voice of a radicalized human in process

response2theStrategicallyChallenged

2009-01-24T12:58:00.000-08:00

(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]!

nipFascismInTheBud

2008-10-10T16:20:00.000-07:00

(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)

SourceBookList

2008-07-10T15:02:00.000-07:00

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

InTheHeartSolutions

2008-07-10T14:43:00.000-07:00

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;]

"...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.

========================================
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.

feedback4theDiscordians

2008-06-24T15:20:00.000-07:00

(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!

ChallengingRadicalCommunities

2008-04-08T22:18:00.000-07:00

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!!!!

problemssemifixed

2008-03-26T14:46:00.000-07:00

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!

another response to the BBC blog, re: "morality" (see first below)

2008-03-23T19:29:00.000-07:00

The BBC asks:
do you believe in the notion of ‘moral authority’? Are some people or countries morally superior to others?

Are there some countries or people who do behave in a way that give them an ‘authority’ to pass comment on the actions of others? Or do we all have our hands dirty, and to take a stance about someone’s conduct is to embrace hypocrisy?

My given response:

"if the standards of the Nuremberg trials were applied [to the u.s.a.], then every post World War II American president would have been hanged as a war criminal."--Noam Chomsky (http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/rage/ ...see question #5)

I don't want to say that the u.s.a. is the "only" immoral state in the world, but in its current position as "global enforcer state" for those whom have used deceit and lies to now "own" the entire world (i.e. through financial hegemony), the country I find myself in is quite the apostle of severe alienation, incorporated. Including the origins of the u.s.a.

But I think every state is an "immoral" organization, no matter how allegedly democratic. Every state forced, in one way or another, to subordinate to nato and the wto, and so on and so forth. The very idea of entrenchable hierarchy vying for positions of *power over* others! The very idea of *forcing* people to "the will" of the majority or any portion there-of; the very idea of formalized dualities, where people's humanity gets squashed under the weight of a very alienated idea of "the common good". And the very idea of war as we have been manipulated to believe is any sort of "solution."

States and all the coercions that come with them (i.e. propaganda as considered by Jacques Ellul) are obsolete if we wish to be frank about "morality." It all comes back to *severe alienation* and the perpetuation of that.

To evolve beyond the same old again would mean to re-learn the values of living in harmony not only with Mom Earth, but also each of our own powers which scream within us to speak our truths. For me, this would mean exploring "radical" strategies that allow our hearts to speak our depths.

Others have said that "morality" changes with time and place; but i say that all depends on how the hierarchy (or state) of each era plays its perpetual alienation games. The bottom line goes beyond each era's propaganda, and settles upon informal humanity's intuitive longing to speak truths unallowed by whichever hierarchy. For me, this brings us towards societies *wanting* input from its dissenters, say, in the form of the *vision quest* (as articulated by indigenous people the world over) and similar openings.

-----(end of letter to bbc's blog)------

NOTE: To keep to the "radical" underpinnings of this site, i'd like to also include the ideas of post-left anarchist ways of seeing "morality". Excerpts:

"Compulsory morality involves self-subjugation to a system or set of values that are, for one reason or another, believed to require mandatory compliance-even if the person believing this is unable to-as the cliché goes-"live up to them." Although compulsory morality can potentially be grounded within an individual's subjective experience, it is almost always instead grounded somewhere outside the realm of directly lived human experience."

(...)

"Science is one example of a source of many forms of modern, enlightened compulsory morality. I have capitalized it above to indicate that it is not the actual practice of experimental exploration of nature in pursuit of knowledge (science) of which I'm speaking, but an ideological construct (Science) of particular fetishized scientific ideas taken out of their finite, experimental contexts and elevated into general, quasi-religious principles....The formal structure of the various scientific moralities is, once again, the same as that for religious morality: sacred values from an unseen source to be followed by a relatively worthless human being whatever the context. Like religious morality, scientific versions of morality attempt to limit and determine what is supposed to be humanly desirable and possible, narrowing the choices that can be made by true believers."

See his article:
Demoralizing Moralism: The Futility of Fetishized Values
http://www.insurgentdesire.org.uk/moralism.htm

of late: BBC blog response and a bus wizardesse

2008-03-23T18:31:00.000-07:00

In reply to the bbc.co.uk's blog, http://worldhaveyoursay.wordpress.com/2008/03/21/would-you-like-to-know-what-i-think-about-iraq/ where they ask: "...He says it’s time for journalists to come clean about their views. Would it be more honest and more impartial if we told you what we think?"

My response (being moderated); (did it show up?):

The more honesty in the chain-of-command called journalism, the better. Imperfect, but at least we are less misled. Traditionally, all in “lower” chains of command (i.e. here, journalists), have had to subordinate their humanity to the hierarchical norms sent down from “on high” (i.e. here, editors and owners). If they didn’t, they were “weeded out”. Today, the game of journalism begins on the foundation where journalists have to have the right “internalized values”, and if they don’t, they find themselves on paths similar to Gary Webb and many others forced to fend for themselves when it truly matters. Thus, all you nice journalists are “left, center, and right” within the stupidity of colonization as usual, where ideas and truths beyond the limits of so-called “freedom” aren’t even considered as “reputable” and so on and so forth; and since they don’t “fit” within the prescribed “right, centre, left” scenario, then they’re out.

By the way, this idea that “we” readers and such “set the agenda”–what a farce! You take topics that *agenda setters* set and then tell the public that *they* somehow set the agenda! What lies!

The BBC is “nice” to the liberal game players of colonization (not that being “nice” to the centre and right would be any different) and remains steps ahead of such naive simpletons, appearing to be “objective” while confining the limits of human responsibility by playing as though promoting contexts to “news” is not your “job”! Who gets to define these foundations upon which you build your so-called objectivity?? Not any democratic form, that’s for sure!

In other news,
had an interesting time on the bus through a dangerous side of town at a dangerous time of night lastnight. A woman got on and appeared to be in the throes of some drug. Most people did what's "normal" in urban places, ignored. Except there was another woman with a baby nearby.

My response was intuitive and tainted with "radical" creativity. i moved closer in once the man she had come in with had been raved at to get "the fuck" out. Intuitively i found myself looking into this lady's eyes as much as possible and as directly as possible. She reminded me of a raucous male friend of mine, anyway; a smaller version, but potentially just as cantankerous. With her one hand having long fingernails and her black leather coat and all her cussing. She was obviously having a rough time of life, like so many of the rest of us.

When I'd first sat down near her, i'd said to her that she was a wizard. She sat, silently, and we spoke much with our eyes. Her eyes could look into mine to verify that i wasn't messing with her. She then covered the more feminine aspects of her clothing (some pink shoes i had noticed), and i psychicly braced myself.

She challenged me, finally. "What are you looking at?"

"Your powerfulness," I said.

She said, "what?"

I repeated.

Pretty wild, eh? What was i getting myself into?

Well, i went further, calling her a wizard "or whatever other word you would use", and she feigned energy towards me as tho i was irrational; she succeeded in making eye contact with another rider, who smiled away, but said nothing (verbally anyway); i *let her* try to put me down at "my expense" (avoiding getting caught up in the "normalized" idea of competitive social appearance), accepting, aloud, that i must be talking to myself; i got on her level...wearing my weird art clothing and all... Nearing my exit, i somehow mentioned she must know of the Rainbow people, such was her vibe. And then we parted saying "peace" to each other.

What might have happened hadn't i been there? Likely she would have been met by the police or psych squad (public buses get so many of such folks, they *must* have such kinds of response things, right??); but somehow, a little "radical" interaction in the crucial arts made a difference...

What i was trying to instill:
The idea that we are all powerful. That we are "wizards"; that we have powers and how do we want to see ourselves, most? What do we want to do with our powers, when we begin to see them? Do we want to perpetually flail? i don't think so!

Escaping The Matrix (book excerpts)

2008-01-16T18:56:00.000-08:00

Escaping the Matrix — How we the people can change the world
by Richard Moore. Published by The Cyberjournal Project, Redwood City, California
http://escapingthematrix.org/

Found out about this in an old issue of "Communities Magazine" (winter '06) by Molly Morgan. The part I shared with the author about how much I liked it is:

"...it is crucial to ...find our common identity, and come together as humans, moving beyond the ideological structures that have been created to divide us from one another. The current political systems were not designed..."

Basically, the author, Richard Moore seems to be articulating what indigenous folks worldwide have been trying to get out to the *strategically challenged* followers of colonialism (old and new) since the beginnings of their tresspasses, i.e. moving beyond dualistic forms of seeing each other.

Here's one excerpt from http://escapingthematrix.org/red_pill.html :

Our Harmonization Imperative

Our societies and political systems are characterized by competition and struggle among cultural factions and political parties. When we try to change this system by forming adversarial political movements we are playing into this game – a game rigged so that elites always win. If we really want to change the system, we need to learn how to come together as humans, moving beyond the ideological structures that have been created to divide us from one another. We are all in this together, and a better world for one is a better world for all. It’s not about winning, nor really even about agreement: it’s about working together in pursuit of our common interests.

To conclude, the "Table of Contents" section says a lot as well!:

Foreword

The Matrix

Are you ready for the red pill?

Imperialism and the Matrix

World War II and Pax Americana

Popular rebellion and the decline of the postwar blueprint

London banking elites and the strategy of oil-based dominance

World War I and the House of Morgan

The Anglo-American alliance

Abandoning Bretton Woods: the petrodollar scam

The neoliberal project

9/11 and the New American Century

The management of discontented societies

The UN and the new-millennium blueprint

Capitalism and the Matrix

Civilization in crisis

Elite responses to the crisis

A brief history of humanity

Natural evolution: competition within a cooperative web

The nature of primordial societies

Cultural evolution: stability within adaptability

Origins of civilization: inside and outside the Garden

The co-evolution of conditioning and hierarchy

We The People and the Transformational Imperative

We the People and cultural transformation

Lessons from our long experience of struggle

Our Transformational Imperative

Our Harmonization Imperative

Adversarial systems and representative democracy

Representative democracy and elite hegemony

Divide and rule: the role of factionalism

Our Harmonization Imperative

The dynamics of harmonization

Meeting dynamics: collaborative & adversarial

A gap in our cultural repertoire

Two promising meetings

The Michigan conference

Maclean’s “empowered dialog”

The Rogue Valley Wisdom Council

The role of a facilitator

The dynamics of harmonization

Collective wisdom: an ancient heritage

We the People

Envisioning a transformational movement

In search of a path to social transformation

Harmonization and cultural transformation

Cultural transformation at the level of community

Community empowerment as a transformational movement

What are the prospects for such a movement?

Political transformation and regime intervention

Social transformation

Transformation: the means are the ends

Envisioning a liberated global society

The basic paradigm: harmonization and community sovereignty

Regional affairs

A model for global self-governance
The management of the commons
The maintenance of peace
Democracy and property rights

Constitutions
The transition process
The moment of convergence
Common-sense economics and the management of the commons

Repossessing the commons

The global conversion project
Reflections on humanity’s future
Cultural evolution in a democracy
Education outside the Matrix

Democracy and personal liberation

Afterword

With knowledge comes responsibility

References

Bibliography and online resources
(...)
Media and propaganda

Online news and information
The current regime and how it got that way
Toward a sensible society
Dialog and community empowerment

What books have been pivotal to you? Please share below in the comments section

Books from off the top of my head include:
Wasase by Taiaiake Alfred
Stickman by Paola Igliori
The Underground History of American Education by John Taylor Gatto (http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/)

Engineering opinion department: The Artist's Way

2007-11-30T11:24:00.000-08:00

=============
'artists are the antennae...' --Ezra Pound
==============

(re-edited for clarity, January 2008)

The following were posted in a forum promoting the artists' workbook entitled "The Artist's Way" by Julie Cameron. i've edited it in a way to make it more readable for those who weren't on the forum.

For those of you unfamiliar with this book, it became *very popular* quite suddenly a few years ago amongst many creatives in the business art "community" (or lack thereof), and was touted as especially allegedly "helpful" for those whom have, for some supposedly "unknown" reason, found themselves experiencing the phenomenon called "artists' block" and related challenges to making more money and living the materialist life we've all been socialized to think is just dandy and even "responsible".

One might assume that this isn't *such a big deal* until you begin to understand that the naive artists whose attention is hooked by this book are *also* being hyped-up to separate themselves from fellow artists whom are labled in destructive ways like "crazymaker".

Typical of "self help" books that get plugged in mainline society as being "exceptional" these days we see a certain pattern where:

A) Contexts for situations can never be more thoroughly explored much less found to lie within the institutions and their constructs that we're to uncritically subordinate to, but only in those who are having a hard time adequately assimilating (for reasons which escape most well-indoctrinated folks in our thought-control-oriented suiciety).

B) Rational explanations for why others, say "Crazymakers", do as they do are not to be adequately understood; they are to be labeled, reduced, and excluded!

My original reply to one of the happy promoters of the book:

My response to D, a happy promoter of the book on the forum mentioned above who posted various links to help sell it... She asked what my specific problem with the book was, and whether i had actually read it. Here's what i said:

D, i had a big problem with the way [Julie Cameron, the author] reduces and labels a group of artists who are exhibiting the *very real* (and crucial) symptoms of living a colonized (i.e. systematically alienated) life. (Yes, I'm saying that *all of 'society'* is a colonization attack on all whom are put through it in compulsory or otherwise duped ways, i.e. "the manufacture of consent").

Further, the author labels as "bad" (i.e. "crazymaker") the most potentially threatening group (to the social order) and seeks to further separate these very sensitive *social antennae* from those creative people who are even less in touch with their intuitive rebellion (from the "normalized" situations of artists working to enhance the social order).

Instead of promoting deeper thought about how some people can become "crazy" in the face of art cult-ure and all of its superficialities (which act as tho this is completely "normal") Cameron works to isolate these folks she has labeled and the reader with various cheap shots. Of course, by that time in the book, everyone reading "The Artist's Way" has already been bedazzled by the formula that *fills a void* (which virtually no one adequately demystifies) so they quite easily go along!

Thus a Bandwagon effect is put into action, and rebellion --especially that which is not yet even close to being articulate--is blocked from even coming to the veritable surface!

No wonder her book was allowed to shoot quickly up to the "Best Seller" list! No wonder all the commissars of the art industry LOVE this book! This is what propaganda is all about! This is classic thought control hoodwinking a majority (of often mediocre artists, hence their ability to fit into the business at all) while scapegoating a minority!

Consider Noam Chomsky's remarks in the preface of his book _Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies_ (http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/ni/ni-preface.html ):
"A large part of this task is assumed by ideological institutions that channel thought and attitudes within acceptable bounds, deflecting any potential challenge to established privilege and authority before it can take form and gather strength. The enterprise has many facets and agents."

And only adding to divisions and alienation! Same old story!

Of course, such labeling and discrediting wouldn't have happened in communities, say, where intense folks are interpreted as *Gift givers* (i.e. shamans). Communities not fully "developed" like in Africa or other Native/indignous communities world-wide. Hadn't the Western Civilization art ghetto been already so deeply corralled (i.e. sensitives not being given any frame of reference to articulate their dissent from a profit-oriented, consumer art society, thus drinking away their pain), this wouldn't have so easily slipped past! (There may be challenges in the margins, but no "Art Magazine" "worth their salt" would publish serious dialogue amongst artists! No!)

