped to get from them, although of course I still have some quibbles. Above all, it keeps the subject open for mainstream readers, and gives them some context to examine the book without prejudice. I suspect it is the first sympathetic NYT review of a book on psychedelics since Castaneda.

As for the recent spate of articles asking for a "Marshall Plan" for clean energy, I agree with you: It is very bizarre that people can't insist on what must be done to save our planetary situation. There is some kind of blockage that is overtly irrational. By the end of my book, I understand that this is actually an occult situation - there are occult forces working actively for humanity's destruction. The mass media is especially a kind of mind-control mechanism that keeps most people narcotized, pacified, and hypnotized. I agree with William Irwin Thompson that there is a kind of willed cataclysm on its way - what he terms a 'catastrophe bifurcation.'

Here's the NY Times review of Daniel's book: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/10/books/review/10KAMIYAT.html.

From close friend Pennell Rock [PennellR@aol.com]

Just to tell you I am at the Social Forum in Florence -- a special two day Conference, "The Nature of Dialogue in the Clash of Civilizations." It's the hot bed of anti-Bushism and movement towards "another Europe." I am participating as a speaker on a panel about dialogue as opposed to war. A thousand wonderful people from all over the world are here. We may have to move to Europe. It may be the future when the Republicans have run things into the ground. I feel that America is really under a horrible hypnotic spell.

I answered:

It feels ominous to me. The normal pull and push, where outrage calls up opposition, may have been be OK over the long haul before this, but now we may never get a long haul for things to right themselves. I am all consumed with thinking about what to do. I've got these magic crop circles up my sleeve. Can you imagine "CONTACT" in headlines, and people still going about the business as usual of shooting one another? I don't think so.

I like your paper a lot [listmembers: it's virus free and I've attached it -- it is so worth a read]. It is so intelligent, cutting to the core of the issues and making a framework to hang them all on. Maybe you can forge a little microcosmic ad hoc council with the people you copied this to. You know that Margaret Mead quote about the small group of thoughtful, committed people being able to impact the world!

Here's the intro to the paper, "What Would the Grandmothers Say?":

The present conflict of civilizations will never be resolved by the use of force.

I make this blanket statement with full conviction, and I want to declare it outright as the bias of my presentation. I believe that it is the faith of everyone present at this conference that no matter what the conflict may be, economic as seen by Marx, cultural, as seen by Sam Huntington, or personal as seen in our everyday life, that there is a way to find resolution through peaceful and cooperative means.

On this basis I would like to present several theoretical perspectives, primarily based upon the play of opposites, in the current world situation and to use these theoretical bases as a possible approach to a solution. These perspectives will open up the situation much in the same way that one peels an onion to reach its core.

2002-11-18T00:02:00.000-08:00

LISTMEMBER WADE FRAZIER ON FREE ENERGY AND THE RADICAL LEFT

Wade Frazier sees the biggest picture. He has a whistle blowing, sense making master work on the Net now. http://home1.gte.net/res0k62m/home.htm. A great interior section is "How Things Can Be" http://home1.gte.net/res0k62m/visions.htm. This is a little summarizing from our rich correspondence.

Wade says, "It kills me what is happening today, because I have been trying to prevent it since I was 16, with my alternative energy dreams. The nightmare is coming to pass before my eyes." Wade worked with Dennis Lee on free energy, and says, "Energy is the basis for all ecological systems and all economic systems...The entire human journey, since proto-humans left the tropical forests and gave up their fruit-eating ways, has always been about securing and consuming new sources of energy. From the megafauna extinctions to the Domestication Revolution to the Industrial Revolution to today's looming World War III, the underlying dynamic has always been about securing and consuming energy." Free energy, he says, "can topple the scarcity paradigm humanity has been operating under for the past 10,000 years...Until the root of the problem is addressed, basically, the issue of sustainable, environmentally friendly, democratically available energy (like free energy), all the political action in the world is largely worthless. Economics is about as close to the root of the issue as we can get without "going mystical" (which, of course, I do sneak into in places on my site." This lands you on a zesty little passage on Wade's site about a billion dollars offer to suppress free energy: http://home1.gte.net/res0k62m/energy1.htm -- worth a click to impress you with how possible free energy is. "Truly free, environmentally harmless energy, would topple the ideology of the past 10,000 years, which operates from an assumption of scarcity. An assumption of abundance would topple the whole way the human world operates, and for the better. It could eliminate the Middle East strife almost overnight. Free energy is probably the catalyst needed to bring heaven on earth into being." Wade says that what stands in the way of it being harnessed is not only the interests of the power elite, who want us to remain dependent on fossil fuel consumption, but also the public having bought into scarcity: "If enough people's eyes open to what is imminently possible, it could break the game open." It reminds me of the crop circles, where public awareness also would change the game.

