One result of rummaging around the arkive is that I have no compulsion to write anything new. Rather, the opposite: I'm attempting to unwrite much of what I've written. I'm hoping that by deleting the clunkers and repeats, I can get it down from over 1,300 posts to more like 1,000. That seems like a more manageable figure. Even though it's not.
It hasn't been difficult to delete a lot of the early posts from 2005. This is because they aren't really in my true voice, which didn't fully come on line until early 2006. Plus, I don't have to worry about deleting comments, since there weren't many.
In a comment yesterday, I speculated that the new Gallup numbers (Rasmussen too) suggest that Obama has entered the "cracking stage" of his presidency. If so, we are in for an exceedingly bumpy ride, as his magical aura crumbles and people's primitive anxiety starts to become unhinged (or "uncontained," to use the technical term).
Thus far, Obama has only aggravated all of the problems that got him elected. As that reality begins to sink in, the effect will be analogous to suddenly weening someone from a powerful anti-anxiety medication. Psychiatric drugs can have subtle effects. Only when someone discontinues a drug do they realize all it was doing. And Obama was a particularly potent intoxicant. The withdrawal effects will be significant.
Anyway, here is a post from last January that goes into the dynamics of the four part presidential cycle of strong --> cracking --> collapse --> sacrifice. Is deMause correct about this cycle? I don't know. But I don't really want to be here when it happens.
It also reminds me of Terence McKenna's crackpot theory of the cosmic timewave, which is scheduled to end in December 2012. He said that in the years immediately leading up to then, history would be compressed into a kind of singularity. It would be as if all of human history would be collapsed to point, and replayed in a matter of months.
Looked at in this way, what we are seeing in Iran is an archetypal replay of a story that has been enacted numberless times in the past, only in an exquisitely pure form. The evil of the mullahs is about as pure as it gets -- if "purity" is the right word. Likewise, the cluelessness of Obama -- cleansed of any particles of truth or light by his postmodern indoctrination -- is as pure as Neville Chamberlain's or Jimmy Carter's. Not a good combination.
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32 comments:
I've read 90% of posts since early 2008...
I do have a question though for Bob or a senior 'coon: What is the difference between the "dualism" which Le Fanu talks about (i.e., mind is not reducible to brain) and the sort of dualism that from my partial understanding is rejected by 'coons?
Not sure about Le Fanu, but the point would be that there is no form without substance and no substance without form, even though it is not possible to think in the absence of the duality of form and substance.
Might want to spend some time at Just Thomism for the whole story....
This is some crazy sacrificing. The One can do a lot of damage before he can be sacrificed. Carter helping Hamas open talks with White House
Thanks, Bob. Headed over there to do some brushing up.
Looked at in this way, what we are seeing in Iran is an archetypal replay of a story that has been enacted numberless times in the past, only in an exquisitely pure form. The evil of the mullahs is about as pure as it gets -- if "purity" is the right word.
Evil distilled into a potent tincture.
Two Easters ago, I sat in the emergency room with my dad as he detoxed from too many years of Zanax. (He shouldn't have been on it in the first place.) The nurse explained that my dad was experiencing the feeling of dying.
It was painful to have to watch and not be able to do anything to help.
Very much like what's happening now.
Sehoy:
You put words to what I am feeling too. At least there is always prayer left for us unable to action.
So, let's pray for not having to watch another Tiamen Square.
/Johan
Regaurding your comment of not wanting to be here during the upcoming mess; come on cheer up! This recent culmination of earthly chaos is the breeding ground of future gods and rapid spiritual evolution. I'd think a conservative Christian would feel blessed and honored to participate in this phase of Gods grand drama! not like we don't have the rest of eternity to relax.
Well now! I kick off my traveling shoes, returning to find Bob has traded his silver narwhal harpoon for an oyster rake. The world has further turned upside down, as it should be.
You said something the other day: I think that a particularly strong Self can be like the tiny seed that finds a way to break through the concrete sidewalk above. Nothing can stop it from achieving its destiny.
