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I've got nothing against principled outbursts. Indeed, I encourage them and wish our US Congress looked a bit more like PM's question-an-answer period in the British Parliament. But "Joe" Wilson is a racist with a long history and questionable involvements, and it looks to me like the Obama + immigration context was just too much for an old cracker to bear. 14 Things You Need to Know About Obama Heckler, Rep. Joe Wilson | | |
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Today's my birthday and the birthday of ally Marie Laveau. It's also the 44th anniversary of the date ally Father Divine put aside the body. I regard Father Divine as an extraordinary Hermetic exemplum and a true hypostasis of God Himself. He is a bodhisattva in the sense of one who has nothing to learn, but who chooses to teach, and as far as I'm concerned, he was the greatest Divine Agent to appear in form in the history of the United States. I am a mystic and Witch, so I don't understand him as Peace Mission followers do, though their ways are among the most inspiring and consistently ethical I've encountered. I believe that Father's teachings are among the clearest expositons of what might be called "Hermetic Supermentalism" that have been uttered. Perhaps only Sri Aurobindo, his divine contemporary, is as clear or workable. I regard him as energetically much clearer and cleaner than other exemplums I admire, like Aleister Crowley or Meher Baba. Here are two videos--the first is a fuller version of a newsreel I've posted before. The second is one I've only just seen for the first time. It's amazing to me how favorable they are, on the whole, considering the extreme racism the Peace Mission often encountered and Mr. Hearst's life-long vendetta against Father Divine (Hearst remains the source of most misinformation on Father Divine--if you want to know historical truths about him, stick to academics like Robert Weisbrot and Jill Watts). And here is a poem or declamation written by a Peace Mission follower on the dedication of the "Shrine to Life" that houses Father Divine's Wholly Form:
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- Callwords:allies, america, ancestors, calendar, culture change, economics, freedom, history, holiday, ideation, liberty, politics, resistance
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- Callwords:allies, america, ancestors, calendar, culture change, economics, freedom, history, holiday, ideation, liberty, politics, resistance
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Obama and his team are word and media savvy, but conservatives who criticize the "empathy" buzzword around Sotomayor should perhaps be met with the 18th century concept of "sympathy" that was a key concept shaping the culture and debate of the US founding generation. The backdrop of that 18th century debate throws the simplicity and banality of the current level of criticism into high relief. These links would be rich places to start understanding that context: From Irresistible Compassion To Conditional Sympathy: Investigations into the 18th Century Formulations of Humanitarianism as an Emotional Reaction of Compassion
One way to approach humanitarianism is to define it in terms of emotionality. In this sense, humanitarian action can be understood to be motivated by the emotion of compassion at the sight of suffering and pain. This definition as its starting point, the paper aims to investigate the ‘roots’ of modern humanitarianism in the 18th century Europe. In this historical task few relevant themes of the 18th century humanitarian discourse will be discussed. The first part of the paper discusses the visual aspect of 18th century humanitarianism that was based on the emergence of the spectatorial perspective. The following two parts of the paper will discuss two 18th century formulations of compassion related to the emerging emphasis of visuality. The first kind of compassion could be called the ‘irresistible compassion’, and it represented the idea that compassion was a natural, reflex-like primary passion of the soul. The second formulation took the form of ‘conditional compassion’, and emphasized the role of imagination as a constitutive element of the emotion. The last part of the paper discusses some of the highlighted themes of the 18th century humanitarian discourse in contemporary context, and offers few preliminary remarks about the ways in which emotions, including compassion, could be understood and studied today.
