Saturday, July 30, 2005

The Great Race and the Marathon of Hope


There's a way to get there, and I'll figure it out somehow
But I'm already there in my mind, and that's good enough for now
- Bob Dylan


Thinking about John Bolton the other day got me thinking about Terry Fox. The mind's funny that way.

But first, let me tell you about this friend I had in Grade Six. He was the kind of friend who, even in Grade Six, made me wish I had one less friend. But try telling my parents that. ("He's a nice boy! You want to sit in your room reading all day?") He was the school bully. Not a beat-the-shit-out-of-you bully, though his smile always implied that he could if it came to that, so it never came to that. His metier was psychological abuse. Some eleven-year olds just have a knack for the psy ops, you know?

One week, he got it in his head that I was his "slave." To win my freedom, he said, I needed to beat him in a race. One contest a day was held at recess to see if I could be a free boy again. The first time I beat him I was thrilled, until he told me nuh ah - that was just practice. Darn it! When I beat him again, he said I'd merely earned X number of points; I needed Y to be free. Crap, this is harder than I'd thought.... And I kept competing, because I wanted my freedom, and because every time he moved the goalposts I felt more like a slave.

I'd like to say I woke up one day and told him to go to Hell, but I didn't. The episode just petered out as he found some other child to torment. It wasn't until later that I realized how much a party I'd been to my own enslavement by simply accepting the base premise.

Which brings me to John Bolton, a bully in his own right, and the news that next week, George Bush will take advantage of the congressional recess and appointment him UN ambassador without confirmation from the legislative branch.

That the Senate might have denied Bolton's appointment was clearly possible, which would have meant a rare loss for the Bush Administration. So rare, I can't off the top of my head think of a single thing that's been denied them.

It's difficult to watch the perpetual dashing of hope in America amongst those who still think politics matters, and that political action is sufficient to reverse America's fascist course. To them, it remains a race. C'mon gang - we can win this thing! But their opponent is more than a competitor: he is also the track official, and what a bloody-minded bastard he is. He has neither conscience nor fear of reprisal for tripping them up, tying together their shoelaces and moving the finish line. If he's seen to be running, it's simply to be seen. And so he's not even a true competitor, because there is no competition.

After the Supreme Court rubber-stamped the coup of 2000, I heard "wait until '02!" After Wellstone was murdered and the black boxes began swallowing invisible votes, I heard "wait until '04!" And even before Ohio and the bizarre Skull and Bones shadowplay, I started hearing "wait until '06!" And I tell you, I just can't hear anymore.

Lewis Lapham wonders, in July's Harper's, "why so many people continue to insist that we're living in a democracy that somehow would have been recognizable to Franklin D Roosevelt or even to Richard M Nixon. The belief is bad for the health and mental stability." Perhaps if Kubler-Ross had been a political scientist she would have described it as the first stage of grief upon the death of a republic. Either that, or they are simply inattentive, and still don't know enough to be in denial.

Listen, America. I've been there. The bully won't let you win, even when you do, as you have a number of times now. As soon as you rise to his bogus challenge, you give up your power, and he's got you.

If politics is a race that can never be won, then perhaps parapolitics is a solitary marathon that can never be finished.

If this is it, and the old cancer upon the presidency has metastasized beyond treatment, and all we can do for the American Experiment is make it as comfortable as possible, there is still hope. Hope for us, I mean, and not for a system, nor even possibly for a civilization. Because if what doesn't kill us makes us stronger, perhaps what kills us - or could - makes us strongest. I mean that like Dylan meant this, which he wrote during the Cuban Missile Crisis:

I will not go down under the ground
'cause somebody tells me that death's comin' 'round
An' I will not carry myself down to die
When I go to my grave my head will be high
Let me die in my footsteps
Before I go down under the ground


To me, the metaphorical oomph of the Fox run is not the ringingly hollow "cancer can be beaten." Because, after all, it beat him. Rather, it's "Hey cancer, get a load of me - I'm fucking alive!"

It's not a race, but we have to keep moving. And long may you run.

58 Comments:

Blogger plectic said...

Just because they are the judge and jury, doesn´t mean they are right. Dillon realizes the indivisible, absolute nature of the individual.

"that there is no such thing as a point of no return in nuclear weapons development" Dr. Ephraim Asculai of Tel Aviv University

5:18 a.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The answer has always been mass non co-operation. But it needs a lightning rod or some such. Something that an individual can do (or better, not do) and is of benefit or at least no cost to do and then watch it snowball once the emperor is seen to have no clothes. Fascist and totalitarian regimes crumble very quickly usually once the myth of their power evaporates. I don't know what that something is and wish mightily that I did. Any ideas out there?

7:34 a.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The guy who originally said "That which does not kill me makes me stronger" ended up bed-bound and demented the last years of his life.
The Soviet Union hung on for 80 years. The National Security State in the US is over 50 years old -- and getting stronger.
Like Peggy Lee sang, "it's time to break out the booze, my friend."

7:56 a.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

How about an organized boycott of all mainstream media... anybody tried that yet?

