-------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 07 Apr 2007 12:46:48 +0200 From: Earl <•••@••.•••> To: •••@••.••• Subject: Re: rkm report on Manchester conference Hi Richard, I've also not been visible to you lately, really the last many months. Not for lack of will, but that my activities have morphed a bit into action on the 'local' scene. I've become rather active in the SP in the Netherlands (Socialistic Party), and it is a very active, and successful, party. The downside is that I have less time for some blogging activities. That said, what you are doing is of interest to me, and I follow it still. I think you'd like what we're doing here in the Netherlands, and the SP is based on being out and among the people on a neighborhood level. From the neighborhood level, we then translate needs and actions into 'higher' levels of organization. This all in contrast to standard political parties who work from the top down; kind of like Reagan's "Trickle Down" expression. While there is leadership internally from the top down, our actual work is from the "bottom upwards". We've tripled our "House: seats with the last election (Nov.2006) and also the "Senate", and are now the third largest party in the Netherlands. And we are challenging the Labor Party for second place now. That said, we are encountering stiff resistance from the established political "club" since we are viewed as a genuine threat to them. All this takes a lot of time and energy, and, together with some of my other activities, has meant that I am less present in the blogging world, although I maintain a politics orientated general blog on Stumble Upon, an international blogging community. If you have the time, the SP does have some English pages, and the links (history and publications especially) might be of interest to you. http://international.sp.nl/ Keep up the good work, Richard. We may not be in the same 'room' at the moment, but we're in the same 'house'. Earl Duthler Amsterdam --------- Hi Earl, Nice to hear from you. Congratulations on your good work! I like SP's bottom-up approach. It is good that you're encountering "stiff resistance", a sure sign of doing the right thing. Permit me to suggest two cautions: Avoid coalition at the government level, and seek coalition at the grassroots level. Your party's strength comes from its connection to the people, and its value comes from avoiding co-option. Eyes on the prize, and ears open to the people. imho, rkm -------------------------------------------------------- From: "GUY L PROUTY" <•••@••.•••> To: <•••@••.•••> Subject: Re: rkm report on Manchester conference Date: Sat, 7 Apr 2007 08:25:52 -0700 Thanks for your letter Richard and I totally agree with your problem about academics. I teach anthropology/archaeology at a few universities here in Oregon (in fact, we met briefly when you were here in Eugene last year), and fortunately, I do not do this full time or else I would too get sucked up into the system of over-specialization. I prefer to be more of a generalist and see the forest rather than the just the pine cones and it keeps my eyes open to the general socioeconomic, environmental, and political issues we face today. In fact, I teach a course called "Sustainability and the Rise and Fall of Ancient Civilizations." It is strange that every time I attend a peace rally in Eugene or participate in a local activist group or two, I am the only "academic" anthropologist participating. I have come to the conclusion that when one works full time doing very specialized research, guiding graduate students, and trying to obtain grants to continue one's research, as well as raise a family and pay the mortgage (death pledge), that most academics just don't have the time or energy to become involved in modern social issues and activism. And this is a great shame because anthropologists are trained to view the world with "generalist glasses", but once they start working in the real world of academia after graduate school, they get caught in this system of arguing over "whether post processualism and middle range theory impact the development of the Preclassic Maya", etc etc. The language becomes so specialized that only a few other people in the world can read it and that's because they are paid to write and research this material. Not that the material isn't good, but we need to learn to apply our specialized knowledge to help solve the modern challenges we now face with economic debt, global warming, peak oil, oligarchies, materialism, and U.S. sponsored terrorism. And this will require that professional academics need to simplify their lives, consume less, and consequently, work less so that they can have the freedom to pursue work that is truer to our hearts and spirits. Peace, Guy Prouty, Ph.D Eugene, Oregon ------- Hi Guy, Did we connect when I was in Eugene in October? If not, a shame! Have you read Yofee's, "Myths of the Archaic State"? I'd be interested in your take on that somewhat iconoclastic work. ciao, rkm -------------------------------------------------------- From: •••@••.