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War Politics: Numb and Number
Playwright Lillian Hellman said: "I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year's fashions."
The statement was in a letter to the House Un-American Activities Committee. The year was 1952. We tell ourselves that the McCarthy era was vastly different than our own -- but what about the political fashions of 2010?
This year's fashions cut mean figures on Washington's runways. Conformities lie, and people die.
While the escalating disaster of war in Afghanistan keeps setting deadly blazes, the few anti-war voices on Capitol Hill usually sound like people whispering "Fire!"
In 2010, this is what the warfare state looks like: a largely numbed state, mainlining anesthetics that induce routine torpor. In that context, the conformity of mild dissent is apt to be mistaken for outspoken moral acuity.
On the back of an envelope, or anywhere else, check this math:
$1,000,000 x 100,000 = $100,000,000,000
In round flat numbers, that's the cost of deploying 100,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan for one year -- $100 billion. The initial "cost" includes none of the human consequences.
In a numbed process, filtered through media and political buzz phrases, we talk about one number, then another. Numb and number.
For domestic acceptance, a far-off war depends on the pumped-up anesthetics of verbal abstractions and hollow numbers, permeating news media and political discourse. Wooden words and figures, bolted together; every number a lie when wrenched into claiming to tell a human truth.
The number we get, the farther from warfare's human consequences. While more lives are being shattered elsewhere, conscience hems and haws to fit this year's fashions.
When Martin Luther King Jr. gave his "Beyond Vietnam" speech on April 4, 1967, he told listeners that he had moved during the course of two years, finally, "to break the betrayal of my own silences and to speak from the burnings of my own heart."
At the podium of Riverside Church in New York City, he said: "I come to this magnificent house of worship tonight because my conscience leaves me no other choice."
Dr. King noted that the human spirit has "great difficulty" moving against "all the apathy of conformist thought within one's own bosom and in the surrounding world."
In his own way, King was saying what Hellman had said 15 years earlier -- when she declared herself unwilling to "cut my conscience to fit this year's fashions."
This year, with the escalating occupation of Afghanistan widely believed to be on automatic policy pilot, conscience is fashionably cloaked with acquiescence. Many in Congress who say they don't support the war keep voting to fund it -- and keep their voices muffled. The brandished wrath of the House Speaker or the White House chief of staff is most effective as a preemptive club.
A dozen years after Hellman defied HUAC, a senator defied the fearful conformity of 1964. Seeing the escalation of the Vietnam War on the near horizon, Wayne Morse spoke truth to -- and about -- power. The contrast with today's liberal baseline on Capitol Hill is painfully evident if you watch footage of Senator Morse for two minutes.
- Posted in
52 Comments so far
Show AllWayne Morse was one of the last senators who actually thought his job was to represent the people who elected him to office.
Senator Gaylord Nelson was another one. He gave us Earth Day. And the Pill.
And then there was the great Fred Harris. Who should have been President.
But since then...
Gary
"If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed."
-- Albert Einstein
Bin SCREAMING for 7 YEARS! Gotta tin set of ears like Obummer?
What's that? You said something? ;-)
Solomon says:
"For domestic acceptance, a far-off war depends on the pumped-up anesthetics of verbal abstractions and hollow numbers, permeating news media and political discourse. Wooden words and figures, bolted together; every number a lie when wrenched into claiming to tell a human truth."
The so-called 'wars' we're engaged in are based totally upon lies and the 'domestic acceptance' of this continuing imperialist policy was only garnered by staging a "New Pearl Harbor' on 9/11/01 (just like the Gulf of Tonkin).
There needs to be a new and complete investigation of 9/11 and the real reasons Cheney/Bush and their corpora-fascist pals invaded Iraq and Afghanistan. Until the majority of people in the US can learn the truth about why it was implemented and by whom, there will be continuing 'support' for these wars based on nothing but fear-mongering.
