I am very sorry to see you carry the advertisement on your site, not on the front page, but inside each article, claiming to offer a “Free Laptop”. Please look at the ad—It is, like many spam messages, a fake. It requires you to complete 6 sponsor promotions, like get a new cell phone or a new credit card. So the free laptop is not free at all. I am sad to see this type of ad in “In These Times”. May I please ask your reason for continuing to run these deceptive ads?
Posted by Dimitri Devyatkin on Oct 29, 2004 at 10:58 AM
No one is really going to like this, Kurt, but the truth is often a bitter pill, in this case a cyanide capsule.
Hydrocarbon humankind is about to get swift kick in the drawers. This will create the beginning of wars and land grabs (e.g. NOW) as the haves go up against the have-nots and in the end, as is always the case of the end, there will be barbarians at the gates.
What’s next? This ain’t going to kill all of us. Just most.
Posted by Michael Schwartz on Oct 29, 2004 at 11:05 AM
Alas,this experiment in inteligent life is about to fail.I hope its successful in some other part of the universe
Posted by mike on Oct 29, 2004 at 11:11 AM
i agree with you kurt, in fact i probably have much more facts conceding this FACT (about the fate of the human on this planet)as i’m in the industry to know about this, i am a fisheries biologist. but there are positive things going on despite what george does. there are many independent groups and agencies out there trying to make a difference. i’m asking you, kurt, what you do to make a difference, you write this pessimistic article about us just having to give up, as it’s already too late. perhaps you want to energize people. but how much of your millions do you drop to environmental groups. The nature conservancy? union of concerned scientists? nature resource defense council? wilderness society? you probably give a lot, i don’t know. but your article pushes me to think futility and apathy should be embraced.
email me, darling.
Posted by edward kooi on Oct 29, 2004 at 11:32 AM
What do you mean by intelligent life? We’ve plucked out all our feathers and dove out of the nest. Flap, Flap thud.
Posted by GreyArea on Oct 29, 2004 at 11:38 AM
Wait. It ain’t over. What Beat My Heart says it ain’t over.
There’s no difference? 3 things:
***
#1 The Repugs voted for nukes
Senate RollVote Nuclear Weapons, summer 04
fastfact: Senate Republicans voted against eliminating funding for nukes
The 55-42 roll call by which the Senate voted to reject an amendment to the defense authorization bill that would have eliminated funding for research into “bunker buster” warheads.
On this vote, a “yes” vote was a vote to approve the amendment and a “no” vote was a vote to reject it.
Voting “yes” (to approve eliminating funding) were 41 Democrats and 1 Republican.
Voting “no” were 50 Republicans and 5 Democrats.
Democrats voting to eliminate nuke funding:
Akaka, Hawaii; Baucus, Mont.; Biden, Del.; Bingaman, N.M.; Boxer, Calif.; Breaux, La.; Byrd, W.Va.; Cantwell, Wash.; Carper, Del.; Clinton, N.Y.; Conrad, N.D.; Corzine, N.J.; Daschle, S.D.; Dayton, Minn.; Dodd, Conn.; Dorgan, N.D.; Durbin, Ill.; Edwards, N.C.; Feingold, Wis.; Feinstein, Calif.; Graham, Fla.; Harkin, Iowa; Inouye, Hawaii; Johnson, S.D.; Kennedy, Mass.; Kohl, Wis.; Landrieu, La.; Lautenberg, N.J.; Levin, Mich.; Lieberman, Conn.; Lincoln, Ark.; Mikulski, Md.; Murray, Wash.; Pryor, Ark.; Reed, R.I.; Reid, Nev.; Rockefeller, W.Va.; Sarbanes, Md.; Schumer, N.Y.; Stabenow, Mich.; Wyden, Ore. (Republicans: Chafee, R.I.)
Republicans voting to allow nuke funding:
Alexander, Tenn.; Allard, Colo.; Allen, Va.; Bennett, Utah; Bond, Mo.; Brownback, Kan.; Bunning, Ky.; Burns, Mont.; Campbell, Colo.; Chambliss, Ga.; Cochran, Miss.; Coleman, Minn.; Collins, Maine; Cornyn, Texas; Craig, Idaho; Crapo, Idaho; DeWine, Ohio; Dole, N.C.; Domenici, N.M.; Ensign, Nev.; Enzi, Wyo.; Fitzgerald, Ill.; Frist, Tenn.; Graham, S.C.; Grassley, Iowa; Gregg, N.H.; Hagel, Neb.; Hatch, Utah; Hutchison, Texas; Inhofe, Okla.; Kyl, Ariz.; Lott, Miss.; Lugar, Ind.; McCain, Ariz.; McConnell, Ky.; Murkowski, Alaska; Nickles, Okla.; Roberts, Kan.; Santorum, Pa.; Sessions, Ala.; Shelby, Ala.; Smith, Ore.; Snowe, Maine; Specter, Pa.; Stevens, Alaska; Sununu, N.H.; Talent, Mo.; Thomas, Wyo.; Voinovich, Ohio; Warner, Va. (Democrats: Bayh, Ind.; Hollings, S.C.; Miller, Ga.; Nelson, Fla.; Nelson, Neb.)
***
#2 Who served? The hypocrisy is staggering.
Republicans
Dennis Hastert: did not serve.
Tom Delay: did not serve.
House Whip Roy Blunt: did not serve.
Bill Frist: did not serve.
Rudy Giuliani: did not serve.
George Pataki: did not serve.
Mitch McConnell: did not serve.
Rick Santorum: did not serve.
Trent Lott: did not serve.
Dick Cheney: did not serve. Had “other priorities.” Several deferments, the last for wife’s pregnancy.
John Ashcroft: did not serve. Seven deferments to teach business.
Jeb Bush: did not serve.
Karl Rove: did not serve.
Saxby Chambliss: did not serve. “Bad knee.” The man who attacked Max
Cleland’s patriotism.
Paul Wolfowitz: did not serve.
Vin Weber: did not serve.
Richard Perle: did not serve.
Douglas Feith: did not serve.
Eliot Abrams: did not serve.
Richard Shelby: did not serve.
Jon Kyl: did not serve.
Tim Hutchison: did not serve.
Christopher Cox: did not serve.
Newt Gingrich: did not serve.
Donald Rumsfeld: served in Navy (1954-57) as aviator and flight instructor.
George W. Bush: six-year Nat’l Guard commitment (in four years) with father’s help; questions about his service remain.
Ronald Reagan: made war propaganda movies.
Gerald Ford: Navy, WWII
Phil Gramm: did not serve.
John McCain: Silver Star, Bronze Star, Legion of ! Merit, Purple Heart and
Distinguished Flying Cross.
Bob Dole: Army officer WWII.
Chuck Hagel: two Purple Hearts and a Bronze Star, Vietnam.
Duke Cunningham: nominated for Medal of Honor, Navy Cross, SilverStars, AirMedals, Purple Hearts.
Jeff Sessions: Army Reserves, 1973-1986
JC Watts: did not serve.
Lindsey Graham: National Guard lawyer.
G.H.W. Bush: Pilot in WWII. Shot down by the Japanese.
Tom Ridge: Bronze Star for Valor in Vietnam.
Antonin Scalia: did not serve.
Clarence Thomas: did not serve
Pundits & Preachers
Sean Hannity: did not serve.
Rush Limbaugh: did not serve (4-F with a ‘pilonidal cyst.’)
Bill O’Reilly: did not serve.
Michael Savage: did not serve.
George Will: did not serve.
Chris Matthews: did not serve.
Paul Gigot: did not serve.
Bill Bennett: did not serve.
Pat Buchanan: did not serve.
Bill Kristol: did not serve.
Kenneth Starr: did not serve.
Michael Medved: did not serve
***
#3 The Repugs are in the maw of the demiurge: Crazy. Selling Armageddon http://www.jungcircle.com/muse/Lahaye.html
***
and # 4 and all the rest to ... infinity:
What beats my heart?
This wisdom that knows how to beat a heart:
it beats all hearts.
It’s here right now—birthing in every breath
saying
Let peace begin
with me
love deborah http://jungcircle.com/muse
Posted by deborah conner on Oct 29, 2004 at 12:10 PM
The only good can from your intelligence is positive thinking, your reality about how bad things are has an equaly positive one, and that one needs to be addressed just as the negative reality.
If i missed a pass in the football game and blew the game, i would be upset and it would feel like my life was over, but there is still another game, another season, another year, i mean , the only way to feel good about completing a pass or catching the game winning pass is by dropping a few along the way, so we dropped a few passes in the years,
Posted by randycat on Oct 29, 2004 at 12:21 PM
if rush limbaugh was a big of a fat ass back then as he is now, he should be embarassed to bitch about john kerry’s service in vietnam. at least kerry went. limbaugh just hung out and ate enough food to keep a third world country alive in one sitting.
Posted by Candice on Oct 29, 2004 at 12:23 PM
I love Kurt Vonnegut’s books to death. Sad or not, while I was growing up they gave me something that I wasn’t able to find anywhere else, and I cherish him as an author to this day. With that being said, I have to slightly disagree with Mr. Vonnegut’s opinion expressed above. It is true that if I could choose the next president, it would be neither Kerry nor Bush. But I can’t agree that there is no difference between them. Bush has taken this country on a rampage of destruction, cheating, and pursuit of personal interests. (personal meaning the interests of himself, Cheney, and the richest 5% of the Americans). Kerry hasn’t done that yet. And there is a good reason to believe that he would not go as far as this administration has gone in the last four years. The common sense factor, evidently lacking in Bush, seems to have mild influence in John Kerry’s world. And that might be what we need right now. UNFORTUNATELY Mr. Vonnegut, this is not one of your books. In the real world politics is meant to be dirty, thus we can’t be looking for perfection. What we need right now is to stop the recklessness. Thus who will be the next president does matter.
About the fact that we are destroying our planet, and no one (who can) seems to be doing anything about it, I can’t agree more.
Posted by Ivan on Oct 29, 2004 at 1:04 PM
Well, Kurt Vonnegut - you may be right. Then again, you may be wrong. The last time I checked, there were no omniscient human beings. Those who forget they don’t know everything seriously detract from our chances of survival, case in point with C-students from Yale. However, I know I don’t know. So I say, there may be hope for the junior prom yet. As the mother of a sophomore and a clergy person in your loosely-affliated denomination, I am stubbornly hanging on to the saving grace of uncertainty. What happened? When did you let go and get stuck in the mire of terra firma beliefa? I have admired you for so long, don’t fail me now, man! With affection, Elaine
Posted by elaine on Oct 29, 2004 at 1:35 PM
Dear Mr. Vonnegut, ever the Pollyanna? I love you Brother. Live and write for as long as you want. They may have killed us all. Hi Ho.
Posted by bk on Oct 29, 2004 at 1:52 PM
To say that there’s no difference is to admit that you’ve lost the capacity to grasp either differences or distinctions. Ideal candidates we don’t have, but of the two major party candidates, one has a decent record and the other is leading this country into some kind of abyss. It’s hard to believe that a writer of such power could write so ignorantly.
Posted by Erwin A. Jaffe on Oct 29, 2004 at 2:03 PM
What about solar energy ? What about wind energy ? What about hydroenergy ? Why think everything depends on oil and the endless repetition of old mistakes ?
People still have the capacity to learn, people are able and allowed to simply drop out of the consumption craze and boycott idiocy, people aren’t necessarily fools, people outside and inside the USA survive on a steady diet of almost nothing, people can talk to dolphins and whales and birds to ask for help and information, please don’t give up hope. It will take some time before we clean up the mess we inherited, but nobody is forced to add to it.
Who needs a president anyway ?
Posted by hendrik laevens on Oct 29, 2004 at 2:37 PM
“We will drill everywhere [except ANWAR] and we will drill like never before.” John Kerry to union officials 2004
Voting against the Kyoto Treaty last time around… John Kerry.
Official number 1 energy alternative in Democratic Party platform: nuclear energy.
Distinctions between Dems and Repubs abound, but none significant enough to change the direction downward that Mr. Vonnegut describes. If only we would listen to our wise elders (including Mr. Nader).
Boom, boom. Bye, bye.
Posted by roger leblanc on Oct 29, 2004 at 2:48 PM
No amount of Green optimism can turn back time, or alter the larger course of human nature. We lit off our Ice-9 long ago, and the tipping point for the world has past. If “Galapagos” had been non-fiction, it still would have been too late for the biosphere to recover. So it goes…
Posted by dangerhart on Oct 29, 2004 at 3:08 PM
Pleasant baloney, but baloney none the less. Cry in your beer for degradation of the earth, or stand up and fight for it.
Posted by Jim Wallis on Oct 29, 2004 at 3:45 PM
there are great things to come
Posted by synt on Oct 29, 2004 at 3:47 PM
As we all know and occasionally, in our private moments, admit, cars have their good points. For example, say an attractive person is standing on a lonely street corner, waiting for a ride that’s already thirty minutes late. It’s raining. It’s hailing. Rats are present, big, toothy ones. You can’t cruise up to the corner on your bicycle and say, “Can I give you a lift?” What would you be offering? A seat on the handlebars, and the tires spritzing rainwater with each revolution. That’s not going to get you anywhere with this attractive person. Just because people are attractive doesn’t mean they’re stupid.
Posted by Louie. on Oct 29, 2004 at 4:00 PM
hmm, I thinks its about time we all join ELF.
Posted by Vanella on Oct 29, 2004 at 6:33 PM
Someone implied that voting for Nader would be the right thing to do in this mess. Well, I have a problem believing this. Voting for Nader would be the same as voting for Bush. Choosing to focus on Nader’s philosophy is nice. But it also means choosing to ignore the rest of the reality: Nader will not become the next president. Bush is a threat. Kerry is the only feasible way to remove this threat.
Casting a vote for the person who demonstrates the highest moral standards may seem to be the right thing to do – the right cause, the wrong effect. Morality is not only about interpreting and reacting honestly to what you see, it’s also choosing how much to see.
And btw, what is ELF?
Posted by Ivan on Oct 29, 2004 at 8:44 PM
We will not destrroy the planet. Mother Earth does not live from us, we live from her. She will say no, and that’s that.
Posted by Marton on Oct 29, 2004 at 11:26 PM
The end is always near. It always has been, eh?
“Whether it is to be Utopia or Oblivion will be a touch-and-go relay race right up to the final moment.”—R. Buckminster Fuller
There’s more hydrogen in the known universe than anything else so it should be a no-brainer what the best energy source to tap into should be. It’s out there—“Oh, the humanity!” See also: Freeman Dyson’s idea of exploring the universe by means of farting hydrogen.
What concerns ME the most, is that the second most abundant element in the universe, Helium, happens to be rather scarce on our little planet and has the uncanny knack of escaping us every chance it gets. And yet, we can’t help using it to express what little joys we have and we would all like to talk like Donald Duck, if only for a brief moment.
The importance of the U.S. monopoly of this limited resource however, has not been lost on the military/ geopolitical strategist’s and accounts for the recent, quiet siphoning of the “Bush Dome” helium reserve—to whereabouts unknown.
So besides floating tons of synthetic coated fiber in the shape of familiar cartoon characters down Fifth Avenue every Thanksgiving Day, and so on, helium is essential for the making and maintaining of nuclear bombs. The hotter the hot, you see, the more we need precious helium.
What perfect irony. See also: Slim Pickens in (movie) “Dr. Strangelove.”
Posted by Tim Christopher on Oct 29, 2004 at 11:31 PM
Where is Dr. Barnhouse when you need him?
Mr. Vonnegut’s writing has been very important to me since high school. I am so happy to know that he holds many of the same positions that I do. That said, I am not prepared to write off our existence just yet.
I believe that there is a way to fight the burning addiction and bring about changes that might just stave off our demise.
A smart campaign for divestiture of renewable energy from commodities based combustible energy corporations (oil & coal, mainly) could be waged by cluing the public in to the ethics of the modern day corporation.
If we could help the public understand that corporate ethics prohibit the corporation from acting on behalf of society unless that action will benefit the bottom line, then we would have a chance at fostering change. While people know that corporations are not benevolent, most do not think that they are malevolent. Given the realites of Hubbert’s peak, energy companies would be acting unethically if they were to do anything to promote renewable energy. They are mandated by corporate ethics to mothball renewables so that they can experience the totality of revenue streams from fossil fuels as we move from a demand based market to a supply based market.
This public is ripe for this kind of approach. Multinational corporations are not very popular with Americans these days. The true scope of their malfeasance has been hidden quite effectively by their fellow media corporations. I believe that the public would be very upset if their true nature were to be exposed.
Renewable energy divestiture is a great way to expose corporate apathy for the well being of society. It would pave the way for all kinds of actions against these artificial persons.
There is no reason why we should be giving in to these criminals. Even if we have crossed our environmental Rubicon, that is no reason to allow these scumbags to reap record profits from our current and future well being.
Posted by k9disc on Oct 30, 2004 at 12:52 AM
roger leblanc : cite sources.
Hunny, Nukes is Cheney’s baby. And nukes just ain’t economical energy wise, except for Bechtel who made its profit upfront and ran. Nuke terrorism? The old plants are now leaching into the water.
As for Kerry, you’re just misinformed.
a quick google:
http://216.239.41.104/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&q=cache:http://www.startribune.com/stories/562/5011374.html
Last update: October 6, 2004 at 9:12 AM
Environment: Kerry’s record outshines even Gore’s
Robert Braile
October 3, 2004 BRAILE1003
When John Kerry is asked about his environmental record, he often refers to lessons his mother taught him about “responsibility to this world,” to a speech he gave in Massachusetts on the first Earth Day in 1970, to an acid rain commission he led as that state’s lieutenant governor, and to victories he claims as a U.S. senator on marquee issues from coral reefs to climate change.
It is a telling response. While Kerry has a glittering environmental record by most accounts, it reflects a distinct taste for Brussels over Boston—for the more glamorous international and national issues of the day, over the more provincial issues that might normally preoccupy a senator. Or, at least, a senator not eyeing the Oval Office.
Not that Kerry has neglected the Bay State in what he calls his “commitment of a lifetime.” Supporters say he has helped over the years in cleaning up Boston Harbor, the Massachusetts Military Reservation and the Housatonic River, showing political courage in the latter two cases, especially, by standing up to powerful players in the Pentagon and General Electric Corp., respectively.
Also, the national causes he has championed were as relevant in Massachusetts and New England as anywhere else. His efforts to reduce air and water pollution, toughen drinking-water standards, strengthen the federal Superfund program, reduce national forest logging and road construction, increase motor vehicle fuel economy, protect fisheries, conserve land, develop green transportation options and enhance renewable energy programs have served environmental interests from coast to coast.
From the start of his political career, Kerry has garnered his grandest headlines and most enthusiastic support from the national environmental community on high-profile issues that have about as much to do with Massachusetts as manatees. He has opposed opening a nuclear waste repository at Nevada’s Yucca Mountain and drilling for oil in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. He has participated in international climate change talks everywhere from Rio to Kyoto to The Hague.
Even on international and national issues that have affected Massachusetts, Kerry has sought the larger stage. In 1987, three years into his first Senate term, he criticized the Reagan administration for its lack of leadership on acid rain and called for Senate hearings on global impacts of the problem. At the time, acid rain was as acute a concern domestically and abroad as climate change is now, although perhaps more a concern for Germany’s Black Forest than for the Berkshires.
Kerry has critics among environmental activists in Massachusetts, who see his support as driven by careerism and bravado more than purpose and passion. He could be counted on to vote the right way, they say, but has not delivered as much as some of his colleagues in the New England congressional delegations, among America’s greenest—nor as much as Kerry himself claims.
Nevertheless, his record has earned him very high marks from environmental groups. His lifetime League of Conservation Voters rating, based on Senate votes, is 92 out of 100—so high that the group endorsed him on Jan. 24, three days before the New Hampshire primary, the earliest in a campaign season it has endorsed any candidate in its 34-year history. (In 2000, it did not endorse former Vice President Al Gore until May 30—and Gore, one of the greenest politicians in recent memory, had a League rating of only 64.)
It remains to be seen whether such support will tip the scales for Kerry in what polls have long indicated is a very close race with President Bush. So far he has chosen—as Gore did four years ago—not to make his environmental commitment a highlight of his campaign.
Instead, he has cast his environmental platform in terms of how he would resolve local bread-and-butter issues, shying away from showcasing the positions that represent the greatest difference between himself and the president.
Strategically smart or not, that may be Kerry’s most telling position of all.
Robert Braile reported on the environment for the Boston Globe from 1987 to 2001. He is writing a book about race, culture and the environment in America.
Posted by deborah conner on Oct 30, 2004 at 6:50 AM
” We expect climate; what we get is weather.’‘
Mark Twain
Posted by jimmy t on Oct 30, 2004 at 8:13 AM
We can all thank Osama Bin Laden for guaranteeing Bush’s re-election. He got the American people running scared again so we can count on every undecided voter voting for the man who leads by over twenty points on terrorism and national security (Bush). Batten down the hatches for four more years. I’m really thinking about moving to Canada.
Posted by Seth on Oct 30, 2004 at 8:14 AM
We can all thank Osama Bin Laden for waking up half the people in this country that it’s our own actions that create terrorism. We turn a people on itself to do our bidding. Tricks and stealth, playing dirty. That’s how the west was won.
Hitler wasn’t armed overnight. He should have been stopped the moment he broke his treaty. Why was he allowed to arm? We thought he’d go after Stalin. The world made a big mistake looking the other way, just as we’ve made mistakes in arming Saddam. The old my enemy’s enemy is my friend: we have to let that go.
You don’t have to be part of it. Realize evey dollar you spend empowers, votes for something.
To deal with despotic rulers, must we become despotic, become a nation ruled by the same? Terrorism wears a tribal mask; when we respond in kind with collective force—blunt and faceless—we only reinforce it. Individuals act, and individuals must be held accountable. If we don’t nurture justice through law and the avenues of peaceful solutions, if we simply resort to the use of our unimaginably superior arms, what statement are we making to the world? What protocol do we establish? What will we be left to live with? Fear and suspicion have been exploited to sell war. Questions are not asked or answered. The obvious economic benefits to private oil’s control of the Iraqi reserves are never discussed - indeed, they are obfuscated, even denied. In whose service is our military in this war? Our intelligence: who does it answer to? If we can’t readily answer these questions, we no longer function as a Democracy. What then have we become?
Posted by deborah conner on Oct 30, 2004 at 8:46 AM
Deborah, thank you. I couldn’t have said it better.
I’m just stunned that so many people don’t see that Bush IS the number one factor that breeds terrorism these days…
Posted by Ivan on Oct 30, 2004 at 10:44 AM
we are in the midst of the extreme rush toward a prophesied end. I think that the fools that are in charge or striving for charge are the epitome of life immitating art immitating life and have forgotten the rules of real life mother earth is laid naked with almost nothing to give her children for all of our sophisticated wit and charm we have all striven to undermine the next individual instead of comming together i say vote bush and make sure that asshcroft is held in place and that some of the more moderate of the republican party get a choice get more fierce or leave and that patriot act II and even III get passed and then the conguest for the inevitable end purge in the fire of the end of the world we are close to the fire of the sun already the true FIREY end let us see jfkerry or curiose george w stop this would be almost like letting the child put his fork into the light socket ZAP! ahhh we see now dont we ? dont even have to be in the same room with them now do we lesson learned. if you vote bush and sweet mother earth catches fire early then you can peacefuly watch the cleansing heat consume us and say yup i did that and smile into the ethereal.
Posted by cleansing fire on Oct 30, 2004 at 10:54 AM
Kurt,
I rest assured every night that this debacle with sentience will soon be behind us. As foretold in your prophetic “Galapagos,” we will soon evolve into finned seal-like creatures with smaller cerebrums. Too bad I won’t be here to see it!
Posted by Luke on Oct 30, 2004 at 3:33 PM
Actually, there’s another way this could all turn out.
Look at the fossil record. Over 500 million years, consistently, brains have been getting bigger. Smarter and smarter creatures jockey for dominance. Very, very soon we may make something smarter than we are and it will take over. Then what? Will it kill us off as roaches? Will we, in Perry Farrel’s words, “Make great pets”? Will we be a part of something as far beyond us as we are beyond our own liver cells?
Sir Martin Rees says humans have no better than a 50% chance of surviving this century.
Mathematical proofs I find incomprehensible seem to show that the average person is statistically likely to be one of the very last generation.
Other mathematical proofs seem to show that, since the number of possible ‘simulated virtual universes’ is so great, we are almost certainly in one of those. The Matrix may be real (while we, its figments, only think we are!) And there’s not necessarily any ‘outside’. Escaping this sort of Matrix would be like escaping your own skin, or like a drawing escaping the blackboard. Amusing to think on, but neither possible nor desirable in practice.
Max Tegmark, in a Scientific American article of Spring 2003 demonstrates that there are infinitely many identical Earths with copies of us (if you could go far enough, fast enough, in the right direction, you could meet yourself). You know how the patterns repeat in wallpaper, so that you see the same flower about two feet lower on the wall? So with you, forty billion light years down the pike.
Sentience isn’t something you either have or have not. It’s more like salt in soup. Some have almost none. Some have a good bit. Some have so much that there’s just too damn much salt. I think a bonobo, fucking its friends three hours a day in a warm forest, has a very enviable quantity of sentience. Until the humans come looking for bushmeat.
I’ve said it before, and I gotta say it again: Morality depends on what you think is true. On what you think is real. On what you think is important.
If you think Jesus is comin’ on back and this physical world is disposable, that gives you one morality, internally consistent. Dubya may blow us all up, but so what? He’s shepherding us through the Tribulation. He is Good.
If you think the material world is what matters, then you think Dubya and anybody else who might get us all physically killed is Evil. In fact, Ultimately Evil in a way Charlie Manson could only dream of being.
If you believe in Nietzche’s Eternal Return (which, for Tegmarkian reasons, may not be all that silly!) then you might just fall into the Nazi camp and figure that since there will always be sheep and there will always be wolves, it’s better to be a wolf. You are, of course, Beyond Good and Evil. Others will call you Evil but you don’t care because you are gassing them for their gold fillings to pay for more Pzkfw 5 battletanks.
If you believe as I do, you understand that ‘there are no answers, only choices’ (as Gibarian says to Kris Kelvin in Solaris) and that if you have a moral responsibility it is to Try to Minimize the Negative Consequences of Your Actions.
But you’ll shoot yourself in the foot anyway. We all do. Pobody’s nerfect. What, you think Jesus Christ was *planning* to inflict George Bush on us all? No thanks, I’m pretty sure the old Nazarene preacher would rather be considered fallible than be held responsible for consequences that far from his intent.
Posted by Tom Buckner on Oct 30, 2004 at 5:31 PM
It’s an honor even to write to you, dear maestro. I grew up in Russia reading your books. Loving them and having them on my desk for years.
I just wish the 46-7-9 whatever % of Americans who support Bush could live in USSR for 4 weeks. They would have a better picture about how a Polit-buro type givernment is rulling over here. Lies, deception, propaganda, fear and hate are becoming a norm in daily politics. It is so much like in USSR. It frightens me. Back in those days when I was living in USSR, I would have never imagined that FOX NEWS type propaganda garbage could exist in this “bastion of liberty and freedom”. As we thought of it. Now not only it does exist. It’s popular.
Me too I don’t see many differences in between the two millionaires. Yes, Kerry seems less of a reactionary - BUT he promises to continue the war. A war that he declares is wrong (and we all agree)he says he’ll fight better. He doesn’t say he’ll bring our troops back home. Restore peace first of all here. Unite the country and re-define what is to be AMERICAN again.
I hope you keep your voice alive. We need your wisdom. And your pessimism is more optimistic to me than the candidates rhetoric.
Posted by Hamlet Sarkissian on Oct 30, 2004 at 5:54 PM
Why is Pat Buchanan not serving hypocrisy. Have you not read his articles on antiwar.com? He has been an advocate of non-intervention for years. More so than the war mongering democrats such as Madeline Allbrigt of “we think it’s worth it” fame.
Posted by db on Oct 30, 2004 at 6:27 PM
Some of us either caught fire or felt the heat from a stoked fire because of this message from Mr. Vonnegut. Was this his intent? I’m not buying the doomsday stuff either. That is, unless too many of us give up.
Senator John Kerry must be elected; to do otherwise will mean disaster and an enormous battle must then ensue to gain control of our country once again. But can we get past the idea that the President of the United States is the most powerful person in the world? Senator Kerry will be a great leader, but he will be leading an energized, fully awakened populace that has had its great gift of the Land of the Free yanked out from under it. Maybe, because of this last four-year debacle, American citizens have once and for all learned what can come of considering Democracy a spectator sport or not paying any attention whatsoever.
It is now time to bring out the big guns of creativity. And Americans have to learn about intense pressure and how to apply it to control our government. No more barely perceptible whimpers; no more half-hearted attempts to stop oppression. It has to be all-out high intensity pressure. We can’t simply say we want alternative fuel technology research accelerated; we have to mount intensive campaigns to ensure that it is happening and monitor it closely. We can’t just say that we want special attention to the creation of great numbers of small business to rebuild manufacturing and the middle class; we have to create groups or join groups in existence and apply intense pressure to making certain plans are implemented. Whatever it is that we need done must be done, and it must be done by us with the help of our elected representatives, not left to our representatives while we watch “reality” shows.
Let’s put on the fightin’ duds and get with it. We can do this thing.
Posted by 1nonservilepeasant on Oct 30, 2004 at 9:07 PM
At least Mr Kerry and Mr Edwards acknowledge there are peons like us who need to be recognized and supported in order for “them” to survive with their agenda.
I live near the Greenbrier Hotel in West Virginia, where the gates have been closed to “outsiders” due to “security threats” and the local folks resent this.
Until the us and them society can acknowledge that there can not be a have and have not society in this country without incredible resentment, we can not even begin to understand the resentment other countries and movements have against us as a country.
Posted by Robin on Oct 31, 2004 at 5:22 AM
Kurt speaks right to the heart of it. Not a message that people want to here. The Titanic has gone over the falls. The only thing left to do is try to stay civilized as our civilization does the crash and burn thing. www.peakoil.org is a souce to read all about it.
Posted by Jim on Oct 31, 2004 at 4:16 PM
I don’t believe the answer to the energy crisis is not seeking what could prove to be unviable alternatives. We can’t expect to live on with what we have, I guess, but that doesn’t mean rushing to change is the best course for changing what we’re not yet sure isn’t broken.
Posted by Bradley Cummins on Oct 31, 2004 at 5:45 PM
Kurt, don’t you think we humans could garden the earth into Eden if we really wanted to? I know you say it’s too late and most of the time I’m inclined to agree with you…but I can’t get away from the gut feeling that we humans are capable of healing the harm we’ve done… and more.
Posted by Ken Donald Pite on Oct 31, 2004 at 7:10 PM
I tried to stay out of it but got a newsletter from ITT with your name and a blurb about the commentary you have graced us with above…and so was drawn into one of the mind games you’ve so often provoked in me throughout my life.
Nobody knows much but everybody thinks more than they know how to speak their thoughts.
When dealing with words one must make allowances for a very limited means of communication. Words may stir the emotions and traumatize the psyche but that is only on an intellectual level.
One need not have read what you so Vonnegutly wrote to understand Dr. Johnson’s essay about, “Last Things”. All life and each individual as a microcosmic reflection of the cosmological bears witness to the ineluctable nature of having to end so that something else might begin.
What irks most about our self-destruction is that we were so unhappy, on the whole, in having laid waste to this wondrous planet. The haves of the world could have at least had the good humor and sprortsmanship to let everyone in on the fun. Instead billions of suffering human being had to generationally exist as mere chattel for a relatively few monomaniacs who form a long historical chain that might culminate in - not a total extinction but into an age so bleak and unfit for those accustomed to having retinues and domestic staffs that the only people able to survive it will be, as Jesus Christ matter of factly stated: the meek.
For only those who even now can subsist on the most rudimentary foodstuffs and are able to bear the worst climates and disasters will be fit enough to inherit the desolate, ages-long coming era of utter barbarism and grain-unyeilding soil.
No one seems to realize that what you’ve said here is nothing new…what pains people is that it had to begin while they were still accountable for being a major part of the problem.
And let it be further be known that only they who have the stomach to become anthropophogous will at least have a slight chance of survival. Remember the Donner Party!
Pessimism, schmessimism…words can’t help us at a time like this, (not that they ever could), so why all the ostensibly optimistic tripe from folks who know darn well, if even in the most recondite corner of their souls, that symbols, labels, name-calling, and other forms of rhetorical football won’t stop the next vehicle purchaser from opting for an eighteen wheeler, if he could drive it instead of one of those Smart Cars?
I agree with the reverend Mr. Vonnegut when he approaches us via the internet armed with his stiletto word processor holding up a verbal mirror which reflects not who we think we’d like to be known as…but what we are. For this is most salubrious should we ever come to understand that we come from a long tradition of nature despising and raping automatons whose hatred and inexorable destruction of that which gives us life must be carried to it’s bitter conclusion. For only in this way will we have finally found the means to personify the cosmological Oedipussies that we’d always preteded not to be.
Posted by Dominick Mastroserio on Oct 31, 2004 at 7:19 PM
“Pessimism, schmessimism…words can’t help us at a time like this . . .”
Wrong. Words are what we need most right now. Too few people listening to words of wisdom is what got us to this point. And then there is the problem of heeding those words of wisdom, but then that is when more words of wisdom should be expended as driving forces.
This election and the deceit and debauchery of this administration have awakened the masses in America and around the world. A revolution is coming. It may be too late halt the destruction of our home, even if we manage maximum effort, or we may win and repair it and learn to properly maintain it. But one thing is certain: To do nothing guarantees failure.
You have great words, but I would have preferred that you suggest a few ways for us to spend what’s left of our miserable existence as you so eloquently suggested it will be. Do you have any words of wisdom for those of us who intend to continue the fight to stop the onslaught and to mobilize the masses to an even greater extent? Or do you care what we do? Do you pity us for what you consider our puny attempts to turn the tide?
