A New Partnership
A new partnership between corporate America and its people could be easily attained in a few simple steps.
I would like to propose that a large Foundation, perhaps The Gates Foundation, contribute $100 Million dollars to feed a population lacking food that is growing beyond any level anyone could have anticipated. No need to go into the details of the events surrounding the rise in people without food except to say it is spiraling out of control affecting many levels of peoples from the homeless to the working poor.
This program would be a self-sustaining program. A one-time tax deductible donation from a charitable foundation would be placed into a bank account, preferably a local credit union, or a series of them to further bolster communities, wherein the principle would never be touched. With such a large donation even a safe return of 2.5% would conservatively yield $2,500,000 per year. In better times even more.
This revenue would then be used to purchase food from large stores like Safeway, Whole Foods, etc. on a regular contract basis at a reduced cost as patrons will not buy them anyway preferring instead to buy the more fresh product at market price. These foods would be those that are either outdated or very close. Too close for these firms to keep on their shelves but perfect when used immediately.
These foods would be sent to those charitable organizations that cook and serve and to those for outright distribution. Many such organizations exist and would be pleased to aid in feeding people as they already do.
The large chain store gets a regular outlet for clearing their shelves for new goods and gets paid for them reducing waste. Food sources get a steady stream of quality foods to assist those in need, the contributing Foundation gets endless good will not to mention press and the people get a healthy meal allowing them to be more whole physically not to mention the feeling of concern they receive from their community.
With that initial contribution the U.S. Government would be asked to contribute on a matching dollar program which would double the size of the reach and good will across the board. At a time when bailout money is flying off the printing presses in the billions, one hundred million is not a lot to ask for. And, in this way, the economic burden created in part by wages not rising with productivity over recent years would be bridged honestly as many good working people are not able to keep up even working multiple jobs.
Asking for a dollar matching program would show truly good will on the part of the U.S. Government and create a partnership that connects the corporate world, the Government, Charitable Organizations and the people all together in a healthy network with one simple defined goal; to feed people in need.
After all, if you can’t eat you can’t get out of poverty, homelessness or rise up from the status of working poor.
This would not be faith-based, nor would it favor any group except the people.
If you like the idea, I would be pleased to champion such a program for no pay whatsoever. In fact, other than meeting with The Foundation and the Government, I would prefer total anonymity as to keep the focus on the program itself. As I am white, hold a doctoral degree from an ivy institution albeit happily without money, I might be suspect by certain elements anyway. I have the will, the education both formally and streetwise to implement and oversee such a beautiful program and would like to institute it in the SF Bay Area with your generous assistance. I am more than familiar with many industries having worked for years as a private vendor having owned my own business and my degree is in clinical psychology so its’ a little tough to get passed me with any form of self-serving motivations.
A couple of decent tractor-trailers is all that is needed to run up and down the coast to pick up perishable goods and deliver them to existing outlets. The program is fundamentally a design to reduce food waste and place it where it can do the most good.
No new creation is required, no big office is necessary, no sprawling warehouse nor a national identity except what would be required to give credit to The Foundation from which the contribution would come and the charitable organizations who make the food available.
Large grocers while jumping the chance to actually get paid albeit at discounted levels for expiring goods may or may not want attention to such a program. Whatever their preference is fine. Our goal is simply to fill those trailers with food for the program.
This would be a serious but beautiful way to unite our causes for the benefit of people in our country as they struggle to make their way through the complexities of modern life.
Wouldn’t it be great to create something positive that outlasts ourselves?
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Fanfare For A New Common Man
And so, here we are. Our beautiful country with all its hope and promise rendered bankrupt, wholly insolvent, impoverished from top to bottom.
Shame really, in that it is such a beautiful country in so many ways. The parks, the mountains, the seashores and beaches not to mention the promise America has always held out hope for so many of us. But all that is gone now and we are set against a reality so difficult to get our heads around that it seems many of us would prefer to sally forth in the hopes that we might find our way back home. Back home to the old America we could trust and cherish. The America we could be proud of and treat as a family member, a lover, a trusted uncle. In that empty space that once was our country remains only the physical beauty of nature for us to witness and enjoy.
Watching reality unfold behind the news lines is a phenomena that seems to have so much impetus it is sad to see mountains of bullshit thrown at us daily in the hopes that we-the- people don’t notice what has happened. And, indeed, continues to be allowed to happen. The corruption we are witnessing in America is not only a stable form but actually is being protected by law. So, no real change should ever be expected.
But notice we do. We can see that the Bernie Madoff scandal was really just a simple plan to fleece people and that the SEC was complicit in the process. Undoubtedly the SEC profited along with Bernie for many years. All that happened there was that there were so many calls on the fund that the SEC could no longer run interference for the man. So, they pulled their support, moved their personal fortune elsewhere and allowed Bernie to finally go down. Articles and complaints surrounding this man go back as far as the ‘80s. Of course, the SEC probed him then and declared him fit. So, we can’t trust the market because we now know for certain that the SEC is a criminal enterprise in and of itself not beyond the reach of serious bribe monies. And Bernie had some real dough to spread around. So, forget investing in the market-at all.
We notice the banking industry which has rearranged the legalities in such a way as to allow themselves to participate in nearly any and all investment vehicles while dumbing down the requirements for solvency to the extent that there are many firms so insolvent that you should not be banking with them - at all. No value understanding derivatives, hedge funds or the bogus insurance sold by AIG. We notice it is criminal and so, we should simply avoid them. All of them. Let them fall by way of avoidance. Bad companies don’t deserve investors. They, as capitalists themselves, need to be allowed to fall, as capitalists. Go to a credit union, a very local one where the people who work there, save there, live nearby. No investing, just checking and Christmas club type stuff.
We notice home foreclosures and bankruptcies so steep in their rise as to absolutely confirm that we need not buy a home. Owning a home is a dream whose time has passed. Rent. Don’t like it, then move. Let that be someone else’s problem. Find somewhere you do like and do not buy there either. Live simpler either by choice or by force. Living simpler is the best revenge, truly. And do not spend a dime that you don’t absolutely have to spend. Let the economy fall in a natural and capitalistic way as they are depending upon you to spend, spur the economy and, in that way, bail them out-again. Capitalism calls for failure of firms that cannot survive on their own. Let them. After all, the mortgage you pay has been wrapped up in legalese-style bogus investment bullshit and gambled away even if you are making payments. Can’t trust homeownership anymore, so forget it. There is no recourse, so simply do not buy a home-ever.
We notice law enforcement struggling with nearly every aspect of enforcement. Except big white collar stuff. That area only requires an occasional fall guy to perpetuate the illusion of justice. A feeble attempt to stave off the inevitable. Nothing against law enforcement, but it should be obvious to anyone one that that is where the rubber-meets-1the-road. The biggest problem for law enforcement is about the same as the first two items spoken of here with one big exception. Law enforcement is simply doing its job. Trying to catch bad guys, make neighborhoods safer and all that. The problem here is that the laws they are enforcing are criminal in and of themselves. People are people. Law enforcement is made up of people as well. Getting around the law, even in small ways, as people must do to survive these days, is a profession in which law enforcement itself excels. Of course they do. Thy know exactly how people get caught. They know how to go about the right-way-to-do-the-wrong-thing. The exception for law enforcement though, is that, they are the line between our happiness and the enforcement of bad laws.
And the responsibility lies directly with law enforcement to see themselves not as a gang, not a being against the people but as a beacon for the truth they espouse. We desperately need for law enforcement to turn away from the people thereby facing the same direction, and face the law itself and say, ‘no, this is too much and we think it will just create more trouble, for all of us‘. Would you guys please have the balls-as you claim to have-and stand up for this country instead of allowing yourselves to be hijacked by the goons we call judges, politicians, leaders. If you are not for us; you are against us. Save us or you will fall along with us, as you are us and we you. This might be the single most important need we have today and the greatest challenge of all, The need to unite people, law and law enforcement cannot be overstated. It is imperative and requires new leadership from law enforcement as it is definitely not coming from political leadership. Speak up about the futility of the ‘war on drugs’. Speak up about the number of firearms on the street. Speak up about the lawyers, judges and the rest who pervert the system and then leave it to you-the cop-to deal with after they walk away usually headed to a lunch buffet or some equally inane event. Keep it simple. Keep it clean and mean it. They will listen to you if you take the time to organize and speak up. You would also find the people would admire you in a way you never thought possible. You, men in blue, would become the force you have always wanted to be, a force for good, for justice and with the backing of 300+ million grateful people. A single cop could then walk any street, in any town, knowing in full confidence that if there were to be an incident he or she would have the instant support of the people in the neighborhood who have a sincere interest in having law and justice as a cornerstone of their lives. Their neighborhoods. Protecting their kids, their homes, their businesses.
We notice our educational system, bereft of the ability to teach, burdened by requirements so menial, so tedious as to displace the time needed for actual instruction. And, so we see it in our children. The good news there is these kids today believe in nothing. Good because all we see is a continuous stream of manipulative bullshit, insulting bogus news and politicians who wreak of insincerity. So, to them, I say good on you. Don’t believe a damn thing anyone tells you. History books are fake. Society is not as it appears. And, yes, you are correct in feeling that you live in an alien world where you do not feel at home. A world that frightens you at times and drives you deeper into your friendships, sexual alliances, music and the culture of your youth that-at least-is honest. Study what you can. Do not give yourself wholly to the educational system without thought, and references. But do take away what you can. The internet will provide the rest. Be wary of where you get your news. Avoid corporate media completely. None of it is real. None of it is impartial. And, all of it is designed to influence the way you think rather than deliver information for you to digest on your own time, in your own fashion. Respectfully disregard your parents point of view. Respectfully offer yours. They may be decent but have been conditioned for year by the very news outlets you should seek to avoid.
We notice that you could join the military. The military is so permanent a part of our culture that it is now considered ‘a job’ and you can see in the commercials for computers, cars and the like, there is always a man or woman in uniform carrying the new laptop through the airport of considering a new car at some dealership. It appears corporate America is certain that a military job is here to stay and they are trying to tap into the soldier-market. The problem, of course, is that if you do sign up for service you don’t know where you are going. Nor do you know when you will be coming back. No matter what the paperwork says they can re-up you without notice, send you to battle or just have you scrub floors and toilets for years on end. And the pay is not that swift either.
If you do survive, not get killed in action or electrocuted by a ungrounded Halliburton shower stall, you will get to return to a family you do not know, a home in foreclosure, a wife who cannot understand you and a shadow of your former self. Divorce and alienation from family are frequently not far behind the returning vet. Here too, the law jumps in, pleased to take your home, represent your wife in divorce and then in your final appearance-bankruptcy court. If you do resist, law enforcement -who so eagerly touted their support of you when in uniform-will see you thrown out, made to be foolish and homeless. Then, they might say you just can’t hack it. Very few individuals survive modern military service. The ones who are killed might be the lucky ones. Their suffering is over quickly. The rest, many maimed, permanently concussed brains or suffering deep and unshakeable emotional trauma will find they can no longer function as both their country and their very selves have permanently changed in such a way that nothing makes sense anymore. Nothing. Should you mention any of this to the military; you will be called a ‘pussy’ and told to forget it.
So, now you are haunted by so many strange inexplicable memories. Many of which are violent ones juxtaposed to the incongruent and painful laughter of your fellow man in uniform. Men to whom you had to trust your life to and them to you. You cannot sleep so you cannot wake up for work, can’t keep normal hours as you are no longer in the ’norm’. The things you experienced have placed you so far outside the norm that you can’t even recognize mainstream America as a reasonable and wholesome place to be. Although you would desperately love to have actually returned home-even believed you could. Not just physically but in every way. But you have not returned. Only your body came back. The receding dream that was ballgames and barbecues has grown so small and so distant that you can hardly even see it even when it is right in front of you, children playing, meat cooking on the grill and yet-nothing. Flat. No feeling. You, after giving so very much of yourself to your country, are now unfit as a citizen. You look ok, but you are not. Strange how a terrorist is defined as someone who looks normal, fits in to blend in, and yet is not what he appears to be. Strange how, now after service; neither are you.
For you, the serviceman, take a little ecstasy. They are doing it in the high end research hospitals in that it is the only thing that works. Sorry to advocate a drug here but it is a b-line to getting back your feelings. You will love your kids again. You will love your wife and make love to her without that weird dominant feeling of wanting to abuse her in order to get off. The military won’t talk about this but they are doing it. So, get to it and do not wait. Any hip kid in your family or neighborhood can get it for you or you can have a pharmacist give you the pure form and go from there. Do it with your wife as it makes you sweet and loving and will reconnect you with your former self. Here again, you have to break the law only to survive.
