(C)ann4ing echoes the concerns of others about how domesticated Humans might be able to keep the comforts and conveniences of “civilization” while somehow getting rid of those features of the condition that are so plainly destructive of our Living Arrangement here….and not coincidently the organic bases of their own existence into the “bargain.”  Seems like those examples of technology, f’r instance, however “green,” that have the effect of dissolving the organic sinews of “community,” and fracturing even further the resultant “nuclear” families into their “individual” parts, just can’t help but make the present situation even worse.

There is considerable CONfusion among our tame sisters and Brothers when it comes to telling the essentials from the merely incidental.  Civilization, for example, isn’t a collection of artifacts and institutional systems and beliefs.  It is a process that aims at bringing about a certain condition.  Those who’ve undergone the process generally consider themselves “civilized,” and take it to be an exalted state.  Us surviving primitive savages, on the other hand, enjoy a sort of natural immunity to the procedure, and can’t find a nickel’s worth of difference between it and those practices that “civilized” people employ to domesticate those of our Relatives here who promise “profit” of some kind.

So again to to borrow (loosely) from The Bard of Avon:  The fault, Dear Domesticates, lies not in your gadgetry or your philosophy or even your “economy.”  The fault lies in your “Selves.”

Besides, americans and europeans occupy much the most velvet-lined cells in the “global” prison.  Most other inmates don’t have things nearly so cushy.  Here in these latter days, though, even the privileged are looking at being reduced to the bare-bones existence so familiar to their “less fortunate” fellows.

No doubt whatever proves essential among the furnishings of the passing age will be kept.  Everything we can get along better without….probably most of it….we’ll be happy to just let go.

Certainly no one is going to go around compelling “choices” on anyone.  That’s a feature of the civilized system we’ll all want to be out-from-under.

HokaHey!

Tao, the essential problem I have with your advocacy of primitivism (“free and wild”) is that it ignores the potential for sustainable green technologies that permit the advantages of civilization without exploiting the earth’s resources.  Your “free and wild” assumes that the ecological balance can be maintained only if we return to the population levels and methods of community survival that were available to the Lakota people in the 19th Century.

While there is much I admire about the Lakota sense of oneness with “mother earth” and all its creatures, both four legged and two-legged (be they the domesticated tame or the free and wild), I remain unconvinced that a similar sense of community cannot be instilled in a truly democratic polity that can learn to live in harmony with the environmental limits our planet provides—and in much greater numbers than those the Lakota philosophy envisions.

This old Savage sure doesn’t mean to upset or offend anybody here.  After all, even a lifeguard on a beach, warning of rip-tides or sharks or some other deadly hazard, may get occasional arguments from drunks and other “individuals” who resent the implication there are conditions at-hand they might be much less able to “manage” than they like to think they are.  The domesticated people who’ve been pursuing the intoxicating mirage of their “happiness” here on Turtle Island, much more often than not exhibit just that kind of “mind set,” along with its habitual reactive patterns.

Even so, maybe it’s best to make clear here that no “moral” judgements (about “good” or “evil”) are in-any-way intended….that “morality” stuff being entirely in-the-eye-of-the-beholder anyhow.  Which is to say it’s just another “strain” in the epidemic of “make-believe” afflicting those Humans who’ve been subject successfully to the process of civilization.  If having the dimensions and the content of their grave misfortune described to them, by someone standing firmly outside the “boundaries” of their predicament, makes some inmates uncomfortable, even angry, it seems worthwhile to wonder whether striking-out at the observer really can have any mutually beneficial effect.

This old Person, for instance, has waded around quite a bit in the polluted mud-puddle of “civilization,” with the specific intent of “taking-in” Personally its actual effects on Human and other Beings who are enmeshed in its toils….to get on intimate terms, so to speak, with the motives and methods involved in “converting” Natural “raw material” (all of it Living) into artifactual forms of one kind and another (all of them at-best no more than half-living, and invariably unstable as they “decay”).  So the conclusions offered here come from actual Personal experience with the process, over an extended period of “time.”

Yet even those who are, by definition, among John Mccain’s “....fellow (‘n’ gal?) prisoners,” however used they may’ve become to the conditions of their captivity, however “normal” and inevitable they’re persuaded this diminished “estate” must be, nevertheless continue to exhibit at least some small but acute awareness of how essentially degrading it is to their Humanity (or Bovinity or Equinity or Caninity or….you name it) to be confined and exploited for the exclusive “use” of their tormentors.  For all Earth’s Children, living free and wild is absolutely essential to our health and well-being.  Just as “civilization” itself has manifested here as a kind of planetary “disease,” so have Humans and all our Relations roped-into its usages become more and more sick on account of it….so much so among the most “developed” tame two-leggeds that they’ve come increasingly to define their “selves” by the ailments they suffer and (temporarily) survive.

