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TechnoratiThe Truth Alone Will Not Set You Free
The ability of the corporate state to pacify the country by extending credit and providing cheap manufactured goods to the masses is gone. The pernicious idea that democracy lies in the choice between competing brands and the freedom to accumulate vast sums of personal wealth at the expense of others has collapsed. The conflation of freedom with the free market has been exposed as a sham. The travails of the poor are rapidly becoming the travails of the middle class, especially as unemployment insurance runs out and people get a taste of Bill Clinton's draconian welfare reform. And class warfare, once buried under the happy illusion that we were all going to enter an age of prosperity with unfettered capitalism, is returning with a vengeance.
Our economic crisis-despite the corporate media circus around the death of Michael Jackson or Gov. Mark Sanford's marital infidelity or the outfits of Sacha Baron Cohen's latest incarnation, Brüno-barrels forward. And this crisis will lead to a period of profound political turmoil and change. Those who care about the plight of the working class and the poor must begin to mobilize quickly or we will lose our last opportunity to save our embattled democracy. The most important struggle will be to wrest the organs of communication from corporations that use mass media to demonize movements of social change and empower proto-fascist movements such as the Christian right.
American culture-or cultures, for we once had distinct regional cultures-was systematically destroyed in the 20th century by corporations. These corporations used mass communication, as well as an understanding of the human subconscious, to turn consumption into an inner compulsion. Old values of thrift, regional identity that had its own iconography, aesthetic expression and history, diverse immigrant traditions, self-sufficiency, a press that was decentralized to provide citizens with a voice in their communities were all destroyed to create mass, corporate culture. New desires and habits were implanted by corporate advertisers to replace the old. Individual frustrations and discontents could be solved, corporate culture assured us, through the wonders of consumerism and cultural homogenization. American culture, or cultures, was replaced with junk culture and junk politics. And now, standing on the ash heap, we survey the ruins. The very slogans of advertising and mass culture have become the idiom of common expression, robbing us of the language to make sense of the destruction. We confuse the manufactured commodity culture with American culture.
How do we recover what was lost? How do we reclaim the culture that was destroyed by corporations? How do we fight back now that the consumer culture has fallen into a state of decay? What can we do to reverse the cannibalization of government and the national economy by the corporations?
All periods of profound change occur in a crisis. It was a crisis that brought us the New Deal, now largely dismantled by the corporate state. It was also a crisis that gave the world Adolf Hitler and Slobodan Milosevic. We can go in either direction. Events move at the speed of light when societies and cultural assumptions break down. There are powerful forces, which have no commitment to the open society, ready to seize the moment to snuff out the last vestiges of democratic egalitarianism. Our bankrupt liberalism, which naively believes that Barack Obama is the antidote to our permanent war economy and Wall Street fraud, will either rise from its coma or be rolled over by an organized corporate elite and their right-wing lap dogs. The corporate domination of the airwaves, of most print publications and an increasing number of Internet sites means we will have to search, and search quickly, for alternative forms of communication to thwart the rise of totalitarian capitalism.
Stuart Ewen, whose books "Captains of Consciousness: Advertising and the Social Roots of the Consumer Culture" and "PR: A Social History of Spin" chronicle how corporate propaganda deformed American culture and pushed populism to the margins of American society, argues that we have a fleeting chance to save the country. I fervently hope he is right. He attacks the ideology of "objectivity and balance" that has corrupted news, saying that it falsely evokes the scales of justice. He describes the curriculum at most journalism schools as "poison."
" ‘Balance and objectivity' creates an idea where both sides are balanced," he said when I spoke to him by phone. "In certain ways it mirrors the two-party system, the notion that if you are going to have a Democrat speak you need to have a Republican speak. It offers the phantom of objectivity. It creates the notion that the universe of discourse is limited to two positions. Issues become black or white. They are not seen as complex with a multitude of factors."
Ewen argues that the forces for social change-look at any lengthy and turgid human rights report-have forgotten that rhetoric is as important as fact. Corporate and government propaganda, aimed to sway emotions, rarely uses facts to sell its positions. And because progressives have lost the gift of rhetoric, which was once a staple of a university education, because they naively believe in the Enlightenment ideal that facts alone can move people toward justice, they are largely helpless.
"Effective communication requires not simply an understanding of the facts, but how those facts will take place in the public mind," Ewen said. "When Gustave Le Bon says it is not the facts in and of themselves which make a point but the way in which the facts take place, the way in which they come to attention, he is right."
The emergence of corporate and government public relations, which drew on the studies of mass psychology by Sigmund Freud and others after World War I, found its bible in Walter Lippmann's book "Public Opinion," a manual for the power elite's shaping of popular sentiments. Lippmann argued that the key to leadership in the modern age would depend on the ability to manipulate "symbols which assemble emotions after they have been detached from their ideas." The public mind could be mastered, he wrote, through an "intensification of feeling and a degradation of significance."
These corporate forces, schooled by Woodrow Wilson's vast Committee for Public Information, which sold World War I to the public, learned how to skillfully mobilize and manipulate the emotional responses of the public. The control of the airwaves and domination through corporate advertising of most publications restricted news to reporting facts, to "objectivity and balance," while the real power to persuade and dominate a public remained under corporate and governmental control.
Ewen argues that pamphleteering, which played a major role in the 17th and 18th centuries in shaping the public mind, recognized that "the human mind is not left brain or right brain, that it is not divided by reason which is good and emotion which is bad."
He argues that the forces of social reform, those organs that support a search for truth and self-criticism, have mistakenly shunned emotion and rhetoric because they have been used so powerfully within modern society to disseminate lies and manipulate public opinion. But this refusal to appeal to emotion means "we gave up the ghost and accepted the idea that human beings are these divided selves, binary systems between emotion and reason, and that emotion gets you into trouble and reason is what leads you forward. This is not true."
The public is bombarded with carefully crafted images meant to confuse propaganda with ideology and knowledge with how we feel. Human rights and labor groups, investigative journalists, consumer watchdog organizations and advocacy agencies have, in the face of this manipulation, inundated the public sphere with reports and facts. But facts alone, Ewen says, make little difference. And as we search for alternative ways to communicate in a time of crisis we must also communicate in new forms. We must appeal to emotion as well as to reason. The power of this appeal to emotion is evidenced in the photographs of Jacob Riis, a New York journalist, who with a team of assistants at the end of the 19th century initiated urban-reform photography. His stark portraits of the filth and squalor of urban slums awakened the conscience of a nation. The photographer Lewis Hine, at the turn of the 20th century, and Walker Evans during the Great Depression did the same thing for the working class, along with writers such as Upton Sinclair and James Agee. It is a recovery of this style, one that turns the abstraction of fact into a human flesh and one that is not afraid of emotion and passion, which will permit us to counter the force of corporate propaganda.
We may know that fossil fuels are destroying our ecosystem. We may be able to cite the statistics. But the oil and natural gas industry continues its flagrant rape of the planet. It is able to do this because of the money it uses to control legislation and a massive advertising campaign that paints the oil and natural gas industry as part of the solution. A group called EnergyTomorrow.org, for example, has been running a series of television ads. One ad features an attractive, middle-aged woman in a black pantsuit-an actor named Brooke Alexander who once worked as the host of "WorldBeat" on CNN and for Fox News. Alexander walks around a blue screen studio that becomes digital renditions of American life. She argues, before each image, that oil and natural gas are critical to providing not only energy needs but health care and jobs.
"It is almost like they are taking the most optimistic visions of what the stimulus package could do and saying this is what the development of oil and natural gas will bring about," Ewen said. "If you go to the Web site there is a lot of sophisticated stuff you can play around with. As each ad closes you see in the lower right-hand corner in very small letters API, the American Petroleum Institute, the lobbying group for ExxonMobil and all the other big oil companies. For the average viewer there is nothing in the ad to indicate this is being produced by the oil industry."
The modern world, as Kafka predicted, has become a world where the irrational has become rational, where lies become true. And facts alone will be powerless to thwart the mendacity spun out through billions of dollars in corporate advertising, lobbying and control of traditional sources of information. We will have to descend into the world of the forgotten, to write, photograph, paint, sing, act, blog, video and film with anger and honesty that have been blunted by the parameters of traditional journalism. The lines between artists, social activists and journalists have to be erased. These lines diminish the power of reform, justice and an understanding of the truth. And it is for this purpose that these lines are there.
"As a writer part of what you are aiming for is to present things in ways that will resonate with people, which will give voice to feelings and concerns, feelings that may not be fully verbalized," Ewen said. "You can't do that simply by providing them with data. One of the major problems of the present is that those structures designed to promote a progressive agenda are antediluvian."
