Here are a bunch of posts i made over the last two years on tribe.net. i heard that tribe.net is “circling the drain” so thought i’d save some of what i’ve contributed there…(note: links probably don’t work, so leave a message if you want the whole thing)
Thirteen posts here with a lot of provocative thinking.
i’m one of those guyz who maintain a desire to remain in “human solidarity” with folks who are arting themselves in conflicting (as well as other) ways. i want to learn from her/history; learn the lessons of not falling “back” on how we’ve been programmed to “protect via restriction”, and thus block and/or ignore persons who get labels for reasons both true/possibly fair, and not.
In recalling how the political police (whom have a long record of working to attack and block and otherwise “neutralize” our autonomous community making, including fully nonviolent communities) wreak their havoc, i challenge all of you to think deeper than we are everywhere “socially” encouraged to do. And in this thinking deeper, to NOT join in on bandwagon-type hype against community members whom have a record of meaningful contributions (especially).
It’s a tricky line to follow, and better, perhaps, for a heart or talking circle, than here. But what i want to do here is call for dialogue! RADICALLY CREATIVE dialogue!
i’ve been thinking on this for awhile now, and have implemented some aspects of how conflicting parties might openly challenge each other while in fae space and elsewhere.
One idea i came up with is the “ART DUEL”.
That is, ON STAGE, two parties go “at” each other creatively (separated by a partition that lets them see each other; but they don’t physically engage) –in FIVE ROUNDS of perhaps 1 minute each. Then, with 3 minutes of time to come up with varying outfits (or other self-arting angles), come back ON STAGE and flaunt themselves creatively.
Now, this might be done JUST BEFORE a heart-type circle. A special heart circle, for “dark moon” intent or such.
What pros/cons do you forsee?
Anyway, think of the WILD RADICAL JOY that STRIKING A POSE might do to let out pain, to let out feelings, and THEN be possibly more able to come to a “dark moon” type heart circle. Hmm?
i know i’d LIKE to PLAY LIKE THIS! Radically! With authenticity as much as we want.
Of course, we could bring our wardrobes to the backstage for ourselves, and we could be spontaneous as well. Imagine, such might even become some kind of OLYMPIC thang.
What would THAT be like?!?
Tue, December 16, 2008
This comes as part of an entry I made on my blog (visionaryhumanity.blogspot.com), and as well as a way to continue (and go further than) the critiques of pacifism or passive nonviolence as discussed at some length by two leading social critics Derrick Jensen and Ward Churchill.
If you watch the video I put up on my profile page of Derrick Jensen, you’ll see that he makes some valid points as he goes over some interesting truths in comparing today’s nonviolent activists as they would appear in the movie “Star Wars”. Basically, Jensen puts down nonviolent pacifism in a humorous way, yet leaves out the promotion of any consciousness about *why* people like pie-throwers do as they do. He also leaves out any demystification of why and how people like his poetic metaphor Darth Vader come to be, suggesting that violence “solves” problems.
Jensen goes to some length in the other portions of his speech that this “Star Wars” video is taken from, telling us that “violence solves problems” and illustrates this with its continual use by the State and statecraft. The thing of it is, force only drives rebellion under ground, and perpetuates and deepens alienation. Arguments can be made, sure, of some valid grey areas in this, still, but I’ll leave that for another time.
The bottom line for Jensen (and I think Churchill as well) is that he is for a many-tiered approach; while wanting to challenge the game that many “alternative” elites seem to be playing in pacifism.
One approach that has gone missing in all of the dialogue that I’ve seen is the approach of confrontive nonviolence. Saul Alinsky touched on this method in the 1940s and 50s in Chicago and Rochester, NY (i.e. “the back of the yards” organizing).
I’m lacking time right now, so I’ll have to close this quickly. Basically, we need to understand that the two confines of violence and pacifism have been caught up by the limits of playing politics at all. And we can move beyond “politics”. (more later! And do see my other blog!)
Tue, October 21, 2008
See the discussion thread at:
artistsway.tribe.net/thread/…f769b3dd
(if you can’t see the entire link and it’s not working for you, it’s in “artistsway.tribe.net” and is entitled “Another form of thought control, re: The Artist’s Way?”
First to the post above [Diane's]:
Yes, I read the book, yes I still have that copy. You are misunderstanding. JC uses “crazymaker” in the same general terms I use that term; you are obfuscating things…She’s talking about “crazymakers” who are fellow artists, not just anyone in particular. But good try.
To Diane:
JC’s book DID gain a national audience much faster, than say, anything Richard Bach or perhaps even don Miguel Ruiz ever wrote, or for that matter Noam Chomsky (but of course, Chomsky write political analysis). Her rise to popularity was about as fast as the “West Nile Virus” scare that killed, what, four people (?) compared to the AIDS crisis of the 1980s which continues to kill thousands, if not millions around the world. The politics that went in to blocking AIDS awareness in the early 80s appears similar in its pipeline pattern to how truly liberating information –i.e. info working to help us maintain our autonomy and meaningful community– is suppressed. JC’s book, on the other hand, was hyped widely in a similar meta way to the West Nile Virus.
That is probably too rough and unrelated a comparison, but it’s what came off the top of my head. Anyone have a better one?
As for the idea that people having challenges with their creativity should *avoid* others similarly challenged (i say), sounds like the typical manipulation i’m seeking to expose. The typical manipulation here is that the challenged artist should not worry themselves with aiding others and therefore actually aiding themselves (via empathetic strategies of mutual aid), but should *let the professionals* do that, and just give away your power to them, and don’t worry about that even if your intuition brings alarm bells.
That’s what I get out of that.
And no, I didn’t read this other book you mention. Is this a new book? I suspect she uses these new terms to throw on people like me who seek to challenge her thinking and advocacy in the typical manipulative ways that “successful” professionals are known world-wide for doing: avoiding and ignoring the meat of a challenge while seeking to assasinate the character of the personality of the challenger. “Wet blanket” sounds like it’s meant to throw onto people like me, for example!
And “piggybacker” sounds like a mechanism to silence those who agree with a challenger, using similar tactics!
Oh, the short-term laughs (or head-shaking) so many artists must be “enjoying” at the expense of their fellow even-more-sensitive artists! Hooo boiii! And the long-term profits so many con artists are enjoying at the expense of you fools for so easily being manipulated like this. (Ah, but we are such products of our domestication, aren’t we?)
You said:
The time to help a personality type that makes you crazy is NOT when you’re trying to get your own balance back. In fact, you really cannot be any help to that person then anyway. I personally think everyone is a creative. But that doesn’t mean I have to associate with every creative that tries to take over my life with their agenda.
—-
I dissent. That’s like if you told a nation, say Cuba, that since they have not got their shit together yet, they shouldn’t go helping other nations. Think this through, is all I’m saying. If you know anything of imperialism and colonization in the world, look at what leading institutional analysts are saying and compare. That’s all I’m promoting.
Now, the idea of even *reducing fellow human beings* to emotionally potent oversimplifications like she is promoting in her books is one of the classic games pros play when seeking “to pull wool over the eyes” of the unwary (i.e. artists who are being reduced/streamlined into market value type war games). That is, to exploit us while pushing “necessary” values (values which don’t allow for true challenge to even rear up) Read something about how thought control works, and you may wake up as well. These certainly aren’t the values of someone trying to create truly meaningful community!
For example, try this on for size, from:
web.archive.org/web/200412…reface.html
(Pay attention to the latter part of this quote, especially. Note it’s from the web archive; I don’t know why zmag.org decided to change things so much after so many years of hosting this book, but you can read all of it via the archive project, still at least!)
–
“…The issues that arise are rooted in the nature of Western industrial societies and have been debated since their origins. In capitalist democracies there is a certain tension with regard to the locus of power. In a democracy the people rule, in principle. But decision-making power over central areas of life resides in private hands, with large-scale effects throughout the social order. One way to resolve the tension would be to extend the democratic system to investment, the organization of work, and so on. That would constitute a major social revolution, which, in my view at least, would consummate the political revolutions of an earlier era and realize some of the libertarian principles on which they were partly based. Or the tension could be resolved, and sometimes is, by forcefully eliminating public interference with state and private power. In the advanced industrial societies the problem is typically approached by a variety of measures to deprive democratic political structures of substantive content, while leaving them formally intact. [b]A large part of this task is assumed by ideological institutions that channel thought and attitudes within acceptable bounds, deflecting any potential challenge to established privilege and authority before it can take form and gather strength. The enterprise has many facets and agents. …”[/b]–from the preface of Chomsky’s 1989 book _Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies_
The bottom line is that we artists are simply to take orders from the oligarchy of alleged experts. If we question things articulately (or in the case of the “crazymaker” less-than-articulately) we run the risk of being castigated with all of these reductionist character assasination terms. We’re not to see that the solidarity of meaningful community is being broken apart; we’re not to see that “community” these days has become very very Orwellian. And we’re not to remember that meaningful community once consisted of varying forms of mutual solidarity, empathy, and strategies of mutual enrichment, instead of restriction! By today’s “values” and standards, all of that is much too threatening, and I’m sure some of you will march dutifully to your friendly neighborhood expert and tell her or him how bad I’ve “made you” feel now!
All that are left over from such shenanigans as these are the most stupidized and mediocre creative people who don’t see how they’re being fooled and tooled.