••• Date: Sat, 7 Apr 2007 11:30:15 EDT Subject: Re: rkm report on Manchester conference To: •••@••.••• Happy Easter to you too. ah yes the academics.- "A donkey with a load of books is still a donkey" is my favorite Sufi saying about them. -------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 07 Apr 2007 16:04:20 -0400 To: •••@••.••• From: Ed Goertzen <•••@••.•••> Subject: Re: "The Academic Problem Hi Richard: Here's one that may help. A number of years ago I was in contact with an Amerindian by name of Ray Harrell, the founder of Magic Circle Theater, who wrote that, "There are three Golden Triads that we ignore while following Poor Intellectual Productivity. They are Context, Content and Process. There are also three golden triads that are caused by a Structural Incompetency Virus. They are Perception, Logic, and Intuition. The virus, or cancer, assures that: "no matter what talent a person has, no matter what intelligent action a person might bring to a problematic situation, no matter what insights could be applied to resolving crises, the individual is precluded from exercising those talents and insights by virtue of the organizational structure in which the individual is embedded." Regards Ed G ------ Hi Ed, Very interesting; thanks for sharing. Harrell seems to have developed a useful model of 'understanding', bringing in the primary dynamic elements. I suspect that you perhaps summarize the model in an unduly negative way. He is analyzing the means by which we can be 'precluded from exercising...', but not everyone is precluded all the time, and Harrell's insights themselves may help us find ways to 'break free'. cheers, rkm -------------------------------------------------------- From: "John Lowry" <•••@••.•••> To: "Richard Moore" <•••@••.•••> Subject: Re:academia Date: Sat, 7 Apr 2007 23:15:50 -0700 First, from Gurdjieff: ... It is possible to think for a thousand years; it is possible to write whole libraries of books, to create theeories by the million, and all this in sleep, without any possibility of awakening. On the contrary, these books and these theories, written and created in sleep, will merely send other people to sleep. And so on. ... What is necessary to wake a sleeping man? A good shock is necessary. But when a man is fast asleep one shock is not enough. A long period of continual shocks is needed. ... --The Morning of the Magicians Paules & Bergier (Eds) Dorset Press, N.Y. 1988 Copyright 1960 Editions Gallimard Second, we equate intelligence with language facility, which makes the fast talkers chosen as "best and brightest." -------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 07 Apr 2007 08:05:26 -0700 Subject: Re: rkm report on Manchester conference From: Radical Press <•••@••.•••> To: Richard Moore <•••@••.•••> Dear Richard. Good to hear that you're clearly cognizant of the dichotomy that exists within academia and the real world of everyday events and experiences which the bulk of people are a living part of. When I read your analysis, in particular the statement, "People are channeled into studying smaller and smaller parts of problems, until they see only the leaf instead of the tree, not to mention the forest." my ongoing debate with you regarding the subterranean machinations of the Jewish/Zionist/Banking cartel immediately sprang to mind. Then, to my sudden surprise and due appreciation, I saw that you were finally willing to consent to such a debate on this issue; one, I might add, that is as crucial to and integral a part of our global dilemma as the A is in Pythagoras' Theorem. Hopefully, during the course of such a debate, erroneous notions such as "anti-Semitism", "race", and so on will receive their due attention and the various smoke-drenched myths will yield somewhat to the clear light of both factual analysis and the attendant wisdom contained therein. It's sure to be a hot topic of discussion that will undoubtedly add to the already obvious global warming discussions. :-) Peace and Justice, Arthur Topham Pub/Ed The Radical Press http://www.radicalpress.com --------------- Hi Arthur, My primary problem with the phrase "Jewish conspiracy" is the fact that when we talk about the Rockefeller Dynasty, we don't speak of a "Protestant conspiracy". Because of that discrepancy, I see in the use of "Jewish conspiracy" an element of anti-semitism, or at least of undue preoccupation with Jewishness, either conscious or unconscious. In Northern Ireland, people talk about "Catholic" and "Protestant" factions, and there religion has indeed been a major factor in the divisiveness. But in geopolitics religion is not a real issue, it is a phony issue. The all-pervasive demonization campaign against Muslims, which infects the whole Western world, is a totally baseless charade, designed to create the conditions for Huntington's mythological "Clash of Civilizations". The scepter of anti-semitism is kept alive by the media, as a way of reducing opposition to objectionable US and Israeli policies and actions. As I see it, religion is a tool of control more than a source of conspiracies. Even in Northern Ireland, if you trace the history, we find that Britain set things up to encourage what they like to call 'tribal conflict' in the former colonies -- a standard ploy of theirs, not the least of which in the Middle East. rkm -------------------------------------------------------- From: •••@••.