Archive for July, 2007
July 31st, 2007
BY Joel S. Hirschhorn author of Delusional Democracy and Friends of the Article V Convention
The latest bipartisan George Washington University Battleground Poll rightfully received media attention because of its depressing data. There is historic political pessimism and cynicism. But something is more troubling than the data on the dire views of Americans about their elected representatives and government. It is that 72 percent of voters still believe that “voting gives people like me some say about how the government runs things.” Unbelievable! Such confidence in a system that has failed them.
Despite untrustworthy elected officials and a dysfunctional government that takes care of the Upper Class more than everyone else, Americans retain still believe in their democracy. This logical absurdity – or delusional state – is best explained by avoidance of the pain of cognitive dissonance. Americans resist the reality that they are living in a sham representative democracy where the rule of law is a growing fiction.
It should be noted (but was not in the media coverage) that 75 percent of the likely voters were 45 or older, with a third retired. That makes the results even more unsettling. They should know better than to keep believing they can vote the nation into a better condition. Self-identified Republicans were 41 percent, Democrats 42 percent, and Independents 15 percent.
Consider these reasons for giving up on voting and elections under the grip of the two major parties: Some 53 percent have an unfavorable view of politicians, with 55 percent believing that most elected officials are untrustworthy. A majority of 52 percent disapproves of the performance of the Democrats in Congress and 61 percent disapprove of Republicans there. An incredible 93 percent feels that lawmakers in Washington put partisan politics first compared with citizens. But the biggest shift in voter opinion is that 71percent think their own Member of Congress puts partisan politics first compared with them, with 63 percent feeling strongly that way.
For the big picture: Seventy-percent are now convinced that the country is off on the wrong track – and 58 percent feel strongly that way. This is the worst score recorded in the history of the Battleground survey. Democrats are universally agreed about this point, but so are 71 percent of Independents and 49 percent of Republicans.
A plurality of 38 percent believes their children will be worse off in the future and only a third said they “think their own children will be better off than they are right now — a drop of 7 points since January.” Pessimism is worst among white Americans: Only 29 percent believe that their children will be better off; 38 percent believe their children will be worse off.
Dan Balz of the Washington Post summed up: “the American people have entered this campaign with a wholly cynical view of the political process.”
One trick of the political status quo establishment to keep many Americans (but still less than about half of all eligible voters) believing in voting is advertising. Consider the current crowded presidential primary season. The mass media constantly work to play up the races among Democratic and Republican contenders. Why not? They make a ton of money from all the money spent on campaign advertising. Televised debates and endless state and national poll data are entertainment that fuel fake competition. It is sheer manipulation of the electorate – to keep them interested in the election and, worse, to keep them believing that it really matters who wins in each party.
In the end, greedy and arrogant power elites will ensure that only a “safe” candidate will be chosen so that the two-party duopoly loses no power and no presidency rocks the political boat or harms corporate America. Having so many contenders in the primary season is a farce. The eventual Democratic ticket will be Clinton and Obama. Period. End of story. It is the lowest risk, smartest political strategy. On the Republican side there is more uncertainty, but the likely ticket will be Giuliani and Thompson.
The true wildcard is whether Michael Bloomberg enters the race as a third party candidate. I am rooting for this. Objective statistical analysis of the American electorate shows that the level of public discontent with Democrats and Republicans is so high that a lavishly funded campaign by Bloomberg can make history. Take independents, turned-off Democrats and Republicans, and the huge numbers of eligible voters that do not usually vote. Bang! You have more than enough votes to make Bloomberg president. By choosing a well known but political maverick that the public trusts as a running mate, he can win. It is exactly the kind of shake-up our political system desperately needs.
Americans must awake from their political stupor and stop letting themselves be victimized and manipulated by the media/political/financial elites running and ruining our nation.
July 30th, 2007
By Carolyn Baker of Speaking Truth To Power
The inexorable reality is that any community that does not process feelings and build trust by doing so…is NOT, I repeat, NOT sustainable.
A treasure trove of information pertaining to preparation for collapse can be found on the internet and in libraries throughout the world. Earlier this year I reviewed Mick Winter’s book on preparing for Peak Oil and have since posted on my site Stan Goff’s piece on “35 Ways To Prepare For Peak Oil” My own article, “What To Do, What To Do?” addresses preparation for collapse from yet another perspective. Websites such as Matt Savinar’s Life After The Oil Crash, Energy Bulletin, and Post-Carbon Institute offer ongoing suggestions for preparation as well. Yet the one topic which receives almost no attention is the notion of how individuals create community in the face of the collapse of civilization. This is curious since, in my opinion, all individuals raised in the culture of empire are deeply wounded emotionally and spiritually and have little experience of living harmoniously in community. In fact, more often than not, people who are preparing for collapse tell me that their experiences with attempting to create and maintain community have been disappointing at best and disastrous at worst, so it doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out why so few people address the topic.
Much talk of ecovillages and intentional communities abounds among collapse watchers, and in many of such venues that have actually been created, a significant amount of time is devoted to community building-sometimes a minimum of three hours per day. One may wonder how anything else can get done when people sit in community circles that many hours. Who plants and weeds the garden? Who cooks? Who washes dishes and empties garbage into the compost?
What many communities have discovered is that community building requires so much time that its members must have “sprung themselves” from the system to such an extent that they have the time required to devote three or four hours per day to sitting in a circle and processing feelings and making decisions about the community’s well being. What does not work well, experience tells us, is a community in which people share residence but are still chained to a system in which they must commute to exhausting jobs, return to their groovy ecovillage, and have little or no time or energy left to do the emotional work necessary to sustain it.