Now, if we were to change the name “artist” and insert the word “indigenous person” (and “crazymaker” with shaman or chief or similar potential power-spot-holding person), we might see things more clearly for what they are.
We artists must wake up to how we are not only already controlled (as already colonized subjects) but how we are increasingly controlled via the introduction of new levels of colonial-style control masked as beneficient. The basic tactic–divide and conquer remains at work to keep us alienated from all whom *might* seriously challenge the imposed value system. Of course, if they are shunned by dutiful fellow artists, they may not even obtain the necessary balance to do so! After all, labeled in such dehumanizing ways, the “help” they’re likely to get will be only the most pretentious crap that their intuitions will no doubt vehemently challenge.
But, atomized from other artists, they will be (and already are) much easier to isolate and manipulate towards the values of Brave New World (I.e. didya hear about the latest DSM label “oppositional defiant disorder” now being seeded into young, pre-articulate rebel kids?). This is a pattern that’s been going on for awhile now, and it will continue with the usual heavy financing and access to the national media in a most curious way.
Surely i’ve lost most of you on this, by now. All I can do is direct you to the writings of Frantz Fanon, Taiaiake Alfred, and the Papua New Gunean tribesman who wrote “Just Leave Us Alone!” And Noam Chomsky in the introduction to his fully-online book “Necessary Illusions” (see above link). Then perhaps you’ll see how comparable the situation is to us.
More sources on thought control:
search.freefind.com/find.html
abuse and “improper”; this is a value assumption based on Rollback-style values. Who gets to decide what is “improper” and what is “proper” and why? Is this a true democratic decision? With hype like these labels she’s perpetuating, I question her and all others who use this mechanism.
And, I disagree with you that “nobody’s trying to” silence those labeled “abusers”. Those hype terms alone are ways to silence people. And so is the idea that tells us we in our off-balance state *cannot possibly* aid our fellow off-balanced.
JC is likely “strategically challenged” because she’s probably not conscious of the value system she’s promoting. At least I’m giving her the benefit of the doubt on that one. That’s what I mean by that term. It’s nothing about “strategies”, here. She’s probably a “very well educated” (aka highly-propagandized) person who has internalized the “proper” value system and thus her quick rise into widespread popularity.
To conclude, yes, JC’s books have kernals of truth, and yes, I see value in those. Yet the underlying value system is what I’m challenging, specifically in the quick resort to restriction from thinking things through. The value system that says it’s okay to exclude or shun those labled in these anti-community ways (these ways, which, incidentally, are totally normalized in today’s Rollback value system), while giving our powers of community away to these Nice professionals. These are classic techniques of *engineering consent* and artists who believe uncritically in this form of superficial “community” are in for a big surprise someday sooner or later.
Now, perhaps I should get some direct quotes, now that I’ve got the attention of some more thoughtful posters?
Tue, August 5, 2008 – 5:40 PM —
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Some excelling quotes; one first from Paul Feyerabend, and then some from Ezra Pound (i hear he’s been labeled a fascist, but i have to ask in what context? Depth critique invited):
“You see, when I come across some unusual ideas, I try them out. And my way of trying them out is to push them to the extreme. There is not a single idea, no matter how absurd and repulsive, that has not a sensible aspect, and there is not a single view, no matter how plausible and humanitarian, that does not encourage and then conceal our stupidity and our criminal tendencies.”
(wow!) (note: Paul Feyerabend is noted amongst anarchists as being one of the main challengers to scientific method; read him in the book _Against Method_!)
Ezra Pound:
“Before deciding whether a man is a fool or a good artist, it would be well to ask, not only: ‘is he excited unduly?’, but: ‘does he see something we don’t?”
“…artists are the antennae: an animal that neglects the warnings of its perceptions needs very great powers of resistance if it is to survive.
“A nation [or group] which neglects the perceptions of its artists declines. After awhile it ceases to act, and merely survives. There is probably no use in telling this to people who can’t see it without being told.
“Artists and poets undoubtedly get excited and ‘over-excited’ about things long before the general public.
“Is his curious behavior due to his feeling an oncoming earthquake, or smelling a forest fire which we do not yet feel or smell?”
From _ABC of Reading_ by Ezra Pound, pages 82-83.
Mon, May 12, 2008 – 1:50 AM —
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I’m quite sure that i posted this on this here blog not long ago…but, curiously, it has gone missing, while more provocative posts have remained (i.e. my critique of the meth hysteria). So i thought i’d post it up again and see what happens. Herein is also included a thoughtful reply (one of about 10 that i experienced so far).
i think this is the “full text” of my original critique. i don’t know if i include the pages of the section to which i am mostly referring, but i think it was page 43-49 (in the “crazy maker” section).
i am re-posting this as apparently it has gone missing from the various places i posted it…hmmm…curious but not surprising.
Engineering opinion department: The Artist’s Way
=============
‘artists are the antennae…’ –Ezra Pound
==============
(re-edited for clarity, January 2008)
The following were posted in a forum promoting the artists’ workbook entitled “The Artist’s Way” by Julie Cameron. i’ve edited it in a way to make it more readable for those who weren’t on the forum.
For those of you unfamiliar with this book, it became *very popular* quite suddenly a few years ago amongst many creatives in the business art “community” (or lack thereof), and was touted as especially allegedly “helpful” for those whom have, for some supposedly “unknown” reason, found themselves experiencing the phenomenon called “artists’ block” and related challenges to making more money and living the materialist life we’ve all been socialized to think is just dandy and even “responsible”.
One might assume that this isn’t *such a big deal* until you begin to understand that the naive artists whose attention is hooked by this book are *also* being hyped-up to separate themselves from fellow artists whom are labled in destructive ways like “crazymaker”.
Typical of “self help” books that get plugged in mainline society as being “exceptional” these days we see a certain pattern where:
A) Contexts for situations can never be more thoroughly explored much less found to lie within the institutions and their constructs that we’re to uncritically subordinate to, but only in those who are having a hard time adequately assimilating (for reasons which escape most well-indoctrinated folks in our thought-control-oriented suiciety).
B) Rational explanations for why others, say “Crazymakers”, do as they do are not to be adequately understood; they are to be labeled, reduced, and excluded!
My original reply to one of the happy promoters of the book:
My response to D, a happy promoter of the book on the forum mentioned above who posted various links to help sell it… She asked what my specific problem with the book was, and whether i had actually read it. Here’s what i said:
D, i had a big problem with the way [Julie Cameron, the author] reduces and labels a group of artists who are exhibiting the *very real* (and crucial) symptoms of living a colonized (i.e. systematically alienated) life. (Yes, I’m saying that *all of ’society’* is a colonization attack on all whom are put through it in compulsory or otherwise duped ways, i.e. “the manufacture of consent”).
Further, the author labels as “bad” (i.e. “crazymaker”) the most potentially threatening group (to the social order) and seeks to further separate these very sensitive *social antennae* from those creative people who are even less in touch with their intuitive rebellion (from the “normalized” situations of artists working to enhance the social order).
Instead of promoting deeper thought about how some people can become “crazy” in the face of art cult-ure and all of its superficialities (which act as tho this is completely “normal”) Cameron works to isolate these folks she has labeled and the reader with various cheap shots. Of course, by that time in the book, everyone reading “The Artist’s Way” has already been bedazzled by the formula that *fills a void* (which virtually no one adequately demystifies) so they quite easily go along!
Thus a Bandwagon effect is put into action, and rebellion –especially that which is not yet even close to being articulate–is blocked from even coming to the veritable surface!
No wonder her book was allowed to shoot quickly up to the “Best Seller” list! No wonder all the commissars of the art industry LOVE this book! This is what propaganda is all about! This is classic thought control hoodwinking a majority (of often mediocre artists, hence their ability to fit into the business at all) while scapegoating a minority!
Consider Noam Chomsky’s remarks in the preface of his book _Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies_ (www.zmag.org/chomsky/ni/ni-preface.html ):
“A large part of this task is assumed by ideological institutions that channel thought and attitudes within acceptable bounds, deflecting any potential challenge to established privilege and authority before it can take form and gather strength. The enterprise has many facets and agents.”
And only adding to divisions and alienation! Same old story!
Of course, such labeling and discrediting wouldn’t have happened in communities, say, where intense folks are interpreted as *Gift givers* (i.e. shamans). Communities not fully “developed” like in Africa or other Native/indignous communities world-wide. Hadn’t the Western Civilization art ghetto been already so deeply corralled (i.e. sensitives not being given any frame of reference to articulate their dissent from a profit-oriented, consumer art society, thus drinking away their pain), this wouldn’t have so easily slipped past! (There may be challenges in the margins, but no “Art Magazine” “worth their salt” would publish serious dialogue amongst artists! No!)
And so thought control continues hardly challenged. And dissidents told to “get therapy” or be labled with these increasingly hostile reductions (let’s not forget “Oppositional Defiant Disorder”, now reportedly being used on adults as well as kids).