The Limits of Sympathy: Rorty, Hume, and the Politics of Sentiment
In this paper I consider Richard Rorty that a politics of sentiment which places our ability to imaginatively identify with others as "one of us" should be at the center of the pursuit of social justice. Such ideas about sentiment and sympathy derive from mid-18th century thinkers like Hume, Rousseau, and Adam Smith. I argue that a politics rooted in our capacity for sympathetic identification, though not without certain merits, ultimately fails to provide the crucial impetus for action. The cultivation of fellow-feeling as a political program continually runs the risk of becoming a blueprint for imagining ourselves in the place of others and sharing their feelings of pain in lieu of actually doing something about it. Hume's conception of sympathy, achieved through an operation of the imagination, proves too partial to those close at hand to meet the requirements of Rorty's sense of a "larger loyalty," and the reflective process Hume proposed to "correct" this bias and to give sympathy a universal relevance can only be achieved at the cost of dulling its capacity to move us to action. Moreover, Hume, like Rousseau and Smith, fully understood that sympathy was not enough; at crucial moments they fall back on an appeal to "nature," often quite explicitly, to pick up the slack. Rather than sympathetic imagining, or putting ourselves in the place of another, I argue the ability to grant full reality to another's suffering is the operative element in acting on behalf of others. Given Rorty's anti-realism, however, the notion of "reality" as such has at best an uncertain status in his thought, raising serious doubts about the efficacy of his approach. Secondly, I underscore Rorty's neglect of the pragmatist idea that any species of concern for others must be linked to "habits of action."
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Distortions Aside, Clergy Support Gay Rights in Surprising NumbersRecently released results from a survey of Mainline clergy reveals that, when policies are portrayed honestly, the number of clergy who support same-sex marriage, adoption, etc., nearly doubles. QT: "Progressive religious leaders have been working hard to make it clear that religion and religious people are not only on the “anti” side of the gay rights movement. Now there’s new evidence for widespread support among Christian leaders for public policies that protect the rights and lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, and for their full inclusion in the life of the church." "An in-depth analysis of Mainline Protestant clergy shows large majorities of support for anti-discrimination laws, hate crimes legislation, and the right of gay couples to adopt children. Even same-sex marriage, so often portrayed by Religious Right leaders as an attack on the church, draws support from nearly half of Mainline Protestant clergy when it is clarified that no church would be forced to bless same-sex couples." http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/sexandgender/1490/distortions_aside%2C_clergy_support_gay_rights_in_surprising_numbers | | |
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April 6, 2009 Governor Manchin moves to delist Blair Mountain from historic register Landowners' objections may have been ignored
CHARLESTON, W.Va. - Manchin administration officials moved this week to have Blair Mountain - site of the landmark 1921 coalfield labor battle - removed from the National Register of Historic Places. Randall Reid-Smith, director of the Division of Culture and History, wrote to the National Park Service to ask federal officials to take Blair Mountain off the register. The move comes a week after "the Keeper," the Park Service official who oversees the historic register, made the listing. Labor advocates, historians and environmental activists had been promoting the listing for years. Jacqueline Proctor, a spokeswoman for the Division of Culture and History, which oversees the state Historic Preservation Office, said the agency acted after a coal company lawyer raised questions about whether objections from area property owners were properly counted. "There were some that were sent directly to the Keeper, and we may not have counted them," Proctor said. Under federal rules, if a majority of property owners in an area proposed for the historic register object, that area cannot be listed. Originally, state officials counted 22 objections out of the 50 landowners in the Blair Mountain district. But after reviewing the matter, the state discovered there were actually 30 objections out of those 50 landowners, Proctor said Monday afternoon. Proctor would not immediately provide a list of the 50 landowners or of the 30 who objected. She said the state would not release them without a formal Freedom of Information Act request, which the Gazette forwarded to her Monday afternoon. Blair Gardner, a lawyer for three coal companies - Massey Energy, Arch Coal and Natural Resource Partners - raised questions about the count of landowner objections. Gardner's clients had previously objected to the historic listing, and raised questions about the way the state had drawn the map and whether the map allowed all proper parcels inside the historic district to be properly identified. Efforts to preserve Blair Mountain date back to the early 1990s, when UMW officials and environmentalists teamed up to fight strip-mining proposed by non-union Massey Energy. More recently, Massey and several land companies filed suit to stop the state historic preservation office's support for the national site designation. In 1921, armed union coal miners marched from Marmet toward Logan to confront Logan County Sheriff Don Chafin, whose deputies and specialty commissioner guards were defending non-union coal mines from UMW organizers. Federal troops and airplanes eventually stopped the march. Many of the miners and their leaders were then prosecuted for treason. The battle that developed along Spruce Fork Ridge on Blair Mountain was the largest armed labor conflict in U.S. history, a pivotal event often forgotten today. A 1991 study had identified six critical historic sites covering about 30 acres, but preservation advocates expanded their nomination to include a much larger area. Three years ago, the National Trust for Historic Preservation named Blair Mountain as one of America's 11 most endangered historic sites. The most recent nomination for Blair Mountain was presented by Barbara Rassmussen, a West Virginia University historian, and Harvard Ayers, an anthropologist at Appalachian State University. Ayers discovered 10 major battle sites along the 10-mile stretch covered by the designation, including hundreds of artifacts, especially along Crooked Creek near the crest of Blair Mountain. | | |
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This is way back before there were nearly a billion Pentecostals in the world.