The reader may be bristling with skepticism about this and inwardly protesting that he/she has little interest in “touch-feely” stuff like “processing feelings.” One may just want to live comfortably in his/her head in a safe space with friends or family and detach entirely from empire doing work for the community and living sustainably. The inexorable reality, however, is that any community that does not process feelings and build trust by doing so or simply holds long meetings about “mission statements”, division of labor, community logistics, or budgets, without addressing emotional issues is NOT, I repeat, NOT sustainable. The Lone Ranger is over-so over, and cooperation and heartfelt communication will be as essential as food and water in a post-collapse world.
I recently had the opportunity in a retreat setting to sit in such a circle, not because I am a member of an ecovillage or intentional community but because I am in the process of relocating and wanted to practice community building with other folks in transition. At first I felt absolutely overwhelmed with the amount of emotional work that needs to be done in order for community members to bond and build trust with each other. At the conclusion of the retreat, however, I felt less pessimistic and realized that it is not only possible for community members to consistently do such work together, but that when they do, they successfully break through their internalized culture of empire and experience and sustain the connectedness that empire renders utterly impossible. I’m not talking about momentary feel-good experiences where everyone holds hands and dances around the world, nor am I talking about everyone agreeing about everything. I’m talking about the kind of profound, intimate joining that natural cultures of indigenous traditions were able to experience and sustain and which allowed them to survive and thrive. And while circles of community building do not guarantee survival in the face of collapse, they are remarkably effective in facilitating the navigation of collapse.
What is more, every tribe, every community must develop skills for resolving conflict. Conflict will and should arise. Its absence is, in my opinion, a frightening red flag signaling glaring dysfunction and seething cauldrons of unspoken feelings and truths that need to be told. All indigenous cultures at their highpoints skillfully navigated conflict-in fact welcomed it as a barometer of their community’s health. They also developed ever-more creative skills for addressing it compassionately and assertively.
So what actually happens in a circle? To begin answering that question it’s important to understand that a community circle must be leaderless. Individuals may take turns facilitating them, but everyone in the group must be a leader. Facilitation simply means bringing up a topic or restating one that is already on the front burner and making sure that the group adheres to already-agreed-upon groundrules. Such groundrules include a commitment to stay in the group until the issue is resolved or until the group decides to take a break or decides to adjourn until a later time. For purposes of safety, everyone needs to agree to stay in the circle and not flee so that when someone is working on an issue with the group, they are not abandoned by anyone and know that space is being held for them by other group members. At all times, the group practices deep listening and compassionate truth-telling. When one person is speaking, the rest of the group listens attentively and stays present with the speaker. Likewise, when one speaks, one does so non-judgmentally using “I” statements, speaking as much as possible from a place of feeling rather than intellect or thinking. Perhaps most importantly, each person is accountable and takes responsibility for his/her part in whatever concerns or complaints he/she verbalizes. Deep listening and processing may involve other factors, but these are some of the most fundamental.
In facing collapse it is important to develop skills that will be useful in navigating it. We hear a great deal about learning permaculture, organic gardening, woodworking, composting, catching rainwater, and utilizing alternative energy sources, but the two skills without which communities cannot be created or sustained, deep listening and compassionate truthtelling, are rarely discussed.
As I have stated repeatedly, I do not know how collapse will play out. It may culminate in instantaneous nuclear annihilation, sudden economic devastation, or some other form of civilization plunging blatantly off a cliff. It may also unfold more slowly with consequences equally as dire. Therefore, it is important not to embrace the illusion that skills provide magic bullets of survival. Who knows who if any of us will survive no matter what we know or have experienced?
With every passing day it becomes clearer to me that as civilization continues to self-destruct, I need to discern how I prefer to spend my time and energy-and with whom. What I least want to do is mimic the culture of empire by rationally focusing on logistics and losing sight of humanity. I know that I cannot survive alone, and even if I have learned no skills whatsoever, I need my fellow earthlings in order to navigate collapse. Moreover, even if I have learned every skill imaginable, if I and my companions in collapse cannot deeply listen to each other and speak our truth with compassion, none of us will survive, and even if we did, an internally vacuous emotional domain would render survival nothing less than absurd.
July 29th, 2007
By Rowan Wolf
Our old friend Mikhail Gorbachev is accusing BushCo of creating chaos to extend an empire. The question is whose empire and to what end? The empire that BushCo and the neo-cons are pushing is an empire of corporate and economic hegemony - only protected and advanced by the military power of the United States.
More…
The headlines today trumpet a $20 billion arms package to Saudi Arabia (and NY Times, 7/28/07). There are even more billions in deals for other Gulf States and Israel. The weapons packages include the so-called “smart bombs” and other high tech weaponry. It should come as no surprise that some see the U.S. as a provocateur to an arms race from which it (or at least the arms industry) benefits hugely. Of course, it also legitimates increasing spending and escalation of the U.S. “defense” budget as well.
Business as usual.
The arms deal runs side by side with the accusation that Saudi Arabia is economically contributing to the Sunni fighters in Iraq, and doing nothing to stop Saudi fighters from joining the Iraq fray. Nor is the corporate media so “rude” as to note that the majority of the 9/11/01 suicide group were from Saudi Arabia. The U.S. has a long term vested interest in supporting the House of Saud, and no interest runs deeper than that with the House of Bush.
While it has faded from the news, there was the incentive money that Britain paid to Prince Bandar Bin Sultan for the BAE arms deal with Saudi Arabia. Yes, Prince Bandar, also sometimes referred to as “Bandar Bush,” whose facilitation fee of $2 billion was traced back to the U.S. banks. Of course there are no hard feelings over such dealings - nor limitations on the financial activities of Bandar Bush.
Other Articles on the BAE Deal
US to probe BAE over corruption. BBC, 6/26/07.
