like living with a schizophrenic, paul sucked the entire world into his insanity. why cannot the world move on from a religion that requires universal and eternal inherited sin from a single man who never lived and a human sacrifice for penance?
paul had to explain how a man who suffered the execution of a criminal was in reality a cosmic bookend. you read paul's letter to the romans, and the sermon on the mount, besides not being the same religion, you see the part that is given lip service, and the part that is silently read. jesus said not only shall you not kill, but you must love your enemies, for even the tax collectors and gentiles are able to do otherwise.
what we have is not so much a religion as a culture. the culture will establish the practice, it will change over time, it wont necessarily be faithful to the original. like a mob whose individuals do not protest and alone would not do such things, the single man pretends it makes sense, and even utters banalities how he is supported and grounded by his faith, certainly not his reason.
if we clearly as humans have one thing to feel ashamed of, it is war. this year's war is always popular with the mob. its time for reform. what must happen is that the individual must begin to break away from the mob. don't go to war for the mob. don't pretend the mythologic mumbo jumbo makes sense.
Sunday, December 04, 2011
Sunday, April 24, 2011
adults who should know better
adults who should know better should not mislead impressionable teenagers with bullshit about the lord or the gospels. adults should start trying to be honest about their true feelings.
Bogart at the train station -
"well, see ya."
"I don't know when."
"Don't forget about me."
"That'll be pretty hard to do."
Then at the door one last look back at the past.
Bogart at the train station -
"well, see ya."
"I don't know when."
"Don't forget about me."
"That'll be pretty hard to do."
Then at the door one last look back at the past.
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Origins of the Cold War
Fundamentally, I am anti-war. I have studied the cold war some, and I am impressed at the anti-communist idealism. Each actor in this drama was self-motivated by a patriotic, logical, imperative to fight for what is right, good and worth preserving. It led us into the military industrial state. It diverted us from fighting just as hard to preserve our economic power. But I was perplexed as to why, when the communist threat eroded, when the Berlin wall fell, why did the military that was built to fight communism, why did it grow even larger? I propose this is the most important issue for America. As long as we spend a trillion or more per year, 1/2 our tax receipts and 1/3 our budget, as long as we are killing people overseas, this country will founder, both morally and economically. I propose if America wants to regain something lost, this would be a good time to stand down from world war two.
Origins of the Cold War
Bad news played across American newspapers in 1949-1950. Russia had set off its own atomic bomb. China was lost to communism. Alger Hiss was convicted of perjury and by inference a Soviet spy. Joe McCarthy began charging that Hiss was just the tip of the iceberg – the State Department was loaded with communists. In June 1950, North Korea invaded South Korea, and U.S. troops faced communist troops for the first time. Behind the headlines was a growing conviction that America was in a global war with Communism. Only 10 years before there had been a debate whether the U.S. should involve itself in a European war. Now, in 1950, the Truman administration committed to total long-term military superiority and active participation in regional conflicts all over the globe.
No war has ever destroyed so much, or changed the world so completely, as WW2. Fifty million people died. Much of Europe and Asia were in ruins. In a span of just 30 years, Europe had experienced the first world war, a depression, and now the most devastating war of all. Many of the world’s great cities were destroyed. Japan and Germany were in ruins and it was unclear what form of government and what kind of country they would become. Two powers emerged, Russia and America.
Robert Payne, British historian, wrote in 1949, “There never was a country more fabulous than America...the decisions of the American government affect the lives.. of the remotest people. Half the wealth of the world, more than half the productivity... are concentrated in American hands... She bestrides the world like a Colossus: no other power at any time in the world’s history has possessed so varied or so great an influence on other nations...” (qtd in McCullough 733)
Russia in WWII had twenty million dead. The German army had destroyed cities, towns, roads, rail lines, electric plants, bridges, farms and livestock. Michael Forrestal, son of the Navy Secretary, went to Moscow in April 1947. He reported after touring the countryside, “the standard of living and mental attitude brought about by the worst depression [in the U.S.] must be a kind of paradise unimagineable in comparison to official prosperity here.”(qtd in Leffler 6)
Many of the men who made American policy after WW2 had been young men after WW1. They had seen the toleration of Germany and Japan invading and controlling nearby countries. Appeasement, they called it. They had learned from WW2, that relatively small countries could control large areas by annexing the resources of other lands. War required industrial ability, resources and skilled populations. Near the end of WW2, American policy makers warned against any post-war entity controlling all the resources of Europe.(Leffler 11) This was at the heart of post-war American policy – Russia must not be allowed to bring all of Europe into her sphere of influence. This is also what drove Roosevelt in 1940 – a victorious Germany with all the resources of Europe would directly threaten America at a time of Germany’s choosing.(Leffler 22)
Sitting astride both Europe and Asia, Russia was a brutal totalitarian regime with a ground army dominating eastern Europe and northeast Asia. In the political chaos after WWII, leftist movements were on the rise in Greece, Italy, France, China, and Korea (Leffler 497). Communists might seize any of these countries by internal politics. With the colonial masters largely weakened, nationalist movements that might be attracted to Marxism were on the rise in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and North Africa.(Leffler 497) The devastation of Germany and Japan left a power vacuum that could have been filled by extreme nationalists or economic agreements with Russia. American planners were both the most powerful group in the world and tremendously concerned about possible scenarios. (Leffler 497)
Russia had been invaded twice by Germany in one generation, and feared a strengthened Germany as much as America feared a strong Russia. Roosevelt had made the best deal he could at Yalta. The Russian army was deployed across eastern Europe in superior numbers and unlikely to be removed by any action short of outright war. In 1948, fearing the loss of their buffer, the Russians sponsored a brutal overthrow of the democratic government in Czechoslovakia. This shocked the American public and pushed forward congressional approval of the Marshall plan (Leffler 205).
The struggle with Russia was not just political, but for many it was a religious war against godless communism. When the iron curtain came down on eastern Europe, the church lost territory it had felt was its own for centuries. Cardinal Francis Spellman, Archbishop of New York, in his annual St. Patrick’s day speech, 1948, warned of “civilization threatened with crucifixion by communism”. (Spellman)
In his inauguration speech, Jan 1949, Truman spoke only of foreign policy (McCullough 729). Communism is a false doctrine, he said. Communism believes mankind to be weak and unable to make its own decisions. Democracy believes mankind has the capacity and right to govern itself (McCullough 730). The NATO treaty, signed April 4, 1949, was the first peacetime military alliance since Washington had warned against entangling alliances. In 1949 the act unifying the armed forces and creating the Central Intelligence Agency was passed.
Chiang Kai-shek fled mainland China in December 1949, leaving behind the victorious and communist Mao Zedong in the most populous country in the world. The so-called China Lobby in America was an alliance consisting of religious, military figures and prominent republicans that had fought hard to keep China from becoming communist. MacArthur had written an article warning if China fell to the communists, it would imperil half the world. In August 1949, the Truman administration tried to counter the concern about losing China with a thousand page State Department report analyzing the entire record. The conclusion - China is a huge country with its own internal political reality. Despite more than $2 billion in aid, the Chiang Kai-shek Nationalist regime was incompetent and corrupt. “The civil war in China was beyond the control of the United States” (qtd in McCullough 743). It caused a sensation. The less restrained criticism called it a whitewash of the pro-communists in the State Department. The chief targets were Truman and Secretary of State Dean Acheson. McCullough says that Acheson was the target of “vilification such as few in American public life had ever known.”(756)
In September 1949 Truman received word that Russia had exploded its first atomic bomb. In October highly secret meetings were held in Washington to discuss a new theoretical super bomb, the hydrogen bomb. When fully briefed to the feasibility and magnitude, Acheson remarked, “what a depressing world” (qtd in McCullough 749). In January 1950 the Truman administration announced they would develop this new bomb. Einstein went on TV and spoke of atmospheric poisoning and the annihilation of life. A few days later the British spy Klaus Fuchs confessed to passing atomic secrets from the Americans to the Russians.
Alger Hiss was an American-born, high respected official in both the Truman and Roosevelt administraitions, and charged with being a Soviet spy. The drama played out on the front pages for a year and a half, from testimony before the House Un-American Committee, through two trials. During the first trial, Truman says to reporters, the country is not going to hell, read some history (McCullough 742). Because the statute of limitations had run out, on Jan 21, 1950, Alger Hiss was found guilty of perjury. Richard Nixon accused the Truman administration of deliberately trying to cover up the Hiss conspiracy. (McCullough 759). Secretary of State Dean Acheson was a personal friend of Hiss and did not accept the slim evidence presented. He said at a press conference that he will not turn his back on Alger Hiss. Joe McCarthy asked, will he not turn his back on other communists in the State Department as well? Richard Nixon called Acheson’s statement disgusting (McCullough 760). After decades of debate, historians have concluded that Hiss did indeed pass information to the Soviets (Uebelhor 241).
On Jan 7, 1950, Joe McCarthy had lunch with a Catholic priest, Father Edmund Walsh, dean of Georgetown’s foreign service school. Walsh, who had a long history as an anti-communist, suggested to McCarthy, who was Irish Catholic, that he make communist subversion in the U.S. an issue (McCullough 765). At a Lincoln day speech in 1950, just after the Alger Hiss conviction, McCarthy made the first of his wild charges, waving a list he said of 205 known communists in the State Department. The next week it was a list of 57 card carrying communists, and later it was 81. McCarthyism, defined today as exaggerated unsubstantiated character assassination, would last until his censure by the Senate in 1954.
In 1950, McCarthy was not up for re-election, but he helped campaign against Millard Tydings. Tydings had chaired hearings on McCarthy and called his charges a hoax. McCarthy circulated a faked photo of Tydings with Earl Browder, the head of the American Communist party (McCullough 814). Tydings lost the election. McCarthy -"You have to play rough if you are going to root out this motley crew.” (Time Magazine, Oct 22, 1951) Richard Nixon was first elected Senator in 1950. His opponent, Helen Douglas, he said, was “pink down to her underwear.” (McCullough 814) Republicans would sweep the elections in both 1950 and 1952.
The 1950 military budget was planned to be 13.5 billion (McCullough 759). More than that was set aside to pay WW2 bills. Truman still believed in balanced budgets, though he was planning a 5 billion deficit. After the deluge of bad news - Hiss, McCarthy, the Soviet bomb, the Chinese victory, and the belief that Russia was committted to worldwide aggression - Acheson argued that the 13.5 billion defense budget was no longer enough. Truman ordered a new review of military policy (McCullough 765).