••• Date: Sat, 7 Apr 2007 22:45:00 EDT Subject: Re: rkm report on Manchester conference To: •••@••.••• rkm> As with most things there's some element of truth [in Jewish conspiracies], but there's also some unconscious anti-semitism at work. Richard, I really hope that this doesn't indicate that you're about to join the Zionist hit squads. Please say it ain't so, Joe. Bill ------ Hi Bill, If the US is the world's bully policeman, Israel is his viscous attack dog in the Middle East. That's simply geopolitical and military fact. The scepter of anti-semitism is kept alive by countless TV reruns of the Nazi era (which was a project of Anglo-American elites), and that scepter is used to systematically defuse opposition to Israel's heinous behavior, against the Palestinians everyday, and against Lebanon in Israel's recent illegal and devastating bombing campaign. Again, it's not about religion but about imperialism and propaganda. Another aspect of this is that US elites, instead of being controlled by a Zionist cabal, would probably let Israel 'take the hit' if a regional war erupted in the Middle East. Iran has some pretty potent missiles, and Israel is one of the main targets of opportunity. In any kind of all-out exchange, Israeli civilian casualties could be significant, and Washington would cry crocodile tears and would be glad to have those atrocities to stir up public support for war. imho, rkm -------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 8 Apr 2007 14:27:19 -0400 (EDT) From: •••@••.••• To: •••@••.••• Subject: Re: rkm report on Manchester conference rkm> One thing we can be happy about this week is that there was no attack on Iran, as was predicted in the Israeli press. The fortuitous phrase "in the Israeli press" seems to me to be an example of unconscious anti-semitism (or anti-Israeli). The sentence could have ended with the word "predicted" and fully made sense. Moreover, it seems to me the prediction itself came from Russia. Media in scads of countries picked it up, of course. Nick ----- Hi Nick, Here we see the scepter at work, trying to conflate anti-semitism with disapproval of Israeli policies. Yes the prediction came from a Russian source, but it was an Israeli account that I most recently ran across and posted to newslog, so that's what I cited. rkm -------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 08 Apr 2007 01:18:18 -0700 From: anita sands <•••@••.•••> To: •••@••.••• Subject: Re: * If you are on AOL, it's time to get off * Takes 20 seconds to fix it. I get blocked all the time but I can get out of being blocked. I DO THE POWER RECYCLE gambit that Earthlink and all servers recommend to give myself a new DNS number. There's a button on back of DSL modem. IN my case, I use tip of hairpin, reach in thru a hole, hold it DOWN l0 seconds. ------ Hi Anita, DNS blocking may be another trick of AOL's censorship, but it's not what was operating in the case of WantToKnow.info. I sent two identical messages to several people, one with WantToKnow.info in the text of the message, and the other without. Both were sent with the same From, same Subject, and the same DNS number, etc., and only the one with WantToKnow.info was blocked. So it is simply a case of search for string and block. Here's a bounce message I got back from AOL, which was polite of them to send, and which seems to confirm what I observed, when it says 'text rejected...by aol.com': From: •••@••.••• <•••@••.•••> Date: Apr 9, 2007 5:56 PM Subject: Undeliverable mail: Re: want to know To: •••@••.••• --- Failed to deliver to '•••@••.•••' SMTP module(domain aol.com) reports: message text rejected by mailin-01.mx.aol.com: 554 TRANSACTION FAILED rkm -------------------------------------------------------- From: "Claudia Woodward-Rice" <•••@••.•••> To: "'Rkm'" <•••@••.•••> Subject: Re: AOL Undeliverable Mail Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2007 12:55:23 -1000 Here is an answer I finally got from the AOL postmaster after a similar episode last December. They routinely block political opinion and it takes url owners to effectively complain. The urls that bounced were: lewrockwell.com/kwiatkowski/kwiatkowski167.html and informationclearinghouse.info/article15853.htm Claudia -----Original Message----- From: Charles Stiles [mailto:•••@••.