Every institution –including “the art world”– which wants to continue having “a seat at the table” of *privileges* has to play this meta game. And it’s no biggie scapegoating those minorities whom can’t fight back. That’s “normal” in thought control societies like ours.
i’m a working artist as well, yet my face has been repeatedly slapped with reality to a point where i was “lucky” to begin stumbling upon various subjects around institutional analyses which have similar patterns between them. Not a far stretch, then, to apply such to the art “community”, especially when one sees the very real politics happening!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ “As domains of experience become more alien to us, we need greater and greater openmindedness even to conceive of their existence.”–R.D. Laing in _The Politics of Experience_ from: evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/laing.htm
====================================
a thoughtful reply:
I looked up in the book again. Still can’t see the rebellion thing. Frankly, in my experience with Cameron’s archetypes, namely teh Crazymaker, it’s exactly the RULER (as opposed to the rebel) she’s talking about. The Crazymaker is not the person who wants to break ground with his creativity. Quite on the contrary, they want to use you as their ground, or stepping stone. It’s basically a form of abuse in the end.
—
Mine:
While i find what you have to say on this interesting, i *still* hold solid against her push towards so-called “protection by restriction”–that is, trying to get artists to internalize a value system where their fellow –more intense– artists are to be divided from them via the classic thought control method of *manufacturing consent*; as the despised luminary, Noam Chomsky has articulated, and can be beneficial here to those to whom this sentiment is new.
The very idea of allegedly “wanting to use [others] as their ground, or stepping stone” is a war-stuck idea!
Who gets to say WHO is doing WHAT and WHEN?
When a well-financed, quickly “best selling” (everywhere!) publication can come in and TELL us all how to think about our fellow artists, there’s something fishy; especially when they are labeling people with supposedly authoritative Truths. And as though such Truth is *all that possibly can be*.
As for “abuse in the end”, no, such interaction may be INTENSE and FLAILING, even VIOLENT, but to reduce it simply to be “abuse” (for all time, thus “in the end” not “so far”), that is manipulative. That is the stuff of ideology (even as it masks itself in alleged science, i.e. the concept “abuse” being founded in *the social sciences*).
What we *ought* to be doing is seeing abusive behavior (and other flailing) as *symptoms* of truths that ought to be more inspiringly articulated!
But those who reward strategically-challenged authors with much, do not *want* us to see our powers in this way and others. So they finance and heavily “reward” fellow people like Julia Cameron, whom may not see what they do in their possibly wanting to authentically help. That’s where i’m wondering of Julia is stuck in *internalized values*.
Anyway, there you are. i look forward to challenges on this!
Mon, March 31, 2008 – 6:18 PM —
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Originally posted on Heated Debate tribe.
DANGER! Angry, alienated, perpetually hyped-up folks who frequent this tribe ARE PROHIBITED from reading info which may inspire them to liberate themselves (or even imagine such) from their misery and hysteria –much less think through the manipulative ways in which their “masters” keep us/you in our/your Nice ™ “freedom” corralls. GO BACK TO YOUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED KNEE-JERK HYSTERIA NOW! BE THE STUPID MASSES YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE!!!
Heh heh.
Anyway, thought i’d share the following excerpts excerpted from this webpage:
www.utexas.edu/utpress/exce…exjacunl.html
Found this while looking for a critical appraisal of a book Erik (at the Heated Debate tribe) suggested in the thread about european arrogance ( _Sick Societies: Challenging the Myth of Primitive Harmony_ ). Some very deep articulating going on here –way beyond “Sick Societies”!!
from the book: _Unlearning the Language of Conquest
Scholars Expose Anti-Indianism in America_
Edited by Four Arrows (Don Trent Jacobs) 2006
Excerpts:
(…)
Such publications have done and are doing to American Indians what a number of “academic” authors have done in Australia to dismiss the value of the Australian aboriginal worldview. Interestingly, the vice president of the Australian Council of Professional Historians, Kathy Clement, recently edited a collection of articles from academic professors entitled Whitewash: On Keith Windschuttle’s Fabrication of Aboriginal History; her book sets out to counter the influence of books like Keith Windschuttle’s, which is “part of a range of writing that seeks to counter left-wing influence on people’s thinking about the history of Indigenous Australians.”
These are examples of one side of the dual-edged sword academics have used against Indigenous People. The other side relates to how they typically ignore them. Several decades ago Francis R. McKenna categorized this policy of dismissal as follows:
Academics generally have little interest in Indians. Scholars generally can be divided into three categories: (a) Those who are overtly racist. An example is John Greenway, a folklorist at the University of Colorado. Greenway posed the question, “Did the United States destroy the American Indian?” and answered, “No but it should have.” (b) Those who exclude Indians from academic life. To illustrate, witness the rejection of the application of the American Indian Historical Society for participation in the International Congress of Historical Sciences; and (c) those who neglect to include the Indian in scholarly presentations. For example, the revisionist historian, Colin Greer, in an otherwise excellent collection of works of ethnicity in America, makes no mention of American Indians.
These examples are, of course, more or less obvious and intentional, but such work filters down into the system to support the a more subtle hegemony, one that the authors expose in this book. This “filtered” material is woven into the fabric of everyday communication from those who themselves have become “brainwashed” (in a sense) from years of learning that began in elementary school and pervades most media in the United States.
(…)
Thus, the “fourth wave of killing the Indigenous” builds on the first three waves, pulling in decades of anti-”Indian” literature, films, and social commentary. Sometimes appearing as a smothering maelstrom, other times as an invisible poison, it ultimately emerges as a “commonsense” view of the world that automatically disregards truth. It represents the kind of hegemony that prevents people from realizing that social and environmental injustice are not a natural by-product of human nature; that the current form of global capitalism is not the only economic system available to humanity; or that living Indigenous cultures possess a measure of wisdom that may be vital for all of our futures.
This fourth wave is in reality an insidious form of cultural genocide against Indigenous People that tends to support
>ongoing ignoring of Indigenous People’s legal rights and the legitimate relationship between the various First Nations and the federal government.
>legislation that attempts to abrogate Indian treaties or to deny federal support.
efforts of white citizens to launch anti-Indian campaigns in connection with acquiring coal, timber, gas, fishing, and other land-use rights.
>suppression of Indigenous People’s religious freedoms, as when museums display ancestral bones or religious objects, or when sacred medicine bundles are confiscated or destroyed by U.S. Customs officials or peyote ceremonies are disallowed. (I myself recently had my Sun Dance rope taken away from me at the Phoenix airport for fear I might “tie someone up with it.”)
>the ignoring of cultural relevance in education as exemplified in implementation of laws like the No Child Left Behind Act.
>expropriation and exploitation of reservation lands, which ultimately pollutes, poisons, or extracts vital resources while robbing Indigenous People of fair compensation or opportunities to litigate for environmental restoration.
These items represent just the tip of the iceberg. Volumes would be required to itemize attacks on American Indians and the deceptive language of conquest that supports these attacks. (…)
Wed, January 16, 2008 – 4:52 PM —
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This dialogue came as an anonymous, yet deeper-than-usual message from a person who reflects the usual cynical and even arrogant assumptions so prevalent in reformist and liberal/conservative/colonized politics today, in my experience. (Perhaps you are one?) We touch on various topics including nuances of religion, “broad net” approaches of early movements, secret societies, trolls, sustained challenge, thinking persons, and so on.
the dialogue:
I’m calling this person a “political elite” of sorts because of their attitude, which i think is widely shared by vanguardists and others wanting to lead you naive (?) simpletons (?) towards their claimed “right action” (as though they have somehow found a More Holier Than Thou Truth and we’d all BETTER subordinate to such, or be damned, heh!).
Anything those of you with attention spans longer than what your “leaders” tell you you have (and thus allow yourselves to read more than the maximum you “are capable of”) are welcome to speak your best!
Got a reply to this via the message pipeline (at www.tribe.net), and thought i’d respond here. i’ll keep the messager anonymous until i get her/his permission to use it…
Tue, November 6, 2007 – 12:13 PM
Subject Re: re: your anti-psych sharing
Message
cosmic-ly craZy wrote:
> The trick is to avoid the pit-falls of how [our]
> stories become armored and enfortressed, and
> thus reflecting more and more levels of tyranny.
> Because i see that religions (like perhaps every
> other institution subordinated to the State or
> Corporate belief system and method) are not
> always the ideas they claim territory with.
> There have been excellences in christian
> her/history, and could be many more.
>
> All we have to do is be able to “tease
> out” the lost from the excelling. And hold
> that space so that others can see as well, and
> then we don’t get our feet stomped and our
> communities strung up.
—–
} respondent (r) said:
yes, that was the premise of my tribe interparadigm eclectics [at tribe.net]… which is pretty failed at this point…
–
Why do you say “failed”? Maybe you need to just stick with it? Or perhaps it’s too jargon-filled?
} i mostly have quit tribe [dot net], the majority of people here are trolls, nothing really came of my year long stint
here…
—–
Ah, well i find that different tribes are different in terms of that truth. Tho i definitely don’t stick with only one domain, this is a good one to use in various ways for various reasons, i find.
>
> And, yes, i really think this is a big key to
> dealing with such things; not to demonize them
> in return, but to promote evolutionary ways of
> relating!
—–
r} Yes, but whith christianity in particular, clarity is realizing that the religion has become merely a tool
for mass mind control.
—-
Sure, of course. But they’re not the only institution. i think *all* institutions (formal like, say the highly political Allopathic medical school, and informal, like the Nuclearized family) could use the same kind of consciousness. “Connect the dots” i always say.
