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_________ If the human race is going to survive, this world needs a single superpower imposing peace…a hegemony...like the Pax Romana or the Pax Britannica. The superpower policing the planet will either be the United States or China. I'd prefer the United States. The Chinese would let us be entrepreneurs, but would silence our freedom of speech. They might also steal our technologies and cripple our industries in order to achieve economic dominance. I like being able to express my opinions. And I like being able to hear yours. I think our society is far more lithe and creative because we can wrangle out our thoughts-even if they do demonstrate a loathing of the current administration. None of this would be allowed in a world dominated by post-Dengism. Peace and order are based on a monopoly of force. A monopoly of cannons allowed the building of the nation-state. Now we're in a global age. It's time for a new form of monopoly. It is time, in fact, for what a mental midget in the White House is advocating-pre-emptive war. To achieve a monopoly of force, you have to demonstrate that you're willing to use it. We have two choices. We go to war now and kill, let's say 200,000 folks--a horrid and grisly notion. Killing a single human is an inexcusable crime. But we send out a loud and clear message that if you nuclearize, you are dead. We take care of Saddam and either scare the bejesus out of Kim Jung Il or whack him. Or we wait three to five years. By then every crack-assed, this-planet-is-a-cinder-in-the-eye-of-Allah-and-is-expendable, I-wanna-go-to-Paradise-and-collect-my-virgins dictator on the face of this earth will have his private stash of nuclear weapons. Then we'll watch anywhere from 200 million to 2 billion humans go up in glowing embers--assuming any humans survive at all. And assuming you and I are not among the victims. Remember the lessons of the 20th Century. We could have taken Kaiser Wilhelm down in roughly 1905. At that point he was too weak militarily to sustain a war of more than two to five months. Instead we had peace movements, hoped for the success of diplomacy, and gave the Kaiser time to build a nearly unbeatable military. The result: a seemingly endless war that started in 1913 and killed 20 million. In 1936, when Hitler broke the Treaty of Locarno and militarized the Rhineland, we could have easily wiped him out. He was bluffing. His military machine wasn't yet strong enough to defend itself against an attack by an alliance determined to stop his territorial hunger. Instead we had peace movements and hoped to address Germany's "legitimate grievances," resolving them via diplomacy. By 1939, Hitler's army was strong enough, his generals told him, to sustain a war of approximately six years. Again, tens of millions died because we wanted to settle things in a civilized manner. Do you want to be an accomplice in the death of between 200 million and 2 billion people? If so, please join your local peace march and chant until your uvula turns green. I want a world of
peace. So do you. But until our understanding of ourselves goes a good
deal farther, we have to face the fact that we live in a world of violence.
If we pledge to remain non-violent, those who've declared themselves
our enemies and who love "death more than you love life" will
chuckle at our weakness…and use it to cheer their comrades on to
new atrocities. They will fight the battle of the faithful and the good--the
fight for justice, manners, and purity-the battle for the truth of God's
messenger. They will assert the truth expressed by an al-Qaeda-allied
author, Seif Al-Din Al-Ansari, that we live on an expendable "speck
of dust called Planet Earth." They will use our reticence to make
the mother of all wars. And it will not be environmentally friendly.
hb: I believe that
these are the fantasies of people who need an easy scapegoat, a human
they can punish to relieve frustration and gain a sense of control over
complex and troubling world events. There are connections that span
continents--the economic oil wars between France's TotalFinaElf, Russia's
oil companies, and the American firms connected with the Bush family
are part of the mesh that's made America hawkish on Iraq and that has
put France and Russia (which has over 300 oil contracts with Iraq) on
the side of "peace." As real as these things are and as necessary
as it is to bring them to the light, oil is only one of the reasons
we are now at war in Iraq--and one of the smallest details of a war
that will play--for better or worse--a very important part in history.
The hunt for a small cabal secretly running the planet sooner or later
manages to discover that the Elders of Zion--the Jews--are behind every
evil and every event that perplexes or disturbs us. The implied solution
is the equivalent of a witchhunt in a primitive society. Stop the milk
from curdling and the cows from coming down with strange diseases by
eradicating the vermin--the Jews. ap: I have not paid much heed to conspiracy
theorists but several pieces of literature including "The Franklin
Cover-Up" by John W. DeCamp has heightened my curiosity (I'm sure
you've also visited info-wars.com, prisonplanet.com). Again, I just
wanted to know where you may stand on these aspects of the 'unknown'.
hb: in human affairs, Occam's razor doesnt work. The simplest explanation
is usually wrong. The number of elements that converge to create an
iraq war is huge. And it is not the causal elements that count the most.
It's the impact on the citizens of this world--on their ability to survive
as a species and on their ability to thrive creatively. Day after day, the
Pentagon trickles out news of additional forces being sent to the Gulf
region, everything from the hospital ship USNS Comfort to assault ships
based in San Diego and fighter wings from Virginia. About 60,000 soldiers
already are in the region, and the Pentagon has given the go-ahead for
up to 125,000 more, toward a force that eventually could reach 250,000.
Britain, the strongest U.S. ally against Iraq, is committing 26,000
soldiers - a quarter of its army - to the region. It already dispatched
the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal at the head of the country's biggest
naval deployment since the 1982 Falklands War against Argentina. To
complement the splashy military buildup, the United States is using
a variety of information warfare tactics, including propaganda broadcasts
to Iraqi soldiers and the first-ever use of e-mail to generals on the
opposing side, to nudge the Iraqi military toward betrayal and defection.
U.S. intelligence, for example, has been increasing ``info-ops,'' in
which leaflets dropped over Iraq urge people to listen to specific radio
frequencies that carry messages like this one addressed to ``soldiers
of Iraq:'' ``Saddam does not care for the military of Iraq. Saddam uses
his soldiers as puppets, not for the glory of Iraq, but for his own
personal glory. ... How much longer will this incompetent leader be
allowed to rule? How many more soldiers is he willing to sacrifice?
Will your unit be the next one to be sacrificed?'' U.S. officials have
served notice repeatedly that top lieutenants who remain loyal to Saddam
and those who unleash chemical or biological weapons could ultimately
face trial as war criminals. History offers many examples of soldiers
and their leaders making pragmatic decisions to switch sides when they
sensed the jig was up. In Afghanistan, most recently, less-committed
Taliban commanders defected and brought along the soldiers at their
command, which hastened defeat of the hard-line government. In the days
after World War II, the Nationalist forces of Chiang Kai-shek suffered
wholesale defections after Mao Zedong seized the countryside and began
driving the Nationalists into the cities. Andrew Krepinevich, executive
director of the nonprofit Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment,
said the key question now is when Saddam's underlings will ``begin to
fear the consequences of war and a coalition victory more than they
fear the tyrant for whom they work.'' The U.S. military buildup may
serve to hasten that ``crossover point,'' Krepinevich said, but he added:
``I think it will take more than a sense that war is inevitable. It
may occur perhaps following the initial attacks - if they are devastating.''
01/22/03 But he's a huge supporter of the Bloom-change-the-world project. He sees it as something that we need to insert so potently into the culture that it goes on after all of us have croaked. Have you seen Larry Gonick's books? A Cartoon History of the Universe Parts I, II, and III, a Cartoon Guide to Physics, A Cartoon Guide to Probability, etc. Larry is extremely smart (an MIT dropout), has an incredible grasp of almost any field you can imagine, is able to make the murkiest things clear, does it with humor, and draws delightful characters. It's a model for something, but for what? How about for something like one of the unfinished Bloom books: Life In the Fame Factory: Two Thousand Years of Media Madness or how Alexander got to be Great and other secrets from the history of spin-doctoring The Wobble Factor or The Case of the Curious Cosmos-photons, fads, stock markets, and the lust for novelty The Big Bang Tango: Quarking in the Social Cosmos-notes toward a post-Newtonian science The Motivated Universe or Hit In the Head by Heavy Metal (my allegedly humorous and serious memoirs from the music days) I'm being presumptuous. It's your own projects we have to nourish. But working on one of these things would be fun. There's tons of material in the computer for each of them. The spin-doctoring book would lend itself best to cartoon treatment. Anything we did in book form we'd try to translate into TV. When the reality show fad fades, viewers are going to be hungry for something new. The Discovery channels could really use a serious philosophical/science cartoon show. For the use of visuals in a Bloom book, see the proposal for The Hidden Hearbeat of the West: Reinventing Capitalism--Putting Soul In the Machine: http://howardbloom.net/reinventing_capitalism cm: nor the flesh eager to complete simple tasks. hb: I know the feeling. It takes a goal, preferably one that other people want and have committed to or at least have shown serious interest in. cm: And the limitations of my vocabulary, my sources of inspiration, my understanding of literature, art and the world around me have become more and more clear over the past few years as I've become more aware of the difference between good ideas and bad, good writing and bad, good art and bad...and my inability to concoct the former in each category. hb: Ummm, it sounds to me like you've become sharper, not duller. But right now the sharpness is turning on you in self-criticism. Which, in turn, comes from isolation and not having the next goal. The next goal ideally
would be a go-ahead from the cable folks to begin doing Venture Brothers
episodes. Then there's the current imperative--to reperceive the Venture
Brothers so that whatever the viewers find obnoxious about the boys
becomes an advantage. Ummm, maybe tell each tale from the point of view
of a mellow, elderly Brock with a glass of sherry in his hand sitting
in his posh mansion telling the tales of the distant past that mysteriously
made him rich. The setting would be a takeoff on masterpiece theater.
Brock could then narrate every act of violence with a total miscomprehension
of his nature. "I was annoyed by the yapping of a puppy, but handled
my irritation in a carefully controlled manner," says Brock as
we see him disemboweling the poor little dog and pinning its still-functioning
intestines up on the wall. So the running joke is that Brock thinks
of himself as a master of anger control--a paragon of sanity--who was
stuck with these looney kids and their loonier dad. He, of course, was
the only sane one in the bunch. But when we see the way he blows up
or butchers whatever comes across his path, we realize over and over
again that this guy just never got it. Yes, the Venture family was bananas,
but Brock was like King Kong on a mix of hallucinogens and speed. cm:
Perhaps it's the world's fault, and this is stuff I'd love more insight
from Howard on. There's serious, terrible stuff going on and I'm terrified
of it. hb: I've been working hard on getting it. Did I explain on the
phone why we NEED to go to war with Iraq? It's scary, but it's nothing
to the world we'll have in five years if we don't squash Iraq. I wrote
a mini-essay summing up the reasoning. I haven't fact-checked it, so
there may be some minor errors. But here it is: If the human race is
going to survive, this world needs a single superpower imposing peace…a
hegemony...like the Pax Romana or the Pax Britannica. The superpower
policing the planet will either be the United States or China. I'd prefer
the United States. The Chinese would let us be entrepreneurs, but would
silence our freedom of speech. They might also steal our technologies
and cripple our industries in order to achieve economic dominance. I
like being able to express my opinions. And I like being able to hear
yours. I think our society is far more lithe and creative because we
can wrangle out our thoughts-even if they do demonstrate a loathing
of the current administration. None of this would be allowed in a world
dominated by post-Dengism. Peace and order are based on a monopoly of
force. A monopoly of cannons allowed the building of the nation-state.