To “condemn” those born-into captivity would be inane, to “pity” them insulting.  To try to help them remember and reach-for their natural “heritage,” and all the organic responsibilities that go with it, the fulfilling of which makes us WHOLE, seems to this old Man the least us surviving free wild Peoples of all “races” and “cultures” all around the world can do for our domesticated Sisters and Brothers.  This is especially so as the apparatus entrapping them collapses around them and threatens to smother so many in its rubble.

Those already “there” can, of course, safely ignore our offerings.  Those who find them distasteful in some way….well, you’re still free enough to push them away, at least.  And no hard feelings on our part.

Hokahey!

Excellent post, S.  I concur fully.  Indeed, I believe that the task of all progressives, following the election of Barack Obama, is to work with groups like Progressive Democrats of America to effectuate meaningful change.  For example, there is no need to give up on single-payer simply because the soon-to-be President-elect Obama has yet to embrace it.  I know that even the AMA has embraced it, and it is far superior to Obama’s proposals which, in turn, are vastly superior to McCain’s.

The only point on which you and I disagree is in your statement that either Obama or McCain will be president.  At this point, the only way McCain can become the next president is to steal the election through the Republican Party’s illegal suppression and computer theft efforts.  Unfortunately for McCain, fortunately for the rest of us, Republicans do not have the same control over the voting machinery in as many key states as they did in 2004 when the election was stolen in Ohio.  Come Nov. 5, Obama will be the president-elect.

Thank you again, cann4ing.  My point has been made:  While it is a worthy perspective, the Native American way is not the only answer, nor is the Tao Teh Ching’s.  I think implied throughout Tao’s posts is a superior moralism:  that the “free wild People might help our domesticated Sisters and Brothers, as they endure the catastrophic disintegration of the contraption they’re all trained to call “civilization.”  Here on Turtle Island people have come from all over the world looking to extract in one way or another what they hope and expect will satisfy their desires and longings….on going for hundreds of years….because the motives and methods employed by these immigrants and their descendents have been so contrary to The Song ‘n’ Dance of Life Herownself, they have now run hard up against the pitiful limits of their knowledge and understanding…. What us surviving Savages are willing and able to do is to help tame Two-leggeds remember the Human Way of Being here among the Children of our Mother Earth….to act as the Native Guides that have so far gone pretty much ignored by people convinced they already know better how to live here….a kind of prideful ignorance, really, now being shown-up for that.”  I don’t mind repeating it.  But if this isn’t a kind of superiority moralism, then nothing is.  If it isn’t, why, then, doesn’t he reference other cultures’ naturalistic positions.

You said:  “he advances the life style philosophy of the Lakota peoples—a concept of oneness of “Mother Earth” with all living beings.  It is an ecologically-friendly philosophy that advances concepts of community that coincides with Barack Obama’s references to “co-responsibility.”

I don’t disagree at all with this sentiment and assessment.  Again, I just think it is a perspective that is not within the sole province of the Lakota people.  The fact you pointed out, that Obama’ references tco-responsibility, attests to that.

I did not say Obama was a socialist.  I explicitly said he wasn’t.  However, if a bottom up philosophy of economics is what he is proposing, and that is exactly what he has said time and time again, then I am definitely for that and not for the top down that has practically irreparably ruined this country and that has been in effect since Reagan.  Even the great financial guru Greenspan has admitted that in his own labyrinthine inimitable way that it didn’t work, and we see now its devastating effects.  It is moot anyway, since either Obama or McCain will be the new president in a week’s time.  You can take your pick, or not, if you haven’t voted already.  I’ve already made mine. 

The only thing democratic socialists can do, in my humble opinion, is to exert whatever pressure they have on the government both the President and Congress to not only stress economic justice, but to implement economic justice; to provide equitable health care, not just leave promises in the dust of the voting booth; to carve out a better education program for the American youth; to end the wars in the Middle East and conserve those resources for the programs he has promised he would carry out.  The reality is this is the best we can do as civilized people.

My mantra was and continues to be:  For a real change in the White House and the Supreme Court, Vote Obama/Biden, and I will now add vote for a Democratic Congress.

