(NOTE: Ever since I posted challenging remarks on BBC's forum, I began having curious problems posting titles with spaces. Every time I made a space, the whole of the text would turn into some kind of arabic (?) or asian (?) language script! So, since then, I've had to squish it all together! And...go make other blogs in other places!)
This is a comment I made on Russell Means' Freedom Blog (russellmeansfreedom.blogspot.com) I encourage dialogue! Who dares to step up?!?
I'm noting how some people are coming in [to Russell Means' Blog] and putting words into Russell's mouth. They're not responding to the actual thread/post, but are acting more like people mobilized to attack with the usual character-assassination hype and so on. The usual pattern for anyone who starts to gain any ground as far as promoting independent approaches to thinking things through.
At the risk of going off "too far" on a tangent, i want to share the following, in order to perhaps seed a more effective approach...for those who want to try to bring all of this to merely a "white against red" thing (and in so doing *try* to discourage solidarity across color lines as much as possible).
i want to say, i'm a "white" person, and while i don't agree with characterizing the systematic oppression foisted upon the oppressed as "white", i can see why so many accept that simplistic approach. BECAUSE it "works" to mobilize people.
The problem is, while it seems to "work" in the short run, it comes back to haunt in the long run.
We should be characterizing oppression more clearly. One approach would be to demystify the *chain-of-command* game. And so i think using the term "formal" and "informal" makes a lot of sense. Thus, something like *formal reps of the status quo do what they can to mobilize their informal masses so that they can carry through their mandate and orders from on high*.
This doesn't "work" so expediently for those who believe they must play propaganda games (including many "well educated" ndnz, apparently); but it DOES go to the heart. It DOES bring integrity to any group.
Of course, the political police everywhere will try to turn this to their advantage too; the thing of it is, can they really do that? How? If people are learning to think things through, if people start to see how the chain-of-command works on a systematic basis, can their seemingly limitless resources dupe so easily?
Now, on matriarchy. i agree, generally. The thing i want to question is when any one group gets hierarchical status OVER others. i suspect that Russell's project is one of the leading examples of such an excellence, even tho he's likely bombarded with all kinds of obstacles, daily. So i want to support it, even tho i have misgivings about the re-curring challenge of "power over" others simply because of a portion of who they are. So i want to watch and listen, and not let my knee-jerk reaction (recalling the Politically Correct movement in the 1980s) get the best of me!
Finally, it would be interesting to learn where many of the anti-type posters are getting their "information". I would assume, based on what i've seen so many times, that many of them are coming directly from a riling-up speech made by someone they trust. Perhaps a Rush Limbaugh-type puppet. It looks obvious to me!
The big question is, do informals/average janes and joes, realize the value of looking beyond such confines and try actually wearing empathy (and follow their own alleged beliefs, i.e. "do unto others as you would have them do unto you.").
Feel free to discuss this kinda stuff with me [here]!
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Friday, October 10, 2008
nipFascismInTheBud
(Still having trouble with "title" area, as it doesn't allow for the normal way, for me)
title:
How To nip fascism in the bud: fascism watch proposal amongst other stuff
(this has been posted on several Indy Media sites; I will be monitoring when/if they censor this fascism watch regular idea (which I will post regularly unless input suggests alternatives)
by "Will I be Detained for Saying this? (scared but nonsilent)"
Summary:
Nip fascism in the bud while you still can. Angus McKenzie and other principled dissident, ex-agents of the "central intelligence agency" (and such martial methods) like John Stockwell, have spoken to various lengths about how statecraft manipulates the mass into perpetual division; the pattern starts against those no one dares defend and "flowers" from there, continuing such deadening as we have seen over and over again in both her and history. Nip severe alienation in the bud while we still can! Proposal seeking input!
Main article:
"Naturally the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship."--Joseph Goebbels
It's been a long time since I thumbed through Angus McKenzie's book _Secrets: The CIA's War at Home_ (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997, 241 pages) so I don't recall if he mentioned exactly how the handlers and designers of statecraft applications at home work. I do recall the heavily demonized Philip Agee (also an ex-agent) touching on how they carry out their "duties" in his book _On The Run_. Mentioning mainline media plants put into the news via patsies, for one. Ward Churchill backed one allegation up in his own book _Indians Are Us?_.
Anyway, my intention for this inflammatory (?) article is to create more depth to the watch of fascism as it tries to be heard OVER those it purports must be HATED.
But I'm seeking input before I jump in headlong. I don't know that much about other fascism watches, but what I do know, I feel right now anyway, is that they seldom demystify propaganda methods, for one. And, two, they seem intensely tooled by political confines. That is, the need to tow the dominerring propaganda line/method (in order to "survive" in the Given orders and their consequences).
...So anyway, I think I have an angle on this that the others don't have. I could be wrong! But so far I've not felt/noted the depth that I'm going to speak of.
So I'm going to attempt to share it. And all I ask that IF YOU MUST censor it THEN AT LEAST READ THIS IN FULL FIRST.
Namely, that there are many techniques that will be used (are already being used) to try to keep us from even discovering our metaphorically heavenish Great Spirit process-ing. The more we understand this and the severely alienated system which perpetuates its warrior tribal way on everyone else, the more we can play/work/act/respond to these situations arising.
That's the formal side, anyway; informally, the legions tooled into acting to seek to crush us are the informals who ought to be heard--BEHIND the intensities they've been trained to obey and implement.
I've discovered ways to reach humanity here and there that I think many around here may find beneficial. Just understand, I seek spanarchies of *mutually beneficial outcomes*, us all sharing our most wanted dreams!
And some cannot help but to be in more metaphorically hellish-stuck mindset than others. And they may not know what they do.
To sum up, the main idea is about informal evolutions of humanity's Great SpiRit! And if the hellish-stuck cannot allow for us to embellish such, then perhaps it is better i's stand first and bring out more truths! (for what it's "worth", i've put my life on the line before and will continue to do so, like it or not; some of us no longer have the "privilege" to choose..)
That's all for now. Perhaps more later, IF anyone gives me some feedback (of whatever sort)!
(this is going to be cross-posted in as many places as I feel like cross-posting it today; perhaps other places later, unless it gets swirled around in the Indy Compost Pile.)
References:
http://www.namebase.org/sources/aZ.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stockwell
(see Stockwell also on Youtube, along with other principled/'reputable' federal dissidents)
title:
How To nip fascism in the bud: fascism watch proposal amongst other stuff
(this has been posted on several Indy Media sites; I will be monitoring when/if they censor this fascism watch regular idea (which I will post regularly unless input suggests alternatives)
by "Will I be Detained for Saying this? (scared but nonsilent)"
Summary:
Nip fascism in the bud while you still can. Angus McKenzie and other principled dissident, ex-agents of the "central intelligence agency" (and such martial methods) like John Stockwell, have spoken to various lengths about how statecraft manipulates the mass into perpetual division; the pattern starts against those no one dares defend and "flowers" from there, continuing such deadening as we have seen over and over again in both her and history. Nip severe alienation in the bud while we still can! Proposal seeking input!
Main article:
"Naturally the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship."--Joseph Goebbels
It's been a long time since I thumbed through Angus McKenzie's book _Secrets: The CIA's War at Home_ (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997, 241 pages) so I don't recall if he mentioned exactly how the handlers and designers of statecraft applications at home work. I do recall the heavily demonized Philip Agee (also an ex-agent) touching on how they carry out their "duties" in his book _On The Run_. Mentioning mainline media plants put into the news via patsies, for one. Ward Churchill backed one allegation up in his own book _Indians Are Us?_.
Anyway, my intention for this inflammatory (?) article is to create more depth to the watch of fascism as it tries to be heard OVER those it purports must be HATED.
But I'm seeking input before I jump in headlong. I don't know that much about other fascism watches, but what I do know, I feel right now anyway, is that they seldom demystify propaganda methods, for one. And, two, they seem intensely tooled by political confines. That is, the need to tow the dominerring propaganda line/method (in order to "survive" in the Given orders and their consequences).
...So anyway, I think I have an angle on this that the others don't have. I could be wrong! But so far I've not felt/noted the depth that I'm going to speak of.
So I'm going to attempt to share it. And all I ask that IF YOU MUST censor it THEN AT LEAST READ THIS IN FULL FIRST.
Namely, that there are many techniques that will be used (are already being used) to try to keep us from even discovering our metaphorically heavenish Great Spirit process-ing. The more we understand this and the severely alienated system which perpetuates its warrior tribal way on everyone else, the more we can play/work/act/respond to these situations arising.
That's the formal side, anyway; informally, the legions tooled into acting to seek to crush us are the informals who ought to be heard--BEHIND the intensities they've been trained to obey and implement.
I've discovered ways to reach humanity here and there that I think many around here may find beneficial. Just understand, I seek spanarchies of *mutually beneficial outcomes*, us all sharing our most wanted dreams!
And some cannot help but to be in more metaphorically hellish-stuck mindset than others. And they may not know what they do.
To sum up, the main idea is about informal evolutions of humanity's Great SpiRit! And if the hellish-stuck cannot allow for us to embellish such, then perhaps it is better i's stand first and bring out more truths! (for what it's "worth", i've put my life on the line before and will continue to do so, like it or not; some of us no longer have the "privilege" to choose..)
That's all for now. Perhaps more later, IF anyone gives me some feedback (of whatever sort)!
(this is going to be cross-posted in as many places as I feel like cross-posting it today; perhaps other places later, unless it gets swirled around in the Indy Compost Pile.)
References:
http://www.namebase.org/sources/aZ.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stockwell
(see Stockwell also on Youtube, along with other principled/'reputable' federal dissidents)
Thursday, July 10, 2008
SourceBookList
The following is an index of "Macro" (broad-ranging) and "Micro" (single issue)-oriented books, articles, etc. which have greatly contributed to my understanding of *what is going on* and may assist those coming into awareness; (note: this is not a complete bibliography of my independent studies, as it is only the pile that I've kept for reference work)
subtitles:
MACRO-ORIENTED BOOKS
history
general demystification
MACRO-ORIENTED ARTICLES AND INFO
MICRO-ORIENTED BOOKS
history
MICRO-ORIENTED ARTICLES AND INFO
some MICRO-ORIENTED DOCUMENTARY FILMS
book titles NOTED while browsing (could be excellent)
MACRO-ORIENTED BOOKS
architects of policy:
"Towards a Renovated International System" by the Trilateral Commission (a private N.American-European-Japanese Initiative on Matters of Concern; (original subtitle?)); 1977.
_The Crisis of Democracy: Report on the Governability of Democracies to the Trilateral Commission_; Michel J. Crozier,
Samuel P. Huntington (aka Frank G. Thomson), Joji Watanuki; 1975 p.6-9; 74-77; 90-95; 112-115 (Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale
were members, source: Stenographers To Power, p.46 (see above); started by David Rockefeller, writes Michael Parenti in previous source, p.46)
Are We All Nazis? by Holocaust survivor Hans Askenasy; 1978
_Stenographers To Power: Media and Propaganda_; edited, interviews by David Barsamian; 1992 see: Ben Bagdikian,
Chomsky, Mark Hetrsgaard, Alexander Cockburn; p. 30-35, 42-47, 64-69; 72-73, 88-91; 122-123; 172-177; 188-89;
Understanding Power (with Chomsky), edited by P.R. Mitchell and J. Schoeffel
books by Noam Chomsky:
Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Western Democracies
Deterring Democracy
various books and lots of articles
The Power Elite by C. Wright Mills
The Praetorian Guard by John Stockwell
history:
Science of Coercion by Christopher Simpson (focus 1945-1960) p.16-30, 34-35; 42-47; 68-69; 94-95; 106-117
edited by Bud and Ruth Schultz: It Did Happen Here
and
The Price of Dissent, 2001
(includes excellent insights by Paul Robeson's son)
Agents of Repression (illegal f.b.i. methods against BP, AIM) by Ward Churchill and Jim Vander Wall p.32-37; 390-391
American Ground Zero by Carole Gallagher
The Making of a Counter Culture: Reflections on the technocratic society and its youthful opposition
by Theodore Roszak; Doubleday, 1969
Witch Hunt: The Revival of Heresy by Carey McWilliams; Little, Brown, 1950 p.235-290; 300-303, 316-321, 334-340;
Renaissance and the Reformation by Henry S. Lucas
Cows, Pigs, Wars, and Witches by Marvin Harris; p.225, 234-240; 243-245
The Devil in Massachusetts: A Modern Enquiry Into the Salem Witch Trials by Marion L. Starkey, 1969, 1989 p.14, 34, 40-48
general demystification:
Freedom and Beyond by John Holt
The Human Situation; The Art of Seeing; Brave New World--REVISITED by Aldous Huxley
Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes by Jacques Ellul 1965
Escape From Freedom, by Erich Fromm
The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz
The Book of Secrets, Volume 1, 2 (talks by Osho)
Out of Weakness: Healing the Wounds That Drive Us To War; by Andrew Bard Schmookler; 1988
War At Home: Covert Action Against US Activists and What We Can Do About It by Brian Glick, South End Press; 1990
Asclepius At Syracuse (note: most are chapters by others supporting Thomas Szasz's work) p. 47(?), 64-85, 74, 87, 108, 129, 131, 272, 275,
276, 283, 285, 298, 299334, 338, 341, 362; authors include Leon J. Kamin, David W. Moller, Walter A. Sedelow, Jr., David O. Friedrichs,
Raymond Wolfe, Larry W. Riggs, Anne Hudson Jones, Ronald Boostrom.
Thomas Szasz: Primary Values, Major Contentions; edited by Richard E. Vatz, Ph.D and Lee S. Weinberg, Ph.D.
American Extremists: Militias, Supremacists, klansmen, communists and others by John George and Laird Wilcox; Prometheus Books;
Amherst, NY 1996 quote by Stalin; "then they came for me" quote attributed to Martin Niemoller; Zion Protocols a fabrication p. 410.
p.17-19, 24; 395-96, 408, 410, 416
MACRO-ORIENTED ARTICLES AND INFO
Noam Chomsky: "An Exchange on Liberal Scholarship" and many other excellent articles on monkeyfist.com/Chomsky/Archive/essays/ AND
"Liberating the Mind from Orthodoxies": monkeyfist.com/Chomsky/Archive/interviews/
"The Crisis of Democracy" June 1977 excerpts from "The Carter Administration: Myth and Reality" in: _Radical Priorities_ (Black Rose, 1981) p. 158-164
"Who Runs America?" interview with Chomsky by Adrian Zupp
"Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda" and many many other articles by Noam Chomsky
"Education is Ignorance" excerpt from _Class Warfare_ by Chomsky; p. 19-23, 27-31. (See also a book that Chomsky apparently wrote about education in the u.s.a.)