Corporate ideology, embodied in neoconservatism, has seeped into the attitudes of most self-described liberals. It champions unfettered capitalism and globalization as eternal. This is the classic tactic that power elites use to maintain themselves. The loss of historical memory, which "balanced and objective" journalism promotes, has only contributed to this fantasy. But the fantasy, despite the desperate raiding of taxpayer funds to keep the corporate system alive, is now coming undone. The lie is being exposed. And the corporate state is running scared.
"It is very important for people like us to think about ways to present the issues, whether we are talking about the banking crisis, health care or housing and homelessness," Ewen said. "We have to think about presenting these issues in ways that are two steps ahead of the media rather than two steps behind. That is not something we should view as an impossible task. It is a very possible task. There is evidence of how possible that task is, especially if you look at the development of the underground press in the 1960s. The underground press, which started cropping up all over the country, was not a marginal phenomenon. It leeched into the society. It developed an approach to news and communication that was 10 steps ahead of the mainstream media. The proof is that even as it declined, so many structures that were innovated by the underground press, things like The Whole Earth Catalogue, began to affect and inform the stylistic presentation of mainstream media."
"I am not a prophet," Ewen said. "All I can do is look at historical precedence and figure out the extent we can learn from it. This is not about looking backwards. If you can't see the past you can't see the future. If you can't see the relationship between the present and the past you can't understand where the present might go. Who controls the past controls the present, who controls the present controls the future, as George Orwell said. This is a succinct explanation of the ways in which power functions."
"Read ‘The Gettysburg Address,' " Ewen said. "Read Frederick Douglass' autobiography or his newspaper. Read ‘The Communist Manifesto.' Read Darwin's ‘Descent of Man.' All of these things are filled with an understanding that communicating ideas and producing forms of public communication that empower people, rather than disempowering people, relies on an integrated understanding of who the public is and what it might be. We have a lot to learn from the history of rhetoric. We need to think about where we are going. We need to think about what 21st century pamphleteering might be. We need to think about the ways in which the rediscovery of rhetoric-not lying, but rhetoric in its more conventional sense-can affect what we do. We need to look at those historical antecedents where interventions happened that stepped ahead of the news. And to some extent this is happening. We have the freest and most open public sphere since the village square."
The battle ahead will be fought outside the journalistic mainstream, he said. The old forms of journalism are dying or have sold their soul to corporate manipulation and celebrity culture. We must now wed fact to rhetoric. We must appeal to reason and emotion. We must not be afraid to openly take sides, to speak, photograph or write on behalf of the disempowered. And, Ewen believes, we have a chance in the coming crisis to succeed.
"Pessimism is never useful," he said. "Realism is useful, understanding the forces that are at play. To quote Antonio Gramsci, ‘pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will.' "
171 Comments so far
Show All"We need to think about what 21st century pamphleteering might be."
one suggestion:
www.freewayblogger.com/
and here brevity is critical.
Amen
Bring America Back !!!!.........Quite an analysis of corporatism by Chris Hedges.
****His first paragraph s/b the one where he indicts Big Oil for intentional inflation, and subliminal advertising, and misleading ads while destroying our Economy !
****One of Hedges 'must-do's' has to be re:regulation of the Big Oil and Big Energy Industry. Not one cent of their windfall profit billions $$$ came back to us, even though coming from our pockets at the gas pump. They drove affordable priced airlines out of business, big name airline ticket and amenity prices outrageous; they drove all food and product prices up thru the roof, they made home heating oil unaffordable in winter-time--endangerment to human life is not their concern.
****Big Oil sits before Congress lying thru their teeth, and sings like a barbershop quartet===..."Oh No, we're not conspiring to fix oil prices"....Baloney and Nonsense. Our so-called representatives ask token questions then do nothing!
****Big Oil still sits in the Neocon Bush network, is a crucial element of damage within our economic infrastructure, yet not even Demmys desire to deal with the runaway gas pump prices, and out of control , non regulated
operations. Today, Donald Trump broadcasted the fact that "OPEC is draining our Country." Once we had influence at OPEC, how'd we lose that anyway ????
*******On point where Dick Cheney's pet Haliburton is moving to the United Arab Republic, don't it just sit coincidental that all 18 9/11 Hijackers had Passports from the UAR as well?? One of the other 'we must's' this article forgot is to finally get the real Truth of 9/11 out into the sunshine. That's why I do like the references of reality that ...If we don't examine our Past, we will never be able to move Forward into Our Future...!!!
There's not anywhere near enough focus on truth, reason, and logic. The USA's big problem is the mainstream emphasis on fantasy, delusion and shallow emotional gratification. US elites stomped out the nation's founding principles, enlightenment principles, to promote irrationality of both liberal and conservative flavors to enslave the people, and it worked. Meanwhile Europe retained the enlightenment principles of reason/logic, developing into social democracy, great gini coefs, great value in key public services including healthcare, education, and transport, and peaceful foreign policy. Plenty of other societies/cultures worldwide have strong reliance on truth, logic, reason. They have to, to survive without the petro-opiates! Open any book on Buddhism and rationality jumps out at you. Then open the Judeo-Islamic-Christian holy books and watch out! Massive suppression of reality, manipulation of emotions and enslavement to irrational hierarchy!
Stupidity is Uncle Sam's middle name. Why does Hedges want progressives to de-emphasize reason and join US elites in gaming the people's emotions? USans are sick of elites playing their emotions. USans want truth and reason presented well. Keep the media clear of emotional manipulation. USans want to get off the opiates and join in building the alter-society and this requires logic/reason. When they are asked to actually use their brains for a friggin change, they will not only take care of their civic duty but will take care of their own emotional needs without external manipulation. This is how it should be.
"There's not anywhere near enough focus on truth, reason, and logic. The USA's big problem is the mainstream emphasis on fantasy, delusion and shallow emotional gratification."
There is a lot of truth to what you say. However, what I got from this piece is that we need to communicate our positions and ideas, and part of the way to do that is through emotion. Using only emotion is not good, but it is a function of the brain and it should be used along with other means. After all, when we see art or listen to music, we are reacting to emotion.
I get your position, rtdrury, but I think Hedges' position is valid as well. We need to use all means of communication at our disposal, since many of our previous means (a truthful media) do not exist anymore.
Sure. I think Hedges' basic message is that facts have to be presented with good rhetoric. No doubt the far-left has the facts/truths on its side because that is a key specification of the far-left platform. Meanwhile, rhetorical flair masking psychopathic behavior is a key specification of the far-right platform. So in embracing rhetoric, the far-left has to be very careful. So it seems that we have to disseminate the facts/truths with a specific honesty of rhetoric. Here's an example: Your buying corporate health insurance where 1/3 of each dollar is wasted on paperwork reminds me of my senile neighbor spending 1/3 of his time sorting through his junk mail. Now I don't mean to insult either you or him, so please stop acting like that until you can get your senility certification.
the best thing for the americans is to stock up on guns & ammo to protect themselves from the comming chaos. peace.
Great article! I just wanted to say "Thank-you Chris Hedges for getting it right!" You now have one more devoted reader for life.
"Pessimism is never useful", worth repeating. Chris Hedges' articles are my favorite here at CD. They are often gloomy warnings but beneath the surface is an optimism that we can change direction and follow a more sane path. Thank you Chris.
Agreed, pascal. Well said.
when I saw the movie The World According To Monsonto the Documentary Americans Will Never See, it changed my fundamental understanding of corporations. I knew from CD and others that Corporations were Responsible to some degree for many of the plights humanity and Loss of human rights but I didnt feel strongly about getting involved in change, it was an abstract knowledge. Now I am very involved.
I recently had a talk with my daughter about values I felt were important and I ended up explaining to her in a story like a parable. I told a story about what could happen showing consequences she came away with a better understanding.
Maybe our new form of media must be as the author said to envoke emotion I think also to show cause and effect. Movies are a great way to touch the many. Maybe a black market type movie distribution. It seems to be easy to make a video... just hard to let people see it.
Deepa
followSon:
Yes, the documentary "The world according to Monsanto" is very enlightening. Farmers in India have been badly affected by this company.
There is an article that throws more light on the predatory company Monsanto:
http://dissidentvoice.org/2009/05/monsanto-and-its-philanthropy/
I found some truth once. I didn't know what to do with it at the time so I stuck it in the back pocket of my favorite jeans. I loved those jeans, started out all crisp and dark blue but ended up with so many quilted patches there wasn't much blue left after a time. Some of the patches I sewed on myself, some were sewed by girlfriends. My mom hated those jeans. Maybe because she didn't like the fact that other girls were fixin them, or maybe she thought I looked poor, which I was. I wore my poverty proudly, she was shamed by it.