The Bandar cover-up: who knew what, and when?. David Leigh & Rob Evans. Guardian, 6/09/07.
BAE accused of secretly paying £1bn to Saudi prince. David Leigh & Rob Evans. Guardian, 6/07/07.
July 28th, 2007
By Rowan Wolf
In Refusal to Testify - Hubris or Cover-up?, I felt that the refusal of the White House to release documents on the firing of U.S. attorneys, and the no-show of Bolten and Miers, was probably equally hubris and cover up. After watch “Now” last night, I am shifting much more heavily towards cover up.
Image from Politico.com via Common Cause
The program discussed voter caging as well as an interview with David Iglesias who was one of the dismissed attorneys. Iglesias stated that he had been pressured to investigate possible “voting fraud” each election cycle. Ultimately when neither he nor the FBI found any, there was displeasure that he was not being aggressive enough and he was dismissed. He felt that the activities of the administration in caging and attempting to manipulate voting outcomes was criminally illegal, and this was like part of the memoranda and documentation that the White House was refusing to release. It should be noted that Iglesias is not some “flaming liberal,” but a long time Republican.
Greg Palast was also interviewed. Palast has been on the vote manipulation issue since the 2000 election (). He was also on the story when Karl Rove’s assistant, Timothy Griffin, was selected to replace the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas. Griffin had been in charge of the Republican caging operation. This points the issue of illegal caging and the firing of U.S. attorneys directly into the heart of the White House. In other words, there is not just smoke but a raging fire behind all the bluff, denial, refusal, and spin.
Given this situation, it seems even more remarkable that Bolten and Miers would refuse a subpoena. They could certainly play the game that has become so standard from Bush loyalists - lousy memory - or failing that - executive privilege or national security. That would seem to be less of an egregious offense than simply not showing up. So perhaps there is a fair portion of hubris thrown into the mix. Perhaps it is a blatant statement of “we broke the law, are breaking the law, and there is not a damn thing you can do about it.”
July 26th, 2007
By Rowan Wolf
There are those who are trying to minimize the issue of the firing of the U.S. attorneys as political comedy, and no big deal. It is a very big deal when the Department of Justice becomes an arm of politics rather than an arm of justice. Gonzales has testified repeatedly that he “doesn’t know” or “can’t remember.” Certainly a stonewalling technique. Bush then extended executive privilege to White House staff so they would not testify. Now the two highest ranked staffers subpoenaed have refused to even show up to testify before Congress. Is this just a flaunting of executive power, or is there a cover up?
Stacking the Department of Justice with political loyalists damages us all. That appears to be the purpose of the dismissal of U.S. prosecutors by Gonzales (who “doesn’t remember” most of his tenure thus far). The fact that an administration that has huffed and puffed about politics from the court is doing everything within its power to politicize those very courts is beyond hypocritical. Of course, the side benefits of the strategic replacements are also self-serving.
While arguing that the President has every right to hire and fire U.S. Attorneys, the administration has acted as if their hand was caught in the cookie jar. After all, if they have done nothing wrong, then why not be completely open about the process? Isn’t that what they tell us the citizenry about the loss of our privacy protections?
Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten, and former Bush legal counsel and Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers, were covered under an extension of executive privilege early in July. That executive privilege does not exempt them from a subpoena from the Judiciary Committee of Congress. They must show up, even if they decline to answer certain questions under the cover of executive privilege. To not show up at all signals contempt, even if the full Congress does not vote for contempt charges.
From the beginning of his tenure in 2000, George W. Bush and his administration have attempted to sculpt the office of the President under the principle of the “Unitary Executive.” Essentially, this principle follows that the Executive Branch has all power without oversight or check. Clearly this is not what is laid out in the U.S. Constitution. However, it is the theory under which the Bush administration has operated even before the events of September 11, 2001. The current extension of executive privilege to an area where there is no legitimate reason for such protection is spitting in the face of Congress, the Constitution, and the people once again.
So is there something to hide here - as there is with “Scooter” Libby - or is this just a matter of “principle?” The “principle” being the complete disregard of Constitutional limits on the Executive Branch of government?
It is difficult to say whether the involvement of the White House in the politicizing of the Justice Department would look unseemly (if not illegal), or whether the refusal of the administration to openness and oversight is driving the current move. However, the “offers” made by the White House are typical. Bush has offered that the staff may be interviewed in private, off the record, and not under oath. You might remember that was the same path taken when Bush and Cheney agreed to meet with the 9/11 Commission instead of testifying publicly under oath.
Why are they so adverse to testifying under oath? Why do they keep offering these little “chats” to clear things up? Do they think that “we the people” are so stupid that we do not recognize the difference between legal testimony and a conversation behind closed doors? Do they think that we are so somnolent, that we don’t realize the implications of political hacks in charge of enforcing the nation’s laws? Even more to the point, do our elected representatives think that we are fooled by the political shenanigans being pulled?
This obfuscation needs to be stopped and stopped now. The Executive Branch needs to be brought back within Constitutional bounds now.
For those who are on the “conservative” side of the fence, this is not simply a partisan issue. Do you really want “liberals” operating under the powers and scope that George Bush has carved out for the Executive Branch of government? I don’t. There must be a system of checks and balances or we are no longer the nation that we think we are. Instead, we are a dictatorship with a toothless Congress and Judiciary.
July 26th, 2007
By: Phil Rockstroh
In this summer of angst and grim foreboding about what further assaults against common sense and common decency the Bush Administration might inflict upon the people of the world, how many times during the day do those of us — still possessed of mind, heart and conscience — take pause, hoping we’ve seen the worst of it, then, fearing we haven’t yet, attempt to push down the dread rising within us, so that we might simply make it through the day and be able to rest at night? Accordingly, those who have been paying attention are aware that the outward mechanisms of martial law are in place. We shudder knowing that Bush has issued an executive decree that grants him dictatorial power in the event of some nebulously defined national emergency. In addition, the knowledge nettles us that a vast network of internment camps bristle across the length of the U.S., standing at wait for those who might raise objections to the fascistic fury unloosed by the American empire’s version of the Reichstag fire.