"Ideology and the Human Sciences: Some Comments on the Role of Reification In Psychology and Psychiatry"
by David Ingleby
David Barsamian's Alternative Radio catalogue, winter 1999-2000 especially Gene Wars: The Politics of Biotechnology
by Kristin Dawkins
Wake Up, America!!! excerpted from _Declarations of Independence: Cross-Examining American Ideology_ by Howard Zinn
www.radio4all.org/anarchy/zinn.html
Dealing With Idealists ( www.radio4all.org/anarchy/sabot.html )
excerpted from _Toxic Sludge is Good for You!_ by John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton; Common Courage Press
Is the Extremist Right Entirely Wrong? by Barbara Dority in "The Humanist", p. 12-15 Nov./Dec. 1995
Direct Action by Voltarine De Cleyre (1866-1912) (www.spunk.org/library/writers/decleyre/sp001334.html )
The Open Truth and Fiery Vehemence of Youth by Peter Marin
(excerpted from _The Movement Toward a New America: The Beginnings of a Long Revolution_, edited by Mitchell Goodman)
MICRO-ORIENTED BOOKS:
My Life as a Radical Lawyer by William M. Kunstler, with Sheila Isenberge; Citadel Press, NJ; 1996
Prime Time Activism by Charlotte Ryan
Tom Hayden: Rebellion and Repression "The First Hard Times Book", 1969; Meridian, NY p.12-15.
A Testament of Hope (with Martin Luther King, Jr.) edited by James M. Washington; Harper & Row, 1986 especially the Playboy interview
The Myth of the Hyperactive Child: And Other Means of Child Control by Peter Schrag and Diane Divoky; 1975 appendix p. 230-235;
And They Call It Help by Louise Armstrong
Taking Sides: Clashing Views on Controversial Psychological Issues; Second Edition; editors: Joseph Rubinstein, Brent D. Slife
Dushkin Publishing Group (textbook) 0-87967-383-4
Coercion: Why We Listen To What "They" Say, by Douglas Rushkoff
On Our Own: Patient-Controlled Alternatives to the Mental Health System by Judi Chamberlin; 1978 p. 86-87; 92-97; 102-103
Dr. Thomas Szasz, MD:
Ideology and Insanity
The Theology of Medicine
and a few others
Making Us Crazy by Kutchins and Kirk
Reality Police: The Experience of Insanity in America by Anthony Brandt, NY, 1975 p.24, 25.
The Learning Mystique: A Critical Look at 'Learning Disabilities' by Gerald Coles; Ballantine; NY, 1987, 89
A Divided Self on anti-psychiatrist, R.D. Laing by one of his sons
The Politics of Experience by R.D. Laing
Cop To Call Girl by Norma Jean Almodovar
Let Them Call Me Rebel, a biography of Saul Alynsky by Sanford D. Horwitt; 1989(?)
Never Guilty, Never Free by Ginny Foat (past NOW pres in CA)
XXX: A Woman's Right to Pornography by Karen McElroy
On The Run by Philip Agee
Stickman by Paola Igliori (interviews with John Trudell)
Loudhawk: The United States Vs the American Indian Movement
by Ken Stern; (?)University of Oklahoma Press (?), 1994
generally p. 26-279 (more details of the war against AIM than other sources I've found)
Where White Men Fear to Tread by Russell Means (with Autonomous Chapters of AIM)
Ward Churchill: Indians Are Us?
Autobiography of a Spiritually Incorrect Mystic: Osho edited by S. C. Neiman; St. Martin's Griffin, NY (????)
Race interviews edited by Studs Terkel
East Timor's Unfinished Struggle by Constancio Pinto
America's Boy: A Century of Colonialism in the Philippines by James Hamilton-Paterson
Exploding the Gene Myth
Toxic Psychiatry by Peter Breggin
Escape From Childhood: The Needs and Rights of Children by John Holt
Birthrights by Gerald Farson Macmillan; NY, 1974
The Teenage Liberation Handbook: How To Quit School and Get A Real Life and Education by Grace Llewellyn;
Lowry House, 1991
Witchcraft and the Gay Counterculture by Arthur Evans; 1978 (a Fag Rag book)
Becoming Visible: A Reader in Gay and Lesbian History for Highschool and College Students edited by Kevin Jennings
First Do No Harm: The Sexual Abuse Industry by Felicity Goodyear-Smith ISBN: 0-86470-047-4
Paedophilia: The Radical Case by Tom O'Carroll
history:
Victims and Survivors: The Nazi Persecution of the Jews in The Netherlands, 1940-45 by Bob Moore St. Martin's Press; NY, 1997 p. 50-161
Battallion 101, Ordinary Men by Christopher Browning (on nonprofessional assasinations of Jewish citizens)
Do Not Go Gentle: A Memoir of Jewish Resistance in Poland, 1941-45 by Charles Gellman; Archon Books, 1989
People Without Government: An Anthropology of Anarchism by Harold Barclay
Portrait of a Cold Warrior: Second Thoughts of a Top CIA Agent by Joseph P. Smith, Putnam, 1976
(very pro-cia, note comments on P. Agee, p.435, 436)
Police Anti-Drug Tactics: New Approaches and Applications by Deborah Lamm Weisel "supported by the
National Institute of Justice"; Police Executive Research Forum
MICRO-ORIENTED ARTICLES AND INFO
"Underage Unions: Child Laborers Speak Up" by Sarah Bachman in Nov/Dec 2000 Mother Jones magazine, p.25
(a history of child labor unions, Praveen Kumar and his 14,000 all-under-17 member union) cwc@pobox.com
"Science vs Orthodoxy: Anatomy of the congressional condemnation of a scientific article and reflections
on remedies for future
ideological attacks" by Bruce Rind, R. Bauserman, P. Tromovich; "Applied & Preventative Psychology" 9:211-225 (2000).
Cambridge University Press
articles in Covert Action Quarterly (mag), Winter 2001, p. 21-23
pamphlets from False Memory Foundation www.FMSFonline.org and www.APA.org (see "Q and A about Memories of
Childhood
Abuse") AND "Stop the Rape of Women's Minds" by Parents Against Cruel Therapy (217)359-2190
"Restraint Common at Desert Hills" (on teenagers coerced inside psych prisons);
Sunday, Feb11, 12, 13, 19, 22; Arizona Daily Star, Tucson. (see also www.teenliberty.org:
"The institutional maltreatment of children described in this book is condemned by international law, so it's time
for Americans to ask: What is our government doing about this? --Howard Davidson, Dir. ABA Center on Children & the Law)
"Top Ten Reasons to Oppose the IMF" (2 pages, listing)
"83 Years of Iraqi rebellion against British/U.S. dominance of Middle East (Facts the media is not allowed to report)" by
lf0119@netzero.net (3 pages, listing)
"Homeless Family Tapes Police Encounters" by Josh Keen Apr, 2000, p.8 an un-named Portland homeless newspaper
a June, 1997 copy of the more radical homeless paper, "The Burnside Cadillac"
miscellaneous from "The New American" magazine (john birch oriented, rightist; no freedom to challenge them allowed)
anti-Martin Luther King, Jr flyer full of character assasination attempts; 1986
"Atomic Guinea Pigs" NY Times Magazine, Aug.31, 1997 p.38; and "Hazardous Oatmeal", p.42
"Today's Military Mission: Take the Environment By Force" (see sub-heading: "Radioactive 'Accidents') by Trey Smith; in "The
Oregon Peaceworker", Oct, 1997, p.8
"American Eugenics and the Nazi Regime" by Thais in "Profane Existence" mag, summer 2000, p.27
Fully Informed Jury Assoc pamphlet (FIJA 1-800-TEL-JURY)
"Curing the Therapeutic State: Thomas Szasz on the medicalization of American life" interview by Jacob Sullum;
REASON mag, July 2000
"Cover-ups, Politics, and Forensics" with Dr.Michael M. Baden, former chief medical examiner for NY City, and author of
Unnatural Death
--Confessions of a Medical Examiner
"The Secret Wars of the CIA" by John Stockwell, 1989; Other Americas Radio, Santa Barbara, CA; (audio and text)
"Eye-witness Report from Haudenosaunee Conflict, by Ishgooda; Apr21, '97; in "Warrior Spirit: An Electronic Journal for Native
Americans and Their Supporters"
Q/A following the Massey Lectures, Dec. 1988 with Noam Chomsky and mainline Canadian Press reporters; CBC (audio and text)
(zmag's online version entirely skips Gene Allen of the "Globe and Mail"--about two whole pages of text)
Peter Duesberg on "Exposing the Lies of the HIV-AIDS Fraud; pamphlet
"A Torture Survivor Speaks Out: An Interview with Dong Tizon" by Monica Garreton in "The Voice"
(of the Illinois Disciples Foundation)
"Everyone is Able: Exploding the Myth of Learning Disabilities" by John Holt Associates (Cambridge, MA)
booklet compiled from Growing Without Schooling magazine
article on military manuvers in city without citizen knowledge; Pittsburgh Gazette, June 1996 (note)
"Empowerment means [re]gaining control of your life" by Judi Chamberlin, p. 6; in National Empowerment Center, Inc Newsletter
(1-800-POWER-2-U)
"The Politics of Biological Determinism: What argument against social change could be more effective than the claim that established
orders exist as an accurate reflection of innate intellectual capacities?" by Stephen Jay Gould in "RETHINKING SCHOOLS";
Winter
1999/2000 p.7
"On the Advantages of Disreputable Action" by Johannes Sabat in Earthfirst!, March-April 2000, p. 21
Part 1 and 2 of interview with activist Judi Bari in "Terrain: Northern California's Environmental Magazine", June 1996 and previous issue
"Central America: Environment Under Fire" in ACERCA (Action for Community and Ecology in the Regions of South America) www.acerca.org (no date, page listed)
"Evading the Transformation of Reality: Engaged Buddhism at an Impasse" by Ken Knabb (www.slip.net)
"The Thought" newspaper serving the Black community in Central and Northern Illinois blacktht@pdnt.com
Sue Poole on psychiatry (various articles from a dissenting viewpoint) including "The Criteria of What Works
and for Whom" Part 1 and 2
"The lies we are told" by Doreen Miller YellowTimes.org columnist (US)
"Draft and Military Resistance to the Vietnam War: We Ain't Marching Anymore" by Andy Mager in Community Times newspaper,
Aug. 2000, Vol7, no.8; POB 3125, West Lafayette, IN 47996 p.1, 7 (originally printed in "The Nonviolent Activist") see:
www.skbee.com/andy
various FPS articles (voice of the 1970s youth liberation movement in the alternative press, i.e. Ann Arbor (MI) Youth Liberation)
various from "New Youth Connections" ISSN 0737-285X
"Gang Bang: Exploding the myths in [film] 'Indian Posse'" by Dimitri Katadotis (in un-noted Canadian newsprint paper)
"Chuck D" (the rap artist) interview by Nathan Rabin in "The Onion", vol.37, no.22, June 14-20, 2001, p. 15-17 (cover feature)
articles by Bob Black
articles by Feral Faun
Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed all back issues from #8 to present
"The IQ Ideology" by S. Bowles and H. Gintis in: This Magazine is About Schools Vol. 6, #4, Winter 1972-73 p.48-62
Letters section on cults, with editorial reply Communities Magazine, Winter, 1995, #89
Reginald Major on re-writing Black Panther history "The Black Scholar" (journal) Vol. 26, #1; p.49 POB 2869 Oakland, CA 94609
"The Reality of Being A Rosenberg" in The Cultural Studies Times Fall 1995, Vol. 1 #3; p.3
Campus Surveillance by Verne Lyon (in un-named newsprint paper)
fbi and libraries:
Wilson Library Bulletin: Apr. 1992, Vol. 66 #8, p. 69
Library Journal, 2-1-91; Vol 116, #2, p.54
American Libraries, March 1990; Vol 21 #3, p.245 "The Fbi and You"
Nature Magazine, 11-16-1989, p.217 (interference with libraries criticized)
NY Times, 11-7-1989, p. A1 by Johnston, D.
"From Cornflakes to Clitoridectomies: The heavy-handed history of masturbation control" by Bill Andriette, in The Guide
(www.guidemag.com) 11-1990, p.92-96
some MICRO-ORIENTED DOCUMENTARY FILMS:
Waco: The Rules of Engagement (on massacre of the Branch Davidians)
The Burning Season
Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media
All below can be found via the National Film Board of Canada
Kahnehsatake
Power
My Name is Kahentiiosta
Acts of Defiance
Flooding Jobs Garden (1991)
To Canada With Love and Some Misgivings (1993)
book titles NOTED while browsing (could be excellent):
The Child Savers: The Invention of Delinquency by Anthony Platt (1970s)
_We Are Not You_ by Claude Denis; 1997
The Taming of the Troops: Social Control in the United States Army. Contributors: Lawrence B. Radine - author.
Publisher: Greenwood Press. Place of Publication: Westport, CT. Publication Year: 1977. Chapter on 'paternalist control' by professionals: Page: 54.
Poor People's Movements: Why They Succeed, How They Fail by Piven, Frances Fox and Richard A. Cloward
How the Rural Poor Got Power by Wellstone
Death in the Air: Globalism, Terrorism & Toxic Warfare by Leonard G. Horowitz (author of _Emerging Viruses: AIDS &
Ebola--Nature,
Accident Or Intentional?_) Tetrahedon Publishing
subtitles:
MACRO-ORIENTED BOOKS
history
general demystification
MACRO-ORIENTED ARTICLES AND INFO
MICRO-ORIENTED BOOKS
history
MICRO-ORIENTED ARTICLES AND INFO
some MICRO-ORIENTED DOCUMENTARY FILMS
book titles NOTED while browsing (could be excellent)
MACRO-ORIENTED BOOKS
architects of policy:
"Towards a Renovated International System" by the Trilateral Commission (a private N.American-European-Japanese Initiative on Matters of Concern; (original subtitle?)); 1977.
_The Crisis of Democracy: Report on the Governability of Democracies to the Trilateral Commission_; Michel J. Crozier,
Samuel P. Huntington (aka Frank G. Thomson), Joji Watanuki; 1975 p.6-9; 74-77; 90-95; 112-115 (Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale
were members, source: Stenographers To Power, p.46 (see above); started by David Rockefeller, writes Michael Parenti in previous source, p.46)
Are We All Nazis? by Holocaust survivor Hans Askenasy; 1978
_Stenographers To Power: Media and Propaganda_; edited, interviews by David Barsamian; 1992 see: Ben Bagdikian,
Chomsky, Mark Hetrsgaard, Alexander Cockburn; p. 30-35, 42-47, 64-69; 72-73, 88-91; 122-123; 172-177; 188-89;
Understanding Power (with Chomsky), edited by P.R. Mitchell and J. Schoeffel
books by Noam Chomsky:
Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Western Democracies
Deterring Democracy
various books and lots of articles
The Power Elite by C. Wright Mills
The Praetorian Guard by John Stockwell
history:
Science of Coercion by Christopher Simpson (focus 1945-1960) p.16-30, 34-35; 42-47; 68-69; 94-95; 106-117
edited by Bud and Ruth Schultz: It Did Happen Here
and
The Price of Dissent, 2001
(includes excellent insights by Paul Robeson's son)
Agents of Repression (illegal f.b.i. methods against BP, AIM) by Ward Churchill and Jim Vander Wall p.32-37; 390-391
American Ground Zero by Carole Gallagher
The Making of a Counter Culture: Reflections on the technocratic society and its youthful opposition
by Theodore Roszak; Doubleday, 1969
Witch Hunt: The Revival of Heresy by Carey McWilliams; Little, Brown, 1950 p.235-290; 300-303, 316-321, 334-340;
Renaissance and the Reformation by Henry S. Lucas
Cows, Pigs, Wars, and Witches by Marvin Harris; p.225, 234-240; 243-245
The Devil in Massachusetts: A Modern Enquiry Into the Salem Witch Trials by Marion L. Starkey, 1969, 1989 p.14, 34, 40-48
general demystification:
Freedom and Beyond by John Holt
The Human Situation; The Art of Seeing; Brave New World--REVISITED by Aldous Huxley
Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes by Jacques Ellul 1965
Escape From Freedom, by Erich Fromm
The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz
The Book of Secrets, Volume 1, 2 (talks by Osho)
Out of Weakness: Healing the Wounds That Drive Us To War; by Andrew Bard Schmookler; 1988
War At Home: Covert Action Against US Activists and What We Can Do About It by Brian Glick, South End Press; 1990
Asclepius At Syracuse (note: most are chapters by others supporting Thomas Szasz's work) p. 47(?), 64-85, 74, 87, 108, 129, 131, 272, 275,
276, 283, 285, 298, 299334, 338, 341, 362; authors include Leon J. Kamin, David W. Moller, Walter A. Sedelow, Jr., David O. Friedrichs,
Raymond Wolfe, Larry W. Riggs, Anne Hudson Jones, Ronald Boostrom.
Thomas Szasz: Primary Values, Major Contentions; edited by Richard E. Vatz, Ph.D and Lee S. Weinberg, Ph.D.
American Extremists: Militias, Supremacists, klansmen, communists and others by John George and Laird Wilcox; Prometheus Books;
Amherst, NY 1996 quote by Stalin; "then they came for me" quote attributed to Martin Niemoller; Zion Protocols a fabrication p. 410.
p.17-19, 24; 395-96, 408, 410, 416
MACRO-ORIENTED ARTICLES AND INFO
Noam Chomsky: "An Exchange on Liberal Scholarship" and many other excellent articles on monkeyfist.com/Chomsky/Archive/essays/ AND
"Liberating the Mind from Orthodoxies": monkeyfist.com/Chomsky/Archive/interviews/
"The Crisis of Democracy" June 1977 excerpts from "The Carter Administration: Myth and Reality" in: _Radical Priorities_ (Black Rose, 1981) p. 158-164
"Who Runs America?" interview with Chomsky by Adrian Zupp
"Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda" and many many other articles by Noam Chomsky
"Education is Ignorance" excerpt from _Class Warfare_ by Chomsky; p. 19-23, 27-31. (See also a book that Chomsky apparently wrote about education in the u.s.a.)
"Ideology and the Human Sciences: Some Comments on the Role of Reification In Psychology and Psychiatry"
by David Ingleby
David Barsamian's Alternative Radio catalogue, winter 1999-2000 especially Gene Wars: The Politics of Biotechnology
by Kristin Dawkins
Wake Up, America!!! excerpted from _Declarations of Independence: Cross-Examining American Ideology_ by Howard Zinn
www.radio4all.org/anarchy/zinn.html
Dealing With Idealists ( www.radio4all.org/anarchy/sabot.html )
excerpted from _Toxic Sludge is Good for You!_ by John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton; Common Courage Press
Is the Extremist Right Entirely Wrong? by Barbara Dority in "The Humanist", p. 12-15 Nov./Dec. 1995
Direct Action by Voltarine De Cleyre (1866-1912) (www.spunk.org/library/writers/decleyre/sp001334.html )
The Open Truth and Fiery Vehemence of Youth by Peter Marin
(excerpted from _The Movement Toward a New America: The Beginnings of a Long Revolution_, edited by Mitchell Goodman)
MICRO-ORIENTED BOOKS:
My Life as a Radical Lawyer by William M. Kunstler, with Sheila Isenberge; Citadel Press, NJ; 1996
Prime Time Activism by Charlotte Ryan
Tom Hayden: Rebellion and Repression "The First Hard Times Book", 1969; Meridian, NY p.12-15.
A Testament of Hope (with Martin Luther King, Jr.) edited by James M. Washington; Harper & Row, 1986 especially the Playboy interview
The Myth of the Hyperactive Child: And Other Means of Child Control by Peter Schrag and Diane Divoky; 1975 appendix p. 230-235;
And They Call It Help by Louise Armstrong
Taking Sides: Clashing Views on Controversial Psychological Issues; Second Edition; editors: Joseph Rubinstein, Brent D. Slife
Dushkin Publishing Group (textbook) 0-87967-383-4
Coercion: Why We Listen To What "They" Say, by Douglas Rushkoff
On Our Own: Patient-Controlled Alternatives to the Mental Health System by Judi Chamberlin; 1978 p. 86-87; 92-97; 102-103
Dr. Thomas Szasz, MD:
Ideology and Insanity
The Theology of Medicine
and a few others
Making Us Crazy by Kutchins and Kirk
Reality Police: The Experience of Insanity in America by Anthony Brandt, NY, 1975 p.24, 25.
The Learning Mystique: A Critical Look at 'Learning Disabilities' by Gerald Coles; Ballantine; NY, 1987, 89
A Divided Self on anti-psychiatrist, R.D. Laing by one of his sons
The Politics of Experience by R.D. Laing
Cop To Call Girl by Norma Jean Almodovar
Let Them Call Me Rebel, a biography of Saul Alynsky by Sanford D. Horwitt; 1989(?)
Never Guilty, Never Free by Ginny Foat (past NOW pres in CA)
XXX: A Woman's Right to Pornography by Karen McElroy
On The Run by Philip Agee
Stickman by Paola Igliori (interviews with John Trudell)
Loudhawk: The United States Vs the American Indian Movement
by Ken Stern; (?)University of Oklahoma Press (?), 1994
generally p. 26-279 (more details of the war against AIM than other sources I've found)
Where White Men Fear to Tread by Russell Means (with Autonomous Chapters of AIM)
Ward Churchill: Indians Are Us?
Autobiography of a Spiritually Incorrect Mystic: Osho edited by S. C. Neiman; St. Martin's Griffin, NY (????)
Race interviews edited by Studs Terkel
East Timor's Unfinished Struggle by Constancio Pinto
America's Boy: A Century of Colonialism in the Philippines by James Hamilton-Paterson
Exploding the Gene Myth
Toxic Psychiatry by Peter Breggin
Escape From Childhood: The Needs and Rights of Children by John Holt
Birthrights by Gerald Farson Macmillan; NY, 1974
The Teenage Liberation Handbook: How To Quit School and Get A Real Life and Education by Grace Llewellyn;
Lowry House, 1991
Witchcraft and the Gay Counterculture by Arthur Evans; 1978 (a Fag Rag book)
Becoming Visible: A Reader in Gay and Lesbian History for Highschool and College Students edited by Kevin Jennings
First Do No Harm: The Sexual Abuse Industry by Felicity Goodyear-Smith ISBN: 0-86470-047-4
Paedophilia: The Radical Case by Tom O'Carroll
history:
Victims and Survivors: The Nazi Persecution of the Jews in The Netherlands, 1940-45 by Bob Moore St. Martin's Press; NY, 1997 p. 50-161
Battallion 101, Ordinary Men by Christopher Browning (on nonprofessional assasinations of Jewish citizens)
Do Not Go Gentle: A Memoir of Jewish Resistance in Poland, 1941-45 by Charles Gellman; Archon Books, 1989
People Without Government: An Anthropology of Anarchism by Harold Barclay
Portrait of a Cold Warrior: Second Thoughts of a Top CIA Agent by Joseph P. Smith, Putnam, 1976
(very pro-cia, note comments on P. Agee, p.435, 436)
Police Anti-Drug Tactics: New Approaches and Applications by Deborah Lamm Weisel "supported by the
National Institute of Justice"; Police Executive Research Forum
MICRO-ORIENTED ARTICLES AND INFO
"Underage Unions: Child Laborers Speak Up" by Sarah Bachman in Nov/Dec 2000 Mother Jones magazine, p.25
(a history of child labor unions, Praveen Kumar and his 14,000 all-under-17 member union) cwc@pobox.com
"Science vs Orthodoxy: Anatomy of the congressional condemnation of a scientific article and reflections
on remedies for future
ideological attacks" by Bruce Rind, R. Bauserman, P. Tromovich; "Applied & Preventative Psychology" 9:211-225 (2000).
Cambridge University Press
articles in Covert Action Quarterly (mag), Winter 2001, p. 21-23
pamphlets from False Memory Foundation www.FMSFonline.org and www.APA.org (see "Q and A about Memories of
Childhood
Abuse") AND "Stop the Rape of Women's Minds" by Parents Against Cruel Therapy (217)359-2190
"Restraint Common at Desert Hills" (on teenagers coerced inside psych prisons);
Sunday, Feb11, 12, 13, 19, 22; Arizona Daily Star, Tucson. (see also www.teenliberty.org:
"The institutional maltreatment of children described in this book is condemned by international law, so it's time
for Americans to ask: What is our government doing about this? --Howard Davidson, Dir. ABA Center on Children & the Law)
"Top Ten Reasons to Oppose the IMF" (2 pages, listing)
"83 Years of Iraqi rebellion against British/U.S. dominance of Middle East (Facts the media is not allowed to report)" by
lf0119@netzero.net (3 pages, listing)
"Homeless Family Tapes Police Encounters" by Josh Keen Apr, 2000, p.8 an un-named Portland homeless newspaper
a June, 1997 copy of the more radical homeless paper, "The Burnside Cadillac"
miscellaneous from "The New American" magazine (john birch oriented, rightist; no freedom to challenge them allowed)
anti-Martin Luther King, Jr flyer full of character assasination attempts; 1986
"Atomic Guinea Pigs" NY Times Magazine, Aug.31, 1997 p.38; and "Hazardous Oatmeal", p.42
"Today's Military Mission: Take the Environment By Force" (see sub-heading: "Radioactive 'Accidents') by Trey Smith; in "The
Oregon Peaceworker", Oct, 1997, p.8
"American Eugenics and the Nazi Regime" by Thais in "Profane Existence" mag, summer 2000, p.27
Fully Informed Jury Assoc pamphlet (FIJA 1-800-TEL-JURY)
"Curing the Therapeutic State: Thomas Szasz on the medicalization of American life" interview by Jacob Sullum;
REASON mag, July 2000
"Cover-ups, Politics, and Forensics" with Dr.Michael M. Baden, former chief medical examiner for NY City, and author of
Unnatural Death
--Confessions of a Medical Examiner
"The Secret Wars of the CIA" by John Stockwell, 1989; Other Americas Radio, Santa Barbara, CA; (audio and text)
"Eye-witness Report from Haudenosaunee Conflict, by Ishgooda; Apr21, '97; in "Warrior Spirit: An Electronic Journal for Native
Americans and Their Supporters"
Q/A following the Massey Lectures, Dec. 1988 with Noam Chomsky and mainline Canadian Press reporters; CBC (audio and text)
(zmag's online version entirely skips Gene Allen of the "Globe and Mail"--about two whole pages of text)
Peter Duesberg on "Exposing the Lies of the HIV-AIDS Fraud; pamphlet
"A Torture Survivor Speaks Out: An Interview with Dong Tizon" by Monica Garreton in "The Voice"
(of the Illinois Disciples Foundation)
"Everyone is Able: Exploding the Myth of Learning Disabilities" by John Holt Associates (Cambridge, MA)
booklet compiled from Growing Without Schooling magazine
article on military manuvers in city without citizen knowledge; Pittsburgh Gazette, June 1996 (note)
"Empowerment means [re]gaining control of your life" by Judi Chamberlin, p. 6; in National Empowerment Center, Inc Newsletter
(1-800-POWER-2-U)
"The Politics of Biological Determinism: What argument against social change could be more effective than the claim that established
orders exist as an accurate reflection of innate intellectual capacities?" by Stephen Jay Gould in "RETHINKING SCHOOLS";
Winter
1999/2000 p.7
"On the Advantages of Disreputable Action" by Johannes Sabat in Earthfirst!, March-April 2000, p. 21
Part 1 and 2 of interview with activist Judi Bari in "Terrain: Northern California's Environmental Magazine", June 1996 and previous issue
"Central America: Environment Under Fire" in ACERCA (Action for Community and Ecology in the Regions of South America) www.acerca.org (no date, page listed)
"Evading the Transformation of Reality: Engaged Buddhism at an Impasse" by Ken Knabb (www.slip.net)
"The Thought" newspaper serving the Black community in Central and Northern Illinois blacktht@pdnt.com
Sue Poole on psychiatry (various articles from a dissenting viewpoint) including "The Criteria of What Works
and for Whom" Part 1 and 2
"The lies we are told" by Doreen Miller YellowTimes.org columnist (US)
"Draft and Military Resistance to the Vietnam War: We Ain't Marching Anymore" by Andy Mager in Community Times newspaper,
Aug. 2000, Vol7, no.8; POB 3125, West Lafayette, IN 47996 p.1, 7 (originally printed in "The Nonviolent Activist") see:
www.skbee.com/andy
various FPS articles (voice of the 1970s youth liberation movement in the alternative press, i.e. Ann Arbor (MI) Youth Liberation)
various from "New Youth Connections" ISSN 0737-285X
"Gang Bang: Exploding the myths in [film] 'Indian Posse'" by Dimitri Katadotis (in un-noted Canadian newsprint paper)
"Chuck D" (the rap artist) interview by Nathan Rabin in "The Onion", vol.37, no.22, June 14-20, 2001, p. 15-17 (cover feature)
articles by Bob Black
articles by Feral Faun
Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed all back issues from #8 to present
"The IQ Ideology" by S. Bowles and H. Gintis in: This Magazine is About Schools Vol. 6, #4, Winter 1972-73 p.48-62
Letters section on cults, with editorial reply Communities Magazine, Winter, 1995, #89
Reginald Major on re-writing Black Panther history "The Black Scholar" (journal) Vol. 26, #1; p.49 POB 2869 Oakland, CA 94609
"The Reality of Being A Rosenberg" in The Cultural Studies Times Fall 1995, Vol. 1 #3; p.3
Campus Surveillance by Verne Lyon (in un-named newsprint paper)
fbi and libraries:
Wilson Library Bulletin: Apr. 1992, Vol. 66 #8, p. 69
Library Journal, 2-1-91; Vol 116, #2, p.54
American Libraries, March 1990; Vol 21 #3, p.245 "The Fbi and You"
Nature Magazine, 11-16-1989, p.217 (interference with libraries criticized)
NY Times, 11-7-1989, p. A1 by Johnston, D.
