Dear friends, A few days ago, I posted an article, "Why I think there WILL be an attack on Iran". I was very pleased with that article, because I was able to pull together several threads of recent history in a way that was relevant to today's unfolding events. In preparing that article I felt I was 'in the zone', and I expected people would respond to it. I was right. Several people forwarded the article to other lists, and it eventually found its way (thanks to Butler Crittenden) to the desk of Bonnie Faulkner, producer of Guns & Roses, a well-respected KPFA show that finds wider distribution on the Pacifica network. She wants to do a series of shows, based on that article an on my book, and I'm very much looking forward to that. This could be my 'big break' as regards getting what I have to say 'out there'. As Goldilocks said, KPFA is not too big, not too small, but just right. If it were any bigger (eg NPR) it would be too corporate to care; if it were any smaller, I've already done that. There was another kind of response to the article as well, as the title of this posting suggests. There were people who didn't just consume it as information, but said, "Whoa, what am I supposed to do with this?" Stephanie expressed this eloquently, and so I've selected her message to respond to. I was so pleased to receive her message because it inspired me to pull some very positive ideas together, and again I think I'm 'in the zone'. Perhaps its the stars or the season, but I do believe there are energies that help us realize our potential, and that they have their own rhythms. In any case, I think this posting conveys the main points of my book in a more effective and accessible way. best regards, rkm -------------------------------------------------------- From: "Stephanie McDowall" <•••@••.•••> To: recipients Subject: Your comment if you have time pls. * Why I think there WILL be an attack on Iran * Date: Sat, 19 Aug 2006 09:16:25 -0700 Do you ever wonder what the point is in knowing all this when it appears we can't do a damn thing about what is happening? I found the following interesting because there are points here re China/Russia and the Middle East we never see in our mainstream media. Still, when I consider all this stuff, when I consider how Harper disregards the view of the majorityŠ.especially when he is dropping so drastically at the pollsŠand I see how firm he is in his positionŠ..it makes me wonder if it wouldn't be better to be blissfully unaware. Being informed or uninformedŠ..it seems the consequences that will result from the behaviour of the U.S., Britain and Israel is going to impact each of us in the same way no matter what our awareness level is. All this info enrages me and I wonder why I put myself through this when we are all so powerless to change matters. If I was young I would be behind bars by now. I now have more sympathy towards those in France during the Revolution when they lopped off so many heads Šthe heads of thousands of innocents as well. Is this what it is going to take? Is this kind of uprising anywhere in the world even possible when you consider the technology being used to watch & listen in to people here and around the world. Here in Nanaimo, as each of us drive through traffic lights there are the little cameras recording our cars. I am overwhelmed. What is worse is I am feeling blood thirsty and I don't like this about myself. I would welcome your views as simplistic as they areŠ..if you have time Steph ---------- Hi Stephanie, Yes I do have time. Thank you for sharing your concerns. To begin with I would say this: I think it's important to seek the truth, particularly about things important to our lives. I think seeking truth -- expanding awareness -- is an absolute good, part of our spiritual development. The Sufis refer metaphorically to the "Land of Truth" as being a higher place than the "Land of Happiness". The strategy of the ostrich is a mortal sin against our spirits. While 'failure to take sides' is the ultimate sin in Dante's dark vision, more enlightened philosophies reserve that place for heedlessness...not paying attention. Next, I would examine this discomfort you are feeling, arising out of the tension between 'knowing' and 'not being able to fix'. For many people, that tension drives them directly into the ostrich strategy: "Leave me alone, I don't wanna know". But why is it that we don't usually feel this same discomfort when we see a disaster documentary about how we could be struck down at any time by a stray meteorite? We watch with fascination, albeit with a shiver of vicarious horror. Perhaps this difference arises from the fact that we believe, somewhere down deep, that we have a responsibility as humans for the welfare of humanity -- whereas we know we can't be responsible for nature's quirks. If we feel responsible for something, then we naturally feel uncomfortable if we don't know what we should be doing in order to exercise that responsibility. So I ask this question: Do you accept on a conscious level that you do have a responsibility for humanity's well being? There's