We notice the small businessman, auto dealerships, store owners and the like wondering what they are going to do now. Business is so severely hit that even if you lay off nearly all of your employees you might still not make your nut. Overhead rising and incoming business and new prospects nearly non-existent. For you, you should do what leadership has embraced. Namely, take whatever is left of your business, move it somewhere else and file bankruptcy. Emerge under a new name and see if then you can ride out this storm albeit in a much smaller way. Just enough to stay in-the-game until such time, if ever, the economy recovers to a point where you can function again. Do not wait. Do it as soon as possible, like this week. And put aside any notions of decency in that you are stealing from yourself in making your bankruptcy. It is clearly sanctioned by the government as they allow it to happen all the time. We see it happening from Wall Street to Main Street. So, get to it. ‘Cheat’ yourself by stealing from yourself It’s the new American business model. And put the money in some form of cash or cash equivalents. Preferably offshore where you can access it by way of a routine ATM card. This way you can exclude the government and still care for your family. That’s important no matter what they tell you. They do it. So, you should too. And don’t feel too badly towards suppliers and workers. You have been asked to shoulder so heavy a burden that it is simply not possible. On a level field you are a success. The rules have changed; so too should you.
You cannot fight the government, massive insurance companies and then have law enforcement demand you acquiesce to their demands. Just no longer possible. So, get out now. Hit the beach. Go to the kids ball games. Read more. Get to know your wife better-again. Work on that perfect 5-iron with a slight draw. Get a smaller home. Be happy. Try gardening. It’s fun and you get to eat what you grow. Imagine that. Read Jefferson. He advocated precisely that lifestyle for Americans.
For those of you who place an inordinate amount of faith in the White House and its new inhabitants-forget it. New President a nice man? Yes, but the prior guys didn’t exactly set the bar very high so anyone looks good right now. Knows what he is doing? Doubtful. Same recycled old players doing the same old routines albeit with a lot more money floating around. But, remember, this President wants to get a second-term just as badly as did any other prior President. This is his day, his time, his moment in his history. It really has very little to do with any of us. If it did, this writer would not be able to write any of what has been written here-now would it? But, it is. We notice no help for home owners, small business, education or nearly any other critical area, i.e., critical to us. We do notice a lot of dollars going to the big guys and not even spit coming to the little guys. Continues to feel suspiciously like the trickle-down theory is alive and well.
For those of you who think you have ‘made it’, think again. This legal system has a huge appetite. And when it is finished feeding off the less fortunate, it will find you. You will find there are simply too many lawyers and not enough cases that are able to pay and that alone will bring you into court and relieve you of your assets. In the meantime, you will notice there are less and less places for you to go to ‘enjoy yourself’ as they are being shutdown. Restaurants are becoming common armed-robbery sites, golf courses are closing and even private yachting is suffering. Seems pirates are everywhere, on shore and off. No one is safe when large forces like government, corporate business and starving law firms are all combing their markets looking for cash. Your cash. They don’t care who or what you are, only that you do have cash or assets they can commandeer. And they will. They always do. That is what they do. That is all they do.
So, it is up to you to carve out your own space, your corner of the world in such a way as to be safe and not beholding to any institution or religion that would have you bereft of your life, your money and your work. Tank it now, cash in, walk away. And, if you find it is too late already, realize that these things you did were noble, that you were fleeced by a force much larger than yourself and-most important-your work was something you did; it is not who you are. Never was. Make new identifications with other things in your life. Again, your family, the good things that are here. The things that have always been here-right now.
Shame really, in that it is such a beautiful country in so many ways. The parks, the mountains, the seashores and beaches not to mention the promise America has always held out hope for so many of us. But all that is gone now and we are set against a reality so difficult to get our heads around that it seems many of us would prefer to sally forth in the hopes that we might find our way back home. Back home to the old America we could trust and cherish. The America we could be proud of and treat as a family member, a lover, a trusted uncle. In that empty space that once was our country remains only the physical beauty of nature for us to witness and enjoy.
Watching reality unfold behind the news lines is a phenomena that seems to have so much impetus it is sad to see mountains of bullshit thrown at us daily in the hopes that we-the- people don’t notice what has happened. And, indeed, continues to be allowed to happen. The corruption we are witnessing in America is not only a stable form but actually is being protected by law. So, no real change should ever be expected.
But notice we do. We can see that the Bernie Madoff scandal was really just a simple plan to fleece people and that the SEC was complicit in the process. Undoubtedly the SEC profited along with Bernie for many years. All that happened there was that there were so many calls on the fund that the SEC could no longer run interference for the man. So, they pulled their support, moved their personal fortune elsewhere and allowed Bernie to finally go down. Articles and complaints surrounding this man go back as far as the ‘80s. Of course, the SEC probed him then and declared him fit. So, we can’t trust the market because we now know for certain that the SEC is a criminal enterprise in and of itself not beyond the reach of serious bribe monies. And Bernie had some real dough to spread around. So, forget investing in the market-at all.
We notice the banking industry which has rearranged the legalities in such a way as to allow themselves to participate in nearly any and all investment vehicles while dumbing down the requirements for solvency to the extent that there are many firms so insolvent that you should not be banking with them - at all. No value understanding derivatives, hedge funds or the bogus insurance sold by AIG. We notice it is criminal and so, we should simply avoid them. All of them. Let them fall by way of avoidance. Bad companies don’t deserve investors. They, as capitalists themselves, need to be allowed to fall, as capitalists. Go to a credit union, a very local one where the people who work there, save there, live nearby. No investing, just checking and Christmas club type stuff.
We notice home foreclosures and bankruptcies so steep in their rise as to absolutely confirm that we need not buy a home. Owning a home is a dream whose time has passed. Rent. Don’t like it, then move. Let that be someone else’s problem. Find somewhere you do like and do not buy there either. Live simpler either by choice or by force. Living simpler is the best revenge, truly. And do not spend a dime that you don’t absolutely have to spend. Let the economy fall in a natural and capitalistic way as they are depending upon you to spend, spur the economy and, in that way, bail them out-again. Capitalism calls for failure of firms that cannot survive on their own. Let them. After all, the mortgage you pay has been wrapped up in legalese-style bogus investment bullshit and gambled away even if you are making payments. Can’t trust homeownership anymore, so forget it. There is no recourse, so simply do not buy a home-ever.
We notice law enforcement struggling with nearly every aspect of enforcement. Except big white collar stuff. That area only requires an occasional fall guy to perpetuate the illusion of justice. A feeble attempt to stave off the inevitable. Nothing against law enforcement, but it should be obvious to anyone one that that is where the rubber-meets-1the-road. The biggest problem for law enforcement is about the same as the first two items spoken of here with one big exception. Law enforcement is simply doing its job. Trying to catch bad guys, make neighborhoods safer and all that. The problem here is that the laws they are enforcing are criminal in and of themselves. People are people. Law enforcement is made up of people as well. Getting around the law, even in small ways, as people must do to survive these days, is a profession in which law enforcement itself excels. Of course they do. Thy know exactly how people get caught. They know how to go about the right-way-to-do-the-wrong-thing. The exception for law enforcement though, is that, they are the line between our happiness and the enforcement of bad laws.
And the responsibility lies directly with law enforcement to see themselves not as a gang, not a being against the people but as a beacon for the truth they espouse. We desperately need for law enforcement to turn away from the people thereby facing the same direction, and face the law itself and say, ‘no, this is too much and we think it will just create more trouble, for all of us‘. Would you guys please have the balls-as you claim to have-and stand up for this country instead of allowing yourselves to be hijacked by the goons we call judges, politicians, leaders. If you are not for us; you are against us. Save us or you will fall along with us, as you are us and we you. This might be the single most important need we have today and the greatest challenge of all, The need to unite people, law and law enforcement cannot be overstated. It is imperative and requires new leadership from law enforcement as it is definitely not coming from political leadership. Speak up about the futility of the ‘war on drugs’. Speak up about the number of firearms on the street. Speak up about the lawyers, judges and the rest who pervert the system and then leave it to you-the cop-to deal with after they walk away usually headed to a lunch buffet or some equally inane event. Keep it simple. Keep it clean and mean it. They will listen to you if you take the time to organize and speak up. You would also find the people would admire you in a way you never thought possible. You, men in blue, would become the force you have always wanted to be, a force for good, for justice and with the backing of 300+ million grateful people. A single cop could then walk any street, in any town, knowing in full confidence that if there were to be an incident he or she would have the instant support of the people in the neighborhood who have a sincere interest in having law and justice as a cornerstone of their lives. Their neighborhoods. Protecting their kids, their homes, their businesses.
We notice our educational system, bereft of the ability to teach, burdened by requirements so menial, so tedious as to displace the time needed for actual instruction. And, so we see it in our children. The good news there is these kids today believe in nothing. Good because all we see is a continuous stream of manipulative bullshit, insulting bogus news and politicians who wreak of insincerity. So, to them, I say good on you. Don’t believe a damn thing anyone tells you. History books are fake. Society is not as it appears. And, yes, you are correct in feeling that you live in an alien world where you do not feel at home. A world that frightens you at times and drives you deeper into your friendships, sexual alliances, music and the culture of your youth that-at least-is honest. Study what you can. Do not give yourself wholly to the educational system without thought, and references. But do take away what you can. The internet will provide the rest. Be wary of where you get your news. Avoid corporate media completely. None of it is real. None of it is impartial. And, all of it is designed to influence the way you think rather than deliver information for you to digest on your own time, in your own fashion. Respectfully disregard your parents point of view. Respectfully offer yours. They may be decent but have been conditioned for year by the very news outlets you should seek to avoid.
We notice that you could join the military. The military is so permanent a part of our culture that it is now considered ‘a job’ and you can see in the commercials for computers, cars and the like, there is always a man or woman in uniform carrying the new laptop through the airport of considering a new car at some dealership. It appears corporate America is certain that a military job is here to stay and they are trying to tap into the soldier-market. The problem, of course, is that if you do sign up for service you don’t know where you are going. Nor do you know when you will be coming back. No matter what the paperwork says they can re-up you without notice, send you to battle or just have you scrub floors and toilets for years on end. And the pay is not that swift either.
If you do survive, not get killed in action or electrocuted by a ungrounded Halliburton shower stall, you will get to return to a family you do not know, a home in foreclosure, a wife who cannot understand you and a shadow of your former self. Divorce and alienation from family are frequently not far behind the returning vet. Here too, the law jumps in, pleased to take your home, represent your wife in divorce and then in your final appearance-bankruptcy court. If you do resist, law enforcement -who so eagerly touted their support of you when in uniform-will see you thrown out, made to be foolish and homeless. Then, they might say you just can’t hack it. Very few individuals survive modern military service. The ones who are killed might be the lucky ones. Their suffering is over quickly. The rest, many maimed, permanently concussed brains or suffering deep and unshakeable emotional trauma will find they can no longer function as both their country and their very selves have permanently changed in such a way that nothing makes sense anymore. Nothing. Should you mention any of this to the military; you will be called a ‘pussy’ and told to forget it.
So, now you are haunted by so many strange inexplicable memories. Many of which are violent ones juxtaposed to the incongruent and painful laughter of your fellow man in uniform. Men to whom you had to trust your life to and them to you. You cannot sleep so you cannot wake up for work, can’t keep normal hours as you are no longer in the ’norm’. The things you experienced have placed you so far outside the norm that you can’t even recognize mainstream America as a reasonable and wholesome place to be. Although you would desperately love to have actually returned home-even believed you could. Not just physically but in every way. But you have not returned. Only your body came back. The receding dream that was ballgames and barbecues has grown so small and so distant that you can hardly even see it even when it is right in front of you, children playing, meat cooking on the grill and yet-nothing. Flat. No feeling. You, after giving so very much of yourself to your country, are now unfit as a citizen. You look ok, but you are not. Strange how a terrorist is defined as someone who looks normal, fits in to blend in, and yet is not what he appears to be. Strange how, now after service; neither are you.
For you, the serviceman, take a little ecstasy. They are doing it in the high end research hospitals in that it is the only thing that works. Sorry to advocate a drug here but it is a b-line to getting back your feelings. You will love your kids again. You will love your wife and make love to her without that weird dominant feeling of wanting to abuse her in order to get off. The military won’t talk about this but they are doing it. So, get to it and do not wait. Any hip kid in your family or neighborhood can get it for you or you can have a pharmacist give you the pure form and go from there. Do it with your wife as it makes you sweet and loving and will reconnect you with your former self. Here again, you have to break the law only to survive.
