Phil Rockstroh, a poet, lyricist and philosopher bard living in New York City, is in touch with his wolf-self. Contrast this with the vast majority of Americans who "let themselves be bred down to yapping Toy Poodles, in exchange for a few food scraps." Rockstroh expands on this for emotional effect:One moment, you're loping through the woods, snout held high, smelling the scent of fresh game on the wind, then the next thing you know -- you're being led around on a leash and collar, encrusted with tacky rhinestones and you're salivating at the sound of an electric can-opener.
One moment, you're a child, entranced in play, hardwired to eternity -- the next thing you know, you're sitting at work and your passions, hopes, and yearnings have been shrunk down to Toy Poodle-sized agendas ... You're truckling for your boss's approval; you're counting the minutes until break time, when you can devour some junk food.
“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” - Jiddu Krishnamurti
"True sanity entails ... the dissolution of the normal ego, that False Self competently adjusted to our alienated social reality ... and through this death a rebirth, the ego now being the servant of the divine, no longer its betrayer." —R. D. Laing
what engenders the formation of the False Self? When we were children [including in centuries past], authority, in the form of parents, educators, clergy, loomed before us. Alternatively menacing and comforting, these powerful figures could just as easily have crushed us as comforted us.
Hence, to accommodate the overwhelming demands of authority, we learned how to curry favor from these baffling, seemingly implacable forces by the creation of a cipher persona, a False Self, a tricky, tap-dancing, little apple polisher, who strives to garner approval and acceptance, thereby avoiding punishment, rejection and scorn, by means of the reflexive subjugation of his true nature.
The victims of False Self adaptation are the quintessence of the corporate/consumer citizen... Consequently, this fear-ridden existence has rendered us a society of grotesques: In the present day United States, children have grown as fat as steroid-fed, corporate-farmed livestock; this has transpired because we overfeed them a diet consisting of steroid-fed, corporate-farmed livestock.
And these proto-fascist, behavioral control tricks are not just for kids [or peasants of centuries past]. Corporate Capitalism has left us Americans psychologically arrested in a pathetic simulacrum of childhood where our inchoate fears of being preyed upon by our (so called) protectors (who we internally and accurately recognize as monsters) are displaced into compulsive consumerism (including overeating) and a reflexive fear of outsiders.... we learn it is acceptable (as well as politically useful to our power mad leaders) to displace our anger and fear upon outsiders. Ergo, the so-called Clash of Civilizations is unloosed and slouches, by way of the Washington Beltway, to Iraq, Iran and beyond to be born.
This is the manner that we as a society came to believe we can “compromise” on acts of torture committed in our name and not fear the loss of our souls as a result of our complicity. Although, the loss of our national soul would only prove redundant: Years ago, we decided our souls, both individual and national, were somewhat less than useful to us – and not nearly as compelling as a new widescreen, plasma TV and the like
we're given a "safe" place within the community -- not cast out into the wilderness and fed to the wolves. This fear is not an outrageous fantasy: It is, in fact, a primal memory... this knowledge still lingers within our psyches, where the memories of such terrors still howl just beyond the tree line of our waking awareness, instilling within us the terror of ridicule, of failure, of being ostracized.
It’s the same trauma we experience daily due to our own powerlessness against the dictates of the corporate state and its threats, both implied and overt, to cast us into the howling wilderness of financial ruin, poverty, and homelessness.
Self-knowledge can provide us with a point of entry to the act of empathy. Yes, even extending it towards one as loathsome as George W. Bush.
A caveat: The proffering [of] empathy to Dick Cheney would be pushing the parameters of empathy to the breaking point: Upon being subjected to Cheney's glowering, reptilian aura, even Mahatma Ghandi would be reaching for a pair of brass knuckles.
To resist, we must cast off the fear of being an outcast.
Even in this fear-ridden era, there are some among us -- types such as non-conformists, creative thinkers, and artists -- who welcome (rather than cower before) the metaphorical wolves (that are recognized, each to each, as fellow outcasts). Instead of being eaten by the wolves, they are suckled and raised by them... Nourished by their outsider status, the creative spirit thrives when freed from the constraints of a mindless adherence to groupthink.
One must always remember this: We human beings are of nature too. Accordingly, within us lies an indomitable self, encoded with the grace and fury of the natural world, and, if acknowledged and respected, it will awaken and arise. Then the real dogfight begins: The fur will fly, as we fight, fang and claw, to retake our own essential natures, and, by extension, begin the struggle to restore health, imagination and empathy to a nation of cage-accepting, torture-countenancing sick puppies.
Some people might think it's unfair to accuse Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson of favoring his Wall Street friends, Goldman Sachs in particular. They would argue that, even though he had a 30-plus-year career on Wall Street, he can rise above that and render a fair and balanced recovery plan.Treasury Department officials met with banking industry representatives to resolve a glitch in the rescue program that has temporarily prevented some 6,000 of the nation's 8,500 banks from applying for government support.
Treasury is buying preferred shares in banks as a way of injecting cash into the institutions. But about 6,000 of the nation's banks don't have publicly traded shares of stock and therefore are not set up in a way to meet Treasury's current qualifications.
