-------------------------------------------------------- From: "Claudia Rice" <> To: "rkm" <•••@••.•••> Date: Mon, 10 Dec 2007 11:15:54 -1000 Subject: Re: Spiritual Transformation, Evolution, and Culture http://cyberjournal.org/show_archives/?id=1363 Hi Richard: a passing thought re: the Soviets, spiritual movements etc.--- they often start out with the best intentions etc. and, if they gather steam, they get hijacked. We must stay vigilant for power trippers, especially when members get lazy and are willing to delegate their powers. Claudia ------ Hi Claudia, Every movement has intentions, which we might call the 'will of the people' -- as it is the intention that draws people to the movement. Every movement also has some kind of decision-making process by which it operates. If victory is achieved, then the movement finds itself in charge -- the default new regime. The intention will still be there of course, but what actually happens next is going to depend on the decision-making process of the new regime -- which is of course the same decision-making process the movement has been using all along. Most movements that I have ever heard of, and certainly all of those that have achieved victory, have a centralized leadership group, and it is those leaders that make decisions for the movement. Indeed, it almost seems that strong central leadership is necessary for victory, as that makes for a coherent and disciplined movement. In any case, when victory is achieved, the leaders find themselves in charge of the whole nation. The leaders then have a choice to make: are they most interested in pursuing the will of the people, or are they most interested in retaining their new-found power? People being what they are, very few of them will pass up the chance to hold on to power once they have it. Almost always the choice of the leaders will be, and has been historically, to hold onto power first, and pursue the will of the people as a second priority. Once that choice is made, the movement has been hijacked by the leaders, and the fate of the intention is now in the hands of people who are primarily concerned with maintaining their own power. Hijacking is thus inherent in the nature of centralized movements. It is what we should expect; any other outcome would be quite extraordinary. Any leadership group that might choose to put the will of the people first would be made up of very special people, those few who are willing to subjugate their own power to what the people want. There are such leaders of course, for example Castro and Chavez, but they are seldom to be found among those who have the skills to lead a successful movement. The way the Soviets dealt with the intention issue was to declare that the Communist Party was the 'embodiment of the people', and hence the 'dictatorship of the proletariat' -- the intention -- had been achieved. This was nonsense of course, what we really had was a dictatorship of the party leaders. In the case of the USA, wealthy elites wrote a Constitution, and they declared that it embodied 'democracy' -- the intention. Again this was nonsense, and what we really had was complex bureaucracy designed so that it could be easily subverted by corruption -- and of course it is the wealthy who can afford to do the corrupting. So instead of a democracy, we got a plutocracy. So it is not power trippers we need to watch out for, but rather centralized movements. The only movements worth joining are movements where all the decisions are made at the grassroots level, and where every member can participate directly in the decision-making process. rkm -------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2007 21:44:40 -0500 To: •••@••.••• From: Bob Ocegueda <> Subject: Re: Spiritual Transformation, Evolution, and Culture Very well said Richard. It gives form/substance to what I've been thinking and feeling all along. Thanks. Bob -------------------------------------------------------- From: Bill Blum Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2007 12:32:09 EST Subject: Anti-Empire Report, December 11, 2007 Anti-Empire Report, December 11, 2007 <http://killinghope.org/aer52.htm> -------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2007 18:15:27 -0600 (CST) From: newcombat To: •••@••.••• Subject: Re: A few interesting items for you... http://cyberjournal.org/show_archives/?id=1364 thanks, I've posted the Danny Est radio show A kind of showdown in evidence today with the US fed reserve bank. Siding with the Euro bank and accomodating asian investors (in US treasury bonds) -- at the expense of the domestic economy. IE push coming to shove, and the proles will be the ones to pay. --------- hi newcombat, The Fed is simply doing what is in the self-interest of its owners, which is what all good private corporations are supposed to do. The last thing they want is for Asian investors to stop buying US bonds -- that would rapidly accelerate the decline of the dollar, and thereby reduce the power and wealth of the Fed and its owners. As regards the effect on homeowners and the US domestic economy, that is strictly a secondary consideration. As regards the proles, they are always the ones to pay, that's what civilization is about -- civilizing (ie domesticating) the proles. rkm -------------------------------------------------------- From: "John Bunzl" <•••@••.•••> To: "Richard Moore" <•••@••.