I’ve read the peak oil story; this stuff was predicted twenty years ago and not enough people paid attention. All of our troubles come from lack of effort. In the idiotic words of this President “it’s hard” to do things right. Yep. It’s our fault that it has all come down to this. And we can fix it if enough people are willing. You possess greater knowledge than I do; I am but a poorly educated layman eking out an existence. You possess courage, so use it. You possess knowledge, so use it. Lead, follow, or get out of the way, as some famous person said.
Posted by 1nonservilepeasant on Oct 31, 2004 at 8:16 PM
While I may agree on some level with the views of Mr. Vonnegut, and understand his premise. I cannot and will not accept it.
I can’t. Giving up is too easy.
If the goliaths of industry and special interest and societal destruction have indeed won, so be it.
But I will not accept their victory. Fighting the good fight IS an end unto itself.
Posted by lastconfirmedliberal on Nov 1, 2004 at 6:03 AM
Of course Kurt is right. Oil is a depletable source, I don’t get how anyone can actually imagine he can debate that point… /boggle
That’s not the entirety of the problem though. How about: As we pump out more carbon dioxide we destroy the forests that removes it from the air - brilliant.
I’m pretty sure both Kerry and Bush will continue clearing the path to a terminal future. They are, like the general american psyche, more or less demented (Kerry maybe slightly less so).
So, death to everyone and long live the world.
Posted by Runar on Nov 1, 2004 at 6:46 AM
The issue is that people know about genocide for oil and <YOUR PRODUCT HERE!> and they just keep buying SUV’s. Bigger, faster, shinier SUV’s. After all, they want their children safe. They pass me on the freeway and I see a look in their eye: they’re someone on a commercial, on the tube. They’re something they’ve been sold, something they’ve bought.
My daughter, the ancient historian, is going into her apartment yesterday, and the Egyptian lady down the hall says “we must have tea together this week.” My daughter answers automatically “Insha’Allah,” something our Palestinian friend Rasa and our Jewish scholar friends all say. The lady smiles. “You know our ways!”
Smaller, face to face, we might remember our soul. Can you see me through this screen? I won’t be a gutless wonder if you won’t.
We can do this. Just start now.
x’s
deborah
Posted by deborah conner on Nov 1, 2004 at 7:13 AM
First I want to say Kurt, You are the man. Thanks for all the good times we’ve had together and I’m following your footsteps brother, though I doubt I’ll ever fill your shoes.
Deborah I think you have the idea. Im attending University of Houston at the moment and I must say, Advertisements are the law. How people respond to eachother, they way they think about and whether or not they accept things that they see are all measured in relation to what TV told them. I’m pretty self absorbed, but vanity is out to get us guys and it’s doing a GREAT job!
I love Merkuh (America) and all it stands for, but since it no longer reflects that, i believe it will fall. How many other empires have been as great and lasted as long as the USA? Empires fall, how can one say at the intrusion of these attrocities that America will never fall? Unfortunatly I can’t think of anyway of saving this ship, so im gonna borrow a gross amount of money from Visa so I can have enough money to finish school and get my wisdom teeth taken out at the same time. I love all u guys and when I see you on the otherside don’t hesitate to expect hospitality. “Hey, it’s all just for shits and giggles anyway right?” - my brother.
Posted by Homer Carroll "That Frustrated Ranting Liberal Guy on Nov 1, 2004 at 1:15 PM
“Empires fall, how can one say at the intrusion of these attrocities that America will never fall?”
Empires should fall, and the Bush/Cheney empire will fall, sooner rather than later. But it won’t fall without America’s citizens pulling together and making it happen. I may see you on the other side; I’ll be one of the many bloodied from battle in bringing down the empire.
Posted by 1nonservilepeasant on Nov 1, 2004 at 2:04 PM
i agree with mr. kurt v., yet feel that riding my bicycle to work (14miles r.t.), to the store and small errands is essential to changing our oil based economy. i also drive a ‘98 vw jetta on biodiesel.i shop adamantly for local goods.i live simply and healthy. i’ve never owned a t.v. cars, trucks and tractors where i work run on vegetable oil. my workplace is also organic and biodiverse. although i can agree with mr. kurt v’s dire assessment, i can try to to be a cause for change. c’mon let’s help each other live another way.
Posted by Anthony A. Gatchalian on Nov 1, 2004 at 3:02 PM
“... the many bloodied from battle bringing down the empire.” Actually, happens there’s plenty Tim McVeighs who fancy themselves in that line of work.
Story. When I bought the land I live on, I saw on the deed an old road that ran through these parts: the Carolina Road, a bunch of dashes on the map. I was intrigued. I study up on this Carolina Road. I find it used to be, in Washington and Jefferson’s time, the main drag from Philly to Atlanta. The Great Wagon Road, it brought families southward through the New Jerusalem. I walk it mornings, the Carolina Road, the few places where it’s restored here. I find 4 leaf clovers on. I imagine bluebirds singing and young couples full of hope riding down it, and also mothers burying their lost babies and then bravely (somehow) climbing back on the wagon, in the tradition of the true brave souls who went on in sorrow and actually brought us all here—who didn’t give up, even when it was hard beyond bearing. I also imagine some beautiful heiress escaping with some handsome rake, raging passionate down the Carolina Road, inn to inn. Real romantic stuff.
And then I find more. Another tale this road tells. Before it was the Carolina Road, it was the Great Warrior Trail. The Indians followed it with the seasons, an old Buffalo route. For some 8 - maybe 10 thousand years small tribes lived along it, leaving behind arrowheads and visions you can walk into. But why the Warrior Trail? Why that named? Because—I find—it was the way the Iroquois came when they were pushed off their lands up North. They came to dispatch the local tribes here with the guns they got from my relatives who’d come from England. And that’s always the way it always works, the tale this road tells. It tells it without oil and Enron and Cheney, though that’s the place it always ends up: the powerful never does the dirty work. Instead it sets a native people against itself and lets them do it for him.
Extrapolate: Iraq. Extrapolate across oceans, and here in your own back yard. Remember the Tim McVeighs? The can get to be warriors too. Until they’re the expendables.
So please. No more talk about the many bloodied from battle bringing down the empire, ok? You just play into their hands.
But you might read something the real revolution:
Memories of Chile in the Midst of an American Presidential Campaign
by Ariel Dorfman
http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?emx=x&pid=1939
x’s
deborah
http://jungcircle.com/muse
Posted by deborah conner on Nov 1, 2004 at 3:40 PM
“No more talk about the many bloodied from battle bringing down the empire, ok? You just play into their hands.”
I failed to indicate the metaphorical in my choice of words. My apologies. Such behavior is not in my character. I came back from the SE Asia debacle with an anti-killing-anything-that-wasn’t-trying-to-kill-me attitude.
The battle I’ll be waging, along with tens of millions of like-minded compatriots, will be in the war of words and nonviolent actions that will correct our course.
TomDispatch is part of my regular reading; always great stuff.
I, too, dream of how things can be and were, but more so lately I dream of how to bring about these pleasant times. I’m encouraged more than ever that we can achieve a degree of peace and tranquility and beneficial stewardship of the earth. Because of doing my small part by my involvement in this “bloody fight” to help elect Sens. Kerry and Edwards, I’ve come into contact with groups around the globe. In these many contacts and from the grand web of additional contacts that such endeavors produce, as I’m sure everyone has discovered, I see that the rest of the world is far ahead of us in environmental and social-change activism. Those numbers of involved citizens combined with the tens of millions of Americans who can be mobilized can bring about the desired results.
These things take the coordinated efforts of the masses. In this tiny thread of discussion in the universe of such discussions, we are finding out who is willing to fight. We still await the generals with the wisdom to put it all together and make it happen.
Posted by 1nonservilepeasant on Nov 1, 2004 at 5:36 PM
You think Yale is bad, try fighting conservative ideology at Texas A&M (mentioned briefly in Player Piano) where Christian kids sign up for 19th Century philosophy and spend all day arguing with Nietzsche (as if they’ve really contemplated anything)and completely missing the point on Kierkegaard (yea, he proves what Faith is but in doing so illustrates that nobody is capable of it). And thank you for your postcard Mr. Vonnegut, it is very helpful for my paper.
Posted by Adam Van Winkle on Nov 1, 2004 at 9:00 PM
You think Yale is bad, try fighting conservative ideology at Texas A&M (named the most conservative university in the nation over BYU!). A school where Christian kids argue with Nietzshce in 19th Century Philosophy and praise Kierkegaard without realizing what they call faith is not Faith to Kierkegaard. It’s somewhat amusing. Thank you for the postcard Mr. Vonnegut, it will be helpful for my paper.
Posted by Adam Van Winkle on Nov 1, 2004 at 9:42 PM
Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil
by Michael C. Ruppert
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/store/index.shtml
This is a detective story that gets to the innermost core of the 9/11 attacks. It places 9/11 at the center of a desperate new America, created by specific, named individuals in preparation for Peak Oil: an economic crisis like nothing the world has ever seen.
The attacks of September 11th, 2001 were accomplished through an amazing orchestration of logistics and personnel. Crossing the Rubicon discovers and identifies the key suspects and persons of interest - finding some of them in the highest echelons of American government - by showing how they acted in concert to guarantee that the attacks occurred and produced the desired result.
ISBN #0-86571-540-8
(approx 675 pages with illustrations)
New Society Publishers, Gabriola Island, British Columbia, Canada)
$15.99 (US & Canada)
After two and a half years of research and writing, Ruppert said:
“In my new book I will be making several key points:
1. I will name Vice President Richard Cheney as the prime suspect in the mass murders of 9/11 and will establish that, not only was he a planner in the attacks, but also that on the day of the attacks he was running a completely separate Command, Control and Communications system which was superceding any orders being issued by the FAA, the Pentagon, or the White House Situation Room;
2. I will establish conclusively that in May of 2001, by presidential order, Richard Cheney was put in direct command and control of all wargame and field exercise training and scheduling through several agencies, especially FEMA. This also extended to all of the conflicting and overlapping NORAD drills—some involving hijack simulations—taking place on that day.
3. I will also demonstrate that the TRIPOD II exercise being set up on Sept. 10th in Manhattan was directly connected to Cheney’s role in the above.
4. I will also prove conclusively that a number of public officials, at the national and New York City levels, including then-Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, were aware that flight 175 was en route to lower Manhattan for 20 minutes and did nothing to order the evacuation of, or warn the occupants of the South Tower. One military officer was forced to leave his post in the middle of the attacks and place a private call to his brother - who worked at the WTC - warning him to get out. That was because no other part of the system was taking action.
5. I will also show that the Israeli and British governments acted as partners with the highest levels of the American government to help in the preparation and, very possibly, the actual execution of the attacks.”
“There is more reason to be afraid of not facing the evidence in this book than of facing what is in it.”
Posted by WHATEVER on Nov 1, 2004 at 10:14 PM
Yes. All of our resources will be gone. We are doomed to the system we have created. Isn’t it beautiful? Everything must be uprooted - this is the nature of being human…regardless of your beliefs. Death is inevitable; the magnificent fossil fuels that culminated over millions of years are being sucked and scavenged like a whore. But, then again, we are insignificant. To think that we are the ones to control the destiny of this planet is arrogance at worst. What about the ice age - the dinosaurs? This planet is a self-regulating super-organism…in a certain sense. We are nothing, and history will repeat itself. Let us all hope that a prodigious asteroid strikes us in the heart. Only then will we be saved…
Posted by choppy cheex on Nov 2, 2004 at 6:58 AM
oh yeah -
“” The United States ranks 139th in average voter turnout among the 172 nations that have held competitive elections since 1945. Vote if you feel there is a candidate worth your vote.
Tinymixtapes.com “
Posted by chiz nop on Nov 2, 2004 at 7:05 AM
i am terribly sorry to post again, but my thoughts are rather scattered.
my question is:
does anyone think that a revolutionary figure can come to light again? i am thinking particularly about Marx and Darwin; to me Darwin was quite the underground revolutionary hehehe - no pun intended.
Also:
What about prophets?
choppy
Posted by choppy chiz nop on Nov 2, 2004 at 7:16 AM
>>my question is:
does anyone think that a revolutionary figure can come to light again? i am
thinking particularly about Marx and Darwin; to me Darwin was quite the
underground revolutionary hehehe - no pun intended.
>>Also:
What about prophets? >>
YOU have to be your own revolutionary and prophet. Just start now.
imho: where we’ve gone wrong is in thinking we are masters of Nature rather than part of it, forgetting that symbiosis is the principle of what endures. All that theory simplified in a Beautiful Mind is much more a true and better model than the social Darwinism that has hung us over the last two centuries.
And whatever happens, hey, we’ll get over it. Because all the little tin gods who are now making such misery—all the blowhard liars of FOX news and hate radio—all the baseball caps in pick-up trucks and monster SUV’s—they will all simply dry up and blow away like everything else. They can dismantle the Federal government, Constitution, Bill of Rights, write books, make wars and leftbehinder movies, project Jesus in the sky—but that’s all it will be: their own projection.
We come out of death, we go back into death. Can’t be so bad.
I think above all that I thank the gods that children rebel. Enough of them will always tend to sweep the hands off their shoulders, and some will manage to do some good. But lastly, I am in accord with the below… and I leave it with you today with a great joy that all of you have lived in the world. I salute the light in you and know it illuminates others in this darkness.
With heart, Deborah
Carl Jung wrote a letter on 9/14/1960, nine months before his death. There’s little doubt he was speaking to us all.
Excerpt:
[...] my main tenet contains nothing more than: Follow that will and that way which experience confirms to be your own, i.e., the true expression of your individuality. [...] None believes in the blossoming and unfolding of the individual as the experimental, doubtful, and bewildering work of the living God, to whom we have to lend our eyes and ears and our discriminating mind, to which end they have been incubated upon for millions of years and brought to light since about 6,000 years ago, viz. at the moment when the historical continuity of consciousness became visible through the invention of script.
We are sorely in need of a Truth or a self-understanding similar to that of Ancient Egypt, which I have found still living with the Taos Pueblos. Their chief of ceremonies old Ochwiay Biano (Mountain Lake) said to me : ‘We are the people who live on the roof of the world, we are the sons of the Sun, who is our father. We help him daily to rise and to cross the sky. We do not do this for ourselves, but for the Americas also. Therefore they should not interfere with our religion. But if they continue to do so (by missionaries) and hinder us, then they will see in ten years the sun will rise no more.’ He correctly assumes that their day, their light, their consciousness and their meaning will die, when destroyed through the narrow-mindedness of American Rationalism, and the same will happen to the whole world, when subjected to such treatment. That is the reason I tried to find the best truth and the clearest light I could attain to, and since I have reached my highest point and can’t transcend any more, I am guarding my light and my treasure, convinced that nobody would gain and I myself would be badly, even hopelessly injured, if I should lose it. **It is the most precious not only to me, but above all to the darkness of the creator, who needs man to illuminate his creation. If God had foreseen his world, it would be a mere senseless machine and Man’s existence a useless freak. My intellect can envisage the latter possibility, but the whole of my being says ‘No’ to it…**
Posted by deborah conner on Nov 2, 2004 at 7:32 AM
first of all, thanks for addressing my pontif’.
Where do we start prophesizing/revolutionizing? Is Nader the first step?
Darwin did not apply his theory of evolution to social situations as far as I know. This was left to the “thinkers”, and the wanderers. Just look into his eyes…I think his ethics reign supreme, and that is why I chose to claim him a revolutionary figure - because his thoughts produced a plethora of intellectual smish-smash. Peace one.
Chopster
Posted by chop on Nov 2, 2004 at 7:46 AM
YAY!!! Hurray for you, Mr. Vonnegut! Your words have helped unite all of us lesser Vonnegut-clones. mwahahahahah, we’re all the same. mwahahahah.
One trait that many of us share, though i doubt Mr. Vonnegut is this arrogant, is our false sense of superiority. One of us vonnegutees posted about how he/she (didn’t bother looking at the name) observes all the cow-eyes in the SUV driving masses of America. It’s true, i do it too. I also believe that most of humanity is completely ignorant, and can only see 2 feet in front of itself. but you know what always makes me chuckle? Those same SUV people look at me in my fucked up car, lost in human critique, and think to themselves, “That guy just cares about buying the new stuff and eating the most cancer-inducing burgers.”
Actually, i’m not sure if the SUV people think that, they do drive SUV’s after all, but it seems the majority of us intellectual wannabees are in competition with each other. We talk with each other, not to share our thoughts, but to prove one of us is more cynical than the other.
I can’t sleep on a regular basis, so when i’m bored i’ll go wandering around campus around 3 a.m. Everytime i do, i see other people wandering around with me, the walking undead of a fabricated culture. And we all glance at each other and think the same thing: “they’re all apathetic, they have no idea how easily they could make a difference if they just united.”
then we keep wandering around, pissed off cuz we can’t find like-minded individuals.
and now for the required influence-marker:
HI-HO!!!
(oh, and that fucked up car i drive?... a 92’ Isuzu SUV with 150k)
Posted by surge on Nov 2, 2004 at 9:14 AM
at the time of atlantis folarian republican arab detonating butchers blew up their own planet of folaria which explains asteroids in solar system invaded earth now here to anihilate all of g-d’s people on g-d’s planet earth at armageddon all 1 billion or so or more of these former satanic detonators from hell will return to hell on last day and g-d’s people go to new heaven and earth your hero at armageddon giuliani the anti-christ your ruler will shortly make sure along with usa government and military that our planet earth is obliterated very soon at end of time this is what most of you satanic morons of folaria will get for your stupidity and disrespectfulness as you had your chance on g-d’s beautiful earth and you destroyed it
Posted by g-d on Nov 2, 2004 at 10:43 AM
What about solar energy ? What about wind energy? What about hydroenergy?
Show me the solar powered solar panel factor.
Show me the the wind generator factory powered by wind.
Show me the hydro electric damn built using hydroelectric power.
Show me the closed loop that doesn’t have oil energy in it.
Posted by Baby Peanut on Nov 2, 2004 at 10:55 AM
You in the 92’ Isuzu SUV with 150k:
Nope. Not interested in being in your intellectual wanna-be / lesser Vonnegut-clone world, thank you. Never crossed my mind, what people think about me. (And of course, you came to mock. Admit it.) The comment about the SUV’s was about the chance for individuality, self-development, diversity, and liberty of the heart, and they way it’s been lost to the big sell. Consciousness fades as we become these machines we serve. We sink back into the collective. And I mourn, but not in some highfalutin’ self superior way. I mourn for our children. I mourn for us all. I even mourn for the creator and its darkness.
It ain’t about me, hunny.
Know thyself. It wasn’t so highfalutin’, those words carved in stone in Delphi. More of a warning to keep to your place. The beautiful and the good were always the rich. And it’s always been the philosopher’s looking back and forward that changed the meaning, and thus, the possibilities.
So. Your brief moment, and mine, will be what we can make of it.
Namaste,
Deborah
Posted by deborah conner on Nov 2, 2004 at 11:01 AM
In the immortal words of David Brower,Archdruid of the Enviro-movement…“There is no business to be done on a dead planet”. I too feel pessimistic about our fate on Earth. However, Senator Kerry has had a progressive outlook on protecting our natural resources and on energy alternatives for many years. WE NEED HIS OUTLOOK AND PERSPECTIVE IF WE ARE TO SUCCEED IN THE FUTURE.
Posted by JoAnne Russ on Nov 2, 2004 at 11:02 AM
Kurt is right regarding our resources, but to more or less claim that there is no difference between the two candidates is to say the least shocking, and I can’t help wonder if has been paying any attention.
The evidence for entropy is omnipresent, and the depletion of our energy resources is not anything we haven’t been aware of, but I hardly believe it to be the death knell that Kurt and many of the posters articulate. We have the capacity to become less dependent on oil, and explore resources such as hydrogen and others, but as long as money interests override the interests for the greater good we will subjugate peoples and exploit the environment to the benefit of those corporations that manipulate the political system to suit their greedy goals and contiune to war and pillage for the benefit of the few at the expense of the many. We survive or fail on the change of the corporate/political paridigm. We can continue doing things the way we do now or chnage it.
Bush and Cheney and the cronyism that they represent needs to go the way of the dinosaur, they are the worst tandem of leaders in our 228 year history; changing the leadership in Washington is the beginning to changing our future, not only as a domocracy but as a species living within the bounds of nature.
Be hopeful.
Posted by BAM on Nov 2, 2004 at 11:25 AM
“We survive or fail on the change of the corporate/political paridigm. We can continue doing things the way we do now or chnage it.”
If we are so unfortunate as to have to contend with 4 more years of Bush/Cheney, all strategies will have to be modified and new tactics developed. Do you have confidence that we can overcome the corporate oligarchy? If so, do you think it will come to protest marches, passive resistance, widespread and significant boycotts, etc., to pull it off? Do you believe that we have enough media representation to bring the messages to the masses to such an extent that it engages the tens of millions of citizens who will be needed to bring about change?
I have a long list of questions. Is this white space just as good as any to discuss such issues?
Posted by 1nonservilepeasant on Nov 2, 2004 at 12:02 PM
Media Coverage is a serious issue. In my protest experiences Ten Million never made it on the news. All Ten Million of us somehow were only represented on Fox by only a hundred thousand, and even then somehow the hundred pro war guys made as much or more air time than we did….. uh, wtf?
Posted by Homer Carroll "That Frustrated Ranting Liberal Guy on Nov 2, 2004 at 12:17 PM
“Media Coverage is a serious issue.”
Without massive media blitzes it will be tough to engage the tens of millions. In other forums with other groups, there is increasing discussion of a network to counter Fox. Of course one isn’t enough, but it would be a grand start. Has anyone in this thread participated in any such discussions? Is there any concrete planning going on to anyone’s knowledge?
I have no proof of this, maybe others have seen statistics to bear this out, but it seems to me that the largest driving force in mobilizing the masses has been the online environment. Many websites have cropped up that contain long lists of links from which are found more long lists of links, etc. I asked in a couple of forums for opinions on whether it would be wise to create a clearing house for discussions, debates, plans, strategy, tactics, decisions, voting, formal write-ups, e-mail and postal mail campaigns, elected representative contact and follow up responsibility, on and on ad infinitum? Will some IT professional develop a Save America Central or some such website to be coordinated with other groups? How will we find the generals and other front-line officers to coordinate the energies of the masses?
Posted by 1nonservilepeasant on Nov 2, 2004 at 12:47 PM
Today, is a good day to die. “Geronimo!”
All things being equal though (as I interpret Kurt’s latest requiescat in pace), it’s all over but for the ghost dance. Break out the booze.
What better irony might we expect then, than the son of the “Bonesman” be riding rough-shod, neck and neck, against the “human beings” in this, the final hours of our last stand.
Chief Dan George: “The human beings, my son—they believe everything is alive, not only man and animals, but also water, earth, stone, and also the things from them. That is the way things are… But the white man—they believe everything is dead—stone, earth, animals, and people, even their own people. If things keep trying to live, white man will rub them out… That is the difference.”
Little Big Man: “But why do you want to die, Grandfather?”
Chief Dan George: “Because there is no other way to deal with the white man, my son. Whatever else you can say about them, it must be admitted… you cannot get rid of them… There is an endless supply of white men, but there always has been a limited number of human beings… We won today… We won’t win tomorrow.”
Posted by Tim Christopher on Nov 2, 2004 at 1:23 PM
We may have to go to the streets and protest like in the 60’s if we want the powers that be to pay any attention all, that of course includes the media which has by and large failed miserably.
If we want a clean enviornment we must demand it, if we a living wage, we must demand it, if we want our government to be really representative we must demand it, we must protest the status quo
that assumes we will fall to our knees and praise the power seekers and holders. We the people hold the power. We the people can change the system if we unite toward that aim!
Posted by Bam on Nov 2, 2004 at 1:29 PM
“We the people can change the system if we unite toward that aim!”
Absolutely. It’s the only way it will happen. There are many large and effective groups, Public Citizen, National Resources Defense Council, The League of Conservation Voters, Sierra Club, Greenpeace, and lots of others. They have global reach, are able to mount legal actions and media campaigns, and have major lobbying presence. Without such organizations we would certainly be lacking in major offensive capabilities. But is there a “central clearing house” or some other entity among them that can coordinate efforts including mobilization of the masses? Can funds from donations among all the organizations be coordinated better to achieve effective campaigns? The effectiveness is important because time is of the essence. Lots of people much smarter than I am must have the answers. Is anyone familiar with an organization such as that which I suggest? Am I approaching this incorrectly?
Posted by 1nonservilepeasant on Nov 2, 2004 at 3:02 PM
Sorry, but the powers that be decided a long time ago that they dont need us. We are being eliminated. The only thing left to do is to decide what to do with the time that is given to you. Make good decisions. Dont give up; even when the end comes. Spread love.
I dont know what the end will be, but I want to believe it wont be a complete disaster. I see too many things converging to not believe that something very big is going to happen. However, that doesn’t mean it has to be bad.
Posted by Pist and Ready to Fight on Nov 3, 2004 at 12:30 AM
I often tell my parents, both of whom turned 80 this year, that at 39 years of age, I would gladly trade places with either of them. They will more than likely die before the proverbial shit hits the fan.
My understanding is that in order to reverse—or otherwise seriously retard or affect—the processes of Global Warming, Humanity (on a Global scale) would have to implement radical and revolutionary Political, Economic, and Lifestyle sea-changes…that just ain’t gonna happen in the time we have left.
You may call that “defeatist”, I call it realistic.
-David (RabidLeftist)
“Absent the rapid mobilization of climate advocates at every level—and the pooling of all their energy, creativity, and resources into a coordinated, no-holds-barred campaign—we will soon be crossing the threshold into climate hell.”
~Ross Gelbspan, “The Big Name Game”, Grist Magazine (July 31, 2002)
Posted by david (rabidleftist) on Nov 3, 2004 at 1:42 AM
“Absent the rapid mobilization of climate advocates at every level—and the pooling of all their energy, creativity, and resources into a coordinated, no-holds-barred campaign—we will soon be crossing the threshold into climate hell.”
~Ross Gelbspan, “The Big Name Game”, Grist Magazine (July 31, 2002
Doesn’t this indicate that we can still do this thing? We can’t if we give up the fight, that’s for certain, because, as indicated above, a no-holds-barred campaign requires massive mobilization of the citizenry on a global scale. Much of the rest of the world is way ahead of America in their efforts, so, by combining efforts, isn’t there enough possibility to encourage you?
Posted by 1nonservilepeasant on Nov 3, 2004 at 8:39 AM
“I dont know what the end will be, but I want to believe it wont be a complete disaster. I see too many things converging to not believe that something very big is going to happen. However, that doesn’t mean it has to be bad.”
I strongly agree with you. The signs of people becoming fed up are everywhere. Bush may have won another term, but over 50,000,000 people don’t want this administration. And, though I can’t prove it and never will, I’m willing to wager that 5,000,000 or so Republicans who voted for him did so because they thought enough uproar was made by Americans everywhere over some of the policies that the administration finally got it and will begin to cooperate rather than dominate. If this cooperation does not occur within the next year, I believe these 5,000,000 or so will join the rest of Americans in forcing change.
Do you believe there is merit to this theory?
Posted by 1nonservilepeasant on Nov 3, 2004 at 8:49 AM
“1nonsevilepeasant”
Bush is going to feel more empowered now to continue on the path he has been on. He doesn’t have to listen to reasonable voices and he definitely doesn’t have to listen to any left wing liberal types.
The trend in this country is not just to the right but in many areas to the extreme right. This may be the natural pendulum swing and it will return towards the center then to the left if allowed to continue. What we see however, is that the right has the momentum to stop all movement towards the center or to the left.
We can only hope that people wake up in time from their intellectual slumber and realize we are on the wrong path.
Your theory is at least hopeful, and that’s all we have left for the moment.
Posted by abs on Nov 3, 2004 at 9:12 AM
<<Do you believe there is merit to this theory? >>
Of course. We were all stars once. Had to work our way through all the elements. That we’re here at all is a wonder. If each of us stops feeding into millennialism’s self-fulfilling prophecy, we might have the good sense to start fixing what’s wrecked, and work with nature rather than against it. Like Lewis Thomas told us, the successes are those who learn to find their place in sustaining the web of life. That’s not Pat Robertson, Bush, and the Leftbehinders. They read their magic book and think man has dominion over the earth. (Dominion!) They then feel obliged to make it dance for them. They’re god’s chosen, after all. And a flash in the pan.
We don’t make the flowers bloom, thank the gods. We just have to learn to stop killing them.
Posted by deborah conner on Nov 3, 2004 at 9:22 AM
Here, look. Then I promise I’ll shut up. My friend just sent this:
I’ve had tearful phone calls and despairing email from former students. This
is what I wrote them this morning.
Don’t give in to despair, my friends. Look at the numbers, for a start, the
closeness of the races. Be happy that New Hampshire and Pennsylvania showed
their true colors, as did Wisconsin. It isn’t a mandate, although Bush will
doubtless think so, if he thinks at all.
Cause for concern? Yes. But this is still America, although one that it’s
hard to recognize now and then. West Viriginia, for instance—a place where
Bush’s environmental policies are raping the land, a place of huge unemployment,
bad water, poor schools—they voted for him. This is also the place where
the Republicans ran ads saying that the Democrats would ban the bible if
elected. To some of our citizens, if you ain’t got much, you still have your God. And
that’s likely what they voted.
We once made it through a costly, horrendous civil war. We are still scarred
from that battle, but intact.
The important thing is to keep your eye on the prize. Keep fighting for what
is strong and good and true about America. Be the good citizen, the loyal
opposition. Find courage in your heart.
We will survive this. Let it be with honesty, bravery and grace.
phoebe
“To look with the eyes and see with the heart is the secret of the Philosopher’s Stone.” ~Petrus Bonus
Posted by deborah conner on Nov 3, 2004 at 9:35 AM
Deborah,
I am a woman from WV and I would like to address the comments you made about WV.
WV voted for Kerry at about the same rate as the rest of the country (45%..close to the 49 of the country) ...not like the rest of the Bible Belt or those northern states.
Secondly..the rape of our natural resources has made the rest of this country wealthy, while keeping us “mountain folk impoverished.” Those pork barrel projects given to us by Byrd are pennies thrown to us for the SUV’s the wealthy drive and the big homes heated by OUR coal, and built with our lumber. Many from WV see the rape of natural resources in a different light-they see it as jobs. As long as steel is outsourced to India and tech jobs go somewhere else, we only have our natural resources. (Luckily, tourism is BIG here).
The issue here was abortion. We tried to tell the national campaign about this after we lost major local elections two years ago because of anti-abortion activist nastiness.
We progressives here are mourning with the rest of the 49% who voted for change and we all need to cry in our beer tonight and work for change tomorrow.!
Posted by Robin on Nov 3, 2004 at 10:15 AM
Nspeasent-
I agree wholeheartedly that there must be a coordinated effort, a sort of central hub in order for all of the environmental/human rights/peace orgs to effectively mobilize those of us here (and in other countries.) Here’s hoping they’ve thought of it as well—MoveOn, ACT, TrueMajority, etc. had already united in our sadly failed effort to oust Bush—I pray they (or someone) are working on a new plan. Today I am wavering moment to moment between hope and utter despair. Whatever happens had better happen fast, as I truly believe we are in a state of emergency. Please forgive my scattered thoughts. From a spiritual perspective…perhaps this is what was “supposed” to happen…perhaps the level of change that is required for our evolution must happen in a fashion more extreme than any of us ever wanted to be a part of. I don’t know what that looks like, I can’t see clearly for lack of sleep and tears. I’ll allow myself such personal cleansing for a while, but then it’ll be time to decide, on a very deep level, what my role is to be in all of this. Your words and energy, all of you, have been a great source of strength. Thank you.
Still holding the Light (albeit with a shaky hand…)
Posted by Steph (aka Peacemonger) on Nov 3, 2004 at 10:21 AM
Robin,
My friend is in Boston (and heartbroken as the rest of us). I’m next door to you in VA. I hear ya. I KNOW the way abortion has been used (and twisted and misused) as the No. 1 issue to polarize people.
We just have to remember that as many people voted against Bush as for him, and that’s even with Diebold running full tilt.
The US might be the Titanic, but it’s just another ship on a rolling sea of icebergs. Josh, as ever, speaks sense:
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_31.php#003927
Posted by deborah conner on Nov 3, 2004 at 10:35 AM
“Where ignorance is bliss, tis folly to be wise.”
Posted by Matt Welk on Nov 3, 2004 at 10:46 AM
Deborah,
“Then I promise I’ll shut up.”
Please, don’t! Words of encouragement from all quarters are needed in great quantity and quality now that the regime has gotten itself another 4 years.
Do you frequent many other forums so that your words can be spread? The spreading of the word managed to awaken America, not quite enough though I think the failure may be in strategy and tactics rather than lack of quantity of communication, and it is the word spreading that will continue to educate the masses. Obviously, if say 70,000,000 Americans understood the truly dire situation the entire world is in, Bush would be out and Kerry would have a mandate.
People with the intellectual capabilities and knowledge of those who have posted here thus far are the very people who will educate and bring about changed attitudes to the quantity of people required for the no-holds-barred campaign as mentioned by david (rabidleftist). There are those among us with the mastery of the written word who can, with stentorian voice and eloquence of phrase, assist in the educational processes. How can we find and attract these people to specific coordinated efforts? How do we spread their words throughout all the myriad URL’s that will exponentially increase the numbers of those being educated?
Posted by 1nonservilepeasant on Nov 3, 2004 at 10:54 AM
Steph,
“. . . perhaps this is what was “supposed” to happen…perhaps the level of change that is required for our evolution must happen in a fashion more extreme than any of us ever wanted to be a part of.”
It’s extremely difficult to think of this travesty of another 4 years of Dubya as being able to produce anything good, but I believe that it will bring about change if, and only if, we don’t give up an inch and increase our efforts, as tough as that might be. It seems to me that America is always reactionary and mobilizes as a whole, sort of, only when jolted into action by disastrous circumstances. Many of these disastrous circumstances are likely to occur during this next year and I believe that the masses will be mobilized. Again, however, the masses must consist of sufficient numbers of citizens fully armed with the knowledge of the pertinent issues and with confidence in their ability to take action and press it to obtain the goals.