"From Cornflakes to Clitoridectomies: The heavy-handed history of masturbation control" by Bill Andriette, in The Guide
(www.guidemag.com) 11-1990, p.92-96
some MICRO-ORIENTED DOCUMENTARY FILMS:
Waco: The Rules of Engagement (on massacre of the Branch Davidians)
The Burning Season
Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media
All below can be found via the National Film Board of Canada
Kahnehsatake
Power
My Name is Kahentiiosta
Acts of Defiance
Flooding Jobs Garden (1991)
To Canada With Love and Some Misgivings (1993)
book titles NOTED while browsing (could be excellent):
The Child Savers: The Invention of Delinquency by Anthony Platt (1970s)
_We Are Not You_ by Claude Denis; 1997
The Taming of the Troops: Social Control in the United States Army. Contributors: Lawrence B. Radine - author.
Publisher: Greenwood Press. Place of Publication: Westport, CT. Publication Year: 1977. Chapter on 'paternalist control' by professionals: Page: 54.
Poor People's Movements: Why They Succeed, How They Fail by Piven, Frances Fox and Richard A. Cloward
How the Rural Poor Got Power by Wellstone
Death in the Air: Globalism, Terrorism & Toxic Warfare by Leonard G. Horowitz (author of _Emerging Viruses: AIDS &
Ebola--Nature,
Accident Or Intentional?_) Tetrahedon Publishing
InTheHeartSolutions
The following is an attempt I made, a few years ago, to articulate my ideas about solutions to what challenges us all as human beings in this world. This is a large post, and it is partitioned up by various parts which originally were links.
What most people--the critical mass--probably want (see Part 2 below)
formal vs informal organizations (part 3)
Old Europe imaginations (see Part 4)
Leftism critiqued (part 5)
Rightism critiqued (part 6)
note: this area has been deeply inspired by the writings of Jason McQuinn; especially in his writings about "post-left anarchy"
NOTE: i compose text like a painter who paints many paintings at once. The thought-provoking depth wants OUT, yet may not be fully de-abstracted for weeks, and sometimes months, while i work on other similar depth projects. In my case, these paintings are “edited” and re-edited so much that were this text actual paint, it would be so THICKLY layered as to turn into more of a sculpture! (heh heh) Sooo, dear reader, I suspect that you will find this page a bit too wordy, tangent-tending, and not easy to read (even tho this is the second attempt at editing); I hope you will perservere, though, and at least scan/hop around for the nuggets of value which i claim are here. Composing text is not "first nature" for me...
d;]
points to be considered:
informal organization, the meta game, intellectual self-defense, informal resistance consciousness, a new imagination, liberation of our desire and an obstacle, Continue the war, or understand and implement liberatory desires?
spirit liberation or psychological ju-jitsu, crazy people, a personal example, another example, the problem of institutionalized fear.
Informal self-organization
(See discussion of formal organization in Section one) Informal resistance offers much room, at least as far as the informal member's individual imagination may be "allowed" to go, either by chance, spiritual path, or error. With no one to coerce or manipulate a member's ideological conformity or keep them from going into "dangerously" independent inquiry, or even simply escaping the list of tasks given by organizational functionaries, informal resisters have much more freedom to explore areas that interest them.
This especially rings true when we see that informal resistance motions are usually made up of individuals who are oriented to working/playing on their own, or with small groups of friends or "affinity groups". They may come together in order to carry out direct actions, but most of their time is spent doing activities they, individually, are enamored to. They remain focused on the activities they're interested in, whereas in formal organizations, they may become *burnt out* by tasks which run far from their original desires (re: fund-raising, newsletter editing and mailing, and other secretarial duties). They can still take advantage of peer critique or support, when they ask, but the interaction remains much more oriented to directness, and has less of a chance to be clouded over by the need to conform ideologically, and remain "in good standing" in the formal group.
Further, when we organize ourselves informally, we are also not limited by ideological demands about what sources we may make use of. In fact, we may utilize a broad variety of resources. This is what has been called creative self-mobilization... Myself, i've found much value in insights found in methodological anarchy and situationism, as well as from Reader's Digest and other places one wouldn't normally expect to find gems. The trick is *reading between the lines* and keeping one's ability to compare and try out, intact; this comes back to critical thought and intellectual self-defense.
the meta game
Depending on how meaningfully deep one has allowed themselves to delve, one may begin to see a pattern of similarity between ALL the vast, seemingly terribly complicated and divergent views and beliefs we have as individuals. Notably, we all are similar, it's just that we've been socialized/programmed/enculturated into a seemingly huge diversity of rigid difference. This kind of realization is typically not allowed by formal, ideologically-challenged organization, which seems to need to keep a rigid dichotomy between "us" and "Them". The reason for this I haven't yet been able to put my finger on, but perhaps there is insight to be found in the *meta game* as played by the elites of every formalized group (i.e. every group articulating itself towards being better understood and seeking "reform"/assimilation or "revolution"/changing of the boss). As R.D. Laing says:
We see this meta game all throughout the imagination called society and culture, and as well, formalized concepts of organization and resistance. Parents and other conscious adults play it upon persons called children. Teachers play it upon parents and kids. Administrators play it upon implementers of policy called teachers. Elite policy makers play this meta game upon elite implementers. All throughout our imagination we are neatly corralled and confined within something like Oz, though for me, a more exacting insight is to call this prevailing and imposed imagination *Is*. **The Wizards of Is** keep us "properly" subordinated, unthreatening, tooled, and mentally confined. We are modern-day peasants with neon. "Dark ages with neon glasses" as John Trudell would say.
Why this happens, why this meta game has to be played at all, probably has something to do with our "information society" being one completely subordinated to the needs and values of *propaganda* (see J. Ellul). All institutions and their public relations aparatuses utilize propaganda--manipulation--as THE method of choice for getting mass audiences/"consumers" to pay attention. Since we are basically a WAR-oriented culture, the war of propaganda comes with the territory. And thus the game that "must" be played while not speaking of the game; and those who do, being viewed as a danger because they might ruin a particular aspect of the propaganda that "MUST" rein.
Intellectual self-defense
Intellectual self-defense has been deeply articulated by the much despised luminary, Noam Chomsky. Basically, the method is to "undertake a course" (of self-instruction via Chomsky et al's *institutional analysis*) so that we may better understand how we are collectively manipulated via notable methods of thought control: i.e. by major influence institutions like the mainstream media and the State.
Informal resistance consciousness
Additionally, John Trudell (a still quite well-marginalized figure) articulated this idea in a very basic way in his *We Are Power* speech, shared with his fellow indigenous people in 1980. Basically, I see this way as a way of utilizing (tooling) the excellent values of formal resistance, while not letting the destructive sides of formal resistance tool us.
a new imagination
The only way out that i can see, beyond continuing to naively strengthen that (including propaganda) which systematically attacks all of us in continually rotating ways (continually finding new differences amongst us to exploit our fears and keep us alienated and/or against each other), is by escaping the heart of the situation, and bringing forth a new imagination.
My study and experience leads me to the conclusion that FEAR, followed closely by severe alienation, is the heart of our challenge as humans at this juncture.
We need to liberate ourselves from this imagination which has been imposed upon ALL of us (including elite policy makers) from times when war was viewed as the only option (as in the history of all so-called "civilized" organization (popularly, it is also believed that pre-"civilized" groups, like the American indigenous folks, were committed to senseless violence; yet I maintain that there is a context to that which cannot be easily understood by domesticated man's severely confined imagination)).
Liberation of our desires and an obstacle
We can see already where our desires tend to want to escape to, when we think of young children of age 3 or 5. Their spirit is still full of the "spirit of discovery" and the love of life, and the misery of "Reality" has not yet been imposed upon them (via our social norms). The lucky few (those who see this anyway) that find time to walk down paths with them and notice things that otherwise would be missed, says oodles about this all too private joy, alone.
Parents have regularly spoken fondly of "being able" to "revisit childhood" through their youngchildren. Through this imagination we call "childhood" we experience a renewing of our own spirits, and this is to be celebrated; yet, at the same time, due to our alienated conditionining, this way has turned into a way which we *mine* for our own nursings, while allowing little vitality to escape to where our children may grow and become stronger.
In our single-minded, severely alienated interests, we've turned the youngpersons moving through us into objects. An object similar to what John Holt characterized, in his book _Escape From Childhood_, a "superpet". A youngperson not allowed to be viewed as fully human alongside us (thanks to the work of the convenient, and the systematically superficial analysis of the highly political, state-subordinated, social sciences).
Probably because of this value that we find in this somewhat natural time of life, the whole realm of "childhood" has become a highly sentimentalized time of all-too-escapist entertainment, aloof play, unthreatening fantasy, industry and business, keeping the very *objects* we claim to so avidly cherish and wish to "protect" locked up in a 'prison garden called childhood' (John Holt; see also: Paul Goodman: _Growing Up Absurd_ and Gerald Farson: _Birthrights_). We think nothing of this, until, for whatever reason, we finally allow ourselves to step back and look at a bigger picture. (Perhaps we are moved by youth liberationists of yesteryear or today, or remember our own feelings as kids)
Continue the war, or understand and implement liberatory desires?
The trick, then, is to not allow our severely alienated desires to get the best of us. (Perhaps this is where the danger of "ego" crops up, though I wonder at the validity of this characterization; is it too simplified? Reducing too quickly? I prefer a word which sheds light on the context of our resorting to all shades of allegedly bad selfishness.) This is the juncture where liberation may be had, or where struggle/war may continue (even inarticulately, as we see with so many kids now being labeled "oppositionally defiant disordered" and so on).
Liberation is the situation in which people learn the value of shirking off confined imaginations about themselves and others. Liberation is when many many people start to let their imaginations freer than ever thought "possible" before. The 1960s/early 70s was such a time of liberation (called a "crisis" by the ruling war order). Quite suddenly (all too quickly for the war powers), due to the example of a heightening black civil rights and anti-war movement, all sorts of groups and individuals were starting to think that they might be able to be heard if they dared to speak up about their intutions and awareness about the plight of themselves and those they'd been moved by.
Where the 1960s/70s liberation movement went wrong, in my view, is that they got stuck up in the game that their consciously political "leaders" played. Reformist-oriented or "revolutionary", the same underlying "Us vs. Them" dichotomy was (and continues to be) as rigid and **unempathetic** as the established mindset (and this goes for all the anarchists as well, even if they are not ideologically-oriented). Of course, most of those who thought nothing of following along, didn't see this. They didn't see that they were being manipulated against each other; tooled. For the needs and interests of their even more severely alienated "leaders" and owners and puppeteers.
Go to next section (2 of 2): includes Spirit liberation, Crazy people, the value of "crazy" for human liberation, making sense?, Jumping into my fear, Good Peasant Bad Peasant, Problem of institutional fear.
========================================
PART TWO:
What the critical mass probably wants
Please read the first few paragraphs, as they have pretty much the same kind of introduction to these ideas as the other pages should have, except that i don't want to put this up every time and possibly distract people...
By "critical mass" I mean the mass of people which would probably need to be moved, in their hearts, enough to accept the kind of society or world where serious joy and human potential could be realized and kept instituted. (This is similar to the "critical mass" which Leftists speak of, except that this style is not merely meant for one or a few policy-changes; instead, this style is meant for a macro change in the method of government orientation.)
There's a whole separate "can of worms" that can immediately be brought up, and such a topic, surely like the others linked under the "solutions" page, could turn into a huge college paper... Yet, i don't have the time nor the spirit to focus on that, of late. Perhaps someone else will either write something, or turn me onto someone whom already has. Situations which could be looked into include the pros & cons of propaganda usage on masses (in a context of a propaganda-oriented society), the value of propagandizing the masses, claims of "human nature" as an impossible situation (re: institutionalized bigotry), and so on.
I want to keep this topic short, while touching thought-provokingly on significant questions about what i see that "most people", across the spectrum of our alleged differences, *really want* when they act as they do, or speak as they speak.
"We are like blind [persons] touching different parts of an elephant who is like all Truth. Each [person] is saying that they have the full Truth in their hands, yet they have only a part of the metaphorical entire Truth."--attributed to Confucious
First of all, we are all born into varying communities of belief and understanding.
If Noam Chomsky happened to have been born into a family of ku klux klaners (well-known fascist group in u.s.a.), he might easily have been, at least in his earliest life, a raving fascist wanna-be. But he was surrounded by a large intellectual community which was deeply intent on a broad spectrum of left-leaning, and anarchist, critical thought.
The point i'm seeking to make is that *any of us* could've been born into a community stuck in various forms of rigidity; and this context is valuable for serious *understanding*, because it's all too easy, today, to look at our apparent complex differences and give up then and there, and go with "the lesser of two evils" as is said.
Understanding the illusion of our complexity (which is kept enforced by a conscious and unconscious "web" of propagandizing--see this page on propaganda, to get a clearer view), it is then possible to look at all of this complexity as a giant root-structure, or consequential imagination, of a very similar "heart".
If you're like me, your study of "micro" and "macro" social topics has led you to a similar view of Chomsky's analysis; that we live in a *thought control*-oriented society, hence the perniciousness of propaganda. (see definition here) If you can see the value of this, then you can see the idea that other luminaries have said about the idea of keeping various target groups "divided and conquered".
In seeing this, it's easy to look further than those groups in history and, as well, today whom are more obvious targets for social control and resourcing, and note a conspicuous pattern in the way in which even the main *resource group* is dealt with, on "micro" and "macro" scales.
I call those in the *Mainstream* the cream of the corrall--those who have largely internalized the value system Given/spoon-fed them and view themselves and their children as having "nothing to worry about" from their social and cultural managers.
Yet, over and over, whether it's people in the country (1), or in the city (2), we see a systematic situation which shouldn't be ignored by those seeking serious understanding.
Well, i could go into this, and make a big paper about it; but hopefully the other pages on this site will do this enough for you to see a value in looking closer.
So, let's say that i'm accurate about this, so far. Let's finally get to the idea of "what the masses really want".
Okay, you can look at this in various ways. You can look at masses who've internalized the value system Given them, and say something, yet i see that their wants have largely been manipulated. So they want enough money to be "rich", or at least financially secure, and not be in debt. Yet what is the onus of this desire? To be free from fear, i maintain.
Now look at the civillians who've been forced to deal with civil war or foreign invasion. They get a full helping of "revenge" in violent ways, and yet they can't help but to wish that things could be different. They can't help but to ask, like Rodney King (man beaten by cops in L.A., California): "Why can't we all just get along?"
So this is my view of what people really want most. They/we want to find a way of life in which we can get along. Even professional killers, functionaries, and government leaders want this, yet of course the idea they've subordinated their spirits to (often suppressing their own desires) is usually a way where they "get along" at the manipulated expense of what they often call the "stupid masses" (3).
If individuals, together, could suddenly understand this concept--that we are in actuality ever so similar to each other in the grist of our desires, if we could escape the grip of all or even most of the propagandas which hold us divided against each other so deeply--we would certainly begin going out of our ways a lot more to try to learn for ourselves!