Once, after some weeks hitchhikin on the Cape, I went home to visit. Mom always did my laundry when I'd visit, but this time she threw out those jeans. It was hard to get mad at mom, but I did. She didn't seem to care too much. I think she was happy to see me out them.
I never did figure out what to do with the truth I had found. But I sure miss those jeans.
rebelnow, that was a beautiful, sublime and ethereal post, thank you. And yeah, it was a subtle reflecting of our world, with a million points like stars, that is it's beauty, no big deal I know-if you can write like that you can do it at will; Dylan wrote Blowing In The Wind over a cup of coffee.
peace out joe
Agreed. As I read it, I thought it was almost poetic and reflected quite well some of the main article's central points about truth in the abstract versus more tangible and even symbolic elements of our cultural environment.
Thank you azjoe, that's quite a compliment, and in light of aremagen's criticism I'm not sure if it's deserving. Sometimes I get overwhelmed by all the insightful and intelligent (mostly) comments here and I'm humbled. Often my commenting is off the cuff, especially late at night, and I'm not sure it's a wise thing to do. Again, thank you.
What's your point moron?
There are already too many points, if you're looking for one here you won't find it.
Then why did you comment?
Your "moron" remark reminded me of the occasional times that I've been driving and made a move that seemed appropriate at the time but pissed someone off, and they throw me the finger or yell profanities. I used to be reactionary, even got into some close calls, over nothing really. I've found it's much better to be responsive than reactionary, acknowledge that it was a dumb move and apologize, or maybe just ignore it. It's not easy sometimes.
"Why did I comment"? That's a good question. I'll ask that as I fall asleep. Peace.
Chris Hedges is the Best writer alive for exposing, elucidating the nature of, and illuminating the Fu*kery that our govt perpetrates.
The most powerful sentence in the article, a nuke and chris knew it is, "The travails of the poor are rapidly becoming the travails of the middle class."
I'm not smart enough to read Das Capital. But I'm smart enough to know Marx said when that once the middle class's standard of living went through the floor in front of their eyes, they would rise up en masse, armed and take back by force the stolen wealth of their country (country they stole in our case).
Chris Hedges said in another article, "resist or become serfs."
Two factors Marx said insured a revolution-
A. Updrafting of wealth by the upper class
and
B. Population growth.
These would cause the middle class's bankrupting, loss of goods, homes, and services, and hence Riots, Mobs, Swarming Crowds storming Rush Limbaugh's Palace and dragging him out of his coccoon of puffy luxury and hanging him on a meat-hook. Then moving 200 people into the mansion.
Do that coast to coast, north south east and west and it is a New and Good United States.
This is inexorably, without slowing, the Change we are rushing towards. And no force in the world can stop the process.
To the extent Chris Hedges holds that the capitalist economic system is exhausted and will soon collapse, he is correct. From the time of the collapse of feudalism and its birth in the Industrial Revolution, capitalism was always destined to become a dominant global force. Globalization will be a historic marker as the zenith of its existence. But globalization robbed the system of the only thing that kept its fatal internal contradictions at bay—-growth. Capitalism has conquered the planet, it has nowhere else to feed. The time of its death is now at hand.
To the extent Chris Hedges holds that we are entering "a period of profound political turmoil and change" he is correct. Skirmishes around the world are signs the two most powerful groups that capitalism creates are beginning to engage in a final battle for power. Marx called them the bourgeoisie, the ruling class, and the proletariat, the working class. It can be most simply described as the clash between the wealthy and the working people.
The fight is inevitable and it will destroy one class or the other. Then on the ruins of the old system, the class that prevails will reorganize society along the lines of their dictates. If the bourgeoisie remains on top it will not mean the restoration of capitalism to health and stability. It will mean the depopulation of the planet and the enslavement of man in a world described in the dystopian literature of Orwell, Huxley, and Atwood.
Meanwhile, on our side of the class struggle, there is admittedly no US political party or other formation which expresses the destiny of the working class to power and socialism. Class consciousness would seem to be a sentiment in short supply. But think about it, would not the United States be the last place where a consciousness of themselves as a class would seize the minds of working people? That’s what empire, that’s what imperialism, that’s what racism functions to do.
Class consciousness can develop very quickly in a people though! It is on the rise in the US right now in the reaction to the Wall Street bailouts and the banker’s coup that is underway. It will accelerate as the material cocoon provided by the world’s dominant economy wears thin.
Workers, united across all artificial boundaries created by capitalism, whether nation, race, sex, or religion are the only hope now. This is the only force capable of staying the hand of the bourgeoisie and insuring the human experiment “shall not perish from the earth”, to borrow Lincoln’s phraseology.
In your circle, however large or small that may be, in everything you write and say, draw the boundary lines clearly for people between the opposing forces in this final class war. Don’t confuse them with Democrats and Republicans. The ruling class is wealthy, we work for a living. Build our forces by raising class consciousness and giving every worker the best chance of making the right decisions in the battles just over the horizon now.
No matter the very real dangers provoked, it must begin to be spoken by a warrior vanguard: socialism is the only way humankind will live into the distant future on this planet. Only a working class with a consciousness of itself and united across all racial, national and cultural boundaries is capable of seizing power. Only a working class in power will see to the end of this madness and willingly share our available resources for the sake of human survival.
Your faith in willingness to "share our available resources for the sake of human survival" is far greater than mine. It seems quite clear that the human genome's dominant trait, regardless of "class", has always been self-interest -- hypocritical denials and lip service to "higher values" notwithstanding.
The ruling class has achieved and retains (so far) its current status largely because they've been better at manipulating and harnessing that and other aspects of human nature for their own ends via a wide range of societal instutions -- corporate (including mass media), governmental, religious, military, etc. Let's face it. Capitalist incentives (both postive and negative) do work and scarcity tends to heighten rather than diminish acquisitive tendencies.
Superior understanding and skill may possibly be able to change some, or even all, societal institutions and their manipulative processes, but, leaving aside castration and/or lobotomy, changing the fundamental elements and driving forces of human nature itself is still in the realm of fantasy and wishful thinking at this point.
RV this commentary by James Howard Kunstler seems appropriate to the discussion.
As America entered the horse latitudes of summer, befogged in a muffling stillness on deceptively calm seas, we were distracted for a while by visions of a pale death angel moonwalking across the deck of collective consciousness. Eerie parallels resound between the sordid demise of pop singer Michael Jackson and the fate of the nation.
Like the United States, Michael Jackson was spectacularly bankrupt, reportedly in the range of $800-million, which is rather a lot for an individual. Had he lived on a few more years, he might have qualified for his own TARP program -- another piece of expensive dead-weight down in the economy's bilges -- since it is our established policy now to throw immense sums of so-called "money" at gigantic failing enterprises (while millions of ordinary citizens wash overboard, without so much as a life-preserver). Anyway, Michael Jackson was on the receiving end of one huge bank loan after another long after his pattern of profligacy was set and obvious. They threw money at him for the same reason that the federal government throws money at entities like CitiBank: the desperate hope that some miracle will allow debt servicing to resume. Michael could burn through $50-million in half a year. It didn't seem to affect his credibility as a borrower. When his heart stopped last week, he was living in a Hollywood mansion that rented for several hundred thousand dollars a month. You wonder how the landlord cashed those checks.
Like the USA, Michael Jackson was a has-been. He hadn't recorded a song worth listening to in over two decades. He had done almost nothing but spin his wheels, hop around the globe from one place to another at enormous expense, and make himself available for award ceremonies to stoke his ego (and give advertisers a reason to promote some televised award show). He existed strictly on image, an anorectic figure nourished by moonbeams of attention, famous for saying that he loved his worshippers when the truth was he merely sucked the life out of them. In his last years, he even looked a bit like Nosferatu, the personification of the un-dead, and his fascination with ghouls was the basis for his biggest hit way back in the last century. A zombie nation deserves a zombie mascot.
He was a poseur, vamping in weird military outfits as though he were a five-star general in the Honduran army, or a character from a melodrama by the reprobate Jean Genet. He once materialized during halftime at the Superbowl in a shower of sparks, thrilling the multitudes while grabbing and stroking his sex organs, as though that was a heroic activity -- and indeed the nation seemed to emulate him as its culture became dedicated more and more to acting out masturbation fantasies. America was a fat man jerking off on the sofa watching a vampire of no particular sex vogue deliriously on the boob tube.
