--------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 07 Jul 2004 08:49:16 -0400
To: •••@••.•••
From: Lorenzo Hagerty <>
Subject: Re: subscriber comments
rkm> In learning to take responsibility for self governance,
personal transformations will occur--but they do not need to
occur in advance, and they are very unlikely to occur in
advance.
This seems to be a contradiction to me. It's the classic
chicken / egg problem. Isn't "learning to take responsibility
for self" in fact a personal transformation?
I don't mean to be picky, but this seems to be a major point
for you, and I think there is a bit of circular reasoning
here.
--------
Dear Lorenzo,
Learning to take responsibility for yourself is a personal
achievement--a rather mundane by-product of growing up, hardly
a transformation. Learning to take responsibility for
self-governance is a collective endeavor and would lead to
both personal and social transformation.
My point is that we do not need to attain personal
enlightenment in order to begin working together to change
society.
thanks for your comments,
rkm
--------------------------------------------------------
From: "Claudia Woodward-Rice" <>
To: <•••@••.•••>
Subject: RE: subscriber comments
Date: Wed, 7 Jul 2004 10:24:03 -1000
rkm:> there is no personal transformation that needs to
precede social transformation.
Comments about hierarchy further down in the discussion also
fall into the category of "wishful thinking."
Looking around in communities or watching primates on the
Discovery channel, it is pretty obvious that most people are
herd animals. They will do most anything to avoid autonomy. Do
I wish most people would take their tails from between their
legs? Sure.
Do I expect it? Frankly, I think we are a failed species.
------------------
Dear Claudia,
Civilization transforms people into herd animals. People in
their natural state are neither herd animals nor does their
social behavior resemble that of primate troops. Our
civilization is a deviant social system, uncharacteristic of
most of human existence. I would not blame the species as a
whole for that deviance.
If people avoid autonomy that is because they are conditioned
that way by our society, starting with parental and school
disciplinary methods.
You talk about people "taking their tails from between their
legs"... what specifically do you mean by that?
best regards,
rkm
--------------------------------------------------------
From: ernie yacub <>
To: •••@••.•••
Subject: Re: follow up re/comments- the sacrificial lamb
Date: Wed, 7 Jul 2004 14:35:40 +0000
Cc: Michael Linton <•••@••.•••>
X-Scanner: OK. Scanned.
hi richard,
for the first time in many years i didn't vote in the recent
kkkanadian election, for much the same reasons you cite.
i have returned to the old 60's strategy - don't vote it only
encourages them.
the voting game is entirely delusional - every few years the
democratic fantasy is conjured up for the masses who hold
their noses and play along - but the analysis of the real game
remains hidden in the mists of bafflegab.
i believe that money is at the root of the problems you so
eloquently detail in your missives - conventional money is the
fuel that feeds the corporate machine - one of the rothschilds
said "give me control of a nation's money and i care not who
governs"
the transformation will come when we are no longer dependent
upon (enslaved by) THEIR money - fortunately there is a way to
free ourselves from the money yoke - community money is the
solution to the money problem.
it is a systemic solution to a systemic problem - please note
that this is not about monetary reform - it is a practical
solution at the individual and community level - any
community, any association, any network can have its own money
- these are complementary currencies, not alternatives to
normal money.
i know it's hard to see the possibilities given the tiny and
insignificant nature of the current attempts at developing
community currency (cc) systems but the internet now gives us
the essential architecture for local, regional and global cc
systems and the means for propagating the successful memes.
see http://lets.net for more.
best wishes, ernie
ps - it's also a solution to the voting problem - we vote with
"our" money every day - "the most for the least" - imagine
what it would be like to have sufficient money so that we
could buy from the local business rather than walmart - the
most for the best.
pps - imagine your software http://cc.openmoney.org/cc/ making
it all possible.
--------------
Dear Ernie,
The most impressive applications of local currencies I've
heard about are happening in third world countries. With the
IMF sucking away all the hard currency, local currencies are
enabling economic activity to carry on. Wherever local
currencies are used, I would hope people build on that to
create community solidarity in other ways as well.
nice to hear from you,
rkm
--------------------------------------------------------
From: Tom Healy <>
To: •••@••.•••
Subject: Re: follow up re/comments- the sacrificial lamb
Richard:
your emails are always a welcome presence in my inbox - and
this one is no exception. Your mention of Richard Nixon brings
to mind that he created the Environmental Protection Agency
(at the urging of the public) that managed to limit the amount
of noxious toxins industry could willy-nilly spew into our
air, water and land. These same regs which have been gutted by
BushCo.