Moreover, a closer look would reveal that the inner processes by which an individual begins the act of acceptance of authoritarian excess — the mixture of chronic passivity, boredom, low grade anxiety and unfocused rage inherent in the citizens/consumers of the corporate state that primes an individual for fascism — have been in place for quite some time within the psyches of the American populace, both elites and hoi polloi alike. Although, don’t look for torch-lit processions thronging the nation’s streets and boulevards; rather, look for a Nuremberg Rally of couch-bound brownshirts. Instead of ogling the serried ranks of jut-jawed, SS soldiers, a contemporary Leni Riefenstahl would be forced to film chubby clusters of double-chinned consumers, saluting the new order with their TV remotes. In the contemporary United States, the elation induced by the immersion of one’s individual will to the mindless intoxication of the mob might only be possible, if Bush seized dictatorial control of the state while simultaneously sending out to all citizens gift certificates to Ikea.
After the catastrophes spawned by the rise of European fascism in the 1930s, a number of brilliant, original thinkers (including Hannah Arendt, Roberto Freire, Wilhelm Reich, and R. D. Laing) set out to study the phenomenon in order to learn how future calamities might be prevented. Although the methodologies and conclusions of these thinkers varied, each noted that alienation and dehumanization festered at the core of the death urge of fascism.
Nowadays, in contrast, the elites of the corporate media have proven themselves useless in this regard, believing, as they do, they constitute the thin line between the rabble at large (me and you) and the chaos begot by freedom. At present, mega-churches attract alienated suburbanites. Right wing talk show hosts misdirect their listeners alienation towards so-called illegal “aliens” and exploit their audience’s sense of powerlessness (created by the rigged system of corporate capitalism) against elitist liberals (who themselves, ironically, benefit from the present system and who only want to change it to the degree that their own privilege will not be affected. In other words, not at all).
Combine the above with the American character trait of being hostile towards introspection and it becomes evident that the present disaster has been building for quite a while now. And it can (and most likely will) get worse — far worse.
Most Americans alive today have been trained since birth to adapt to and serve the corrupt corporate structure by means of the shunning of critical thinking and have been conditioned to be in constant (empty) motion or in the thrall of mass media distraction. We have been taught that passivity is for losers, yet we find ourselves nearly powerless before the corporate/consumer/military/police/entertainment state. In this way, we serve our corporate masters; it serves the corpocracy that the lower orders refuse meaningful self-awareness. If one were to glimpse one’s own illusions, then it follows one might begin to question collective delusions — and this would upset the social order.
Those who have studied the dangers of authoritarian rule have advised us to be wary of people who carry an inner emptiness. Of course, these unfortunates yearn for the void to be filled. But with their hearts and minds mortared closed — what makes it through the self-constructed prison is loud, stupid, and fascistic. At present, what penetrates is: Fundamentalist Sermons on Armageddon; violent video games; the empty spectacle of steroid-induced professional sports hype; the lethal fantasies of American exceptionalism; the exercise in Rock and Roll imperialism that U.S. foreign policy has become. In short, all the banal Sturm and Drang necessary to pierce those protective walls and penetrate the pervasive inner emptiness.
When the people of a culture have been conditioned to worship power — but feel powerless — there’s trouble ahead. The elites must displace the public’s rage by a demagogic sleight-of-hand such as the demonization of marginalized groups. In the US, we’ve been inundated by years of state and commercial propaganda that has degraded and demonized the country’s permanent underclass by the labeling of them as welfare parasites and career criminals.
It has been noted that the mindset, methods, and procedures of America’s punitive, profit-driven prison-industrial complex was a prototype for the systemic cruelty of Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib; furthermore, it is a given that those institutional affronts to human decency will have served as prototypes for the methods and procedures that will be practiced upon those who are swept-up in the purges and detainment mania following the declaration of martial law in the United States.
We push this knowledge away from us, fearing we will be paralyzed by its crushing implications. Worse, what is nearly impossible to admit is, most likely, the system crushed us long ago. Apropos, R. D. Laing averred that being able to adapt and function within an insane, authoritarian system renders one for all practical purposes insane — only insane in a manner acceptable to a power mad ruling elite.
This is the knowledge we push down, every hour of everyday. Otherwise, we would be driven to admit outright that the system has crushed our individual hopes, aspirations and yearnings. We must, at all costs, keep these feelings concealed; otherwise, we might be compelled to contemplate what we have forsaken, what passions and truths we have traded away for the false sense of security that the corporate order offered us when we tacitly agreed to surrender what was most sacred, vital and alive within us. One psychological manifestation of this phenomenon is the incessant chanting of that mantra of the American corporate workforce: “I’m not my job. I’m not what I do all day long.”
For a moment, meditate on the calamity implicit in such a sentiment. Because If we cannot locate and engage our true selves during our waking hours — then who the hell are we anyway? This is a profoundly troubling circumstance. Moreover, if we’ve condemned our daylight selves to a void of non-being, what then remains of us?
We experience this dislocation of the life force as a sense of nebulous dread. Everything, these days, the architecture and accouterment of our lives seems so fragile and unreal; it feels as if everything could just fly apart, at any given moment. The world and our place in it seems so flimsy: an empire built of eggshells; it could all shatter in an instant.