>
> Let’s face it, christianity, in history (and
> herstory) has been one amongst *possibly MANY
> controls* used by feudal-oriented governments
> and their “nobles” (to be fair,
> mystified descendants of claimed legendary
> divinities). And that even the “
> nobles” were not allowed to “
> deviate” from strict ideas about how to
> think of the masses, how to think of keeping us
> under their control, or how to behave as human
> beings.
>
> In this context i’d rather look into the HEART
> of a system which utilizes ideas in alienatingly
> warlike ways, than focus on yet another symptom.
—–
r} I like to look at it from a historic perspective, and to think of it in terms of its decay
cycle within the first two hundred years after yeshua was murdered. It started golden but rotted at nearly the same rate as its founders corpse. If i had a time machine and could go back and keep him alive, i would do so, his ideas were revolutionary; thats why he was killed.
—–
Yes, and i see this same undercurrent or pattern happening in a SYSTEMATIC way for many many other institutions as well. They ALL seem to start out in what is called the “broad net” approach, and then systematically reduce themselves into very hostile and aggressive states of being, where the interests of the “small man” is cast aside for the interests of large constituencies and corporate or political interests coming from the status quo.
And this is COMPLETELY NORMAL for ANY school of thought which believes in assimilation –basically STRENGTHENING the status quo’s severe alienation situation. Such a pattern is a very cynical method, actually, and is articulated to various degrees by those who are viewed as “the leading intellectuals” of status-quo mind-set. You read the institutional analysis of curiously despised folks like Noam Chomsky –whom consistently works overtime quoting and exposing the tricks of what are called *social and cultural managers* (i.e. in the New York Times, and from other ‘elites’)– and you start to see the big picture in all of this a lot more clearly.
i’d recommend folks to check out one of the websites with his analysis, say “chomsky.info”. He’s quoting “the guru of the Kennedy intellectuals” and “the dean of public relations” and the early manifestors of those who seek to *engineer opinion* and *manufacture consent*. Very very insightful!
And when you realize that most of the rest of the “community” of “more capable men” completely subordinate their intelligence to these “gurus” and “deans” and such, you begin to see a very military or “chain-of-command” attitude. Once you understand this bigger, meta picture, of “elites” going about their daily routines, you see that everyone “below” the “top men” are “just following orders”; they are, after all, the implementers of policy mandates, and they don’t think things through because they have a career to think about and a family to feed (or something along those lines). So the largest percentage of “the specialized class” themselves, where they manifest as schools of thought or movements for “change” and “reform”, where they are seeking “a seat at the table” of what is supposed to be “power” (really very much like the Wizard of Oz!), they’re part and parcel of a very military-like, top-down mentality which REALLY DOES NOT change.
And we masses of people are trained to think of these wizards of Oz as worthy of our trust! But we’re having *wool pulled over our eyes*, and it’s not just from this era, or this century (another game played at our expense); this is NORMAL BEHAVIOR for colonized society! These patterns have existed since WE were ALL first colonized forcefully (reduced from our diverse humanity as, say, the tribes of Europe, and turned into “citizens” and all the other bullshit that many who don’t vote intuit and thus opt out of).
>
> Or how about the idea that “our
> society” (controlled by European historical
> intensities) is *not* really “based
> on” christian “morality and
> ethics”; but is instead based on a
> severely, even intensely alienated mind-set
> passed down from generation to generation by
> various angles on force; and came, originally,
> from intense fears now largely forgotten.
>
> And that christianity, and other religions
> caught up in the consequences of that fear are
> symptoms of this bigger picture situation.
—–
r} yes, pretty much true, tho i could put names on that force; ethnocentrism and greed,
assorted secret societies…the masons…
—-
Ah, i’m starting to see that a lot of these “secret societies” (the fact that we even know about them is a very curious insight, btw) are serving as a kind of scapegoat for the stronger secret societies. They may’ve been part of the action earlier, but perhaps their constituencies waned and they became weak enough to scapegoat. This is normal in politics, so why not amongst “elites” themselves?
So we’re being encouraged to vent our rage at these masons; but who are they *really*? And were they REALLY so “secret”? After all, i’ve noted that Masonic Lodges don’t keep it a secret that they are in various cities.
And what were they in their heyday? Were they *possibly* despised “power spots” (i.e. autonomous situations where, say, early labor movements could hold meetings when *no one* else allowed?)? Where they even beneficial in their approach sometimes?
Btw, i see the attack made at churches and religion, and there’s certainly much truth and value in attacking them, but what is the bigger picture of politics in this? Maybe the churches, for all of their warfare against the masses (notably *enforced* via the mandate of obedient subordination to basic state “interests”, i.e. keeping the masses divided amongst themselves, thus deflecting any concerted challenge to the big picture of our shared situations), are under a more concerted attack now, because they’ve held onto certain values; such as the value of sanctuary, or the value of giving space to mass meetings, where few other places exist, without very political controls coming into effect!
>
> Tho, yes, I do agree that institutionalized,
> state-subordinated (or tyranny-subordinated)
> religions, including christianity, have become
> tyrannical in their own ways, i *also* see that
> a fundamentalist bent, a religionized way of
> judging and perpetuating alienation PERMEATES
> Eurocentric society (and its colonized) THROUGH-
> OUT, not merely in religion.
>
> Thomas Szasz has shown such parallels in the
> social sciences like psychiatry, for example
> (see, i.e. _The Theology of Medicine_ ), and we
> cannot help but to see parallels in allopathic
> medical politics as well, as when we read Ken
> Ausabel’s book on the politics of cancer cures
> and one cure that works for portions of the
> cancer plague. Further, reading Paul
> Feyerabend’s writings, including _Against
> Method_ shine light on “hard” science
> as well (and thus few today have even heard of
> it, despite their “good education”).
>
> i question the idea that christianity’s
> “whole point” is to keep people in mental
> cages. This is the stuff of ALL “NORMAL” governing systems,
> and while (like i said above) christianity has
> and continues to be *one example* of tyranny of
> this sort, the CONTEXT is due to the reality
> that they want their beliefs to survive and are
> willing to give up portions of their substance
> in order to continue to exist as a
> “reputable” religion.
(…)
> No, i’d rather go for the deeper truths, and
> shine light on those so caught up in the agony
> of severe forms of alienation that they
> sequester themselves away from we “stupid
> masses” and continue designing hells on Earth
> (as a direct reflection of the hells they
> suffer!).
—–
r} Sure, i’d like to focus on the positive, but most people seem to need to be shook out of their
complacent acceptance of what is. Theres no way to get most “christians” to even think about the
realitiy of the essenes or gnostics until you rip away their disgusting paradigm.
——
i think your assessment of what “most people need” in order to *wake up* is the “normal” (and dichotomy-stuck) attitude; but i don’t think it’s accurate, unless we approach it in a complementing way. That is, if we approach folks with the desire to form truly meaningful community, then we can open ourselves up to the truth that people do things for more reasons than meets the eye. And i have to agree with Chomsky about people’s ‘Cartesian common sense’; it’s just that people don’t generally have a *frame of reference* for their dissent, or have been so poisoned by the reality of ’society’s’ “norms” that they have learned early to “shut up”. We’re not encouraged to articulate, and so we masses have a tendency to appear to be “stupid” when in reality we’ve been systematically “stupidized”; faced with a society which WILL NOT LISTEN to us as human beings, WILL NOT EMPATHIZE with us as human beings (more than the severely reduced categories of who we’re “supposed to” be), most people very intelligently opt out, and flow towards those situations where there is least resistance.
You all getting what i’m saying?
>
> Do tell me if you think i’m missing crucial
> truths here!
>
> Ah, and then you challenge anarchism as well! A-
> ha! GooD! And New Age! And the etcetera!
>
> Okay, but again, i think it’s CRUCIALLY
> important to see in which context they have
> worked their histories.
—-
r} Yes, all things have deeper contexts. Its amazing and sad to me that it took this long for a really decent
answer to that original message. I more or less quit tribe because there wasn’t anything like a real
response. Funny how months later, i finally get this jewel back from somebody.
—–
Okay, so that’s reality. We plug away, and sometimes jewels come along. Myself, i do this as a spiritual path. If a *critical mass* doesn’t “get it” this time around, then i did my best. And i build my consciousness. And perhaps my repetition will carry on to my next life or situation after i pass on from this life. Who knows? But i find this meaningful and powerful, and worth putting time into.
> And i think it is also crucially vital to look
> at how state-subordinated, institutionalized
> human beings have weilded these ideas; and that
> their form is not itself fit for tossing away in
> whole!
>
> And i wonder if you want to do this.
—–
r} Sure, i have done that. My process is to try to wake people up tho, not ponder imponderables forever in
the mists.
—–
Ah, another “typical” liberal (or conservative?) response, perhaps. Me, i want to “wake people up” to the bigger picture as well, so i show them tools they may want to pick up and utilize in their own lives and inclinations. i want to demystify the big pictures so that *they* lead in their desires, not me! i want nothing to do with being “a leader” (but of course, the frame of reference we well-trained “politicals” take up –without adequate thought!– is that there is “only” one paradigm that is “realistic”; this one that promotes the “leader/follower” farce!).
What to you is “imponderable” is to me (and not a few others) quite understandable, once one escapes from the corrall of single issue thinking!
>
> I think the situation is more something we can
> readily respond to without avoiding and running.