I’m new to this electronic environment and I may not be familiar with the numbers of organizations that more experienced online inhabitants may have in their arsenal. I do know of the organizations you mentioned. Do you think that getting the central-clearing-house idea off the ground could be as simple as sending a letter to every organization asking for their opinions of how such a coordinated effort might be set into motion?
Posted by 1nonservilepeasant on Nov 3, 2004 at 11:39 AM
Hi 1nonservilepeasant :
That’s so kind. But FOX pulls them in with emotion, not fact. FOX is best at DIS-information, and disinformation is what won this election. Good resource and food for thought: http://www.pipa.org/
Emotion. The abortion issue is so charged that its utility is endless to those who exploit it. Really—I’m thinking we should stand back and let them overturn women’s reproductive rights. Then let the Republicans deal with the sons and daughters of men. That will be a revelation.
The ability to think symbolically is what’s been lost between the Georges the First (Washington) and Georges the present. I have no idea how to fight their god industry. It verges on a cult.
I think what we need to do most of all is become living flesh and blood communities again. Find solace in other living hearts and eyes:
Join others in your community tonight at the Democracy for America Meetup to celebrate your hard work and discuss the next steps for your local group: http://dfa.meetup.com
As on the internet, expect to be invaded by Freepers and lurkers. Mostly, Republicans were losers in high school. That’s why they love all this stealth, fire and brimstone.
(See? Emotion pulls them in.)
Tonight, I’ll pull out Thomas Hardy and weep with him. And Homer: Iliad, book 9 line 318 and on. And Jung. Oh god yes, Jung. And history books—history teaches us the origins of our prejudices. It’s also a good place to get an ear for the sound of jackboots.
Want to be informed? Start by believing it can happen here.
Posted by deborah conner on Nov 3, 2004 at 2:06 PM
We have had a message from someone calling themselves the “patriot” that was only to thrilled to share thier jubilant hatred with us.
Many of these right wing folks now will feel emboldened to more openly display their hatred.
I live in a blue state but a very red county where anti-Kerry and anti-liberal bumper stickers are common, including one that says “all liberals should be shot” which seems like it should be illegal to have anything like that displayed in public, but it’s freedom of speech, I guess.
We can thank our friends in the so-called “liberal media” for their efforts to clarify for the electorate the issues that were important.
I can hear it now…“God has spoken”...
The positive of this is that 51% of the population is presumably pleased. Certainly of that 51 % some actually have the capacity to grasp
the gravity of results and have to have mixed emotions.
Posted by abs on Nov 3, 2004 at 2:58 PM
The word “nightmare” has new meaning.
Posted by abs on Nov 3, 2004 at 3:26 PM
Now is a good time to give money to the Earthjustice people: www.earthjustice.org
They are the best line of defense against the continuing assault on the environment by the environmental terrorists so firmly entrenched in Washington, D.C.
They have thwarted many, many bulldozers, chainsaws, and oil drills unleashed by the terrorists.
As for our future, I am an optimist…we will not go back to living in caves when the last well runs dry. Alternative fuel technology will eventually come to these shores, even if it has to be developed and implemented elsewhere. And only because slightly more than half the electorate has no faith in humanity, but much faith in the supernatural.
Posted by Ernesto on Nov 4, 2004 at 12:58 AM
“Yes, and as Bush and Kerry are out campaigning, we are presently touching off nearly the very last whiffs and drops and chunks of them. All lights are about to go out. No more electricity. All forms of transportation are about to stop, and the planet Earth will soon have a crust of skulls and bones and dead machinery.”
A little poetic license here. We’re not about to run out of oil, we’re about to hit Hubert’s Peak—the top of the bell shaped oil production curve.
The U.S. hit Hubert’s peak in 1970 at around 10 million barrels a day. Now we produce barely over half that.
The Energy Information Agency, which keeps track of these things, puts out a monthly report of the oil production in 30 countries plus a catch-all “other.” Of those, 12 are now in decline, inlcuding such major producers as Norway, the United Kingdom, Indonesia, and Venezuela. Altogether these 12 countries are 8 million barrels a day below their peak production. Last year alone they lost over a million barrels a day of production.
With every new country that rolls over into decline, it makes it that much harder for the remaining countries to replace the loss plus keep up with increasing demand (lately lead by the Chinese who want their own auto indutry just like ours.)
The Saudis sent a chill through the market recently when, after promising to increase their production, all they could come up with some very poor grade, heavy oil. The Suadi’s were supposed to be able to carry the load for several more decades. But like all OPEC countries, the Saudis lie about how much oil they have left.
The future is not one where the lights suddenly go off, it is one where the economy keeps banging its head on an ever lowering ceiling.
Oh…and then there are the millions who will die as food and water supplies are depleted. But that’s another story.
Posted by Tim on Nov 4, 2004 at 4:31 AM
I know many of us are disconsolate an unable to fathom how this could happen when it was so obvious that the man was demonstratively incompetent and very harmful to this country.
After the election of 2000 I wrote a number of things expressing the blues… and the one that follows is post Ohio news.
Hope all of you have a better sense of things and not suffering the same dread that is welling up inside my liberal heart & head! There is no comfort in misery, there is no medication, no beverage, no rhetoric that can sooth the tumultuous and fulminating synaptic storm…
Nightmare Alarm clock
The radio morning alarm buzzed.
Halloween was over and the real scare about to begin…
I opened my mouth to shout NO! but not a sound came forth
I was paralyzed…
I static in my ears and burning in my eyes. Buzz, Buzzzz…
George and the truth were all lies, it’s all a blur on the talk shows…
I slept on a weeks worth of soporific pundits pronouncing their view.
I dreamed of executions, lines of broken people all the way back to the
civil war…
I saw G W Bush’s lachrymose sulfuric smile ..better known as a smirk while I hear an echo
of the chains back to the slave ships rattling…......
At a table with Rush and 11 House Republicans feasting, ready to repeal,
revise, reverse, betray & crucify, restlessly seething…
its a painting in the living room by Tom Kinkade on a plate, on a page,
in the middle of TV Guide…
Men were marching, heals kicking high - with flags and crosses, humming
like the Monkey Men in the Wizard of Oz, with arm bands with
swastikas..yoooooo, ooooooh….yoooo,ooooh
There was Jesse Helms & Strom and David Duke with lists of things to do
all the way back to the inquisitors block, marching kids into Plato’s
cave - preaching ignorance and revisionism; shouting righteous abuse.
I try to wake but it’s no use, no use! The South wins the War!
God fearing men are hiding under their hoods and behind their guns (and
NAMBLA subscriptions) standing under the street lamp
hawking quotes from Jesus and Ronald Reagan , writing on bathroom stalls
“be saved and unite”, the party of suited gentlemen all were smiling raising glasses and toasting
the numbers on the stock exchange.
Graduates with MBA’s singing patriotic songs while pissing on a poor beggar with a college
degree in the humanities mumbling eloquent profanities
Bill Bennett in drag shaking his girth, began humping mother goose on
morning TV, espousing virtues in rhyme while zipping up his fly with a
condescending smirk.
I dreamed that Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell were performing baptisms in
the river Styx as The Gov. was the Baptist on the bank preaching
enlightenment and the sinking of the SS Beagle, giving out tax relief promises and religious
party favors to the baptized in oil.
Charlten Heston in Mose’s Robe raising a AK47 to a sea of NRA members
cheering and breaking wind…
The radio continued to buzz and I tried to awaken again.
As I walked on the savannah, watching for predators.. I heard them roar,
I heard Bush sneer, snort, bay and swagger past devoured carcasses and
trembling prey, he was cheering - “it is a new day”...
See rows of robed and hooded angry white men genuflecting before the
visage of the burning bush while an old recording of Anita Bryant sang God Bless America,
and children in military like uniforms burned banned books, and flames
and smoke came from the morning radio while announcing the most recent
poll….taking it’s toll
George Dubya was struttin, pronouncing to bring us together - with purpose and
resolve, end membership in the UN, give power back to the states & born
again bigots.
He is the voice of reformation and restoration, attracting pundits with
microphones like blue bottle flies…... buzzing…buzz, buzz
I awoke in a nightmare
“trick or treat”
Limbaugh did quip,
the radio was buzzing and
turned to shit..
Posted by BAM on Nov 4, 2004 at 7:25 AM
Like the phoenix
Month’s of political pundits’ sophistry on the CRT
all the yelling and pointing accusatory fingers from polemical self assured fools
caused a migraine with their emphasis on folly and myth…
All the days of broken dreams and dreamers, all the bad news
meant nothing as to how the headlines were read,
meant nothing to all those mistakes in this war, and all those dead.
So many spirits fallen, like Icarus in flames that had soared so close, so many souls cast in the Styx
sinners for genetic will, for choice, cursed by shallow piety & ignorant misunderstanding of Christ.
Money does what it wants to, sells lies and destroys lives equally…
Talking heads appear allocuting to the somnambulant and oblivious, ignorance is indeed bliss!
Those genuflecting sycophants ignoring the egregious failures in speech and deed
of the burning Bush will not be distracted by any truth…they’ve so long believed in lies.
We could return to pre Civil War slavery, and burning women as witches if we continue on this path. You laugh, we’re rearguing the Bryant vs Darrow, & the Scopes monkey trial in communities across this land, if we allow it to continue - they will take it all the way back to Eden and women will fall for giving in to the devil. In many ways the devil has played as much a role in this election as God has. Once again Falwell fills the TV screen with his benign malevolence and quotes from the book of God…you can hear the “amens”...
We can concede that the process has selected the choice by majority vote but we do not have to concede the rightness of our fight.
Concession as usual is not acceptable…
there is a degree of hypocrisy in being polite
although of course we require civility
and humility but there is no honor in this respite.
There is some solace in defeat
although our wounds are very deep
believe - that wisdom should prevail
The concession words were uplifting with encouragement to fight on
and so we shall…
we shall not fail!
Posted by BAM on Nov 4, 2004 at 7:26 AM
>>We have had a message from someone calling themselves the “patriot” that was only to thrilled to share thier jubilant hatred with us.>>
Yep. They always take the emotional bate. And yes, it’s best not to work at their level. Sorry I said:
“Mostly, Republicans were losers in high school. That’s why they love all this stealth, fire and brimstone.”
Won’t do it again. (Good article at:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/110404D.shtml )
I used to try, like the poor scientist in the original “The Thing” flick in the 50’s, to reason with them. I learned to give up. Most are well trained in pr, and their purpose is to stop the flow of real ideas.
Meanwhile, time to wipe eyes, nose, and roll up our sleeves:
We need to get a googlebomb going —say, “Bush election” or (maybe “Shut up!” as the right likes O’Reilly so well) with the real blackbox voting address—which is:
http://blackboxvoting.org/
note: BlackBoxVoting”.COM” is a deceptively
designed site, not affiliated with Bev Harris,
nor with Black Box Voting Inc.
(That’s how they work folks. The Righteous think it’s okay to lie if it’s in the service of the Rapture.And many ways to lie. They’re pros.)
How to googlebomb:
http://www.wordspy.com/words/Googlebombing.asp
And don’t ever forget: Half of this country voted against Bush!
They can’t kill us all. We know how strong we are, and we know, though the right has the media hogtied, that most of us also know THAT. The
important thing now is to keep a network, to meetup locally and keep the info going—even if the net goes down.
These problems have long been brewing, their machinery for their self-fulfilling prophecies to go forward long ago. When you get scared, remember these bogeys have been there all along—and now we’re in a position to see them. WE ALL SEE THEM, what’s been coming. Now we can
address it.
Nixon went down because a few good folk stepped out of the shadows. Let’s be there ready to greet them.
x’s
Deborah
Posted by deborah conner on Nov 4, 2004 at 7:45 AM
Sorry. That was BAIT. “Bates” is for Norman. :)
Posted by deborah Connner on Nov 4, 2004 at 7:47 AM
re googlebomb:
some code for your page / blog
[url=“http://blackboxvoting.org/”]shut
up![/url]
Bush election
Posted by deb conner on Nov 4, 2004 at 8:06 AM
sorry. didn’t work. I’ll post it here:
http://jungcircle.com/muse/code.html
Just copy the code on the page into your html.
Posted by deb conner on Nov 4, 2004 at 8:10 AM
“The president got re-elected by dividing the country along fault lines of fear, intolerance, ignorance and religious rule. He doesn’t want to heal rifts; he wants to bring any riffraff who disagree to heel.
Tom Coburn, the new senator from Oklahoma, has advocated the death penalty for doctors who perform abortions and warned that “the gay agenda” would undermine the country. He also characterized his race as a choice between “good and evil” and said he had heard there was “rampant lesbianism” in Oklahoma schools.”
Maureen Dowd
Posted by abs on Nov 4, 2004 at 8:10 AM
BATES & Bait is all the same part of insane!
Your faux pax wasn’t that glaring…
Norman in the cellar of course voted for the shrub.
You can also be forgiven for you “high school” reference too…
The “patriot” and all those that enter here to gloat and spit are indifferent and are enjoying the abuse
so, any reaction at all by you or others can be excused.
Posted by BAM on Nov 4, 2004 at 8:24 AM
Sender: Grand Chancellor of Central Alien Intelligence (CAI).
Recipent(s): Remaining vestiges of intelligence on Planet 18765i28.
Due to human insistence on not allocating your fuel resources for positive scientific/technological advancements absent a profiteering drive, it is our sad duty to inform you we have marked your planet as susceptible to ecocide.
Recommendation: Planetary revolt.
Posted by Office of Acceptable Heresiarchy on Nov 4, 2004 at 9:40 AM
deb conner:
Your link keeps coming up blank…
Posted by BAM on Nov 4, 2004 at 11:10 AM
As much as these two men have in common, their differences are much more important.
One comes from a tradition of war profiteering, trading with the enemy, abusing positions of public trust for self service, and have raised the practice of subtrfuge and fraud to an art.
One has demostrated a commitment to the tradition of public service.
One represents a consituency that places the interest of corporate profits above all other interests, at every opportunity, at any cost, and place little if any value in any other interests.
One represents a constituency that places the interest of public health, safety and welfare above the interest of corporate profits, but, understands that economic prosperity is an essential element of, and must be balanced with, public health, safety and welfare.
That’s a very big difference.
Posted by Lefty on Nov 4, 2004 at 11:49 AM
This is still coming up blank?
http://jungcircle.com/muse/code.html
Let me know. I can e-mail you plain text.
Also:
BAM said: <<The “patriot” and all those that enter here to gloat and spit are indifferent and are enjoying the abuse so, any reaction at all by you or others can be excused. >>
Good. Glad the indifferent can enjoy. Here’s some more.
Kerry Won…
Greg Palast
November 04, 2004
Excerpted from TomPaine.com
—- Here are the facts.—-
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/kerry_won_.php
***
And on the issue of uncounted votes re the election (and why not all things?), I think it’s time to do away with it, O my water Brothers and Sisters. When asked for your race, we should all just check < OTHER >. It’s just the truth. (My yes, can’t you just see Katherine Harris pitchforking us all into the dumpster? In high heels yet, and some of that lipstick Cheney keeps talking about.)
Posted by deborah conner on Nov 4, 2004 at 12:28 PM
yup, it’s thursday now. two days have passed. long enough.
i now reckon it’s about time to finally stop lying to myself and give up all hope.
meh…
maybe i won’t.
that’s the beauty of being a human being. i can be presented with overwhelming evidence showing the complete destruction of not only my way of life, but the eventual obliteration of billions of my brethren (myself, most likely included), and i can still make myself believe we have a chance. and i really DO believe we have a chance, but i’m starting to have doubts as to whether or not peaceful protest will work. How can i simply talk to Mr. Patriot Act if he calls me a terrorist if i support the constitution, or if i believe in the rapture, or if i fucking jaywalk? And this bastard’s pretty huge.
So now i have to deal with the overwhelming snowballing of human destruction, the malicious intent of my very own government, and a third enemy.
apathy.
for there are indeed many of us who are willing to fight for change, and peace. willing to bleed to defeat the illuminati’s cult bullshit, but we’re nothing when compared to the impeding human roadblock led by western media. we as a country indeed MUST be united, but we the people must unite ourselves. we must talk to our neighbors, discuss politics in uncomfortable settings, and make people want to educate themselves on the issues, and not have over 1/2 of this country falling under the illusion of awareness by memorizing tv polls and graphs.
or maybe i should finally get some sleep and continue awaiting the release of halo 2
Posted by Surge on Nov 4, 2004 at 1:31 PM
From the article cited by deborah above, it appears, if accurate (an extremely HUGE if), that democrats are too ignorant or uneducated to fill out a ballet. I find it sad taht democrats are not only pandering to the black folk (but with 90%+ they are doing a *really* good job pandering!), but now want to be the party of people too stupid to fill out ballets! Not to mention their renewed desire to be the party of felons.
Gee, it is hard to believe thay lost. . .
Posted by Soooo. . . on Nov 4, 2004 at 2:17 PM
Dear Surge:
Pull your socks up. Jeez! Stand and Fight
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20041122&s=editors
And dear Soooo…:
Ah. From the party of the great uniter. A story, just for you:
When I came out of the voting booth, there was an older black man there, helping to oversee things. I said to him, “We have to vote him out. We have to.”
He looked at me dead on. He said, “Pray for me.”
I answered, “I do.”
Again, he said, “Pray for me.”
I said, “I will.”
“You made my day,” he said.
It’s Justice I pray to. Justice, who always demands exact returns.
***
Article 6(a) of the Charter of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg
http://fundamentalbass.home.mindspring.com/vol1.htm
CRIMES AGAINST PEACE: namely, planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances, or participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the foregoing;
Article 6(a) of the Charter of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg
“The grand strategy authorizes Washington to carry out “preventive war”: Preventive, not pre-emptive. Whatever the justifications for pre-emptive war might be, they do not hold for preventive war, particularly as that concept is interpreted by its current enthusiasts: the use of military force to eliminate an invented or imagined threat, so that even the term “preventive” is too charitable. Preventive war is, very simply, the “supreme crime” condemned at Nuremberg.”
~ Preventive War ‘the Supreme Crime’
————————————————————————————————————————
TITLE 18, PART I, CHAPTER 118, Sec. 2441. Sec. 2441. - War crimes
(a) Offense. -
Whoever, whether inside or outside the United States, commits a war crime, in any of the circumstances described in subsection (b), shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for life or any term of years, or both, and if death results to the victim, shall also be subject to the penalty of death.
(b) Circumstances. -
The circumstances referred to in subsection (a) are that the person committing such war crime or the victim of such war crime is a member of the Armed Forces of the United States or a national of the United States (as defined in section 101 of the Immigration and Nationality Act).
(c) Definition. -
As used in this section the term ‘‘war crime’’ means any conduct -
(1)
defined as a grave breach in any of the international conventions signed at Geneva 12 August 1949, or any protocol to such convention to which the United States is a party;
(2)
prohibited by Article 23, 25, 27, or 28 of the Annex to the Hague Convention IV, Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land, signed 18 October 1907;
(3)
which constitutes a violation of common Article 3 of the international conventions signed at Geneva, 12 August 1949, or any protocol to such convention to which the United States is a party and which deals with non-international armed conflict; or
(4)
of a person who, in relation to an armed conflict and contrary to the provisions of the Protocol on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Mines, Booby-Traps and Other Devices as amended at Geneva on 3 May 1996 (Protocol II as amended on 3 May 1996), when the United States is a party to such Protocol, willfully kills or causes serious injury to civilians.
————————————————————————————————————————
Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court
http://www.un.org/law/icc/statute/romefra.htm
Relevant citation (Article 8, paragraph 2(b)(iv) and (v)):
Article 8 War crimes
1. The Court shall have jurisdiction in respect of war crimes in particular when committed as part of a plan or policy or as part of a large-scale commission of such crimes.
2. For the purpose of this Statute, “war crimes” means: (a) Grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, namely, any of the following acts against persons or property protected under the provisions of the relevant Geneva Convention . . . .
(b) Other serious violations of the laws and customs applicable in international armed conflict, within the established framework of international law, namely, any of the following acts:
(iv) Intentionally launching an attack in the knowledge that such attack will cause incidental loss of life or injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects or widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment which would be clearly excessive in relation to the concrete and direct overall military advantage anticipated;
(v) Attacking or bombarding, by whatever means, towns, villages, dwellings or buildings which are undefended and which are not military objectives ...
______________________________________
Posted by deborah conner on Nov 4, 2004 at 4:13 PM
Thank you Mr. Vonnegut. I hope you read the reactions to your article. There is some very interesting stuff here. Mr. Vonnegut I appreciate your writing, you are in my heart. Deborah you, for lack of a better word or phrase, Rock.
I really hope that we can get past this one guys and girls. All of you… Hope to see you there, on the other side of the mess that has been created.
Posted by Lee on Nov 4, 2004 at 8:13 PM
Re: “Now is a good time to give money to the Earthjustice people:”
And everyone responding here is a donor or subscriber to In These Times...yes?
Posted by Tim Christopher on Nov 4, 2004 at 10:41 PM
Excuse me for such bitter words but I didn’t find any new information in this article.
What new facts we received?
Most of all politicians are complete scoundrels.
You didn’t know about this?
As for fuel;
I think that wind will give us enough energy for night lamps and to change cars on bicycles
would be better for our health.
But the power of USA can be redused and a fear of such a reducing (which now is spreading in USA) will be the main source of all world problems.
I am sorry for my bad English, I am Russian.
Posted by Alexander on Nov 5, 2004 at 1:18 AM
Alright, I haven’t thought this completely through but recall the controversy regarding the touch screen voting machines and the lack of a paper trail…of course we all do. Recall the discrepancies (in 2000) between the exit polling in Florida, the subsequent forecast by the media for Gore, and then of course how many ballots were not counted. Well, on C-SPAN last night a mathematician suggested that, with consideration of what the inventor of the Diebold machine had promised the president, that they would get him Ohio, that, it’s possible that the machines were rigged (similar to the way slot machines are rigged for the house) to discount periodically X number of votes for Sen Kerry. The mathematician brought it up because in her mind the numbers didn’t add up. So, she said perhaps that the exit polling may not have been incorrect but the count was!
Something to think about huh? At least it’s one of the better conspiracy theories I’ve ever heard. Not onlyis it possible but considering everything, also plausable.
In a press conference yesterday the president now seems to be saying - “no more Mr. nice guy” and bullied the press and did not sound conciliatory at all. The uniter of 2000 is not running for reelection now, so it’s full bore ahead,with his right wing agenda - because he received his mandate!
Good new day y’all…
Posted by BAM on Nov 5, 2004 at 5:06 AM
“From the article cited by deborah above, it appears, if accurate (an extremely HUGE if), that democrats are too ignorant or uneducated to fill out a ballet. I find it sad taht democrats are not only pandering to the black folk (but with 90%+ they are doing a *really* good job pandering!), but now want to be the party of people too stupid to fill out ballets! Not to mention their renewed desire to be the party of felons.
Gee, it is hard to believe thay lost. . .
Posted by Soooo. . . on November 4, 2004 at 4:17 PM”
What a surprise, a republican bigot spending his time on a liberal message board trying to antagonize liberals. BTW, Sooo, when did it become nobler to pander to born again christians?
Posted by Lefty on Nov 5, 2004 at 6:37 AM
Well sir, relativity’s a bitch aint it. The old stone lentil at the oracle of Delphi said in words what took humankind hundreds of thousands of years to digest and prove valuable as a lesson that all people should learn; “Know Thyself” and “Everything in Moderation”. Recently we all had the great fortune of meeting Mr. Einstien and receiving some more of that insoluable truth, “Everything’s Relative”.
When something really shitty happens, something that takes a part of us away and we know it aint ever comin’ back people like to remind you of how it could be worse, and most of the time we don’t like it but we use it somehow to acknowledge that we’re glad that whatever happened to us didn’t happen much worse. Well, everything is relative - that’s true, but maybe we need to chisel it into our heads that what’s more true, deeper, is that relativity’s a bitch.
It’s still not against the law to Impeach AND Imprison is it?
May the universe continue to bless itself through you!
Posted by Seth Hubert on Nov 5, 2004 at 6:42 AM
It is now time for fuel rationing ie: automobile use, start fairly generously tightening allocation coupons yearly, this will give auto companys time to switch to small 3-4 cylinder engines, and a slower depreciation on our trades against going all out tight rationing at the start causing economic caose, Europe is doing beter as there fuel taxes are higher hence lower consumption per person. plus institute all other forms of constraints on other types of energy. There is no choice, start now, but knowing human nature nothing will happen till its to late.
Posted by P. Stone on Nov 5, 2004 at 8:48 AM
The end is near. But of course, everything has to end.
I say let it come now if that’s what it takes to open the eyes of humanity. Maybe if we see people dying right in front of us will the world realize the folly that was created for us , by them, but was blindly accepted by the majority. Maybe a more personal encounter with death, horror and despair in all parts of the world, in all cities, in all communites, in all households..maybe then..but then agian , it might be too late.
What? I still see no revolution in the horizon. Good, then this damn human existence should indeed cease. Let no one be spared for we have chosen the path of our own desturction.
To all the “riches” of the world, “you” too will burn to the ground. There is no escape.
Posted by Danilo B. Gorre on Nov 5, 2004 at 10:54 AM
Vonnegut is saying “deal with reality or reality will deal with you” > There is optimism in his message as a forwarning: get out of the country,or a farm for self survival (3 basic needs water, food, shelter), convert your $ to gold, foreign currency, have protection, some of us will live. The stupid ones will call it doomsday; the survivors will be the poor prepared working class and the psuedo rich that already have an escape route,castles in Europe and dollars in foreign currency like W. Buffett.
.
Posted by diana on Nov 5, 2004 at 8:31 PM
Lee said I rock. Bless your heart. I also reel and weep. Thank all of you for this company, above all our host.
I’ve been spewing forth for years now. What good has it done? They’ve stolen this election.
If you have doubts, please watch this:
http://www.votergate.tv/
Blackbox again:
http://blackboxvoting.org/
But I’m not taking defeat personally. No. I’ve just
learned to trust my own vision process, flaws, errors, instincts, and all
the things that Vonnegut and Jung and the Hopi tell us. A government,
church, family, school, etc., can make all the policy it wants. But if the
people don’t have an accord within their own being for the future, past,
present, and nature, it will likely not matter much. Life plays out in the
individual.
The 70’s legislated some good energy policy. People
were buying smaller cars, becoming careful of resources and environmentally
conscious. Then—when the corporations felt it, they hired a front man, an
actor: Reagan came to town. And so did the media blitz to buy bigger “safer”
(self-safe) more compassionate cars—SUV’s, oil guzzlers. Legislation was
passed to keep oil cheap, and people drank it all down. It isn’t the oil
that was important. It was the power it gave those in control of it. As oil
runs out and it’s not so profitable to milk, they’ll abandon it and use
something else.
Ideas are resources to use, to manipulate, as well. Thus the buyout of the
media, medicine, and the church. Third Reich. A Reich was an age. An era.
The Rapture and the abandonment of reason to it are its clone, the very same
great seduction. It’s a very selfish Heaven, the Reich, the Rapture. Those
who truly embrace love will readily escape such seductions.
Story: A woman had a stroke recently, and as she had it, she had a huge
vivid dream. Then her dreams stopped. Now they study her, for what her
condition says about dreams. Dreams are of no use in adults, they conclude;
dreams are just junk in the deep occipital, where images form. They protect
our sleep, incorporating non-dangerous things like alarm clocks into a story
line, and we purr and REM onward. And the science goes forth. And all the
explanations work to reduce us to machines.
After all, it’s a machine centered science.
And I can’t help seeing that all such machinations reduce us, dehumanize
us—for what is it to be human but to experience life as a human? We seek
to throw off anything that’s subjective, because we value only the hard
facts, the objective, in the machine-building world we create. And thus we
become machines. We throw out the experience of life, of living.
The Enlightenment without its philosophy, its understanding of symbol, has
worked to darken us.
There’s within us a stillpoint made of emotion, objectivity, sensate perception, intuition. It’s the point where we are fully human and yet aligned with a greater consciousness. It contains the deep root of archetype, linking us back, plugging us in, to the stars our bodies are made of. Images of instincts, irrational, dangerous, wondrous, breathtaking, informing, deceptive… all of these. It is the well of creativity. To repress this well is to activate these instincts in the unconscious, and set up the fertile ground for mass minded conformity and spiritual literality. If we can’t process symbols, they fall back into the well and take form and body within our shadows.
It’s our ability to think symbolically that informs us and keeps up whole.
Simply because we are, as life is, a paradox. We’re in the field of opposites,
Diablo light and dark.
Emotion. We sneer at it! Use it, milk it! It’s animals, for women, for the
weak. Override it with logic as fast as you can! But what is emotion but the sum reflex of memory, both learned and passed down to us? It enables the split second reaction that keeps us alive. It connects us with the intutuion of things in shadow.
It also enriches, seduces us, is the beautiful tapestry, this web
of life and our participation in it. Yet can also lock us into step with the
mass collective when we forget or have no faith in our own individuality and
no sense of value of individual collective humanity.
All is extrapolated. The inner. The outer. The experience of being human.
Which is what we are. Our being and becoming.
We throw so much away.
***
You who seek the deep heart: real heroes come forward now. The
ones take us through sorrow and pain.
***
Bush thinks he has a mandate, not just with yahweh, but from america. Nothing will stand between this dictatorship and bringing down the grand experimenting as we know it. Pax Romana will be real, and it will be the Rome of Constantine. (Karl Rove as Eusibius.)
We have a small time left where law might intervene, where decent people may come forward. Nixon went down this way. When the people come out of the shadows, be ready to give them a hand.
I’m gonna swing this chain till I go down.
x’s deborah
http://jungcircle.com/muse
Posted by deborah conner on Nov 6, 2004 at 9:20 AM
I unfortunately do take it personally. A dreamer, a reader of Jung and Black Elk, wounded by the assault on the inner vision…it is a personal matter. All the words, all the investment of energy , swallowed in the deafening sound of the red map victory dance.
Sentient beings, the trees say nothing of the activities of men, but records their sins beneath their skin. Breath the blessings of the trees and behold their wisdom, silent, noble, midwife to the simians and the fools.
Weep, despair, fall, rise and soar toward the light…we are all light, and will not be extinguished…
It has been pleasant to read and be part of this
forum.
All the best…
Posted by BAM on Nov 6, 2004 at 11:06 AM
“I’m gonna swing this chain till I go down.”
We’re all links in that chain, so, keep on swinging…
Posted by BAM on Nov 6, 2004 at 11:15 AM
Now, come on BAM. You have to swing that chain, too.
As for “weep, despair, fall, rise and soar toward the light”—remember, don’t take it personal. Someone on the otherside might think you’re posing as a crybaby. Rebublicans LOVE that. They’re bullies.
And here I just distilled 20 some volumes of Jung in that little evocation, and I fear it only made you pull out a file card. This one:
JUNG——>
collective unconscious—->
archetype——->
< cross reference : Joseph Campbell —->
primitive——->
Indian————>
(Carolina Road???)
Black Elk———->
Drumming———->
Dancing————>
Isadora Duncan——->
Tree hugging granola girl—->
easy lay.
And that’s just diversion. Misses it, and sadly, too—- when all she asks of you is to quit throwing your pearls at swine and start making love to the Cosmos.
THAT’S what dancin’ is.
And right now, it’s chain swinging, too.
x’s deborah
and now MY file card:
Dancing——->
It was like a stream
Running into the dry bed
of a lake,
like rain
pouring on plants.
parched to sticks.
It was like this world’s pleasure
and the way to the other, both
walking towards me.
PS. If you haven’t seen Y Tu Mama Tambien, please do. It’s perfect. Perfect because it’s the model of the world, its history in present tense. Perfect because watching it spills your blood and tears and vitals. It’s perfect story telling, and I am in awe of it. I love this woman, her journey, and these boys who carry the bewilderment of our lonely cut-in-pieces world. She takes us back where we came in. Stop in your tracks and let your mouth fall open.
Posted by deborah conner on Nov 6, 2004 at 1:59 PM
!
Better cite that!
Poems to Shiva
It was like a stream
Running into the dry bed
of a lake,
like rain
pouring on plants.
parched to sticks.
It was like this world’s pleasure
and the way to the other, both
walking towards me.
Seeing the feet of the Master
O lord white as jasmine.
I was made
worthwhile.
Mahadeviyakka
and now dinner is burning.
Posted by deborah conner on Nov 6, 2004 at 2:02 PM
Deborah:
Pardon me for responding to your incorrect assumptions. You apparently have a lot of experience with “students” so, I will pardon your assumptions…I don’t need to cross reference anything to express my own thought! (albeit, I would consider myself always a student seeking information to validate the hearts fires)
Cross ref’ng perhaps a good technique, but NO!I’ve read “Man and his Symbols and Black Elk Speaks among others. (Read a lot more Freud but Jung’s thinking was more attractive. And Joseph Campbell, was easily one of my most favorite human beings.)
I happen to be an artist and have always been interested in the archetypes. The tree is my favorite symbol and living form (other than mammals) and I use it often in my own humble writing as metaphor…
It’s irrelevant to me what my Republican friends think of me. I’m accustomed to “ditto heads” and don’t fret their mouthing the Limbaugh political line. I’m also accustomed to being underestimated.
A link…in the chain…swinging
Posted by BAM on Nov 6, 2004 at 6:45 PM
Sorry, really. Was meant to be taken symbolically. You know what too many folks think when you mention Jung: that card.
btw, I’m reading about the best and most validating book on Jung ever, imho—except for reading him first hand:
Jung and the Making of Modern Psychology
by Sonu Shamdasani
So let me regroup and think exactly what made me write that response. It wasn’t personal. I’m not about being personal. Things are too heavy for that.