•••] Sent: 12/11/2006 10:16 AM To: 'Claudia Woodward-Rice' Subject: RE: Undeliverable Mail Hi Claudia, I must respectfully disagree with your assumption. Please provide me with the URL causing the problem. You may eliminate the periods separating the www and the organizational unit to prevent it from being interpreted as a URL. I will gladly have an investigator look into it upon receipt. -------------------------------------------------------- From: "Global Network" <•••@••.•••> To: <•••@••.•••> Subject: Re: * If you are on AOL, it's time to get off * Date: Sun, 8 Apr 2007 09:29:24 -0400 AOL is also blocking my emails to our list. So is Hotmail and MSN.....the list of email servers doing censorship, disguised as spam blocking, is growing. Bruce -------------------------------------------------------- From: •••@••.••• Date: Sun, 8 Apr 2007 21:05:29 EDT Subject: Re: * If you are on AOL, it's time to get off * To: •••@••.••• Richard, I just sent myself an email with Want To Know. info in the subject box and in the email. It arrived immediately. Bill ----- Hi Bill, Yes, the censorship only happened on email coming into AOL's world from the outside. As I mentioned in an earlier posting, this particular case of censorship has been halted, for the time being, due to customer complaints. But just because one hole in a ship has been patched, that doesn't make it a safe ship to stay in. rkm -------------------------------------------------------- From: "Robert Periano" <•••@••.•••> To: "Richard Moore" <•••@••.•••> Subject: Similar problems. Date: Sun, 8 Apr 2007 20:30:10 -0400 Hi Richard, Thanks for the hi quality news. You are a smart and hardworking individual. I have have similar problems. I could go back to Bellsouth in 2006. I signed petitions anti-merge with ATT. Harassment; returned forwards; #554 return to senders; was on dial up and they made me dial up every 10 minutes. Dumped them after they and a wild aggressive web female pal possibly messed with turning in complaints against free speech (no cussing) fwds. Never know what some do with your mailings. But, just before the 06Nov elections my mail dropped from 60 newsletters to 4. Bellsouth did merge and wanted to raise rates and I dumped them. Monopolies are never good. I noticed recently with my pretty good and expensive server that google has cut way back on the amount of pages of free info on myself and other topics. Who put them on a severe diet? I used to tell writers to do a google since before they would get a total run down of ALL my 100s of petitions signed and letters to editors. All gone. No more in local paper either. No more free education on left/populist/anti-war subjects. Thanks for your sharp mind on the news. Send more surveys and petitions. Thanks again. ----------- Hi Robert, Yes, best to stay with smaller providers whenever possible. That's why I like all the small shops in Wexford. I don't circulate petitions. Not my thing. MoveOn-type people are doing plenty of that. It's a publicity game. Makes sense at a local level however. sorry, rkm -------------------------------------------------------- From: •••@••.••• Date: Sun, 8 Apr 2007 12:57:55 EDT Subject: Re: * If you are on AOL, it's time to get off * To: •••@••.••• Just got an email from you which did, indeed, 'bounce' and disappear. I have been on aol for so long, I would have to figure out what I want to do next. Evelyn Goodman --------- Hi Evelyn, One good email provider is aliencamel.com. They provide a good spam filter and they are totally independent. They also are good when you're travelling, as they can act as your SMTP server from Eudora and other POP-based email packages. I route my mail through GMail, then on to aliencamel, and finally to Eudora. GMail has a very good spam filter that gets things aliencamel misses. I don't think I've ever had an email blocked. The Google folks (who run GMail) also seem to have some censorship issues, but so far GMail seems like an open channel. We need to stay alert however. rkm -------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 8 Apr 2007 01:19:53 -0700 (PDT) From: GS Chandy <•••@••.•••> Subject: Re: * If you are on AOL, it's time to get off * To: •••@••.••• Is this censorship an initiative of the GW Bush administration? Is there nothing to be done about it?? GS Chandy --------- Hi GS, One can make too much of the Bush administration per se. He is only a pawn in their game. He was chosen for his stupidity, so that people would find false hope in devoting their efforts toward replacing him, leaving the oppressive system intact. Notice how our Democratic majority in Congress has made no difference in Iraq, no difference with the Patriot Acts or Guantanamo, and no difference of any significant kind. Just wind and backroom deals. rkm -------------------------------------------------------- From: "Lawrence Gillett" <•••@••.•••> To: <•••@••.