Posts
One of the hardest things about dealing with aging, is knowing when to let go. Our community for all intents and purposes is an aging community. As is 'The Centre'.
No amount of bullying, threatening and intimidation is going to change the outcome of this Plebiscite, I think.
People are 'practical and reasonable', when left to their own devices. After evaluating all the data, they will come to the realization, that it is time to let go with 'dignity'... not with hysterics.
We need to let go of the past, and get on with the future.
"The past is past, the present is a moment, the future is all!"
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Thursday, August 28, 2008
"I Have a Dream"
45 years ago today, Dr. Martin Luther King gave his famous "I Have a Dream" speech that moved a nation, and the world. Today, many are hoping Barack Obama is the answer to that dream. I do hope so!
After so many years of right-wing conservative ideology that has reduced the world to a dog-eat-dog mentality (hearing that feelings of despair and inferiority are unequally distributed does not move conservatives), the world needs to believe again. To believe in dreams again... To believe in, Yes We Can!
Some say, conservatives are people of convictions. I say, people of fixed convictions do not count when it comes to determining what is fundamental in values and lack of values. ‘People of fixed convictions are prisoners of their convictions’. The best thing for a person to do is to hold all of his/her beliefs lightly and to reject them whenever they begin to appear as errors. i.e. "Human truths evolve like the correlative phenomena of nature, they have their birth, growth and decline."
The world needs to change by going in a new direction…
People's values are shaped by the cultures they live in; as society changes we need changed values.
After so many years of right-wing conservative ideology that has reduced the world to a dog-eat-dog mentality (hearing that feelings of despair and inferiority are unequally distributed does not move conservatives), the world needs to believe again. To believe in dreams again... To believe in, Yes We Can!
Some say, conservatives are people of convictions. I say, people of fixed convictions do not count when it comes to determining what is fundamental in values and lack of values. ‘People of fixed convictions are prisoners of their convictions’. The best thing for a person to do is to hold all of his/her beliefs lightly and to reject them whenever they begin to appear as errors. i.e. "Human truths evolve like the correlative phenomena of nature, they have their birth, growth and decline."
The world needs to change by going in a new direction…
People's values are shaped by the cultures they live in; as society changes we need changed values.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
POVERTY
Notes on Poverty
Verily, he who possesseth little is much the less possessed: blessed be moderate poverty!
A man is poor because of wrong attitudes of thinking, feeling and acting.
... we are so materialistic poverty now actually carries the shame that cowardice carried in earlier, warrior times.
The poor have always been demonized.
We are back to the dogma that whatever the wealthy do is good for the poor.
Lower ranking humans throw themselves into submission, even sacrificing themselves for their high superiors. It's all biologically evolved behavior.
Property is a legal instrument of oppression. And there is class warfare.
Poor people of all races now have little chance of ever making it up to the middle class - for a complex of reasons including economic: the loss of jobs as capitalism goes global; technological: the sudden demands of computer skills at work; and attitude: Americans are really unsure if they want to provide equality of opportunity, because they believe a market economy thrives better on inequality... they are going to let poverty be a goad.
Resentment and hostility boil in the underclass.
Andrews projects that out of our present society of vast economic inequalities, our future society may contain two camps: a chronically poor, undereducated, fearful, murderous proletariat and an economically comfortable majority.
... pain and suffering are good because they goaded the poor into greater efforts, thus the economy is energized.
_______________________________________________
Comments:
With the above in mind, does the fact that one in five (1 in 5) children in this country going to bed hungry every night, disturb or offend you? It does me!
Especially, when you consider that in recent years both our provincial and federal governments have ‘enjoyed’ record budget surpluses, with little if anything filtering down to the neediest in our society. Now, there is talk that the economy is tanking. Hard times are soon to become even harder. More people will join the ranks of the dispossessed and disenfranchised, to eventually be discarded to the garbage heap, as so much useless refuse.
What can you say about a State that cares so little about its citizens, that it allows and perpetuates so much useless and needless suffering to take place, in a land of plenty? While at the same time, we hear on a regular basis about the RCMP and police using 'deadly force', as their first alternative in dealing with its 'unruly' citizenry. Does one still owe loyalty and fidelity to such a State, that cares so little about humanity in general, and its own citizens in particular?
When people’s hopes and dreams are lost, then anarchy is sure to follow, because history has shown us, wealth will be redistributed, either by politics, or by revolution. ‘Class warfare’, it seems, is the poor mans’ destiny, revolution his tool, as GREED and a failed democracy pushes him/her ever closer to this reality.
When will human sufferings, endless labour and exploitation, come to an end? Or is humanities destiny to continue to be one of an endless cycle of futility, as was Sisyphus’ lot in ancient Greek Mythology.
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
Verily, he who possesseth little is much the less possessed: blessed be moderate poverty!
A man is poor because of wrong attitudes of thinking, feeling and acting.
... we are so materialistic poverty now actually carries the shame that cowardice carried in earlier, warrior times.
The poor have always been demonized.