By Shenonymous, October 28 at 5:12 am #

If the American Indian intuited that their survival came from cooperating with nature, then that was an intuition born from rational thought. It is not only within the province of Native Indians to come to those conclusions.

_________________________

Precisely, but I don’t read in Tao’s post a claim of racial superiority.  Rather, he advances the life style philosophy of the Lakota peoples—a concept of oneness of “Mother Earth” with all living beings.  It is an ecologically-friendly philosophy that advances concepts of community that coincides with Barack Obama’s references to “co-responsibility.”

Obama is not a Socialist.  His is a Keynesian view of economics that emphasizes that our society functions better when wealth emerges from the bottom up.  It stresses economic justice, which, in Obama’s words, entails “a constant balancing act between self-interest and community, markets and democracy, the concentration of wealth and power and the opening up of opportunity.”

Per John Talbott, “Obamanomics”:  “Obama has realized that it is impossible to talk about equal opportunity if a society bases all privilege and opportunity on the wealth of one’s parents.”

Like FDR’s New Deal, Obamanomics is designed to preserve capitalism by reigning in its excesses, but it is most definitely not Socialist.

Compare the Conyers/Kucinich single-payer health care plan to Obama’s.  Single payer would eliminate the parasitic middle men—for profit carriers & HMOs that account for 31% of the cost compared to administrative costs of 1% to 2% in single-payer countries.  Obama leaves the health care market in the hands of these parasites, but tinkers with it through subsidies, tax credits and an elimination of preexisting conditions as an excuse for non-payment by the carrier.

While I haven’t heard Obama say he was a Socialist, as a Democrat, he does support many socialistic programs, Social Security, Medicare, etc., which puts him at least in the ballpark of my ideal also, of Democratic Socialism than the Republican clan. 

Thank you cann4ing for the clarification of the Tao primitivism.  I agree completely, in principle, with Tao Walker since it makes the best sense to take care of the planet than to waste it as some have done.  But some is not all and there are conscious beings other than the Tao Walkers in the world.  I do not see the collapse of civilization and I do not see it as inevitable.  Only the universe itself will claim its own. 

Examples of great thinkers in the white man tradition Thoreau, Rousseau, Tolstoy, and Nietzsche among others encouraged a return to nature philosophy and obviously because mankind is an inventive species, all of western man did not listen to them.  But the Amish, for example, is a large sect of white religious people who live frugally and peacefully and are a contemporary existing society.  There are numerous groups of people and individuals who respect the world and other living things.  To imply that only the Redman is the archetype who understands is a contemptuousness. 

Moral superiority is as much a disease as any other kind of racism. The focus of ethics includes respect for the planet, and that includes all life.  What we are talking about here is wisdom which is an understanding of the proper action to take in any given situation.  It is easy to come to the conclusion that wisdom is the ability to know what is morally good and to have the will to take action which is morally best under any circumstances.  That understanding comes from the human power of reasoning not from singing or dancing, though that is not to say singing or dancing doesn’t have its own form of benefit to humans.  If the American Indian intuited that their survival came from cooperating with nature, then that was an intuition born from rational thought. It is not only within the province of Native Indians to come to those conclusions.  The ability to make comparisons that one way is better than another is not racially bound.

The idea that the Native American is the only natural environmentalist or humanist is a fallacy and raises the collective of Native people to some deified strata.  That is a dogma that has become fixed and questioning it I realize cannot be popular.  It doesn’t mean, however, if questioning the arrogance of beliefs that comes from that view, the idea that humans other than Native Americans have never been ecologically exemplary a species, is sublime wishful thinking and a huge mistake.

cann4ing, October 27 at 8:17 pm #

That’s where Tao and I depart.  We have yet to fully explore the green technologies, such as solar, wind, wave—the very technologies that Obama wants to advance to create five million new green jobs.  Tao’s thinking is limited to a choice between traditional Native American ways and the unsustainable technologies of the industrial revolution advanced by those who carried out the 19th Century genocidal campaign against Native Americans under the racist ideology of “Manifest Destiny.” I believe there is a third way, a non-exploitive use of green technologies and Democratic Socialism that would make “civilization” sustainable.  (Unfortunately, Obama is not a Socialist.)
********************************************

Yeah, I’m getting tired of this phony description of some sort of Eden before the White invasion.  It’s as unrealistic as describing America as being “discovered” by Columbus.