We notice the small businessman, auto dealerships, store owners and the like wondering what they are going to do now. Business is so severely hit that even if you lay off nearly all of your employees you might still not make your nut. Overhead rising and incoming business and new prospects nearly non-existent. For you, you should do what leadership has embraced. Namely, take whatever is left of your business, move it somewhere else and file bankruptcy. Emerge under a new name and see if then you can ride out this storm albeit in a much smaller way. Just enough to stay in-the-game until such time, if ever, the economy recovers to a point where you can function again. Do not wait. Do it as soon as possible, like this week. And put aside any notions of decency in that you are stealing from yourself in making your bankruptcy. It is clearly sanctioned by the government as they allow it to happen all the time. We see it happening from Wall Street to Main Street. So, get to it. ‘Cheat’ yourself by stealing from yourself It’s the new American business model. And put the money in some form of cash or cash equivalents. Preferably offshore where you can access it by way of a routine ATM card. This way you can exclude the government and still care for your family. That’s important no matter what they tell you. They do it. So, you should too. And don’t feel too badly towards suppliers and workers. You have been asked to shoulder so heavy a burden that it is simply not possible. On a level field you are a success. The rules have changed; so too should you.
You cannot fight the government, massive insurance companies and then have law enforcement demand you acquiesce to their demands. Just no longer possible. So, get out now. Hit the beach. Go to the kids ball games. Read more. Get to know your wife better-again. Work on that perfect 5-iron with a slight draw. Get a smaller home. Be happy. Try gardening. It’s fun and you get to eat what you grow. Imagine that. Read Jefferson. He advocated precisely that lifestyle for Americans.
For those of you who place an inordinate amount of faith in the White House and its new inhabitants-forget it. New President a nice man? Yes, but the prior guys didn’t exactly set the bar very high so anyone looks good right now. Knows what he is doing? Doubtful. Same recycled old players doing the same old routines albeit with a lot more money floating around. But, remember, this President wants to get a second-term just as badly as did any other prior President. This is his day, his time, his moment in his history. It really has very little to do with any of us. If it did, this writer would not be able to write any of what has been written here-now would it? But, it is. We notice no help for home owners, small business, education or nearly any other critical area, i.e., critical to us. We do notice a lot of dollars going to the big guys and not even spit coming to the little guys. Continues to feel suspiciously like the trickle-down theory is alive and well.
For those of you who think you have ‘made it’, think again. This legal system has a huge appetite. And when it is finished feeding off the less fortunate, it will find you. You will find there are simply too many lawyers and not enough cases that are able to pay and that alone will bring you into court and relieve you of your assets. In the meantime, you will notice there are less and less places for you to go to ‘enjoy yourself’ as they are being shutdown. Restaurants are becoming common armed-robbery sites, golf courses are closing and even private yachting is suffering. Seems pirates are everywhere, on shore and off. No one is safe when large forces like government, corporate business and starving law firms are all combing their markets looking for cash. Your cash. They don’t care who or what you are, only that you do have cash or assets they can commandeer. And they will. They always do. That is what they do. That is all they do.
So, it is up to you to carve out your own space, your corner of the world in such a way as to be safe and not beholding to any institution or religion that would have you bereft of your life, your money and your work. Tank it now, cash in, walk away. And, if you find it is too late already, realize that these things you did were noble, that you were fleeced by a force much larger than yourself and-most important-your work was something you did; it is not who you are. Never was. Make new identifications with other things in your life. Again, your family, the good things that are here. The things that have always been here-right now.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Houston;We Have A Problem
Out Of Touch With US
Or
Houston, We Have A Problem
Observation can be a powerful tool or a means to delude oneself. Like many aspects of life, duality reigns supreme and often leaves us in a place without sound conclusions. It has been called ‘The McNeil-Lehrer Syndrome’ after the PBS news broadcast that would attempt to give a fair and impartial analysis of an event usually ending in no conclusion at all.
The mind likes conclusive evidence especially when dealing with the more mundane but essential aspects of life. Homeownership, investments, work and family being just a few but frequently at the top of the list. Absent firm thinking, the mind tends to insert a belief to shore up an empty space in order to seek closure on a subject and allow itself to move on. Uncertainty is a terminal event for most individuals and even worse for a collective.
As we slide towards what is undoubtedly a serious decline in our 'living standards', the feeling of hopelessness are painfully evident expressing itself in the many suicides we are seeing in the civilian and military sectors. It appears we are unable to find the solace required to move on right now. It appears that the only insert we have for understanding what has happened to our society is simply too painful to accept. It appears we are floundering in every way because we do not like what we see, what we have seen and what we are bound to see a lot more of being on our current trajectory.
We know from our best efforts to unravel our existence, that we are all connected in ways beyond our ordinary perception. We understand a little about the forces of gravity, electromagnetism and the ubiquitous forces of the subatomic world. We have harnessed many aspects of these for our daily lives in the form of cell phones, televisions. automotive and pharmaceutical production, to name only a few. But it seems fairly certain that we have only addressed the larger aspects of these dynamics and - having ignored the underlying reality of our connectedness - we are suffering for ignoring or even denying the importance of the deeper ways in which we are truly connected
What I am suggesting here is not that we need to crack the unified field theory or to fully quantify consciousness. That would be nice but there seems to be a pretty good chance that we do not really have the luxury of time to do so. And time is fundamental to understanding both of those concepts. But that is a more esoteric discussion.
The more urgent call is to admit that we indeed are all connected and that we start to conduct ourselves accordingly. We seriously must adopt a standard of treatment for ourselves beyond what is being provided by the arcane and outmoded concepts we presently live by, like ‘the rule of law’ or ‘monetary development’. Underlying these are far more important principles that are the foundation for our existence and for our very survival. As important as gravity itself is the notion that if we live lives devoid of the recognition of fundamental truths, immutable and constant truths, that we will indeed fail as a civilization - as we are now witnessing.
The more urgent call is to admit that we indeed are all connected and that we start to conduct ourselves accordingly. We seriously must adopt a standard of treatment for ourselves beyond what is being provided by the arcane and outmoded concepts we presently live by, like ‘the rule of law’ or ‘monetary development’. Underlying these are far more important principles that are the foundation for our existence and for our very survival. As important as gravity itself is the notion that if we live lives devoid of the recognition of fundamental truths, immutable and constant truths, that we will indeed fail as a civilization - as we are now witnessing.
Our shortcomings are being manifested as people failing, not as systems collapsing or as business models being found out to be false or inadequate. It would be a specious argument to say the level of foreclosures is due to the excesses of those who have taken on too much for themselves as the loans were made available in ways never before seen. Predatory lending has been mentioned but we tend to steer away from that truth so as to protect the notion that we can preserve a system already intact with little or no effort. Simply by denying its existence, we hope to overcome. Or at least allow it to pass as a bad episode and to simply move along to the next sunny day with no real consideration for the what has really happened or, worse, how it affects the lives of millions of our brothers, sisters, mothers and children. Moving on with no honest assessment is making us dysfunctional as a society, as a group, as a country, perhaps even as a species.
Consider the exact same dynamic in the manner in which we conduct military operations today. Fabricated stories lead us to conflict creating further hatred and resulting in even more conflict and despair. A high-octane ride to nowhere. And when the facts arise to illustrate just how mistaken a path we have embarked upon, we look away, just as in our own domestic housing crisis. We look, we see, we stare and then we look away.
It doesn’t really matter whether you view the needs of humanity as those of some quantum force field of interconnectedness, some ether invisible but undeniable, as a Christian, a Jew or a Muslim. What is important is that you acknowledge that it is there. And that you yourself to need to benefit from this acknowledgement that we are all, indeed, not only connected but actually dependent upon one another for our very survival.
The notion that the differences in appearance of one culture to another, the phonetics of their speech, the color of their bodies or the spiritual beliefs they hold allow any one of us to view the other as separate from ourselves is such a serious shortcoming that unless we defeat that simple prejudice we cannot possible think we are to survive let alone flourish. And not because racism or religious intolerance is wrong - which it is - but far more than that it brings about such a distorted picture of our world that we wind up like the blind cave worm that lacks eyesight except having never developed an alternative sensory perception to at least see in that darkness we bring upon ourselves. In this way, we are less than that worm.
The notion that the differences in appearance of one culture to another, the phonetics of their speech, the color of their bodies or the spiritual beliefs they hold allow any one of us to view the other as separate from ourselves is such a serious shortcoming that unless we defeat that simple prejudice we cannot possible think we are to survive let alone flourish. And not because racism or religious intolerance is wrong - which it is - but far more than that it brings about such a distorted picture of our world that we wind up like the blind cave worm that lacks eyesight except having never developed an alternative sensory perception to at least see in that darkness we bring upon ourselves. In this way, we are less than that worm.
We are falling behind the evolutionary curve that nature has set for us here in our world. And we are being punished for squandering that right. We are suffering the shortcomings not only of leadership and greed - the paranoid actions of ignorant angry and punitive few - but also of the inexhaustible parade of humanity that keeps on repeating the same practices over and over with no regard to our actions in a larger context. We act as though we are only passersby taking what we can with no regard to the role we ourselves play in the process, never really considering that our most pure role is that of fellowship, of being stewards to this life, indeed to one another. The importance is not merely religious but actual. Use up the planet and we have nothing left.
Pervert the legal system and we have no application for our laws. Bleed the Treasury dry by way of political jargon transferring away the peoples wealth and we have the financial difficulties we are now witnessing. Allow our leadership to act as a glorified surfer, riding a wave of obvious duplicity only to retire after their particular wave energy ends and we are trapped in an endless cycle of wave-riders.
Surely military suicides are at an all time record high not because of the inability of the soldier to stand on their resolve but because the resolve on which they stand is false. Over time that all comes to the top and the result is a devastating toxic precipitant. Truth is an integral part of our existence as a specie. Truth is the foundation upon which we can rest our work, our efforts and the secure blanket that is actually our freedom. If violence worked, we here in the US would have long since found peace in it.
Truth appears, at first, to be as invisible a force as gravity or quantum mechanics. But as time goes by, we see the failures of our society manifested by the absence of truth. Without it we are doomed to repeat our shortcomings only to stare at our traumas, to allow an endless repetition of an endless procession of non-truths to dominate us as a people; as a nation, a civilization.
Is why the Founding Fathers first line was ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident’?
Saturday, January 24, 2009
We The Sheeple
We The Sheeple
So, tell me again why we fought WWII? I forgot. Was it to bring democracy and human rights to the forefront of civilization?
Was the Civil War supposed to unite us, rid us of slavery? Did we fight the Revolutionary War to free ourselves from Imperial England and religious dominance? I really forget.
I watched ‘Saving Private Ryan” again the other night. I was giddy with laughter - surprising myself - as I watched people getting blown to bits. Not because it was actually funny to me but because I was watching it while being squarely in the present and not allowing Spielberg to transport me to another time through the miracle of movies.
Watching that film while knowing how the efforts of WWII actually unfolded over the last 50 some odd years just brought me to the point of hysteria All those good American boys, dead. All the Mothers being informed of their great ‘sacrifice’ just made me roll in laughter. It also made me wonder, would those GI’s really have done all that if they knew we would later capitulate to the likes of the leadership that steals from the people here in our day?
To think, we evolved from that to the state of America as it actually is now is nothing less than comical. Present leaders did not serve in battle. They ducked the call using money and influence instead to allow them to do more fun things than enlist or fight for some dopey country, American or otherwise. Instead they prefer to fleece America, play golf, spend money and fly around the world speaking of dominance, lofty visions fueled by power and the violence they use to make people submit to their will, their needs, their lives and the ego-driven visions of absolute power.
Yeah, war movies crack me up. So many men involved in an activity that is clearly an utter and complete waste of time. Not because there aren’t bad guys out there. But because here are more bad guys in our own country and they damage they do is far and away worse than any war-ever.
Yes, it is tough to sit in a foxhole, armed and not knowing what’s coming next. But is also equally difficult to try and live a life in your own country when your government is making your life as difficult every day as it is for the short foxhole visit. There is no aspect of American life that speaks to freedom anymore; personal or otherwise. None. It is all a mirage where each and every freedom has been steadily eroded ultimately leaving the individual with no choices other than “would you like fries with that”?
What was the point of all the sacrifice made in the Revolutionary War, The Civil War or the WW's I and II if we arrived where we are now? Hysterical, right? We witness the atrocities of Israel upon the Palestinians after we freed them from the brutally terminal hands of the Germans. We fought and died so Israel could bomb children. And we arm them! We destroyed Iraq, an ancient culture that has been around since the earliest word of the Garden of Eden were spoken. Very funny stuff. So far away are the shores of Normandy.