Now we're in a global age. It's time for a new form of monopoly. It
is time, in fact, for what a mental midget in the White House is advocating-pre-emptive
war. They will assert the truth expressed by an al-Qaeda-allied author, Seif Al-Din Al-Ansari, the fact that we live on an expendable "speck of dust called Planet Earth." They will use our reticence to make the mother of all wars. And it will not be environmentally friendly. cm: This world doesn't resemble the one I grew up in or hoped to live in as I aged. hb: it happened to my parents and probably to yours as well. It must have been scary as all hell to live through the First World War as a kid, then to have the Second World War break out when you were 33 years old. It's scarier now because we no longer live on a continent protected by the Atlantic and Pacific. Like the French in WWI and WWII, we're now in the middle of the action. One of my French friends was reduced to picking through the plants in the garden for snails during WWII, when she was just a little girl. It was the only thing she had to eat. But she lived through it and became an incredible person. cm: Not even this city is that anymore. There's an imbecilic child in the White House, which might have been excusable and bearable for a four year stretch in the past but now seems grotesque, deadly, world-destroying. Never before have I seen a leader so inclined toward the use of gross, inept catchphrases and soundbites--the likes of which would be corny in even the lamest action movie--to get his point across and dictate world policy. Never before have I seen someone with the gall to even bring up nuclear weapons (or "nucular", as he calls them) as a reasonable show of force in the course of diplomatic discussions. What once seemed like farce has now mutated into...what else can I call it when so many lives are at stake? Evil. hb: it's the hegelian thing of the greatest evil coming from a battle between two things that are inherently good. The Osamaites and Jihadists are idealists. They want to make a pure world, a world cleansed of evil and dedicated to good. But, as one of them explained in an article a year or so ago, the Koran says that the only way to achieve this is to torture and eradicate the bad guys. And the Koran, he says, is very specific about the fact that torture must be used. So must annihilation. In fact, the Koran says that anyone who sits at home and waits for the West to fall of its own weight or who waits for Allah to punish the west and bring it down, is a slacker whom god will never forgive. This guy is affiliated with groups that are a hair's breadth away from taking over Pakistan--complete with Pakistan's stockpile of nuclear weapons, medium range missiles, and three next-generation stealth submarines designed to get to North America, launch nuclear missiles capable of reaching inland as far as the Missippi River, whether launched from the Atlantic or Pacific, then go back home. If we wipe out Pakistan in retalation, no problem. The guys who want to take the country over are from Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Islam, they say, can afford to lose 200 or 300 million members of the Ummah. See, they treat their women right. We don't. We turn them into prostitutes who parade around with their legs showing. But those who treat their women properly keep them at home covered in black robes and fuck them into having seven or more children apiece. Four wives having seven kids each--that gives Islam a lot of spare kids, kids overburdened mothers and fathers can happily send off to martyrdom...and paradise, where God pays for their food, their housing, and their virgins. cm: I was ashamed of this country when this clown got elected--even though he stole the election--because even if he lost the popular vote by a slim margin, it means that MILLIONS of people thought it was a good idea to vote for him. He, an unaccomplished, unspecial, mental midget of a rich boy, with no gift for giving speeches or forming sensible policies...how did so many people fall for it? hb: John McCain should have been the Republican candidate. He had the public following. But big tobacco and big oil wanted a puppet, not an independent human who might come down on them. And big oil and big tobacco controlled the Republican Party. That was the real story covered up by the diversion of the Monica Lewinsky affair. The public was cheated because the press was willing to go after Monica and ignore the purchase of the entire legislative system. And too many of us were ready to follow the red herring-or the stain of sin on Monica's blue dress. So if you want someone to blame, try the New York Times, The Washington Post, and the network news anchors. Or try us…the ones who gobbled up the Republican-sponsored Lewinsky soap opera. In all honesty, I must confess that the Washington Post did a superb job of investigating one rich bozo-Scaife--and his subsidization of a bring-down-Clinton-at-any-cost squad. The story just never made the headlines. I wish I had time for another life and another career--as a Washington pr man. It's the PR people who feed the press the stories. The reporters are too lazy to investigate anything on their own. And I like turning lunkheads with IQs of 135 around-smart people who've put their brains in storage-- making them see and write about what they're ignoring--the things that are REALLY important. Life in the Fame Factory gives the press the hell it deserves--it rips off the mask of integrity and shows the scum beneath the surface. It also shows how necessary pr games are to the shaping of a civilization. Nonetheless, on Iraq Bush is doing an absolutely necessary thing. cm: There wasn't even anything to fall for! He had no act, no schtick to dupe people with...he just showed up, performed badly, and people voted for him. We've had lousy presidents before and spent four years joking about them on Saturday Night Live and Letterman, but then we were suddenly dropped into the most serious of times in recent history, and things got extremely scary, extremely quickly. The more I think about it, the more ominous the feelings I can't put my finger on become, the more it seems obvious to me--through nothing but instinct and common sense--that a frightful shift has occurred in the halls of power. It's as bad as if someone actually decided to drive the country into the ground, and every day the moves this administration makes are more and more wrong, it seems. Hb: Bush's alleged tax plan-the make the super-rich richer, welfare for exclusive golf course members plan-may just soak the country dry. I don't really know what it will do to the economy, but it you gave those billions to poor people (who haven't done a damned thing to deserve them), the money would be spent immeidiately on booze, groceries, and $150 pairs of Timberlakes or whatever has replace Nike in street cool. Thus the money would circulate, making us all a bit wealthier. Call it the "trickle up" theory. Give money we don't have to the rich and they'll park it in a bank account or a safe investment. Investments are good when an economy is hopping. They give companies the money to expand production capacity. That, in turn, makes lots of jobs. Everybody gets a paycheck and goes home happy. But when the economy is sour, no company in its right mind is going to expand its plant and equipment. The plant and equipment it already has is going idle and losing money every minute it's out of operation. Who needs more machines to make things folks on unemployment can't afford? So aside from giving us a huge national debt, the pay-back-my-wealthy-donors tax plan is either criminal, bonkers, or both. But at least Bush won't do what a smart guy would do-piddle around and procrastinate on Iraq, worrying about the moral implications and out-appeasing Neville Chamberlain in the process. Making a Holocaust in the name of reason and peace. Cm: I don't know what to think any more...I don't know what's going to happen or where my world is going to be but it certainly feels like it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better--if it ever gets better in my lifetime--and that things will never be comfortable again. I have no power and no reliable information to work with. My dreams are dying on a daily basis and leaving only fear and anger, which in turn breed more fear and anger because I become afraid that these emotions are too easy for the wrong elements to harnass, and they're all too common in this country, among people who won't stop to think for a second. Hb: Yeeks. I'm hoping to address this problem through the Reinventing Capitalism thing. It should really be called something like Reinventing Western Civilization, but that title gives the feeling of a dry and disgustingly dull textbook. cm: Dark days, my friend, and dark thoughts going along with them. Hb: in a sense hopeful
days, Chris. It takes a crisis to make people welcome a new message.
But the race has been on ever since we met to get the positive message
out there before the negative can kidnap the culture. So far, I'm not
doing as well in getting positives across as is needed-not at all. Hopefully
with a manager, an LA attorney who believes me when I say I want to
do things whose meaning will still empower people 200 years from now,
and with the folks who seem committed to Reinventing Capitalism, I can
begin to make a difference. And can ally with others who are trying
to do the same thing. Just talked to someone tonight who's got an international
movement going. He and I seem to be on the same wavelength, delivering
very similar messages. It's time for us good guys to get together. The
problem is that each of us is driven by ego and a need for the spotlight.
That's our strength. Without that drive we wouldn't try to do outlandishly
idealistic things. But it's our disadvantage when we try to form an
alliance. Each of us wants to be the star. I sure as heck do. Horrible
confession, eh? Cm: Part of me wants to eliminate everyone from the
face of the earth who would wish ill on my country and my city--and
part of me is terrified at what would happen if any kind of real conflict
was ignited between "us" and "them", and wonders
what would be left of "us" in the end. Watching the press
go along with it all is perhaps the most disturbing part of it. I'm
usually the last one to cry "conspiracy" when the weird stuff
is going down, but it appears I've got an insane or imbecilic or puppet
president who is hell bent on going to war, hell bent on suppressing
any real reporting of anything that happens, but strangely wants to
throw out the constitution so he can read my email and knock my door
down, and strangely concerned with the flag and the pledge of allegiance--hastily
added 1954 references to God and all. So tell me, Howard, as the most
plugged in guy I know: what the hell is going on and how do we get through
this? hb: see above. Stay alert and active on civil liberties. But remember
this. I can get away with my techno lust because I know the environmentalists
are covering the negative side of things. That gives me the luxury to
technodream my ass off without thinking out what cadmium and nitrates
the gizmos I want would introduce into rivers, the ocean, and the atomsphere.
You've got powerful allies in saving civil liberties. Folks who are
normally the enemies of folks like you and me. Pat Robertson, my long-time
foe, has slammed down hard on Bush, saying that our civil liberties
must, must, must be saved. The radical right wing that normally wants
to not only whomp our freedom of speech but to cut out our secular humanist
tongues out is now gung ho into protecting the bill of rights. Don't
ask me why, I don't know. But these are people Bush has to pay attention
to. Our enemies may yet save us. Onward and hopefully upward--Howard
It would also allow
the Osamaites in New York, Detroit, Birmingham, London, Belgium, Holland,
France, Spain, and Germany to live up to another batch of Koranic commandments:
"Come fight in the way of Allah...kill them wherever you find them...then
slay them; such is the recompense of the unbelievers. You shall soon
be invited (to fight) against a people possessing mighty prowess; you
will fight against them until they submit... The punishment of those
who wage war against Allah and His Apostle and strive with might and
main for mischief through the land is: execution or crucifixion or the
cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides… Say to the unbelievers
if (now) they desist (from unbelief) their past would be forgiven them;
but if they persist …fight them on until there is no more tumult
or oppression and there prevail justice and faith in Allah altogether
and everywhere. … Then Praise be to Allah Lord of the heavens and
Lord of the earth Lord and Cherisher of all the worlds!" There's
a website that specializes in recruiting English-speaking young men--Arab
or Anglo Saxon--to join the jihad. It's www.jamatdawa.org/. The website
gives a pretty good idea of what militant Islam would do to a Europe
that's left unprotected by American might. Dr. Mohsin Farooqi gloats
over "the history of Muslim rule in Europe." Farooqui's goal?
"to remind the Muslim Ummah of its glorious past." Farooqi
crows with pride about the days when Islam's troops brought "terror
to the Inhabitants of Corsica, Sardinia, Pisa and Genoa," "massacred
the males" of Montferrat, and "devastated the cities and villages
[of England and Ireland] and carried away booty and captives."
Farooqi boasts about the fact that, "The terror of Muslim invaders
along the old Danube highway hung over Europe for centuries" and
that, "The yoke of Tatar Government remained on the necks of Russians
for two hundred and fifty years." Clearly Allah has given Islam
nukes for a reason. And Allah, with equal clarity, has said that all
the earth belongs to him and to his believers. The Jihad that's been
waged against the West for 1,350 years now suffered a temporary setback
in the 20th century. But men learn from their setbacks. The next century
is one in which men like Osama and Farooqi can foresee the ultimate
victory--a Germany, France, and England that will bow down to Islam
and, inshallah, shall even be ruled in a just and proper manner, ruled
by the laws Allah himself has given to man through his one true prophet
and that prophet's Koran. This isn't going to be an easy or cheap battle,
Frank. But we have to take the so-called "weapons of mass destruction"
out of the hands of the Libyans, the Pakistanis, the Iraqis, and the
Iranians before it's too late. Howard Pakistani Cleric Vows to Resist West By RIAZ KHAN .c The Associated Press NOWSHEHRA, Pakistan (AP) - The strong showing by religious parties in Pakistan's election heralds an Islamic revolution that will rid the nation of Western influence and lead to a state governed by a strict interpretation of Islamic law, a top Pakistani cleric said. The religious coalition, called the United Action Forum, swept to a surprising victory in the rugged North West Frontier Province along the border with Afghanistan, and stood poised to form the first Islamic provincial government in Pakistan's history. It also could become partners in the government in Baluchistan, another province bordering Afghanistan, electoral officials said. That would give Islamic parties a powerful voice in two of Pakistan's four provinces. Baluchistan and the North West Frontier Province are the nation's least populous regions, but are of the greatest strategic value to the United States in its war on terrorism. ``We will bring an Islamic revolution to Pakistan,'' Qazi Hussain Ahmed, the vice president of the coalition, told about 3,000 male supporters at a sports stadium in Nowshehra, 28 miles east of the frontier city of Peshawar. ``Our target is to implement an Islamic system in the whole country, and the North West Frontier Province is the first step in this regard.'' Onlookers cheered and chanted ``God is Great!'' as Ahmed and other speakers railed against President Gen. Pervez Musharraf for his support of the United States' war in neighboring Afghanistan. The elections were the first since Musharraf seized power in a 1999 bloodless coup. The two best-known Pakistani politicians, former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, both were blocked from contesting the race, leaving an opening for the religious parties to do well. Ahmed was one of about three dozen religious party candidates to win seats in the national parliament, by far their best performance to date. No other party seemed poised to win a clear majority in parliament, which is comprised of 272 general seats and 70 others allocated to women and minorities. In the National Assembly, with almost all of the 272 general seats counted, a pro-Musharraf coalition, the Qaid-e-Azam faction of the Pakistan Muslim League, had won the largest number. But their 77 seats are not enough to form a majority. Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party was second with 63 seats, followed by the coalition of religious parties with 45. Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz group had 14 seats, with the remaining seats handed to independents or small party candidates. Another 70 seats reserved for women and minority candidates will be apportioned to each party depending on their showing, bringing the total size of Parliament to 342 seats. The religious parties normally register barely 5 percent of the vote in Pakistani elections, and their strong showing was seen as a repudiation of Musharraf's decision to support the United States in its war on terrorism. The head of Peshawar's main mosque used his Friday sermon to exhort the newly elected religious candidates to fight for Pakistanis imprisoned in that war. ``Their first task should be to seek the release of those Pakistanis who are held at Guantanamo Bay,'' said Maulana Mohammed Yousuf Qureshi, as supporters punched fists in the air to show their support. He was referring to the U.S. naval base in Cuba where suspected Taliban and al-Qaida are being detained. Ahmed, the head of Jamaat-e-Islami, the main force in the religious coalition, said his group planned a new reading of the constitution to bring the country in line with his brand of Islamic teachings. ``We will interpret the constitution of the country in its real Islamic spirit,'' he said. ``We will eliminate obscenity from the country, and particularly from radio and TV, and gradually, we will eliminate Western culture from our country.'' 10/12/02 _________ The lesson-never underestimate your enemy. Shoot for the best-peace. But prepare for the worst-attacks of a kind that defy imagination. Defying imagination wins wars for attackers. And war was declared against us by Osama bin Laden as early as 1992. Bin Laden is not just a shadowy exception to the rule-an outcast in Islamic society. He is a part of its large militant mainstream. Like another leader who declared war on the West--the Ayatolla Khomeini--bin Laden is what the Atlantic Monthly calls one of the most influential Moslems of modern times. We should never make the Cuban Missile Crisis mistake again. Especially when we are dealing with men who are willing to sacrifice the lives of huge numbers of their fellow Moslems in order to either Islamize us or eradicate us totally. Howard Reference: Reuel
Marc Gerecht. The Gospel According to Osama Bin Laden. The Atlantic
Monthly | January 2002. Retrieved From the Worldwide Web October 12,
2002 More Revealed on
Cuban Missile Crisis By ANITA SNOW .c The Associated Press HAVANA (AP)
- Key actors in the 1962 Cuban missile crisis meeting here Saturday
have learned that fast-moving events 40 years ago nearly spun out of
control and brought them closer to nuclear disaster than they ever imagined.