The Fourth Estate has been dead for many decades, the Congress is totally bought and paid for by the big-money corps/banksters, and the SCOTUS recently put one more nail in the coffin of democracy - Gov't of, by and for the People is now just a figment of our collective imagination.....
until and unless someone has the courage to stand and tell the truth; and that better happen soon.
Seems as good as place as any to apologize to the "truthers" for doubting the actual evidence found for nano-thermite in the dust of the World Trade Center. I was wrong and admit it. But the Search function of The Open Chemical Physics Journal failed to bring it up. Then, belatedly, I decide to dig through the journal files themselves, and lo and behold there it was:
>>Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe.
We have discovered distinctive red/gray chips in all the samples we have studied of the dust produced by the destruction of the World Trade Center. Examination of four of these samples, collected from separate sites, is reported in this paper. These red/gray chips show marked similarities in all four samples. One sample was collected by a Manhattan resident about ten minutes after the collapse of the second WTC Tower, two the next day, and a fourth about a week later. The properties of these chips were analyzed using optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray energy dispersive spectroscopy (XEDS), and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The red material contains grains approximately 100 nm across which are largely iron oxide, while aluminum is contained in tiny plate-like structures. Separation of components using methyl ethyl ketone demonstrated that elemental aluminum is present. The iron oxide and aluminum are intimately mixed in the red material. When ignited in a DSC device the chips exhibit large but narrow exotherms occurring at approximately 430 °C, far below the normal ignition temperature for conventional thermite. Numerous iron-rich spheres are clearly observed in the residue following the ignition of these peculiar red/gray chips. The red portion of these chips is found to be an unreacted thermitic material and highly energetic.<<
My error. And again I apologize. When and if this finding is confirmed (after Polywater [look up], and Cold Fusion I await three confirmations any more) it is indeed the smoking gun of controlled explosives taking down the towers.
Gary
"A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new."
-- Albert Einstein
Kudos, Gary, for displaying one of the very few "I was wrong" admissions on an online-published medium. And for keeping open the possibility that "maybe I wasn't wrong," depending on further confirmation. It's hard to maintain that scientific attitude among us opinionated posters who like to think that we KNOW the facts and that only conspiracies to distort or suppress the truth lead the rest of the world from "knowing" the facts as we do.
Wow! I don't venture much on the subject of 9/11 truth in Internet discussions, because IMO too many people are still too emotionally freaked out to permit "civilized" discussion, even by Internet standards.
But I'm pleased to heartily commend and congratulate Gary for his apologetic comment. A lesser person would have done what many rabid "anti-truthers" do-- reflexively seize upon reasons to discredit the published article, including merely dismissing it as "junk science".
Or rely upon a seemingly-authoritative "debunker" site to discredit it.
Thanks, Gary. This is a refreshing change of pace from the comments from reactionaries and trolls that litter the comments threads here.
· Yr Obd't Servant
Sioux Rose
GARY: I'm the third (so far) to thank you! The higher purpose of a forum like this is for all of us to gain greater understanding. A variety of persons bring a diverse body of unique perspectives into this "virtual senate." None of us owns a monopoly on truth, and those who retain open minds are positioned to gain the most. You just qualified in that elite camp!
Incidentally, when I spent several months in Asia in 2004, I took a train ride that left Singapore and passed through Malaysia unti the train stopped near an incredible rain forest. The nation protects that asset. In any case, I had a lovely little cabin there on a river that required a 2 hour boat ride to reach it, and across from this park resort were boats that functioned as floating restaurants. Most people there were Muslims and I loved waking to the Muslim prayer that rang out at 6 AM. Turns out an American man (older) noticed me and invited me to dinner on one of those floating boats. We were dining with another couple, the husband was a documentary filmmaker and his wife never said a word. All she did was gaze up at her spouse. Anyway, for some reason the subject of 911 came up and I stated flatly that I believed it was an inside job. My "date," a retired lawyer from Berkeley got visibly upset with me. He absolutely could not begin to wrap his mind around something so potentially demonic. I'll never forget this guy's reaction. He was cool enough to live on a houseboat parked in Malaysia, with his home in Santa Barbara rented; but this idea stun-gunned him. I wonder if he feels otherwise now having the benefit of hindsight with which to view the MARCH (to war) of events that oh, so conveniently followed that "next Pearl Harbor."