I’d say—that earlier post really was a distillation, and I’m very well aware that I’m sticking my neck out writing such things to an unsympathetic public. The first bit was easy to react to; I guess (alright, I admit ) I was being provocative. But the rest likely never gets read. So that’s what that second post was about, really. I was thinking that maybe someone would have a look at things that I find critically important that are never much said.
And the card was funny. No? Oh well. Would never make a stand up. Much too strange a sense of humor.
Again, I meant no offence. Heck, we’re coming here as strangers from who knows where or why and trying to communicate. Pretty daring, all of it. I come to be tried in the fire. It’s how I learn. Thank you.
x’s deborah
Posted by deborah conner on Nov 6, 2004 at 8:21 PM
Open letter to Jesusland.
Jesus did not die for your sins - you are responsible for them. Ask yourself if there are huge problems in the world, if you agree, do you think that Jesus’ crucifixition should benefit YOU?
My you are falling for the devil’s luxuries aren’t you. You have to work for your own salvation, and think too.
May God have mercy on your soul.
Posted by Seth Hubert on Nov 6, 2004 at 8:31 PM
What interesting other pieces of sitting up mud I’ve met!
Where’s the cat? Where’s the cradle?
Yes, it’s about all over. Very soon there will be such blood in the streets of America as one is unable to imagine, either way this fascist corporate mess plays out.
Perhaps we should all recite the Bokonese funeral service now?
Posted by Hoyt Cagle on Nov 7, 2004 at 3:19 AM
Point is, they WANT a holy war. They’re working to provoke it, justify it, create it.
Rove is a psychopath. Bush thinks—and what percentage of his voters?—God made him president to fulfill the end time scripture.
You know how excited the faithful get when they see Jesus on a bard door, a reflection in a refrigerator? When I lived in Ohio, one of these ‘event’—created purely from imagination—caused a small ton traffic jam, people wanting to ‘see.’ Extrapolate this—we have the technology to project Jesus in the Sky for their rapturous pleasure. I’m serious. Please read this article from the Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/dotmil/arkin020199.htm
When Seeing and Hearing Isn’t Believing
By William M. Arkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Monday, Feb. 1, 1999
excerpt:
“For Hollywood, it is special effects. For covert operators in the U.S. military and intelligence agencies, it is a weapon of the future.”
“What if the U.S. projected a holographic image of Allah floating over Baghdad?”
“Pentagon planners started to discuss digital morphing after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Covert operators kicked around the idea of creating a computer-faked videotape of Saddam Hussein crying or showing other such manly weaknesses, or in some sexually compromising situation. The nascent plan was for the tapes to be flooded into Iraq and the Arab world.”
The tape war never proceeded, killed, participants say, by bureaucratic fights over jurisdiction, skepticism over the technology, and concerns raised by Arab coalition partners.
But the “strategic” PSYOPS scheming didn’t die. What if the U.S. projected a holographic image of Allah floating over Baghdad urging the Iraqi people and Army to rise up against Saddam, a senior Air Force officer asked in 1990?
“The Gulf War hologram story might be dismissed were it not the case that washingtonpost.com has learned that a super secret program was established in 1994 to pursue the very technology for PSYOPS application. The “Holographic Projector” is described in a classified Air Force document as a system to “project information power from space ... for special operations deception missions.”
Allah in the sky? Why not Jesus in Nashville? I’ve followed this madness for years now. No one would believe it. And now? How do you stop it? It’s the same madness that held them in thrall of a Third Reich. Ultima Thule, and all. At Nuremberg, the war criminals went to their death unrepentant.
I once got to speak to Anna Rosmus, and she told me that it was the way they lied with such ease that kept her going.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2000/04/03/60II/main179477.shtml
And why Iraq, beyond the oil reserves? The Faithful dislike their magic book being contradicted with science. This war has also been about destroying all such evidence. Please read this—make people aware.
http://www.savingantiquities.org/
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/attack/conseqindex.htm scroll down to links under ‘cultural’
Posted by deborah conner on Nov 7, 2004 at 7:28 AM
Deborah:
Often one of the difficulties with writing (especially in this forum) is that a thought or two can be misunderstood. Not written or read exactly as one intended ...You certainly know what I mean.
Thanks for noting the new book on Jung.
On a personal level, yes, we come to these sites from many different backgrounds, but apparently
with similar goals. And you sound like someone that I would love to have living next door, even in the same town.
In fact, there are a few others that have posted that sound like good neighbors too.
We have ecountered each other’s thinking beneath other columns in the past month or so, and your energy is appreciated.
(The communications here are more than I have with my neighbors.)
All the best
“Learn to look with an equal eye upon all beings, seeing the one Self in all.”
Srimad Bhagavatam
Posted by BAM on Nov 7, 2004 at 9:01 AM
No energy scheme, whether petrochem, nuke, or “renewable”, will work unless human population stabilizes and then reduces, steadily less and less for at least several generations. Alas, the priests and mullahs concentrate on almost prehistoric understandings rather than hard mathematics, and so ascribe sinfulness to any form of lovemaking in which a baby won’t result. And the politicians go along because they either believe that humans can continue to increase their numbers without a payback (actually, a “die-back”), or they put the votes of their similarly misguided constituents at the top of their priority lists. Our great-grandchildren are going to hate our guts for using up all the resources and leaving nothing but a mess behind. OR, we could get the clue finally and only have the babies we truly want and preventing unwished-for conception. One Papal Bull endorsing family planning would break centuries of unrealism, plus the phrase “unwanted baby” could become an anachronism. Yeah right, I’ll start holding my breath for that eventuality right now!
My face is already turning blue…
Make love for fun, have babies when you really want them.
Posted by Kuya on Nov 7, 2004 at 7:02 PM
Bless your hearts.
Come sit down and have some coffee. It’s good to have company as this all hits. Not that it hasn’t been coming down in buckets for years but… now it’s sort of official.
GOD FORGIVE AMERICA :
We need to start correcting those signs that say ‘bless.’ I like spray paint… And always little post-it notes for the appropriate comments anywhere, anytime anyplace. Is there a lonely looking place on that Wal-Mart bulletin board? Post an article from Truthout—or In These Times.
O shite. Have we come all this way, o stars, just to develop our dark sense of humor? You never will tell me, stars. You just say for me to pull up my socks.
***
I read about the solider who killed himself at Ground Zero when he heard bush was ‘elected.’ Hate to tell Mr. Rove and the other Compassionate Ones, but that was Jesus. There’s been a lot of Jesus’s lately. Keep trying to come back, but—just not having a nice day.
Soldiers sign an oath to protect and defend the Constitution. That’s what they are asked to give their life for. The least we can do is protect the Constitution at home.
Yep. Pull up yer sock if you have any.
x’s
deborah
btw
several sf writers have started a listserve called “My
America,” The idea here is to find a low-budget, high-impact way to
encourage and coordinate grass roots political action. We hope that My
America will become a kind of national support group and clearinghouse
for local activists. This is a come as you are party: we welcome
parents trying to regain control of school boards hijacked by the
religious right; environmental groups trying to stop drilling or clear
cutting; community groups that promote education and nurture small
businesses in the inner cities; everyone who’s out there fighting the
Bush Administration’s attacks on gays, minorities, muslims, and anyone
else who hasn’t drunk their kool-aid. We hope My America will become an
effective support group and clearinghouse for liberal grassroots
activists. And if it goes nowhere .... well, nowhere is exactly where
we’ll get by sitting at home and doing nothing!
Anyone who’s interested in joining My America can do so at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/my_america
More important, pass the list address along to anyone you know who’s
involved in local politics or grassroots political action, and
encourage them to use it to stay in touch with other activists around
the country, post news about what they’re doing, and gather volunteers.
Posted by deborah conner on Nov 8, 2004 at 10:06 AM
Deborah:
Well, perhaps we live in the same (blue)state…Ca. that is…
Thanks for the info. (I’m burned out temporarily on expressing my opinion on much of anything)
All the best.
A tip a cup of kindness (in this case java)to ya.
Posted by BAM on Nov 8, 2004 at 10:16 AM
Please forward and tack up everywhere
This message comes from 3 members of congress:
John Conyers, Jr., Jerrold Nadler, Robert Wexler
Ranking Member, Ranking Member, Member of Congress
House Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on the Constitution
Saturday 6th November 2004 :
URGENT ACTION TO FORCE RECOUNT IN 34 STATES, GAO INVESTIGATES
Black Box Voting’s Bev Harris, the leading authority on e-voting, has
just
lauched the largest Freedom of Information Act request ever for the
audit
trails on the electronic voting machines one third of the country used
in
Tuesday’s election. In order to also force a recount in 34 STATES, Black
Box
is asking all those who want a full recount, who believe the exit polls
were
NOT wrong, to do the following ASAP:
FAX RALPH NADER AT 202-265-0092.
Write this message: Ralph, PLEASE CHALLENGE THE ELECTION RESULTS IN NEW
HAMPSHIRE NOW.
SIGN YOUR NAME AND UNDER IT WRITE: BLACKBOX VOTING.ORG Activist
IF A PRECEDENT CAN BE ESTABLISHED IN NH, A FULL RECOUNT CAN BE FORCED.
NH IS
JUST TO GET THE BALL ROLLING.
Please see www.blackboxvoting.org and volunteer or donate or
www.therandirhodesshow.com Friday Nov. 5th show
AND PASS TO AS MANY PEOPLE AS YOU POSSIBLY CAN!
THE GAO HAS ALSO BEEN ASKED BY THREE CONGRESSMEN TO INVESTIGATE. SEE
LETTER
BELOW.
BUSH HAS NO MANDATE. LET’S PROVE IT.
*** November 5, 2004
The Honorable David M. Walker
Comptroller General of the United States
U.S. General Accountability Office
441 G Street, NW
Washington, DC 20548
Dear Mr. Walker:
We write with an urgent request that the Government Accountability
Office
immediately undertake an investigation of the efficacy of voting
machines
and new technologies used in the 2004 election, how election officials
responded to difficulties they encountered and what we can do in the
future
to improve our election systems and administration.
In particular, we are extremely troubled by the following reports, which
we
would also request that you review and evaluate for us:
In Columbus, Ohio, an electronic voting system gave President Bush
nearly
4,000 extra votes. “Machine Error Gives Bush Extra Ohio Votes,”
Associated
Press, November 5.
An electronic tally of a South Florida gambling ballot initiative failed
to
record thousands of votes. “South Florida OKs Slot Machines Proposal,”
Id.
In one North Carolina county, more than 4,500 votes were lost because
officials mistakenly believed a computer that stored ballots could hold
more
data that it did. “Machine Error Gives Bush Extra Ohio Votes,” Id.
In San Francisco, a glitch occurred with voting machines software that
resulted in some votes being left uncounted. Id.
In Florida, there was a substantial drop off in Democratic votes in
proportion to voter registration in counties utilizing optical scan
machines
that was apparently not present in counties using other mechanisms.
http://ustogether.org/election04/florida_vote_patt.htm
The House Judiciary Committee Democratic staff has received numerous
reports
from Youngstown, Ohio that voters who attempted to cast a vote for John
Kerry on electronic voting machines saw that their votes were instead
recorded as votes for George W. Bush. In South Florida, Congressman
Wexler’s
staff received numerous reports from voters in Palm Beach, Broward and
Dade
Counties that they attempted to select John Kerry but George Bush
appeared
on the screen. CNN has reported that a dozen voters in six states,
particularly Democrats in Florida, reported similar problems. This was
among
over one thousand such problems reported. “Touchscreen Voting Problems
Reported,” Associated Press, November 5.
Excessively long lines were a frequent problem throughout the nation in
Democratic precincts, particularly in Florida and Ohio. In one Ohio
voting
precinct serving students from Kenyon College, some voters were required
to
wait more than eight hours to vote. “All Eyes on Ohio,” Dan Lothian,
CNN,
November 3,
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/blog/1…blog/index.htm..
We are literally receiving additional reports every minute and will
transmit
additional information as it comes available. The essence of democracy
is
the confidence of the electorate in the accuracy of voting methods and
the
fairness of voting procAedures. In 2000, that confidence suffered
terribly,
and we fear that such a blow to our democracy may have occurred in 2004.
Thank you for your prompt attention to this inquiry.
Sincerely,
John Conyers, Jr. Jerrold Nadler Robert Wexler
Ranking Member Ranking Member Member of Congress
House Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on the Constitution
cc: Hon. F. James Sensenbrenner
Chairman
Posted by deborah conner on Nov 8, 2004 at 11:34 AM
Yep, He hit the nail on the head, sorry guys. The future ain’t what it should be, is it?
Posted by Snark on Nov 8, 2004 at 4:22 PM
THE HOPE OF A FAILED SUICIDE
By Michael Vincent McGinnis
Language and knowledge perish with the first bomb. Our sadly earthly frames lie against this earth—the earth’s depth and star will remain bright. We witness the death of the prophets, the guides to a shared future. We have witnessed the history of war and its many forms: the militaristic appropriation of Islam, the crusades of Christianity,
the global economy of the “state”, and the appropriation of Buddha by capitalistic zealots and warlords. Buddha smiles.
Violence is the curse of this age, the scent of this age. Violence is primodial. We can speak of the injustice of war: in war, the glass keys of security and peace are broken.
The church bells are silenced. Despair fills the air. A theatre of war crimes exposed.
In war, we test the earth and stain it with our loneliness. The child dies in the first winter storm. Our wars create a sense of species loneliness. Smart bombs, cannons, daisy cutters, E-bombs – on flocks of birds. Our bombs explode and consume this earth.
The accursed share, our passion for warfare and drive to consume, marks the end of life – a global potlatch with dead remnants and the broken pieces of god spread out.
Do you support the death of culture and nature?
In the eyes of a bird with a broken beak,
Is the broken face of love.
Posted by M.V. McGinnis on Nov 8, 2004 at 4:55 PM
Hey, Kurt—from a contemporary and part-time Hoosier—we can’t afford to give up! How hopelessly sad to hand down such a worldview to tens of thousands of babies and children whose every impulse is to live and grow and love and sing! Hopelessness? Never go there, guy! It’ll eat you alive!
Posted by jean gerard on Nov 9, 2004 at 8:35 AM
The simple fact is we are fkd. Humans are a cancer on the planet. Either we reduce our numbers and bad habits or die off soon or kill the planet. Sorry. No happy endings.
Posted by The Secretary on Nov 15, 2004 at 6:37 PM
When did Vonnegut become such a dope? Everything I read of his these days is pure tripe. Lot’s of vigorous literary moping with little or no basis in reality.
Maybe I’m the one who’s changed, and he was always this way.
Posted by skipkent on Nov 16, 2004 at 1:02 PM
Constantly risking absurdity…
http://www.cnn.com/video/us/2002/02/25/ashcroft.sings.wbtv.med.html
“Like it’s not creepy enough that everyone’s favorite terminally bitter ultraconservative Christian US attorney general actually has himself anointed with cooking oil upon the assumption of every public office he has ever held.”—SF Gate 03/08/02
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2002/03/08/notes030802.DTL
The world will end not with a bang, but lots of alternating wimpering and giggling.
Posted by Tim Christopher on Nov 16, 2004 at 6:38 PM
Welp, this is the third, or is it the forth, time it is supposed to be the end of the world in my lifetime.
Wish it would hurry up and happen, I was pretty bummed that y2k didn’t do it. I won’t go hungry till I run out of neighboors and wood to cook them on. Waiting willingly for the end.
I didn’t wanna pay my whole mortgage off anyways, and I have plenty of steely knives.
Posted by Bill on Nov 16, 2004 at 8:21 PM
skipkent wonders:
“When did Vonnegut become such a dope? Everything I read of his these days
is pure tripe. Lot’s of vigorous literary moping with little or no basis in
reality.
“Maybe I’m the one who’s changed, and he was always this way.”
Mebbe. BUT— here, in less than 500 words, his efforts got YOU to respond.
The old guy must still have it! After all, ~100,000 Iraqi citizens, mostly
women and children, and over 1000 American soldiers have been killed in an
unprovoked attack led by a president who has misled (yea, verily lied) to
his people, his nation acting alone and in defiance of the world community,
and using the very same rationale that the Nazis and the Kaiser used for the
last two big wars— and YOU didn’t say a word about that!
BTW, what exactly was the “no basis in reality” part?
Maybe you should turn off the TV. Murdoch pretty much owns it now. Also owns
part of DirecTV, incase you’re tempted. And guess what? The Carlyle Group
now owns a third of America’s theaters. Aren’t you glad the Right cares what
movies you see? No end of that old vigorous literary moping. And thank the
gods they’ve covered up Justice’s breasts with taxpayers money. Guess they
made that old eagle fly.
Shadows reel. It’s their world now, and their new Hitler Youth, the Tribs,
will fight to last drop of blood. That’s who’s running this show, their gaze blank and pitiless.
Oil? It just plays along. They know how much is there, what they can get for it.
As long as they have the cheap labor of America’s enlisted, they go for it.
They milk the Feds with contracts, Halliburton, Bechtel, all their spawn.
The endless utility of the Puritan soul merchants.
You guys backed off a bit after your Rathergate set up. Now you’re back on the job.
It’s really a waste of money, you know. The internet is the one place you never had.
GOD FORGIVE AMERICA
More here:
http://www.soros.org/initiatives/washington/articles_publications/publications/iraq_20041112/iraq_Transition.pdf
Posted by deborah conner on Nov 17, 2004 at 7:42 AM
Bill said:
I was pretty bummed that y2k didn’t do it.>>
That was Gary North’s baby, y2k. He sure built up a good base of contacts with it, dinne.
He is / was one of the archons of the Christian Stealth movement. They’ve pulled it off, folks. We’re two steps away from their total control. Now they purge. That man who burned himself in front of the white house? Listen to him.
Google up john o’neil ... the blood dimmed tide begins.
It can happen here.
Posted by deborah conner on Nov 17, 2004 at 7:54 AM
so what. the earth is old, very old. the quicker homosapiens are gone, the sooner other life will evolve unharassed - we’re just a drop in the evolutionary bucket. It’s just too bad that we’re taking so many innocent with us. cb
Posted by cbrownell on Nov 17, 2004 at 4:22 PM
Regarding humanity’s use of fossil fuels:
1. Renewables won’t work as an energy source - they generate electricity, and hence do not drive aeroplanes, ships or trucks. They are also give a very poor return on investment, and since my party went down the drain we are obliged to live in a market driven capitalist society which only operates if there is a profit.
This means the end of trade, both international and intranational.
2. Fossil fuels make plastics, which means almost every artifact you touch.
3. Fossil fuels make fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides and plant and reap. This means the end of industrial agriculture, something over 90% of the world food supply.
Posted by Don Topley on Nov 19, 2004 at 1:42 AM
Phooey, you guys. All of you. It’s the mind set that’s the limiting factor. Simple lack of imagination and greed.
I agree oil has to go. Even Ashcroft knows to use vegetable oil when he anoints himself.
But all that about alt. energy being no good is just Reagan-speak. It keeps us in oil, and it just ain’t TRUE. Look what a 10 sec google search turns up:
http://www.shell.com/home/Framework?siteId=hydrogen-en
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/04/0422_030422_veggiefuels.html
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/10/1028_041028_alternative_energy.html
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0103/earthpulse/
*** and don’t miss: ****
http://www.yellowbiodiesel.com/
Bear with me minute. Please.
It’s the heart that gets us places. The will to go on. It got us here. It’s the only thing that ever HAS gotten us here. Somewhere, someone in terrible pain and sorrow didn’t throw in the towel. We’re obligated to do the same, if only in their memory.
One of the first goals of propaganda is having the opposition lose heart. Hence O’Reilley and Rush and the other little weasel clones. Please, just see them for what they are. Laugh at them. Enough of you have already turned off the tube. Now quit buying their stuff. And if any of your companies have any money left, or any of you have anything in a 401K, pull it out of whatever stocks its in and take it to Working Assets or Pax and make you’re only empowering good things. We may not have much, but there’s an awful, awful lot of us.
Much scarier than CO2 damage is messing with genetics re crops. Nature can heal herself if you don’t mix up her innards. Let her decide when to mutate. Because we don’t control this. We don’t. And maybe consider this: maybe slowing down some of the biotech changes, misguided as the Holy Chosen of CBN are, might make for some happy accident, some avoidance of some unexpected horror. We don’t know how it works, really. So relax. You don’t have to bloom the roses or think for your liver. Yes—by the gods, nukes are bad news. But it was the simple gift of Prometheus, fire, that lit the very air of Dresden. Machetes do very well to kill people in Africa, and nothing has ever compared to smallpox, bubonic plague, or simple diarrhea in efficacy.
People. There IS enough food to go around. It just doesn’t go around.
THAT we can change.
I keep hearing this thing about humans having lost their right to the planet, that we’re a cancer and it’s only right that we get snuffed. But don’t you see you’re only playing into a variant of the crazy Armageddon mindset that’s leading Bush, Condi, Perle, Falwell and all the other arrogant fish folk over the edge? We aren’t a cancer, except when we’re greedy, and that’s an impulse we can check. We have checked it in the past, ELSE WE WOULDN’T BE HERE. We aren’t some infestation on the holy mother planet: we’re OF her, her very eyes and ears and heart. Let’s be that. Deserve that. Deserve our own children, that’s what we need to do.
Now you get back up on that wagon train. We have to get over the next mountain, and it’s gettin cold tonight.
Anyone bring a harmonica?
Posted by deborah conner on Nov 19, 2004 at 7:31 AM
You people are weird.
I have never before read so many posts from persons who truly believe the end of the world is near.
Peak Oil will be no problem.
First thing you all need to look at is how much of the total energy consumption of the World is from Oil?
Once that relity is brought to your attention you may understand that it is possible to replace this paltry sum with another reasonable alternative.
Coal for example. There is more coal out there than the human race can use.
Nuclear Fission has not yet been mastered yet either. And that simply created helium out of hydrogen. A relitavly ineret substance with the potential to fuel this planet forever!
And by forever I mean far longer than the sun will continue to burn. (which is moot because the expanding gas clout of the red dwarf that our star will become will burn us up long before we run out of hydrogen to turn into helium)
And we have plenty of other alternatives. The most promising of which are bio fuels.
We have enough farmland to grow all the energy the world needs right here in the US. We just need to realize that this might cause the price to go up a bit, but not much.
A kilowatt of energy might go for $10 instead of $6.
So all of you pessismists out there who are killing yourselves with stress…you just keep on keeping on. Once you keel over the rest of us will slap you into a boiler and the tv your burning body will power.
Chris
Posted by chris on Nov 23, 2004 at 11:26 AM
” We have enough farmland to grow all the energy the world needs right here in the US”
Our farm output would plummet without the massive quantities of natural gas & fossil fuels for chemical fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides. Modern agriculture all over the world absolutely depends on these inputs, that was part of the “green revolution”.
BTW, it’s probably hard to believe but in 2005 the USA is projected to have the first agricultural DEFICIT since the 1940s:
http://www.pjstar.com/stories/120704/ALA_B4UEM1VT.027.shtml”
Each calorie of food you consume was produced using TEN calories of fossil fuels to grow it and get it to your plate.
There is lots of coal, but that too will run out if we switch to it as our primary transportation fuel. And it is very dirty, much dirtier than oil & natural gas.
Posted by Eric on Dec 20, 2004 at 6:24 AM
It’s time we woke up to the situation with oil. Having lived through the AIDs crises during the 80’s I can attest first hand that watching your loved ones and close friends die slowly and painfully is not a pleasant site.
As a society I feel we are on a major suicide mission because we don’t want to accept the fact that we can’t live the way we do on a limited resource that we “steal” from other nations to live as we do.
Personally, I don’t think John Kerry would have done any more to change our current conservation or energy policies had he won. His whole attitude in giving in about the election stunned me, but convinced me that he was as corrupted by the system that gave us our current administration.
Posted by Philip Botwinick on Jan 15, 2005 at 4:15 PM
Posted by Eric: “Our farm output would plummet without the massive quantities of natural gas & fossil fuels for chemical fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides. Modern agriculture all over the world absolutely depends on these inputs, that was part of the “green revolution”.
Because of the attitudes that this behavior is acceptable and that finding alternatives is not all that critical, we are stuck with the scenario described above. And our soils won’t grow what they once could because chemicals in such large quantities were used and now even larger quantities are used to force more vegetation to come up. Proper, sustainable farming practices long ago became rare and are only relatively recently becoming common practice in certain areas of America, mostly on small farms.
Rather than tell us all what we have known for some time, why not spend your energy exploring how alternatives can be brought to market. Why not suggest how the tobacco companies who are dying to get us back into the dying business can, instead, become major suppliers of capital to jumpstart the alternative fuel industry. This administration will also drive farmers out of business, after lulling them into believing they should vote neocon, so why not find a way for farmers to keep their farms from agribusiness hands and grow the future alternative energy we so desperately need.
People with attitudes of complacency and apathy and those with the arrogance to claim that this is the way it is, live with it, are among the destroyers. Go away and come back with some ideas; participate in making things better; solve some problems; get your head out of the oil.
Posted by 1nonservilepeasant on Jan 16, 2005 at 9:40 AM
Chris posted: “So all of you pessismists out there who are killing yourselves with stress…you just keep on keeping on. Once you keel over the rest of us will slap you into a boiler and the tv your burning body will power.” And, “We have enough farmland to grow all the energy the world needs right here in the US. We just need to realize that this might cause the price to go up a bit, but not much. A kilowatt of energy might go for $10 instead of $6.”
People need to stress but, to keep it from harming them mentally and physically, need to be active in solving the problems that cause them stress. More discussion is what we all need because such discussions help to spur us into action.
Many Americans are beginning to find out what striving for the lowest possible prices for all their goods is doing to our economy. Many years ago I recall reading several pieces of information from some studies demonstrating that, if Americans were willing to pay an average of 7% more for their food, all farmers could then make a profit and remove the choke collar of agribusiness. Would I be willing to spend an additional $28 per month for food to achieve such a beneficial goal? You betcha! Then, finally, American cities across the nation would engage in community supported agriculture (CSA) using organic farming practices that will rebuild the soil.
We all know that as the rungs of the corporate ladder get higher, the less those occupying those positions suffer financially. And we know that real wages for those of us on the lower rungs are continually getting so much lower that lower consumer prices aren’t low enough. Neo-inflationism courtesy of the neoconservatives? Jobs are going away by the millions and being replaced with much lower paying positions. This administration wants us all to become servers/consumers while the rest of the world supplies us with manufactured goods and food. What’s next, empire-building to sustain the flow of imports for our survival?
And this administration wants to continue the consumption of fossil fuels for the good of those occupying the upper rungs of the ladder. And it wants us to be so foolish as to believe that the paltry amount of fossil fuel in the ANWR is going to help oil prices and save us from foreign oil. This administration is leading by the nose those Americans who are willing to drink the neocon swill. The false claim of the benefits of oil from the ANWR is another method of lulling us back to the deadly sleep of complacency and apathy that will further delay the driving forces necessary to jump-start the alternative fuel industry and its stakeholder chain. Alternative energy sources, the equipment used in energy transmission, the related industries that will develop, the advanced technology that will develop in the processes, and the millions of people in America who could be employed long-term would constitute the largest and most profitable industry the world has ever seen for many decades to come.
And it will save the world. Why aren’t we doing something about it jump-starting it? Write your newspapers, magazines, Senators, and Representatives. Gather in groups and discuss ideas. Consult with universities. Help raise funds for research. Peak oil is definitely going to be a problem if we do not act now in significant ways (and increased use of coal is a very bad idea!). Enough with the depression already! Get active!
Posted by 1nonservilepeasant on Jan 16, 2005 at 11:27 AM
Philip posted: “As a society I feel we are on a major suicide mission because we don’t want to accept the fact that we can’t live the way we do on a limited resource that we “steal” from other nations to live as we do.”
Well said, Philip. Our lives are at stake and yet mainstream newspapers and magazines rarely mention how critically we need all-out efforts in America to be the leaders in saving the planet from itself. We cannot make the rapid progress we need in changing from fossil fuels by minimal efforts or wasteful efforts or fake efforts. Most other “first-“, “second-“, or “third-world” nations are way ahead of America in the realization of the deadly results of too little action to correct our course. I hope that everyone reading or participating in this thread is actively doing what they can to assist in the efforts of the many organizations in America that are getting the word out as best they can.
Many of these organizations have the money required to fight legal battles and to mount lobbying campaigns. I’m happy to supply anyone who wants them many names and URL’s of organizations actively involved in environmental efforts. The more the numbers of participants grow, the more likely it will be that corrective actions in governmental policies at every level will be implemented.
Americans are going to have to become very noisy public “nuisances” to help drive meaningful positive actions. Or have we given up on government of the people, by the people, and for the people? Are we at the point of governance by those who ignore the servile peasants except to ensure that just enough capital is distributed among them to spend and thereby keep the coffers of the nobles filled?
Posted by 1nonservilepeasant on Jan 16, 2005 at 12:41 PM
Kurt, I have enjoyed your writing for years but I cannot buy into the lack of hope presented by your article. While the rape of the earth is a fact, peak oil is a fact, global warming, etc are facts, so is the the human ability to build better mousetraps and learn from his mistakes. Foraging for berries and living in caves is not the answer. Going back through time we see our species, starting with using a sharpened stick to get the really good termites out of the nest to eat, then learning how to make stone tools and kill concentrated protein (which led to the first population explosion, leisure time, art, etc (since man now did not have to forage for plant protein for the better part of daylight hours and now had time to wonder and invent and make symbols on cave walls, leading to your own occupation Mr Vonnegut) on to his harnesing the wind to cross oceans, then to his eventual burning of concentrated sunlight both recent and fossil. The latter resource use is undoubtedly the most consequential in terms of environmental damage but it will not bring about the end of human life on earth. There will be a dimming down of energy consumtion, no doubt, but lets look at how much of a surplus of fossil fuel derived energy we have to work with to facilitate the transition to renewables. There are trillions of cubic feet of natural gas and billions of barrels of oil yet undiscovered. I work in the O&G Industry as a geologist and am on an offshore rig as I write this. Not to toot my own horn, but here is what can be done on a personal level and what WILL be done on a larger scale as market conditions cause it to happen. First I’ll start with my home. I have a typical American home, of 1800 square feet, built last year. The frame is of steel (recyclable) with 8” walls into which fiberglass insulation was blown to give an R Value of 40,. The attic has an R-Value of more that 45. My heat pump uses the temperature of the ground, circulating an antifreeze solutiong 10’ under my yard in a 300’ circle to use the constant temperature of the ground to cool and heat the home. The SEER value of this unit is 28, compared with the most efficient air to air model which is around 17 and the payback for the added cost is 3 years. Inside the home Solatubes direct sunlight into the bathroom, den and kitchen, eliminating the need for daytime lights on most days. Further lighting is provided by compact fluorescent bulbs using about 15 watts each instead of 60 to 100 watts. A “smart home” system of switches and motion sensors enables every light to be turned off when leaving the house. The ground source heat pump also makes a large percentage of my hot water (40-75%) thanks to a desuperheater connected to the water heater. A fiberglass blanket insulates the tank for further savings. An Energy Star refrigerator, washer and dryer cut power use further. All said and done, the home (which is comfortably heated and cooled year round) uses about 650 Kilowatts of mostly fossil fuel derived energy per month for a total energy bill of $65. (Green Mountain Energy sells pure wind derived energy locally for 13 cents per kilowatt, which would raise the cost to about $84 per month.)(I’ll go that route later). Compare that to a traditional home which uses about 4 to 5 times as much! How many solar roof panels, wind farms, etc could we build with the extra $150 to $300 my neighbors are spending EVERY MONTH?! Ok, thats just the house. My previous vehicle, a chevrolet truck with a 305 engine got around 17 miles per gallon. I just bought a used 4-speed, 4-cylinder Toyota truck that is averaging around 28 MPG. I recycle plastics which are made from hydrocarbons, aluminum, which saves tons of watts of electricty, and paper. Now this is just me, ONE GUY, who has cut his energy use to ONE FOURTH of what it once was. Doomsday people, take heart. Others will follow when they feel the crunch, wasteful air conditioners will be replaced, LED light bulbs (which are next and use VERY little power) guzzling cars will gradually be replaced by hybrids and more efficient motors, recycling, carpooling, bus riding, community gardens will spring up to grow food, organic farming will eliminate added fertilizers, large sails will augment diesel engines on cargo ships, bikes will come back (helping end the obesity epedimic) we will share and repair and recycle items instead of everyone owning then throwing them away.. (insert many things), these will all happen, dwindling fossil fuels will continue to be used for at least another 50 years AND, if we don’t all kill each other because of what gods we beleive in by then, we will have expanded renewables and adjusted our population growth rate (already happening) to the POST HYDROCARBON world. It will happen and our children will live on, not in darkness but in a world illuminated by human ingenuity. Peace.
Posted by Elliot on Jan 24, 2005 at 11:50 PM
Well said Elliot. Singing songs of gloom, doom and despair without offering solutions is just lazy and irresponsible. Vonnegut needs to smoke a little of the blessed leaf to ease his depression.
I have a “near zero energy” home, connected to the grid with a rooftop solar setup and two Southwest Windpower windgens. I use a 19 cu’ Sunfrost fridge, from firemountainsolar.com, and our passive solar orienation of the home, with it’s north backside built into a hill lets me heat if with a very minimal amount of wood in the cold Montana winters. Our bills, mostly from the modern convenience of the TV, DVD which cause us to go into energy defecit in the winter, average $20 per month for electricity and $20 for cooking and water heating propane for a family of 5. All this cost us about an extra $20,000 when building our home. How many American homes are built spending $20,000 on fancy extras such as fancy tile, landscaping, etc. In the scheme of things, as an amount added to the mortgage of a new home its not that much. We would be an energy exporter if everyone thought homes like this were as cool as the toys that fill our garages and living rooms. Transition to homes like yours and mine will happen but it will be market pressure that causes this. FIGURE THIS ONE OUT: A 75 watt solar panel costs about $250 or more and is made of glass, silicon and copper with some aluminum thown in. YET, you can go to Wallyworld and buy a 27 inch, color, stereo TV for HALF that. Why, economy of scale, mass production. If everyone started putting solar grid-intertie systems on their roofs the cost would go down and quick.