I was reading about oysters (as a side trip from lobsters) this morning - hence the leap - and was reminded that the oyster isolates invading parasites, covering them with layers of nacre, thus protecting itself while producing a little globe of great beauty. It doesn't kill the parasite outright, but it does die off from becoming 'surrounded'.
And so...the strong Self can work in the other direction simultaneously, not only breaking through but enveloping potential damaging futures. But little me, who forgets the Self but understands selfish, grabs a clumsy knife to wave at my dragons when sometimes a little dab of Krazy Glue is much more effective. "Prayer availeth much" - one layer at a time.
>> . . history would be compressed into a kind of singularity. It would be as if all of human history would be collapsed to point, and replayed in a matter of months<<
Not unlike purgatory! Bardo state! whatever . .
I do think the "singularity" of which Mr. McKenna & Bob speak is synonymous with the prophesized separation of my beloved biblical "goats and sheep". Goats and sheep, symbolically speaking, are *pure*, they are their own archetypes. I can't say that the goat-symbol represents a pure evil, though that would be its central core, its Black Hole. I would say that it certainly represents a pure "ignorance", a pure maya-seduction.
We all know what the symbolic sheep is all about.
The two must become pure in the compression of the singularity before they are separated. There's probably some chemical, metallurgy analogue to be drawn there, but I wouldn't know.
Obama seems "pure" in a sense, nein? Obama seems like a Frankenstein monster cobbled together from the guts of the post-1968 Democrat Party death wish list, every worst soul-killing impulse, right down the line. He is the Goat Terminator.
Nick -
>>I'd think a conservative Christian would feel blessed and honored to participate in this phase of Gods grand drama!<<
Ha! Some of us are! Honest!
Every week, every day, every minute, virtually, a Grand Adventure!
But we do have to live in the world as it is presently constituted, we do have to "take sides", we do have to experience the nit and grit of human emotions, some of which may include a momentary righteous anger and disgust, and yes, an occasional gloom.
Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop sniffin' krazy glue.
"Carter helping Hamas open talks with White House"
Crap.
Carter "helping" the murderous and psychopathic Hamas and the psychopathic "I don't really believe in infanticide, although I voted for it" Zero get together...what can possibly go wrong?
"It doesn't kill the parasite outright, but it does die off from becoming 'surrounded'."
That's a good analogy, Dojo.
In our own cases, we wanna surround the parasites with light, and cut off their fuel supply.
Ogistics.
Obama seems to be doing fine. The unrest in Iran seems unremarkable. There will always be countries in unrest.
America is doing well.
This particular segment of historical time seems ordinary enough.
Could it be you guys are bored or something?
aninnymouse said "This particular segment of historical time seems ordinary enough."
Yeah, as Swiftone's link points out, Carter "Proposes plan bypassing U.S. demand for terrorist group to recognize Israel".
Yeah ordinary enough for most the 60 or so centuries of human history in the can to date; in case you missed it though, the last 2 centuries had made a big push towards moving us out of the ordinary, we, under the gigantic strides of our Founding Fathers, had made an unordinary push for standing for what is right, over what is realpolitik, for supporting our allies who supported freedom and liberty for their citizens.
That our current pres, and at least one of the past ones (spittle be upon his name), wish to return us to the ordinary track of history, and that a fool like you could see that as unremarkable, is a simple demo of today's point that "all of human history would be collapsed to point", and in your case, a particularly dense one.
>>This particular segment of historical time seems ordinary enough<<
Well, that's a pure enough statement.
SEE previous comment re: goats/ignorance/the maya-seduced
Van: ...had made an unordinary push for standing for what is right, over what is realpolitik, for supporting our allies who supported freedom and liberty for their citizens.
These allies included Stalin, Marcos, Suharto, Pinochet, and of course, the Shah of Iran. Lovers of freedom and liberty one and all! Not to mention Saddam Hussein back when we wanted to use him as a counterweight to Iran -- this was a project of the Reagan administration, well known for its heroic moral clarity.
It must be nice to live in the simple world of your imagination, rather than the complex and messy one known as "reality".