We fought England so we could free ourselves from religious persecution, industrial exploitation and the arrogance of class dominance. We fought and died there too and for what? So we could have righteous sex-starved preachers give us free and unsolicited advice on how we should live? So we could establish a government that would tax and oppress us way beyond what the British would do? So we could work endless hours to pay taxes and mortgages on homes we cannot afford because the same government allows criminal acts by bankers to make life simply impossible to maintain-no mater how many jobs you have. Shitty jobs and frequently equally shitty houses.
You gotta admit. This is really funny stuff.
Banks broke, businesses gone, taxes rising, money diminishing. And yet, the government simply goes on reframing the past yet again to place themselves in a good light in front of a public too young to remember truth, too afraid to ask for it and too self-absorbed to really care anyway.
Want fries with that?
And why should they care? No one else does. We live in a world where Congress does not work. The feign activity seeking that spotlight moment that will allow them keep their job - not help you find yours. They want to retire whole and complete with plenty of material security for their families - not for yours. They want to leave a legacy they can proud of citing some humane achievement so distant and impractical, so bound up in legalese and wrapped in a flag of never ending patriotism so as to do nothing but drown out discontent. To drown you out. Completely. Period.
It has been a long, long time, long since passed where we have had the likes of statesman like Jefferson & Friends. Men who, knowing they were already rich, cultured and privileged, and yet debated endlessly in the present to assure the future of this country of ours. This thing of ours. Morphed many times over, hardly discernable from it’s own origins, a terminal grotesque parody of our former great selves. Such is the stuff of what we have become.
The ultimate reduction is that without the debate, we are simply not ourselves. So starved are we for the debate, a national dialogue, that we create and re-create organizations over and over again in a feigned attempt to stage an inclusive debate even if only to give us the ‘illusion’ of participation in our actual lives, our country, our direction and what we truly want to stand for. You can join all sorts of groups - all substitutes for a real democracy. Groups that help you watch-your-weight, pray to your religion, quilt a rug, divulge the horrors of your life so you can move on. All suspiciously designed to make you feel part of The Collective we like to call ‘America’. Even the term ‘America’ seems and feels foreign to me, in my soul. I no longer have an easy feeling about our country. I love it. Always have. I am a Yankee, in fact. And Yankee blood runs deep. As deep as the South, the West or all parts of this country. Well, ok, not so much he West.
But now, I feel like a man-without-a-country, to borrow a line.
Strange, I do feel a kinship to my fellow Americans, but not to the government that appears to stand between us, our work, our beliefs, our civilities. It would be nice to see the powers-that-be stop taxing us to make their ends meet, put regulations in place in every transaction involving a white-collar entanglement, invest in us instead of every other ‘them’ they can create to in the never ending wrestling away of wealth from us - the people - to themselves - our representatives.
I don’t hate the government. I just feel they are sick. Sick with money-fever; power-fever and just are so addicted to the process that they cannot tell the truth from a lie. Nor our needs from their personal needs. Going to Washington appears o be a license to steal; nothing more. They are selective in their application of the law allowing themselves to be free of such quaint practice. And for us, well, we get in trouble simply for driving too fast or for going too slow.
If the government were a friend, a person, an individual whom I cared for, I would say it was time for an intervention. An intervention to free them of their cycle of despair, conceit and greed. Washington is a Hall of Mirrors for the conceited, the arrogant narcissistic megalo-maniacal.
They are just people. Like you. Like me. But making laws to suit them.
And it needs to be corrected to a level that honestly represents the people without diluting our needs in endless discussion invoking terms like ‘healthcare’ ,‘campaign reform’ and ’national security’ over and over until we are numb with the words and completely lose the meaning. We really need to make a change in the very way we govern ourselves. Not to a new system but back to the old. The Constitution was pretty comprehensive. And, I have not yet seen a replacement arise to which we should yield our civilization.
A return to open discussion may be wishful thinking but I am always enamored with the idea. I would love to be able to openly discuss the fact hat I think an administration that breaks the law is culpable and should be punished. After all, how can we go forward without maintaining our laws and seeing them properly applied to war crimes and the rest of it.
I would love to be able to openly discuss the enormous trouble heaped upon us by the police and all the homeland security experts that have duped us into believing we live in a dangerous world an that the only way we can survive is under their protection. Their supervision. Their demands. Their needs. Ever notice money flows towards them? Ever notice they seem to accumulate more and more power and invariably use that same power to keep you in your place. Not some imaginary terrorist. You.
In just my county alone, there are more than 400 positions that pay a six-figure salary. Often the pay comes long with a shiny truck with symbols and badges on it. Fire, police, animal rescue ,and even postal police. Many of these salaries run well into the $200K and $300K range for fire marshals; whatever that is. Aren’t firemen enough? Do we need a marshal? Will we declare a war-on-fire next? Didn’t American business cut out middle management by necessity back in the late ‘80s, early ‘90’s?
I don’t think we are going to be saved by the police or the firemen. I think we should greatly reduce their numbers and make them stay in their firehouses or stations until they are called out for a particular need. Sorry, this is not anti American. It is free speech. A nearby town went bankrupt some six months ago and fired nearly all the police. Crime did not rise. Violence did not surge. Nothing happened. No-thing.
We must be a lot better people than they seem to want us to think we are.
And we have definitive proof that the FBI, CIA and NSA cannot effect a positive outcome. In fact, not only do they miss the chance to ‘save’ us, they create enormous divisions within our country and with that of other countries. This is no accident. Divisiveness creates opportunity for those pledged to defend. Nothing to defend means that very large sector of our population is simply not necessary. A position they find untenable and therefore they seek create disturbances like he ones we saw at our last national conventions leading up to the presidential election. Completely unnecessary. Completely fabricated and executed by law enforcement against a people who are desperate to be heard. I guess we are not all the same people. It appears to be us and them. How sad. But there are many of us. We should give this some consideration.
Here is what we do know. We know that the actions of a violent Pentagon foster terrorism. We need to recognize that the Pentagon wants, solicits and maintains violence. It is their business. It is their livelihood. It is what they do. It is all they do. That places them at odds with the wishes of the American people. They export violence and are a for-profit organization that feeds money we don't have to corporations that dont need it.
We know that the Pentagon is the violent arm of the unfettered capitalism we have witnessed brought to the foreground by the likes of Milton Friedman. We know that the US will use violence overtly, clandestine if necessary, to create opportunity for US companies to get cheap raw materials, cheap labor and all forms of energy.
As a nation, we need to change the way we view our government in order to clearly recognize who and what we have allowed them to become. By way of example; recently we saw the automotive firms begging for bailout money. General Motors was desperate. For several weeks the Senate was posturing as to whether they would or should help our GM. GM stock tanked, the country was mixed on how they felt about GM. They posed questions about the safety of the overall economy should GM be allowed to fail. On and on. Merely theatre, though.
The reality is quite different. The logic is more razor-sharp and goes a little like this. The Senate does not care about the union jobs or whether GM ever makes another vehicle-ever. The only equation to be considered is this: We need GM because they use a lot of oil. We need Exxon-Mobil because they maintain our need for a presence in the middle east. We need to be involved in the middle east because the Pentagon needs a threat to justify the trillion a year they receive to ‘protect’ us and, in turn, feed the corporations. All the rest is posturing. A bitter pill to be sure but a reality we witness and consequences we endure daily as citizens of what has long since become runaway train of a country.
The damage done by government far outweighs the troubles brought on by individual citizens, (sadly quoting Jefferson long ago). Criminals are rare except in DC. We need to be clear about this and to let them know that we know. It is they who are addicted to oil. Not us. It is they who benefit from that dependency, not us.
Remove GM and you have a lot less American vehicles running on the road. Less fuel demand, more stability.,….very bad for government business. Which means peace will never be given to the people, here or abroad. There’s no money in it. Peace would make for freedom, freedom would render our government powerless and undermine their ability to requisition monies for their needs. Not yours. Their needs.
Again, you find yourself at odds with your own government. Your country. And by way of having done nothing. Just working, paying taxes, abiding in the laws and yet, here you are able to see how we have all become at-risk. Perhaps it is by doing nothing that we are guilty.
Our leaders make appearances in Sunday Church to give the illusion that follow some form of law, a higher law that would by definition have to be inclusive of forms of life. But they do not. The most critical needs of our society have been repeated over and over, ad nauseum, so that the very words like ‘campaign reform’, ‘clean air’, ‘human rights' have been so diluted as to be inaccessible to us-the people. Topics like abortion and gay rights surface only during election years to be used divisively to garner attention and votes. Equality for women has been perverted into a very long work week for many with less pay.
To play with your life on so personal a basis is not the function of government. And yet, that is all they do.
We would do better to have our leaders blindfolded and throwing darts at a board marked yes or no when voting on the best course for our country. That would, at least, remove the special interests straight away and allow us a 50-50 chance of succeeding. As it stands, we may be exercising hope over reason.
And now, inauguration day for a new leader, we are so weakened that we are goaded into placing all of our hopes in a new man. One man. So weakened are we and so ineffectual is our role that we stand helpless, waiting, staring and wondering if ‘we’ will succeed. If success only means to consume, we probably will succeed even if only to bump along. But, if we are to seek a better order, a truly inclusive and safer world, we need to do more. We can begin by ridding ourselves o the excesses heaped upon us by the military and begin a meaningful dialogue with all nations. No matter who approves or who does not.
And if these writings are viewed as anti-anything, so be it. We should set our sights on a more meaningful world and go after it at all costs and not concern ourselves with criticisms from newspapers, politicians, military leaders or businesses or even spiritual leaders.
They have their needs; we have ours.
So, tell me again why we fought WWII? I forgot. Was it to bring democracy and human rights to the forefront of civilization?
Was the Civil War supposed to unite us, rid us of slavery? Did we fight the Revolutionary War to free ourselves from Imperial England and religious dominance? I really forget.
I watched ‘Saving Private Ryan” again the other night. I was giddy with laughter - surprising myself - as I watched people getting blown to bits. Not because it was actually funny to me but because I was watching it while being squarely in the present and not allowing Spielberg to transport me to another time through the miracle of movies.
Watching that film while knowing how the efforts of WWII actually unfolded over the last 50 some odd years just brought me to the point of hysteria All those good American boys, dead. All the Mothers being informed of their great ‘sacrifice’ just made me roll in laughter. It also made me wonder, would those GI’s really have done all that if they knew we would later capitulate to the likes of the leadership that steals from the people here in our day?
To think, we evolved from that to the state of America as it actually is now is nothing less than comical. Present leaders did not serve in battle. They ducked the call using money and influence instead to allow them to do more fun things than enlist or fight for some dopey country, American or otherwise. Instead they prefer to fleece America, play golf, spend money and fly around the world speaking of dominance, lofty visions fueled by power and the violence they use to make people submit to their will, their needs, their lives and the ego-driven visions of absolute power.
Yeah, war movies crack me up. So many men involved in an activity that is clearly an utter and complete waste of time. Not because there aren’t bad guys out there. But because here are more bad guys in our own country and they damage they do is far and away worse than any war-ever.
Yes, it is tough to sit in a foxhole, armed and not knowing what’s coming next. But is also equally difficult to try and live a life in your own country when your government is making your life as difficult every day as it is for the short foxhole visit. There is no aspect of American life that speaks to freedom anymore; personal or otherwise. None. It is all a mirage where each and every freedom has been steadily eroded ultimately leaving the individual with no choices other than “would you like fries with that”?
What was the point of all the sacrifice made in the Revolutionary War, The Civil War or the WW's I and II if we arrived where we are now? Hysterical, right? We witness the atrocities of Israel upon the Palestinians after we freed them from the brutally terminal hands of the Germans. We fought and died so Israel could bomb children. And we arm them! We destroyed Iraq, an ancient culture that has been around since the earliest word of the Garden of Eden were spoken. Very funny stuff. So far away are the shores of Normandy.
We fought England so we could free ourselves from religious persecution, industrial exploitation and the arrogance of class dominance. We fought and died there too and for what? So we could have righteous sex-starved preachers give us free and unsolicited advice on how we should live? So we could establish a government that would tax and oppress us way beyond what the British would do? So we could work endless hours to pay taxes and mortgages on homes we cannot afford because the same government allows criminal acts by bankers to make life simply impossible to maintain-no mater how many jobs you have. Shitty jobs and frequently equally shitty houses.
You gotta admit. This is really funny stuff.