Facts are facts.  Native Americans come in a thousand “flavors” and forms.  Some were peaceful, some were blood-thirsty, many were cannibals. Differences between tribes, even in the same regions, were myriad.  In the NE, the Iroquois and the Algonquin were at each others’ throats.  The Iroquois created a negotiated cooperative government that Ben Franklin studied for the Constitution.  But that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t engage in horrible wars with each other.

Meanwhile, down in Mexico (TaoW, THOSE are Native Americans, too) in times of famine the Aztecs would engage in “Flower Wars” between the competing nations (and they were nations, like Europe).  At the end of these Flower Wars, the captured prisoners would be butchered to feed the population.  At the end of the Aztec era, just prior to the arrival of the Spanish, the Reverend Speaker (Emperor) dedicated his new temple with the slaughter of 22,000 victims.

But they built a civilization to be admired and respected, as did the Mayans, the Olmecs, the Toltecs, and the Incas.  But none of them resembled TAO Walker’s fanciful idyllic Eden.

Even in his own region, the South West, some tribes had no problem taking the babies of other tribes and smoking and preserving them as food.

My own son is Mayan.  His ancestry is of some of the greatest mathematicians and astronomers the world has ever seen. Their architecture and medicine were to be admired.  The mountain tribes of the Maya were SO ferocious, the Spanish gave up and left them alone, isolating them, and, to this day, many don’t speak Spanish.  The Mayan ruins are some of the greatest treasures in the world.  And they practiced human sacrifice and cannibalism too.

But, then so did the Christians.  “Auto de Fe”, burning a heretic alive, translates as “Act of Faith”.  Thousands and thousands were slaughtered to “purify” the “Faith”.

My point?  People are people. There are good and there are bad among us all.  I don’t buy mysticism or people being “spiritual” as meaningful, at least not to my life.

What makes us different than the other “animals” is our logic and our reasoning ability, not our “soul” nor our faith in an invisible friend/creator/protector/destroyer.

Faith didn’t build the Empire State Building: Logic, reason and planning did.

It’s not “mysticism.” There is a powerful point that Tao makes.  Native Americans lived in harmony with their environment for more than a thousand years without endangering any species, polluting any rivers, streams, lakes or the Ocean.  That is why he rejects that which we would call civilization.

The problem—one in which Tao and I have gone round and round on in the past—is that Tao’s concept of free-and-wild was successful in part because it sustained a very small population.  It would not sustain the numbers who inhabit 21st Century Earth.

Tao’s answer is that this is the essence of nature—that is why he says so many of the “tamed two-legged” will not survive the collapse of civilization which Tao sees as inevitable.  Only those capable of a more ancient form of survival will live after the collapse.

That’s where Tao and I depart.  We have yet to fully explore the green technologies, such as solar, wind, wave—the very technologies that Obama wants to advance to create five million new green jobs.  Tao’s thinking is limited to a choice between traditional Native American ways and the unsustainable technologies of the industrial revolution advanced by those who carried out the 19th Century genocidal campaign against Native Americans under the racist ideology of “Manifest Destiny.”  I believe there is a third way, a non-exploitive use of green technologies and Democratic Socialism that would make “civilization” sustainable.  (Unfortunately, Obama is not a Socialist.)

Tao Walker, are you saying that the noble indian people are not civilized?  If I may quote you, “us free wild People might help our domesticated Sisters and Brothers, as they endure the catastrophic disintegration of the contraption they’re all trained to call “civilization.”   Are you saying that the free wild People have not been domesticated?  “Before that all started, though, us Natives had lived in balance and harmony with our Living Arrangement here for at least a couple thousand generations.”  Are you saying that is still the way your People predominantly lives?  Perhaps many have not phased into the white man civilization, but that does not mean the “Savages” are not cultured nor refined in ways that have highly cultivated, sophisticated manners and they could hardly be called savages anymore.  What a romantic picture you give us.  Perhaps that is as you say, but however that may be, millions of American Natives have integrated into “white man” societies.  What of them?  Do they forfeit their Indian heritage?  Have they betrayed the “old” ways?  And are you also saying that non-Natives cannot learn to live the natural life?  Which few of us would you pull out of the “wreckage” you call “Now?”  How will you decide who is worthy to pull out among those still alive after the coming firestorm?  It is a conceit to think only the Native knows the best way to live.  You seem to judge the entire race of white people as pridefully ignorant.  I understand the Tao and I also understand what it means to walk the walk.  All walking begins with the first step regardless of how large or small it is.  Many of my people have been on The Path of the Tao and are fully integrated with nature in a healthful Way.  The Tao Teh Ching does not ask more than that.  The last words of the Tao:  The Way of Heaven is to benefit, not to harm.  The Way of the Sage is to do his duty, not to strive with anyone.

