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Madness, Revisited
The lunacy that bothers me is not the stuff you find in Bedlam - people raging at the walls: that's what sane people do now; it's the new variety that comes from poverty of spirit: the popular, well-dressed, well-heeled and well-spoken lunacy that elects mad leaders to make mad wars upon the unfortunate and the dispossessed - the lunacy of the soul; of cold human hollowness, emotional flatness and numbness, moral emptiness; all surrounded with a gargantuan, manic and carefully disguised greed as a remedy for pain and the fear of death: the clever, well-adapted madness that the world rewards and to which the world aspires.
Michael Leunig in The Age, thanks to woz. (Leunig's day job is as an editorial cartoonist for The Age.)
Yesterday's thread header provided an opportunity for woz to link to a remarkable piece by Michael Leunig. The above drawing and quote are the inspiration for today's conversation.
Leunig cites the work of Donald Winnicott, the British developmental psychiatrist, who promoted the notion of the "good-enough" mother, or parent.
According to the Wikipedia, in Winnicott's work, "the infant progressively develops from a unintegrated drift into being able to distinctly identify objects in his/her surroundings". The "Holding Environment" is the relationship or community that surrounds the developing child, much like the touted "village" that it takes to raise a child.
The holding environment supports the realization by the child "that there is an outside world (objective reality) which is not always there to fulfill his desires".
"But what happens if the mother does not provide the holding environment in which the child can grow and become a healthy self, or provides too much stimulation, for example to painful levels? The child psychological development ceases and experiences impingement."
Impingement and reaction to it can become a way of life. When a child (or a culture?) lives in fear and uncertainty, anything impinges and can destroy the boundaries and sense of inner and outer structures.
Impingements such as...oh I don't know...HELICOPTERS OVERHEAD?? BOMBINGS?? BEING INVADED, OR SENT AWAY TO INVADE?? FEAR OF BEING INVADED??
It leads to what Winnicott called a "graduated failure of adaptation".
According to Winnicott, "in every person there is a True and False self and this organization can be placed on a continuum between the healthy and the pathological False self. The True self, who in health expresses the authenticity and vitality of the person, will always be in part or in whole hidden; the False self is a compliant adaptation to the environment. Whereas the True self feels real, the False self existence results in a feeling unreal or a sense of futility. When the False self is functional both for the person and for society then it is considered healthy. The healthy False self feels that that it is still being true to the True self. It can be compliant but without feeling that it has betrayed its True self. In contrast, a self that fits in but through a feeling of forced compliance rather than loving adaptation is unhealthy. In a case of a high degree of a split between the True self and the False self, which completely hides the True self, there is a poor capacity for using symbols and a poverty of cultural living. One can observe in such persons extreme restlessness, inability to concentrate and a need to react to the demands of the external reality, while remaining uncomfortable with themselves."
And so, we find ourselves living in and with madness. And the proposed solution to the madness of King George et al, as Leunig so eloquently points out, GREED. MORE GREED.
Power-grabbing greed. Oil-hoarding greed. Big car greed. More toys greed. As children deprived of a healthy holding environment easily grow obese on cheap unhealthy food, and more of it, we too grow obese with passivity and reality television and celebrity scandals and the madness of our daily over-scheduled, overstimulated, and under-resourced lives. And so we are, as a world culture, cynical, numb, morally empty, and generally cranky.
What is the answer? How can the western world find the kind of holding environment and structures necessary for the redevelopment of such emotionally mature states as empathy, compassion, and global responsibility? You know, ...SANITY!!
If Leunig is correct, such a challenge derives directly from a poverty of spirit and therefore, spiritual replenishment is essential. So for today and tomorrow, how about we, as a village, each and together, take some time for spiritual replenishment, and share it here, with empathy and compassion and a sense of global responsibility?
In this way, we "mother" ourselves and each other, providing the kind of consistent container that makes such a place, at the least, good enough and at the most, eminently sane.
In the interest of returning myself to a state of increased sanity, today I want to slow down and appreciate the depth of friendships developed here and around the internets over the past four years. Each of you reading this contributes to the maintenance and industry of this little village. The industry is knowledge: teaching and learning from each other.
I have had a crazy week, and the piece above was highly influenced by a state of nuttiness I have been experiencing personally, trying to schedule an insane array of meetings and appointments in the next two weeks, which I realized needed to happen because all three kids have to get [back] to college within a week of each other.
I obsess on sheets. We need more. And surge protectors. We need those. Oh--and we are out of raisins, too and Richard loves raisins.