But more to the point of your musings - in the "history" of
NeoCons, the galvanizing moment for them was Nixon's
resignation. "Never again!" they cried and various right-wing
foundations poured money into the creation of the NeoCon
monster which is now running amok.
a couple of questions present themselves: Can "progressives"
muster the necessary fiscal and theoretical energies to ignite
the transformation you so eloquently point out is needed? or,
phrased slightly differently, How can we create the essential
social, cultural and political structures to foster
transformation?
Can *any* theory and practice of transformation into a
non-hierarchical utopia such as the one you propose integrate
the human shadow (those aspects of our character - both
personal and cultural - that we'd just as soon ignore). I
think this is essential so that we avoid the pitfall of
becoming what we hate.
IN Peace
-------------
Dear Tom,
Transformation is not a job for progressives, it is a job for
everyone. As long as progressives think in terms of "us" and
"them" then they are part of the problem.
We do not need social, cultural and political structures, nor
fiscal and theoretical energies for transformation. What we
need is to begin talking and listening with one another in our
communities.
The human shadow will always be with us. What we need is a
society which does not reward and promote the shadow aspects
of our nature.
warm regards,
rkm
--------------------------------------------------------
From: "Sharon Coxen" <>
To: <•••@••.•••>
Subject: Re: subscriber comments
Date: Wed, 7 Jul 2004 18:20:57 -0700
Dear Richard,
rkm > There's nothing in our current psychological make up
that prevents us from cooperating to build a new world.
hmmm....
Somewhere along the way by virtue of the purpose of free will
our intent has to engage...otherwise why would we be granted
the gift of creativity and responsibility?
Consider the medical system.. We live in a time where
"alternative health care" has created a lot of choices and has
been very successful. However, conversely health care costs
have skyrocketed ....people are suing doctors, eating junk
food, expecting others to have answers and "fix" them . This
creates a dynamic that then places a lot of pressure on the
health care system to conduct expensive tests and do invasive
procedures all to palliate a society that even with a choice
demonstrates an unwillingness to take responsibility for their
own health. Our opportunities to "build a new world" as
regards to health care have started long ago....granted if the
"100th monkey" effect could engage than perhaps that alone
could be enough to develop a mass movement.
I like your optimism,
Sharilyn
----------------
Dear Sharilyn,
Well yes, our intent has to engage, and we can do that with
our current psychological make up.
Why are you blaming the victims for the state of our health
care system?
all the best,
rkm
--------------------------------------------------------
From: Tasha
Date: Wed, 7 Jul 2004 15:16:19 EDT
Subject: Re: follow up re/comments- the sacrificial lamb
To: •••@••.•••
rkm> Nixon stole an election and resigned in disgrace, but
the invasion of Cambodia was not undone, his right wing
judicial appointees were not expunged, and he was given a
pardon as a golden parachute. He had done his job and he
enjoyed a distinguished retirement. His show-trial resignation
acted as purgative for the electorate, leading them to believe
there had been a regime change. Far from it. With damage
control handled, the regime battened down its hatches and laid
its plans for its neoliberal revolution. Let us learn from
history.
richard-- brilliant reminder. mlpolak
--------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 7 Jul 2004 21:43:24 -0800
To: •••@••.•••
From: "Fred V. Cook" <>
Subject: Add 1 Re: subscriber comments-
X-Sender-Hostname: adsl-63-203-231-61.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net
Dear Richard,
I think there is another step - a synthesis - to be found
beyond the thesis and antithesis that your and Sharon have
exchanged. That is the personal work of liberation WHICH IS
AN INTEGRAL PART of a person finding the courage to "step out
of Babylon" as my dear friend Sue Supriano puts it. (We
welcome her back to the airwaves of Pacifica via KPFA-FM. Her
powerful, playful on-air presence was one of the early
casualties in the attempted corporate take-over of Pacifica.)
Babylon, as she says, is about the divisions between us and
the divisions within us which keep us from knowing and acting
on our true power and beauty. This is another way of naming
"internalized oppression". I believe that once it is brought
to consciousness it can be overcome by choice - as it must be
for anyone to decide and act against their oppression. Where
it is paralyzing is when the person is still unconscious of
the dynamic and is just in mortal fear of even "thinking"
outside the box of the oppressors definition of the world or
the person's place in it. This is not "mystical" it is very
close to home - a question of trusting rather than
mistrusting, of accepting and respecting oneself and one's
"kind" (whatever that means in the socially divided landscape)
instead of mistrusting, hating, loathing oneself and one's
"kind".