Studying newly declassified documents at a conference on the crisis,
Cuban, American and Russian protagonists were told the most dangerous
day of all was Oct. 27, 1962 - when a U.S. Navy destroyer dropping depth
charges off the Cuban coast almost accidentally hit the hull of a Soviet
submarine carrying a nuclear warhead. The U.S. military ``did not have
a clue that the submarine had a nuclear weapon on board,'' Thomas Blanton,
director of the National Security Archives, told reporters Friday night.
The nonprofit archive at George Washington University collected many
of the documents for study during the three-day conference on the crisis
that started Friday. The depth charges ``exploded right next to the
hull,'' Vadim Orlov, the submarine's signals intelligence officer, said
in a written account of the incident. ``It felt like you were sitting
in a metal barrel, which somebody is constantly blasting with a sledgehammer.''
At first, submarine crew members considered using the nuclear weapon,
thinking that war had erupted, Orlov wrote in his account. But they
ultimately surfaced, showing themselves to their American pursuers and
defusing the tension. Another document showed that U.S. intelligence
officials had photographed only 33 of the 42 medium-range missiles in
Cuba that the Americans later discovered were there at the time. Intelligence
officials also never found any nuclear warheads, which they later learned
had been kept on the island. The historic papers underscored the danger
of a nuclear attack - either accidental or deliberate - that existed
during those tense October days. ``A real war will begin, in which millions
of Americans and Russians will die,'' Anatoly Dobrynin, the Soviet ambassador
to the United States, quoted then-U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy
as telling him in a top secret memo, now declassified, on Oct. 27, 1962.
``The situation may get out of control, with irreversible consequences,''
Robert Kennedy warned after an American spy plane was shot down over
Cuba and President Kennedy was pressured to order pilots to return fire
if fired upon. Cuban President Fidel Castro participated in the conference's
closed door sessions Friday and Saturday, as did former Defense Secretary
Robert McNamara and other key advisers from the Kennedy administration.
As events began spinning out of control in late October 1962, Castro
began expecting a U.S. airstrike on Soviet facilities on the island
and was prepared to shoot down American combat aircraft if they invaded
Cuba, according to a top secret military directive to Gen. Issa A. Pliyev,
head of Soviet forces in Havana. The Soviets were prepared as well.
``In case of a strike on our facilities by American aircraft it has
been decided to use all available air defense forces,'' the directive
said. A portion of the documents, made available to The Associated Press
in Washington, demonstrate that the crisis did not end on Oct. 29, 1962,
with the Soviet Union's agreement to remove the offensive weapons, as
was widely believed. Weeks after the Soviet Union agreed to pull the
missiles from Cuba, Khrushchev worried that an ``irrational'' Castro
would renew tensions with the United States - and perhaps provoke war.
Cuba ``wants practically to drag us behind it with a leash, and wants
to pull us into a war with America by its actions,'' Khrushchev said
in a Nov. 16, 1962, letter to diplomatic aides in Cuba. During conference
sessions on Friday, participants also looked at American covert actions
following the disastrous CIA-backed invasion of Cuba's Bay of Pigs in
April 1961 and how they intensified Cuban fears of a U.S. military attack.
The missile crisis began in mid-October 1962 when President Kennedy
learned that Cuba had Soviet nuclear missiles capable of reaching the
United States. The crisis was defused two weeks later when the Soviet
Union agreed to remove the missiles. Former Kennedy aides Arthur Schlesinger
Jr., Richard Goodwin and Ted Sorensen are attending the conference,
as well as former CIA analyst Dino Brugioni, who interpreted American
spy photos of Soviet missiles in Cuba. On the Net: http://www.gwu.edu/(tilde)nsarchiv/nsa/cuba-mis-cri/
10/12/02 Is an urgent necessity doing double duty-fattening the bank accounts of Bush friends and family while it tries to nip in the bud an Islamic military buildup that could eradicate our population or, at the least, cause a societal meltdown in the US? Howard Oil steady after
Yemen ship attack By Sujata Rao LONDON, Oct 7 (Reuters) - Oil prices
held steady Monday as dealers shrugged off a suspected attack on an
oil tanker off the coast of small Middle Eastern producer Yemen. Prices
had spiked in London morning trade as France opened a preliminary inquiry
into Sunday's explosion that gutted the French-flagged supertanker Limburg
as it prepared to dock at Mina al-Dabah near Mukalla in Yemen. Benchmark
Brent rose to a high of $28.60 a barrel, up 48 cents, but closed up
just eight cents at $28.20. U.S. benchmark light crude edged up three
cents to $29.65 a barrel, below recent $31 highs. A director of Euronav
SA, Limburg's owners, said he thought terrorists, using a small craft
his crew saw approaching the tanker, could have caused the blast. The
explosion raised speculation of an attack similar to one two years ago
when a boat laden with explosives crashed into the U.S. destroyer USS
Cole killing 17 U.S. sailors. "There is a feeling in the market
that this explosion highlights the danger to oil supplies from the region
in case of war," said GNI oil research analyst Lawrence Eagles.
Tensions already are high on world oil markets as dealers prepare for
the possibility of an assault within months by the United States on
Iraq. Oil traders already are pricing crude at a premium as U.S. President
George W. Bush steps up his campaign for the removal of Iraqi leader
Saddam Hussein. The president is scheduled to outline his case against
Saddam in a televised address to the nation at 0001 GMT on Tuesday.
Bush said at the weekend that a war against Iraq may be unavoidable
and that a delay was not an option to keep Saddam from inflicting "massive
and sudden horror" with chemical and biological weapons. Oil traders
fear Middle East violence could spread and disrupt flows of crude from
a region which accounts for about a third of world exports. "There
is a certain nervousness ahead of the Bush speech which could potentially
move the United States closer to war," Eagles said. Washington
and Britain are pushing for the United Nations to adopt a tough new
resolution for the return of weapons inspectors to Iraq that would sanction
military action if Saddam does not comply. But the draft resolution
is opposed by France, China and Russia, the other three permanent members
of the U.N. security council with veto powers. Meanwhile the world's
largest oil consumer, the U.S., is facing what could be a serious shortfall
in crude and heating oil supplies in the approach to winter. Two consecutive
hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico in recent weeks that disrupted imports
and halted production facilities in the region, could bite further into
stocks which last week fell to 25-year lows. 10/07/02 14:43 ET Copyright
2002 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution
of Reuters content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly
prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall
not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions
taken in reliance thereon. All active hyperlinks have been inserted
by AOL. _________ Howard In a message dated 9/29/2002 9:27:19 PM Eastern Daylight Time, alex writes: Retrieved From the Worldwide WebSeptember 29, 2002 http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/09/29/1033283386907.html A strategy for world chaos September 30 2002 Not so long ago, the US considered preventive war unthinkable, writes Robert Manne. On April 7, 1950, a plan for the conduct of the American Cold War, known as NSC-68, was handed to president Harry Truman. At this time the United States believed that, unless blocked by overwhelming military force, the Soviet Union was certain to try to expand its power and overrun the "free world". NSC-68 advocated a policy of global containment, deterrence and political exploitation of the internal weaknesses in the Soviet bloc. It provided the blueprint for US policy until the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991. Ten days ago George Bush handed to Congress a document of similar ambition, "The National Security Strategy of the USA". If the Bush doctrine survives, it will play in the history of the war on terror the role NSC-68 played in the history of the Cold War. Given its extraordinary potential significance, I have been surprised by the lack of discussion in Australia so far. The Bush doctrine argues that in the 10 years following the Soviet collapse, the US failed to grasp the nature of the threats posed by the post-Cold War world. With the terrible events of September 11, the US awoke. At first the US characterised the new enemy it faced as "terrorism". Later it refined the idea of the new enemy to "terrorism with a global range", a euphemism for the kind of terrorism with the capacity to inflict harm on the civilian populations in the US, or elsewhere in the West. Since the shock of September 11, the new enemy has expanded to include "rogue states". In the Bush doctrine, a rogue state is a regime that brutalises its own people, seeks to acquire weapons of mass destruction and expresses hatred for the US. Although, according to the new doctrine, these rogue states are infinitely less militarily formidable than the old Cold War enemy, if anything they pose to the US an even greater strategic threat. Unlike the Soviet Union, the rogue states are not "risk-averse". For them, "weapons of mass destruction" are the "weapons of choice". Rogue states believe that by using such weapons they can overcome "the conventional superiority of the United States". Even more, such states are the major "sponsors" of world terrorism. Because of the "overlap" between rogue states and the global terrorist networks, the US now has no alternative but to act. Here we arrive at the heart of the new Bush military doctrine. The US, it is claimed, faces the prospect of attack either from one of the rogue states or from a terrorist group supplied by them with weapons of mass destruction. Before this kind of threat, Cold War ideas about deterrence and containment are obsolete. The only rational military strategy is the "pre-emptive strike". According to the Bush doctrine, the idea of the pre-emptive strike, as a legitimate form of self-defence, can be found in the mainstream traditions of international law. In this tradition, the use of a pre-emptive strike is justified at a time when enemy forces are massing, when a "visible" threat appears. After September 11, however, circumstances have changed. The new enemy is invisible. It may strike with lethal weapons without warning. To these new circumstances the concept of justified pre-emptive strike must adapt. "Even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place of the enemy's attack", under the new Bush doctrine the US claims the right to mount pre-emptive strikes. With the declaration of the Bush doctrine, a new chapter in the history of international relations may have opened. No task seems more vital than an evaluation of what is being proposed. One serious flaw in the Bush doctrine is what I would call its partial mischaracterisation of the likely behaviour of the enemy. Concerning the nature of this enemy, the doctrine is half right. It is almost self-evident that if anti-American Islamo-fascist terrorist networks, such as al Qaeda, were ever to become equipped with weapons of mass destruction they would do everything in their power to use these weapons against the civilian population of the US. Because the American struggle against al Qaeda and similar terrorist organisations is both necessary and just, it has received the support of virtually every government in the world. The post-September 11 extension of the struggle, to pre-emptive strikes against rogue states, seems to me, however, problematic in the extreme. The new Bush doctrine assumes there are states that are acquiring weapons of mass destruction for the purpose of launching attacks against the US, either directly or through proxy terrorist groups. For such an assumption, neither evidence nor logic exists. The Bush doctrine implies not merely that the leaders of the rogue states are extremely brutal (which is true) but also that they are, effectively, suicidal madmen who are willing to allow their regimes to be destroyed and their countries to be obliterated for the pleasure they derive from inflicting lethal damage on the object of their hatred, the US. There is nothing in the history of either Saddam Hussein's Iraq or Communist North Korea which indicates that insane behaviour of this kind is likely to occur. The new idea of
the pre-emptive strike is, moreover, far more revolutionary in its implications
than supporters of the Bush doctrine will admit. Because the doctrine
proposes military action against rogue states when no threat to the
US is imminent, what in reality is being proposed is a strategy not
of pre-emptive strike but of preventive war, a strategy that US military
planners in NSC-68, at the most hawkish moment of the Cold War, described
as "unthinkable" and as "repugnant" to civilised
opinion in the world. For a preventive war to be launched, according
to the logic of this new doctrine, a state need only imagine itself,
at some time in the future, to be under threat. With such an idea the
line between self-defence and aggression becomes hopelessly blurred.
The danger of this conflation of pre-emptive strike and preventive war
is aggravated precisely by the fact that the Bush doctrine makes it
clear that the US reserves for itself the right to strike unilaterally
without mandate from the established processes of the United Nations.
Under the new doctrine, then, the US may not only go to war on the basis
of an imagined threat. It also arrogates to itself the right to decide
alone when and where such a threat exists. At the centre of the doctrine
a huge conceptual hole appears. Does the US, as the world hegemon, alone
possess the sovereign right to act unilaterally against a supposed threat
to its security by prosecuting a preventive war, or does an identical
right exist for other states? If the right does not exist for others,
the Bush doctrine amounts to an almost formal claim to US world hegemony.