We are back to the dogma that whatever the wealthy do is good for the poor.
Lower ranking humans throw themselves into submission, even sacrificing themselves for their high superiors. It's all biologically evolved behavior.
Property is a legal instrument of oppression. And there is class warfare.
Poor people of all races now have little chance of ever making it up to the middle class - for a complex of reasons including economic: the loss of jobs as capitalism goes global; technological: the sudden demands of computer skills at work; and attitude: Americans are really unsure if they want to provide equality of opportunity, because they believe a market economy thrives better on inequality... they are going to let poverty be a goad.
Resentment and hostility boil in the underclass.
Andrews projects that out of our present society of vast economic inequalities, our future society may contain two camps: a chronically poor, undereducated, fearful, murderous proletariat and an economically comfortable majority.
... pain and suffering are good because they goaded the poor into greater efforts, thus the economy is energized.
_______________________________________________
Comments:
With the above in mind, does the fact that one in five (1 in 5) children in this country going to bed hungry every night, disturb or offend you? It does me!
Especially, when you consider that in recent years both our provincial and federal governments have ‘enjoyed’ record budget surpluses, with little if anything filtering down to the neediest in our society. Now, there is talk that the economy is tanking. Hard times are soon to become even harder. More people will join the ranks of the dispossessed and disenfranchised, to eventually be discarded to the garbage heap, as so much useless refuse.
What can you say about a State that cares so little about its citizens, that it allows and perpetuates so much useless and needless suffering to take place, in a land of plenty? While at the same time, we hear on a regular basis about the RCMP and police using 'deadly force', as their first alternative in dealing with its 'unruly' citizenry. Does one still owe loyalty and fidelity to such a State, that cares so little about humanity in general, and its own citizens in particular?
When people’s hopes and dreams are lost, then anarchy is sure to follow, because history has shown us, wealth will be redistributed, either by politics, or by revolution. ‘Class warfare’, it seems, is the poor mans’ destiny, revolution his tool, as GREED and a failed democracy pushes him/her ever closer to this reality.
When will human sufferings, endless labour and exploitation, come to an end? Or is humanities destiny to continue to be one of an endless cycle of futility, as was Sisyphus’ lot in ancient Greek Mythology.
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
- William Butler Yeats
Friday, August 15, 2008
Apathy
It seems my blog posts are well read, but they generate 'no comment' with respect to what others think and feel about our 'modern world'. Maybe, I should start another blog with broader appeal, rather than limiting it as I do somewhat, to mainly the Crowsnest Pass area?
In any event, I am tired of sharing what I know and think only to have it fall on apparently deaf ears. So, I too, will do as one of our blog councillors is presently doing, and go on vacation (despite his still drawing a municipal pay cheque and still attending council meetings, committee meetings and board meetings, all while avoiding (or 'hiding') from his blog world on the 'pretext' of a summer vacation), while another seems to have tunnel vision and concentrates on only one issue - The Centre - while at the same time offering no vision or action plan on what comes next.
Anyhow, to say I am disappointed in the apparent 'apathy' running rampant in the Crowsnest Pass (and lack of 'real leadership'), would be an understatement, to say the least. It's one thing to wash your hands of local issues, but quite another to wash your hands of the world you live in. As I said in my last post - nonjudgmentalism is a moral vacuum.
Seemingly insurmountable obstacles confront all world reformers, when pure idea meets the opposing force in the inertia of the human mind and the resistance of entrenched power. It represents a revolution of the dynamic against the static, of higher values against pseudo-values, of freedom against slavery, and it is not limited to one time in history, nor to mankind as a whole, but occurs repeatedly in the life of individual man.
In any event, I am tired of sharing what I know and think only to have it fall on apparently deaf ears. So, I too, will do as one of our blog councillors is presently doing, and go on vacation (despite his still drawing a municipal pay cheque and still attending council meetings, committee meetings and board meetings, all while avoiding (or 'hiding') from his blog world on the 'pretext' of a summer vacation), while another seems to have tunnel vision and concentrates on only one issue - The Centre - while at the same time offering no vision or action plan on what comes next.
Anyhow, to say I am disappointed in the apparent 'apathy' running rampant in the Crowsnest Pass (and lack of 'real leadership'), would be an understatement, to say the least. It's one thing to wash your hands of local issues, but quite another to wash your hands of the world you live in. As I said in my last post - nonjudgmentalism is a moral vacuum.
Seemingly insurmountable obstacles confront all world reformers, when pure idea meets the opposing force in the inertia of the human mind and the resistance of entrenched power. It represents a revolution of the dynamic against the static, of higher values against pseudo-values, of freedom against slavery, and it is not limited to one time in history, nor to mankind as a whole, but occurs repeatedly in the life of individual man.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
SOCIETAL ISSUES
Notes on Society
Lacking any positive beliefs or needs, people will aim for comfort and to struggle as little as possible... we will all become the same... mediocre.
Those who are strong enough struggle. Those who are not strong give up and turn to religion, nationalism, democracy, or some other means of escape.