•••> Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 16:59:15 -0000 Subject: Re: Power and Corruption: Just What Is Their Relationship? http://cyberjournal.org/show_archives/?id=1365 ____________________ rkm> "our best hope lies in trying to figure out how we can transform our cultures -- through grassroots initiatives -- in a way that can eliminate positions of 'power over others'. In other words -- can we learn how to govern ourselves collectively? Can we find a way for our societal policies to emerge as a consensus out of our 'collective considerations', rather than having our policies determined by some set of power holders, who inevitably must be corrupted by their overt or latent dark sides?" ____________________ Hi Richard, Fully agree with the thread of your analysis all the way through. Excellent! As to possible practical tools for transformation there are others on the table apart from those you mention, such as Simpol, which, since they fully meet the requirement you laid down (as repeated above), you might like to mention so that your readers have a chance to consider them. all the best John http://www.simpol.org/ ----------- Hi John, That was a wide-ranging analysis, and I'm pleased our agreement extends that widely. That bodes well for possible collaborations in the future. In response to your request, to say something about Simpol, let me begin by giving my own brief summary of the Simpol vision. Folks can also go to your website above for the official version. Your basic analysis, as I understand it, is that the world's government leaders aren't free to pursue good policies, because of the pressures of globalization and the global economy. If any one government tried to adopt polices not favored by investors, the investors would simply move elsewhere and the country would go down the tubes. On the other hand, if governments around the world all acted together -- SIMultaneously adopting the same good POLicies (hence SIM POL) -- then investors would have nowhere to flee, and they would be forced to adjust to the new policies. Based on this analysis, you are pursuing two tracks of action. Track One is the development of a set of 'good policies', and Track Two is the promotion of the Simpol vision to citizens around the world. If you can get masses of citizens to sign up as 'adopters' to the Simpol vision, then that would create a voting constituency that might be able to induce their government leaders to join in, and agree to simultaneously implement the 'good policies'. I think your analysis and your program make very good sense. Indeed, if you have enough adopters, you might be able to induce government leaders to adopt policies that would be quite a bit better than the leaders would have come up with otherwise! There is thus an 'empowering the people' element in your program, in addition to your primary objective of 'empowering the leaders'. All very good stuff. Now let's bring in my paragraph above, which you selected as a strong point of agreement between us. That paragraph is very relevant to Track One of your program -- developing a set of 'good policies'. According to the principles laid down in that paragraph, we want "our societal policies to emerge as a consensus out of our collective considerations". That is, you need to find a way for your adopters to collectively participate in some kind of grassroots-based consensus process, and thereby generate Simpol's set of policies. If you want to talk about what kind of process might be useful for such an endeavor, I'd be happy to discuss that with you. One process that would not serve us here, would be the standard approach of some central group drafting a set of policies, and then sending it out for comment or voting by the adopters. That would be not at all like grassroots-generated consensus. It would not be nearly as creative and productive of good policies, nor would it be consistent with the principles in our agreed paragraph. If you were to pursue this kind of policy-development program, then you and I would be very much in harmonious collaboration. All of the things I've been learning about process, and about community empowerment, are all directly relevant to what you would need to be doing. And as your policy process unfolded, pockets of empowerment, and We the People consciousness would be emerging -- which is exactly what I am seeking with my agenda. glad to mention Simpol, rkm -------------------------------------------------------- To: <•••@••.•••> Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 14:05:57 -0600 From: "Howard Switzer" <> Subject: Re: Power and Corruption: Just What Is Their Relationship? ____________________ rkm> "Those are people who have been touched by a bit of spiritual enlightenment, and I think it is in that way that enlightenment CAN be part of the solution -- we can pay attention to those who have the capacity to show us the way." ____________________ Absolutely a beautiful job of addressing this, Richard. It reminds me of the teaching of the prophet Bahaula who said, "Listen to the teachers of your day." He is the prophet of the Bahai Faith despite his having said that the 9 great religions were manifest to each organize a different area of the planet and that this 10th dispensation was about starting over and organizing the whole, or the whole organizing itself. So his writings indicate that no new religion, as Bahais call their faith, should be started, but that it was time for humankind to start over and come together. He pointed out that after 9 you start over. He said things like everything evolves including religion and women are to be considered equal to men and other progressive things 150 years ago in Persia. I'm finding considerable resonance in what he was saying in the efforts of you, Tom and others around the world. I share your excitement about community dialogue for much the same reasons, it is a way of coming