National Security Council paper no. 68 (NSC-68) was given to Truman April 7, 1950. It was written by Paul Nitze, Dean Acheson and the Department of Defense. It was designed to shock - the United States was in deep peril. The U.S. was far behind the Soviets in conventional power. Nuclear power could not make up the difference, and regardless, Russia would achieve nuclear parity by 1954. A tremendous miltiary build-up was the only solution. Budget figures were discussed at 40-50 billion, 3 times the current defense spending. “The survival of the world is at stake.” The paper was set aside without action. (McCullough 771-772)
Communist North Korean troops attacked South Korea in June 1950. The Koreans, even the Chinese, were seen as agents of the Russians. The Chinese Communist armies we fight in Korea, Life magazine said, are “truly the armies of the Soviet Union as if they wore the uniform.”(qtd in McCullough 825) . In Korea, Russia was testing the U.S (McCullough 778) Truman on July 19, 1950, “Appeasement leads only to further aggression and ultimately to war.” (qtd in McCullough 784) The line must be held, or Japan and Southeast Asia could also fall. Omar Bradley and the Joint Chiefs thought Korea might be a decoy in a larger Russian strategy (McCullough 789). Korea was just one battle in the worldwide struggle with the Soviets.
In the first week of July 1950, MacArthur asked for 30,000 troops. A few days later, he asked for twice that many (McCullough 789). The war goes badly, then goes well, then goes badly again when the decision is made to chase the North Korean army to the Chinese border. Chinese troops enter the Korean peninsula with overwhelming numbers.
NSC-68 had not been adopted before the Korean War. In late summer 1950, Truman announced plans to double the men in uniform to 3 million, telling the American people this was the new reality which would have to be endured a long time. Congress raised military spending for 1950-51 to $48.2 billion, and 1951-52 to $60 billion (McCullough 792). The cold war was on and America would never again see defense spending like the $20 billion of 1948, much less the $2 billion of 1940.
MacArthur was fired by Truman in April 1951 for criticizing Truman’s conduct of the war, for giving the Chinese ultimatums, for making his views known we should take the war to China. In his penultimate moment, speaking before Congress after being recalled, MacArthur was unrestrained. The Washington politicians had brought a “new concept into military operations- the concept of appeasement...to go on indefinitely, indecisive, fighting with no mission.” “There is no subsitute for victory.”(McCullough 853) MacArthur if allowed to widen the war into China, said Bradley, “would involve us in the wrong war, at the wrong place, at the wrong time, and with the wrong enemy.” (McCullough 854) Russia was the enemy behind all the trouble, not China, and Europe was the most important region in the world to be protected.
After the dramatic firing of MacArthur, and during Truman’s lowest popularity ratings, McCarthy made his most vitriolic attack on General Marshall and Dean Acheson in June 1951. They were part of a conspiracy so immense it surpassed any in history (McCullough 859). McCarthy said it was Marshall that created the China policy and the military strategy in Korea. Truman was no longer in control. He was a part of a conspiracy that was being guided from Moscow. He talked for 3 hours. By the end, only 3 senators had not walked out. It would still be 2 and a half years before the Senate would censure him. (McCullough 860)
Backed by military and religious factions, Democrat and Republican political doctrine, America never stood down after WW2. The American response after WW2 would have been appropriate if Russia was intent on world domination. There was a threat, but American leaders overestimated the appeal of the Russian-Marxist system in a disrupted and dysfunctional world. American leaders saw Russian influence behind every local uprising and every case of Marxist appeal.(Leffler, 508) Fearful of the bomb, fearful that Marxism was a contagious disease, fearful of those who did not fear God, America fought and spent its way to security, from a $2 billion defense budget in 1940, to nearly $1000 billion in 2011. For sixty years we have quartered troops overseas during peacetime. Eisenhower, the victor of WW2, warned the American people of the self-perpetuating nature of military spending. Truman also regretted creating a secret CIA agency empowered and energized to fight communism, where not even the President knew what they were doing (Miller 391). It all began in the first few years after WW2.
photo of tydings and browder
http://iconicphotos.wordpress.com/2010/01/05/millard-tydings-case/
article Time 1951 on McCarthy (very good)
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,815585-1,00.html
article Life 1950, War can Come, on lack of military preparedness
http://books.google.com/books?id=_lIEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA19&ots=oiBYe49usb&dq=war%20can%20come%3B%20will%20we%20be%20ready%3F%20life&pg=PA19#v=onepage&q&f=false
Works Cited
Leffler, Melvyn. A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration, and the Cold War. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992.
McCullough, David. Truman. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992.
Miller, Merle. Plain Speaking: an Oral Biography of Harry S. Truman. New York: Berkley, 1973.
Spellman, Cardinal Francis. “Mankind’s Moment of Decision”. Vital Speeches March 17, 1948
Uebelhor, Tracy. Presidential Profiles: The Truman Years. New York: Facts on File, 2006
Origins of the Cold War
Bad news played across American newspapers in 1949-1950. Russia had set off its own atomic bomb. China was lost to communism. Alger Hiss was convicted of perjury and by inference a Soviet spy. Joe McCarthy began charging that Hiss was just the tip of the iceberg – the State Department was loaded with communists. In June 1950, North Korea invaded South Korea, and U.S. troops faced communist troops for the first time. Behind the headlines was a growing conviction that America was in a global war with Communism. Only 10 years before there had been a debate whether the U.S. should involve itself in a European war. Now, in 1950, the Truman administration committed to total long-term military superiority and active participation in regional conflicts all over the globe.
No war has ever destroyed so much, or changed the world so completely, as WW2. Fifty million people died. Much of Europe and Asia were in ruins. In a span of just 30 years, Europe had experienced the first world war, a depression, and now the most devastating war of all. Many of the world’s great cities were destroyed. Japan and Germany were in ruins and it was unclear what form of government and what kind of country they would become. Two powers emerged, Russia and America.
Robert Payne, British historian, wrote in 1949, “There never was a country more fabulous than America...the decisions of the American government affect the lives.. of the remotest people. Half the wealth of the world, more than half the productivity... are concentrated in American hands... She bestrides the world like a Colossus: no other power at any time in the world’s history has possessed so varied or so great an influence on other nations...” (qtd in McCullough 733)
Russia in WWII had twenty million dead. The German army had destroyed cities, towns, roads, rail lines, electric plants, bridges, farms and livestock. Michael Forrestal, son of the Navy Secretary, went to Moscow in April 1947. He reported after touring the countryside, “the standard of living and mental attitude brought about by the worst depression [in the U.S.] must be a kind of paradise unimagineable in comparison to official prosperity here.”(qtd in Leffler 6)
Many of the men who made American policy after WW2 had been young men after WW1. They had seen the toleration of Germany and Japan invading and controlling nearby countries. Appeasement, they called it. They had learned from WW2, that relatively small countries could control large areas by annexing the resources of other lands. War required industrial ability, resources and skilled populations. Near the end of WW2, American policy makers warned against any post-war entity controlling all the resources of Europe.(Leffler 11) This was at the heart of post-war American policy – Russia must not be allowed to bring all of Europe into her sphere of influence. This is also what drove Roosevelt in 1940 – a victorious Germany with all the resources of Europe would directly threaten America at a time of Germany’s choosing.(Leffler 22)
Sitting astride both Europe and Asia, Russia was a brutal totalitarian regime with a ground army dominating eastern Europe and northeast Asia. In the political chaos after WWII, leftist movements were on the rise in Greece, Italy, France, China, and Korea (Leffler 497). Communists might seize any of these countries by internal politics. With the colonial masters largely weakened, nationalist movements that might be attracted to Marxism were on the rise in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and North Africa.(Leffler 497) The devastation of Germany and Japan left a power vacuum that could have been filled by extreme nationalists or economic agreements with Russia. American planners were both the most powerful group in the world and tremendously concerned about possible scenarios. (Leffler 497)
Russia had been invaded twice by Germany in one generation, and feared a strengthened Germany as much as America feared a strong Russia. Roosevelt had made the best deal he could at Yalta. The Russian army was deployed across eastern Europe in superior numbers and unlikely to be removed by any action short of outright war. In 1948, fearing the loss of their buffer, the Russians sponsored a brutal overthrow of the democratic government in Czechoslovakia. This shocked the American public and pushed forward congressional approval of the Marshall plan (Leffler 205).
The struggle with Russia was not just political, but for many it was a religious war against godless communism. When the iron curtain came down on eastern Europe, the church lost territory it had felt was its own for centuries. Cardinal Francis Spellman, Archbishop of New York, in his annual St. Patrick’s day speech, 1948, warned of “civilization threatened with crucifixion by communism”. (Spellman)
In his inauguration speech, Jan 1949, Truman spoke only of foreign policy (McCullough 729). Communism is a false doctrine, he said. Communism believes mankind to be weak and unable to make its own decisions. Democracy believes mankind has the capacity and right to govern itself (McCullough 730). The NATO treaty, signed April 4, 1949, was the first peacetime military alliance since Washington had warned against entangling alliances. In 1949 the act unifying the armed forces and creating the Central Intelligence Agency was passed.
Chiang Kai-shek fled mainland China in December 1949, leaving behind the victorious and communist Mao Zedong in the most populous country in the world. The so-called China Lobby in America was an alliance consisting of religious, military figures and prominent republicans that had fought hard to keep China from becoming communist. MacArthur had written an article warning if China fell to the communists, it would imperil half the world. In August 1949, the Truman administration tried to counter the concern about losing China with a thousand page State Department report analyzing the entire record. The conclusion - China is a huge country with its own internal political reality. Despite more than $2 billion in aid, the Chiang Kai-shek Nationalist regime was incompetent and corrupt. “The civil war in China was beyond the control of the United States” (qtd in McCullough 743). It caused a sensation. The less restrained criticism called it a whitewash of the pro-communists in the State Department. The chief targets were Truman and Secretary of State Dean Acheson. McCullough says that Acheson was the target of “vilification such as few in American public life had ever known.”(756)
In September 1949 Truman received word that Russia had exploded its first atomic bomb. In October highly secret meetings were held in Washington to discuss a new theoretical super bomb, the hydrogen bomb. When fully briefed to the feasibility and magnitude, Acheson remarked, “what a depressing world” (qtd in McCullough 749). In January 1950 the Truman administration announced they would develop this new bomb. Einstein went on TV and spoke of atmospheric poisoning and the annihilation of life. A few days later the British spy Klaus Fuchs confessed to passing atomic secrets from the Americans to the Russians.
