lunar ramblings

carrying water (raos)

2012-02-16T21:15:00.000-08:00

The real revolution is in the minds and hands of innovators who can give us real alternatives without the need for violent overthrowing because the real market of what people want for full and congenial life would squeeze out the market of oppression.

It is foolishness to think that paradigm-wrecking change will not inflict pain. Perhaps it would be better if the shift would just Poof! -- all the trauma and bloodshed washed up at once into it horrific tableau, then Enlightenment! I don't think it can work that way. Mostly we seem to not be inclined to any major changes without being so miserable that we see no other option. I am emphatically not "for" this; but it seems to be so, beyond my ability to control.

Maybe the metaphoric "Second Coming" is at hand -- a revelation, an evolutionary burst. Maybe it can be sufficiently demonstrated that a shared peace is ever so much more profitable than divisive warfaring that those with means will rush to invest and spread the word.

Many people are caught up in scarcity theory -- us/them in contention for the world's goods. Others (or maybe some of the same) are clearly frightened of those they perceive has having different world views. There is much argument for appearing and therefore acting with force to show superiority, and therefore ensuring greater safety and prosperity. Then there are the religious fanatics who are still fighting the Crusades.

One concern I have about specifically the Israel/Iran situation is the influence of a (seemingly irrational) subgroup of life-hating fundamentalists who are actively engaged in bringing about the Biblical Apocalypse. Another is a drawing of lines throughout the world based on old Western colonialism and its aftermath in regard to emerging nations in the Middle East.

There is no uninventing guns. Prohibition clearly is not useful. The real power in law is not enforcement, but declaration of what we consider right and wrong. The real power in society is not law, but social acceptability. While people feel threatened, are exhorted to protect their rights to bear arms, worry that the government is out to get them or that deadly criminals await each venture outdoors or even breaking into their homes, the dialog becomes entrenched and angry. If a better narrative about self-protection, personal liberty and concerns about safety were prevalent, there could be more useful conversation.

No need to get hung up on "critique". Rather, I think, what we want is dialog -- because while I may hear in my inner ear exactly what I mean to say, I can't hear in your ear what you have understood, nor how my song has affected your dance. And if your perceptions change over time, or over mood, that is a changing of information to discuss as well.

It is far too common to conflate communism with socialism, and even worse conflate communism with the totalitarian regimes after anti-feudal revolutions. Clearly Marx said capitalism needed to come between to work out the very social issues we confront now. Socialism, which seems to work pretty well in some European countries, is simply a form of resource distribution based on an ideal of equality of opportunity to be the marvelous individuals we can be. It is capitalism that people are not made for. The theory may be sound; but on the ground we get too confused by the glitter of profit and forget the economic system is meant to be a tool of the people, not the other way around.

If we really took principles of the give and take of people's rule to heart, we would be all over these "Third Party" ideas that go beyond the Dem/Rep duality.

Children ought to be taught what they need to know to successfully live in this world -- and yet we romanticize childhood and fill up young curiosity with misconceptions and untruths about pretty much all the important aspects of living.

It is unfortunate that a great many parents either don't have the time to really be effective role model/teachers and/or don't have the skills themselves. Community seems less and less a force in our lives. Far from teaching these basic skills further overburdening overburdened teachers, they can free and enrich their teaching to actually give useful information to kids and parents and community in the process of teaching what we misname the "basics," (reading, writing, math), which are in fact merely tools for learning that can be taught more easily and with greater impact if attached to real life skills.

We complain the kids don't learn the reading and 'rithmetic and they complain that the lessons aren't relevant, don't attach to the valences of their minds. So, why aren't we teaching the school skills in conjunction with the life skills? How about learning to fill out a tax form (reading, writing and arithmetic), pay a set of monthly bills, make blueprints for a house, create a political party and election ads, etc., and do it all in a teamwork modality?

There are more and more avenues of internet knowledge distribution that can greatly enhance home or out of home schooling.

Could the teachers who are more consciously aware of individual needs, of varieties of modalities, of better communication of information and ideas, here in this World Wide Web age work one to one, mentorlike, with children who are facing unfair difficulties because of ignorant or hidebound local schools? There could even be monetary exchange without the high fees of private schools, like for tutoring.

Schools seem for the most part to deny their greatest asset -- the students. Instead of top down organization of "teaching," team modality learning would cut costs and improve outcomes.

You know how you can pay students to attend? Take them seriously. Make use of the talents they provide; and let them know they are making a difference.

It's not about what schools allow, what can be kept off social media, or even legal remedies. To outlaw bullying takes real people standing up against the bullies and making it clear that this kind of behavior is not ok.

Mindfulness is not dismissing reason; rather it is placing reason in a context of awareness. It is release from the nonreason of internal dialog and vague reactivism into a mental place of clarity and open inquiry. It is getting in touch with the you that is mostly experienced as a "watcher" -- the part that really knows, unentangled by socially mandated concepts.

Chemical imbalances do not cause mental illness. They are results of the same reactions to unbalanced stress.

When we feel good -- calm, upbeat, happy, energized -- it is natural to want to share that feeling, to want a better everywhere for everyone. When we feel miserable we often want the world to suffer, too.

People who are happy in their lives have little incentive to waste those happy lives denigrating others.

Isn't it marvelous how so many people want to ease their deity's burdens by taking over judgment of each other.

Those who lose their souls to religion
Caught up in frames against their better angels
Might, if the spirit so o'ertakes their vision
Come to discern divisive righteousness's dangers

The principle upon which most religions are based is one of community of shared world view.

Religion is not equivalent to Christianity

Since religious freedom seems to be being defined as forcing everyone to live according to one group's consensus on morality, I say we have a revolving group, each religion to be represented for an agreed upon time limit (say a year), then to be passed on to the next group. Perhaps we could put them in order of percentage of adherents, or reverse order so we can all benefit from greater knowledge of less populous traditions.

I want freedom for my religion. I want our living planet respected. I want individual liberty to worship as we believe respected. I believe women have free choice of what to allow into our bodies.

They insist there is no validity to concerns about climate change because they are hoping for another "Flood" to cleanse the planet of the less righteous.

If human sexuality is so offensive to the Creator, why is it so intrinsic to our lives? If rational family planning is so offensive, why is our rationality the hallmark of our species? If we could disengage our insane offensives against sexuality from considerations of issues medical and social, we could have much more useful conversations and less intrusive, more compassionate results.

You mean teens aren't being properly punished for their lascivious behavior by being made responsible for another life?

Women need to go back to their traditional roles as slave laborers to the men who so magnanimously marry them, and get out of the job market where they annoy and distract men's work.

If Catholic organizations are so concerned with keeping to their faith despite working with those who are not of their faith, they ought to keep their funding sources nonsecular.

My understanding is that the big risk for any employer not providing health insurance including birth control is a rescinding of federal funds. So, who is demanding a connection between government and religion here?

No one is being forced to do anything. If they are taking public funds, they are required to fulfill the obligations of receiving those funds. If they don't want to fulfill those obligations, they can forego the funding. What I don't understand is, if the Church is so opposed to government interference why they accept government funds.

Meanwhile, do Republicans really believe banning contraception is a popular stance?

I really don't understand why any politician would think it sound to dis over half the electorate.

Yes, women use contraception and vote -- and so do men.

Health care really ought to have been divorced from employer responsibility instead of the compromise Act as it stands. What has been needed all along is a strong public option.

Insurance is not about health care. Insurance is kind of like a lottery. Everyone puts in a share of the prize that some collect. Insurance for health expenses makes sense when it is against major unexpected calamity. You can put in a small payment and not have to worry about being ruined by a medical catastrophe. However, if we are talking about normal, to be expected, everyday health expenses, insurance makes no sense at all. What could make sense is a subscription whereby a reasonable amount is paid on a regular basis, and services are provided as needed. There are certainly other models that could work as well -- say a tax-based single payer option, or cut-rate clinics for wholesale treatment, or medical savings accounts, or flooding the market with medical professionals and varieties of treatments along with clear and easily accessed information for everyday self-care along with access to more precise information one on one ... and so forth.

Even if vaccines themselves are not specifically dangerous, the additives can be. Yet, somehow it is seen as stupidity to question vaccinations.

We've got to end the influence of big money on our legal system. How? By using big thought and big organizing with big information.

Let's stop acting like we need "investors," by getting behind new paradigms of small scale personalized investment in projects we believe in.

I would have been happier with bringing home the troops, ending post-9/11 "security" programs that infringe on citizen freedoms, and seriously diminishing the Pentagon budget.

If we deny a large percentage of the population the advantages of the realm's currency, sooner or later they may figure out that they can create their own currency and leave out the 1%

in candle shadow (raos)

2012-02-06T15:29:00.001-08:00

In closing moments of late Winter light
Clouds sinking afire into horizon's shore
Visions shielded by day from instinct's sight
Creep into focus, relink to nature's core

People losing track of reality can be better focused through getting in touch with basic physical movement, moving back into a better mind/body integration.

In my opinion the default setting is bisexual; but we tend not to notice over all the media hype and individual brainwashing about gender issues.

To seriously deal with the real problems we don't need money, but something much more valuable and rare. We need people who commit their resources of time, energy, intelligence, and the ability to lead through example and pull together rather than cracking along every point of disagreement.

I am starting to give in to the paranoia that the 1% is working to weed out the 99%

Not religion, which is a binding force not an expanding one, what we need is a real faith based not in gods, but in us.

When people kneejerk into a hostile defending of their rights, they seem to forget that rights imply responsibilities. If we are speaking of "god-given" natural rights, we forget that this is a fantasy. In the state of nature we have the right to do what we will until it kills us. In the state of social institutions we have the rights decided by the polity. In either case we have the responsibility to exercise those rights or not based on the realities of the situation, or we are not rights holding persons but whiney self-entitled fools.

In this digital age we ought to be able to give kids the option of opting out of classes and homeschooling themselves.

We seem to have a distorted view about childhood and its place in life.

I am inspired by anger engorging my blood-brain barrier by symphonies of guilt and shame and hope by simple positionings glimpsed from roving eyes by lightening, darkening, liminal desires, by brave warriors who cope with more than could be required and the songs my silent ear demands I hear

Art is its own experience, just as any experience in life. Because of the way our consciousness self-structures, we store our memories in metaphor as well as sensory perception. Thus, perhaps art is the more pure experience.

The so-called capitalists get it all wrong. They imagine they have some uber right to profit on their products, when the free market doesn't offer that at all. The market says you must sell your wares to make profits -- and selling is not just trade, but enticing it.

In this age of self-publishing, online information free market, exploding innovation, critical thinking becomes a key tool.

A central problem with the "conservative" media and "conservative" politicians is that their nattering idiocies keep real conservative ideas and solutions from being heard.

If the Republicans can't get a decent candidate together, maybe Johnson could have a shot as a Libertarian.

The thing is we turn these terms into nonsense by allowing their meaning to become whatever the popular slur would imply. Rather than talk Liberal or Conservative, Capitalist or Socialist, or even Republican or Democrat, perhaps it would be more useful to just talk issue by issue and explore all of the actually wider range of views.

The issue is not so much Koch or Soros, but the influence of big money in obfuscating the candidates' actual abilities or positions.

While the controversy rages over drilling and oil pipelines, alternatives quietly progress.

The message that bullying is not ok needs to be made clear

Whether or not the police "deserved" taunting could be countered with whether or not the protesters deserved the kinds of ill-treatment they got. Violence, however, takes away the moral high ground that is the essence of peaceful protest. What we do have to remember, though, is that a movement cannot possibly control every person who claims to act under their banner. If the police, the public servants involved in escalating conflict would stop reactively acting out violently and negotiate out of the moral strength of peace, better results for all could be created.

For years I sent letters to the IRS advocating that they include an area on the tax forms in which people could opt out of allowing their tax dollars to support any particular program (and perhaps also an area in which they could say: "I want to support _____"). I figured it would pretty much all even out over the entire population; and it would be a good way to gage exactly what the people do and don't want their government doing.

It's just a phase, this material trance. We awake into a world ready made and monkey-see our way into a social construct we call "me". We do this both individually and all together. We go through the metamorphoses of growth and experience, trying to piece it together into useful sense. In that effort, we try out different roles, different styles, different socio-political theories and practices. It is a systemic spiral we travel, incrementally changing until we reach a critical mass, a crisis of belief and boundary redefining. The world we think we know, have created in our own minds, shifts. Before we get to that crisis, we explore and overextend, we wallow to ridiculous degree to fully engorge, to fully play out the possibilities and consequences of the reigning paradigm. We have learned, have seen, that tools, technology can give us the illusion of grabbing more than our hands can hold, of smiting our enemies and increasing our security. We have learned, have seen, that grabbing and hoarding the material luxuries and symbols of power can give small, scared, weak people an illusion of power and command, and the kind of security that implies. However, we are learning, some are seeing, that the material trappings are not the feelings themselves, are not truly worthwhile as goals or means. It is a phase we learn through, then, if we have been paying appropriate attention, move from to try out other theories, other practices, as those possibilities become more obvious. Of course, there is always the chance that what hasn't truly made us stronger will kill us.

Go back to first principles: What do we mean by "God"?

Janus reflects (raos)

2012-01-28T14:28:00.001-08:00

Obviously "love" is not the answer. (Maybe it is the question?) Rather, self-love may well be the love answer we have been looking for.

I tend to distrust "belief" and rather think through positions based on information. Thus, newly discovered information can lead to new thought.

in the 21st century we don't have to pay a thing but attention to get a first-class education.

Ayn Rand was not a Libertarian. She developed her own, quite narcissistically induced, philosophy which for some unfathomable reason gets conflated with a philosophy of maximum freedom.

Does competition drive us to improve and to strive to reach our potential, prevent us from becoming complacent? Perhaps some kinds of competition drive some kinds of people. Maybe co-operation drives others, or the kinds of co-operation that involve excitement of innovation within the security of an interactive group. Then, competition does not have to be about survival of the fittest, but can just be diversity.

I am troubled by the paradigm of ownership in regard to the resources of a society. Ownership, even massive co-ownership, is a divisive concept. We are divided from that which we own, given some sense of entitlement rather than a sense of participation. I think a better paradigm would be a participatory society, in which we are all on the hook for doing well. Freud and others have said, and I tend to agree, that our primary motivators, that which is most associated with psychological happiness, are work and love -- vocation and companionship brought to a level of passion. This passion, and the happiness it can bring, comes with active participation, not a classification of ownership.

Money is a social construct, and yet we foolishly let it take over.

Wasn't Reagan the one who looked into our eyes and hypnotized our better sense into accepting his "debt is good" command?

Even more regressive than the taxes is the whole government-corporate complex of special subsidies, regulations and loopholes designed by corporate lobbyists and granted by their legislative lackeys.

The problem of the government for free market business is not the taxes or the regulations, but the subsidies and advantages to the influentially rich.

Opposition to government intervention through criminal sanctions does not mean approval of an activity, but rather a valuation of liberty above enforcing morality.

Our government is too big because our country is so big, vast, made up of regions with their own interests. So, look at the complexity and wordiness of legislation to attempt to cover an imaginable range of possible scenarios. The thing is, it would be more useful to keep the rules incredibly simple, to cover what we can agree is needed for reasonably sane and safe interaction. Get back to basics, within a future-oriented changing environment. This can be brought from the bottom up, from the smallest groups, within any consciously aware community, becoming more widespread as it becomes an obviously practical meme. Government is but an institutionalization of people's models of living together as a society. It is not a thing, but a system of interrelationships.

The pro-Israel lobby is not so much about promoting Israeli interests as influencing a hastening of Armageddon for those Christian martyrs who want an end to this world combined with neocon desires to control the Arab oil countries' resources.

The Arab-Israeli hostilities are not so much about the nation of Israel as Western colonial mentality and its aftermath.

The world is changing. Every institution will be re-evaluated within that change.

Why does everyone seem to think that these things are a matter of either/or when both/and works much better?

I think we need a moratorium on the word "socialism" until a majority of us understands what it means.

I keep hearing this meme that people ought not be taxed, to be allowed to keep and spend their own money (which is another debate, as to what money is and who it belongs to) better than government. What is this based upon? What is better? Certainly individuals want to spend in ways that promote their own interests -- but often they do not; and often their interests are not the interests of the society generally.

I don't think anyone is arguing against artists being paid for their work. There has always been pirating since there have been items of value to pirate. Mostly we do not respond to such activity by making it harder to do legitimate business or to egregiously burden those who might be operating out of a desire to spread information rather than thievery. As an artist who works with other artists, I am aware of these issues. But artists are creative people. Certainly we can figure out how to promote our work without having it made profitless by pirates.

I had just been thinking about how so many children are somehow expected to behave in ways they have no way to understand. No wonder so many of us have so much anxiety about who we are supposed to be, how we are supposed to perform to be ok.

The drug laws have nothing to do with safety or public health and everything to do with having control over people willing to flout authority.

Part of the silliness in all of this is that we are brainwashed by advertising to take all kinds of dangerous drugs without even considering the dangers, for all kinds of purposes. Then, these few substances that have had some historical hysteria attached are treated like nuclear weapons. If all the expense of maintaining this war mentality against the least able to defend themselves were instead used to treat those who have used substances ill-advisedly, we wouldn't have a substance abuse problem. We would have a substance abuse solution.

Perhaps if one is stuck in a mire of continued unsuccessful outcomes, rather than continue to self-berate one could step back, have a refreshment, take a nap, daydream about the scene outside the window, leave the problem to find anew with new energy, ideas and perspective.

One of those falls over destiny's cliffs will be your last.

Aquarian days (raos)

2012-01-20T21:04:00.000-08:00

In these days of quantum cosmic possibilities, when prophecies and science fiction dreams are inflaming collective imagination, don't we have some more relevant topic than last century's economic dabblings to enshrine?

perhaps we ought to have a new definition of poverty, based not on dollar amounts but quality of life.