If, on the other hand, all states possess the same right, the Bush doctrine
opens the way to the return of the jungle, where the powerful have the
capacity to impose their will. ____________ In fact, the Glomar Explorer was hunting for the wreck of an advanced Soviet Sub. Today the heads of CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, The Fox Network, and the major print outlets have to be brought in in private and converted to the cause--the cause of destroying the chemical, biological and nuclear capabilities of militant Islam, first in Iraq, then in Iran and finally, gulp, Pakistan. Meanwhile the administration should be sending out daily video press releases--computer simulations of the various scenarios the Iraqi weapons present--enhancements of existing photographs to show what the Iraqis or terrorists could do with their weapons, and visualizations of various ways we could take these systems out. An animated visual a day will keep idle speculation at bay. For example, most of Tony Blair's dossier was ignored by the press because the length of the document exceeded what TV and USA Today can handle. My bet is that there are at least 30 visualizable, publicizable nightmare facts buried his Blair's document. But the trick is to make each bite-sized and to feed just one a day. My suspicion is that Saddam has buried many of his weapons facilities under hospitals and schools in Baghdad and other major cites, but that's based on no evidence aside from the fact that using civilians as human shields is a traditional 20th Century Arab strategy. If my supposition is true, it will make the mission of disarmament difficult. I'd issue warnings to those in major cities telling them to leave, then blast those cites intelligence tells us may be under Baghdad's current infrastructure and priceless archaeological antiques. What I don't understand is the emphasis on regime change. As you said, democracies are necessary but will prove dangerous for us. The mood in the streets of the Arab nations is violently anti-American. The democratic will of the people is to have the Bomb and to use it to reclaim Islam's proper place--as the ruler of a global imperium. One way to achieve that would be to eradicate the population of North America, rise to a leadership position on the basis of this great victory, then let the Europeans and Southeast Asians take their proper place as dimi--subjugated peoples. As for installing a government, we've show zero capacity for institution building since the Japanese and German miracles that followed World War II. We haven't been able to build a sustainable government even in the tiny island of Haiti, though we seem to have tried it many a time. Would occupation of Iraq be any more successful? China would love to see us waste our energy hitting Islam and would love to see Islam sapping its strength trying to take us out. This would remove the two civilizations vying for what China sees as its right to resume its former place--as the middle kingdom, the navel of creation--the center of a new hegemony. If only the Uigurs in Xinjiang would raise more of a ruckus than they already have, we might be able to bring China in as an ally. Meanwhile, enclosed is a rough draft of a project I'm working on with Buckner & Co in Dallas, Texas--a CEO coaching firm associated with the global industrial consulting company AT Kearney. Buckner has ins
to the administration, though these are still peripheral. I was hoping
to get this material out before 9/11. But it's now scheduled for a December
unveiling. I hope it will make a difference. Howard In a message dated
9/26/2002 11:39:06 AM Eastern Daylight Time, RNRKIDD writes: Thank you
for the email and the hard challenge of trying to figure out a way to
help. I have been wrestling with this for a number of days and, sadly,
have not been able to come up with any good ideas. First, through I
would like you to expand a bit on a course of events that could lead
to the overthrough of American civilization, what will provoke and sustain
the widespread anti-war movement that you mention, and what would be
a better plan for attackig and riding the world of WMD in the hands
of guys like Saddam? Have you read the new national security strategy
available on the White House Web site? In many ways I find it an amazaingly
progressive document (considering this administration) as it does recognized
the heretofore ignored roles that the US image, economic development
and good governance can play in protecting our national security. Yet,
it does have some failing in omission as it does not honestly address
why our image is tarnished and instead feels that this can be corrected
by increasing the volume rather than changing the content. Also, there
is no discussion of energy independence through conservation/renewables
and no discussion of the environment. So it does advocate development
and governance which is good, but using an old, flawed model which run
amok once it overwhelms the carrying capacity of the environment. Also
the document recognized that contribution that democracy can make to
peace, but fails to acknowledge that the transition to democary is very,
very destablizing and oftne leads to war. In terms of access and influence,
I am pushing the limits within my own "bubble" regarding comments
on current developments. There are two possible avenues that come to
my mind. The first is to write and publish a short essay or op-ed. Once
this is out in the public domanian I can then send it out with a few
comments to higher decision makers. If they like it, then they can send
it on. I have been succesful in getting two items read by Armitage and
one by Powell that probably otherwise would not have made it through
the buracratic filtering mechanism. Also, there is an independent think
tank within the building headed by Richard Haas. (check him out online).
While I know you do not travel much, this group brings in "great
thinkers" about once a week for a small discussion on current and
future issues. This may be a possibility. Ok, got to go. I had an exchange
with Robert Kaplan last week at a conference and mentioned "The
Lucifer Principle" and he agreed with the point about how the group
survival instinct will contribute to the ferocity of today's struggle.
---------- Howard Bloom ____________ The Bush team's oil obsession is thinking in a box that's very old, very tired, and highly unlikely to reinvigorate the hopes or opportunities of Americans. New technologies, new forms of empowerment, new fruits of imagineering, these are what make nations strong enough to fight and win..and stong enough to sustain a dramatic turnaround in a falling economy. As for the war, we have to be in it as long as we are under attack or sustaining a real threat. I think the threat of nuclear, biochemical, or chemical attack by Islamic militants--whether they're relatively secular like Saddam or fundamentalists like the followers of Osama-- is very real indeed. Read the Jihadist rhetoric. It calls for your death and mine. Take it seriously. Islam has a 1,350 year history of Holy War and expansion. Nigeria's northern half was taken in a Jihad a mere 200 years ago. A goodly slice of the Phillippines has been taken by Jihadists during the last 20 years. Now the Jihadists want Chechnya, Bosnia, the Xinjiang province of China, Dagestan, Turkmenistan, and Kashmir. They also want to wipe out the "tyrranical, corrupt, and ungodly" process we call democracy. Jihadist rhetoric is not mere word-twiddling--it is a statement of policy. A statement made by a very large and very well armed international guerrilla army. A year-old article in the Times of London claimed that "Faruq Hidjazi, a former Iraqi Intelligence director who is now Ambassador to Turkey... devised the tactic of using a plane as a guided missile in the mid-1990s." Then, the article goes on to say, Iraq may have helped in the training of the terrorists. To repeat: the wireless warriors of the Jihadist army want you dead. That army probably has an outpost within a few hundred miles of you. It had one in the past a block and a half from my home...where the widely publicized plan was hatched a few years back to blow up a nearby subway and railroad hub that would have put most of New York's public transportaion out of commission. With more potent weapons, these guys could do far more homicidal things. Howard some references: Retrieved November 24, 2001, from the World Wide Web http://ehostvgw2.epnet.com/ehost.asp?key=204.179.122.130_8000_-159611802&site=ehost&return=y&custid=brooklyn&retry=1&patronid=24444010817700 DEEP Hot Biosphere, The (Book) Source: Physics Today, Aug99, Vol. 52 Issue 8, p65, 2/3p Author(s): Margulis, Lynn Abstract: Reviews the book `The Deep Hot Biosphere,' by Thomas Gold. AN: 2122619 ISSN: 0031-9228 Full Text Word Count: 867 Database: MasterFILE Premier Print: Click here to mark for print. View Item: Full Page Image [Go To Citation] BOOKS The Deep Hot Biosphere Thomas Gold, Copernicus (Springer- Verlag), New York, 1999. 235 pp. $27.00 hc ISBN 0-387-98546-8 Three hundred sixty million years ago, near what is today the city of Rattvik in central Sweden, the collision of a large meteorite with the Earth generated a huge pile of granitic rubble and built a crater 44 km in diameter. Not only were the beautiful lakes of the Siljan Ring thus formed, but the rough terrain at this site created an unprecedented opportunity for Cornell University astronomer Thomas Gold: a laboratory in the field awaited his unique insight. Gold's great enthusiasm induced the Swedish parliament, Chicago's Gas Research Institute, and other donors to support the drilling-between 1986 and 1990--of a skinny but very deep hole in Rattvik's crystalline bedrock. In The Deep Hot Biosphere, Gold details the reasons for instigating the expensive dig. He believes that a source of hydrogen equal to the mass of a small planet, plus methane and other reduced carbon compounds, including a diverse supply of hydrocarbons, abounds in the bowels of Earth. He claims that these powerful gaseous chemicals react to generate earthquake-size forces; that they concentrate heavy metals such as copper, zinc, lead, silver, and gold; and, astoundingly, that the reduced carbon compounds, entirely independent of life, account for coal deposits! This primordial carbon chemistry, he insists, even now supports a chemolithotrophic, nonphotosynthetic biosphere that equals or exceeds in size our familiar lightdriven biosphere here at Earth's surface. In short, Gold combines the theory of a deep-Earth biosphere with that of a deep-Earth gas repository. To test his double-barreled concept, four branches radiate from the hole, which has a 6.7 km maximum depth. The theory, the drilling exercise, and other possible tests of its validity, and the theory's possible repercussions, form the core of the book's narrative. Gold's imaginative and potentially lucrative deep-Earth concept upset such traditionally-isolated scientists as, at least, astronomers, geologists, geophysicists, paleobotanists, and biogeochemists. Although a water-based drilling fluid was used to produce the shaft, Gold insists that it could not possibly have contaminated the hole with oil or reduced carbon gases. Gold tells us that "good measurements of hydrogen, helium, methane and other hydrocarbon gases up to pentane (C[sub 5]H[sub 12])" were indeed made at the drill site (page 111). The volumes of these gases increased as a function of depth, he says, and an oil-based sludge was recovered, replete with magnetite, of which the particle size was in the micron range. The observation of a 250-times excess of iridium relative to magnetite (page 117) implies a primordial source. A downhole pump was installed in the first hole in April 1990. (Earlier samples had been taken from drilling generated fluids and sludge.) The result was a resounding success: Some 24 000 pounds of what looked "like ordinary crude oil" and 30 000 pounds of fine-grained magnetite came with the pumped extract (page 121). All the extremely high values of organics, samples of which were taken at 5-foot intervals, were recovered from places where the drill hole crossed volcanic intrusive rock (dolerite), presumably generated as magma at great depth. The book champions two of Gold's fundamental, intrinsically connected, and, to many, shocking ideas. His first, that of deep gas, was so strongly supported by the studies in Sweden, Gold states, that the data "confirmed the abiogenic theory of petroleum formation and supported my view that enormous quantities of hydrocarbons were still streaming up from a primordial source in the deep crust and upper mantle" (page 112). By "primordial," I think Gold means that these hydrocarbons were generated at depth early in Earth's history and have never interacted with the surface in any way. The deep-Earth gas theory posits huge quantities of hydrocarbons, both gas and liquid, at depth. This organic matter, unrelated to photosynthate at the surface, is inferred to have supplied the origin and early evolution of life with sustenance. This gas is the basis for Gold's second contention: that an unknown realm of life, his "deep, hot biosphere," existed and still exists. Deep because the strange life forms may thrive 10 km or more below Earth's surface, and hot because, as a result of the natural thermal gradient of Earth, temperatures in that realm can exceed 100 Celsius. As Freeman Dyson says in his foreword, "Gold's wrong ideas are insignificant compared with his far more important right ideas." Among his array of revolutionary and correct ideas, Gold numbers (1) pulsars as neutron stars, (2) a theory of hearing that involves inner-ear resonance, and (3) a 90 degrees flip of the axis of Earth's rotation! Dyson's belief, "based on fifty years of observation of Gold as a friend and colleague, that the deep hot biosphere is... original, important, controversial--and right" (p. xi) inspires confidence. Like Gold, Dyson is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and his statements tend to be firmly grounded and trustworthy. For readers, the implications are clear: Gold's claims must be debated, evaluated, tested, and understood rather than rejected out of hand. If correct, his grand scheme will fundamentally alter the depth of our relationship to prodigious Mother Earth. ~~~~~~~~ By Lynn Margulis, University of Massachusetts, Amherst Copyright of Physics Today is the property of American Institute of Physics -- Physics Today and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. Source: Physics Today, Aug99, Vol. 52 Issue 8, p65, 2/3p. Item Number: 2122619 Result 9 of 13 [Go To Full Text] [Tips] --------- http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,7-2001373324,00.html MONDAY OCTOBER 29 2001 Saddam must go BY DANIEL FINKELSTEIN Then there is the
tale of Khidir Hamza, a talented Iraqi scientist with a PhD in theoretical
nuclear physics from Florida State University. Hamza was teaching at
a small college in Georgia in the late 1960s when the Baathists forced
him to come home. He wouldn't want anything to happen to his father
back in Iraq, he was told. It wasn't long before the reason for this
"request" became clear. Saddam wanted his help to build a
nuclear bomb. At first, Hamza and the other nuclear scientists assigned
to the task didn't take it too seriously. They thought that Saddam would
fall before their work ever got anywhere. Gradually they realised that
they were wrong. When they didn't move fast enough, one of their number
disappeared into Saddam's dungeons. He was reportedly hung up by his
thumbs and beaten every day for ten years. By the time of the Gulf War,
having travelled all over the world on illegal shopping trips for nuclear
spare parts, Hamza had helped Saddam to build a crude device. Only the
fact that it was too big to attach to a missile prevented Saddam from
being able to fire it at Israel. …the opposition Iraqi National
Congress (INC) has been hard at work finding and promoting such evidence.
It can point to several meetings between bin Laden and Faruq Hidjazi,
a former Iraqi Intelligence director who is now Ambassador to Turkey.
The INC claims that Hidjazi devised the tactic of using a plane as a
guided missile in the mid-1990s. A former Iraqi agent has told the INC
that as recently as September 2000, terrorists were seen training on
a Boeing 707 parked in Salman Pak, near Baghdad. There is also a disputed
story that the September 11 suicide bomber Mohammed Atta had meetings
with Iraqi Intelligence when he passed through Prague this summer, and
reports that al-Qaeda terrorists visited Baghdad in 1998 to celebrate
Saddam's birthday and to seal an agreement that Iraq would train their
men. ---------- Howard Bloom _______________ In his early years,
Buckner developed one of the first immune assay tests for Eli Lilly,
studied under plutonium's discoverer and head of the Atomic Energy Commission
Glen Seaborg, wrote speeches for Ronald Reagan and S.I. Hiakawa, helped
Jan Wenner fund Rolling Stone Magazine, and worked with Tom Peters on
the Excellent Companies Study and its product, In Search of Excellence.