More than once the authorities tried to pin charges of child molestation on him for suspicious activities at his boy-trap, Neverland Ranch, with its carnival rides, private zoo, video game galleries, and inexhaustible supplies of sugary treats. The first time he settled with the alleged victim's family for $22-million. They just walked away with the loot and happily shut up. The second time, he moonwalked out of a court-of-law while weeks later jurors mysteriously went on TV to say, well, they did kind of think after-the-fact that he really did those things he was accused of, but, you know.... The defendant himself behaved as though his trial were a TV celebrity challenge show on another planet, arriving on one occasion twenty minutes late in pajamas with some lame excuse about a backache. He spent the last years of his life wandering a few steps ahead of his creditors, gulling concert promoters into "comeback" schemes (with walking-around money up front), and with three bought-and-paid-for children, obviously not his own, for consolation.
When he dropped dead last week, the nation's morbidly maudlin response suggested a cover story for the relief of being rid of him and all the embarrassment he provoked. One CNN reporter called him a genius the equal of Mozart. That's a little like calling Rachel Maddow the reincarnation of Eleanor Roosevelt. A nation addicted to lying to itself tells itself fairy tales instead of facing a pathology report. Yet, like Michael Jackson, the undertone of horror story still pulses darkly in the background. The little boy who grew up to be the simulation of a girl was really a werewolf. The nation that defeated manifest evil in World War Two woke up one day years later to find itself stripped of its manhood, mentally enslaved to cheap entertainments, and hostage to its own grandiosity. Maybe in grieving so exorbitantly over this freak America is grieving for itself. All the loose talk about "love" from the media and the fans gives off the odor of self-love. America is "the man in the mirror," the gigantic, floundering Narcissus, sailing into the stormy seas of history.
Sioux Rose
MICHAEL: Although I think you were brutally critical of Michael Jackson, the metaphorical parallels you drew were quite profound. Please see my response to RV below as it also responds to your contention as per the "blank slate" of birth.
At birth, all human babies, save basic survival instinct, are the proverbial blank sheets of paper. Social forces, chief among them economic influences, then go to writing furiously. In our day and time the socialization process ends with the fully formed capitalist man or woman. This person will think and act in harmony with its relationship to productive forces.
A revolutionary transformation to socialism will be plagued for some time, a generation or two, with the pathologies and degradations of the human being produced by capitalism. But eventually a new socialist man and woman will emerge. Cooperation and sharing will be just as natural then as competition and selfishness are now.
As for the ruling class, they have no special talent for manipulation or insight into human nature. The capitalist economy produces a ruling class, a handful of men who wield dictatorial power and are accorded material privilege beyond all reason. Karl Marx called them the bourgeoisie. Capitalism demands unity among this small group based solely on an absolute allegiance to profits. That unity will not be undermined by nationalism, or racism, or anything as silly as sentiment or mysticism. Patriotism and religious belief are for chumps who fight and die in their wars for profit.
Former President George W. Bush was a prop of the bourgeoisie and Barack Obama has now assumed that same role. Former Vice-President Dick Cheney though provides an object lesson in the nature of a member of the ruling class. His recent warning of an imminent nuclear or biological attack on the US is alarming for his power to order such an attack. For while publicly Cheney takes a backseat to no one in his patriotic determination to “protect America” he has prepared to live out his golden years in Abu Dahbi. Like the Colts stole out of Baltimore in the dead of night, Cheney’s Halliburton has quietly moved its holdings to the United Arab Emirates.
Neither the massive death and destruction being visited by the US military on Abu Dahbi’s Middle Eastern and Muslim neighbors nor the killed and maimed US soldiers enter the calculations of the Kingdom’s rulers or the Vice President. They are ruling class brothers tightly bonded in pursuit of their system’s lifeblood—greater profits.
"At birth, all human babies, save basic survival instinct, are the proverbial blank sheets of paper." -- malcolm martin
I'm not sure that newborns are quite so blank as you suggest, but I won't argue that point. Your concession about survival instincts alone is sufficient to explain why the human infant (or any lifeform, for that matter) seeks to maximize its own comfort/pleasure and to minimize discomfort/pain. It has nothing to do with "good" and "evil" or even with awareness of any such concepts. Laboratory rats will do likewise, and the greater the stimulus, the stronger the reaction.
In any case, I didn't expect much agreement. I fully understand the rejection of any suggestion that human instincts may be no more noble than those of a rattlesnake. Wishful thinking drives people always to want to see and expect the best in their fellows (even in political candidates) but it usually leads to disappointment in practice.
Sioux Rose
RV: I don't have the exact statistics, but at least 20% of the world's people believe in reincarnation, maybe more. With that being said, the moment of an individual's birth can be mapped by the astrologer, and it INDEED shows trends that will come to fruition within the unfolding lifetime. Not every potential is activated, and not every gift cultivated. On the negative side, those aspects of personality, the "typical 7 sins" also require hard spiritual work. One person may be prone to vanity and another greed; but if you are IN a body, you are working on something. This idea of the "blank slate" is a joke! The infant entering does represent a new chance; however everyone enters with their own baggage and it represents their karmic account. Equipped with this knowledge, persons might realize the benefits (to themselves) of behaving with consideration for others (inclusive of earth and her sentient creatures). The idea of "one life to lead" promotes self-centered obsessive, me-first, gotta-get-to-the-top of the heap first anti-social behaviors, all quite amenable to Mars and the ego-directed, war-driven collective state. IT is what's killing us all in body, spirit, and pocketbook. And it is my earnest hope that the realization of our lives having been long-shaped by erroneous principles can help to create the critical mass, the awakening of a new understanding that will help alter collective consciousness. THAT vital, timely shift in awareness is the recipe from which all other remedial acts and devices will bloom. MANY have begun the process, but a lot more are lagging behind clinging to the old beliefs and ways of living.
I'm sorry, but "I don't have the exact statistics, but at least 20% of the world's people believe in reincarnation, maybe more. With that being said, the moment of an individual's birth can be mapped by the astrologer."
Even majority belief in something doesn't make it so. The vast majority of people believed the world was flat, or that the earth was the center of the universe. The vast majority believe in god. That doesn't make it so. They are incorrect as the evidence show or present no evidence.
"...the moment of an individual's birth can be mapped by the astrologer", but that is pointless as the astrologers mapping is meaningless, just like the flat earth view is. Astrology is like Rush Limbaugh -- for entertainment (if you can call it that) purposes only.
astrology is very useful in the garden.
it is my suggestion that this is where it started.
Sioux Rose
Your ignorance of the subject makes your opinion WORTHLESS. I have nothing else to say to a limited, arrogant mind like yours. Keep it closed, it'll make circulation toxic. Enjoy THAT process.
"I have nothing else to say to a limited, arrogant mind like yours." This is patently a lie, as you have indeed said something else to me. Madam, show me proof anywhere where ANYTHING in astrology works, is real, or substantiated. What is the physical basis (the only thing that exists in the universe) of astrology? Do you have a clue on what the forces between the celestial bodies are, how they are calculated, and how minimal/non-existent they are given the distances involved? An uh, the signs of the Zodiac are all wrong and don't agree with Chinese, nor Mayan signs.
Spare me the the "limited, arrogant mind" road rage and look in the mirror. Criticism of astrology is like criticism of religion, and it is about time that the taboos on calling both for the delusions they are were dispensed with. Otherwise, the ignorance and/or delusion will continue perpetuating our Nu(Age)Dark Age.
Enjoy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_FAsRddSbE
Sioux Rose
JOZEF: Criticism by an educated peer, one learned in the subject matter is one thing, by an arm chair IGNORANT critic is quite another. My "kind" developed a very thick skin being targeted by the church-state for CENTURIES for daring to share the knowledge of a sphere of relationships that was made taboo for reasons that essentially were drawn up to circumscribe knowledge, which IS power.
I am not speaking to YOU, by the way, in this forum, but to the 30 plus persons who have thanked me for posting on a topic that is found in few venues; and when it is, it's generally written in a manner amenable to the corporate culture, i.e. watered down. I'd prefer if you pass my posts right on by. I have seldom read anything you have posted that remotely interested me. And there are MANY on C.D. whose opinions and expert analyses I deeply value... and learn from. You are NOT in that class.
Ok Mz. Learned, "educated" in Astrology who "has nothing else to say", but does, please explain the process how astrologers came up with the technique of making a Janma Kundli, Ashtakvarga sadhan, and Graha-friendship chart, and all the others? Did someone enlighten the astrologers or was there a scientific process within their research? If there was a scientific process then a highly educated person in astrology as you can enlighten all of us "ignorant" and "arrogant" folk.