Alger Hiss was an American-born, high respected official in both the Truman and Roosevelt administraitions, and charged with being a Soviet spy. The drama played out on the front pages for a year and a half, from testimony before the House Un-American Committee, through two trials. During the first trial, Truman says to reporters, the country is not going to hell, read some history (McCullough 742). Because the statute of limitations had run out, on Jan 21, 1950, Alger Hiss was found guilty of perjury. Richard Nixon accused the Truman administration of deliberately trying to cover up the Hiss conspiracy. (McCullough 759). Secretary of State Dean Acheson was a personal friend of Hiss and did not accept the slim evidence presented. He said at a press conference that he will not turn his back on Alger Hiss. Joe McCarthy asked, will he not turn his back on other communists in the State Department as well? Richard Nixon called Acheson’s statement disgusting (McCullough 760). After decades of debate, historians have concluded that Hiss did indeed pass information to the Soviets (Uebelhor 241).
On Jan 7, 1950, Joe McCarthy had lunch with a Catholic priest, Father Edmund Walsh, dean of Georgetown’s foreign service school. Walsh, who had a long history as an anti-communist, suggested to McCarthy, who was Irish Catholic, that he make communist subversion in the U.S. an issue (McCullough 765). At a Lincoln day speech in 1950, just after the Alger Hiss conviction, McCarthy made the first of his wild charges, waving a list he said of 205 known communists in the State Department. The next week it was a list of 57 card carrying communists, and later it was 81. McCarthyism, defined today as exaggerated unsubstantiated character assassination, would last until his censure by the Senate in 1954.
In 1950, McCarthy was not up for re-election, but he helped campaign against Millard Tydings. Tydings had chaired hearings on McCarthy and called his charges a hoax. McCarthy circulated a faked photo of Tydings with Earl Browder, the head of the American Communist party (McCullough 814). Tydings lost the election. McCarthy -"You have to play rough if you are going to root out this motley crew.” (Time Magazine, Oct 22, 1951) Richard Nixon was first elected Senator in 1950. His opponent, Helen Douglas, he said, was “pink down to her underwear.” (McCullough 814) Republicans would sweep the elections in both 1950 and 1952.
The 1950 military budget was planned to be 13.5 billion (McCullough 759). More than that was set aside to pay WW2 bills. Truman still believed in balanced budgets, though he was planning a 5 billion deficit. After the deluge of bad news - Hiss, McCarthy, the Soviet bomb, the Chinese victory, and the belief that Russia was committted to worldwide aggression - Acheson argued that the 13.5 billion defense budget was no longer enough. Truman ordered a new review of military policy (McCullough 765).
National Security Council paper no. 68 (NSC-68) was given to Truman April 7, 1950. It was written by Paul Nitze, Dean Acheson and the Department of Defense. It was designed to shock - the United States was in deep peril. The U.S. was far behind the Soviets in conventional power. Nuclear power could not make up the difference, and regardless, Russia would achieve nuclear parity by 1954. A tremendous miltiary build-up was the only solution. Budget figures were discussed at 40-50 billion, 3 times the current defense spending. “The survival of the world is at stake.” The paper was set aside without action. (McCullough 771-772)
Communist North Korean troops attacked South Korea in June 1950. The Koreans, even the Chinese, were seen as agents of the Russians. The Chinese Communist armies we fight in Korea, Life magazine said, are “truly the armies of the Soviet Union as if they wore the uniform.”(qtd in McCullough 825) . In Korea, Russia was testing the U.S (McCullough 778) Truman on July 19, 1950, “Appeasement leads only to further aggression and ultimately to war.” (qtd in McCullough 784) The line must be held, or Japan and Southeast Asia could also fall. Omar Bradley and the Joint Chiefs thought Korea might be a decoy in a larger Russian strategy (McCullough 789). Korea was just one battle in the worldwide struggle with the Soviets.
In the first week of July 1950, MacArthur asked for 30,000 troops. A few days later, he asked for twice that many (McCullough 789). The war goes badly, then goes well, then goes badly again when the decision is made to chase the North Korean army to the Chinese border. Chinese troops enter the Korean peninsula with overwhelming numbers.
NSC-68 had not been adopted before the Korean War. In late summer 1950, Truman announced plans to double the men in uniform to 3 million, telling the American people this was the new reality which would have to be endured a long time. Congress raised military spending for 1950-51 to $48.2 billion, and 1951-52 to $60 billion (McCullough 792). The cold war was on and America would never again see defense spending like the $20 billion of 1948, much less the $2 billion of 1940.
MacArthur was fired by Truman in April 1951 for criticizing Truman’s conduct of the war, for giving the Chinese ultimatums, for making his views known we should take the war to China. In his penultimate moment, speaking before Congress after being recalled, MacArthur was unrestrained. The Washington politicians had brought a “new concept into military operations- the concept of appeasement...to go on indefinitely, indecisive, fighting with no mission.” “There is no subsitute for victory.”(McCullough 853) MacArthur if allowed to widen the war into China, said Bradley, “would involve us in the wrong war, at the wrong place, at the wrong time, and with the wrong enemy.” (McCullough 854) Russia was the enemy behind all the trouble, not China, and Europe was the most important region in the world to be protected.
After the dramatic firing of MacArthur, and during Truman’s lowest popularity ratings, McCarthy made his most vitriolic attack on General Marshall and Dean Acheson in June 1951. They were part of a conspiracy so immense it surpassed any in history (McCullough 859). McCarthy said it was Marshall that created the China policy and the military strategy in Korea. Truman was no longer in control. He was a part of a conspiracy that was being guided from Moscow. He talked for 3 hours. By the end, only 3 senators had not walked out. It would still be 2 and a half years before the Senate would censure him. (McCullough 860)
Backed by military and religious factions, Democrat and Republican political doctrine, America never stood down after WW2. The American response after WW2 would have been appropriate if Russia was intent on world domination. There was a threat, but American leaders overestimated the appeal of the Russian-Marxist system in a disrupted and dysfunctional world. American leaders saw Russian influence behind every local uprising and every case of Marxist appeal.(Leffler, 508) Fearful of the bomb, fearful that Marxism was a contagious disease, fearful of those who did not fear God, America fought and spent its way to security, from a $2 billion defense budget in 1940, to nearly $1000 billion in 2011. For sixty years we have quartered troops overseas during peacetime. Eisenhower, the victor of WW2, warned the American people of the self-perpetuating nature of military spending. Truman also regretted creating a secret CIA agency empowered and energized to fight communism, where not even the President knew what they were doing (Miller 391). It all began in the first few years after WW2.
photo of tydings and browder
http://iconicphotos.wordpress.com/2010/01/05/millard-tydings-case/
article Time 1951 on McCarthy (very good)
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,815585-1,00.html
article Life 1950, War can Come, on lack of military preparedness
http://books.google.com/books?id=_lIEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA19&ots=oiBYe49usb&dq=war%20can%20come%3B%20will%20we%20be%20ready%3F%20life&pg=PA19#v=onepage&q&f=false
Works Cited
Leffler, Melvyn. A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration, and the Cold War. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992.
McCullough, David. Truman. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992.
Miller, Merle. Plain Speaking: an Oral Biography of Harry S. Truman. New York: Berkley, 1973.
Spellman, Cardinal Francis. “Mankind’s Moment of Decision”. Vital Speeches March 17, 1948
Uebelhor, Tracy. Presidential Profiles: The Truman Years. New York: Facts on File, 2006
Monday, September 06, 2010
random
the problem with college history textbooks is that they are such a condensation they are not true in any fundamental sense of the word.
besides draining all the blood out of the subject.
the left is dead. social issues are a red herring. the supposedly massively liberal administration is indistinguishable from the previous supposedly conservative administration on military, financial, and government powers.
on the playing board are abortion, gay rights, whether the capitalists give you 26 weeks unemployment or the socialists give you 52 weeks.
Obama cannot survive such a coordinated propaganda attack. The left is dead precisely because they are so indistinguishable from the right. They tried to implement the slightest social engineering, the decision has been made to replace him. The insanity of the socialism charge with the man who did not change anything fundamental seldom gets noticed by the left, and is levied by the right. The issues that have been building for a generation, militarism, insolvency, financial decline, governmental impotence and irrelevance, have been blamed on our two years of socialism.
besides draining all the blood out of the subject.
the left is dead. social issues are a red herring. the supposedly massively liberal administration is indistinguishable from the previous supposedly conservative administration on military, financial, and government powers.
on the playing board are abortion, gay rights, whether the capitalists give you 26 weeks unemployment or the socialists give you 52 weeks.
Obama cannot survive such a coordinated propaganda attack. The left is dead precisely because they are so indistinguishable from the right. They tried to implement the slightest social engineering, the decision has been made to replace him. The insanity of the socialism charge with the man who did not change anything fundamental seldom gets noticed by the left, and is levied by the right. The issues that have been building for a generation, militarism, insolvency, financial decline, governmental impotence and irrelevance, have been blamed on our two years of socialism.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Sunday, May 30, 2010
propaganda
the survival of america is dependent on the outcome of a war of propaganda. its hard not to, at times, be pessimistic. it seems that the most powerful are amoral. they have no moral compass, no moral creed, no overriding belief, no fear of hell, no assurance of retribution.
you can try to counter this with logic, but then, supposing, you come into a position of power and temptation, what are you going to use to guide you? what altruistic philosophy would you use?
since religion has been proven scientifically to be a bag of unlikely events, an official creed has not been universally in place. is a creed possible, or is the new religion so formless it cannot have a mass manifestation? right now i would say our religion is electronic entertainment. and pursuit of the dollar and power for the minority driven to rule.
a new religion, if valid, would really benefit and be helpful. what is it? what fate falls to the faithless? emptiness. what faith falls to the optimistic? surety.
should the newly and formlessly faithful fight the propaganda war, or should they pursue the way of manifestation?
you can try to counter this with logic, but then, supposing, you come into a position of power and temptation, what are you going to use to guide you? what altruistic philosophy would you use?
since religion has been proven scientifically to be a bag of unlikely events, an official creed has not been universally in place. is a creed possible, or is the new religion so formless it cannot have a mass manifestation? right now i would say our religion is electronic entertainment. and pursuit of the dollar and power for the minority driven to rule.
a new religion, if valid, would really benefit and be helpful. what is it? what fate falls to the faithless? emptiness. what faith falls to the optimistic? surety.
should the newly and formlessly faithful fight the propaganda war, or should they pursue the way of manifestation?