My late friend Bill Moyer took the process even a step further
in identifying within people (everyone who is raised in a
dominator culture) three defensive and controlling roles
(Persecutor, Victim, Rescuer - after Karpman, et. al.). When
we are controlling and mistreating ourselves in one (and
usually all three in quick succession) of these roles, we are
hard put not to provoke or seduce anyone around us into taking
a complementary DEFENSIVE and CONTROLLING role, and then we
are off-to-the-races (with unnecessary power-struggles).
Solidarity and cooperation then become very difficult to
achieve and maintain, even among people and groups who CLEARLY
and LOGICALLY are ALLIES.
For these reasons, personal transformation MUST proceed hand
in hand, a left foot for the social liberation's right - step
by step - in order for sustainable liberation processes to go
forward. It is absolutely NOT a question of WAITING around to
become enlightened or any mystical sort of change of
consciousness. It is a matter of taking action and realizing
that to build a new world, one must at the same time grow to
be a different person to fit into and sustain that new world.
I hope this is a useful contribution to the dialogue.
Best wishes,
Fred
-----------
Dear Fred,
The controlling roles you mention are conditioned into us by
our society. It is a control-based society. When we view the
world as isolated individuals, we feel powerless, and it is
only natural that we turn to the controlling methods we have
been taught in order to have some effect on our social
environment.
The main transformation we need is to view ourselves as part
of a community. This cannot happen through anything we do as
individuals, but through dialog together. One of the things
that happens in the right kind of facilitated dialog, is that
people experience personal transformation--as a by-product of
finding a sense of community.
many thanks for your thoughts,
rkm
--------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 08 Jul 2004 13:57:46 -0700
From: janet mcfarland <>
To: •••@••.•••
Subject: Re: subscriber comments
Hi Richard,
Thanks for the vote of confidence for the innate OKness of the
human being. I happen to agree with you there, more out of
faith in something than any evidence to the contrary, except
that everybody I talk to long enough turns into a really OK
person. Hmmmm.
Re Kerry, a friend says he is the person who put the sunset
clause into the patriot act and she believes he is committed
to not renewing it. Any thoughts? Also, I seem to have
missed your posting on the staging of the torture photos. It
makes more sense than any other explanation available.
Love,
Janet McFarland
--------------
Dear Janet,
Nice to hear from you. And nice to see that at least one
person agrees that people are OK as they are.
Not only do the photos look staged, but the people involved
said they were told how to pose for the camera.
yours,
rkm
--------------------------------------------------------
From: "Sharon Coxen" <>
To: <•••@••.•••>
Subject: Re: subscriber comments -more thoughts
Date: Thu, 8 Jul 2004 20:00:08 -0700
Hi Richard,
I was thinking on your comments on power and how that plays
into human evolution -sort of the "life will find a way"
philosophy and although indeed power can and does corrupt when
it becomes that which controls others, intrinsically speaking
power is a necessary part of personal evolution. Consider the
native American chief who wears the war bonnet headdress that
contains all of the different eagle feathers. This is a man
whom others seek counsel from as he has traversed many rites
of passage to an evolved peaceful existence. The point is that
the ultimate power is that which does not corrupt as you
describe. Where I struggle to understand your proposed
paradigm is creating it from the outside in rather than from
the inside out. Respectfully yours,
Sharilyn
--------------
Hello again,
Yes there are different kinds of power.
When you contrast "inside out" with "outside in" you are
taking an individualistic perspective. The distinction I make
is between "alone" and "together".
in community,
rkm
--------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat, 10 Jul 2004 13:48:41 -0700
From: Kevin Shrieve <•••@••.•••>
To: •••@••.•••
Subject: Re: Why they pretend Iraq is sovereign...
Richard,
Yes, it was all so laughably transparent that it seemed
foolish, yet now one can see that, propaganda-wise, the
benefits are substantial. All of the major U.S. media
co-operate in the switch to the new language... "Today, Iraq
did this, and took this position on that." The extent of the
co-operation is breath-taking, as it was for the coup in
Haiti, and is for events in Venezuela or Palestine.
Quite educational seeing the media implement the schemes of
the rulers.
Kevin
San Francisco
------------
Dear Kevin,
The mainstream media is the voice of corporate power, the
voice of the elite. It and the government are both tools of
the same masters. It is to be expected that they usually be in
agreement.
bye for now,
rkm
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Wexford, Ireland
_____________________________
"...the Patriot Act followed 9-11 as smoothly as the
suspension of the Weimar constitution followed the
Reichstag fire."
- Srdja Trifkovic
There is not a problem with the system.
The system is the problem.
Faith in ourselves - not gods, ideologies, leaders, or programs.
_____________________________
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