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From New York Times, Sep 23, 1939 Note how novel the tactic of sit-in is to this reporter! "Sit down" is in quotation marks in the header, then contextually defined. Note too that Father Divine was able to host an extraordinarily large interracial banquet at the same time, staffed by cooperativists whose lifestyle far surpassed that of the typical tenement dwellers. By this time, the Peace Mission was also managing its own restaurants, farms and supply chain, providing hearty and inexpensive meals and more than enough income for the cooperative to thrive. Take that, racist restauranteurs! Maybe 100 years after, it'll all sink in. - Callwords:allies, america, ancestors, economics, father divine, history, news, politics, praxis, resistance, spell, theurgy
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Elder words from one who knew and loved him:
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 From Wilson's Blogmanac for Dec. 10:
Lux Mundi literally means 'the Light of the World'. This is also another name for France's Liberty, whose day this also is. Liberty's torch shines hope in the world. Her statue graces New York City's harbour, her full name being Liberty Enlightening the World.
In Roman mythology, Liberty is Libertas, the goddess of freedom. Originally a deity of personal freedom, she evolved to become the goddess of the commonwealth. Her temples were found on the Aventine Hill and the Forum. She was depicted on many Roman coins as a female figure wearing a pileus (a felt cap, worn by slaves when they were set free), a wreath of laurels and a spear ...
(pic is by me long ago, not the linked site) | | |
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Ah, I'm glad to find a PDF of The tradition of the goddess Fortuna in Roman literature and in the transitional period (1922) at Internet Archives (poke around there... tons of good stuff) And I also found a PDF of Johnny Appleseed's Rhymes (c. 1894). This is an interesting bit of Americana; it does not originate with the Swedenborgian prophet Johnny Appleseed (Chapman), though it has some interesting and potentially useful verses in it that seem inspired by his mysticism, like these: If without water you can swim,
Plunge upward, take to the air,
Open aloft your wings and skim,
The ocean is everywhere. | Some days it is a blessing,
Some days it is a curse;
But cursing or caressing,
Straightway it turns to verse.
| If you ever get sated,
You that moment are fated;
But if you strive,
You stay alive;
To push over the line,
That is divine;
Though you suffer the pain
Upborne on the cross,
The very gain
Springs out of the loss;
Aye, to be fateless
Is to be sateless. | An indestructible unit see
In the minutest personality;
And if you see it
You ought to be it,
And if you are it,
Then share it,
For true salvation is impartation. | How to get rid of evils?
Rhymes have power to cast out devils;
Many a time I would have cried,
Had I not versified.
| Rain and sunshine together
Make the world's weather;
But men will whine
If they have no shine,
And they complain,
If they have no rain.
Yet rain and shine do never satisfy,
Man wants the sky. |
I am the knower and the known,
Thus I get to be mine own;
I am the doer and the done,
Thus to me the world is won.
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- Callwords:allies, america, ancestors, art, crafts, culture change, folkart, music, poetry, politics, resistance
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The inestimable Odetta has flown the form.