Allow me to be the fourth to thank you, Gary.
The mind is like a parachute it only works when it is open. Sounds like you have big parachute Gary. Paul
Starting in 2004, I have been being given, in dreams and while awake, names or initials, as well as other kinds of information, of people, who are or were involved in one way or another, often unknowingly, in nefarious and surreptitious activities dating back to and originating out of the Second World War.
For example, in a dream I had on July 23, 2008 the following words were spoken three times: Karl Rove.
Mr. Mellott:
Can't see anything remarkable about "Karl Rove" being heard spoken in a dream July 23, 2008. After all, Rove was still heavily in the news at the time. Day-content influence dreams.
Leland, i saw your posts on another article and thought you were sincere.
Now i think you may be playing games here. Too bad and not very amusing. Some people do have powerful premonitions and meaningful information *can* be accessed through inner sensing.
They've numbed us down on just about everything. War? Going on forever, but by all means, sign those meaningless petitions until you're blue in the face! And call your numbed indifferent congressman. Health care? Watch us dither and futz for years over it, pretending a "public option" means something while we never fail to ignore the only possible solution to this eternal crisis, Medicare for All.
Solutions to any problems we face, such as climate change? Permanently Off the Table! We can numb you in a thousand ways. The only legislation you're going to see is exactly the same as none at all. We're not here to solve your problems, the ones we created. We're here to exacerbate them by chattering about them for years while doing precisely zero.
The wars aren't going to end, there will be no health care reform, climate chaos is all you're going to get, the environment will get more toxic every day, food will be more artificial and carcinogenic, and you'll just have to learn to accept it. All your protesting will be met with towering indifference, from your misrepresentatives, your corporate media, and most of academia. Howl into the wilderness if you must. We're not listening.
When was the last time you saw an outspoken elected public official given a platform by the mainstream US media like that in the "Face the Nation" segment featuring Wayne Morse? No such exposure for Dennis Kuchinich. No such exposure for Ron Paul. No such exposure for Barbara Lee or Cynthia McKinney or Russell Feingold.
I have only a vague personal recollection of the Senate's passage of the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, and the controversy surrounding Senator Morse's forthright, principled opposition to it. The Wikepedia entry on Wayne Morse notes it was later discovered that President Lyndon Johnson had the FBI launch a secret investigation of Morse in reprisal for his steadfast antiwar advocacy, and Morse eventually lost his Senate seat in the next election cycle.
Odd, but one of the bits of mud slung in Wayne Morse's direction in 1964 that stuck (a slime ball rumor that sticks in my memory still) was that the "maverick" Senator from Oregon acted "crazy" the way he did because once-upon-a-time he had been kicked in the head by a horse. Funny how such efforts to marginalize and discredit a public figure can endure (whether the horse incident anecdote is true or false).
Although I was only a senior in high school back in '64, I remembered the spin but little of the historic substance.
Bill from Saginaw
"I remember[] the spin but little of the historic substance."
Aye, there's the rub. - That's how political indoctri-nation works.
Wayne Morse - what a Man. That we should have the likes of him in the Senate now. I know, I am dreaming again.
"War Politics: Numb and Number"
Norman Solomon is good and right as usual. And as usual nearly no one (in power) gives a hoot.
Solomon's word-play on "number" is good. Every number makes US number. Yet what are we without reference to numbers? - There's the great danger: totally in thrall to unchecked emotion, thrown willy-nilly by every fad without sense of proportion for guidance.
Self-evident as it may seem, numbers count! A populace trained to dismiss numbers (as Bush is perceived to have won out by doing, in his debate with Gore, when firing back: "Look, this is a man who has got great numbers, he talks about numbers...") is an electorate decoupled from reality. They're dangerously misfit to vote. Voting presupposes well-informed voters. Voters unfamiliar with thinking in numbers are... eh... "numbers" - too numb to vote in an informed way. That's a BIG problem with US democracy these days.