Living on credit, the house of cards of the real estate market, jobs evaporating, most of us languishing only a couple of paychecks away from ruin: The empire is coming undone. As it is, it seems the nation is only being held together with hydrogenated fat, wheat gluten, over-extended credit and particle board. Ergo, there is one law the lawless Bush administration and their keepers from the plundering class cannot flout: the second law of thermodynamics. They won’t be able to claim executive privilege to avoid the consequences of negative entropy.
In a similar vein, we, the underlings of empire, stand helpless before the prevailing madness. Individual reason rarely acts as a countervailing force to stem a drowning tide of cultural cognitive dissonance. Because the more epic and all-compassing the mistake, the more epic and all-encompassing come the rationalizations, the scapegoating and the compulsion for do-overs. If the surge isn’t working as fantasized, then we’ll double-dog surge you and then bomb Iran. If police state tactics fail to alleviate a sense of anxiety, then we must construct more detainment camps, more maximum security prisons, enact more federal death penalty statutes. “Bring back the electric chair; being put to sleep, like stray pets, is too good for the traitors,” the mob will rage. That’s the solution, but (cognitive dissonance being what it is) we need to go bigger — we need an electric sofa — yet, bigger still — an electric dining room set! “Aahh … the smell of deep-fried dissidents in the morning.”
And over the smoking corpses, let us pray. We need to pray for … what? … more prayer. These prayers would work, the homicidally faithful will insist — if every single doubter was induced to drop to their knees and pray. Hence, we need prayer in the public schools. We need prayer on public transportation. We need prayer in public restrooms!
Animus, ignorance, and magical thinking are a tragic mix — and I’m afraid that vintage of mind is the hideous wine of our times. The social criteria that gives rise to fascism is in place in the U.S. and those in positions of power have a strong interest in seeing things remain that way. All we can do is what folks (a minority) have always done … exile or resistance.
In my opinion, both are honorable. The other options are varying degrees of “little Eichmann[ism]” — Ward Churchill’s much scorned, career purge-inducing — but never-the-less accurate phrase. If one does the “soul work,” to appropriate archetypal psychologist James Hillman’s term, it is still possible to resist complicity. Training yourself to avoid lying for provisional gain is a time honored means of prevented alliances with exploitive assholes. They will avoid you, fire you, curse your name from the darkness of their inner abyss — but this will solve the problem of dependance on them — and you’ll be forced to live by other means. Generally, one is more adaptable than one believes.
Keep yourself as healthy and as sane as possible: we’re going to need you around after the inevitable collapse of the present system. Also, beware of those reductionist demons of the mind who diminish the soul-making possibilities of “mere” words. The acts of writing and reading are seen as passive; to crackpot realists, these activities seem useless, unproductive — the feckless indulgences of a class of the thin-wristed effete.
Accordingly, Americans have all but ceased reading. Worse, they displace their feelings of self-loathing borne of their own corporately induced passivity upon writers and thinkers. If the tenets of democratic discourse are to survive, it is imperative that writers and thinkers begin to engage in a passionate defense of themselves against the kvetching armies of crackpot realists that have encircled and laid siege to our collective hearts and minds.
But don’t expect to be lauded with praise for the effort. It’s doubtful our adversaries will be moved by our entreaties: There cannot be a rapprochement with reality for those who have never had a relationship with it in the first place. Yet verbal imagery and depth-inducing insights are the DNA of compassionate engagement. It is not a coincidence that George W. Bush is an inarticulate oaf. Conversely, there are many things in this world that require being touched by words, for there are occasions when words alone can suffice to take us deep and lift us up and serve to ameliorate our alienation.
It is in this spirit that I offer the words above to you; I’m traveling light; they’re all I’m carrying with me, at this late hour, in these dark and dangerous times.
July 18th, 2007
By Rowan Wolf
Stephen Hadley - the National Security Adviser - asked Congress to . Now, what options might those be? Everyone seems to complain about the lack of “progress” in Iraq. However, that progress seems to be the lack of the Iraqi government signing the Production Sharing Agreements (PSAs) that turn over much of the profits and development of Iraq’s oil to the big oil companies. The Dems seem to want those signed as badly as Bush and the Republicans. So I figure we are in for a lot of mealy mouthed foot dragging. Perhaps that is why General Pace (head of the Joint Chiefs) is talking up another troop build up.
Excuse me? Who pray tell is going to make up yet another surge?
But the search is on for friends in Iraq since the police in Baghdad who we are supposed to be working hand-in-glove with, have . Hopefully that little rebellion has been put down, but it does not bode well for the U.S. efforts in Baghdad.
With the U.S. troops-Iraqi police alliance falling apart, I guess we shouldn’t be too surprised that the new strategy is to make alliances with “ex”-insurgents. They have even been given a name (as if that will smooth the waters) the LRF or “Legitimate Resistance Force.” Let’s not beg the question of whom they were legitimately resisting.
Bush has had so much success in the “War on Terror” and whatever they are now calling the devastation in Iraq, that the policy (is there a policy?) is getting a ringing endorsement in the recently released National Intelligence Estimate - The Terrorist Threat to the US Homeland (not).
According to the public version of this document, the threat is high and it is coming out of al Qa’ida in Iraq. Iraq? Al Qa’ida was not in Iraq until Bush decided to engage in preemptive invasion and “regime change,” and then couldn’t figure out what “regime” to put in place. After all there were other more important things on the table - like privatizing everything in Iraq - particularly the oil. I encourage everyone to read the report. While it is short to start with (7 pages), the first five pages are introduction and definition, and say nothing about the actual threat estimate. That only takes slightly under two pages.