Banks broke, businesses gone, taxes rising, money diminishing. And yet, the government simply goes on reframing the past yet again to place themselves in a good light in front of a public too young to remember truth, too afraid to ask for it and too self-absorbed to really care anyway.
Want fries with that?
And why should they care? No one else does. We live in a world where Congress does not work. The feign activity seeking that spotlight moment that will allow them keep their job - not help you find yours. They want to retire whole and complete with plenty of material security for their families - not for yours. They want to leave a legacy they can proud of citing some humane achievement so distant and impractical, so bound up in legalese and wrapped in a flag of never ending patriotism so as to do nothing but drown out discontent. To drown you out. Completely. Period.
It has been a long, long time, long since passed where we have had the likes of statesman like Jefferson & Friends. Men who, knowing they were already rich, cultured and privileged, and yet debated endlessly in the present to assure the future of this country of ours. This thing of ours. Morphed many times over, hardly discernable from it’s own origins, a terminal grotesque parody of our former great selves. Such is the stuff of what we have become.
The ultimate reduction is that without the debate, we are simply not ourselves. So starved are we for the debate, a national dialogue, that we create and re-create organizations over and over again in a feigned attempt to stage an inclusive debate even if only to give us the ‘illusion’ of participation in our actual lives, our country, our direction and what we truly want to stand for. You can join all sorts of groups - all substitutes for a real democracy. Groups that help you watch-your-weight, pray to your religion, quilt a rug, divulge the horrors of your life so you can move on. All suspiciously designed to make you feel part of The Collective we like to call ‘America’. Even the term ‘America’ seems and feels foreign to me, in my soul. I no longer have an easy feeling about our country. I love it. Always have. I am a Yankee, in fact. And Yankee blood runs deep. As deep as the South, the West or all parts of this country. Well, ok, not so much he West.
But now, I feel like a man-without-a-country, to borrow a line.
Strange, I do feel a kinship to my fellow Americans, but not to the government that appears to stand between us, our work, our beliefs, our civilities. It would be nice to see the powers-that-be stop taxing us to make their ends meet, put regulations in place in every transaction involving a white-collar entanglement, invest in us instead of every other ‘them’ they can create to in the never ending wrestling away of wealth from us - the people - to themselves - our representatives.
I don’t hate the government. I just feel they are sick. Sick with money-fever; power-fever and just are so addicted to the process that they cannot tell the truth from a lie. Nor our needs from their personal needs. Going to Washington appears o be a license to steal; nothing more. They are selective in their application of the law allowing themselves to be free of such quaint practice. And for us, well, we get in trouble simply for driving too fast or for going too slow.
If the government were a friend, a person, an individual whom I cared for, I would say it was time for an intervention. An intervention to free them of their cycle of despair, conceit and greed. Washington is a Hall of Mirrors for the conceited, the arrogant narcissistic megalo-maniacal.
They are just people. Like you. Like me. But making laws to suit them.
And it needs to be corrected to a level that honestly represents the people without diluting our needs in endless discussion invoking terms like ‘healthcare’ ,‘campaign reform’ and ’national security’ over and over until we are numb with the words and completely lose the meaning. We really need to make a change in the very way we govern ourselves. Not to a new system but back to the old. The Constitution was pretty comprehensive. And, I have not yet seen a replacement arise to which we should yield our civilization.
A return to open discussion may be wishful thinking but I am always enamored with the idea. I would love to be able to openly discuss the fact hat I think an administration that breaks the law is culpable and should be punished. After all, how can we go forward without maintaining our laws and seeing them properly applied to war crimes and the rest of it.
I would love to be able to openly discuss the enormous trouble heaped upon us by the police and all the homeland security experts that have duped us into believing we live in a dangerous world an that the only way we can survive is under their protection. Their supervision. Their demands. Their needs. Ever notice money flows towards them? Ever notice they seem to accumulate more and more power and invariably use that same power to keep you in your place. Not some imaginary terrorist. You.
In just my county alone, there are more than 400 positions that pay a six-figure salary. Often the pay comes long with a shiny truck with symbols and badges on it. Fire, police, animal rescue ,and even postal police. Many of these salaries run well into the $200K and $300K range for fire marshals; whatever that is. Aren’t firemen enough? Do we need a marshal? Will we declare a war-on-fire next? Didn’t American business cut out middle management by necessity back in the late ‘80s, early ‘90’s?
I don’t think we are going to be saved by the police or the firemen. I think we should greatly reduce their numbers and make them stay in their firehouses or stations until they are called out for a particular need. Sorry, this is not anti American. It is free speech. A nearby town went bankrupt some six months ago and fired nearly all the police. Crime did not rise. Violence did not surge. Nothing happened. No-thing.
We must be a lot better people than they seem to want us to think we are.
And we have definitive proof that the FBI, CIA and NSA cannot effect a positive outcome. In fact, not only do they miss the chance to ‘save’ us, they create enormous divisions within our country and with that of other countries. This is no accident. Divisiveness creates opportunity for those pledged to defend. Nothing to defend means that very large sector of our population is simply not necessary. A position they find untenable and therefore they seek create disturbances like he ones we saw at our last national conventions leading up to the presidential election. Completely unnecessary. Completely fabricated and executed by law enforcement against a people who are desperate to be heard. I guess we are not all the same people. It appears to be us and them. How sad. But there are many of us. We should give this some consideration.
Here is what we do know. We know that the actions of a violent Pentagon foster terrorism. We need to recognize that the Pentagon wants, solicits and maintains violence. It is their business. It is their livelihood. It is what they do. It is all they do. That places them at odds with the wishes of the American people. They export violence and are a for-profit organization that feeds money we don't have to corporations that dont need it.
We know that the Pentagon is the violent arm of the unfettered capitalism we have witnessed brought to the foreground by the likes of Milton Friedman. We know that the US will use violence overtly, clandestine if necessary, to create opportunity for US companies to get cheap raw materials, cheap labor and all forms of energy.
As a nation, we need to change the way we view our government in order to clearly recognize who and what we have allowed them to become. By way of example; recently we saw the automotive firms begging for bailout money. General Motors was desperate. For several weeks the Senate was posturing as to whether they would or should help our GM. GM stock tanked, the country was mixed on how they felt about GM. They posed questions about the safety of the overall economy should GM be allowed to fail. On and on. Merely theatre, though.
The reality is quite different. The logic is more razor-sharp and goes a little like this. The Senate does not care about the union jobs or whether GM ever makes another vehicle-ever. The only equation to be considered is this: We need GM because they use a lot of oil. We need Exxon-Mobil because they maintain our need for a presence in the middle east. We need to be involved in the middle east because the Pentagon needs a threat to justify the trillion a year they receive to ‘protect’ us and, in turn, feed the corporations. All the rest is posturing. A bitter pill to be sure but a reality we witness and consequences we endure daily as citizens of what has long since become runaway train of a country.
The damage done by government far outweighs the troubles brought on by individual citizens, (sadly quoting Jefferson long ago). Criminals are rare except in DC. We need to be clear about this and to let them know that we know. It is they who are addicted to oil. Not us. It is they who benefit from that dependency, not us.
Remove GM and you have a lot less American vehicles running on the road. Less fuel demand, more stability.,….very bad for government business. Which means peace will never be given to the people, here or abroad. There’s no money in it. Peace would make for freedom, freedom would render our government powerless and undermine their ability to requisition monies for their needs. Not yours. Their needs.
Again, you find yourself at odds with your own government. Your country. And by way of having done nothing. Just working, paying taxes, abiding in the laws and yet, here you are able to see how we have all become at-risk. Perhaps it is by doing nothing that we are guilty.
Our leaders make appearances in Sunday Church to give the illusion that follow some form of law, a higher law that would by definition have to be inclusive of forms of life. But they do not. The most critical needs of our society have been repeated over and over, ad nauseum, so that the very words like ‘campaign reform’, ‘clean air’, ‘human rights' have been so diluted as to be inaccessible to us-the people. Topics like abortion and gay rights surface only during election years to be used divisively to garner attention and votes. Equality for women has been perverted into a very long work week for many with less pay.
To play with your life on so personal a basis is not the function of government. And yet, that is all they do.
We would do better to have our leaders blindfolded and throwing darts at a board marked yes or no when voting on the best course for our country. That would, at least, remove the special interests straight away and allow us a 50-50 chance of succeeding. As it stands, we may be exercising hope over reason.
And now, inauguration day for a new leader, we are so weakened that we are goaded into placing all of our hopes in a new man. One man. So weakened are we and so ineffectual is our role that we stand helpless, waiting, staring and wondering if ‘we’ will succeed. If success only means to consume, we probably will succeed even if only to bump along. But, if we are to seek a better order, a truly inclusive and safer world, we need to do more. We can begin by ridding ourselves o the excesses heaped upon us by the military and begin a meaningful dialogue with all nations. No matter who approves or who does not.
And if these writings are viewed as anti-anything, so be it. We should set our sights on a more meaningful world and go after it at all costs and not concern ourselves with criticisms from newspapers, politicians, military leaders or businesses or even spiritual leaders.
They have their needs; we have ours.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
My Fellow Hamsters
My Fellow Hamsters
Yesterday, at the gym while on a treadmill feeling like a hamster, I was introduced to a man I did not know by a fellow hamster. The man was stocky, wide as a tree trunk, eyes watery red carrying the prior nights suffering forward with him to the health club that day. I forget his name, he mentioned he was Jewish and did some sort of work in conflict resolution. He began to speak with the hamster I knew and his story was that he had a beef against Citibank in that he was trying to get a construction loan converted to a permanent mortgage and was having difficulty with the bank in making that final step to his new home. He was frustrated and spoke in detail and at length about the case, as he saw it. His suffering was palpable, his familiarity indicative of hours of pouring over the paperwork and internalizing every jot, every letter believing it was relevant to his life.
As I treaded staring at the endless images of a world gone bad being delivered by smiling faces on CNN that speak detached countenance, I half listened to his story about how the bank was refusing him, not honoring their promise and how his paperwork was actually different from theirs. He felt that somehow, someone had made changes to the file at the bank that favored them and placed him in a bad position financially and stood in the way of his finding a final resting place in the system of loans and interest payments. I morbidly mused that someone should have to fight to find their way to endless payments and finally death was bizarre but that this was our country, our world, our dream. We fought and died for exactly this privilege and, frequently, were locked out of even that world. I only asked if he was a lawyer, he replied no but that he had tons of experience in conflict resolution.
He went on at length speaking of rights, justice and perhaps a class-action lawsuit against the mega-bank and that he would make an internet posting to determine if he could muster enough souls for such an action. The internet, the final solution.. He seemed intelligent but was full of angst and kept repeating he had quite a lot of experience in conflict resolution negotiations. I wondered if he realized how small he felt and if he knew he was saying these things to bolster his bravado against a giant, him seemingly David with perhaps a lot less than even a slingshot at his disposal as his defense.
I wondered if he knew that all he felt important would quickly be cast aside in favor of the more arcane practice of law. That truth and feelings have no place in the courtroom. That law is only so much theatre and that justice is a complete illusion. That law energizes the idea of justice but betrays its existence in the final analysis. Did he know he would not find his feelings, his needs, even his paperwork to be unimportant? Did he not realize that he would find himself an unimportant case in a room without witnesses? A room full of strangers to him but not to each other? That the bank has an army of lawyers working full time to guard their empire and that judge was a lawyer too whose phone number is in the speedy dial of the bank lawyers? That the bar meets in Las Vegas every year - clearly the Mecca of education - and that the judges go their too?
That the black robe of anonymity was much darker, more duplicitous than the simple pristine Aryan outfits of the Klu Klux Klan and more dangerous to people of any color, any race, any gender was lost on this poor soul. The black robe states an opposite and misleading purpose. The only grace of the white Klan robe is that it states an honest, if not bigoted, perverted message. I puzzled over which was truly worse. One black, dishonest and horrific; the other white honest and equally horrific. As CNN blared about injustice breaking regularly for commercials, ever smiling, wiggling and primping for the camera; he wailed about his dilemma apparently unaware that the knowledge he required was thinly veiled in every report being made right there on the television. Ubiquitous injustice.
I was tempted to advise him to see what firm the bank was using and then to find a second firm who was close to the first one and offer a lot of money to the firm he would retain allowing them to simply make a phone call, tell the bank lawyers to place his paperwork on top of the stack and let them split up his fees and keep the extra money. I wanted to tell him that this was how it really worked and that all of his feelings were as unimportant as is any case that takes place in a closed room in a building heavily guarded where they have to be armed and have metal detectors at the entrance because what they do in there is not what the people were promised.