It should be unnecessary to say, but we keep track of reality through numbers.
God BLESS Wayne Morris.
If only we had more like him in the 21st century, like a Senate full.
Only two Senators did not sell out to the false flag attack in the Gulf of Tonkin: Wayne Morse of Oregon and Gruening of Alaska. The rest of the Senate were owned by the MIC and had no conscience. They were cheerleaders for all the death and destruction in Vietnam that took the lives of around 58,000 soldiers, and a million or more Vietnamese. And the sad part: Nothing has changed! Obomba and the rest of our current Senators, would have voted with the majority if they were in the Senate at that time.
The corporatocracy, particularly through the use of its corporate media arm (gatekeepers), will not allow those who would vote to block or punish the crimes of the corporatocracy to get through the gate, at least not enough of them to make any difference.
Where is all this money coming from and, more importantly, to where is it going?
The Great Lie Of The Ages in this world is that one can kill and get away with it. This has never happened and it never will.
Die, Killers, and you'll find out.
Religious people do not kill.
The CEOs of these killing machine manufacturing companies, name those who are claiming to be religious. I want to see them hide behind their religion when they are dead.
Mr. Mellott:
No one alive can speak for what happens after death.
That's probably a main reason we're still here alive.
(If we knew for certain what happens "next" our sense of reason to stay alive might evaporate. Though I admit I can't get my head all around that issue. So I'm still here, as are you, working on it).
We may find indications for speculations regarding events - or not - after death, sure. We may enjoy the speculation, even learn a lot from it. But at core it remains just that - speculation - as long as we can communicate alive.
However convinced you are, that goes for you too.
A better reason for appealing to less killing is Reciprocity: The Golden Rule of Ethics. It's the eternally valid principle for balancing between each individual and surroundings.
"No one alive can speak for what happens after death."
The closest I can come to knowing what death might be is how it was with me before I was born.
From oblivion back to oblivion.
And while here, give yourself some meaning in a meaningless existence.
"Conformity of mild dissent." Love that term! Captures so well the attitude of such as "Progressives for Obama," Progressive Democrats of America, MoveOn, Nation, etc. (And these included Norman Solomon himself as an Obama-pledged delegate to his state's party convention.) We dissent from your policies, Mr.President, but of course we are not threatening to abandon our money and our votes from you and your fellow Democrats if you choose to ignore our "dissents." Didn't Wayne Morse leave the Republican party over his party's war policies? What member of Congress has or probably would do that today? What "liberal" supporter of the Democratic Party would leave in favor of voting for, say a Green Party which would be much more responsive to his/her dissent? "Conformity" is about doing what most of your peers do, and how many of your peers vote for or belong to the Green Party? My McKinney for President bumper sticker sticks out like a sore thumb in a sea of Obama ones. Who wants to be that much of a black sheep? Maybe Wayne Morse, maybe Phoenix20.
Consent depends on information. Only informed consent is real. Manufactured consent means the people are treated as children or animals, incapable of knowing what's in their interest. The corporate takeover of public dialogue was first and foremost a military takeover with business when both groups vowed to grab a firmer hold of the country's course after the 60s. Then we had nonsense like that television could be a monopoly because of the internet, as if CD were an equivalent platform to CNN or MSNBC, or the internet couldn't be influenced by money the same as television.
The whole real politic or pragmatism of Washington also denies real democracy. Look at Obama's healthcare right now. A meeting of the minds between the medical industry interests and the unions. They make a compromise and congratulate themselves on pragmatic dealmaking. The ignore the fact that the public interest is not necessarily served by either special interest group. They think the national interest can be served by a string of paid compromises. It can't.
Well most people today put their faith in Government because they do not believe in their neighbor nor themselves as capable of making the best decision for their communities. Thats what BIG Government, socialism or whatever is all about, right, electing some benevolent politician to run your life, make 40,000 Laws a year to tell you when to cross the street, how to do it and why you should do it, because you have no faith in mankind. And, you're just too plain stupid right? Well you probably did go to government run schools. I did, I was stupid. Until I uneducated myself from the State Indoctrination plan and self educated some truth and real knowledge into my government distorted brain.