Four colleagues and I have spent the entire summer trying to arrange a time for all of us to meet for four hours to talk about creative work. We are looking at September now.
And so today, I crave balance. A little food, a little meditation, a few phone calls to friends who need a hug. And gratitude. I really really need some gratitude.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12773599/
It's much hotter and scarier there.
Gratitude is good. It behooves all of us to spend a few moments each day contemplating the many things for which we are grateful.
(Not a list of things for which we sometimes feel like we *should* be grateful -- that's far too easily manipulated by greedheads and guiltmongers -- but the things for which we genuinely are, and may, and can be grateful every day.)
Thankful for old friends - the oldest of whom introduced me to this (on topic?):
Brain Damage
Pink Floyd
The lunatic is on the grass.
The lunatic is on the grass.
Remembering games and daisy chains and laughs.
Got to keep the loonies on the path.
The lunatic is in the hall.
The lunatics are in my hall.
The paper holds their folded faces to the floor
And every day the paper boy brings more.
And if the dam breaks open many years too soon
And if there is no room upon the hill
And if your head explodes with dark forebodings too
I'll see you on the dark side of the moon.
The lunatic is in my head.
The lunatic is in my head
You raise the blade, you make the change
You re-arrange me 'til I'm sane.
You lock the door
And throw away the key
There's someone in my head but it's not me.
And if the cloud bursts, thunder in your ear
You shout and no one seems to hear.
And if the band you're in starts playing different tunes
I'll see you on the dark side of the moon.
I see your Pink Floyd lyrics and raise you one:
----------------
Dogs of war and men of hate
With no cause, we don't discriminate
Discovery is to be disowned
Our currency is flesh and bone
Hell opened up and put on sale
Gather 'round and haggle
For hard cash, we will lie and deceive
Even our masters don't know the webs we weave
One world, it's a battleground
One world, and we will smash it down
One world ... One world
Invisible transfers, long distance calls,
Hollow laughter in marble halls
Steps have been taken, a silent uproar
Has unleashed the dogs of war
You can't stop what has begun
Signed, sealed, they deliver oblivion
We all have a dark side, to say the least
And dealing in death is the nature of the beast
One world, it's a battleground
One world, and we will smash it down
One world ... One world
The dogs of war don't negotiate
The dogs of war won't capitulate,
They will take and you will give,
And you must die so that they may live
You can knock at any door,
But wherever you go, you know they've been there before
Well winners can lose and things can get strained
But whatever you change, you know the dogs remain
One world, it's a battleground
One world, and we will smash it down
One world ...
One world
I call:
One World - Dire Straights
Can't find no sleeves for my records
Can't get no laces for my shoes
Can't get no fancy notes
On my blue guitar
Can't get no antidote for blues
Can't find the reasons for your actions
Or I don't much like the reasoning you use
Somehow your motives are impure
Or somehow I can't find the cure
Can't find no antidote for blues
They say it's mostly vanity
That writes the plays we act
They tell me that's what everybody knows
There's no such thing as sanity
And that's the sanest fact
That's the way the story goes
Can't get no remedy on my TV
There's nothing but the same old news
They can't find a way to be
One world in harmony
Can't get no antidote for blues
And by the way....SOOO grateful for MUSIC.
Can you imagine the insanity without it?
Me too, Carol. I am sitting on my couch, next to my son and he is playing the most beautiful music--right now, The Cranberries. I am hoping the stuff is not illegally downloaded...
I love the Cranberries!
Haven't listened in a while. I'll have to put them on.
Posted by Karen at July 28, 2007 02:19 PM
Wow! Michael Leunig hit the nail on the head, didn't he...? Good catch, Woz and Karen, and good thread header Karen! And, good catch by Christy for the WaPo article from the last thread - never thought to see the phrase 'war crimes' in a headline in that particular newspaper! It's like someone has finally lit a candle of hope to see the like in a Lamestream Media publication and the flame is flickering - just barely flickering in the hurricane-force winds of 'ter'ra, ter'ra, ter'ra' coming from the primary blusterers all this last week, but the candle is at least barely flickering..., finally.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/25/AR2007072501881_pf.html
To attain a state of "balance" and "normalcy" one must deliberately remove one's self from the people who are intentionally creating the state of chaos (or, so my experience has been, although I've called it a 'pain avoidance response'). Natural disasters and accidents and the like are a piece of cake to deal with next to the path of destruction left in the wake of those persons who deliberately create chaos and confusion for others so they can control the chaos, and therefore us (propaganda in Lamestream Media in this case, and multiple attempts to scare sheeple).