•••> Subject: Re: * If you are on AOL, it's time to get off * Date: Sun, 8 Apr 2007 08:28:34 -0400 Rove and cohorts are now in control of the internet. So much for progress! Peggy Conroy in upstate NY ---------- Hi Peggy, I haven't heard about the Rove angle, but I've been surprised at how long they've let the Internet go on mostly unfettered. The net is perhaps the most subversive institution that has ever existed, from the perspective of elites. Just compare 'TV consciousness' with 'Online consciousness. As for progress, that is an illusion, part of the Matrix, as elucidated in Guy Debord's classic, "The Society of the Spectacle". rkm -------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 09 Apr 2007 18:55:34 -0400 From: Anthony <•••@••.•••> To: Richard Moore <•••@••.•••> Subject: Global Warming and Government rkm> "What I'm trying to get you to think about is how this issue is being used to control our minds, to gain support for measures that will make things worse, and to make us think governments are on our side." I agree with this statement 100% bonus plus. This behaviour is status quo as is the case with most government policy and has been in throughout history. The Canadian government is a prime example. The problem they face is how to make it look like they are actually "taking action" whilst doing nothing there by allowing their industrialist supporters to continue supporting them. Government and their industrial counterparts don't actually consciously persuade, propagandize and manipulate the population. They do this as normal everyday behaviour much like breathing. We on the other hand are more than willing to believe what we are being told for to think otherwise requires requires us to think for ourselves and change thinking and behaviour. In the same way a drunk who finds themselves and behind the drivers wheel will most likely attempt to make the rest of the trip home despite the fact that they know that what they are doing will eventually end up in the ditch, or worse. The government is us. We wouldn't be the fist civilization to burn the candle at both ends. Cheers Anthony Sinn http://www.iosphere.net/~ajs/ ------------ Hi Anthony, I'm not sure I can go along with all your thinking here. When I compare what goes down in the mainstream, with what I know from other sources, I see quite a bit of "consciously persuade, propagandize and manipulate". 911 is of course the grand-daddy of all such manipulations. But yes, the mass of government or media officials are just doing "everyday behaviour" -- they get their world from the same media as everyone else. I agree with you that facing the reality of elite power, and the extent to which we are powerless within the system, is difficult at a deep level. For some people it may be 'fear of thinking for themselves', for others it might be 'fear of society falling apart', or 'inability to modify old programming', or 'not wanting to admit we got fooled', or 'fear of taking responsibility for seeking a way out', etc. When these deeper reasons remain unconscious, we see that kind of irrationality that we call 'denial'--the refusal to look through the telescope. I'm not sure what you mean by 'the government is us'. At face value, you'd be saying that we live in a democracy, but I doubt if that's what you're implying. Based on your second paragraph, perhaps you mean the government is the shadow of our own shirking of responsibility. In either case, I can't go along with you. Our 'democratic societies' have evolved over the past two centuries as the most efficient systems of controlling populations that have ever existed. Instead of secret police we have propaganda, the monetary system, and the myth of democracy. We are born into this system and all apparent avenues of change are carefully managed against us. The prisoner is not the warden; we are not the government. At a deeper level we are shirking, in that we haven't replaced the system. We're in one of those apocalyptic sci-fi films, where the world needs saving, and we're the only available heroes. We shouldn't be too hard on ourselves, as we have little experience in the role. cheers, rkm -------------------------------------------------------- From: "Steve Feast" <•••@••.•••> Cc: •••@••.••• Subject: RE: Climate change and mind control Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2007 08:46:22 +0800 Dear Richard, I fully agree with your comment that the science is not settled, but is completely irrelevant anyway. I've thought this for a while now and this was the first time I've seen the view in print. I would love for humanity to live sustainably on the planet, and think that the greatest impediment is the mindset that the earth is at our disposal. As Daniel Quinn, Derrick Jensen and others point out most of us don't even realise that we think this way because it is caught up in the ambient culture of which we are consciously unaware. I feel that the spectre of global warming / human influenced climate change is bringing this to our attention, however the specifics (technology will fix it, we just have to recycle more, carbon trading / offsets) draw our attention from the real problem, which is attitudinal but also systemic - ie everyone should be educated and change, but the societal / governmental structure makes true change impossible to achieve in a meaningful way (see Derrick Jensen). One of the problems with this view is that the "right" say that it is another example of the "left" (I know you don't exactly see things this way) changing it's mind on the problem whilst keeping the same old solution - be it regulation or whatever it takes... So thanks again, I just wanted to offer you some more encouragement in your efforts. All the best, Steven Feast ---------- Hi Steven, You mention the myth that 'the earth is at our disposal', and you talk about 'true change', and 'drawing our attention from the real problem'. Those are the key points! Beyond sustainability, we need to live in harmony with the Earth, our Mother. The regime of capitalism and economic growth is in total contradiction to sustainability. This is worrisome to think about, because the system seems so unchangeable. The government knows we are in need of hope, and is providing trinkets painted to look like hope. Many will take the bait, as a way to stop worrying. But they know inside they're selling out, and this leads to defensiveness. I agree with you that those on the right would see all this as the doings of the 'liberal establishment'. The irony of course is that the liberals are always complaining about right-wing government policies, and about too much corporate-right influence. Left and right each see one another as 'the problem'. If they talked to one another more often, they'd realize that neither 'side' is happy with the government, and that both 'sides' have sensible things to say. Right-left divisiveness is actively encouraged by the establishment, and its worst effect is that the two 'sides' refuse to listen to what the 'other' has to say. cheers, rkm -------------------------------------------------------- From: "T K Wilson" <•••@••.•••> To: <•••@••.•••> Subject: Re: Climate change and mind control Date: Mon, 9 Apr 2007 19:57:31 -0500 Well Richard, You seem to be pissing plenty of people off, so maybe you're on to something. Certainly, as to the mind control stuff. I'm not having any trouble hearing you say that the sudden focus on global warming by the elites (either pro or con) is simply a ruse to allow the system to continue along its merry way; and that no how no way is the global corporatist "government" (sic) going to do a freeping thing about it. It's always "Qui Bono". Even if the US turns into the Dust Basket, and millions of us die (which some factions of the eco left see as advantageous anyway) the assholes on top will stay on top or at least firmly believe they will (same difference), and of course those beliefs are what determine their actions. It does not help that so many left/progressives are every bit as contemptuous of Joe Sixpack as are his neo con pimps on the right. I really think the object is to scare us into not thinking and not talking to each other. Soon as MLK started saying it was class and not race; that it was all us niggers against the elites, he got whacked. Can't have us talking to each other or letting go of our racial/cultural prejudices either. [well said! -rkm] -------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 09 Apr 2007 21:13:43 -0700 From: marc bombois <•••@••.•••> Subject: Re: Climate change and mind control To: •••@••.••• Hi Richard, The debate over climate change is diversionary. The perception management techniques of the corporate media and the pr firms are very effective and successful. We waste so much time and energy on peripherals, serious though they be, while the root cause of them goes largely unexamined and therefore unchecked. I agree with you, we can make all the little lifestyle changes we want and our world will still go to hell as long as the elite are free to rape and pillage. For that is what they do, and that is who they are. Cheers! Marc [again, well said - rkm] -------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2007 12:20:57 +0700 From: "Dave Patterson" <•••@••.•••> To: •••@••.••• Subject: interesting summary hi Richard, don't know if you've seen this one - an interesting summary and overview of a number of things, sort of a dot-connecting exercise in less-than-book-length form, well done, I think - http://www.antiwar.com/engelhardt/?articleid=10791 [FYI - haven't had time to read yet - thanks dave - rkm] -- -------------------------------------------------------- Escaping the Matrix website: http://escapingthematrix.org/ cyberjournal website: http://cyberjournal.org Community Democracy Framework: http://cyberjournal.org/DemocracyFramework.html Subscribe cyberjournal list: •••@••.••• (send blank message) Posting archives: http://cyberjournal.org/show_archives/ Moderator: •••@••.••• (comments welcome)
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