8:54 a.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I've been doing my boycott of mainstream media for over a year. You mean you haven't noticed!

9:15 a.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

... It could be a 30 day personal challenge and be named "Media Literacy 2005", and have a website like the www.one.org campaign... Just spinning, help me out here...

9:19 a.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Politics is dead. Time to invoke a separate set of rules and play outside of the political system. Eco-villiatges and alternate communities using alternate currencies are the start of this movement.

Those of us who see through the

10:37 a.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Politics is dead. Time to invoke a separate set of rules and play outside of the political system. Eco-villiatges and alternate communities using alternate currencies are the start of this movement.

Those of us who see through the shell game need to get busy with building alternatives. We cannot fight as that is again allowing them to define the battlefield and we will surely lose.

We need to ralise that the only way forward is to build and create an alternative to our current sick society. We need to do this with love.

10:40 a.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

As much as I believe in the ideas and existence of alternative cultures, universal love, and redefining the rules, I'm not too confident this course of action will concern the Bush administration overmuch. There's nothing like armed insurrection to make an incumbent power feel a little itchy. Bush is walking over us all, and we're just lying back and taking it. He couldn't care less that we're all sitting in our homes using the internet, either. He doesn't care what we know (let's face it, we know pretty much everything we need to know to know what we need), he cares what we do. You're sitting in front of your monitor, I'm sitting in front of mine: the Man is happy.

1:09 p.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

It's a war of the magicians.

NSA= the "black magic" arm of the CIA.

There are most certainly some of us who are fighting this war against the dark side... Star Wars has some very potent and real information in it; there is a Dark Side and there are those of us who are using some sort of "Force" to fight it.

Of course, perhaps what we're using is actually "der Schwartz." Whatever.

Read the latest Captain's Log on the Cloudbusters Yahoo group. And as you read it, please remember that this effort has been going on for years, with lots of people using a wide variety of techniques to STOP chemtrails as well as the ritual abuse at Bohemian Grove, the planned domestic terror attacks that have failed, and to minimize the damage done to us as a race... the human race, of course.

"I see your Schwartz is as big as mine..." --MaryK

1:37 p.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Another great work Jeff! Your allegory was superlative in it's relevance to the saturation of compliance that pervades the new reich. Those of us remember what a free(er) America was like when we were growing up, only to have it degenerate into the Stasi-like state it's manifesting into. It's that identity with self-awareness and identity that these soulless demons hate the most. The control-fetishists need cooperation and zero opposition to carry out their Fourth Reich agenda. Their Achille's heel is money, so any creative means to obstruct or curtail their hands from our collective pockets would go a long way towards hampering their goals. As a hypothesis, imagine trying to fight an illegal and offensive war without the compliant taxes they drain from us. A great idea that someone had come up with during the oil conglomerates first offensive to gouge the American public; was to have a "No Gas Day" where no one buys any gas for a day. If you remember this at all, the media dogs were loosed and continued their day-long propaganda by repeating that the oil companies were unaffected by the people's actions. Anyone with a child's grasp of math can tell you that they felt it and got so scared that they set CNN and FOX News into spin overtime. So we do have a collective untapped power that the cabals want desperately to keep secret. Disunity, Fear, and Confusion are the oil that keep the machine running at it's pace.

How many times lately have you heard how "these damn blogs are the problem, thet're wild with no accountability (read censored and repressed)? Just like the years leading up to the Third Reich or the Phoenix Project in Viet Nam and Laos, you'll see the state gear up to further delineate who's a terrorist to silence true democracy. The artists, poets, conspiracy researchers and the holders on of dangerous thoughts like true freedom, and bona fide un-oppressed lives. There's a huge difference between existance and life and we all currently struggle through this confined life in the existance catagory. Keep up the good fight true believers!

2:10 p.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Another great work Jeff! Your allegory was superlative in it's relevance to the saturation of compliance that pervades this hellish new reich. Those of us remember what a free(er) America was like when we were growing up, only to have it degenerate into the Stasi-like state it's manifesting into. It's that identity with self-awareness and identity that these soulless demons hate the most. The control-fetishists need cooperation and zero opposition to carry out their Fourth Reich agenda. Their Achille's heel is money, so any creative means to obstruct or curtail their hands from our collective pockets would go a long way towards hampering their goals. As a hypothesis, imagine trying to fight an illegal and offensive war without the compliant taxes they drain from us. A great idea that someone had come up with during the oil conglomerates first offensive to gouge the American public; was to have a "No Gas Day" where no one buys any gas for a day. If you remember this at all, the media dogs were loosed and continued their day-long propaganda by repeating that the oil companies were unaffected by the people's actions. Anyone with a child's grasp of math can tell you that they felt it hard and got so scared that they set CNN and FOX News into spin overtime before it become a pattern of resistance. So we do have a collective untapped power that the cabals want desperately to keep secret. Disunity, Fear, and Confusion are the oil that keep the machine running at it's pace.