Already we see tendencies towards this. When natural disasters strike, or when other social stress is encountered by many people, we see a tendency of "average" people to go out of their way and help each other--usually without ulterior motives to gain $, or such. Even without the disasters, people have a long history of *mutual aid*; it's just that all of these updated and continued colonizing techniques have had a way of getting in our ways.
(examples of updated and continued colonizing techniques, most lately begun at a renewed tempo after *Rollback* against the "crisis of democracy" in the 1960s(4), which began the latest wave of keeping control of the "flock", include the mass and "alternative" media--i.e. papers like the Willamette Week in Portland, Oregon, the medical mystification of children's inarticulate challenge to coercive authority, and the general insertion of problem-solving professionals into all other aspects of our lives. I.e. Where the traditional informal extended family once existed as a stronghold of inter-dependency and assistance, we now have the "nuclear" family, with the grandparents alienated in "nursing homes", kids and parents going to see therapists, and fear and distrust of strangers (except for professionals) at every level of social interaction.)
As far as actually "getting along", most today--"well-educated" as so many of us are by the systematic, context-less hype of the TV news and info-tainment industry, re: "COPS" (et al)--have been conditioned to be deeply cynical about humanity "ever" obtaining a situation of excellence, or even half-assed sanity. And, anyway, they say, the image they have about the alleged "stupidity of the masses" Is The Way Things Have Always Have Been.
On this assertion, they cite yet another conditioned idea they have about history, especially--in the u.s.a.--the American Indians' record of "going on the war-path." Yet, pressed for an inquiry into the context of these ideas, such as the truth that American Indians were pretty much FORCED to pick up the ways of the war-stuck invaders and *fight for their mere survival* against all types of overt and covert warfare--including the prevailing bigoted mindset held by most "civilized" (not to mention in the margins too) people in that era--well, you can start to see how that came about.
Before the war-stuck invaders came is the other main point of these persons. Yet, like Russell Means, the American Indian luminary,looks the Aztec Indians of what became Mexico, on the topic of *heart surgery* vs. *sacrifice to the gods*, i assert that there is a multiplicity of ways to look the huge diversity of peoples called American Indians.
How do we know, for instance, whether these very creative and libertarian-oriented peoples, with merit-oriented societies valuing the Vision Quest, *natural authority* in their "chiefs", and the excellence of *berdaches* and *shamans* as important additions to their societies, didn't practice "war" in VERY different ways than we assume?
Could they have been anything like the African "tribes" which went about "war" by facing each other off with "macho" posturing and an occasional spear thrown at the opponents, with maybe one or two killed as a result? How about the well-known idea of American Indians who went to "war" with the idea that to *touch* their opponent was much more valuable than maiming or killing him?
In his book Reflections of the Counterculture, Theodore Roszak goes into the phenomenon of the way in which scientists (and those who've been conditioned into this reductionist idea) "objectively" look the *objects* of their inquiry. He basically says, in one chapter, that as long as people remain aloof, by reason of remaining "objective", from those they are studying, they can never really *enter into* exactly what their human studies are doing and why.
So these are some significant insights, and i hope you will do your own inquiry and talk to me about what you find.
notes:
1) See Carole Gallagher's book American Ground Zero for an inquiry into policymakers' decisions about why it would be okay to accept 'collateral damage'-style problems in the country. They used a certain de-individualizing phrase for this, but i don't remember it ofhand.
2) A quick look at the way in which cities often handle or don't handle matters of pollution and toxic waste dumping (in the land, air, and etc.), complete with governmental (i.e. EPA) secrecies will give you a quick understanding of how one must engage in a form of "radical" struggle with perhaps all of the concerned authorities involved directly (my own experience in Urbana, IL found a stated interest in professional help from a reporter with the local newspaper, while in order to get *any type* of information from businesses notably involved in spewing head-ache-causing fumes, the EPA told me i'd have to file FOIA requests!)
3) See Noam Chomsky's writings on the attitudes of policymakers from the dawn of the "democratic experiment" called the u.s.a. in Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies.
4) See Noam Chomsky's "chomsky.info" article on the Trilateral Commission--apparently the main, or one of the main organizations, where elites published their fears about the "crisis" of democracy being that the masses were starting to believe they could be involved with policymaking for themselves. See also a discussion of this in his "Media Control" speech
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Part 3: formal vs informal organization, et al.
note: Dissidents should use caution when using spoon-fed/mainstream methods and forms
points to consider:
formal organization (see discussion of informal organization later):
Formal resistance, as the model lives in the popular imagination (and especially the imaginations of institutionally "well-educated" persons (a phrase to ask significant questions of)), brings into our imaginations certain camouflaged angles which we need to scrutinize more carefully if we are to see exactly when we become tooled and fooled.
Let's take ideology (or, rigid belief system) for a moment: One must subordinate the "serious" sides (at least) of their individualities to the Given ideology that formal organizations have chosen; usually, this seems to be the political route or program in which the organizational controllers/designers/planners have decided to follow as THE way (and no other way is possible, unless one is prepared to fight, tooth and nail, to have the way finally added someday--a microcosm to what the organiztion is seeking to do in seeking reform in the larger society!).
Formal organization also imposes a conventional imagination of confining concepts like "memberships" and "leaders", "dues" and "social ettiquette"; and a usually uncritical acceptance of the kind of orthodoxy which provides these models of formal, "reputable", or what is supposed to be "serious" organization in the first place. (Incidentally, this model has, over and over, proven disasterous to groups not yet allowed "a place at the table"--much less the 'right' to negotiate for their independent survival. It's probably disasterous also for individuals who have gotten stuck in believing that they are making some reformist gains, but let's save that, too, for another conversation).
(The most pointed examples of this disasterousness for groups not yet allowed "a place at the table"/social appearances of acceptance, has been the continuing havoc wreaked by legal and illegal official covert action upon formal organizations since at least the 1950s; as well as the strange, yet systematic pattern of ignorant naivity of "well-educated" organizers and leaders in these organizations. The best lessons may be gleaned from the f.b.i.'s illegal COINTEL Program; for those into reading, try the websites booklist, or explore William Kunstler's autobiography (_My Life As A Radical Lawyer_) as well as one by Philip Agee (_On The Run_); see also the anarchist critique of formal organization, via such luminaries as Feral Faun; contact the editor of a certain crucial anarchist publication at www.anarchymag.org)
Go to a discussion of the positive qualities of *informal* organization (in Section 8)
discuss pros/cons Charlotte Ryan's media suggestions for social challengers (media works for insiders and those allowed to "eat at the table", but not for outsiders and others not allowed to defend themselves).
normal social roles (never finished)
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Part 4:
European political and social methods vs. others
Points to consider:
Roots of European political and social methods
All ideas before the French revolution and "left" and "right" wings
Indigenous folks of pre-European invasion
Eastern methods beyond Monarchy, re: Buddhism, Zen, and the teachings of Osho
Experimental ideas, re: panarchy Permission to explore your own ideas! (via *self theory*) (under construction)
Permission to explore for yourself:
Revolutionary Self Theory: The Pleasure of thinking for Yourself!
"Just Leave Us Alone!" by Wiwa Wewo, Papua New Gunean traditional
_Wasase_ by Taiaiake Alfred
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Part 5:
ideological Leftism vs following �left-leaning� ideas and leads
(under construction)
(Note: to differentiate, i capitalize all ideas which seem ideologically-challenged, hence "Leftism", while those leanings which are traditionally called "left" in the Euro-centric West, yet aren't yet rigidly ideological or otherwise oriented to a propaganda against the always terrible "right wing", i keep lower case, hence "leftist")
Cropping up from time to time, i've noted that there are a few people in the anarchist milieu who are seeking to articulate something which makes sense to me: That there is something called *ideological* Leftism. i see this articulation as coming along on the coat-tails, if you will, of an already burgeoning disinclination of the largest mass of people to label their anger and covert or overt rebellion in such *political* reductions.
Surely there are reasons for why they do as they do, and we could go into that and i could go into my famous rambling ways, but i'll avoid that for now!
There is this onus of disinclination of the largest mass of people to avoid and ignore the left, and that is interesting.
The infamous Bob Black(1) (his highly-charged articulations have been pissing off a lot of Left vanguardists of late) and the perhaps even more marginalized Jason McQuinn (of "Anarchy, A Journal of Desire Armed" fame) have stood as seeming the only luminous articulators of this other way of looking. Surely there's a history behind that, and i'll wait for Jason to correct me (!), cuz, once again, going off on that tangent doesn't interest me at this time (tho i'm always interested in others doing all that work to explore there!).
Awhile back, an article was published (link forthcoming someday) on a staunchly Leftist website, which seemed to allow Jason to have a bit of a say, along with the expected challenge, which got the last word. But that's the last i heard, sans Jason's short words in "Anarchy" magazine; someday we may have a direct link for you, when they finally upload more back issues on their site (see above)...
As for Bob, just the apparent orientation to character assasination (followed in some cases, as in Madison, WI, by dutifully Left bookstores removing his books after such) by notably Left hypsters ought to raise the shackles of any critical thinker.
So, what's the VALUE of calling oneself a Leftist? What's the VALUE of orienting oneself to left-leanings? Perhaps the real question should be, what's the VALUE of labeling one set of motions for excellence in a perpetually dichotomous position? That is, seemingly forever claiming that the "Right Wing" camp has IS THE REASON FOR ALL THE PROBLEMS IN THE WORLD, and so on.
(This may seem like i'm being overly-simplistic, and perhaps i am; yet when you read this type of constant method, without going deeper, you have to wonder what's going on)
Curiously, no one, including the non-left/Left anarchists, go too far into talking about what's going on when these games are played over and over again. i wonder if that might be because THEY TOO are playing a *meta* game of propaganda (re: something similar to the way generals play their officers and trusting soldiers). This question leads me to look European political methodology itself (see this section if you want to skip around)
references
1) See Bob Black's book Anarchy After Leftism, or his various articles here and here, such as "Left Rites", "Libertarians As Conservative", and the "Anti-anarchist Conspiracy"
go to next section: ideological Rightism vs following �right-leaning� ideas
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Part 6:
ideological Rightism vs following �right-leaning� ideas
Similar to the previous section on Leftism/leftism, the rightists may certainly have their internal controls as well.
Yet unlike the left in any sense of the word, there doesn't seem to be *ANY* widely known forum for anyone in the public to *publish* either their views or their news. While the left has the Indy ("Independent") Media project, with it's *Open Publishing* experiment, which has kept amazing integrity for a few YEARS now; meaning, virtually no censorship of even VERY challenging ideas and art. Anyone with the time and determination to sustain an alternative, or autonomous view, *may* be able to successfully inform from their perspective.
(i say *may* because there is a current amongst the curators of the Indy project to marginalize "commentary" in place of what is framed as "news", namely propaganda and information published by specific, apparently hierarchically-controlled, Indy sites; this isn't a total phenomenon, but it is cropping up for one justification or another)
But, i digress!
So, if you catch yourself finding resonance in the kernals of truth posited by the Rightist leadership/vanguard, (re: hype against whole groups like the Jews, Rockefeller family in its entirety, the lazy blacks--if you're in Arizona where few live, the nasty American Indian Movement--if you read "The New American" magazine) you are expected to fall silently in line, apparently, and, at most, try to argue it out with your local, often much more experienced, Rightist vanguardists. (if they're anything like the John Birchers, you'd better watch your back)
Awhile ago, "Anarchy" magazine (i'm not digressing, honest!) published a far-out article about some curious details about the "rank and file" membership of the fear-worthy *ku klux klan*. Going deeper than all that's popularly understood about this radically violent right-wing group, the article writer actually explored something that's a complete *no-no* for right-thinking Leftists and their Dutiful politically-correct followers.
i say this was exceptionally curious because the article pulled back some of the mystification of a rightly-demonized group. Thus, critical thinkers could allow themselves to see some *mechanix* of how the kkk/conscious Right Wingers play their own meta game on those born in areas they have influence over.
That's a key concept.
While i myself was somehow brought into political consciousness of sorts by conscious Leftist influence, in a center of noted conscious Left influence, i found that when i went away and into rural parts of the country, i was able to see what Gore Vidal might call the *bars* of that which keeps so many. Namely, i was able to empathize with the idea that i myself COULD HAVE been born in a Right-wing-influenced situation! And, that, knowing how manipulated i was by the Left AND Given "Norms" all around me, i could have easily been a heavy-duty Rightist, simply by place of birth!
All of this is never closely scrutinized. Instead, both *wings* play a similar game, and informal trusters of Given frames of reference are kept curiously divided and perpetually hating each other.
references
Anarchy magazine's article on the kkk "rank and file" (don't have the title, sorry)
A magazine called "Mess Age", once published by the webmaster of "www.periscope.com", sought to join parts of the traditional Right wing in *bringing* both wings together.
An article published by a Left source (again, no specifics recalled, tho i'll look in my notes over the next few years, when i get to this, unless someone can assist) spoke of the DANGERS of "too much" idealism for such a get-together; i find this manipulative and another example of allegedly "well intentioned" vanguardists; tho would point out that ideologically-challenged vanguardists on BOTH/all sides certainly would seek to manipulate if their would-be charges weren't careful.
What most people--the critical mass--probably want (see Part 2 below)
formal vs informal organizations (part 3)
Old Europe imaginations (see Part 4)
Leftism critiqued (part 5)
Rightism critiqued (part 6)
note: this area has been deeply inspired by the writings of Jason McQuinn; especially in his writings about "post-left anarchy"
NOTE: i compose text like a painter who paints many paintings at once. The thought-provoking depth wants OUT, yet may not be fully de-abstracted for weeks, and sometimes months, while i work on other similar depth projects. In my case, these paintings are “edited” and re-edited so much that were this text actual paint, it would be so THICKLY layered as to turn into more of a sculpture! (heh heh) Sooo, dear reader, I suspect that you will find this page a bit too wordy, tangent-tending, and not easy to read (even tho this is the second attempt at editing); I hope you will perservere, though, and at least scan/hop around for the nuggets of value which i claim are here. Composing text is not "first nature" for me...
d;]
"...Any politics we pick up and follow, they are...alien politics...[and] do not reflect the reality of who we are, but our culture and art does. ...if we are going to use [politics] then let's recognize that's what we are doing. It's a tool. It's not an identity..."--John Trudell
points to be considered:
informal organization, the meta game, intellectual self-defense, informal resistance consciousness, a new imagination, liberation of our desire and an obstacle, Continue the war, or understand and implement liberatory desires?
spirit liberation or psychological ju-jitsu, crazy people, a personal example, another example, the problem of institutionalized fear.
Informal self-organization
(See discussion of formal organization in Section one) Informal resistance offers much room, at least as far as the informal member's individual imagination may be "allowed" to go, either by chance, spiritual path, or error. With no one to coerce or manipulate a member's ideological conformity or keep them from going into "dangerously" independent inquiry, or even simply escaping the list of tasks given by organizational functionaries, informal resisters have much more freedom to explore areas that interest them.