The state has become the new idol that the masses worship. It encourages uniformity and mediocrity, pandering to the masses. Freedom can only be found outside the confines of the state.
... all the values in which mankind at present summarizes its highest aspirations are decadence values.
The individual feels more and more disoriented, confused, without direction, because all the means to satisfy his basic individual needs are out of his control and he is helpless in an apparently irremediable slavery of social exploitation by big business, big unions, and big governments, as well as by his own self-exploitation: due to ignorance, he sacrifices real values, like health, time, and peace of mind, for superfluous and harmful things he does not really need.
The structure of society may be more permissive, but the new absence of rules leads not to a sense of freedom, but only to confusion... a century of increasing madness... chained in bondage of an Egypt of unemployment, crime, pollution, inflation, taxes, debts - all the miseries of life in an age of uncertainty - a life most often spent in constant fear of the unknown future... Instead of being dependent on pills, drugs, alcohol, and junk food to dull the pain of being alive during the latter part of the twentieth century - instead of fighting the madness and trying to conquer the world - we shall try to meditate, to find ourselves and the true meaning of life, which is still eternal and inviolate behind all the noise and confusion of the twentieth century... remove ourselves from the madly revolving wheel of self-exploitation... By spending our sacred hours contemplating the beauty of perennial nature and the masterpieces of universal literature, we will discover our title to nobility and become a child of nature - adopted into the real aristocracy of the great thinkers of all ages.
... survival through creative simplicity and self-sufficiency.
The present day neurosis is caused by man's current deviations from the law of harmony with biogenic natural and cosmic forces.
The gradual development of centralization in Western civilization has progressively disorganized the little communities which previously existed in every country... steady disintegration of the small community, and within the community, the family unit. These frameworks of human cooperation have almost entirely disappeared and instead we have an exclusive centralization of life based on the competitive tendency of the individual.
Herbert Spencer... tells us we don't have to feel guilty if we are brutal with each other - animals do it. It gives comfort to perpetrators of social injustice.
America is gradually returning to a "debt peonage" society, after a practice in the post-Civil War South, in which debtors were forced to work for creditors.
Sometimes exploited humans do nothing but adjust.
... in a civilized society, there is a basic duty to protect the vulnerable. Exploitation is violating this duty.
... we are conditioned to think about social problems in terms of race, so for instance, when we read "underclass" we reflexively think, inner city blacks or native Indians...
Poor people of all races now have little chance of ever making it up to the middle class - for a complex of reasons including economic: the loss of jobs as capitalism goes global; technological: the sudden demands of computer skills at work; and attitude: Americans are really unsure if they want to provide equality of opportunity, because they believe a market economy thrives better on inequality.
Middle-class Americans, who believe in meritocracy, and who cling to myths of self-reliance and freedom, find it difficult to accept the idea of these "poverty traps"- middle class people are always pointing to an ancestor of theirs a century ago who worked their way up from the slums to success - but those were times when education was not a requisite. With today's technology a poor education really is a suffocating disability. And that is what the poor get in these neighborhoods. But that is interpreted as the free market.
Andrews projects that out of our present society of vast economic inequalities, our future society may contain two camps: a chronically poor, undereducated, fearful, murderous proletariat and an economically comfortable majority.
... humans are fundamentally selfish and egoistic and they don’t care about society-as-a-whole.
If the student pursues the study of economics he will eventually read texts containing "Indifference Curves" which show the economy actually does better with social inequality.
In our own society, we love competition and we promote inequality... we have become a steeply hierarchical society, and this is with popular support. We are choosing inequality through government economic policies that chronically distributed wealth unfairly.
... "the Kafkaesque cost of being in a process without knowing how to help oneself". If people compared our national inequities in wealth with the insight that, through decided levels of scarcity, the aggregate amount of suffering is controlled, public emotion could erupt.
... First Rawls insists that in addition to freedom and equality, there must be a prior value in democracy, justice. And that economic rationality and justice should forever be opposed.
Rawls insists on a shift in focus. We should not judge a culture by how its topmost members are doing, but by how it treats its lowest. His solutions follow. First, this society should decide how low any member can go. That establishes minimum rights. It requires we identify the least-advantaged person in society, and draw focus to him. Next, the very top and the very bottom of society should be (and all intermediate levels should be) connected, as if by a loose linked chain. Then if the top rises, it pulls the bottom up with it. If the bottom moves up, that closes the gap toward equality. This arrangement does not prevent any upward rise; but it establishes consequences on movements at the top.
Federal Reserve and Congress should be guided in their policy actions by what's happening at the bottom of society, not by the bubble at the top... Greed has to be reinstalled as a moral wrong, and in religious circles, as a sin... "Who am I to judge?"... Comfort only brings inaction; nonjudgmentalism is a moral vacuum.
... systematic study and thoughtful reading. Such activity is more agreeable and fruitful if pursued together with those who are similarly interested. Discussion and study in groups or circles should be encouraged because it develops social outlook and responsibility.
The soul is social consciousness incarnate in the individual, and so it opposes the body which is the foundation of our individuality.