How many times lately have you heard how "these damn blogs are the problem, they're wild with no accountability (read censored and repressed)? Just like the years leading up to the Third Reich or the Phoenix Project in Viet Nam and Laos, you'll see the state gear up to further delineate who's a terrorist to silence true bearers of democracy. The artists, poets, conspiracy researchers and the holders on of dangerous thoughts like true freedom, and bona fide un-oppressed lives. There's a huge difference between existance and life and we all currently struggle through this confined life in the existance catagory.

Keep up the good fight true believers!

2:12 p.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I've been thinking lately about the need to create alternative economic structures.

The 60's counterculture never really tried to do that. It was a dropout culture, which essentially meant living on the leavings of the Great Society -- marginal jobs, welfare, occasional half-hearted stabs at finding a piece of land somewhere and getting self-sufficient. But it didn't work very well then and it wouldn't even be possible to attempt it now.

The 60's also threw the world "alternative" around a lot, but generally in the context of things like "alternative newspapers" -- which wound up in the pockets of the same old corporate advertisers -- or "alternate radio," which turned out to mean "experimental formats within the context of corporate ownership and for only as long as the corporations tolerated them."

What's needed now is genuine alternatives. Alternative sources of income. Alternative ways of doing business. Alternative energy. Alternatives to copyright and intellectual property.

Effectively, we need to think of ourselves as a third world nation, trying to build a viable economic system from scratch without depending on the faux largesse of the global overlords.

How do we do that? At this point, I don't have a clue -- except that computers and the Internet, by putting the tools of production and distribution within the reach of all of us, make it at least imaginable in a way that it wasn't forty years ago.

There are also certain resources that might provide clues, ranging from Jane Jacobs' work on cities as engines of economic growth, to books on guerrilla marketing, to whatever hints there are in things like the Grameen Bank or in those Chinese mutual-aid groups, where everyone pitches in a little and the money in the pot goes to staking one member at a time to some sort of business venture.

Not to mention eBay's direct seller-to-buyer structure and Amazon Books' "long tail" effect.

None of those are viable models in themselves. But they do suggest further possibilities.

All I know for sure is that politics is never going to get us out of the hole we're in. But economics just might.

3:18 p.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

My apologies for the accidental double post.

3:19 p.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

A poster called Nobody said:

"You're sitting in front of your monitor, I'm sitting in front of mine: the Man is happy."

Yes indeed. No revolution was ever started by autists, however knowledgable they may have been. "Divide and Conquer", raised to a very fine art.

3:35 p.m.  
Blogger Cigarette Smoking Man from the X-Files said...

So long as you see the problem as purely a U.S. phenomenon, the Control Pyramid is still one step ahead of you.

4:23 p.m.  
Blogger Jonny said...

I want to believe that the universe moves inexorably towards light and that we'll figure out a way forward.

They won't win.

When I hear Blakes 'Jerusalem' I know it.

When I read Kerouac I know it.

When I'm driving home and the sun is setting and the whole world is aching with its own infinite beauty I know it.

And when I hold my new daughter, I know it then too.

George and Dick can't win because ultimately they're not in the race. The human race, that is.

6:08 p.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Jeff, at some point in the plot I realized that no ideal (what else could it be?) future scenario (intriniscally fictional) developed by the 6-dimensional mind ever makes it into the other 4 dimensions without running into a great many externalities- externalities which have proved to my satisfaction that just as no grand optimistic scheme worked out by a single human being ever pays off as planned, that no pessimistic horror scenario works out as anticipated. It's either better, or worse.

That explains your "cautious pessimism" to me. If you can imagine it as hopeless and futile, and you do it anyway, things are bound to surprise you with how much better there were than you first thought.

I think this may be along the lines of a logical proposition. Write a "speculative fiction" book- (a title reserved for sci-fi, but isn't all fiction "speculative?)- and you'll guarantee that your model won't be congruent in all respects with the world of Actuality. The "blueprinted" world will be an incomplete model, no matter how thoroughly imagined by a given human author. Lacking 100% versimilitude.

The trick is to be amused by the disparity between actual first-person experience and one's defensive perimeter of Pessimism.

If we maximize the Pessimism, each day we get through that isn't as bad as our worst imagined horrors rendering the dour scenario absurd, in fact- is a victory.

In my case, here's my speculative fantasy- I'm abducted to to a torture house by "covert operatives"- (ever wonder about that movie, "The Dirty Dozen"? That modus operandi is SOP for some spy leaders covert operations...) with voluminous surveillance dossiers in hand, to contend unequally with the Mind-Rapers of the Disappearance Squad, without knowing what's happened to my family, friends, and allies, or them knowing what's happened to me...and it gets worse from there.

My life is surprisingly good in comparision.

That leaves the "imaginably better" part, to be worked on. And I suppose that "the unimaginably better" realm takes care of itself, after that.

"Externalities", and "externality", what a concept...

9:21 p.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

There are limits to the "cancer" metaphor. A board like RI deals perhaps not so much not with objective material matters of Medicine and Natural Philosophy. Diseases are susceptible to material solutions and specifically, scientifically tailored therapies.

RI is more about the political world: the social world, the world of Civic and Criminal Law, Ethics, and Politics. "Powers and principalites", as it were. Thought-based, plastic concepts...no magic formulas there. Very few rules. Principles.