Since the fall/winter of 2000-01, we've been living in a country where two people (plus their associates) have created controlled chaos not only here in our own country, but even worse chaos for other people in other countries by their illegal actions and refusal to abide by over two centuries of legal documents. It's not so easy for us to move away from their presence en masse because they are the people/faces who ostensibly represent us as "leaders."
The only way to achieve "balance" and "normalcy" is to remove the "leaders" - the creators of chaos - from their positions. There are more of us (ordinary good people trying to cope with created chaos done by a few others) than there are of the chaos creators. It is illogical to leave them in their offices now that an increasing number of people are waking up to the lies and manipulation and war crimes done by the chaos creators - and our frustration shows when we try to make the people who 'should' be removing them refuse to do so for lame reasons, and, after all, we 'elected' those people to stop the rise to dictatorial power of the chaos creators, so those who should be doing something to solve the problem of removing the chaos creators from office technically 'work for us' and their deliberate obtuseness is inordinately frustrating.
For an 'ohmmmmm' moment, place your left hand around your right shoulder and cross your right hand around your left shoulder and squeeze... it's the hug I'd give you if I were there... it's a surrogate 'mother yourself' moment. (((Hugs, Hugs, and more Hugs)))
Then go fix a cup of soothing tea (warm or iced, your preference - or pick a beverage of your choice if you don't feel like tea today), and while relaxing, have a good laugh at the expense of our so-called "leaders" (just don't be drinking it when you look at these cartoons!). Humor is the one thing that has allowed me to keep my sanity all these years, so it's one of the things I appreciate the most (besides happy Celtic music).
http://bobgeiger.blogspot.com/2007/07/saturday-cartoons_28.html
Bob Geiger's Saturday Cartoons
Posted by: Carol at July 28, 2007 05:03 PM
The Cranberries, or at least Dolores O'Riordan (the lead singer), is virulently anti-choice.
They wrote an anti-choice song for their second album back in 1995.
I've never listened to them since.
Posted by: Ally McRepuke at July 28, 2007 05:42 PM
Damn.
Going to see Sebastian, The Rapture and Daft Punk Sunday night!
A little bit of France ..
Excellent thread header. Thank you Karen and Woz.
Yes it is wonderful to stop and smell the flowers!
I have alot to be grateful and thankful for, although the well heeled ego maniacs might not think so.
Karen I am grateful that you have so much energy, and that you choose each day to use it toward a positive goal. I am grateful that you "Carpe Diem" every single day. I am grateful that you sincerely care about youth, and suffering of all peoples. You have a very big heart for such a petite person. I have never before you seen a person be able to cram so much living in to every single day.
Beaucoups of gratitude coming from me.
It's okay to take time out for you. It's when we deplete our cup and can't give from the overflow that we grow weary. It's a hard lesson to learn that we must nurture ourselves first.
Neat header, but I honestly expected something completely different with the title.
M. A. D.
Mutually Assured Destruction
'Twas the lion that gave the antelope its' speed.
Madness.
Remember the Dubai port deal? This is crazier.
& speaking of war crimes...
Subject: FOCUS | US Set to Offer Huge Arms Deal to Saudi Arabia
FOCUS | US Set to Offer Huge Arms Deal to Saudi Arabia
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/072807Z.shtml
David S. Cloud of the The New York Times reports that the Bush administration will seek Congressional approval for a $20 billion arms deal for Saudi Arabia and its neighbors in the Middle East "at a time when some United States officials contend that the Saudis are playing a counterproductive role in Iraq."
Posted by: not my president at July 28, 2007 09:38 PM
Unforgivable. This is TREASON.
Christy repeated told me W is not our president, but a secret prince of the Saud family.
I'm more than ever to be inclined to believe her now.
Some day our prince will...
HAHA Ally!
Abu Georgie Jr. Slayer of Saddam, BFF Osama, Savior of Afghanistan. And keeper of all things SAUDI.
I just vomited in my mouth a little. Gag.
I want a new US President. NOW.
Ally, Christy
Well Michael Moore revealed in Fahrenheit 9/11 that Bandar was an adopted Bush.
Cheney got a new pacemaker so for a brief moment today Bush was President.
The Frame Shop across the street said "No Iraq War" on the sign in front. Then it changed to "America Wants the Truth." Now it says "Impeach Bush." She's an ex-librarian.
Remember in Bradbury's original story firemen burn books?