NB, regarding the Dualism issue, I think that one of Just Thomism's comments on dualism,
"Concerns over dualism miss the point that the duality (in this consideration) belongs to powers and not the one who knows. The human person is such that both organic and non-organic tools flow forth from his single nature and are both powers of a single person. ",
touches on what I think is the worst effect of Descartes method, more so than the explicit "I think, therefore, I am", is the legitimization of the arbitrary supposition and/or criticism, which Doubt smuggles into your thoughts.
When Descartes made statements to back up his Cogito, like "I could imagine not having a body, even imagine there being no world, and still thinking...", taking such statements in stride, suppressing the urge to slap that person in an attempt to restart their common sense, allowing such anti-reality statements, all by itself, insinuates a severe dualism into the mind as arbitrary assertions accomplish the effect of dualism, divorcing concept from fact, a dualism which divides form from function, quality from quantity.
Divide and conquer.
(BTW, I finally put a new post up on The Ongoing Meltdown - Economic only? Don't you wish, a prelude to a post getting into Descartes and how his ideas firmly nudged us onto this road)
Tomorrow plastic-fantastic TOTUS will likely disgrace & embarrass himself and our nation in yet another speech.
For contrast, take a look-see at Iran's former crown prince Pahlavi making a statement today.
gulpingpotty said "It must be nice to live in the simple world of your imagination, rather than the complex and messy one known as "reality"."
It must be hell being unable to understand the difference between right and wrong, or even between doing what is necessary to defend your nation, people and property, from an explicit endorsement of those people or countries which were the best of the bad choices available . As if we were presented with the opportunity of choosing between Jefferson and Lucifer. How quickly the 'reality based community' flees reality when faced with real world situations of having to choose between what is awful and undesirable, or what is horrible and unthinkable.
Would I, with the benefit of hindsight and none of the responsibilities or pressures, have made different choices than them? In some cases, yes, in others, no. Do I fault them for making the best choices they could to preserve and further OUR interests? No, not one single bit.
It is not our place or responsibility to determine what form of government another people supports. It is our responsibility to make what strategic choices seem best for us, when it is apparent that we must. You do recall Hitler and WWII? Do you also recall the Cold War and our being in a struggle for our existence against the greatest threat to freedom the world has ever known? Oh, riiight... leftist... the left has only ever meant only to spread happy happy joy joy to the workers of the world, you know, like the USSR, Castro, Pol Pot, etc, etc, etc.
Might also want to check into the issues surrounding the big bad Shah, careful though, you might find that the islambie revolution of khomeni slaughtered more people in the next year, than the Shah's had in over three decades, not to mention the eradication of even a semblance of rights. Was the Shah's a brutal regime? Yes. Was khomeni's worse? Infinitely. Did Carter choose what was best for our interests? No... then, as now, it didn't even enter his calculations. But then again as is evident with leftist 'mind's history of preferring regimes and folks like Stalin, Mao, vietnam, cambodia, etc, what's a few hundred million bodies against the glorious aims of opposing capitalism (aka liberty), and forcing everyone to enjoy the same handout as everyone else, and more importantly, to agree with you.
Yeah, you got moral clarity alright.
Pig.
I'd suggest you browse through the first few essays up on Victor Davis Hanson... might do you some good... but then, that'd require you to have some interest and respect for what is true. And you know what they say about casting pearls before swine... oh, no, you probably don't.
Keeping one's enemies close until they become intolerable (via acts of war and/or egregious inhumanity) isn't a bad policy option in a messy world.
I'll tell you what is, though: idiotically assuming that other nations have any interests other than their own at heart, and failing to defend our own in the process. Fortunately for the rest of the world, America's interests have historically resulted in liberty for others. I can't speak to the future.
Um, yeah. What Van said. Heh! Of course, that policy requires actually being able to identify enemies *as* enemies. Khomeni, Chavez, et al. aren't saying anything about America that Obama hasn't already given assent to (see theology, black liberation). Perhaps, from the vantage point of CIC, he's getting a glimmer that the world is not as *simple* as his college professors, domestic terrorist friends, political cronies, and pastor have presented it to be. One can only hope.