We exist in a kind of void, in which individualism flourishes, and narcissism, ego, materialism, the pursuit of self, wealth, status and greed - but nothing that moves the masses together.
Lacking any positive beliefs or needs, people will aim for comfort and to struggle as little as possible... we will all become the same... mediocre.
Those who are strong enough struggle. Those who are not strong give up and turn to religion, nationalism, democracy, or some other means of escape.
The state has become the new idol that the masses worship. It encourages uniformity and mediocrity, pandering to the masses. Freedom can only be found outside the confines of the state.
... all the values in which mankind at present summarizes its highest aspirations are decadence values.
The individual feels more and more disoriented, confused, without direction, because all the means to satisfy his basic individual needs are out of his control and he is helpless in an apparently irremediable slavery of social exploitation by big business, big unions, and big governments, as well as by his own self-exploitation: due to ignorance, he sacrifices real values, like health, time, and peace of mind, for superfluous and harmful things he does not really need.
The structure of society may be more permissive, but the new absence of rules leads not to a sense of freedom, but only to confusion... a century of increasing madness... chained in bondage of an Egypt of unemployment, crime, pollution, inflation, taxes, debts - all the miseries of life in an age of uncertainty - a life most often spent in constant fear of the unknown future... Instead of being dependent on pills, drugs, alcohol, and junk food to dull the pain of being alive during the latter part of the twentieth century - instead of fighting the madness and trying to conquer the world - we shall try to meditate, to find ourselves and the true meaning of life, which is still eternal and inviolate behind all the noise and confusion of the twentieth century... remove ourselves from the madly revolving wheel of self-exploitation... By spending our sacred hours contemplating the beauty of perennial nature and the masterpieces of universal literature, we will discover our title to nobility and become a child of nature - adopted into the real aristocracy of the great thinkers of all ages.
... survival through creative simplicity and self-sufficiency.
The present day neurosis is caused by man's current deviations from the law of harmony with biogenic natural and cosmic forces.
The gradual development of centralization in Western civilization has progressively disorganized the little communities which previously existed in every country... steady disintegration of the small community, and within the community, the family unit. These frameworks of human cooperation have almost entirely disappeared and instead we have an exclusive centralization of life based on the competitive tendency of the individual.
Herbert Spencer... tells us we don't have to feel guilty if we are brutal with each other - animals do it. It gives comfort to perpetrators of social injustice.
America is gradually returning to a "debt peonage" society, after a practice in the post-Civil War South, in which debtors were forced to work for creditors.
Sometimes exploited humans do nothing but adjust.
... in a civilized society, there is a basic duty to protect the vulnerable. Exploitation is violating this duty.
... we are conditioned to think about social problems in terms of race, so for instance, when we read "underclass" we reflexively think, inner city blacks or native Indians...
Poor people of all races now have little chance of ever making it up to the middle class - for a complex of reasons including economic: the loss of jobs as capitalism goes global; technological: the sudden demands of computer skills at work; and attitude: Americans are really unsure if they want to provide equality of opportunity, because they believe a market economy thrives better on inequality.
Middle-class Americans, who believe in meritocracy, and who cling to myths of self-reliance and freedom, find it difficult to accept the idea of these "poverty traps"- middle class people are always pointing to an ancestor of theirs a century ago who worked their way up from the slums to success - but those were times when education was not a requisite. With today's technology a poor education really is a suffocating disability. And that is what the poor get in these neighborhoods. But that is interpreted as the free market.
Andrews projects that out of our present society of vast economic inequalities, our future society may contain two camps: a chronically poor, undereducated, fearful, murderous proletariat and an economically comfortable majority.
... humans are fundamentally selfish and egoistic and they don’t care about society-as-a-whole.
If the student pursues the study of economics he will eventually read texts containing "Indifference Curves" which show the economy actually does better with social inequality.
In our own society, we love competition and we promote inequality... we have become a steeply hierarchical society, and this is with popular support. We are choosing inequality through government economic policies that chronically distributed wealth unfairly.
... "the Kafkaesque cost of being in a process without knowing how to help oneself". If people compared our national inequities in wealth with the insight that, through decided levels of scarcity, the aggregate amount of suffering is controlled, public emotion could erupt.
... First Rawls insists that in addition to freedom and equality, there must be a prior value in democracy, justice. And that economic rationality and justice should forever be opposed.
Rawls insists on a shift in focus. We should not judge a culture by how its topmost members are doing, but by how it treats its lowest. His solutions follow. First, this society should decide how low any member can go. That establishes minimum rights. It requires we identify the least-advantaged person in society, and draw focus to him. Next, the very top and the very bottom of society should be (and all intermediate levels should be) connected, as if by a loose linked chain. Then if the top rises, it pulls the bottom up with it. If the bottom moves up, that closes the gap toward equality. This arrangement does not prevent any upward rise; but it establishes consequences on movements at the top.