Pointing out that there are no hungry philosophers -- survival needs demand satisfaction first -- Wade says, "While the important journey is within (arguably Maslow's fifth step, self fulfillment), how do we do it when each day we flirt with destroying ourselves? History always has shown that desperate people do desperate things, and hungry ones are about the most desperate of all. Until we begin trying to relieve the desperation that is nearly global in scale these days, the inward journey will be difficult-to-impossible to pursue for most. There must be a balance of the inward and outward, and one can help catalyze the other, I think."

Wade has a bead on a next way of being in the world which you only hear talked about in political circles by Dennis Kucinich. As the Democrats stood for nothing in this election, even the radical left -- admirable folks like Chomsky and Herman and Zinn -- doesn't go into things like spirituality and alternative medicine. Wade says, "My work is not just about a more equitable distribution of the global economic pie (although that is a worthy and critical goal), it is about making the pie a hundred times bigger, in real world terms, not the 'economics' that does not put a price tag on environmental devastation, human suffering, the suffering of our fellow creatures and the like...If the radical left began going for true economic productivity, like going after alternative energy directly, they could have real power (pun intended). Unfortunately, I have rarely seen any rad leftists who have much business experience. Most are academics and professionals, and have rarely rolled around in the mud of the business world, and those kinds of street smarts are needed to become economically potent."

We need to birth something that's left of left now!

2002-11-17T23:56:00.000-08:00

WALTER STARCK CONVERSATION

Here are bits and pieces from my conversation with Walter Starck. I recommend reading archives of it to newcomers to the list [http://www.theconversation.org/c-walterstarck.html] (the most recent entries won't get archived until the new site is running).

Walter said:

My real fear is that if we continue to try to exterminate the terrorists while doing nothing to understand or address the underlying causes, terrorism will only fester and escalate and sooner or later they will succeed in obtaining and using a nuclear weapon. Perhaps unspeakable catastrophe is the only thing that will shake the power worshipers from their righteousness. One can only hope not.

I answered:

This election feels ominous. What can happen now but something awful? What can avert that? It's so obvious that we can't win the game we are in that it's hard to believe people support it so wholeheartedly. I so wish I could help.

What I know about that they don't is the crop circles. I did a presentation yesterday with my PowerPoint materials. Every time I review the data I go deeper into it -- this time especially about the geometry. It is so staggering. The circlemakers use all sorts of mathematical tricks. I made a list of some more arcane or unusual or at least foreign to me things they employ -- beyond all the geometric and fractal elements that the formations abound in, from which in fact we've derived new geometry theorems. Circles demonstrate the harmonics of light, the tetraktys (sacred symbol of the Pythagorian order), eastern Yantras (used for meditation), Borromean Rings (from the Renaissance and Medieval design), Koch fractals, the Sierpinky Sieve, Archimedes Spirals, Cycloids, Tribars (like Escher used), and the diatonic scale that is embedded in many of the formations. The hand of a brilliant designer is plain to see. How can this be ignored by mathematicians? I can understand systems' resistance to change, but for no noteworthy individuals to get it is very bizarre to me. That George Bush is popular, which is beyond my comprehension, even that is not as strange as the failure to pay attention to what is so visible and available. In the face of the exquisiteness which is being laid out for us, could we really keep our guns pointed at one another? I think not. We would be in another realm, where attempting to cope with what is so beyond us would take precedence -- even if at first it was a recognition of a species-wide need for defense against what could be an enemy to humanity. I wonder if, after being awed, we'd look to defense.

Walter has thoughts on crop circles:

The most logical (and obvious) explanation, that crop circles are the product of an advanced non-human intelligence still can't be voiced [in the media], even as a hypothesis, but we're getting closer.

I am with you on crop circles and inner awareness. Although we don't know enough yet to support any firm conclusions the most reasonable hypothesis is that they are intended for our benefit and not to instruct but to discover. Moreover, they are indeed already having such effect upon those who are not in denial and that number is growing.