Many people have pondered the unspeakable, "I wonder if the $700 billion bailout is enough?" Even Sarah Palin, in a bit of twisted logic opposing a stimulus package, said the unspeakable:This next one of the Democrat's, [which is] being proposed, should be very, very concerning to all Americans because to me it sends a message that $700 billion bailout, maybe that was just the tip of the iceberg. [1]
Japan’s bank bailout in 1998 was more than $500 billion, in an economy whose dollar GDP was only about 1/4 that of the United States today. Do the math. And the just-announced IMF loan to Iceland is $2.1 billion — that’s for a country with only 300,000 people. Both of these numbers seem to suggest that an eventual outlay of $2 trillion is in the realm of possibility.
Right now I feel like the guy who was told, “Cheer up — things could be worse!” So he cheered up, and sure enough, things got worse.
"I’ve lately become a reader of Across the Curve, the blog of the bond trader John Jansen.... it’s really helpful to have reports from a “tone and feel of the markets” guy who can tell you what the numbers can’t.
And his opening comment this morning is a shocker. After describing some of the weird action in Treasuries, he says:
Is this the beginning of the end for the dollar and the Treasury market? Is this the first sign of the bursting of the bubble in Treasury securities? That market, in a sense, represents the ultimate bubble as it exists at the whim and caprice of foreign investors, who have as participants in a Faustian bargain, financed our war(s) and our lifestyle so generously over the last decade. Maybe even that bizarre construct is crashing about us as we speak.
Krugman closes, "Maybe I should be drinking something a bit more … calming .. than coffee right now."
The House of the Rising Sons blog voices an important concept:Democracy is not an outgrowth of free markets. Democracy and capitalism are antagonistic entities.More on this is said and is worth reading. The same post also quotes a successful hedge fund manager who, not trusting banks anymore, has suspended operations. He has critical words for the financial elite and governing class. For example:
The establishment is out of control. It is a historic moment in which informed people need to step up and recognize the other thing stated in that blog entry:
legislation was repeatedly brought forth to Congress over the past eight years, which would have [reined] in the predatory lending practices of now mostly defunct institutions. These institutions regularly filled the coffers of both parties in return for voting down all of this legislation designed to protect the common citizen. This is an outrage, yet no one seems to know or care about it.
Democracy, like individualism, is not based on personal gain but on self-sacrifice.
Now we hear that the hot temper seems to run in the McCain family. John's younger brother Joe is hating life for recently loosing his temper and called 911 to complain about a traffic jam in the Arlington, VA area. Perhaps it's anger. Perhaps it is also a sense of entitlement.
"taught me values straight from the Kansas heartland" — things like "accountability and self-reliance. Love of country. Working hard without making excuses. Treating your neighbor as you'd like to be treated."
"She's the one who taught me about hard work. She's the one who put off buying a new car or a new dress for herself so that I could have a better life. She poured everything she had into me. And although she can no longer travel, I know that she's watching tonight, and that tonight is her night as well,"
On October 3, 2000, while debating Al Gore, George W. Bush said he'd commit troops only with an "exit strategy," and he'd be "very careful about using our troops as nation builders."
On Wednesday October 15th 2008, former Army Sergeant Nick Morgan, a 24 year old veteran of the US war in Iraq, was nearly killed by riot police, his face crushed under a police horse, during a peaceful protest outside the final US presidential debates.
Morgan is a native of Annapolis, MD who spent four-years the US Army and one year in Iraq. He was a participant in the Winter Soldier hearings and is an active member of the Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW), a national organization of 'Global War On Terror' veterans who had come to the Presidential debates in Long Island, demanding that veterans' concerns be heard during these nationally televised dialogues MORE
Is waterboarding torture? Hmm.... I don't know. Lets think about it a little longer.
"... she was more closely associated with this party and with fringe right-wing elements than the media had previously discovered ... And not only did she, you know, associate with them in order to advance her political ambitions, she advanced their agenda on a local and state level. Beginning with Mark Chryson and a character named Steve Stoll, who’s known around Wasilla as “Black Helicopter Steve,” because he’s rumored to have buried several high-powered automatic weapons in his front yard in expectation of the federal government ushering in the new world order..."
So, as soon as Sarah Palin was elected, what did she do? She wanted to reward her supporters, for example, Black Helicopter Steve. So the city council seat she had just vacated, she nominated Steve Stoll for this seat. His nomination was blocked by a city councilmember named Nick Carney, who we interviewed, and Nick Carney told us he blocked the nomination because Steve Stoll was a violent influence on a local level.
In 2007, Alaskan Independence Party Vice Chair Dexter [Clark] unveiled the party’s new strategy at a neo-secessionist convention in Tennessee, which was attended by all the neo-Confederate groups that the Alaskan Independence Party affiliates with. And his new strategy was called the infiltration strategy, that because these fringe parties can’t get anyone elected running under their own party banner, he urged them to infiltrate the ... Republican and Democratic parties. And he pointed to Sarah Palin as the most successful example of this strategy...
If Barack Obama is assassinated, will John McCain bear some of the responsibility? Frank Schaeffer, a former evangelical preacher, and active McCain supporter in the 2000 campaign, is warning McCain by saying exactly that. Schaeffer has written an open letter to McCain in the Baltimore Sun:
