Sunday, November 18, 2007

Watch out for other anti Bush types that seem "not right"

As one who very early was involved in the Perot movement when there were equal numbers of folk from across the political spectrum, I got to know well many folk who I would never get to know otherwise and was lead into an "Alice through the looking glass" world of John Birchers, anti-tax, Illuminati conspiracy types and a cottage industry of books, schemes, and scams of a sort and level not seen on the left at all.

I met many who would have been Tim McVeigh, had the circumstances fallen their way, and the loose change folks are a natural there. There are two things that distinguish them in any crowd, both aspects of that looking glass.

One is the Right Wing Authoritarian Pathology with its special Illogic that is well described even if there is some dispute as to its qualities and origins. Even when, like loose change, they support ostensively leftist goals, they carry the RWA nature, that still gives real leftists the hives.

The other is the classic Strong Father view of government laid out so clearly by George Lakoff. Often taken in rebellion against the abusive father in the classic Libertarian fashion, they see themselves like the runaway child, in a brutal world where theft or prostitution are the only paths of survival and raw rage fuels the drive to power by any means, never with good results.

Unable to escape the Abusive Father frame, they see Liberals as the mirror side of their own horror, and cannot imagine the Nurturing Parent model that Lakoff gives as the model of actual Liberal Philosophy.

Rather than accept any point of view it is best to really look at what is said and not accept it just because you would like to agree with the speaker that folk you don't like are the enemy

Quotables


Intolerance

One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people.

He said, "My son, the battle is between 2 "wolves" inside us all.

One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.

The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility,
kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith."

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather:

"Which wolf wins?"

The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."



from an old tale.


The Golden Rule
“That which is hateful to you do not do to another ... the rest (of the Torah) is all commentary, now go study.”

- Rabbi Hillel


Libertarians



1.

The self made man just isn't admitting how or where he came by all those parts

---FreeDem---- Aug 2005


2.

If a man tells you that the Government cannot accomplish anything of value, then voting for him would be like hiring an Amish Auto Mechanic.
If they don't believe in the concept, they are more than likely to do a very poor job of it.


---Bob Danforth Sept. 2009



3.

Republicans never meant to cut government waste, fraud and graft, from the get-go their plan was to organize, monopolize and privatize waste, fraud and graft.



They see the civil service as meddling “middleman,” who interfered with the free flow of cash from taxpayers into corporate coffers. Their intent was to eliminate the “middleman” as an obstruction to corruption.


---Unknown rabblerowser Feb 2007





Patriotism:


No one can terrorize a whole nation, unless we are all his accomplices.

Edward R. Murrow




In the beginning of a change, the patriot is a scarce man, brave, hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, however, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot

Mark Twain






Leadership:





You see, we often get noncreative leaders, people most interested in preserving their own positions. They flock around centers of power. Such centers attract people who can be corrupted. That is a more descriptive observation than to say simply that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.



If you are corruptible and your imagination is confined to worries about loss of power, you exist in a self-destructive system. Eventually, as all life does, you must encounter something you did not anticipate, and if you have not strengthened your creative resources, you will have no new ways for adapting to change. Adapt or die, that's the first rule of survival.



The limited vision of noncreative people is not difficult to understand. Creativity frightens the unimaginative. They don't know what's happening. Things new and unexpected arise from creativity. This threatens "things as they are." And (terrible thought) it undermines illusions of omnipotence.

Frank

Herbert 1984 (the year not the book)






News:




"News is what powerful people want to keep hidden; everything else is just publicity."

....Bill Moyer






Religion:



1.
Just as having only a hammer makes every problem either look like a nail, or as something irrelevant, our very technological skills have had us look there for explanations and ignore reality it cannot deal with. With our powerful hammer, we seek only nails, and dump the rest as dross. Not all questions involve hammers, not all answers are nails.
-- Freedem---Nov., 2006



2.
My issue with Atheists is not that they have no God, there are many religions that have no God, but that they have no religion.
-- Freedem---Nov., 2006



__Note: by this I mean that there are many things religions do besides the discredited "science" and self serving promises (give me your money and God will hold and pay the note), many like charity or fellowship, even social accountability can be very good things not requiring a God.




3.

Many have been very disappointed that their "God-critter" was not to be found as a technology swimming about in the shallower pools of knowledge. So in the obsession basic to our culture, we search ever deeper and more difficult pools, and always the "God-critter" seems to wink at us from the pool just beyond.



In the process we have found technologies beyond the wildest dreams of our most sophisticated ancestors. The great joke is that the "critter" never existed except as the pools themselves.



----Freedem --- Oct 2006



4.
Indeed I do think that many folk, believe all kinds of stuff from the actually true, to the utterly illogical, with no personal discernment one from the others. But that would hardly make any of them a scholar to rely on, any more that one should get their theology studies from a door to door salesman, offering "get out of hell free" cards, on special because the creator of galaxies in greater numbers than beach sand, nonetheless has an ego so weak He cannot exist without shamelessly excessive psychophancy from a major portion of the inhabitants of this particular dust speck.



----Freedem ---June-2007



More to come