I relented as I have found that unless you have personally had experience; you would simply never believe the courts are really just a gang that is more concerned about transferring your wealth towards themselves and are frequently consumed with how their hair looks and what time the Chinese buffet closes rather than whether you are finding, if not justice, simply a tenable position in order to go forward in your life. That there is no litmus test for the end of the case as to whether or not it makes sense but rather it just becomes a pile of words - one on top of another - ending up in an incomprehensible mountain of nothing by design. No one thinking of the family, their work, the person, the man, the woman, the child. No moral litmus test that might ask, ‘did I do right here’ or ‘will these people be ok, did I treat them as I would my mother, my brother, my sister, myself’?
I knew he did not understand this. I was tempted to tell the hamster I did know that she should tell her friend he needs to find a way to reach one lawyer through another and simply funnel money through that connection. And that going to court to seek justice was like trying spit into the ocean and stay dry or it was akin to grabbing a wolf by one ear. That Jesus could walk on water but not save himself when righteous others sat in judgment of Him is all one needs to know in examining the perversion of law and words.
I wondered if he realized that justice was considered a quaint notion found only in the writings of the Founding Fathers but was considered an insignificant and small historical aspect of modern day legal practice. That he was speaking in a fashion so self-absorbed to have eclipsed his fundamental understanding of nature, of how the exercising of power of strong men over weaker men was akin to the laws of gravity, immutable, cruel and unrelenting.
Clearly, he was traumatized and ready for mental treatment knowing instinctively he was headed for cruel and unusual punishment-the cornerstone of law.
I had a brief reprieve thinking how the weight of law - like gravity - eventually makes us all sag and how this inescapable progression is proving all people will feel that weight. I understood though that he was retreating into a comfortably anachronistic world, simple yet juvenile like a fifth grade history book that prepares the next generation of victims, speaking of justice, rights and that he was creating a framework within which to function knowing he was up against an insurmountable task-to defend his life against well-dressed moneyed men and women. And on their turf, on their field of battle. Not his. He would be frisked and made to leave even his slingshot at the gates of this arena upon entering. That this is their house, their rules, their findings and that justice was theirs to do with as they see fit. That if you defer from their approach, they lock you up and show you they can make things even worse for you than simply being without a home or losing your life’s work. You lose your liberty and the freedom that comes with personal accomplishment.
That after such an experience you would be shattered as a man, a grotesque parody of your former self, made to avoid any form of mainstream living and actually be grateful for even the sunlight streaming into your empty day while the rest of the world works unaware that they too are only a step away from meeting these same people. That he could easily find himself going before the very same judge in an orange suit, shackles on his feet and hands, bound together and then by a loop of chain to the other five men some whom may have experienced the same back to back sleepless nights, cold and literally naked, an eerily strange iron place with iron door slamming sounds punctuating the night over and over again, mouth dry, pasty from having no toothbrush, unshaven, hair standing upright, looking like someone who might actually deserve such a fate. That he could go from a place of privilege to being permanently locked out from the system only to be grateful he was not locked up in it.
That his only form of ID would become a Safeway card. That income, insurance and ownership - of any kind - would become unavailable to him. Against this backdrop of understanding, I was tempted to scream to him that bribing was more effective, less painful and the only solution to his problem. Pay one lawyer to pay of another. It is legal. It is gravity. It is his only true right.
Yesterday, at the gym while on a treadmill feeling like a hamster, I was introduced to a man I did not know by a fellow hamster. The man was stocky, wide as a tree trunk, eyes watery red carrying the prior nights suffering forward with him to the health club that day. I forget his name, he mentioned he was Jewish and did some sort of work in conflict resolution. He began to speak with the hamster I knew and his story was that he had a beef against Citibank in that he was trying to get a construction loan converted to a permanent mortgage and was having difficulty with the bank in making that final step to his new home. He was frustrated and spoke in detail and at length about the case, as he saw it. His suffering was palpable, his familiarity indicative of hours of pouring over the paperwork and internalizing every jot, every letter believing it was relevant to his life.
As I treaded staring at the endless images of a world gone bad being delivered by smiling faces on CNN that speak detached countenance, I half listened to his story about how the bank was refusing him, not honoring their promise and how his paperwork was actually different from theirs. He felt that somehow, someone had made changes to the file at the bank that favored them and placed him in a bad position financially and stood in the way of his finding a final resting place in the system of loans and interest payments. I morbidly mused that someone should have to fight to find their way to endless payments and finally death was bizarre but that this was our country, our world, our dream. We fought and died for exactly this privilege and, frequently, were locked out of even that world. I only asked if he was a lawyer, he replied no but that he had tons of experience in conflict resolution.
He went on at length speaking of rights, justice and perhaps a class-action lawsuit against the mega-bank and that he would make an internet posting to determine if he could muster enough souls for such an action. The internet, the final solution.. He seemed intelligent but was full of angst and kept repeating he had quite a lot of experience in conflict resolution negotiations. I wondered if he realized how small he felt and if he knew he was saying these things to bolster his bravado against a giant, him seemingly David with perhaps a lot less than even a slingshot at his disposal as his defense.
I wondered if he knew that all he felt important would quickly be cast aside in favor of the more arcane practice of law. That truth and feelings have no place in the courtroom. That law is only so much theatre and that justice is a complete illusion. That law energizes the idea of justice but betrays its existence in the final analysis. Did he know he would not find his feelings, his needs, even his paperwork to be unimportant? Did he not realize that he would find himself an unimportant case in a room without witnesses? A room full of strangers to him but not to each other? That the bank has an army of lawyers working full time to guard their empire and that judge was a lawyer too whose phone number is in the speedy dial of the bank lawyers? That the bar meets in Las Vegas every year - clearly the Mecca of education - and that the judges go their too?
That the black robe of anonymity was much darker, more duplicitous than the simple pristine Aryan outfits of the Klu Klux Klan and more dangerous to people of any color, any race, any gender was lost on this poor soul. The black robe states an opposite and misleading purpose. The only grace of the white Klan robe is that it states an honest, if not bigoted, perverted message. I puzzled over which was truly worse. One black, dishonest and horrific; the other white honest and equally horrific. As CNN blared about injustice breaking regularly for commercials, ever smiling, wiggling and primping for the camera; he wailed about his dilemma apparently unaware that the knowledge he required was thinly veiled in every report being made right there on the television. Ubiquitous injustice.
I was tempted to advise him to see what firm the bank was using and then to find a second firm who was close to the first one and offer a lot of money to the firm he would retain allowing them to simply make a phone call, tell the bank lawyers to place his paperwork on top of the stack and let them split up his fees and keep the extra money. I wanted to tell him that this was how it really worked and that all of his feelings were as unimportant as is any case that takes place in a closed room in a building heavily guarded where they have to be armed and have metal detectors at the entrance because what they do in there is not what the people were promised.
I relented as I have found that unless you have personally had experience; you would simply never believe the courts are really just a gang that is more concerned about transferring your wealth towards themselves and are frequently consumed with how their hair looks and what time the Chinese buffet closes rather than whether you are finding, if not justice, simply a tenable position in order to go forward in your life. That there is no litmus test for the end of the case as to whether or not it makes sense but rather it just becomes a pile of words - one on top of another - ending up in an incomprehensible mountain of nothing by design. No one thinking of the family, their work, the person, the man, the woman, the child. No moral litmus test that might ask, ‘did I do right here’ or ‘will these people be ok, did I treat them as I would my mother, my brother, my sister, myself’?
I knew he did not understand this. I was tempted to tell the hamster I did know that she should tell her friend he needs to find a way to reach one lawyer through another and simply funnel money through that connection. And that going to court to seek justice was like trying spit into the ocean and stay dry or it was akin to grabbing a wolf by one ear. That Jesus could walk on water but not save himself when righteous others sat in judgment of Him is all one needs to know in examining the perversion of law and words.
I wondered if he realized that justice was considered a quaint notion found only in the writings of the Founding Fathers but was considered an insignificant and small historical aspect of modern day legal practice. That he was speaking in a fashion so self-absorbed to have eclipsed his fundamental understanding of nature, of how the exercising of power of strong men over weaker men was akin to the laws of gravity, immutable, cruel and unrelenting.
Clearly, he was traumatized and ready for mental treatment knowing instinctively he was headed for cruel and unusual punishment-the cornerstone of law.
I had a brief reprieve thinking how the weight of law - like gravity - eventually makes us all sag and how this inescapable progression is proving all people will feel that weight. I understood though that he was retreating into a comfortably anachronistic world, simple yet juvenile like a fifth grade history book that prepares the next generation of victims, speaking of justice, rights and that he was creating a framework within which to function knowing he was up against an insurmountable task-to defend his life against well-dressed moneyed men and women. And on their turf, on their field of battle. Not his. He would be frisked and made to leave even his slingshot at the gates of this arena upon entering. That this is their house, their rules, their findings and that justice was theirs to do with as they see fit. That if you defer from their approach, they lock you up and show you they can make things even worse for you than simply being without a home or losing your life’s work. You lose your liberty and the freedom that comes with personal accomplishment.
That after such an experience you would be shattered as a man, a grotesque parody of your former self, made to avoid any form of mainstream living and actually be grateful for even the sunlight streaming into your empty day while the rest of the world works unaware that they too are only a step away from meeting these same people. That he could easily find himself going before the very same judge in an orange suit, shackles on his feet and hands, bound together and then by a loop of chain to the other five men some whom may have experienced the same back to back sleepless nights, cold and literally naked, an eerily strange iron place with iron door slamming sounds punctuating the night over and over again, mouth dry, pasty from having no toothbrush, unshaven, hair standing upright, looking like someone who might actually deserve such a fate. That he could go from a place of privilege to being permanently locked out from the system only to be grateful he was not locked up in it.
That his only form of ID would become a Safeway card. That income, insurance and ownership - of any kind - would become unavailable to him. Against this backdrop of understanding, I was tempted to scream to him that bribing was more effective, less painful and the only solution to his problem. Pay one lawyer to pay of another. It is legal. It is gravity. It is his only true right.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
dearest oregon friends....
Dearest, beloved Oregon friends,
As most of you know, I have been raised to be the strong, stubborn one. The older child of one incompetent parent and the other to an incredible someone who was deemed by our “just” justice system as someone overqualified for a job and therefore, a threat to either those millionaires in industry or those in academia with a different background other than the vacuum of the ivory tower, thus creating a different kind of dependent parent. In no way is this sympathy pleading but rather a clear perspective, not a proclamation, just a mere moment to tell you that I have had a couple of drinks tonight and would like to convey and confess a couple of feelings.
Again, as a preface to bold directness, I grew up in an environment that can be expressed best as a ‘competition to see who can be the rudest”. You show up at a coffee shop in NYC or to get a slice of pizza and you are forced to be confident in your adventure that someone will either tell you to go “fuck yourself”, which is met with shear appreciation as an exercise in ego-reduction or a dirty look, but never a postmodern (self-reflexive “overly self-conscious”) apprehension about ones position on the planet. Okay, fine, yes, this is a long preamble to let you know I am going to be absolutely direct in what I am going to say and forgive me if you read this in a sensitive moment where mediums such as email do not discriminate about the nature of time…
People travel……free trade agreements are signed…..countries are forced to privatize their welfare…..arms are sold….treatments for AIDS patents are sold…..everyone is struggling economically…..bread now costs $ 4…..you do not buy certain vegetables anymore for your dinner salad because a cucumber should never cost a dollar sixty-nine, GM and Chevron/Texaco killed ‘your’ electric car (check out the sexy EV-1, rent the documentary “Who Killed the Electric Car”), you want to make a difference and help a few folks in the world, and are therefore, poor, because you are not making an easy buck in industry which is also deeply suffering. Napkins for Mc Donald’s are out of business or I would have my rent paid for this upcoming month. The average American possesses eleven (11) credit cards, and is living to their perceived lavish state……..respectful? No. But at least engaging with what they desire…..all because this ship is troubled……and this ship we are on will be sinking…
A mere eighty-five years after the independence of this country, a Civil War started. The Yankees valued farm machinery and development. New York was on its way to developing the first electric car while Boston was crammed to the rafters telling tales of narrowly averted migration disasters. The Confederates, shaped by their various historical contingencies, valued a social system in which who possessed the most black individuals was granted a higher social status in conjunction with one of the finest tools of the Industrial Revolution, the Cotton gin. England, our beloved colonial power – send King George home once and for all god damnit- demanded more output for their bourgeois costumes and we invented a machine that replaced our pragmatic, starch burlap with hand-picked, smoother cotton. Oregon, during this time, was far from joining the Union. The people did not participate in the Civil War nor were they even aware of its existence. The Native Americans were defending their precious, coveted homeland after seeing a ruthless, massive French escapade and the few Lewis and Clarks of the world were merely braving the land west of Wounded Knee, the last frontier.