- Callwords:allies, america, ancestors, art, crafts, culture change, folkart, music, poetry, politics, resistance
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 A first essay on Father Divine and PoliticsIn the mid-1930s, this flyer circulated in Los Angeles:
We want you to know that all various followers of Negro worshippers, including white women who give their physical bodies over to niggers, put themselves lower than the lowest criminals and traitors. Intelligent people of this day and age need not resort to Negro religious degradation and become religiously enslaved to any black sweet-smelling Negro, who perfectly symbolizes ignorance, darkness, corruption and the curse of God. (Jill Watts, God, Harlem, USA 129) In the mid-1930s, Father’s followers and fans grew to perhaps 30,000, though at the time it was commonly believed that he influenced 2 million people, and many fearful whites assumed that he had more power in black communities than he ever actually had. This resulted in an increase in investigations and litigation, mostly by state and local governments and almost always frivolous. Watts writes: “Police arrested angels and remanded them to Bellevue Hospital, where psychiatrists treated the followers for “depressive psychosis.” Authorities indicted Father Divine in an effort to curtail his activities and determine the extent of his personal wealth. The court charged him and Faithful Mary with the unlawful operation of a boardinghouse for children because neither had obtained the required permits. [During the Depression, mind you] At the trial, Arthur Madison proved that none of the deeds to Peace Mission property bore Father Divine’s name and contended that he was not responsible for activities carried out in followers’ missions. Madison also argued that  Faithful Mary’s mission housed both mothers and their children, and therefore was exempt from city approval. The court ultimately acquitted the two defendants.” (130) In those contexts, imagine the strange psychological power of the phenomena he created: ( Read more... ) Here is a link to a complete PDF of the Sept. 8, 1936 edition of THE SPOKEN WORD, which includes the complete text of the 1936 Righteous Government Platform (pages 7-15). | | |
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My feeling is that current church protests around Queer marriage issues are politically and energetically counterproductive.
First, marriage is a conceptually ambiguous matter originating in church and now mostly appropriated by state. It is, therefore, a major locus of "post colonial" feeling among those who think thier traditionalist culture is under siege. There is no reason why the civil state should be invested in the "sanctity" of anything, nor in any private ceremony. Queer marriage represents, to many traditionalists, the final appropriation of a sacrament by state authority. (Unfortunately, too many are unable to imagine divorcing marriage from the state).
It seems to me that marriage should be constructed as a religious liberty issue, granted by the state, and debated within religious organizations. Parity in finances, visitation, child custody, etc., are civil concerns and should be granted apart from the religious concept of marriage. As far as I'm concerned, people who don't have a religious concept of marriage don't have a right to marriage and should seek something else instead.
As far as I'm concerned, secularists should develop their own concepts and leave "marriage" to religious folk. I'm much more in favor of returning marriage to the churches and having the state oversee civil contracts (mostly around financial issues, and mostly only to prevent exploitation of financial dependants). The state should have nothing to do with "marriage" or with family-based social engineering.
The state has already done enough damage to the family by foisting policies that destroyed the extended family, that much more natural unit we evolved in and need for psychological health. But one daddy and his dependants were a better deal for factory owners, so we lost the family structure much more likely ordained by God and nature.
Something about present protests of Mormon and other churches disturbs me; it may simply be a matter that it looks very hatefilled on all sides. In any case, I'm Queer clergy and I find it hard to see allies or to care very much about struggle that manifests this way.
Of course, as mentioned I'm not too keen on marriage per se and have felt all along that this, like "Gays in the military," is not my struggle, isn't on my list of 100 top priorities, and promotes values about state sanction that I don't believe in. I think that if it fails or persists for decades in a Jim Crow manner, it will have failed because it was a tactically poor choice engaged about 5-10 years prematurely. It seemed to me that this was on target to happen much more organically... There seems to be an organic acceptance afoot and growing, and one that can only be hampered by such things as constitutional amendments.
I think a purely oppositonal, hostile or shame-based counter-assault on churches will not work, at least in most of the United States. Engagement with churches is necessary, and so is a more aggressive witness to the fulfillment and Presence possible in other religious ways. There is resistance within many churches, especially "mainline" ones, and that may be the strongest resistance over time.
I come back to preaching emotion and charismatic grace to those who care about such things, not reason and humanism alone. Some people will need to see that the fire of the Holy Spirit burns brightly in their opposition, and gateways of Mystery need to be opened that will throw theological certainties into doubt.
In other words, Spirit needs to be brought to bear more consciously--more than theology or democratic principles. In the public face of this stuggle on both sides, I don't see much that's spiritually attractive. Experiential Spirit doesn't seem very primary in either of these camps.