I notice ownership is not a guarantee of good stewardship. Often owned objects are treated with disregard. Even long sought toys pall as playthings and get tossed into some bin of oblivion. What is valued is what is used, tools that make our work possible or allies that make it enjoyable.

Do not struggle with anger, my son Give in to the luxury of ire and woe Dance to the music of bloodlust, fire, passion Avenge the angst of life's attractions Get caught up in the lava flow, burning to spend and leap without reserve Then, in sweet afterglow, in mild day's reflection, take in the view of battlelands subdued. In this fading light, this waning Sun, aftermath of action, take time and patience, eye of storm, tongue of meditation, clear mind of wisdom to wish.

I pray for you to lose the plank in your eye, to melt the icy hatred locking in your heart.

We could use a mentor class and systems to match those who care to share their knowledge with those who require it for any vocation desired.

Outspoken capitalists seem not to realize that a free market is meant to be free for all to use whatever strategy they think will work for them.

Aren't most abortions sought by married women who desire (or even already have) children, but because of the situations surrounding the particular pregnancy have decided that termination is the best option? Abortions save mothers lives, both directly an the broader sense. They often save the unborn child from a life that no one ought to be forced to endure. Perhaps what is needed are massive wrongful life suits (maybe class action or pro bono through activist lawyers) brought by horribly deformed and diseased children against the "right to life" groups that required their birth. Life is not always a gift, but sometimes more like a curse, a burden that those who insisted they knew better than the mother ought to pay for if we are to have credence as a free society. A right to life for free people is also a right to not be forced to live.

The problem is not in difference of opinions or social theories. The problem is the attitude of belittling, berating and generally working out of a war metaphor.

There are people who feel a responsibility to control others, often with laudable motives of bringing people generally into a better way of life. Then there are those on a mission from a perverted sense of god (perhaps Satan Himself or some archetypal daemon?) who take a stand without reserve, remorse or reason. Of course there are mostly the politically expedient.

The essence of the novel is not the medium but the story. There is no need to hold content to the kinds of technologies available in the past, when the novel originated and evolved in print. There is no need to limit content to fit some current trend either.

There is a too little questioned fallacy of the wealthy as the job creators. Those who have so much that they can dispense jobs in fits of philanthropy if only we will pamper them into benevolence are THE way to the salvation of employment for we below. Really, though, jobs are not "given" nor benevolently created. No one would be employed if their skills and time were not benefiting and profiting those who employ them. The sneered remark of "a poor person never hires anyone" is far from true. With their last cent, and often future prospects in the form of debt, those without wealth are constantly hiring those who provide necessary goods and services. There is a persistent insistence that to move our economy forward we must give all kinds of concessions, corporate welfare, special tax breaks, et al to the "job creators" who already are on top of the food chain. Somehow it is evil, socialist disincentive to produce to aid the much greater job creators on the bottom to continue to pay and play their part in the economy.

Congressional rule would be so much easier without these protesting citizens to deal with

it is not just military women who must daily risk sexual assault at the hands of their fellows; certainly it is not only Muslim women who are subjugated at the hands of brutal males

motherhood is not really valued (probably because it is women's work)

Big pharm, like big moneyed interests generally, is not about public interest, but private profits.

There are plenty of local regulations created by those who know how to manipulate government to cut down on competition in their field. John Stossel often mocks these on his Fox Business tv show.

Why would we deserve a fearless President when we are not a courageous electorate?

Whether you agree with Paul or not at least he is very clear and consistent about what he believes and does as a result.

At least the things Congressman Paul says that scare some crap are out there being said -- not obfuscated like what is not said by those who speak talking points and focus-grouped soundbites.

What I learned in high school and elementary science classes was that science is often wrong (not what my teachers taught, just my informed observation). Better than teaching "science" our students need to learn critical thinking.

When we are concerned about shoplifting, we do not close the store. When we are concerned about ticket fraud, we do not shut down the concert hall. Nor do we build walls around stores in the mall that have experienced theft. We prosecute the thief. There are anti-copyright laws that get exercised every day. If the problem is that the interested parties can't keep up with the general culture of sharing art and information, perhaps they need to better educate themselves.

Copyright prosecutions across borders happen all the time; there are specific international copyright laws, though some countries tend to ignore them (but then they tend to do what they choose in most situations). If our problem is with China, it does us no good to destroy our people's access to the 'net. Rather, we need to learn to better negotiate with China.

It seems like so-called free market capitalists, who would be the first to scream about job killing regulations on their industries at the same time expect government to keep them safe from losses in an actual free marketplace.

Under the (sainted) Reagan administration, the old rules changed to let the good times roll for those at the top with some flimsy underpinning of "trickle down". As the real conservative at the time, George Bush (the father) knew, this was "voodoo," not reality-based. Since then it's all about the entitled people of means, not what is good for the country.

wiggling into place (raos)

2012-01-15T19:19:00.001-08:00

(seagoats come out for our moment in the Sun)

What is needed, really for us all, is a basic premise of interpersonal respect.

Surfeited with ire,
if I can marshal it against you
rather than against myself
you provide a useful target

In regard to suicides based on bullying generally, my impression is that the reaction is not to fear but shame. When one goes through life having shame heaped over and over in regard to who one is, life can become impossible.

Pretty much everyone has something to be bullied about. Probably the bullies are going at whoever they can to deflect from their own out of average traits. Being perfect is not an appropriate defense against bullying. Speaking out in the occasion ought to be the natural response of any bystanders.

It seems to me that a culture of bullying allows such behavior (perhaps in some ways encourages it) by acceding to it. I remember well a lecture on spousal abuse given by a well established shelter counselor who explained that men abuse their wives because they believe it is ok. Without the silent acquiescence (even occasional approval), bullying would be a cause of severe shame for the bullier, not the victim.

Freedom isn't free; we pay by staying aware and making our voices loud.

Like Rod Serling so ominously stated in that old anti-drug ad: the only thing wrong with mj is that it is illegal

The culture defining "mental illness" implies that there is something fundamentally wrong with our minds. Rather than wrong or broken or ill, we are confused. What we would benefit from are not doctors drugging us into submission, but mentors helping us to learn to cognate and behave in ways to better reach our goals and optimize our communications and interactions.

The government/corporate complex has done everything they can to make business large and squeeze out the small people through corporate welfare and specialized legislation. Just the logical outcome of crony capitalism, not well thought out, because owning it all and leaving angry mobs to control is not my idea of a good life.

The moneyed interests seem to be about gambling, not producing. How long and well can a nation live on hype and manipulation?

We all know that money is going into politics, buying politicians to work for special interests. Where is the money going, though -- who benefits from this massive transfer of wealth?

Freedom has to be free from monetary requirement -- the price of freedom is its practice

The last President concerned with ending government waste was Clinton; but then the government had to waste all that time/attention/resources on impeaching him.

It often feels like the partisan bickering and obfuscation is a ruse to keep us off-balance, divided and ignorant of what is being done in our name.

It's not a matter of right or wrong. Certainly, you could state whatever you are feeling or thinking. Of course then those in your vicinity get to state what is on their minds.

If you watch Congressman Paul, whenever he speaks to an issue he clearly consults with his guiding principles, not political expediency. Even though he may disagree with others' views, his libertarian unswerving devotion to liberty informs his response. This is not a politician we need fear will hide his actions behind lies or obfuscation. This is a man of reason and integrity.

Romney does appear to have an adversarial relationship with reality.

It seems like some kind of bizarre dance: The loudmouth opposition complains that the President is harming the country through some conflation of what government has become over decades with current policies. The President shows how he is working to change the way business is done to methods more in line with what the opposition claims is needed. The opposition loudly complains that the President ...

I am often amazed by avowed capitalists' aversion to competition.

Won't it be fun to look back from the future era of renewable and ecologically sane energy abundance.

Far beyond cruelty
into a whole other realm
of horror, dishonor and disdain
to observe crushing pain
and serve utility
by crushing more

Welfare recipients, the ones who can pass through the hoops of extreme desperation, have to try to survive on less than a reasonable tip at a top tier restaurant, and somehow get vilified as breaking the bank.

There is a great deal wrong with the "welfare" system, mostly involving blaming poor people for their inability to just suck it up and be successful.

The "teach them to fish" metaphor would work if there were oceans of fish and reputable fishing schools available to all of the economically unadvantaged. Perhaps what is needed are mentors to teach folks how to support themselves when no one will hire them.

We elect people to the government trough whose avowed purpose is to destroy government, and then wonder why our government isn't working.

A genuine remedy would require actual conversation, compromise and rule by the people instead of political parties.

Perhaps we don't anthropomorphize enough, or rather perhaps we think of ourselves as further apart from other species than we are.

Somehow we have twisted religion into a belief in the indecency of our natural lives. If our bodies so offend, why does God make them?

We know it is useless to legislate love; though apparently it is popular to legislate hate.

Instead of acting bully-like against Iran, why are we not investing in a policy of supporting the people over their problems with the leaders?

Please, not another neocon war!

There is in the questioning, questing for meaning, in the everyday immense poetry

Janus faces (raos)

2012-01-07T20:47:00.001-08:00

I prophesize by reading wine dregs, which first necessitates the ritual in which the wine is drunk by me, and I am drunk by the wine.

If psychology and religion are not doing it for you, there are a great many more philosophies.

I'm tending to the belief that the universe we live is a creation of advanced gamers.

I have been wondering about people so concerned as to kill for their narrow interpretation of a right to life, people who vehemently side with the fetus against mom.

You know, gold is not that much more useful than paper (and much heavier). In the digital age we really ought to be able to figure out trade based on trade.

I like to break down perceived wants to their actual source: I think I want that object; what I really want is the feeling I believe will come with that object. Then, the object of the exercise becomes not "what do I want?" but "what do I want to feel?"

Sexual abuse is just another form of abuse. Children, who generally are not well experienced, do need defenses against all forms of abuse. One of the best is actual self-love/confidence and the ability to understand and express "NO!" in any form necessary. The corollary is of course people who the child can trust to act in their interest.

We focus on disease, and wonder why we feel so ill. We focus on our differences and never learn to heal.

For those claiming adherence to the Protestant Ethic, the predestination of wealth to the worthy, gospel has yet again been perverted by privilege. The intent of their God to smile with fortune upon certain of the flock was to encourage the amassing of control over resources not to benefit the individual, but to give stewardship for the building of structures and institutions to benefit the community. There was a concept, even a covenant, of "noblesse oblige" -- the Obligation of those blessed to share out that blessing. The poor, far from being a burden or subjects meant for ridicule or denigration, are a resource to the nobles, for labor and also for spiritual engagement -- by sharing wealth and uplifting those below those of fortune may aspire to spiritual wealth. -- Disclaimer: I am not of the Christian faith, but a lifelong student of religions.

The problem is not in the President for being an imperfect human being. The problem is that we waste our energies infighting rather than figuring out how to rearrange Our government to fit our needs.
The President is out there doing the sensible thing, while the opposition party candidates cavort and whine like privileged babies. Why do the Republicans want the rest of the world to think we are fools?

I've never been a politician, nor a doctor; but I have attended Libertarian meetings and published newsletters (though not Libertarian newsletters). Libertarians come with a wide variety of prejudices, predilections, and issues (like most groups). When opening a publication to opinion and harangues, the Libertarian way is to promote freedom of expression, not censorship. As that obvious redneck Louis Brandeis opined during his work as a Supreme Court Justice -- the remedy for bad speech is more speech, not no speech.

The issue is not government or no government. People will always form societal structures. The issue is what values go into those structures, and are preserved by them.

We all know that money is going into politics, buying politicians to work for special interests. Where is the money going, though -- who benefits from this massive transfer of wealth?

When the smoke of apocalypse clears
what consciousness remains
will lack or benefit based upon
perceptions created now.

Peace to you all in this Year of Prophecies (may all your world ends hook up to better worlds beginning)

last stop before the Year of Prophecies

2011-12-31T20:36:00.000-08:00

So many people seem to be so concerned that someone is out to fleece them, that someone might get something they don't deserve, and that someone is poor -- not because of circumstances beyond their control, but on purpose, just so they can get hand-outs. Where did this silly pervasive attitude come from?

Why is it "drug abuse"? Rather, various substances are used by various people for various reasons -- as has been since man has interacted with the physical world.

Congressman Paul is not advocating hate; he is (as in every instance I am aware of) thinking in terms consistent with his libertarian tradition. Part of this tradition (which he often iterates) is not imposing his own beliefs on others. This incredible integrity is what endears Dr. Paul to those who don't denigrate him, but actually listen to him.

The problem is that words are politically separated from their meanings; and we are left (or right?) to muddle along without true definition. Liberals (old style) were the ones who understood the importance of individual rights, of the dignity of human self-determination. Conservatives are meant to be those who say: "Wait! Slow down! Pay attention to possible unintended consequences. Don't eat your seed corn. Build to last." Today we just have a bunch of angry yelling and obfuscation.

this is a time for reflection, for giving to oneself the gift of true acceptance, of meditation on light, on fire, on energy -- forget about trying to appease or give, give, give to show your value. Take!

I have come to a conclusion (possibly more to follow) that the way to make money in politics irrelevant is to ignore all ads -- make the effort to discover our own information.

Life begins before conception. The egg and sperm are alive. The question is more about when consciousness begins. Some say we are reincarnated with old consciousness. So perhaps consciousness, individual life, begins at the beginning of time. The problem for abortion is not about what is life, what is conscious, what is human or what is murder. The problem is about what are rights and what are the responsibilities of society to the rights of citizens.

The Government was never meant to be a caretaker. It is meant to be a social structure upon which common issues can be addressed, an organizing structure for common projects, an edifice to represent us to other societies, and, yes, mostly devolves to serving those with power. If we expect our government to serve us, we need to own the power that caring for ourselves demands.

Supply and demand are the daemons of capitalism. Socialism is more about distribution of resources.

There is nothing wrong with socialism, or for that matter capitalism -- it's all in how it's done, and for whose benefit.

even for political junkies there is a lot more to each of us than politics, parties, or partisan philosophies.

the problem is not in believing; it is in needing others to believe as you

There are a great many gods -- as the god of The Bible fully knows. I suspect they may be beings from another dimensional universe; but that's just my suspicion.

The current "capitalist" model of requiring some degree of monetary wealth formation in order to survive, with the norm of doing some job or selling some skill or resource, in several ways limits the creativity, individualization of solutions, and useful distribution of tools (including knowledge) and goods. However, people are not the grounded angels that some may propose in arguing for say classic communism or altruistically based economic systems. Perhaps with evolving technologies and understandings of how we work models could be constructed based on other kinds of rewards than ability to control resources or bare survival.

My political philosophy is basically libertarian, old style liberal, wherein the overarching principle is individual liberty, self-determination. My reservations about the obvious conclusions of capitalism are concerns about the individual getting lost in the drive to profit. My reservations about socialism are about the general lack of social responsibility evidenced in our culture, which makes such a project impractical. In theory these theories could be revised to work out their kinks and inconsistencies with human realities. Perhaps we could look at economic theory from the perspective of the psycho-social world as we are coming to better understand it. Perhaps we could devise a workable system that actually fits within our greater goals -- which I hope would be better living conditions for all.

There is also much in us that is attracted to while fearing and reviling the "other". I don't think we can rationally hope to create a social structure based on loving kindness (and what exactly is love?) Yet, we do not have to agree to a structure based on hatred, greed, or hostile competition. If enlightened self-interest, in the sense of a basic underlying principle well understood that what is good for all is good for each, that we have more of a well-lived life when our surroundings are pleasurably pleasant and creatively shared, were to be sufficiently encouraged, modeled and memed, perhaps ...

When you look up and outward into the starlight echoing brilliance in cold, dark space the wonder is not in the distance You are not missing from your space from which your universe emanates.

Solar Return

2011-12-31T15:02:00.000-08:00

A prophet entering the year of prophecies

Interceding between Heaven and Earth

Above and Below

Chilled, burned, abducted by prophecy,

by Gods, Demons.

What creature, fearfully aware of mortality,

prays to be the prey of fate --

prays for salvation from the other side,

acceding to forces beyond control

of flesh and mind?

What kind of sniveling, conniving coward

bends the law, the sacred trust,

covenant with all that is holy?

Cast into a class that laughs at rules,

what holds grimy chaos at bay?

(Fools at least are pure, are gay and

without malice.)

Cunning schemes are not forbidden honour,

if they carry that depth, that weight,

that integrated code.

How much is sold? How much kept

for seed and nourishment?

This is why we invented numbers --

to have some objective measurement.

So good we become at spinning stories,

descending backward from our source,

so easy to proclaim: "Of course,

everyone knows,

obstruction is the obvious choice."

Because our goal is not solvency,

but Salvation; not solving common sums,

but absolution from our sins --

merry though they may be

If Greybeard in some quantum sky,

hallowed by Name,

presiding o'er rewards, grace of bliss,

cries in flames of perdition,

why would such a power be amused,

indulgent Grandfather bouncing willing

child on some ectoplasmic knee,

promising eternity if baby will but

keep still?

Wouldn't such a benevolent progenitor

expect more joyfully creative heirs, better stories

for the choices given?

Ivy dense, tangly

generations

insulation encircling

mortared brick, aged,

inconsolate

for days that never can return

Collar up against the wind and dark

Rising smoke creates warmth illusion

Wrapped in sanity's delusion,

fog's memory of mist, imagined tide.

Seated here, salt-etched wall

alone between vast sand and

murmuring waves.

No one sings.

The notes, the voices

appear

Degree of my natal Hekate --

a liminal year for the dweller

on the threshold.

The search is for clarity,

expanding borders, introducing

elasticity as integral character.

To see, to feel, to merge and undulate

through, to discover, uncover, swim

in the glory of original grace,

ecstatic beauty.

To see, to feel, to breathe in

all luxury of exquisite ether, to hold,

transmit as cellular energy

to paint upon translucent canvas

liminal etchings, private dreams

generously revealed.

Sagacity gifted, re-gifted,

planted in potent fertility

of visions, of cantations.

The tinsel of starlight;

the subtle scent of conflagrated pain;

the feather touch of eternity.