Thanks Karen for giving Leunig's words and picture to us here. I thought it was missed, so it's great to open up and see it here. The whole article is well worth reading. And I'm truly amazed that you are able to cram your life so full and yet have a great deal of input into improving life for others.
I'm forever grateful that I live in Australia and know that even if I'm homeless, I will find shelter and food within hours. And if I'm sick, I will go to hospital. I look around my 2 bedroom unit here and know that I'm blessed.
There's only one of me living here, but plenty of room to provide for others when they come to visit or stay for a while. It's not big, but compared with the rubble that was once a multitude of housing for families in Afghanistan and the Middle East, it is more than plenty. If the Tamar bursts its banks, I'll be high and dry.
And something I never take for granted when I see dreadful images of brutality and poverty across countries in Africa and Asia. I have never had to watch my children sick and starving.
Mornin Woz.
I read once that todays modern convienances (like hot water, toilets) would have made every king in history envious of even the most humble home that had them.
We live pampered lives compared to so many, it really is a blessing. I am grateful to be lucky.
Breaking:
Data Mining Subject of Gonzales Hospital Visit (to Ashcroft)
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/7/28/201533/161
About Saudi Arabia, it wasn't so long ago that the royalty summoned Cheney and he went over there. Maybe US and Saudi Arabia and Israel will all fight Iran together, with the Iraqi civil war in the middle as a pawn, battleground and buffer zone.
Woz, do you know Rossi?
She was a regular once, also an Aussie.
I do envy Africa their musical emphasis. Some countries have a Ministry of Music! I envy some Asians for their food, cheap and plentiful in places like Thailand.
We feel lucky here but many are in debt and should they lose a job or become sick, without much savings, they could plunge into a situation where only money would get them out. That's the way it works here. & they wouldn't have it.
Also, we have such a plentiful food supply - look at our obesity rates! Some of it is really high among the poor though, because they diet isn't nutritious (quantity rather than quality).
I heard today that some Sara Lee bread was recalled. We are getting into a situation under these Republicans where they don't regulate food, coming into the country or produced within .E coli, mad cow, you name it.
Then there is the fraud. Pepsi makes a bottled water. It isn't like Perrier, from some mineral spring. It is right out of the tap. It says "source PTW" on it - that means "public tap water." Some fools are laughing all the way to the bank.
NYT editorial is going to recommend Congress impeach Gonzalez.
Woz, do you know Rossi?
She was a regular once, also an Aussie.
Posted by: Christy at July 28, 2007 10:56 PM
No Christy. I haven't come across here before.
look at our obesity rates! Some of it is really high among the poor though, because they diet isn't nutritious (quantity rather than quality).
Posted by: not my president at July 28, 2007 10:58 PM
nmp - my reasoning on that is that you can buy bad food much more cheaply than high quality food. For example, hamburger mince - the more fat in it, the cheaper it is. Cheapest vegetables - potatoes. Cheapest meals at home - pasta and rice. Cheapest take away - the food chains - pizza, maccas, hamburgers.
If high quality foods were the cheapest, the obesity epidemic would drop. Maybe.
NMP.... The NY Times. Hmmmm.
And Woz, I left a message for Rossis asking her to join us again. I miss her voice here.
She is dead on in US politics. Very clever. I think you two could school us all on the Aussie system.
BTW, thank you for answering my question about Aussie hookers. Cash, Check or bank card.
Why is our country so sexually deviant and wholly repressed with psychotic tendencies...?
Is it really cause we got the puritans?
OMG, you would not believe what they just censored me over at Huffington Post.
I created an account just to respond to this congressman that said 'Impeachment is off the table' so why not invade Fprtress Gonzales instead, or some crap...
Anyways I created an account and posted a two sentence comment.
I said, 'Well, that is just great Congressman."
"Whay other parts of the United States Constitution are you going to take off the table?"
It showed it there as pending upon approval, and now it disappeared and never made it to the scroll.
Now why would they censor that?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-major-r-owens/dday-is-off-the-table_b_58177.html?load=1&page=3#comments
She is dead on in US politics. Very clever. I think you two could school us all on the Aussie system.
Posted by: Christy at July 28, 2007 11:29 PM
Would love to meet her, Christy. But the Aussie system is far simpler because there are fewer of us than there are in America - 21 million at last count. Having developed from the early British invaders we took on much of the British system. There were armed officials and their families. And there were convicts who came a little higher in the order of things than the Aborigines whose land it was to begin with.