The warning to be leery of a President Obama is prideful sophistry.  It is grandiloquence at its finest.  There are others who suggest that a “President” Obama will actually “CHANGE” the essentials of this country on exactly the path he has taken.  His native guidance originates in his heart.  And there is belief he will lead rightly.  Better to brace with Obama than to continue to live under the devastation brought about by the current party and administrative regime.  There is better reason to be leery of the sophist.

TAO Walker, October 27 at 2:17 pm #

HokaHey!
***********************************
Tao is not a Native American word, it is a far-Eastern word, especially when it is translates as “The Way”.

Guy, go easy on the peyote and magic mushrooms.

I don’t live on Turtle Island (on the back of a godly turtle). I live on a 4 billion year-old collection of star-stuff that stuck to itself by physics, not magic.

Sorry, sir, as lovely as you make it sound, I can no more buy into your Native American mysticism than I can into talking in tongues.

If it gives you peace and tranquility, all power to you.  But I don’t buy it.

Cann4ing asks how us free wild People might help our domesticated Sisters and Brothers, as they endure the catastrophic disintegration of the contraption they’re all trained to call “civilization.”  Here on Turtle Island people have come from all over the world looking to extract in one way or another what they hope and expect will satisfy their desires and longings. 

This has been going on for over five hundred years but, because the motives and methods employed by these immigrants and their descendents have been so contrary to The Song ‘n’ Dance of Life Herownself, they have now run hard up against the pitiful limits of their knowledge and understanding.  Before that all started, though, us Natives had lived in balance and harmony with our Living Arrangement here for at least a couple thousand generations.

There is a natural place for Humans here.  And a Way for us to live that is in-keeping with our purpose and so conducive to our health and happiness.  What us surviving Savages are willing and able to do is to help tame Two-leggeds remember the Human Way of Being here among the Children of our Mother Earth….to act as the Native Guides that have so far gone pretty much ignored by people convinced they already know better how to live here….a kind of prideful ignorance, really, now being shown-up for that.   

Sepharad no doubt always considers how Old Man Coyote figures into things….a wise thing to do.  This old Indian’s given name, which is simply descriptive, translates into English as “He Walks All The Way.”  TAO is The Way, and to follow it one just puts one foot ahead of the other….on The Ground.  So “TAO Walker” is a PLAY on words that is also a true reflection of this old Person’s nature and character and Way of living….echoed also in the Lakotah prayer “HokaHey!” 

Those here who suggest a “President” Obama won’t actually “CHANGE” the essentials that’ve driven americans and others into these increasingly difficult circumstances, have good reason to be leery.  Without some Native guidance no “leader,” however well-intentioned, can get his or her people off the dead-end road they’re racing down these days at nearly the speed-of-light.

Based on their public presentations, there is nothing to indicate anybody now running for “high office” in america is at all receptive to our assistance.  Unless THAT changes, americans better brace, as best they can, for the inevitable crash.  Maybe we’ll be able to pull at least a few of ‘em alive out of the wreckage.

HokaHey!

By Folktruther, October 27 at 7:10 am #

However the evidentary support for the statement that Obiden will serve the third term of Bush is abundant in the political arena.

________________

More BS and worthless speculation.

Quite true, Cann4ing, that specualation and overstatement are typical of my posts.  Specualation is necessary because I only view the past and present to understand what is going to happen in the future, this understanding, as both you and Madison agree, always governing ignorance.  But predicting the future, however necessary for policy, is always a chancy business so one must speculate, and, consequently, be wrong a portion of the time.

Overstatement is necessary because you and others are committed emotionally to the Dem party and its policies and leaders, which are currently selling out the American population, and it is necessary to penetrate this emotional committment, which is exaggerated during meaningly elections.  Which this one largely is.

However the evidentary support for the statement that Obiden will serve the third term of Bush is abundant in the political arena.  It is hidden in plain sight because you, and many Dems,  don’t want to see it.  The problem is not ignorance but emotioanl denial.

When the Bushites seized power, leading elements initiated a 9/11-antrax false flag operation which murdered two-three thousand Americans.  The evidence for their complicity is also hidden in plain sight, as 9/11 truthers around the world have been collecting in a coherent overview.  And most people in 9 of the 17 countries polled currently think that the 9/11 was an inside job.