Let me fall into velvet voice, enchanting form.

Move with the rhythm;

caressed within word and worlds'

mysteries.

Cozy wise old fire djinn awhirl in sumptuous fantasies

Grab tight to this wondrous globe of fortune,

shake for your life, your destiny.

Snow descends, dreams alive within desire's fortress.

Light, free, prism-pure refraction

colours collide, sparkle, glow, pleasuring eyes,

soothing while exciting

Lost in extreme streaming radiant stars emit molten fire

Resplendent figures morph through incandescence

When the smoke of apocalypse clears

what consciousness remains

will lack or benefit based upon

perceptions created now.

12/31/11

Winter's eve

2011-12-20T20:50:00.000-08:00

quiet fall

of snow

whitens night's field

unwritten, sandlike

upon tomorrow's shore.

Tomorrow is the blessed eve

Lords and Ladies, leaping,

dancing, holy abandon, ecstatic rites.

In dense, secret forest, legends gambol, rise

honorably to masters, age in inebriates.

Spirits imbue damp, fresh scent.

Words melt, evaporate, flavor brew

of ancient melodies, renewed

each Winter's Eve.

Picture each animated creature enlightened
Each candle warmly, brilliantly ignited
Animated faces dance with excitement
Creature comfort gifts encircle trees
Enlightened pleasures whirled in peace

Winter's doorway

The magick of night

The clearness of cold

Stars glittering tales so old

Cradle, caress, with blessing

Saints, sages, wizards, mages

Message writ on high, in constellations

we stop to see, to read.

Cold is slowness, a force

of inertia, a space,

a pause in time.

Dark carries reflection -- any

fancied face or fortune

could be in reach.

Seasons speak

call in hues, in moods.

We praise passages, echo rites.

Children chasing Moonbeams

to believe in hope, joy, love

because we need the light,

the warmth, the colours.

Joyful Season to all ~

forward toward apocalypse (raos)

2011-12-16T16:17:00.000-08:00

the only plausible reasoning I can come up with for a great deal of what is happening these days is that there must be a great many people urgently desiring and working for Armageddon now

War, execution, outlandishly dangerous

chemical enforcement

Meant to be extremely rare last threat

Cynically, lazily become firsts strike against

the designated enemy

Thinking about how it works in the real world, those of wealth get there because of the great character attribute of doing whatever it takes to take what they have told themselves they are entitled to. Those of us who believe we are meant to contribute to the larger community are thus left in their dust.

we have to stand up to the bullies or they'll assume they are right

Anger is a signal

of imbalance

a siren cry: "Realign!"

Surging energy

proclaiming: "Danger!"

"Attend! Perform necessary corrections!"

before falling back into complacency

to make sure you don't fall

too far.

Work becomes a dirty word when redefined into some kind of punishment one must endure in order to be considered worthy to survive, rather than just what people do.

"Hard work" is no guarantee of anything. "Working" is functioning effectively. How best do you do that?

Dis-incentivize ill-advised activities

The best (and maybe only) way to get money influence out of public policy is to make political fund-raising irrelevant. People to people promotion of candidates who actually have useful ideas and strategies to implement them is the way to go.

Perhaps it would be useful for "free-market" applauders to understand that our current President (and for the most part his predecessors) became so by out-distancing the competition in the open market.

I have one criteria for my opinion about another. It has nothing to do with color, creed, or even species. All I judge on is how you treat me.

maybe it's time to bypass taxes and go to another method of funding our national projects -- perhaps a transaction fee on all purchases (including "financial instruments" and such)

The Israelis are quite obviously an invented people.

simplification and transparency all around would make for much better governance

perhaps we ought to rethink the outcomes we really want -- and work backwards from there

It seems like the logical outcome of the capitalist game is for those who have made it to the top to burn down the ladder.

Welcome to the New American Century in which we trade any pretense of democracy for oligarchy -- let the bad times roll

so (and this is not new to the current jobless plight) we don't do what is clearly a better overall option because itmight cost jobs? We really have to get out of the "job-creators" and even "jobs" mentality. Work is what we want to be doing, not just some organized paycheck maze. Do the work, the real work, the labor that is needed to be done to have a world in which we feel comfortable.

Picture each animated creature enlightened

Each candle warmly, brilliantly ignited

Animated faces dance with excitement

Creature comfort gifts encircle trees

Enlightened pleasures whirled in peace

"I declare world peace"

pre-holiday reframing (raos)

2011-12-09T21:08:00.000-08:00

Unable to requite disputes,

cults of disregard

Can a more sustaining dream

be found, a different road?

Woods, snow, icy stream

Winter quiet, peace

Shouldered off the highway

Why not take care of the people's needs and interests through the private sector, and tell government spending we aren't in the market? Maybe it would be helpful to think more in terms of public/private partnerships than "government bureaucracy" and "private profit".

Wouldn't it save healthcare dollars and healthy lives to seriously dis-incentivize environmental pollution that creates passive intake of poisons?

we must make money (in politics) irrelevant

Where are those vast sums going? We know wealthy corporations are putting fortunes into influencing elections. Who is profiting?

I find it less than amusing, more than irritating, when Republican reps. go all out blaming the President for the outcomes of their actions and recalcitrance.

The thing with "Obamacare" (kind of like capitalism and communism) it never got a chance to work (or not). Instead we have this mess created by Congress and the insurers.

of course, the US is a radical socialist (even communist) country, as well as crony capitalist and oligarchic -- we are a melting pot after all.

people are so quick to blame the guy at the top for the problems that belong to all of us

Candidate Obama never promised to fix what is wrong. He offered to work with Americans to bring us together to find and implement solutions. Complaining about the President is not anything like a solution. Joining together on the streets to fight for change, that is something.

Isn't it time to take back our language from the corporatists and doublespeakers?

If you allow yourself to understand, to speak the truth, that humans are capable of divine achievement, and open fully to the miracles of bliss, grace, redemption, growth beyond the physical, you will be free.

what is normality anyway? No One is Normal -- we are each unique. A norm is like an average, a mathematical fiction.

who you are is a unique human being with your own will and history

Being kind can be a moving meditation. It doesn't have to be about giving anything up, or even making a special effort. It can be easy, what is easy, placid, cool, nonfrictive. It can also be courageous, heroic, when that is the called forth energy.

"Kind" is different from "nice". Nice is conciliatory, making room by being smaller or overly overtly accommodating. Kindness is more essential, more honest, more responsible -- making room by inclusion.

Yes, we live in a world of damage and hostility. My best response is to turn in the direction of healing and peace. That turning can be easy, a little dance, if it is done as an act of self-love. First, it becomes necessary, or so it seems, to do the hard work of leaving the guilt, self-punishment, belief in misery. That is certainly harder than one would think from a more ideal perspective.

I think I get the "holiday" "War on Christmas" hype -- a distraction to keep us from the understanding that there is no holiday, but rather an orgy of consumption and stress.

If what is desired for positive mental health outcomes is empathy and positive regard within a safe environment, we can provide that without "psychotherapy" or years of professional education, peer-to-peer

It ought to be the norm that people get to decide business practices in their community.

Reframe government from "them" to us

Because words are imbued with meaning and power, we ought not casually dismiss them as lesser action.

What it takes for a representational democracy not to work is lack of active participation by the electorate.

the science of today seems a large part related to the science fiction these scientists read in their youth

I don't want to be told what can't be done. I want inspiring.

Green magic (any sufficiently

advanced efficiency of

chemistry, natural

technology) exchanging poisons for

benign symbiotic ecology

(no college degree could assure

so lush a life)

So sad that we only see what we expect.

Trained to tragedy, to forget the best

that we could be.

Present of applauding audience glowing good will

holy daze (raos)

2011-12-03T18:28:00.000-08:00

When all the world's a stage,
who better to be than the audience?

Capitalism is a religion for those who believe in it; there is no sacrifice too great.

The libertarians believe in the individual over the collective, but they are not the same as "right-wingers" who are largely what was once called the "moral majority" or even "compassionate conservatives". The original liberals were promoters of liberty, the rights of Man as noble individual. The old-line conservatives are more about hierarchical rule and the security of place in the social order, order in the everyday so we know what to expect, how to present ourselves, how to plan for prosperity.

They say that if you open to the pain, truly feel it, it loses the negative connotation and becomes simply useful sensation.

It is practically the definition of insanity to insist on prohibiting the drugs that people insist on obtaining.

they who frame the conversation generally control it

someone brought up complaint about whiners who seem to expect jobs without wanting to work -- it made me think about artists, wondrous creatures who put in tremendous, creative, detailed, painstaking work, just to do it, just to manifest a compelling vision

The attitude of people confronting government and other institutions of power to insist on our voice being respected is one that calls for creative expansion.

The best defense against big money in political campaigns is people power

Government doesn't want anything. Unlike corporations, government is a concept, not a person. Government is not a living entity, and has no mind. A government is an organizational system, it is an ideational creation, a consensual organization to manage agreed upon realities.

Organization, a concept or activity, can have no concerns. What we need are the people who work within organizations to have the enlightened self-interest, collective awareness, nurtured compassion, integrated values that impel them to work for the common good.

I recently saw former Pres. Bill Clinton and current Pres. Barack Obama on C-SPAN talking about public/private projects to develop creative win/win means of financing green building retrofitting. Clinton spoke about great things that could be done if financing could be worked out. It seems this is true of a wide variety of possible projects to improve public/private lives and resources.

if we appropriately taxed the fossil fuels commensurate with their actual costs to society, renewables could naturally triumph.

The true job creators are those who trade the use of their skilled time. Businesses don't create jobs. They hire workers to do what needs to be done to keep their business going. Consumers, while necessary to bring in the payment, do not create jobs. They buy the products that the jobs produce. People create jobs by figuring out how to sell their time, knowledge, creativity, and other useful attributes to employers, or directly to consumers.

pretty much everyone has some kind of health issues. Most of us have encountered some form of bullying or discrimination or other negative social commentary because of our "differences" (and by us I don't mean us here, but all of humankind).

You can turn off prejudices; but it takes time, patience, and creative nonviolent action

trading delusion for art
trading in smarts for wisdom

It's an old and multi-national tradition to celebrate the longest night and the communal prayer for the return of the Sun.

I Declare World Peace

2011-11-28T14:22:00.000-08:00

http://www.ideclareworldpeace.com/

I Declare World Peace is the world's largest ever art / science project / experiment. We describe it in the next few paragraphs. It is not a group. There is nothing to join. There is no cost. There are no members, and it requires no registration. While I Declare World Peace supports and embraces the activities of every other well-intentioned peace promoting endeavor, our experiment is based on the principle of "do less and accomplish more." So, I Declare World Peace engages in no activities of any kind, except for encouraging everyone to periodically think the affirmation "I Declare World Peace" and from time to time write it on the wall of your favorite social media.

World peace can be achieved in our lifetime. In the meantime, and to help the process (since peace is up to us), please post "I Declare World Peace" on the walls of your social media sites. Thank you.

The ART

In 2005, the artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude brought "The Gates" to Central Park in New York City. A giant installation of 7,500 orange fabric gates, 16 feet high (4.87 m) of varying widths, lined 23 miles (36.8 km) of footpaths in the park. While each individual gate was beautiful alone, the effect of the whole was far more than the sum of its parts. It created an amazing dynamic involving the observer, the thing being observed and the process of observation itself.

We have been inspired by this achievement, the manifestation of an idea hatched in 1979. In 2010, we hatched an idea to create an art installation unlike anything ever before seen or heard of on this planet, made possible for the first time in history by modern technology and the prevalent existence of social media.

Our idea is to create the largest art installation ever, to be installed not in some physical location, or even in cyberspace but rather within the consciousness of every person on the planet, a sort of "Gates of the Mind". Each person will hold a "flag" in his or her mind, which collectively will change the history of the world. The "flag" is I Declare World Peace, expressed in the language of the thinker.

Over the coming weeks, months and years, people will be gently encouraged to type the affirmation "I Declare World Peace" on the "walls" of their various and favorite social media, such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and so forth.

The SCIENCE

One of the intriguing premises of quantum theory, which seems to blend physics with metaphysics, states that by the very act of watching, the observer, through the process of observation, affects the object observed being observed. In a study reported in Nature (Vol. 391, pp. 871-874), researchers demonstrated how a beam of electrons is affected by the act of being observed. The experiment showed that the more "watching," the greater the observer's influence on what happens.

This indicates to us that consciousness, or the conscious mind, can affect phenomenal reality. In other words, thoughts can affect the physical world. Now, we understand we may be oversimplifying, but philosophers, mystics and wise folks through the centuries have claimed the same thing.

SO HERE'S THE STORY

In general, goals are reached by taking action. All action proceeds from thought. The completion of a skyscraper results from the action of construction, which in turn results from the thoughts of the architects and builders.

In the same way, the ability to achieve peace in our lifetime is simply a direct function of the conscious thinking of people. Just as a war is commenced by declaration based on the thinking of certain people, peace requires a declaration based on the thinking of certain people. All group thinking is based on the thinking of the individuals in the group.

There are approximately 195 countries in the world. Assume there are 200 major "violent" separatist or opposition groups. If the top 5 ranking people in government and those separatist groups all declared peace, just 2,000 people, there would be peace. And those 2,000 would have no choice but to declare peace if substantial numbers of their "constituents" declared peace.

In short, world peace is entirely dependent on what you, yes you personally, think.

HOW YOU CAN EFFORTLESSLY PARTICIPATE

Please post and tweet the affirmation "I Declare World Peace" on your favorite social media site from time to time. Every time you see the tweet I Declare World Peace, please follow the person who tweeted it and then re tweet (RT) it. It will soon become like popcorn popping all over the world.

Go to www.facebook.com/declarepeace click "Like" and participate or come back to visit. Tell your friends. If you would like to sponsor this web site, it is free to do so and requires no fee or registration. We will put a link to any appropriate lawful business or entity on the Wall of Support page of this site. It requires no reciprocity. Just emaillr@ideclareworldpeace.com and provide your URL and a very brief description of the site.

Come help us create the largest art installation in the history of the world, installed, for the first time ever, on the consciousness of mankind.

This site is growing. Please come back from time to time. The official I Declare World Peace hashtag is #IDWP

unrespect hostility

2011-11-28T14:21:00.000-08:00

put on some grooving music, and fall into dance

success is no prophylactic against despair

the "Tea Party" as we tend to think of it was not the outpouring of actual "on the ground" concerns, but a creature of the media

We laud our diversity, our innovative spirit, our American know-how based on freedom -- yet, many so ignorantly persist in decrying what we all know is the basis of what has made us great. No wonder the US seems to be devolving into a second-rate country.

Dysfunction is not the price that the species pays. It is the price the individual is made to pay by social convention against the exceptional.

We don't pay and respect cops to bash/tase/torture/frame the nonviolent, noncriminal among us. Why do the police think disrespect of the protesters is expected of them? If police are meant to be public servants, perhaps the public needs to better oversee their service.

Why are our service folk not better trained in individual integrity?

People have children for a variety of reasons from simple failure of birth control to having a desire to mold a creature to their specifications, to having a legacy, to enjoying the company of the young and the new wonder they can bring, to ... The mere act of procreation is not parenthood. There are a great many children who need better role models than their parents can offer. What can you offer them?

Republicans do it. Democrats do it. Independents do it. Let's take all the outrage and send it where it belongs -- your right to freely swing your dong or hands ends where my personal space begins.

The problem with President Obama is that he is too much of a centrist in extreme times, thus appearing less bold and innovative than we thought we were led to expect from his campaign. However, he does present as a calm, thoughtful, intelligent leader, which extreme times certainly can use.

As it becomes more widely obvious that the lot of the returning vet is not honor but disrespect and lack of opportunity, how many will volunteer to keep the military going forward?

It is in the nature of humanity that when people aggregate there are disputes,
leading to a perceived need of systems to adjudicate disputes,
which is the essence of law, which is the basis of government.

Ideally, government is the mechanism by which solutions are negotiated for widespread concerns not adequately addressed by the private sector

We don't go bankrupt from having debt. We go bankrupt from not having the wherewithal to pay it. Right now, in the sense of "buy low/sell high" is a great time to invest in our country, take on the necessary additional debt, so that we can build back up into a thriving economy -- at which point it will be much easier to pay off said debt.

The problem with capitalism is Wall Street. When private business goes public and the primary responsibility becomes to the shareholders, the consumer in the private market loses standing and power. The locus of value devolves from the business product to the game of trade in valuation of the business. The map overwhelms the territory. The symbol destroys the real.

If what I do annoys you, don't follow me. I have no need to lead. I have no need of people who tear me down rather than turn their energy to what they perceive as better.

Kids are not encouraged to run and play energetically, to dance and prance and skip and jump, but rather to sit in front of a screen or teacher. We need to get back into our bodies, to feel the grace and joy of movement. We need to not only acquiesce, but take delight in being physical beings, rather than letting our bodies seem separate from ourselves.

Though most of us may not conceptualize it, the most universal desire of our kind is to feel comfortable within ourselves. If we love who we are, we can more truly be happy, and more truly love each other.

trauma, tragedy -- the stuff nightmares are made of

strength through diversity, individual responsibility, technological and system innovation -- the future is now

Thank you for traversing my world without hostility
Go, fare you well, in peace

deep '11 (raos)

2011-11-23T18:56:00.000-08:00

Why channel the people's energies into combative divisions rather than promote effective response to common concerns?

It would be better for all concerned if we could develop an attitude of all humans in this project together, rather than seething over unspoken/unmet expectations or divisive labeling.

What do the Occupiers want? It's no mystery. We of good will want peace and prosperity available for all.

We obviously need the labor the lower wage workers, yet insist on keeping them down through classist stereotyping. A much healthier attitude for a well-functioning society would be blatant honoring of work, of good citizenship, of civil interaction, and of the people who exemplify these.