Anarchy, self governance means you trust yourself to make the best decision for yourself. You trust your neighbor to make the best decision for him or her self, and the chain goes on and on, so long as no one steps on your toes, they are free to do as they please. Thats how I live my life, thats how I expect others to do so.
But unfortunately we can't do that because we have this government who steals our money from us in the form of taxes, so many taxes, income, state, sales, property, etc etc. Then they tell you have to pay for registrations for your car, etc. Now in California they are going to force people to get registration to own a dog! The government is telling the people you can only own a dog if you register it (and pay fees) to the STATE. Talk about BIG Gov't.
The government is the one who goes to WAR. Not the people. Like this guy Morse was saying, have faith in your fellow man, not some Bureaucrat or Politician.
Local, community type governments would be fine, and they couldn't invade Afghanistan. But noooo, everyone wants their entitlements, something they didn't earn at the hand of another, and what you get in the end is an Iron Fist controlling your every move, sending our young people to die and to kill in foreign lands, etc etc etc
peace. love. anarchy
Interesting take. I think the designers of what was to become the United States of America believed in organized anarchy in loose terms. The limited scope of the Federal governemt, as written in the Constitution reveals adequate proof of this.
Moreover, the anarchist's commitment to living one's life free of interference from others as long as his actions harm neither the person nor the property of a non-concenting other are totally in line with the First and Second Amendments to the Constitution.
The only possible way to have freedom of and from religion; of speech; of assembly; etcetera is to allow those actions as long as the actions do not harm the person nor property of a non-consenting other.
The above is the basis of the schism currently underway within the conservative movement; for how can social conservatives expect to make laws banning abortion, for example, and expect to have a small government? How do fiscal conservatives justify the huge amounts of money spent by the government on a failed War on Drugs? How do so-called "limited" government conservatives justify stepping in between a prostitute and her john?
But I digress......
"Anarchy, self governance means you trust yourself to make the best decision for yourself. You trust your neighbor to make the best decision for him or her self, and the chain goes on and on, so long as no one steps on your toes, they are free to do as they please. Thats how I live my life, thats how I expect others to do so."
Love that paragraph. Thank you.
What's going on down in South America?
Military action???
Check out the Sat picture.
http://weather.unisys.com/satellite/sat_ir_enh_east.html
Still proud to be a native Oregonian. Will we ever have anymore Wayne Morse's or Mr. Smith's, for that matter, "go to Washington"? I recon not until we set our hearts on waging...
Peace
Dalton Trumbo's "Johnny Got His Gun" should be required reading in all the high schools and colleges of this land.
The last chapter really tells it like it is. It will never
be assigned because it would be considered "Communist Propoganda".
Sioux Rose
I had an experience today that I'd like to share with the forum because it is so telling in what it evidences about the authoritarian mindset and those that subscribe to it.
I had to receive advice from an attorney, and went to someone local who is considered the authority on my subject of concern. At one point during the consultation he reminded me that the world was evil, and then he asked if I knew who God gave this world's dominion to? I knew the answer he was aiming at. I began to debate him on a number of items, and while I keep my mystical beliefs close to the vest in this Bible belt town, I not only correctly guessed his sign (a power he attributed to satan); but I tried to apprise him of the idea that life is not quite so neat and linear that one can place good and evil always at separate poles. I offered the symbol of Yin and Yang to suggest that some very good persons harbor a little area of darkness, while some very evil people probably have a little portion of innocence remaining somewhere in their beings. He refused to take in anything but extremes of black and white.
Years ago I went on a date with a man who seemed quite intellectual to me, until he told me his degree in biology came from Bob Jones University. I asked, facetiously, if it was possible with that background to NOT believe in evolution. Indeed, with all evidence before him, he did not.