Federal Reserve and Congress should be guided in their policy actions by what's happening at the bottom of society, not by the bubble at the top... Greed has to be reinstalled as a moral wrong, and in religious circles, as a sin... "Who am I to judge?"... Comfort only brings inaction; nonjudgmentalism is a moral vacuum.
... systematic study and thoughtful reading. Such activity is more agreeable and fruitful if pursued together with those who are similarly interested. Discussion and study in groups or circles should be encouraged because it develops social outlook and responsibility.
The soul is social consciousness incarnate in the individual, and so it opposes the body which is the foundation of our individuality.
We exist in a kind of void, in which individualism flourishes, and narcissism, ego, materialism, the pursuit of self, wealth, status and greed - but nothing that moves the masses together.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Does anybody know what time it is?
What time is it anyway, eh? Is it time for a revolution, chilling out, cooling it, letting it be...
The Beatles (Lennon/McCartney)
When I find myself in times of trouble
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be.
And in my hour of darkness
She is standing right in front of me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be.
Let it be, let it be.
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be.
And when the broken hearted people
Living in the world agree,
There will be an answer, let it be.
For though they may be parted there is
Still a chance that they will see
There will be an answer, let it be.
Let it be, let it be. Yeah
There will be an answer, let it be.
And when the night is cloudy,
There is still a light that shines on me,
Shine on until tomorrow, let it be.
I wake up to the sound of music
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be.
Let it be, let it be.
There will be an answer, let it be.
Let it be, let it be,
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be.... I love that line! I Love 'Sophia' (wisdom). It's too bad there is so little of it around these days.
With all this global manuvering by the super powers for territory, markets and resources, and leaders 'mad with bloodlust'... can anyone say there is 'wisdom' here? There is no 'wisdom' in killing one another… but there is in helping one another.
Oh, Sophia! Where have all the philosophers gone?
Only by attaining a degree of wisdom is it possible for an individual to learn to hold only good thoughts in his consciousness and to refuse to entertain negative, destructive thoughts about any person, place, condition, or thing. The Essenes believed we should always try to strengthen what is good in everyone and everything we contact; by doing this, and ignoring what is bad, the bad will become weaker and weaker and finally disappear entirely. This is the practical reality of wisdom.
The Beatles (Lennon/McCartney)
When I find myself in times of trouble
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be.
And in my hour of darkness
She is standing right in front of me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be.
Let it be, let it be.
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be.
And when the broken hearted people
Living in the world agree,
There will be an answer, let it be.
For though they may be parted there is
Still a chance that they will see
There will be an answer, let it be.
Let it be, let it be. Yeah
There will be an answer, let it be.
And when the night is cloudy,
There is still a light that shines on me,
Shine on until tomorrow, let it be.
I wake up to the sound of music
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be.
Let it be, let it be.
There will be an answer, let it be.
Let it be, let it be,
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be.... I love that line! I Love 'Sophia' (wisdom). It's too bad there is so little of it around these days.
With all this global manuvering by the super powers for territory, markets and resources, and leaders 'mad with bloodlust'... can anyone say there is 'wisdom' here? There is no 'wisdom' in killing one another… but there is in helping one another.
Oh, Sophia! Where have all the philosophers gone?
Only by attaining a degree of wisdom is it possible for an individual to learn to hold only good thoughts in his consciousness and to refuse to entertain negative, destructive thoughts about any person, place, condition, or thing. The Essenes believed we should always try to strengthen what is good in everyone and everything we contact; by doing this, and ignoring what is bad, the bad will become weaker and weaker and finally disappear entirely. This is the practical reality of wisdom.
Monday, August 4, 2008
My Way
Having survived POLITICS, GREED, CORPORATIONS, MEDIA and REVOLUTIONS. I can honestly say...
I DID IT MY WAY!
And now, the end is near;
And so I face the final curtain.
My friend, Ill say it clear,
Ill state my case, of which Im certain.
Ive lived a life thats full.
Ive traveled each and evry highway;
And more, much more than this,
I did it my way.
Regrets, Ive had a few;
But then again, too few to mention.
I did what I had to do
And saw it through without exemption.
I planned each charted course;
Each careful step along the byway,
But more, much more than this,
I did it my way.
Yes, there were times, Im sure you knew
When I bit off more than I could chew.
But through it all, when there was doubt,
I ate it up and spit it out.
I faced it all and I stood tall;
And did it my way.
Ive loved, Ive laughed and cried.
Ive had my fill; my share of losing.
And now, as tears subside,
I find it all so amusing.
To think I did all that;
And may I say - not in a shy way,
No, oh no not me,
I did it my way.
For what is a man, what has he got?
If not himself, then he has naught.
To say the things he truly feels;
And not the words of one who kneels.
The record shows I took the blows -
And did it my way!
My Way by Frank Sinatra
written by Paul Anka
------------------------------------------------
can you?
We are learned in self-doubt, scholars of our very failures, geniuses at excuse and tomorrowing our resolves. And so we become practiced in powerless resolution until hope gets undone and dies in the unattempted. At least that happens to some of us. And then to rise above this noise of knowings and really change ourselves, we need an authorization that 'we' do not have.