1) Every time someone gets upset about something they think there ought to be a law, rather than deal with interpersonal communication and negotiation -- and they often can drum up support

2) Most laws don't come with expiration dates

With the budgetary need to lower law enforcement resources, destroy jobs of law enforcement personnel, and the higher crime associated with greater pervasive poverty, how can using so many police-hours in quelling peaceful First Amendment speech and assembly be justified?

In keeping with the aesthetics of the movement, rather than set up an either/or combative paradigm, wouldn't it be more effective to bring the police in -- through individual dialogs, broadcast of group ethic, and other strategies?

I am wondering if the government workers conspiring against the protesters' First Amendment speech and assembly could be convicted of criminal conspiracy?

If the bottom line is job creation, why not tax for not creating jobs -- or rather, generously allow the cost of job creation to offset taxation?

The dream isn't lost -- it's just morphed into a nightmare

We seem to be vying for the bottom, city under the garbage heap, rather than “shining city upon a hill”

Considering that the Christmas Tree was taken from pagan traditions, not Christian (see any pines in Jerusalem?), it ought to be the Solstice Tree; so, Holiday Tree ought to be good enough of a compromise.

Perhaps the not so hidden truth all along has been that people create religions to permit violence against other people?

The fundamentalist view of Judgment and reward in the afterlife preclude the kind of urgency that would promote better use of our time and resources in this life.

"Bad" things don't happen as punishment. Things happen. We interpret them as "bad".

Evil is a concept of moral failure, not brain anomalies. The human brain continues to grow for some time after birth. The way in which it grows is to a large extent based, not on predetermined genetic disposition, on early experience. Teach a brain-damaged "psychopath" to behave appropriately; forget about labeling them "evil".

The death penalty is barbaric -- it encourages the worst in us
The death penalty is unfair -- executions are based on rigid attitudes about issues other than justice
The death penalty is dangerous -- it has been proven that innocent people have been killed due to faulty evidence or even outright manipulation of evidence
The death penalty encourages an attitude of justifiable murder, that a solution to social problems is to eliminate those involved rather than look at real solutions
The death penalty is too easy for those we truly want to punish -- in fact it punishes any surviving people who cared about the state-murdered, while the condemned criminal is no longer suffering from their conscience or the attitudes of others toward them or imprisonment
The death penalty denies the possibility of redemption or actual payment for crimes
and so forth

If you kill yourself, the bullies win. If you are so desperate as to contemplate acting as their jury and executioner, you might better turn that emotion to self-defense.

People often say they would do or would want to act or speak out about issues or values that they are afraid would open them to violent reactions from others with greater power or influence or uncontrollable violent tendencies. Could we have more honest interchange, more meaningful expression, better communication, with a service to provide back-up as necessary against bullies or other such adversaries?
-- unrespect hostility

Perhaps instead of cutting back on Medicare we might better promote useful health education for all.

In many ways our culture divorces us from our bodies, from our feelings and sensations, from being active in our own well-being.

Healthy egos would be ablaze in magnificent conversation. These are wounded. Warning: These are dangerous -- angry and scared, pain to panic dismissing reason, always, only, needing to strike at any who come near.

Arrogantly ignorant, aggressively entitled to expectations that they be served.

Puritanical morays
striking with venomous rage
out of the cold, murky water
of the American collective unconscious

The problem is that though many human beings are reasonable and decent, there are always many who see life as a game in which only a few can win, and they aim to be on the top by kicking everyone else down.

Words of value are bound in well thought-out phrases, titled and presented for review.

just another theory -- not some devil's brew or destructive bomb

Dishonor can be worn as a badge. But of what use are badges? Better, perhaps, a bag of clear water, a charm against danger, a salve for irritation, a text of inspiration, baubles and beads valued by the local tribe.

Is it a gift if unwelcome, different from what is sought?

It's an art project!
Thanks for performing
your roles so well
(applause)
(bows)
Carry on. Enjoy your evening.
Now, don't we all feel better?

The movement is the message. Spread the movement: spread the message

Model the behavior you want to see.

Blue skies
No mourning
No tethers or lines,
valence or gravity
Opening key dangles
Skein untangles

free * * *

rallyiing!

2011-11-17T13:02:00.000-08:00

http://huffingtonpostunionofbloggers.org/2011/11/13/the-american-people-are-waking-up-occupy-occupy/

The American People Are Waking Up! Occupy! Occupy!

http://www.ustream.tv/theother99

a webcast, from the street, of the protesters' perspective.

http://www.newser.com/article/d9r2mfr00/bands-of-occupy-protesters-march-in-several-cities-as-movement-enters-3rd-month.html

Thousands of Occupy Wall Street demonstrators took to the streets around the U.S. on Thursday to mark two months since the movement's birth and signal they aren't ready to quit, despite the breakup of many of their encampments by police

http://www.loyolamaroon.com/editorial-and-opinions/column-occupy-wall-street-changes-national-debate-1.2673089

Column: Occupy Wall Street changes national debate

http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20111117/NEWS04/111117021/Occupy-protesters-march-nationwide

Occupy protesters march nationwide

Rallying

The Secret to Happiness ~ We Are Happening!

Find what brings you alive; and do it.

(not what "I should" to prove that "I'm good," or good

at being bad)

Maybe meet people enjoying it too;

layer texture to our view,

expand our field of play.

Lather, rinse, repeat

as necessary.

Take it out to the street when necessary.

Do what you need to be

what you want to see.

Do what only you can.

Make this happening grand!

Do it today.

September 17, 2011

Threshold Revelations ~ EV21 ~ has emerged

2011-11-11T13:36:00.001-08:00

Take in trance lucence:

http://emergingvisions.blogspot.com

Threshold Revelations

Emerging Visions visionary art 'zine #21

(*intentcities*)

reflected revelations (raos)

2011-11-09T20:08:00.001-08:00

Everyone wants to co-opt the movement. Must be successful if they all want a piece. The problem for they is, it's not about them. It's about moving together to get to a better social concept.

What is wanted is exactly what is happening -- a new dialog that takes the issues of the people seriously.

Think of all the energy produced by minds connecting all over the world.

This could be just what the failing economy needs. The big investors, those we bailed out because we so badly needed their financial services, have not been doing their job, only squeezing what they can from the rest of us doing the actual work. Credit unions and community banks traditionally do business by investing in the actual communities. We can take back our own economic resources for our own small and local businesses, for our own benefits.

what these ideologue neo-cons think will happen when the citizens get desperate is hard to understand.

Canaries in the coal mine, dolphins in the gulf, children in the streets -- the warnings are loud; but we're too caught up in the din to listen.

community centers, where disputes can be aired and peacefully worked out might be a good start

What is this intense beef the police have with the protesters? Does it make sense for them to be putting themselves on the line as the enemy?

When it is so hard to get by, why would we torture each other rather than doing the best job we can?

It's lonely and stressful at the top, at the bottom, so stupidly sad -- we could be lifting each other rather than tearing down.

No actual goods, services, technological devices or practical ideas were ever created by "Wall Street". The function of financial markets is not creativity (except in the sense of "creative" financing -- which was the underlying cause of this collapse, not people trying to invest in housing); it is manipulating trade for profit. It is a gaming industry, and ought to be taxed as such.

Back in the halcyon conservative heydays we had these limits on income without social responsibility. Yeah, there were plenty of social issues; but the economics made more sense.

Actually we all get poorer when too much of our resources get held instead of flowing through

In a lot of ways, capitalism is a good idea for a previous episode in economic development. We would best take the lessons provided, and understand that there is no need to be stuck in ideology. Technological advances are providing opportunities impossible to imagine in the day when capitalism was the innovative engine.

Real job creators? Oh, you mean the people who trade our skilled time for societal credit -- whether we hire out to a business or project, or figure out the marketing/accounting on our own.

The thing is private corporations are private enterprises created for their individual purposes. They are not controlled by the "market," but rather, if they are on top of the game, to a large extent control it.

People who say "government" is THE problem don't really understand that government is a social organization, essentially controlled by the market of the electorate. If we have bad government, it is not because government in itself is bad, but because we are not (or have not sufficiently been) doing our due diligence, taking our individual responsibility for the overall outcome.

Those who insist government is THE problem are ignoring the ways in which government is the solution, and the basic responsibilities of citizens.

If the states were well enough to provide the infrastructure and services we really do expect and want, we could leave it to the states individually to take care of business "on the ground". If we are not ready, willing and able, we still need those services and constructions. Perhaps we would do better giving up on the idea of government being the problem and do better at making it a useful solution.

rooftop gardening could be promoted to provide better nutrition options and better control of CO2

there is no need for monolithic ideological dichotomies in actual practice

Since when is sanity a necessity for political rule? Though, yes, it would be an interesting, novel, and possibly quite effective attribute.

One area in which government is spending far too much is for generous compensation to "representatives" for acting like idiots when there are so many people doing so for free.

So-called Communism was Doublespeak for totalitarian aristocracy -- an aristocracy not based on heredity being twisted into a definition of rule by the people. This is not Marxism, nor communism.

We were sold a lie that war improves the economy. It is hard to understand how such a lie could be so convincingly and widely sold.

Chemical treatment for cognitive disorders requires cognitive association to be effective. More direct treatment without chemical side effects would obviously result from cognitive therapies.

People change their behavior all the time, and not necessarily in economically practical ways. Much more of an influence is ambiance, peer pressure, the general impression that this new way is what is in, what one does to fit in.

"Do as Thou Wilt" is all of the law -- natural law. There is no "just" retribution nor reward. The punishment/reward is within us to administer as we will, or as we have been conditioned. In the realm of reality, we do, we create consequences, hopefully we learn.

Learning is a pleasure. There is nothing more exuberantly exciting than those "aha!" moments when it all clicks together. Children are born with growing brains eager to learn. Then we go to schools which mostly stifle us.

Art is a creature evolving with its time. The ideas in the air of any given era are the ideas, the air, that inform the artist. When other historical eras are incorporated into artistic expression, they are reinterpreted through the lens of the artist's time, the paradigm through which experience is framed.

apparently we need some long, hard discussions about exactly what a person is, why we choose the criteria we do, and what it means to be a person

As medical science progresses, it is quite possible that it will not be too far in the future when we have developed out of womb gestational technology. Perhaps it is better that we start thinking about what exactly human rights are, what exactly we want them to be, and at what developmental stage what rights might be most appropriate. What we really need to remember is that rights imply and require responsibilities on the part of the rights holder, and on the part of the rest of the social system. We throw around this concept of rights without due consideration of the true implications.

the complexities of unraveling the most intimate of human relationships is not rationally within the purview of government

unveiling inspiration (raos)

2011-10-24T22:12:00.001-07:00

That sweet languid lethargy of sadness

Society is the combined interinfluences of a population.

We used to know what a "person" is. Now, it seems up for interpretation from corporation to conception

We have categories of persons who do not exercise appropriate social responsibility. There are children, who are under the authority of the adults; there are criminals who are pursued and jailed; there are the insane ...

We act like drugs can solve psychological problems, but condemn those who try to self-medicate as "addicts".

Capitalism might be a nice system if we ever tried it; likewise Communism. In practice we tend to pervert the ideal into whatever shape suits those who need to be in charge. Economics is basically a branch of philosophy, not a hard science at all. The reality is political. The kind of unrestricted "capitalism" that is promoted is a zero sum game in which the logical method of advance is to destroy the competition, thus rendering the market a mere illusion

If we are assuming that we can with a wave of a bill delete the current federal tax systems and start anew, there are plenty of exciting possibilities.

Since the money is created backed by the promise of the federal government, why not forget taxation, grant newly minted funds directly to agreed upon government projects, and let it trickle down from those workers and vendors?

People talk about the costs, who is going to pay? In an information-based economy costs are basically labor. Labor costs are basically what is needed to keep the labor force reasonably healthy and happy. Robotic technology takes over physical labor. Food and other biological goods can be provided with very little labor cost. Cheap, renewable energy sources are being explored. If we think of cost as usage of available resources rather than as monetary, we might have very different ideas about what is affordable.

The frame of class warfare promotes an either/or mentality which is not about real issues or solution development, but about partisan politics.

What the 99% need is to take back the narrative. The Occupy movement is a big "Wake Up! We let the moneyed interests call the tune and grudgingly danced. Now it's time to create our own music." Because they are, a new hit pop song is in the air. Even after the combined efforts of winter and authorities make the street occupation less, we can incorporate that song into our everyday. There is a large art component to the protests, and the artists are expanding outward with the creativity long held back due to the mad embrace of cash as king which had us not remembering that creativity, and labor to manifest those ideas, is the essence of true wealth.

The hope was always in the People, not a candidate. The hope now is poignantly held in hearts and minds of people not only out on the streets, but so many more watching. The myth is the hateful, greedy, immobile American. The myth is the rule of the sad monarchs or oligarchs. The power, should we accept it, is in the people who go out and do what needs to be done, because it needs to be done. Such people have always existed, though not often honored. The Occupy Movement does honor the values of courage, community, gathering to communicate and claim the rights that only live when used.

It is a slow evolutionary process toward less violent predilection as we slowly become more enlightened in our self-interest.

October Knights (raos)

2011-10-16T18:54:00.000-07:00

Because we gather as society to co-create better possible lives for each by developing underlying structure to improve the lives of all, it is important to keep the communication flowing to maintain balance between rigidity and chaos.

Power rules by the consent of the people. We can change the power we consent to.

Success means getting to the other end of: "I want ______."

There is more to energy than fossil fuel destruction.

Cain seems to present an affable, just folks, easy solutions from entrepreneurial experience affect. For those without the time or inclination to actually listen and understand the implications of his "ideas" he may well seem credible.

Perhaps, while we are doing away with the current system, we could develop a national sales tax, with basic need items and services tax free, while including tax on "financial instruments" and "trading".

Work for pay does not have to follow the employment model. If we were to sensibly develop not so much a safety net as living net to adequately distribute needed goods and services regardless of direct payment, and to encourage and educate for individual entrepreneurial ventures and worker owned businesses, we could leave behind the confines of "ism" defined economy.

It might help if instead of being concerned about "psychosis" we developed social attitudes of actual concern about people who are becoming unglued for whatever reason, and offer appropriate care and feedback.

Some treat science like a religion. Some treat religion like a science. Perhaps we would do better to admit what we don't know, and develop educational models to open possible options.

There was a story on the news about pharmaceutical speculators who buy up medication to sell to hospitals and patients at highly inflated prices -- drugs these people have become medically dependent upon to survive. Then, of course, in other news those drug gangs are dangerously violent against those who threaten their ability to maintain their huge profits. The problem is not in our relationship to drugs, but our relationship to money.

If the Republicans were really serious about their priority of making Obama a one-term President, they would stop with the obfuscatory tactics and actually create policy that improves the national economy.

For making a joke out of what ought to have been useful legislation, the blame goes directly to Congress.

How to deal with bullies in the small or large arena: Unite against them

The protests are of course not the solution, they are part of the process toward bringing possible solutions to light.

To improve, to progress, to discover and learn how to create a life better than a struggle for survival, first we must imagine. Our grapplings with our imaginings is art.

late harvest (raos)

2011-10-10T14:29:00.001-07:00

The Horses
sweep with neighing grace
I am made happier for their nagging
escape from intent
into art

Those without the vision to create often turn their passion to destruction. In the consequent misery they claim: see, it is broken.

Magic is a frame. We sensate beings, born with an urgency to make structured sense of chaos, create neuro-realities based upon and subsequently ordering our experience. When we create a magic frame, we are ordering our interface with the realities thus that accepted acts/beliefs externalize for us in expected depiction.

To speak of recovery begs the question: what is being recovered? Much of "mental illness" is a product of a lifetime of layering interpretation and reaction and interpretation and reaction and so forth to perceived experience. Unlike a disease of parasitic or organic origin, it is a way of being. In fact, the label of "illness" is inappropriate. It is more of a pattern of recognition. What is usefully cured is the same as for those who self-righteously attack those so labeled for being "different". What is usefully uncovered is a self-awareness apart from labels which is understood as growing, moving, living, able to become more adept and social in personal action and interaction.

A case could be made that the artist is self-medicating with creative projects -- or perhaps that madness is a creative outlet.

People don't "give" jobs. They offer structured employment for structured labor. No amount of freebies or kneeling to the moneyed creates jobs. Jobs are created by the demand for the work to be done.

Jeffersonian style patriots, gathering together in the public streets to co-create 21st century democracy

There is no wealth fueling this movement. It is people, expressing their protestation. They are coming together, seeing their numbers, creating their voice.

Capitalism became what it is through the interaction of theory and practice. There is no need to have our thoughts about rational wealth creation and distribution tethered to the "capitalist" brand. Rather, we can come to understand that any map to be useful must follow the territory, not the other way around.

Apparently the so-called fiscal conservatives are not as good at business thinking as they try to pretend.

It is a war because it is sold as a war. The media is the message, is the accepted definer. It is a war because life is war of all against all. It is war because war is the accepted exception to thou shalt not kill.

What gets nothing done is doing nothing. Protesters sending out communication of the legitimacy and necessity of protest can create more protest, can create legitimate actions, can lead to change.

apparently "Hitler" has become a generic term for "political leader we don't like".

people are so bored they have nothing better to do than police other people's sex lives? we need better tv.

The way we create our realities is not by bringing experiences, but by our interpretations of the experiences life brings to us. We create our interpretations generally based on principles of survival. Often it is best to interpret toward a more realistic view of chances, rather than wallow in positivity.

Why not evolve into a model in which people are educated and encouraged to develop skills which they offer on an open market, businesses which they form cooperatively, nonprofit enterprises for social welfare which are seen as a good and proper function of citizenship, you know, freedom?

I don't think it is a matter of either/or, or compassion v. self-interest, or objectivism v. the collective unconscious. We come together in society to make a better life possible for each by making it possible for all. Take a long think along the imaginary journey of a life totally by and for oneself. Not much there. Even what was once abundant has been used, is being used, by a great many other individuals, who, by this frame are each by and of themselves, scurrying about to find wherewithal to survive. Is that the free and independent picture held by those who insist on each for oneself?