The board of Buckner's core firm, Buckner & Company, includes figures
like William Seidman, former chairman of the FDIC. ________ NOTHING
about Joseph P. Firmage seems the slightest bit ethereal,… Without
turning away from his computer, Firmage asks me to take a seat. At 28,
he's a decamillionaire with two wildly successful high-tech startups
under his belt. Having founded USWeb in 1995 and in three years built
it into a public company worth about $1 billion, Firmage has made himself
and a lot of other people very rich, very fast. Firmage founded his
first company, Serius Corp, when he was just 18. Those who know him
seem to fall into two camps: those who think he's brilliant, and those
who think he's a genius. Firmage is a prodigy in a valley full of sharpies
... [the Journal of Scientific Exploration has investigated some of
Joe's theories on theoretical physics] The review panel, convened at
Stanford University and led by Stanford professors Peter Sturrock and
Von Eschelman, concluded that it was a significant finding.... Bernhard
Haisch is editor-in-chief of the journal and a staff physicist at Lockheed
Martin. Haisch has quite a bit of respect for Firmage.... "He has
an impressive depth of knowledge for someone who is not a physicist,"
Haisch says of Firmage. "He's one of the brighter people I've ever
met. He's quite capable of carrying on sophisticated conversations in
areas where he's not a trained researcher. To pull this together in
this time scale alone tells me he's a genius." Retrieved July 11,
2002, from the World Wide Web http://www.metroactive.com/papers/metro/12.10.98/cover/joefirmage1-9849.html
Joe Firmage Co-founded Cosmos Studios with Ann Druyan to re-release
the masterpiece TV series of his life hero - Carl Sagan. co-exec-producer
of the Millennium Edition release of COSMOS, in half a dozen languages...
The first DVD set ever programmed for "Region 0" use -- playable
on DVD machines worldwide. Turner owned the series until Cosmos Studios
(funded through the efforts of Ann and I) purchased the rights back
in 2000. I remain amazed at how undervalued they were appraised within
Turner. I explained it then -- with painful, continuing reinforcing
data points -- as evidence of the intellectual collapse of capitalist
media. We did a fairly good national PR campaign. Several dozens stories
appeared around the nation, and the series quickly shot near the top
of Amazon's best seller list. My personal email subscriber base is also
about 80,000 strong, so a we got some assist from credible direct marketing
too. My opinion, based a lot of empirical evidence, there is TREMENDOUS
thirst across all audiences for this kind of high-quality work. one
that we built Cosmos Studios to tackle squarely, before the economy
(and the VCs) hit the wall. Since then, CS has produced 3-4 exceptional
shows that will air in 2002-2003 on A&E
But we also need compassion. The terms of the new world war have been spelled out on Islamic websites. The framework of battle has already been blueprinted by the enemy. We are to be converted to Islam-to a totalitarian system that dictates our form of government, our laws, the imprisonment and disempowerment of our women, our "manners" (Osama's word, not mine), and our approach to sexuality. We are to be converted to a way of life that stops the fountain of thought that comes from you and me--that makes most of our musings "un-Islamic"--punishable by thug-like religious police. To bring us to the brink of paradise, the Jihadists, the Osamaites, may be forced to obliterate us. Why? To save the remainder of humanity from the pollution and degradation we spread wherever we allow homosexuality to thrive and allow women to show their faces in a public place. Jihadist Islam dictates compassion. It wants to convert or to kill for the sake of our souls and for the sake of all mankind. We are threatened with the death of hundreds of millions (I am not exaggerating) and with the extinction of our culture, of our free-speaking, free-thinking, free-protesting, free-innovating way of life. The best we can do is respond in kind. We must have compassion on our enemies. We must learn to understand their terminology, their rhetoric, and the way they think. We must support every citizen of the Islamic Ummah who wants what we call modern freedom--the ability to speak openly, the ability to let women challenge men in creativity and rank. There are hundreds of millions of these Moslems. Every one of them has been tyrannized, terrorized, disenfranchised and stripped of a voice. We must do our best to eradicate the nuclear and biological weapons of the Libyans (who've hidden them in the deepest, longest, most weapon-proofed tunnels modern European technology can create), the Iranians, the Iraqis, and, alas, the Pakistanis. That will take ferocity and strength. We must do our best to help free those Moslems who want freedom, pluralism, and tolerance. We must do our best to shield from abuse even those Moslems who are fundamentalist as all get out, but view their religion as a private thing. The Moslems we have to take seriously and be willing to fight by every means fair, foul, below the belt, or over the line are those who are preparing to fight us in ways that defy the rules, that defy decency, and that defy the stereotypes of previous military strategy. The wiliest and the most emotionally committed civilization will win. That absolutely has to be us. Period. Howard In a message dated 1/4/2003 4:22:25 PM Eastern Standard Time, ljohnson writes: As usual, brilliant, Howard. Thanks. I doubt I can help with the conquest question, but as I reflect, some things come to mind: I see myself as strong and deserving. I see my neighbor as having undeserved wealth (what did Iraq do to deserve all that oil?) For some reason, I see the neighbor as Other, a creature, and not a brother / sister. They epitomize Bad and I am Good. Socially, we see this these a great deal in movies and on TV, where the Evil Villian has done a wrong (he has overstepped all bounds of decency and is no longer human) so I am justified in taking my M-60 .30 cal machine gun and shooting up him and the town that is behind him. This vengence theme is rife in our contemporary culture, and that worries be a good deal. Look at movies of the 1940s and 50s and you don't see that kind of vengence. Billy Jack is righteous vengence and we thrill as he gives the bad guys a come-uppance. Then I think we see the rise of the vengence movie. Perhaps Eastwood's Unforgiven is an attempt to atone for this Dirty Harry movies. You asked about The Two Towers. One of the themes in Tolkein (clearly present in the movie) is that we do NOT exact vengence, and so Galdalf makes Theodin let Grimma go, when Theodin is about to cleve him. The Ents do destroy Isengard, but they don't kill Saruman (in the movie, that is left hanging). Frodo shows profound empathy for Smeagol, from humility (sees himself in Gollum). This is a different theme, where one does not exact revenge because of humility (not being able to see the end from the beginning) and because of ethical respect for life and unwillingness to take it without necessity. So TTT is a huge step above the James Bond farces and vengence themes. If that kind of theme will continue, our culture will benefit. I despair, though, thinking that Hollywood has no well of ethics and humility to go to and from which to draw. So is the antidote to conquering humility and compassion? Lynn HBloom wrote: I agree. But conformity enforcerment tends to free up in times of ebullience and crack down in times of fear and depression. Or, to put it the other way, diversity generators increase during a boom and decrease during a bust. Or do they? When a bee colony runs out of plunderable flowers, the number of explorer bees (diversity generators par excellence) goes up. When humans sense a decrease in resources and in control, they shut down in hunker mode and vigorously weed out witches, non conformists, seditionists, and deviants. When humans sense a decrease in resources and an INCREASE in control, they throw a revolution and lop off the head of a king (as in the English Civil War of 1648, the French Revolution of 1788, and the Iranian Revolution of 1979--all of which took place when the middle class was on the rise and citizens were rapidly gaining new powers over their lives. This takes us back to Val Geist's maintenance and dispersal modes. The maintenance mode is conformity enforcing. The dispersal mode is diversity generating. It also takes us back to my flee, fast, feed, quest, and conquer model of society. --We flee and disperse as refugees when we feel an unchangeable loss of resources and a loss of the ability of our society and government to act as a collective lever of control over our destiny. The Armenians did this when they were under attack from the Serbians and their local political machinery showed no ability to stop the subsequent starvation and terror. --we fast--we hunker down and deny ourselves things like the enjoyment of food, the enjoyment of sex, and the enjoyment of diverse opinions--when we have a long-term decrease in resources but still feel that our church, our government, and our system of beliefs can give us control--often control via self-denial. This is what happened during the Dark Ages in Europe when gluttony was the the first cardinal sin on the list and sexuality for purpose other than the start of a pregnancy was also a sin. It's also true of militant Islam, which feels its system of belief is on the brink of giving it control over the entire world, but which describes fornication as a sin and despises the free-wheeling freedoms and indulgence in material goods of Western society. --We feed when we find a new resource to consume and feel utter control over it--as we did with the New Economy of the 1990s. Times of feeding tend to produce conformity enforcement--parents want their sons and daughters to buckle down and follow in the paths that have brought the parents prosperity. The number of kids going for MBA's shoots up and the number of kids going for science and the humanities goes down. --then comes questing. The sons and daughters of the feeders take food and the flow of resources for granted and dive into experimentation. They dive into new hedonistic approaches to sex and to thought. This happened in Restoration England, when the Puritans of Oliver Cromwell were tossed out of power after roughly 20 years of rule. It also happened in the 1860s in Russian universities, when kids went wild with new Bohemianisms and new ideas of Revolution. And it recurred again in the Bohemian, Revolutionary, flower power and sexual revolution days of the West's 1980s. --Then there's conquest--when we are flush with resources and have a potent feeling of control. I've never been able to figure out what triggeres the conquering urge. Germany had it from roughly 1880 to 1913, when prosperity poured forth from the consolidation of Germany into a single state (1871) and from Germany's dominance of the new chemical industry and of parts of the new electric industry. We have it now--in our confidence about winning against Iraq and in the dreams of some to take over all the oil countries--despite the fact that our history shows we are utter failures at running and retaining colonial control over other countries. We have lost our taste for novelty-seeking and risk-taking in the stock market. But we've shifted the risk-loving nucleus accumbens to gambling in another sphere--that of geopolitics, of international military crusade, of conquest. I propose that we gamble in areas where we feel we have control. Our resources are decreasing, so we do not have the exuberance of those who feel god has turned his face upon them and blessed them with a rain of plenty, a shower of riches that proceeds from their superior virtues. The Jidadists do have this sort of exuberance right now, even though the militarisitic forms of government that have dominated Arab countries since Nasser in 1950 have proven utter failures--they've diminished resources so severely that the Arab countries now have a standard of living lower than that of sub-Saharan Africans. However it's not the poor who are leading the global Jihad. It's the sons of the rich. Those who have oodles of resources and tons of control. And who want even more control--something they are certain they can get with chemical, biological, nuclear, and evern common-object-weapons (fertilizer bombs and jets crashed into buildings). The flee, fast, flee, quest, and conquer model works out very well when it's applied to history. But the triggers of the conquest mode are still confusing me. Howard In a message
dated 1/3/2003 12:59:15 AM Eastern Standard Time, shovland writes: One
could look at this as an oscillation between conformity enforcers and
diversity generators. Using the stock market as an example, in the late
90's the psychology of the market was dominated by conformity enforcers
who said "The Sky is the Limit." At some point in certain
classes a number of diversity generators appeared who said "The
Sky is NOT the Limit." They acted on their perception by selling
out and producing the crash. At that point market psychology became
dominated by conformity enforcers who said "The World is Coming
to an End." Within the last year or so we have seen the appearance
of some diversity generators who say "The World is NOT Coming to
an End." And they have been putting their money into the market.
These are the same diversity generators who said "The Sky is NOT
the Limit." Some years down the line market psychology will again
be dominated by conformity enforcers who say "The Sky is the Limit."