But I reckon it takes all types. It did for slavery, and it continues to need all types to address women's issues. | | |
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Wow... ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) elorie just posted the President Elect's transition website at www.change.govI'm impressed. It's a bold naming of our problems in ways politicians often won't, and without many euphemisms. Take a gander at the "Civil Rights" section. This man intends to call for Justice. Tangible justice. Imagine that. Has anyone named as much since LBJ? (My federal worker partner is also quite impressed and a little stunned, as I am, to see that the rhetoric isn't being tempered or swept under the rug, but actually elaborated and addressing our REAL problems. He's actually making himself MORE accountable. I can't believe it). </lj> | | |
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The person of Obama aside, this election turned out to be an experience of Divine Grace, and I'm convinced that with committed involvement things can move positively. This is the opening that has been prayed for for decades, the best thing that has happened to the United States in 40 years.
I am very glad Obama is on the scene, though my growing hope comes from his supporters and from the Favor of God that is so amply manifest. Yesterday, all creation seemed to sing in celebration. I know that God is pleased and generously holds forth opportunity to change. Vox populi, vox Dei. The last time we had such an opening was on 9/12/01, and the US slammed that door in Godz face and then turned to active evil instead.
I intend to return to active involvement in local environmental and social justice issues, and nationally will do what I can to help anti-war and Queer causes. I am not as discouraged as I've been for the last 8 years, and Obama must be both held up and held accountable. More than that, though, I feel called to find a way to preach to fundamentalists. And I mean preach. Preach universalism and deliverance in the idiom that is theirs and that is so much a part of my own Appalachian soul. Christian fundamentalism is false religion and a prison to the soul, and there must be a way (like Father Divine modeled) to speak to it directly and powerfully. To bear witness without attachment to results more than to convert. That might be fringe speaking to fringe, but these are the fringes of a prayer shawl. And I know that spiritual fringes are often ahead of the times and are always the primary drivers of history. Secularists still receive and reflect the light of the margin, usually one or two centuries later. They are not responsible for "their" achievements, and their belief that they are is vanity. They are hands of a Greater Agency, and are the manifestation more than the manifestors.
But Godz trick is to make them think they are the cause, at least these last few millennia--to think that all the doing hasn't already been done. I don't understand why, but I see it clearly. Such "agency" is dreamy and Dreamtime, though... it promises eventual awakening and participation in the Agency of God.
We "do" nothing save love and give birth, and the Annunciation is a perfect metaphor. The last 2,000 years, good and bad, were born in the assent of Mary to the word of an Angel.
This work is possible to anyone as brave as George Fox. I'd like to have that kind of bravery, and I note that many of my allies (Whitman, Joan of Arc, Father Divine, for example) had that bravery. (More about this trend of thought soon).
As far as prayer wars go, the Queen of Heaven won. And regardless of setbacks,She'll continue to win because She is God Herself and the next 10,000 years already belong to Her. Opposition seems to activate Her, especially when the opposers call Her by Name, and She turns all their curses into blessings. She will someday manage this with even Jesus and Adonai. | | |
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Sorry if my original posting of this video kept playing automatically! I'm putting it under a cut. ( See the video here... ) | | |
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Thanks to faerywolf Lynda Carter speaks her mind:
CARTER: Don’t get me started. She’s the anti-Wonder Woman. She’s judgmental and dictatorial, telling people how they’ve got to live their lives. And a superior religious self-righteousness … that’s just not what Wonder Woman is about. Hillary Clinton is a lot more like Wonder Woman than Mrs. Palin. She did it all, didn’t she?
No one has the right to dictate, particularly in this country, to force your own personal views upon the populace — religious views. I think that is suppressive, oppressive, and anti-American. We are the loyal opposition. That’s the whole point of this country: freedom of speech, personal rights, personal freedom. Nor would Wonder Woman be the person to tell people how to live their lives. Worry about your own life! Worry about your own family! Don’t be telling me what I want to do with mine.
I like John McCain. But this woman — it’s anathema to me what she stands for. I think America should be very afraid. Very afraid. Separation of church and state is the one thing the creators of the Constitution did agree on — that it wasn’t to be a religious government. People should feel free to speak their minds about religion but not dictate it or put it into law.
What I don’t understand, honestly, is how anyone can even begin to say they know the mind of God. Who do they think they are? I think that’s ridiculous. I know what God is in my life. Now I am sure that she’s not all just that. But it’s enough to me. It’s enough for me to have a visceral reaction. And it makes me mad.