This especially rings true when we see that informal resistance motions are usually made up of individuals who are oriented to working/playing on their own, or with small groups of friends or "affinity groups". They may come together in order to carry out direct actions, but most of their time is spent doing activities they, individually, are enamored to. They remain focused on the activities they're interested in, whereas in formal organizations, they may become *burnt out* by tasks which run far from their original desires (re: fund-raising, newsletter editing and mailing, and other secretarial duties). They can still take advantage of peer critique or support, when they ask, but the interaction remains much more oriented to directness, and has less of a chance to be clouded over by the need to conform ideologically, and remain "in good standing" in the formal group.
Further, when we organize ourselves informally, we are also not limited by ideological demands about what sources we may make use of. In fact, we may utilize a broad variety of resources. This is what has been called creative self-mobilization... Myself, i've found much value in insights found in methodological anarchy and situationism, as well as from Reader's Digest and other places one wouldn't normally expect to find gems. The trick is *reading between the lines* and keeping one's ability to compare and try out, intact; this comes back to critical thought and intellectual self-defense.
the meta game
Depending on how meaningfully deep one has allowed themselves to delve, one may begin to see a pattern of similarity between ALL the vast, seemingly terribly complicated and divergent views and beliefs we have as individuals. Notably, we all are similar, it's just that we've been socialized/programmed/enculturated into a seemingly huge diversity of rigid difference. This kind of realization is typically not allowed by formal, ideologically-challenged organization, which seems to need to keep a rigid dichotomy between "us" and "Them". The reason for this I haven't yet been able to put my finger on, but perhaps there is insight to be found in the *meta game* as played by the elites of every formalized group (i.e. every group articulating itself towards being better understood and seeking "reform"/assimilation or "revolution"/changing of the boss). As R.D. Laing says:
"...I discover there is a meta-road...[Society] is playing a game. They are playing at not playing a game. If I show them I see they are, I shall break the rules and they will punish me. I must play their game, of not seeing the game."--R.D.Laing, in a biography called A Divided Self p.151
We see this meta game all throughout the imagination called society and culture, and as well, formalized concepts of organization and resistance. Parents and other conscious adults play it upon persons called children. Teachers play it upon parents and kids. Administrators play it upon implementers of policy called teachers. Elite policy makers play this meta game upon elite implementers. All throughout our imagination we are neatly corralled and confined within something like Oz, though for me, a more exacting insight is to call this prevailing and imposed imagination *Is*. **The Wizards of Is** keep us "properly" subordinated, unthreatening, tooled, and mentally confined. We are modern-day peasants with neon. "Dark ages with neon glasses" as John Trudell would say.
Why this happens, why this meta game has to be played at all, probably has something to do with our "information society" being one completely subordinated to the needs and values of *propaganda* (see J. Ellul). All institutions and their public relations aparatuses utilize propaganda--manipulation--as THE method of choice for getting mass audiences/"consumers" to pay attention. Since we are basically a WAR-oriented culture, the war of propaganda comes with the territory. And thus the game that "must" be played while not speaking of the game; and those who do, being viewed as a danger because they might ruin a particular aspect of the propaganda that "MUST" rein.
Intellectual self-defense
Intellectual self-defense has been deeply articulated by the much despised luminary, Noam Chomsky. Basically, the method is to "undertake a course" (of self-instruction via Chomsky et al's *institutional analysis*) so that we may better understand how we are collectively manipulated via notable methods of thought control: i.e. by major influence institutions like the mainstream media and the State.
Informal resistance consciousness
Additionally, John Trudell (a still quite well-marginalized figure) articulated this idea in a very basic way in his *We Are Power* speech, shared with his fellow indigenous people in 1980. Basically, I see this way as a way of utilizing (tooling) the excellent values of formal resistance, while not letting the destructive sides of formal resistance tool us.
a new imagination
The only way out that i can see, beyond continuing to naively strengthen that (including propaganda) which systematically attacks all of us in continually rotating ways (continually finding new differences amongst us to exploit our fears and keep us alienated and/or against each other), is by escaping the heart of the situation, and bringing forth a new imagination.
My study and experience leads me to the conclusion that FEAR, followed closely by severe alienation, is the heart of our challenge as humans at this juncture.
We need to liberate ourselves from this imagination which has been imposed upon ALL of us (including elite policy makers) from times when war was viewed as the only option (as in the history of all so-called "civilized" organization (popularly, it is also believed that pre-"civilized" groups, like the American indigenous folks, were committed to senseless violence; yet I maintain that there is a context to that which cannot be easily understood by domesticated man's severely confined imagination)).
Liberation of our desires and an obstacle
We can see already where our desires tend to want to escape to, when we think of young children of age 3 or 5. Their spirit is still full of the "spirit of discovery" and the love of life, and the misery of "Reality" has not yet been imposed upon them (via our social norms). The lucky few (those who see this anyway) that find time to walk down paths with them and notice things that otherwise would be missed, says oodles about this all too private joy, alone.
Parents have regularly spoken fondly of "being able" to "revisit childhood" through their youngchildren. Through this imagination we call "childhood" we experience a renewing of our own spirits, and this is to be celebrated; yet, at the same time, due to our alienated conditionining, this way has turned into a way which we *mine* for our own nursings, while allowing little vitality to escape to where our children may grow and become stronger.
In our single-minded, severely alienated interests, we've turned the youngpersons moving through us into objects. An object similar to what John Holt characterized, in his book _Escape From Childhood_, a "superpet". A youngperson not allowed to be viewed as fully human alongside us (thanks to the work of the convenient, and the systematically superficial analysis of the highly political, state-subordinated, social sciences).
Probably because of this value that we find in this somewhat natural time of life, the whole realm of "childhood" has become a highly sentimentalized time of all-too-escapist entertainment, aloof play, unthreatening fantasy, industry and business, keeping the very *objects* we claim to so avidly cherish and wish to "protect" locked up in a 'prison garden called childhood' (John Holt; see also: Paul Goodman: _Growing Up Absurd_ and Gerald Farson: _Birthrights_). We think nothing of this, until, for whatever reason, we finally allow ourselves to step back and look at a bigger picture. (Perhaps we are moved by youth liberationists of yesteryear or today, or remember our own feelings as kids)
Continue the war, or understand and implement liberatory desires?
The trick, then, is to not allow our severely alienated desires to get the best of us. (Perhaps this is where the danger of "ego" crops up, though I wonder at the validity of this characterization; is it too simplified? Reducing too quickly? I prefer a word which sheds light on the context of our resorting to all shades of allegedly bad selfishness.) This is the juncture where liberation may be had, or where struggle/war may continue (even inarticulately, as we see with so many kids now being labeled "oppositionally defiant disordered" and so on).
Liberation is the situation in which people learn the value of shirking off confined imaginations about themselves and others. Liberation is when many many people start to let their imaginations freer than ever thought "possible" before. The 1960s/early 70s was such a time of liberation (called a "crisis" by the ruling war order). Quite suddenly (all too quickly for the war powers), due to the example of a heightening black civil rights and anti-war movement, all sorts of groups and individuals were starting to think that they might be able to be heard if they dared to speak up about their intutions and awareness about the plight of themselves and those they'd been moved by.
Where the 1960s/70s liberation movement went wrong, in my view, is that they got stuck up in the game that their consciously political "leaders" played. Reformist-oriented or "revolutionary", the same underlying "Us vs. Them" dichotomy was (and continues to be) as rigid and **unempathetic** as the established mindset (and this goes for all the anarchists as well, even if they are not ideologically-oriented). Of course, most of those who thought nothing of following along, didn't see this. They didn't see that they were being manipulated against each other; tooled. For the needs and interests of their even more severely alienated "leaders" and owners and puppeteers.
Go to next section (2 of 2): includes Spirit liberation, Crazy people, the value of "crazy" for human liberation, making sense?, Jumping into my fear, Good Peasant Bad Peasant, Problem of institutional fear.
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PART TWO:
What the critical mass probably wants
Please read the first few paragraphs, as they have pretty much the same kind of introduction to these ideas as the other pages should have, except that i don't want to put this up every time and possibly distract people...
By "critical mass" I mean the mass of people which would probably need to be moved, in their hearts, enough to accept the kind of society or world where serious joy and human potential could be realized and kept instituted. (This is similar to the "critical mass" which Leftists speak of, except that this style is not merely meant for one or a few policy-changes; instead, this style is meant for a macro change in the method of government orientation.)
There's a whole separate "can of worms" that can immediately be brought up, and such a topic, surely like the others linked under the "solutions" page, could turn into a huge college paper... Yet, i don't have the time nor the spirit to focus on that, of late. Perhaps someone else will either write something, or turn me onto someone whom already has. Situations which could be looked into include the pros & cons of propaganda usage on masses (in a context of a propaganda-oriented society), the value of propagandizing the masses, claims of "human nature" as an impossible situation (re: institutionalized bigotry), and so on.
I want to keep this topic short, while touching thought-provokingly on significant questions about what i see that "most people", across the spectrum of our alleged differences, *really want* when they act as they do, or speak as they speak.
"We are like blind [persons] touching different parts of an elephant who is like all Truth. Each [person] is saying that they have the full Truth in their hands, yet they have only a part of the metaphorical entire Truth."--attributed to Confucious
First of all, we are all born into varying communities of belief and understanding.
If Noam Chomsky happened to have been born into a family of ku klux klaners (well-known fascist group in u.s.a.), he might easily have been, at least in his earliest life, a raving fascist wanna-be. But he was surrounded by a large intellectual community which was deeply intent on a broad spectrum of left-leaning, and anarchist, critical thought.
The point i'm seeking to make is that *any of us* could've been born into a community stuck in various forms of rigidity; and this context is valuable for serious *understanding*, because it's all too easy, today, to look at our apparent complex differences and give up then and there, and go with "the lesser of two evils" as is said.
Understanding the illusion of our complexity (which is kept enforced by a conscious and unconscious "web" of propagandizing--see this page on propaganda, to get a clearer view), it is then possible to look at all of this complexity as a giant root-structure, or consequential imagination, of a very similar "heart".
"Thought control is to a democracy what the Big Stick is to totalitarianism."--Noam Chomsky
If you're like me, your study of "micro" and "macro" social topics has led you to a similar view of Chomsky's analysis; that we live in a *thought control*-oriented society, hence the perniciousness of propaganda. (see definition here) If you can see the value of this, then you can see the idea that other luminaries have said about the idea of keeping various target groups "divided and conquered".
In seeing this, it's easy to look further than those groups in history and, as well, today whom are more obvious targets for social control and resourcing, and note a conspicuous pattern in the way in which even the main *resource group* is dealt with, on "micro" and "macro" scales.
I call those in the *Mainstream* the cream of the corrall--those who have largely internalized the value system Given/spoon-fed them and view themselves and their children as having "nothing to worry about" from their social and cultural managers.
Yet, over and over, whether it's people in the country (1), or in the city (2), we see a systematic situation which shouldn't be ignored by those seeking serious understanding.
Well, i could go into this, and make a big paper about it; but hopefully the other pages on this site will do this enough for you to see a value in looking closer.
So, let's say that i'm accurate about this, so far. Let's finally get to the idea of "what the masses really want".
Okay, you can look at this in various ways. You can look at masses who've internalized the value system Given them, and say something, yet i see that their wants have largely been manipulated. So they want enough money to be "rich", or at least financially secure, and not be in debt. Yet what is the onus of this desire? To be free from fear, i maintain.
Now look at the civillians who've been forced to deal with civil war or foreign invasion. They get a full helping of "revenge" in violent ways, and yet they can't help but to wish that things could be different. They can't help but to ask, like Rodney King (man beaten by cops in L.A., California): "Why can't we all just get along?"
So this is my view of what people really want most. They/we want to find a way of life in which we can get along. Even professional killers, functionaries, and government leaders want this, yet of course the idea they've subordinated their spirits to (often suppressing their own desires) is usually a way where they "get along" at the manipulated expense of what they often call the "stupid masses" (3).
If individuals, together, could suddenly understand this concept--that we are in actuality ever so similar to each other in the grist of our desires, if we could escape the grip of all or even most of the propagandas which hold us divided against each other so deeply--we would certainly begin going out of our ways a lot more to try to learn for ourselves!
Already we see tendencies towards this. When natural disasters strike, or when other social stress is encountered by many people, we see a tendency of "average" people to go out of their way and help each other--usually without ulterior motives to gain $, or such. Even without the disasters, people have a long history of *mutual aid*; it's just that all of these updated and continued colonizing techniques have had a way of getting in our ways.
(examples of updated and continued colonizing techniques, most lately begun at a renewed tempo after *Rollback* against the "crisis of democracy" in the 1960s(4), which began the latest wave of keeping control of the "flock", include the mass and "alternative" media--i.e. papers like the Willamette Week in Portland, Oregon, the medical mystification of children's inarticulate challenge to coercive authority, and the general insertion of problem-solving professionals into all other aspects of our lives. I.e. Where the traditional informal extended family once existed as a stronghold of inter-dependency and assistance, we now have the "nuclear" family, with the grandparents alienated in "nursing homes", kids and parents going to see therapists, and fear and distrust of strangers (except for professionals) at every level of social interaction.)
As far as actually "getting along", most today--"well-educated" as so many of us are by the systematic, context-less hype of the TV news and info-tainment industry, re: "COPS" (et al)--have been conditioned to be deeply cynical about humanity "ever" obtaining a situation of excellence, or even half-assed sanity. And, anyway, they say, the image they have about the alleged "stupidity of the masses" Is The Way Things Have Always Have Been.
On this assertion, they cite yet another conditioned idea they have about history, especially--in the u.s.a.--the American Indians' record of "going on the war-path." Yet, pressed for an inquiry into the context of these ideas, such as the truth that American Indians were pretty much FORCED to pick up the ways of the war-stuck invaders and *fight for their mere survival* against all types of overt and covert warfare--including the prevailing bigoted mindset held by most "civilized" (not to mention in the margins too) people in that era--well, you can start to see how that came about.
Before the war-stuck invaders came is the other main point of these persons. Yet, like Russell Means, the American Indian luminary,looks the Aztec Indians of what became Mexico, on the topic of *heart surgery* vs. *sacrifice to the gods*, i assert that there is a multiplicity of ways to look the huge diversity of peoples called American Indians.
How do we know, for instance, whether these very creative and libertarian-oriented peoples, with merit-oriented societies valuing the Vision Quest, *natural authority* in their "chiefs", and the excellence of *berdaches* and *shamans* as important additions to their societies, didn't practice "war" in VERY different ways than we assume?
Could they have been anything like the African "tribes" which went about "war" by facing each other off with "macho" posturing and an occasional spear thrown at the opponents, with maybe one or two killed as a result? How about the well-known idea of American Indians who went to "war" with the idea that to *touch* their opponent was much more valuable than maiming or killing him?