Food for thought from Daniel Pinchbeck:

This piece [Sidney M. Willhelm's 'Understanding the new Imperial Empire' http://www.americaheldhostile.com/ed110302.shtml] gets pretty heavy duty toward the end - predicting internment camps for dissidents, and suggesting the new 'perma-war' is based on many of the same conditions that led to the Civil War: The necessity of transitioning from one energy economy to another, resisted to the death by the established elite.

Walter responds re American imperialism:

While I don't dispute the facts and the dangerous potential of what is occurring I do think is overdrawn in certain respects. In the antebellum South slavery was the only significant basis of wealth. Today the energy sector represents only a fraction of wealth. True, the Bush administration is quite obviously pro oil and gas and generally pro big business but the interests of finance, manufacturing, agribusiness, IT, media, medical etc. do not coincide with those of oil and are indeed a useful counterbalance. Also, despite obvious examples of malfeasance it is a mistake to attribute wrongful motives to big business, the oil business, the administration or even George Bush himself. Few people are truly evil but most have a remarkable ability to justify their own personal interests even when others suffer as a result...

There is also another important difference between slavery and oil that should not be overlooked. Slavery could go on indefinitely. Oil is in quite finite supply and the oil industry is very much aware of this. Already supply barely meets demand, demand is increasing, new discoveries decreasing and reserves diminishing. Large price increases, shortages, and severe economic effects will force major changes away from oil even if the chaos threshold of climate change does not dramatically intervene first. Regardless of what big oil does its days are limited unless it leads the way into renewable energy.

Right now all I see happening is oil pursuing its immediate interests and a conservative administration lashing out at enemies without much thought to causes or consequences. That's bad enough without adding paranoid conspiracies of global domination, dictatorship and a police state.

Walter comments on a piece from the NY Times that he sent:

Unbelievable. The fundamentalist mindset is similar no matter what religion it adheres to. If there is way to perpetuate and exacerbate misery and injustice they will find it.

U.S. May Abandon Support of U.N. Population Accord [http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/1102-04.htm]

WASHINGTON, Nov. 1 - The Bush administration, embroiling itself in a new fight at the United Nations, has threatened to withdraw its support for a landmark family planning agreement that the United States helped write eight years ago. The reason for the threat is contained in two terms that the administration contends can be construed as promoting abortion...

Daniel Pinchbeck has us thinking about psychedelics.

I said:

It is curious that certain psychedelic substances put different people in touch with the same "entities," making one think they have a tangibility beyond interior experience.

Here are some of Walter's comments:

Different persons perceiving similar "entities" is significant but says little about their independent existence. They could as well reflect cultural stereotypes, Jungian archetypes, simple neurochemistry or even telepathic linkages among ourselves. I remain open to the possibility of their independent reality but see no benefit and some danger in bestowing them with belief without the necessity of reasonable proof.

There are various ways of reading psychedelic experience. This is my best guess. I don't think the perceived light and dark forces are separate discrete entities but rather different aspects of ourselves. Our consciousness is a small
part of the universe that mirrors the whole, however imperfectly, like a small piece of a hologram. It is the microcosm that encompasses the macrocosm. When it focuses on its immediate self it tends to become small, vulnerable, selfish and mean. When it looks outward and sees itself as integral with the whole it becomes more generous, compassionate, and comfortable with itself.

The forces of dark and light are both potentials within us. Like waves vs. particles, what becomes manifest depends upon our point of view. In this respect we create the kind of world we live in. The dark side does have its attractions and it's immediately available with no special effort. The light side requires ongoing development but is a vastly more pleasant place to be. Whatever objective existence the forces of dark and light may have apart from us is intriguing but not a pressing issue. They can only manifest through our cooperation.

In the Gnostic Gospels Christ is reported to have said that if we develop what is within us it will save us but if we do not it will destroy us. I suspect that this was what Christianity was all about before small mean undeveloped spirits usurped it as a power structure to be used for their own ends.

As with the circles, it's up to us. Enlightenment has to be developed. It can not be bestowed or appropriated.

2002-11-17T23:46:00.000-08:00

TWO FROM A FAVORITE COMMENTATOR, LISTMEMBER WILLIAM RIVERS PITT

They're Still A Bunch of Crooks http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/11.14A.wrp.crooks.htm

The bad news:

The double-barreled resignations of Pitt and Webster are an unmistakable sign that the corporate scandals which have dogged the administration and brutalized the stock market remain perched like the raven above George W. Bush's door. The fact that compromised individuals like Pitt and Webster were entrusted with such important positions speaks volumes about the priorities and ultimate loyalties of the Bush White House.