Today's challenge: current conditions in context

It's not about
black or white
might is right
fuel to fight

It's not about
East or West
who's the best
forget the rest

It's about
me and you,
if we so choose,
what we can do

Unite Song

2011-10-09T20:19:00.001-07:00

Unite Song

It's not about

black or white

might is right

fuel to fight

It's not about

East or West

who's the best

forget the rest

It's about

me and you,

if we choose,

what we can do

October 9, 2011

(Imagine)

critical relating (raos)

2011-09-25T20:18:00.001-07:00

The Revolution will not be televised
The Revolution will be online
Because The Times They Are A'Changin

Little snips of scenes
more poetry than prose.
This is me just being,
in repose.
Wraith demurely flows
opens my eyes,
wrinkles my nose.
A captive faint melody
carried on nervous breeze
ripples along my inner skin.
This is my world between.
This is the "I" my dream admits,
emits
electric sensation
from visits outside. My mind
playing out on this stage
that is mine alone.

Of course the massive interest in current technology is manipulated by the artist, as cultural archetypes are. I see a lot of mixed media -- videos with expressive language and movement interplayed with cgi or other visuals. It's all happening. Then there's "air poetry" -- framing of heard conversation, or tweets. Artists explore. Yet art is not just about form. Often its function is psychological more than social or economic. The felt need to express will often find the most direct conveyance, whatever that is perceived to be.

People get the ego all wrong. I do understand -- it is what we are taught.

Ego is meant to be the organizing principle in our consciousness. It is a hard-working, important tool if we are to be social beings in a material world. When ego is well used, it allows us to make sense of the flood of sensations, organize time/space/tools/intent into worthwhile projects, create appropriate interfaces for smooth social commerce, and generally function as strong, self-motivated, sane actors. Because we are misinformed, we often grow misformed egos that are not well used or healthy. This can create deep resentments, anti-social inclinations, general confusion about one's place in the world. Rather than denigrating ego, we would do well to befriend our various strands and become more whole, more able, more socially useful and personally joyful.

The Troy Davis case points out the fallacy of capital punishment as a necessary evil. The evil is in the execution (both literal and metaphorically). The "law" to kill becomes the trump over any pretense of justice. If we were to stipulate that a death penalty has its place to remove from society those we deem too dangerous to live, that would presuppose a system whereby only those clearly guilty of violence and deemed still dangerous would be executed. Instead, we have a system in which the fact of sentencing is the rationale for the state to murder. Yet, how much sense does it make, even for the stipulated rationale, to coldly, deliberately, with much forethought and notice, murder people who are clearly caught, incarcerated, and removed from violent impact on the rest of us? The death penalty is not about justice, or fear of violence, or even ultimately revenge. It is about a culture that worships death and human sacrifice.

There is a strong difference between believing that one has the right to defend oneself and others from obvious attack and believing we have a combined social right to condemn prisoners, incarcerated outside of the social milieu in a way to prevent their violent, harmful action against us.

There are far too many confirmed stories of police acting brutally without cause. This needs to be taken seriously.

Modern technology and social changes are creating a new economic environment. In this "transitional time of untidiness" if we were reasoning beings we might reasonably develop a project to generally modernize regulations and policies.

Whether or not permanent jobs emerge, we REALLY need to fix the infrastructure that we all need to have any kind of economically viable country at all.

It would behoove us to join together public, private, and the kind of public we call government to increase and improve community-based healthcare.

You would think we could manage at a minimum to keep our water and air drug free.

Obama's about as capitalistic as they come -- part of his problem with the far left. On the other hand, the GOP seems more oligarchic -- not the free market, but the monied market is what counts.

How the economy grows is through fair play. When it gets too out of balance, it crashes.

The problem is not lack of money to invest. The problem is lack of investment. If the private sector won't do it, and if we are to grow as an economy it needs to be done, that is the province of government -- to promote the general welfare.

The way to deal with money interests in politics is to make it irrelevant. We the people must educate ourselves in critical thinking to see through media manipulations and well paid for lies. We the people must reown the truth and work together for our combined self-interest.

Congressman Paul is the only one in the Republican field with real gravitas. That ought to mean something to serious voters.

Yet again GOP talking points play smoke and mirrors with language, accusing the opposition of their own worst tactics. Have you noticed how GOP talking points are so often them accusing their perceived adversaries of their own bad behaviors and rationales?

It is clear that the class which employs warfare is the cynical "right".

I saw them going after Google on C-SPAN coverage -- I thought the right loved entrepreneurs.

People are always have our free speech rights trampled. Corporations not so much. "Class Warfare" indeed -- Corporate "people" v. bio-people

What happened to respect and manners? People convincing each other that bare-knuckled brutality is the only manly stance.

debt came from war

We seem to have developed an erroneous mindset that mistakes fighting symptoms for curing the cause. In the case of our relationship to "drugs," the problem is not in the substances, or the people who seek benefit from their use, but the intensive, deceptive marketing of panacea. People thus become conditioned to believe not only that medicines will cure, but that we are dependent upon them, powerless. A more useful paradigm would be to see these not as authoritative, but as tools. We do the work, use our own power to heal, grow stronger, face and overcome our issues and ills. In a great variety of cases, various tools can help us -- allies, not tyrannical powers.

At the edge of the real
At the plummet of denial
At the summit of all we pretend

Re-echoing ecstasy crescendo
No where to discover again
Drunk on this neverending run
To the End

Doorway into Scorpionic revelation -- severe, profound, grabs from beneath the conscious realm.

poems for change

2011-09-19T18:55:00.000-07:00

http://www.bigbridge.org/100thousandpoetsforchange

http://arts.blogs.pressdemocrat.com/18754/100-thousand-poets-for-change-goes-global/100 Thousand Poets for Change’ goes global

by Arts

“100 Thousand Poets for Change”:

http://www.bigbridge.org/100thousandpoetsforchange

Autumnal Vision

Wind, rain: a snuggle under the covers morning
Dreamtime --
"dreaming of the way things might have been"?
Someone asked: What short of revolution could remake
the world to be
more fair, peaceful, more encouraging of love?
My new mantra: "lighten up":
Eyes upward, facing mysteries of stars and heavens
Heart lightened, to more merry, merry be
I lighten the load to my aching shoulders, and find
worlds of light and joy easier to carry
I look to ancient wisdoms to enlighten my soul

And I laugh, lightly, brightly,
let loose too tightly inheld breath of
fear/hate/judgment.
Breathing freely, I inhale
the exhilarating scent of changing leaves

Power

What is power?
Power is a word.
Power is an idea.
The Word is power.
The Idea is power.
Power is a distribution of energy, wealth, strength:
Physical, material, mental, metaphysical,
social.
Power is that which allows us,
Or we allow others, to have
sway over their/our actions, emotions, limitations.
Power is a rush of air, of water, of electrons,
of words,
of weapons, of will
-- the force behind movement
or stasis.

Study War No More

What lesson can be applied?
When imperialist troops crash down upon a people's pride?
When might as right meets the instinct to survive?
When Midas greed lashes out to destroy?
We've been here before, o my brethren, o my children --
repeating the fouled lessons poured into our thirsty minds,
pushing back the horror before our eyes with blinding rage
forged into weapons by mortal foes
who hide in plain sight.
The only thing I know --
The lesson repeating agony in all our souls,
Haunted by the pleading eyes and bloody hearts
Of the slaughtered sacrifices to malignant gods --
There is something vital here to learn.

Between

There are places
beyond time and space
where we don't even know
we wander
delicately balanced
between what could be
and what we will allow.

Feudal Diffraction

It's not the color chart; it's the hierarchy.
Hoarders of permission slips for resources
thereby decide what gets done,
which brick gets laid, or even fired,
who lives well-rewarded,
who scrapes til they no longer get by.
It's not our dna that compels stupidity.
Perhaps it's a kind of manic compulsion,
depressive obsession,
mass psychosis,
St. Vitus line-dancing to a poisoned
caller's tune.
What to do?
Meme-web reconstruction in increments
paradigm warping mindwaves
realigning the pulsing macrosphere/microsphere
benign gibberish cyphoning through?
Take back your time.
Take back your right to self-valuation.
Take back your place
outside of the lines.
If our needs, self-fulfilling desires, greater
ecstatic glory and grace
are to be based
on solid infrastructure,
on fruitful interplay,
on free and freeing expression,
let us take hands in
an undulating, beatific dance
moving in multi-rhythmed
direction.
Let us be and do and feel
that which gives us permission
to be whole.

I Am Geni

Imagine
I am geni
Lifting
a veil
between
endless time
and the boundaries
of the permitted.

Imagine
worlds unseen
craft them, weave them
create a design
a designation
to allow
ever new
images
comfortable access.

Imagine
an engine
of becoming.

Manifestation Ritual

Create the vision.
Move into it.
Live there.
Feel it growing through you.
Play with it,
seeing it from a wide range of perspectives.
Delight in it.
Laugh, dance, weep.
Sing it out loud.
Sing it softly as a lullaby.
Now, slowly or quickly or however it feels right,
create a stairway.
Name each stair.
Give each a folder of possibilities,
more and more complete, concrete, living.
Live out the life of your stairway,
allowing it to lead you to the promises
you would have made yourself and your vision
as you became lovers entwined.

Pangea

My country is Peace
People of Peace
are my compatriots
Warriors of Peace
move human energy,
resources, time, minds
with weapons of art
active compassion
respect for the dignity of each and all
Words of Peace
speak beyond structured language
sharing profoundly
in joy
graceful dancing
to music of each dawn
enlivening Peace

on the threshold

before the eclipse
before the dawn
before we are given our missions,
sent forward in time
we must be ready
without map or guidebook to prepare
we must rise to the challenge
endure the patience to exercise
control over every capillary,
every synapse,
every fiber of our being

it's not in the believing, but
the seeing
a better world needs a new kind
of ware
be a ware
for peace, for change,
for consciousness
before the wake

Ringing the Changes

Seconds of afterlight, Sun lapsed into horizon
Quiet of new snow, cold blanket to trees, roofs, road
Gentle twilight, before the night, before all the freeze of laughter,
bubbling partying, high hats and hands, desperate to ignite,
to touch ice to ice and become.
New Year searching forward, blind drunken eyes behind,
leaking distilled tears denied. We are jolly good one and all.
Revels, broken lyrics, misremembered, misunderstood;
gladly clapping hand against back, strapping together to
keep upright, sloshing through traffic mottled snow
slipping together, sliding to raucous tune,
old fools' show, commemorative legends to pull out over
brandy and fire.
Resolutions and revelations.
Look into the molten glass, sparking visions
Clean star twinkles ask not, glorying in terpsichore,
no written lines obscure wide sky, open beyond horizon
mistily expanding into rolling sea. Drink to the season,
to oblivion, to ecstasies bequeathed in excess emotion,
rolling, amniotic, amnesia of expectation. Breathe --
vestigial gills awaken.
This is the first measure of the first movement
a pirouette, a dervishly delightfilled whirl.
Cast upon this rocky estuary, dance inner wise
third eye calling dawn into destiny.

duelity

Duality, dichotomy, antipathy
All we see is
black and white
wrong and right
day and night
running blind into sharp edges
unneeded bloodshed
See: the world round, encompassing dimensions

In Memoriam

Oh my children
Not so very long ago
probably in many places still
we lived in communities
in which we had pride and dignity
Small enough for everyone to
know your name
Large enough for a diverse
resource of skills
and personalities
Caring, squabbling, challenging
as family
Able to leap tall edifices
and find a way when a way
must be found
Entrenched in lessons of former days
while planning for breaking future ground
Not just a pretty myth
like solidarity of kith and kin
Community, living within
a solid sphere,
a social network of mutual support
often said to be what we are here for
(I hear you sneer; you who tear down magic,
hope, and trust)
It could be, community,
our prayed for cure (balancing salvation)
to the follies of humanity's
deadly love
of war

Prologue

Sun and Moon embrace
as one
for brief eternity
all mystery within

Black and White
create gradation
radiate kinetic energy
We can achieve
believe, begin, begin, begin

Gardeners, planting flowers,
planting food,
planting souls in
nurturing soil

Healers
perceiving wounds
to be sewn
relieving loneliness
revealing pain
held in, denied
twisting ardent toil

Teachers
admiring their wards
finding with them
questions, keys and doors;
realizing history is only destiny
when explorations cease;
invitations from space and time
come complete
with choices

A choir of voices
from softest spark
to fervent blaze
Troops of effervescent players
Symphonies,
drums at dawn
Inspiration and instruction
carried forth through song and stage
vibrant murals painting onward age to age
Taking up the challenge of the tale
that twists, turns, meanders
providing kaleidoscopic opportunity
ever to begin again

Body Language

Teach Peace
Dancing in the classroom
Body wisdom
Reaches through neural pathways
regenerates whole to whole
soul to soul
touching life
exactly
I feel you in my mind, my spine
Feel me dancing
elongating muscles
extending connections

Storytellers

We need to make up stories
to be able to create realities.
That's what separates sapien
from beast.

Speak to the feast
or famine.
Sage, carnie, beggar
Come to the play!

There was a Roman soldier bored with war,
with whores, with bloody babies.
Hoping to escape, he wrote a history,
moved into
his Holy fantasy.
It's but a Shangri-La, a piper's dream.
Metal men, formed from clay,
scream upon fields of battle,
when nerves
catch up with senses.
Soothed with martial melodies,
gratefully serve.

Listen, oh little one.
The wind will catch you up as you sleep.
You won't remember when you wake, weeping,
how small, insignificant you are. Mommy assures,
you're her own little star. Demons alone explain
your terror. You determine
to do better. You soothe yourself with stories.
You spin a tale of love within a dance.
You spin yourself the center of romance,
a home, a fortress, an emptiness fulfilled.

Like a child counting fireflies,
alive in the darkened air,
dare to immerse with sparkling wonder,
to share
more beautiful stories.

Acts of Magick

If it is to be done,
We must go out and do it
Action, once begun,
Has beauty and power to it
Aiming true to course
Needs thought and reflection
Feed movement from the source
Of our yearn toward perfection

The play is never done
Each and every one
Performing through their part
Reinvents our start

So join the song, and sing your tune
Dance strong beneathe a rousing Moon
Another day, another seed
Bursts out into the Sun

Rallying

The Secret to Happiness ~ We Are Happening!
Find what brings you alive; and do it.
(not what "I should" to prove that "I'm good," or good
at being bad)
Maybe meet people enjoying it too;
they who give layered texture to our view,
expand our field of play.
Lather, rinse, repeat
as necessary.
Take it out to the street when necessary.
Do what you need to be
what you want to see.
Do what only you can.
Make this happening grand!
Do it today.

September '11 harvest (raos)

2011-09-17T19:18:00.000-07:00

The entryway, the liminal, the threshold -- this is the landscape of the creative voice.

There is probably no uniting of the "left" and "right" as long as we portray public identifications in this way. I think the point is to get beyond labels, and work on actual projects that are obviously beneficial. My question is: where is the leadership promoting such projects?

It just makes sense: If we are miserable at work, where we invest so much life time, we are increasing the misery of life to no useful purpose

Life is a death sentence. We might do better in our thinking to care about quality of life for all of us. As we pointed out in the Women's movement, both oppressor and oppressee are harmed by oppression. We are all kept from developing our best selves when our energy goes to combat rather than cooperation. What nobody seems to be telling those with means is that they are actually limiting their own wealth by their stranglehold. Money is not wealth. It is merely math. It is merely a placeholder, an IOU, a gambling chip. The wealth is in the actual trade, the actual value-adding of labor, the actual lives made better by goods and services. The more there is at the bottom, the more is available all the way up.

As the Christ is famously said to have differentiated, we render unto god what is god's, unto Caesar what is Caesar's. ID, identification, names, designations, serial numbers are tools of the socio-econo-political world. We use them in that context. In the context of that reality not socially defined, they have no currency.

We represent ourselves to ourselves and others based on experience with the "caesar" world. To disassociate our representation from acceptance of the real, I believe it best to understand how this representation is useful and how it is not. Total freedom (nothing left to lose?) is not necessarily what is desired or desirable. Freedom within structure may be a more comfortable and creative state. YMMV

life is not about risk and reward

life is about living breath and beat and movement

to feel every ecstasy an expanding core

Love is but a song we sing
When the harmony arises
we are blessed with bliss

The thing is, we are each our own individual bio-chemical factories. One size can not fit all.

If you start with the assumption that government is the problem, you are negating the possibility of using government sensibly as an organizing entity. If you start with the assumption that government is the solution you tend to look at all problems as demanding laws to manage. If you start with the assumption that government is a tool for use by the people, you can start to look at where it is useful and how, and where other tools might be more efficacious.

I am always and madly in love with wind. Even when it lays open my frailty to the cold, it is a longingly vibrant friend.

Of course it is the fanatics who feel compelled to go out and destroy -- just look at the religious right here as well. It is not the Islamic fanatics as such we must fear; it is the allegiance to fanaticism throughout human hearts and minds. There is power over and power to. Creatives use power to expand themselves and give. Fanatics use power to destroy, contract, take from us all. Why is that? Why are they not happier?

We could have low taxes on everyone once we pay for the wars, if we don't waste away our resources with any others.

The so-called tea partiers ought to be ashamed of turning away from their libertarian roots from the Ron Paul 2008 bid. The rabid right ought to be ashamed of their blatant ignorance upholding tactics. The mainstream media ought to be ashamed -- well, generally speaking.

The natural outgrowth of "conservative" capitalist theory -- to the cheaters belong the spoils.

Why not just save Medicare by giving us all a buy-in option. Do away with Medicaid by giving the poor a buy-in voucher to Medicare. Streamline the whole system to make medical decisions more transparent, outcomes available for comparative best practice information, go as much as possible to outcome based payment rather than procedure based. Do more with online consultation, easy access of patients to useful information, generally better information for individuals to maintain their health. Train more medical professionals at every level and useful modality. Develop a well-functioning healthcare system rather than making the issue about health insurance payment.