This homicide was used to shock the American population into war, privatization of the government, and the creation of a bipartisan police state.  But the transformation of the American power system has not been acknowledge in the learned and mass media or by the Dems, who have obviously been complicit in promoting it, often by their silence.

As has Obiden.  I am not going to list Obama’s betrayal of progressive policies now that he no longer needs them, as this is obvious to anyone who wishes to look.  I can’t make you look or reason if you don’t want to, except by loosening your emotional hold on the leaders, values and policies of the Dems. 

Obama as president will be constrained by the same forces that constrains him as a candidate, only the population will have less influence over him.  Therefore he will give tokens and rhetoric to progressives while pursuing and refining the Bushite policies of counter revolution. The power changes we can believe in have already taken place, except for a war that is still possible. 

And, so far from being mistakes and incompetence,  they have been led brilliantly by the Bushites.  But this cannot be acknowledged without acknowledging the the US power system has been trasformed.  Not by abolishing bourgeois Democracy, but by ignoring it.

However, I must say, Cann4ing, that I appreciate your posting a comment without calling your oppenent ‘stupid’ or an ‘idiot’, even if he isn’t a lawyer, or been indoctrinated by American political science.  See, if you did it once, maybe you can do it again.

By Folktruther, October 26 at 5:28 pm #

Obama is going to serve the third term of Bush.

____________________

Speculative overstatement, lacking evidentiary support, but typical of a Folktruther post.

Shenonymous, in this century all the wars using military drafts, beginning with Wilson, was started by Dems, who also initiated the drafts.  Both Obama and McCain united on 9/11 to agree that a military draft is needed.

Cann4ing, this election hasn’t been devisive enough insofar as policy positions are concerned.  The Bushites effected a counter revolution in the US which is not acknowledged by the mass media or the Dems.  They changed our form of government, just as Ceasar and Agustus changed Rome’s, retaining the Republic’s institutions devoid of power.

Obama is going to serve the third term of Bush.  there are no institutions availiable to the people to exert effective pressure on him.  He will continue the militarism, corporatism and the bipartisan police state.  And the American power system will continue to drive the American people into the ground.

Until the American people understand what has happened, there is no way to mobilize against it.

Wow what will it be like? A 10% to15% unemployment rate in this country, a fifty-six trillion that’s with a T in acquired federal debt, two wars are still running out of control. A shrinking job market, Wall Street and the banks in the dumpster what more could one ask for.

But wait we still have the same ineffective congressmen and senators a supreme court that doesn’t know what war crimes or torture are(dam glad they got the second amendment right)and king george who still has three months to do some more damage with the Russia, Iran, China, North Korea………. Wow what will it be like?

For those who see the election of Obama as the end in itself, there will no doubt some degree of remorse that the obsession with poll numbers and the Palin wardrobe are coming to a close.  For those that see an Obama victory as but an essential first step in the restoration of democracy, in remedial action to reverse the damage done to this nation and the world not only by the past eight years but the past 60 year reign of the military-industrial complex and the corporate security state, and those who understand that true progressive change will only be effectuated by active and ongoing grass roots pressure that will force a corporate-friendly Democratic Congress and President to take the appropriate course.

We have a long way ago and little time regret an end to what has been a far too divisive campaign.

By the way, Tao, as always, I appreciate your unique perspective, but perhaps you could be a little less obtuse.  Just how would the “free and wild” undertake to be of some help to their “tame two-legged” brothers and sisters?

Armchair psychoanalysis of everyone is always a favorite pastime, in particular of our presidential candidates because of the glamorous power that goes along with the office.  Seems like that is the kind of entertainment that is most engaged by the writers of these articles and those who make comments.  It is ultimately meaningless and a kind of autoeroticism.  It doesn’t matter whether criticism is against the liberal or the conservative.  The activity upon inspection contains exactly the same elements.  Trying to tell the future with this one or that one in control.  Fortune-telling and thereby fortune influencing.

To include militarism as part of a consciousness due to the need to protect one’s own country is not necessarily an ideology but a facing of reality.  In looking over the history of presidents and wars in which America was involved, it is a 50/50 mixture of 7 Democrats and 7 Republicans who either declared war or participated as if it had declared war.