a big difference between accepting that responsibility at a conscious level, and merely being bothered by a vague suspicion that you might be responsible. Many people leave our story here, saying "I'm responsible for my family, and I can't deal with the rest of the world." I can only respect such an attitude, having children of my own, but I must also note that it results in a variant of ostrich behavior. To those who do accept responsibility for humanity, I suggest that the responsibility deserves to be taken seriously. Clearly, if you are responsible for a situation, the first thing you need to do is inform yourself fully about the situation. Any ostrich behavior here would be an obvious shirking of responsibility. If you are a doctor planning an operation, you must be sure you have a full and accurate diagnosis before proceeding. If your task is to defend a child from a monster, then you must face the monster with eyes wide open and mind fully engaged. My own conclusion is that we must accept the reality of our human predicament: THE WHOLE SYSTEM IS BEYOND OUR CONTROL and WE ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR FIXING THINGS. Anything less is part ostrich, or part shirking. Why?...because part of 'informing ourselves about the situation' is understanding that our political system will not and cannot fix things for us -- it is instead a major part of the problem. Once we understand that, we cannot avoid this question: If we aren't going to fix things, who is? If the system is beyond our control, and if it is our job to fix things, then I accept that we find ourselves in a scary place. But as with the monster, our only responsible course is to face that scary place and not turn away. It is only in that scary place that we can find what we need to know, everywhere else is below the sand with the ostriches and shirkers. One thing we can see clearly in this scary place is that the political system itself needs to be changed, and the way our societies operate generally needs to be changed. The fact that 'the system is beyond our control' is in fact THE VERY PROBLEM that we need to address. 'The system is beyond our control' is not a reason for despair, but is rather an identification of where our attention needs to be directed. Our despair can be reserved for what the system is doing to us while we let it, and for our tardiness in addressing the problem. What we need to do is to bring the system under our control, or more accurately, to create a system that we can control and operate for the well being of ourselves, ie, humanity. That is to say: the way we can fix things is by creating a democratic society, a self-governing society. Anything less leaves us entrapped in someone else's Matrix, controlled by some ruling elite. This is what we need to know, what we discover by facing the place of scary truths: WE NEED TO LEARN HOW TO GOVERN OURSELVES. Jesus said to render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's. The political system is Caesar's thing, his tar baby. If we quit wasting our time, getting tangled up and immobilized by his tar baby, we free up incredible amounts of energy for rendering unto ourselves that which is rightfully ours -- our societies. Giving up false hope in electoral politics is an act of liberation, not a resignation to hopelessness. It is discarding our chains, our first step in learning how to govern ourselves. As Morpheus said to Neo, "Outside the Matrix there are no rules; everything is possible." The political system, along with the media, are tentacles of the imprisoning Matrix. Before we can govern ourselves, we need to learn how to work together. Democracy is an inclusive project; if anyone's voice is left out, it isn't democracy. Jesus said that the meek shall inherit the Earth. Who are the meek? We are the meek -- all of us ordinary people. We are all natural allies, all billions of us around the world, and no monster can stand against us if we work together. How can we start working together? We can only start where we are, with those who are around us, in our communities. Not just some of us, not just the progressives, not just the activists, but all of us. We cannot work together until we realize we are allies, and we cannot be effective while we are divided. The illusion that some people in our communities are 'the enemy', 'the other' -- that too is the Matrix, part of its divide-and-conquer mechanism. Jesus said to love your enemy. That sounds intriguing, but what does it mean? How do we go about it? If I may be so bold, I suggest he was not talking about hugging an attacker, but rather about turning our enemies into friends through love. Love begins with understanding, and understanding begins with dialog. To 'love our enemies', and turn them into allies, we need to begin by joining them in dialog, those whom we assume are 'beyond the pale', those who don't already agree with us. Fortunately there are well-known processes, ways of helping us listen to one another, that are very effective in achieving the kind of dialog we need. These are modern versions of the same