together. Howard Switzer --------- Hi Howard, Thanks very much for your comments. I didn't know anything about the Bahai faith or Bahaula, and you've intrigued my interest. I've done a lot of research and study into the Enneagram, and I've learned that nine is a very special number, as regards interacting energy fields. The Periodic Table, for example, has nine elements per row, representing the interaction of proton and electron energy fields. If we think of a religion as being an interaction between the energy field of a belief system and the energy field of the membership, I can see how we could end up with nine 'religion configurations'. And 'starting over and coming together' is long overdue. Persia has been the home of many great mystics and teachers. It's good that the bombing campaign has been called off. thanks again, rkm -------------------------------------------------------- From: "John Lowry" <> To: <•••@••.•••> Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 18:44:38 -0800 Subject: Re: dialog on recent themes... http://cyberjournal.org/show_archives/?id=1366 Richard, I strongly reccommend "The Symbolic and the Real," by Ira Progroff. It has to do with "imagining" reality. stay well, john -------- Hi John, Many thanks. It's out of print, and not even available from Ira's website. But I found a copy on Alibris for about $2 -- whatta deal! I really like it when people recommend books on the basis of something I wrote. I'll never forget the time someone said I 'had to read' the Story of B. I'm so glad I listened. That was indeed my 'next step' in understanding, with respect to what I had most recently written. It also contributed eventually to a spiritual shift, even though Quinn didn't get into that. Once you can see humanity as an inherently wise species, then you also begin to feel that wisdom is evolving out of nature, and that we are its manifestation. That gives us a connection straight through to Gaia, the evolving biosphere from which we arose. Gaia is quite literally the mother of our species. It's difficult to say things like that without getting a 'spiritual tingle', even if the considerations are only at the level of evolutionary principles. happy holidays, richard -------------------------------------------------------- From: "Claudia Rice" To: "Richard Moore" <•••@••.•••> Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2007 09:47:02 -1000 Subject: Re: Elite Depopulation Agenda Gains Ground http://cyberjournal.org/show_archives/?id=2921&lists=newslog ...we can't get away from the fact that 6+ billion humans alive at the same time is way beyond a sustainable level. (Unless you think a planet like Asimov's in the Foundation trilogy is possible. Want to live on a planet-wide city? not me). Systems are a problem but our chances of a "system fix" are not even remote. Admitting this is perhaps painful. We can depend on Nature's system to eventually take care of our malignant growth and trashing of the planet. The recent forecast of global climate changes reducing human population to @ 600,000 is probably quite reasonable. What we need to do is to form the local co-operative and self-reliant groups that have some chance of surviving as something other than failed sapiens. ---------- Hi again, You are accepting the inevitability of the collapse of civilization, and you have a scheme for surviving that and coming out OK on the other side. In order to figure out if that scheme makes sense, we need to think about what the collapse scenario might look like. One possibility would be a martial law scenario, where the military would be in control, the last vestige of social order. What always happens in such cases is that harvests are confiscated by the military, and then redistributed according to 'who deserves to live'. In your self-reliant group you can be sure your food production will be confiscated, and they'd probably leave you just enough for a below-poverty diet, just enough so you can stand up long enough each day to hoe your row. In any case, your self-reliant autonomy would be no more. The other likely possibility, in a more total collapse, is that there would be no order at all, just armed bands searching far and wide for food and ammo. So don't forget to stock up on AK-47s in your self-reliant group, and unfortunately, that won't be enough to save you. Once you are marked as a 'food target', they'll keep coming back in larger numbers until they eventually overpower you, or you run out of ammo -- and they won't be taking prisoners or leaving any food behind. If you are expecting collapse, I think joining the Army would be a smarter move than joining a commune. In the martial law scenario, you'd be near the front of the line for food distributions. And if the Army collapses as well, you'd have your weapon, your buddies, and your training -- just what you need to start an armed band. Personally, I think our efforts need to aimed at avoiding collapse, even if that seems like a thin hope, because the alternative offers no hope at all, unless you like the Army option. rkm -- -------------------------------------------------------- Posting archives: http://cyberjournal.org/show_archives/ Escaping the Matrix website: http://escapingthematrix.org/ cyberjournal website: http://cyberjournal.org How We the People can change the world: http://governourselves.blogspot.com/ Community Democracy Framework: http://cyberjournal.org/DemocracyFramework.html Film treatment: A Compelling Necessity http://rkmcdocs.blogspot.com/2007/08/film-treatment-compelling-necessity.html Moderator: •••@••.••• (comments welcome)
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