It looks like men as a gender cannot help themselves but to engage in wars. There are only a few species that engage in warfare and mankind is one of them. So it is a matter of nature and nurture.  It is the stuff of human history going back at thousands of years before Christ.  Societies as we have come to define them began about 4000 years before Christ.  Roughly in non-religious terms about 6000 years ago. A revolution in social structures that rested on a developed economic base arising from a more efficient agriculture capability was the most important factor responsible for the emergence of warfare.  It was then based on wealth and resources just as it is now.  Nothing changes. Mankind is not a species that can learn from knowing its history.  And it is the ideology of men, not of nations for nations are made of women as well, who are not by nature warring creatures, even though there have been cases where women did go to war.  It is not the case that Republicans are anti-militaristic.  A candid examination of the history of American wars show Republicans engaged America in wars of huge scope.  Truth must be told even if it goes against one’s own inclination.

In a final analysis, it is the measure of civility, of being evolved conscious beings to find ways of settling differences without killing one another and to not use religion or resource acquisition as excuses to keep killing.  How to circumscribe the greed and power impulses will be the dimension of human development that becomes written in history books.

Here’s to you, Mr. Robinson. I have read a fair number of articles re: precisely what you have written—people spending an inordinate amount of time scrolling the blogs on all topics related to this election.  It is as if our vote is just not enough, feeling the need to voice our complaints and cry foul when we see divisive rhetoric spewed out by one of the candidates, watch the “Straight Talk Express” grab headlines with their outlandish game of “connect the dots”, often voiced by the “intellectually incurious” Governor of Alaska.  As the wheels have come off that lame excuse for a ticket, does it surprise any of us that there is so much internal dissension within their ranks?  Perhaps we have seen what happens when every (mis)calculation is broadcast 24/7, every quip and gaffe is analyzed and re-analyzed by pundit talkingheads clamoring to be heard above the din of the splitscreen on every news channel taking the pulse of the campaigns.
I seriously doubt that the obsessive interest in the outcome of this election will evaporate come November 4th.  This is truly a historic election with the potential to change the political landscape for years to come; one only need look at the makeup of the Supreme Court and how that will be impacted by who becomes POTUS.

You do have a point amidst your wild gibberish, JNagaria.  The Dems have historially supported the government against the corporations, while including militarism as part of their ideology.

The Gops on the other hand opposed government to evade taxes and just want to be left alone.  Their anti-militarism took the form of isolationism.

Opposing the American power system requires a transformation of traditional Dem ideology, since the American government has been taken over by the corpocracy during the Bushite counterrevolution.  So there is a sense in which formerly rightest ideology must be incorporated into progressive ideology, since the American governement is now used primarily as an instrument against the American people.

And anti-Zionism as well used to be a right wing ideolgy of bigots, and to some extent still is.  But since Zionism has been allied with neocliberalism in both parties, it is now part of the neocon right which has largely hijacked American foreign and domestic policy.

Therefore the ideological transition requires incorporating formerly right wing ideology into a new progressive ideology. both anti-government, anti-corporate and anti-Zionism.  And this transition has inhibited the development of a new progressive American ideology to replace Western liberalism.

As to attributing Biden’s Zionist militarism or his Seattle speech to his stuttering as a child, you are certainly entitled to stating your views. There is no requirement that they make any kind of sense.

As the allamericandreamland life-as-wish-fulfillment false “economy” continues to disintegrate, lots of americans seem only too happy for the temporary distraction of another faux political campaign.  Odds are those who hope Barack Obama, whatever his “real” agenda, will be swept along by the enthusiastic expectations he has encouraged in his supporters, will see those hopes succumb to such dictates of “realpolitik” as hinted-at by Joe Biden in his latest rhetorical “flourish.”

There’s plenty of “damage control” going-on around the ginned-up “global financial crisis,” but it’s the entirety of this failing civilization that is really on-the-ropes.  The tormentors and their two-legged overseers are under no illusions about that, but they hope to keep fooling the “livestock” long enough to engineer, build, and launch some kind of “escape” mechanism for their own selves….W’s latest call for a manned mission to Mars.

So what’ll people do “....after November 4…”?  Us surviving Savages’ll just keep-on keepin’ on.  Our domesticated Sisters and Brothers will be having to find some Way to survive the end of the world as they’ve known it.  Maybe we can help.

HokaHey!