Lets look at solutions, not get so depressed.
Posted by joehillbilly on Jan 26, 2005 at 9:58 PM
It’s not that hard, give up some of what you have, maybe one of your cars. Why not 4 of your 8 cylinders. Or perhaps 8000 of your 12000 daily calories. Come on North America it’s about time for a real contribution to the globe.
Posted by paul on Feb 4, 2005 at 12:09 AM
The author of this column is absoulutely right, however the end of this society is not necessarily the end of the human race. That depends on how many of us are left after it all comes crashing down, and how devistated the natural environment is. We may yet be able to take up the tribal ways of our ancestors and reform societies worth being a part of.
Posted by Hurin on Feb 13, 2005 at 2:05 AM
‘The End Is Near’ Oct 29, 2004
Hurin wrote: “We may yet be able to take up the tribal ways of our ancestor’s and reform societies worth being a part of.”
Hey Hurin, Just what idyllic ancestral tribe would that be?
No doubt there were some relatively enlightened groups along the way, but then just as surely,
they were either rubbed out by Nordic giant’s or simply swallowed up by the earth: kind of like Raquel Welch (Loana) in the movie ‘One Million Years B.C.’, only without the happy endings.
You could argue however, that individual survivor’s of these now extinct tribes managed to somehow sidle through history, riding mules perhaps, and eventually emerged in the twentieth century as the Democratic Party. But then, that scenario only goes on to show that nice guys always finish last.
No, make no mistake about it, the human race is inherently doomed.
First it was the great big animals with the pea sized brains that roamed about the planet devouring everything in their path; and now,
homina homina Homo sapien’s (with the great big brains) are driving the bus… promising, “One of these days, Alice, one of these days!”
America, you know, for all it’s faults, is still thought of by many as the best tribe or collection of tribes on the planet. We are the inventor’s of
the pneumatic nail gun, among other good things, although it does have the inherent probability (like so many other things) of sending a tenpenny
nail, lickety-split, through your skull just when you least expect it.
And now, the ones with the great big and brawny brains are gearing up to produce a fully mechanized and mobile robotic army. Hey presto!
...doomed, I tell you.
Who needs Arnold?
http://www.stern.de/_content/50/82/508282/xray.swf
Posted by Tim Christopher on Feb 16, 2005 at 8:21 PM
Tim Christopher wrote: “No, make no mistake about it, the human race is inherently doomed.”
Yep, humans are the destroyers and we’re like termites eating our home world. But we are not doomed unless we remain inactive in bringing about major changes. Very soon, the rest of the world will show us where we are in the social, political, and economic “food chain.” When this administration finishes destroying our economy and makes us a nation of consumers and servers dependent on the rest of the world to supply us; when the corporations have us where they want us with our disposable income; when the power is consolidated among the richest and we poor, dumb bipeds incapable of leading ourselves can then be “properly” led, then we will be at the mercy of those more progressive societies and cultures.
Whaddaya say we don’t let it get that far? Let’s take our country back and start healing America. Let’s lead the world in healing our home world. We can choose not to be doomed.
Posted by 1nonservilepeasant on Feb 16, 2005 at 9:08 PM
1nonservilepeasant wrote: “Very soon, the rest of the world will show us where we are in the social, political, and economic “food chain.”
And sooner than the one’s with the great big brains predict, I (humbly) agree.
http://slate.msn.com/id/2112697/
At the end of this article: ”... [the] NIC report paints a world where fewer and fewer people look to America as a model of anything. We can’t sell freedom if we can’t sell ourselves. “
Of course you and I know that the purpose for invading Iraq wasn’t to proffer freedom - that whole selling point is Johnny-come-lately, coming only after WMD and “evil dictator” were no longer useful in maintaining an illusion of righteousness on the part of the neo-cons whose goal it is to dominate and control the earths resources as part of some perverted Darwinian power grab. (PNAC)
Even the Vatican has expressed speculation that our President Bush may very well be the anti-Christ. Christians are sensing the end, their biblical moment of rapture. Therefore, they will not attempt to avert man’s fate or save the earth, but encourage it’s hastened path towards judgment. Lets not forget, our President takes his orders directly from God - he said so, himself.
And not only has mankind (irrevocably) squandered the planet’s resources like there’s no tomorrow, as Vonnegut persuasively points out, but now, the neo-cons are also spending our money like there’s no tomorrow, as well. Yet another sure sign the end is near and perhaps all part of an even greater global conspiracy to conquer the U.S.
There was speculation of this idea even before the Y2K election, that Bush/Rove represented an ideal mindset/candidate with the same gullible profile as former President LBJ. Johnson, it should be remembered, refused to run for re-election not for any other reason than he understood that he had been duped.
You see the world as a glass half full, I see the earth wobbling precariously through space on it’s finite journey. To rally the kind of mass support necessary in order to overcome the all powerful grip of special interests, fully ingrained into western culture, will now take nothing short of a new, bona fide, Messiah - quite literally. Good luck with THAT.
Mark my words: The U.S. is destined to explode just like “Mr. Creosote” in Monty Python’s comic opera, ‘The Meaning of Life’... and there’s absolutely nothing, at this stage of the game,
that you can do about it. Ah, with but one exception, I should add… to acquiesce to the fact that you cannot change the world… and then carry on from there.
Posted by Tim Christopher on Feb 17, 2005 at 1:07 PM
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Reader Comments
I am very sorry to see you carry the advertisement on your site, not on the front page, but inside each article, claiming to offer a “Free Laptop”. Please look at the ad—It is, like many spam messages, a fake. It requires you to complete 6 sponsor promotions, like get a new cell phone or a new credit card. So the free laptop is not free at all. I am sad to see this type of ad in “In These Times”. May I please ask your reason for continuing to run these deceptive ads?
No one is really going to like this, Kurt, but the truth is often a bitter pill, in this case a cyanide capsule.
Hydrocarbon humankind is about to get swift kick in the drawers. This will create the beginning of wars and land grabs (e.g. NOW) as the haves go up against the have-nots and in the end, as is always the case of the end, there will be barbarians at the gates.
What’s next? This ain’t going to kill all of us. Just most.
Alas,this experiment in inteligent life is about to fail.I hope its successful in some other part of the universe
i agree with you kurt, in fact i probably have much more facts conceding this FACT (about the fate of the human on this planet)as i’m in the industry to know about this, i am a fisheries biologist. but there are positive things going on despite what george does. there are many independent groups and agencies out there trying to make a difference. i’m asking you, kurt, what you do to make a difference, you write this pessimistic article about us just having to give up, as it’s already too late. perhaps you want to energize people. but how much of your millions do you drop to environmental groups. The nature conservancy? union of concerned scientists? nature resource defense council? wilderness society? you probably give a lot, i don’t know. but your article pushes me to think futility and apathy should be embraced.
email me, darling.
What do you mean by intelligent life? We’ve plucked out all our feathers and dove out of the nest. Flap, Flap thud.
Wait. It ain’t over. What Beat My Heart says it ain’t over.
There’s no difference? 3 things:
***
#1 The Repugs voted for nukes
Senate RollVote Nuclear Weapons, summer 04
fastfact: Senate Republicans voted against eliminating funding for nukes
The 55-42 roll call by which the Senate voted to reject an amendment to the defense authorization bill that would have eliminated funding for research into “bunker buster” warheads.
On this vote, a “yes” vote was a vote to approve the amendment and a “no” vote was a vote to reject it.
Voting “yes” (to approve eliminating funding) were 41 Democrats and 1 Republican.
Voting “no” were 50 Republicans and 5 Democrats.
Democrats voting to eliminate nuke funding:
Akaka, Hawaii; Baucus, Mont.; Biden, Del.; Bingaman, N.M.; Boxer, Calif.; Breaux, La.; Byrd, W.Va.; Cantwell, Wash.; Carper, Del.; Clinton, N.Y.; Conrad, N.D.; Corzine, N.J.; Daschle, S.D.; Dayton, Minn.; Dodd, Conn.; Dorgan, N.D.; Durbin, Ill.; Edwards, N.C.; Feingold, Wis.; Feinstein, Calif.; Graham, Fla.; Harkin, Iowa; Inouye, Hawaii; Johnson, S.D.; Kennedy, Mass.; Kohl, Wis.; Landrieu, La.; Lautenberg, N.J.; Levin, Mich.; Lieberman, Conn.; Lincoln, Ark.; Mikulski, Md.; Murray, Wash.; Pryor, Ark.; Reed, R.I.; Reid, Nev.; Rockefeller, W.Va.; Sarbanes, Md.; Schumer, N.Y.; Stabenow, Mich.; Wyden, Ore. (Republicans: Chafee, R.I.)
Republicans voting to allow nuke funding:
Alexander, Tenn.; Allard, Colo.; Allen, Va.; Bennett, Utah; Bond, Mo.; Brownback, Kan.; Bunning, Ky.; Burns, Mont.; Campbell, Colo.; Chambliss, Ga.; Cochran, Miss.; Coleman, Minn.; Collins, Maine; Cornyn, Texas; Craig, Idaho; Crapo, Idaho; DeWine, Ohio; Dole, N.C.; Domenici, N.M.; Ensign, Nev.; Enzi, Wyo.; Fitzgerald, Ill.; Frist, Tenn.; Graham, S.C.; Grassley, Iowa; Gregg, N.H.; Hagel, Neb.; Hatch, Utah; Hutchison, Texas; Inhofe, Okla.; Kyl, Ariz.; Lott, Miss.; Lugar, Ind.; McCain, Ariz.; McConnell, Ky.; Murkowski, Alaska; Nickles, Okla.; Roberts, Kan.; Santorum, Pa.; Sessions, Ala.; Shelby, Ala.; Smith, Ore.; Snowe, Maine; Specter, Pa.; Stevens, Alaska; Sununu, N.H.; Talent, Mo.; Thomas, Wyo.; Voinovich, Ohio; Warner, Va. (Democrats: Bayh, Ind.; Hollings, S.C.; Miller, Ga.; Nelson, Fla.; Nelson, Neb.)
***
#2 Who served? The hypocrisy is staggering.
Republicans
Dennis Hastert: did not serve.
Tom Delay: did not serve.
House Whip Roy Blunt: did not serve.
Bill Frist: did not serve.
Rudy Giuliani: did not serve.
George Pataki: did not serve.
Mitch McConnell: did not serve.
Rick Santorum: did not serve.
Trent Lott: did not serve.
Dick Cheney: did not serve. Had “other priorities.” Several deferments, the last for wife’s pregnancy.
John Ashcroft: did not serve. Seven deferments to teach business.
Jeb Bush: did not serve.
Karl Rove: did not serve.
Saxby Chambliss: did not serve. “Bad knee.” The man who attacked Max
Cleland’s patriotism.
Paul Wolfowitz: did not serve.
Vin Weber: did not serve.
Richard Perle: did not serve.
Douglas Feith: did not serve.
Eliot Abrams: did not serve.
Richard Shelby: did not serve.
Jon Kyl: did not serve.
Tim Hutchison: did not serve.
Christopher Cox: did not serve.
Newt Gingrich: did not serve.
Donald Rumsfeld: served in Navy (1954-57) as aviator and flight instructor.
George W. Bush: six-year Nat’l Guard commitment (in four years) with father’s help; questions about his service remain.
Ronald Reagan: made war propaganda movies.
Gerald Ford: Navy, WWII
Phil Gramm: did not serve.
John McCain: Silver Star, Bronze Star, Legion of ! Merit, Purple Heart and
Distinguished Flying Cross.
Bob Dole: Army officer WWII.
Chuck Hagel: two Purple Hearts and a Bronze Star, Vietnam.
Duke Cunningham: nominated for Medal of Honor, Navy Cross, SilverStars, AirMedals, Purple Hearts.
Jeff Sessions: Army Reserves, 1973-1986
JC Watts: did not serve.
Lindsey Graham: National Guard lawyer.
G.H.W. Bush: Pilot in WWII. Shot down by the Japanese.
Tom Ridge: Bronze Star for Valor in Vietnam.
Antonin Scalia: did not serve.
Clarence Thomas: did not serve
Pundits & Preachers
Sean Hannity: did not serve.
Rush Limbaugh: did not serve (4-F with a ‘pilonidal cyst.’)
Bill O’Reilly: did not serve.
Michael Savage: did not serve.
George Will: did not serve.
Chris Matthews: did not serve.
Paul Gigot: did not serve.
Bill Bennett: did not serve.
Pat Buchanan: did not serve.
Bill Kristol: did not serve.
Kenneth Starr: did not serve.
Michael Medved: did not serve
***
#3 The Repugs are in the maw of the demiurge: Crazy. Selling Armageddon http://www.jungcircle.com/muse/Lahaye.html
***
and # 4 and all the rest to ... infinity:
What beats my heart?
This wisdom that knows how to beat a heart:
it beats all hearts.
It’s here right now—birthing in every breath
saying
Let peace begin
with me
love deborah http://jungcircle.com/muse
The only good can from your intelligence is positive thinking, your reality about how bad things are has an equaly positive one, and that one needs to be addressed just as the negative reality.
If i missed a pass in the football game and blew the game, i would be upset and it would feel like my life was over, but there is still another game, another season, another year, i mean , the only way to feel good about completing a pass or catching the game winning pass is by dropping a few along the way, so we dropped a few passes in the years,
if rush limbaugh was a big of a fat ass back then as he is now, he should be embarassed to bitch about john kerry’s service in vietnam. at least kerry went. limbaugh just hung out and ate enough food to keep a third world country alive in one sitting.
I love Kurt Vonnegut’s books to death. Sad or not, while I was growing up they gave me something that I wasn’t able to find anywhere else, and I cherish him as an author to this day. With that being said, I have to slightly disagree with Mr. Vonnegut’s opinion expressed above. It is true that if I could choose the next president, it would be neither Kerry nor Bush. But I can’t agree that there is no difference between them. Bush has taken this country on a rampage of destruction, cheating, and pursuit of personal interests. (personal meaning the interests of himself, Cheney, and the richest 5% of the Americans). Kerry hasn’t done that yet. And there is a good reason to believe that he would not go as far as this administration has gone in the last four years. The common sense factor, evidently lacking in Bush, seems to have mild influence in John Kerry’s world. And that might be what we need right now. UNFORTUNATELY Mr. Vonnegut, this is not one of your books. In the real world politics is meant to be dirty, thus we can’t be looking for perfection. What we need right now is to stop the recklessness. Thus who will be the next president does matter.
About the fact that we are destroying our planet, and no one (who can) seems to be doing anything about it, I can’t agree more.
Well, Kurt Vonnegut - you may be right. Then again, you may be wrong. The last time I checked, there were no omniscient human beings. Those who forget they don’t know everything seriously detract from our chances of survival, case in point with C-students from Yale. However, I know I don’t know. So I say, there may be hope for the junior prom yet. As the mother of a sophomore and a clergy person in your loosely-affliated denomination, I am stubbornly hanging on to the saving grace of uncertainty. What happened? When did you let go and get stuck in the mire of terra firma beliefa? I have admired you for so long, don’t fail me now, man! With affection, Elaine
Dear Mr. Vonnegut, ever the Pollyanna? I love you Brother. Live and write for as long as you want. They may have killed us all. Hi Ho.
To say that there’s no difference is to admit that you’ve lost the capacity to grasp either differences or distinctions. Ideal candidates we don’t have, but of the two major party candidates, one has a decent record and the other is leading this country into some kind of abyss. It’s hard to believe that a writer of such power could write so ignorantly.
What about solar energy ? What about wind energy ? What about hydroenergy ? Why think everything depends on oil and the endless repetition of old mistakes ?
People still have the capacity to learn, people are able and allowed to simply drop out of the consumption craze and boycott idiocy, people aren’t necessarily fools, people outside and inside the USA survive on a steady diet of almost nothing, people can talk to dolphins and whales and birds to ask for help and information, please don’t give up hope. It will take some time before we clean up the mess we inherited, but nobody is forced to add to it.
Who needs a president anyway ?
“We will drill everywhere [except ANWAR] and we will drill like never before.” John Kerry to union officials 2004
Voting against the Kyoto Treaty last time around… John Kerry.
Official number 1 energy alternative in Democratic Party platform: nuclear energy.
Distinctions between Dems and Repubs abound, but none significant enough to change the direction downward that Mr. Vonnegut describes. If only we would listen to our wise elders (including Mr. Nader).
Boom, boom. Bye, bye.
No amount of Green optimism can turn back time, or alter the larger course of human nature. We lit off our Ice-9 long ago, and the tipping point for the world has past. If “Galapagos” had been non-fiction, it still would have been too late for the biosphere to recover. So it goes…
Pleasant baloney, but baloney none the less. Cry in your beer for degradation of the earth, or stand up and fight for it.
there are great things to come
As we all know and occasionally, in our private moments, admit, cars have their good points. For example, say an attractive person is standing on a lonely street corner, waiting for a ride that’s already thirty minutes late. It’s raining. It’s hailing. Rats are present, big, toothy ones. You can’t cruise up to the corner on your bicycle and say, “Can I give you a lift?” What would you be offering? A seat on the handlebars, and the tires spritzing rainwater with each revolution. That’s not going to get you anywhere with this attractive person. Just because people are attractive doesn’t mean they’re stupid.
hmm, I thinks its about time we all join ELF.
Someone implied that voting for Nader would be the right thing to do in this mess. Well, I have a problem believing this. Voting for Nader would be the same as voting for Bush. Choosing to focus on Nader’s philosophy is nice. But it also means choosing to ignore the rest of the reality: Nader will not become the next president. Bush is a threat. Kerry is the only feasible way to remove this threat.
Casting a vote for the person who demonstrates the highest moral standards may seem to be the right thing to do – the right cause, the wrong effect. Morality is not only about interpreting and reacting honestly to what you see, it’s also choosing how much to see.
And btw, what is ELF?
We will not destrroy the planet. Mother Earth does not live from us, we live from her. She will say no, and that’s that.
The end is always near. It always has been, eh?
“Whether it is to be Utopia or Oblivion will be a touch-and-go relay race right up to the final moment.”—R. Buckminster Fuller
There’s more hydrogen in the known universe than anything else so it should be a no-brainer what the best energy source to tap into should be. It’s out there—“Oh, the humanity!” See also: Freeman Dyson’s idea of exploring the universe by means of farting hydrogen.
What concerns ME the most, is that the second most abundant element in the universe, Helium, happens to be rather scarce on our little planet and has the uncanny knack of escaping us every chance it gets. And yet, we can’t help using it to express what little joys we have and we would all like to talk like Donald Duck, if only for a brief moment.
The importance of the U.S. monopoly of this limited resource however, has not been lost on the military/ geopolitical strategist’s and accounts for the recent, quiet siphoning of the “Bush Dome” helium reserve—to whereabouts unknown.
So besides floating tons of synthetic coated fiber in the shape of familiar cartoon characters down Fifth Avenue every Thanksgiving Day, and so on, helium is essential for the making and maintaining of nuclear bombs. The hotter the hot, you see, the more we need precious helium.
What perfect irony. See also: Slim Pickens in (movie) “Dr. Strangelove.”
Where is Dr. Barnhouse when you need him?
Mr. Vonnegut’s writing has been very important to me since high school. I am so happy to know that he holds many of the same positions that I do. That said, I am not prepared to write off our existence just yet.
I believe that there is a way to fight the burning addiction and bring about changes that might just stave off our demise.
A smart campaign for divestiture of renewable energy from commodities based combustible energy corporations (oil & coal, mainly) could be waged by cluing the public in to the ethics of the modern day corporation.
If we could help the public understand that corporate ethics prohibit the corporation from acting on behalf of society unless that action will benefit the bottom line, then we would have a chance at fostering change. While people know that corporations are not benevolent, most do not think that they are malevolent. Given the realites of Hubbert’s peak, energy companies would be acting unethically if they were to do anything to promote renewable energy. They are mandated by corporate ethics to mothball renewables so that they can experience the totality of revenue streams from fossil fuels as we move from a demand based market to a supply based market.
This public is ripe for this kind of approach. Multinational corporations are not very popular with Americans these days. The true scope of their malfeasance has been hidden quite effectively by their fellow media corporations. I believe that the public would be very upset if their true nature were to be exposed.
Renewable energy divestiture is a great way to expose corporate apathy for the well being of society. It would pave the way for all kinds of actions against these artificial persons.
There is no reason why we should be giving in to these criminals. Even if we have crossed our environmental Rubicon, that is no reason to allow these scumbags to reap record profits from our current and future well being.
roger leblanc : cite sources.
Hunny, Nukes is Cheney’s baby. And nukes just ain’t economical energy wise, except for Bechtel who made its profit upfront and ran. Nuke terrorism? The old plants are now leaching into the water.
As for Kerry, you’re just misinformed.
a quick google:
http://216.239.41.104/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&q=cache:http://www.startribune.com/stories/562/5011374.html
Last update: October 6, 2004 at 9:12 AM
Environment: Kerry’s record outshines even Gore’s
Robert Braile
October 3, 2004 BRAILE1003
When John Kerry is asked about his environmental record, he often refers to lessons his mother taught him about “responsibility to this world,” to a speech he gave in Massachusetts on the first Earth Day in 1970, to an acid rain commission he led as that state’s lieutenant governor, and to victories he claims as a U.S. senator on marquee issues from coral reefs to climate change.
It is a telling response. While Kerry has a glittering environmental record by most accounts, it reflects a distinct taste for Brussels over Boston—for the more glamorous international and national issues of the day, over the more provincial issues that might normally preoccupy a senator. Or, at least, a senator not eyeing the Oval Office.
Not that Kerry has neglected the Bay State in what he calls his “commitment of a lifetime.” Supporters say he has helped over the years in cleaning up Boston Harbor, the Massachusetts Military Reservation and the Housatonic River, showing political courage in the latter two cases, especially, by standing up to powerful players in the Pentagon and General Electric Corp., respectively.
Also, the national causes he has championed were as relevant in Massachusetts and New England as anywhere else. His efforts to reduce air and water pollution, toughen drinking-water standards, strengthen the federal Superfund program, reduce national forest logging and road construction, increase motor vehicle fuel economy, protect fisheries, conserve land, develop green transportation options and enhance renewable energy programs have served environmental interests from coast to coast.
From the start of his political career, Kerry has garnered his grandest headlines and most enthusiastic support from the national environmental community on high-profile issues that have about as much to do with Massachusetts as manatees. He has opposed opening a nuclear waste repository at Nevada’s Yucca Mountain and drilling for oil in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. He has participated in international climate change talks everywhere from Rio to Kyoto to The Hague.
Even on international and national issues that have affected Massachusetts, Kerry has sought the larger stage. In 1987, three years into his first Senate term, he criticized the Reagan administration for its lack of leadership on acid rain and called for Senate hearings on global impacts of the problem. At the time, acid rain was as acute a concern domestically and abroad as climate change is now, although perhaps more a concern for Germany’s Black Forest than for the Berkshires.
Kerry has critics among environmental activists in Massachusetts, who see his support as driven by careerism and bravado more than purpose and passion. He could be counted on to vote the right way, they say, but has not delivered as much as some of his colleagues in the New England congressional delegations, among America’s greenest—nor as much as Kerry himself claims.
Nevertheless, his record has earned him very high marks from environmental groups. His lifetime League of Conservation Voters rating, based on Senate votes, is 92 out of 100—so high that the group endorsed him on Jan. 24, three days before the New Hampshire primary, the earliest in a campaign season it has endorsed any candidate in its 34-year history. (In 2000, it did not endorse former Vice President Al Gore until May 30—and Gore, one of the greenest politicians in recent memory, had a League rating of only 64.)
It remains to be seen whether such support will tip the scales for Kerry in what polls have long indicated is a very close race with President Bush. So far he has chosen—as Gore did four years ago—not to make his environmental commitment a highlight of his campaign.
Instead, he has cast his environmental platform in terms of how he would resolve local bread-and-butter issues, shying away from showcasing the positions that represent the greatest difference between himself and the president.
Strategically smart or not, that may be Kerry’s most telling position of all.
Robert Braile reported on the environment for the Boston Globe from 1987 to 2001. He is writing a book about race, culture and the environment in America.
” We expect climate; what we get is weather.’‘
Mark Twain
We can all thank Osama Bin Laden for guaranteeing Bush’s re-election. He got the American people running scared again so we can count on every undecided voter voting for the man who leads by over twenty points on terrorism and national security (Bush). Batten down the hatches for four more years. I’m really thinking about moving to Canada.
We can all thank Osama Bin Laden for waking up half the people in this country that it’s our own actions that create terrorism. We turn a people on itself to do our bidding. Tricks and stealth, playing dirty. That’s how the west was won.
Hitler wasn’t armed overnight. He should have been stopped the moment he broke his treaty. Why was he allowed to arm? We thought he’d go after Stalin. The world made a big mistake looking the other way, just as we’ve made mistakes in arming Saddam. The old my enemy’s enemy is my friend: we have to let that go.
You don’t have to be part of it. Realize evey dollar you spend empowers, votes for something.
To deal with despotic rulers, must we become despotic, become a nation ruled by the same? Terrorism wears a tribal mask; when we respond in kind with collective force—blunt and faceless—we only reinforce it. Individuals act, and individuals must be held accountable. If we don’t nurture justice through law and the avenues of peaceful solutions, if we simply resort to the use of our unimaginably superior arms, what statement are we making to the world? What protocol do we establish? What will we be left to live with? Fear and suspicion have been exploited to sell war. Questions are not asked or answered. The obvious economic benefits to private oil’s control of the Iraqi reserves are never discussed - indeed, they are obfuscated, even denied. In whose service is our military in this war? Our intelligence: who does it answer to? If we can’t readily answer these questions, we no longer function as a Democracy. What then have we become?
Deborah, thank you. I couldn’t have said it better.
I’m just stunned that so many people don’t see that Bush IS the number one factor that breeds terrorism these days…
we are in the midst of the extreme rush toward a prophesied end. I think that the fools that are in charge or striving for charge are the epitome of life immitating art immitating life and have forgotten the rules of real life mother earth is laid naked with almost nothing to give her children for all of our sophisticated wit and charm we have all striven to undermine the next individual instead of comming together i say vote bush and make sure that asshcroft is held in place and that some of the more moderate of the republican party get a choice get more fierce or leave and that patriot act II and even III get passed and then the conguest for the inevitable end purge in the fire of the end of the world we are close to the fire of the sun already the true FIREY end let us see jfkerry or curiose george w stop this would be almost like letting the child put his fork into the light socket ZAP! ahhh we see now dont we ? dont even have to be in the same room with them now do we lesson learned. if you vote bush and sweet mother earth catches fire early then you can peacefuly watch the cleansing heat consume us and say yup i did that and smile into the ethereal.
Kurt,
I rest assured every night that this debacle with sentience will soon be behind us. As foretold in your prophetic “Galapagos,” we will soon evolve into finned seal-like creatures with smaller cerebrums. Too bad I won’t be here to see it!
Actually, there’s another way this could all turn out.
Look at the fossil record. Over 500 million years, consistently, brains have been getting bigger. Smarter and smarter creatures jockey for dominance. Very, very soon we may make something smarter than we are and it will take over. Then what? Will it kill us off as roaches? Will we, in Perry Farrel’s words, “Make great pets”? Will we be a part of something as far beyond us as we are beyond our own liver cells?
Sir Martin Rees says humans have no better than a 50% chance of surviving this century.
Mathematical proofs I find incomprehensible seem to show that the average person is statistically likely to be one of the very last generation.
Other mathematical proofs seem to show that, since the number of possible ‘simulated virtual universes’ is so great, we are almost certainly in one of those. The Matrix may be real (while we, its figments, only think we are!) And there’s not necessarily any ‘outside’. Escaping this sort of Matrix would be like escaping your own skin, or like a drawing escaping the blackboard. Amusing to think on, but neither possible nor desirable in practice.
Max Tegmark, in a Scientific American article of Spring 2003 demonstrates that there are infinitely many identical Earths with copies of us (if you could go far enough, fast enough, in the right direction, you could meet yourself). You know how the patterns repeat in wallpaper, so that you see the same flower about two feet lower on the wall? So with you, forty billion light years down the pike.
Sentience isn’t something you either have or have not. It’s more like salt in soup. Some have almost none. Some have a good bit. Some have so much that there’s just too damn much salt. I think a bonobo, fucking its friends three hours a day in a warm forest, has a very enviable quantity of sentience. Until the humans come looking for bushmeat.
I’ve said it before, and I gotta say it again: Morality depends on what you think is true. On what you think is real. On what you think is important.
If you think Jesus is comin’ on back and this physical world is disposable, that gives you one morality, internally consistent. Dubya may blow us all up, but so what? He’s shepherding us through the Tribulation. He is Good.
If you think the material world is what matters, then you think Dubya and anybody else who might get us all physically killed is Evil. In fact, Ultimately Evil in a way Charlie Manson could only dream of being.
If you believe in Nietzche’s Eternal Return (which, for Tegmarkian reasons, may not be all that silly!) then you might just fall into the Nazi camp and figure that since there will always be sheep and there will always be wolves, it’s better to be a wolf. You are, of course, Beyond Good and Evil. Others will call you Evil but you don’t care because you are gassing them for their gold fillings to pay for more Pzkfw 5 battletanks.
If you believe as I do, you understand that ‘there are no answers, only choices’ (as Gibarian says to Kris Kelvin in Solaris) and that if you have a moral responsibility it is to Try to Minimize the Negative Consequences of Your Actions.
But you’ll shoot yourself in the foot anyway. We all do. Pobody’s nerfect. What, you think Jesus Christ was *planning* to inflict George Bush on us all? No thanks, I’m pretty sure the old Nazarene preacher would rather be considered fallible than be held responsible for consequences that far from his intent.
It’s an honor even to write to you, dear maestro. I grew up in Russia reading your books. Loving them and having them on my desk for years.
I just wish the 46-7-9 whatever % of Americans who support Bush could live in USSR for 4 weeks. They would have a better picture about how a Polit-buro type givernment is rulling over here. Lies, deception, propaganda, fear and hate are becoming a norm in daily politics. It is so much like in USSR. It frightens me. Back in those days when I was living in USSR, I would have never imagined that FOX NEWS type propaganda garbage could exist in this “bastion of liberty and freedom”. As we thought of it. Now not only it does exist. It’s popular.
Me too I don’t see many differences in between the two millionaires. Yes, Kerry seems less of a reactionary - BUT he promises to continue the war. A war that he declares is wrong (and we all agree)he says he’ll fight better. He doesn’t say he’ll bring our troops back home. Restore peace first of all here. Unite the country and re-define what is to be AMERICAN again.
I hope you keep your voice alive. We need your wisdom. And your pessimism is more optimistic to me than the candidates rhetoric.
Why is Pat Buchanan not serving hypocrisy. Have you not read his articles on antiwar.com? He has been an advocate of non-intervention for years. More so than the war mongering democrats such as Madeline Allbrigt of “we think it’s worth it” fame.
Some of us either caught fire or felt the heat from a stoked fire because of this message from Mr. Vonnegut. Was this his intent? I’m not buying the doomsday stuff either. That is, unless too many of us give up.
Senator John Kerry must be elected; to do otherwise will mean disaster and an enormous battle must then ensue to gain control of our country once again. But can we get past the idea that the President of the United States is the most powerful person in the world? Senator Kerry will be a great leader, but he will be leading an energized, fully awakened populace that has had its great gift of the Land of the Free yanked out from under it. Maybe, because of this last four-year debacle, American citizens have once and for all learned what can come of considering Democracy a spectator sport or not paying any attention whatsoever.
It is now time to bring out the big guns of creativity. And Americans have to learn about intense pressure and how to apply it to control our government. No more barely perceptible whimpers; no more half-hearted attempts to stop oppression. It has to be all-out high intensity pressure. We can’t simply say we want alternative fuel technology research accelerated; we have to mount intensive campaigns to ensure that it is happening and monitor it closely. We can’t just say that we want special attention to the creation of great numbers of small business to rebuild manufacturing and the middle class; we have to create groups or join groups in existence and apply intense pressure to making certain plans are implemented. Whatever it is that we need done must be done, and it must be done by us with the help of our elected representatives, not left to our representatives while we watch “reality” shows.
Let’s put on the fightin’ duds and get with it. We can do this thing.
At least Mr Kerry and Mr Edwards acknowledge there are peons like us who need to be recognized and supported in order for “them” to survive with their agenda.
I live near the Greenbrier Hotel in West Virginia, where the gates have been closed to “outsiders” due to “security threats” and the local folks resent this.
Until the us and them society can acknowledge that there can not be a have and have not society in this country without incredible resentment, we can not even begin to understand the resentment other countries and movements have against us as a country.
Kurt speaks right to the heart of it. Not a message that people want to here. The Titanic has gone over the falls. The only thing left to do is try to stay civilized as our civilization does the crash and burn thing. www.peakoil.org is a souce to read all about it.
I don’t believe the answer to the energy crisis is not seeking what could prove to be unviable alternatives. We can’t expect to live on with what we have, I guess, but that doesn’t mean rushing to change is the best course for changing what we’re not yet sure isn’t broken.
Kurt, don’t you think we humans could garden the earth into Eden if we really wanted to? I know you say it’s too late and most of the time I’m inclined to agree with you…but I can’t get away from the gut feeling that we humans are capable of healing the harm we’ve done… and more.
I tried to stay out of it but got a newsletter from ITT with your name and a blurb about the commentary you have graced us with above…and so was drawn into one of the mind games you’ve so often provoked in me throughout my life.
Nobody knows much but everybody thinks more than they know how to speak their thoughts.
When dealing with words one must make allowances for a very limited means of communication. Words may stir the emotions and traumatize the psyche but that is only on an intellectual level.