> And i think it’s a matter of how Noam Chomsky
> (despised and suppressed by the staus-quo)
> analyzes things:
>
> That “well educated” people whom have
> INTERNALIZED the values of the dominating
> paradigm, and whom have had their opinions
> ENGINEERED, have “taken over”
> (especially in the slickest and most well-funded
> publications and situations). That is, they’ve
> come directly from the “Wizards of
> Is/Oz” with their “latest
> studies” (etc.) in a fevered,
> fundamentalist religious ferver; and what they
> don’t see is that their excellent desires to
> help are being tooled in the same way that naive
> youth are fooled to become soldiers (when they
> have that choice at all).
——
r} yes, i think that the thing i wrote was very polarized to elicit a response. Like a pulse check, the proper
response from a thinking person is acknowledgement of the core truth but stepping back towards
softness.
It almost makes me think i should bother to come back to tribe and see if i can make it work. Almost.
——–
Perhaps people are TIRED of being hyped-up? Perhaps they’re sick to death of the, i think, obsolete mobilization techniques of reform movements (whom have hardly changed or evolved their methods since the 1800s, after all!). Perhaps you just needed a rest. Perhaps many things! (At least you’re not getting tooled by the “activist” role game! i mean, you CHOSE FOR YOURSELF when to take a hiatus! Good for you!)
As for where people are at, i’m seeing the “trolls” acting out their intuitive warrior ways, except that they have long invalidated their power, and thus the quality of their intelligence has suffered. If we approach them as if they are us at a time when we ourselves were once so off-balance, we can move beyond the first hurdle which poisons and confines so many others (whom then alienate themselves further into all these ghettos, i.e. academic “intellectual” ghettos).
> And this authoritarian mind-set, cammo’d with
> the usual High Horse Truth orders (where ALL had
> better subordinate, or be labeled “
> inappropriate” or worse), has permeated the
> WHOLE SOCIETY, not merely relatively small
> aspects of it, like the New Age movement, et al.
—–
r} sure, the virus infects all paradigms. That doesn’t make the core paradigms bad, but it does make them ill.
—-
i’d say “ill” in the sense of dis ease. Or “ill” in the sense of alienation. Many of these, if not all of these paradigms are, after all, coming from the Dark Ages, at least in seed. Is it not so? So from their foundation they are off-balance; they are built upon foundations that are not “foolproof”. They are built on very alienated assumptions.
>
> But this is getting into the stuff of Rollback
> (again, look up Chomsky; say chomsky.info ).
> Where organized international elites put
> millions, even billions of dollars into the idea
> of rolling back idealists from our desires for
> faster change and back to “our proper
> places” as subordinates “knowing our
> places”. Chomsky discusses some of these
> organizations in one of his best speeches: “
> Media Control, The Spectacular Achievements of
> Propaganda”
>
> And what about the role of the public relations
> (PR) industry? Utilized by the organizations of
> these folks whose opinions and views have been
> engineered to “fit in” with the meta
> interests of industry and its severely alienated
> owners (i.e. the war industry, as u.s.m.c.
> brigadier general Smedley Butler exposed).
—–
r} I think my point is about the media, and its corruption, and its usurpation of assorted paradigms
for mind control purposes.
—–
Okay.
> As for whether paths laid out by New Age “
> authorities” are forever poisoned by these
> truths, i disagree. But i’m of the skool where
> one can learn from *any* way if they truly have
> their hearts open and are listening. The trick,
> again, is how deep do we delve, and do we give
> ourselves permission?
—–
r} I agree.
—
>
> So, yeah, you’ve got a real interesting
> trajectory going on here. i just think you could
> go deeper. The brainwave idea will interest a
> few, and turn away others (especially those who
> know of mkultra games). Then again, everything
> ain’t for everyone, and we’re all on different
> paths of power.
——
r} Yes, MKultra can turn off a lot of people to some important things…just because brainwave technologies
were so abused tho is again no reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
—
My own intuition on this is to distrust such formal, reductionist ways of approach. Where people are supposedly aloof from the diverse consequences of this severely alienated, war-oriented, competition society. i can imagine a society where folks like yourself are free to explore such possibilities, tho.
r} I abandoned tribe.net as a failure effort to try to start a wake up process socially. I am working on upping my ante and improving my game; i went back inward to my own self where i am currently working dilligently. If your response had come a few months earlier, and on a public forum, it might have kept me
here.
————–
Oh well. Have you found any other forums that speak to your desires more? (i’d like to hear of such)
> Finally, i’d watch the urge to reduce and
> simplify in terms of labels and what “most
> people” are. How do you know this?
—
r} observations and analysis.
—-
Fair enough. Tho i’d, again, counsel you to read Chomsky’s demystifications of such attitudes, including his analysis of people like Walter Lippmann, Edward Bernays, Reinhold Niebuhr and so on. i think you’ll be surprised by what you read. You might start with Chomsky’s “Media Control” speech, now in small booklet form. Portions of it are also available on znet’s archive, tho sadly the key (and most easily accessable portions) are censored there, due to what one editor there claims is not a conspiracy to deprive the public of such consciousness.
>What if
> you are doing as Theodore Roszak showed, in his
> book on the counterculture, where the “well
> educated” are projecting their alienated
> beliefs on other cultural truths? And what if
> you are missing the gift of R.D. Laing where he
> trusted in the idea of *letting* people *go
> through* their situations.
—–
r} Letting people go through their situations is decaying our civilization into fascism.
—
In a formal sense, i agree. That is, when people are directly subordinated to ideologically-challenged ways of seeing and relating with each other. Informally, tho, i lean towards this other idea i’m thinking of. Especially when their ignorance is not directly threatening others. So i’m thinking more along lines of dialogue rather than lines of active actions, and engaging people with radicalized dialogue via various creative techniques we come up with.
Laing, i think, got tooled by his profession; so he was confined by, for instance, “the professional paradigm” and got bogged down in his “role”; whereas, i see indigenous traditions of interacting with people as having openings which are much more liberating for *both* parties –militantly ignorant and militantly liberation-oriented.
i’m still putting this all together in a more coherent way, and that’s why i want to keep dialogues like ours *open to the public*, in case anyone has some ideas to add to the brew, so to speak! One never knows!
r} I know the future along those paths; i have seen the potential futures of many timelines.
I am awoken to a responsibility to attempt to select a different and better future than
the destruction of the human race, etc.
—–
i like that as well; and i think the reverberations of this may affect other realities as well even tho i don’t know for sure (i.e. beyond humanity). Btw, have you read Ken Carey’s _Return of the Bird Tribes_? The portion where he discusses ENHANCING the Earth and its species might interest you!
> Then, the “bickering” and such might
> be channeled in more meaningful directions, say
> a Wow Pow Wow. But, of course, perhaps a little
> too INTENSE at first for most intellectually
> inclined (and thus your disinclination to truly
> listen to them?)…and a bit “too”
> wild.
——
r} I listen. Generally, they don’t.
—-
This may be true, tho i’m learning to see that people listen in various frequencies; and we trained to see only in *intellectually-centric* ways are missing a huge reality in our seemingly arrogant orientation to such assumptions. Provocative enough for you?
> Whattya thinc?
—-
r} your response shows you to be a living, breathing, thinking human being with a conscience, with some
clarity on the problems but some well needed clarity also in terms of moderation.
On the other hand, i think it would take a very long time to get you to the place of right action, from what
you have posted so far your version of moderation is unfortunately a bit slow.
—
This may be where we go in different directions. i really have no interest in “right action” as defined by others (where i’m to subordinate automatically to their More Right hierarchy!). Oh well.
r} This is by far the best response i ever got from that fishing expedition, and at the same time, it shows me
the thickness of the matrix, and displays again for me the complexities of the problem of trying to shake
people up or wake them from their slumber.
Thanks for taking the time to answer…
too bad i have moved on.
peace and light to you
r
Tue, November 13, 2007 – 1:03 PM —
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This blogpost comes originally from a link in the radical faerie tribe:
radfae.tribe.net/thread/2d…f0924073dd
~~~~~
The image (which should show up) is meant to bring consciousness to the reality that the self-taught/folk ways of some (i.e. who choose meth to deal with their stresses) are part of a major context which can help to connect us to each other, rather than, as popularly pushed (every systematically), away from each other and towards the confines of ideologically-challenged mind-set (i.e. professionalized consciousness); in the image, for instance, we see a deeply pained person stuck in the concrete sidewalk of everyday life, flanked by persons with various rigid mind-sets. They all are going nuts, but the two on the side are able to continue to go about their daily routines. The other is stuck. We might ask, are we to go around and ignore him, assuming he’s some “drug addict”, or do something more human?
~~~~~
I see that the topic of crystal meth persists in this community, and I wonder if questions like the ones below have been brought up before. These comments come in reply to reading the beginning of the recent article “Tweaked: Crystal Meth, Sex, & HIV” in the most recent issue (#35) of “Clamor” Magazine. (www.clamormagazine.org)
Here are my thoughts/questions so far:
First, i wonder if the Clamor Magazine article could be veiwed as a POSITIVE provocation towards radical excellence! …Depending on how much quality input we put into Clamor, the authors of its articles, and/or communities around such provokings.