And here's another question from "ignorant" me: If you get Kundli made by different jyotishis you will come up with different outputs as a result of different
schools of thought using different values in the calculations for the planetary positions. But for prediction purpose, guess, what? All of a sudden the same
rules are used!!! How consistent is that?
Simply put, the best that can be said for astrology is that it utilizes the pygmallion effect in psychology. In other words, believe in something hard enough, and when a chance event matches up, as it is naturally known to do, with the belief, voila! The belief works. Uh. No. The enlightenment debunked this kind of thinking. But, it's back!!! Welcome to The Nu(Age) Dark Ages.
A simple challenge for you. Please calculate the gravitational influence of Jupiter (the gas giant planet) on your body if Jupiter has risen, and with the result, explain the process by which the force thereof affects you.
Sad that you would refuse to engage in honest rational debate RV. Please if you will, point out the passage in my essay which leads to your characterization of my argument as, "I fully understand the rejection of any suggestion that human instincts may be no more noble than those of a rattlesnake."
What do you want to debate?
You apparently believe that capitalism, rather than merely using and manipulating instinctive human self-interest, is somehow responsible for "pathologies and degradations of the human being" and that, in its absence, "a new socialist man and woman" can be produced in whom "cooperation and sharing will be just as natural then as competition and selfishness are now."
I see capitalism as a product of human greed, not the other way around, and I don't share your faith in the transformation of what I call instinctive and what you concede is currently natural. It's that simple. As I said, I wasn't really expecting agreement.
Sioux Rose
RV: As the Dali Lama said on Larry King the night that for-profit genetic research companies won "copyright protection" (under "intellectual copyright law from our spiritually bankrupt, not so sagacious Supreme Court) for mapped strains of DNA, "You will not find intelligence IN the genes." It's pretty cheeky to presume that self-interest is a genetic attribute, as opposed to a LEARNED, SOCIALIZED behavior, the result of PRIMARY conditioning issuing from a competitive, dominator, Mars-rules society. Western civilization has been pushing this agenda for over 2000 years. It is NOT the only model, as Indigenous tribes across the globe have demonstrated other bases for arranging and organizing their societies. The matriarchal societies that predated most of recorded history focused on communal rites and cooperative enterprises. It always amazes me when people see in learned behavior the signature of genetics! This limited conjecture cripples better possibilities for humankind!
There tends to be (regarding behavior) the endless debate between nature (genetics) and nurture (how children were raised in family units). Neither explains why children raised in the same homes are often so different! That's when things like birth order are introduced as attempts to solve the mystery. Astrology can tell so much more than these trite generalized theories, but it's been demonized by the same institutions that were developed lock-step with the church state centuries ago. Lies told over and over have become staples of culture, pillars of tradition; and much that is and always was false is taken for true just because ignorance endures.
You forgot your meds man.
"It's pretty cheeky to presume that self-interest is a genetic attribute, as opposed to a LEARNED, SOCIALIZED behavior ..." -- Sioux Rose
If you don't like "self-interest", you can substitute self-awareness and "survival of the fittest". The choice of terminology isn't really that important.
But I won't argue any further than that, Sioux. I admire high ideals and great expectations even if I'm unable to share all of them. And yes, I'll admit to being cheeky. :^)
R V,
Perhaps your possible oversight is not appreciating the countering of selfishness with altruism ?
Many recent studies explain how evolution has preferentially reenforced both, while noting that selfish behavior is only tolerated up to a point by the larger social community, where the nominal and predominant free giving to that community ( each other ) is relatively jeopardized and awareness of that grows.
We have many current examples of how selfish behavior, like the use of illegal hormones for athletic prowess, produces a counter reaction of shaming those who use them to compete unfairly and win the illegitimate rewards reserved for true heros and greatness.
What is very revealing about selfishness, is that some of the loudest complainers ( about cheating ) are those that were quite vocally upset, for the reason that their own cheating method has been revealed and their gaming of the system is thereby soon to be forfeited ( or exposed ).
I believe that _ s e l f i s h n e s s _ is
is our EGOs speaking ( from survival mode ) and although genetically supported from our brain structure, the real issue is the profound social conditioning and programing, of which the least known is our collective unconsciousness underneath the obvious family and institutional aspects.
I believe that _ a l t r u i s m _ is
a natural expression of the glorious underlying connection of all LIFE, when one's spirit / consciousness is able to subvert the EGO's usual extremism and control.
Most importantly for rationalizing people to understand, is that LIFE is not a "thing" or form that is accessible to being catalogued and pigeon-holed -- because it is part of BEINGness and CONSCIOUSness, which are two other ineffable aspects of FORMLESSness. Modern Doctors and Scientists have now progressed to being able to determine if LIVE is present or not ( death ), but that is the extent of our rational "knowledge".
It is only through a spiritual perspective ( awareness of being aware ) can we obliquely approach this TRUTHFUL understanding, as logic and science have no access or opening to this other plane of existence that is beyond mere words and concepts.
Lao Tse said knowingly :
_______ " The TAO that can be told
_______ is not the eternal TAO "
For those of you reading these comments that have foreclosed upon your own ethereal aspects of existence, I can understand why -- it is impossible to directly bring the existence of FORMLESSness into the realm of FORM.
It is in own personal aspects of belief, hope, grace and faith that opens some of us to crack that door open a smidgen, and see the LIGHT of absolute ONENESS and pure truth beyond.
May each of you be blessed with the grace to enable and empower your own awareness of being aware, as that is the key.
N.
E R R A T A :
It is in and THROUGH _ OUR _ own personal aspects of AWARENESS, belief, hope, grace and faith that opens … that door
Sioux Rose
TAT: Wonderfully enlightened post! Love the formlessness to form analogy, it'll be lots of fun for left brain types to ponder!
Time to make friends with cops and ex-military people. They know how to use weapons and will be vital for your survival when government is gone.
Hi people, have to disagree with the title, the truth certainly does set you free, althought it is very relevant to your idea of what freedom is, ofcourse.
In terms of the article "knowing there is a trap, is the first step in avoiding it"
They are probably gonna be tring all sort of things to keep a lid on the situation.
Really I think people should consider what these corporates are fighting for? Once you know that, there's nothing they can do really.
I heartly argee with, appealing to reason, these corporates are generally very unreasonable, but un-like some of you I do believe that, some in the corporate world are good people and see the stupidity of what has been happening, and also the stupidity of what some might be calling for.
We'll see, the future is a bright as we want it to be, or as dark as a few want it to be.
To quote Gandhi "The way of truth and love always triumphs in the end" the few never rule for too long, really they are neither fit to do so or capable to do so, so there is a lot of hope of us all; for it may take a while, but in the end truth and love will triumph.
And on that day! They may up my pension! :-p
P.S If you don't learn about the past, you are doomed to forget it.
Hi Jolly, loved the Ghandi quote but it's total B.S. wish fulfillment, "...the few never rule for too long,..." --- try 6000 years. Ghandi also murdered his wife. He demanded that she NOT take medicine that would save her life because as a fundamentalist he saw all those medicines and western science as a threat to his religion, told her instead to drink Ganges water, and she died. Six months later he was taken deathly ill and faced by the same choice took the medicines and lived. After all, she was just a fucking woman, right? This is like making quotes from an 18th century kiddie raping slave holder as the embodiment of "Democracy" (read: a country modeled on the Roman Slave Republic & established here as the private preserve of richfilth patrician slave holding animals in 1789). Be careful who your heroes are...
Beyond this there are only 4 things that White America will fight to maintain or preserve: White Male Supremacy; Gender Slavery; The Rights of Conquest (winner takes all); and of course, feral oligarchy based on inherited wealth. Those they will kill for with hysterical violence as they did in the 60's. It's the only identity they have.
These people around you have a lower literacy level than probably any time in our history and left to their own devices would shit their own nest, fuck their own children, and decorate themselves with the body parts and entrails of their neighbors. We've done it before and they are after all, Americans.
Know the actual history of what the monsters have done and you will have a far more accurate picture of the beast in its native habitat...and what it's likely to actually "Do". Not pretty.
Mr. Hedges, all of the chicanery involved in manipulating the behavior of society is based on greed. Greedy, powerful people want to take money from us. Our freedom lies in frugality. We are fighting back and they are scared. U.S. News and World Report published an article today expounding the joys of plasma tv and pushing the idea through "statistics" that having things really does make people happier. They are doing this because Americans are saving at a higher rate than even during the great depression. This is serious shit to them. They are in a full blown panic. We are winning but it looks like we are losing because "THEY" control the media.