While this is precisely what I love about Oregon: the youthful beauty. The Douglas firs that demand that not only are they older but still younger than you. The rivers flowing of spawning salmon that seem to travel to the ocean merely to transport nutrients back to the river for your unsoiled swim. The Cascades that divide the state into what will prosper and who will struggle. The magpie that flutters its blue wing if you are lucky and sings on Highway 58 as she cannot wait to get back to the high desert. The dewy grass that demands volleyball happens only on the pavement and frisbee only in the summer. The park that is almost safe enough for a female to fall asleep in. A great place to raise children, truly. However, not until you leave first. It must be known that history is being recurrently repeated under you noses. You are not included. If you research what historically was happening during the Civil War in Oregon, the only thing you can find is the nascent rivalry between two pathetic football teams. The state carries her pristine beauty for a reason; you are only affected but not a participant. You are a human being. You deeply feel the highest employment rate in the country; however, you do not partake.
Walden Pond is in Massachusetts, respectively, because he tried.
I, in a few ways regretfully, left this sanctuary for fear of my future life. There were times when I felt I could let my teeth rot out and no one would notice or rather shamelessly accept me, which is beautiful, but would only realistically bind me further. The people in Oregon are some of the most intelligent beings I have ever come across in my life. Having said that the Census Bureau or the Gallup Poll would classify and document you as mere countryside people. There is some pride to this. I understand. However, it contradicts what inspires you, motivates and drives you, which has everything to do with the globalized world you are interested in.
We, Americans, have recently been forced to fully understand that when our empire is rapidly deteriorating Argentina starts talking to the IMF again, Iceland begs them, South Korea contemplates their pile up of unsold Hyundai’s in a once vacant lot, imported French business owners ponder the green mold on their delectable cheeses, despite the debt we owe the Chinese government realizes they cannot survive if we do not buy the goods produced from the labor job we exported in the first place, and the Congolese security guard wonders why the last nine businessmen that privately flew into the closed Kigali airport had a European accent as the previous ten months he was forced to speak American English, and the Filipina forced into prostitution by poverty is tired of blatant patriarchal European and Asian men and wishes to meet an American or Canadian man who pretends better…
Okay…..you proved my point…..maybe I just need to come back…..this world, to quote Rumi, is a god damn “mudhole for donkeys”….but wouldn’t you rather make your own observations and opinions before you choose?
I love you all,
lauren
As most of you know, I have been raised to be the strong, stubborn one. The older child of one incompetent parent and the other to an incredible someone who was deemed by our “just” justice system as someone overqualified for a job and therefore, a threat to either those millionaires in industry or those in academia with a different background other than the vacuum of the ivory tower, thus creating a different kind of dependent parent. In no way is this sympathy pleading but rather a clear perspective, not a proclamation, just a mere moment to tell you that I have had a couple of drinks tonight and would like to convey and confess a couple of feelings.
Again, as a preface to bold directness, I grew up in an environment that can be expressed best as a ‘competition to see who can be the rudest”. You show up at a coffee shop in NYC or to get a slice of pizza and you are forced to be confident in your adventure that someone will either tell you to go “fuck yourself”, which is met with shear appreciation as an exercise in ego-reduction or a dirty look, but never a postmodern (self-reflexive “overly self-conscious”) apprehension about ones position on the planet. Okay, fine, yes, this is a long preamble to let you know I am going to be absolutely direct in what I am going to say and forgive me if you read this in a sensitive moment where mediums such as email do not discriminate about the nature of time…
People travel……free trade agreements are signed…..countries are forced to privatize their welfare…..arms are sold….treatments for AIDS patents are sold…..everyone is struggling economically…..bread now costs $ 4…..you do not buy certain vegetables anymore for your dinner salad because a cucumber should never cost a dollar sixty-nine, GM and Chevron/Texaco killed ‘your’ electric car (check out the sexy EV-1, rent the documentary “Who Killed the Electric Car”), you want to make a difference and help a few folks in the world, and are therefore, poor, because you are not making an easy buck in industry which is also deeply suffering. Napkins for Mc Donald’s are out of business or I would have my rent paid for this upcoming month. The average American possesses eleven (11) credit cards, and is living to their perceived lavish state……..respectful? No. But at least engaging with what they desire…..all because this ship is troubled……and this ship we are on will be sinking…
A mere eighty-five years after the independence of this country, a Civil War started. The Yankees valued farm machinery and development. New York was on its way to developing the first electric car while Boston was crammed to the rafters telling tales of narrowly averted migration disasters. The Confederates, shaped by their various historical contingencies, valued a social system in which who possessed the most black individuals was granted a higher social status in conjunction with one of the finest tools of the Industrial Revolution, the Cotton gin. England, our beloved colonial power – send King George home once and for all god damnit- demanded more output for their bourgeois costumes and we invented a machine that replaced our pragmatic, starch burlap with hand-picked, smoother cotton. Oregon, during this time, was far from joining the Union. The people did not participate in the Civil War nor were they even aware of its existence. The Native Americans were defending their precious, coveted homeland after seeing a ruthless, massive French escapade and the few Lewis and Clarks of the world were merely braving the land west of Wounded Knee, the last frontier.
While this is precisely what I love about Oregon: the youthful beauty. The Douglas firs that demand that not only are they older but still younger than you. The rivers flowing of spawning salmon that seem to travel to the ocean merely to transport nutrients back to the river for your unsoiled swim. The Cascades that divide the state into what will prosper and who will struggle. The magpie that flutters its blue wing if you are lucky and sings on Highway 58 as she cannot wait to get back to the high desert. The dewy grass that demands volleyball happens only on the pavement and frisbee only in the summer. The park that is almost safe enough for a female to fall asleep in. A great place to raise children, truly. However, not until you leave first. It must be known that history is being recurrently repeated under you noses. You are not included. If you research what historically was happening during the Civil War in Oregon, the only thing you can find is the nascent rivalry between two pathetic football teams. The state carries her pristine beauty for a reason; you are only affected but not a participant. You are a human being. You deeply feel the highest employment rate in the country; however, you do not partake.
Walden Pond is in Massachusetts, respectively, because he tried.
I, in a few ways regretfully, left this sanctuary for fear of my future life. There were times when I felt I could let my teeth rot out and no one would notice or rather shamelessly accept me, which is beautiful, but would only realistically bind me further. The people in Oregon are some of the most intelligent beings I have ever come across in my life. Having said that the Census Bureau or the Gallup Poll would classify and document you as mere countryside people. There is some pride to this. I understand. However, it contradicts what inspires you, motivates and drives you, which has everything to do with the globalized world you are interested in.
We, Americans, have recently been forced to fully understand that when our empire is rapidly deteriorating Argentina starts talking to the IMF again, Iceland begs them, South Korea contemplates their pile up of unsold Hyundai’s in a once vacant lot, imported French business owners ponder the green mold on their delectable cheeses, despite the debt we owe the Chinese government realizes they cannot survive if we do not buy the goods produced from the labor job we exported in the first place, and the Congolese security guard wonders why the last nine businessmen that privately flew into the closed Kigali airport had a European accent as the previous ten months he was forced to speak American English, and the Filipina forced into prostitution by poverty is tired of blatant patriarchal European and Asian men and wishes to meet an American or Canadian man who pretends better…
Okay…..you proved my point…..maybe I just need to come back…..this world, to quote Rumi, is a god damn “mudhole for donkeys”….but wouldn’t you rather make your own observations and opinions before you choose?
I love you all,
lauren
Friday, November 21, 2008
Sarah Palin and Her Masculinity Complex
Sarah Palin and Her Masculinity Complex
In spite of her outward feminine characteristics, which the press keeps reminding us are devastating in a closed room meeting, Sarah Palin might actually feel deeply at odds with her being a woman. Her physical self aside, she is clearly in a rush to ‘prove’ herself and to show the world that she can play with the big boys. Whether it be shooting, fishing or being a politician Ms. Palin clearly demonstrates all of the characteristics of having a serious masculinity complex. Add a dose of narcissism and off she goes.
To fully appreciate the depths of this dysfunction, put aside any notion that it means being a big tough guy or gal, but that the mental manifestation that springs in her consistently is that of a competition among men and herself and can no doubt be traced to her earlier years. Consumed with ‘being equal’ or ‘as good as’ men in her life she clearly becomes deeply uncomfortable, even anxiety-filled, when perceiving a routine question as a challenge to her ability to answer. Not just to answer but to answer as good as a man.
The early life experience in the masculinity complex gets set up by the view a young woman has as she grows and perceives that men can do anything, get away with more, are stronger, can accomplish enormous feats and all the rest culminating in an envy of men and a serious desire to equal their independence and ability to manipulate their world as they see fit. This on either a physical or a mental level. In turn, the young woman embarks on a long journey of actually competing with men in an effort to be as good as or better than securing the freedom she sees that men have in their world and deeply envies. A perpetual flight from womanhood, forever falling short of manhood.
Running for office, mayor, governor, VP are all a means to prove her self worth. Hunting, fishing and all the outdoor adventure-sports found in Alaska serve as an ideal medium to express her desperate ability to compete and to be seen to compete successfully against what she perceives to be real men doing real manly things in what she believes is really a mans’ world. Being photographed with real army men, real guns and wearing camouflage clothing is yet another expression of the same dynamic. And, after all, Trooper gate is really just another attempt to dominate a man armed and in uniform and bring him to her will. The details really don’t matter here for this discussion as it is all the same dynamic. The notion of attacking patriarchal Russia is yet again another and most disconcerting expression of Ms. Palins’ masculinity complex.
-2-
So then, where exactly does the swimsuit competition and the oozing femininity fit into her thinking? Easily, it is another weapon, an alternate one, for her to use if she feels cornered in some way and the perceives a threat against herself and her delicate mental framework which she herself has constructed as a means to cope with, control and manipulate her outside world. Bottom line, if she can’t beat you outright she will dazzle you with her beauty and fancy privileged eyeglasses designed to make her look smarter than she is. When her feminine mind-construct falls short she calls out her body. Under the pressure of this anxiety the ‘girl’ now takes refuge in a fictitious male role.
Doubt this? Probably not. We see her in every photo op showing a lot of leg. Not inappropriate by today’s standards and welcome as a natural expression but not in Ms. Palins’ case. Still doubt this? Look at the interviews with McCain in the same room with her. She is as bundled up as an Eskimo sitting in front of Ms. Couric in full length man-like trousers and a high reaching collar albeit in histrionic red. But don’t show too much skin with Dad around. But oh how it feels so good to be in a room with an interviewer as along as Dad is sitting next to me..,..Honestly she appeared to want McCain to get up and smack Couric if she could have it her way. Palins’ disdain for women is well documented and, of course, has it origins also in her personal self-image and her utter frustration with being a woman at all. Why else would she want to control so many women by making abortion a crime but to curtail women from freely enjoying their sexuality? Her desire to constrain women springs from her personal discomfort with her own inner woman and manifests itself as punishment towards other women in the form of serious and painful legal restrictions that she would apply to all women by abolishing abortion. How better to distance herself from her gender schism than to ban the natural instincts of other women as would a conservative Calvinistic man. Ms. Palin is known for pontificating from a pulpit in church about the evils of progressive society acting more like an elder pilgrim than a modern day woman. This is a glaring admission of her inability to reconcile her inner dialogue with the outer world and present day reality. Also, not to be underestimated, is the safety she feels speaking from the podium. The distance creates a river of safety between her and her constituency. In fact, between her and real self.
Ms. Palins’ facial expression which flash subtlety from defensive when looking at her interviewer to one of a relaxed safe admiration when looking at McCain sitting next to her. The change in lability is astounding, obvious and a bit disconcerting. Her inability to contain herself until the question is finished is another dead giveaway. Ms. Palin is in such a rush to ‘prove herself worthy of the boys club’ that she actually talks over the question never allowing it to just stand-even for a moment. Desperate to show mastery she foregoes the quality of actually having a thoughtful answer; for having a thoughtful answer is not what she herself is seeking. Preoccupied with the compulsive need to show an ability to master the question put to her, it is doubtful Ms. Palin actually has the cognition required to hear the question-as it is-in the first place. So inadequate are her feelings and so strong her need to display self-efficacy, that she has inadvertently made the McCain campaign her personal campaign taking on an inordinate and unmanageable amount of responsibility in doing so. Serious face when acting in her man role. Smiling when acting in her woman role. Clearly she views women as meant to be charming, manipulative and men as more meaningful.