And so thought control continues hardly challenged. And dissidents told to "get therapy" or be labled with these increasingly hostile reductions (let's not forget "Oppositional Defiant Disorder", now reportedly being used on adults as well as kids).

Every institution --including "the art world"-- which wants to continue having "a seat at the table" of *privileges* has to play this meta game. And it's no biggie scapegoating those minorities whom can't fight back. That's "normal" in thought control societies like ours.

i'm a working artist as well, yet my face has been repeatedly slapped with reality to a point where i was "lucky" to begin stumbling upon various subjects around institutional analyses which have similar patterns between them. Not a far stretch, then, to apply such to the art "community", especially when one sees the very real politics happening!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "As domains of experience become more alien to us, we need greater and greater openmindedness even to conceive of their existence."--R.D. Laing in _The Politics of Experience_ from: http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace

dialogue with an allegedly "resurgent" administrator & a warrior-like dude, re: Wasase depth charginG

2007-11-28T19:00:00.000-08:00

This exchange took place recently on a list i'm on. The admin contacted me for being a little too radical for his (and allegedly others') tastes. Significant questions arose and want to be shared with folks who want to see resurgence (and truly authentic transformation) towards shared evolutionary ways of seeing. Your input is thus much invited, no matter how challenging!

The letter which was being responded to follows this exchange, along with the original letter by Jerome (who was okay with keeping things out in the open, and thus, i assume okay with me publishing his letter here).

The volunteer administrator, who i'll call "A" said:

C,

I'm saying the same thing to everyone involved: the tone of this
discussion has dropped below the point where it could be considered to
achieve the standard of respect that is a requirement of all members of

this list. If you wish to continue this conversation in a different
format or a different place, that's fine. But please consider letting
this conversation go in this place and medium. This isn't judgment or
blame; it's a result of complaints received from other members of the
list and my own feeling of unease.

It's probably best to let it end here.

A

------------
My latest reply:
i hear you, A, yet i have to start asking questions, you know. Because if we are to follow Tai's way of seeing and speaking (i.e. in his book _Wasase_) things like resurgence aren't always going to be peachy-creamy. So i'm wondering if you (and the perennial complainers) are getting tripped up too much in what passes for "normal" relations, i.e. "polite" et al.

That's the feeling i'm getting...As if this list is *already* compromised by such mind-set that sees not what it does.

What if you at least published this, along with my letter to Jerome (who asks to keep it public, notably), with this question in mind, inviting others to speak up? --Rather than go with what i think is your uncritical tendency to manage how people wanting resurgence speak to/with each other.

It's your call, and i'll go along. And it is true that i *may well* have a blindspot on this, but then again, i'm coming from more than 10 years of discourse online with all sortz of folks in heated discourse, and i tend to trust *authentic* communications rather than "nice" ones (as does Tai in his book; shall i quote him?).

What is it that is intended by keeping language so reduced to the norms of settler banter and reporting??

Note that i have ways, and method, which are *differently abled* and fly in creative ways of nonviolent confrontation. i am very aware that my freespirit'd style pushes buttons, but this is amongst a broad way in which i see resurgence coming into play. Are you going to join "normal" settler mentalities in suppressing such spirit?

Like i said, i'll go along, tho; since so many do seem to be soooo trapped in such beliefs in this world. How disenchanting the imaginatioN!

QUESTION FOR ALL:
How do you expect to bring spirit'd HEART into this resurgence if you fall back only on what you know and are comfortable with --in whichever way that speaking and singing our hearts is done??

And do you REALLY agree that creative approaches such as my free-wheeling angle of approach on thangz must be kept reduced to the kind of "nice" and "normal" that academic and intellectual communications are kept in (rather, corralled) as a "rule"??

Sure, i "disrupt"; and what is this idea we are socialized with?? i "disrupt" the "normalized" idea of how speaking "must be done", trusting my radicalized intuition...

If this email list were a traditional village scenario, imagine a chieftan (Adam) telling a fellow villager whose way of speaking is different than his this kind of thing!!!!

Whatever you all agree on (not to take you too far away from your normal focus!), i'll go along with. After all, i'm "only" another relatively new "white guy" who *appears* to be "way too" disrespectful and so on and so forth.

(Really, i see my honesty of form and spirit (even if it is poetically challenged, heh hee) to be of a possibly inspirational nature for others whom have subordinated their SPIRIT much too long to the same old again! Perhaps that's REALLY why we are "supposed to" follow along with so-called "tried and true" "rules" --which sound to me to be awfully SUSPECT in themselves--in terms of colonialist attitudes not allowing themselves to be resurgently scrutinized!!!!)

((four exclamations to sing truth to the four directions!!!!))

==================================
==================================
The exchange that brought this up:

> */Jerome @gmail.com
> wrote:
>
> At one point in this conversation I thought one of you
> guys were going to say that you met an indigenous person
> at a gas station once and you were lucky he was a shaman
> who helped you to understand indigenous peoples. Too
> bad...it looks like no one won the pissing contest.
>
> The only thing that kept jumping into my head while I was
> reading this was misplaced concreteness.
>
> C, I'm guessing you have not read Andrea Smith's
> writing on white supremacy [published in online pdf format at "The New Socialist" website]. Or, you have read her
> work but failed to comprehend it because you embody what
> she discusses.

my reply:
> On 11/28/07, *c* @yahoo.com
wrote (privately to Jerome):
>
> Har har, whatever you say must be true since you're
> indigenous. And if you were Dickie Wilson, also indigenous
> (Lakota, the b.i.a.'s 1970s pick for divide and conquer
> technique on the Pine Ridge Rez), the reasoning would be i'd
> also better subordinate myself? i don't think so!
>
> How about some actual backing up of your quick resort to
> labeling me into that category, eh?
>
> Hoo hoo, you must be having fun, eh? What Ever!
> {;
>

*/Jerome @gmail.com>/* wrote:
>
> >Lets keep this conversation out in the open...which was the
> original intent, right? [referring to my original interest to share a letter with an apparent Leftist with all on the list]
> --
> great! :}
>
> >c...I'm sensing discontent on your part. It surprised me a
> bit considering your email address is "spiritd_dude." But I was
> probably misleading myself because a "spiritd" person in my
> community is someone who is wise. A wise person is an individual
> that has the experience and knowledge of power and place.
> --
> Ah..and you think because i don't subscribe to your angle on
> morality that i'm suddenly unwise? OooO! For me, spirited (or
> spirit'd) includes a much wider variety of truth than this
> reduction you seem to want to hold onto (for what intent?).
>
> Why get bogged down into this off-topic thingy? My approach is
> simply different from yours. Egad! (i'm such a BAD citizen!)
>
> >Also, I'm missing the connection between what I wrote and what
> that has to do with truth and being indigenous. Where I'm from,
> being indigenous has a lot to do with the process of
> self-awareness and how one creates balance upon understanding of
> self and the relationship to one's environment. Being the one who
> holds the "truth" is something that is embedded within Western
> thought. Categorizing and characterizing one's self and the
> environment based on "truths" can easily be found in Western
> science and religion.
> --
> Self-awareness is in the eye of the beholder, you know.
>
> As for balance, i can certainly hear what you're saying. And like
> the feminine way of balance, my form is different from yours. As
> for being indigenous, i'm no "wannabe"; i openly state i'm a
> settler. And yet, i have praxis to share in community. Albeit
from
> a differently-abled situation than you, i guess.
>
> i don't need to defend my process to you; i mean, based on your
> way of relating to me (awfully authoritarian just under the
> surface, man!) and all. Assuming automatically becuz i don't fit
> your prescription that somehow means i'm "unwise". You just can't
> figure me out; and i'm okay with that!
> :}
>
> You misread my language on "truth". Notably, i don't capitalize
> the word, so that means a definition similar to Confucious'
> Elephant. Familiar with that one?
>
> As for "categorizing" i think you're putting words into my mouth.
> Care to back up your assertion with actual samples to chew on?
Oh,
> i make my feelings heard alright! But that don't mean i'm seeking
> to do what so many of my uncritical fellow settlers do without
> thinking through such! Gee-whizzies!
>
> Again, you're gonna need to back up your assertions with actual
> examples, and stop tryin' to brow-beat your way into my heart!
>

> >So don't sit there and tell me that my calling you out to be
> aware of yourself is me acting as if I hold the truth. You asked
> for it when you wrote, "Perhaps i could use an attitude
adjustment
> (?) even?!" So don't ask for it if you can't take it.
> ---
> Hey, i can take it, baby; i just ain't gonna take it from them
> folks who come up and brow-beat my punk ass without any actual
> examples to back up their allegations!
>
> i'm actually looking forward to a good ol' ass-whippin' by any o'
> y'all that wanta step up to the plate with some REAL challenge!
>
> And tho i may appear to your hidden colonized mentalities
> (obviously as above) to be here just to "disrupt" and all that
> b.s., you'll see, if you actually respond in the way a
traditional
> community would respond to one labeled "crazy" by colonials, with
> your hearts open, that i got some HEART dudes! And i ain't coming
> from lies and manipulations!
>
> So, Jerome...is this the best you can do?? Maybe you should turn
> the tables around and have me interpret myself, eh?
>
> winkte-ly,
> c
> www.angelfire.com/psy/intheheart
>
> p.s. i'd like to send a copy of this to Tai [Taiaiake Alfred, author of _Wasase: Indigenous Pathways Towards Action And Freedom_, 2005], but he's on vacation
> 'til June! [so he said to me, anyway]

Unlearning the Language of Conquest (and liberate yourself along the way)

2007-11-13T16:43:00.000-08:00

DANGER! Angry, alienated, perpetually hyped-up folks who frequent this tribe ARE PROHIBITED from reading info which may inspire them to liberate themselves (or even imagine such) from their misery and hysteria --much less think through the manipulative ways in which their "masters" keep us/you in our/your Nice (tm) "freedom" corralls. GO BACK TO YOUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED KNEE-JERK HYSTERIA NOW! BE THE STUPID MASSES YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE!!!

Heh heh.

Anyway, thought i'd share the following excerpts excerpted from this webpage:
http://www.utexas.edu/utpress/excerpts/exjacunl.html

Found this while looking for a critical appraisal of a book Erik suggested in the thread about european arrogance ( _Sick Societies: Challenging the Myth of Primitive Harmony_ ). Some very deep articulating going on here!!

from the book: _Unlearning the Language of Conquest
Scholars Expose Anti-Indianism in America_
Edited by Four Arrows (Don Trent Jacobs)

Excerpts:
(...)
Such publications have done and are doing to American Indians what a number of "academic" authors have done in Australia to dismiss the value of the Australian aboriginal worldview. Interestingly, the vice president of the Australian Council of Professional Historians, Kathy Clement, recently edited a collection of articles from academic professors entitled Whitewash: On Keith Windschuttle's Fabrication of Aboriginal History; her book sets out to counter the influence of books like Keith Windschuttle's, which is "part of a range of writing that seeks to counter left-wing influence on people's thinking about the history of Indigenous Australians."

These are examples of one side of the dual-edged sword academics have used against Indigenous People. The other side relates to how they typically ignore them. Several decades ago Francis R. McKenna categorized this policy of dismissal as follows:

Academics generally have little interest in Indians. Scholars generally can be divided into three categories: (a) Those who are overtly racist. An example is John Greenway, a folklorist at the University of Colorado. Greenway posed the question, "Did the United States destroy the American Indian?" and answered, "No but it should have." (b) Those who exclude Indians from academic life. To illustrate, witness the rejection of the application of the American Indian Historical Society for participation in the International Congress of Historical Sciences; and (c) those who neglect to include the Indian in scholarly presentations. For example, the revisionist historian, Colin Greer, in an otherwise excellent collection of works of ethnicity in America, makes no mention of American Indians.

These examples are, of course, more or less obvious and intentional, but such work filters down into the system to support the a more subtle hegemony, one that the authors expose in this book. This "filtered" material is woven into the fabric of everyday communication from those who themselves have become "brainwashed" (in a sense) from years of learning that began in elementary school and pervades most media in the United States.
(...)
Thus, the "fourth wave of killing the Indigenous" builds on the first three waves, pulling in decades of anti-"Indian" literature, films, and social commentary. Sometimes appearing as a smothering maelstrom, other times as an invisible poison, it ultimately emerges as a "commonsense" view of the world that automatically disregards truth. It represents the kind of hegemony that prevents people from realizing that social and environmental injustice are not a natural by-product of human nature; that the current form of global capitalism is not the only economic system available to humanity; or that living Indigenous cultures possess a measure of wisdom that may be vital for all of our futures.

This fourth wave is in reality an insidious form of cultural genocide against Indigenous People that tends to support

>ongoing ignoring of Indigenous People's legal rights and the legitimate relationship between the various First Nations and the federal government.

>legislation that attempts to abrogate Indian treaties or to deny federal support.
efforts of white citizens to launch anti-Indian campaigns in connection with acquiring coal, timber, gas, fishing, and other land-use rights.

>suppression of Indigenous People's religious freedoms, as when museums display ancestral bones or religious objects, or when sacred medicine bundles are confiscated or destroyed by U.S. Customs officials or peyote ceremonies are disallowed. (I myself recently had my Sun Dance rope taken away from me at the Phoenix airport for fear I might "tie someone up with it.")

>the ignoring of cultural relevance in education as exemplified in implementation of laws like the No Child Left Behind Act.

>expropriation and exploitation of reservation lands, which ultimately pollutes, poisons, or extracts vital resources while robbing Indigenous People of fair compensation or opportunities to litigate for environmental restoration.

These items represent just the tip of the iceberg. Volumes would be required to itemize attacks on American Indians and the deceptive language of conquest that supports these attacks.
(...)
In noting and remembering such injustices against Indigenous People, the reader should also realize that the loss of Indigenous perspective is a loss to all people. As noted earlier, Indigenous worldviews, as varied as they are, have common associations that are significantly different from those operating in the dominant cultures of the so-called Western world. For example, assumptions about children, authority, community, language, deception, art, music, justice, competition, animals, religion, land, and money are often polar opposites from those that guide the typical American citizen's life and typical U.S. government policies. Although these assumptions are not exclusive to American Indian cultural paradigms and can be found in alternative philosophies in all societies, this book asserts that the wisdom of traditional American "Indians" is an essential ingredient for those wishing to mitigate the dominant American influence on domestic and world systems. Moreover, many First Nations citizens still maintain these values today and can help the process of transforming American culture.

Our goal is thus a lofty one. We hope to replace anti-Indigenous hegemony with understanding that is both truthful and constructive. We do not mean to say that Indigenous worldviews are always better ways for knowing reality than those that pervade Western culture. No worldview is epistemologically privileged in the sense that it is the only absolutely truth and all others are false.

depth dialogue, re: heavily arming our desires!

2007-11-11T18:21:00.000-08:00

This dialogue comes from a discussion forum i frequent. Note especially the stuff in "bold" type. "O" is me.

"O" originally said:
I see that this noncompassion is a direct reflection from these fellow human beings whom have been largely de-individualized (as Aldous Huxley discussed in his _Brave New World--Revisited), at least *when it counts*; and instead of attacking them for their alienation, i would rather explore and find ways to intervene, in order to inspire and evolve their mind-set.

"F" replied:
Yes, I think you're right. We're back to en-framing as subtle programming. I don't think we're in a position to tell anyone what's what, but all communication should be mind-bending.