I DID IT MY WAY!
And now, the end is near;
And so I face the final curtain.
My friend, Ill say it clear,
Ill state my case, of which Im certain.
Ive lived a life thats full.
Ive traveled each and evry highway;
And more, much more than this,
I did it my way.
Regrets, Ive had a few;
But then again, too few to mention.
I did what I had to do
And saw it through without exemption.
I planned each charted course;
Each careful step along the byway,
But more, much more than this,
I did it my way.
Yes, there were times, Im sure you knew
When I bit off more than I could chew.
But through it all, when there was doubt,
I ate it up and spit it out.
I faced it all and I stood tall;
And did it my way.
Ive loved, Ive laughed and cried.
Ive had my fill; my share of losing.
And now, as tears subside,
I find it all so amusing.
To think I did all that;
And may I say - not in a shy way,
No, oh no not me,
I did it my way.
For what is a man, what has he got?
If not himself, then he has naught.
To say the things he truly feels;
And not the words of one who kneels.
The record shows I took the blows -
And did it my way!
My Way by Frank Sinatra
written by Paul Anka
------------------------------------------------
can you?
We are learned in self-doubt, scholars of our very failures, geniuses at excuse and tomorrowing our resolves. And so we become practiced in powerless resolution until hope gets undone and dies in the unattempted. At least that happens to some of us. And then to rise above this noise of knowings and really change ourselves, we need an authorization that 'we' do not have.
Sunday, August 3, 2008
MEDIA
Notes on Media
The mass media form for us our image of the world and then tell us what to think about that image. Essentially everything we know -- or think we know -- about events outside our own neighbourhood or circle of acquaintances comes to us via our daily newspaper, our weekly news magazine, our radio, or our television.
Employing carefully developed psychological techniques, they guide our thought and opinion so that we can be in tune with the "in" crowd, the "beautiful people", the "smart money". They let us know exactly what our attitudes should be toward various types of people and behaviour by placing those people or that behaviour in the context of a TV drama or situation comedy and having the other TV characters react to them in the Politically Correct way.
"Media shape and control the kinds of opinions that appear, the kinds of information that comes through, the sources through which they go."
Wry attitudes and unsettling realities behind the news.
A system owned by a power elite that serves the purposes of its owners.
"Propaganda is to democracy what violence is to a dictatorship."
The elite use the media and other social tools to suppress critical thinking as a pragmatic necessity towards holding on to their power.
Five filters determine what is reported in the United States. The filters are: ownership, advertising, official sources, flak and ideology. News media are owned by a small handful of corporations whose objective is turning a profit. To do that, they must sell advertising. The cheapest way for them to gather news is by relying on official sources. But the media must be wary of offending groups capable of throwing flak at them. All these things shape what is reported and how.
"…contrary to the usual image of the news media as cantankerous, obstinate, and ubiquitous in their search for truth and defense of justice, in their actual practice they defend the economic, social, and political agendas of the privileged groups that dominate domestic society, the state, and the global order."
We live in the days of Media & PR Flood.
Ordinary citizen sees journalism and PR as serving corporate interests.
Public access to information is regulated and skewed by the mass media to hide the real economic and political reasons behind governmental decisions.
Media manipulation and a culture of political lies.
… a small number of conglomerate companies own all of the news media, and can therefore manipulate what we see and hear for the benefit of powered interests in the same way that mass marketers create a desired response through controlled advertising. Right-wingers claim a liberal conspiracy and Left-wingers cry conservative conspiracy, but knowledgeable people say that there is no conspiracy per se, simply a system owned by a power elite that serves the purposes of its owners.
The media are naturally inclined to provide only information and points of view that do not oppose the status quo.
… the arguments claim no conspiracy, only a natural process, and that's why there's no trail of evidence. The claim is that there can be no democracy with such a misinformed public. The intelligentsia is encouraged to accept a narrow viewpoint on every issue of importance, and the rest of the public is fed entertainment and diversion (sports, etc.) to keep them happy, quiet and completely out of the picture.
Naturally, a country needs consensus to operate, but alternative ideas and dissent over any basic issue is strongly discouraged. To really speak one's mind about what we see and hear, can easily put one's livelihood at risk.
TV has created a world of uninvolved information junkies. People now tend to value fantasy more than reality.
A high level of social division is encouraged by race, culture, government policy and, most of all, by a mass media that seems dedicated to create as much division as possible.
"It must be true because they're all saying it." They are all saying it because they are printing the same information from the same source - the news agency.
... it allows us to explain each case as personal misfortune. It will appear there is no other choice, and our morality is preserved.
... This type of rare and heavily publicized humane event, fed to a sensation-hungry press, creates a "sufficiency paradox", an "illusion of sufficiency" that the goodness is there for us all. Generalized, this creates the illusion of abundance. The media deal in demonstrations of sudden and spectacular humanity. But for every person who gets the rare benefit, many others do not. A life-saving kidney goes to one of several people in need, and the life-taking decision about the others is not publicized. The "illusion of sufficiency" device massively confuses possibility with probability but on a societal level, it is a media-promoted and effective manipulation of hope... We too use Potemkin villages.
