How to Save the World?

20 Guests, 0 Users

Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them. ~ Joseph Heller

Advanced search

Dilber MulticolorMarley TPSMF Default Theme -

[jimtzu]

Election Madness

By Howard Zinn

23/02/08 "The Progressive" -- March 2008 Issue -- There's a man in Florida who has been writing to me for years (ten pages, handwritten) though I've never met him. He tells me the kinds of jobs he has held-security guard, repairman, etc. He has worked all kinds of shifts, night and day, to barely keep his family going. His letters to me have always been angry, railing against our capitalist system for its failure to assure "life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness" for working people.

Just today, a letter came. To my relief it was not handwritten because he is now using e-mail: "Well, I'm writing to you today because there is a wretched situation in this country that I cannot abide and must say something about. I am so enraged about this mortgage crisis. That the majority of Americans must live their lives in perpetual debt, and so many are sinking beneath the load, has me so steamed. Damn, that makes me so mad, I can't tell you. . . . I did a security guard job today that involved watching over a house that had been foreclosed on and was up for auction. They held an open house, and I was there to watch over the place during this event. There were three of the guards doing the same thing in three other homes in this same community. I was sitting there during the quiet moments and wondering about who those people were who had been evicted and where they were now."

On the same day I received this letter, there was a front-page story in the Boston Globe, with the headline "Thousands in Mass. Foreclosed on in '07."

The subhead was "7,563 homes were seized, nearly 3 times the '06 rate."

A few nights before, CBS television reported that 750,000 people with disabilities have been waiting for years for their Social Security benefits because the system is underfunded and there are not enough personnel to handle all the requests, even desperate ones.

Stories like these may be reported in the media, but they are gone in a flash. What's not gone, what occupies the press day after day, impossible to ignore, is the election frenzy.

This seizes the country every four years because we have all been brought up to believe that voting is crucial in determining our destiny, that the most important act a citizen can engage in is to go to the polls and choose one of the two mediocrities who have already been chosen for us. It is a multiple choice test so narrow, so specious, that no self-respecting teacher would give it to students.

And sad to say, the Presidential contest has mesmerized liberals and radicals alike. We are all vulnerable.

Is it possible to get together with friends these days and avoid the subject of the Presidential elections?

The very people who should know better, having criticized the hold of the media on the national mind, find themselves transfixed by the press, glued to the television set, as the candidates preen and smile and bring forth a shower of clichés with a solemnity appropriate for epic poetry.

Even in the so-called left periodicals, we must admit there is an exorbitant amount of attention given to minutely examining the major candidates. An occasional bone is thrown to the minor candidates, though everyone knows our marvelous democratic political system won't allow them in.

No, I'm not taking some ultra-left position that elections are totally insignificant, and that we should refuse to vote to preserve our moral purity. Yes, there are candidates who are somewhat better than others, and at certain times of national crisis (the Thirties, for instance, or right now) where even a slight difference between the two parties may be a matter of life and death.

I'm talking about a sense of proportion that gets lost in the election madness. Would I support one candidate against another? Yes, for two minutes-the amount of time it takes to pull the lever down in the voting booth.

But before and after those two minutes, our time, our energy, should be spent in educating, agitating, organizing our fellow citizens in the workplace, in the neighborhood, in the schools. Our objective should be to build, painstakingly, patiently but energetically, a movement that, when it reaches a certain critical mass, would shake whoever is in the White House, in Congress, into changing national policy on matters of war and social justice.

Let's remember that even when there is a "better" candidate (yes, better Roosevelt than Hoover, better anyone than George Bush), that difference will not mean anything unless the power of the people asserts itself in ways that the occupant of the White House will find it dangerous to ignore.

The unprecedented policies of the New Deal-Social Security, unemployment insurance, job creation, minimum wage, subsidized housing-were not simply the result of FDR's progressivism. The Roosevelt Administration, coming into office, faced a nation in turmoil. The last year of the Hoover Administration had experienced the rebellion of the Bonus Army-thousands of veterans of the First World War descending on Washington to demand help from Congress as their families were going hungry. There were disturbances of the unemployed in Detroit, Chicago, Boston, New York, Seattle.

In 1934, early in the Roosevelt Presidency, strikes broke out all over the country, including a general strike in Minneapolis, a general strike in San Francisco, hundreds of thousands on strike in the textile mills of the South. Unemployed councils formed all over the country. Desperate people were taking action on their own, defying the police to put back the furniture of evicted tenants, and creating self-help organizations with hundreds of thousands of members.

Without a national crisis-economic destitution and rebellion-it is not likely the Roosevelt Administration would have instituted the bold reforms that it did.