I did read the whole thing, and it made me very nervous. “Homeland” or “HOMELAND” is used 15 times in the seven pages of the document. There is something very unnerving about that. Perhaps they think it has a better ring than “Fatherland” or “Motherland;” which would also make me uneasy. The United States (or U.S.) works for me. Speaking of which they do not use U.S., seeming to prefer US. United States occurs seven times - though not in association with “Homeland.” “US” occurs 15 times - five of which are “US Homeland.”
Anyway, it seems hard to get a positive spin out of the threat assessment. Internationally, Al Qa’ida, is reportedly as strong to stronger than before the attacks of September 11, 2001. The organization in Iraq has been particularly successful, is growing, and is apparently a significant threat to the HOMELAND (which I presume means the states as differentiated from U.S. territories, embassies and the like).
This not only show the failure of the mission in Iraq, but also in undermining the threat of international terrorism - particularly Al Qa’ida. However, it also makes one wonder about the oft repeated “fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them over here” refrain. Or that “the next smoking gun” might be a “mushroom cloud.”
We assess that al-Qa’ida will continue to try to acquire and employ chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear material in attacks and would not hesitate to use them if it develops what it deems is sufficient capability.
Whoops - not going well on any front, but Congress please don’t limit the President’s options in Iraq - everything they have tried has failed. All Bush needs is more troops, more money, more of a “free” hand to operate without oversight, and the U.S. will “win” - with the (ex)-insurgent Legitimate Resistance Force by our site (they hope).
July 12th, 2007
By: Phil Rockstroh
At present, George W. Bush is unpopular with the majority of the American public not because of the murderous mayhem he has unloosed in Iraq; rather, his standing has plummeted, due to the fact, he didn’t deliver the goods. Americans are fine with fueling our republic of road rage using the blood of Iraqis (or any other distant and darker people) as long as “the mission” doesn’t drag on too long or reveal too much about ourselves.
How did we come to be a nation of vampires who live by sustaining ourselves on the blood of others? Is our mode of collective being so toxic in the United States that a writer must bandy about metaphors culled from Gothic horror fiction to describe it?
I’m afraid it’s come to that: We are a people who psyches have grown monstrously distorted from an addiction to imperial power and personal entitlement. (Imagery of Smurfs and Teletubbies won’t rise to the analogy, albeit as terrifying as those demons of hell-bound cuteness are.)
The corporate culture of exploitation has begot a hellscape of narcissists. It is an authoritarian culture riddled in kitsch and cruelty, in nationalistic hagiography and displaced rage — all the distortions of national character inherent to privileged grotesques and ordinary monsters.
A narcissist’s actions are monstrous because his only love is the image of himself wielding control and power. (Does this remind you of anyone, perhaps someone who struts about in a flightsuit — someone prone to proclaiming himself “the decider” — someone who grows intoxicated to the point becoming insensate from a whiff of his own pheromones as he swoons in macho-narcissistic self-worship?)
And what about the everyday monsters, those who feel nothing — not outrage, not remorse, nor sorrow — by the conscience-devoid attempt made by our vampiric leaders to sustain “our way of life” on Iraqi blood? Are you not a monster as well when you feel nothing before immense human suffering? If you are impervious to, grown inured of, or have chosen to remain ignorant of the agony of the Iraqi people, then you might as well join the ranks of the undead — because the distant landscape of corpses in Iraq and Afghanistan matches your internal deathscape.
In short, our empire’s dependence on the resources (the life’s blood) of others renders us a nation of vampires. Moreover, the corporatist character (our national character) is defined by the vampire’s trait of taking, never giving. Accordingly, what do the big monsters at the top take from us, the little monsters?
To name one: our time, the precious hours of our finite lives. The corporatists are Time Vampires: For a moment, reflect on all the hours of life you’ve wasted away — in office cubicles, in commuter traffic jams, in the addictive pursuit of consumer dreck, or simply numbed-out and exhausted, rendered inert from the incessant, soul-sucking stress of the corporate state.
The corporacracy devours our time and, like the charges of a vampire, has made us dependent and slavish in return. In our bloodless enslavement, we lose the vitality borne of existing within life’s inherent mysteries and grow estranged from the deep resonances of participation mystique.
How does one begin to take back one’s soul from these elitist usurpers? Start with this: The ebullient skepticism engendered from calling out soul-numbing, self-serving authoritarian lies.
In an era as perilous as ours, it’s imperative we act with utmost urgency. Yet, tragically, the exigencies of our age are being played out against a panorama of longer, more stressful work hours, superficially ameliorated by a mass media culture comprised of ceaseless trivia and mindless distraction.
This pathology began years ago when our ancestors offered up their life’s blood to the early corporatists of the Industrial Age. Henry Ford was a gray ghoul who measured out our flesh with his productivity-measuring stopwatch; he was a cunning practitioner of the black art of convincing human beings they’re mere cogs in an inhuman machine. It was only a short trudge from there through history’s slaughterhouse to Adolf Eichmann, insulated within his vampire’s coffin of cold calculations that shielded him from the horrific implications of the system of mechanized extermination he devised.
The corporate vampire’s creed is defined by ruthless efficiency; the fear of a “loss of productivity” is the driving force of the death machine. The system is so ruthless and inhuman that it must conceal its true face, hence the rise of the telegenic undead known as the corporate media. Do not look to them to report the facts of our condition: After all, a mirror can’t reflect the image of a vampire. A vampire is empty to the core; therefore, there is nothing to reflect.
Furthermore, his emptiness is the progenitor of his destructive nature. Rather than face himself, his appetite for death will devour all in its path: rain forests, Arctic glaziers, the people of Iraq, the hours of your life, as well as your inner being.
It is the force that holds Democratic politicians in the thrall of their own fecklessness, because they answer to the same blood-sucking, corporate masters as the rest of us. Quite simply, they’re afraid of their bosses too. The Washington Beltway is a version, in miniature, of the entire soul-dead, American corporacracy. The careerist politicians within the Beltway are afflicted with the same diminution of choice — the same hyper-attenuation of the will to freedom — as the rest of us.