"O":
Right on! And we're in need of a lot of practice, tho i'm not willing to try to get anyone to "follow" me on this; just say, hey, if we wanna arm our desires, we iz gonna hafta not only see that the arting of ourselves is happening *rite* now (but is it our best?), but also see that it's an on-going process of desire arming; for me, this means, keeping my heart open to *all possibilities* --not as a "rule" but as an input i happen to like.

"F" challenged:
The other day, a jehovah witness elder came by to capture my soul to serve in the kingdom after armageden. I didn't tell him I was an atheist, (that would have ended the communication right then and there) but put my thumb into his chest and said "the man said the kingdom's here". Then I said it was my impression it was all about love, and in a loving relationship, where is there room for subservience and rulership? I politely suggested the kingdom of heaven was created in the image and likeness of man's kingdoms on earth. He said my points were interesting, but he had to go, grabbed his watchtower and sped away. Did I go too far? Probably his thinking hasn't changed one iota. One can only hope.

"O":
Me, i wouldn't look at the situation like that. i'm learning to look at the institutional mind-set that runs many of these people. They are really a kind of a soldier ("god's soldier, perhaps) when they're out there in their formal uniforms (really, it's like that, you know) with the intent to basically recruit!

So i want to look at that dynamic. Stand back a ways and look at what's going on, not only the immediate (or microcosm). And compare them with other formally organized folks. Say a social worker. So you've got a human being basically being tooled by an ideological/rigid way of seeing themselves and others. Why? Partly they want community in a community-less society. Partly they want to share their beliefs, so far; what has made a difference in their lives.

Okay, so you see that bigger picture.

And maybe you say this stuff outright. Maybe you don't "beat around the bush"; maybe you validate yourself to be the master of your own poetic language and you "wing it" according to how heavily armed your desires are!

So you don't bridge well, perhaps, right off. Maybe you don't bridge at all. The trick is, you play with these ideahz, you "wear" your desires and you have fun, and at the same time you see the value of seeing the other human being as yourself, only likely a little more strategically challenged.

The depth of it is that since they are human beings, they likely *also* have something to gift you/us. But we're not going to see it as poisoned as so many of us are already by state-subordinated religion (or, in the case of Jehova's Witnesses, hierarchically-challenged religion). So we see the value of pivoting beyond the confines of their language and norms, and experiment with our own!

Making sense? (i better watch myself, eh? if i start making "too much" sense so openly, the war-habituated are gonna label me as a "charismatic" type and find a way to silence my ass, rite? But it is, after all, a path of what i call "spirit-uality"; we all gotta go some way...and why not "go" if we gotta, with our desires as fully armed and as deeply accurate as we dare?!)

"F" said:
There are, however, some situations when one must shoot the coyote who's molesting your sheep: "Off the pig!" even while feeling bad about it.

"O":
i dissent. We *could* learn from, say, the likes of Ken Carey where he suggests that the excellence of human intelligence could be used towards ENHANCEMENT of the natural world. So what creative angle might we come up with?

Me, i'm envisioning a situation where friendship is made with the coyotes (while empathizing with the context of their situation--we being the invaders of their territory, after all), by feeding them a portion of the pot, so to speak; yet not letting them have control, like we already do with dogs.

We colonized folks have been led to believe that there are no grey areas "possible" and so we give our power away, systematically!

Is there a POSSIBLE way to live in harmony with those we assume we cannot (and must fall back on the human stupidity of killing and maiming)?[b] Pre-colonized folks the world over thought so, and that's how we got dogs in the first place! (yeee-haaa, this is so fun!)[/b]

...btw, i sense your 'dark' humor; but alas, you're seeing that there's more to this shit than you may've expected,,,,heh heh!

(or perhaps we're "simply" having a little PRACTICE between ourselves! A little fencing/word swordplay to see each other more clearly?! Now, how to take such creativity into realms we assumed were "impossible"?!!)

a vision experienced (in ongoing process and seeking your input)

2007-11-08T21:20:00.000-08:00

Hey y'all, this is a vision i've been experiencing for awhile now. It is in process, and portions of it come to me suddenly at various times. Just now, for instance.

What if we stopped letting our imaginations be reduced into all these reductions running rampant? i mean, it's one thing to dress all alike during situations in which we may want to confuse implementers of state mandates (i.e. at stand-offs where folks wear masks and the uniform clothing), yet what of times when we don't have to?

Here i'm thinking of activating as much of who we are as individual human beings as we can. i'm thinking of, say, a painter, who wears their paintings. Maybe becomes a walking "tower" of their paintings. And also someone who loves stuffed animals --wearing them and even having them "riding" helium balloons (up to our imaginations!). And so on.

Imagine such diversities of humanity being panned by TV (which systematically tries to reduce us all into character-assasination-type reductions). Or mobilized settlers meeting up with *colorful characters*; i can even imagine some dressing as famed cartoon characters --would such persons be attacked?? If hundreds of natives wore Santa Clause outfits, wouldn't they *mess with* the same old game of polytricks/politics?! (my experience is that they would!)

Imagine implementers of the state being seen attacking people who are holding and carrying various Loved symbols of humanity. Up to your imagination what that means. Maybe you want to dress as a refrigerator full of food. Maybe you want to be a couch. How could it be done? How could our HUMOR be utilized in ways which *go outside the experience* of those whom are to be kept hyped-up and held on "the proper track" of fear and hysteria?

All i'm saying is, how to reduce and even breach the stranglehold that today's media keep on their unsuspecting audiences; and what imagery we can bring to these places to "bring home" our fellow humanity in SPADES! Even via our own media!

This is where i think the Raging Grannies have an angle worth playing with more. Even tho their politics are so damned superficial.

So far, i've seen people systematically tooled into not thinking, apparently, about what we wear and how we express ourselves when we go to the very serious situations affecting us. i see us human beings (across the spectrum) reduced by normalized ideas of politics and all the "values" that go along with such confined ways of thinking. i see us giving away our powers of creativity continually to these ideas we have in our heads about What One Is Supposed To look like and be like. i see this in every image i've ever noted, indigenous included. Oh, your indigenous regalia is another thing --BUT we settlers have been separated from that language-ing; so i say, if you want to reach the HEARTS and LIBERATORY DESIRES of potential allies in a larger way, you're going to "have to" seriously play with image forms of language-ing within *our* experience.

Do you understand at all what i'm saying?

And, yes, i have been and continue to play seriously along these lines! For instance, see:
www.angelfire.com/folk/magixnartz/flouggindex.html

an initiation ceremony for the crazed and channelling

2007-10-26T16:42:00.000-07:00

I would like to envision, with your input, possible "initiation ceremonies" for those who are labeled crazy amongst us, and usually encouraged or coerced to seek so-called "professional help". The more creative your vision, the better. The more outlandish, the more excelling! Any other visionaries out there?

i got into this particular idea after reading the following:

"Instead of the degradation ceremonial of psychiatric examination, diagnosis and prognostication, we need, for those who are ready for it (in psychiatric terminology, often those who are about to go into a schizophrenic breakdown), an initiation ceremonial, through which the person will be guided with full social encouragement and sanction into inner space and time, by people who have been there and back again. Psychiatrically, this would appear as ex-patients helping future patients to go mad."

from:
http://www.laingsociety.org/colloquia/peaceconflict/divisions.levine.htm

There is some really good reading here. Here are some excerpts for the expected skeptics to think about:

"In the opinion of Dr. Thomas Szasz, psychiatry may be the new secular religion in an age of pseudo-science:

"The discerning reader may detect a faint note of familiarity here. Modern psychiatric ideology is an adaptation-to a scientific age-of the traditional ideology of Christian theology. Instead of being born into sin, man is born into sickness. Instead of life being a vale of tears, it is a vale of diseases. And, as in his journey from the cradle to the grave man was formerly guided by the priest, so now he is guided by the physician. In short, whereas in the Age of Faith the ideology was Christian, the technology clerical, and the expert priestly; in the Age of Madness the ideology is medical, the technology clinical, and the expert psychiatric.

"Thus psychiatry, like the nuclear family, becomes an instrumental motive force in the creation of the total social institution; through a process of mystification, both define normality and mould the individual into the one-dimensional shape of social utility. Laing calls this mystification a political act of "violence masquerading as love". "

and:

"'From the moment of birth, when the Stone Age baby confronts the twentiety-century mother, the baby is subjected to these forces of violence, called love, as its mother and father, and their parents and their parents before them, have been. These forces are mainly concerned with destroying most of its potentialities, and on the whole this enterprise is successful. By the time the new human being is fifteen or so, we are left with a being like ourselves, a half-crazed creature more or less adjusted to a mad world. This is normality in our present age.'

"Some people can adapt to this system. We call them normal. "Society highly values its normal man. It educates children to lose themselves and to become absurd, and thus to be normal," Laing tells us. "Normal men have killed perhaps 100,000,000 of their fellow normal men in the last fifty years." But some cannot adapt to this imposed normality. They break down. Instead, they devise a strategy to deal with their inability to hold their invalidated experience ant their sense of themselves together. As Laing puts it, "it seem to us that without exception the experience and behaviour that gets labeled schizophrenic is a special strategy that a person invents in order to live in an unlivable situation".

"Though, in [David] Cooper's phrase, the schizophrenic may look like someone whose "logic" is "ill", he is, in reality, someone, who has been made an invalid because his experience has been invalidated. For Laing and Cooper, schizophrenia is no 'something happening in a person but rather something between persons". Thus when one psychiatrist calls schizophrenia "a failure of human adaptation", Laing responds that it may as well be "a successful attempt not to adapt to pseudo-social realities". It all seems to be a matte of perspective: "Schizophrenia is a label affixed by some people to others in situations where an interpersonal disjunction of a particular kind is occurring. This is the nearest one can get at the moment to something like an 'objective' statement, so called."

"The validity of a definition is ultimately determined by the identity of the one who is defining. It is in this context that Laing argues: "There is no such 'condition' a 'schizophrenia,' but the label is a social fact and the social fact a political event." Seen from this radical perspective, all our definitions may have to be turned upside down ant inside out. "What we call 'normal' is", according to Laing "a product of repression, denial, splitting, projection, introjection and other forms. of destructive action on experience.... It is radically estranged from the structure of being." No wonder, then, that "the condition of alienation, of being asleep, of being unconscious, of being out of one's mind, is the condition of the normal man." On the other hand schizophrenia may be seen as an alienation from this alienation, where, "even through his profound wretchedness and disintegration", the patient may be "the hierophant of the sacred". Finally, "madness need not be all breakdown. It may also be break-through. It is potential liberation and renewal as well as enslavement and existential death."

"In _The Politics of Experience_, Laing describes how, in some instances, breakdown does become break-through; transforming the "schizophrenic experience" into a "transcendental experience". As depicted by Gregory Bateson, the schizophrenic embarks upon a voyage from the "outer" world of the "ego" to the "inner" world of the "self" -and back out again. He regards it as an archetypal journey that bears a close resemblance to descriptions of religious experience:

"It would appear that once precipitated into psychosis the patient has a course to run. He is, as it were, embarked upon a voyage of discovery which is only completed by his return to the normal world, to which he comes back with insights different from those of the inhabitants who never embarked on such a voyage."

"Tooled by massa" political cartoon

2007-10-24T13:32:00.000-07:00

Note, the art seems to have been blocked by blogspot.com, but if you highlight this area and then copy it into a wordperfect (or similar) program, it appears that you can actually STILL SEE the art! (Far out, huh?)

Some visionary paths towards "in-the-heart" solutions

2007-10-24T13:14:00.000-07:00

"...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..."--a Lakota wisdom keeper

intro:
Dear reader, I suspect that you will find this page a bit too wordy, tangent-tending, and not easy to read; 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...

Subheading run-down:
intellectual self-defense
informal resistance consciousness
formal organization
informal organization
the meta game
a new imagination
liberation of our desire and an obstacle
Continue alienation war, or?
understand and implement our liberatory desires?
spirit liberation, or psychological ju-jitsu
crazy people
an example
another example
the problem of institutional fear

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 by major influence institutions: i.e. the mainstream media and the State.

Informal resistance consciousness
The still quite marginalized John Trudell 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.

formal organiztion
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 camoflauged 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)

Informal self-organization
Informal resistance, on the other hand, offers much more 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 (Laing later died apparently prematurely of an apparent sudden heart-attack; was his death "wag-the-dog" style?)

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.

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?
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.

Spirit liberation or psychological ju-jitsu
Spirit liberation is the uniqueness of our individuality which we had in spades and flying colors when we were less programmed/socialized/conditioned/indoctrinated into imposed "Reality"/death culture/misery/severe alienation we collectively view as "Reality". That is, to come back to this again, *when we were "kids"*. The time when we still could allow ourselves to look upon the reality all around us and come up with our OWN individual ideas; and not be completely encircled by others' imaginations. "There are two ways of thinking. One can either accept current ideas and associations of ideas, just as they are or else undertake, on his own account, new associations or, what is rarer, original disassociations. The intelligence capable of such efforts is...a creative intelligence."--Remy de Gourmont (1899)

Thus, spirit liberation is the action and conscious (as well as unconscious) reverting to times when we come back under control of our own imaginations/culture/desired reality. i've talked about kids being naturals at this. Another group has not been mentioned: the "crazy" ones.

Crazy people
"Crazy" people, are, really, people whom've found a way, a self-taught folk way, to deal with their mental nilness resulting from living in the "norms" all around. The "norms" imposed and coerced by other persons so severely alienated and lost that they cannot allow the "crazy" people to explore their own path as they would like to explore it. This is saying things simplistically, but i see that it boils down to this. The more the severely alienated "carers" try to impose their designs/beliefs as an arbitrary remedey, the more the "crazy" person naturally seeks further escape--sometimes way too deep into the chaotic seas of "schizophrenia". Naturally, they tend to seek the ways that resonate with them the most.

Our severely alienated society wants them to "adjust" and "adapt" to the imposed "Norms", and anyone in their *right mind* will naturally rebell, even if they're not articulate to their rebellion!

Where the spirit liberationist can learn from "crazy" people should be obvious by now. "Craziness" is not "sick"; it is a way we can become when we must find depth. If we can become articulate and more conscious of our needs to "let things all hang out", or otherwise openly challenge social "norms" in ways not yet mapped by the political forms we can now imagine, while avoiding the pit-falls of inarticulate "craziness", we can learn to tool this folk method, just as we may learn to tool the methodology of youngpeople!

Does this make sense to you yet?

In liberating ourselves and each other so that we tap back into the ways of our original, individual selves--creating culture and community which realizes the value of such an endeavor--we merely dare to bring out the artways which we've buried (often under heavy armor) deep inside of us, or may've forgotten (and may still be remembered, via examples of informal, spontaneous realness)!

That is, for example, we tool "craziness" and "pre-socialization" ("childhood") in order to help us informally liberate ourselves from the Imposed Norms.