Why make perfection the enemy of progress? Perhaps what we really need is a process to periodically go through current law to update, delete, and amend in light of changing understandings about what law ought to do.

Why does the NRA want to arm and incite paranoids?

The types can be reduced to one or infinite
We who are in the know, and always ignorant
Today a bright star leads eyes past the sky
wandering minds wonder, "what?" "where?" "why?"
Tales told to guide us from the past
best come with caveat: these rules won't last

all hale and fair well

2011-09-10T17:33:00.001-07:00

Timothy McVeigh Is Still Dead

It's morning in America
The morning of June 11, 2001
A warm and beautiful Spring day
And in Terre Haute, Indiana -- a little after 7:00 am
--Timothy McVeigh is dead.
What more is there to say?
We all know the score:
Death: 169, Mercy: 0
The hero "bloody, but unbowed"
Silenced, but still proud
Ashes to scattered ashes
Death to death.

War Games

More and more
get less and less
the best sacrificed
to great God Success
Anger
building
brick by bloody brick
Is it a surprise
("Look! Into my eyes!")
when the peasants cackle
resurrecting the guillotine
Raw power
hot metal shooting
making unmistakable mark
burning ragged skin and guts
and glory

Tell me a story, daddy
about before the war
when water flowed
in abundant freedom
when the air was pure
of the stench
of progress
when everybody had
a sacred right
to feel
and believe
and dance in the moonlight
when we could afford to be
young, untried, open
to possibilities not cut off
by a sacrificial knife
repeatedly deeply severing
vital organs
without regard to the waste
with no respect for place
or the people for whom that space
holds stories

Weapons forged in anger
built up shattered layers of
desperate pride, disrespect, grief
create festering wounds
poisoning the populace
unto the Seventh Generation
caught up in some grotesque
morality play

The Enemy

Hiding from bombardments.
Thick, black water;
no thirst is worth this
indignity.

Running through rubble,
recently devolved
homes, commerce, community.
Extended families,
aunts and cousins,
good neighbors,
valued friends,
devolved to shattered corpses.

Wailing at a divisive wall in the name of
humanity, freedom,
chaotic prophecies whisper,
imprinting reign of Hell upon
modern Earth.
Policy statements fly
in protective formation
"We can not give in to
the enemy."

Lesson of The Great Depression

The machines stand patiently
ready to act on human command.
Workers expectantly arise
to resume their duties.
Tools, systems, routes, logistics
lined up for service.
Plants to sow and reap; structures
to build, maintain, repair, replace;
commodities to be united with
their markets; music to be played;
enchanting murals to paint;
shows that must go on; coffee
to be made; errands to run;
endless activities and professions
imposing order on entropy.
Teach the curious,
heal the sick or broken,
enforce the law,
tend to the poor.
Society's capillaries clogged by
a powerful voodoo. All is
needing to be done, but stopped
dead or cancerously
receding from living
for want of the magic beans,
the mysterious force of money,
a social construct gone mad,
constricting the flow of life.

Red-Blooded

Let's talk about this.
Exactly what are we afraid of?
Different skins, different thoughts?
"These people are not like us."
Nor we like them.
Legends say we fear
and fight the barbarians.
A receding panorama
of battle upon battle.
Millennia of genocide
proudly proclaimed.
We must be strong warriors,
rough, sharp, explosive,
valiantly a barricade barrage
protecting Our valued and values
from Their predation.
Lines must be drawn clearly.
Womanly, childish fuzzy vulnerability
cast far behind, confined to
defended shelters
kept at bay with bitter laughter,
raucous play.
These patterns built up over
generations serve us well,
minimizing weakening contamination.

strangling heaven

How do you know that
you're strangling heaven?
Taught to irrelevant
standardized scales
Taught to be standardized,
Christian White Males
or wherever you're placed
and timed
Taught to believe the sublime
is but an affectation,
drug-induced hallucination,
not to be relied upon
when creditors come to call
demanding payment
for providing you with life.
Selling your soul for nickels and dimes,
the working-class creed.
Giving in to everyday crimes,
habituated to need
secondhand pleasures,
pirated treasures
that never succeed in
destroying the pain,
the long season of Hell
you strive to explain
"it's his fault" "it's their fault"
"it's my fault"
all victims of blame.
And you're strangling heaven.
You're making it impossible to survive,
denying your passion to thrive,
denying your worth,
the blessing of birth onto
this mortal stage.
You pace in your cage
as if castrated of will.
And heaven so wants you,
surrounds you, offers
your most deeply hoped for love,
boundless happiness, life eternal,
every pocket of your soul
exquisitely fulfilled.
Heaven offers you her open arms,
and you, in your hellish nightmare,
strangle her
unaware.

Gospel

Sally, won't you go
downtown
Pick up some teabag party
clowns
We'll teach 'em tricks of trade
from streets walled in by
degradation
Ain't this nation grand
for glad hands raised in celebration
of shames we dare not name.

Hallelujah Hallelucinations
Hallowed ground baptized
in blood
Saved from the cleansing Flood
by sticking to our kind
however we're defining us today
If we were meant to live
a different way
wouldn't He have told us?

Freedom FOR Security

Either, by nature, you're plagued with paranoia
Or you've bought pervasive propaganda.
I do understand:
It was so cheap, and in your colour.
It wasn't labeled "Propaganda"
Sold as "News," common knowledge,
accommodation to the norm.
And it fits your internal dialog so well
"Danger is everywhere these days of disorder,
scary change."
Just like all the days
when Freedom seems such a flimsy wage,
a cheap exchange
for sham Security.

80's legacy (happy Independence)

Don't blame the GWB administration, it was Reagan and his merry crew.
Though we protested in the post-Vietnam 70's
hot and sure about every error
the point is, we had that luxury. Yes, there was hardship,
discrimination,
individual need; but really no one need go hungry
for lack of a job, there was real community
spirit, especially on the lower rungs, but philanthropy as well.
There was a strong foundation that made sense
and could be reasoned with.
The 80's brought in a different worldview,
more wide and wild. Days of cocaine,
champagne, glamour and celebration for sweet deregulation,
when every dreamer
could believe the capitalist vision of wealth unbound.
Before it was found that
poisonous as plutonium in the gleeful arms of the truly greedy,
just what we
were free to become.
Since then it's been spinning our balance to bits of
blast-warped brains.
Such unbridled hatred and spitting disdain. Psychic
Cassandras said at the time, his numbers are 666.
A man possessed by
Hollywood fantasies of what we all should be,
folie a deux with the nation.
And here are those snowy yesteryears roosting
in our rafters, laying out
the macabre future of their disaffected dreams.
Who are we, really?
Distanced from our history,
believing convenient lies, what are our chances
for recovery?

Mothers' Night

cascading shards
uneasy
echoes falling
"It's our calling."

Rape of Earth,
hot spurts of words
savage knives
Abiding Mothers,
sacred and mundane
twist into harridan
cold stars

wail, hurtling waves
Sad, old, crust of ages
sliced, screwed, carved up for profit
"It's not the color of the skin,
the culture of the smile"

the scent of danger,
the inborn stranger --
all excuses for Us (superior)
and Them (inferior)
"They are not like we;
but lower curs."
we may harm with unfettered glee

Cursed to be cut to our requirement.
Borders clear
"Here, fear fences in
our livelihood and wives."
Leave THEM to putrid pits
cunning jabs,
our pleasure.

Thus, all treasure that might regale,
heal, reveal true worth,
of man and Earth
sold for pittance of potash
to dance a weary jig

social net

Yes, of course we ought be fiscally responsible.
Yet of far more import is that we be rational.
Hyperbolic apoplectic, Apocalyptic rhetoric
reduces us from politic to stagey raving maniacs.
No need for such hysteria; learn from recent history.
The flagrant ways of LBJ, Reagan and GWB
found mitigation in administrations following.
The People, energized, expand instead of wallowing.
Exciting industries take hold, real worth -- not hollow gold.

The conversation we as a nation need
is not a war of virtue versus greed
or capturing the rules to win a game
or playing catch with sophistry and shame.
We need to ask and answer in sobriety
Who we best can be as a society

eve of 9/11/11

September '11 rains (raos)

2011-09-09T18:50:00.000-07:00

love like breeze through leaves,

song of future longing,

autumn in the wind

The object is not in the doing, but the being. It is in developing ever deeper relationship with self, enjoying the jokes and music, being -- as that becomes.

don't worry over the work; feel the music

out on the interwebs, the cybercity

In this post-postmodern future, we can weave together knowledge from every source, be more resourceful.

Those who are avowedly anti-government, elected to destroy from within, are not going to put the necessary effort into making government function better for the common benefit.

Of course government spending grows the economy -- just as any spending does. With the assumption that government is not just throwing money into the ocean, but is spending on useful projects, a variety of public good is created, aka wealth.

If you start with the assumption that government is the problem, you are negating the possibility of using government sensibly as an organizing entity. If the private sector were taking care of the people's business, providing needed infrastructure, safety net, job training, and so forth, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

There are goods and services best provided in the private market. There are goods and services best provided as public projects. All of the economic transactions, public and private, make up the overall economy. This doesn't have to be an either/or war of all against all. We could, you know, act like reasonable human beings and figure out how best to provide the benefits of civilization rather than get caught up in ideologies.

Government, along with private transactions are the economy. The money does not come from the private sector, but from the US Treasury. Government at its best is the backbone structure of public projects within which private enterprises can more successfully grow while providing for the overall good of market mechanics. If government has become corrupt, that is just laziness all around.

The problem seems to be that neither government representatives nor private concerns are willing to take necessary risks to move forward. Everyone wants to blame. No one wants to be responsible. No one wants to lead with both reason and vision.

Government literally creates the currency, and the system of laws, the infrastructure both physical and in values, on which the economy rests. The private sector without some overarching system would only be barter of goods and services on a simple level. Taxation, as it has come to be used, is not so much for revenue as for influencing economic activity. Were we to have tax structure geared to revenue needs, it would most likely resemble some kind of flat tax whereby the costs of the national enterprise would be proportionately incurred by the public.

Yes, public/private partnerships are what make this country. Government programs often are overly layered with outdated concerns and bureaucracies. We could and should look to streamlining, creating a different paradigm for public/private projects that are open to scrutiny, clear in objective, and easily adjustable to changing needs, knowledge and abilities. This will never be even looked into if the mantra is "government is bad".

Is it "moral decay"? Or, is it, as that great poet Donald Rumsfeld might say, a transitional time of untidiness. The world is changing in every way imaginable; and imagination falters in the wake. People are, quite naturally, panicking, confused; the old order is no longer secure. As people slowly readjust, hopefully wise leaders will show where the best possible futures can be built, help to create a new, more flexible order that is more suited to a new world.

Kindness can be an intuitive response to the wider survival benefit understanding of enlightened self-interest. It is in our self-interest, for a variety of survival related and life enhancing reasons, to spread a kindness meme.

Why do those with nothing worth saying fill the air with hateful barbs cast at those offering thoughtful expression?
Why do folks project their so-called sins onto those they perceive as the opposition?
Why are they with nothing to say so loud?

Pushing kids into college as a lockstep after high school, unless they have a clear career requirement, is not the best course. Better for most people to work for awhile, discover exactly what education they need for the next step, and how best to acquire it.

Perhaps better business models could be developed on ideas of small, local, community-based enterprises. I wonder why there doesn't seem to be broad-based leadership to promote unemployed workers coming together to pool their talents into worker-created businesses.

To feel like they are accomplishing something or at least occupied, people need better things to do than a great deal of destructive effort put out now in the name of "the economy". I love creative people's lack of such need. Creative people create, figure out how to get their "music" out even in crazily adverse circumstances. Perhaps what is needed is to bring out the creativity in everyone, rather than training so many to be so dependent on employers.

There is no keeping money out of politics. What we need to do is make it irrelevant.

Marriage is FOR people who want to marry. Apparently good marriages lead to greater health; bad marriages lead to horrible lives. Maybe we need better public conversations about marriage -- apart from trying to make it a divisive issue.

The problem with apocalyptic Christianity is that when one's purpose is to bring on the end of the world and God's Judgment, there is little to negative incentive to work to improve conditions in the here and now, or for the future.

There are Christian sects, some quite prominent at least in the US right now, whose avowed purpose (like the avowed purpose of some of their Congressional Reps. is to destroy the Obama presidency) is to end the world, bring the End Times of Revelations, asap. Of course, if their goal is an End to the Earth, they have no interest in making anything better. It seems to me that these people are mistaken when they accuse others of Satanism, because the God they worship is the God of Evil, Destruction, Death, and Despair. They have no interest in being loyal and good stewards of God's Creation. They feel entitled to destroy it.

But I think the real question is, why do so many people hate their lives so much that they prefer to live in dreams of ultimate destruction?

to rouse the rabble

2011-09-05T13:01:00.001-07:00

It's not that government is bad. Government is our imaginary servant. It is we who are bad for relinquishing social consciousness, civic pride, and letting the old lady fall into such a pitiful state of mismanagement. Then we want to whip her into shape without respect or compassion, or the right will and good grace to accept responsibility. A bunch of lazy, undisciplined brats whining for our supper, complaining that "Jimmy pinched me!" "Suzy took my right to free self-expression!" Squabbling among ourselves as if our jealousies were matters of state.

Grow up. Take a good, hard look at just where you want to be; and get going. There are beautiful vistas to climb to. There are problems a'plenty that everyone can agree to wanting changed, even if we have a trillion intractably opposed solutions.

Start talking -- not screaming, talking, in measured tones, out of real self-interested concern, allowing that everyone else might also have legitimate concerns, allowing that we all deserve a chance to listen, think, exchange anger for enthusiastic energy.

Now, where was that, who was that, you wanted to be?

Wild, romantic energy

surging surrender

friends I never thought I'd see

out at sea, memory

laughs at how I care

a sudden scent of air

aching in places, ways, I

didn't know were there, in me.

When we begin, it's so thrilling,

surreal --

in the end

there's just too much to feel

When I dream, you no longer appear

in my scene.

Where have you been? Thinking of me?

Taxation to pay for the national enterprise is part of the social contract. You can get off the grid, off the dole, off road, into the wild and fend for yourself. People do. I guess it is harder with all the surveillance.

After 9/11 we insisted that the government keep us safe by any and all means necessary. Any of us could have been in those towers in lower Manhattan. Suddenly we are all in danger from terrorist attack. That's why none of us can be allowed to be free.

lion meets unicorn (raos)

2011-09-01T20:12:00.000-07:00

Think about the children
in every city, every half-assed town
on the street because nobody wants them.
Now, you tell me what a great, blessed country this is.

Humans, by virtue of our nature, create all kinds of ideas/beliefs/codes/agreements/ and so forth upon which we build our ways of being within this world, within ourselves, with each other.

Does there exist (or is there interest in creating) something like a wiki for governmental regulations? I am thinking of a systematized site for the listing of regulations by number/name/other designations, the actual language, simplified language in common English and whatever other languages seem appropriate, basic background and arguments pro and con, a facility for comments and comment threads, a link list for places to find regulations and express opinions to regulators.

Where is the leadership to create job programs in communities -- not the government, but people who see opportunities and concerns?

Everyone should be an everyoneist -- it's not the gender, color, or other distinguishing characteristic to divide, but to intrigue

that surge of terrible beauty through the gut, the capillaries sings

Anyone too naive or willfully ignorant to understand that what you say online is never private, needs to be so advised. Of course Google, a business, does what it does primarily to create profit. That is their job. That they also provide useful service is primarily a social good. Of course we must as responsible buyers beware, make the decisions that are in our own interest.

The thing is, those with what we consider great wealth are not measuring themselves against the vast majority with much less. They measure against each other. They look for every advantage to struggle further up. There is no reason for them to look down.

share a little cosmic laughter with the universe

People who are already desperately trying to deal with serious medical conditions certainly do not need to have unnecessary legal issues compromising them as well. Recreational users deserve to be considered regular noncriminals. People who have medical conditions that can be made less onerous, though, really need immediate compassionate care.

A serious mistake that is all too common is seeing children as potential future people. Children are people, living their lives. The important lessons are not about reading, math, and such, but about how to live in a world of others, and how to learn.

It's not about money or neighborhoods or ethnicities. Fundamentally, education is about relationships between teachers and students. Fundamentally, good relationships are about mutual respect. Why would anyone with any other option want to spend their time in a place where they are clearly not respected?

If you learn to learn, the rest will follow without need for "education" as such. If you learn to engage with others in a mutually respectful desire for success, the rest can be figured out as needed. I'm not saying we ought not learn to read and otherwise manipulate symbols -- just that these are not the most important lessons for a successful life.

Very clearly the poor do pay taxes -- usually in far excess of what might be considered a fair percentage of their net worth. Should they? Maybe the question ought to be, should they be poor?

Corporations are not "shipping jobs overseas". They are hiring and laying off based on what they see as their best profit options. Vilifying these businesses is not nearly as effective as creating our own.

If people really are having kids to get welfare money, the mathematical ability of the American citizen is much worse than anyone is saying.

Gold is only considered valuable because of historical reference. It is actually only somewhat useful, and heavy to carry around in quantity.

You know what is valuable? Skilled labor.

We only experience disasters because we expect what isn't. All these events are mere exigencies of life on a planet.

Ron Paul has more integrity and character in each white hair than Rick Perry in his whole do.

It could be that part of the limited demand has to do with products that are not accurately focused on what people do demand. There is far too much top-down thinking.

Lives and funds could be improved if prison time were confined to those who have acted violently. Nonviolent crimes: actual payment -- cash, service, or other methods.
It ought to, for those who are confined to protect others from their uncontrolled violence, be a place where rehabilitative programs flourish.

There is a reason economics is a "soft science". Just because you can put math around it, doesn't make it much more than speculation. Economics, far from a science, is just a set of theoretical applications of group psychology.

When we as a culture promote the idea of buying a pill to solve any problem, it is ridiculous to be shocked that many become addicted.

Clever capitalists will find a way to market.