kind of processes that Native Americans used, and were most likely used by all indigenous societies, each of which, according to our best understanding, was self-governing and egalitarian. In such societies, when important decisions needed to be made, an elder of the tribe would play a neutral facilitating role, making sure that everyone's voice is heard, and everyone's ideas considered. Today's processes also employ a neutral facilitator in the same kind of role. The outcomes that can be achieved by this kind of dialog are truly amazing. When people are able to hear what each other's heart-felt concerns are, they naturally begin to look for solutions that take all of those concerns into account. Ideas which at first seem opposed to one another are later seen to be synergistic parts of a creative new solution. Ironically, the greater the original disagreement in the group, the greater the energy (and ideas) that eventually become available to enable breakthrough solutions to be found. These kinds of things really happen, and the participants are usually surprised and delighted by what they are able to accomplish. Beyond that, they are often surprised by the feeling of empowerment they experience, collectively as a group, by working together in this way. They are glimpsing for a brief time what it would be like to participate in a democratic society, and they are realizing that they -- ordinary people -- have the ability to work harmoniously together, and that collectively they have the competence to work sensibly and productively. In two of the examples I cite in my book, the participants spontaneously used the phrase "We the people" to describe their sense of empowerment, and their sense of engagement. They could feel intuitively that this kind of working together represents a microcosm of what self-governance could be like, and they found this realization to be uplifting and energizing. . For those of us who accept responsibility for humanity's well being, who have faced the scary truths, and who are seeking a way to help create democratic societies, these dialog processes seem to be just what we're looking for. If we take all that energy we've been putting into political campaigns, protest movements, public education campaigns, letters to the editor, or whatever, and put that energy into arranging opportunities for this kind of dialog in our communities, we would be facilitating the emergence of self governance in our societies. We would be helping our community learn how to dialog with itself, in a way that includes the various concerns and viewpoints in the community, and that generates ideas and proposals that are likely to make sense to the community generally. At the same time, as more and more people are able to experience this kind of dialog personally, more and more people would be 'getting it', as regards a general spirit of democratic empowerment, a sense of We the People, of community solidarity, of being 'allies', and of everyone's voice being heard and ideas valued. Over time we could expect a convergence toward community priorities, and agendas, that everyone has helped define. We would be evolving toward an empowered community, a community that has learned how to govern itself. Notice that it is not necessary for everyone to follow the difficult path we have trod here -- taking on our shoulders responsibility for humanity, facing scary truths, etc. Simply by participating in these processes, in this kind of dialog, people can learn the easy way what we have learned the hard way. By actually experiencing democratic empowerment, people will know in their bones that the current political system must be superceded by self governance. They won't need to do the political science homework that we've been engaged in here. While we have been experiencing 'accepting responsibility' as a burden on our shoulders, they along with us will experience 'responsibility' as being a natural part of the exciting and energizing business of governing our own affairs. Democracy is a 'way of relating', a 'way of working together'. It is a way that can operate among the members of a family, or among the people of a community, and it is a way that can operate among communities, or among societies, on any scale up to the global. The communities of a region, for example, can dialog with one another via delegations, take one anothers concerns into account, and seek creative solutions for regional problems and projects. Regional delegations can dialog together about province-wide issues, and so on. In learning how to relate in this 'way', by participating in this kind of dialog, we would be participating in the transformation of our cultures, expanding our cultural repertoire to include this new 'way' of interacting with one another. That is to say, the emergence of a democratic society happens by means of a cultural transformation, a cultural shift, rather than by means of a political movement or organized campaign. The new culture naturally propagates as more people experience the new kind of dialog. Wherever the new culture has taken hold, our 