An example
An example of this is to enter into "an emotional break down" consciously, like I did lastnight. I was depressed and wished to *go into* my depression and take it by the horns. For years I had avoided going into its fearful depths. But i was feeling at the end of my rope. i was unsure, in a really heavy way, as to whether i wanted to continue "living" in this reality, on this planet, in this dimension. So, i took matters into my own hands (i didn't seek the alleged insight of the array of professionals around me, nor the models of "support groups"; nor the same old 'friend' interactions of 'how are you?' 'i'm fine, and you?' crap).

i feared living. And i was fearing living for too long. But i also feared death (by my own hand as well as another's). So i dared to jump into this fear almost full-throttle, via my alleged "addiction" to ganja, and kept my screaming cries muffled just enough to avoid someone calling the police from outside my home (my home is not your "normal" lifestyle at all). And then i proceeded to make calls to all those i intuit have "hearts of gold"--or, enough "gold" in their hearts that they send beautifulness off in ways that i need and want. (the "heart of gold" thing comes from a favorite country song of mine, where a father is talking about his daughter) i dared to be open and direct with everyone, to make a longer story short. i dared to say what i meant and get it across emotionally as well.

And i lived through that. And i found some stability and insight, some informal spiritual/spirit liberation. A way for me to continue on and to come back here and try finishing this composition for the possible benefit of other humans.

Notably, the forray escaped the "normal" ideological grip, in that i dared to move into "my addiction", instead of avoid it as "conventional wisdom" would pressure. The same ideas which tell us that if *things are going "bad"--i.e. "bad trip"--then it's 'best' to avoid them and continue living like "shiney happy people holding hands" (remember that from a song?)*. Fakeness. Lostness. Lack of depth. Lack of realness. Lack of sharing in time of need.

Another example
Another example would be the essay i wrote called "Good Peasant, Bad Peasant" (see at: http://www.angelfire.com/folk/crucialarts/goodpeasant.html ). Basically, it is a situation in which a group of people, such as in a neighborhood ghetto which is not being *openly* warred upon (i.e. wouldn't work in WWII Jewish ghettos), is having trouble with a "public servant" of some sort, and they decide something must be done. But, at the same time, they hold no confidence in "traditional" modes of rectifying the situation. My example was individual police officers whom are not acting with enough respect/professionalism towards people, and how we, the peasantry, can apply a type of crucial classical conditioning upon those whom are out of line yet remain regularly within the ghetto community.

This is certainly a bad seague here, but I don't have the time to rectify this: Notably, we don't completely "throw out" the wisdom learned from our ventures in the imposed, "traditional", and now dominant imagination. We utilize what we find liberating and valid, while *continuing* a critical awareness of WHEN such are most liberating and valid. At the same time, neither do we completely subordinate ourselves/society to the inexperience (in this world) and alleged chaos of persons called children or called crazy.

We seek the excellent **heart** and beautiful energy of people called children and people called crazy; not as yet another resource to commodify and exploit, but as a method or way of doing things which brings out our indepth needs and desires!

the problem of the institutional fear
Now, having said all this, there remains the test of the hardest challenge. My testing has been on myself and the observation of my fellow beings (humans, etc.) My testing has also touched on heavy situations (like direct emotional/nervous breakdown). Next to the direct imposition of the state (and all institutions, formal and informal, which automatically subordinate to it), there enters the problem of daring to articulate myself versus mindsets which do not value such, and see no form of rebellion as an option.

If pressed (or perceiving a threat), the human beings whom have subordinated their "professional" lives to the meta game of the state/ruling order, cannot allow themselves, it seems to me, to allow for too many people becoming of independent mind, and will (as history shows) work to see that such nonconformity becomes corralled in the smallest, unthreatening terms possible. Thus we have tiny academic circles exploring Polanyi, Kuhn, and Feyerabend. Or tiny, yet highly mystified, groups of cyberneticians. Or small groups of elite vanguardists keeping their 'single issue' reform measures intact at all costs (via such things as formal organization). Or 'indigenous' peoples remaining aloof from non-indigenous commonfolks.

Yet, this is the ultimate beauty of resistance consciousness. It remains informal. It remains "underground". It remains as a tool to be utilized when direct actions are desired, and can only be blocked when the whole society openly loses its freedom. The beauty of this form of resistance, also, is that it remains seeing the value of nonviolent interaction towards bridging.

But, alas, not every oppressed person (across the spectrum of left, right, center, and beyond) sees the value of nonviolent interaction *towards mutually beneficial outcomes*. This will have to be the discussion for the next section:

the crucial arts and spanarchy (forthcoming)

Deep thinking about settler society's chain-of-command imperialism at home

2007-10-22T20:06:00.000-07:00

A response from a tribe.net post at:

http://shamanism.tribe.net/thread/17e44cfd-628d-4fee-b4ed-29ca6a0ed0bd?newpostingid=04d10046-d322-4582-b50f-4a99f06028d2#04d10046-d322-4582-b50f-4a99f06028d2

posted by Exodus entitled FOR ALL THOSE WHO WERE INDIAN IN A FORMER LIFE
My responses follow (a bit rough, so hold on):

This is an example, roughly articulated, of solidarity thought where indigenous folks, as a group, get thrown right out of the window when settler/"white" politics is viewed as being in some way "More Equal"...

I read through Andy Smith's sharing in a topical way, i'll admit, yet i think i have something to offer.

i think it is crucial to note one thing that most or a lot of indigenous challengers have apparently missed when seeking to challenge "white society"/settlers, and that is to think through the meta realities of said society, rather than attack the symptoms. Of course, there is good reason to attack the symptoms, such as in order to gain the attention of said settlers who do not see what they do. On the other hand, to challenge only in this way as a rigid way not allowing grey areas, and basically replicating the mind-set of settler alienation, well, that is obviously problematic.

Because then indigenous folks can get stuck in the perpetual war that settler society is stuck in; i.e. never seeing the bigger picture, never thinking things through, never using one's own intuitive intelligence and creativity to solve challenges via the amazing excelling styles of our being human beings!

The crucial thing that ought to be systematically challenged, instead, in my feeling, is the reality of a *chain of command* mentality throughout settler society. Then, to systematically challenge the ways that formalized (as different from informal, intuitive, and free) ways of thinking, relating, and believing fool and tool we settlers.

So the germ of truth Andy makes in discussing feminists has some truths --YET such leaves out the all-important CONTEXT to why and how!

((NOTE: sounds like Andy (like so many other native folks) lives in a rural part of the country where some truths about the most politically-known feminist community are "dragged through the coals" by "right wing" interests --such as The New American --whom don't tell you that they have, as part of their interests, the desire to put females back in a subordinate position to males; this being said, the "left wing" is hardly better, as taken as a whole it is deceitful to their real interests, such as of perpetuating domestic imperialism and formal settler hegemony over "conquered" peoples))

Like every other "rights"-oriented group in settler society (feminists being only one more amongst oodles of superficial challengers), the reality is that these groups are organized into something like military structures themselves; that's because they are groups which have usually been organized *into* structures which petition the occupation state for "A Seat At the Table" of security and freedom. This in itself is tell-tale for anyone outside of such positions. Thus, one is "free" to discuss the single issue --of feminism in this case-- but not free to go deeper than that, really.

How settlers dismiss
So, to take a little somewhat recent history (1980s) if a thing like the political import of showing solidarity with the Sandinista government of Daniel Ortega's Nicaragua shows up into the consciousness of New Age-type folks (via the media they read), solidarity with Miskito Indians will depend upon whether the feminists' trusted leadership deem it politically valuable or not, first and foremost. If, as happened, the Miskito people are deemed non-allies, then, suddenly, their voices are censored and empathy becomes unheard of. Why? Because the meta of every state-subordinated group is playing the game of not playing the game of politics/polytricks.

Of course, in this case, the Miskito thought it in their best interest to remain neutral, and in some cases openly retalitory where the Sandinistas were concerned --as they were painted with a broadbrush to be "Contras" working for the c.ia. Thus, they wouldn't play the meta game, and they were "out", to use a little parlance that Noam Chomsky uses from time to time (see his "Media Control" speech, published as a book now, for more examples, where he's talking about Iraq).

This example, of the Miskito and Sandinistas was actually a very real situation. And if you look at www.coloradoaim.org's site, they discuss this at length, and give the reader grey areas that were never tolerated in dominant feminist media. Not even Z Magazine discussed the Miskito situation thoroughly, to my knowledge. Everyone just joined in on what the orders were.

And now you can start to see why indigenous folks see right through the superficiality of feminist New Agers, or New Agers in general (those dominated by Leftist, or even Rightist ways of Telling), or euro-peons all.

Because we, as a people, are largely subordinated to chain-of-command ways of thinking and being. If our trusted leaders Tell us to think in some way, we largely go along with that. We largely do NOT challenge, nor do our "alternatives" provide adequate space and time to critically appraise topics; actually, we as a mass are seen as *incapable* of such things, for whatever reason!

So what indigenous people are getting at is that we as a general population just DON'T HAVE IT IN US to be true indigenous people! Regardless of our claims, our actions prove the truth. We still remain subordinate to the polytricks (politics) which control the thought and actions of our communities, generally. And so, in seeing this, you may now see why indigenous folks are saying that everything we touch that isn't really who we are, we pollute!

Exodus (a tribe.net poster), what do you think of this way of saying? i'm sure i could have said this much more succinctly; perhaps a better writer will take this and run with it! Good!

Further
one thing more to add as far as settler culture goes, it really is a top-down type of culture.

A few stalwarts rise to the "leadership" often after having their very authoritarian impulses heavily funded by government; in dominant feminist politics, some feminists, those called "radical feminists" like Andrea Dworkin and Cathrine MacKinnon, received crucial funding and crucial openings and support at a very curious time for very curious reasons, while other feminists, namely the truly liberatory feminists like Pat Califia and Camille Paglia (or how about Karen McElroy?), who DID NOT preach an authoritarian scenario of retaliation (and further division), were heavily marginalized and struck from what is called "normal" feminist consciousness today.

And then they dictate the culture, and the rest of the community of feminists, takes those orders and basically goes in the direction they're herded. Oh, sure, individuals mumble and sometimes openly dissent, but their non-politicized/"political naivite" (aka crucial critique) is outwardly frowned upon, and "managed". Therapy is even advised for those who "refuse" to be "progressive".

And since the politics that took over's (when the professional activists and organizers entered the movement and commandeered it) sole purpose is to assimilate, and thus reinforce the chain-of-command of the state, the values of that dominant society must be replicated. If feminists --like all assimilators (whom usually know not what they do, or believe such is *all* that is open to them, as they look upon the fate of the Black Panthers and AIM)-- don't remain "vigilant" about these values and subordination to them? Ah, then CHAOS is said to arise and the ideologues step up and tell their constituencies to STOP THE BASHERS AND ABUSERS BEFORE ITS TOO LATE!

Why do they systematically resort to such hype? Because, above all, they MUST keep their constituencies (that's what we're all reduced to, mass numbers, mass "weight") "on the proper track"; this is true if you read Edward Bernays or Walter Lippmann (and so on, social managers et al) and it's true as far as political vanguardists/leaderships are concerned. Again, Chomsky's "Media Control" speech touches on this in a pivotal way, and is worth reading.

So, yes, this is a roughshod attempt to expose the reality of polytricks/politics, and why indigenous people are *rightly* critical of such.

Unless, of course, they are themselves seeking to assimilate (there is a growing number of this in indigenous communities, thanks to milliions in b.i.a. influence strategies, and "conservative" aboriginals as well --whom likely have been just as fooled and tooled as "liberal" aboriginals)...

If this latter is the case (and there seems to be a growing pattern of this thought), then the unmentionable meta is even more sinister than before, and i personally am MOVED to say, hey, maybe it's TIME to put my safety on the line again and try to expose this further reality as well; and then be "offensive." Because if such a way of seeing gets entrenched (i.e. ideological/rigid ways of thinking used as trickery to blind righteous victims to a very narrow way of behaving and subordination to Given orders), such instilled dogmatic mind-set will continue to become even more polluting than it already is, and the challenge of autonomous thought and the original insights of indigenous great spirit? Even more lost by the wayside of ideologically-challenged beliefs!

Know what i'm sayinG?

Clearing the pollution out of Euro-peon arrogance!

2007-10-22T19:54:00.000-07:00

Hey, i'm a non-indigenous european person and i've been having a discussion with an elder lady friend about the topic of exactly what indigenous folks were like compared with europeans, and whether there was always a shared mentality of severe alienation in both cultures, and here's what she said to me...(i'm looking for insights from others, including possible proofs or info leading us to seeing such)

My lady friend said:
>Please I don't mean to offend you.,
but the reality exists that long before europeans came to this
continent that war, starvation, incest, slavery and genocide was a
reality for the people. There has always been inhumanity in every
cultuer and indeed the natives were particularily ruthless and felt
justified by there culture.... that europeans were so capable of
overpowering thier foes had alot to do with the developement of steel
and manufacturing, but the mentality of consciousness is universal
and although the european culture was colonistic they did not/ do not
hold the strings of brutality and even within european cultures there
existed a great deal of enlightenment.... Also let us not forget the
stong hold and influence of the church which is probably much more
influencial than any european country ...
---
i replied:

Where do you get this information, S? How do you know these things for certain? How can a european know what happened long before europeans were here?

Oh, yes, you are partially indigenous; yet what does that really mean if you look only through the lens of the european way of seeing? (a way that has, by the way, systematically utilized fraud and sleight-of-hand to conceal its own history not only during conquest of the indigenous people here, but also on *every* topic after "legally" securing this land). Every topic you can think of, i bet that there is a long history of suppression of truths that simply are not allowed.

Some questions:
Where do you get the idea that the original natives practiced genocide against each other?

What does slavery really mean between varying cultures, and do severely alienated cultures like european cultures truly have similar ways of seeing these things? After all, indigenous folks never had *wage slavery* (they tended to look out for each other, realizing the value, i see and think); nor did they have all of these long lists of ways to keep some marginalized while others, via deceit, gained wealth!

Why is starvation spoken here? If a group, say the Irish, die of a "potato famine" is there a context that is deeper? How about when others, say indigenous folks began to starve? In what context, again? Perhaps because their food stores were destroyed by europeans always taking and hardly giving anything in return? And before europeans arrived? --Okay, some starved at times, just as the Irish, just as the peasants in a world dominated by feudalism.

Does incest mean the same thing in all cultures?

For instance, if there is no heavy-negative-feelings in a culture about sexuality or *bad touches* then would people have the same kind of a taboo feeling about it that a culture that *has* such heavy-feelings?

I mean, look at the European history of the state-backed church's way of aiding in the control over the masses via the prohibition and demonization of ALL sex acts except missionary-position procreation made by heteros married by the chruch! Now compare that to ways peoples free of such influence and orders might behave (of course, most of we colonized folks are so well poisoned, er, trained, that all we can imagine is what people in our society would be like as soon as the bars of the cage we live in are lifted--obviously, a berserk situation!). On the other hand, a society that has survived thousands of years and didn't have this "manifest destiny" need to conquer others and move roughshod over them at whim, would naturally have a very different approach.

So i'm wondering, are there grey area ways that make it possible to approach things which are taboo in one culture and yet not at all similarly viewed in another? (We can compare and contrast on several topics to give us light here, you know!)

So, no, i see very heavily-loaded value assumptions being thrown, blanketly, upon those labeled the "primitives" in general by you and so many others who don't seem to see what they do. i say, read some critique and demystification of anthropology (and any other usually politically-suberservient social "science") before you make your sweeping judgements (which have a curious way of making the conquering society sound so much "better", notably)! i know an author off-hand that could help you in that area...i'm trying to recall his name...um...oh yes, Theodore Roszak (spelling?) went into this in some detail in his book about the 1970s counterculture.

And i don't agree, either, on the "mentality of consciousness" as you seem to believe it was some universal. Look at indigenous medicine, look at how shamans were created and when, look at every facet of pre-colonized life and then tell me that they shared a "mentality of consciousness"! i don't see that at all!