And the whole thing will repeat (three times in my life so far.) _____
Howard Bloom New Yorkers have come together in welcome ways in the weeks since 9/11. We stop and talk to strangers on the street. We try to help each other well before we formally meet. Or we join in funerals for firemen we never knew, raising money for their families, while recognizing each other from September's recovery teams. These are lessons in community we've needed for a long time. But the bonds that tie us when commemorating loss are missing something vital. There is something critical that we must capture, hold up before our eyes, and focus on before it is too late, before our scars congeal in the backward-facing form of in memoriams. New York is not just a city of concrete. It is not just a city of glass. It is not just a city with ribs of steel. It is not a city of mourning. It is a city aborning. New York is a spirit, a flicker, a flame. New York is a city whose brilliance is born in the strange. It's a mega-nest for those who were too bright, too adventurous, too pregnant with imaginings. It's a giant hive for those who did not fit back in Wilmington or Waterbury or Waxahachie. New York is a place for those who cannot squeeze themselves into the America of the everyday. It is a gathering place for those who cannot just be normal, joke around, party, and play, those who can not be content with a life of nothing but beer and football games. New York is a city of those who find that something out of kilter with the ordinary, something odd, unnamable, teases and tickles their brains. Those who had no one to understand them come here and find they suddenly have a home. We New Yorkers are the oddballs, the misfits, the outcasts, the brilliant, the vision-ridden, the eerie, the nerdy, the incomprehensible, the bizarrely gifted, the ghosts of futures searching for a home, the restless souls who elsewhere have no grounding, who, without New York, are forced to roam. Here we strange ones, we too-swift-ones, we who open strange emotions, feelings haunting others but which today's words won't yet let them say, we who see new passions, new astonishments, new forms of theater, new ways to dance, new cinematic visions, new prose, new jokes, new poetry, new fashions, new ways to work and play, we gather here and find each other. Here we come together in strange packs, new kinds of tribes. Here those who had no place in the heartlands help give each other friendship, energy, brainstorming sessions, lives. New York can not be shattered, it is a bonfire of the spirit, it's a flickering twist of connectivity. I, the strange, find you, the strange, and together we set others free. I feed you when your soul's on fire, support you when you drown in mire. And you, you do the same for me. What got you beaten up at home becomes a revelation when you say it not to them but me. There's brightness in your eyes as I spell out my visions, and in the brightness of your pupils, your attention sets me free. You power me with what you sense that no one ever saw in me. On September 11, 2001, more than three thousand New Yorkers were battered to oblivion by Boeings turned into barbarian fists. That three thousand would not want us to mourn, to mope, to close down with a whimper, to give up what we are and flee. They would not want us to ditch Manhattan, and hide in woods or farmland so we could not be shattered and cracked again. They would not want us to wall ourselves off in darkness and in misery. Living well is the best revenge. For the sake of those who died, we must live even more vividly. Those who died would want us to fling our singing, dancing, writing, romancing, business-building, idea-spinning back into Osama's face. They'd want us to show this Seventh Century killer that we carry in us the seeds of something he can never erase, the seeds of a rich futurity. Osama and his clones want to smash us back to the desert rubble of Mohammed's day. But we will sing, and we will dance, and we will throw the glory of our future in his face. A city is a place
of mind tribes, imagination families, the strange empowering of each
other with which we create the future's new normalcies. Five cities
are the flares from which the fireworks of civilization spring-New York,
Tokyo, London, LA, and Paris. Douse one and you put the torch of wonder
and of freedom out. You close one of the five eyes that guide all of
humanity. Never let them blind us. Never let these cities die. Let us
dance and work our asses off until we drive Osama wild. Let us live
with lust and power in new crusades of freedom, of imagination, and
of creativity. For brotherhood and sisterhood in the strange, the brave,
and wondrous is the power of the city. That's the power of New York,
the power of the modern, and the power of urbanity. Howard Bloom Some of my friends are complacent. They've lived all their lives with freedoms our great grandparents would have given all they had for. They imagine that the best aspects of our way of life will go on forever, whether we fight for them or not. This simply isn't true. The freedom to march in peace protests and to have women founding their own businesses doesn't come easily. Nor do a lot of our other liberties. My grandparents died before I was born-which means they had relatively short lives. They died of things antibiotics could have easily cured, but there were no antibiotics to save them. Medicine hadn't progressed that far. If my father's great grandparents had wanted to see California, they'd have been forced to go on an eighteen-month-long schlep by sailing ship or a year-long trek by wagon train. When my father was young and had to go from San Francisco to my hometown, Buffalo, New York, he traveled for four days and nights by train. When I used to commute weekly from New York to LA, the trip only took me five hours. And the percentage of the population who could afford to fly had skyrocketed. Osama and his fellow fundamentalist militants-the Islamic fundamentalists of Africa, Asia, and the Middle East-want to dial the clock back to our great grandparents' day. They're very determined, very willing to give up their lives, and are very sophisticated in their use of technology. Osama is the first wireless warrior. He uses cell phones, satellite communications, the Internet, and international TV. He's figured out how to turn our infrastructure into the weaponry with which he kills us off. To survive, we have to stop picking at ourselves neurotically and asking "what did we do to make Osama so angry." We have to face the fact that this violent, overprivileged rich kid and his upper middle-class fundamentalist buddies have a knife to our throat. Worse-if they could destroy every city in America and plunge the few of us who survived into a Mad Max-style wasteland, they'd do it happily. We're going to have to take advantage of the instinctual solidarity an attack by an enemy generates to come out of this with our civilization intact. And we're going to have to do it in such a way that we emerge with our democracy and our civil rights still in one piece. We've got good examples of how to pull this off in our history. Churchill and Roosevelt had to unite their countries, rouse the willingness of their populations to fight, and had to do it in such a way that the Bill of Rights in the U.S. and the traditional freedoms of England would reassert themselves once the war was over. Winnie and FDR did a magnificent job. Now our generation-one that's lived in relative peace all its life-has got to show that we can do it too. It's time to resurrect an outmoded term-courage. We have to be heroic. We can't let Osama destroy us. And we can't let our battle against him destroy us either. 8. The past few years have seen an alarming (to some) growth in extremist fundamentalist groups. You suggest that this is natural and inevitable; what can we do to buffer our freedoms from those who might erode them? Hb: First off, we have to know the importance of what we've got. This is a lot more than just a "capitalist, consumerist" society. It's a society of perpetual reinvention of the species. When the telephone was introduced in the 1890s, it gave us powers far beyond the kind that evolution takes 50 million years or more to crank out. Evolution has given the elephant the ability to communicate subsonically over a distance of a mile and the elephant's distant relative, the whale, the freedom to communicate over distances of 600 miles or so. But those are biological rarities. With the cell phone and the Internet we shot way past the communicative tools Mother Nature has managed to produce. Then we extended the eye with TV and videocams, and outstripped the ability of the limbs to transport us by accessorizing ourselves with autos, jets, snowmobiles, space shuttles, and Harley Davidsons. More important is the freedom of speech and the pluralistic, freewheeling society that puts choice in the hands of the individual instead of the fist of a dictator, a religious mullah, or a potentate. Our society is riddled with flaws and injustices-with Kafkaesque killer bureaucracies and with special interests like the oil and tobacco lobby that manage to buy our legislative machinery. But this is also a society where I can read Noam Chomsky's critiques one day and Bill Buckley's right wing screeds the next then make up my own mind. It's a society that allows dissent, a society with self-correcting machinery. Some people settle their debates with rocket propelled grenades or Kalashnikovs. We argue out our differences with words. When those who use violence to get their way, when they want to destroy democracy in a totalitarian freedom-snatch, we have to fight them for all we're worth. It doesn't matter whether the thieves of freedom, the users of violence, are street gangs, armies of Holy Warriors, White Aryans out to purify the continent of the taint of "alien" blood, or even the handful of eco-extremists who think this planet should be purged of most of its human beings. In most Islamic nations, the Fundamentalist minority has silenced the pluralistic, tolerant, modernist majority. They've done it by killing folks like you and me…communicators, critics, and intellectuals. One result is that Egypt, traditionally the intellectual center of Islam, publishes only 300 books a year. In the United States, we publish over 70,000. And Amazon.com offers over two million. Fighting for the
right to read is fighting for the right to think and for the right to
speak. Those things are worth the battle. Like termites, we've got a
form of society that's bigger than just you and me. It empowers us in
ways the people of earlier centuries could barely dream of. It's a rarity
on the face of this planet. And, in my opinion, it's a rarity worth
living-and dying for. The Society of Perpetual Empowerment Americans must come to know why it's worth fighting for what we mistakenly denigrate as a "capitalist, consumerist" society. It is a society of empowerment, of new joys, new wonders, and, yes, new toys. Evolutionary study shows us that toys pave the path to the future. The games we play today are our practice for dilemmas and opportunities we can't foresee but are just around the corner, aching for a chance to be. Today's frivolity carries the seeds of what we build tomorrow. This is a society that takes fantasies and transforms them to realities. It does it with R&D. It does it by making its corporate executives slaves to the public hunger, slaves to the market's will. When Nokia makes a cell phone and we can speak wherever we roam, it adds a new dimension to human possibilities. So did the computer revolution and the telephone transformation that proceeded it. These things give us freedom. They give us unimagined liberties. They give us arms and legs biology can't provide. Only an unfettered imagination in a society where numerous viewpoints can thrive offers us the freedom to break through to whole new ways of being two or even three times in a lifetime. We must to be willing to give our lives for this kind of freedom, this constant reinvention of the human opportunity. I want my child to have it and his child after him. I do not want to return to Osama's dream--a rubble, a wasteland of fundamentalist purity, one where no one is allowed to think his own thoughts, where women are prisoners, a subspecies without even the freedom of a mule. Where people starve because Holy Warriors have no idea of how to rule. I want Americans
to know that some of us will have to die for what we have. But first
we need a flame to fire us, an ideal to inspire us. We need to reconceive
the positives in our society. It is a society of life, liberty, and
the expansion of human possibilities…a way of life that year by
year expands the powers of the human soul. Howard Bloom
_________
pk: Russia is sleeping
now and it is BEST for US. But US may jump in its crazy games to AWAKE
Russiam Moslem Beast. It MAY be a very new kind kind of Moslem activity,
not known before. Moslems can rebuild the WHOLE Russia. I don't reject
hypothesis, that Russia may become Moslem country oficcially in about
10 - 20 years! It is not so crazy as it may seem to be. hb: there are
journalists in France who feel that France has become the new intellectual
Mecca of Islam, and that the French government has allowed itself to
be dangerously compromised by its accomodations to the French Moslem
community...and to that community's very well-organized pressure groups.
For the last few hundred years--since the days of the philosophes in
the 1700s-Russia has often followed where France leads. But Putin is
fighting the Islamic uprising in Chechnya, Dagestan, and the other Central
Asian Republics. And Putin is willing to do what no American journalist
will do--recognize that the goals of that uprising are non trivial nationalism,
but are part of a global Islamic mission. pk: As for me, I'm afraid
I as unbeliever may suffer strong in future because of this New Russian
Islamic Fundamentalism. But this Islamic Revolution may return Russia
to active life. hb: Before the Iraq War Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a close
friend and ally of Osama bin Laden, and a warlord currently heading
a "resistance" movement in Afghanistan, was crowing with joy
over the number of recruits for martyrdom who were flooding in to his
movement...his flank of a global jihad. But if America invaded Iraq
and won, he predicted his flow of recruits...and the flow of jihadist
recruits worldwide...would shut down to a trickle. There are strong
indications that Hekmetyar was right...that the Iraq defeat has cooled
the Jihad fever that's been sweeping the Islamic world since 1979. The
Jihadists tasted blood and victory. Their mass passion was fevered by
their victory over Russia in Afghanistan. It was inflamed even further
by the victories that chased America out of Lebanon, then chased America
out of Somalia. America was queasy and weak, unwilling to endure the
death of a mere 18 soldiers. Islam was strong and all-powerful, willing
to endure 100 million deaths if that's what it took to finish the conquest
started by the first four great caliphs--the great conquerors of early
Islam. So crowds of kids wanted to sign up to hasten the inevitable,
to topple that fat, corrupt, and lazy blot of sin called Western Civilization.
Crowds of these fevered mujahadin headed to Baghdad before the war,
went on Iraqi TV, and told of how enthusiastically they looked forward
to martyring themselves in suicide bombings that would send the Americans
scurrying home with their tails between their legs. These included Jihad
lovers from as far away as Algeria--though most were from Syria. What
happened to those martyrs? Where did they go when it became apparent
that America was not going to quit in this war--that America would take
the casualties it needed and would kill far more loyal Saddam-ites than
anyone had imagined? The enthusiasts disappeared. Their war-fever cooled.
Their visions of instant victory faded very fast. The level of their
passionarity slipped from high to zero. Only two or three suicide attacks
actually took place. What will the Iraqi defeat do to the war fever
among the young who worship Osama? Defeat may galavanize them and send
them flocking to enlist in the new, wireless, global jihad. Or it may
force them to think in terms, not of war, but of building their own
societies. We shall have to see. Howard ________
John--I've been looking for moderate islamic nations capable of breaking the chains in which the fundamentalists have shackled most of the Islamic world. Alas, they are disappearing even as we write. Indonesia and Malaysia would have been my candidates. But Indonesia's Prime Minister has had to succumb to fundamentalist pressures over the last five days and kow tow to the militant party line--that America the enemy of all Islam and that no Islamic nation must ally itself with us. This is not just because we have threatened to strike back and take revenge for the World Trade Center atrocity. It is because the destruction of the World Trade Center created jubilation in the hearts of many Moslems. What people, after all, want to disown a magnificent victory? And what is a victory but the mass destruction of others? How did Alexander get to be Great? By winning battles. By attacking and killing others. It is not our response
that is engendering the flame of blood lust. It is something more basic
in human nature, the personal emotion that recruits us as enthusiastic
participants in the intergroup tournament--the instincts that sweep
us into periodic squabbles for position in the pecking order of nations.
This is evolution at work, and evolution is not always a gentle process.
Howard hb: amazing stuff
to explore. it's fairly easy to imagine how we evolved a need for retribution.
it's also intriguing to see how we've evolved cultural systems of "justice"
to handle the need for violent tit for tat in a peaceful manner. But
the need for violence--even when it's bottled and isolated by a "legal
system" or other form of negotiation--still bothers me. I want
to know how to get rid of this need. In other words, how do we evolve
something that's culturally more clever than our clunky, frequently
dysfunctonal legal sytem? How do we further dampen the need for a cycle
of violence? How about giving victims a chance to play a video game
in which they nuke the person against whom they want to perpetrate violence--even
if that person is Timothy McVeigh. Meanwhile, we have to keep a McVeigh
imprisoned to prevent his further perpetration of violence. Quotes are from:
Blame, Retribution, and Deterrence Among Both Survivors and Perpetrators
of Male Violence Against Women Aurelio José Figueredo, Ph.D.