I think the numbers of people in our system are far, far too many. And yet we don't have a fraction of yours. For the past 3 years John Howard had such a majority that all the other politicians couldn't argue on a single topic. So, he was able to introduce Bush's laws here - you know - holding alleged terr'ists indefinitely.
In fact the government has come a real cropper on the last fiasco of arrest and villification of someone who might somehow be related to an alleged terrorist in Scotland.
Within a day the public had worked it out - election year - play the Fear card again. And this time the terr'ist is a doctor! The public was right on the money. The court decided that there was such a lack of evidence that the alleged terrorist would be bailed so Howard Huff'n'Puff's immigration minister revoked the poor guy's visa.
Court independence from politics??? There have been outcries all over the country about it. So, last night Dr Haneef went back to India to be with his family - his wife and his baby daughter that he was going to see when he was so rudely accosted, arrested at the airport and publicly paraded as a very sinister man. Every time a government official shows him/herself on camera, more of their votes get flushed down the toilet.
Christy
I think you're right - we got the Puritans.
The family dysfunction was the gift that kept on giving.
Me too Christy. People don't have to break the law. It's still a scandal though if someone of high repute gets sprung having a relationship with a hooker or brothel. We do have our seedy paedophiles from every occupation of life. Puritans? Probably?
Another thing that is very strange here is that every state and territory has a Labor Government while the Federal government is the Liberal-National coalition. So, perhaps Kevin Rudd is right to not play the Labor card - he keeps losing people - like the whole left of the party - and me :(
Wow, I did not realize there are so few Aussies compared to our population.
I guess the historical lesson here is that Puritans breed like rabbits.
But only for the sole purpose of breeding, of course.
"That royalist attitude may soon inspire a constitutional confrontation unrivaled in U.S. history."
http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/stories/2007/07/25/bushking0725.html
Of course - for breeding only! Actually, Christy my great grandparents had 17 children 15 of whom survived to past 19. One died at age 20 and the rest lived on and on and on! My father was one of 7. My mother was one of 7. I'm 1 of 8, with 7 surving their first week after birth.
But the thing that I noticed when travelling to the US or the UK is that Australia is so damned far from everywhere - and that's in planes. It took more than 6 months for a letter to get home to England. Over a year before you'd get your reply.
If there's a reason there aren't many of us - it's because it was too far to bother coming to. The French and the Dutch had been here before the English. In fact the main island of Australia was known as New Holland. And Tasmania was Van Dieman's Land. The British had so many people on that tiny little island and the lawlessness that accompanies poverty and hunger was rampant. They had to do something with their criminals. What better place than as far away as they could possibly go?
Hey Sll,
Hello from Down Under, Cristy you still around
Is it really cause we got the puritans?
Posted by: Christy at July 28, 2007 11:32 PM
Hell yes Hypocritical GOP Puritans,
Sister Joan explains it well
When the same is not the same
From Where I Stand by Joan Chittister, OSB
July 26, 2007
Perhaps one of the best ways to discover who we are as a culture is to go visit some other culture. The experience is an interesting one.
One of the most exciting parts of the excursion is the opportunity it gives us to discover the effects of history on us -- as a people, as a culture, even as a church.
This last month, for instance, I've been in New Zealand and Australia. Believe me, however much we look alike, we are different peoples.
As I heard Australians talk about themselves and the worldview with which they'd grown up -- a British outpost in an Asian sea -- I became fascinated with the idea of how unlike people can be, no matter how alike their roots, traditions and cultures may seem to be at first glance.
We -- Americans and Australians -- do seem very similar in many ways: We speak the same language. We are both people agleam with a sense of newness, technology, wealth and "progress." We are self-confident types, secure in our affluence, certain of our pragmatism. We do not view the rest of the world with diffidence or timidity. We are both can-do people, a kind of modern colossi in a still developing world. And we both spring from the same root. Or so it appears.
But, I discovered, there are deep differences among us, too.
"Characterize the Australian Catholic church for me," I asked group after group, person after person, as we talked.
"What will happen here as a result of the restoration of the Latin Mass, for instance?" I asked in an attempt to make the question immediate and real, to discover in the answers something specific about the present nature of the church. I expected deep and reflective answers, full of either triumph or tension, tainted with concern or confusion. Thoughtful. Maybe even a bit anguished. Cautious.
Forget it. The answer was direct: "Nothing will happen," most of them said. "We won't pay any attention to it," some said. "If anybody wants it, let them take it," a few said. "But not me," many said. End of discussion.