Sunday, May 02, 2010
Obama has finally realized the implosion of the economy is a bad thing
It seems that president Obama has finally discovered that it is a problem when the country's economy implodes. In the meantime he has wasted his first year. Most of his policies, surely well-meaning, would have made the economy worse - cap and trade, enlarging healthcare, taking over GM while bailing out banks. Perhaps now he or his advisors have realized that difficult or not, all these dreams of lowering the ocean, providing universal quality healthcare for the least of these, they all rest or fall on the foundation of the strength of the American economy, an economy whose basic soundness is taken for granted, but for which signs of a long term decline seem unmistakable. What are people supposed to do for a living in the American future? Farming? Manufacturing? What comes next?
In World War 2, America outproduced industrially the rest of the world combined (according to the PBS series WW2). How far we are from that. The iron age started around 1000 BC. The cultures that could work iron were able to conquer or prosper over those who were slower. America won two world wars with its know-how and ability. For too long, we are throwing that culture away. We have been told that we are in a post-industrial society, an information age, a service economy. These are just as insubstantial as selling mortgages, collecting them into abstract packages, marking them up, selling them again, insuring them to fail - everybody making a lot of money, then adding that whole enterprise to the gross national product, and saying our economy grew.
We face this basic problem of national debt and insolvency with a poisoned atmosphere. Has there been hatred of any president like this? It’s scary. I hear on public airwaves that Obama is ruining this country on purpose. I have heard that he wants to usher in 100 years of tyranny. What would be the proper treatment of an elected official sworn to uphold the constitution who is ruining the country on purpose and wants to usher in 100 years of tyranny? The right seems to have it in their hands now for the power to swing back their way, yet they seem to feed on propaganda. I don't see Obama winning another term, but we may be beyond the point where one political party or the other is going to lead us out of this. We need a post-political society. The propaganda war is for political and economic control. The society itself is not served by allowing the two parties to manufacture the debate terms. Candidates take cheap shots and elect themselves with 30 second attack ads. It is in the country's best interest for both sides to acknowledge the honor and good intentions of their opponent, and have a real debate on the real problem. I do not care who is worse, Clinton or Bush or Obama. They represent factions and personalities, the simplification of the political argument - the dress, the dolt, socialism - not the real issues. It would be constructive if the media would also realize that the implosion of the American economy is an important issue. Pundits - we have a problem. We are the inheritors of a 600-year industrial revolution, from Leonardo down to Edison and Ford, a remarkable succession of wise men and scientists who built the western world. It would be foolish not to take some pride in that, but also to realize the drive for new things is human, has nothing to do with government, and why now is it so hard to manufacture the very things we need? How long can an economy prosper when everything comes from overseas? What do you do?
In World War 2, America outproduced industrially the rest of the world combined (according to the PBS series WW2). How far we are from that. The iron age started around 1000 BC. The cultures that could work iron were able to conquer or prosper over those who were slower. America won two world wars with its know-how and ability. For too long, we are throwing that culture away. We have been told that we are in a post-industrial society, an information age, a service economy. These are just as insubstantial as selling mortgages, collecting them into abstract packages, marking them up, selling them again, insuring them to fail - everybody making a lot of money, then adding that whole enterprise to the gross national product, and saying our economy grew.
We face this basic problem of national debt and insolvency with a poisoned atmosphere. Has there been hatred of any president like this? It’s scary. I hear on public airwaves that Obama is ruining this country on purpose. I have heard that he wants to usher in 100 years of tyranny. What would be the proper treatment of an elected official sworn to uphold the constitution who is ruining the country on purpose and wants to usher in 100 years of tyranny? The right seems to have it in their hands now for the power to swing back their way, yet they seem to feed on propaganda. I don't see Obama winning another term, but we may be beyond the point where one political party or the other is going to lead us out of this. We need a post-political society. The propaganda war is for political and economic control. The society itself is not served by allowing the two parties to manufacture the debate terms. Candidates take cheap shots and elect themselves with 30 second attack ads. It is in the country's best interest for both sides to acknowledge the honor and good intentions of their opponent, and have a real debate on the real problem. I do not care who is worse, Clinton or Bush or Obama. They represent factions and personalities, the simplification of the political argument - the dress, the dolt, socialism - not the real issues. It would be constructive if the media would also realize that the implosion of the American economy is an important issue. Pundits - we have a problem. We are the inheritors of a 600-year industrial revolution, from Leonardo down to Edison and Ford, a remarkable succession of wise men and scientists who built the western world. It would be foolish not to take some pride in that, but also to realize the drive for new things is human, has nothing to do with government, and why now is it so hard to manufacture the very things we need? How long can an economy prosper when everything comes from overseas? What do you do?
Monday, April 12, 2010
why are people wrong?
this is not exactly art, but in its own screwy way its got something to say.
i am struck by how often people divide themselves into two camps and both sides think the other is absolutely nuts. thats the observation, now the attempted explanation...
Why are people wrong?
Never mind that some people are right, they are in the minority. Most people are wrong. Ask anybody. Those guys, they don’t have a clue.
Politics is religion. All sides, all creeds, have their faithful and true believers. It colors how they see things. Their way is right, and they will fight and argue for it. The stupidity and calumny of the other side is scarcely to be comprehended.
Religion is religion (no argument there) .
Science is religion.
Art is religion.
Each have their adherents who cling to it as the truth, as the important, the relevant. It informs and shapes their perceptions, their actions, their wishes and desires.
People look for recognition. They are motivated by recognition. Whether it be hitting the most home runs, writing the best book, being elected to the highest office in the land, or quietly being a good accountant.
The first impulse is that somebody out there has figured this all out. And so you become a follower. Somebody is worthy and can teach or lead. Whether it be politics, art, religion.
People who have religion have figured out the most important questions in life. Never mind that different religions have completely different practices. In some you sit in the dark and try to see inside your mind. In others you kill other people who don’t follow your rules, like communists. Others you cant play cards, or dance. Some you cant wear short skirts.
Some young people do as they are told. They cross themselves. They believe that adam and eve were our first parents. Sometimes they have doubts. Maybe those who tell me what to believe are wrong. its called free will. Its very inefficient. Everyone has to grapple with the same problems and reinvent the mental solutions. That’s where teachers come in, but sooner or later, they all are wrong. maybe in a subtle way, or a gross way, but what great student has not differed with his teacher?
But that’s putting the best light on it. Even plato was wrong. what never seems to change, is putting belief into the next big thing. I guess people cant motivate themselves unless they believe in something. Art, politics, science, the children, the environment, baseball. When religion goes away, something has to come in to fill that need. Atheism is a religion. They have meetings, they pass the hat, they say hallelujah, they have a building fund. everybody has a religion. If they are a republican, a democrat, a monetary acquisition specialist, that’s it, that’s what they do, that’s who they are, that’s what they believe in. getting mine, getting yours, becoming known, getting respect, finding love, being secure in the search for the answer, the formula , finding your own individualized code that brings satisfaction.
Why are people wrong? why do other people not get it? Why do other peoples religion look wrong? why do other people on a different path leave you cold? look at the way she fixes her hair. look at him suck up. the bosses in this place are stupid. the workers in this place are stupid. the president is an idiot.
In search of something they can hang onto to help them know who they are and what they do, in search of a code that brings mental sureness, they have adopted a core belief that necessarily must oversimplify the problem/solution so as to be possible to follow. It may even be false, but it’s a motivating belief. For some reason, people must have beliefs to function. They cant walk without legs, and they cant function without beliefs, but it blinds them. Their evidence always points to the same conclusion. Whatever side they are on, they only see the evidence that supports their beliefs, and the other side thinks they are crazy and shortsighted, and living in error. Their beliefs predict how they will see new evidence. that’s what I believe. I cant understand why you wouldn’t agree with me.
This religion can be art, politics, sport, or even religion. But if religion falls, and fall it must if they want you to believe what science or your own experience can easily disprove, then the next big belief will fill the cavity.
People will believe in something, they have a belief spot that cannot be empty, but they also cannot see it or easily examine it. Its like looking at your own eyes. We can see these big beliefs easier in other people if we do not share them. Believing in the republican or democrat party, Catholicism, scientology, nationalism, fundamental Christianity, anti-communism, science, atheism, the pursuit of money or power, technology. It doesn’t matter what core belief people have, by definition, if its not really, really the truth, they will eventually come into a situation where it does not help them. Some of them will cling to what they know, some will abandon hope, most will start the process over of coming into a new or more complex, nuanced belief.
How many religions and core beliefs has there been since history began and how many of them were right? Most of them were wrong. people are wrong. we are still wrong. we are trying to get it right. Its not easy. Our beliefs prevent us from seeing things as they are. Rather than try to figure things out, figure out what you believe. Religion has many forms. If we didn’t have one though, what would we do with ourselves? I believe in…that’s what motivates me. Everything else is secondary.
i am struck by how often people divide themselves into two camps and both sides think the other is absolutely nuts. thats the observation, now the attempted explanation...
Why are people wrong?
Never mind that some people are right, they are in the minority. Most people are wrong. Ask anybody. Those guys, they don’t have a clue.
Politics is religion. All sides, all creeds, have their faithful and true believers. It colors how they see things. Their way is right, and they will fight and argue for it. The stupidity and calumny of the other side is scarcely to be comprehended.
Religion is religion (no argument there) .
Science is religion.
Art is religion.
Each have their adherents who cling to it as the truth, as the important, the relevant. It informs and shapes their perceptions, their actions, their wishes and desires.
People look for recognition. They are motivated by recognition. Whether it be hitting the most home runs, writing the best book, being elected to the highest office in the land, or quietly being a good accountant.
The first impulse is that somebody out there has figured this all out. And so you become a follower. Somebody is worthy and can teach or lead. Whether it be politics, art, religion.
People who have religion have figured out the most important questions in life. Never mind that different religions have completely different practices. In some you sit in the dark and try to see inside your mind. In others you kill other people who don’t follow your rules, like communists. Others you cant play cards, or dance. Some you cant wear short skirts.
Some young people do as they are told. They cross themselves. They believe that adam and eve were our first parents. Sometimes they have doubts. Maybe those who tell me what to believe are wrong. its called free will. Its very inefficient. Everyone has to grapple with the same problems and reinvent the mental solutions. That’s where teachers come in, but sooner or later, they all are wrong. maybe in a subtle way, or a gross way, but what great student has not differed with his teacher?