<< >Thanks
for quoting the Sage of Baltimore! But this is a paleopsychology There are a few
extremely oblique hints that politicians had at least the opportunity
to use intergoup conflict to their advantage well over a hundred thousand
years ago. Here's a bit of relevant data from Global Brain, followed
by a few questions this line of thought opens: Between 77,000 and
60,000 years ago early humans in Australia began engraving rows of symbolic
circles in the local stone. Forty-thousand years later symbolic representation
reached a breakneck pace. Primordial writing showed up carved in animal
bone as early as 27,000 B.C. Sculpture and cave paintings may have driven
home the differences between one group and its enemies. In all probability,
humans used the growing swiftness of their tongues to paint word pictures
too--trading stories of the day's exploits, exchanging opinions about
which step to take next in the hunting and gathering of food, and manufacturing
myths with which to grasp the mysteries of an often uncontrollable natural
world. To our concepts, our words, and our ritual techniques we added
our style of bone-calendar making, our mode of carving, and our way
of decorating tools as insignia to show who belonged to our group and
who belonged to yours. . A. Gilman. "Explaining
the Upper Paleolithic revolution." In Marxist Perspectives in Archaeology,
edited by M. Spriggs, 115-126. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1984. According to research such as that performed by Michael Chance and Frans de Waal, mammals not only tussle in a lobster-like manner for top position, but also campaign to solidify their wins, then become the guides to behavior for their followers, making key decisions, becoming the focus of all eyes, and creating patterns other imitate. But no ethologist or naturalist I've found has studied the degree to which intergroup competition solidifies a group around its leader, and whether leaders occasionally court battle with groups they know they can beat in order to consolidate power and enlarge their following. Research cited by E.O. Wilson in his Sociobiology does suggest that group members cease squabbling when their band is threatened, then once again take to bickering when the competition dies down or the danger passes. Langur leaders have also been filmed attacking a rival group when that group loses its leader. The conquest resulted in an enlarged harem for the leader of the raid and a vastly richer territory for his underlings. Studies of intergroup rivalries among other primates indicate that groups can upend the between-group hierarchy, topple the dominant troop, and move from a territory with trees poor in their yield of fruit to areas with trees whose bows are weighed down with bounty. But at what point in the roughly 300 million year evolution of within group and between group hierarchies did politics begin? And when did leaders start taking advantage of the cohesion which ensues from outside threats to enhance their own position? Or, to put it differently, at what point did groups begin changing leaders until they found one who could lead them to victory in the ongoing tournaments between swarms, flocks, herds, packs, clans, tribes, or nations? Howard _______________________________ The following is a train of thought instigated by Peter Richerson several months ago. Though my prose is awkward, the concept itself is growing richer over time. Howard --------- Is there a point to holding on to a leader who is dimwitted, muddled, and useless? Absolutely. The leader is like a flag, a mute and meaningless object when left dangling from a pole, but a rallying point for the allegiances which make a group cohere. Since tight knit groups can beat dispersed individuals any day of the week, it pays to plant one's loyalties firmly behind a leader and a flag, even if both of them make no visible contribution to their constituents' lives. If everyone falls into line and is loyal to the same hare brained leader or limp bit of cloth, the group can operate as a behemoth whose members form its parts. In fact, only groups with this sort of social attractor are likely to survive. Bands of humans who have no such sacred symbols will be swallowed up by groups which do. The gangs without a figurehead and central rallying point will not have the unity it takes to win the day in one of the perpetual frays into which tribes and nations stray. Groups which can't stick together around a virtual nothing-a tribal animal, a regiment's colors, a doddering queen, or a Constitution and a Bill of Rights-will disappear. Those which can pull off the bluff of absolute loyalty to a woven rag of cotton fluff or a confused leader will do something more than win their battles. Their members will have kids and give them the good things of this world crowned by another benefit-security. Those in groups which can't pull off the tricks which stick us humans together will find their sex lives interrupted when they're raided by the better organized. Should sperm and egg of the rugged individualists manage to meet, the embryo will be scarred by placental fluids saturated with the hormones of its mother's stress. Even freshly popped out of the womb, the sons and daughters of anarchy will be dumber and weaker than those a few hills away who are gung-ho for symbols of solidarity. In time the weaker and dumber will lose to their better-organized neighbors and natural selection will cull them out. The result will be kids who worship symbols of centrality-not by choice, but because devotion to group icons is built into their genes. Below we have the case of an accidental leader--an ophthalmologist who never wanted to rule his land and has never shown an aptitude for politics or war. Yet citizens of the country he's been chosen to lead are clinging to him with fervent emotionality. There's panic at the thought of major change, for a radical switch in leaders would mean a civil war-cities turned to killing fields, homes, and lives destroyed. So loyalty to the ophthalmologist shows a passionate commitment to the group's stability, to social fasteners with a grip as tight as the fingers of a fist, and to normalcy. It also demonstrates the likelihood that through the battle between groups we've evolved highly we've spliced our genes for signal processing and those for sociality to create the chromosomally powered passions which lead to states, empires, corporations and other forms of civilization. Subj: Syria Takes Steps for New Leader Date: 6/17/00 5:01:29 AM Eastern Daylight Time From: AOL News BCC: Howl Bloom Syria Takes Steps for New Leader .c The Associated Press By HAMZA HENDAWI DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) - Syria's ruling Baath Party on Saturday opened its first conference in 15 years to elect Bashar Assad party leader and declare his candidacy for president, putting him closer to succeeding his father, the late President Hafez Assad. The gathering, held a week after Assad died of a heart attack, began on a somber note, with Bashar Assad among about 1,000 delegates observing a minute's silence after repeating the Baath party slogan, ``One Arab Nation.'' The delegates then chanted the party anthem with no music or applause. In an opening speech, Suleiman Qaddah, assistant secretary-general of the party, vowed it would remain loyal to Assad's policies. ``We salute the hope of the future ... Bashar Assad. We are with you, comrade, and behind you we will continue the march to express ... our loyalty to the path of (Assad),'' Qaddah said. The party meeting is part of an official script laid out for Bashar Assad, a political novice, to fill the vacuum left by his father's death June 10 after 30 years at the helm of the nation. In the past week, Bashar Assad has been declared commander of the armed forces and promoted from colonel to general. The country's rubber-stamp parliament also lowered the minimum age for a president from 40 to 34 - his age. Bashar Assad is a Baath party member - one of an estimated 1.5 million - but until now has not held any formal position in the party, which was founded in the 1940s and has held power since 1963. At the conference, expected to last up to five days, the delegates are to elect a new 90-person central committee, which will then elect a new 21-member national leadership. The party already has announced an initial nomination of Bashar Assad for president, and a formal nomination is expected to be announced during the conference. This will pave the way for the People's Assembly to endorse the nomination and set a date for a nationwide referendum when it meets June 25. There have been reports that parliament might meet earlier. A plebiscite is
not expected to be held before the traditional 40-day mourning over
President Assad's death ends around July 20. Bashar Assad's succession,
however, appears to be a foregone conclusion. Hundreds of thousands
of posters and banners declaring him the nation's hope for the future
are displayed across the country. Coverage of his activity and his photographs
fill the pages of the country's three main newspapers - all tightly
controlled by the state. Bashar Assad's sudden ascendancy came as a
surprise to some, given Syria's history of political bickering and bloody
upheaval. Analysts believe it was helped by his image as a ``consensus
candidate'' and by Syria's powerful propaganda machine, which has long
indoctrinated Syrians with the idea that it is in the nation's interest
for the highest office to remain in the Assad family. ``It is almost
mystical and it (Bashar Assad's succession) seems like part of the general
wisdom and the perception of stability,'' said Rosemary Hollis, chief
of the Middle East department at London's Royal Institute of International
Affairs. But some analysts believe that it will take months, perhaps
a year, before Bashar Assad effectively takes the reins of power and
becomes the country's sole strongman. ``It is a question of political
experiences, and his are not so deep,'' said Hassan Abu Taleb, a Syria
expert at Cairo's Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies.
``He has enthusiasm and he has impeccable manners, but you need more
than that when you are the No. 1 man.'' Bashar Assad had to cut short
a career as an eye doctor when his elder brother Basil, his father's
first choice as successor, was killed in a 1994 car accident. He has
since been groomed for succession by his father, whose health had been
poor since the 1980s.
Marcel--this is wonderful stuff. Here's another instinctual twist that's inserted itself into political statements like national anthems. Last night I watched a lecture with visuals by Eugen Weber of UCLA (episode 43 of his Annenberg Project television lectures) on the influence of 18th century revolutionary concepts and actions (the American and French revolutions) on the 19th century mentality. Weber flashed many of the great works of 18th and 19th century political art across the screen as he spoke. Chimpanzee politics and those we inherited from even more primitive forebears showed up all over the place. Jacques-Louis David's famous painting of Napoleon on horseback, for example, is a masterful use of postural supercues (supernormal stimuli). Napoleon's horse is rearing, which puts Nappie far higher than any other being in the painting. This primitive form of assertion of authority--rearing on high--is a bit of hierarchical body language we share with crustaceans (lobsters, for example), lizards (see the work of paleopsych member Neil Greenberg), dogs, and chimps. Which means that in all probability we can trace it to a common ancestor. How far back would a common ancestor of crustaceans, reptiles, and mammals go? Probably somewhere between 550 million and 350 million years ago. So David was reaching deep down in our bio-heritage to generate the emotional punch that helped advance Napoleon's power. More important, many of the paintings Weber displayed that were iconic representations of lliberte, egalite, fraternite, and revolution had another bit of hidden advertising--an appeal to pre-human emotions. They represented Liberty or Revolution as a sexually ripe female elevated above the crowd (there's that old supercue of height again). More important, she usually had one arn raised on high to inspire the masses...and one bare breast. The lifting of the arm lifted the breast and put it in the ideal sexual pose--thrust upward and forward. This is a signal of the ultimate in fertility--youth, health, and nudity. Who can resist it? Sexuality goes back roughly a billion years. The high breasts of pubertal girls are a purely human sexual signal and probably only go back 2 million years or less. But the revolutionary painters were using something far more ancient they imagined. Revolutionaries of our age rant on about how hidden messages in advertising are used to manipulate us. It's ironic that the paintings used to recruit us to revolution have so blatantly used the primary subliminal seducer--sex. Then there's the most obvious instinctual emotion revolutionaries use to inspire their followers--the inevitable desire of the young to oust their elders from power and take over. This appears in the langurs I keep yabbling about--the ones who appear in The Lucifer Principle gathering in adolescent gangs to attack an established elder and oust him from his harem and to seize his power. Note how sex and power go together among the langurs--grab power and you get a harem. Militant Islam takes advantage of this same coupling of urges. It tells would-be suicide bombers and fighters for Jihad (mujahadeen--note the jihad in this word) that if they die killing nonbelievers, they will go directly to paradise and be rewarded with a harem--70 virgins, to be precise. A very yummy prize indeed. Imagine yourself as a sixteen year old Arab with your sexual hormones boiling. All the women in your society are locked up tight, forbidden to date you, to hold hands with you, and, most of all, to make the two-backed beast with you. Your hormones are screaming for sexual release, but you don't stand a chance of getting it...unless you kill a passel of nonbelievers and take the instant trip to paradise and the big bonus--your very own 70 virgins, available for sex whenever you want them. It's a hard deal to resist. By the way, the ancient supercue that tells our emotions that height equals might shows up in another political symbol that's been used by rulers all over the world for the last 5,000 years...monuments that reach toward the sky. The most prominent of these are pyramids--which show up not only in Egypt, but in the ancient mounds of England, in Mayan, Olmec, and Aztec civilizations, in the ziggurats of Mesopotamia, and in the Mississipian mound-building civilizations of pre-Colombian North America. Other monuments to rulers also emphasized height--Stonehenge and its equivalents scattered across England, obelisks, triumphal arches, obelisks, and many others. Then there's the use of the supercue of height in religion (a hierarchically-based belief system). Jehovah is associated with Mount Zion. The Greek gods lived on Mount Olympus. The Tibetans believed their mountains were gods. So did many of the peoples of the Andes (they still do, by the way). The ancestors--equivalent to gods--of the Hopi lived even higher--in the clouds and stars. The Christian gods, saints, and angels live in heaven--higher than the stars themselves. Most gods live "on high." (Not on drugs, but way above us somewhere.) Daniel Boorstin, in his book The Discoverers, sums up oodles of instances of the use of height in monuments to power. It puzzles him. The originality of a human can be measured by the quality of the questions he conceives, and Boorstin dreamed up a darned good one. But we paleopsychologists can provide him with answers. Howard ps Height is a supercue of such ancient origin that it sneaks up on us and twists our perceptions over and over again. Humans tend to think that a tall person is more intelligent than a short person. In presidential elections, the taller candidate almost always wins. Modern, sophisticated humans don't consciously see how height influences their judgement, but social psychology has brushed away the self-deceptions and shown the height-cue at work. Marcel Roele 8/24/01 writes: The Dutch national anthem: First line: William of Nassau (a.k.a. Orange) I'm of GERMAN blood. End of second line: I've aways honoured the King of Spain. and then many lines about trust in the Lord. The only politically relevant stuff: I'll remain loyal to the fatherland untill death. And: Get rid off the tirany that wounds my heart. It's apologetic rather than a rallying cry for war (the excuse of a backstabber - Orange turned against his boss, the king of Spain, sought allies everywhere - even offered reign of the Netherlands to the Queen of England).The anthem was written by a contemporary and friend of William, but became our national anthem only in the 20th century - when the Netherlands were weak and always keen on appeasing powerful neighbors; England, but especially Germany. The queen of the Netherlands married a German, so did her mother, and so did her grandmother. Of course, Germany is a well-established, harmless democracy now. No need for appeasement. So our crown prince elected to marry the daughter of a cabinet minister of the Argentinian Videla-dictatorship, which murdered 30,000 political oponents. If you're weak, you'd better be nice to the big baddies - that's in our culture and in our anthem.