These are two examples of the type of educated (in right wing schools of thought) person that resides in the U.S. In the case of both of these guys, they exude an absolute certainty that their CREED is the RIGHT one. They leave no room for doubt, see any questioning or vacillation from the fixed beliefs they have arived upon as weakness, or betrayal to their beliefs.
They really believe in absolute good and evil, and most are convinced that if you boast the right T-shirt as proof of affiliation, in this case to the Christian cause, then you are indisputably on the right/good/God team... and therefore ANY actions taken are already approved of by the big guy in the sky. A mind that closed is one that is already dead. These persons are really scary because there is no room in their mindsets for any debate.
Each day residing on this planet gets stranger. I wonder where Native Son and Shadow Dancer are? I miss the reference to now residing in the cash register world! Ka Ching, Ka ching!
Sioux Rose:
Allow me to play your own ball back at you. You at times seem quite hooked on astrology, and appear to live by it. Do you yourself "leave ... room for doubt" on astrology? Do you allow others you socialize with to mistrust astrology and prefer more concrete premises for decision-making, without your rejecting their company? Or do you evince instances of your own complaint?
Mind you, just asking.
Love,
Smiles &
Drollery
- Your true Aquarian
(but you knew that, right? ;-)
Sioux Rose
When one sees evidence of something, they grant it respect. I will check the ephemeris before deciding to fly, and prefer to choose dates that look more harmonious than others. I always chart close relationships, family, friends, and lovers. What's always been fascinating to me is that I allow my instincts to determine whether a potential male suitor will become an intimate, or remain a friend. However, once that "boundary" has been crossed, it's always been true that anyone who has come into "the royal circle" has planets that fall in my 5th house (lover) or 7th (marriage partner).
There is a method of chart comparison where the two persons' charts become unified into one entity. This is based on configuring "the midpoints." Even in this system, of the few very close ties I've experienced, those that were based on romantic love, the dominant planets always fell in the 5th and 7th. When someone tried to fix me up with someone and the chemistry just wasn't there, sure enough I'd find the dominant planets in the 11th house... that of friendship.
My beliefs in astrology, reincarnation, the use of oracles, that the spiritual realm is superimposed over our tangible realm do not stop me from reading up on politics, ecology, different religions, psychology, great literature, etc. I believe in the widest possible education.
Astrology is holistic. Because of Western academic thinking, many take astrology as "a subject area." I see it as a comprehensive prism through which to view all areas of inquiry. Astrology is not against religion. One thing I related to the attorney today was a book called, "To Rule Both Night and Day" where references to the heavens were COUNTED from the Biblical texts.
Anyone who's really studied this subject, and I am not talking generic sun signs, usually comes out of the process with a sense of awe, along with a profound respect for the subject matter. My mind is open. I read constantly. I travel and converse with persons from different backgrounds, and I meditate and spend time inwardly listening. That Source provides me with a constant stream of ideas. I have written 7 children's books, 3 stage plays, 5 movie scripts, 3 serious astrology books, an entire teen series on astrology, course guides (as I have taught these subjects at community colleges) to Tarot, Numerology, and Astrology... and I have also taught Yoga, gymnastics (in my youth), and English literature, as well as speech and creative writing. Anyone who has dedicated 35-40 years to a topic and been published, done TV & radio, deserves respect. Astrologers were the first heretics and challenged the church's claim to immutable authority. From that day on, they have been castigated. Not because of ignorance or superstition, but because this subject, if understood is a true liberator and sets forth a profound (perhaps the ultimate) challenge to patriarchal religion, the root of authoritarianism.
So you're asking if one who takes in a holistic 12-fold orientation of Creation as a moving, vital, incredible mosaic, is intolerant when confronted by the type of person who has backed witchhunts that hunted down those of her ilk. The intolerant one is the one who claims there is only ONE right way to behave, and then presumes this is God, a white guy's view.