Secondly, I think of looking for the insights of analysis made of propaganda techniques by the Institute For Propaganda Analysis (while remembering that many ‘users’ of such have what Noam Chomsky cynically calls “a good education” and may not be conscious of being tooled by “information” from “reputable” sources). Especially in paragraph 4 on page 16. (1)
Thirdly, I think of yet a new parade of domesticated enemies and how people labeled as “tweakers” are largely inarticulate and unprepared for the “good intentions” of those whom are quite willing to mobilize against the alleged menace, while those who ask that people actually *think through* the situation more critically, are labeled as “possible” ‘users’ or ‘pushers’.
So, the hyped-up climate (of “well educated” domesticates) is to follow the “informative” orders of formal, state-subordinated authority. Such a climate indicates that continual interests of encroachment (and mystification) have picked up their pace. In the context of what is going down in current u.s./european political interests, this situation may not be as moot as one might assume.
On the other hand, are there actual *sources* and *studies* named by the “information” outlets which we may investigate? Why or why not? (sidenote to insert here: this Clamor article is an example of the situation between the use of the word ‘propaganda’ to explain anarchist ideas and the use of the word ‘information’ to explain dominating ideas)
Fifthly, the “reputable” method to “stop” the apparently bad situation is not thought through too carefully by those claiming autonomous desires. So we are basically to ‘follow orders from on high’ and instructed in the methods of “tough love”-styled restriction and blocking of people who once were full members of our community making. And we are to automatically defer to and trust this authority–i.e. professional methods of intervention.
Crucially,
we are not led to realize the value of holding onto any authentic, autonomous, “I’m Okay, You’re Okay” style bridges which we may’ve made previously with the person under suspicion, or actually ‘caught’ in possession of such substances.
Suddenly, they aren’t as fully human as the rest of us.
Suddenly, their behavior is reduced to something that cannot be listened to, and cannot have “rational” input to humanity and our projects. All they can do is subordinate while alleged help is administered. This is the prevailing conception, even tho there is evidence to dispute such (2).
Suddenly, we don’t *believe* that there’s even a *remote possibility* that the mystified ‘drug’ could be a tool autonomous radicals utilize in a beneficient way, much less a possible *processing method* of being, seeing, or processing towards mutually beneficial outcomes, much less wisdom which we cannot right now conceive of. No, such fantasy is *completely* beyond the collective imagination, or at least what passes for such.
All this *without evidence*, *without critical thought*; we are led to the way of believing that works to destroy and water-down our autonomous experimenting (with community, independent thought, etc.) and solidarity connections with yet another whole group of people. And, decisively, we are ‘pushed’ to fall back on the alleged importance of ‘experts’ who are directly subordinate to statecraft.
**************************************************************
further angles to explore:
1) source on propaganda analysis: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inst…a_Analysis ; Chomsky’s words on “a good education” can be searched for via www.scroogle.org
2) on addiction, the despised, imperfect (and oft unknown) dissident psychiatrist Thomas Szasz, MD:
“Do Drugs Cause Addiction?” [PDF file]:
See link at: www.szasz.com/debates.html See also R. Davies’ book _The Myth of Addiction_ : www.druglibrary.org/special/…ction.htm
On related topics (specifically THE drug hysteria of the 1980s), see, in “hip Mama” magazine: “Crack Babies” All Grown Up & Talking Truth to Insults page 8, “Regime Change issue” #32, 2004 and “The Demon Seed That Wasn’t: Debunking The Crack Baby Myth”: www.citylimits.org/content/…eView.cfm
and
debunking ‘crack babies’ myth:
www.youthcomm.org/FCYU-Feat…03-10b.htm
3) Noam Chomsky speaking of this sort of pattern of hype (which always has at least a germ of truth):
excerpt from:
www.zmag.org/chomsky/tal…control.html
[quote]
“You had to crush them to defend yourselves. We have our ways, too. Over the last ten years, every year or two, some major monster is constructed that we have to defend ourselves against. There used to be one that was always available: the Russians. But they’re losing their attractiveness as an enemy, and it’s getting harder and harder to use that one, so some new ones have to be conjured up… So it was international terrorists and narco-traffickers and crazed Arabs and Saddam Hussein, the new Hitler, is going to conquer the world. They’ve got to keep coming up, one after another. You frighten the population, terrorize them, intimidate them so that they’re too afraid to travel and cower in fear. Then you have a magnificent victory over Grenada, Panama, or some other defenseless Third World army that you can pulverize before you ever bother to look at them — which is just what happened. That gives relief. We were saved at the last minute. That’s one of the ways in which you can keep the bewildered herd from paying attention to what’s really going on around them, keep them diverted and controlled….”
[/quote]
*********************************************
obligatory note by author of this blog:
I do not trust “man-made” or “designer” drugs, but wish to think carefully about the ‘given’ issues of today. Surely there are serious dangers to using substances, alleged poisons or otherwise, in the context of ‘too much’ or in the mode of ‘typical shallowly-conscious alternative-culture’ “consumer” types. On the other hand, if communities feeling “overwhelmed by” such challenges are committed enough to “radical” ways of being and living, I wonder if such situations as these may be “ju-jitsued” into potentially radically excellent articulations and becoming.
Fri, October 26, 2007 – 4:05 PM —
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I’m adding this because i see this as such a big can of worms that needs to be challenged more systematically.
This is a reply to a political fundamentalist who was lambasting a group of us in one tribe to follow his One Truth. If we chose other paths, he sweepingly deemed us impractical and something along the lines of irrational. Check out the discussion here:
shamanism.tribe.net/thread/6…92cefec9e
Saty, what you call “practical” and what we’ve found to be impractical (often by direct experience in just the cure you claim) are going to continue to be beyond you unless you investigate what has brought us to the places we are (and what exactly those places are).
i won’t deny that there are movements within the spiritual community to weaken and distract it (i.e. via the slick games of “well educated” professionals who don’t see that their method is fully oriented to “manage” and control our power spots –which are not supposed to successfully build up in any shape or form). And that there is a prevalence of the superficial image of spirituality in virtually *every* well-funded media “voice” available in every corporate media outlet. This truth, however, does not truly speak for the spirituality i practice and the communities of seeing that i am inspired by.
If you truly want to explore and investigate reality you would do well to take off your soldiering mind-set and approach us as a culture oriented differently than you. Imagine us as a “Third World” culture which you are seeking to make friends with. Understand, then, that many cultures do not play the politics/polytricks game unless forced.
Did you know?
In most of the world, as we speak, so-called “Third World” countries are being “developed” by force. That force began as open colonization/colonial interests, and has “developed” into the situation where settlers can go in and live (while the natives are continually smashed in all manner of warfare, often beyond the consciousness of the naive settler mentality) and try to perpetuate what you could not in your home territories. (A curious reality in itself!)
Read the record for yourself, whether it’s the minutes of the UN or the many machinations of the u.s.a./nato regarding international law breaking (i.e. whenever the u.s.a./nato wants to, that’s okay; whenever not, it ain’t, perioed). Explore the decisions made by the world court. Systematically, we see (even Noam Chomsky exposes this consistently) that politics is a trick, a lie being pulled over our eyes, and that the rule of *state* terrorism and tyranny is “what goes”, whenever those holding the reins give the orders. On “foreign” soil as well as at home.
Politics is a false-lead. It has some truths; it may well stop tyranny from showing its actual face out in the open. Yet, we must ask, for whom does such a cammoflauge truly assist?
A few stalwart indigenous folks, putting their lives on the line (read www.cointel.org for reputable examples of this reality), have spoken that Nice people, the middle class and “well educated” folks have been needed by tyranny to help them implement and carry out their severely alienated empire building. But as those folks are no longer needed, reality gets revealed. I.e. that “rights” are given out as a privilege in order to get one “class” of folks to do one’s bidding, while the rest of the populace is to shut up and “go along with the program” OR ELSE.
Well, i’ve said my peice. Whether you end up using your intelligence to think things through more carefully is up to you and the path, i suppose, that you walk. Wed, October 24, 2007
This is a reply shared at a tribe where a writer was originally questioning the value of one portion of the general dissenting community (i.e. dissenting from status-quo monoculture and oppression), citing lack of consciousness, i thought, in the undercurrent of her/his critique. She/he seemed to be echoing words that others have been beginning to be heard to say: that, as an entire group, “white folks” are too wrapped up in superficial consciousness to *be able* to adequately join more openly oppressed peoples as allies.
See the thread here:
shamanism.tribe.net/thread/1…a6a0ed0bd
My reply to cyndasoo:
i thinc it’s important to recall and remember herstory (!) in this matter, and i don’t agree that it merely boils down to respect. If we are to get at the hearts (not merely the symptoms, or “roots”) of how and why the feminist movement (and so many others!) got side-tracked into authoritarianism, as well as not seeing their confined consciousness (as Exodus topically exposes with Andy Smith’s article), then i say we’re going to have to look and think more deeply.
Let me begin touching on this idea of going more deeply by going over an analysis of somewhat recent feminist herstory, beginning at a most pivotal time, the mid-1970s.
So-called “radical” feminism (in its blanketly anti-porn, anti-male, et al hype stance) did not arise out of fair discussion or democratic methods. It did not arise out of the excellent diversity of dialogue in the plethora of feminist motions. To my understanding, the most authoritarian aspects of feminism arose with pivotal help from the status-quo, via grants that were suddenly becoming available to the most divisive groups during what was called “the crisis of democracy” (that those grant sources eventually dried up should not come as a surprise to anyone even slightly seasoned in the meta warfare of politics).