But that’s putting the best light on it. Even plato was wrong. what never seems to change, is putting belief into the next big thing. I guess people cant motivate themselves unless they believe in something. Art, politics, science, the children, the environment, baseball. When religion goes away, something has to come in to fill that need. Atheism is a religion. They have meetings, they pass the hat, they say hallelujah, they have a building fund. everybody has a religion. If they are a republican, a democrat, a monetary acquisition specialist, that’s it, that’s what they do, that’s who they are, that’s what they believe in. getting mine, getting yours, becoming known, getting respect, finding love, being secure in the search for the answer, the formula , finding your own individualized code that brings satisfaction.
Why are people wrong? why do other people not get it? Why do other peoples religion look wrong? why do other people on a different path leave you cold? look at the way she fixes her hair. look at him suck up. the bosses in this place are stupid. the workers in this place are stupid. the president is an idiot.
In search of something they can hang onto to help them know who they are and what they do, in search of a code that brings mental sureness, they have adopted a core belief that necessarily must oversimplify the problem/solution so as to be possible to follow. It may even be false, but it’s a motivating belief. For some reason, people must have beliefs to function. They cant walk without legs, and they cant function without beliefs, but it blinds them. Their evidence always points to the same conclusion. Whatever side they are on, they only see the evidence that supports their beliefs, and the other side thinks they are crazy and shortsighted, and living in error. Their beliefs predict how they will see new evidence. that’s what I believe. I cant understand why you wouldn’t agree with me.
This religion can be art, politics, sport, or even religion. But if religion falls, and fall it must if they want you to believe what science or your own experience can easily disprove, then the next big belief will fill the cavity.
People will believe in something, they have a belief spot that cannot be empty, but they also cannot see it or easily examine it. Its like looking at your own eyes. We can see these big beliefs easier in other people if we do not share them. Believing in the republican or democrat party, Catholicism, scientology, nationalism, fundamental Christianity, anti-communism, science, atheism, the pursuit of money or power, technology. It doesn’t matter what core belief people have, by definition, if its not really, really the truth, they will eventually come into a situation where it does not help them. Some of them will cling to what they know, some will abandon hope, most will start the process over of coming into a new or more complex, nuanced belief.
How many religions and core beliefs has there been since history began and how many of them were right? Most of them were wrong. people are wrong. we are still wrong. we are trying to get it right. Its not easy. Our beliefs prevent us from seeing things as they are. Rather than try to figure things out, figure out what you believe. Religion has many forms. If we didn’t have one though, what would we do with ourselves? I believe in…that’s what motivates me. Everything else is secondary.
Monday, December 28, 2009
humans are social
humans group themselves into social units. even within a medium sized town in a homogenized state, you have the westside team in competition with the eastside. tribes everywhere, overlapping memberships, family units, national groups, race, religion, political persuasion. otherwise, without the ability to form working social groups, how would you build roads, municipal buildings, sewers, run airports, pass law.
two million years ago, pre-humans came out of the trees. so say the anthropologist. where did these slow small creatures sleep that they were not dragged off in the night by the tigers? by the fire. at this same time, the size of the jaw and the stomach grew smaller, in time measured by evolutionary units, and the size of the brain grew larger. the large brain required protein. people were not chewing fibrous plants hours a day, like cattle. they were cooking meat by the fire. how did these slow small creatures hunt and kill?
in australia, the aborigines hunt in the heat of the day. animals do not sweat, they want to sleep and rest in the shade in the middle of the day. hairless humans sweat. they run down their prey, even antelopes. the native australians run after their prey hour after hour, when the sun is highest, until they can kill a heat exhausted animal with a spear from 10 feet away.
the fire becomes the center of the tribe, necessary for warmth, safety, food. the ritual of keeping the fire, the work of tending the fire, the tribe must cooperate, it must both specialize and work together to live together.
whatever the facts regarding the life of jesus, the story of jesus evolved as the churches formed. christianity succeeded because the story of jesus that evolved supported or allowed a social group to come together and form a social unit that became integral to everyday life. the church became an institution of the community. the church members held fast to each other and considered one another to be brothers and sisters, in the same family, bound by ties real and everlasting. christianity was a social success. it built a community, a civilization. it did it because thats what people needed it to do. the story was molded until it was suitable to form a society.
fracturing occurs as naturally as cohesiveness. the environment constantly changes. a hunting society faces different challenges from an agrarian one. there are natural size limits to groups. everybody has a consummate ability to be part of more than one group at a time. i am an american, a member of my state, of my family, of my corporation, a fan of certain sports teams, my church, my race, a citizen even of earth. i have allegiances to all these.
the genius of christianity, and of any religion that inspires true service, is that it allows those who build it to be part of an eternal family, that transcends any other limits to membership. the founder, jesus, was a man who did not profit from his position. he never had sex, he never had possessions. he did not live like a king, he lived like the least of men. the popes lived like a king, but that is to be expected. the story built a civilization the likes of which the world has never seen. its a tough act to follow.
the golden rule is in some form probably in every religion, has been mouthed by countless prophets, and ignored universally. jesus, who lives the golden rule, institutionalized it, because his power comes from the one true god. christianity has the authority of the only almighty god.
greed is an irrational self interest, like a parasite which fills it stomach and kills its host. christianity and religions like it have kept greed in check. in so doing, they not only provided for the greater good, they kept the greedy from killing themselves. regardless of the literal truth or mythological character of the founding story of christianity, its built on a greater truth, or at least, it has served humanity.
when thinking of the next socializing myth of society, it has to have integrity, like a work of art, not assembled from a checklist by a committee. people need society to persevere. society needs organizing principles. even though the story of christianity seemed improbable, it was the vehicle for a greater truth. that did not happen by accident or design.
two million years ago, pre-humans came out of the trees. so say the anthropologist. where did these slow small creatures sleep that they were not dragged off in the night by the tigers? by the fire. at this same time, the size of the jaw and the stomach grew smaller, in time measured by evolutionary units, and the size of the brain grew larger. the large brain required protein. people were not chewing fibrous plants hours a day, like cattle. they were cooking meat by the fire. how did these slow small creatures hunt and kill?
in australia, the aborigines hunt in the heat of the day. animals do not sweat, they want to sleep and rest in the shade in the middle of the day. hairless humans sweat. they run down their prey, even antelopes. the native australians run after their prey hour after hour, when the sun is highest, until they can kill a heat exhausted animal with a spear from 10 feet away.
the fire becomes the center of the tribe, necessary for warmth, safety, food. the ritual of keeping the fire, the work of tending the fire, the tribe must cooperate, it must both specialize and work together to live together.
whatever the facts regarding the life of jesus, the story of jesus evolved as the churches formed. christianity succeeded because the story of jesus that evolved supported or allowed a social group to come together and form a social unit that became integral to everyday life. the church became an institution of the community. the church members held fast to each other and considered one another to be brothers and sisters, in the same family, bound by ties real and everlasting. christianity was a social success. it built a community, a civilization. it did it because thats what people needed it to do. the story was molded until it was suitable to form a society.
fracturing occurs as naturally as cohesiveness. the environment constantly changes. a hunting society faces different challenges from an agrarian one. there are natural size limits to groups. everybody has a consummate ability to be part of more than one group at a time. i am an american, a member of my state, of my family, of my corporation, a fan of certain sports teams, my church, my race, a citizen even of earth. i have allegiances to all these.
the genius of christianity, and of any religion that inspires true service, is that it allows those who build it to be part of an eternal family, that transcends any other limits to membership. the founder, jesus, was a man who did not profit from his position. he never had sex, he never had possessions. he did not live like a king, he lived like the least of men. the popes lived like a king, but that is to be expected. the story built a civilization the likes of which the world has never seen. its a tough act to follow.
the golden rule is in some form probably in every religion, has been mouthed by countless prophets, and ignored universally. jesus, who lives the golden rule, institutionalized it, because his power comes from the one true god. christianity has the authority of the only almighty god.
greed is an irrational self interest, like a parasite which fills it stomach and kills its host. christianity and religions like it have kept greed in check. in so doing, they not only provided for the greater good, they kept the greedy from killing themselves. regardless of the literal truth or mythological character of the founding story of christianity, its built on a greater truth, or at least, it has served humanity.
when thinking of the next socializing myth of society, it has to have integrity, like a work of art, not assembled from a checklist by a committee. people need society to persevere. society needs organizing principles. even though the story of christianity seemed improbable, it was the vehicle for a greater truth. that did not happen by accident or design.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
obama as a divisive figure
i voted for obama. when obama came to evansville, before the election, before he had the nomination won, i went to see him. the newspapers had already declared the race over. hillary was too far behind, there werent enough votes left. she would have to win almost all the remaining races. she almost did too. the right wing radio commentators were hammering obama every day. they had audio of his pastor screaming god damn america. obama was dying in the heartland. hillary was starting to win every race, about 10 in a row. this day she won in pennsylvania. the speech in evansville was going to be the concession speech for obama. obama had given a single speech on race. i had expected a rock concert. i had expected to be swept away with the crowd, the speech. i wasnt. he did not incorporate any of the race speech into his campaign speech.
obama had a stage, the media had a larger stage. the seats behind obama were empty, then a diverse group was led out from the tunnel and seated directly behind him, where the tv cameras would see them. then they were handed signs. the campaign video started. all the faces were black. the only white faces were young people in their 20's. nobody who could be described as a business man, as a laborer, not even a white working union man. obama gave what seemed like a lackluster speech, not addressing, not touching the entire race issue, which i had come to hear, and what was i felt like had completely changed the dynamic of the race. he did not acknowledge the problem, that if the primary season were another couple weeks, another couple races, he would have lost. i left feeling like he had no political instincts and he had no chance in the fall.
then mccain picks the unknown, the untruthful, the inexperienced, the disingenuous, the good speech reader, sarah palin, who cannot give an interview and is not allowed to by the boys in the campaign. then the economy appears to die before our eyes in one day or one week, and obama, still championed mightily by the media, is led to the inauguration. we voted against the previous president as much as we voted for the next one.
less than one year into his presidency, he appears to have 5 issues. i think he has the wrong position on every one of them.
the war - the U.S. cannot solve the world's problems. Afghanistan has not had a central government in 40 years, since the last king left, or so i am told. Except for the nuclear weapons next door, there is not a single reason America has to be interested in Afghanistan.
the financial system - Obama has caved to the bankers. this government is bought and sold and Obama must look the other way.