So how is it, I pressed them, that they can be so blasé -- so actually disinterested -- about the situation when we, on the other hand, seem so intense about even the possibility of it? The answers to that one were even more interesting. Instead of discussing the pros and cons of a Latin Mass, they discussed the nature of their society. They cited four characteristics of the culture, which, they say, marks the nature of the church there.
First, Australia was founded to be a British penal colony, a settlement for convicts -- many of them Irish -- who had been exiled from Ireland for stealing bread during the famine or being part of an anti-English nationalism that simply refused to surrender to the rule of the Crown. Point: Australians do not take authority easily.
There is in them, they say, a natural independence, a skepticism, a suspicion, about the imposition of anything on anybody.
Americans, on the other hand, it occurred to me, were founded by Puritans, very authority-centered religious types. We take laws seriously. And more than that, we suspect anyone who doesn't.
Secondly, Australians are a laid-back group to begin with. Neuroticism is not their national charism.
Nothing seems to bother Australians much. They're casual about everything -- clothes, rules, work and church. "On a good day," they told me, "no more than 12 percent of the population would go to Mass for anything."
We, on the other hand, are a very church-going society. Even at our worst, an average of 35 percent of U.S. Catholics say they go to church on Sunday. Here, we center our lives around our churches. There they center the church around their lives.
In the third place, they told me, Australia defines itself as a secular state, a state not defined by any religious orientation -- Buddhist, Muslim, Jewish, Christian or anything else. Religion is not a matter for the state, as far as Australians are concerned. The purpose of the state is to assure the general welfare, not the religious ideals of any single religion. They would certainly be horrified at the thought of putting their flag in the sanctuary of their churches.
In the United States, though we were founded by Deists with no specific religion in mind and promising freedom to all of them, we are still in the throes of trying to determine the implications of that for us as a people. Are we a "Christian" state or a pluralistic state -- meaning based on no particular denominational moral view or devoted to maintaining Christian identity even in our civic institutions. And if so, what does that mean for legislation and legislators and churches here? Are they part of the political arena or not? Is it the function of churches to teach morality or is it the function of the state to promote Christian morals? And if so, what of all the other moral perspectives in such a society?
Finally, Australia is an Anglo-Saxon culture in the midst of an Asian world. It is made up of multi-cultural ethnic groups whose orientation is more devotional than dogmatic, as Pacific as it is Western, spiritual but largely non-doctrinal. As a result, the struggle for the legalization of religious principles seldom invades the federal arena. Moral guidelines they care about. Attempts by religious figures to influence party politics or to equate political decisions with denominational purity -- as in "If you don't vote this way, you should ask yourself if you are really Catholic" -- they do not appreciate.
In the United States, religious identity and its place in politics is a thread that runs through the history of this country like gold in rock. From the time of William Penn and his bold model of religious freedom, the struggle to enshrine one set of religious ideals or another in law has been a fierce one here. It has come to the point, in fact, that religion -- if single issue voting is really religion -- stalks politics here in every sermon, on every bumper sticker, as the most salient measure of every candidate. The way we vote, we say, has something to do with how religious we are.
No doubt about it: Australia and the United States are not the same kind of religious worlds.
From where I stand, then, the question has to be, how is that we really are so much alike? Or better yet, which of us is really the most religious?
As you Know Christy, I do not take Authority easily
Are you still there rossiann?
Sure Woz
(sending this from an unprotected WiFi spot while sitting at out beach at the cabin - have a nice Sunday )
Subject: Calling All Patriots: Emergency Meeting on Strategies to End the Bushreich
Folks,
Last night I heard an ad on AM 1090, the local Air America/progressive talk station for an Emergency Meeting called by the Rev. Rich Lang of Trinity United Methodist Church.
You may or may not have heard of the latest Executive Order issued by Bush last week, granting him the authority to seize or freeze the assets of anyone he deems to be working against "stability" in Iraq. That is the latest in a series of executive orders put in place in the last several months. Progressive
commentators are comparing them to the "enabling laws" passed by the German Parliament -- laws which enabled Hitler to assume dictatorial powers.
The question that arises and is unsettleling is: Can we by any stretch of the imagination believe that Bush is creating the
super-powerful "Unitary Executive" in order to hand it over to the Democrats next year?
The thoughts that follow are certainly dark thoughts, thoughts that none of us really wants to contemplate, thoughts that unsettle so deeply that it's difficult to entertain them at all, and in our public discourse get dismissed as "conspiracy theories." I would much rather go about my life, dismissing the deep fears of what is happening to this country that lay beneath the surface of my everyday life. But for two reasons I cannot.