One need not have read what you so Vonnegutly wrote to understand Dr. Johnson’s essay about, “Last Things”. All life and each individual as a microcosmic reflection of the cosmological bears witness to the ineluctable nature of having to end so that something else might begin.
What irks most about our self-destruction is that we were so unhappy, on the whole, in having laid waste to this wondrous planet. The haves of the world could have at least had the good humor and sprortsmanship to let everyone in on the fun. Instead billions of suffering human being had to generationally exist as mere chattel for a relatively few monomaniacs who form a long historical chain that might culminate in - not a total extinction but into an age so bleak and unfit for those accustomed to having retinues and domestic staffs that the only people able to survive it will be, as Jesus Christ matter of factly stated: the meek.
For only those who even now can subsist on the most rudimentary foodstuffs and are able to bear the worst climates and disasters will be fit enough to inherit the desolate, ages-long coming era of utter barbarism and grain-unyeilding soil.
No one seems to realize that what you’ve said here is nothing new…what pains people is that it had to begin while they were still accountable for being a major part of the problem.
And let it be further be known that only they who have the stomach to become anthropophogous will at least have a slight chance of survival. Remember the Donner Party!
Pessimism, schmessimism…words can’t help us at a time like this, (not that they ever could), so why all the ostensibly optimistic tripe from folks who know darn well, if even in the most recondite corner of their souls, that symbols, labels, name-calling, and other forms of rhetorical football won’t stop the next vehicle purchaser from opting for an eighteen wheeler, if he could drive it instead of one of those Smart Cars?
I agree with the reverend Mr. Vonnegut when he approaches us via the internet armed with his stiletto word processor holding up a verbal mirror which reflects not who we think we’d like to be known as…but what we are. For this is most salubrious should we ever come to understand that we come from a long tradition of nature despising and raping automatons whose hatred and inexorable destruction of that which gives us life must be carried to it’s bitter conclusion. For only in this way will we have finally found the means to personify the cosmological Oedipussies that we’d always preteded not to be.
“Pessimism, schmessimism…words can’t help us at a time like this . . .”
Wrong. Words are what we need most right now. Too few people listening to words of wisdom is what got us to this point. And then there is the problem of heeding those words of wisdom, but then that is when more words of wisdom should be expended as driving forces.
This election and the deceit and debauchery of this administration have awakened the masses in America and around the world. A revolution is coming. It may be too late halt the destruction of our home, even if we manage maximum effort, or we may win and repair it and learn to properly maintain it. But one thing is certain: To do nothing guarantees failure.
You have great words, but I would have preferred that you suggest a few ways for us to spend what’s left of our miserable existence as you so eloquently suggested it will be. Do you have any words of wisdom for those of us who intend to continue the fight to stop the onslaught and to mobilize the masses to an even greater extent? Or do you care what we do? Do you pity us for what you consider our puny attempts to turn the tide?
I’ve read the peak oil story; this stuff was predicted twenty years ago and not enough people paid attention. All of our troubles come from lack of effort. In the idiotic words of this President “it’s hard” to do things right. Yep. It’s our fault that it has all come down to this. And we can fix it if enough people are willing. You possess greater knowledge than I do; I am but a poorly educated layman eking out an existence. You possess courage, so use it. You possess knowledge, so use it. Lead, follow, or get out of the way, as some famous person said.
While I may agree on some level with the views of Mr. Vonnegut, and understand his premise. I cannot and will not accept it.
I can’t. Giving up is too easy.
If the goliaths of industry and special interest and societal destruction have indeed won, so be it.
But I will not accept their victory. Fighting the good fight IS an end unto itself.
Of course Kurt is right. Oil is a depletable source, I don’t get how anyone can actually imagine he can debate that point… /boggle
That’s not the entirety of the problem though. How about: As we pump out more carbon dioxide we destroy the forests that removes it from the air - brilliant.
I’m pretty sure both Kerry and Bush will continue clearing the path to a terminal future. They are, like the general american psyche, more or less demented (Kerry maybe slightly less so).
So, death to everyone and long live the world.
The issue is that people know about genocide for oil and <YOUR PRODUCT HERE!> and they just keep buying SUV’s. Bigger, faster, shinier SUV’s. After all, they want their children safe. They pass me on the freeway and I see a look in their eye: they’re someone on a commercial, on the tube. They’re something they’ve been sold, something they’ve bought.
My daughter, the ancient historian, is going into her apartment yesterday, and the Egyptian lady down the hall says “we must have tea together this week.” My daughter answers automatically “Insha’Allah,” something our Palestinian friend Rasa and our Jewish scholar friends all say. The lady smiles. “You know our ways!”
Smaller, face to face, we might remember our soul. Can you see me through this screen? I won’t be a gutless wonder if you won’t.
We can do this. Just start now.
x’s
deborah
First I want to say Kurt, You are the man. Thanks for all the good times we’ve had together and I’m following your footsteps brother, though I doubt I’ll ever fill your shoes.
Deborah I think you have the idea. Im attending University of Houston at the moment and I must say, Advertisements are the law. How people respond to eachother, they way they think about and whether or not they accept things that they see are all measured in relation to what TV told them. I’m pretty self absorbed, but vanity is out to get us guys and it’s doing a GREAT job!
I love Merkuh (America) and all it stands for, but since it no longer reflects that, i believe it will fall. How many other empires have been as great and lasted as long as the USA? Empires fall, how can one say at the intrusion of these attrocities that America will never fall? Unfortunatly I can’t think of anyway of saving this ship, so im gonna borrow a gross amount of money from Visa so I can have enough money to finish school and get my wisdom teeth taken out at the same time. I love all u guys and when I see you on the otherside don’t hesitate to expect hospitality. “Hey, it’s all just for shits and giggles anyway right?” - my brother.
“Empires fall, how can one say at the intrusion of these attrocities that America will never fall?”
Empires should fall, and the Bush/Cheney empire will fall, sooner rather than later. But it won’t fall without America’s citizens pulling together and making it happen. I may see you on the other side; I’ll be one of the many bloodied from battle in bringing down the empire.
i agree with mr. kurt v., yet feel that riding my bicycle to work (14miles r.t.), to the store and small errands is essential to changing our oil based economy. i also drive a ‘98 vw jetta on biodiesel.i shop adamantly for local goods.i live simply and healthy. i’ve never owned a t.v. cars, trucks and tractors where i work run on vegetable oil. my workplace is also organic and biodiverse. although i can agree with mr. kurt v’s dire assessment, i can try to to be a cause for change. c’mon let’s help each other live another way.
“... the many bloodied from battle bringing down the empire.” Actually, happens there’s plenty Tim McVeighs who fancy themselves in that line of work.
Story. When I bought the land I live on, I saw on the deed an old road that ran through these parts: the Carolina Road, a bunch of dashes on the map. I was intrigued. I study up on this Carolina Road. I find it used to be, in Washington and Jefferson’s time, the main drag from Philly to Atlanta. The Great Wagon Road, it brought families southward through the New Jerusalem. I walk it mornings, the Carolina Road, the few places where it’s restored here. I find 4 leaf clovers on. I imagine bluebirds singing and young couples full of hope riding down it, and also mothers burying their lost babies and then bravely (somehow) climbing back on the wagon, in the tradition of the true brave souls who went on in sorrow and actually brought us all here—who didn’t give up, even when it was hard beyond bearing. I also imagine some beautiful heiress escaping with some handsome rake, raging passionate down the Carolina Road, inn to inn. Real romantic stuff.
And then I find more. Another tale this road tells. Before it was the Carolina Road, it was the Great Warrior Trail. The Indians followed it with the seasons, an old Buffalo route. For some 8 - maybe 10 thousand years small tribes lived along it, leaving behind arrowheads and visions you can walk into. But why the Warrior Trail? Why that named? Because—I find—it was the way the Iroquois came when they were pushed off their lands up North. They came to dispatch the local tribes here with the guns they got from my relatives who’d come from England. And that’s always the way it always works, the tale this road tells. It tells it without oil and Enron and Cheney, though that’s the place it always ends up: the powerful never does the dirty work. Instead it sets a native people against itself and lets them do it for him.
Extrapolate: Iraq. Extrapolate across oceans, and here in your own back yard. Remember the Tim McVeighs? The can get to be warriors too. Until they’re the expendables.
So please. No more talk about the many bloodied from battle bringing down the empire, ok? You just play into their hands.
But you might read something the real revolution:
Memories of Chile in the Midst of an American Presidential Campaign
by Ariel Dorfman
http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?emx=x&pid=1939
x’s
deborah
http://jungcircle.com/muse
“No more talk about the many bloodied from battle bringing down the empire, ok? You just play into their hands.”
I failed to indicate the metaphorical in my choice of words. My apologies. Such behavior is not in my character. I came back from the SE Asia debacle with an anti-killing-anything-that-wasn’t-trying-to-kill-me attitude.
The battle I’ll be waging, along with tens of millions of like-minded compatriots, will be in the war of words and nonviolent actions that will correct our course.
TomDispatch is part of my regular reading; always great stuff.
I, too, dream of how things can be and were, but more so lately I dream of how to bring about these pleasant times. I’m encouraged more than ever that we can achieve a degree of peace and tranquility and beneficial stewardship of the earth. Because of doing my small part by my involvement in this “bloody fight” to help elect Sens. Kerry and Edwards, I’ve come into contact with groups around the globe. In these many contacts and from the grand web of additional contacts that such endeavors produce, as I’m sure everyone has discovered, I see that the rest of the world is far ahead of us in environmental and social-change activism. Those numbers of involved citizens combined with the tens of millions of Americans who can be mobilized can bring about the desired results.
These things take the coordinated efforts of the masses. In this tiny thread of discussion in the universe of such discussions, we are finding out who is willing to fight. We still await the generals with the wisdom to put it all together and make it happen.
You think Yale is bad, try fighting conservative ideology at Texas A&M (mentioned briefly in Player Piano) where Christian kids sign up for 19th Century philosophy and spend all day arguing with Nietzsche (as if they’ve really contemplated anything)and completely missing the point on Kierkegaard (yea, he proves what Faith is but in doing so illustrates that nobody is capable of it). And thank you for your postcard Mr. Vonnegut, it is very helpful for my paper.
You think Yale is bad, try fighting conservative ideology at Texas A&M (named the most conservative university in the nation over BYU!). A school where Christian kids argue with Nietzshce in 19th Century Philosophy and praise Kierkegaard without realizing what they call faith is not Faith to Kierkegaard. It’s somewhat amusing. Thank you for the postcard Mr. Vonnegut, it will be helpful for my paper.
Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil
by Michael C. Ruppert
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/store/index.shtml
This is a detective story that gets to the innermost core of the 9/11 attacks. It places 9/11 at the center of a desperate new America, created by specific, named individuals in preparation for Peak Oil: an economic crisis like nothing the world has ever seen.
The attacks of September 11th, 2001 were accomplished through an amazing orchestration of logistics and personnel. Crossing the Rubicon discovers and identifies the key suspects and persons of interest - finding some of them in the highest echelons of American government - by showing how they acted in concert to guarantee that the attacks occurred and produced the desired result.
ISBN #0-86571-540-8
(approx 675 pages with illustrations)
New Society Publishers, Gabriola Island, British Columbia, Canada)
$15.99 (US & Canada)
After two and a half years of research and writing, Ruppert said:
“In my new book I will be making several key points:
1. I will name Vice President Richard Cheney as the prime suspect in the mass murders of 9/11 and will establish that, not only was he a planner in the attacks, but also that on the day of the attacks he was running a completely separate Command, Control and Communications system which was superceding any orders being issued by the FAA, the Pentagon, or the White House Situation Room;
2. I will establish conclusively that in May of 2001, by presidential order, Richard Cheney was put in direct command and control of all wargame and field exercise training and scheduling through several agencies, especially FEMA. This also extended to all of the conflicting and overlapping NORAD drills—some involving hijack simulations—taking place on that day.
3. I will also demonstrate that the TRIPOD II exercise being set up on Sept. 10th in Manhattan was directly connected to Cheney’s role in the above.
4. I will also prove conclusively that a number of public officials, at the national and New York City levels, including then-Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, were aware that flight 175 was en route to lower Manhattan for 20 minutes and did nothing to order the evacuation of, or warn the occupants of the South Tower. One military officer was forced to leave his post in the middle of the attacks and place a private call to his brother - who worked at the WTC - warning him to get out. That was because no other part of the system was taking action.
5. I will also show that the Israeli and British governments acted as partners with the highest levels of the American government to help in the preparation and, very possibly, the actual execution of the attacks.”
“There is more reason to be afraid of not facing the evidence in this book than of facing what is in it.”
Yes. All of our resources will be gone. We are doomed to the system we have created. Isn’t it beautiful? Everything must be uprooted - this is the nature of being human…regardless of your beliefs. Death is inevitable; the magnificent fossil fuels that culminated over millions of years are being sucked and scavenged like a whore. But, then again, we are insignificant. To think that we are the ones to control the destiny of this planet is arrogance at worst. What about the ice age - the dinosaurs? This planet is a self-regulating super-organism…in a certain sense. We are nothing, and history will repeat itself. Let us all hope that a prodigious asteroid strikes us in the heart. Only then will we be saved…
oh yeah -
“” The United States ranks 139th in average voter turnout among the 172 nations that have held competitive elections since 1945. Vote if you feel there is a candidate worth your vote.
Tinymixtapes.com “
i am terribly sorry to post again, but my thoughts are rather scattered.
my question is:
does anyone think that a revolutionary figure can come to light again? i am thinking particularly about Marx and Darwin; to me Darwin was quite the underground revolutionary hehehe - no pun intended.
Also:
What about prophets?
choppy
>>my question is:
does anyone think that a revolutionary figure can come to light again? i am
thinking particularly about Marx and Darwin; to me Darwin was quite the
underground revolutionary hehehe - no pun intended.
>>Also:
What about prophets? >>
YOU have to be your own revolutionary and prophet. Just start now.
imho: where we’ve gone wrong is in thinking we are masters of Nature rather than part of it, forgetting that symbiosis is the principle of what endures. All that theory simplified in a Beautiful Mind is much more a true and better model than the social Darwinism that has hung us over the last two centuries.
And whatever happens, hey, we’ll get over it. Because all the little tin gods who are now making such misery—all the blowhard liars of FOX news and hate radio—all the baseball caps in pick-up trucks and monster SUV’s—they will all simply dry up and blow away like everything else. They can dismantle the Federal government, Constitution, Bill of Rights, write books, make wars and leftbehinder movies, project Jesus in the sky—but that’s all it will be: their own projection.
We come out of death, we go back into death. Can’t be so bad.
I think above all that I thank the gods that children rebel. Enough of them will always tend to sweep the hands off their shoulders, and some will manage to do some good. But lastly, I am in accord with the below… and I leave it with you today with a great joy that all of you have lived in the world. I salute the light in you and know it illuminates others in this darkness.
With heart, Deborah
Carl Jung wrote a letter on 9/14/1960, nine months before his death. There’s little doubt he was speaking to us all.
Excerpt:
[...] my main tenet contains nothing more than: Follow that will and that way which experience confirms to be your own, i.e., the true expression of your individuality. [...] None believes in the blossoming and unfolding of the individual as the experimental, doubtful, and bewildering work of the living God, to whom we have to lend our eyes and ears and our discriminating mind, to which end they have been incubated upon for millions of years and brought to light since about 6,000 years ago, viz. at the moment when the historical continuity of consciousness became visible through the invention of script.
We are sorely in need of a Truth or a self-understanding similar to that of Ancient Egypt, which I have found still living with the Taos Pueblos. Their chief of ceremonies old Ochwiay Biano (Mountain Lake) said to me : ‘We are the people who live on the roof of the world, we are the sons of the Sun, who is our father. We help him daily to rise and to cross the sky. We do not do this for ourselves, but for the Americas also. Therefore they should not interfere with our religion. But if they continue to do so (by missionaries) and hinder us, then they will see in ten years the sun will rise no more.’ He correctly assumes that their day, their light, their consciousness and their meaning will die, when destroyed through the narrow-mindedness of American Rationalism, and the same will happen to the whole world, when subjected to such treatment. That is the reason I tried to find the best truth and the clearest light I could attain to, and since I have reached my highest point and can’t transcend any more, I am guarding my light and my treasure, convinced that nobody would gain and I myself would be badly, even hopelessly injured, if I should lose it. **It is the most precious not only to me, but above all to the darkness of the creator, who needs man to illuminate his creation. If God had foreseen his world, it would be a mere senseless machine and Man’s existence a useless freak. My intellect can envisage the latter possibility, but the whole of my being says ‘No’ to it…**
first of all, thanks for addressing my pontif’.
Where do we start prophesizing/revolutionizing? Is Nader the first step?
Darwin did not apply his theory of evolution to social situations as far as I know. This was left to the “thinkers”, and the wanderers. Just look into his eyes…I think his ethics reign supreme, and that is why I chose to claim him a revolutionary figure - because his thoughts produced a plethora of intellectual smish-smash. Peace one.
Chopster
YAY!!! Hurray for you, Mr. Vonnegut! Your words have helped unite all of us lesser Vonnegut-clones. mwahahahahah, we’re all the same. mwahahahah.
One trait that many of us share, though i doubt Mr. Vonnegut is this arrogant, is our false sense of superiority. One of us vonnegutees posted about how he/she (didn’t bother looking at the name) observes all the cow-eyes in the SUV driving masses of America. It’s true, i do it too. I also believe that most of humanity is completely ignorant, and can only see 2 feet in front of itself. but you know what always makes me chuckle? Those same SUV people look at me in my fucked up car, lost in human critique, and think to themselves, “That guy just cares about buying the new stuff and eating the most cancer-inducing burgers.”
Actually, i’m not sure if the SUV people think that, they do drive SUV’s after all, but it seems the majority of us intellectual wannabees are in competition with each other. We talk with each other, not to share our thoughts, but to prove one of us is more cynical than the other.
I can’t sleep on a regular basis, so when i’m bored i’ll go wandering around campus around 3 a.m. Everytime i do, i see other people wandering around with me, the walking undead of a fabricated culture. And we all glance at each other and think the same thing: “they’re all apathetic, they have no idea how easily they could make a difference if they just united.”
then we keep wandering around, pissed off cuz we can’t find like-minded individuals.
and now for the required influence-marker:
HI-HO!!!
(oh, and that fucked up car i drive?... a 92’ Isuzu SUV with 150k)
at the time of atlantis folarian republican arab detonating butchers blew up their own planet of folaria which explains asteroids in solar system invaded earth now here to anihilate all of g-d’s people on g-d’s planet earth at armageddon all 1 billion or so or more of these former satanic detonators from hell will return to hell on last day and g-d’s people go to new heaven and earth your hero at armageddon giuliani the anti-christ your ruler will shortly make sure along with usa government and military that our planet earth is obliterated very soon at end of time this is what most of you satanic morons of folaria will get for your stupidity and disrespectfulness as you had your chance on g-d’s beautiful earth and you destroyed it
What about solar energy ? What about wind energy? What about hydroenergy?
Show me the solar powered solar panel factor.
Show me the the wind generator factory powered by wind.
Show me the hydro electric damn built using hydroelectric power.
Show me the closed loop that doesn’t have oil energy in it.
You in the 92’ Isuzu SUV with 150k:
Nope. Not interested in being in your intellectual wanna-be / lesser Vonnegut-clone world, thank you. Never crossed my mind, what people think about me. (And of course, you came to mock. Admit it.) The comment about the SUV’s was about the chance for individuality, self-development, diversity, and liberty of the heart, and they way it’s been lost to the big sell. Consciousness fades as we become these machines we serve. We sink back into the collective. And I mourn, but not in some highfalutin’ self superior way. I mourn for our children. I mourn for us all. I even mourn for the creator and its darkness.
It ain’t about me, hunny.
Know thyself. It wasn’t so highfalutin’, those words carved in stone in Delphi. More of a warning to keep to your place. The beautiful and the good were always the rich. And it’s always been the philosopher’s looking back and forward that changed the meaning, and thus, the possibilities.
So. Your brief moment, and mine, will be what we can make of it.
Namaste,
Deborah
In the immortal words of David Brower,Archdruid of the Enviro-movement…“There is no business to be done on a dead planet”. I too feel pessimistic about our fate on Earth. However, Senator Kerry has had a progressive outlook on protecting our natural resources and on energy alternatives for many years. WE NEED HIS OUTLOOK AND PERSPECTIVE IF WE ARE TO SUCCEED IN THE FUTURE.
Kurt is right regarding our resources, but to more or less claim that there is no difference between the two candidates is to say the least shocking, and I can’t help wonder if has been paying any attention.
The evidence for entropy is omnipresent, and the depletion of our energy resources is not anything we haven’t been aware of, but I hardly believe it to be the death knell that Kurt and many of the posters articulate. We have the capacity to become less dependent on oil, and explore resources such as hydrogen and others, but as long as money interests override the interests for the greater good we will subjugate peoples and exploit the environment to the benefit of those corporations that manipulate the political system to suit their greedy goals and contiune to war and pillage for the benefit of the few at the expense of the many. We survive or fail on the change of the corporate/political paridigm. We can continue doing things the way we do now or chnage it.
Bush and Cheney and the cronyism that they represent needs to go the way of the dinosaur, they are the worst tandem of leaders in our 228 year history; changing the leadership in Washington is the beginning to changing our future, not only as a domocracy but as a species living within the bounds of nature.
Be hopeful.
“We survive or fail on the change of the corporate/political paridigm. We can continue doing things the way we do now or chnage it.”
If we are so unfortunate as to have to contend with 4 more years of Bush/Cheney, all strategies will have to be modified and new tactics developed. Do you have confidence that we can overcome the corporate oligarchy? If so, do you think it will come to protest marches, passive resistance, widespread and significant boycotts, etc., to pull it off? Do you believe that we have enough media representation to bring the messages to the masses to such an extent that it engages the tens of millions of citizens who will be needed to bring about change?
I have a long list of questions. Is this white space just as good as any to discuss such issues?
Media Coverage is a serious issue. In my protest experiences Ten Million never made it on the news. All Ten Million of us somehow were only represented on Fox by only a hundred thousand, and even then somehow the hundred pro war guys made as much or more air time than we did….. uh, wtf?
“Media Coverage is a serious issue.”
Without massive media blitzes it will be tough to engage the tens of millions. In other forums with other groups, there is increasing discussion of a network to counter Fox. Of course one isn’t enough, but it would be a grand start. Has anyone in this thread participated in any such discussions? Is there any concrete planning going on to anyone’s knowledge?
I have no proof of this, maybe others have seen statistics to bear this out, but it seems to me that the largest driving force in mobilizing the masses has been the online environment. Many websites have cropped up that contain long lists of links from which are found more long lists of links, etc. I asked in a couple of forums for opinions on whether it would be wise to create a clearing house for discussions, debates, plans, strategy, tactics, decisions, voting, formal write-ups, e-mail and postal mail campaigns, elected representative contact and follow up responsibility, on and on ad infinitum? Will some IT professional develop a Save America Central or some such website to be coordinated with other groups? How will we find the generals and other front-line officers to coordinate the energies of the masses?
Today, is a good day to die. “Geronimo!”
All things being equal though (as I interpret Kurt’s latest requiescat in pace), it’s all over but for the ghost dance. Break out the booze.
What better irony might we expect then, than the son of the “Bonesman” be riding rough-shod, neck and neck, against the “human beings” in this, the final hours of our last stand.
Chief Dan George: “The human beings, my son—they believe everything is alive, not only man and animals, but also water, earth, stone, and also the things from them. That is the way things are… But the white man—they believe everything is dead—stone, earth, animals, and people, even their own people. If things keep trying to live, white man will rub them out… That is the difference.”
Little Big Man: “But why do you want to die, Grandfather?”
Chief Dan George: “Because there is no other way to deal with the white man, my son. Whatever else you can say about them, it must be admitted… you cannot get rid of them… There is an endless supply of white men, but there always has been a limited number of human beings… We won today… We won’t win tomorrow.”
We may have to go to the streets and protest like in the 60’s if we want the powers that be to pay any attention all, that of course includes the media which has by and large failed miserably.
If we want a clean enviornment we must demand it, if we a living wage, we must demand it, if we want our government to be really representative we must demand it, we must protest the status quo
that assumes we will fall to our knees and praise the power seekers and holders. We the people hold the power. We the people can change the system if we unite toward that aim!
“We the people can change the system if we unite toward that aim!”
Absolutely. It’s the only way it will happen. There are many large and effective groups, Public Citizen, National Resources Defense Council, The League of Conservation Voters, Sierra Club, Greenpeace, and lots of others. They have global reach, are able to mount legal actions and media campaigns, and have major lobbying presence. Without such organizations we would certainly be lacking in major offensive capabilities. But is there a “central clearing house” or some other entity among them that can coordinate efforts including mobilization of the masses? Can funds from donations among all the organizations be coordinated better to achieve effective campaigns? The effectiveness is important because time is of the essence. Lots of people much smarter than I am must have the answers. Is anyone familiar with an organization such as that which I suggest? Am I approaching this incorrectly?
Sorry, but the powers that be decided a long time ago that they dont need us. We are being eliminated. The only thing left to do is to decide what to do with the time that is given to you. Make good decisions. Dont give up; even when the end comes. Spread love.
I dont know what the end will be, but I want to believe it wont be a complete disaster. I see too many things converging to not believe that something very big is going to happen. However, that doesn’t mean it has to be bad.
I often tell my parents, both of whom turned 80 this year, that at 39 years of age, I would gladly trade places with either of them. They will more than likely die before the proverbial shit hits the fan.
My understanding is that in order to reverse—or otherwise seriously retard or affect—the processes of Global Warming, Humanity (on a Global scale) would have to implement radical and revolutionary Political, Economic, and Lifestyle sea-changes…that just ain’t gonna happen in the time we have left.
You may call that “defeatist”, I call it realistic.
-David (RabidLeftist)
“Absent the rapid mobilization of climate advocates at every level—and the pooling of all their energy, creativity, and resources into a coordinated, no-holds-barred campaign—we will soon be crossing the threshold into climate hell.”
~Ross Gelbspan, “The Big Name Game”, Grist Magazine (July 31, 2002)
“Absent the rapid mobilization of climate advocates at every level—and the pooling of all their energy, creativity, and resources into a coordinated, no-holds-barred campaign—we will soon be crossing the threshold into climate hell.”
~Ross Gelbspan, “The Big Name Game”, Grist Magazine (July 31, 2002
Doesn’t this indicate that we can still do this thing? We can’t if we give up the fight, that’s for certain, because, as indicated above, a no-holds-barred campaign requires massive mobilization of the citizenry on a global scale. Much of the rest of the world is way ahead of America in their efforts, so, by combining efforts, isn’t there enough possibility to encourage you?
“I dont know what the end will be, but I want to believe it wont be a complete disaster. I see too many things converging to not believe that something very big is going to happen. However, that doesn’t mean it has to be bad.”
I strongly agree with you. The signs of people becoming fed up are everywhere. Bush may have won another term, but over 50,000,000 people don’t want this administration. And, though I can’t prove it and never will, I’m willing to wager that 5,000,000 or so Republicans who voted for him did so because they thought enough uproar was made by Americans everywhere over some of the policies that the administration finally got it and will begin to cooperate rather than dominate. If this cooperation does not occur within the next year, I believe these 5,000,000 or so will join the rest of Americans in forcing change.
Do you believe there is merit to this theory?
“1nonsevilepeasant”
Bush is going to feel more empowered now to continue on the path he has been on. He doesn’t have to listen to reasonable voices and he definitely doesn’t have to listen to any left wing liberal types.
The trend in this country is not just to the right but in many areas to the extreme right. This may be the natural pendulum swing and it will return towards the center then to the left if allowed to continue. What we see however, is that the right has the momentum to stop all movement towards the center or to the left.
We can only hope that people wake up in time from their intellectual slumber and realize we are on the wrong path.
Your theory is at least hopeful, and that’s all we have left for the moment.
<<Do you believe there is merit to this theory? >>
Of course. We were all stars once. Had to work our way through all the elements. That we’re here at all is a wonder. If each of us stops feeding into millennialism’s self-fulfilling prophecy, we might have the good sense to start fixing what’s wrecked, and work with nature rather than against it. Like Lewis Thomas told us, the successes are those who learn to find their place in sustaining the web of life. That’s not Pat Robertson, Bush, and the Leftbehinders. They read their magic book and think man has dominion over the earth. (Dominion!) They then feel obliged to make it dance for them. They’re god’s chosen, after all. And a flash in the pan.
We don’t make the flowers bloom, thank the gods. We just have to learn to stop killing them.
Here, look. Then I promise I’ll shut up. My friend just sent this:
I’ve had tearful phone calls and despairing email from former students. This
is what I wrote them this morning.
Don’t give in to despair, my friends. Look at the numbers, for a start, the
closeness of the races. Be happy that New Hampshire and Pennsylvania showed
their true colors, as did Wisconsin. It isn’t a mandate, although Bush will
doubtless think so, if he thinks at all.
Cause for concern? Yes. But this is still America, although one that it’s
hard to recognize now and then. West Viriginia, for instance—a place where
Bush’s environmental policies are raping the land, a place of huge unemployment,
bad water, poor schools—they voted for him. This is also the place where
the Republicans ran ads saying that the Democrats would ban the bible if
elected. To some of our citizens, if you ain’t got much, you still have your God. And
that’s likely what they voted.
We once made it through a costly, horrendous civil war. We are still scarred
from that battle, but intact.
The important thing is to keep your eye on the prize. Keep fighting for what
is strong and good and true about America. Be the good citizen, the loyal
opposition. Find courage in your heart.
We will survive this. Let it be with honesty, bravery and grace.
phoebe
“To look with the eyes and see with the heart is the secret of the Philosopher’s Stone.” ~Petrus Bonus
Deborah,
I am a woman from WV and I would like to address the comments you made about WV.
WV voted for Kerry at about the same rate as the rest of the country (45%..close to the 49 of the country) ...not like the rest of the Bible Belt or those northern states.
Secondly..the rape of our natural resources has made the rest of this country wealthy, while keeping us “mountain folk impoverished.” Those pork barrel projects given to us by Byrd are pennies thrown to us for the SUV’s the wealthy drive and the big homes heated by OUR coal, and built with our lumber. Many from WV see the rape of natural resources in a different light-they see it as jobs. As long as steel is outsourced to India and tech jobs go somewhere else, we only have our natural resources. (Luckily, tourism is BIG here).
The issue here was abortion. We tried to tell the national campaign about this after we lost major local elections two years ago because of anti-abortion activist nastiness.
We progressives here are mourning with the rest of the 49% who voted for change and we all need to cry in our beer tonight and work for change tomorrow.!
Nspeasent-
I agree wholeheartedly that there must be a coordinated effort, a sort of central hub in order for all of the environmental/human rights/peace orgs to effectively mobilize those of us here (and in other countries.) Here’s hoping they’ve thought of it as well—MoveOn, ACT, TrueMajority, etc. had already united in our sadly failed effort to oust Bush—I pray they (or someone) are working on a new plan. Today I am wavering moment to moment between hope and utter despair. Whatever happens had better happen fast, as I truly believe we are in a state of emergency. Please forgive my scattered thoughts. From a spiritual perspective…perhaps this is what was “supposed” to happen…perhaps the level of change that is required for our evolution must happen in a fashion more extreme than any of us ever wanted to be a part of. I don’t know what that looks like, I can’t see clearly for lack of sleep and tears. I’ll allow myself such personal cleansing for a while, but then it’ll be time to decide, on a very deep level, what my role is to be in all of this. Your words and energy, all of you, have been a great source of strength. Thank you.
Still holding the Light (albeit with a shaky hand…)
Robin,
My friend is in Boston (and heartbroken as the rest of us). I’m next door to you in VA. I hear ya. I KNOW the way abortion has been used (and twisted and misused) as the No. 1 issue to polarize people.
We just have to remember that as many people voted against Bush as for him, and that’s even with Diebold running full tilt.
The US might be the Titanic, but it’s just another ship on a rolling sea of icebergs. Josh, as ever, speaks sense:
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_31.php#003927
“Where ignorance is bliss, tis folly to be wise.”
Deborah,
“Then I promise I’ll shut up.”
Please, don’t! Words of encouragement from all quarters are needed in great quantity and quality now that the regime has gotten itself another 4 years.
Do you frequent many other forums so that your words can be spread? The spreading of the word managed to awaken America, not quite enough though I think the failure may be in strategy and tactics rather than lack of quantity of communication, and it is the word spreading that will continue to educate the masses. Obviously, if say 70,000,000 Americans understood the truly dire situation the entire world is in, Bush would be out and Kerry would have a mandate.
People with the intellectual capabilities and knowledge of those who have posted here thus far are the very people who will educate and bring about changed attitudes to the quantity of people required for the no-holds-barred campaign as mentioned by david (rabidleftist). There are those among us with the mastery of the written word who can, with stentorian voice and eloquence of phrase, assist in the educational processes. How can we find and attract these people to specific coordinated efforts? How do we spread their words throughout all the myriad URL’s that will exponentially increase the numbers of those being educated?
Steph,
“. . . perhaps this is what was “supposed” to happen…perhaps the level of change that is required for our evolution must happen in a fashion more extreme than any of us ever wanted to be a part of.”
It’s extremely difficult to think of this travesty of another 4 years of Dubya as being able to produce anything good, but I believe that it will bring about change if, and only if, we don’t give up an inch and increase our efforts, as tough as that might be. It seems to me that America is always reactionary and mobilizes as a whole, sort of, only when jolted into action by disastrous circumstances. Many of these disastrous circumstances are likely to occur during this next year and I believe that the masses will be mobilized. Again, however, the masses must consist of sufficient numbers of citizens fully armed with the knowledge of the pertinent issues and with confidence in their ability to take action and press it to obtain the goals.
I’m new to this electronic environment and I may not be familiar with the numbers of organizations that more experienced online inhabitants may have in their arsenal. I do know of the organizations you mentioned. Do you think that getting the central-clearing-house idea off the ground could be as simple as sending a letter to every organization asking for their opinions of how such a coordinated effort might be set into motion?