There is obviously energy enough in the public arena to gather together to oppose. Why isn't the energy, creativity, anxiety and time of the people going to local or innovative enterprises that could serve and employ without kowtowing to moneyed interests or political cynics?

The mainstream diet seems designed to kill us early. Religious groups in favor of bringing on the Apocalypse and ending the travails of Earthly life gain ever more support. Why do we hate our lives?

Since the money comes from the government anyway, why not do away with taxes altogether. Directly pay for all government programs. Then let the money trickle down to the private sector.

It's not just strangers. Danger comes often from the people we see every day. It behooves parents and others concerned with children to teach self-defense techniques and instill strong feelings of self-worth.

The problem is not climate changes as such. Climates change. Humans are meant to be adaptable. The problem is the poisoning we do without thinking, as a matter of course, everyday convenience, that leads to serious degradation of the health of humans and the destruction of vital resources.

We erect ideologies to worship because we are small and scared. We want to believe we are special, beloved, part of they who are cared for. We want the believe their are set rules of behavior and thought which will keep us safe.

good night, Irene

2011-08-26T20:50:00.001-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6dK2JBPoJU

Pluto Transit

like a hurricane

like a natural disaster

wind and rain laying waste to my life.

tossed, torn, left astray and a stranger

in the way, or at least not the norm.

a sad wastrel left adrift in the storm.

sing my wanderers' song tonight.

let the wind carry my fading melody

off onto wind-whipped ports of call.

my breath's been carried out to sea

nothing left to become of me

once the hurricane has passed into the day

the foggy, rainy day . . .

I gaze upon the ragged sea.

Where's the fun
in hiding in the eye
of the hurricane?
I want to be bodysurfing
the storm,
madly dancing in the rain,
cast off from restrictive form ...
I want to taste sweet grapes
break crisply;
Embark on a journey of ecstasy
to be all I have
thought to be;
Yet safely reside
in a place deep inside
away from the prying norm.
I want romance in the sense of
sensation inviting and free.
I want a chance to believe in magic.
And I want what I want to be
crazily in love with me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=My2u2QyvyF4

August of fire (raos)

2011-08-20T22:04:00.001-07:00

Without true connection to our self, how can we be truly connected to any? Without true connection, how can we live effectively?

God will not cause people to share when they see no advantage. Atheism does not keep people from sharing because there is no big, bad dad or wise grandfather urging them to share. What we need is an understanding of enlightened self-interest, which would give to us the wisdom to see that by sharing we actually increase the benefit to ourselves in a great many ways.

Atheism, as such, is simply a nonbelief in a God. Human values are for humans, not gods. Atheism, and religion as such, for that matter, is irrelevant to a belief in human values. Even if we believe in God, that god's values may well not be our own. It is so much more important to give people a stake in human community, human caring, human support. Our job is not to speak for God, but for ourselves.

Self-valuation is a cultural and personal positive. A transcendent source or standard need not be theological in nature. There are ethical thinkers who can give transcendent standards by their stature and obvious truth. In fact, when we look to theology we do not observe the standards of God, but those of the men who have interpreted Him.

It may well be that "crap happens". However, when we take the Lord's Name in vain, in effect blame Him for our bad actions, He is expected to get testy.

It is up to us as human actors/thinkers/reasoners to understand our responsibilities to ourselves and each other. When we try to pass that responsibility off to someone or something outside of ourselves, that is the deconstruction, the faulty value.

Scared to death of a flawed human construct. That's what is keeping us from moving forward successfully.

A firm basis of belief in some kind of stable world, some kind of stable structure be it family, community of friends, ordered work environment, or simply a discipline of meditation, is conducive to mental (and physical) well-being. A community of believers (in anything) serves this. Religion at its best is a community of like-minded people who give each other place, belonging, a basis of security. The problem is when somehow that security gets perverted into war of our people who are THE people, and those people who are NOT US.

There are many who claim their religion as basis for all kinds of what can easily be agreed to as evil. This is, as I'm sure you would say, a perversion of religion. Yet, any belief can be perverted to sick aims, diseased world views. The way to health is in the individual, with good community back-up in the best of possible worlds. That community is best when it embraces a philosophy of loving acceptance, of willing good for all of its members and those who live beyond its boundaries.

There are a great many possible bases of community belonging, of people banding together to make life better for all of them. This is best achieved when we do not deny our humanity, our temporality, our physical/biological place on a living planet. If our eyes are always on heaven, we will not be appropriate stewards of the reality upon which we live here and now.

Sometimes it may be the sense of deprivation that is misplaced. Perhaps this is a time to look outside the bounds of such values as love and money, to find the deeper connection with one's own self-valuation. It is not so much about trying harder or better as it is an

"Something" may not come from "Nothing," in fact cannot. However, that does not create a need for a "cause". Something could be eternal, changing, without "cause," but rather process, movement.

Sometimes sharing burden can be as much a gift as sharing joy. It allows us to connect in our fullness of experience. It allows to all be imperfect. It allows us to grow, individually and together. It can be an opportunity to stop trying and figure out where one actually wants to be, then figure out how to get there -- not effort but understanding.

When we feel seen, listened to, brought in, we are better able to see, listen to, bring in and share our own magic.

In my opinion, leaders are those whom others will follow. A strong component of leadership is charisma. However, self-confidence, exuding an air of competence and calm, can be very charismatic. This can be learned.

If you want people to spare the time/energy to be concerned, it is your responsibility to be fascinating.

Cops shoot the innocent everyday (somewhere), and no riot. What was in the powder keg ready to spark?

The nature of 21st Century American democracy seems to be about the voice of money and its agents. The hope is that a candidate that looks rational and nonconformist will help people to galvanize our own rationality and creativity -- if that energy is actually available.

It is the ordinary people who actually create the great bulk of jobs. Mega-corps may smile and twirl facial hair to disguise that the work they offer for pay is not the everyday small business jobs, even as small as individuals trading their services, skills, products to customer bases they create.

The real way out of this mess is to take back our individual and small business initiative and show the oligarchs we don't need their stinking jobs. It is they that need our labor and consumption.

What we have been calling the right seems to base their eco/politics on a theory of government being the problem, while what we have been calling the left seems to want to create solutions based in governmental authority and large scale social projects. If we could simply discuss various merits and detriments, we could perhaps find ways to agree and move forward. Rather, though, we spend our resources of time and public debate on squabbling. Wouldn't it be lovely if we could in general grow up?

Let's get over this question of whether we need government or not, accept that we have it, and do the work to make it serve us effectively.

People act like the money goes into some giant bin called "government" to rot. The money is circulated right back through as government pays its bills to private contractors, low income consumers, basic research, infrastructure, and so forth.

Of course it won't hurt investments -- paying taxes is an investment in our country

Schools, for the most part, seem to be not organized and in practice for the benefit of the students, but for the adult practitioners. It's not just kids with (you know some kind of disability) but kids generally that are made less rather than more by standard schooling.

Somebody needs to take over the schools and get them functioning or find another paradigm to education.

What society needs to be sexually healthier generally is to stop treating sex like sin or woo-woo or a dirty secret. Bring sex back to its rightful place as simple biology. Bring people back to the understanding that we are biological beings. Now, once the shouting is over, let's have a clear, open, grown-up conversation about how my freedom to express ends where your personal space begins.

My feeling about bipolar is that it is about energy fluctuations, perhaps something to do with brain sugar levels.

If we think of addiction as habitualized behavior based on reward feedback rather than some scourge or disease, we can do better by all of us. In fact, we can find better addictions with real rewards to replace those latched on to in panic or other arduous emotion.

(In an aside, it occurs to me that a lot of the uncomfortable behaviors we associate with addiction are more about the strain of the addict hiding who he is from family and friends, feeling more comfortable with other addicts with whom he can feel more revealable.)

We may like to blame feel good excuses like "children need fathers" "need religious upbringing" "need old fashioned discipline". What children need is the stability and encouragement of caring, involved, self-confident roles models in their everyday lives. The culture of despair that leads to and exacerbates the problems of poverty and dysfunctional homes is more about perceived powerlessness, and the passing on of mental illness both genetically and socially that keeps individuals, families, communities mired in dissociative confusion. Healthy individuals, families, communities can tolerate wide ranges of cultural norms.

There is no good nor bad. There is what is, and what we make of it.

Eve of Hecate

2011-08-12T20:32:00.001-07:00

As we approach the 13th of August

August celebration of the Dark Moon Goddess

under the light of this August Full Moon

Aquarius bears the Water, carries the way

along the electro-virtual waves

shining Moonlight, Faery Queen or fabled harlot

stirs potent night blooms, expelling myths of

what we cannot bear, cannot overcome

Feel in the electric falling starlight

Spells of renewal, of power to look back

upon our falterings, to find the seed now grown

yet changing still and ever, able,

willing, co-creating in the illuminated shadow

invoking the peace of dissolving twilight

of midnight's hopeful resurrection

of the hinting flame that lightens before the dawn

take peace into each breath, each incantation

from the strength to align impeccably

with your deepest truth

August times (raos)

2011-08-11T21:25:00.001-07:00

I am tending toward the view that the Universe as we know it is a platform devised by and for futuristic gamers.

the information flows through me and leaves the inspiring bits for reworking through my imaginarium -- not a distraction but traveling suggestions from the dance

emotional extortion

If your life is a lie
and the lie is alive
tell me true:
what is your love?

The world is speeding up. People are anxious. Many people are finding it more and more difficult to maintain their accustomed lifestyles, or to feel secure. Anxiety breeds anger. Anger breeds violence.

apparently the religious-mind is often very small

I'm all for free will; but I had understood that when you take the Lord's Name in vain, He is meant to get testy.

When you learn to hate, you learn to hate the world you see every day.

Of course feelings come before thoughts. Feelings are hard-wired, natural chemical reactions. Thoughts take thought and time to muddle through.

the sky just emitted a symphony of waves, then shyly retreated behind the Sun

You are mistaken if you believe Democrats as such have progressive consciousness. The Democratic Party of today is centrist mainstream, and only "progressive" in relation to the far right pull of Republicans.

There are none so blind as those with shit in their eyes

Renunciation of the self, of the physical, of the material, of the sensual, is renunciation of the gift of life. Yes, we are better when we see through the social propaganda, the guilt trips, the veil of lies that we tell ourselves because they have been presented to us as truth. Yet, to throw away the lessons and playground of conscious human life as if that were the true goal, to destroy the gift of what we can do with our senses, our physicality, our time, would be a mistake, a lie, as well.

I shimmer at the thought of you aglow in imagination's shimmering light

Rather than impose intrusive chemical enforcers to change inappropriate thinking, we can learn to think in ways productive of better brainwork.

People tend to take their health for granted while they are healthy. If they think there is a quick fix to be had if they should get sick, that is what they want. How is the idea of a healthy lifestyle to become normative without outcries about "health gestapo" fears?

I don't have to be a mental illness denier to believe that there are better methods of treatment than the administration of potentially quite harmful chemicals. I am more in line with the believe that the mind can heal itself when appropriately encouraged.

The natural constituencies for political contenders is not the wealthy who represent too low a number nor the truly poor who have serious issues keeping them from the polls, but the wide middle of the Bell Curve who do all the actual work that keeps society humming. However, those of the wealthy few can easily prevail by cynically coopting the energies of the anti-intellectual elite.

Stocks don't suffer. We do. "The market" is an emotional index (though apparently rather bipolar) of our own devising, not a separate entity (or objective reality). People act en masse more on emotion than reason. The thing is, when stocks nosedive anyone with sense has a marvelous opportunity to buy low and make a fortune when the collective feels better.

When we insist to each other that poetry does not sell, that poetry is not valued by the mainstream, we are encouraging a self-fulfilling prophecy. Ask performing artists. They can't just do their job and expect applause. To even get seen they must develop an ardent audience. Once people are clamoring for your wares, finding people eager to sell them is a no brainer. What we need to be doing is not lamenting, but going out and finding, exciting and expanding our audience.

confidence - "with faith"

The ego is our organizing principle within our self. To try to make it more or less, to denigrate this hard and loyal worker, to destroy that which allows us to usefully interface with a chaotic world, or to elevate it beyond its functional realm are serious mistakes.

We sing Epiphany All the holy, all the empty, all the sorrows filled with poetry, with charging beasts of challenge and slip ping back words I hear the Angels sing of Earth as mud as muck, as f'in' murder in the womb, as luck would have it, as black streaks redacting the wounds of Heaven I hear the demons laugh, dancing spades akimbo hunker down to limbo to lindy hop upon the prophet's breath Such noise Such annoying brays and cagey whispers I would sleep, snore, evermore if they would but diminish, allow silence to enfold Instead, the dream takes over, dissolves all sanity no morning (mourning) (see, I can pun without baring to the Sun, without dimension)(dementia -- did I mention?) felled in heap of clay

Amazingly, after much initial despair over the US/world/individual angst, I seem to be going all philosophical and feeling personally empowered by letting the world go to Hell on its own -- not callousness, relinquishing responsibility for others' twisty paths

poetry mice
nibble nimble syllables
feed on grainy meaning
scamper renewed, enlarged

Get out there and dance!

That God has not clearly and loudly condemned those who do dreadful deeds in His name seems to me adequate proof of His nonexistence.

Of course, when you try to explain the benefits of meditation, that is abhorred as heretic doctrine.

We really need to have this public conversation about the insanity of "safety" procedures that first do harm.

There is no saving ourselves out of deficit/debt. New industries with excitement and job growth are on their way every day. The route is not shared pain, but shared endeavor, to be educated and open to the new.

July a deux (raos)

2011-07-31T22:56:00.001-07:00

I bow in awe

spritely step upon the stage

pirouette, send applause exploding

into rafters

and after

weep into a borrowed liminality

Enjoying a celestial fling of word-scaped imagery -- must be my release of atmospheric anxiety day

With the vast and expanding pool of information far beyond what individual minds can (or ought to) hold, we are much better for having easily accessible online data stores and effective methods for retrieval.

been there

but what about the restless hum

Summer below early dawn

prescient blood prowls almost silent

Words,

mere placeholders for ideas which cordon space,

objects, mirrors may amaze

or capture gaze or serve as sharing media

(interface amygdala)

Contoured as art exhibits,

break inhibition

entertain observing brains aware

Happiness is like a butterfly capturing your mind through gleaming eye; feel free flight exhilarate

Bliss

the source condition that surrounds us,

the essence of all space in, around, between.

the Creator's plan, Eden's blueprint, paradise here and hereafter,

Christ's salvation, Buddha's enlightenment, Mohammed's dream,

Zarathustra's revelation,

the holy secret Great Goddess whispers

in cradling lullaby.

All consciousness is an option

to open eternally

into full awareness of bliss.

Breathe in the healing.

Breathe out the stale pain.

Laugh in the chilling rain,

yes, even as the tsunami hits,

the Earth quakes,

erupting ash burns.

A universe of bliss is yours

for the accepting.

It costs nothing but your sins,

your misconceptions,

your resistance to true unfettered life,

your immortal soul.

If the above and below, the in and the out, the left and the right, the sad and the scared intertwine long legs sharing Summer idolatry, where can we go to be alone?

We only have the right to so much of an artist -- what they freely give. Her destiny is her own.

Nothing new under the Sun? What a sad belief. Perhaps, in Solomon's day when "news" did not travel well, and society was fairly stable, he might think that. In the 21st Century change is evident all the time. However, even if somehow we were aware of all that could ever be, we each, unique combinations of experience and self, bring our own interpretations.

The bias of tv news is neither left nor right but banality.

Form follows function free within sound structure. Dance outside the lines; the lines are still implied.

Darling little crumbs dribble from your swollen lips.

my heart fills, bursts, broken, searches these grey wastelands for a seed

Quizzical, amicable, yet ready to dive inside
swim waves of mind
on a glorious Summer reverie

The healthy course would be to stretch, and enjoy the excitement of movement, discovery, self-challenging. Learning to view others as competitors only invites paranoia.

The job creators are those who buy the goods and services thereby encouraging more to be made and sold. Generally speaking, no one hires for pay unless they have good reason to believe they will make more from that hire than they will spend. Businesses are not in the business of creating jobs, but of making profits. Taxation does not impede the desire for profit. When private spending does not provide enough incentive for businesses to grow and thus need more employees, government spending can help to create jobs.

The job destroying GOP likes to conflate and conquer

A lot of the problem is with context and definitions. Somehow people seem to conceptualize "government" as some monolithic structure outside of themselves. Having this concept allows those who know how to get benefit from manipulation to dissipate what might have been individual's useful energy into working against individual and thus societal best interests.

We seem to prefer the warrior attitude of blasting our ills with chemical warfare, no matter that it is counterproductive.

What is this fascination with the gay? Where we need to look is at relationships -- in all their glorious variety.

The affirmed goal of the right is to deseat the US President, and possibly to bring down the government altogether. The thing is, if the American people don't take their Obama-bashing as good clean fun or gospel fact revealed, if we, you know, act like reasonable people, they lose. Meanwhile, they've had their fun at our expense.

I have been thinking that an underlying problem of this whole debt mania is a difficulty in dealing with large numbers. Sure the debt is in the trillions, but if you look at a world population in the billions, and trade transactions in numbers we don't even want to think about, a few trillion is actually not very much.

Orphans, widows, people too ill to work, and old folks without issue to take care of them when they are too old to take care of themselves and others -- where will they go when they can't pay the rent?

A thing people don't seem to get about President Obama, aside from him being a confirmed centrist, is that he seems to see his mission as bringing the country together along a middle path. I believe his concern is actually more with bringing about compromise, the sides working together for the common good.

Life has no meaning; that is up to us.

When by inaction or lack of outrage we allow free floating anxiety to project into attacks on "Mexicans," "Gays," "Degenerates," or any other label, we in essence allow our culture to devolve into "the war of all against all".