You can read more about this if you read Noam Chomsky’s “Media Control” speech, where he goes into much more detail. Or you can read “The Crisis of Democracy” by the Trilateral Commission”, published in 1975 (I once saw a copy at the University of Minnesota Library, for example).
These shadow interests, which continually seek to “manage” and “appropriately channel” social challenge and dissent, funded or in some other crucial way, supported, some groups while others were left in the lurch (certainly these others TRIED to get funding, but their work for such would have been much harder…unless i’m missing something crucial here…any seasoned feminists want to step up to the plate?).
One of these groups left in the lurch was the liberation feminists, whom, if you recall, in the 1970s were far from a marginal group. These feminists, including feminist men, saw the value of being forthright with their fellow human beings and they were creative and deeply inspiring to many many women at that time. And they used a minimal, if any, hype. These folks, including luminaries like Nadine Strossen or Pat Califia, may likely have asked: Why try to mobilize mobs when you can bring informal ways of reason and thoughtful human solidarity to communities of females (and other oppressed folks) wanting liberation from their pain?
But sentiments where everyone gets to have thoughtful input and gets to be truly heard was not welcome to the cammoflauged, or shadow interests seeking to remain steps ahead of, and in control of the mass mind; basically *ROLLBACK* the democratic visionary momentum to a situation similar to where feminists had first arisen from: overwhelm, panic, fear to speak up “too radically”. After all, say these shadow interests, we’re collectively and individually “not capable” of rationality, so the bigotry went (and remains). So they did like any c.i.a.-style operation in the “Third World” except it was done at home; they helped finance the most hyped-up factions, on the one hand, and worked, via covert means (see www.cointel.org for examples), to undermine authentically democratic and liberatory leanings on the other!
Not that the “radical” feminists wouldn’t soon be experiencing another form of being undermined –by the very interests which funded them early on! (How do you THINK “divide and conquer” strategy has been so systematically successful?!?) People aren’t “stupid” (we’re stupidized), we’re just easily misled because we so uncritically TRUST the means and methods, and strategies themselves, designed and kept available by the shared values and interests of a severely alienated minority who continue to run the world.
In short order, the truly liberatory aspect of feminism became jammed-up by the logs of rigidized, ideological intensity, and even hysteria. Open communication began to be replaced with *emotionally potent oversimplifications*. Peaceful relating and empathizing with each other replaced by alienated means of *talking at*, and *reflective attack* created by those most pained (or at least appearing to be). In short, the original excellence of the feminist promise, which had brought hundreds of thousands of women/womyn/ladies to these communities with very very high hopes and dreams, began to fall apart in a way that looked “natural” and centered in the most cynical of so-called “human nature”.
Free associations and informal organization also began to be replaced by formalities. Professional, formally-trained specialists began appearing in the place of informal-oriented folks, telling them that they could run things “more efficiently”. Little room was given to dissent and character assasination (amongst many other forms of subversion) began to become commonplace. In effect, the Ginny Foats and Lois Gibbs’ of the feminist movement began to be marginalized by the so-called “big guns” of the Catherine MacKinnon-types in all their “professional” slickness.
i’m just touching on this stuff here, but i think any independently-thinking person can start to see that there is more to think about than meets the eyes in your typical PR-oriented feminist media.
So, to get back to your ideas, cyndasoo, things aren’t really as they may appear to be in the heavy politicized undercurrents of feminism (or whatever other single issue you can name) these days. And not every feminist (or those seemingly on “our sides”) wants to have democratic-leaning discussions that lead to open-ended supposed unknowns. We’ve been led to believe that movements aren’t “perfect” (whatever that is), and as well, that open-ended dialogue is “possible”; but unless you understand your herstory (or history or her/history!) you’re doomed to repeat the blindspots and well-funded superficial thinking that has long jammed-up and blocked liberation movements, and continues to this day.
As for the idea that such a momentum should now try to build itself, we need to understand that many have, and many have run short at the walls of ideology and strategically-challenged mind-set that permeate today’s alleged people’s organizations. The more naive and uninformed you are about these very real confines (especially doing with organization meta politics) which we’re all supposed to remain in, the easier your “idealism” will be broken, and “more pragmatic” values filled in their place.
So there are a lot of questions to raise. And any authentically liberatory feminist *has got* to become aware in more serious ways. After all, these aren’t merely academic exercises we’re ultimately talking about, this is all revolving around real human beings. Human beings whom are to be kept divided from being able to be adequately heard, human beings whose liberatory desires are to be blocked and turned into the “normal” cynicism now running rampant in this severely alienated society that is called Western Civilization!
Wed, October 24, 2007 – 5:40 PM —
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A response from a tribe.net post at:
shamanism.tribe.net/thread/1…a6a0ed0bd
posted by Exodus entitled FOR ALL THOSE WHO WERE INDIAN IN A FORMER LIFE
My responses follow (a bit rough, so hold on):
This is an example, roughly articulated, of solidarity-thought where indigenous folks, as a group, get thrown right out of the window when settler/”white” politics is viewed as being in some way “More Equal”…
I read through Andy Smith’s sharing in a topical way, i’ll admit, yet i think i have something to offer.
i think it is crucial to note one thing that most or a lot of indigenous challengers have apparently missed when seeking to challenge “white society”/settlers, and that is to think through the meta realities of said society, rather than attack the symptoms. Of course, there is good reason to attack the symptoms, such as in order to gain the attention of said settlers who do not see what they do. On the other hand, to challenge only in this way as a rigid way not allowing grey areas, and basically replicating the mind-set of settler alienation, well, that is obviously problematic.
Because then indigenous folks can get stuck in the perpetual war that settler society is stuck in; i.e. never seeing the bigger picture, never thinking things through, never using one’s own intuitive intelligence and creativity to solve challenges via the amazing excelling styles of our being human beings!
The crucial thing that ought to be systematically challenged, instead, in my feeling, is the reality of a *chain of command* mentality throughout settler society. Then, to systematically challenge the ways that formalized (as different from informal, intuitive, and free) ways of thinking, relating, and believing fool and tool we settlers.
So the germ of truth Andy makes in discussing feminists has some truths –YET such leaves out the all-important CONTEXT to why and how!
((NOTE: sounds like Andy (like so many other native folks) lives in a rural part of the country where some truths about the most politically-known feminist community are “dragged through the coals” by “right wing” interests –such as The New American –whom don’t tell you that they have, as part of their interests, the desire to put females back in a subordinate position to males; this being said, the “left wing” is hardly better, as taken as a whole it is deceitful to their real interests, such as of perpetuating domestic imperialism and formal settler hegemony over “conquered” peoples))
Like every other “rights”-oriented group in settler society (feminists being only one more amongst oodles of superficial challengers), the reality is that these groups are organized into something like military structures themselves; that’s because they are groups which have usually been organized *into* structures which petition the occupation state for “A Seat At the Table” of security and freedom. This in itself is tell-tale for anyone outside of such positions. Thus, one is “free” to discuss the single issue –of feminism in this case– but not free to go deeper than that, really.
How settlers dismiss
So, to take a little somewhat recent history (1980s) if a thing like the political import of showing solidarity with the Sandinista government of Daniel Ortega’s Nicaragua shows up into the consciousness of New Age-type folks (via the media they read), solidarity with Miskito Indians will depend upon whether the feminists’ trusted leadership deem it politically valuable or not, first and foremost. If, as happened, the Miskito people are deemed non-allies, then, suddenly, their voices are censored and empathy becomes unheard of. Why? Because the meta of every state-subordinated group is playing the game of not playing the game of politics/polytricks.
Of course, in this case, the Miskito thought it in their best interest to remain neutral, and in some cases openly retalitory where the Sandinistas were concerned –as they were painted with a broadbrush to be “Contras” working for the c.ia. Thus, they wouldn’t play the meta game, and they were “out”, to use a little parlance that Noam Chomsky uses from time to time (see his “Media Control” speech, published as a book now, for more examples, where he’s talking about Iraq).
This example, of the Miskito and Sandinistas was actually a very real situation. And if you look at www.coloradoaim.org’s site, they discuss this at length, and give the reader grey areas that were never tolerated in dominant feminist media. Not even Z Magazine discussed the Miskito situation thoroughly, to my knowledge. Everyone just joined in on what the orders were.
And now you can start to see why indigenous folks see right through the superficiality of feminist New Agers, or New Agers in general (those dominated by Leftist, or even Rightist ways of Telling), or euro-peons all.
Because we, as a people, are largely subordinated to chain-of-command ways of thinking and being. If our trusted leaders Tell us to think in some way, we largely go along with that. We largely do NOT challenge, nor do our “alternatives” provide adequate space and time to critically appraise topics; actually, we as a mass are seen as *incapable* of such things, for whatever reason!
So what indigenous people are getting at is that we as a general population just DON’T HAVE IT IN US to be true indigenous people! Regardless of our claims, our actions prove the truth. We still remain subordinate to the polytricks (politics) which control the thought and actions of our communities, generally. And so, in seeing this, you may now see why indigenous folks are saying that everything we touch that isn’t really who we are, we pollute!