But when the europeans arrived, a ton of shit began cropping up. Tribes were divided up and the old trick of "divide and conquer" was employed systematically (to this day); indigenous folks did not understand this. Nor did they understand the selling of lands. You read any account of old-way chiefs talking to europeans and you see that there is a QUALITIVE difference between the two cultures! Once indigenous folks were pushed into the insanity of european seeing and believing, all of these pollutions began cropping up, and peoples, seeking to remain in harmony, did what they could to get along; but systematically, they were fooled and tooled! Only now have they, as a whole people, begun to get a full understanding of we colonized peoples' mentality.

So the point i'm trying to make is that we can see, often too clearly, that indigenous society wasn't nearly as insane as european society! How?

By recalling that the waters were not polluted, the forests were not decimated, the wild animals were not decimated by hunting, nothing was wasted, and so on and so forth. Guns were not invented, not even the wheel. Alienation did not exist as we know it today, if at all; Mom nature (aka wakan tanka) was always there in everything they were and did. Animals, when killed, were prayed to (before and after death).

Even if i'm somewhat "romanticizing" the indigenous, pre-"civilized" way of life, you know you cannot help but to see the truth when comparing with european feudalistic society, right?!

The other info is interesting to me, thanks for sharing about the jewish guy who saw in his captors their lostness; do you have a title in mind? i'd like to read about that one.

As for the stronghold of the church? Back when the church ran states, okay. Yet, after they became *subordinate* to states, all they did was its bidding. We can see examples of this in movies like "At Play In The Fields of the Lord", where missionaries are tolerated to change
the indigenous peoples, but if they don't, the military will kill and terrorize them. The church (and every state-subordinate religion!) is yet only one more example of the bigger picture of the meta Chess Game being played on all diverse humans who subordinate their individualities to such a dumbed-down way of being in the world.

Do you see what i'm saying?

Getting to the HEART of racism

2007-06-28T10:34:00.000-07:00

This is a reply to a post made by "Topiltzin" on Wed Apr 4, 2007 where she/he quoted the below article. I have excerpted it from the original:

Combating White Racism Against Indigenous Peoples
By Thomas Ivan Dahlheimer
(...)
...If we're going to get to the roots of racism, we go beyond the point of colonization.

Before Cook sails to Hawaii, what brought him there? What brought Columbus to America? What sent the Spaniards to Central and South America? How did that happen?

Well it started back in the 1500s and it started in Rome. From edicts that were enunciated through the Papal Bulls. These were statements and pronouncements that came from the Vatican. And with these pronouncements, the world was divided up for European,
Christian colonizers.

What was actually happening at the time was that the monarchs of the Christian nations - the Brits, the French, the Italians, the Dutch - began to fight and war over land and natural resources. In seeking a way to resolve this bloodshed in Europe, they went to the Holy
Father.

This is at a period of time in Western history that predates the concept of secularization, there wasn't a division of the Church and the state and the Pope was the head of the world.

And so we had, for a period of a couple of hundred years, these Papal Bulls sought to prevent the fighting by dividing the world.

My favorite one is the Papal Bull of Pope Alexander the VI, it's called the Inter Caetera. When I read the translation of it, (it was written in Latin), it just stunned me. The Pope is saying here that he will sanctify the subjugation of the new world and its barbarous
nations.

So the blessing of the Pope was given, and the colonizer sailed out. It's important that we understand this to be the root of racism, because to this very day, the churches form a central part of the social system of the nation states that are Christian.

And so the Pope divided up the world. When you look at the colonies, especially in North, Central and South America, you can see this division to this very day.

{ends}
My reply:

An interesting take on things, except for one thing. You make it sound like the pope knew about "the new world" even before columbus sailed.

While I think it makes tons of sense what you're saying (statesmen always looking for ways to deflect the continuous building frustration of "the masses"), i see this view as yet another symptom, and not really "the root" or even near the heart of racism.

I mean, what moved columbus to go "off the end of the Earth" into the Unknown?

In my view (inviting additions), what it seems to boil down to is that all of these "explorers" were continuously seeking ways to continue getting their paychecks (in the context of their belief in their society), so that they could continue to escape the society they wished to escape, yet had no idea of how to do so in real terms.

Is that at all possible?

And no matter how "free spirited" their lost hearts might be, they were used, tooled, in a [i]meta[/i] way by the system in which they were products of. [b]Whether that system consciously understood the "fine tuning" of social control at the time (and honed it into a so-called "fine art" as today's social and cultural managers might well say) may be a moot point.[/b]

The fact is, as it seems to me anyway, that these "men of daring" --as a kind of radical within their formal positions, perhaps similar to university professors who play at radical ideas without being actually *from* (or having direct experience with) such intensities-- [b]were leashed.[/b] They were leashed and they were tooled to perpetuate the value system of the realm.

Others could probably articulate this better, but I'm the kind who tries to get the idea out into *some* kind of consciousness...even if i only have the idea "on the tip of my tongue" so to speak.

This is something i've been thinking about for awhile. The idea that all these adventuresome people had the balls to go into the Unknown, [b]but were consistently reined-in by their "betters" when it most counted.[/b] I think this is true of Lewis and Clark too, but i'm getting off the subject.

root and heart of racism
As to the root of racism, i have to agree with the crux of what the Lakota wisdom keeper, John Trudell says; that [b]racism has been a tool amongst quite a few other tools, to fool the implementer class [/b](those implementing Given policies, from nobles/middle classes "down" to peasants/working class) into believing that they were allowed "A Seat At The Table" of "Power" (really, tyranny, terrorism)...and thus get them to do the bidding of the kings/upper classes (who Play the Meta Game in dutiful ways).

Surely there are holes to poke in this theory, and that's why I want to post it here. What am I possibly missing?

To delve further, the HEART of racism, i see, is a NORMALized experience in the context of a severely alienation-oriented society. A society, a host of societies --perhaps civilization itself?-- organized for various forms of perpetual war. A society which uses its masses as [i]fuel[/i] to run the confined imaginations and constructs of a so-called "elite" machine (the machine characterized by the reduction of realities allowed to be viewed as Possible/Reputable/Valid).

In this scenario, the perpetually kept off-balance "citizenry" is kept as a kind of guard dog to the Social Order --while the "elites" (nobles to princes), in their youthful indoctrination stage are kept as a kind of handler. And I do mean *kept*; because the way the thing works is that even the "elites" are manuvered to *believe* in the Given Way Of Doing Things. And they are threatened if they don't follow along in this dogma as well! (i.e. haven't you heard of threats to kick rich kids out of their family wills, or to send them to military boarding schools, or even psychiatric facilities?)

Having said all of that, I hesitate to throw yet another coercion upon them, such as calling them "clinically psychotic"; i can see the value of arting such intensity, yet i question the value of reproducing the Given social order in any shape or form...even tho it may well be important as a phase in our contentions.

Wasase says fight, phuncah-delcized says PHIGHT! (self-published widely in indymedia networks)

2007-05-06T23:52:00.000-07:00

The Onkwehonwe author of ~Wasase: indigenous pathways of action and free-dom~ has kept a posting on hiz website calling to fight. What this may mean is explored in this sharing of a recent ish-you of a phuncadeliah zeen (with phight scenes)

To fight. To fight. What might fight mean to you? A whole array of intensity comes to mY mind.,,.

For Onkwehonwe and other indigenous folks who are being systematically challenged and pressured by military-types of war-style strategy, such could mean many things related to physicality. Or so says our general programming and encult-uration. ...And so says the continuing pressures that show us other human beings --who are still allowed the illusion of privileges-- the actual truth when it "really matters'.

Those of us not yet backed up against walls (in our heads or elsewhere), not yet having *reality* revealed to us, we feel in our hearts that there are ways to intervene, to interact with each other that bring out the hidden sistah and brothah; that loved human spirit we aren't usually able to truly deeply perceive, nor led to autonomously believe, or even wildly see ...that iz, as "reputable' and irrefutable,,,

So deep haz our general conditioning and socialization/domestication been!

So hyaar comz this 40 plus yr old white red/black/grey/cosmic mutt audio and bibliophile sayin there's wayz beyond perpetual Us v. Them, wayz we can still attend, ways we can still rend and defend

=--even on the offensive (or, in *cruciaL aRtz vernacular::"ophensive").

To *phight* from many angles, like this one, a "philiah" (psychiatric jargon for *love*) angle; jujitsu the professional (i.e. psychiatrick) labels and holier-than-thou chain-of-command, beyond the dark ages "fight' and into light ages phight. PHIGHT.

O' course, the stealth mental "health" planted in our heads says NO and *if you know what's good for you YOU'D BETTER conform! ,,,,,WELL IS IT NOT SO? Some narrative over-voice be TELLIN you you better move on to something *more serious*! Not somethin like THIS!

Thus, legions of folks/pholks are to be tooled by Same Old Again mind-set. Whole populations politricksterized in wayz they cannot, 'for the life of them" see and relate to. "All we can do" we're told over and over in classic repetitionist push is FIGHT as smashers, killers, crushers, blood spillers! You know what i'm sayiN

So how to relate, to bridge --as severe alienation continues? =--Only with guns and human stupidity???? =--Only in "Tried and True' truths??? Only in politricks (politics)??? Must ya'all FOREVER do as your told, even amongst your claimed alternative?

So follows a buncha art(e), along with an action i'm doin' NOW, wearin' a part; meant as a seedin', for y'all to taste as input!

an actual scene
earlier in the day, hair wildly tied-in with a real DEER ANTLER, and reddish-pink ribbon, carryin' neon green sign sayin' :::*TO POSSIBLY INSPIRE OUR HEARTS*:::and just as i exited my caveship, there he was, a soldier in blackn'white machine. Drove by, turned around, and i? i thot sure he'd stop me....but nope....musta read my sign!

:}

Then o'er to the drum circle o' strangers, listenin' then sit-dancin' then jumpin and chicken- & daffy duck-dancin and more; and phinish'n me art(e) zeen too. Then jumpin inta their bizness and speakin, reflectin a bit o tha intense-ities i've been feelin', then articulatin --==--"You folks must get a lotta weird folks here." And then it was a joke, you know? And they liked it, cuz here i waz, crazy but articulatin', and tellin' about us all bein' descendants of tribes!

WoW, a small, tiny step after too long not doin.

Wanted ta go inta this here University environ with all that. But ended up (right now!) jus' wearin some strange outfit that isn't THAT strange, except for the green neon askin passerby "HOW DEEP IS YOUR ART?"

Tiny, "nothing", "hardly radical" if you wanna believe, but a PROCESSIN' to me.

Especially in the context of *knowing too much* (opposite of "ignorance is bliss"), of fearing so much; needin' to get back inta the spiRit of thangz, revvin up for some possibility springz!

2nd scene
gOOd therapeufinicky with b'ful lovely dude (in 20s) and we hung out and experienced much magick! Ohmy! (see the zeen) Hiz HEART ticklin my worn out old one with not-yet-too-beaten-down. Such magickal thingz that were happenin!

Took a good easy time and then got o'er hyaar, and now postin...and wonderin'...hmmmm...maybe? Maybe i'm makin waves in spirit'd dir-ectionz?! To students on their last week b-4 testy sprintin? How to art them in wayz that they might take with em?

(i've been long experimentin')(back in '03 over 20-plus places and cities!)(and before that? oh,...heh...before that! back in '93 and '95 hoooooooooo0ooooooooooo; chances chances taken to roustabout anglez, hoooooboiii! but now phine-toonin')==see some here::
www.angelfire.com/folk/magixnartz/flouggindex.html

What if
EVERY thing we do iz processin' YET ALSO *arting ourselves too*?

What if
You could reach behind the PAIN to the HEART of the hidden SANE?

...Now, the terrroristic powers, they are tryin to block any arisin' yet b'twEEn all o' us on the streeeet? OooO, possibility is EVERyWHERE, up to our imagin ationz! Open your eyez and see, there is SO MUCH possibility ==to PHIGHT with our hearts in full gear, to see our daily interaction as phight, dear!

Is your depth deep enough? How to know?

How about your fear? So pick and steer your own style!

So sit back and look and see if any o' this aids in your outlook, adds to what you'r already doin' or even more!

((the pre-seed-ing and phollow-ing is called "surreal" by otherz; i's call such an angle on the confrontational nonviolent tactics of da cruciaL aRtz---not martial))

Hear more of the depth insights of the Onkwehonwe author: www.taiaiake.com Compare and contrast with what you know!

Moved? perhaps you "should" join open-ended seeding discussions at www.anti-politics.net and other favorite intanet spaces

links with full art peices (8):
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2007/05/358984.shtml'
http://la.indymedia.org/news/2007/05/198356.php

Calling symptom of racism central to problems is superficial

2007-04-15T22:01:00.000-07:00

Racism is a symptom. It is not the root, or even close to the heart --to the challenges oppressed humanity faces (in my view). Symptoms of a deeper problem don't mean they are not worthy of taking on indepth. Such just means that if we really want to understand the "bigger picture" situation and get to solving such, we're going to have to look deeper.

Decades, if not centuries, have been spent attacking racism (i.e. from slave revolts to abolitionists and up to now). Yet the root (or heart) of the matter of *authoritarian hyping against difference* --exploiting our fears in the same manner that racists do-- remains fully intact! And we see this proof every time national or local media come out: hyping the national or local prejudice and frustrated fears against others who are not allowed CONTEXT to their actions--across the board.

But those on the Left (and Right, etc.) wings of colonization don't point this out. Why is that? Because they're playing games too, in order to maintain the larger picture of colonization. They're utilizing hype to manipulate their target audiences towards actions that they believe "Are The Way To Go"--despite centuries, now, of continuing this with the same old superficiality still completely intact! And, each time this same old crap--fear and hatred of indigenous folks, Chinese, Irish, Italians, Germans, Blacks, women, etc. etc. etc.--has reared it's ugly head, various persons representing colonization have come in and said that "we will help you" if you "just follow us."

I got to responding to a Leftist thinker (named Chris D.) over on the infoshop.org site awhile ago who sounds pretty articulate and had the courage (?) or naivity (?) to bring his internalized (?) value system into anti-authoritarian territory. What follows is an excerpt which takes on his orientation to racism as central to "the revolution". We're talking about leaders and the necessity, in his mind, to categorically "respect" black reform-oriented "leaders" because of their experience and status as Black. Why cannot we respect people based on the actual *merit* of what they say?? (What a curious manipulation we're apparently getting stuck in with this thing called "respect"):

Chris: The abject failure of so many movements in U.S. history to overcome the obstacles of whiteness suggest that this is a question worthy of special attention.

oingO: We need to look *behind* this "failure" and see it for what it is: the routine method of elites courting "leaders" to "join with them"; cooptation. Alienated from their "followers" as leaders usually are, it's quite easy to "convince" them into a continuing heightening of cooptation.

What do you think Colin Powell (or Condoleeza Rice) is doing? They're "Black" but they learned, like every other minority (including whites) to *subordinate the depth of their own experience* to the allowances of the profession. Whites have to do this too. Whites have to *subordinate their individualities* and individual experience (and intuition) to the Given value system, or they don't move "up".

Like Noam Chomsky shows, persons have to *internalize* the Given *values*, period, or they don't move up in their careers (in the media or wherever).