FRUGALITY IS FREEDOM
It's working, folks. Our savings rate was ZERO from 2000 to 2007. During the great depression it was 6.5%. It is now approaching 15% from 5% last year! Keep pushing. All the spin in the world can't keep you from knowing how much interest you pay each month and how many revolutions and wars the petroleum products that fuel excess capacity and consumption cause.No smooth voices or pretty pictures are paying my medical expenses or insurance. Fuck SPENDING!
Anyone remember They Live? We could all use some of those sunglasses about now
Yep, John Carpenter was weaving a bit of the Book of Revelation into that film. He also wove some of the Book of Revelation into Escape From L.A. with Cliff Robertson almost being a George Bush President even though the film was done in the 90's if memory serves me correctly.
Great. Okay. So, none of that is ever going to happen...
Now then - where are the rebel camps being set up again???
Intentionally inflammatory rhetoric is explicitly not allowed on CD.
Now, we have Hedges article bemoaning the terrible state we've come to, and many letters echoing his sentiments. But, somehow, it seems to me despite Hedges honest best efforts, his article does not rise to the level of inflammatory rhetoric. We are not going to mobilize as a result, we're going to keep sipping our lattes. So, while Hedges may have failed at his objective to inspire us with sufficient inflammatory rhetoric to cause us to actually do something, he is by that very failure safe, and can be published on CD.
Do you think what I've just written is rhetorical nonsense, mindless quibbling?
Think about it. I assure you ! it isn't.
It certainly isn't. Self-censorship limitations have many origins and motives and are very widely prevalent. One need only consider (non-judgementally) the influences of so-called "political correctness", especially in the context of liberal-left discussions anywhere.
Just so. Self-censorship is the essential and most powerful tool, but when that fails there is also direct censorship, which CD does not hesitate to enforce. Most of the posters on CD do not have any idea that real censorship could be affecting what they read, or write. Political correctness, enforced by self-censorship and by direct censorship, prohibits any discussion of what in my humble estimation are the key elements in the equation. And it prevents any discussion of historical parallels that are remarkable but that are guaranteed offend the politically correct. It is absolutely amazing, the study of the relevant history is effectively PROHIBITED.
Just as an amusement for the reader, consider, what is the one single book that is ABSOLUTELY VERBOTEN, that you wouldn't read even as a joke, that marks anyone who reads it as a mindless fool, or worse. Got it? Now, have you read ANY PART of it? Are you really sure that it is the mindless drivel that you know it is? WHO TOLD YOU? I can't even mention the book, or I would be banned again, and this time they would probably go after my IP address (currently you can re-enlist with a new email address on CD after being banned, but many sites enforce a ban on your IP, I don't know technically what that means, but effectively it means it bans your computer even if you get a new email address)
So why aren't we all out in the streets?
All we hear is how the economy is getting better as more and more people lose their jobs and homes(which we do not hear about).
As for the numbers of unemployed getting less, Obama is using the same tactic that Bush used - when benefits run out for someone, stop counting him/her as unemployed.
Note - Bushco refused to entertain any extensions for this very reason.
The truth is that there will not be enough jobs to go around - at any wage.
Jeevee
TOTALLY TRUE
Folks, I'm not convinced, although I do agree with most people posting here. Yes, the corps are a horrible development in the history of humankind, beginning (in their modern form) in the 17th century and continuing to this day.
It seems to me that the die was cast long ago, and the machinations we here on this board so vilify as being propaganda have been a constant, in one form or another, for ages. There's nothing new under the sun. The awesome (and corrupting) ability to fashion rhetoric that Mr. Hedges refers to have also been in evidence for a very long time, today as well. Regardless of technology and centralization of power.
We missed our chance to make meaningful reform within the current paradigm exactly at the point at which it was established. Which of our founding "fathers" was of a lower caste? Remember, us lowly prols were never meant to wield any significant power or have an even hand in decisions on how we've been and are treated by the power elite. From day one of the good ole' USA, we were meant to be used by them for money and power. The bastards have been masterful at it.
The very existence of the free speech rights we have now were calculated, in part, to direct the masses in letting off enough steam to keep them from open revolt on a large scale. It's worked beautifully and is working quite well on this very site. Hell, I'm guilty as well. I know it.
Everything the government and power elite that control it have done from from day one has been to enhance their own power and wealth at the expense of others. Please clue me in...what's new here?
There is one simple fact that people will have to wrap their heads around: It can't be fixed from within the system because the system is fixed.
"Which of our founding 'fathers' was of a lower caste?"
Hamilton, the leader of the Federalists - read Aristocrats - was, ironically, of mixed blood.
but then - aren't we all?
collateral = descended from a common ancestor.
richardWshea--you nailed this one good. The lies this country tells are often through deletion, e.g. we say "Republic" when the accurate term would be "Roman Slave Republic" because that is what the kiddie raping rich filth slave holding animals wanted for "their country". This place was designed to model a slave republic ruled by feral patrician clans just like the founding slave holders patrician clans. The Prols, the Plebs, had no place in their world except as meat for their barbecue. We still are....and working slobs are still sucking their dicks.
No empire has ever "reformed itself" from within. Not one, not ever. First they must crash and burn and only then does any "difference" have even a remote chance and judging by past experience, not much of one even then. Feral Bestiality is the norm...
Yep, the fix was in from the beginning.
You got it, although I might differ with you slightly about the "fixed" system's origins. I'd take it back even further, at least to human society's shift from its hunter-gatherer basis to agriculturalist support contrivances and the consequential importance of (territorial) ownership and control issues.
Getting outside the current hierarchical system based on corporate financial dominance, however, doesn't necessarily entail a complete historical reversal.
Brilliant and insightful article, well articulated, and defintely worth the read. As for those who mentioned limited time, perhaps you should take note of what websites (CD among them, for me) and writers (Hedges is a priority for me, as is Jeremy Scahill and now, Donna Smith) rank in the top according to their ideas and your interests. You could save time by not reading the comments after every article, but I find that the members of the CD community are well read, mostly good writers; and I always learn something when I spend time here.
This is the second excellent article in a row by Hedges on CD (if memory serves correctly). Prior to that he had a very pessimistic, absolutist article that made me think he had read Revelations a few too many dozens of times. This is highly thought provoking and just plain good sense. And I loved the end quote, "pessimism is never useful..."
Pessimism Definition 1: an inclination to emphasize adverse aspects, conditions, and possibilities or to expect the worst possible outcome
But if someone is seeing a car blow up and says that is will damage the car, that isn't pessimism. And when you see society being blown up by the corporate elite, it isn't being pessimistic, it is just saying how it is.
Many people condemned me and called my pessimistic when I said that Obama would be another corporate shill, and that I was voting for Nader.
It's not pessimistic if it is true.
Deepa
This is a very good article.
It is true that "truth" or "facts" alone donot bring a positive change, unless they are appealing to the conscience and emotion and reason. This makes a person "experience" the "truth".
Once Dr S. Radhakrishnan,former President of India and Philosopher, in connection with his study of religion, posed three questions to Mahatma Gandhi: "What is your religion? How are you led to it? What is its bearing on social life?"
Gandhi replied: "I often describe my religion as religion of truth. Of late, instead of saying ‘God is Truth’, I have been saying ‘Truth is God’. We are all sparks of Truth. The sum total of these sparks is indescribable, as yet unknown Truth, which is God.
To the second question, he answered, "I am led to my religion through truth and non-violence. I am daily led nearer to it by constant prayer."
To the third question, Gandhi replied: "The bearing of this religion on social life is, or has to be, seen in one’s daily social contact. To be true to such religion, one has to lose oneself in continuous and continuing service of all in life. Realization of Truth is impossible without a complete merging of oneself in and identification with this limitless ocean of life. Hence, for me, there is no escape from social service; there is no happiness on earth beyond or apart from it. In this scheme, there is nothing low, nothing high. For all is one, though we seem to be many."
- In the light of the above, I feel, "compassion" (meaning "to suffer with, to put oneself in others’ shoes, to enter into the other person’s experience") is important to bring any positive change. This is the quality that is evident in lives of Gandhi, Martin Luther King....
Sioux Rose
DEEPA: Excellent post.