Allow me to take another peek at an Obama/Biden administration after inauguration day. Today the campaign’s principal mantra is “change.” Obviously change can never mean “standing pat” hence change is either progressive or regressive. The concept of “progressive” in politics has been so perverted that I have to define what I mean by it namely “progression towards a more humane society.” Politically progressive therefore requires the introduction, discussion, and promotion of new ideas and the discarding of old ones that no longer work.
When I apply this touchstone to my expectations for an Obama/Biden administration I conclude that it will be overwhelmingly regressive to pre-GWB Democratic ideals and policies. Regression is not necessarily all bad in this case but this regression can never solve fundamental problems in the long run.
The French have a saying “réculer pour mieux sauter” roughly meaning retreating to a position from which it will be easier to jump forward. Unfortunately I do not see that aspect in an Obama/Biden administration either. What I see is pretty traditional politics served with a “change sauce”.
Sociologists have long known that the youth of a society is often the most ardent albeit blind supporter of charismatic leaders. They have pointed out that youth also constitutes the gravest danger for these leaders in power when they discover the insufficient enactment of their expectations. I am not sure that Obama/Biden will be able to avert shipwreck on that beach

What is done after the election is much more important than what is done during the election.  Alex Cockburn reports today on Counterpunch that Biden gave a fund raising speech in Seattle last Sunday that indicated that Obama is going to “be tested” militarily in his first six months in office.

That indicates that he is going to use war as a standard political tactic to defuse discontent from the economic crisis.  He is going to return to the Dem tradition of war to rescue the economy.  this would reassure his Zionist support if he attacked Iran or some Muslim nation, since Israel has specialized in Security industry since 2001, according to Naomi Klein’s THE SHOCK DOCTRINE. 

Obiden would continue this shock therapy by military means, and would increase military spending and war as he has indicated in his speeches.  He would be supported by the mass media in the usual way, whipping up war hysteria and continuing to impose a bipartisan police state.

Biden stated in his speech that Obden’s war policies would be unpopular with progressives. As is common knowledge, which progressives are reluctant to acknowledge because of his popstar charisma, Obama has veered further away from progressive policies after winning the nomination, since he no longer needs progressives to win the election.

Therefore progressives should get ready to alert the population and mobilize them against the coming militarism and war hysteria that the media will create.  This can begin now, before the election.

Obama is leading McCain by over 20 points in both New York and California, and possibly other states.  Therefore one can vote for a third party candidate without the threat of electing McCain. 

McKinney is the only candidate who vigorously opposes both militarism and Zionism. Therefore to the extent that support is shown for McKinney, to will force Obama left, just as Norman Thomas forced Roosevelt left during the Depression in the 1932 election.

It is possible that an organ can emerge from the Green party, combined with bits of other parties, including progressive Dems, that can serve as a counterfoce to the war hysteria and rightist policies, as Obaama serves his Elite constituency.  They have switched their money to him in huge amounts from the Gops.

Just as the German defeat in WW1 fanned the flames of German aggression leading to WW2, it may well be the case that Obiden will lead the US to continue and expand the Bushite wars.  And, as did Nazi Germany, largely for economic reasons. 

A very dangerous time.  But possibly an anti-militarist ideology can help unite the American population against the American power structure, the money to be spent for domestic purposes.

The media will never stop.  It is their raison d’etre to keep the fires hot.  Job security for those who write the articles.  Do you really ever analyze what they are saying?  I mean for substance?  Mostly unqualified opinions and barking. 

I’ve been wondering too of late what Truthdiggers will do after the election?  Then I thought, how silly of me, of course there will be castigations about whomever is president about every thing they do. We will have our magnifying glasses out, f’sure.  Or what other corruptions politicians are getting into, or what is going on with the banks and mortgage companies and real estate industry, religion, or cloning, the health care industry, or education, or, or, or, or, or…..ad infinitum ad nauseum.  And we will be here too.  It is our way of life.  Truthdig must live!  Viva la Truthdig!  Long live Truthdig!  Long live us!

If McGoo wins, in two years there will be nothing left of this nation, as we know it.

The theologians will take over.  This will happen because McGoo will either die or ‘loose his mind’.

When caribou Barbie takes over, it is all over.

Gene,
You just need a “Thank-you, Ma’am”.  They used to build roads where hills would have flat spots so the horses could rest while pulling the carts up-hill. Those flat spots’ name? “Thank-you, Ma’am”

Shakespeare understood this.  In all his dramas, there are comic interludes, even near the grand finale.  In MacBeth, there’s the gate-keeper “Knock, knock, knock!”.  In Hamlet, there’s the grave-diggers’ scene “Who’s houses last longest? Lear has his fool.

We all need that break. It could have been Joe The Plumber or Palin telling Alec Baldwin he was thinking of “Caribou Barbie”.  Maybe it’s Palin’s $150,000 shopping spree?

I kinda think Maureen Bachman putting her foot so far in her mouth it’s coming out her butt with her “Macaca” moment is pretty darn funny.