People need to speak up. Doesn’t mean that I’m godless. Doesn’t mean that I am a murderer. What I hate is this demonization of everybody but one position. You’re un-American because you’re against the war. It’s such bullshit. Fear. It’s really such a finite way of thinking about God to think that your measley little mind can know the mind of God. It’s a very little God that way. I think that God’s bigger. I don’t presume to know his mind. Or her mind. | | |
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America--it's best spirit, captured first in the Declaration of Independence-- is revolution. America is revolution. That is its nature, what it has been, what it is. True Romanticism was born in the American Revolution, not the idylls of Wordsworth. (Or maybe in the aftermath of German religious wars, or maybe even in the discovery of what was prophetically called a "New World") but not in an English country churchyard, and not about daffodils). True Romanticism is a physical and metaphysical force that has won more than half the world, and that has planted insurgents in every human heart. It's ongoing, as the art of the world attests... Romanticism swept away everything else but nihilism, despair, and falsehood, which are now the only other options. True Romanticism is always unavoidably spiritual and political. America is an ongoing revolution, and the Romanticism it births and sustains is a cultural wave that long ago swept beyond the dominion of any nation. It grafted itself everywhere, and changed even the Scottish and English sources of its political concepts. And grafts returned. Romanticism is far bigger than America and exists apart from America; it appears serendipitously. True Romanticism is a spiritual power that liberates the soul from the shackles of past things and grants both freedom and the will to power. Real America is Romantic, and it puts Full Americans face to face with the Reality of God's Grace and Power: an ideal of possible freedom ever striving to more complete manifestation. It manifests culturally, and the state follows. The revolution has twin children in government and culture; a Romantic government is not possible, and the culture long ago outstripped it. The cultural revolution cannot be suppressed, at least not by human agency. The two are in conflict, and the government cannot survive without changing. If it fails to change, it will collapse. A Romantic Republic is not possible, not unless we are prepared to worship our representatives. A Republic is not a democracy, not adequate for our culture. Democracy requires checks against majoritarian hegemony, but representative government alone is not enough. We need greater democracy, greater voice, and a different kind of check against excess. A Republic deprives us of true agency and of the essential dignity affirmed as self-evident in the Declaration. Even our technology has outstripped the Republic. The cultural revolution strives to incarnate democracy and will ultimately dismantle any government that obstructs expanding agency. Population and resource scarcity, not state force, are the only things that can cause human regression to the pre-Romantic state. Even in China, the Romantic cultural revolution will prevail against the state. It is inevitable. It is a physical and metaphysical force. Whatever else it is, the billion-strong Pentecostal movement is a Romantic religion that owes a great deal to the theology embedded in the Declaration of Independence (a point-by-point repudiation of Christian monarchy) and the formal theology of Frederick Schleiermacher (to whom all Western Pagans are also indebted). Charismatic Christianity is, unfortunately, a Romantic religion that does not know its shadow. Paganism is a revolutionary Romantic set of religions, most of which overtly encourage knowledge of and ownership of the shadow as the beginning of conscious ethics. Fascism is the shadow of the Romantic Revolution. It is called into being by desperate powers on the brink of their demise, by warriors for lost and false pasts. It is a false religion. Its appearance is proof of vulnerability. It is a parting glimpse in a broken mirror. Baptists use to really believe in separation of church and state. They helped invent it, for their own protection and in the name of free will. Somehow they forgot the shadow. Fascism is costly and resource intensive; it has always fallen relatively quickly. Population, resource scarcity and technology now make fascist stability untenable. If fascism shows its head in America, it will be chopped off within a year. If that darkness came, then Americans would finally know the shadow of the revolution and own it as part of themselves. Knowing that, they could finally be free. But it needn't be that way. Pagan religion knows it needn't be that way. It could be very costly, but we would become ungovernable. It is, so to speak, our constitutional nature. Like it or not, we are in essence postmodern Romantic subjects, possessed of dreams of freedom and tasters of its communion. We are more changed by it than we can imagine, for we see only false selves in the past and imagine that we are not so different. We are transfigured.