'normal, natural way' of dealing with any social problem would be for the affected parties to gather themselves together, and employ our newfound 'way' of working together. Self governance becomes possible for a society only after such a cultural transformation has occurred in the society. Above I suggested that we ' difficult path' people, those who feel already a responsibility to help create democratic societies, might devote our energies toward arranging 'dialog experiences' in our communities, and that this could facilitate the emergence of empowered, self-governing communities. That suggestion arose out of a focus on political transformation. I'd now like to reframe that suggestion, from the perspective of cultural transformation. From this broader perspective our task, as initiators, is to help spread a new cultural paradigm. A community focus may still be our best strategy, but from this broader perspective, we might find other useful strategies as well. For example, in the 1960s, new pop-music genres (Dylan, Beatles) and new kinds of gatherings (rockfests, be-ins) were very important in spreading certain cultural changes. From a cultural-change perspective, there is good reason to be optimistic about the 'propagation power' of this new kind of dialog. Trials have shown, as discussed above, that these dialog experiences tend to generate a great deal of enthusiasm among the participants, along with a sense of empowerment and engagement. For that reason we could expect many 'dialog graduates' to be motivated and energized to 'share the experience', to 'spread the message' in whatever way makes sense to them. THE PROCESS OF EMPOWERED DIALOG SPONTANEOUSLY GENERATES THE ENERGY REQUIRED TO FUEL ITS OWN PROPAGATION IN THE SOCIETY. Exactly what forms that propagation might take is an open question, to be answered by the diverse talents and creativity of those who go through the experience. In the context of 'we are responsible for fixing things', I suggest that we have reached a very optimistic place. We need to do what we can to help spark a cultural transformation, a transformation that brings its own self-propagating energy to the party. It is a transformation that can teach us how to govern ourselves, and enable us to create democratic societies, and deal with the problems that face our species. In terms of activist strategy, this can be seen as a high leverage opportunity, with strong long term potential. Why would we not pursue this path, with both enthusiasm and hope? Is it really true that there is 'not a damned thing we can do about it'?. --- Finally, I'd like to add a comment or two about my previous article, predicting war with Iran, economic collapse, fascist oppression, etc. Based on that article, we might think "it's too late" -- we have lost our window of opportunity for social change. In this regard, I would say that I have been predicting war with China for about ten years. I think I've got it right, in terms of long term power relationships, but I've always underestimated how long it takes for these kind of tectonic forces to work themselves out. The 'finishing end' may be at hand or it may not. War with Iran might be a world changing event, or it might be similar to the Iraq invasion, in that its main effect for us white folks is on the content of TV news, a petrol price increase that is annoying but not life-threatening, and inconveniences at the airport. Another thing I'd like to say about that article is that it had a particular purpose. I was addressing the widespread attitude, "People will wake up when something terrible happens." What I've been trying to say for the past ten years is that "Things are already terrible, what are you waiting for?" I wrote about the implications of globalization, as regards de-nationalization, when most people hadn't heard of globalization. I was anticipating the neocon movement already when Daddy Bush first used the phrase 'new world order' at the end of Gulf War I. I published a series of articles on the 'Police-state conspiracy' a decade before 911. I wanted my recent article to be dark, because I continue to hope that people will wake up based on the direness of their predicament. But I am afraid that particular hope is in vain. People will keep their head in the sand right up until the point where their ass gets blown up by a grenade. When someone is 'waiting for people to wake up', they are sheep waiting for the flock to lead them. I persevere in that particular activity -- informing of the danger -- only because of my faith in the ultimate value of truth. Our fundamental situation, as 'ordinary people', has not changed in 6,000 years and it will not change until we change it. The time for us to wake up has been there this whole time and it will be there until we do wake up. Whether we happen to be in a period of peace or of war is of little concern, in the bigger scope of things. Any reason not to begin our response now is either a rationalization or a sign of ignorance or heedlessness, either ostrich behavior or shirking. 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