Rights require responsibilities -- they are not just freely wafting through the air for all to partake. The right is not to healthcare per se, but to do what we will or must to maintain health. The wrong is not in healthcare providers requiring to be paid for their work, but in the healthcare insurance industry and the healthcare industry working to make it harder for people to access the care they need. We would be ever so much better as a society to make health information more generally accessible, and to train a great deal more healthcare professionals so they become a more common commodity.

If we insist on waiting for "the government" with all the insane drama and "important" pork not much useful gets done in a timely manner. People who use, supply, and care about medical care really need to get together community by community and develop free care options that work.

Listening to the utter madness of the House members discussing the demise of this country they have been given stewardship of (????); reading sad commentary on working poor lives, poor lives ground down to fine dust beneath the well-shod feet of their "betters"; I have been musing along the moldering allies of desolation that "social darwinist" "christians" who think they are in charge must believe it best that the masses who take up too much room and resource for their liking would be better left to rot and die, to leave all the best, all the real estate and wealth for them and their chosen servants.

Politicians in a curmudgeon imply no obligation to pay debts. Who would want to lend to us without a much bigger rate of return to offset the risk? Meanwhile, we have people dependent on getting what was promised from the government. We could get better deals for our dollars. That has nothing to do with the debt already incurred, and the need to continue borrowing to meet obligations already committed.

We have economic crisis, so Congress wastes our time and resources on a worthless show. If you can't give the people bread, give 'em a circus?

If anyone in DC were serious about deficit reduction, they would insist on funding alternative energy research, start-ups and education.

Lives and funds could be improved if prison time were confined to those who have acted violently. Nonviolent crimes: actual payment -- cash, service, or other methods.

Social Security is not causing economic problems, in fact ameliorates many of them.

Medicaid and Medicare are part of the problem of skyrocketing medical costs. What is being proposed to solve the actual problem?

The real fix on revenue would be a streamlined, clear, concise, user friendly instructions for giving our social structure its cut. Not a job that can be done in a hurry, though.

Social Network

2011-07-31T14:46:00.001-07:00

to paraphrase that great poet, Donald Rumsfeld: We work with the Congress we have, not the Congress we wish we had

Yes, of course we ought be fiscally responsible.

Yet of far more import is that we be rational.

Hyperbolic apoplectic, Apocalyptic rhetoric

reduces us from politic to stagey raving maniacs.

No need for such hysteria; learn from recent history.

The flagrant ways of LBJ, Reagan and GWB

found mitigation in administrations following.

The People, energized, expand instead of wallowing.

Exciting industries take hold, real worth -- not hollow gold.

The conversation we as a nation need

is not a war of virtue versus greed

or capturing the rules to win a game

or playing catch with sophistry and shame.

We need to ask and answer in sobriety

Who we best can be as a society

July 31, 2011

Debt and Politics

2011-07-16T11:56:00.001-07:00

We have had debt. We have paid debt. We have incurred debt that needs to be paid. Yes, we do need to look at what government spending is and make it more in line with what outcomes we actually want. These are separate issues.

My government has entered into contracts with various suppliers and agents which included promises of various payments. We get a good credit rating to allow us to continue paying off our creditors at a low interest rate, and which encourages further credit because we are known as a good risk. When key members of the family/government get all up in a curmudgeon and imply we have no obligation to pay these debts or that we will just pay what we want, oops. Now there is real suspicion that we are not going to continue to be a good risk. Who would want to lend to us without a much bigger rate of return to offset the risk? Meanwhile, we have a great number of dependents whose lives are based on getting what was promised from the government. Maybe there are ways we could save, have fewer obligations, get better deals for our dollars. Certainly, that ought to be looked into, discussed, better options adopted. That has nothing to do with the debt we have already incurred, and the need to continue borrowing to meet those obligations we have already committed to.

If the money isn't there to pay all the bills, there will be prioritization which may not prioritize what we may think are the real priorities. These are foolish political games with real consequences for real people. Perhaps we need to tell our reps that we didn't hire them to play on our dime?

Many ordinary women do the practical work of budgeting for families, and learn to keep the creditors paid and the kids fed, clothed and otherwise provided for.

These jerks in DC, rather then do the work they are outrageously paid for, insist on raging dramatics (what? to make themselves seem relevant?)

Oh, right, the country is in economic crisis so of course what we need from Congress is that they waste our time and resources on a dog and pony show. I guess if you can't give the people bread, give 'em a circus.

This whole debt/deficit thing is all smoke and mirrors. Next boom and with even the slightest sensible management we're back. With all the world changes -- physical, political, every which way, the markets and new technologies are ready to rock and roll. It is only idiocy or old power desperately striving to hang on that gives rise to this whole "share the pain" mantra, when instead we ought to be reaping the benefit.

I, and many others, keep saying: There is no way to save ourselves out of the deficit/debt. The only way out is up. Big new industries with excitement and job growth are on their way every day. The route is not shared pain, but shared endeavor. We need to be educated and open to the new.

The only sacrifice to be shared is a manufactured fabrication of the media fog. Rather, it is an abundance of possibility for shared success that we could be working toward, if only we would.

If anyone in DC were serious about deficit reduction and debt payment, they would insist that funding for alternative energy research, start-ups and education be in the mix.

One big way we can improve both lives and funds: prison time ought to be confined to those who have acted violently or who are flight risks during investigation. It ought to, for those who are confined to protect others from their uncontrolled violence, be a place where rehabilitative programs flourish. Nonviolent crimes deserve payment as actual payment -- whether cash, service, a combination, or some other method of extraction.

Social Security is not causing any part of our economic problems, and is in fact ameliorating many of them.

Everyone says: "Medicaid and Medicare are not the problem. They are part of the bigger problem of skyrocketing health care costs. " This is, of course, true. So, what is being done or proposed to solve the actual problem?

If people want services they can get together and charge each member of the community to create a pool from which to pay contractors to provide said services. Wait a minute: we already do that -- we call it taxes.

Of course the real fix on the revenue end would be to totally revise the tax code to a streamlined, clear, concise, user friendly set of instructions for giving our social structure its cut. Not a job that can be done in under a month, though.

July in truth

2011-07-14T21:35:00.001-07:00

I love that time when dream and real merge for a hazy conversation. I get many ideas for writing from out of dreams and near dreams. Even if the idea is loose or "far-fetched" it is a jumping off point for getting into the swim where it can be manipulated into fully formed imagery.

What sweetly dangling words to break my fast What deeply caressed hope to meet my eyes Awake, seeking, scanning upon chance and Behold! Such happy surprise!

oh so voluptuous
this gorgeous rendering
I bow beneath such radiance
and kiss the Earth

Poetry is about meaning and wonder
Poetry can say: "Yes, we feel the same"
and "Yes, we can go further, together."
It's not the rhyme or word or name
that creates this form we ponder
to say what we've seen, how we came
to be who we are, how another's
ways of making sense have made us
more ...

knives, bombs, banana peel pies -- as each arena signifies

People don't seem to even take into consideration that much alcohol/other drug "addictive" use is self-medication for pain (physical and emotional), fear, and social abuse that one needs to distance oneself from.

the American way. Here we teach total irresponsibility until total responsibility and wonder why things get so screwed up.

failure is only an option in bilateral thought -- otherwise, there are only varieties of success

World religions, like any large unwieldy group splintered into factions with differing interpretations of their cause or core beliefs, are kind of strange meme syndromes, projections of everyone seeking salvation in all the wrong places.

Cooperation makes better products. Enlightened self-interest makes better people. Competition, though, can make for better pricing.

Honesty is about more than raw truthfulness. Perhaps it is ultimately about impeccable authenticity.

Nothing buys happiness. It's not for sale.

"Gayness" is not a disease or illness to be cured. What might need some medicating is our general attitudes about sex. Sex is not evil, sinful, bad, or deviant. It is a simple biological necessity. When we accept ourselves as biological entities we might be better able to accept our sexualities and act accordingly.

why include inert (as far as protection) harmful chemistry in the vaccines and suppose they do no harm (even if "autism" isn't that harm)?

People seem to think that exercise is a specific set of activities for which they have no time. Walking, dancing (even by oneself in front of the mirror or not for a few moments here and there), stretching oh so luxuriously for a moment now and then -- these are healthy exercise that anyone can do anywhere, any time.

Far from "socialism" the bailout was promoted by uber-capitalists in charge of many members of Congress and cronies of the neocons in power at the time. The fear of armageddon was thrown into us so that very few in government or out could muster opposition. As to "success," that would depend on how we are defining that word.

If the concern was really financial stability, it would have been far better to buy out the mortgage debt and give the administration of getting houses and owners together to a responsible agency. Then, encourage monied interests to invest in worthwhile businesses through special considerations as determined through negotiation. In other words, invest taxpayer money responsibly.

If they are TRUE reps they vote for what the people want because they want the people to think well of them, vote for them, get out the vote for them. If they are true reps of the monied classes that pay for their elections, then it is up to the people to become more relevant, or more educated, and more organized.

I blame the education "system" wherein useful information is not conveyed.

We may well need airport security, but in a completely different concept. Get rid of the screeners and molesters. Train people to observe behaviors and check out those who seem suspicious with polite conversation. There is no way the system we have now can find any threat, and instead it alienates the traveling public who should be each an agent of observance just because it is what people do. For actual security on the plane, it would be ever so much more effective to have actual trained security on each flight as part of the crew.

Riding the gentle glide, the whirling wind
Inside this grave bubble of in and out
Surrounded by gift and giving
Essential to we, the living

Obviously Libyan rebels are good, socially aware and active folk, deserving of all the aid and reinforcement we could offer them instead of deadly "support".

While it is the job of the President to take into account all the varied interests within the nation, it is very much the job of the activist to promote their cause as THE cause.

Come on, this wasn't the work of one man. We have all contributed to this change. Want better change? Really: Be the change YOU want to live.

I'd say Kansans who don't want to live under the control of Christian taliban really need to organize and throw the bums out.

Is that what the anti-Planned Parenthood campaign is about (not to mention the hideous "drug war"), feeding big pharm?

It was my understanding that when a woman suffers a miscarriage the civilized thing to do is offer condolences and any practical aid during their time of grief.

It seems reasonable that people who would base their creeds on indisputable documents of forefatherly lore would fail to understand cultural relativism over time.

This is an issue people from the left and right can come together on. If we don't demand the freedoms we expect as Americans, how are we to continue to expect them?

These pols who insist they are laser-focused on jobs seem to only cut the jobs they have direct control over. Everyone complaining and blaming could be using that energy to come up with effective non-partisan solutions; but what fun is that?

Unfortunately for the American people, this kind of obvious game-playing is devaluing the actual good ideas and important principles of the Republican viewpoint

If anyone in DC were serious about deficit reduction, debt payment, they would insist that funding for alternative energy research, start-ups and education be in the mix.

Posturing indeed. These jerks in DC, rather then do the work they are outrageously paid for, insist on raging dramatics (what? to make themselves seem relevant?)

Social Security is not causing any part of our economic problems, and is in fact ameliorating many of them.

Many ordinary women do the practical work of budgeting for families, and learn to keep the creditors paid and the kids fed, clothed and otherwise provided for.

There is a derogatory term for people who don't pay their debts -- I think it might soon be replaced by "republican".

The idea that no regulation or no government can be useful to the social good, especially when promulgated by those on the public trough as government representatives, is a prime obstruction to actually doing the work to make government and regulation work for us.

an excellent method of stopping bad behavior is to call it out loudly and cause the bad actor to be publicly scathed -- this then is a warning against future bad behavior, that it will not be ignored
Regulation is, when done right, the forewarning to those who are in the public arena that the public is watching.

To that end, regulation is best made very clear, concise, sensible and limited to areas of actual public concern.

Prices, obviously in this case, are not based on the cost to the companies. They are based on what people will pay. Take away the oil subsidies; spend some of the savings on tax breaks for start-up alt energy companies and research. The competition will bring down the prices. There is no need to pay the oil companies twice.

The only sacrifice to be shared is a manufactured fabrication of the media fog. Rather, it is an abundance of possibility for shared success that we could be working toward, if only we would.

If you want an alcoholic to stop drinking, they need a better obsession. If a strongly organized section of humanity is hell bent on self-destruction, perhaps they need a better method that doesn't force everyone else down with them.

science writers like to jump on theories -- we do well to remember our profound ignorance

lumping people into a heap and saying they have no convictions (while you, oh so convicted, stand above) is not fair, honest, or helpful.

Freedom of Speech is not freedom of bad taste
Freedom requires responsibility

Better to serve the sacred cow than the golden goose.

Because Willie Nelson is so obviously a dangerous criminal without redeeming social value?

They wouldn't have put all that effort in without purpose. I believe the original purpose was to keep jobs for all those folks who had worked in alcohol prohibition. Then, there was the old (and still prevalent) "kill the Mexicans" sentiment -- needed reason to round up the undesirables of any kind like jazz musicians ("not good musicians") and unruly young folk. Oh, and then Nixon wanted to be strong on crime and worked on the theory that crime was caused by drugs (when in fact, without prohibition prices, addicts could have easily afforded their drugs and been able to work jobs to do so). So, plans and purposes -- both political.

Is there a community garden near you, or a vacant space that could become one?

Prison time ought to be confined to those who have acted violently or who are flight risks during investigation. It ought to, for those who are confined to protect others from their uncontrolled violence, be a place where rehabilitative programs flourish. Nonviolent crimes deserve payment as actual payment -- whether cash, service, a combination, or some other method of extraction.

I must be living in a fantasy world where businesses are actually required to perform their services well, or face total lack of public support. Or maybe this is the fantasy world where businesses become our greedy robot overlords, squeezing out our blood and guts and leaving the excrement for our sustenance.

Those magical entrepreneurs of the market's potent hand really need to get cracking on instant water.

August month of lion and maiden
cast fiery pure as heat dries lust
for action
yet in summery dreams redemption
shimmers, force carried forward
May gusto of august dreams
inspire trust
for harvests heavy laden

Under the shadow
Happy homecoming dancing
Free toe to smile
for just this capture
I wait for you.

latter June musings

2011-06-30T22:18:00.001-07:00

It's not a brain malformation
It's about the hate
Encultured information
shouts, whispers, insists
"violence!"
to capture, ensorcel, the growing mind
Turn hand to fist, shake explosive arms
"It's weak to be kind"

We are killing our children (and setting up bad habits for a lifetime of illness) by insisting they sit in schools for hours on end. I have often proposed (and am not alone) dance breaks between classes.

You know what I don't see in the Dutch turning the mj shops into private clubs for their own adult citizens? I don't see a problem with drugs. I see a perceived annoyance with narco-tourists (who no doubt can be obnoxious). I see a solution created by a government for their people. I say: Let's have private mj clubs in every municipality around the world. No more war.

You know what keeps people from striving to get ahead? Complete frustration. So they smoke some soothing plant to help them deal with an impossible situation -- and you oh so superior stand above and sneer.

Uprooted from this verdant valley of despair; uplifted to exhilaration of peak air

That God has not clearly and loudly condemned those who do dreadful deeds in His name seems to me adequate proof of His nonexistence.

I know it well overstimulation ohmygodthelightsandheavymetalrushing what could have been a thrill, the rush of being alive

a piece of quiet longing

motions set into story

photographs

captures of grace and metaphor

may every creature fly home

simplest charms, self-expressions

hold dear arms, happy notions

into formation for flinging

like merry seeds to feasting eyes

The truth will set you free ... of your political position.

You tell a tale of private familiarity simple, trivial, self-contained

Profound sincerity eternal poetry

Superb crafting Cinematic effect Camera pulls in, pulls out The story lingers

Invocation of a potent protection spell remember who you are empowered

I choke on sawdust filler trying to fool my throat into translating it with MacDonald's tv sizzle

The Almighty gave us farts so we wouldn't take ourselves too seriously. Let go, and laugh!

Ron Paul is only considered "fringe" because the major media outlets insist on so labeling him. He is a libertarian, which is certainly a respectable branch of the Republican ethos. He is also highly practical, and has a definite crowd-pleasing charisma. He is certainly less "fringey" than Kucinich (whom many support). He is a great deal less "fringey" than many of the Republican "mainstream" candidates.

I am thinking we need to push for Ron Paul's candidacy -- bring the war issue to the fore.

I am thinking we need to push for Ron Paul's candidacy -- if only to obviate Bachmann's tea party creds.

I am thinking we need to push for Ron Paul's candidacy as a ballast of sanity.

People hate taxes because taxation is often unfair, coercive and annoying, but most especially it is because people are told that taxes are unfair, coercive and somehow unAmerican by people who are trying to make profit from controversy. If we wanted to be sane and figure out what programs we think our society would benefit from, realize money is not a thing of value but only a means of valuation and the real value is what beneficial outcome of these programs, we would all be better off and less annoyed.

Perhaps it would help if we stopped and thought about what it is that we as a nation want from educating our children. Now, is it really what we are doing? Most of our children (native or immigrant) are ill-educated.

The problem is not the government. It is the people who elect and "serve".

Apparently the Supremes believe they have more in common with the psychotic corporate people than we meat people.

Why not teach nutritional science both to the school kids and the admins.?

Ingenuity, not divisive anger, is what will get us where we need to go.

It's not so much that we need to raise tax percentages, as we need to raise revenue. That might better be achieved, in terms of overall value to the country, as changing attitudes toward taxation and how it is used to influence economic activity.

Where have all our freedoms gone, long time passing?
Where have all our freedoms gone, taken like tolls?
Where have all our freedoms gone, gone to lawyers every one
or is that "liars," anti-freedom pols.

This is an issue too serious and bound up in deeply felt emotion to be sorted out by legislation. We need real dialog -- not just snipes and spite and soundbites.

Joy to the Season

2011-06-21T00:08:00.002-07:00

The Moon is adrift in the wind above

our sheltering craft in the sea

and all the world of Summer is ours

to ride the heat, toast to the stars

dance a languid beat, open our hearts

create a Summer of Love

Celebrate waves in the streets, with drums,

lucid bells call folk to play

Carnival cheer returns heat to fire

Chants blend to song, burning desire

into a chance to expand ever higher

fueled by smiling Sun

June 2011