GARRISON KEILLOR 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 out by Rick Ingrasci, a listmember who's attracted to much the same things in the world press that attract me. Have I not been paying attention, or is this an unusually 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."
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 who's writing about journalism here. (We have him applauding resistance to the war on terror in our July Quotes.)
"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 in the November issue of The Progressive.
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.
engaged buddhism :: this generation
This is from an email sent in May by listmember Gary Gach, author of "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Understanding Buddhism" (it's great)
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 path that grounds you in the intelligence you need for life -- a very nice job with a very valuable subject.
TWO FROM A FAVORITE COMMENTATOR, LISTMEMBER WILLIAM RIVERS PITTThe 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.
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.
WALTER STARCK CONVERSATION
Here are bits and pieces from my conversation with Walter Starck. I recommend to newcomers to the list reading archives of it (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"] 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's sends a piece with a comment:
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
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.
posted by Suzanne at 11:56 PM
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. A great interior section is "Visions of What Can Be" I've done some 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 -- 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 fuels, 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 deal in 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!
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 huge 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." 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.)
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 New York Times review of Daniel's book
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 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. 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!
Listmembers: Here's the intro to the paper, "What Would the Grandmothers Say?" (I posted the whole paper on a temporary blog spot so as to avoid an attachment here. It is very worthwhile to read.)
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.
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