-------------------------------------------------------- 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 -- ============================================================ If you find this material useful, you might want to check out our website (http://cyberjournal.org) or try out our low-traffic, moderated email list by sending a message to: •••@••.••• You are encouraged to forward any material from the lists or the website, provided it is for non-commercial use and you include the source and this disclaimer. Richard Moore (rkm) 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. _____________________________ "Zen of Global Transformation" home page: http://www.QuayLargo.com/Transformation/ QuayLargo discussion forum: http://www.QuayLargo.com/Transformation/ShowChat/?ScreenName=ShowThreads cj list archives: http://cyberjournal.org/cj/show_archives/?lists=cj newslog list archives: http://cyberjournal.org/cj/show_archives/?lists=newslog _____________________________ Informative links: http://www.globalresearch.ca/ http://www.MiddleEast.org http://www.rachel.org http://www.truthout.org http://www.zmag.org http://www.co-intelligence.org ============================================================
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