Aside from the incongruence of metaphor, I like the defiance and courage inherent in the allegory you chose. Terry Fox is an admirable example...a formidable standard.

9:54 p.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I think we can use the Terry Fox example in another way, too. Terry had cancer that had to be cut out. The U.S. is suffering from cancer at the very top. It needs to be cut out. Even doing that may not help, as in Terry's case. The U.S., as we know it, may die. However, in its death throes it may inspire something better.

10:57 p.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

An Iraqi girl gave a talk at one of our local peace rallies about an event that happened before the Bush attack - because the Americans never ceased bombing Iraq. Another attack was expected soon, and some of her friends were taking shelter in a bunker. She said, "No, if I am to die, I want to be looking at the stars." That night her friends were incinerated in their bunker, while she survived to tell the story.

11:12 p.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"They were so unprofessional," and not at all like the religious militants found in the Middle East, John O'Connor told CBC-TV News.

The four, who he said drank, smoked dope and womanized, in contrast with the austere life of religiously motivated attackers, were susceptible to suggestion by their recruiters."

So they will be easy for interrogators to break down, O'Connor said. That means the planners and bomb-makers, who assumed the four would die in suicide attacks on the London transit system on July 21, "must be quaking in their boots."

From the CBC Report about the nabbed 7/21 UK would-be bombers.

1:06 a.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2005/07/30/bombings-italy040730

1:07 a.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"It would seem that all organizations are devoted to one common purpose, the suppression of freedom. Nor is their sincerity any excuse. History is a bloody testament that sincerity can achieve atrocities which cynicism could never conceive." - John (Jack) Whiteside Parsons

1:12 a.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Why are NASA scientists so "second string" like? They goof all the time, maybe it's a slight of hand and while team A gets to work.

1:26 a.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Isn't there a way to buy the rope from these greedy bastards and then let that be the rope that they hang themselves with? (as Michael Moore mentions in the movie, The Corporation.)

11:51 a.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Once the emperor Akbar asked his (wise) prime minister for a gift which "when I'm overly discouraged or depressed will bring me back to center, and when I'm overly elated or excited about something will bring me back to center."

The next day the prime minister approached the emperor and dropped a ring into his palm. "Here is your gift, sir," the prime minister said.

"How will this ring bring me back from the doldrums and back from over-elation?" Akbar asked.

"Read the inscription on it sir. Whenever you need re-centering, just read the inscription."

The emperor did. It said: "This too shall pass."

1:55 p.m.  
Blogger Wolfmoonlady said...

I'm behind on my RI reading - not sure if this post will get seen, but here goes anyway.

Anonymous @ 11:12 said:
Another attack was expected soon, and some of her friends were taking shelter in a bunker. She said, "No, if I am to die, I want to be looking at the stars." That night her friends were incinerated in their bunker, while she survived to tell the story.

Thank you for posting that one! It reminds me that we need to trust our gut instincts for survival. It is different for each of us.

Jonny - I feel the earth move whenever I read Kerouac. Thank you for mentioning him. Beautiful post - congrats on your new daughter!

Cigarette Man - yes! This is NOT a U.S. phenomenon. But it is the U.S. who is bulldozing the way for the NWO, yes?

As to Jeff's point about whether or not democracy will survive, I don't know. I tend to doubt it.

For one thing, I refuse to play the "voting game" as long as casting a Democratic vote results in a Republican win. Which it will. Aside from rigged elections, the Dems are in bed with the same entities as the GOPS. Nader, nuts as he seems at times, was right about that one. That said, I will never stop looking for ways to motivate people to oust the fascist regime that currently has democracy in lockdown mode.

It's important to realize that boards like this one help us to play out endless possibilities for creating social and political change. I would also suggest that talking together fosters the courage to act upon these ideas. Remember that Solzhenitsyn wrote passionately about the importance of socio-political dialogue between enslaved prisoners in Stalin's Gulag. Under such conditions, simple talking is a revolutionary act.

Courage, RI gang. Courage.

Grateful to be among you,
Morgan

4:08 p.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

What can we do? We can do the
things which would make a difference if millions of people
decided to do the same. We can do
those things now, as a visible
model.
What things? Things to start
shrinking cash-flows going up the
social class ladder to the rich
people at the top. Deciding how
low a standard of living is high
enough, and then making and spending as little money as possible in order to stay at that
lowest-acceptable standard of living. Buying used instead of
new. Paying a bikeshop-owner who
is also a fellow-citizen to fix the
old bike you already have, instead
of paying a corporation to buy
a new slave-labor bike from somewhere else. Paying by cash
or check instead of by credit card,
in order to deny the merchant-fee
let alone interest payments, to the
credit-card industry. Different
things designed to choke off the
cash-flow reaching the upper class.
Legal things, which won't get you
sent to Guantanamo just yet.

Rattle the cage of profit.