Today, we can be sure that the Democratic Party, unless it faces a popular upsurge, will not move off center. The two leading Presidential candidates have made it clear that if elected, they will not bring an immediate end to the Iraq War, or institute a system of free health care for all.

They offer no radical change from the status quo.

They do not propose what the present desperation of people cries out for: a government guarantee of jobs to everyone who needs one, a minimum income for every household, housing relief to everyone who faces eviction or foreclosure.

They do not suggest the deep cuts in the military budget or the radical changes in the tax system that would free billions, even trillions, for social programs to transform the way we live.

None of this should surprise us. The Democratic Party has broken with its historic conservatism, its pandering to the rich, its predilection for war, only when it has encountered rebellion from below, as in the Thirties and the Sixties. We should not expect that a victory at the ballot box in November will even begin to budge the nation from its twin fundamental illnesses: capitalist greed and militarism.

So we need to free ourselves from the election madness engulfing the entire society, including the left.

Yes, two minutes. Before that, and after that, we should be taking direct action against the obstacles to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

For instance, the mortgage foreclosures that are driving millions from their homes-they should remind us of a similar situation after the Revolutionary War, when small farmers, many of them war veterans (like so many of our homeless today), could not afford to pay their taxes and were threatened with the loss of the land, their homes. They gathered by the thousands around courthouses and refused to allow the auctions to take place.

The evictions today of people who cannot pay their rents should remind us of what people did in the Thirties when they organized and put the belongings of the evicted families back in their apartments, in defiance of the authorities.

Historically, government, whether in the hands of Republicans or Democrats, conservatives or liberals, has failed its responsibilities, until forced to by direct action: sit-ins and Freedom Rides for the rights of black people, strikes and boycotts for the rights of workers, mutinies and desertions of soldiers in order to stop a war. Voting is easy and marginally useful, but it is a poor substitute for democracy, which requires direct action by concerned citizens.

[Jana]

Election Madness
Voting is easy and marginally useful, but it is a poor substitute for democracy, which requires direct action by concerned citizens.

We know that politics is broken, democracy is broken, corporate capitalism is broken, materialism is broken...civilization itself is broken. So why do we continute to remain victim to a sinking ship. Perhaps because we haven't raised our heads, our hearts and our sights beyond the table set before us. Why continue to  and  against a defunct system?

I just bought this at amazon, I want to at least imagine what the next civilization looks like...
Dismantling the Pyramid, Government by the People by Paul Von Ward
“This book analyzes the current unsatisfactory situation, points to organizational and human alternatives, and suggests a process for the dethroning of bureaucracy. It calls for a new vision of the human potential in public service and a creative, joint government and citizen effort to realize in practice the self-renewing principles on which the United States was founded.” www.vonward.com/dismant.htm


www.lulu.com/content/2023060  –Jana's book almost available

[jimtzu]

yes.. what to do.. what to do..   

there seems to be pockets of people around but there's still so much confusion for the people who are awake enuf to even see there's a problem.

and congratulations on the book... by your link it looks like it's ready to go.  i must confess that i know very little about kundalini and havn't experience it as far as i know, for better or worse.

[Jana]

Our cataclysmic apocalypse is a moral one. All our institutions, the fabric, tenets, conditions, goals of our society are corrupt. Everything is geared around not "truth, value and care" but money, security, insurance, control and status. As such we live in a low chakra world, with smidgens of spiritual light and vague glimpses of higher visions. We need to clearly see our primate ways, know ourselves, dream up higher ways and to put ourselves as individuals firmly on our spiritual roots. As each individual rises above collective baboon-think, then civilization at large is transformed from within. This means not falling for the terrorist tactics of our politicians, our medical industry, our justice system, our media, our marketing system. By disembedding from the wavelength and persuasions of the collective we create a unique and ensouled life for ourselves, and set the morphogenic field resonating for others to do the same.

"Ethics, the normative science, is based on two cognitive branches of philosophy: metaphysics and epistemology. To prescribe what man out to do, one must first know what he is and where he is--Ie: what is his nature and the nature of the universe in which he acts." Ayn Rand, The Romantic Manifesto

[jimtzu]

A vast array of pharmaceuticals — including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones — have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans, an Associated Press investigation shows.

To be sure, the concentrations of these pharmaceuticals are tiny, measured in quantities of parts per billion or trillion, far below the levels of a medical dose. Also, utilities insist their water is safe.

But the presence of so many prescription drugs — and over-the-counter medicines like acetaminophen and ibuprofen — in so much of our drinking water is heightening worries among scientists of long-term consequences to human health.

In the course of a five-month inquiry, the AP discovered that drugs have been detected in the drinking water supplies of 24 major metropolitan areas — from Southern California to Northern New Jersey, from Detroit to Louisville, Ky.