-3-
Sadly, she puts her needs ahead of yours in doing so, which speaks to a co-morbid behavior of narcissism alongside her already problematic complex with both men and women. The end result is an individual with a serous lack of content. A high-octane machine that views male vigor and garrulous responses as reasonable; never mind the actual line of rational, Queen Non-Sequitur.
Could you imagine Joe Biden doing such a thing? Of course not, it is simply not necessary for Biden to act in such a way to defray his anxiety about being VP as he has none and is rightly comfortable being in an Obama presidency and moreover in an administration and not feeling as though he –and he alone-is expected to ride to the rescue in order to distinguish himself. Although Joe Biden will talk you to death.
Just like Bush, the preoccupations of deep feelings of inadequacy arise when they bump up against something they know is bigger then themselves. In the case of Bush it has long since been documented that he ‘loves’ mountain biking and pedals the dirt trails at Camp David more frequently than he is actually in his office. No doubt his office brings up deep feelings of inadequacy and he flees to the hills with secret service men in tow where he feels at least he can beat them on the bike trail. Not unusual in a lot of offices but do we really need someone in the Oval Office who feels the need to flee be it Palin or Bush?
This behavior is not unusual for the average person but it is definitely not vote worthy. Most just meander through life attempting to reconcile their inner dialogue and the outer world with a variety of practices; hunting, fishing and biking in these particular cases. Fundamental religion is also a cornerstone for those who cannot accept even a moment of uncertainty because it offers them the solid construct of a very definite and exceedingly simple answer to the duality of our lives. All is either black or white, good or bad, friend or foe and so on. Comforting perhaps to a simple mind yearning for peace but not at all suitable to a leader in a complex world where tolerance and understanding are absolutely essential to survival. Each of these, sadly including religion, is merely another attempt to ‘butch up’ and gird oneself against the onslaught of an overwhelmingly complex world. Jesus did not practice his faith in this way.
-4-
What to do? Foremost, get therapy. There is no crime in finding yourself suffering these conditions. But not addressing them is a crime and likely to affect everyone around you as we have seen here in this presidency and are presently threatened with in a feminine flip-flop of the same dynamic but in the form of Ms. Palin acting as Mr. Bush. Sarah Palin is in fact simply an upside down Bush. Or, inside out if you prefer. Reading press accounts equating Bush with Palin are more accurate than they know but in a much deeper and more meaningful way than just political views and representations. This is not just a political representation, it is a pathology.
Therapy might allow her to discover what she perceives as shortcomings to be nothing more than a psychological dynamic present in a lot of motivated women. And once the dynamic is recognized a healthier contribution can be made to the life of true public service and in a much more meaningful and useful way than that which we are presently witnessing. Therapeutic intervention would reorder the dynamic not make it go away. No loss of power results from a better understanding of oneself. It would, in fact, make her
stronger, healthier and move closer to becoming the strong individual she is desperately seeking in herself. She is highly motivated but for the wrong reasons guaranteeing an adverse outcome for those around her. Everyone involved with a disordered person gets hurt.
To be fair, Ms. Palin has probably come by her mindset honestly but lacks the analytical mind to be able to deconstruct and then reconstitute herself as a whole person. However, we clearly need to have a whole, healthy and complete individual in the White House.
To hold Palin responsible alone for her debacle thus far is wholly wrong. McCain is the seasoned veteran whose judgment we are supposed to be trusting, whose experience and insight we are to yield to as superior than our own and guaranteed to rise when needed to see that we Americans are all secure, safe and have the rights we have recognized for all of our short time here in this country. Washington is a hall of mirrors for narcissistic personalities who are power hungry and equate their own self worth with money and stature. Sending Palin to Washington would be like waiving a fully loaded needle with heroin in front of a junkie in withdrawal, leaving it on the table and then exiting the room. What do you think would happen?
In spite of her outward feminine characteristics, which the press keeps reminding us are devastating in a closed room meeting, Sarah Palin might actually feel deeply at odds with her being a woman. Her physical self aside, she is clearly in a rush to ‘prove’ herself and to show the world that she can play with the big boys. Whether it be shooting, fishing or being a politician Ms. Palin clearly demonstrates all of the characteristics of having a serious masculinity complex. Add a dose of narcissism and off she goes.
To fully appreciate the depths of this dysfunction, put aside any notion that it means being a big tough guy or gal, but that the mental manifestation that springs in her consistently is that of a competition among men and herself and can no doubt be traced to her earlier years. Consumed with ‘being equal’ or ‘as good as’ men in her life she clearly becomes deeply uncomfortable, even anxiety-filled, when perceiving a routine question as a challenge to her ability to answer. Not just to answer but to answer as good as a man.
The early life experience in the masculinity complex gets set up by the view a young woman has as she grows and perceives that men can do anything, get away with more, are stronger, can accomplish enormous feats and all the rest culminating in an envy of men and a serious desire to equal their independence and ability to manipulate their world as they see fit. This on either a physical or a mental level. In turn, the young woman embarks on a long journey of actually competing with men in an effort to be as good as or better than securing the freedom she sees that men have in their world and deeply envies. A perpetual flight from womanhood, forever falling short of manhood.
Running for office, mayor, governor, VP are all a means to prove her self worth. Hunting, fishing and all the outdoor adventure-sports found in Alaska serve as an ideal medium to express her desperate ability to compete and to be seen to compete successfully against what she perceives to be real men doing real manly things in what she believes is really a mans’ world. Being photographed with real army men, real guns and wearing camouflage clothing is yet another expression of the same dynamic. And, after all, Trooper gate is really just another attempt to dominate a man armed and in uniform and bring him to her will. The details really don’t matter here for this discussion as it is all the same dynamic. The notion of attacking patriarchal Russia is yet again another and most disconcerting expression of Ms. Palins’ masculinity complex.
-2-
So then, where exactly does the swimsuit competition and the oozing femininity fit into her thinking? Easily, it is another weapon, an alternate one, for her to use if she feels cornered in some way and the perceives a threat against herself and her delicate mental framework which she herself has constructed as a means to cope with, control and manipulate her outside world. Bottom line, if she can’t beat you outright she will dazzle you with her beauty and fancy privileged eyeglasses designed to make her look smarter than she is. When her feminine mind-construct falls short she calls out her body. Under the pressure of this anxiety the ‘girl’ now takes refuge in a fictitious male role.
Doubt this? Probably not. We see her in every photo op showing a lot of leg. Not inappropriate by today’s standards and welcome as a natural expression but not in Ms. Palins’ case. Still doubt this? Look at the interviews with McCain in the same room with her. She is as bundled up as an Eskimo sitting in front of Ms. Couric in full length man-like trousers and a high reaching collar albeit in histrionic red. But don’t show too much skin with Dad around. But oh how it feels so good to be in a room with an interviewer as along as Dad is sitting next to me..,..Honestly she appeared to want McCain to get up and smack Couric if she could have it her way. Palins’ disdain for women is well documented and, of course, has it origins also in her personal self-image and her utter frustration with being a woman at all. Why else would she want to control so many women by making abortion a crime but to curtail women from freely enjoying their sexuality? Her desire to constrain women springs from her personal discomfort with her own inner woman and manifests itself as punishment towards other women in the form of serious and painful legal restrictions that she would apply to all women by abolishing abortion. How better to distance herself from her gender schism than to ban the natural instincts of other women as would a conservative Calvinistic man. Ms. Palin is known for pontificating from a pulpit in church about the evils of progressive society acting more like an elder pilgrim than a modern day woman. This is a glaring admission of her inability to reconcile her inner dialogue with the outer world and present day reality. Also, not to be underestimated, is the safety she feels speaking from the podium. The distance creates a river of safety between her and her constituency. In fact, between her and real self.
Ms. Palins’ facial expression which flash subtlety from defensive when looking at her interviewer to one of a relaxed safe admiration when looking at McCain sitting next to her. The change in lability is astounding, obvious and a bit disconcerting. Her inability to contain herself until the question is finished is another dead giveaway. Ms. Palin is in such a rush to ‘prove herself worthy of the boys club’ that she actually talks over the question never allowing it to just stand-even for a moment. Desperate to show mastery she foregoes the quality of actually having a thoughtful answer; for having a thoughtful answer is not what she herself is seeking. Preoccupied with the compulsive need to show an ability to master the question put to her, it is doubtful Ms. Palin actually has the cognition required to hear the question-as it is-in the first place. So inadequate are her feelings and so strong her need to display self-efficacy, that she has inadvertently made the McCain campaign her personal campaign taking on an inordinate and unmanageable amount of responsibility in doing so. Serious face when acting in her man role. Smiling when acting in her woman role. Clearly she views women as meant to be charming, manipulative and men as more meaningful.
-3-
Sadly, she puts her needs ahead of yours in doing so, which speaks to a co-morbid behavior of narcissism alongside her already problematic complex with both men and women. The end result is an individual with a serous lack of content. A high-octane machine that views male vigor and garrulous responses as reasonable; never mind the actual line of rational, Queen Non-Sequitur.
Could you imagine Joe Biden doing such a thing? Of course not, it is simply not necessary for Biden to act in such a way to defray his anxiety about being VP as he has none and is rightly comfortable being in an Obama presidency and moreover in an administration and not feeling as though he –and he alone-is expected to ride to the rescue in order to distinguish himself. Although Joe Biden will talk you to death.
Just like Bush, the preoccupations of deep feelings of inadequacy arise when they bump up against something they know is bigger then themselves. In the case of Bush it has long since been documented that he ‘loves’ mountain biking and pedals the dirt trails at Camp David more frequently than he is actually in his office. No doubt his office brings up deep feelings of inadequacy and he flees to the hills with secret service men in tow where he feels at least he can beat them on the bike trail. Not unusual in a lot of offices but do we really need someone in the Oval Office who feels the need to flee be it Palin or Bush?
This behavior is not unusual for the average person but it is definitely not vote worthy. Most just meander through life attempting to reconcile their inner dialogue and the outer world with a variety of practices; hunting, fishing and biking in these particular cases. Fundamental religion is also a cornerstone for those who cannot accept even a moment of uncertainty because it offers them the solid construct of a very definite and exceedingly simple answer to the duality of our lives. All is either black or white, good or bad, friend or foe and so on. Comforting perhaps to a simple mind yearning for peace but not at all suitable to a leader in a complex world where tolerance and understanding are absolutely essential to survival. Each of these, sadly including religion, is merely another attempt to ‘butch up’ and gird oneself against the onslaught of an overwhelmingly complex world. Jesus did not practice his faith in this way.
-4-
What to do? Foremost, get therapy. There is no crime in finding yourself suffering these conditions. But not addressing them is a crime and likely to affect everyone around you as we have seen here in this presidency and are presently threatened with in a feminine flip-flop of the same dynamic but in the form of Ms. Palin acting as Mr. Bush. Sarah Palin is in fact simply an upside down Bush. Or, inside out if you prefer. Reading press accounts equating Bush with Palin are more accurate than they know but in a much deeper and more meaningful way than just political views and representations. This is not just a political representation, it is a pathology.
Therapy might allow her to discover what she perceives as shortcomings to be nothing more than a psychological dynamic present in a lot of motivated women. And once the dynamic is recognized a healthier contribution can be made to the life of true public service and in a much more meaningful and useful way than that which we are presently witnessing. Therapeutic intervention would reorder the dynamic not make it go away. No loss of power results from a better understanding of oneself. It would, in fact, make her
stronger, healthier and move closer to becoming the strong individual she is desperately seeking in herself. She is highly motivated but for the wrong reasons guaranteeing an adverse outcome for those around her. Everyone involved with a disordered person gets hurt.
To be fair, Ms. Palin has probably come by her mindset honestly but lacks the analytical mind to be able to deconstruct and then reconstitute herself as a whole person. However, we clearly need to have a whole, healthy and complete individual in the White House.
To hold Palin responsible alone for her debacle thus far is wholly wrong. McCain is the seasoned veteran whose judgment we are supposed to be trusting, whose experience and insight we are to yield to as superior than our own and guaranteed to rise when needed to see that we Americans are all secure, safe and have the rights we have recognized for all of our short time here in this country. Washington is a hall of mirrors for narcissistic personalities who are power hungry and equate their own self worth with money and stature. Sending Palin to Washington would be like waiving a fully loaded needle with heroin in front of a junkie in withdrawal, leaving it on the table and then exiting the room. What do you think would happen?
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