The good news:

The Republicans may control Congress, but they surely do not control the sovereign state of California, nor do they control its Attorney General, a Mr. Bill Lockyer. Lockyer is spearheading something called the Energy Task Force. This task force of 85 attorneys has been given a $9.7 million budget. Its purpose is to discover exactly how Ken Lay and Enron bilked California ratepayers out of $8.9 billion by rigging the electricity grid and energy trading markets during the 2000-2001 energy crisis. Currently, his group is sifting through 400 boxes of Enron documents and 400 fully stuffed computer disks for evidence. They have, to date, filed over 70 legal actions against Enron and its subsidiaries before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

The Attorneys General of Washington State and Oregon are cooperating with Lockyer's investigation, because California's energy woes in 2000 and 2001 spilled into their states. Oregon suffered 40% increases in energy rates during the California crisis, and Washington saw the price per megawatt of energy spike from $30 to $3,000 at one point. Both states are conducting their own investigations into Enron and its subsidiaries.

Most interesting of all is the matter of Tim Belden. Mr. Belden was a top Enron energy trader out of Oregon who pleaded guilty in October to criminal manipulation of markets. Mr. Belden is cooperating with investigators, and the information he is divulging is expected to lead to other arrests, other prosecutions, and further investigations.

Mr. Pitt is gone, and Mr. Webster is gone. Daschle is no longer Majority leader, Gephardt has basically ceased to exist, and Congress belongs to the GOP. Bill Lockyer of California, however, holds the keys to the kingdom, and he is working nights. Tim Belden is there with him, singing like a bird.

Worse Days http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/11.09A.wrp.wrs.days.htm

The leadership of the Democratic Party must bear the full burden of responsibility for this calamity. The incredible Democratic defeats that came during this midterm election did not happen because America is a conservative Republican nation. These defeats came because, in the absence of real leadership, the people will look to any fool who steps to a microphone. In the absence of real leadership, those wise enough to ignore fools will also eschew the polls. The policy of appeasement proffered by the Democratic leadership - go along with tax cuts, go along with the PATRIOT Act, go along with the Iraq war resolution, virtual silence regarding corporate criminality - stripped the leadership and the party of any ability to argue in favor of a Democratic vote. The leadership of the Democratic Party must bear the full burden of responsibility for this calamity. The incredible Democratic defeats that came during this midterm election did not happen because America is a conservative Republican nation. These defeats came because, in the absence of real leadership, the people will look to any fool who steps to a microphone. In the absence of real leadership, those wise enough to ignore fools will also eschew the polls. The policy of appeasement proffered by the Democratic leadership - go along with tax cuts, go along with the PATRIOT Act, go along with the Iraq war resolution, virtual silence regarding corporate criminality - stripped the leadership and the party of any ability to argue in favor of a Democratic vote.

When you support a ruinous tax cut, you cannot stand on fiscal responsibility. When you support invasive and contra-constitutional legislation, you cannot stand on the bill of rights. When you support an ill-conceived war, you cannot stand on responsible military leadership. When you stand silent on the subject of corporate corruption and thievery, because too many of your fellow officeholders are deeply implicit in the scandal, you cannot stand for the rights of the little guy over the powerful. In short, when you acquiesce to virtually every major piece of legislation and policy put forth by the opposition party, you offer no reason whatsoever for the existence of a separation of powers.

2002-11-17T23:39:00.000-08:00

engaged buddhism :: this generation
http://awakening.to/engagement.html

This is from an email sent in May by Gary Gach, author of "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Understanding Buddhism" (it's great) [http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0028641701/qid=1037584565/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/104-7784975-7210337?v=glance&s=books]

When pressed about what to call the way of the Buddha, I often say it is a movement. It's not a religion, per se, 'cos it doesn't deal with God, or no God; not philosophy in terms of traditional western metaphysical terms; not psychology as it doesn't treat "self."

This thread might be interested in what's called "engaged Buddhism," engaged in the world, not navel-gazing in a detached monastery; contemporary; aware of the web of deceit, greed, ignorance, and fuck-ups in which we're all inextricably bound; realizing that peace is made up of nonpeace elements (I.E., start with where you are); making the unavoidable confrontations with corpses, killing, fragmentation, machines, etc., as part of the Path.

Now, Gary has given "engaged Buddhism" a website. Take a look. It's a teaching. It takes you through a simple path that grounds you in the intelligence you need for life -- a very nice job with a very valuable subject.