One is because of the teaching of Joanna Macy who, when I attended a 10-day intensive with her in 2004, did a simulated raid by Homeland Security that reminded us all of the potential future scenario of a drastic increase in repression that we need to prepare ourselves for, and who also reminded us daily of the
importance of facing the pain of the world without flinching.
The second reason is because I was born three years after the end of World War II and during that whole post-war era in which I grew up, the question of how to deal with evil when it has usurped political and military power and the deeper question of how did so many good Germans allow Hitler to happen and how did the world not allow themselves to believe what was happening.
I am afraid of these thoughts. I have not yet reached the place of
seeing the pain of the world without flinching. I tell myself it's
important not to dwell on the negative and to offer a story of hope. But the facts are there and the attached "call for an Emergency meeting" summarizes some of them clearly. We all know there's much more than this and we all know that this madness must stop.
I am going to this meeting and thought I would let others know about it. You might want to let others know as well.
EMERGENCY MEETING
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 1, 2007
TRINITY UNITED METHODIST CHURCH
SEATTLE, WA
We are in a grave constitutional crisis with a President who seemingly wants to be king, and a Congress unable and unwilling to oppose him.
This administration is building, plank by plank, the framework for military dictatorship. Already in place is a global governing philosophy that uses the military as muscle for invading other nations for the purpose of social engineering and massive corporate profits. The Defense Authorization Act of 2006
empowers the President to impose martial law in the event of a
terrorist incident.
The National Defense Authorization Act of 2007 permits the President to command National Guard troops without the consent of state governors.
The National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive gives the President dictatorial powers in the event of a “catastrophic incident”.
The Military Commissions Act suspends the right of habeas corpus.
This short list doesn’t include wide spread wire tapping of citizens, construction of concentration camps, Black-shirt private armies, an ever expanding military budget, increased government secrecy, non co-operation with Congress, and the inevitable bankrupting of domestic budgets. And now, the latest grab for power has the Executive announcing that “our property” can be seized for dissent against the invasion and occupation of Iraq.
We are in a very grave constitutional crisis folks. I encourage every one of you to make a noise in the offices of Murray, Cantwell, and your congressional representative. Silence is the death of democracy.
But I think we also need to begin the process of organizing some form of resistance, protest, and/or strategy for impeachment. Our politicians are fiddling while democracy burns. Feeding from common corporate money sources, they are no longer worthy of our trust. Indeed, they have betrayed us.
For example, almost daily some media figure or political operative drops a hint that our country might be hit again by the terrorists. Ask yourself, in the event of another catastrophic occurrence can you trust this government to stay true to the idealism of democracy, and the laws of limited checks and balances of power, encoded in the Constitution? Can you
trust Congress to represent the people? I certainly cannot.
We are, I repeat, in a grave, surreal even, constitutional crisis. We are dealing with a spirituality of tyranny; an unleashing of ruthless, arrogant power that corrupts all it touches. It’s time to get angry and cast out this unclean spirit from our land.
Such a statement can now get me arrested, disappeared, and stripped of all assets. Is this America? Is this the country in which we have been raised? And how long, friend, until you yourself awaken only to discover that there is now a knock on your door?
I call upon all who care to assemble at Trinity United Methodist Church, Wednesday evening August 1st at 7pm. There we will stratigize how to reclaim the power of the people, the birthright we share from our heritage of democracy.
Knock! Knock!
Rev. Rich Lang-Pastor
Trinity United Methodist Church
Posted by: rossiann at July 29, 2007 02:20 AM
Sorry bout that rossi - visitors arrived.
Knock! Knock!
Rev. Rich Lang-Pastor
Trinity United Methodist Church
Posted by: Chris at July 29, 2007 03:18 AM
Sorry Rev. Rich Lang-Pastor,
We are, I repeat, in a grave, surreal even, constitutional crisis. We are dealing with a spirituality of tyranny; an unleashing of ruthless, arrogant power that corrupts all it touches. It’s time to get angry and cast out this unclean spirit from our land.
To late, to late, it was time for the American Citizens to get mad, and take to the streets, casting out that unclean spirit, November 2000, when the Supreme Court of America stole the election from Al Gore, and then Georgie and his gang of impetent unclean thugs stole another election in November of 2004 from John Kerry, while America kept their heads in the sand.
And sadly now America and the rest of the World have to live with the impetent thugs who now reside in the White House, the House of the People.
And Yes, I would not count on any of them handing over the powers they have usurped in the last 7 years, this thug is counting on America being run by a Dictator, that dictator being his arrogant unclean self.