12:17 a.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

To those who extol the virtues of 60s counter culture, you need to revisit that history. Groups like the Students for a Democratic Society were funded by Rockefeller and Ford Foundation money, with the express purpose to allow the powers that be to visibly shift in ideology to a more overt socialist bent. The entire 'counter culture' movement was an enterprise of controlled opposition. It was a psyop writ large. If you want to win this struggle against the forces of slavery, you need to think along the lines of Romania, 1989 and the fall of Caucescu. That's the only way this will work.

10:01 a.m.  
Blogger nulinegvgv said...

different clue is right. there are plenty of courts from which you can take your ball and walk off. the cool thing is that some of these exercises double as training for a future time during which you might have to do for yourself out of necessity.

i will give you an example. this spring i bought baby chickens and am raising them in my backyard. i do not live in the country but rather one mile from the center of a medium-sized town. i built a pen where they stay at night and when i'm not at home. it is small enough to move easily every few days but large enough to provide them with a happy home. It is designed to look like a plain, wooden box from the front so as not to draw attention. i have only hens and no roosters so there is no crowing in the morning. my chickens are beginning to give me eggs for my family. the whole set up cost me less than $80.00 and takes only a couple of minutes a day to maintain.

by raising chickens i have removed one of my food dependencies formally provided by gigantic agrobiz. they no longer get my money. i have also learned how to raise poultry so that if/when i need to supply more of my own food out of necessity, i will already understand this piece of that puzzle.

it was an exercise in empowerment through disengagement. it was also a learning exercise in survival training; not to mention the eggs taste better and no chemicals or hormones.

something that has been important on my journey towards more self-sustainable practices has been to allow myself time to learn. i have to remember that i can't supply all my own needs and i can't learn how to do everything overnight. i just made out a list and i'm working my way down it.

12:38 p.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

starroute hit it on the head: we do need to start thinking of ourselves as a third world country, because that is where we're headed whether we like it or not. This is a good thing and a bad thing: it's bad because our standard of living is going to bottom out. It's good beacause it will finally put us eye to eye with the rest of the world. We'll all be in the same mess togehter.

Anonymous @ 1:55, my own version of the emperor's ring is the first three lines of Carmina Burana: "O Fortuna, Velut Luna, Semper Variabilis." (O Fortune, like the moon, always changing.)

1:58 p.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"The entire 'counter culture' movement was an enterprise of controlled opposition. It was a psyop writ large."

I think that's a misapprehension of history. There was actually a lot more chaotic energy and uncontrollable directions out there than the "psyops controllers" of that era could have anticipated.

Read the last chapter of Tragedy And Hope, by Carroll Quigley. He was obviously paying attention to the American youth culture that was just beginning to make its mark in the 1960s. But I don't think he had that much insight or foresight into what was looming on the horizon, in that realm.

I think there's a tendency to over-estimate the intelligence of those in Political Authority, as if their plans- such as they are- never "gang oft agley." I reject the idea that this society is run by diabolical psyops controllers who always see us coming, so to speak, with their infallible omniscience, and who are never surprised or undone by the tide of events.

For instance, I don't think that most of the "drug warriors" of our superannuated Congress are persisting with adding ever more intensified and oppressive provisions to the Drug War because they're running a diabolical plot to turn the world over to the hands of right-wing gangsters, politically corrupt repressive elites, and the private prison industry.

I think they're simply flailing around, convinced that sacrificing civil liberties and tossing billions of dollars down a rathole is a worthwhile price to pay for Victory over Marijuana- or, in a cnadid moment of admitting their lack of success, they think the Drug War is worth it as long as Marijuana doesn't Win, by becoming legal to possess and grow. They're extremely powerful people, politically- but in the main, their efforts more resemble those of B'rer Fox demanding a response from the Tar Baby than a smoothly running Machiavellian plot of hidden societal controllers.

Surely, the system is extensively rigged to serve its own status quo. But there are ways around that. The trick is to find a Culture of Resistance with integrity and ethics...

11:41 p.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

In his lifetime Blake was poverty stricken and considered an eccentric. Kerouac ended his life a booze-bloated Momma's boy. Now, if you want to consider it an ultimate victory that posterity lifted them up and airbrushed the warts, that's your business.

The last thing we need in my opinion is romanticism. Check out some of the accounts of the romantics who went to fight in Spain with no clear idea of what was going on...some were murdered by their 'fellows' on the left (one thing Fascists and Communists agree on is bumping off romantic anarchists ;) ). One wonders what Byron with his dreams of the Golden Age of Greece thought as he died in a backwater of the Ottoman Empire. Everyone remembers Byron, though, not many who are not Greek or historians know of Kolokotronis, Capodistria, Ypsilanti, Bouboulina.

The way to freedom is through fighting for it. The neocons will cut through all the New Age peace 'n' love platitudes like a hot knife through butter. Don't hold up Gandhi: he was murdered and untold numbers of Indians died for independence. Or the Dalai Lama: Tibet remains enslaved.

Not that there is no place for the romantics--certainly Byron's espousal of the Greek cause helped bring the European powers into the fray.

But when Push comes to Shove, I want my teammates to know how to fight for their lives. If I ever get to participate in the dismanting of BushCo, the absolute last trait I will display is love. Oh wait, no, the last is mercy. They face in me an implacable enemy who seeks their utter ruination in this world and damnation in the next.