Exodus (a tribe.net poster), what do you think of this way of saying? i’m sure i could have said this much more succinctly; perhaps a better writer will take this and run with it! Good!
Further (2nd comment)
one thing more to add as far as settler culture goes, it really is a top-down type of culture.
A few stalwarts rise to the “leadership” often after having their very authoritarian impulses heavily funded by government; in dominant feminist politics, some feminists, those called “radical feminists” like Andrea Dworkin and Cathrine MacKinnon, received crucial funding and crucial openings and support at a very curious time for very curious reasons, while other feminists, namely the truly liberatory feminists like Pat Califia and Camille Paglia (or how about Karen McElroy?), who DID NOT preach an authoritarian scenario of retaliation (and further division), were heavily marginalized and struck from what is called “normal” feminist consciousness today.
And then they dictate the culture, and the rest of the community of feminists, takes those orders and basically goes in the direction they’re herded. Oh, sure, individuals mumble and sometimes openly dissent, but their non-politicized/”political naivite” (aka crucial critique) is outwardly frowned upon, and “managed”. Therapy is even advised for those who “refuse” to be “progressive”.
And since the politics that took over’s (when the professional activists and organizers entered the movement and commandeered it) sole purpose is to assimilate, and thus reinforce the chain-of-command of the state, the values of that dominant society must be replicated. If feminists –like all assimilators (whom usually know not what they do, or believe such is *all* that is open to them, as they look upon the fate of the Black Panthers and AIM)– don’t remain “vigilant” about these values and subordination to them? Ah, then CHAOS is said to arise and the ideologues step up and tell their constituencies to STOP THE BASHERS AND ABUSERS BEFORE ITS TOO LATE!
Why do they systematically resort to such hype? Because, above all, they MUST keep their constituencies (that’s what we’re all reduced to, mass numbers, mass “weight”) “on the proper track”; this is true if you read Edward Bernays or Walter Lippmann (and so on, social managers et al) and it’s true as far as political vanguardists/leaderships are concerned. Again, Chomsky’s “Media Control” speech touches on this in a pivotal way, and is worth reading.
So, yes, this is a roughshod attempt to expose the reality of polytricks/politics, and why indigenous people are *rightly* critical of such.
Unless, of course, they are themselves seeking to assimilate (there is a growing number of this in indigenous communities, thanks to milliions in b.i.a. influence strategies, and “conservative” aboriginals as well –whom likely have been just as fooled and tooled as “liberal” aboriginals)…
If this latter is the case (and there seems to be a growing pattern of this thought), then the unmentionable meta is even more sinister than before, and i personally am MOVED to say, hey, maybe it’s TIME to put my safety on the line again and try to expose this further reality as well; and then be “offensive.” Because if such a way of seeing gets entrenched (i.e. ideological/rigid ways of thinking used as trickery to blind righteous victims to a very narrow way of behaving and subordination to Given orders), such instilled dogmatic mind-set will continue to become even more polluting than it already is, and the challenge of autonomous thought and the original insights of indigenous great spirit? Even more lost by the wayside of ideologically-challenged beliefs!
Know what i’m sayinG?
Wed, October 24, 2007 – 4:33 PM —
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by phuncah-delicized
summary:
The Onkwehonwe author of ~Wasase: indigenous pathways of action and free-dom~ has kept a posting on hiz website (www.wasase.org) calling to fight. What this may mean is explored in this sharing of a recent ish-you of a phuncadeliah zeen (with phight scenes)
story:
To fight. To fight. What might fight mean to you? A whole array of intensity comes to mY mind.,,.
For Onkwehonwe and other indigenous folks who are being systematically challenged and pressured by military-types of war-style strategy, such could mean many things related to physicality. Or so says our general programming and encult-uration. …And so says the continuing pressures that show us other human beings –who are still allowed the illusion of privileges– the actual truth when it “really matters’.
Those of us not yet backed up against walls (in our heads or elsewhere), not yet having *reality* revealed to us, we feel in our hearts that there are ways to intervene, to interact with each other that bring out the hidden sistah and brothah; that loved human spirit we aren’t usually able to truly deeply perceive, nor led to autonomously believe, or even wildly see …that iz, as “reputable’ and irrefutable,,,
So deep haz our general conditioning and socialization/domestication been!
So hyaar comz this 40 plus yr old white red/black/grey/cosmic mutt audio and bibliophile sayin there’s wayz beyond perpetual Us v. Them, wayz we can still attend, ways we can still rend and defend
=–even on the offensive (or, in *cruciaL aRtz vernacular::”ophensive”).
To *phight* from many angles, like this one, a “philiah” (psychiatric jargon for *love*) angle; jujitsu the professional (i.e. psychiatrick) labels and holier-than-thou chain-of-command, beyond the dark ages “fight’ and into light ages phight. PHIGHT.
O’ course, the stealth mental “health” planted in our heads says NO and *if you know what’s good for you YOU’D BETTER conform! ,,,,,WELL IS IT NOT SO? Some narrative over-voice be TELLIN you you better move on to something *more serious*! Not somethin like THIS!
Thus, legions of folks/pholks are to be tooled by Same Old Again mind-set. Whole populations politricksterized in wayz they cannot, ‘for the life of them” see and relate to. “All we can do” we’re told over and over in classic repetitionist push is FIGHT as smashers, killers, crushers, blood spillers! You know what i’m sayiN
So how to relate, to bridge –as severe alienation continues? =–Only with guns and human stupidity???? =–Only in “Tried and True’ truths??? Only in politricks (politics)??? Must ya’all FOREVER do as your told, even amongst your claimed alternative?
So follows a buncha art(e), along with an action i’m doin’ NOW, wearin’ a part; meant as a seedin’, for y’all to taste as input!
an actual scene
earlier in the day, hair wildly tied-in with a real DEER ANTLER, and reddish-pink ribbon, carryin’ neon green sign sayin’ :::*TO POSSIBLY INSPIRE OUR HEARTS*:::and just as i exited my caveship, there he was, a soldier in blackn’white machine. Drove by, turned around, and i? i thot sure he’d stop me….but nope….musta read my sign!
:}
Then o’er to the drum circle o’ strangers, listenin’ then sit-dancin’ then jumpin and chicken- & daffy duck-dancin and more; and phinish’n me art(e) zeen too. Then jumpin inta their bizness and speakin, reflectin a bit o tha intense-ities i’ve been feelin’, then articulatin –==–”You folks must get a lotta weird folks here.” And then it was a joke, you know? And they liked it, cuz here i waz, crazy but articulatin’, and tellin’ about us all bein’ descendants of tribes!
WoW, a small, tiny step after too long not doin.
Wanted ta go inta this here University environ with all that. But ended up (right now!) jus’ wearin some strange outfit that isn’t THAT strange, except for the green neon askin passerby “HOW DEEP IS YOUR ART?”
Tiny, “nothing”, “hardly radical” if you wanna believe, but a PROCESSIN’ to me.
Especially in the context of *knowing too much* (opposite of “ignorance is bliss”), of fearing so much; needin’ to get back inta the spiRit of thangz, revvin up for some possibility springz!
2nd scene
gOOd therapeufinicky with b’ful lovely dude (in 20s) and we hung out and experienced much magick! Ohmy! (see the zeen) Hiz HEART ticklin my worn out old one with not-yet-too-beaten-down. Such magickal thingz that were happenin!
Took a good easy time and then got o’er hyaar, and now postin…and wonderin’…hmmmm…maybe? Maybe i’m makin waves in spirit’d dir-ectionz?! To students on their last week b-4 testy sprintin? How to art them in wayz that they might take with em?
(i’ve been long experimentin’)(back in ‘03 over 20-plus places and cities!)(and before that? oh,…heh…before that! back in ‘93 and ‘95 hoooooooooo0ooooooooooo; chances chances taken to roustabout anglez, hoooooboiii! but now phine-toonin’)==see some here::
www.angelfire.com/folk/magixn…ggindex.html
What if
EVERY thing we do iz processin’ YET ALSO *arting ourselves too*?
What if
You could reach behind the PAIN to the HEART of the hidden SANE?
…Now, the terrroristic powers, they are tryin to block any arisin’ yet b’twEEn all o’ us on the streeeet? OooO, possibility is EVERyWHERE, up to our imagin ationz! Open your eyez and see, there is SO MUCH possibility ==to PHIGHT with our hearts in full gear, to see our daily interaction as phight, dear!
Is your depth deep enough? How to know?
How about your fear? So pick and steer your own style!
So sit back and look and see if any o’ this aids in your outlook, adds to what you’r already doin’ or even more!
((the pre-seed-ing and phollow-ing is called “surreal” by otherz; i’s call such an angle on the confrontational nonviolent tactics of da cruciaL aRtz—not martial))
Hear more of the depth insights of the Onkwehonwe author: www.taiaiake.com Compare and contrast with what you know!
Moved? perhaps you “should” join open-ended seeding discussions at www.anti-politics.net and other favorite intanet spaces
links with full art peices (8):
portland.indymedia.org/en/200…4.shtml
or
la.indymedia.org/news/2007/05/198356.php
An exceptional link to the author of Wasase:
www.taiaiake.com
Read more about the cruciaL aRts:
www.angelfire.com/folk/crucialarts/
Mon, May 7, 2007