Van 5:24: We, under the gigantic strides of our Founding Fathers, had made an unordinary push for standing for what is right, over what is realpolitik, for supporting our allies who supported freedom and liberty for their citizens.
Van 8:48: It is not our place or responsibility to determine what form of government another people supports (sic). It is our responsibility to make what strategic choices seem best for us, when it is apparent that we must.
I can see you've thought this stuff through...
gulpingpotty said "I can see you've thought this stuff through..."
And I can see that you are unable to. Really having a problem with that aren't you?
I suppose for a flatlander it's tough to see anything more than a line... a circle is a stretch... a sphere is out of the question.
America stands for individual rights and limited government. As a result of that we are unalterably opposed to the many shapes of tyranny. Wherever a gov't is denying the rights of its people, we should not shy away from saying so, whether that be friend or foe.
We cannot provide the people to choose from, to say nothing of the knowledge, beliefs and habits necessary for the citizenry to have, in order for a foreign nation to build their own constitutional republic. As I said on my post I linked to above, the first of three necessities is a moral, rational public. We can't provide that in any way other than example (and boy is that a stretch today).
We have to work with the world we have, not the one we'd like to have.
In a with a roiling situation, faced with a choice between something like those supporting Contra's(Reagan's 'Freedom fighters') or communist Sandinista's, no matter their failings, you have to support the ones more in align with our ideals, than those unalterably opposed to all of our ideals. In a case where a region already has a govt in place, and it is in a strategic position vital to our safety and interests in a global struggle, such as with the USSR, we have to choose between bad and worse, and attempt to 'win them over' to supporting us; that doesn't mean that we are supporters of their methods or beliefs (Pinochet, Marcos, etc), or make us morally responsible for their atrocities, such moves were necessary for our nations interests. In the mid-east scenario against the USSR and iran, Saddam was the option available to us, and allowing the USSR or iran to prevail because we wanted to play lefty prissy points and 'keep our hands clean', would have been idiotic. When the USSR was no longer in the game, our interests were much less served by Saddam, which he found out.
When we do have the opportunity to alter the scene, to get a little less bad scenario, over a real bad and much worse situation, I've no problem whatsoever with the CIA, etc, interfering in another countries operations.
None of that prevents our standing up and speaking out for our ideals. And the leftists new found notion that we shouldn't speak out for fear of making our enemies mad at us, or for fear of making them more mad at their internal opposition, refer to Reagan's outspoken support for the people of Poland (my neighbor and his Dad were involved in that, and barely escaped with their lives, though they are dem's now, they still have fiercely thankful feelings for all of the 'evil empire' rhetoric Reagan deployed) and East Germany, in the globally tensest of situations.
Ok, a.m. poly-sci class is over, time to shower.
I said "I've no problem whatsoever with the CIA, etc, interfering in another countries operations."
Any tyranny is an illegitimate govt, and it is the moral right of any legitimate govt to invade or topple them at any time. Whether or not it is worthwhile, or feasible, is completely a question for the legitimate govt to make, and as above, if it makes more sense to let them stand, as opposition to a worse one, no problemo.
Kaffepaus/Johan,
Amen.
I will pray with you for them.
*****
I challenge godinpotty to ACTUALLY read Victor Davis Hanson.
Read. Without tearing what VDH writes to shreds, like a vengeful autopsy. Is that possible?
*****
Yesterday I told the Republican Senatorial Committee Survey's Senator Cornyn to POUND SAND and sent his useless survey with an amendment back to him in the postage paid envelope.
Then I donated the money I might have sent to the Repulicans, in the GWB past, to SARAH PALIN.
I challenge godinpotty to ACTUALLY read Victor Davis Hanson.
Read. Without tearing what VDH writes to shreds, like a vengeful autopsy. Is that possible?
I sincerely doubt it. He's a ghastly writer, a gasbag with nothing original to say.
gulpingpotty said "I sincerely doubt it. He's a ghastly writer, a gasbag with nothing original to say."
What a prime example of a leftists imitation of an argument. Doubt, insult, and vacuous, unsupported statements.
IOW, the only substance to be found in leftists, is in the potty.