This ain't no party. This ain't no disco. This ain't no foolin' around.

This is WAR. And as General Patton knew, the aim of war is not to die for your country. It's to make the other son of a bitch die for his. In this case, it's two forms of the same country: Republic or Empire. We can be citizens of the polity or we can be slaves of the oligarchy.

I don't see any other choices left on the table. The other side has made it clear that if we do not submit to being enslaved they will exterminate us. There is no sitting this one out, or sitting on the fence.

2:40 a.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Dang! I keep forgetting to put my name, I'm used to boards where once you log in your name comes up automatically...last post was cassandra.

2:42 a.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Who's going to be the first to exchange his/her monitor (interesting word ...) for a gun?
Dubya just loves us the way we are. To be divided is to be conquered. We're Home Alone, wringing our hands in horror at the path to hell we're on, watching the bodies mount up and the skies darken, and clacking at our keyboards like battery hens.
In reply to a previous poster, Dubya's administration is not an "American" problem. What does that word mean anymore? Who cares about "America" anyway? Certainly not monkey-boy and the organ grinders up there in the White House (The Black Lodge, rather).
We can sit in our rooms until the day we die, disseminating terrible truths on the internet, and it won't have made an iota of difference to history. I doubt if the neo-con cabal spends much time on the internet, or loses sleep over anything that appears here. The truth is out there - only we're IN HERE. And that's the way (uh-huh, uh-huh) they like it.
And as much as I love and value this place and the people here, none if it's doing anything. Just keeping us indoors and scared. Knowledge isn't enough. Communicating truth isn't enough.

Who's going to be the one?

Well - it ain't me, babe.

6:57 a.m.  
Blogger Wolfmoonlady said...

Cassandra wrote:

"In his lifetime Blake was poverty stricken and considered an eccentric. Kerouac ended his life a booze-bloated Momma's boy. Now, if you want to consider it an ultimate victory that posterity lifted them up and airbrushed the warts, that's your business."

Rather than focus on how Blake and Kerouac died, I look at the words these men left behind, words that continue to inspire, uplift, and energize readers, generation after generation. FYI: I think most of us who appreciate these authors love their work because of (maybe in spite of) the "warts" - and I don't see any airbrushing. We all know about the human faults of drunks and drug addicts. It does not negate their artistic talent.

I also want to address your condescension to those who enjoy the "romantic" literary genre.

The ability to appreciate the many forms of art, love, and beauty IN SPITE OF repressive conditions is what makes us fully human, and what keeps us alive. Once you lose the capacity to love and be loved, you are already dead. However, and listen well: this is NOT the same as showing love for a sworn enemy. Trust me, those who love deeply can also hate deeply. That is, perhaps, why we carefully choose the circumstances under which we express either one. That does not make us any less formidable than anyone else here.

If I'm not on "your team" when the fighting gets rough, that is fine with me. I wouldn't trust anyone who is so xenophobically busy labeling those you don't agree with as the enemy. You don't know any of us that well. And you're getting on my nerves with the put-downs. You seem to enjoy doling out scornful criticism toward those of us who do not fit into what appears to be a very narrow world view. I find you to be mean-spirited and divisive, not unlike Karl Rove and his ilk.

As for Nobody -- I would not underestimate the power of the Internet to mobilize and eventually defeat the enemy. CLUE: This is a language and information war! Propaganda cannot be fought without a forum that fosters the free exchange of information. That said, is making love to our monitors something we should spend all of our time doing? Of course not! Meanwhile, if you must, go and get your gun. Trade your monitor in, and be the first one on your block to start shooting. Question is, who are you gonna use it on, first? Your neighbors? The local cops? WHOM?

1:31 p.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Oh, I'd think the crosshairs of this hypothetical piece would be aimed at the Present Incumbent and His Evil Clowns. Any other gun-wavin' or totin' would be less effective and morally reprehensible. I don't underestimate the power of information. We need to know, and the internet is more useful in shaping our own truths than other media. It's just - *sigh* - we know more than enough about the Bush dynasty. Millions of people know the dirt that doesn't show on TV or in the "newspapers", thanks to the internet. But these are the same millions who, a generation or so back, would be taking to the streets and shouting with fury. Now we're content to vent our spleen on the internet, comforting ourselves that we're Doing Our Bit.
We didn't vote the bugger in, and we can't vote him out. What are we going to do: blog him to death?

2:11 p.m.  
Blogger Wolfmoonlady said...

"What are we going to do: blog him to death?"

Point taken, Nobody. Chuckle. I really appreciated your last post's frustrations.

I've decided it's time to take a much needed hiatus away from all of this stuff. None of it is helping my health and well-being, let alone the country or the world.

The discussion here used to excite me. Now, it just depresses me.

In spite of my best efforts to sustain a positive attitude (which I need to do for my own sake - when you have a lot of health problems, attitude is important), I end up feeling hopeless. I also feel defensive a lot, because of those who simply must engage in self-righteous games of one-up-man-ship against others here. There is just so much garbage that any sane person will take before turning away in self-preservation.