Saudi Arabian Weapons deal;
this would directly effect the holdings of the Bush family, as they are shareholders in the carlyle Group, which own united defense among other defense contractors;
http://www.buzzflash.com/interviews/03/06/23_briody.html
Destabalizing the Middle east is the best thing this administration ever did for itself.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/27/AR2007072702126.html
Answering to No One
Walter F. Mondale
Excerpt:
The corollary to Cheney's zealous embrace of secrecy is his near total aversion to the notion of accountability. I've never seen a former member of the House of Representatives demonstrate such contempt for Congress -- even when it was controlled by his own party. His insistence on invoking executive privilege to block virtually every congressional request for information has been stupefying -- it's almost as if he denies the legitimacy of an equal branch of government. Nor does he exhibit much respect for public opinion, which amounts to indifference toward being held accountable by the people who elected him.
Whatever authority a vice president has is derived from the president under whom he serves. There are no powers inherent in the office; they must be delegated by the president. Somehow, not only has Cheney been given vast authority by President Bush -- including, apparently, the entire intelligence portfolio -- but he also pursues his own agenda. The real question is why the president allows this to happen.
Three decades ago we lived through another painful example of a White House exceeding its authority, lying to the American people, breaking the law and shrouding everything it did in secrecy. Watergate wrenched the country, and our constitutional system, like nothing before. We spent years trying to identify and absorb the lessons of this great excess. But here we are again.
Since the Carter administration left office, we have been criticized for many things. Yet I remain enormously proud of what we did in those four years, especially that we told the truth, obeyed the law and kept the peace.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/29/opinion/29sun1.html
Editorial
Mr. Gonzales’s Never-Ending Story
Excerpt:
As far as we can tell, there are three possible explanations for Mr. Gonzales’s talk about a dispute over other — unspecified — intelligence activities. One, he lied to Congress. Two, he used a bureaucratic dodge to mislead lawmakers and the public: the spying program was modified after Mr. Ashcroft refused to endorse it, which made it “different” from the one Mr. Bush has acknowledged. The third is that there was more wiretapping than has been disclosed, perhaps even purely domestic wiretapping, and Mr. Gonzales is helping Mr. Bush cover it up.
Democratic lawmakers are asking for a special prosecutor to look into Mr. Gonzales’s words and deeds. Solicitor General Paul Clement has a last chance to show that the Justice Department is still minimally functional by fulfilling that request.
If that does not happen, Congress should impeach Mr. Gonzales.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/28/AR2007072801420.html
Bush Aide Blocked Report
Global Health Draft In 2006 Rejected for Not Being Political
{{{William R. Steiger is a godson of Bu$h 41. He's currently awaiting senate confirmation as ambassador to Mozambique....}}}
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/blog/2007/07/here_there_and_everywhere.html
Bill Moyers Journal
The pied piper of sane journalism practices.... I saw part of this interview with Fawaz A. Gerges and Brian Fishman. When the video or the transcript come online, I'd recommend viewing/reading, but meanwhile the blog is there. The first commenter has a point. Everyone but Saudi Arabia was mentioned, and that omission on the heels of the AP story last night that there's about to be an arms deal completed with the Saudis is... well, disturbing.
http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/330/index.html
http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/330/video.html
NOW - Voter Caging (second link is the video)
I saw part of this, and it ties directly to the attorney firings.
OMG Rossi showed up and I was already in bed.
I am so rude! Damn.
Oh good:
FBI: Gang Activity In Military "Threat To National Security"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
snip -
"Evidence of gang culture and gang activity in the military is increasing so much an FBI report calls it "a threat to law enforcement and national security." The signs are chilling: Marines in gang attire on Paris Island; paratroopers flashing gang hand signs at a nightclub near Ft. Bragg; infantrymen showing-off gang tattoos at Ft. Hood. "
" Point: Australians do not take authority easily.
There is in them, they say, a natural independence, a skepticism, a suspicion, about the imposition of anything on anybody.
Americans, on the other hand, it occurred to me, were founded by Puritans, very authority-centered religious types. We take laws seriously. And more than that, we suspect anyone who doesn't."
Excellent summation.
I am not sure either could be called MORE religious though.
It's morning in America -- Sunday morning in America, to be more specific, the last Sunday morning in July at that -- and the DCP is already up and jammin'. Ya just gotta luvvit when that happens.
Oh, yeah, and there's a **new thread** too...
Carol
I'm more concerned about gang activity inside the US government! ;)
Rossi
Refreshing to hear from you.