And what remains for us: an existence (or lack thereof) within this hierarchical hellscape of narcissists. What sort of a pathetic mode of being is this, a life shackled to the service of a monstrous system wherein one must evince the obsequies of a vampire’s bloodless lackeys?
To reverse this situation: Now is the time to drag the lies of the corporate state into the sunshine where they will writher to dust. We are not powerless: We live in a world where our collective, hidden intentions are made manifest by our outward actions. This is why Gothic — even b-movie — metaphors are not an overwrought description of our present condition. Ergo, by the vehicle of cultural collaboration, we are a nation of world-destroying, b-movie monsters — we are a hack-scripted, second-billed feature at the drive-in movie of existence — a laughed-off-the-big-screen of the cosmos, box-office poison of a people.
We are soul-sucking creatures of kitsch. Flesh-eating zombies of conformity. Road-rage werewolves. Right-wing, talk show demons whose wrathful voices rage into empty air. Hungry ghosts wandering the aisles of supermarkets, convenience stores, restaurant chains and the food courts of shopping malls. We are: The Fat, Mindless Blobs That Ate the Planet.
To survive, first, we must find the monster within, then drive a stake through its heart.
Phil Rockstroh, a self-described, auto-didactic, gasbag monologist, is a poet, lyricist and philosopher bard living in New York City. He may be contacted at: .
July 10th, 2007
By Carolyn Baker of Speaking Truth to Power
Every time I write an article on collapse such as my most recent one “Happy Independence Day; You Have No Government“, I am bombarded with emails asking me “what should I do?” For those who have just discovered this site, that is a legitimate question because for them, the reality of collapse may be new. Those who have been following this site for some time have heard many suggestions on what to do, but this article will offer those and other suggestions again more clearly and more adamantly than they have been offered here before. The intensity you are likely to hear in this piece is driven by the urgency which I and many of my peers are feeling at this moment. Quite frankly, it’s time to quit screwing around with talking about collapse and start acting. The Rubicon has been crossed, we’re not living in Kansas anymore, and we are living in the closest thing we’ve seen to pre-World War II Germany than anything since then. Suit up and stop theorizing and speculating. It’s showtime.
The first thing I’m not going to tell you is that collapse can be avoided or that human ingenuity and technology will come up with something to spare us from it. I’m not going to tell you that there will be some mass movement-some magic http://www.collapse.org/ that will organize progressives into a groundswell of protest, writing letters to Congress, creating blogs and websites, supporting the “right” candidate, and asking for donations. No, what I’m going to tell you is that as a nation and as a planet, we are screwed, fucked, and shit out of luck, or if you prefer Spanish, estamos jodidos.
The second thing I’m not going to tell you is what you’d like to hear-how you can just keep living the lifestyle you’re living but that somehow you can avoid collapse. I’m not going to tell you that you can keep banking with Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Citibank, or any of the other satanic financial monsters and it will make no difference to you or anyone else. I’m not going to tell you that you can keep buying your food at your local supermarket or Walmart, and everything will be fine. I’m not going to tell you to go out and vote for a presidential candidate in 2008 when even if there is an election, whoever is selected by the electronic voting industrial complex, will be that complex’s man or woman-body, mind, and soul. I’m not going to tell you to get a hybrid vehicle or put solar panels on your house. In fact, before I tell you to do anything, I’m going to invite you to engage in doing nothing.
Tim Bennett and Sally Erickson, creators of the documentary “What A Way To Go: Life At The End Of Empire“, have suggested five things you can do, and I’d like to elaborate on those.
Unlike ancient cultures, America is a society of manic doers. Before we have even understood the problem, we are frantically rushing to find a solution. So I’m going to ask you first of all to stop-dead in your tracks and do nothing. In fact, I’m going to suggest that you go out in nature, sit down on a quiet log, tree stump, rock, or on the grass, and do and say nothing. Look into a river or stream, study a blade of grass, pick up a handful of soil, focus on a colony of ants, but whatever you do-pay attention. Look, listen, smell, and above all, feel your own emotions as you: 1) “fully acknowledge and internalize that the culture of Empire is destroying the support systems on which the community of life depends, and robbing us of our essential humanity.”
Acknowledge that all of your efforts and those of everyone you know and love cannot and will not prevent collapse. In addition, feel the powerlessness, helplessness, and hopelessness that courses through your body as you do this. Feel the forever loss of the stream or grass, or soil, or animal that you might be looking at. Imagine in its place the extinction of everything you are now perceiving. All that you are now observing has been supporting you, and soon, it will be gone. How does that feel? Yes, I know. Sad, tragic, horrifying, enraging-and now you feel even more despair. It’s OK. Let yourself feel it-really, really feel it. This is sacred time. This is the moment of truth; this is your meditation on what is so, and you can’t do anything else-not really, not effectively until you feel these very feelings. In other words, surrender to the idea of collapse. Stop running from it, imagine it, feel it. The more you focus on doing, the less you’ll focus on feeling, and your doing will not work for you until you feel the feelings behind your doing.
And then, when you’ve experienced those very precious and necessary moments of sacred truth, take yourself into the company of those you love and begin talking about what is so: 2) “Talk about your concerns with everyone you know. Make peak oil, climate change, mass extinction and population overshoot household words.” There will be many people you cannot discuss these with. Find those with whom you can. This is the beginning of “finding your tribe”-finding those individuals who get it, who feel what you feel and are no longer in denial about collapse. They have probably been looking for you as much as you have been looking for them. Talk not only about the facts, the research, the events of collapse, but equally or even more importantly, about your feelings about it. This really isn’t hard to do. If you have children, think about their future. What do you feel?