Water providers rarely disclose results of pharmaceutical screenings, unless pressed, the AP found. For example, the head of a group representing major California suppliers said the public "doesn't know how to interpret the information" and might be unduly alarmed.

How do the drugs get into the water?
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hGsoyElv4ZL879LW6z2aZS0Pix7AD8VA14500

[Jana]

http://thevenusproject.com/ —Jacque Fresco and The Venus Project presents a bold, new direction for humanity that entails nothing less than the total redesign of our culture. One of the cornerstones of the organization's findings is the fact that many of the dysfunctional behaviors of today's society stem directly from the dehumanizing environment inherent in the existing monetary system.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=yt8HkCWW2Yk&feature=related Future by Design
www.youtube.com/watch?v=4m3wzTULrWQ&feature=related Science and War
www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVOPkGAtt48 Jacque with Larry King
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cf1gZxmIDKw&feature=related —Venus Project #1
www.youtube.com/watch?v=hc7x79kJ1S0&feature=related Future by Design Trailer
“Your range of thought is given to you by the dominant values of your society.” Jacque Fresco

[henry]

"our" current recommendations are paul hawken's "blessed unrest" (thanks jane) and this weeks new dimensions radio "conciousness inside a black hole"  ...admin. jr.

[Jana]

I watched the Venus Project and I felt great, then I watched a film of David Suzuki on factory farming and I felt like shit.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWtBkZSBpX0  —Autobio, David Suzuki, Great and uplifting!
www.davidsuzuki.org/Economy/Sustainability/  —Outline for Sustainability within a Generation

[Jana]

Hey, guess what the Carlyle Financial group just went bust.

Like the US Congress, the World Community is weak...not coming forth with proactive solutions. Now the US is having to beg other countries for money to bolster the economy so that they can continue their illegal war. If you don't have the balls power to hold onto the prize...best not to go after it in the first place.
Now Iraq has the equivalent of an autoimmune disease, and cancer...the way to heal this endogenus and exogenus social disease is to build up and heal the body cells themselves...so that natural native healthy cellular intelligence is restored.

Military (and militarized government) are not the ones to be rebuilding culture and establishing healthy society. They are deconstructionists...the world community now needs to come in and say "thanks boys, its our job now." We will help the Iraqis to reconstruct their culture in their own image.

Continued occupation of US military in the Middle East will not only destroy America, it will perpetuate endless social disease in Islam, generate enless terrorism and bring the demise of the global community to an end faster.

All minds, energy and resources must now be spent on reinventing and redesigning human civilization.

[Jana]

Bully Politics: Too much balls, and not enough brains.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-nKkNHWEdw&feature=related —Thomas Barnett, Awesome overview of war, politics and economics. And yet he is not proposing a truly integral global strategy.
He misses out the first stage…which is not mere authoritarian judicial dictatorship as to what constitutes sufficient justification for sanctions or the leviathan…the first step in international relations should be mediation, needs-conferencing, and economic solutions. The default should be win-win.

Thus I propose there be a triad format to globalization. By following the principle of reason before might…of pre-emptive peace until proven conflict arises. To set up the game plan without even putting in place the highest spiritualized alternative as the first initiative…you automatically generate a future history of ongoing perpetual resistance, warring-destruction and costly reconstruction.

 

[Jana]

If it is genocide that the war-machine is after in Iraq, then they should get out, and foment that civil war. You don't bomb a country with DU if it is not genocide that you are after.

Personally in this time of global peril I have declared that all war is obsolete and illegal...a criminal use of much needed manpower and resources. Of course I will need a full nuclear assnal to back up my unwar global mandate...I am presently in negotiations with Iran to borrow some of their nukes if need be. If anyone makes an aggressive act, I'll nuke-em.

Take for example the inevitable attack of the US on Venezuela, because Hugo Chavez declared his oil industry belongs to his people not Texan Rednecks.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=19147881

Venezuelan State Company Stops Sales of Oil to Exxon ... Texas-based Exxon Mobil, the biggest U.S. company,., Venezuela probes oil co's for tax evasion.

If we nuked Texas off the map it would solve 90% of the worlds conflict problems. That my friends is a smart preemptive strike.

 All America need do to save itself trillions of dollars of futile war effort is Ho'oponopono.
I am Sorry-Please forgive me-Thank you-I Love you!

Its as simple as that. Then the US will have some money to teach science to the children, and raise America out of the Middle Ages.

War is not Cool—It is the game of morons and delinquents!

An evolutionary is not a revolutionary. Progress is not achieved by fighting against the archaic habits of the present culture. To be an evolutionary is to step forward to take a birds eye view of the most advanced and beneficent future projections and then to devise the means and methods to bring this transcendent future about. All minds, energy and resources must now be spent on reinventing and redesigning human civilization.