the medical reform - of course its a train wreck coming if nothing is done. the only new buildings in town are medical buildings. soon the medical industry will be the largest industry in america. employers and employees can neither afford what is coming. any medical bill which comes out of congress seems guaranteed to increase payments to the medical industry and accelerate the eventual bankruptcy of everybody else.
global warming - the average citizen does not want to put a dime into this. the global warming scientists have zero track record predicting the future. they cannot predict the weather in a month, and they assure everyone they know exactly what will happen 50 years from now. cap and trade is for sure a scheme to get rich. it is for sure a paper market to get rich doing nothing. it will for sure be bought off.
jobs - american industry is in shambles. american industry is in a 50 year decline. in world war II, american industry outproduced the rest of the world combined. somewhere along the line, working hard boring jobs in unhealthy slave labor conditions became very unpopular. smokestack industries, company towns, mindless factory jobs, they all went overseas where low paid labor can do it for half the price and we can buy it back cheaper than we can make it. the problem is, we are living on our parents inheritance. what do you do? america is obsessed with play, sports, sex, entertainment, scandal, all things that people who do not have to work can obsess over. you dont have to do anything in america. we have freedom from all that. the day is coming when the reserve is spent.
in the '50s japan started producing cameras and transistor radios, then motorcycles and cars. there is actually quite a lot of job satisfaction in building something new the world has never seen. its a form of art, and in america its becoming a lost art. it still happens, but not in every town. many kids grow up with no shop, no skills, no working fathers. mexico now is starting to produce all the appliance goods that are too expensive to ship from overseas. japan has moved their car production to america. japan can build cars in america cheaper and better than america can build cars in america. america has become impotent. just look at congress, what exactly do they do? they campaign. they posture. and the president, he passes on financial reform, i would say that is more important to our health as a nation than afghanistan. he passes on meaningful medical reform, the lobbyists and opposition are really too much for him. the medical industry will not allow a bill to pass that does not benefit them. he fights his war for honor and safety, hundreds or thousands of human beings will die for that. he talks brilliantly about global warming. he gives me no confidence, if global warming were a threat, he could attack the root cause. another paper market, tax credits, bureaus, would be the result. somebody would get rich. the hucksters would fleece the chumps.
when a system is too large to fix, it has to fail. the president is irrelevant. the only things he can pass contribute to the problem. we have a system where nobody can be elected who is foolish enough to speak his mind. the conclusion is that everybody elected is good at talking, but cannot take the risk of saying something which will be used against them and cause them to lose 51% of the people. the critics will employ the media to saturate the airwaves with a single phrase, as if the entire person were a single sentence.
obama has a gay man in some kind of high position in education. the right wing calls him the education czar. god help us if the right wing were to take power, but it seems like any moderate republican could win in 2012. we have a story line in america that racism, phobias, hatreds, are our only problem. i think the pie is disappearing. a gay man who in the past has been more involved in gay issues than in education issues, is not the guy most americans want in a room alone with their school child, or promoting change in the school. call it phobic whatever, the country is at long term risk of serious decline. education sucks. we have fake super-violent wrestling on prime time tv, we have media sensation sex scandals, we have jerry springer paying people to hit each other and look pathetic, and drawing an audience. we have 50% of all children on food stamps at some point in their life, and 80% of black children. we have areas in every major city that you cannot walk thru at night.
we have a flourishing illegal drug trade. we have so many things going on that only people who do not have to work can possibly afford to waste their time on. if drugs are against federal law, then everybody who draws a government paycheck should be tested. everybody who receives government assistance should be tested. if the jails are not large enough to hold everybody, then change the law, because the current policy of apprehending a small percentage is hypocritical and unfair. but we are unable to change laws in any meaningful deliberative way.
we need education. we need writers, researchers, scientists. we need thinkers. somewhere we occasionally need a politician, maybe a one term politician, who has the will to tell the american people the truth. we certainly need some journalists who can research,think and write. the american people, if they want to continue the lifestyle they are accustomed to, they need to mind their business.
obama is not the problem, it existed before he was born. but he does not seem to be politically gifted. the only things i see him doing are things that do not matter or make things worse. he does not know how to make the country come together. he gives his enemies the tools they need to defeat him. he would have not been president if he had not manufactured the public fight with jeremiah wright, but i have a feeling it was somebody else who finally convinced him and came up with that scenario. i hope i am wrong, i wanted him to do well. but i think its time for post-political america, where the american people lead themselves, no leader will come for us.
obama had a stage, the media had a larger stage. the seats behind obama were empty, then a diverse group was led out from the tunnel and seated directly behind him, where the tv cameras would see them. then they were handed signs. the campaign video started. all the faces were black. the only white faces were young people in their 20's. nobody who could be described as a business man, as a laborer, not even a white working union man. obama gave what seemed like a lackluster speech, not addressing, not touching the entire race issue, which i had come to hear, and what was i felt like had completely changed the dynamic of the race. he did not acknowledge the problem, that if the primary season were another couple weeks, another couple races, he would have lost. i left feeling like he had no political instincts and he had no chance in the fall.
then mccain picks the unknown, the untruthful, the inexperienced, the disingenuous, the good speech reader, sarah palin, who cannot give an interview and is not allowed to by the boys in the campaign. then the economy appears to die before our eyes in one day or one week, and obama, still championed mightily by the media, is led to the inauguration. we voted against the previous president as much as we voted for the next one.
less than one year into his presidency, he appears to have 5 issues. i think he has the wrong position on every one of them.
the war - the U.S. cannot solve the world's problems. Afghanistan has not had a central government in 40 years, since the last king left, or so i am told. Except for the nuclear weapons next door, there is not a single reason America has to be interested in Afghanistan.
the financial system - Obama has caved to the bankers. this government is bought and sold and Obama must look the other way.
the medical reform - of course its a train wreck coming if nothing is done. the only new buildings in town are medical buildings. soon the medical industry will be the largest industry in america. employers and employees can neither afford what is coming. any medical bill which comes out of congress seems guaranteed to increase payments to the medical industry and accelerate the eventual bankruptcy of everybody else.
global warming - the average citizen does not want to put a dime into this. the global warming scientists have zero track record predicting the future. they cannot predict the weather in a month, and they assure everyone they know exactly what will happen 50 years from now. cap and trade is for sure a scheme to get rich. it is for sure a paper market to get rich doing nothing. it will for sure be bought off.
jobs - american industry is in shambles. american industry is in a 50 year decline. in world war II, american industry outproduced the rest of the world combined. somewhere along the line, working hard boring jobs in unhealthy slave labor conditions became very unpopular. smokestack industries, company towns, mindless factory jobs, they all went overseas where low paid labor can do it for half the price and we can buy it back cheaper than we can make it. the problem is, we are living on our parents inheritance. what do you do? america is obsessed with play, sports, sex, entertainment, scandal, all things that people who do not have to work can obsess over. you dont have to do anything in america. we have freedom from all that. the day is coming when the reserve is spent.
in the '50s japan started producing cameras and transistor radios, then motorcycles and cars. there is actually quite a lot of job satisfaction in building something new the world has never seen. its a form of art, and in america its becoming a lost art. it still happens, but not in every town. many kids grow up with no shop, no skills, no working fathers. mexico now is starting to produce all the appliance goods that are too expensive to ship from overseas. japan has moved their car production to america. japan can build cars in america cheaper and better than america can build cars in america. america has become impotent. just look at congress, what exactly do they do? they campaign. they posture. and the president, he passes on financial reform, i would say that is more important to our health as a nation than afghanistan. he passes on meaningful medical reform, the lobbyists and opposition are really too much for him. the medical industry will not allow a bill to pass that does not benefit them. he fights his war for honor and safety, hundreds or thousands of human beings will die for that. he talks brilliantly about global warming. he gives me no confidence, if global warming were a threat, he could attack the root cause. another paper market, tax credits, bureaus, would be the result. somebody would get rich. the hucksters would fleece the chumps.
when a system is too large to fix, it has to fail. the president is irrelevant. the only things he can pass contribute to the problem. we have a system where nobody can be elected who is foolish enough to speak his mind. the conclusion is that everybody elected is good at talking, but cannot take the risk of saying something which will be used against them and cause them to lose 51% of the people. the critics will employ the media to saturate the airwaves with a single phrase, as if the entire person were a single sentence.
obama has a gay man in some kind of high position in education. the right wing calls him the education czar. god help us if the right wing were to take power, but it seems like any moderate republican could win in 2012. we have a story line in america that racism, phobias, hatreds, are our only problem. i think the pie is disappearing. a gay man who in the past has been more involved in gay issues than in education issues, is not the guy most americans want in a room alone with their school child, or promoting change in the school. call it phobic whatever, the country is at long term risk of serious decline. education sucks. we have fake super-violent wrestling on prime time tv, we have media sensation sex scandals, we have jerry springer paying people to hit each other and look pathetic, and drawing an audience. we have 50% of all children on food stamps at some point in their life, and 80% of black children. we have areas in every major city that you cannot walk thru at night.
we have a flourishing illegal drug trade. we have so many things going on that only people who do not have to work can possibly afford to waste their time on. if drugs are against federal law, then everybody who draws a government paycheck should be tested. everybody who receives government assistance should be tested. if the jails are not large enough to hold everybody, then change the law, because the current policy of apprehending a small percentage is hypocritical and unfair. but we are unable to change laws in any meaningful deliberative way.
we need education. we need writers, researchers, scientists. we need thinkers. somewhere we occasionally need a politician, maybe a one term politician, who has the will to tell the american people the truth. we certainly need some journalists who can research,think and write. the american people, if they want to continue the lifestyle they are accustomed to, they need to mind their business.
obama is not the problem, it existed before he was born. but he does not seem to be politically gifted. the only things i see him doing are things that do not matter or make things worse. he does not know how to make the country come together. he gives his enemies the tools they need to defeat him. he would have not been president if he had not manufactured the public fight with jeremiah wright, but i have a feeling it was somebody else who finally convinced him and came up with that scenario. i hope i am wrong, i wanted him to do well. but i think its time for post-political america, where the american people lead themselves, no leader will come for us.
Tuesday, December 01, 2009
unexplored treasure
random
the one lesson of history, there is unexplored treasure to be found. you can bring something new into the world. everything we have was done by somebody. common everyday objects, like rocks, have metal, steel and copper, in them. the air can carry radio waves. love sleeps in the beast. the hubble telescope which can see back in time 13.7 billion years is in the first flaked flint tool.
if you wish to support someones theory, you comment on what they "meant".
if you wish to destroy someone's theory, you argue with what they "said".
the one lesson of history, there is unexplored treasure to be found. you can bring something new into the world. everything we have was done by somebody. common everyday objects, like rocks, have metal, steel and copper, in them. the air can carry radio waves. love sleeps in the beast. the hubble telescope which can see back in time 13.7 billion years is in the first flaked flint tool.
if you wish to support someones theory, you comment on what they "meant".
if you wish to destroy someone's theory, you argue with what they "said".