And the New York Times, today, discusses this a bit on the topic of secretary of state (?) Rumsfeld just picking a new military chief in the psy ops community--viewed as a non-mainstream part of the "service". The generals are "seething", but they know they'd better find a way to fall in line, or they won't move up.

Whiteness helps, yes. But it ain't foolproof if they don't know how to, or don't want to play the game. Look at every "independent" that runs for president (for a quick reference); recall how the Green Party candidates are kept out of the debates, and how Ross Perot (the *billionaire*) had his character quite fully assasinated. The color of his skin may've gotten him as far as he did, but when *it truly counted*? Nope.

So it, by itself, is not the only thing to look at, and I see the Left wing of colonization simplifying this as a way to apparently *deflect* the reality that the depth of the problem is much broader than simply 'race'. Racism is a symptom, and so is sexism, and class, and hatred of "radicals" and so-called "traitors" (like Philip Agee), and so on.

The onus of the problem, I think is either something along the lines of *strategy* where there is *NO* racial solidarity amongst whites except as a tool.

There is no real solidarity amongst peoples who are well-colonized and subordinated to the whims of the social engineers.

The origins of this? Fear is the one I've come up with. Alienation leading to FEAR, and for a society that has been at constant war for the last thousand or so years (in so-called "peacetime" or not) that FEAR has become institutionalized.

To overcome this FEAR, we're not going to do it by only continuing our trenches and racial lines. That is one way, but at the same time we're going to have to follow our intuitions to reach out and build bridges of understanding.

Charles H. King, an Atlanta, GA Black lawyer (author of _Fire In My Bones_) used to hold discussions on something that made a lot of sense to me. He had a way of doing things where he'd point out and we'd realize how MOST OF US are afraid of peoples who are different from us, and that we act in racist ways all the time, or at least when our loved ones are concerned.

I attended one of his forums back in the 1980s, which was being attended by mid-level management types and persons who a local Black newspaper thought ought to attend (I got a "scholarship" to go, myself). Here's the story he gave, and I thought it was quite reasonable to see what he was saying:

"You're with your loved ones in a car in a winter blizzard in unfamiliar territory and your car breaks down. You leave to go find help at some homes you saw a ways back. You come to two homes equidistant away and one, you see, has a black family and the other has a white family. Which one do you go to first?"

Generally, you can see his point, depending on your race. If you're white and you happened to grow up surrounded by blacks, you'd mess with that generalization, but you can see what i'm getting at. And it's true if we replace it with ladies or gays or whichever group we can think of.

The point he made was NOT to demonize people for holding ignorant fears and beliefs, because you want to keep a bridge with people, and try to evolve their thinking. So, not to villify being racist (aka being imperfect), but to take responsibility for our fears and ignorance, and act constructively in the future.

But see the colonizer mentality (Left, Right, and often beyond) doesn't allow us to have any grey area approach whatsoever. Their rigid belief/ideology is playing a game, a meta game; a game of hype, of reinforcing our divisions, while calling for cosmetic sleight of hand. And so our imperfections are *reduced down* to expediency and what passes for political "pragmatism".

Curious ideas, eh?

2007-03-21T03:15:00.000-07:00

taking the rise of Politically Correct (PC) ndnz by the hornz

2007-03-21T02:03:00.000-07:00

Following are several exchanges i've been having at a certain forum on tribe.net (i say this openly, as a kind of invite to you to come over and speak your mind, heart, or intuition (etc.). i go by "touchahcity" over there, so look me up, and art yourself the best you can!

My post that perhaps started growing intensities towards me, posted on "nativeamerican (the real deal)" tribe (thread started by someone by the name of "Mr.Funbags") :

Here, i'm responding to jess, a poster who was angry towards "Mr.Funbags'" naive, "well educated" innocent-like post, after i inserted myself in and sought to directly engage "Mr.Funbags" as he spoke about a state-backed vision of his (employing "mountain bike trails, permaculture", development-style activities, and "friendly" Public Relations-like missionary toolings, apparently). i am still in communication with "Mr.F", tho do not know him personally.

Re: further...
Mon, March 12, 2007 - 10:51 AM
jess, i see your analysis (based in race) as muddying things up more than such has to.

For instance, if we see that people in this world are largely deeply domesticated and that the context is that many of us are "well groomed" products of a *chain of command* society, then we gain clarity in how colonization and genocide works, and can better meet, avoid, or ju-jitsu it. And then we avoid getting bogged down in the powerless-feeling hysteria where the same old song of "tit for tat" of human stupidity prevails.

Race is certainly a part of truth (but really an expedience for propaganda purposes); but to *get to the grist* of the mind-set and psychology of how human beings work against each other, you can see that it ain't only a 'white' (or Apple Indian) thang. And you start to see how "the race card" is a game played by statecraft to keep *all* victims of formal values and attack weak and divided, and incapable of adequately responding with our intelligence.

Anyway, i *let* your sharp words graze my heart and i thought about what you said for perhaps too long. i feel your blast and thought of your sharing as if a spear thrown between my virtual feet. i am honored that you, a partial (?) or full (?) indigenous person would expend such energy towards me, even tho i was physically shaking when i attempted my original response to you (thankfully, the great mystery intervened and some button i pushed on the keyboard succeeded in highlighting and erasing the entire post "in one fell swoop"!),,,,

... And such "spiritual nudity" is the way i let myself be around aboriginals, i claim. Perhaps you will one day know this if/when we meet in person.

Your power aided me in my claimed path. And as your vibe soaked in, it got together with my other desires and it got summarily ju-jitsu'd ('cruciaL aRtz' style) back to the heavenish soar i seek. i'll say the rest in the art i upload onto this site, soon. (should be there by the time you read this)

Engineering of Opinion toward Soviet-style Psychiatry--The Artist's Way pages 36, 43-49, 51

2007-03-17T13:41:00.000-07:00

(published in several indymedia sites)
We are systematically moved to think in ways of seeing things which, if we understood, we would realize are against our own interests. Chomsky calls this "engineering of opinion". In the context of "Oppositional Defiant Disorder" now being deployed upon many many children, the term and ideology supposedly encapsulating creative "crazy-*makers*" spells Soviety-style psychiatry in the USA. That is, containment and suppression of dissent.

"...Nobody is ordering them to do anything. The indoctrination is so deep that educated people think they're being objective."--Noam Chomsky

The following excerpts are taken from a most interesting forum (big on critical thinking to say the least) where I vaguely remembered this topic, then searched, and finally found this most interesting critique of a few aspects of the widely popularized "artist's book". Whether your knee jerks in agreement or grey area wondering, perhaps you'll find "food for thought" in this critique!

Excerpts from various posts found here (slightly edited for clarity, here) :
http://anti-politics.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=436&highlight=artists

Seen further down the thread:

"I'm making a warning that _The Artists Way_ (by Julia Cameron) is fooling people, neutralizing our intelligence, creating a confusion, pandering to our emotional weaknesses and exploiting our trust (of established authority), while promoting what all propagandists do--giving us something meaningful while at the same time making war and programming our intelligence in a certain, rigid, fear-stuck way."

Seen further up in the thread:

"The problem with this book... is that a value system is making covert war upon another value system [which has been kept so off-balance that it is seldom unable to adequately articulate itself], one which has been warred on systematically for hundreds of years. The author's method fits snugly into the pattern of authoritarian activity, and whether she knows it or not, is manufacturing the consent of some victims to make and perpetuate this war on other victims.

"One group, those labeled "crazymakers", poses a threat to that order, and must be marginalized and made war on, via all the tricks at the disposal of the state--including using "well educated" folks as uncomprehending tools to implement its interests.[1] (Were the "bad" group to somehow get together in meaningful ways and articulate itself instead of only reacting [angrily/powerlessly] in a vacuum as any victim of state-originated attack is supposed to do, that would be *too threatening* [and has to be suppressed via the therapeutic jargon perpetuated uncritically in this book])

"The other group, that which is being helped a little, has been identified as a group that can be "reasoned with", since they hold (or have internalized) the values of the dominating paradigm. The state's architects and strategists don't necessarily "like" this group as fellow human beings (they are, after all, a militatry-centric organization), but this group [of artists, or persons who see themselves in such light] is an important resource, and thus is valuable (and may be allowed to continue to "thrive") for now.

"Notably, those being labeled "crazymakers" are not "making" crazy. They are humanly responding to pain that we mutually find as human beings living in this system. But their way of expression is more willful, and more distrusting of "The Way Things Are". Basically, the "crazymakers" are more something like "crazysurfers" or "crazyfeelers" because they are still angry at what is happening."

[End of excerpts.]

To continue with the above a just a bit for a little more affect:
"...Whereas those being hyped-up to respond to their symptoms of dis-ease within the ideologically correct/therapeutic value system, are Good and Normal, and Appropriate!"

Do take a read of the original critique at top and see if you agree in any way. Perhaps this will be something interesting and inspiring to those of us who are learning to question the "corral" of "normal" in the art "ghetto" today? (I'm not exactly optimistic, but thought I'd pass this by anyway)

NOTE to above excerpts:
[1] Check this out on "a good education" which discusses George Orwell's suppressed intro to his famous novel _Animal Farm_:
http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/20051207.htm
excerpt:
"...Nobody is ordering them to do anything. The indoctrination is so deep that educated people think they're being objective. Actually this is a point that Orwell made. You and everybody else has read Animal Farm, I'm sure, but you and everybody else hasn't read the introduction to Animal Farm. There's a good reason for that: because it was suppressed. The introduction was found 30 years later in Orwell's own published papers. The introduction to Animal Farm says look this book is a satire on a totalitarian state but I'm going to talk about England, Free England. In Free England it's not that different. Without state coercion unpopular ideas can be suppressed and are. And then he described how. He didn't go in much details but he said partly it's because the press is owned by wealthy men who have every reason not to want certain ideas to be expressed. But the more important reason, he said, was because of a good education. By the time you've gone through, you know, Oxford and Cambridge and here you could say Harvard and Princeton and so on, and even less fancy places, you have instilled into you the understanding that there are certain things that just wouldn't do to say, and that's what a good deal of education is. So the people who come out of it - and there are many filters, if people go off and try to be too critical there are many ways of discouraging them or eliminating them one way or the other. Some get through, it's not a uniform story. There are plenty of journalists with integrity and honesty. And many of them, some personal friends, will give a much harsher picture of the media than I do, because they have to live with it. But the basic points that Orwell made are fundamentally correct. The more educated you are the more indoctrinated you are. And you believe you are being free and objective, whereas in fact you're just repeating state propaganda."--curiously despised institutional analyst, Noam Chomsky

See also:
http://bostonphoenix.com/archive/features/99/04/01/NOAM_CHOMSKY.html
or search "good education" + Chomsky on your favorite search engine.

NOTES:
"Oppositional Defiant Disorder" is a pseudo-scientific hype game now being implemented in the "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual-IV" (the psychiatric bible). See this source for a punch in your reality:
http://www.ask.com/web?q=what+page+is+%22oppositional+defiant+disorder%22+on+in+the+DSM%3F&x=50&y=35&qsrc=0&o=0&l=dir

Poo-poo at the likely outcome of seeding children with the notion that their unarticulated rebellion is illness? Perhaps there are grey areas to truly explore, yet if you were a upper-echelon strategist of *engineers of opinion*, would you have your workers in PR making obvious moves?

To radically understand the evil of the empire: bigotry, alienation, and manufacture of consent

2007-01-25T21:21:00.000-08:00

by orrior of the cruciaL aRtz

summary
This article is inspired by the recent news of a new "nonlethal" laser ray weapon that the u.s. has developed, allegedly to be used on all who violently oppose u.s./nato imperialism-type aggressions. Shared here is from an informal confrontive (non-pacifist) ""cruciaL aRts"" perspective; controversial to traditonal politics for sure, yet offering input to thinking through the continuing intensity.

article:
One thing we know is that we are to be kept off-balance. We are to be kept afraid, divided, and feeling powerless.

Another thing we know is that the u.s. media constantly engineers opinion about how "stupid" people are, while never empathizing or giving contexts to such people's actions.

We also know that bigotry about the alleged "stupidity" of people prevails within all the support and implementation structures of society. Every "well educated" person pretty much has a conception which, at the bottom line, mirrors prevailing managerial beliefs about the "lumpen proletariat"; aka "the masses".

By now you **should** have heard of Noam Chomsky's trenchant analysis of the alienated bigotry of what he calls 'social and cultural managers'. In crucially repetitive form, he's mentioned the all-too-separated prejudice of Walter Lippmann (see, for example, _Public Opinion_), Reinhold Niebuhr, George Kennan, and Harold Lasswell, all leading figures of influence in the public relations industry. He's quoted them at length, and analyzed their ideas.

But the momentum of much of our politics --at least the euro-centric variety (re: Left, Right, and post-left)-- as well as of our organized response to all of this continues to be stuck in trenches. Stuck in rigid camps of 'Us v. Them'. No **radical** empathy allowed. Just mobilize mobilize mobilize!

We do not have to buy into this way of thinking, which First Nations thinkers have called "dark ages ruling control forms". We can activate our intelligence in unprecedented ways! We can "walk in the others' moccassins" and at the very least avoid demonizing those who have no sense; who are so alienated from the rest of humanity that they fully believe that the u.s./nato route of pre-emption and other aggressions, are valid. Keep our resistance consciousness and intellectual self-defense awareness intact, yet not be tooled, either!

You think like they do, and you might come up with the "pragmatic" view of a "leading" technologically-"advanced" Great Society working in an "impossible situation" to streamline the world into civil and sane being.

If you are being groomed to be an elite implementer of foreign or domestic policy, you will likely share such a conception. You won't be encouraged to focus on the **why's** and psychology of a world-travelling tourist populace so empty at home that it wants to "fill up" that emptiness by leaving the Great Society and starting anew elsewhere. Neither will you think through the insanity of reducing whole populations --in the "third world" and so on-- to accept the "fate" of our patronizing hand and mind-set.

So divorced from empathy for themselves and the power they **ought** to have if their Great Society was so Great and advanced, that they are unable to truly empathize with anyone else.

So this seems to be the crux of the thing. And fighting such hellish fire with more hellish fire cannot solve the problem! What we need to do is activate our radically empathetic, visionary intelligence, AND get back in touch with our ancestral values of making and holding meaningful extended families and villages!

Consider what a Jewish couple did when harrassed, for months, by an official in the kkk. I saw the article in an old "Reader's Digest" and tho it's usually full of b.s., there are of course gems every once in awhile too (how would it be so popular if it didn't have "Laughter, the best medicine", after all?). The story showed how the couple's perserverance in responding with unconditional love-type responses broke down the severely alienated kkk official, and finally, bridged with him as a human being.

Amazing, you ask?

This is just one example of putting our powers into action.

The pivotal truth, though, is that it may be easier to reach fellow human beings informally than formally. That is, reaching each other on the street, in our neighborhoods, etc. as human beings seeing the value of keeping connections with other human beings, even if we heatedly disagree on the "issues" (even the "issues" are often tainted with barriers in language, but that's another article).

Now, mind you, I'm not saying that **we** should go out of our way to try to reach "the worst offenders" (though this isn't a bad idea, considering their influence); I'm saying that we should be real, we should realize the value of reaching out to those who we *feel like* reaching out to/with.

I don't think this is ideological. Anyone is free to **realize the value** of such things, or not.