In astrology Capricorn is the sign ruled by Saturn, the old lord of karma. Most Capricorns follow the path of the mundane goat who seeks his way to the mountain summit. It's a metaphor for worldly ambition. But a few Capricorns recognize the impermanence of life in a body, and aim higher. Martin Luther King and Gandhi were both Capricorns. The sign's greatest gift is patience, and I think they both had supernatural patience in dealing with the ignorance and violence of those less evolved who circled them like an unruly ocean. IF Jesus was born on December 24, he, too, would be a Capricorn. The typical Capricorns are far more interested in mammon and the Machiavellian rites of power on earth. Richard Nixon, Carl Rove, and J Edgar Hoover are typical examples. Each sign holds diverse expressions as individuals exist at such disparate levels of spiritual awareness.
Astrology won't help you any more than "make believe space giants" (or genocidal blood gods) and both are useless for anything but programming flat earth illiterates without critical thinking skills. "Like, man, the planets really DO influence people, ya know?" Of course the sun at the center of our back yard ISN'T a planet, and the lunar body Earth captured is NOT a planet either, and the constellations never existed as anything more than hallucinations (that deleted every other stellar body (400 billion of them in our local neighborhood - none of them have any influence at all) by pre-literates who lived in the Northern Hemisphere and only between certain latitudes and those hallucinations stopped being possible over 2000 years ago due to the "rearrangement" of the "sky" due to the procession of the Equinoxes...but heh, who am I to spoil people's hallucinations? Some people grow wood over reincarnation, some over Astrology, some over White Male Supremacy and Gender Slavery, it's just a point of view, right? Right. And if you throw rags and dirt into a corner they make rats...or politicians, or was that lawyers...I forget...
Sioux Rose
I answered this nonsense at length and it was deleted, along with your earlier post. Not sure what pissed off what censor, but I am not repeating. It's late.
I wouldn't even begin to try & define Jesus by astrology or being born on any particular date at all. His paradoxical names in animal symbology of Lamb of God & Lion of Judah would confuse most people especially if they do not understand paradox.
His teaching that his Father's Kingdom is not of the world of man, this world, would confuse people who think it is all about this world without considering it is this world God is bringing to it's end, but it is the world of man that is destroying it's own self through it's destruction of the earth through it's globalist earth destroying system that is now in place as the earth is now enslaved by money except for a few remote Tribes, but even the cash register world is knocking on their door more & more as the thing called time progresses.
The Hopi prophecy of this land being burned off the face by man made fire, weapons built by the hand of man, & the prophecy of Mystery Babylon are very simular with Mystery Babylon being an utter abomination before God that God is going to get of when that time comes by putting it into the minds of men to burn her in one hour.
If this is the man made fire the Hopi saw pretty much burning this land off the face of the earth then when God puts it into the minds of men to do these things this will overule any logic they have in their minds not to do this thing.
God can play a meaner game of hardball than men upon the earth can play any day. Just as God said he is going to send strong delusion upon this world so they will believe a lie & all be damned.
There isn't anything that can stop the Kingdom just as Old Mr. Death did not stop Jesus there isn't anything that can stop the Kingdom.
Sioux Rose
SHADOW: For an Indigenous individual your level of "Christianization" is pretty intense. No one knows when Jesus was born, so I was using Christmas. And while I think you've got something to share as per the lesson in forgiveness, I think it's utter nonsense this crap about God having mankind destroy itself. Sorry, fella, that's End Times BS. Human beings have free will; and I have made a strong case in this forum that societies have been built around a value system that was based on judgment, power, violence, hierarchy, and patriarchal values which are only HALF the Divine template. It is the result of that set of beliefs that mankind is acting to destroy itself. If ancient prophecy accords with what ignorant persons do, that does not mean the play-out is God's will!
I have profound admiration for Jesus, and all the Masters; but I have a low regard for those institutions, which is to say churches, synagogues and organized religions that have BASTARDIZED the teachings of High souls (who taught unity and love) and used them to basically turn one tribe against another. Never have the results been more tragic and traumatic, given the efficiency of weapons.
As for the post below. We are, at the soul level, immortal. We take on the cloak of matter, of flesh, to learn specific lessons. However, when one realizes that the enlightened of most religious orientations taught the same thing, it makes sense to pay attention to those quintessential universal Truths. The rest is like a sporting event pitting team against team. Redundant stupidity and hatred have NOTHING to do with "God's" will.
Deepa
SIOUX ROSE: Excellent and insightful thoughts.
God’s liberative power active in and through Jesus has removed the veils placed by the dominant institutional religion that blocked or blurred human vision of God. So what people have been seeing is a distorted image of God. On the basis of this distorted image of God the guardians of the dominant institutional religion have perpetuated their power over others through exploitation and marginalization of people.
Jesus' mission is characterized by inclusion and service. Power and greatness are redefined in Jesus in terms of serving "the least", the poor and the marginalized.
Jesus and his mission can be summerized by one word: COMPASSION.
Compassion does not mean feeling sorry for people. It does not mean pity. Compassion means to suffer with, to put oneself in others’ shoes, to enter into the other person’s experience. Compassion is not done "on" people, or "to" them from a position of invulnerability. It is the capacity to identify with the one suffering.
The lack of COMPASSION among majority of Americans is what is energizing their government to continue to indulge in genocidal violence and plunder around the world.
D E E P A,
Inspirational and profoundly well said.
Although we obviously lack COMPASSION, I might add that REVERENCE is a key parallel issue.
Without people having respect and REVERENCE for the existence and lovely expressions of the ONENESS of SPIRIT, as provided in humankind, LIFE, & nature -- we have less than a toe hold to purchase the grace -- that COMPASSION and intimately connected expression of unconditional LOVE enfold.
Out of my REVERENCE for LIFE, I am empowered to feel COMPASSION.
When people are so culturally conditioned and unable to even experience their own feelings and suffering, because of easily digested faux emotions shoveled baldly by mass marketing of "brand" pseudo-experiences -- the materialistic substitutes for actual connection to others like ourselves STEALS our hearts and minds ( STEELING them to enable plunderous greed ).
It is the plight of our EGO and materialistic worldly constructions, that attempts sadly to digest the cardboard MENU -- instead of the sumptuous MEAL ( of LIFE ) -- that is what so completely conditions us to denigrate our fellow humans and erode our intrinsic COMPASSION and connection to all LIFE.
N.
Deepa
We live in a world of pluralism-of cultures, of religions, of worldviews. Every attempt to question this undeniable diversity is suspect. The biggest challenge we face today is to practice and propagate the inclusive ideas at social, political and cultural level, the ideas and values which unite people cutting across religion, ethnicity and language.
One of the virtues that bind people of diverse cultures is compassion. Jesus, in the Parable of the Compassionate Samaritan (Luke 10. 25-37), links compassion to neighborliness.
For much of human history, questions about the identity of the neighbor have been considered within the narrow contexts of blood ties, the familiar boundaries of commonly shared cultural traditions, or the tight confines of geographical proximity. Due to the challenge of ensuring group survival and strategic requirements to maintain group security and self-interests, mistrust of the stranger or alien came to occupy a central place in the evolution of group consciousness, which perceives the world as binary: “insiders” and “outsiders”.
Jesus’ answer moves away from the lawyer’s understanding of NEIGHBOR as the OBJECT OF LOVE to NEIGHBOR AS THE AGENT OF LOVE AND COMPASSION. Jesus turns the focus inward with a view toward cultivating the dispositions of persons whose character will always predispose them to treat the neighbor as one would treat oneself. This turn inward makes all the difference in the world, not only in terms of how the neighbor is identified, but also in terms of the resources that people bring to this task. Cultivation of character, the seat of values, positions a person to be sensitive to the particular circumstances in which any neighbor is placed. The integrity of the act of showing neighborly love can never be realized fully until one becomes disposed to be a neighbor. By being disposed to be a neighbor, one will embody the virtue of neighborliness.
D E E P A,
Again, thank you for the well considered words.
We are of like minds in the progression of each learning better to see our neighbors as ourselves -- and that itself needing the pursuit and " cultivation " of inner knowledge -- and similarly for even more distant tribe members.
You well capture the challenge with "By being disposed to be a neighbor, one will embody the virtue of neighborliness."
The Parable of the Compassionate Samaritan is powerful to me in that important aspect of the Samaritans being the pariahs of that time. Your point about " This turn inward makes all the difference in the world, not only in terms of how the neighbor is identified, but also in terms of the resources that people bring to this task, " is thereby even more moving and reinforces the depth of cross-cultural compassion required.
Key is the fact that many wealthy Jews had already passed by their fellow traveler ( of the same tribe ) and nonetheless they still left the wounded and dying man of the Parable to suffer alone. If not one's own neighbors, who can we rely upon to risk giving us aid, when we are destitute ?