Television news viewers are carpet-bombed with advertising... blacking out certain topics... Social class issues are avoided... Programs about the poor are rare... "media firms effectively write off the bottom 15-50 percent of society."
... make how the media are used a political issue... 1% tax on advertising... subsidize the nonprofit media.
Advertising... occupy the drive and psyche of the nation with wants, so that the nation will spend (Fear and Consumption: keep everybody afraid and they’ll consume)… television is filled with cacophonous distraction... Contradictions are withheld in the news... new technology is lionized in commercials. But technology itself is amoral... Difficult topics encourage thought, and they take time away from commercials.
Television both provokes fear and promises ecstasy in ultra short attention spans... What is shown in commercials is overflowing abundance; specifically in terms of climactic moments... human effort is noisily trivialized in commercials. This is the narcotic. Television lathers a bright, noisy blur over anything like sustained effort, perseverance, focused long term goals, and over a society with chronic stresses.
The evening news systematically distorts normal time. Downtown riots in Seattle are given less than a minute (some of which is the reporter's talking face), shift to shots of a dog frolicking in a fountain, shift to minutes of a freeway chase. The picturesque is pursued, the serious is trivialized.
These are moves in a war against logic. And if you watch television, you are having your thinking disrupted. The busy-ness of rapid shifts of focus, the effervescent color, the edgy, dramatic music, all make it difficult for viewers to build independent ideas.
... advertising is now accepted as if it was information... we live life by the method of comparisons... Television grows envy in us, and the fix is to acquire... Greed, like many addictions, is all about the sudden and spectacular. Advertising serves the sudden and spectacular... Against images of poverty, fear and hunger, television also churns routine optimism into its daily programming.
Culture today is driven by commercial advertising. "The news media tell you what is wrong with the world and the people in it."
We're in a historical shift. The modern activist is different. The rationale: culture today is driven by commercial advertising... conforming = rebelling... Peace = War, Slavery = Freedom... self-contradiction; you are able to both work for a company, and rebel against it. Corporate rebellion = loyalty... Go in, behave - and take over... The next revolution will be inside corporations.
_____________________________________________
Comments
In case you are thinking that the media, corporations and greed are only out there, and not a local phenomena as well. Don’t kid yourself! They apply here as well.
Our local media, for example, have consistently over the years of our current mayor’s reign, been part of the problem rather than part of the solution for our community... (``The media are naturally inclined to provide only information and points of view that do not oppose the status quo.``(see above))
With respect to our print media, one is openly biased and supportive of everything this mayor does, and the other has an official position (as I have been told) from their masters (as does our local radio station) to have a ‘hands off’ approach to any matters which are controversial, especially if they have anything to do with this mayor.
Now is that manipulation and control by vested interests, using the media as a tool to accomplish their goals… of keeping their man in power? If so, talk about subversion of democracy in the Crowsnest Pass.
The Crowsnest Pass for all intents and purposes is the microcosm of the macrocosm of the ills facing our society. The sooner we clean things up here the sooner we can turn our world around, into a truly better place.
Whoever controls the media, controls the mind. - Jim Morrison
Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable. - John F. Kennedy
The mass media form for us our image of the world and then tell us what to think about that image. Essentially everything we know -- or think we know -- about events outside our own neighbourhood or circle of acquaintances comes to us via our daily newspaper, our weekly news magazine, our radio, or our television.
Employing carefully developed psychological techniques, they guide our thought and opinion so that we can be in tune with the "in" crowd, the "beautiful people", the "smart money". They let us know exactly what our attitudes should be toward various types of people and behaviour by placing those people or that behaviour in the context of a TV drama or situation comedy and having the other TV characters react to them in the Politically Correct way.
"Media shape and control the kinds of opinions that appear, the kinds of information that comes through, the sources through which they go."
Wry attitudes and unsettling realities behind the news.
A system owned by a power elite that serves the purposes of its owners.
"Propaganda is to democracy what violence is to a dictatorship."
The elite use the media and other social tools to suppress critical thinking as a pragmatic necessity towards holding on to their power.
Five filters determine what is reported in the United States. The filters are: ownership, advertising, official sources, flak and ideology. News media are owned by a small handful of corporations whose objective is turning a profit. To do that, they must sell advertising. The cheapest way for them to gather news is by relying on official sources. But the media must be wary of offending groups capable of throwing flak at them. All these things shape what is reported and how.
"…contrary to the usual image of the news media as cantankerous, obstinate, and ubiquitous in their search for truth and defense of justice, in their actual practice they defend the economic, social, and political agendas of the privileged groups that dominate domestic society, the state, and the global order."
We live in the days of Media & PR Flood.
Ordinary citizen sees journalism and PR as serving corporate interests.
Public access to information is regulated and skewed by the mass media to hide the real economic and political reasons behind governmental decisions.
Media manipulation and a culture of political lies.