Some Aquarians, like Ronald Reagan, act like Republican Capricorns. It's based on a little thing known as the Precession of Equinoxes, but I'm not going to elaborate on that now. Perhaps this diatribe will satisfy today's detractors... although like whack-a-mole, they pop back up, regurgitate the same frames of attack, and then one from their tag teams demands that I explain. You are probably not one of those, but I have dealt with a few today. With tax season and a pending trip, end of the month articles due, I am NOT in the mood to keep repeating myself.
When one sees evidence of something, they grant it respect.
Then show us the reproducable evidence from peer reviewed scientifically researched sources?
Until then no respect.
Sioux
MORTICIA: You are cordially invited to go back to your mortuary or coffin, which ever your sensibilities prefer. I have told you before: A. It is not my JOB to teach astrology 101 in this forum. You want to learn about it, YOU do the work. As if I could transfer to you the basis and benefit of my studies across decades B. One cannot square the circle. Science likes exceedingly linear cause-effect models where a specific factor stands out. Astrology is a Gestalt. It goes way beyond sun sign designations.
I dislike your always severe and condescending tone. You can read my books and get back to me. Once you learn the relevant factors, then you'd be in a position to debate me. I might even respect you in such an instance. Meanwhile, I don't think you and I have ever been on the same side of ANY issue (and I'm not talking about astrology) in this forum. Thus with that lack of affinity, why would I try to do the heavy lifting of seeking to liberate, educate, or enlighten your earthbound mind? It takes many years to understand the complex factors. These work together the way notes in composition create musical scores. I have shared some analyses with those with eyes to see or minds open enough to understand. You elect to argue FOR your limitations (presuming your intent is not the less gracious goal of seeking to slay the star-messenger) so by all means enjoy them!
Wow.
After that reply, I feel as if a tab I took was stronger than I thought...
Tnx 4 yr reply, anyway, Sioux Rose. - No doubt about you being in earnest, at least. - I'm sure we're lucky to have smbd like you aboard who knows it all.
Just make sure not to do any confusing of levels when doing yr "holistic 12-fold orientation of Creation" (a teaching of which only the name admittedly makes me feel as if smbd drove a lawn-mower over my crown chakra).
You have my respect, just as long as you're not some rich, blond, white chick sporting new age chique and a usurped native American name.
Good luck with your pending articles. And your tax returns.
Sioux Rose -since I am fond of irreverence, what your attorney suffers from I call DBBS - Debilitating Binary Brain Syndrome. While not exclusively the domain of Religious fundamentalists they do make up a generous percentage of the afflicted.
For DBBS sufferers every thought (except faith which falls under blind belief and must be excluded) must pass through a blinkered binary lens to see if it falls under good or evil, black or white, if you are not for us you are against us, etc. No nuance is allowed.
Since much of law is a grey area, particularly when it comes to interpretation and litigation, I am at a loss to understand how any lawyer could be unable to indulge nuance.
As for biology, evolution can be proven in a dish of bacteria in an afternoon.
There is clearly no denser material in the universe than the cranium of a blind belief fundamentalist.
Sioux Rose
SANCTUARY: I like your definition. I tell you it stuns me to come upon a refined, intelligent mind that subscribes to such a black-white view of life. I believe it's indoctrinated through religions that promise great punishments to outsiders or "non-believers," an ethos also seen in the strong-passionately held affiliation with specific teams, each there to "slaughter" the other in the American sports arena. These two areas of worship condition minds to a very real either-or team approach to reality in general.
My worldview seeks a model that embraces differences, places them into harmonious alignment. Astrology's Divine circle of cosmic correspondences provides that for me. I am not seeking to convert anyone, but rather to present a view found in very few places. Those authors who generally sell well (in my field) cater to the human ego and write things like "The Seven Steps to Wealth Through Astrology." There are probably a handful or writers with knowledge of this subject who seek to use it as a reference for economic, political, or larger social trends. That is where I think I add something unique to this forum. And any who dislike the subject are quite free to pass my posts by. Insulting the field on the basis of ignorance will not be kindly tolerated as I consider that an assault on me as a person and professional.