2002-11-17T23:34:00.000-08:00

JOHN PILGER INTERVIEW ON IRAQ AND ON JOURNALISM TODAY

Thanks to Palden Jenkins for calling attention to his fellow Brit.

It's so valuable to get a taste of what's going on from the horse's mouth. John Pilger is a great English journalist. (We have him cheerleading for resistance to the war on terror in our July Quotes at http://www.theconversation.org/a-quotes02julyaug.html.)

"He was a featured speaker at the mass peace rally in London on September 28. He told the crowd, estimated at between 150,000 and 350,000, 'Today a taboo has been broken. We are the moderates. Bush and Blair are the extremists. The danger for all of us is not in Baghdad but in Washington.' And he applauded the protesters. 'Democracy,' he told them, 'is not one obsessed man using the power of kings to attack another country in our name. Democracy is not siding with Ariel Sharon, a war criminal, in order to crush Palestinians. Democracy is this great event today representing the majority of the people of Great Britain.'"

See the underlying assumptions that Journalists run on -- so that we readers can have more objectivity than they have. This is a very informative interview with Pilger, which also deals with the bigger picture in which this war in Iraq is the culminating puzzle piece. I think he has it nailed -- without any inclusion of conspiracies or dark forces, you can feel how the undeveloped level of consciousness that is in play has worked its way along to where we are. Here are excerpts of what he said in an interview with him in the November issue of The Progressive: http://www.progressive.org/nov02/intv1102.html

The attack on Iraq has been long planned. There just hasn't been an excuse for it.

...the overwhelming majority of the people of Britain oppose a military action. I've never known a situation like it. To give you one example, The Daily Mirror polled its readers and 90 percent were opposed to an attack on Iraq. Overall, opinion polls in this country are running at about 70 percent against the war. Blair is at odds with the country...

September 11 has given these people, this clique, an opportunity from heaven. They never really believed they would have the legitimacy to do what they are doing. They don't, of course, have legitimacy because most of the world is opposed to what they are doing...

It's quite clear that Gore won most of the votes. I think the accurate description for them is a military plutocracy. Having lived and worked in the United States, I must add that I don't want to make too much of the distinction between the Bush
regime and its predecessors. I don't see a great deal of difference. Clinton kept funding Star Wars. He took the biggest military budget to Congress in history. He routinely bombed Iraq, and he kept the barbaric sanctions in place. He's really played his part. The Bush gang has taken it just a little further. We're grateful to them because they've made it very clear to other people just how dangerous they are. Before, Clinton persuaded some people that he was really a civilized character and his Administration had the best interests of humanity at heart. These days we don't have to put up with that nonsense. It's very clear that the Bush Administration is out of control. It contains some truly dangerous people...

Journalists don't sit down and think, "I'm now going to speak for the establishment." Of course not. But they internalize a whole set of assumptions, and one of the most potent assumptions is that the world should be seen in terms of its usefulness to the West, not humanity. This leads journalists to make a distinction between people who matter and people who don't matter. The people who died in the Twin Towers in that terrible crime mattered. The people who were bombed to death in dusty villages in Afghanistan didn't matter, even though it now seems that their numbers were greater. The people who will die in
Iraq don't matter.

2002-11-17T23:23:00.000-08:00

GARRISON KEILLER IN AN UNFUNNY MOOD

As I drove around listening to folksy Garrison Keillor on my car radio, I kept thinking about what I'd just read of his, "Empty victory for a hollow man: How Norm Coleman sold his soul for a Senate seat," that was sent to his list by Rick Ingrasci, a listmember of ours who's attracted to the same things in the world press that attract me. Have I not been paying attention, or is this an unusual biting tone for Keillor? His scathing indictment of Norm Coleman, who won the Senate seat that Paul Wellstone was running for, is evidence of the activation of people who have been pushed too far by the powers that be -- which is the way positive change can occur.

"Norm Coleman won Minnesota because he was well-financed and well-packaged. Norm is a slick retail campaigner the grabbiest and touchingest and feelingest politician in Minnesota history, a hugger and baby-kisser, and he's a genuine boomer candidate who reinvents himself at will. The guy is a Brooklyn boy who became a left-wing student radical at Hofstra University with hair down to his shoulders, organized antiwar marches, said vile things about Richard Nixon, etc. Then he came west, went to law school, changed his look, went to work in the attorney general's office in Minnesota. Was elected mayor of St. Paul as a moderate Democrat, then swung comfortably over to the Republican side. There was no dazzling light on the road to Damascus, no soul-searching: Norm switched parties as you'd change sport coats."