[jimtzu]

Eliot’s Mess
Published March 14th, 2008 in Articles, Podcasts
The $200 billion bail-out for predator banks and Spitzer charges are intimately linked

By Greg Palast
Reporting for Air America Radio’s Clout

March 14th, 2008

[To hear it, click on the link below…]

While New York Governor Eliot Spitzer was paying an ‘escort’ $4,300 in a hotel room in Washington, just down the road, George Bush’s new Federal Reserve Board Chairman, Ben Bernanke, was secretly handing over $200 billion in a tryst with mortgage bank industry speculators.

Both acts were wanton, wicked and lewd. But there’s a BIG difference. The Governor was using his own checkbook. Bush’s man Bernanke was using ours.

This week, Bernanke’s Fed, for the first time in its history, loaned a selected coterie of banks one-fifth of a trillion dollars to guarantee these banks’ mortgage-backed junk bonds. The deluge of public loot was an eye-popping windfall to the very banking predators who have brought two million families to the brink of foreclosure.

Up until Wednesday, there was one single, lonely politician who stood in the way of this creepy little assignation at the bankers’ bordello: Eliot Spitzer.

Who are they kidding? Spitzer’s lynching and the bankers’ enriching are intimately tied.

http://www.gregpalast.com/elliot-spitzer-gets-nailed/

[Jana]

Ho, thats good.
I was wondering why they took him down.

Mega-hero, titanium balls, HUGE brains...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=du9QWpCWbbY&feature=user  —Greg Palast, talk re: stealing 2008 election, book “Armed Madhouse”…”Do not fight for a dying regime!”Bush’s statement to Iraqis…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CnV_Z3ATHo&NR=1  —Robert F Kennedy Jr. “I came to the conclusion a long time ago, that Republicans are just Democrats who don’t know whats going on.” “What do you get when you allow corporations to run the government—you get plunder.”

Adore Kennedy...and Palast has the most intreging communication style ever.

[jimtzu]

The End of Money?
Daniel Pinchbeck
 
 

The current crisis of the financial markets is rapidly taking on gargantuan proportions. Last weekend saw the emergency sale of Bear Stearns, the fifth largest financial institution on Wall Street, to JP Morgan for the comparatively paltry sum of $250 million, including its flashy corporate headquarters and thousands of employees. Even this sale only came about because the US Federal Reserve agreed to cover the risks of exposure to creditors, ultimately, in all likelihood, pushing the financial costs onto US taxpayers. An attempted federal bailout of the financial system now seems increasingly unavoidable, as commentators such as Paul Krugman have noted.

At the same time this fire-sale was being arranged, I was at the Left Forum at Cooper Union in New York, an annual gathering of Leftist academics and organizers from around the world. The Left Forum featured over 100 panels on a range of subjects, from water privatization, CIA torture, to the leftward shift of South America, and many other topics. I had been invited to speak on a panel about indigenous cultures, consciousness, and social transformation – the only place at the Left Forum where social movements were even summarily discussed in relation to indigenous cultures who live “with” the earth, and not “on” it, as my fellow panelist, Tiokasin Ghosthorse, a radio host at WBAI and a Lakota, put it, and non-ordinary states of awareness were given a nod.

During a panel on the “Decline of the Dollar,” I was struck by a comment from David Harvey – an eminence grise among Leftist academics, the esteemed author of Limits to Capital and other works – who noted that Wall Street bonuses in January amounted to an astounding $36 billion, despite the heedless actions of the traders and investment houses that caused the implosion of the financial markets. At the same time, due to the subprime mortgage meltdown, over a million people have already seen their homes foreclosed, with nearly two million more foreclosures coming in the near-future, leading to more than three million US citizens deprived of their largest and most central asset. What Harvey noted is that, if we ignore the “fetishized mystical language” of the financial elite, “The loss of assets of those three million people is where those $36 billion of bonuses came from.”
more... http://www.realitysandwich.com/end_money

[jimtzu]

On July 16, I attended Christians United for Israel's annual Washington-Israel Summit. Founded by San Antonio-based megachurch pastor John Hagee, CUFI has added the grassroots muscle of the Christian right to the already potent Israel lobby. Hagee and his minions have forged close ties with the Bush White House and members of Congress from Sen. Joseph Lieberman to Sen. John McCain. In its call for a unilateral military attack on Iran and the expansion of Israeli territory, CUFI has found unwavering encouragement from traditional pro-Israel groups like AIPAC and elements of the Israeli government


with video:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/max-blumenthal/rapture-ready-the-unauth_b_57826.html