Tuesday, September 08, 2009
following a code that brings satisfaction
following a code that brings satisfaction.
First you must FIND a code that brings satisfaction. Then you must try to follow it. Here it is - Create. Make something. Do something. Those that know they create their own reality will do better. What is so fascinating about the world? The endless example of creativity, that it exists, that it is infinite in all directions, that there is no end, no last word, no all encompassing theory. It evades capture. Its bigger and smarter and more beautiful and we are of it.
I dont want to overplay the negative, but i believe there are some hopeless, amoral people in this world. Religion has crumbled for them. They no longer can believe in Noah's ark, or heaven or hell, or salvation. They wont make it unless they have a natural awakening. Those that know they create their own reality will do better. They wont despair. They look at the impossibility of anything so complex as this planet existing by accident, and they know they have that creative power in their own hands. They know that if we have gotten this far, we will probably continue on. somehow things line up and work out, no matter what group is in power. human beings want to live and somehow they get what they need. so relax, and find that thing you enjoy making, because the creative power is the feeling you are looking for.
(Joesph Campbell, the academic who studied mythology and religions - he said religion and mythology were the same thing, it just depended on whether you were talking about yourself or the other guy. many of "my facts" about the history of religion come from him. )
The first religion we have evidence for was about 200,000 years ago, little shrines in caves to cave bears. man worshipped animals, or did he? he hunted, killed and ate animals. he lived on animals. he killed everyday. man poured the animals blood onto the ground, the earth drank, and next year the animal returned, to be killed and sacrificed again. The first religion grew out of the experience of killing and eating. Rather than hating, man loved, worshipped, the animals which gave him life. The caves of lascaux are a shrine, just as the medieval cathedral.
Around the equator are the plant religions. The plant religions are the religion of death, sacrifice, from rot comes life. The goddess is the womb of earth. you plant people when they die.
Around 3500 BC the learned people noticed the mathematical movements of the planets through the fixed stars, and just as people before had imitated animals and plants, now the king and queen were the sun and moon, the court the planets, and the cycles of the seasons drove the society.
From these three traditions, come our religions, more or less.
When Cain, the planter, killed Abel, who lived on animals, Cain went and started cities. The old way was dying, even though God preferred it. Abels blood spilt on the ground and cried out to God. Abraham's God Yahweh was a warrior God, certainly Male. The Canaanites, planters, were the lovers of the goddess, the abomination as Abraham's people called her.
First you must FIND a code that brings satisfaction. Then you must try to follow it. Here it is - Create. Make something. Do something. Those that know they create their own reality will do better. What is so fascinating about the world? The endless example of creativity, that it exists, that it is infinite in all directions, that there is no end, no last word, no all encompassing theory. It evades capture. Its bigger and smarter and more beautiful and we are of it.
I dont want to overplay the negative, but i believe there are some hopeless, amoral people in this world. Religion has crumbled for them. They no longer can believe in Noah's ark, or heaven or hell, or salvation. They wont make it unless they have a natural awakening. Those that know they create their own reality will do better. They wont despair. They look at the impossibility of anything so complex as this planet existing by accident, and they know they have that creative power in their own hands. They know that if we have gotten this far, we will probably continue on. somehow things line up and work out, no matter what group is in power. human beings want to live and somehow they get what they need. so relax, and find that thing you enjoy making, because the creative power is the feeling you are looking for.
(Joesph Campbell, the academic who studied mythology and religions - he said religion and mythology were the same thing, it just depended on whether you were talking about yourself or the other guy. many of "my facts" about the history of religion come from him. )
The first religion we have evidence for was about 200,000 years ago, little shrines in caves to cave bears. man worshipped animals, or did he? he hunted, killed and ate animals. he lived on animals. he killed everyday. man poured the animals blood onto the ground, the earth drank, and next year the animal returned, to be killed and sacrificed again. The first religion grew out of the experience of killing and eating. Rather than hating, man loved, worshipped, the animals which gave him life. The caves of lascaux are a shrine, just as the medieval cathedral.
Around the equator are the plant religions. The plant religions are the religion of death, sacrifice, from rot comes life. The goddess is the womb of earth. you plant people when they die.
Around 3500 BC the learned people noticed the mathematical movements of the planets through the fixed stars, and just as people before had imitated animals and plants, now the king and queen were the sun and moon, the court the planets, and the cycles of the seasons drove the society.
From these three traditions, come our religions, more or less.
When Cain, the planter, killed Abel, who lived on animals, Cain went and started cities. The old way was dying, even though God preferred it. Abels blood spilt on the ground and cried out to God. Abraham's God Yahweh was a warrior God, certainly Male. The Canaanites, planters, were the lovers of the goddess, the abomination as Abraham's people called her.
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
media as ouija board
the media can select whichever candidate they want. have you ever been in a group that did not have group-think? peer pressure? professional standards? orthodoxy? all the media has to do to float their candidate is print a flattering picture and a positive headline. so for instance, mccain takes control, flattering picture, huckabee surprising wins, flattering picture, romney cobbles together a few wins (actual headline cnn), no picture. romney has nearly twice as many delegates as huckabee, but huckabee is hot! since the media is objective, the authority, the record of all that goes on, a good headline and picture are worth more than any amount of advertising dollar.
when i was 12, and the neighbor kid had a ouija board, we asked it who is your secret girlfriend? and it always knew. it was uncanny. i almost believed i wasnt pushing it. this is what the media is doing. they may not know who their candidate is, but as they figure it out, they write the objective stories that incidentally promote the winners. later they can help tear them down. on the whole then, they are completely objective.
when i was 12, and the neighbor kid had a ouija board, we asked it who is your secret girlfriend? and it always knew. it was uncanny. i almost believed i wasnt pushing it. this is what the media is doing. they may not know who their candidate is, but as they figure it out, they write the objective stories that incidentally promote the winners. later they can help tear them down. on the whole then, they are completely objective.
Monday, August 14, 2006
I don't know
I don’t know how you write on a regular basis, without getting pompous and in love with your own words.
Lets try to swallow it whole. Noah, who built an ark, and got a pair of every animal in the world on it. As reasonable people, we are not going to buy that. Take the main premise of the new testament, jesus is the son of god, a human not like any other human. Sorry, not going to buy that. Not accepting either of those stories, that would pretty much rule out a bible written by god.
There are a lot of true things in Christianity. Unfortunately it is not the main beliefs.
The main story, an entirely righteous man is put to death by a government and crowd of people. Right there you have a very profound idea. A man so pure that he offends the status quo not just a little, but put to death by cruel torture. A man who says blessed are the meek is put to death by the strong.
The life of jesus is a testament of testing and faith. He is true to his ideals. He tells peter to put away the sword. He says to turn the other cheek, to render unto Caesar. He erupts at the commercialization of the faith. This is a man of principle, someone who has found his own understanding. Likely he has been misquoted. Chances are near 100%. Assume he was a human like you, and give up trying to hold on to a single all too convenient answer to everything. Reclaim the initiative. You neither need to be saved, nor could you by someone else. There is no logical mechanism between believing jesus was sent here by your god and that belief itself being your salvation from eternal torture. That’s just silly.
Through the years the clergy and priesthood have contemplated jesus life and found many good teachings and woven them into Christianity. Compassion for all, whether poor, sick, hungry, Everyone has value. If you do it to the least of these, you do it to me. Love and responsibility, the temptations of life should be examined. The structure of society should protect the poor, the leaders should bow to a higher power. Western civilization can count its strength related to its partnership with the church. The church has usually had more of a direct impact on the citizens than the government. It’s the church more than government that has civilized and founded customs.
Society needs a re-newed institution. Salvation is not dependent on believing that truth happened back when over there. This is getting to be too heavy to carry. Truth is not local and its not an event in time. Its right now, right here. Relax. Its at hand.
Lets try to swallow it whole. Noah, who built an ark, and got a pair of every animal in the world on it. As reasonable people, we are not going to buy that. Take the main premise of the new testament, jesus is the son of god, a human not like any other human. Sorry, not going to buy that. Not accepting either of those stories, that would pretty much rule out a bible written by god.
There are a lot of true things in Christianity. Unfortunately it is not the main beliefs.
The main story, an entirely righteous man is put to death by a government and crowd of people. Right there you have a very profound idea. A man so pure that he offends the status quo not just a little, but put to death by cruel torture. A man who says blessed are the meek is put to death by the strong.
The life of jesus is a testament of testing and faith. He is true to his ideals. He tells peter to put away the sword. He says to turn the other cheek, to render unto Caesar. He erupts at the commercialization of the faith. This is a man of principle, someone who has found his own understanding. Likely he has been misquoted. Chances are near 100%. Assume he was a human like you, and give up trying to hold on to a single all too convenient answer to everything. Reclaim the initiative. You neither need to be saved, nor could you by someone else. There is no logical mechanism between believing jesus was sent here by your god and that belief itself being your salvation from eternal torture. That’s just silly.
Through the years the clergy and priesthood have contemplated jesus life and found many good teachings and woven them into Christianity. Compassion for all, whether poor, sick, hungry, Everyone has value. If you do it to the least of these, you do it to me. Love and responsibility, the temptations of life should be examined. The structure of society should protect the poor, the leaders should bow to a higher power. Western civilization can count its strength related to its partnership with the church. The church has usually had more of a direct impact on the citizens than the government. It’s the church more than government that has civilized and founded customs.
Society needs a re-newed institution. Salvation is not dependent on believing that truth happened back when over there. This is getting to be too heavy to carry. Truth is not local and its not an event in time. Its right now, right here. Relax. Its at hand.
Saturday, January 28, 2006
when diverse people come to the same conclusion
kurt vonnegut had a great 5 minute interview on npr this week.
some paraphrased excerpts.
we are what we pretend to be.
karl marx got a bum rap, all he was trying to do was take care of a lot of people. communism is totally disgraced now, with the fall of communism, but i cant help notice that we are in hock to the chinese who seem to be better at business than we are. capitalism also collapsed in 1929.