Van,
I think you oversimplify the Iranian revolution and Carter's role. The reality is his and no subsequent administration has real control over the CIA. He had grave concerns, spineless as he was, about the ousting of the Shah.
Installing the Shah, however, by MI6 and the CIA, was also foolish, toppling an elected PM for a dictator. How does that one fit in to your "legal right to remove tyranny?"
Further, I keep waiting for a free country to invade the US and remove the tyranny we have been under for nearly 100 years.
Anonymous said "I think you oversimplify the Iranian revolution and Carter's role..."
Whatever control the President does, or does not have over the CIA, Carter was far more concerned, publicly, with prissily posturing himself as being 'politically correct' (in one of its earliest manifestations, his entire 'human rights' campaign was just such a crock, IMHO), than with making the deeper, more sober judgments, a President should be concerned with.
And if the CIA is not, as recent events alone suggest, to say nothing of the State Dept, firmly under control of their associated branch, then we should be seriously looking at either revamping those agencies/dept's, or at least the personnel/staffing/union/etc structures in both and all.
Assuming that the 'toppling an elected PM for a dictator' occurred even as the popular stories suggest, I've no problem with it whatsoever. Being elected, PM, President or otherwise, has no virtue in and of itself, in my book. If you elect a socialist or communist to office, who is going to be working towards implementing socialist/communist policies, meaning the stamping upon, if not eradication, of individual rights, property rights, objective law, then they are by their own nature and aims, illegitimate.
Hitler wasn't any more legitimate, because he was elected.
Also keep in mind that Massadegh was intending to nationalize the property of western oil companies - that alone made him profoundly illegitimate in every way, shape and form. Would that Eisenhower, and those Presidents who followed him, had more forcefully acted in like manner in that and other such situations. Carter allowed the poison fruit to be harvested, but Eisenhower, and the others, allowed the wretched tree which threatens us today to take root and grow.
And yet... I must ruefully take my own principles to heart... the context alters the options available. It would have been right and proper for Eisenhower and others to do as I wished. However. It wasn't only a scenario of those 'states' acting against the interests of the West. There was also the wider context of the struggle with the USSR for influence in that, and other areas... that is what made the painful history of such clandestine situations necessary. I still don’t agree with their decisions, but I understand there were extenuating circumstances.
If you are armed cowboy style and enter a store to find it being held up, you'd (hopefully) act immediately to end the holdup, shooting the robber if necessary. If in the same situation you notice several other thugs, armed and positioned around the store, you might proceed with more caution and strategy than yelling 'Freeze!'. If before entering the store, you see the situation in play, as well as lookouts around the surrounding buildings, you might call the posse together and proceed even more carefully. You, and the hapless clerk, still have every right to shoot and kill the robber if necessary, but the context alters what actions will be wise to pursue. In any event, at no time, would it be wise or 'nuanced' to publicly prattle on about how much respect you have for the thugs, or how important it is to understand their position because their being in the wrong isn't such a cut-and-dried situation.
BS to that.
BTW, to stir the pot a bit more, the idea that Bush thought he'd be furthering the 'Forward strategy of Freedom' by allowing war lords, thugs and mullahs (but I repeat myself) draft a 'constitution' is almost as ridiculous as expecting such a constitution to establish any form of objective law, or effectively preserve individual and property rights, was tragically laughable.
Anything short of the WWII Japan model, of our taking examining the culture, making some allowances, as MacArthur did, and then writing and imposing a constitution upon them, was stupid, and conceded moral defeat, and practical failure. As did the many protestations of respecting the 'religion of peace', changing the name of a military operation to defeat an enemy to a name more palatable to the enemy, refusing to identify the enemy, sending Karen Hughes and others to islambie functions in headscarves... etc, etc, etc.
But... you have to go to war with the President you have, not the one you wish you had.
"Further, I keep waiting for a free country to invade the US and remove the tyranny we have been under for nearly 100 years."
Although Tyranny isn't yet a proper description of our situation, we certainly are moving more and more towards it... in any event, I'm afraid we've still got to be our own minutemen, and hopefully this time it can be the shot that won't be fired, which is heard around the world.
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