Annuit Coeptis: Novus Ordo Seclorum. It is true. It is manifest. Only culture can carry democracy. Only culture can collapse the state and engender real gnosis of the shadow. Only culture can build a bridge. Government must express culture, not control it. Government must be transfigured. Freedom is God incarnate and the fulfillment of all religion. Freedom is natural, embedded in the striving stuff of human personhood. Its telos is Godhood. Freedom loves the unexpected and is born of synchronicity. One way or another, Freedom is coming to America. That much is destined. Maybe soon. | | |
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This will be the last posty-post today, and hopefully I will stop thinking so much of politics even before the election! www.keatingeconomics.com has indeed released the 13:26 minute documentary video they promised for today. It should be spread around. | | |
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Wall Street Journal reports that FDIC Chair Sheila Bair warns that bank failures could metastasize so quickly that the FDIC may need to borrow money from the Treasury. "Bank failures are expected to increase so much that the FDIC may not be able to insure all deposits: The FDIC boosted its number of “problem” banks to 117 in June, from 90 at the end of March; the total assets affected by that increased to $78 billion from $26 billion. The collapse of IndyMac alone–which held $32 billion in assets–is expected to require as much as $12 billion from the FDIC’s fund. In the savings-and-loan crisis of the late 1980s and early ’90s, the federal bailout ballooned to as much as $150 billion–far more than the FDIC had on hand then or has on hand now. … Banks didn’t pay much into the fund during the latest economic boom…"
Bair is proposing to raise the insurance premium rate that banks pay, a move “that will further squeeze the industry”.
The FDIC went from 90 to 117 problem banks, but the CBO chief thinks the problem is much more widespread, and that the bailout will reveal much more extensive “bad assets” that will not return income and will magnify the cost of any bailout. People are panicking... one of my co-workers near retirement announced this morning that she's taking her money out of her bank... not sure what she's going to do with it instead. I can't access my retirement account except during open enrollment, so most University employees can't change it no matter how it fluctuates. Otherwise I'd cash it out myself. (I don't expect to be in this job forever, and need this money more now anyway, economy aside... if it really goes low, I lose if I can't roll it over to the next job--I really hope to be in a different, more enjoyable job within a year or two). And this is interesting introduction to collpase potentials and scenarios:
“Closing the ‘Collapse Gap’: the USSR was better prepared for collapse than the US
By Dmitry Orlov | | |
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While the psuedo-science of economics does its superstitious thing to get the mojo back in the artificial economy* video of Muthee's mojo on Palin has emerged. It's creepy--at the beginning, Muthee talks about "invading" and "infiltrating" all levels of society... and he doesn't just "bless" her, but also explicitly invokes protection against "witchcraft". It's more imperative than ever, now, to know whether Palin approves of this man's exploitative, stigmatizing tactics. [Edit: It also occurs to me that American evangelicals are constructing themselves as colonized subjects, and that post-colonial theory may help to illumine their strange predicament... of course many Witches and NeoPagans also construct themselves this way, and in both faith communities the construction is absurd--it's true that I'm economically and ideologically colonized by the dominant culture, but it's not true that my religion has any prior thing to do with that status... not for me, not for Christians... that status is purely a function of class relations and partisan pr struggles] The "spell" starts at about 7:02, after a short sermon* I think the econ mojo is not gonna work, not compounded with all our other problems like climate, debt, expanding war or resource and commodity prices. I suspect the bailout will postpone and worsen the inevitable, since the speculative economy is based on illusions and public relations far more than real things. I'm going to continue to trust my intuition that this is only the very gentle beginning of a long and ghastly generational decline. I'm going to start storing more food staples NOW and I want to buy a tazer and a better gun.