In his book Reflections of the Counterculture, Theodore Roszak goes into the phenomenon of the way in which scientists (and those who've been conditioned into this reductionist idea) "objectively" look the *objects* of their inquiry. He basically says, in one chapter, that as long as people remain aloof, by reason of remaining "objective", from those they are studying, they can never really *enter into* exactly what their human studies are doing and why.
So these are some significant insights, and i hope you will do your own inquiry and talk to me about what you find.
notes:
1) See Carole Gallagher's book American Ground Zero for an inquiry into policymakers' decisions about why it would be okay to accept 'collateral damage'-style problems in the country. They used a certain de-individualizing phrase for this, but i don't remember it ofhand.
2) A quick look at the way in which cities often handle or don't handle matters of pollution and toxic waste dumping (in the land, air, and etc.), complete with governmental (i.e. EPA) secrecies will give you a quick understanding of how one must engage in a form of "radical" struggle with perhaps all of the concerned authorities involved directly (my own experience in Urbana, IL found a stated interest in professional help from a reporter with the local newspaper, while in order to get *any type* of information from businesses notably involved in spewing head-ache-causing fumes, the EPA told me i'd have to file FOIA requests!)
3) See Noam Chomsky's writings on the attitudes of policymakers from the dawn of the "democratic experiment" called the u.s.a. in Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies.
4) See Noam Chomsky's "chomsky.info" article on the Trilateral Commission--apparently the main, or one of the main organizations, where elites published their fears about the "crisis" of democracy being that the masses were starting to believe they could be involved with policymaking for themselves. See also a discussion of this in his "Media Control" speech
====================================
Part 3: formal vs informal organization, et al.
note: Dissidents should use caution when using spoon-fed/mainstream methods and forms
points to consider:
formal organization (see discussion of informal organization later):
Formal resistance, as the model lives in the popular imagination (and especially the imaginations of institutionally "well-educated" persons (a phrase to ask significant questions of)), brings into our imaginations certain camouflaged angles which we need to scrutinize more carefully if we are to see exactly when we become tooled and fooled.
Let's take ideology (or, rigid belief system) for a moment: One must subordinate the "serious" sides (at least) of their individualities to the Given ideology that formal organizations have chosen; usually, this seems to be the political route or program in which the organizational controllers/designers/planners have decided to follow as THE way (and no other way is possible, unless one is prepared to fight, tooth and nail, to have the way finally added someday--a microcosm to what the organiztion is seeking to do in seeking reform in the larger society!).
Formal organization also imposes a conventional imagination of confining concepts like "memberships" and "leaders", "dues" and "social ettiquette"; and a usually uncritical acceptance of the kind of orthodoxy which provides these models of formal, "reputable", or what is supposed to be "serious" organization in the first place. (Incidentally, this model has, over and over, proven disasterous to groups not yet allowed "a place at the table"--much less the 'right' to negotiate for their independent survival. It's probably disasterous also for individuals who have gotten stuck in believing that they are making some reformist gains, but let's save that, too, for another conversation).
(The most pointed examples of this disasterousness for groups not yet allowed "a place at the table"/social appearances of acceptance, has been the continuing havoc wreaked by legal and illegal official covert action upon formal organizations since at least the 1950s; as well as the strange, yet systematic pattern of ignorant naivity of "well-educated" organizers and leaders in these organizations. The best lessons may be gleaned from the f.b.i.'s illegal COINTEL Program; for those into reading, try the websites booklist, or explore William Kunstler's autobiography (_My Life As A Radical Lawyer_) as well as one by Philip Agee (_On The Run_); see also the anarchist critique of formal organization, via such luminaries as Feral Faun; contact the editor of a certain crucial anarchist publication at www.anarchymag.org)
Go to a discussion of the positive qualities of *informal* organization (in Section 8)
discuss pros/cons Charlotte Ryan's media suggestions for social challengers (media works for insiders and those allowed to "eat at the table", but not for outsiders and others not allowed to defend themselves).
normal social roles (never finished)
=======================================
Part 4:
European political and social methods vs. others
Points to consider:
Roots of European political and social methods
All ideas before the French revolution and "left" and "right" wings
Indigenous folks of pre-European invasion
Eastern methods beyond Monarchy, re: Buddhism, Zen, and the teachings of Osho
Experimental ideas, re: panarchy Permission to explore your own ideas! (via *self theory*) (under construction)
Permission to explore for yourself:
Revolutionary Self Theory: The Pleasure of thinking for Yourself!
"Just Leave Us Alone!" by Wiwa Wewo, Papua New Gunean traditional
_Wasase_ by Taiaiake Alfred
========================================
Part 5:
ideological Leftism vs following �left-leaning� ideas and leads
(under construction)
(Note: to differentiate, i capitalize all ideas which seem ideologically-challenged, hence "Leftism", while those leanings which are traditionally called "left" in the Euro-centric West, yet aren't yet rigidly ideological or otherwise oriented to a propaganda against the always terrible "right wing", i keep lower case, hence "leftist")
Cropping up from time to time, i've noted that there are a few people in the anarchist milieu who are seeking to articulate something which makes sense to me: That there is something called *ideological* Leftism. i see this articulation as coming along on the coat-tails, if you will, of an already burgeoning disinclination of the largest mass of people to label their anger and covert or overt rebellion in such *political* reductions.
Surely there are reasons for why they do as they do, and we could go into that and i could go into my famous rambling ways, but i'll avoid that for now!
There is this onus of disinclination of the largest mass of people to avoid and ignore the left, and that is interesting.
The infamous Bob Black(1) (his highly-charged articulations have been pissing off a lot of Left vanguardists of late) and the perhaps even more marginalized Jason McQuinn (of "Anarchy, A Journal of Desire Armed" fame) have stood as seeming the only luminous articulators of this other way of looking. Surely there's a history behind that, and i'll wait for Jason to correct me (!), cuz, once again, going off on that tangent doesn't interest me at this time (tho i'm always interested in others doing all that work to explore there!).
Awhile back, an article was published (link forthcoming someday) on a staunchly Leftist website, which seemed to allow Jason to have a bit of a say, along with the expected challenge, which got the last word. But that's the last i heard, sans Jason's short words in "Anarchy" magazine; someday we may have a direct link for you, when they finally upload more back issues on their site (see above)...
As for Bob, just the apparent orientation to character assasination (followed in some cases, as in Madison, WI, by dutifully Left bookstores removing his books after such) by notably Left hypsters ought to raise the shackles of any critical thinker.
So, what's the VALUE of calling oneself a Leftist? What's the VALUE of orienting oneself to left-leanings? Perhaps the real question should be, what's the VALUE of labeling one set of motions for excellence in a perpetually dichotomous position? That is, seemingly forever claiming that the "Right Wing" camp has IS THE REASON FOR ALL THE PROBLEMS IN THE WORLD, and so on.
(This may seem like i'm being overly-simplistic, and perhaps i am; yet when you read this type of constant method, without going deeper, you have to wonder what's going on)
Curiously, no one, including the non-left/Left anarchists, go too far into talking about what's going on when these games are played over and over again. i wonder if that might be because THEY TOO are playing a *meta* game of propaganda (re: something similar to the way generals play their officers and trusting soldiers). This question leads me to look European political methodology itself (see this section if you want to skip around)
references
1) See Bob Black's book Anarchy After Leftism, or his various articles here and here, such as "Left Rites", "Libertarians As Conservative", and the "Anti-anarchist Conspiracy"
go to next section: ideological Rightism vs following �right-leaning� ideas
==================================================
Part 6:
ideological Rightism vs following �right-leaning� ideas
Similar to the previous section on Leftism/leftism, the rightists may certainly have their internal controls as well.
Yet unlike the left in any sense of the word, there doesn't seem to be *ANY* widely known forum for anyone in the public to *publish* either their views or their news. While the left has the Indy ("Independent") Media project, with it's *Open Publishing* experiment, which has kept amazing integrity for a few YEARS now; meaning, virtually no censorship of even VERY challenging ideas and art. Anyone with the time and determination to sustain an alternative, or autonomous view, *may* be able to successfully inform from their perspective.
(i say *may* because there is a current amongst the curators of the Indy project to marginalize "commentary" in place of what is framed as "news", namely propaganda and information published by specific, apparently hierarchically-controlled, Indy sites; this isn't a total phenomenon, but it is cropping up for one justification or another)
But, i digress!
So, if you catch yourself finding resonance in the kernals of truth posited by the Rightist leadership/vanguard, (re: hype against whole groups like the Jews, Rockefeller family in its entirety, the lazy blacks--if you're in Arizona where few live, the nasty American Indian Movement--if you read "The New American" magazine) you are expected to fall silently in line, apparently, and, at most, try to argue it out with your local, often much more experienced, Rightist vanguardists. (if they're anything like the John Birchers, you'd better watch your back)
Awhile ago, "Anarchy" magazine (i'm not digressing, honest!) published a far-out article about some curious details about the "rank and file" membership of the fear-worthy *ku klux klan*. Going deeper than all that's popularly understood about this radically violent right-wing group, the article writer actually explored something that's a complete *no-no* for right-thinking Leftists and their Dutiful politically-correct followers.
i say this was exceptionally curious because the article pulled back some of the mystification of a rightly-demonized group. Thus, critical thinkers could allow themselves to see some *mechanix* of how the kkk/conscious Right Wingers play their own meta game on those born in areas they have influence over.
That's a key concept.
While i myself was somehow brought into political consciousness of sorts by conscious Leftist influence, in a center of noted conscious Left influence, i found that when i went away and into rural parts of the country, i was able to see what Gore Vidal might call the *bars* of that which keeps so many. Namely, i was able to empathize with the idea that i myself COULD HAVE been born in a Right-wing-influenced situation! And, that, knowing how manipulated i was by the Left AND Given "Norms" all around me, i could have easily been a heavy-duty Rightist, simply by place of birth!
All of this is never closely scrutinized. Instead, both *wings* play a similar game, and informal trusters of Given frames of reference are kept curiously divided and perpetually hating each other.
references
Anarchy magazine's article on the kkk "rank and file" (don't have the title, sorry)
A magazine called "Mess Age", once published by the webmaster of "www.periscope.com", sought to join parts of the traditional Right wing in *bringing* both wings together.
An article published by a Left source (again, no specifics recalled, tho i'll look in my notes over the next few years, when i get to this, unless someone can assist) spoke of the DANGERS of "too much" idealism for such a get-together; i find this manipulative and another example of allegedly "well intentioned" vanguardists; tho would point out that ideologically-challenged vanguardists on BOTH/all sides certainly would seek to manipulate if their would-be charges weren't careful.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
feedback4theDiscordians
(Note: once again, I see that my "title" space has been rendered useless along "normal" spacing lines; when I try to space words, they are automatically turned into either question-marks or, today, arabic!)
The following is something I shared with some Discordians at their blog:
http://www.principiadiscordia.com/blog/cain/hearts-and-minds/
I don't expect anyone to post feedback here, but that's an option, as always. Oh yes, and those who are keeping track of which identities access this blog have now just gotten a lot more than they may've expected. Perhaps they'll get a pay raise, now. Oh, they'll be so much "happier"...
A little feedback:
The enemy is not merely “us” it is all. The leading alienation proponents (there, far at “the top”) are merely reflecting their own private hells upon all the rest of humanity. Their flailing attacks (no matter how sofisticated) measure more information about them and the demons they have been facing than anyone else.
To be fooled into believing and standing staunch against “them” and therefore limiting your ability to use your creative intelligence even more inspiringly than today’s gamut of “political” (and so on) entrenched dichotomies, is a blindspot I think you have. I have found “the enemy” and it is us all! We are ALL (all human beings capable of unleashing our intelligence) a part of the problem, and as well, a part of the solution!
Denying more ground to the worst symptoms can only keep the poison running fluidly. To liberate humanity, we must liberate humanity, no hierarchies of “unacceptable” and “acceptable” or “worthy”. All are worthy, and all can teach us vital truths! If we can reach the individual humanity within the enfortressed structures.
Not all of us *can* do this, or want to (so we believe now). Each challenger, each evolutionary, will learn of such importance only by experiencing their best creativity themselves! What fills you with the most inspiration?
We are not “at war” except that which Severely Alienated, Inc thoughtlessly wages. Their war is not ours, and we need not submit to their rules and confines. We need not submit or play along in their stupidity/stupidification!
How will you inform and create your intelligence? How will you deploy your fantastical creativity so that Severe Alienation, Inc. and its strategically- and ideologically-challenged dupes can finally hear their fellow humanity with their hearts?
One need not be “passivist”; one need not be anything like the same old again. It’s all up to each of our imaginations. How can we catch their attentions? How can we inspire them beyond hellish practice? (and yes, this need not be merely “religious”!)
Sure, we will be hunted. We will be attacked anyway. Some cannot trust another unless they have experienced you physically. Is it not so? But such ways can still be jiu-jitsued. Drop comedy on their laps; the kind of comedy that inspires the reformation of the pre-alienation-war mind-set! You must have the war planted in you? Then have the war of cream-pies and fluffy teddy bears bombarding your movements!
Beyond severe and intense alienation-war, into radical sanity or! Or something like dat!
The following is something I shared with some Discordians at their blog:
http://www.principiadiscordia.com/blog/cain/hearts-and-minds/
I don't expect anyone to post feedback here, but that's an option, as always. Oh yes, and those who are keeping track of which identities access this blog have now just gotten a lot more than they may've expected. Perhaps they'll get a pay raise, now. Oh, they'll be so much "happier"...
A little feedback:
The enemy is not merely “us” it is all. The leading alienation proponents (there, far at “the top”) are merely reflecting their own private hells upon all the rest of humanity. Their flailing attacks (no matter how sofisticated) measure more information about them and the demons they have been facing than anyone else.
To be fooled into believing and standing staunch against “them” and therefore limiting your ability to use your creative intelligence even more inspiringly than today’s gamut of “political” (and so on) entrenched dichotomies, is a blindspot I think you have. I have found “the enemy” and it is us all! We are ALL (all human beings capable of unleashing our intelligence) a part of the problem, and as well, a part of the solution!
Denying more ground to the worst symptoms can only keep the poison running fluidly. To liberate humanity, we must liberate humanity, no hierarchies of “unacceptable” and “acceptable” or “worthy”. All are worthy, and all can teach us vital truths! If we can reach the individual humanity within the enfortressed structures.
Not all of us *can* do this, or want to (so we believe now). Each challenger, each evolutionary, will learn of such importance only by experiencing their best creativity themselves! What fills you with the most inspiration?
We are not “at war” except that which Severely Alienated, Inc thoughtlessly wages. Their war is not ours, and we need not submit to their rules and confines. We need not submit or play along in their stupidity/stupidification!
How will you inform and create your intelligence? How will you deploy your fantastical creativity so that Severe Alienation, Inc. and its strategically- and ideologically-challenged dupes can finally hear their fellow humanity with their hearts?
One need not be “passivist”; one need not be anything like the same old again. It’s all up to each of our imaginations. How can we catch their attentions? How can we inspire them beyond hellish practice? (and yes, this need not be merely “religious”!)