SR,
Don't let the nay-sayers and the critics get you down. Personally I feel a great deal of respect for you, and those beliefs you hold. My two chief problems with astrology are 1) there seem to me more than twelve archetypes needed to fully plumb the human psyche; and 2) the predictive power of the ART of astrology is limited to the "skill", or rather innate abilities, of the horoscope caster; else you would not have such differing forecasts and so many schools of astrology.
For some people it seems to work, and with regards to yourself, work very well indeed.
Best wishes.
Gary
“I know nothing of the science of astrology and I consider it to be a science, if it is a science, of doubtful value, to be severely left alone by those who have any faith in Providence”
-- Mahatma Gandhi
"War Politics: Numb and Number" Numb and Dumber
Numbers are not accurate when it comes to anything about the wars. The cost,the injured, the children malnourished, the permanently disabled from injuries or malnutrition, the number of people who are mentally impaired for life, the children who are left as orphans,the slaughtered fighters and civilians. The U.S. does not do body counts!!! How can the U.S. follow rules of war that depend on the body count of civilians , if the Generals say "We don't do body counts?"
War Politics: Most Americans do not care about the numbers. They are numb to the numbers of suffering and dead in war, even numbers that tally up the tax money spent on the war . They do care about the tax money needed to save lives , should the Democrats get a spine and pass a National Health Care bill, as conservatives in both parties cry about the deficit. They are not numb but they get up from their couch and TV to protest the government spending money to help their neighbor.
Wayne Morse was a brave person, he was the small cloud on the horizon in 1964, the storm of criticism that was to stop the Vietnam war effort was to come flying along right after he spoke. Today, the situation is entirely different.
1. Very few main stream moral leaders have come out against the war-Howard Zinn-God rest his soul-Noam Chomsky and others notwithstanding, there are no equivalents to a Walter Cronkite or a Martin Luther King around today.
2. The main stream churches and their leaders seem to crouch unseen in fear-maybe that their tax exempt status will be pulled- and say nothing against the war.
Please don't overlook Kucinich, a Morse type.
Oh the main stream churches today are cowards, who don't understand that it takes more courage to Stand for Peace, instead of sending kids off to war.
>>Consent depends on information
In modern Physics.
Evolution is driven by the propogation, transformation and conservation of Energy and of Information.
Information accumulates and "progressively informs" the evolutionary process. This is at the heart of modern physics. The "evolution" of the Physical world and Universe, that of species and that of "Conciousness" itself all operate under those same principles.
In essence you can not evolve or progress as a society without information and if the information is false it will act to slow or even reverse progress.
In order to make a MORAL choice we must have the ability as human beings to make that choice and we can only make the most MORAL choice if we are properly informed.
A Government that refuses to divulge factual information to the people is acting immorally and acts against the greater good.
Governments that lie and that withold information are the true enemies of Liberty and Freedom.
wayne morse was one of the true patriots in AMERIKA. Stop giving your sons to the military and stop calling the soldiers who kill for AMERIKA, heroes.
Norman Solomon, the Democratic Party is at the helm of the war state you describe. Your 'progressive' Democrats had the chance to defund the war, and voted instead to continue it. In the midst of a painful recession, Obama has given us the largest military budget in US history.
What are you and PDA going to do? Keep voting for the Democratic party and pleading with them to please stop the war? What if they continue Bush's wars on Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Constitution? You'll probably keep voting for them, out of some distorted idea of 'realism'.
Here's realism for you: an anti-war movement that is wedded to a pro-war party is not going to stop the wars.
It's time for serious anti-war activists to get active with America's peace party: the Green Party. No more votes or dollars for fake anti-war politicians or groups like MoveOn. If the Democrats lose, it's because their campaign pledges turned out to be a pack of vicious lies.
Green is peace, justice, democracy, and ecology. gp.org
I love this clip of Wayne Morse. But I can feel no respect for the antagonist who is questioning him, who reminds me of so many talking heads today. I also find it impossible to respect our U.S. president whether he's black, green or white so long as he's numb to the realities of such an obviously misguided venture as that in Afghanistan. Or to respect people who won't speak out passionately against it.