Yes, I know you want to know more about what to do, but slow down. You’re moving too fast. Keep feeling. Keep talking.
The very first action steps really have to do with you and your inner world. You need to think and feel about who YOU want to be in the face of collapse. What kind of work do you really want to be doing? 3) “Find your work in the world to preserve life, change this culture and /or create restorative ways for individuals and communities to live in harmony with each other and the non-human world.” Does the work you’re doing help to preserve life? Do you need to relocate to another part of the country or world so that you and your loved ones can live lifestyles that prepare yourselves for collapse? What are you doing to take responsibility for your food supply? How are you preparing to live in a post-petroleum world? Can you even fathom what that means? Such dramatic change does not happen overnight; it’s a transition, but remember, you don’t have all the time in the world. Several dozen species have become extinct while you’ve been reading this article.
4) “Assess what you actually need during this transition in order to live and do your work. Only buy what you need and buy from local sources in order to support the creation of local economies.” And now comes an enormously important exercise: What do I need and what don’t I need? Preparation for collapse will change as much in your life as will collapse itself. Every step of preparation is a meditation, a paring down, and gathering together, always informed by “Who do I want to be? What’s really important? What do I really not need? What do I really need?”
I believe that one reason collapse is so unthinkable for many individuals is that they have no spiritual (I did not say religious) basis for navigating it. On the other hand, some individuals can think deeply about and realize its daunting reality, but they approach it with cynicism and bitterness. All of the above questions I have suggested entertaining are essentially spiritual questions because they are questions of the soul. 5) Therefore, “find or deepen your spiritual connection to that which is greater than you. Ask and then listen for guidance about how to live joyfully and creatively in the face of these unprecedented times.”
One of my favorite mantras is a quote from Derrick Jensen: “We’re fucked, and life is really, really good.” Amid the dismal we need fun, joy, play, lightness of heart, art, music, poetry, songs, stories, and creativity of infinite varieties. Yes, I know, it’s a tremendous challenge holding such opposite emotions in the same body, but that is our work in the face of the end of the world as we have known it. Recall the words of Morpheus in “The Matrix”: “I didn’t say it would be easy, I just said it would be the truth.”
I will be away from the computer and Truth To Power from July 14-28. Not only do I need two weeks away from the website, but I need to gather with my “tribe” as we spend days and nights in nature sharing our feelings and planning how we might create and maintain a community for navigating collapse. People often ask me what I’m doing to prepare and where I might relocate. Even if I were able to tell you, what I would tell you isn’t necessarily what you should be doing or where you should be going. Only you can discover that for yourself. My wish for you is that you will use these two weeks to contemplate your future and where you need to be and what you need to be doing.
Remember: There are no “solutions” but only options as the fascist empire concretizes around us. Part of the empire’s agenda is to keep you, like a dog chasing its tail, looking for solutions and bashing people who don’t offer them to you but tell you the truth instead-that the future of you and your loved ones is entirely in your hands and no one else’s. The sooner you let go of your illusions about avoiding collapse and someone or something being able to prevent and cure it, the more energy you will free up to act on behalf of yourself and your tribe.
OK, now I’ve told you what to do. If you don’t want to do it or refuse to do it, please don’t call me “dismal”, “negative” or a “purveyor of hopelessness.” Look in the mirror and ask yourself how it is that after all this time, despite all the information you have, you still don’t get it. Someone has said, “Deal with reality or reality will deal with you.” Do you want to deal with reality when collapse is in your face, or do you want to take action to prepare for it now? Ground yourself in your authentic feelings about your collapsing world, then join with your tribe to build lifeboats. For two weeks this website will be in “hibernation”. It could be sacred time–time to reflect, time to feel, time to act-before time runs out.
July 8th, 2007
By Rowan Wolf
With the apparent success of yesterday’s Live Earth concerts, one has to ask whether something new is being born. It is reported that the broadcasts reached 2 billion people. That is almost one-third of the population of the planet. If accurate, that is HUGE. Certainly, a third of the planet should be more than a critical mass to DO something.
I have said for a long time that what is needed to make significant change is someone in a position of power to take leadership. Al Gore is doing exactly that, and I believe he is doing it incredibly well. While there are those who would love to see him run for president, I believe he is much more effective right where he is.
I believe that the United States, and the world, needs a high visibility, highly credible, highly connected, voice to actually move us along the necessary path for planetary survival. Al Gore meets all of those requirements and he is fully committed and truly passionate about global warming. He is also totally focused on that ONE THING.
Maybe he could “save” the United States, and maybe he couldn’t, but the Presidency would hamstring is ability to be that leader that is needed.
The release of “An Inconvenient Truth” started an avalanche of change. The words “global warming” now find a presence on the evening news, and even weather reports. The words (particularly in weather forecasts) were assiduously avoided before that. The Weather Channel even has “Forecast Earth” now, which is expressly focused on global warming.
The Live Earth concerts, with its web site connections, and building of neighborhood and community action groups, will hopefully provide a reinvigorated push in the right direction. I am waiting to see what Gore’s next big push will be. I am sure it is planned, and in six months or so, it will be needed. It is too easy for folks to go back to “business as usual.” Further, we do have elections coming up in the United States. I would be amazed if there is not a dramatic effort to push candidates to take up this banner as one of the top (if not THE top) issue for the 2008 elections.
All of this media, and the changes in reporting, are having an effect. While national and global leaders seem to largely avoid the issue of global warming like old socks, the people are not likely to let that happen. Al Gore has recognized that the change necessary is not going to come from the designated leadership. It will only come from a tidal wave of public pressure. Now THAT is a big recognition for a career politician to make.
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