Hi 1nonservilepeasant :
That’s so kind. But FOX pulls them in with emotion, not fact. FOX is best at DIS-information, and disinformation is what won this election. Good resource and food for thought: http://www.pipa.org/
Emotion. The abortion issue is so charged that its utility is endless to those who exploit it. Really—I’m thinking we should stand back and let them overturn women’s reproductive rights. Then let the Republicans deal with the sons and daughters of men. That will be a revelation.
The ability to think symbolically is what’s been lost between the Georges the First (Washington) and Georges the present. I have no idea how to fight their god industry. It verges on a cult.
I think what we need to do most of all is become living flesh and blood communities again. Find solace in other living hearts and eyes:
Join others in your community tonight at the Democracy for America Meetup to celebrate your hard work and discuss the next steps for your local group: http://dfa.meetup.com
As on the internet, expect to be invaded by Freepers and lurkers. Mostly, Republicans were losers in high school. That’s why they love all this stealth, fire and brimstone.
(See? Emotion pulls them in.)
Tonight, I’ll pull out Thomas Hardy and weep with him. And Homer: Iliad, book 9 line 318 and on. And Jung. Oh god yes, Jung. And history books—history teaches us the origins of our prejudices. It’s also a good place to get an ear for the sound of jackboots.
Want to be informed? Start by believing it can happen here.
We have had a message from someone calling themselves the “patriot” that was only to thrilled to share thier jubilant hatred with us.
Many of these right wing folks now will feel emboldened to more openly display their hatred.
I live in a blue state but a very red county where anti-Kerry and anti-liberal bumper stickers are common, including one that says “all liberals should be shot” which seems like it should be illegal to have anything like that displayed in public, but it’s freedom of speech, I guess.
We can thank our friends in the so-called “liberal media” for their efforts to clarify for the electorate the issues that were important.
I can hear it now…“God has spoken”...
The positive of this is that 51% of the population is presumably pleased. Certainly of that 51 % some actually have the capacity to grasp
the gravity of results and have to have mixed emotions.
The word “nightmare” has new meaning.
Now is a good time to give money to the Earthjustice people: www.earthjustice.org
They are the best line of defense against the continuing assault on the environment by the environmental terrorists so firmly entrenched in Washington, D.C.
They have thwarted many, many bulldozers, chainsaws, and oil drills unleashed by the terrorists.
As for our future, I am an optimist…we will not go back to living in caves when the last well runs dry. Alternative fuel technology will eventually come to these shores, even if it has to be developed and implemented elsewhere. And only because slightly more than half the electorate has no faith in humanity, but much faith in the supernatural.
“Yes, and as Bush and Kerry are out campaigning, we are presently touching off nearly the very last whiffs and drops and chunks of them. All lights are about to go out. No more electricity. All forms of transportation are about to stop, and the planet Earth will soon have a crust of skulls and bones and dead machinery.”
A little poetic license here. We’re not about to run out of oil, we’re about to hit Hubert’s Peak—the top of the bell shaped oil production curve.
The U.S. hit Hubert’s peak in 1970 at around 10 million barrels a day. Now we produce barely over half that.
The Energy Information Agency, which keeps track of these things, puts out a monthly report of the oil production in 30 countries plus a catch-all “other.” Of those, 12 are now in decline, inlcuding such major producers as Norway, the United Kingdom, Indonesia, and Venezuela. Altogether these 12 countries are 8 million barrels a day below their peak production. Last year alone they lost over a million barrels a day of production.
With every new country that rolls over into decline, it makes it that much harder for the remaining countries to replace the loss plus keep up with increasing demand (lately lead by the Chinese who want their own auto indutry just like ours.)
The Saudis sent a chill through the market recently when, after promising to increase their production, all they could come up with some very poor grade, heavy oil. The Suadi’s were supposed to be able to carry the load for several more decades. But like all OPEC countries, the Saudis lie about how much oil they have left.
The future is not one where the lights suddenly go off, it is one where the economy keeps banging its head on an ever lowering ceiling.
Oh…and then there are the millions who will die as food and water supplies are depleted. But that’s another story.
I know many of us are disconsolate an unable to fathom how this could happen when it was so obvious that the man was demonstratively incompetent and very harmful to this country.
After the election of 2000 I wrote a number of things expressing the blues… and the one that follows is post Ohio news.
Hope all of you have a better sense of things and not suffering the same dread that is welling up inside my liberal heart & head! There is no comfort in misery, there is no medication, no beverage, no rhetoric that can sooth the tumultuous and fulminating synaptic storm…
Nightmare Alarm clock
The radio morning alarm buzzed.
Halloween was over and the real scare about to begin…
I opened my mouth to shout NO! but not a sound came forth
I was paralyzed…
I static in my ears and burning in my eyes. Buzz, Buzzzz…
George and the truth were all lies, it’s all a blur on the talk shows…
I slept on a weeks worth of soporific pundits pronouncing their view.
I dreamed of executions, lines of broken people all the way back to the
civil war…
I saw G W Bush’s lachrymose sulfuric smile ..better known as a smirk while I hear an echo
of the chains back to the slave ships rattling…......
At a table with Rush and 11 House Republicans feasting, ready to repeal,
revise, reverse, betray & crucify, restlessly seething…
its a painting in the living room by Tom Kinkade on a plate, on a page,
in the middle of TV Guide…
Men were marching, heals kicking high - with flags and crosses, humming
like the Monkey Men in the Wizard of Oz, with arm bands with
swastikas..yoooooo, ooooooh….yoooo,ooooh
There was Jesse Helms & Strom and David Duke with lists of things to do
all the way back to the inquisitors block, marching kids into Plato’s
cave - preaching ignorance and revisionism; shouting righteous abuse.
I try to wake but it’s no use, no use! The South wins the War!
God fearing men are hiding under their hoods and behind their guns (and
NAMBLA subscriptions) standing under the street lamp
hawking quotes from Jesus and Ronald Reagan , writing on bathroom stalls
“be saved and unite”, the party of suited gentlemen all were smiling raising glasses and toasting
the numbers on the stock exchange.
Graduates with MBA’s singing patriotic songs while pissing on a poor beggar with a college
degree in the humanities mumbling eloquent profanities
Bill Bennett in drag shaking his girth, began humping mother goose on
morning TV, espousing virtues in rhyme while zipping up his fly with a
condescending smirk.
I dreamed that Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell were performing baptisms in
the river Styx as The Gov. was the Baptist on the bank preaching
enlightenment and the sinking of the SS Beagle, giving out tax relief promises and religious
party favors to the baptized in oil.
Charlten Heston in Mose’s Robe raising a AK47 to a sea of NRA members
cheering and breaking wind…
The radio continued to buzz and I tried to awaken again.
As I walked on the savannah, watching for predators.. I heard them roar,
I heard Bush sneer, snort, bay and swagger past devoured carcasses and
trembling prey, he was cheering - “it is a new day”...
See rows of robed and hooded angry white men genuflecting before the
visage of the burning bush while an old recording of Anita Bryant sang God Bless America,
and children in military like uniforms burned banned books, and flames
and smoke came from the morning radio while announcing the most recent
poll….taking it’s toll
George Dubya was struttin, pronouncing to bring us together - with purpose and
resolve, end membership in the UN, give power back to the states & born
again bigots.
He is the voice of reformation and restoration, attracting pundits with
microphones like blue bottle flies…... buzzing…buzz, buzz
I awoke in a nightmare
“trick or treat”
Limbaugh did quip,
the radio was buzzing and
turned to shit..
Like the phoenix
Month’s of political pundits’ sophistry on the CRT
all the yelling and pointing accusatory fingers from polemical self assured fools
caused a migraine with their emphasis on folly and myth…
All the days of broken dreams and dreamers, all the bad news
meant nothing as to how the headlines were read,
meant nothing to all those mistakes in this war, and all those dead.
So many spirits fallen, like Icarus in flames that had soared so close, so many souls cast in the Styx
sinners for genetic will, for choice, cursed by shallow piety & ignorant misunderstanding of Christ.
Money does what it wants to, sells lies and destroys lives equally…
Talking heads appear allocuting to the somnambulant and oblivious, ignorance is indeed bliss!
Those genuflecting sycophants ignoring the egregious failures in speech and deed
of the burning Bush will not be distracted by any truth…they’ve so long believed in lies.
We could return to pre Civil War slavery, and burning women as witches if we continue on this path. You laugh, we’re rearguing the Bryant vs Darrow, & the Scopes monkey trial in communities across this land, if we allow it to continue - they will take it all the way back to Eden and women will fall for giving in to the devil. In many ways the devil has played as much a role in this election as God has. Once again Falwell fills the TV screen with his benign malevolence and quotes from the book of God…you can hear the “amens”...
We can concede that the process has selected the choice by majority vote but we do not have to concede the rightness of our fight.
Concession as usual is not acceptable…
there is a degree of hypocrisy in being polite
although of course we require civility
and humility but there is no honor in this respite.
There is some solace in defeat
although our wounds are very deep
believe - that wisdom should prevail
The concession words were uplifting with encouragement to fight on
and so we shall…
we shall not fail!
>>We have had a message from someone calling themselves the “patriot” that was only to thrilled to share thier jubilant hatred with us.>>
Yep. They always take the emotional bate. And yes, it’s best not to work at their level. Sorry I said:
“Mostly, Republicans were losers in high school. That’s why they love all this stealth, fire and brimstone.”
Won’t do it again. (Good article at:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/110404D.shtml )
I used to try, like the poor scientist in the original “The Thing” flick in the 50’s, to reason with them. I learned to give up. Most are well trained in pr, and their purpose is to stop the flow of real ideas.
Meanwhile, time to wipe eyes, nose, and roll up our sleeves:
We need to get a googlebomb going —say, “Bush election” or (maybe “Shut up!” as the right likes O’Reilly so well) with the real blackbox voting address—which is:
http://blackboxvoting.org/
note: BlackBoxVoting”.COM” is a deceptively
designed site, not affiliated with Bev Harris,
nor with Black Box Voting Inc.
(That’s how they work folks. The Righteous think it’s okay to lie if it’s in the service of the Rapture.And many ways to lie. They’re pros.)
How to googlebomb:
http://www.wordspy.com/words/Googlebombing.asp
And don’t ever forget: Half of this country voted against Bush!
They can’t kill us all. We know how strong we are, and we know, though the right has the media hogtied, that most of us also know THAT. The
important thing now is to keep a network, to meetup locally and keep the info going—even if the net goes down.
These problems have long been brewing, their machinery for their self-fulfilling prophecies to go forward long ago. When you get scared, remember these bogeys have been there all along—and now we’re in a position to see them. WE ALL SEE THEM, what’s been coming. Now we can
address it.
Nixon went down because a few good folk stepped out of the shadows. Let’s be there ready to greet them.
x’s
Deborah
Sorry. That was BAIT. “Bates” is for Norman. :)
re googlebomb:
some code for your page / blog
[url=“http://blackboxvoting.org/”]shut
up![/url]
Bush election
sorry. didn’t work. I’ll post it here:
http://jungcircle.com/muse/code.html
Just copy the code on the page into your html.
“The president got re-elected by dividing the country along fault lines of fear, intolerance, ignorance and religious rule. He doesn’t want to heal rifts; he wants to bring any riffraff who disagree to heel.
Tom Coburn, the new senator from Oklahoma, has advocated the death penalty for doctors who perform abortions and warned that “the gay agenda” would undermine the country. He also characterized his race as a choice between “good and evil” and said he had heard there was “rampant lesbianism” in Oklahoma schools.”
Maureen Dowd
BATES & Bait is all the same part of insane!
Your faux pax wasn’t that glaring…
Norman in the cellar of course voted for the shrub.
You can also be forgiven for you “high school” reference too…
The “patriot” and all those that enter here to gloat and spit are indifferent and are enjoying the abuse
so, any reaction at all by you or others can be excused.
Sender: Grand Chancellor of Central Alien Intelligence (CAI).
Recipent(s): Remaining vestiges of intelligence on Planet 18765i28.
Due to human insistence on not allocating your fuel resources for positive scientific/technological advancements absent a profiteering drive, it is our sad duty to inform you we have marked your planet as susceptible to ecocide.
Recommendation: Planetary revolt.
deb conner:
Your link keeps coming up blank…
As much as these two men have in common, their differences are much more important.
One comes from a tradition of war profiteering, trading with the enemy, abusing positions of public trust for self service, and have raised the practice of subtrfuge and fraud to an art.
One has demostrated a commitment to the tradition of public service.
One represents a consituency that places the interest of corporate profits above all other interests, at every opportunity, at any cost, and place little if any value in any other interests.
One represents a constituency that places the interest of public health, safety and welfare above the interest of corporate profits, but, understands that economic prosperity is an essential element of, and must be balanced with, public health, safety and welfare.
That’s a very big difference.
This is still coming up blank?
http://jungcircle.com/muse/code.html
Let me know. I can e-mail you plain text.
Also:
BAM said: <<The “patriot” and all those that enter here to gloat and spit are indifferent and are enjoying the abuse so, any reaction at all by you or others can be excused. >>
Good. Glad the indifferent can enjoy. Here’s some more.
Kerry Won…
Greg Palast
November 04, 2004
Excerpted from TomPaine.com
—- Here are the facts.—-
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/kerry_won_.php
***
And on the issue of uncounted votes re the election (and why not all things?), I think it’s time to do away with it, O my water Brothers and Sisters. When asked for your race, we should all just check < OTHER >. It’s just the truth. (My yes, can’t you just see Katherine Harris pitchforking us all into the dumpster? In high heels yet, and some of that lipstick Cheney keeps talking about.)
yup, it’s thursday now. two days have passed. long enough.
i now reckon it’s about time to finally stop lying to myself and give up all hope.
meh…
maybe i won’t.
that’s the beauty of being a human being. i can be presented with overwhelming evidence showing the complete destruction of not only my way of life, but the eventual obliteration of billions of my brethren (myself, most likely included), and i can still make myself believe we have a chance. and i really DO believe we have a chance, but i’m starting to have doubts as to whether or not peaceful protest will work. How can i simply talk to Mr. Patriot Act if he calls me a terrorist if i support the constitution, or if i believe in the rapture, or if i fucking jaywalk? And this bastard’s pretty huge.
So now i have to deal with the overwhelming snowballing of human destruction, the malicious intent of my very own government, and a third enemy.
apathy.
for there are indeed many of us who are willing to fight for change, and peace. willing to bleed to defeat the illuminati’s cult bullshit, but we’re nothing when compared to the impeding human roadblock led by western media. we as a country indeed MUST be united, but we the people must unite ourselves. we must talk to our neighbors, discuss politics in uncomfortable settings, and make people want to educate themselves on the issues, and not have over 1/2 of this country falling under the illusion of awareness by memorizing tv polls and graphs.
or maybe i should finally get some sleep and continue awaiting the release of halo 2
From the article cited by deborah above, it appears, if accurate (an extremely HUGE if), that democrats are too ignorant or uneducated to fill out a ballet. I find it sad taht democrats are not only pandering to the black folk (but with 90%+ they are doing a *really* good job pandering!), but now want to be the party of people too stupid to fill out ballets! Not to mention their renewed desire to be the party of felons.
Gee, it is hard to believe thay lost. . .
Dear Surge:
Pull your socks up. Jeez! Stand and Fight
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20041122&s=editors
And dear Soooo…:
Ah. From the party of the great uniter. A story, just for you:
When I came out of the voting booth, there was an older black man there, helping to oversee things. I said to him, “We have to vote him out. We have to.”
He looked at me dead on. He said, “Pray for me.”
I answered, “I do.”
Again, he said, “Pray for me.”
I said, “I will.”
“You made my day,” he said.
It’s Justice I pray to. Justice, who always demands exact returns.
***
Article 6(a) of the Charter of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg
http://fundamentalbass.home.mindspring.com/vol1.htm
CRIMES AGAINST PEACE: namely, planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances, or participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the foregoing;
Article 6(a) of the Charter of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg
“The grand strategy authorizes Washington to carry out “preventive war”: Preventive, not pre-emptive. Whatever the justifications for pre-emptive war might be, they do not hold for preventive war, particularly as that concept is interpreted by its current enthusiasts: the use of military force to eliminate an invented or imagined threat, so that even the term “preventive” is too charitable. Preventive war is, very simply, the “supreme crime” condemned at Nuremberg.”
~ Preventive War ‘the Supreme Crime’
————————————————————————————————————————
TITLE 18, PART I, CHAPTER 118, Sec. 2441. Sec. 2441. - War crimes
(a) Offense. -
Whoever, whether inside or outside the United States, commits a war crime, in any of the circumstances described in subsection (b), shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for life or any term of years, or both, and if death results to the victim, shall also be subject to the penalty of death.
(b) Circumstances. -
The circumstances referred to in subsection (a) are that the person committing such war crime or the victim of such war crime is a member of the Armed Forces of the United States or a national of the United States (as defined in section 101 of the Immigration and Nationality Act).
(c) Definition. -
As used in this section the term ‘‘war crime’’ means any conduct -
(1)
defined as a grave breach in any of the international conventions signed at Geneva 12 August 1949, or any protocol to such convention to which the United States is a party;
(2)
prohibited by Article 23, 25, 27, or 28 of the Annex to the Hague Convention IV, Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land, signed 18 October 1907;
(3)
which constitutes a violation of common Article 3 of the international conventions signed at Geneva, 12 August 1949, or any protocol to such convention to which the United States is a party and which deals with non-international armed conflict; or
(4)
of a person who, in relation to an armed conflict and contrary to the provisions of the Protocol on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Mines, Booby-Traps and Other Devices as amended at Geneva on 3 May 1996 (Protocol II as amended on 3 May 1996), when the United States is a party to such Protocol, willfully kills or causes serious injury to civilians.
————————————————————————————————————————
Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court
http://www.un.org/law/icc/statute/romefra.htm
Relevant citation (Article 8, paragraph 2(b)(iv) and (v)):
Article 8 War crimes
1. The Court shall have jurisdiction in respect of war crimes in particular when committed as part of a plan or policy or as part of a large-scale commission of such crimes.
2. For the purpose of this Statute, “war crimes” means: (a) Grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, namely, any of the following acts against persons or property protected under the provisions of the relevant Geneva Convention . . . .
(b) Other serious violations of the laws and customs applicable in international armed conflict, within the established framework of international law, namely, any of the following acts:
(iv) Intentionally launching an attack in the knowledge that such attack will cause incidental loss of life or injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects or widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment which would be clearly excessive in relation to the concrete and direct overall military advantage anticipated;
(v) Attacking or bombarding, by whatever means, towns, villages, dwellings or buildings which are undefended and which are not military objectives ...
______________________________________
Thank you Mr. Vonnegut. I hope you read the reactions to your article. There is some very interesting stuff here. Mr. Vonnegut I appreciate your writing, you are in my heart. Deborah you, for lack of a better word or phrase, Rock.
I really hope that we can get past this one guys and girls. All of you… Hope to see you there, on the other side of the mess that has been created.
Re: “Now is a good time to give money to the Earthjustice people:”
And everyone responding here is a donor or subscriber to In These Times...yes?
Excuse me for such bitter words but I didn’t find any new information in this article.
What new facts we received?
Most of all politicians are complete scoundrels.
You didn’t know about this?
As for fuel;
I think that wind will give us enough energy for night lamps and to change cars on bicycles
would be better for our health.
But the power of USA can be redused and a fear of such a reducing (which now is spreading in USA) will be the main source of all world problems.
I am sorry for my bad English, I am Russian.
Alright, I haven’t thought this completely through but recall the controversy regarding the touch screen voting machines and the lack of a paper trail…of course we all do. Recall the discrepancies (in 2000) between the exit polling in Florida, the subsequent forecast by the media for Gore, and then of course how many ballots were not counted. Well, on C-SPAN last night a mathematician suggested that, with consideration of what the inventor of the Diebold machine had promised the president, that they would get him Ohio, that, it’s possible that the machines were rigged (similar to the way slot machines are rigged for the house) to discount periodically X number of votes for Sen Kerry. The mathematician brought it up because in her mind the numbers didn’t add up. So, she said perhaps that the exit polling may not have been incorrect but the count was!
Something to think about huh? At least it’s one of the better conspiracy theories I’ve ever heard. Not onlyis it possible but considering everything, also plausable.
In a press conference yesterday the president now seems to be saying - “no more Mr. nice guy” and bullied the press and did not sound conciliatory at all. The uniter of 2000 is not running for reelection now, so it’s full bore ahead,with his right wing agenda - because he received his mandate!
Good new day y’all…
“From the article cited by deborah above, it appears, if accurate (an extremely HUGE if), that democrats are too ignorant or uneducated to fill out a ballet. I find it sad taht democrats are not only pandering to the black folk (but with 90%+ they are doing a *really* good job pandering!), but now want to be the party of people too stupid to fill out ballets! Not to mention their renewed desire to be the party of felons.
Gee, it is hard to believe thay lost. . .
Posted by Soooo. . . on November 4, 2004 at 4:17 PM”
What a surprise, a republican bigot spending his time on a liberal message board trying to antagonize liberals. BTW, Sooo, when did it become nobler to pander to born again christians?
Well sir, relativity’s a bitch aint it. The old stone lentil at the oracle of Delphi said in words what took humankind hundreds of thousands of years to digest and prove valuable as a lesson that all people should learn; “Know Thyself” and “Everything in Moderation”. Recently we all had the great fortune of meeting Mr. Einstien and receiving some more of that insoluable truth, “Everything’s Relative”.
When something really shitty happens, something that takes a part of us away and we know it aint ever comin’ back people like to remind you of how it could be worse, and most of the time we don’t like it but we use it somehow to acknowledge that we’re glad that whatever happened to us didn’t happen much worse. Well, everything is relative - that’s true, but maybe we need to chisel it into our heads that what’s more true, deeper, is that relativity’s a bitch.
It’s still not against the law to Impeach AND Imprison is it?
May the universe continue to bless itself through you!
It is now time for fuel rationing ie: automobile use, start fairly generously tightening allocation coupons yearly, this will give auto companys time to switch to small 3-4 cylinder engines, and a slower depreciation on our trades against going all out tight rationing at the start causing economic caose, Europe is doing beter as there fuel taxes are higher hence lower consumption per person. plus institute all other forms of constraints on other types of energy. There is no choice, start now, but knowing human nature nothing will happen till its to late.
The end is near. But of course, everything has to end.
I say let it come now if that’s what it takes to open the eyes of humanity. Maybe if we see people dying right in front of us will the world realize the folly that was created for us , by them, but was blindly accepted by the majority. Maybe a more personal encounter with death, horror and despair in all parts of the world, in all cities, in all communites, in all households..maybe then..but then agian , it might be too late.
What? I still see no revolution in the horizon. Good, then this damn human existence should indeed cease. Let no one be spared for we have chosen the path of our own desturction.
To all the “riches” of the world, “you” too will burn to the ground. There is no escape.
Vonnegut is saying “deal with reality or reality will deal with you” > There is optimism in his message as a forwarning: get out of the country,or a farm for self survival (3 basic needs water, food, shelter), convert your $ to gold, foreign currency, have protection, some of us will live. The stupid ones will call it doomsday; the survivors will be the poor prepared working class and the psuedo rich that already have an escape route,castles in Europe and dollars in foreign currency like W. Buffett.
.
Lee said I rock. Bless your heart. I also reel and weep. Thank all of you for this company, above all our host.
I’ve been spewing forth for years now. What good has it done? They’ve stolen this election.
If you have doubts, please watch this:
http://www.votergate.tv/
Blackbox again:
http://blackboxvoting.org/
But I’m not taking defeat personally. No. I’ve just
learned to trust my own vision process, flaws, errors, instincts, and all
the things that Vonnegut and Jung and the Hopi tell us. A government,
church, family, school, etc., can make all the policy it wants. But if the
people don’t have an accord within their own being for the future, past,
present, and nature, it will likely not matter much. Life plays out in the
individual.
The 70’s legislated some good energy policy. People
were buying smaller cars, becoming careful of resources and environmentally
conscious. Then—when the corporations felt it, they hired a front man, an
actor: Reagan came to town. And so did the media blitz to buy bigger “safer”
(self-safe) more compassionate cars—SUV’s, oil guzzlers. Legislation was
passed to keep oil cheap, and people drank it all down. It isn’t the oil
that was important. It was the power it gave those in control of it. As oil
runs out and it’s not so profitable to milk, they’ll abandon it and use
something else.
Ideas are resources to use, to manipulate, as well. Thus the buyout of the
media, medicine, and the church. Third Reich. A Reich was an age. An era.
The Rapture and the abandonment of reason to it are its clone, the very same
great seduction. It’s a very selfish Heaven, the Reich, the Rapture. Those
who truly embrace love will readily escape such seductions.
Story: A woman had a stroke recently, and as she had it, she had a huge
vivid dream. Then her dreams stopped. Now they study her, for what her
condition says about dreams. Dreams are of no use in adults, they conclude;
dreams are just junk in the deep occipital, where images form. They protect
our sleep, incorporating non-dangerous things like alarm clocks into a story
line, and we purr and REM onward. And the science goes forth. And all the
explanations work to reduce us to machines.
After all, it’s a machine centered science.
And I can’t help seeing that all such machinations reduce us, dehumanize
us—for what is it to be human but to experience life as a human? We seek
to throw off anything that’s subjective, because we value only the hard
facts, the objective, in the machine-building world we create. And thus we
become machines. We throw out the experience of life, of living.
The Enlightenment without its philosophy, its understanding of symbol, has
worked to darken us.
There’s within us a stillpoint made of emotion, objectivity, sensate perception, intuition. It’s the point where we are fully human and yet aligned with a greater consciousness. It contains the deep root of archetype, linking us back, plugging us in, to the stars our bodies are made of. Images of instincts, irrational, dangerous, wondrous, breathtaking, informing, deceptive… all of these. It is the well of creativity. To repress this well is to activate these instincts in the unconscious, and set up the fertile ground for mass minded conformity and spiritual literality. If we can’t process symbols, they fall back into the well and take form and body within our shadows.
It’s our ability to think symbolically that informs us and keeps up whole.
Simply because we are, as life is, a paradox. We’re in the field of opposites,
Diablo light and dark.
Emotion. We sneer at it! Use it, milk it! It’s animals, for women, for the
weak. Override it with logic as fast as you can! But what is emotion but the sum reflex of memory, both learned and passed down to us? It enables the split second reaction that keeps us alive. It connects us with the intutuion of things in shadow.
It also enriches, seduces us, is the beautiful tapestry, this web
of life and our participation in it. Yet can also lock us into step with the
mass collective when we forget or have no faith in our own individuality and
no sense of value of individual collective humanity.
All is extrapolated. The inner. The outer. The experience of being human.
Which is what we are. Our being and becoming.
We throw so much away.
***
You who seek the deep heart: real heroes come forward now. The
ones take us through sorrow and pain.
***
Bush thinks he has a mandate, not just with yahweh, but from america. Nothing will stand between this dictatorship and bringing down the grand experimenting as we know it. Pax Romana will be real, and it will be the Rome of Constantine. (Karl Rove as Eusibius.)
We have a small time left where law might intervene, where decent people may come forward. Nixon went down this way. When the people come out of the shadows, be ready to give them a hand.
I’m gonna swing this chain till I go down.
x’s deborah
http://jungcircle.com/muse
I unfortunately do take it personally. A dreamer, a reader of Jung and Black Elk, wounded by the assault on the inner vision…it is a personal matter. All the words, all the investment of energy , swallowed in the deafening sound of the red map victory dance.
Sentient beings, the trees say nothing of the activities of men, but records their sins beneath their skin. Breath the blessings of the trees and behold their wisdom, silent, noble, midwife to the simians and the fools.
Weep, despair, fall, rise and soar toward the light…we are all light, and will not be extinguished…
It has been pleasant to read and be part of this
forum.
All the best…
“I’m gonna swing this chain till I go down.”
We’re all links in that chain, so, keep on swinging…
Now, come on BAM. You have to swing that chain, too.
As for “weep, despair, fall, rise and soar toward the light”—remember, don’t take it personal. Someone on the otherside might think you’re posing as a crybaby. Rebublicans LOVE that. They’re bullies.
And here I just distilled 20 some volumes of Jung in that little evocation, and I fear it only made you pull out a file card. This one:
JUNG——>
collective unconscious—->
archetype——->
< cross reference : Joseph Campbell —->
primitive——->
Indian————>
(Carolina Road???)
Black Elk———->
Drumming———->
Dancing————>
Isadora Duncan——->
Tree hugging granola girl—->
easy lay.
And that’s just diversion. Misses it, and sadly, too—- when all she asks of you is to quit throwing your pearls at swine and start making love to the Cosmos.
THAT’S what dancin’ is.
And right now, it’s chain swinging, too.
x’s deborah
and now MY file card:
Dancing——->
It was like a stream
Running into the dry bed
of a lake,
like rain
pouring on plants.
parched to sticks.
It was like this world’s pleasure
and the way to the other, both
walking towards me.
PS. If you haven’t seen Y Tu Mama Tambien, please do. It’s perfect. Perfect because it’s the model of the world, its history in present tense. Perfect because watching it spills your blood and tears and vitals. It’s perfect story telling, and I am in awe of it. I love this woman, her journey, and these boys who carry the bewilderment of our lonely cut-in-pieces world. She takes us back where we came in. Stop in your tracks and let your mouth fall open.
!
Better cite that!
Poems to Shiva
It was like a stream
Running into the dry bed
of a lake,
like rain
pouring on plants.
parched to sticks.
It was like this world’s pleasure
and the way to the other, both
walking towards me.
Seeing the feet of the Master
O lord white as jasmine.
I was made
worthwhile.
Mahadeviyakka
and now dinner is burning.
Deborah:
Pardon me for responding to your incorrect assumptions. You apparently have a lot of experience with “students” so, I will pardon your assumptions…I don’t need to cross reference anything to express my own thought! (albeit, I would consider myself always a student seeking information to validate the hearts fires)
Cross ref’ng perhaps a good technique, but NO!I’ve read “Man and his Symbols and Black Elk Speaks among others. (Read a lot more Freud but Jung’s thinking was more attractive. And Joseph Campbell, was easily one of my most favorite human beings.)
I happen to be an artist and have always been interested in the archetypes. The tree is my favorite symbol and living form (other than mammals) and I use it often in my own humble writing as metaphor…
It’s irrelevant to me what my Republican friends think of me. I’m accustomed to “ditto heads” and don’t fret their mouthing the Limbaugh political line. I’m also accustomed to being underestimated.
A link…in the chain…swinging
Sorry, really. Was meant to be taken symbolically. You know what too many folks think when you mention Jung: that card.
btw, I’m reading about the best and most validating book on Jung ever, imho—except for reading him first hand:
Jung and the Making of Modern Psychology
by Sonu Shamdasani
So let me regroup and think exactly what made me write that response. It wasn’t personal. I’m not about being personal. Things are too heavy for that.
I’d say—that earlier post really was a distillation, and I’m very well aware that I’m sticking my neck out writing such things to an unsympathetic public. The first bit was easy to react to; I guess (alright, I admit ) I was being provocative. But the rest likely never gets read. So that’s what that second post was about, really. I was thinking that maybe someone would have a look at things that I find critically important that are never much said.
And the card was funny. No? Oh well. Would never make a stand up. Much too strange a sense of humor.
Again, I meant no offence. Heck, we’re coming here as strangers from who knows where or why and trying to communicate. Pretty daring, all of it. I come to be tried in the fire. It’s how I learn. Thank you.
x’s deborah
Open letter to Jesusland.
Jesus did not die for your sins - you are responsible for them. Ask yourself if there are huge problems in the world, if you agree, do you think that Jesus’ crucifixition should benefit YOU?
My you are falling for the devil’s luxuries aren’t you. You have to work for your own salvation, and think too.
May God have mercy on your soul.
What interesting other pieces of sitting up mud I’ve met!
Where’s the cat? Where’s the cradle?
Yes, it’s about all over. Very soon there will be such blood in the streets of America as one is unable to imagine, either way this fascist corporate mess plays out.
Perhaps we should all recite the Bokonese funeral service now?
Point is, they WANT a holy war. They’re working to provoke it, justify it, create it.
Rove is a psychopath. Bush thinks—and what percentage of his voters?—God made him president to fulfill the end time scripture.
You know how excited the faithful get when they see Jesus on a bard door, a reflection in a refrigerator? When I lived in Ohio, one of these ‘event’—created purely from imagination—caused a small ton traffic jam, people wanting to ‘see.’ Extrapolate this—we have the technology to project Jesus in the Sky for their rapturous pleasure. I’m serious. Please read this article from the Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/dotmil/arkin020199.htm
When Seeing and Hearing Isn’t Believing
By William M. Arkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Monday, Feb. 1, 1999
excerpt:
“For Hollywood, it is special effects. For covert operators in the U.S. military and intelligence agencies, it is a weapon of the future.”
“What if the U.S. projected a holographic image of Allah floating over Baghdad?”
“Pentagon planners started to discuss digital morphing after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Covert operators kicked around the idea of creating a computer-faked videotape of Saddam Hussein crying or showing other such manly weaknesses, or in some sexually compromising situation. The nascent plan was for the tapes to be flooded into Iraq and the Arab world.”
The tape war never proceeded, killed, participants say, by bureaucratic fights over jurisdiction, skepticism over the technology, and concerns raised by Arab coalition partners.
But the “strategic” PSYOPS scheming didn’t die. What if the U.S. projected a holographic image of Allah floating over Baghdad urging the Iraqi people and Army to rise up against Saddam, a senior Air Force officer asked in 1990?
“The Gulf War hologram story might be dismissed were it not the case that washingtonpost.com has learned that a super secret program was established in 1994 to pursue the very technology for PSYOPS application. The “Holographic Projector” is described in a classified Air Force document as a system to “project information power from space ... for special operations deception missions.”
