-------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 23:22:49 -0400 From: Meredith Tupper <•••@••.•••> To: •••@••.••• Subject: Re: Catherine Austin Fitts: Al Gore ain't where it's at RIGHT ON, RIGHT ON, RIGHT ON!!! The questions are quite similar to ones I am asked by well meaning but generally clueless people. Your answers are superb. Well done! Peace, Meredith ------- Hi Meredith, Thanks for your note. Glad you found the posting useful. I don't like to refer to anyone with a term like 'clueless', partly because of all the times when I've been the clueless one. You say that people ask you questions. That's a start, that's dialog. That's better than a situation where people 'never talk about religion or politics'. In a face-to-face situation, it often works better to be the one asking the questions, rather than the one giving out answers. If you can get someone to elaborate on their 'clueless' ideas, and you listen attentively, they'll be more likely to listen to what you have to say, and you'll be better informed about where they're coming from. But you probably already know that. ;-) cheers, rkm -------------------------------------------------------- From: "Claudia Woodward-Rice" <•••@••.•••> To: <•••@••.•••> Subject: RE: Catherine Austin Fitts: Al Gore ain't where it's at Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 18:53:40 -1000 Hi Richard- While I don't disagree with you at all, I do think there is more to our quandary than you describe. Most people are "asleep" and if they bother to vote at all, they see it as a popularity contest. I think this is why we have so few people worth voting for on the ballot too. The requirements of the activity, such as it has become, are made for folks like Clinton. Gore is probably a better version, but he is from the same world-view: stuck in conventionality, too worried about describing the situation to look for any causes, and probably too timid to effect any changes. Of the 6 billions people we have to co-exist withŠ..the vast majority are simplistic, easily led, and frozen in the headlights of life. All of us who notice the economic scams killing the planet are just not enough to make any difference UNLESS we are gifted with a charismatic clear thinker/speaker who can evoke the common good as a worthwhile goal. (History has given us a few. They're usually slaughtered. One wonders if the NSA is busy strangling them in their cradles even nowŠŠ.) But it really doesn't do much good to attack those who can at least define symptoms. It is the first step to diagnosis- which Catherine has done very eloquently. I've sent her article all over the place, and I'm sure plenty of others have too. Her main message was about hopelessness. We must choose to reject it and soldier on. Claudia -------- Hi Claudia, One can wake from a dream, and find oneself in yet another dream -- dreams within dreams. There are many layers to the onion, and many red pills. (Examples: http://escapingthematrix.org/red_pill.html) "The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, pull back the curtains, and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater." -- Frank Zappa Do you really see hope in the election system? In one of my chapters I look into our party electoral system, and at the origins of the system in the Constitution. This is by no means original, but the conclusion I come to is that the system -- even working at its best -- is designed, and functions, to support rule by elites. That's how it has always functioned historically, and that's what the US Founding Fathers, for example, had in mind. They said so explicitly. And it's not just America, it's the same in the other 'democracies', and the same thing was true way back in the Roman Republic, before the days of the Empire. And yet each time, all around the world, we blame ourselves, as voters, for the outcomes. We keep hoping the dream of democracy will become real 'next time', when we'll be 'better organized' and people will be 'better informed'. It ain't never gonna happen folks. Never has. Never will. We need to wake up from this trance, this 'veil of light' of false democracy. Are you sure the vast majority of people are simplistic? And are you sure we want a charismatic leader? I can see that the two ideas go together. If we're mostly simplistic, then a strong leader gives us some hope for salvation. But in my experience people aren't simplistic. I doubt if you would consider most of your close friends to be simplistic. Partly that would be because you've selected your friends, but it would also be because you've gotten to know them. People appear to be simplistic if our only exchanges with them are superficial, particularly if we already disagree with them on important issues. One of the most central ideas in my book -- and I learned this from Tom Atlee and the folks he introduced me to -- is that there are better ways to engage in dialog, deeper ways, and that when those ways are followed no one is any longer seen by anyone else as being simplistic. Instead we come to realize that we are more the same than we are different, and that there is a bit of wisdom in everyone. Looking for a leader is a declaration of powerlessness. It is an affirmation of being simplistic -- sheep in need of a shepherd. That's one of the reasons why Christianity, with its message about 'needing salvation', goes hand in hand with empire and elite rule. Are you a sheep in hope of greener pastures, under a wiser shepherd? You'll get what you deserve, and be duly fleeced. When there are sheep waiting to be led, the staff of shepherd is typically seized by the strong and ambitious -- seldom do the wise and virtuous get their hands on it. We are dreaming that we are sheep. We can tell we are dreaming, because when we look around we don't see each other, we see instead a herd (the simplistic ones). We are conditioned to believe that society is made up of 'the citizen' and the 'the state'. As 'citizen' we make up our individual mind and we vote, and then everything else is handled by the state. A society made up of 'citizens' -- anonymous individuals -- is a herd, and the state is its shepherd. The dream of being sheep is part of the trance of false democracy. We need to wake up from our sheep dream, and remember our true nature as free people. We are descended not from meek pasture animals but from bold primates. Bold, but highly cooperative and interdependent. Our nature is not to be one of a grazing herd, but to be a unique contributing member of an organized social unit. Our success as a species came not from our capacity as individuals, but