Can such work? How do we know for sure? If we can mobilize the best and most meaningful of who we are as human beings, maybe we'll have as much power as the couple who bridged with the kkk official.

True, the political police have been instructed, most likely, to block "all challenge before it can build momentum" (as Chomsky says in the preface to _Necessary Illusions_; see www.zmag.org/chomsky/ni ). But what if we persisted anyway? What if we got it in our heads that being *radically excellent* and *radically beautiful* with each other was worth RISKING OUR LIVES FOR?!

What is life if you force yourself to live the hellish? (and no, i ain't trying to push dogmatic religion, either; for me, life is a spritual path, where i may interpret all input into the heavenish i desire!)

(Some may call this naive and idealistic, but my praxis is based on first-hand experience in some of the heaviest of circumstances)

Your thoughtful input invited!

Seeing our power is quite easy upon self-validation (with art)

2006-12-05T20:24:00.000-08:00

We can validate how we intuitively see. We can validate the powers we all have, the genius we all have; we all have a purpose for being here, and this is the right time. We each lean towards our purposes but others have been hooking our attentions.

We are the remnants of the *natural glues* which kept extend'd families and villages together for thousands of years. Only relatively recently have we been largely separated from our memory of these truths; and when we intuitively art our lives we uncritically accept the frames of references provided for us. Thus, we forget our purpose. And, to outsiders looking at our our infetesmal differences (so "normalized"), it's easy to assume neurosis, aloofness, without even thinking of the contexts which lead us to our mutually challenged situations.

When we begin to remember our powers..."we cease to run in circles," says John Trudell, a Lakota wisdom keeper. "We cease to destroy our bodies and our neighbors and our planet. We cease to let others tell us which way to walk. We cease to let others tell us how to think and what to believe. We cease to let others tell us WHO and WHAT we are. We cease to be miserable. We cease to be in pain all the time. We cease to be mindless automatons. We cease to hate. We cease to be able to hate. We cease to be a part of the insane world.

"We cease to be profitable commodities."

We begin to enjoy our lives more. We begin to escape the comfortably numb. We begin to be less afraid all of the time. We begin to explore beyond the corralls planted in our heads. We begin to find meaning to our existences. We begin to reach out in more authentic ways. We dare to go into such a process as we experience the reflections we create, instead of letting others create "for" us.

resources:
www.ic.org
Mental Patients Liberation Alliance (Utica, NY)(ask me about their toll free crisis line)
www.donmiguelruiz.com

More info about John Trudell http://www.okimc.org/newswire.php?story_id=720&type=otherpress&language=all&results_offset=60
(includes audio and a large amount of text excerpts of Trudell's insights)

Review of The Child Savers, a book demystifying the 'Polytricks' of the Adjustment Game

2006-12-05T20:18:00.000-08:00

posted 16 Sep 2003 at ucimc.org

"The problem with children, and with working class children in particualr, was that they refused to be integrated smoothly into an oppressive society. ...The child savers turned political problems into adjustment problems. Instead of seeking political solutions to the problems of young people, they chose therapeutic remedies, thereby deflecting criticisms of capitalism onto its victims." (excerpt)

Note from the one who posted this on ucimc.org: While the focus of the following article is on the *poli-tricks* of juvenile "justice" from 1974, we can certainly garner valuable insights into the ways alleged "child savers" of today work their games. Notably, the continuing and prevailing use of *emotionally potent oversimplifications* (which do better to hype people up and get them often quite uncritically implementing some policy which isn't up for discussing) is a most interesting and recurring phenomenon...Whatever topic about *children* you read in the mainstream (and often "alternative") press, we get this same pattern of hype first and foremost, and certain policies being implemented which turn out to go against our interests. Enjoy!

The Child Savers: The Invention of Delinquency, by Anthony Platt; University of Chicago Press, 1969; Reviewed by Keith Hefner (FPS, December, 1974; p29-32)

Platt provides the historical background necessary for a truly radical critique of juvenile justice.

The people who worked to establish a separate juvenile justice system in the United States have typically been depicted as noble humanists, combining high ideals with practical zeal. They swooped down on our foul and fetid cities to rescue American young people from a life of crime and degeneracy. If it weren't for them, we would not be save in our homes tonight because juvenile delinquents would be roaming the streets looking for trouble.

That characterization of the "child savers" of early 20th century America has been repeated so often that most people believe it. A sprinkling of books published in the past 10 years (among them, Lisa Richette's The Throwaway Children and Lois Forer's No One Will Lissen) have begun to show that there is something drastically wrong with the juvenile justice system. They are usually filled with horror stories about long sentences for minor crimes and beatings in jail followed by pleas for more understanding, lighter case loads, and numerous reforms.

In The Child Savers, Anthony Platt takes us a step beyond the horror stories. He investigates the origins of the juvenile justice system and shows that the outrages of today are in many cases just logical consequences of the past. The child savers left a legacy of courts, prisons, new definitions of criminality, and new methods of "reforming" the young. But, he says bluntly, "the child savers should in no sense be considered libertarians or humanists." Critical research reveals that indiscriminate arrest, indeterminate sentencing, military drill, and hard labor were the concrete results of their reforms. And in most cases these were not accidental results--the child savers championed them.

Platt re-examines the child saving movement in this country, reviewing the motives, methods, and institutional results of the efforts of the self-proclaimed savers. His method of analysis is significant in that it does not automatically accept the criminality of the "offender." Instead, he shows why certain types of behavior were categorized as delinquent, and how the reformers attempted to modify that behavior. (Platt's method would be baluable in many areas, but it is particularly applicable in the area of juvenile delinquency. Over half of the crimes committed by young people in the U.S. are so-called status offenses--offenses like truancy, running away, and incorrigibility, which are not crimes for adults. Understanding how and why people are judged criminal is crucial to understanding who is a criminal.) Platt aplies his method primarily to a study of Illinois around 1900, because that is where the most influential and pioneering work on juvenile delinquency was accomplished.

Changing Views of Criminality
In the late 1800's and early 1900's the dominant opinion in criminology held that blacks, immigrants and many working class people were, in various ways, sub-human. They formed a "criminal class" which was incurably anti-social. Criminology concentrated on containment, and the biological origins of criminology were stressed. Sarah Cooper, who pioneered the kindergarten system in California, complained that many criminal children "came into the world freighted down with evil propensities and vicious tendencies. They start out handicapped in the race of life."

Such biological determinism was inconsisten with the practice of reform, and gave way to new theories which included the possibility of rehabilitation. The concept of the criminal was modified to suggest that the "natural imperfections" found in the criminal class could be remedied.

The first salient theories of childhood criminality were developed in this context. While the view of the young offender was greatly influenced by prevailing theories, it was less biologically deterministic. Children were less likely to be thought of as non-human or inherenetly evil. Christian ethics made it impossible to think of children as being entirely devoid of moral significance. Consequently young people were the first to benefit from the "new penology" of redemption: first because they were young and couldn't be held morally accountable for their actions, and second, because they were considered more malleable than older criminals.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The child savers could have articulated the criticism being acted out by the young people, and joined them to struggle against an unjust system. Instead they chose to mold them to fit that system.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Invention of Delinquency and Its Effects
Having provided that background, Platt askas what he considers to be the most important question. How was it determined that certain types of behavior were criminal, and what were the implications of those decisions?

He basically contends that the child savers took behavior which had previously been dealt with informally, such as begging, rowdiness, and disobedience to authority, and defined it as delignquent. The most important tactic used by the child savers to gain control over the lives of young people was to blur the distinction between delinquent and dependent young people. Originally there were two categories. Delinquent kids were those who had committed a crime, and were tried in adult courts and sentenced to adult jails. Dependent kids, such as street sellers and orphans, were generally ignored by the courts. The rationale for the blurring was that young young people who came into contact with the court or other agencies assigned to deal with them were being helped, not punished. Since they were being "helped" there was no need for procedural safeguards or constitutional protections. The behavior of young people was labeled and categorized. Then kids were stripped of their rights.

The state and various religious organizations were able, unfettered, to define dependence and delinquence as they saw fit. Standards for a "decent home" for example, were set so high that practically any young person could be declared independent. Poor and Black people, whose lifestyles didn't coincide with those of the child savers, were most likely to be found "in need of supervision." In addition, parents were allowed to commit thier children to the Illinois Reform School with the consent of the school's board of directors, and any "responsible member of the community" could turn in young women who they felt acted immorally. Enoch Wines, an influential authority on reformatories, proposed as early as 1870 that state authorities should take control of all kids who lack "proper" care or guardianship.
In 1870 the Illinois Supreme Court ruled that commitment without due process was unconstitutional (100 years ahead of the similar Gault decision), but child savers regarded the decision as "irresponsible." They ignored it; so did the courts. In 1882 the same court ruled that young women could be incarcerated without due process in the Illinois Industrial Training School for Girls because it supposedly wasn't a prison. The Court said:

We perceive hardly any more restraint of liberty than is found in any well regulated school. Such a degree of restraint is essential to the proper education of the child and is in no sense an infringement of the inherent right to personal liberty...

In short, almost any kid could be deemed dependent, and could be imprisoned for it. However, not any kid was sent to jail. It was mostly Black and working class people who did not conform to middle class values.

The Juvenile Court
The juvenile court is generally regarded as the child savers' most significant achievement. The juvenile court differed in many respects from the adult courts: the young person sent there was not accused of a crime, but offered assistance and guidance. Proceedings were informal, and due process safeguards were not applicable.
These courts, operating outside of constitutional structures, often intervened in cases where no offense had been committed, or investigated far beyond the scope of a particular crime, trying to determine a child's morality. For example, Platt metnions that a young person could come to the attention of the court for "posting a problem for some person in authority, such as a parent, teacher, or social worker." The other abuses stemming from informality and lack of due process in the juvenile court system today have been amply documented by many recent books, including the two mentioned earlier in this article.

Have Things Changed?
Platt is peesimistic about the current status of the juvenile courts. He feels that the "radical changes" predicted after the Gault decision are unlikely to materialize. "Important structural change depends on legislative reform" he says, but without elaboration. The practical result of Gault, he points out, is that lawyers are now being integrated into juvenile court proceedings. A study done in California showed that having counsel made little difference in delinquency cases, except that people who had a lawyer were more likely to be jailed pending trial. Adversary tactics are a long way off, and lawyers won't won't be in the forefront of pushing for them. Platt notes that public defenders are being brought into the juvenile court, and then goes into a lengthy discussion showing why they won't be very effective advocates of young people's rights. Lawyers view children's rights less favorably than the Supreme Court, and are more concerned with admonishing their client to tell the truth and shape up, than with winning the case.

Young People Disenfranchised
The most important political result of the child saving movement was that it actually restricted young people's freedom and autonomy. The child saver's rhetoric was about liberating children from the horrors of the city and the workplace, but the reality was tighter supervision and control by adults. Young people were removed from the jurisdiction of the adult courts, and taken out of adult jails, only to receive closer scrutiny and longer jail sentences from the juvenile court. The central interest of the child savers was in controlling and monitoring the behavior of young people--their recreation, education, values and attitudes toward authority. As Platt says, "their reforms were aimed at defining and regulating the dependent status of youth," not encouraging young people to take political power into their own hands to do what they thought would best serve their interests.

The child savers turned political problems into adjustment problems. Instead of seeking political solutions to the problems of young people, they chose therapeutic remedies, thereby deflecting criticism of capitalism onto its victims. The problems of young people were effectively removed from the political arena. Platt sums up "Young people were denied the option of withdrawing from or changing the institutions which governed their lives." The child savers solidified the dependent status of young people by disenfranchising them of their rights.

Adjustment Instead of Change
The problem with children, and with working class children in particular, was that they refused to be integrated smoothly into an oppressive society. The child savers could have articulated the criticism being acted out by the young people, and joined them to struggle against an unjust system. Instead they chose to mold them to fit that system. Platt says that Jane Addams, founder of Hull House and a noted child saver, admitted she was helping people adapt to a way of life which was oppressive and unjust. He cites another author who contends that it was well recognized that correctional workers were engaged in pacifying delinquents.

The child saving ethic still permeates contemporary programs. The paramount goal of most programs whether they are in juvenile correction, mental health, or inner city youth programs, is to help young people better adapt to this society, and few programs criticize what such adjustment means.

The Child Savers is an insightful analysis of the origins of American juvenile justice and their ramifications in today's society. Platt provides the historical background necessary for a truly radical critique of juvenile justice. In addition he appears to have a genuine respect for the right of young people to control their lives. That combination makes The Child Savers one of the most important books around on young people's liberation.

The politics of the 'mind'--an exchange

2006-11-30T01:09:00.000-08:00

The following is an exchange between myself and another person, inspiringly articulate. His words are in the blockquoted form. Perhaps you would like to join in on this communication in process?

Excerpts from The Politics of the Mind [quoting R.D. Laing's ideas]

... The struggle, then, is the struggle to control behaviour by defining experience. Society does this through its various agents by defining "reality" in terms of norms and then using those norms as ideal standards.

I would like to take a magnifying glass to "society". What is this term we so often take for granted in using? Really, it is a top-down, chain-of-command game, given cammo, and inserted in the imaginations of the inexperienced recruits (gOOd term!) new (and so unprepared) for "society".

The primary agent is the family.

I think we are agreeing here. I would just like to understand the idea of "agent"; i figure "agent" is yet another soldier ordered or mandated (or?) to carry out the value system of war mind-set (the shared values of such).

But primary agents? Hmm, yes, okay, at least as far as the young recruits are concerned. Yet the *nuclearized* family (not so much the traditional, extended, independent family largely (?) existing before the 19th century (?)) is a conditioned situation, after all. Parents excerpted away from those in (or leaning towards) solidarity with them as human beings, and put into the system of professionals "helping".

Would you agree?

It is, Laing says, "in the first place, the usual instrument for what is called socialization, that is, getting each new recruit to the human race to behave and experience in substantially the same way as those who have already got here". As social agents, the family reproduces in the child a set of attitudes that will outfit him for life in what Herbert Marcuse calls the "one-dimensional society".

One-dimensional, surely. We as "human resources" (said right out in the open) for the meta plan and forever war.

"The family's function is to create, in short, one-dimensional man; to promote respect, conformity, obedience; to con children out of play; to induce a fear of failure; to promote a respect for work; to promote a respect for respectability.

Ah! To CON kidz out of play! Whoa, yes,,,

... From the moment of birth, when the Stone Age baby confronts the twentieth-century mother, the baby is subjected to these forces of violence, called love, as its mother and father, as their parents and their parents before them, have been. These forces are mainly concerned with destroying most of its potentialities, and on the whole this enterprise is successful. By the time the new human being is fifteen or so, we are left with a being like ourselves, a half crazed creature more or less adjusted to a mad world. This is normality in our present age.

How ignorant i've been of Marcuse!

... Society highly values its normal man. It educates children to lose themselves and to become absurd, and thus to be normal. Normal men have killed perhaps 100,000,000 of their fellow normal men in the last fifty years."

Reminds me of Paul Goodman! re: absurd...

But some cannot adapt to this imposed normality. They break down. Instead, they devise a strategy to deal with their inability to hold their invalidated experience and their sense of themselves together. As Laing puts it, "it seem to us that without exception the experience and behaviour that gets labeled schizophrenic is a special strategy that a person invents in order to live in an unlivable situation".

i like to say that we in pain create a self-taught, or *folk way* of managing our situations. i must've read this before, but don't recall it. Was it in his _The Politics of Experience_?