… a small number of conglomerate companies own all of the news media, and can therefore manipulate what we see and hear for the benefit of powered interests in the same way that mass marketers create a desired response through controlled advertising. Right-wingers claim a liberal conspiracy and Left-wingers cry conservative conspiracy, but knowledgeable people say that there is no conspiracy per se, simply a system owned by a power elite that serves the purposes of its owners.
The media are naturally inclined to provide only information and points of view that do not oppose the status quo.
… the arguments claim no conspiracy, only a natural process, and that's why there's no trail of evidence. The claim is that there can be no democracy with such a misinformed public. The intelligentsia is encouraged to accept a narrow viewpoint on every issue of importance, and the rest of the public is fed entertainment and diversion (sports, etc.) to keep them happy, quiet and completely out of the picture.
Naturally, a country needs consensus to operate, but alternative ideas and dissent over any basic issue is strongly discouraged. To really speak one's mind about what we see and hear, can easily put one's livelihood at risk.
TV has created a world of uninvolved information junkies. People now tend to value fantasy more than reality.
A high level of social division is encouraged by race, culture, government policy and, most of all, by a mass media that seems dedicated to create as much division as possible.
"It must be true because they're all saying it." They are all saying it because they are printing the same information from the same source - the news agency.
... it allows us to explain each case as personal misfortune. It will appear there is no other choice, and our morality is preserved.
... This type of rare and heavily publicized humane event, fed to a sensation-hungry press, creates a "sufficiency paradox", an "illusion of sufficiency" that the goodness is there for us all. Generalized, this creates the illusion of abundance. The media deal in demonstrations of sudden and spectacular humanity. But for every person who gets the rare benefit, many others do not. A life-saving kidney goes to one of several people in need, and the life-taking decision about the others is not publicized. The "illusion of sufficiency" device massively confuses possibility with probability but on a societal level, it is a media-promoted and effective manipulation of hope... We too use Potemkin villages.
Television news viewers are carpet-bombed with advertising... blacking out certain topics... Social class issues are avoided... Programs about the poor are rare... "media firms effectively write off the bottom 15-50 percent of society."
... make how the media are used a political issue... 1% tax on advertising... subsidize the nonprofit media.
Advertising... occupy the drive and psyche of the nation with wants, so that the nation will spend (Fear and Consumption: keep everybody afraid and they’ll consume)… television is filled with cacophonous distraction... Contradictions are withheld in the news... new technology is lionized in commercials. But technology itself is amoral... Difficult topics encourage thought, and they take time away from commercials.
Television both provokes fear and promises ecstasy in ultra short attention spans... What is shown in commercials is overflowing abundance; specifically in terms of climactic moments... human effort is noisily trivialized in commercials. This is the narcotic. Television lathers a bright, noisy blur over anything like sustained effort, perseverance, focused long term goals, and over a society with chronic stresses.
The evening news systematically distorts normal time. Downtown riots in Seattle are given less than a minute (some of which is the reporter's talking face), shift to shots of a dog frolicking in a fountain, shift to minutes of a freeway chase. The picturesque is pursued, the serious is trivialized.
These are moves in a war against logic. And if you watch television, you are having your thinking disrupted. The busy-ness of rapid shifts of focus, the effervescent color, the edgy, dramatic music, all make it difficult for viewers to build independent ideas.
... advertising is now accepted as if it was information... we live life by the method of comparisons... Television grows envy in us, and the fix is to acquire... Greed, like many addictions, is all about the sudden and spectacular. Advertising serves the sudden and spectacular... Against images of poverty, fear and hunger, television also churns routine optimism into its daily programming.
Culture today is driven by commercial advertising. "The news media tell you what is wrong with the world and the people in it."
We're in a historical shift. The modern activist is different. The rationale: culture today is driven by commercial advertising... conforming = rebelling... Peace = War, Slavery = Freedom... self-contradiction; you are able to both work for a company, and rebel against it. Corporate rebellion = loyalty... Go in, behave - and take over... The next revolution will be inside corporations.
_____________________________________________
Comments
In case you are thinking that the media, corporations and greed are only out there, and not a local phenomena as well. Don’t kid yourself! They apply here as well.
Our local media, for example, have consistently over the years of our current mayor’s reign, been part of the problem rather than part of the solution for our community... (``The media are naturally inclined to provide only information and points of view that do not oppose the status quo.``(see above))
With respect to our print media, one is openly biased and supportive of everything this mayor does, and the other has an official position (as I have been told) from their masters (as does our local radio station) to have a ‘hands off’ approach to any matters which are controversial, especially if they have anything to do with this mayor.
Now is that manipulation and control by vested interests, using the media as a tool to accomplish their goals… of keeping their man in power? If so, talk about subversion of democracy in the Crowsnest Pass.
The Crowsnest Pass for all intents and purposes is the microcosm of the macrocosm of the ills facing our society. The sooner we clean things up here the sooner we can turn our world around, into a truly better place.
Whoever controls the media, controls the mind. - Jim Morrison
Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable. - John F. Kennedy
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