(my friend henry always said the same thing. marx did not have a plan, he did not organize society, he saw the industrialization of britain, and he knew there was a problem. he documented the problem more than he designed a society. lenin designed communism.)
its obvious to an anthropologist that extended families and tribes are terribly important, cannot do without them. we are terribly divided politically, you can see it in the debate between teaching evolution and intelligent design. the scientists are behaving tribally. our bodies are miracles of design, scientists are pretending to have the answer. natural selection cannot be the answer. the other side, the christian religion, is not thinking about it, they are just acting tribally.
Nietsche: only a person of deep faith can afford the luxury of skepticism.
Vonnegut: That something wonderful is going on, i do not doubt it, but the explanations i hear do not satisfy me.
end of interview.
there is a third point of view in the evolution - intelligent design debate that does not believe a word of genesis is literally true or the word of god, but also has a deep faith that life would not exist if there were not an inherent intelligence deep in every molecule. joseph campbell says that all religion, all mythology, genesis included, is not meant to be literally true, its function is to be a way to see through the surface to the great reality behind it. of course its an intelligent design, we wouldnt be sitting here discussing it if it were not.
its a faith that there is something real, that if you stop believing the fairy tales of childhood, good will get you. there is a safety net of inherent good in the universe, in people. its what you believe after you believe nothing that is truly yours, and it seems like different people come to the same conclusion independently.
some paraphrased excerpts.
we are what we pretend to be.
karl marx got a bum rap, all he was trying to do was take care of a lot of people. communism is totally disgraced now, with the fall of communism, but i cant help notice that we are in hock to the chinese who seem to be better at business than we are. capitalism also collapsed in 1929.
(my friend henry always said the same thing. marx did not have a plan, he did not organize society, he saw the industrialization of britain, and he knew there was a problem. he documented the problem more than he designed a society. lenin designed communism.)
its obvious to an anthropologist that extended families and tribes are terribly important, cannot do without them. we are terribly divided politically, you can see it in the debate between teaching evolution and intelligent design. the scientists are behaving tribally. our bodies are miracles of design, scientists are pretending to have the answer. natural selection cannot be the answer. the other side, the christian religion, is not thinking about it, they are just acting tribally.
Nietsche: only a person of deep faith can afford the luxury of skepticism.
Vonnegut: That something wonderful is going on, i do not doubt it, but the explanations i hear do not satisfy me.
end of interview.
there is a third point of view in the evolution - intelligent design debate that does not believe a word of genesis is literally true or the word of god, but also has a deep faith that life would not exist if there were not an inherent intelligence deep in every molecule. joseph campbell says that all religion, all mythology, genesis included, is not meant to be literally true, its function is to be a way to see through the surface to the great reality behind it. of course its an intelligent design, we wouldnt be sitting here discussing it if it were not.
its a faith that there is something real, that if you stop believing the fairy tales of childhood, good will get you. there is a safety net of inherent good in the universe, in people. its what you believe after you believe nothing that is truly yours, and it seems like different people come to the same conclusion independently.
thoughts
i know there is truth, and i know it can be apprehended directly. i have never been a good member of the tribe. i know i am a part of the human race, but it seems like the tribe is always mucking around in things i am not interested in. i have always been more a lone voice crying out in the wilderness, than a leader or a follower. that may be why i have had a hard time ever really getting into a partnership
i have never seen white light while drifting off to sleep. but i have seen it many times while drifting off from a meditation. it always happens in a reverie, and its always unexpected, breaking forth suddenly and almost violently, shaking me back to awakened consciousness. you have to tune your body, harmonize yourself through meditation. you have an inner life. it is possible to ignore it.
there are nerve bundles, nerve centers. kundalini is a focus of moving energy thru the body, concentrating on the energy centers, increasing the attention and consciousness of the existence of them, building their awareness as centers of power and energy.
shabda yoga says that you can hear spirit. listen to it deeply.
mantra meditation is the repetition for the sake of mental concentration, losing the preoccupation on all the other things, and just watching yourself silently repeat a word as if it were a thought, watching it bubble up from the source of thoughts and ideas, following it inward.
i think all 3 of these basically lead to the same experience, they support each other, its easy to switch from one to another, use whichever one seems to be working best.
i have never seen white light while drifting off to sleep. but i have seen it many times while drifting off from a meditation. it always happens in a reverie, and its always unexpected, breaking forth suddenly and almost violently, shaking me back to awakened consciousness. you have to tune your body, harmonize yourself through meditation. you have an inner life. it is possible to ignore it.
there are nerve bundles, nerve centers. kundalini is a focus of moving energy thru the body, concentrating on the energy centers, increasing the attention and consciousness of the existence of them, building their awareness as centers of power and energy.
shabda yoga says that you can hear spirit. listen to it deeply.
mantra meditation is the repetition for the sake of mental concentration, losing the preoccupation on all the other things, and just watching yourself silently repeat a word as if it were a thought, watching it bubble up from the source of thoughts and ideas, following it inward.
i think all 3 of these basically lead to the same experience, they support each other, its easy to switch from one to another, use whichever one seems to be working best.
Monday, July 18, 2005
The next not so big thing
I have been reading some of the computer historians, causing me to reflect on my own current thought. Whenever I use the computer too long, I get a pain between my shoulderblades. We got infatuated with PCs running DOS. Then engaged when we made the first DBASE program, or Lisp, or even LOGO graphic on a 64 bit. We got married when the world wide web came along, and began conducting relationships and business over the internet. A revolution!
Now that the divorce has begun, or at least the separation, I would rather spend an hour on the computer, and go outside and trim some trees, or get a glimpse of that baby blue heron. We have always been a part of something that is bigger than the world wide web. I think buddha said that, or could be fairly translated as having said it, but we had to see it on a tv screen to really appreciate it. The internet is a big change, as big as photography, the invention of trains, or even the automobile or tv. Maybe even rivals the printing press or the growth of cities. But like them, it doesn't provide content. Its a better printing press.
The problem with computers is that they have no brain. Whenever I sit down to sputter out a few thoughts, I invariably start a new file. The computer is a filing system with no system. A nervous system with no center. Perhaps google is starting to address the problem, putting search on the desktop, at least making a system database. But its barely a beginning. Its the basic challenge to making the tool more rational. The desktop operating system itself is flawed by a lack of organizational skills. The internet is a collection of these inherently unorganized units. The organization of files is the basic problem we spend so much time and money trying to figure out how to store, retrieve and link together with PLM, ERP - solutions that are huge unwieldy rigid unrelenting expenses. But the basic disorganization exists at the PC level.
Now that the divorce has begun, or at least the separation, I would rather spend an hour on the computer, and go outside and trim some trees, or get a glimpse of that baby blue heron. We have always been a part of something that is bigger than the world wide web. I think buddha said that, or could be fairly translated as having said it, but we had to see it on a tv screen to really appreciate it. The internet is a big change, as big as photography, the invention of trains, or even the automobile or tv. Maybe even rivals the printing press or the growth of cities. But like them, it doesn't provide content. Its a better printing press.
The problem with computers is that they have no brain. Whenever I sit down to sputter out a few thoughts, I invariably start a new file. The computer is a filing system with no system. A nervous system with no center. Perhaps google is starting to address the problem, putting search on the desktop, at least making a system database. But its barely a beginning. Its the basic challenge to making the tool more rational. The desktop operating system itself is flawed by a lack of organizational skills. The internet is a collection of these inherently unorganized units. The organization of files is the basic problem we spend so much time and money trying to figure out how to store, retrieve and link together with PLM, ERP - solutions that are huge unwieldy rigid unrelenting expenses. But the basic disorganization exists at the PC level.
Sunday, July 17, 2005
the old iceberg theory
this morning i woke suddenly from a deep sleep - squalling, fighting cats outside my window. the neighbor tomcats terrorize my peaceful, fixed cats. i chased him off, went back to bed. then i remembered the dream i was having as i awoke. it was not profound, but i was there, on a roller coaster, trying to keep things from falling out, and later telling someone who had also been on the ride about it. there were details, conversation, thoughts, i was sitting then i was standing. to me in the dream, it was not a question of whether it was real or not.
now, what really struck me, is, how many other dreams like that with people, things, words, details, did i have last night that i dont remember? i only remember this one because i woke suddenly in the middle of it. how many other rich complete situations have happened to me this year that part of me knows about and part of me does not remember?
why does the unconscious seem to have more going on than the conscious? why does the unconscious seem to have so much to do? why does the conscious seem to be so in the dark? unknowing. I have forgotten more than i know.
the scientists belittle and dismiss, oh that is just a brain rewind, a chemical sputter, a hormonal balancing. campbell says myths are an attempt to tell the unconscious story to the conscious. there is a pattern with meditation. deep concentration leads to dreamlike images, if the conscious mind stirs, they are chased away. meditation is a search for unconscious light. behind every unconscious fluid image, is light. when it bursts through, that is the only goal of meditation.
perhaps the great novelists learn how to let their unconscious weave a story, without letting their conscious self step in and police the action. the conscious can handle the grammar. characters and events which ring true and have their own existence have to come from a richer source.
now, what really struck me, is, how many other dreams like that with people, things, words, details, did i have last night that i dont remember? i only remember this one because i woke suddenly in the middle of it. how many other rich complete situations have happened to me this year that part of me knows about and part of me does not remember?
why does the unconscious seem to have more going on than the conscious? why does the unconscious seem to have so much to do? why does the conscious seem to be so in the dark? unknowing. I have forgotten more than i know.
the scientists belittle and dismiss, oh that is just a brain rewind, a chemical sputter, a hormonal balancing. campbell says myths are an attempt to tell the unconscious story to the conscious. there is a pattern with meditation. deep concentration leads to dreamlike images, if the conscious mind stirs, they are chased away. meditation is a search for unconscious light. behind every unconscious fluid image, is light. when it bursts through, that is the only goal of meditation.
perhaps the great novelists learn how to let their unconscious weave a story, without letting their conscious self step in and police the action. the conscious can handle the grammar. characters and events which ring true and have their own existence have to come from a richer source.
Tuesday, March 15, 2005
pre-disposition
There must be some appreciation of magic.
Can you imagine a world without life, a barren world inhabited only by mineral? In a billion years, in 5 billion years, if there were not some pre-disposition to life, there would not be the slightest stirring. No molecules would assemble themselves into a conscious being.
Can you imagine a world without life, a barren world inhabited only by mineral? In a billion years, in 5 billion years, if there were not some pre-disposition to life, there would not be the slightest stirring. No molecules would assemble themselves into a conscious being.
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