Sure, we will be hunted. We will be attacked anyway. Some cannot trust another unless they have experienced you physically. Is it not so? But such ways can still be jiu-jitsued. Drop comedy on their laps; the kind of comedy that inspires the reformation of the pre-alienation-war mind-set! You must have the war planted in you? Then have the war of cream-pies and fluffy teddy bears bombarding your movements!
Beyond severe and intense alienation-war, into radical sanity or! Or something like dat!
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
ChallengingRadicalCommunities
It's an obvious mark of merit that this blog is being messed with by some kind of online virus (or?), so that I cannot make a headline that is "normally spaced"! (And likely the counter is, as I said before, also suspect!) Perserverence!!
The following exchange took place within a community i've put much energy into over the long haul of more than 15 years (not really that much, but for me it is!). i've taken care to not name the actual community or the actual people involved, in order to possibly protect them.
Lovely man, you spoke:
Sadly, in the past few years B was drinking heavily and started displaying terrible hygiene. That and disruptive drunken behavior, plus an expectation of being financially supported by whatever community he ventured into, led to his being thrown out of not only Z & WC but SMS as well.
---
i happen to see that the tendency to reduce people's wholesale rebellion (from "normal" society) down to symptoms like "drunken behavior" is wrong-headed, and in the long run, certain to disasterously limit first our beliefs about *what is possible* with each other, and second, to find ourselves becoming just as superficial as, say, mainline Gay politics.
i prefer instead to see *behind* otherwise "hot-button"-like behaviors and delve into the *more radical* picture in which we're largely programmed (via our oft "good educations") not to see.
For instance, what exactly does "terrible hygiene" mean? To a "well adjusted 'member of society'" such is "obvious"...since we're pretty much all pushed to think in this way. To someone in various way rebelling from those norms, such is not patently a "bad thing" nor a "red flag". For those whom are homeless, there is an actual *language* behind such actions/inactions. And part of this language, this wisdom, is the realization that One Doesn't Have To Take A Bath Every Day, nor even every week, and still be rather healthy. In fact, as is represented still in not-fully-"developed" places like Africa, there is actually still a way of seeing where smelling commercial is STINKY and smelling natural is GREAT! (i happen to be one of the latter, surprise surprise, whom can revel enthusiastically in the "STANKY" smell of STINKY socks and shoes of those guys i'm most enamored with! (So there! :})
As for "disruptive behavior"...if you don't know it by now, i'm an advocate of exploring and experimenting with oft *forgotten* strategies of ways we may radically INSPIRE such so-called "disruption", WHENEVER such truths crop up. Because we see that people often "disrupt" the worst (especially when "discrediting" themselves "socially) for reasons of authenticity, okay?!
So i wanna develope strategies for figuring out *mutually beneficial outcomes*, and *art* an *"ugly swan"* (whom each of us defines individually!) towards ways of being and seeing which BRING BACK SURPRISING humanity to our heavily-tested projects!!!
So, J, i'm not meaning to chide you; i just think that like so many today, you're *strategically challenged*...not to render invalid your wisdom gained over so many years of dedicated service!!! Quite the contrary!
As for the alleged *expectation* (?? he articulated this? In which context??) that our fellow humans sometimes dare to have of being financially dependent (?), i have to ask, again, in what context? And, is there ABSOLUTELY no way that something could be worked out??? (Especially if we could inspire some way of such folks gifting back!!!)
J, you said:
It was not the fault of any of these sanctuaries, they are not places to be, just because one is homeless, neither are they psychiatric wards.
There was no way for these communities to provide whatever B needed to survive in this tough cold world.
-----
Another blindspot in which i say we are being tooled into believing in, this idea that sanctuary *is not* this or that category. They do aspire to be *community* though! And *family* in place of those families we find ourselves isolated from. Is this not so? That we categorically think in terms of labeling certain *more radical* behavior than we ourselves dare as somehow only this or That, is in my view, yet another mistake in which we'll better understand in the long term.
i do hear you, i think, tho, in feeling frustrated by these kinds of challengers. After all, your experience of faedom has been far from the ideals you may wish for (so also is my experience!). Yet we ought not to shrink away from such realities; we ought to radically explore alternatives which ain't readily found in our "good educations"! Say, a little studying up on Tlingit traditions of the indigenous NW coast!
A future scenario
This generation of 40-something guys has become elderly. We are facing the realities of the Pressing Unknown (after life); many of us cannot handle it. We have put long long hours into our projects, all with *hopes* of continuing on for as long as humanly possible; hopefully even experiencing a semblance of what has been done for JB (a luminary). But, with such mind-set and believed lack of resources, the "cold, hard world" will slap us in the face, and we will submit to finding ourselves in a Old Folks institution with values quite in opposite to what we have worked for.
Do we truly want to bring this upon ourselves?
J spoke:
The cause of B's death is believed to be an accidental fire in his homeless camp, late at night. Likely B had been drinking earlier, and sleeping so heavily, he didn't wake up until it was too late.
--
Understand that many homeless people drink for warmth. When one is drunk they no longer feel so cold. It is a *tactic* in the context of this "cold, hard world" that so many are subordinating their creative wills to!
J said:
People with a lifetime of severe emotional and psychological problems, don't get better just because they are staying in the country with loving supportive people.
----
Again, and finally, we have GOT TO SEE the value of looking behind these beliefs in which we are collectively led to think within! "A lifetime of severe...problems" REALLY MEANS a spirit who WOULD NOT GO QUIETLY into his domestication! He, like thousands of other homeless folks see the emptiness of "normal" life and want to escape it. So they improvise alternatives in their self-educated methodology; where mistakes are rampant simply because, as homeless people, the state works overtime to keep them (as with all autonomous-leaning folks) off-balance and for one, unable to learn from elders and others whom have been where they have been and found ways to thrive! i know because i myself am similar! (tho not *yet* as isolated as he!)
J said:
B has a loving brother in North Hollywood, who wanted to provide for B and take care of him. B spoke about his good relationship with his brother, but felt he would be giving up his freedom if he took help from his brother.
-----
What does this really mean, J? On the surface, we get the picture that a loving brother wanted to help. Yet B didn't want to give up his freedom. So, loving in some ways, but likely as rigid as "most people" are duped into becoming in "normal" society. i guess you know his brother, so i have to ask, WOULD YOU live with him?
All i'm trying to get at is that homeless folks have often seen the "worst" and have lived to tell about it. The more seasoned of them stick with such lifestyle because they feel muchmore alive!
On the other hand, from time to time homeless folks need and want a respite, a rest from living so on the edge. What if we could work things out with such folks, while avoiding the temptation to patronize them (with our "holier than thou" "good educations"), and instead work and play form the standpoint of OUR COMMONALITIES?!!!
Look, i have worked with and known homeless folks and other RAUCOUS individuals (and just came back from hitch-hiking for about 50 days here in the u.s.!) and this is where i'm still coming from. Granted, i haven't *lived in* fae community over the longterm...but that's another story. So i'm not a naive idealist, here! i've lived in rooming houses full of angry drinkers (and didn't like it at all, whether they were violent or just telling you the same thing over and over every 5 minutes...), but at those times i hadn't yet given myself permission to *think outside the box* in radical solidarities with my fellow human beings!
Join me, won't you J and others, in exploring some of these ideas at least, okay?! Whether at WC or when you come by to visit here in PDX. Let's challenge each other!!!!
The following exchange took place within a community i've put much energy into over the long haul of more than 15 years (not really that much, but for me it is!). i've taken care to not name the actual community or the actual people involved, in order to possibly protect them.
Lovely man, you spoke:
Sadly, in the past few years B was drinking heavily and started displaying terrible hygiene. That and disruptive drunken behavior, plus an expectation of being financially supported by whatever community he ventured into, led to his being thrown out of not only Z & WC but SMS as well.
---
i happen to see that the tendency to reduce people's wholesale rebellion (from "normal" society) down to symptoms like "drunken behavior" is wrong-headed, and in the long run, certain to disasterously limit first our beliefs about *what is possible* with each other, and second, to find ourselves becoming just as superficial as, say, mainline Gay politics.
i prefer instead to see *behind* otherwise "hot-button"-like behaviors and delve into the *more radical* picture in which we're largely programmed (via our oft "good educations") not to see.
For instance, what exactly does "terrible hygiene" mean? To a "well adjusted 'member of society'" such is "obvious"...since we're pretty much all pushed to think in this way. To someone in various way rebelling from those norms, such is not patently a "bad thing" nor a "red flag". For those whom are homeless, there is an actual *language* behind such actions/inactions. And part of this language, this wisdom, is the realization that One Doesn't Have To Take A Bath Every Day, nor even every week, and still be rather healthy. In fact, as is represented still in not-fully-"developed" places like Africa, there is actually still a way of seeing where smelling commercial is STINKY and smelling natural is GREAT! (i happen to be one of the latter, surprise surprise, whom can revel enthusiastically in the "STANKY" smell of STINKY socks and shoes of those guys i'm most enamored with! (So there! :})
As for "disruptive behavior"...if you don't know it by now, i'm an advocate of exploring and experimenting with oft *forgotten* strategies of ways we may radically INSPIRE such so-called "disruption", WHENEVER such truths crop up. Because we see that people often "disrupt" the worst (especially when "discrediting" themselves "socially) for reasons of authenticity, okay?!
So i wanna develope strategies for figuring out *mutually beneficial outcomes*, and *art* an *"ugly swan"* (whom each of us defines individually!) towards ways of being and seeing which BRING BACK SURPRISING humanity to our heavily-tested projects!!!
So, J, i'm not meaning to chide you; i just think that like so many today, you're *strategically challenged*...not to render invalid your wisdom gained over so many years of dedicated service!!! Quite the contrary!
As for the alleged *expectation* (?? he articulated this? In which context??) that our fellow humans sometimes dare to have of being financially dependent (?), i have to ask, again, in what context? And, is there ABSOLUTELY no way that something could be worked out??? (Especially if we could inspire some way of such folks gifting back!!!)
J, you said:
It was not the fault of any of these sanctuaries, they are not places to be, just because one is homeless, neither are they psychiatric wards.
There was no way for these communities to provide whatever B needed to survive in this tough cold world.
-----
Another blindspot in which i say we are being tooled into believing in, this idea that sanctuary *is not* this or that category. They do aspire to be *community* though! And *family* in place of those families we find ourselves isolated from. Is this not so? That we categorically think in terms of labeling certain *more radical* behavior than we ourselves dare as somehow only this or That, is in my view, yet another mistake in which we'll better understand in the long term.
i do hear you, i think, tho, in feeling frustrated by these kinds of challengers. After all, your experience of faedom has been far from the ideals you may wish for (so also is my experience!). Yet we ought not to shrink away from such realities; we ought to radically explore alternatives which ain't readily found in our "good educations"! Say, a little studying up on Tlingit traditions of the indigenous NW coast!
A future scenario
This generation of 40-something guys has become elderly. We are facing the realities of the Pressing Unknown (after life); many of us cannot handle it. We have put long long hours into our projects, all with *hopes* of continuing on for as long as humanly possible; hopefully even experiencing a semblance of what has been done for JB (a luminary). But, with such mind-set and believed lack of resources, the "cold, hard world" will slap us in the face, and we will submit to finding ourselves in a Old Folks institution with values quite in opposite to what we have worked for.
Do we truly want to bring this upon ourselves?
J spoke:
The cause of B's death is believed to be an accidental fire in his homeless camp, late at night. Likely B had been drinking earlier, and sleeping so heavily, he didn't wake up until it was too late.
--
Understand that many homeless people drink for warmth. When one is drunk they no longer feel so cold. It is a *tactic* in the context of this "cold, hard world" that so many are subordinating their creative wills to!
J said:
People with a lifetime of severe emotional and psychological problems, don't get better just because they are staying in the country with loving supportive people.
----
Again, and finally, we have GOT TO SEE the value of looking behind these beliefs in which we are collectively led to think within! "A lifetime of severe...problems" REALLY MEANS a spirit who WOULD NOT GO QUIETLY into his domestication! He, like thousands of other homeless folks see the emptiness of "normal" life and want to escape it. So they improvise alternatives in their self-educated methodology; where mistakes are rampant simply because, as homeless people, the state works overtime to keep them (as with all autonomous-leaning folks) off-balance and for one, unable to learn from elders and others whom have been where they have been and found ways to thrive! i know because i myself am similar! (tho not *yet* as isolated as he!)
J said:
B has a loving brother in North Hollywood, who wanted to provide for B and take care of him. B spoke about his good relationship with his brother, but felt he would be giving up his freedom if he took help from his brother.
-----
What does this really mean, J? On the surface, we get the picture that a loving brother wanted to help. Yet B didn't want to give up his freedom. So, loving in some ways, but likely as rigid as "most people" are duped into becoming in "normal" society. i guess you know his brother, so i have to ask, WOULD YOU live with him?
All i'm trying to get at is that homeless folks have often seen the "worst" and have lived to tell about it. The more seasoned of them stick with such lifestyle because they feel muchmore alive!
On the other hand, from time to time homeless folks need and want a respite, a rest from living so on the edge. What if we could work things out with such folks, while avoiding the temptation to patronize them (with our "holier than thou" "good educations"), and instead work and play form the standpoint of OUR COMMONALITIES?!!!
Look, i have worked with and known homeless folks and other RAUCOUS individuals (and just came back from hitch-hiking for about 50 days here in the u.s.!) and this is where i'm still coming from. Granted, i haven't *lived in* fae community over the longterm...but that's another story. So i'm not a naive idealist, here! i've lived in rooming houses full of angry drinkers (and didn't like it at all, whether they were violent or just telling you the same thing over and over every 5 minutes...), but at those times i hadn't yet given myself permission to *think outside the box* in radical solidarities with my fellow human beings!
Join me, won't you J and others, in exploring some of these ideas at least, okay?! Whether at WC or when you come by to visit here in PDX. Let's challenge each other!!!!
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
problemssemifixed
ah a few tech problems today, I see.
One stumbled upon as far as why there were hardly any posts here...Call it my "newbie-ness" in not catching that...I assumed that *all* posters could do so anonymously on blogspot.com...
Feel free to comment and engage me in any dialogue you see fit to engage in!
Also am noting problems when i try to put spaces in the "title" area of posting to this blog.
Finally, I noted that the number of alleged visits to this site appears in error... Oh well, can I do anything about it having not the funds to have more control over that? I don't think so!
Will keep going from time to time, and may measure the value of such by how many (or few) the comments.
cheerz!
One stumbled upon as far as why there were hardly any posts here...Call it my "newbie-ness" in not catching that...I assumed that *all* posters could do so anonymously on blogspot.com...
Feel free to comment and engage me in any dialogue you see fit to engage in!
Also am noting problems when i try to put spaces in the "title" area of posting to this blog.
Finally, I noted that the number of alleged visits to this site appears in error... Oh well, can I do anything about it having not the funds to have more control over that? I don't think so!
Will keep going from time to time, and may measure the value of such by how many (or few) the comments.
cheerz!
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