For the lowly outcaste Samaritan to take the action of not only coming to the injured man's aid, but more so taking him into his home, to feed and nurse him back to health. This is demonstrably beyond COMPASSION for a neighbor -- and illustrates that the parable's message is written even larger for us all to come to the aid of anyone in need-- especially even those who had often abused and ridiculed us previously.
The equivalent message in today's holy lands, might be for the despondent, injured, and penniless Palestinian to come to the aid of a dying ( but very rich ) Jew found bleeding alongside the road, that no one else cared enough to stop and provide compassionate kindness and aid to.
Of course the IDF might falsely consider the Palestinian to be the now long gone attacker, so providing aid might conceivably be misunderstood and lead to the quick death of the Compassionate Good Samaritan / Palestinian. In today's possible violent confrontations -- we all will be safer -- if everyone just assumed the friendly neighbor's point of view ( as their own ).
N.
thank you, deepa
we are coming to a time when we will need to redefine, among a number of things, housing...compassion, understanding, sacrifice, sharing will be of paramount importance...my hope is that these very things will also lead to newfound feelings of acceptance, freedom, belonging, worth, purpose and joy...
Sioux Rose
DEEPA: Thank you. Since you, too, are a deep thinker, I appreciate your response. I am mortified by the fact that religious institutions have been used to lead their flocks into support FOR war, and that our Air Force has been infiltrated by insidious evangelical types who mislead the poor kids who mostly have limited life experience into thinking killing other = satisfying God's will. The astrologer is uniquely positioned to ask, "WHICH God are you refering to?" This false claim is beyond hubris and has led naive types into accumulating undue karma. Even as a child when our housekeeper kept the radio blaring with Southern Baptist rants, I saw through the insanity of "God wants you to do_______" (fill in the blank). Of course Shakespeare fully understood this vacuous portion of human nature that so often allows other to define its intended parameters. "How could thinking men think so wrongly?" He asked, a question that echoes through modern times; and at the moment Shakespeare penned it, the issue he wrestled with was war, and why it was that young men laid down their lives like sleep. And still the same masquerade continues into the modern killing fields in large measure because fools believe "GOD" told them to murder one another. This is the GREATEST of fallacies! And probably the most disastrous.
spot on Sioux Rose.
It's not the search for meaning that leads to wars - it's the hijacking of this search with promises of truth revealed, if only you'll first kill those heathens.
And what a great typo (I assume) there is within your comment: " why it was that young men laid down their lives like sleep"
Did you mean "sheep"?
Most who believe killing ever solves anything ARE sleeping.
Death may be the answer but it is never the solution.
I agree with you. And I do believe God, while better at hardball than any human, is also more patient than any of us. I certainly can't speak for God, but I've often wondered what our outlook on life and death would be if we KNEW that we never actually died but just passed into different planes of existence. Suppose that our consciousness is immortal. I.E. we possess a body until it dies and we go on to something else. Suppose this "body" part, while important, is still pretty much of the larva stage for us. How would we look on the frantic scrambling for wealth along with intrigue, wars, murder and other chicanery in the human family? Would we shake our heads with pity? How angry should we get about all this bullshit if it represents less than one percent of our total lifespan? Even the scientists admit that dark matter has more mass than visible, quantifiable matter. I believe in the afterlife as a matter of faith but as for this life, I say don't help greedy people. If everyone saved 25% of their gross, put the money in credit unions and bought EVERYTHING in cash, there would be no wall street. That would eliminate most of the wars on the planet and most of the corruption in your home town from the sheriff to the town clerk.
Rant over.
Thanks for your wise words, shadowdancer.
There is more than this planet life;wrote this after a tragic end to a young life. ANOTHER DOOR, ANOTHER PATH
Oh tell me that there is more, that there are chances to see, to feel better, to correct and make right what mistakes were made, not with malice to any but a hurt for the human condition.
Difficulties were hard, they hurt and the escape lay in the disapproval from others and a hurt to self so deep that care became just a word to wish on.
Yet, oh yes, yet did the heart and the soul, with the mind pull together for another push to attempt for another say in this world of humans.
It came not but passage thru a new door came in repose and another path will be open and with the help of those who care and a Creator of mercy there will be time for growth and amends.
Tony 6/29/2009
That was pure and poignant poetry. Thank you.
Chris, you must be a George Carlin fan.
No, since the Europeans arrived in this land, set up their George Washington Master/Slave world, & their greedy earth destroying Mammon system upon the earth, one needs money, too, as the Native Tribes have found out.
The thing is one does not have to be greedy by their own personal freewill choice. In the days of the Tribes the people got what they needed from the earth, & lived simply.
Completely perfect, no, but the spiritual gift of forginess existed then as it does today. The spiritual gift of peacemaking existed then as it does today. All spiritual gifts given by Creator to his children upon the earth that no one owns. They are free spiritual gifts given by Creator to help his children upon the earth to keep themselves in Creator's love. The human race has merely learned how to sell it & turn it into a business just like they turned Creator into a business & learned to sell him, & Jesus.
Even Jesus didn't turn Creator into a business he sold, nor turned himself into a business he sold. Men of themselves would begin doing those things later including mixing them with their worldly politics they learned to sell, too.
Life is good. What an experience! It's always best to forgive.
Whoops... my bad.
Chris Hedges is an absolute gem. Any chance of him running for president? Umm, how about leading the overthrow, the rebellion? Can he shoot a gun?
Seriously, Chris. Consider it.
CH says pessimism is never useful. The 2d Amendment is. A .300 Weatherby Magnum is quite useful, as is a Steyr .50 cal. anti-materiel rifle.
LOL
While you're at it, a 7 millimeter magnum is nice. It packs quite a kick so you have to get your cheek bone up tight and do the slow trigger squeeze. The trajectory is flat for 300 to 400 yards. But don't count on using it more than once or remaining alive for too long after doing so.
I agree, he and Robert Fisk (although British) are some of my absolute favorite journalists in the English-speaking world.
The modern free market is a myth. We are manipulated by the "invisible fist." Recently the invisible fist became visible and we now know who is running the show, the oligarchs. When our representatives sold their souls to the oligarchs, our representative government ended.
If we want it back we will have to take it back. There are two ways: violent revolution, or peaceful economic change by participating in the more sustainable "new economy." To succeed we must put the principles of the new economy to work in our lives immediately. Failing to do so will result in Fascism.
The Right has used class more effectively. They portray themselves as common small town Americans and the Left as wealthy urban elitists--in fact, Obama is almost a stereotype of that image--polished, well-educated, rhetoric totally devoid of relevance. He wouldn't be caught in the shabby, run-down home where I had dinner last night. I listened to their medical horror stories and their lamenting of the destruction of the land. They were old farming folk, but they weren't clueless--and they were suffering. So often, the Left writes off or sneers at the working poor while focusing on organic green political-correctness--so I don't really see the Green party--or anything catering to solutions as fashion statements for the in crowd cruises at the Nation being anything to ramp up the rhetoric.
Lord, this is a good post. I would only take exception to generalizing the "left" as sneering at workers. Certainly this is true of a large segment of liberals. ANd probably more than a few collegiate reds.
But you're right: right elites have long since known it was a class war. They should, they started it.
I do think as a sense of class solidarity emerges from the chaos of economic dislocation--if nothing hijacks that, and that is by no means a given--then much of the liberal community will wind up as roadkill. I think they'll show their true colors in the end and side with power. They fear destabilization as much as any right winger, which is why they constantly advocate tinkering measures.
Start building those parties and social organizations now. Face to face. Face to face. I'm doing it at work! And it's proving hard but rewarding, even though it's only a few people. But hey, that's how these things start. And no oone is too good for the grunt work of organizing.
Salut.
Thanks kivals for the correction on Bernays family connection to Freud. Now I learn that, curiously, Bernays was Freud's double nephew. His mother was Freud's sister and his father was Freud's wife's brother. I think there is little doubt now that Bernays and the ideas and practices that he fostered have had and will have far more effect on human society worldwide than those of his much more famous uncle. Tom Lehrer had a song with the line "Oh, Dr. Freud, oh Dr. Freud, how we wish you had been otherwise employed". Perhaps we might now sing "Oh Ed Bernays, Oh Ed Bernays, how lost we are in your PR maze." Certainly knowledge of Bernays' tricks, manipulations and devices should not be left to the corporate/government professional liars who astutely study him and then apply them to us all in hundreds of ways daily. Reading Bernays helps keep one's BS detector in top shape. Too bad his books will never be selected for Oprah's book club. True to Bernays dictum, he remains the unseen hand.
And never forget his partner in intellectual crime, Ivy Lee, who took the theory and made it real with his rehab of Rockefeller. The greatest spin job of all time.