Worst of all, I have finally accepted the harsh reality that the anti-Bush people are so splintered by internal dissent (read: nit-picking ) that they will never be able to mount a cohesive attack against the Right-Wing Juggernaut.

We are, each one of us, on our own after all. Knock me over with a feather.

Blessings to those whom I've come to be fond of -- you know who you are -- and best wishes to Jeff in regards to his real-world writing pursuits.

3:34 p.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Well, Morgan, sorry you find me harsh, but it seems to me you've proven my point: the time is coming, and for many has already come, when getting the vapors as a response to the dreadfulness of reality is not going to work as a way to head off that reality. Of course it is important to have ideals and perhaps you think me unfair to equate 'romantic' with 'unrealistic'.

My point, in this and the other posts you find so offensive, is to get people to realize that they as Americans are not exempt from history and from the way the world works: Ameicans are notorious for behaving as if they were. They think their presidents can interfere in other sovereign countries' affairs with the approval or the silence (which amounts to the same thing) of their elected representatives, send their intelligence agents and their troops to subvert and to kill, for SIXTY YEARS after the end of WWII (we are approaching those ominous anniversaries, Hiroshima and Nagasaki), and now can not only defeat the entire Shadow Government that has had carte blanche for that entire time with blogged words and sentimentality, but can get their freedom back without ever having to fight for it in the sense that virtually every country in the WORLD understands the term "Freedom Fighter."

Our own country understood it up until the end of WWII as well. My ancestors fought in the French and Indian Wars, the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, somehow managed to skip the Civil War and WWI, fought again in WWII. In WWII even those who did not fight abroad suffered rationing, grew victory gardens, bought war bonds, gave blood, served as Civil Defense wardens. They didn't get told that they could support war by GOING SHOPPING.

I read an interesting book called "The Rules of Chaos" by Stephen Vizinczey, a Hungarian who one day went out on an errand and got swept up in the suppressed revolt of 1956. His reflections on the mentality of the freedom fighter keep coming back to me in this perilous time of ours. I believe the book is out of print but available on the Internet, and not only for the section on his own brief time as a freedom fighter (the revolt failed, and he emigrated to Canada) I would strongly recommend the book which was written during the Vietnam era and is even more timely now.

Imagine. You go out for a carton of milk...and find yourself fighting in the streets with a machine gun in your hand. You might or might not come back home, and even if you do, it might not be to stay. As the Wikipedia article on the revolt put it, "On 23 October 1956 hundreds of thousands of Hungarians rose up against their government. Within days millions of Hungarians had participated in or supported the revolt. The revolt achieved control over a large number of social institutions and a large amount of territory. The participants began to implement their own policies....About 25-50,000 Hungarian freedom fighters and 7,000 Soviet troops were killed, thousands more were wounded, and nearly a quarter of a million left the country as refugees." This doesn't mention how many ended up in prison and/or were executed after Kadar came to power.

For those unfamiliar with the Hungarian revolt, you may want to read the entire entry:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1956_Hungarian_Revolution

See also ""Kadar Had His Day of Fear" in "L'Homme Revolte" by Albert Camus.

For the record, Morgan, considering our present condition in light of historical precedent scares the living shite out of me too. I'm sorry if you consider my attempts to wake people up before it's too late to make me the equivalent of Karl Rove, but hey--to me, you're the equivalent of Vidkun Quisling, so I guess we're even.

6:03 p.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hey, Morgan, don't go, buddy.
There's no point in getting depressed by all the shit we read about here. I think of it like I'm Little Red Riding Hood, skipping into the forest, lalalalala ... do I need to *know* about the Big Bad Wolf? Of course I do. But I'm not going to get depressed about this evil hairy beast; I'm just going to keep my eyes open. Doesn't stop me picking flowers, doing that lalalalalalala shit which makes life worth living.
How to get undepressed: go and rent "Sideways", and buy a great bottle of wine. A really expensive no-shit vintage. Watch the movie, drink the wine ... god is in the house.

3:59 a.m.  
Blogger cabdriver said...

I have a contrarian view to the refrains of cynicism that I hear about the futility of ordinary people using the Internet to communicate and spread accurate information, breaking news, unearthed history, etc. as a political tactic.

It seems to me that the part of the program of the Bush regime is to construct a "Potemkin village" version of history with their pronouncements, double dealings, falsehoods, modifications, retractions, and contradictions.

But eventually, at some point, they're going to need to disappear an awful lot of authentic history, and an awful lot of authentic dissenters, for their plan to work out in the long term. That plan includes historical falsification, in my opinion- the intention being to use media control to invent an "emic reality" that assents to the wisdom and high morality of their rules and policies.

And so far, it's been a near- total bust. The Bush re-"election" notwithstanding.

They reckoned without the Internet- which is continuing to do such an unprecedented job of providing so much of an alternative to Big Media news to millions that Big Media has no choice but to contend with it- even to be driven by it, increasingly. Too much parallel processing. Big Media is in a horrible fix, because people are figuring out how they rolled over/aided and abetted the Bush con job. And now the backlash is setting in. There's a limit to how much fronting the large media organizations can do- either they'll have to begin doing the work of authentic journalists or they'll be ass out.