The schizophrenic may look like someone whose "logic" is "ill", he is, in reality, someone, who has been made an invalid because his experience has been invalidated.

Our input is not allowed, it is prohibited in the chain-of-command paradigm. And this is not only true of the "schizophrenic" or those labled "mentally ill"; we see that most of us invalidate such inside our heads (re: the biggest cops are in our heads).

For Laing and Cooper, schizophrenia is not "something happening in a person but rather something between persons". Thus when one psychiatrist calls schizophrenia "a failure of human adaptation", Laing responds that it may as well be "a successful attempt not to adapt to pseudo-social realities".

The other shrink reflects the confines he herself knows she must conform to. Laing spoke of the idea of letting people *go into their symptoms* instead of suppressing them. The blindspot I think he had tho (and led to the intense chaos of his alleged primary challenge --Mary Barnes) was that as a shrink himself he had bought into a way of doing things which separated, way too much, actual living.

Whereas, the pre-colonized (kidz, aboriginals in connection with their traditions), play and dance and self-validate their creativity. Had Mary Barnes (and Laing) been allowed/allowed themselves to escape the psychiatric corrall and *art their lives* more freely, Barnes, for one, would have a good reason to stay in only one paradigm.

... the condition of alienation, of being asleep, of being unconscious, of being out of one's mind, is the condition of the normal man."

On the other hand, Eastern spiritual practices push for folks to escape their mind--their programmed personality, tho within "ego-less" states of what i think are repressive; but non-threatening to most states, and thus allowed to exist. Agree?

On the other hand schizophrenia may be seen as an alienation from this alienation, where, "even through his profound wretchedness and disintegration", the patient may be "the heirophant of the sacred".
[size=10][list]madness need not be all breakdown. It may also be break-through.

Or a processing, which i think Laing was in touch with, even tho from an academic/semi-alienated position. Didn't he see his scientific aid as helping 'patients'/'clients' to go through this process, and then *bringing them back*? After that, i'm not certain, as i was disinclined, when i read that, to hang with intellectualized discussion for very long. (i'm more "poetic"-ly inclined)

...we have a long, long way to go back to contact the reality we have all long lost contact with. And because they are humane, and concerned, and even love us, and are very frightened, they will try to cure us. They may succeed. But there is still hope that they will fail. - Peter Levine

I would rather that they play along with us and evolve their "good education" (and their career mind-set) to where they find liberation for themselves as well! No need to attack them (only their dogma and war behavior); just show how such war imagination as their own style of chain-of-command (a microcosm of the larger picture) confines them. Underneath the war game of psychiatry (and other social sciences allowed to be established), there *is* a human being with good intentions; it's just that the institutional imagination compells them to become something more along the lines of assasins of sanity.

Arguments, no doubt, can be made, to the perhaps folly of trusting those artificially enamored to such authoritarian structures, but my method/theory/practice seeks to keep doors open for human beings no matter what imprisoning machine has grown around them.

As for "a long way to go"? I strongly disagree. The long way belief seems to me an example of what aboriginals call modernized man's curious penchance for making things a lot more complicated than they really are! (surely, an illustrating symptom of most of modernized peoples' belief that social overhaul can only come about by increasing insanity quotients via such dark age ideas as armed struggle)

(note: i'm not saying that those who believe they must pick up the stupidity called such things should or must desist; each of us makes our own decisions. But i'll speak my "mind", anyway, while seeking to inspire radical's radical imagination beyond the pale of "What Must Be Done"!

the Left-wing of colonization--in our heads and everywhere else

2006-11-30T01:00:00.000-08:00

I may sound like I'm rambling here, but it's an attempt to get something across. Part of an ongoing process of awareness. Maybe those who like to think will pick out something valuable to them and we can toss it around. That's all I can offer, perhaps. And you know I'll keep at it,,,I've found no other forum nearly as thought-provoking, even tho it feels sooo deadening even then. (Maybe if you want to truly get rid of me, you can suggest a more lively, thoughtful forum? And no, the GA thing doesn't interest me much,,,,)

People I pay attention to say that the Left is the left-wing of capitalism/capital and I see this as true, yet only part of the truth.

The Left is the left-wing of colonization, aka colonialism.

Formal and informal colonization. The colonization planted in our heads, in "our" politics, in our very imaginations, not to mention all the cammoflauged programs, formal and informal, getting us (and so many others) to give away our power, and assume that we never had any in the first place.

And then to "fall back" on all that we've been programmed with: war. STupidity.

To me saying that the Left/left is about colonization goes to the heart because it exposes the game without all the bullshit.

To not expose the big picture of bullshit that the Left is (not to mention the Right/right/rightism, etc.) is to continue around and around in the same old shit--that is, the way we "anti-politicals" continue with these internecine fights about Who's Right (pardon the pun) and Who's Wrong, and yadda yadda yadda. We go in circles, and it's just like a certain aboriginal said about us settlers--such actions/inaction expose how *we don't REALLY want to solve the difficulties facing us all.*

I want to think about this, and I say it's about time others did, as well, and stop this nonsense about labeling aboriginals (in "australia" and every other occupied land--such as the "U.S.") with euro-centric simplifications like "nationalist". Or labeling *anyone* with reductionisms which hide within them games designed to control thought.

It's this superficial consciousness, I think, which keeps "anti-politicos" in yet another form of corrall...going in the same old intellectual circles...

Take crime. The idea of what crime is and how such *symptoms* of people unable to cope bubble up time and again in myriad forms seems to escape the consciousness of those supposedly in solidarity with "the workers" --as if "working people" are somehow hierarchically important over all others.

Why not direct such sentiment to HUMANITY AT LARGE? Why not speak to human beings in GENERAL--human beings who hate their superficial lives, who feel numbed and dumbed. Who are sick and tired of the same old bullshit! "The workers" are not the only people in pain, and not the only people who can bring solutions. They may be the "biggest group", but that sentiment plays into the perpetual war of the need for 'constituencies'. Many of us talk about "mutual aid" and "interdependence"; why don't we broaden that out upon the general public as well? (And those actually imprisoned within the supposed "wealth" of the Ivory Towers).

I say it's time more of we began seeing that the Button Pushers/Orderers and designers of this hell are simply only CRAZY. I'm crazy, myself, and it takes one to know one. To respond to such CRAZY (ready at a moment's notice to become INSANE, with B2s bombing whole neighborhoods, et alli), we must see the value of not "fighting" fire with fire, but by creating radical's radical bridgings.

Of the kind that bring out the John Stockwells from their indoctrinations. And once bringing them out, not mowing them down (in the stupidity of "revenge"), but being radically human with them.

For instance, radically human by inviting them, in their fear, to the worlds we set up; and to invite them to discover who they are, more than what they understand in the world they've grown up in. You may label such "naive" (based on reading only???), but I have to ask what are your actual interests?

And why MUST so-called "radicals" forever follow along with the 18th/19th century imagination about all of this??

Why can't "we" see the value of attacking alienation and challenged behavior, instead of human beings? (I can turn that back on myself, as well, then; as long as the kind of dialogue is allowed where contexts and reasoning is explored)

Take the generalized attack of Trotsky. I'm quite ignorant about him (tho have some experience with when trotskyists tried to allegedly "take over" a group I used to be involved with); but I bet you money that he was like a lot of formalized, reduced human beings of his era. Probably like most "pragmatic", "well-educated" aspirants of authority. That he was merely a product of his era's larger system! And that his ideas wouldn't have been allowed a second of serious engagement hadn't many other "pragmatists" been acting behind the scenes!

That we are supposed to focus only on these single characters/persons, or these *symptoms* of alienation and the stupidity of "our" cult-ure, seems to me to be basically doing the work of tyranny for them! The war cult-ure is perpetuated forever! How convenient.

And then you have people like Sascha and Wolfi trying to label me, as well. You don't try to understand, you just keep the knee-jerk lockstep, and reflect the reality of your alleged vision.

Yes, I'm more and more "enraged". But you don't want to hear about me as a human being, much more than my dared confessions! All you know is war war war, and if someone who has spent a lot of time here, bringing input from another perspective and praxis confesses "the wrong things" then chalk up another of the mass of despised. Really, how different is this bullshit from tyranny? (Oh, you just don't have the so-called "power", is that it?)

To continue with the Left as yet another game of colonization, we see that
"The Law" is hallowed, like the christian bible. (Religion persists far beyond those organizations perceived as 'religious'!) And the game of criminalizing (and punishing/suppressing/invalidating) inarticulate/under-articulated dissent is ignored, EXCEPT when it fits within these 18th and 19th century ideas about what to do and when to intervene. I.e. apparently only at work, or when riots surge up.

WHY do we subordinate ourselves to the 18th and 19th century, anyway??

I'm not going to rant on much further. I "understand" about the meta game that has to be played (the meta game of propaganda in a propaganda-oriented society). Yet I see this belief that things "have to be done" as a game; a choke-chain pulling so-called "radicals" around and into the stupidity of war war war.

As one who is slated for the worst that humanity can do to me (and has experienced to various extents), I remain *still* wanting to hold onto my visions; they are the only thing that makes me want to continue in this life, actually.

How about these other things we don't think through. The idea that "wealth" can be accumulated, instead of experienced. The idea that people are "rich" if they buy into the colonization game, and largely discard their humanity (or human potential).

I may sound like I'm "way too" simplistic here, but I really think that the biggest thing we're facing is one of uncritically accepting a whole set of values. And then acting as if we must react to that, instead of getting back in touch with the values that brought us to this kind of thinking in the first place!

...As if those lost (they smile, yet look at them as their faces fall in old age; their faces speak them more honestly than their illusory possessions) persons who accumulate huge resources via terrorism (I'm thinking of State (and para-State) terrorism) have "power". The idea that they are somehow "happy" while others "cannot" be.

What are some others we take so much for granted?

Really, we've got to see the value in thinking these things through (I know the longtime regulars have thought through these things, generally, but I'm not addressing this to you, unless you want to have your periodic "check-up" for yourself) (then again, I recall that self-critical thinking isn't supposed to be "valid" --right?-- and I have to ask, in what context?)

input to 'Misery Loves Company'--with cruciaL aRt stYLe

2006-11-30T00:45:00.000-08:00

Comes from a cross-posting to a bunch of diffrent forums, beginning with the article linked to below.

Phirst off, i want to say i agree with the angle in which Ron Sakolsky is coming from in his Why Misery Loves Company, i just don't totally buy into the idea of "warrior" that the indigenous are using to perhaps bridge with we whom have been so programmed towards war. The warrior angle may well reach many more than my ideah, but that's okay; i aim to reach a pivotal few.

So i play in a most serious way with a poetic ideah i call "Orrior" (one who sees value in taking on a term for themselves which is not in subordination to the imagination of war, as in "warrior"), from here. (re: in the context of the CruciaL aRtz, not Martial Arts)

My vision wants to mesh with the indigenous traditional ways, yet perhaps go further in a most mutually-beneficial way.

Thus, an ideah i came up with iz to art the miserable, in a way where we glorify their orientation, yet do not aid in further institutionalizing or entrenching it. Rather, we inspire them into going into a processing.

I think of the radical faerie way of making a mountain empress of a particularly bad-ass qween, and art still further. To playfully/lovingly/seriously enshrine the *sacred* spirit of those who, in the context of a system bent upon compelling their powerless feelings, don the fabrics of misery.

Think of scenarios. A symbolic, ceremonial procession and crowning of the MOST miserable. Invitation given, then, to participate in a secret society of arters. Where the Miserable Empress is most seriously allowed to play, and become much more, when they feel like it.

I think i am touching on something, but i haven't completely grasped it. Perhaps our fellow human beings, called indigenous, could add to this? Or perhaps those decolonizing their minds would like to step up and most seriously play? (can you even give yourselves permission??)

The angle is to foment communities of ecstatic imagination. And to depth charge each other, towards inspiring each other to conceive of ourselves as much more than death cult-ure dictates.

article excerpt:

In Mohawk scholar Taiaiake Alfred’s new book, Wasáse (2005), he points to the aforementioned coping as a symptom of colonization. In seeking to get beyond coping and to develop a theory of what he calls "anarcho-indigenism," he asks the question, what prevents us from decolonizing our minds? Interestingly enough from a surrealist perspective, he points to the atrophied power of the imagination as a key impediment to decolonization.

Ah-HAH!

As he explains, "We have lost our ability to dream our new selves and a new world into existence. We have mistakenly accepted the resolution to our problems that is designed by people who would have us move out of our rusty old colonial cages and right back into a shiny new prison of coping defined by managed fears and deadened emotional capacities."

A great quote for the thread i started on so-called "mental illness"!

In the process of liberating the land from the continually grasping claws of the colonial system, he calls for the creation of an "indigenous warrior ethic" based upon emancipating the occupied territory of the mind.

If we aspire to be dream warriors, we must recognize that we have all been colonized by the hegemony of civilization— both settlers and indigenous people, though not in like manner. Though this colonization is experienced differently, and is predicated on unequal access to privilege, civilization has cut deeply into all of our psyches, in effect, threatening to lobotomize our ability to dream. For surrealists, the ultimate revolutionary goal of realizing poetry in everyday life is very much about regenerating the bedrock primal connection between dream and reality that has been eroded by the same miserabilist system of civilization that has stolen the land from beneath indigenous feet. From an anarcho-surrealist perspective, moving toward a world in which we can all lead more poetic lives involves restoring the insurrectionary power of the imagination and unleashing it to create an anarchy that is not afraid to dream.

wOw!

evolve our beliefs about civil discourse

2006-11-30T00:41:00.000-08:00

"Unless we are very very careful, we doom each other by holding onto images of one another based on preconceptions that are in turn based on indifference to what is other than ourselves. This indifference can be in its extreme, a form of murder and seems to me a rather common phenomenon. We claim autonomy for ourselves and forget that in so doing we can fall into the tyranny of defining other people as we would like them to be. By focusing on what we choose to acknowledge in them, we impose an insidious control on them... The opposite of this inattention is love, is the honoring of others in a way that allows mutual discovery." --Anne Truitt

The following comes from a discussion at free-associaton.net, in the 'civil discourse' association:

To add to the above quote, i want to say that we're going to have to evolve our beliefs about what "civil" discourse is, or do away with such, if we're going to fit humanity into the ideas of being so-called "rational".

My suggestion is that we see the intense as CHAMPIONS, and give them such admiration. See them (and ourselves) as *perfectly imperfect*, in a process, becoming (like all of us).

By freeing up (as much as we can--with such daring exposing just how deep our stated principles sing) people to speak in the languages they're enamored to, we do ourselves a service; we reflect back and forth in ways that ultimately inspire authentic relations.

i myself have blocked language (in the form of 'legal' porn pics) put up on one of the assos i started...so we all make mistakes. If i could do that over again, i *should* have left those up; because, "troll" activity or not, it was a form of arting that the poster made. And she/he was giving me a gift; a gift or puzzle that i was invited to participate in, but couldn't see, and blocked it (telling the poster that if they did it again, i was liable to re-design it with some of my weird imagination, heh heh).

intro post

2006-11-30T00:36:00.000-08:00

Herein, you'll find posts from various portions of my *self-arting*. Some of these posts are spoken directly into this blog, others are pulled from places i have been. May you find thangs in here that inspire you on your own path! Feel free to share your thought-through input, as i can always learn from *anyone*!