The CBO Chief says the proposed bailout will make things worse by triggering additional failures. and revealing a much wider-spread insolvency that would cost far more than $700 bil to make up for... | | |
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I found my old Bush 2001 inaugural protest page. We were very angry about Bush's first stolen election and went to the Jan 20 DC protests--that page was my post-action propaganda page. I'm not too disappointed in my perception or prognostication. Looks like the only thing I should have edited out is that he didn't seem to be appointing Jewish or African-Americans. It also reminds me that 9/11 didn't really change very much at all... it was a pretext for what (it seems to me, to any remotely intelligent person) Bush promised. I was much more hopeful then, though. I thought that people would not tolerate the sorts of abuses Bush was destined to commit. I wonder if anyone works with Cassandra as an ally? ;-)
Today, though, my favorite quotation on the page is:
"When commercial capital occupies a position of unquestioned ascendency, it everywhere constitutes a system of plunder." -- Karl "Right about the Diagnosis, Wrong about the Cure" Marx, Capital --
http://kalimountain.tripod.com/j20.html
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I've started a new thematic blog called " American Journey," where I'll write about American cultural studies from a free Pagan and folk history vantage. My subtitle on the banner is "a continuing journey, an ongoing revolution, a culture in the making." One of the things that I hope to sketch over time is an alternative outline of American spiritual history, and I'll rely a lot on literature and religion and folkways, and I'll feature a lot of the odder, touched folk who have moved the world. I'm sort of going to follow the syllabi I used as a college instructor, but with all the freedom and wildness I would like to have taught from. I like my banner! I'm sure I'll also be making more aesthetic adjustments at American Journey, but it's there now with a first entry on the primacy of the land. American Journey will replace Goddess of Liberty. (I haven't been especially happy with that one and haven't written there in a long time). I'll put the historical stuff on American Journey, and will continue to post any contemporary political stuff on Livejournal (though hopefully a little less than lately... though the next six weeks promise a bit ;-) I still have Manifold Oneness, which is dedicated to monist-polytheist mysticism and where I'll very soon begin a series of commentaries on the Isian Hermetic scripture, Kore Kosmou. I will be working from a polished book-length draft that still needs some more polishing, so blog-publishing them sequentially will force me to do that... American Journey is at: http://viaameruca.blogspot.com/- Callwords:allies, america, ancestors, culture change, history, links, literature, philosophy, url, words, writing
- Affect:pleased
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What a wonderful group of voices! And Rufus was so comely. I imagine Stephen Foster, the Queer "father of American songwriters," might have taken a shine to him.
- Callwords:america, ancestors, economics, history, liberty, links, music, prayer, spell, url, video, words
- Affect:prayerful
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Palin Linked Electoral Success to Prayer of Kenyan Witchhunter
Hannah Strange, Times Online
( Sarah and the Witchfinder... read all about it ) The article doesn't say if Palin knew about the fact that this parasite built his career on the violent exploitation of others, but the whole thing is reminiscent of mentality of the 80s rock and Satanic Panic scares, which did seize the darker side of the evangelical mind.
It's not magic or magical conflict that makes Palin's religion perverse... it's that nonsense about salvation coming through blood sacrifice. And all the violence that perverse notion engenders day after day. And the idea of submission to a badly written, highly flawed and blasphemous tract called "The Holy Bible".
To quote Rev. Elias Hicks, "The actual blood of Christ is no more efficacious than the blood of pigs and goats." Less so, I'd wager--else the African churches wouldn't have to stigmatize and lynch others to grow or launch pastoral careers. | | |
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Eve Ensler, the American playwright, performer, feminist and activist best known for “The Vagina Monologues”, wrote the following about Sarah Palin.
( Drill Drill Drill )
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http://www.astrologyweekly.com/astrology-articles/statue-of-liberty.phpQuote: It is interesting to note the Sabian Symbol for Uranus, the planet that signifies freedom and liberty, the symbolism of the statue: A CANOE APPROACHING SAFETY THROUGH DANGEROUS WATERS (Libra 10). This Sabian Symbol clearly incorporates the geographical position of the statue, on the Liberty Island, in a very visible position to any ship approaching New York.
Not a lot of detail in the reading. Anyone see anything else interesting in the chart? | | |
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Liberty Tree published a good interview with Howard Zinn, the premier proponent of "people's history," on the present and future place of the United States in the world. excerpt: If there is any hope, the hope lies in the American people. [It] lies in American people becoming resentful enough and indignant enough over what has happened to their country, over the loss of dignity in the world, over the starving of human resources in the United States, the starving of education and health, the takeover of the political mechanism by corporate power and the result this has on the everyday lives of the American people.
[There is also] the higher and higher food prices, the more and more insecurity, the sending of the young people to war.
I think all of this may very well build up into a movement of rebellion.
We have seen movements of rebellion in the past: The labour movement, the civil rights movement, the movement against the war in Vietnam.
I think we may well see, if the United States keeps heading in the same direction, a new popular movement. That is the only hope for the United States.
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