I don't think the War Party anticipated the rise in American public consciousness, which is continuing to grow. I anticipate some serious climb-downs from the original ambitions of the Bush crowd, at minimum. I think there's some real scrambling taking place- and, despite the pronouncements of the "what's the use" crowd, we of the opposition aren't the ones getting scrambled.

I talk to people from all walks of life. Anyone who thinks that only the Freak Brigade is suspicious of "the whole 9-11 thing" hasn't been asking around. I've talked to everyone from business execs to attorneys to California Highway Patrol officers who are dubious about this administration. That's understating the case. Many of them have expressed opinions about Bush to me that make my memory of the public outrage against Nixon seem mild in comparison. It definitely isn't a partisan split, either. Conservative or liberal, people don't like criminals and swindlers running their country. There isn't an Enemies List long enough to comprise a census of Americans who ain't buying it any longer. And I seriously doubt that there are enough law enforcement and military people willing to corral us and carry out detention and martial law provisions beyond that involved in setting up disaster relief stations, if it comes to that.

In short, I think history is gaining on the Friends of George Bush. Instant Karma may be right around the next corner, and they have a lot of explaining to do. They may yet walk on criminal charges, but they won't get what they orignally planned and bargained for.

8:24 a.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

... and I'll drink to that!

(Incidentally, I don't mind being labelled a cynic, Diogenetically speaking ... but it's not cynicism that's fuelling my posts)

10:26 a.m.  
Blogger cabdriver said...

See, here's part of my problem with the Left, here in the U.S.A.-

From Common Dreams http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0801-24.htm:

Trouble in the Land of the Free
by John Atcheson

Well, it's official; there's trouble right here in the land of the free.
Mr. Bush can not only use taxpayer's money to set up Soviet-Style propaganda events, but he can have US citizens kicked out of these public meetings by strong-armed stooges impersonating Secret Service Agents. That, at least, was the conclusion last week by the US Justice Department Attorney who said there was not enough evidence to prosecute an unnamed man who kicked three people out of one of Mr. Bush's "town hall" meetings in Denver this past March. The White House, by the way, refuses to release the mystery thug's name.

And here in the good old USA no one seems to give a damn...


The hell we don't. By the tens of millions, we do.

And what the hell is this? http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200508/s1428749.htm

See, the general run of the American Left is so whiny, so undisciplined and clueless, that they don't even recognized when the enemy's flank has been turned.

You're supposed to rally, jackasses! Make common cause and press ahead! If you don't do that, they'll reinforce!

Seriously, people like Atcheson need to read the critique of the Left in Ted Kaczynski's Manifesto. Old Ted's screed goes off the deep end in some crucial respects, but his critique of the Left is spot-on. All too typically, they're losers clinging to powerlessness as an energy source to fuel their ressentiment. They don't want to win, it would deprive them of their reason for being!

And that goes a long way toward explaining their ineffectuality in the political arena. (But the prescriptions for political success proposed- hell, imposed- by Left "champions" like Lenin- or Stalin- are worse...)

11:14 a.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Dang, Jeff, I just read the Terry Fox link, and I'm crying. Thanks.

11:27 a.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

There is no question that the right-leaning Supreme Court ruled too quickly to stop the recount, but to blame the right for an election that Al Gore (imperfect as he is) should have won by a comfortable margin is to wallow in deliberate ignorance. Clinton lost that election for Gore before it ever started. While I personally don't care what Bill did in his personal time, the hard fact of the matter is that the progressive, libertarian left needed (and still needs) a serious champion of our causes. Clinton could have approached that, could have passed that to Gore, but instead, through his own poor judgment and terrible impulse control, he turned himself into a clown, thereby handing the presidency back to the same right-wing cadre that armed Saddam 25 years ago. Vast Right Wing Conspiracy (and certainly there was one) notwithstanding, when one is in a leadership position, with the stakes as high as they were and still are, one should prioritize accordingly. I hope the blowjobs from a 20-year-old intern were worth the cost. That is how revolutions are betrayed: no Benedict Arnold bullshit, just somebody who forgets what the stakes are and puts his dick ahead of his cause.
And as far as we simple-minded sots who think that politics still matters: I certainly have more respect for those out getting their hands dirty and their hopes dampened lobbying and collecting signatures than for those waxing poetic about a widespread prejudice against glow-in-the-dark scavengers and alien abductions. My hopes were not dashed by either the 2000 or 2004 election cycles. I got pissed off and more involved. To you, with your head in the grandiloquent clouds, I'm sure participation in such a mundane and futile endeavor seems, well, mundane and futile. Have fun chasing the X-Files. I will be working.

8:37 p.m.  
Blogger Unknown said...

too true. but it all started before F.D.R. that bastard he was. the real thing started in 1913 federal reserve act. this was the defining moment and implementation of the destruction of the world and america to be specific. it allowed the yurapean bankers to control the world money supply and have the tools for the implementation of americass debasement as is happening this very moment.

8:17 p.m.  
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