from our combined, synergistic capacity as part of an organized and cooperative group. What bound us together was not the authority of a state, but mutual benefit and a strong sense of belonging, as an equal, to what can be thought of as an extended 'family' -- where each is concerned for the welfare of all, and everyone is expected to carry their own weight. If we want to wake up from being sheep, and find our empowerment as free and self-governing people, we need to find a way to re-create strong community at the local level -- communities that have a sense of what they're about, and where everyone's voice is heard. Such communities give power and voice to each of us, as individuals, in a way that anonymous 'citizenship' never can. And such communities are capable of having a voice in the larger society, unlike an anonymous individual. Pursuing strong community represents a radical shift, indeed a paradigm shift, in what we understand by 'effective activism'. Protests, for example, work against community -- by affirming that power rests in the state, and by drawing us away from community and into special-interest groups. Identifying with causes or political parties divides society into camps, Us vs. Them. Strong community is based on inclusiveness -- not special-interests but on the interests of the whole community, of each and every member. When everyone's voice is heard, then everyone has a reason to identify with their community, to participate in its process, to support its shared objectives -- and to experience a sense of belonging and empowerment that is absent in a herd society. In two of my chapters I talk about some of the tools and processes that are available for pursuing strong community. Where these approaches have been tried, the results have been very promising, surprisingly so even to the organizers. Simply by participating in 'deep dialog', and without any agenda or political context, people have come out with a sense of empowerment and community, and they have spontaneously characterized their experience with the phrase "We the People". But so far there has not been (that I know of) a persistent effort to use these approaches on an ongoing basis in any community. As I see it, this is where we can find the leading-edge of activism, of societal transformation, and of the next stage in human evolution. best regards, rkm -------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2006 07:21:01 -0400 To: •••@••.••• From: Judyth <•••@••.•••> Subject: Re: Catherine Austin Fitts: Al Gore ain't where it's at ---<excerpt>--- Given the propagandists who seem to run the American media machine, I can't help thinking it's a good thing when a politician with some degree of ex-officio credibility takes the message to the public that global warming is a real problem and needs real solutions which will only come when everyday people put everyday pressure on the politicos to stop messing around and do something constructive. -------- Hi Judyth, Sorry to excerpt your message, but you summed up your main points very neatly in the one paragraph. I can understand your optimism here, and I have felt that as well from politicians in the past. But as I've watched the follow-through, over time, I've learned to evaluate with a somewhat cynical eye. I can never forget, for example, how LBJ campaigned on the basis of keeping us out of Vietnam. In the case of Gore, we need to remember that he is still part of the power community -- he is not like a Jimmy Carter, pursuing good works as a retired outsider. Gore is still an important player for the Democrats, either as a candidate or as a campaign speaker. We need to keep in mind that he was a supporter of NAFTA and the sanctions against Iraq, and that he rolled over in the illegal 'election' of Bush. He's a team player, and he's not on our team. We need to take these things into account in assessing what his 'good works' are likely to indicate. Up to now the official US position on global warming has been outright denial -- "Warming? What warming?". This has created a growing political tension, a situation where an increasing number of people want to see the absurd position changed. This creates the opportunity for a classic political maneuver, the old 'thesis, antithesis, synthesis' trick. First a problem is acknowledged (global warming: the thesis). Then we are offered a 'solution' to that problem, and later we find that the solution accomplishes other things for 'them', while not solving the original problem. Nonetheless, this maneuver relieves the political tension and leads people to believe 'something is finally being done.' We can see already that the maneuver is beginning to work -- based on enthusiasm for the film -- even before there have been any changes in legislation or policy. 'Doing something bold about global warming', and similar 'progressive initiatives', would be a very good focus for a Democrat campaign. It would help avoid real issues, such as the Patriot Acts, Diebold machines, DU weapons, aggressive warfare, and the loss of sovereignty to globalization. What would we eventually get as a 'solution'? I don't know but it wouldn't be anything like what is needed, which would include among other things an end to the paradigm of economic growth. We might get things like taxes on commuters, subsidies for hydrogen cars (which only displace the problem to hydrogen factories), and most likely a resurgence in the development in nuclear power -- which has just recently become official policy in the UK. beware of Greeks bearing gifts, rkm -------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2006 06:01:20 -0400 To: Richard Moore <•••@••.•••> From: Allan Balliett <•••@••.•••> Subject: Re: Catherine Austin Fitts: Al Gore ain't where it's at My question is this: why didn't he do a film on voting machines or on polling station manipulation? If not the first film, why is he not promising that now? Why the hell are we going silently into the not so good night this fall, dammit? -Allan ------- indeed! rkm -- -------------------------------------------------------- Escaping the Matrix website http://escapingthematrix.org/ cyberjournal website http://cyberjournal.org subscribe cyberjournal list mailto:•••@••.••• Posting archives http://cyberjournal.org/show_archives/ Blogs: cyberjournal forum http://cyberjournal-rkm.blogspot.com/ Achieving real democracy http://harmonization.blogspot.com/ for readers of ETM http://matrixreaders.blogspot.com/ Community Empowerment http://empowermentinitiatives.blogspot.com/ Blogger made easy http://quaylargo.com/help/ezblogger.html