Allah in the sky? Why not Jesus in Nashville? I’ve followed this madness for years now. No one would believe it. And now? How do you stop it? It’s the same madness that held them in thrall of a Third Reich. Ultima Thule, and all. At Nuremberg, the war criminals went to their death unrepentant.
I once got to speak to Anna Rosmus, and she told me that it was the way they lied with such ease that kept her going.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2000/04/03/60II/main179477.shtml
And why Iraq, beyond the oil reserves? The Faithful dislike their magic book being contradicted with science. This war has also been about destroying all such evidence. Please read this—make people aware.
http://www.savingantiquities.org/
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/attack/conseqindex.htm scroll down to links under ‘cultural’
Deborah:
Often one of the difficulties with writing (especially in this forum) is that a thought or two can be misunderstood. Not written or read exactly as one intended ...You certainly know what I mean.
Thanks for noting the new book on Jung.
On a personal level, yes, we come to these sites from many different backgrounds, but apparently
with similar goals. And you sound like someone that I would love to have living next door, even in the same town.
In fact, there are a few others that have posted that sound like good neighbors too.
We have ecountered each other’s thinking beneath other columns in the past month or so, and your energy is appreciated.
(The communications here are more than I have with my neighbors.)
All the best
“Learn to look with an equal eye upon all beings, seeing the one Self in all.”
Srimad Bhagavatam
No energy scheme, whether petrochem, nuke, or “renewable”, will work unless human population stabilizes and then reduces, steadily less and less for at least several generations. Alas, the priests and mullahs concentrate on almost prehistoric understandings rather than hard mathematics, and so ascribe sinfulness to any form of lovemaking in which a baby won’t result. And the politicians go along because they either believe that humans can continue to increase their numbers without a payback (actually, a “die-back”), or they put the votes of their similarly misguided constituents at the top of their priority lists. Our great-grandchildren are going to hate our guts for using up all the resources and leaving nothing but a mess behind. OR, we could get the clue finally and only have the babies we truly want and preventing unwished-for conception. One Papal Bull endorsing family planning would break centuries of unrealism, plus the phrase “unwanted baby” could become an anachronism. Yeah right, I’ll start holding my breath for that eventuality right now!
My face is already turning blue…
Make love for fun, have babies when you really want them.
Bless your hearts.
Come sit down and have some coffee. It’s good to have company as this all hits. Not that it hasn’t been coming down in buckets for years but… now it’s sort of official.
GOD FORGIVE AMERICA :
We need to start correcting those signs that say ‘bless.’ I like spray paint… And always little post-it notes for the appropriate comments anywhere, anytime anyplace. Is there a lonely looking place on that Wal-Mart bulletin board? Post an article from Truthout—or In These Times.
O shite. Have we come all this way, o stars, just to develop our dark sense of humor? You never will tell me, stars. You just say for me to pull up my socks.
***
I read about the solider who killed himself at Ground Zero when he heard bush was ‘elected.’ Hate to tell Mr. Rove and the other Compassionate Ones, but that was Jesus. There’s been a lot of Jesus’s lately. Keep trying to come back, but—just not having a nice day.
Soldiers sign an oath to protect and defend the Constitution. That’s what they are asked to give their life for. The least we can do is protect the Constitution at home.
Yep. Pull up yer sock if you have any.
x’s
deborah
btw
several sf writers have started a listserve called “My
America,” The idea here is to find a low-budget, high-impact way to
encourage and coordinate grass roots political action. We hope that My
America will become a kind of national support group and clearinghouse
for local activists. This is a come as you are party: we welcome
parents trying to regain control of school boards hijacked by the
religious right; environmental groups trying to stop drilling or clear
cutting; community groups that promote education and nurture small
businesses in the inner cities; everyone who’s out there fighting the
Bush Administration’s attacks on gays, minorities, muslims, and anyone
else who hasn’t drunk their kool-aid. We hope My America will become an
effective support group and clearinghouse for liberal grassroots
activists. And if it goes nowhere .... well, nowhere is exactly where
we’ll get by sitting at home and doing nothing!
Anyone who’s interested in joining My America can do so at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/my_america
More important, pass the list address along to anyone you know who’s
involved in local politics or grassroots political action, and
encourage them to use it to stay in touch with other activists around
the country, post news about what they’re doing, and gather volunteers.
Deborah:
Well, perhaps we live in the same (blue)state…Ca. that is…
Thanks for the info. (I’m burned out temporarily on expressing my opinion on much of anything)
All the best.
A tip a cup of kindness (in this case java)to ya.
Please forward and tack up everywhere
This message comes from 3 members of congress:
John Conyers, Jr., Jerrold Nadler, Robert Wexler
Ranking Member, Ranking Member, Member of Congress
House Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on the Constitution
Saturday 6th November 2004 :
URGENT ACTION TO FORCE RECOUNT IN 34 STATES, GAO INVESTIGATES
Black Box Voting’s Bev Harris, the leading authority on e-voting, has
just
lauched the largest Freedom of Information Act request ever for the
audit
trails on the electronic voting machines one third of the country used
in
Tuesday’s election. In order to also force a recount in 34 STATES, Black
Box
is asking all those who want a full recount, who believe the exit polls
were
NOT wrong, to do the following ASAP:
FAX RALPH NADER AT 202-265-0092.
Write this message: Ralph, PLEASE CHALLENGE THE ELECTION RESULTS IN NEW
HAMPSHIRE NOW.
SIGN YOUR NAME AND UNDER IT WRITE: BLACKBOX VOTING.ORG Activist
IF A PRECEDENT CAN BE ESTABLISHED IN NH, A FULL RECOUNT CAN BE FORCED.
NH IS
JUST TO GET THE BALL ROLLING.
Please see www.blackboxvoting.org and volunteer or donate or
www.therandirhodesshow.com Friday Nov. 5th show
AND PASS TO AS MANY PEOPLE AS YOU POSSIBLY CAN!
THE GAO HAS ALSO BEEN ASKED BY THREE CONGRESSMEN TO INVESTIGATE. SEE
LETTER
BELOW.
BUSH HAS NO MANDATE. LET’S PROVE IT.
*** November 5, 2004
The Honorable David M. Walker
Comptroller General of the United States
U.S. General Accountability Office
441 G Street, NW
Washington, DC 20548
Dear Mr. Walker:
We write with an urgent request that the Government Accountability
Office
immediately undertake an investigation of the efficacy of voting
machines
and new technologies used in the 2004 election, how election officials
responded to difficulties they encountered and what we can do in the
future
to improve our election systems and administration.
In particular, we are extremely troubled by the following reports, which
we
would also request that you review and evaluate for us:
In Columbus, Ohio, an electronic voting system gave President Bush
nearly
4,000 extra votes. “Machine Error Gives Bush Extra Ohio Votes,”
Associated
Press, November 5.
An electronic tally of a South Florida gambling ballot initiative failed
to
record thousands of votes. “South Florida OKs Slot Machines Proposal,”
Id.
In one North Carolina county, more than 4,500 votes were lost because
officials mistakenly believed a computer that stored ballots could hold
more
data that it did. “Machine Error Gives Bush Extra Ohio Votes,” Id.
In San Francisco, a glitch occurred with voting machines software that
resulted in some votes being left uncounted. Id.
In Florida, there was a substantial drop off in Democratic votes in
proportion to voter registration in counties utilizing optical scan
machines
that was apparently not present in counties using other mechanisms.
http://ustogether.org/election04/florida_vote_patt.htm
The House Judiciary Committee Democratic staff has received numerous
reports
from Youngstown, Ohio that voters who attempted to cast a vote for John
Kerry on electronic voting machines saw that their votes were instead
recorded as votes for George W. Bush. In South Florida, Congressman
Wexler’s
staff received numerous reports from voters in Palm Beach, Broward and
Dade
Counties that they attempted to select John Kerry but George Bush
appeared
on the screen. CNN has reported that a dozen voters in six states,
particularly Democrats in Florida, reported similar problems. This was
among
over one thousand such problems reported. “Touchscreen Voting Problems
Reported,” Associated Press, November 5.
Excessively long lines were a frequent problem throughout the nation in
Democratic precincts, particularly in Florida and Ohio. In one Ohio
voting
precinct serving students from Kenyon College, some voters were required
to
wait more than eight hours to vote. “All Eyes on Ohio,” Dan Lothian,
CNN,
November 3,
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/blog/1…blog/index.htm..
We are literally receiving additional reports every minute and will
transmit
additional information as it comes available. The essence of democracy
is
the confidence of the electorate in the accuracy of voting methods and
the
fairness of voting procAedures. In 2000, that confidence suffered
terribly,
and we fear that such a blow to our democracy may have occurred in 2004.
Thank you for your prompt attention to this inquiry.
Sincerely,
John Conyers, Jr. Jerrold Nadler Robert Wexler
Ranking Member Ranking Member Member of Congress
House Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on the Constitution
cc: Hon. F. James Sensenbrenner
Chairman
Yep, He hit the nail on the head, sorry guys. The future ain’t what it should be, is it?
THE HOPE OF A FAILED SUICIDE
By Michael Vincent McGinnis
Language and knowledge perish with the first bomb. Our sadly earthly frames lie against this earth—the earth’s depth and star will remain bright. We witness the death of the prophets, the guides to a shared future. We have witnessed the history of war and its many forms: the militaristic appropriation of Islam, the crusades of Christianity,
the global economy of the “state”, and the appropriation of Buddha by capitalistic zealots and warlords. Buddha smiles.
Violence is the curse of this age, the scent of this age. Violence is primodial. We can speak of the injustice of war: in war, the glass keys of security and peace are broken.
The church bells are silenced. Despair fills the air. A theatre of war crimes exposed.
In war, we test the earth and stain it with our loneliness. The child dies in the first winter storm. Our wars create a sense of species loneliness. Smart bombs, cannons, daisy cutters, E-bombs – on flocks of birds. Our bombs explode and consume this earth.
The accursed share, our passion for warfare and drive to consume, marks the end of life – a global potlatch with dead remnants and the broken pieces of god spread out.
Do you support the death of culture and nature?
In the eyes of a bird with a broken beak,
Is the broken face of love.
Hey, Kurt—from a contemporary and part-time Hoosier—we can’t afford to give up! How hopelessly sad to hand down such a worldview to tens of thousands of babies and children whose every impulse is to live and grow and love and sing! Hopelessness? Never go there, guy! It’ll eat you alive!
The simple fact is we are fkd. Humans are a cancer on the planet. Either we reduce our numbers and bad habits or die off soon or kill the planet. Sorry. No happy endings.
When did Vonnegut become such a dope? Everything I read of his these days is pure tripe. Lot’s of vigorous literary moping with little or no basis in reality.
Maybe I’m the one who’s changed, and he was always this way.
Constantly risking absurdity…
http://www.cnn.com/video/us/2002/02/25/ashcroft.sings.wbtv.med.html
“Like it’s not creepy enough that everyone’s favorite terminally bitter ultraconservative Christian US attorney general actually has himself anointed with cooking oil upon the assumption of every public office he has ever held.”—SF Gate 03/08/02
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2002/03/08/notes030802.DTL
The world will end not with a bang, but lots of alternating wimpering and giggling.
Welp, this is the third, or is it the forth, time it is supposed to be the end of the world in my lifetime.
Wish it would hurry up and happen, I was pretty bummed that y2k didn’t do it. I won’t go hungry till I run out of neighboors and wood to cook them on. Waiting willingly for the end.
I didn’t wanna pay my whole mortgage off anyways, and I have plenty of steely knives.
skipkent wonders:
“When did Vonnegut become such a dope? Everything I read of his these days
is pure tripe. Lot’s of vigorous literary moping with little or no basis in
reality.
“Maybe I’m the one who’s changed, and he was always this way.”
Mebbe. BUT— here, in less than 500 words, his efforts got YOU to respond.
The old guy must still have it! After all, ~100,000 Iraqi citizens, mostly
women and children, and over 1000 American soldiers have been killed in an
unprovoked attack led by a president who has misled (yea, verily lied) to
his people, his nation acting alone and in defiance of the world community,
and using the very same rationale that the Nazis and the Kaiser used for the
last two big wars— and YOU didn’t say a word about that!
BTW, what exactly was the “no basis in reality” part?
Maybe you should turn off the TV. Murdoch pretty much owns it now. Also owns
part of DirecTV, incase you’re tempted. And guess what? The Carlyle Group
now owns a third of America’s theaters. Aren’t you glad the Right cares what
movies you see? No end of that old vigorous literary moping. And thank the
gods they’ve covered up Justice’s breasts with taxpayers money. Guess they
made that old eagle fly.
Shadows reel. It’s their world now, and their new Hitler Youth, the Tribs,
will fight to last drop of blood. That’s who’s running this show, their gaze blank and pitiless.
Oil? It just plays along. They know how much is there, what they can get for it.
As long as they have the cheap labor of America’s enlisted, they go for it.
They milk the Feds with contracts, Halliburton, Bechtel, all their spawn.
The endless utility of the Puritan soul merchants.
You guys backed off a bit after your Rathergate set up. Now you’re back on the job.
It’s really a waste of money, you know. The internet is the one place you never had.
GOD FORGIVE AMERICA
More here:
http://www.soros.org/initiatives/washington/articles_publications/publications/iraq_20041112/iraq_Transition.pdf
Bill said:
I was pretty bummed that y2k didn’t do it.>>
That was Gary North’s baby, y2k. He sure built up a good base of contacts with it, dinne.
He is / was one of the archons of the Christian Stealth movement. They’ve pulled it off, folks. We’re two steps away from their total control. Now they purge. That man who burned himself in front of the white house? Listen to him.
Google up john o’neil ... the blood dimmed tide begins.
It can happen here.
so what. the earth is old, very old. the quicker homosapiens are gone, the sooner other life will evolve unharassed - we’re just a drop in the evolutionary bucket. It’s just too bad that we’re taking so many innocent with us. cb
Regarding humanity’s use of fossil fuels:
1. Renewables won’t work as an energy source - they generate electricity, and hence do not drive aeroplanes, ships or trucks. They are also give a very poor return on investment, and since my party went down the drain we are obliged to live in a market driven capitalist society which only operates if there is a profit.
This means the end of trade, both international and intranational.
2. Fossil fuels make plastics, which means almost every artifact you touch.
3. Fossil fuels make fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides and plant and reap. This means the end of industrial agriculture, something over 90% of the world food supply.
Phooey, you guys. All of you. It’s the mind set that’s the limiting factor. Simple lack of imagination and greed.
I agree oil has to go. Even Ashcroft knows to use vegetable oil when he anoints himself.
But all that about alt. energy being no good is just Reagan-speak. It keeps us in oil, and it just ain’t TRUE. Look what a 10 sec google search turns up:
http://www.shell.com/home/Framework?siteId=hydrogen-en
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/04/0422_030422_veggiefuels.html
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/10/1028_041028_alternative_energy.html
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0103/earthpulse/
*** and don’t miss: ****
http://www.yellowbiodiesel.com/
Bear with me minute. Please.
It’s the heart that gets us places. The will to go on. It got us here. It’s the only thing that ever HAS gotten us here. Somewhere, someone in terrible pain and sorrow didn’t throw in the towel. We’re obligated to do the same, if only in their memory.
One of the first goals of propaganda is having the opposition lose heart. Hence O’Reilley and Rush and the other little weasel clones. Please, just see them for what they are. Laugh at them. Enough of you have already turned off the tube. Now quit buying their stuff. And if any of your companies have any money left, or any of you have anything in a 401K, pull it out of whatever stocks its in and take it to Working Assets or Pax and make you’re only empowering good things. We may not have much, but there’s an awful, awful lot of us.
Much scarier than CO2 damage is messing with genetics re crops. Nature can heal herself if you don’t mix up her innards. Let her decide when to mutate. Because we don’t control this. We don’t. And maybe consider this: maybe slowing down some of the biotech changes, misguided as the Holy Chosen of CBN are, might make for some happy accident, some avoidance of some unexpected horror. We don’t know how it works, really. So relax. You don’t have to bloom the roses or think for your liver. Yes—by the gods, nukes are bad news. But it was the simple gift of Prometheus, fire, that lit the very air of Dresden. Machetes do very well to kill people in Africa, and nothing has ever compared to smallpox, bubonic plague, or simple diarrhea in efficacy.
People. There IS enough food to go around. It just doesn’t go around.
THAT we can change.
I keep hearing this thing about humans having lost their right to the planet, that we’re a cancer and it’s only right that we get snuffed. But don’t you see you’re only playing into a variant of the crazy Armageddon mindset that’s leading Bush, Condi, Perle, Falwell and all the other arrogant fish folk over the edge? We aren’t a cancer, except when we’re greedy, and that’s an impulse we can check. We have checked it in the past, ELSE WE WOULDN’T BE HERE. We aren’t some infestation on the holy mother planet: we’re OF her, her very eyes and ears and heart. Let’s be that. Deserve that. Deserve our own children, that’s what we need to do.
Now you get back up on that wagon train. We have to get over the next mountain, and it’s gettin cold tonight.
Anyone bring a harmonica?
You people are weird.
I have never before read so many posts from persons who truly believe the end of the world is near.
Peak Oil will be no problem.
First thing you all need to look at is how much of the total energy consumption of the World is from Oil?
Once that relity is brought to your attention you may understand that it is possible to replace this paltry sum with another reasonable alternative.
Coal for example. There is more coal out there than the human race can use.
Nuclear Fission has not yet been mastered yet either. And that simply created helium out of hydrogen. A relitavly ineret substance with the potential to fuel this planet forever!
And by forever I mean far longer than the sun will continue to burn. (which is moot because the expanding gas clout of the red dwarf that our star will become will burn us up long before we run out of hydrogen to turn into helium)
And we have plenty of other alternatives. The most promising of which are bio fuels.
We have enough farmland to grow all the energy the world needs right here in the US. We just need to realize that this might cause the price to go up a bit, but not much.
A kilowatt of energy might go for $10 instead of $6.
So all of you pessismists out there who are killing yourselves with stress…you just keep on keeping on. Once you keel over the rest of us will slap you into a boiler and the tv your burning body will power.
Chris
” We have enough farmland to grow all the energy the world needs right here in the US”
Our farm output would plummet without the massive quantities of natural gas & fossil fuels for chemical fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides. Modern agriculture all over the world absolutely depends on these inputs, that was part of the “green revolution”.
BTW, it’s probably hard to believe but in 2005 the USA is projected to have the first agricultural DEFICIT since the 1940s:
http://www.pjstar.com/stories/120704/ALA_B4UEM1VT.027.shtml”
Each calorie of food you consume was produced using TEN calories of fossil fuels to grow it and get it to your plate.
There is lots of coal, but that too will run out if we switch to it as our primary transportation fuel. And it is very dirty, much dirtier than oil & natural gas.
It’s time we woke up to the situation with oil. Having lived through the AIDs crises during the 80’s I can attest first hand that watching your loved ones and close friends die slowly and painfully is not a pleasant site.
As a society I feel we are on a major suicide mission because we don’t want to accept the fact that we can’t live the way we do on a limited resource that we “steal” from other nations to live as we do.
Personally, I don’t think John Kerry would have done any more to change our current conservation or energy policies had he won. His whole attitude in giving in about the election stunned me, but convinced me that he was as corrupted by the system that gave us our current administration.
Posted by Eric: “Our farm output would plummet without the massive quantities of natural gas & fossil fuels for chemical fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides. Modern agriculture all over the world absolutely depends on these inputs, that was part of the “green revolution”.
Because of the attitudes that this behavior is acceptable and that finding alternatives is not all that critical, we are stuck with the scenario described above. And our soils won’t grow what they once could because chemicals in such large quantities were used and now even larger quantities are used to force more vegetation to come up. Proper, sustainable farming practices long ago became rare and are only relatively recently becoming common practice in certain areas of America, mostly on small farms.
Rather than tell us all what we have known for some time, why not spend your energy exploring how alternatives can be brought to market. Why not suggest how the tobacco companies who are dying to get us back into the dying business can, instead, become major suppliers of capital to jumpstart the alternative fuel industry. This administration will also drive farmers out of business, after lulling them into believing they should vote neocon, so why not find a way for farmers to keep their farms from agribusiness hands and grow the future alternative energy we so desperately need.
People with attitudes of complacency and apathy and those with the arrogance to claim that this is the way it is, live with it, are among the destroyers. Go away and come back with some ideas; participate in making things better; solve some problems; get your head out of the oil.
Chris posted: “So all of you pessismists out there who are killing yourselves with stress…you just keep on keeping on. Once you keel over the rest of us will slap you into a boiler and the tv your burning body will power.” And, “We have enough farmland to grow all the energy the world needs right here in the US. We just need to realize that this might cause the price to go up a bit, but not much. A kilowatt of energy might go for $10 instead of $6.”
People need to stress but, to keep it from harming them mentally and physically, need to be active in solving the problems that cause them stress. More discussion is what we all need because such discussions help to spur us into action.
Many Americans are beginning to find out what striving for the lowest possible prices for all their goods is doing to our economy. Many years ago I recall reading several pieces of information from some studies demonstrating that, if Americans were willing to pay an average of 7% more for their food, all farmers could then make a profit and remove the choke collar of agribusiness. Would I be willing to spend an additional $28 per month for food to achieve such a beneficial goal? You betcha! Then, finally, American cities across the nation would engage in community supported agriculture (CSA) using organic farming practices that will rebuild the soil.
We all know that as the rungs of the corporate ladder get higher, the less those occupying those positions suffer financially. And we know that real wages for those of us on the lower rungs are continually getting so much lower that lower consumer prices aren’t low enough. Neo-inflationism courtesy of the neoconservatives? Jobs are going away by the millions and being replaced with much lower paying positions. This administration wants us all to become servers/consumers while the rest of the world supplies us with manufactured goods and food. What’s next, empire-building to sustain the flow of imports for our survival?
And this administration wants to continue the consumption of fossil fuels for the good of those occupying the upper rungs of the ladder. And it wants us to be so foolish as to believe that the paltry amount of fossil fuel in the ANWR is going to help oil prices and save us from foreign oil. This administration is leading by the nose those Americans who are willing to drink the neocon swill. The false claim of the benefits of oil from the ANWR is another method of lulling us back to the deadly sleep of complacency and apathy that will further delay the driving forces necessary to jump-start the alternative fuel industry and its stakeholder chain. Alternative energy sources, the equipment used in energy transmission, the related industries that will develop, the advanced technology that will develop in the processes, and the millions of people in America who could be employed long-term would constitute the largest and most profitable industry the world has ever seen for many decades to come.
And it will save the world. Why aren’t we doing something about it jump-starting it? Write your newspapers, magazines, Senators, and Representatives. Gather in groups and discuss ideas. Consult with universities. Help raise funds for research. Peak oil is definitely going to be a problem if we do not act now in significant ways (and increased use of coal is a very bad idea!). Enough with the depression already! Get active!
Philip posted: “As a society I feel we are on a major suicide mission because we don’t want to accept the fact that we can’t live the way we do on a limited resource that we “steal” from other nations to live as we do.”
Well said, Philip. Our lives are at stake and yet mainstream newspapers and magazines rarely mention how critically we need all-out efforts in America to be the leaders in saving the planet from itself. We cannot make the rapid progress we need in changing from fossil fuels by minimal efforts or wasteful efforts or fake efforts. Most other “first-“, “second-“, or “third-world” nations are way ahead of America in the realization of the deadly results of too little action to correct our course. I hope that everyone reading or participating in this thread is actively doing what they can to assist in the efforts of the many organizations in America that are getting the word out as best they can.
Many of these organizations have the money required to fight legal battles and to mount lobbying campaigns. I’m happy to supply anyone who wants them many names and URL’s of organizations actively involved in environmental efforts. The more the numbers of participants grow, the more likely it will be that corrective actions in governmental policies at every level will be implemented.
Americans are going to have to become very noisy public “nuisances” to help drive meaningful positive actions. Or have we given up on government of the people, by the people, and for the people? Are we at the point of governance by those who ignore the servile peasants except to ensure that just enough capital is distributed among them to spend and thereby keep the coffers of the nobles filled?
Kurt, I have enjoyed your writing for years but I cannot buy into the lack of hope presented by your article. While the rape of the earth is a fact, peak oil is a fact, global warming, etc are facts, so is the the human ability to build better mousetraps and learn from his mistakes. Foraging for berries and living in caves is not the answer. Going back through time we see our species, starting with using a sharpened stick to get the really good termites out of the nest to eat, then learning how to make stone tools and kill concentrated protein (which led to the first population explosion, leisure time, art, etc (since man now did not have to forage for plant protein for the better part of daylight hours and now had time to wonder and invent and make symbols on cave walls, leading to your own occupation Mr Vonnegut) on to his harnesing the wind to cross oceans, then to his eventual burning of concentrated sunlight both recent and fossil. The latter resource use is undoubtedly the most consequential in terms of environmental damage but it will not bring about the end of human life on earth. There will be a dimming down of energy consumtion, no doubt, but lets look at how much of a surplus of fossil fuel derived energy we have to work with to facilitate the transition to renewables. There are trillions of cubic feet of natural gas and billions of barrels of oil yet undiscovered. I work in the O&G Industry as a geologist and am on an offshore rig as I write this. Not to toot my own horn, but here is what can be done on a personal level and what WILL be done on a larger scale as market conditions cause it to happen. First I’ll start with my home. I have a typical American home, of 1800 square feet, built last year. The frame is of steel (recyclable) with 8” walls into which fiberglass insulation was blown to give an R Value of 40,. The attic has an R-Value of more that 45. My heat pump uses the temperature of the ground, circulating an antifreeze solutiong 10’ under my yard in a 300’ circle to use the constant temperature of the ground to cool and heat the home. The SEER value of this unit is 28, compared with the most efficient air to air model which is around 17 and the payback for the added cost is 3 years. Inside the home Solatubes direct sunlight into the bathroom, den and kitchen, eliminating the need for daytime lights on most days. Further lighting is provided by compact fluorescent bulbs using about 15 watts each instead of 60 to 100 watts. A “smart home” system of switches and motion sensors enables every light to be turned off when leaving the house. The ground source heat pump also makes a large percentage of my hot water (40-75%) thanks to a desuperheater connected to the water heater. A fiberglass blanket insulates the tank for further savings. An Energy Star refrigerator, washer and dryer cut power use further. All said and done, the home (which is comfortably heated and cooled year round) uses about 650 Kilowatts of mostly fossil fuel derived energy per month for a total energy bill of $65. (Green Mountain Energy sells pure wind derived energy locally for 13 cents per kilowatt, which would raise the cost to about $84 per month.)(I’ll go that route later). Compare that to a traditional home which uses about 4 to 5 times as much! How many solar roof panels, wind farms, etc could we build with the extra $150 to $300 my neighbors are spending EVERY MONTH?! Ok, thats just the house. My previous vehicle, a chevrolet truck with a 305 engine got around 17 miles per gallon. I just bought a used 4-speed, 4-cylinder Toyota truck that is averaging around 28 MPG. I recycle plastics which are made from hydrocarbons, aluminum, which saves tons of watts of electricty, and paper. Now this is just me, ONE GUY, who has cut his energy use to ONE FOURTH of what it once was. Doomsday people, take heart. Others will follow when they feel the crunch, wasteful air conditioners will be replaced, LED light bulbs (which are next and use VERY little power) guzzling cars will gradually be replaced by hybrids and more efficient motors, recycling, carpooling, bus riding, community gardens will spring up to grow food, organic farming will eliminate added fertilizers, large sails will augment diesel engines on cargo ships, bikes will come back (helping end the obesity epedimic) we will share and repair and recycle items instead of everyone owning then throwing them away.. (insert many things), these will all happen, dwindling fossil fuels will continue to be used for at least another 50 years AND, if we don’t all kill each other because of what gods we beleive in by then, we will have expanded renewables and adjusted our population growth rate (already happening) to the POST HYDROCARBON world. It will happen and our children will live on, not in darkness but in a world illuminated by human ingenuity. Peace.
Well said Elliot. Singing songs of gloom, doom and despair without offering solutions is just lazy and irresponsible. Vonnegut needs to smoke a little of the blessed leaf to ease his depression.
I have a “near zero energy” home, connected to the grid with a rooftop solar setup and two Southwest Windpower windgens. I use a 19 cu’ Sunfrost fridge, from firemountainsolar.com, and our passive solar orienation of the home, with it’s north backside built into a hill lets me heat if with a very minimal amount of wood in the cold Montana winters. Our bills, mostly from the modern convenience of the TV, DVD which cause us to go into energy defecit in the winter, average $20 per month for electricity and $20 for cooking and water heating propane for a family of 5. All this cost us about an extra $20,000 when building our home. How many American homes are built spending $20,000 on fancy extras such as fancy tile, landscaping, etc. In the scheme of things, as an amount added to the mortgage of a new home its not that much. We would be an energy exporter if everyone thought homes like this were as cool as the toys that fill our garages and living rooms. Transition to homes like yours and mine will happen but it will be market pressure that causes this. FIGURE THIS ONE OUT: A 75 watt solar panel costs about $250 or more and is made of glass, silicon and copper with some aluminum thown in. YET, you can go to Wallyworld and buy a 27 inch, color, stereo TV for HALF that. Why, economy of scale, mass production. If everyone started putting solar grid-intertie systems on their roofs the cost would go down and quick.
Lets look at solutions, not get so depressed.
It’s not that hard, give up some of what you have, maybe one of your cars. Why not 4 of your 8 cylinders. Or perhaps 8000 of your 12000 daily calories. Come on North America it’s about time for a real contribution to the globe.
The author of this column is absoulutely right, however the end of this society is not necessarily the end of the human race. That depends on how many of us are left after it all comes crashing down, and how devistated the natural environment is. We may yet be able to take up the tribal ways of our ancestors and reform societies worth being a part of.
‘The End Is Near’ Oct 29, 2004
Hurin wrote: “We may yet be able to take up the tribal ways of our ancestor’s and reform societies worth being a part of.”
Hey Hurin, Just what idyllic ancestral tribe would that be?
No doubt there were some relatively enlightened groups along the way, but then just as surely,
they were either rubbed out by Nordic giant’s or simply swallowed up by the earth: kind of like Raquel Welch (Loana) in the movie ‘One Million Years B.C.’, only without the happy endings.
You could argue however, that individual survivor’s of these now extinct tribes managed to somehow sidle through history, riding mules perhaps, and eventually emerged in the twentieth century as the Democratic Party. But then, that scenario only goes on to show that nice guys always finish last.
No, make no mistake about it, the human race is inherently doomed.
First it was the great big animals with the pea sized brains that roamed about the planet devouring everything in their path; and now,
homina homina Homo sapien’s (with the great big brains) are driving the bus… promising, “One of these days, Alice, one of these days!”
America, you know, for all it’s faults, is still thought of by many as the best tribe or collection of tribes on the planet. We are the inventor’s of
the pneumatic nail gun, among other good things, although it does have the inherent probability (like so many other things) of sending a tenpenny
nail, lickety-split, through your skull just when you least expect it.
And now, the ones with the great big and brawny brains are gearing up to produce a fully mechanized and mobile robotic army. Hey presto!
...doomed, I tell you.
Who needs Arnold?
http://www.stern.de/_content/50/82/508282/xray.swf
Tim Christopher wrote: “No, make no mistake about it, the human race is inherently doomed.”
Yep, humans are the destroyers and we’re like termites eating our home world. But we are not doomed unless we remain inactive in bringing about major changes. Very soon, the rest of the world will show us where we are in the social, political, and economic “food chain.” When this administration finishes destroying our economy and makes us a nation of consumers and servers dependent on the rest of the world to supply us; when the corporations have us where they want us with our disposable income; when the power is consolidated among the richest and we poor, dumb bipeds incapable of leading ourselves can then be “properly” led, then we will be at the mercy of those more progressive societies and cultures.
Whaddaya say we don’t let it get that far? Let’s take our country back and start healing America. Let’s lead the world in healing our home world. We can choose not to be doomed.
1nonservilepeasant wrote: “Very soon, the rest of the world will show us where we are in the social, political, and economic “food chain.”
And sooner than the one’s with the great big brains predict, I (humbly) agree.
http://slate.msn.com/id/2112697/
At the end of this article: ”... [the] NIC report paints a world where fewer and fewer people look to America as a model of anything. We can’t sell freedom if we can’t sell ourselves. “
Of course you and I know that the purpose for invading Iraq wasn’t to proffer freedom - that whole selling point is Johnny-come-lately, coming only after WMD and “evil dictator” were no longer useful in maintaining an illusion of righteousness on the part of the neo-cons whose goal it is to dominate and control the earths resources as part of some perverted Darwinian power grab. (PNAC)
Even the Vatican has expressed speculation that our President Bush may very well be the anti-Christ. Christians are sensing the end, their biblical moment of rapture. Therefore, they will not attempt to avert man’s fate or save the earth, but encourage it’s hastened path towards judgment. Lets not forget, our President takes his orders directly from God - he said so, himself.
And not only has mankind (irrevocably) squandered the planet’s resources like there’s no tomorrow, as Vonnegut persuasively points out, but now, the neo-cons are also spending our money like there’s no tomorrow, as well. Yet another sure sign the end is near and perhaps all part of an even greater global conspiracy to conquer the U.S.
There was speculation of this idea even before the Y2K election, that Bush/Rove represented an ideal mindset/candidate with the same gullible profile as former President LBJ. Johnson, it should be remembered, refused to run for re-election not for any other reason than he understood that he had been duped.
You see the world as a glass half full, I see the earth wobbling precariously through space on it’s finite journey. To rally the kind of mass support necessary in order to overcome the all powerful grip of special interests, fully ingrained into western culture, will now take nothing short of a new, bona fide, Messiah - quite literally. Good luck with THAT.
Mark my words: The U.S. is destined to explode just like “Mr. Creosote” in Monty Python’s comic opera, ‘The Meaning of Life’... and there’s absolutely nothing, at this stage of the game,
that you can do about it. Ah, with but one exception, I should add… to acquiesce to the fact that you cannot change the world… and then carry on from there.
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