It occurred to me that there are two characteristics of the most likely nations behind the terrorism (Afghanistan, Pakistan, Algeria). Those are: - they persecute women - they persecute christians, jews other religious minorities hb: good point. but we persecute bigamists, polygamists, and give a very hard time to Moonies and other marginal sects. Actually, it rankles me. The war against the Mormons in the 19th century was an atrocity that seldom shows up in the history books. One age's established religion is a previous period's outlandish cult. You're right at heart, but you are triggering thoughts, as always. lj: Our government has been remarkably quiet about the persecution of religious groups and women. hb: true. which is why when I put together the howardbloom.net/islam.htm site over the last two days I not only registered it with traditional search engines, but with the search engines of groups who I normally oppose and who normally oppose me--Christian Fundamentalists. There are points on which they and I agree, and the need to stop religious, ethnic, and racial persecution is one of them. Google will give you 150,000 pages on persecution of christians, and 31,000 pages if you add Islam OR Muslim. Frank (bless his researching soul) sends articles justifying isolationism. I would think the opposite may be true. Isolation may worsen the problem. Islamic fundamentalists are the same as the neonazis of N. Idaho -- at heart they are all psychopaths with a hunger for power. hb: true, and yet we are all psychopaths hungry for power. it's how the human collective intelligence makes us its processing modules. some of us succeed better than others. those who succeed act as eyes and ears of the group mind. those who fail are kept--along with their points of view--as alternatives for another day. lj: Psychopaths -- bullies, colloquially -- hunger to feel power over others. If you back away, isolate yourself, the bully expands. If you stand up to a bully, the bully will go on the defensive. His attentions shifts from POWER to NOT LOSING. A good shift. We control bullies by keeping them on the defensive, by pushing them, by giving swift response to their actions. hb: good point. feed a bully concessions and his hunger grows. That's why America and Europe's insistence that Israel cede land to the so-called Palestinians is based on poisonous misunderstandings of human nature. lj: The way we must deal with bullies is Churchillian, not Chamberlain-like. hb: very heartily agreed. lj: We must provoke confrontations, peaceful whenever possible, and with defensive force when we are attacked. We must come out from behind our walls and actively seek out opportunities to dialog. We must have a point of view. We must state it. hb: more good points. lj: That allows some of the bullies to be redeemed. They see that their style doesn't work (they are the semi-bullies, going along because it seems like the bully lifestyle works) and they will shift to become more moderate. Our state department has ignored the persecution of christians around the globe. We have ignored genital mutilation of women in Egypt and other islamic countries, violent attacks on women who don't want to cover themselves from head to toe, denial of education and dignity to women, even in our special ally, Saudi Arabia. hb: very wholeheartedly agreed. How does the treatment of women in Saudi Arabia manage to escape our condemnation of human rights abuses? It does so because so many of our politicians, particularly those from Texas and from the Bechtel bunch that worked with George Bush Sr do most of their business with Saudi Arabia. They are oil men and their primary source of product is Saudi Arabia. The Bechtel folks who hang around with the Bush family are in the construction business. But their biggest client is Saudi Arabia. And when I say big, I mean big. A single Saudi construction contract can bring in 20 billion dollars. To work with the Saudis, one must suck up to them. More important, one must become their ambassadors to the US, their undeclared spokespersons. So we have a government of Saudi puppets. Sounds like the delusion of a classic conspiracy nut, eh? But, alas, it's true. Here are a few lines from The Lucifer Principle that few readers have seen. Why? They're buried in the endnotes: "In 1977, for example, three Saudi princes decided to funnel fifty million dollars into American Black neighborhoods. But there would be a price. When Saudi Arabia sponsored a Black American Business Conference at L.A.'s Century Plaza Hotel in 1979, Gerald E. Gray, head of the Pan American Steel Corporation, gave the 600 Afro-American entrepreneurs assembled for the event the following advice. To get more Arab money, he said, blacks need to 'establish some non-economic relationships [with Islamic interests].... When Arabs attempted to boycott companies, we didn't say anything in their support. When Arabs were accused of creating inflation by raising the price of oil, we had a chance to articulate their position. ...we're going to have to be their voice in this country if we expect them to participate in business with us.' (Steven Emerson, The American House of Saud: The Secret Petrodollar Connection, Franklin Watts, New York, 1985, pp. 73?74.)" lj: The treatment of women by the islamic world is disgusting, and yet we say nothing. Christians are jailed and murdered. Women are beaten, enslaved, and killed. We do nothing. Our silence makes us complicit. Saudi Arabia is in the middle of a crackdown on christians, jailing them and trying to discover if any saudis have become converted to christianity, a capital 'crime' in islamic countries. This is our ally? hb: I gave this very lecture to my poor, ear-blistered wife last night. lj: We should be pressuring these evil countries to grant basic human rights to women. We should put unremitting pressure on them to subject islam to open debate, with buddhists, christians, and jews able to participate in those discussions. hb: we should put pressure on the Saudis to allow Jews to travel through their country. They do not allow us on their sacred soil. Yet they say the Zionists are racists. They are racist up the kazoo. lj: Not all religions are equal, some are intrinsically more elevating than others. But we cannot find those without a marketplace of religious (and, for you, my friend, irreligious) ideas. Bullies cannot tolerate open discussion, and in this reveal their basic weakness. They must intimidate to indoctrinate. My believing friends say, "God Bless America." I say "He has and we have squandered our blessings on materialism rather than reaching out across the world with a proactive stance: freedom, dignity for all, freedom of religion, or, freedom from religion, (the most basic freedom, the freedom to think as I wish), freedom to express openly my ideas . . . these are God's blessings on America, and we make little effort to share them. Instead our foreign policy is too often dictated by realpolitik and unholy alliances with evil. hb: you've articulated some extremely important values here. lj: People will say, "Why didn't God protect us?" I say, why didn't we protect, or strive to protect, innocent buddhists in Tibet, innocent christians and jews in islamic countries, and innocent women everywhere? How can we expect blessings when we don't share those we already we have? hb: god protects those who protect themselves--and equally important, who protect others. Whether one beliieves in god, as you do, or one does not, there's a rabbinic expression that applies. "If I am not for myself, then who will be for me? If I am not for others, then what am i? And if not now, when?" The statement that
"if I am not for others then what am I?" is a moral truth
rooted in biology. if we feel others do not need us, our immune systems
shut down, cells in our hippocampus die, and we go into the painful
torpor of depression. To be needed by others, we must serve their interests
as well as ours. We can not walk past the scenes of a crime without
trying to stop it. Isolation kills. Morality and caring are what save
us from isolation. We must save others to save ourselves. Howard
HB: TO WHAT EXTENT
IS REPUBLICANISM OR DEMOCRATISM DEPENDENT ON IMPRINTING? TO WHAT EXTENT
IS IT DETERMINED BY ENVIRONMENTAL CIRCUMSTANCE? AND TO WHAT EXTENT IS
IT DETERMINED BY THE POLITICAL TENDENCIES GENES SEEM TO HAVE A HAND
IN (ACCORDING TO THE WORK OF PLOMIN AND HIS COLLEAGUES)? GOOD QUESTIONS,
TO MY MIND. ONE'S WE'VE BEEN CHEWING ON IN THE LIST AND HAVEN'T BY ANY
MEANS EXHAUSTED. kc: I'm a life-long democrat in large part
The left has been producing paranoid scenarios of all kinds since 9/11: · the Mossad
actually blew up the World Trade Center (a view that's accepted as solid
truth in most of the Islamic world), Then there's a vast tangle of Bush conspiracy theories, some based on the equally vast tangle of Bush connections to big oil and to the Saudi royal family. The conspiracy buffs see the signing of an agreement for a $3.2 billion oil and gas pipeline passing from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to the seaports of Pakistan as proof that the Bush family generated the Afghan war solely to enrich themselves and their friends. I watched the impact of the Afghan war on the Moslem community here in Brooklyn, and saw that the Afghan War was a necessity. Osama bin Laden was on a roll, galvanizing even middle and upper middle class Islamic professionals here in Brooklyn for worldwide Jihad. When we took Osama down a few pegs, it deflated the visions of Islamic conquest and cooled Islamic anti-Western war fever. Meanwhile, the question remains-how valid are the suspicions of the leftist conspiratorial thinkers? Did the Bush administration's oil pipeline negotitations with the Taleban, and threats of war if the pipeline deal didn't go through, really inspire Osama to destroy the World Trade Center? Is our conflict with Osama and his ilk the product of some shoddy trick to enrich the Bush network of connections? Knowing Islam and its 1,360-year-long history of world conquest, I'd say the answer is no. Any enrichment of the Bush family and its friends is a side-product of our need for oil and gas and of our need to diminish our dependence on oil from the Persian Gulf. When I say our need, I mean even the need of the people who run Truthout and the other left-wing conspiracy organizations-their need for heating oil in winter, their need for oil-and-gas-generated electricity, and their need for fuel for their automobiles throughout the year. If you were to become as imaginatively conspiracy-minded as the left-scenario spinners, you could propose the following. The left has secretly been furthering the cause of the Arab oil producing nations for the last 50 years or so. The idealists of the left have been used as Arab dupes. The No-Nukes Movement of the 1970s stopped the construction of electricity-generating nuclear plants. The environmentalist movement of the 1960s, '70s, and '80s successfully stopped the generation of electricity from coal. As a consequence, the left has inadvertently "saved the earth" for the Arabs. It has left The West utterly dependent on oil for the generation of our electricity. Why does the left propaganize against a pipeline bringing oil to us from non-Arab states like Turmenistan? To keep us enslaved to oil from Arab nations, oil from the Persian Gulf! Why does the left promote the cause of the Palestinians, overlooking every act of Palestinian violence and highlighting even imaginary Israeli atrocities? Because the left is being puppeteered, knowingly or unknowingly, by the very forces that are tied in with the Bush family-the Saudi-centered, Arab oil producers! The Saudis apparently have international ambitions. They've planted militant Islam wherever they can, establishing their Fundamentalist, militant Islamic schools in the United States, Canada, Great Britain, France, Russia, Germany, Switzerland, Australia, Belgium, New Zealand, Spain, Austria, Scotland, Italy, Croatia, Bosnia, Hungary, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Egypt, Palestinian Territories, Jordan, Lebanon, Yemen, Japan, Indonesia, South Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Burundi, Fiji, Azerbaijan, Kurdistan, Algeria, Nigeria, Chad, Kenya, Cameroon, Senegal, Uganda, Mali, Somalia, Sudan, Brazil, Eritrea, and Djibouti. Why not use an easily-tricked group of Western activists to further the cause? Weird notion, right? Here's my question. Which conspiracy theory has validity? · Are the
Bush's plotting wars only to satisfy their personal greed? Are they
pawns of their Saudi friends? Is there any meat
to either of these nut-case scenarios? Or do both of them have elements
of truth, elements of schemes we should know about but don't. Howard Retrieved December
29, 2002, from the World Wide Web http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/12.30A.afgh.pipe.htm
Print This Story E-mail This Story (*Editors Note | Since September
11th, 2001, there has been intense speculation regarding Bush administration
negotiations with the Taliban regarding this very project prior to the
attacks. American petroleum giant Unocal very much wanted this project
for years, but it was stymied in 1998 after bin Laden blew up two American
embassies in Africa, causing the Taliban to be diplomatically isolated.
There are a number of reports that describe a reinvigoration of this
pipeline plan after Bush took office, and further describe the Bush
administration's negotiations with the Taliban including threats of
war if the project was not allowed to pass through Afghanistan. Some
say these threats, in the name of the pipeline, triggered the 9/11 attacks.
The Taliban is gone, Afghan President Harmid Karzai is a former Unocal
consultant, and the pipeline deal is finally done. - wrp) Go To Original
Agreement On US 3.2 Billion Gas Pipeline Project Signed PakNews.com
December 28, 2002 Pakistan, Afghanistan and Turkmenistan on Friday signed
here a framework agreement for a US $ 3.2 billion gas pipeline project
passing through the three countries. The ceremony was held at the Presidential
Palace with the three leaders, Prime Minister [hb: of Pakistan] Mir
Zafarullah Khan Jamali, President Saparmurat Niyazov of Turkmenistan
and Afghan President Hamid Karzai signing the document. The framework
agreement defines legal mechanism for setting up a consortium to build
and operate the pipeline. According to a study by Asian Development
Bank (ADB), the 1460 km pipeline would use gas reserves at Dauletabad
fields in Turkmenistan, which has world's fifth largest reserves, while
passing through Afghanistan into Pakistan. The three countries had earlier
signed a trilateral agreement to develop a natural gas and oil pipeline
from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan into Pakistan in May this year,
during the first trilateral summit in Islamabad. The three countries
are laying great importance on the project as it could provide much
needed boost to their economies. (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C.
Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who
have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information
for research and educational purposes.) Print This Story E-mail This
Story © : t r u t h o u t 2002
The following abstract
shows promise of some interesting political pay-offs:
Now for the political implications. A society with a high degree of civility corresponds to the model in which self-inhibition is greater than lateral inhibition. Individuals police themselves rather than being policed by others. The result: the number of winners is more than one. Since winners become attractors for subcultures, and a multiplicity of subcultures results in pluralism, the result is the sort of tolerant state we think of as a liberal democracy. On the other hand, when punishment from outsiders is greater than that we administer to ourselves, a single locus becomes the boss. The result is a totalitarian or authoritarian state. One in which the dictator doesn't even bother to take into account the needs of the multitudes ("the winner is not necessarily the neuron receiving the largest input"). When self-inhibition is equal to the amount of punishment others mete out to keep the individual in line, the result is what the authors call "winner-take-all-behavior", which I suspect equates to the mad scramble of unfettered capitalist competition we see these days in Bill-Gates-ocracy. Apply this to our current situation and you get the following. In the United States, Malaysia, Russia, and Serbia, groups are attempting to seize power by coercion and to police the morals and private lives of those within the state. The group among us trying to pull off what Mario Cuomo calls this "coup" is the religious right and its chosen instrument, the Gingrich wing of the Republican Party. This group is intent on changing the rules from self-inhibition to punishment by others--the others who know better than you and I the laws laid out for our conduct by an unbending Biblical God. Lewinskygate is just one manifestation of the game plan for what one of its proponents, Gary North, has called "Christian dominion." The politically militant Christian right has been strategizing since at least the early 80s to achieve its goal. Those aims include marching into my private life and yours with the prurient fever and legal weaponry being applied now to President Bill. The threat of morality storm troopers is forcing those who prefer not to live this way to turn ever so slightly fascist. It's thrusting the defenders into perceptions of sharp divisions between us and them and into what under other circumstances would be paranoid thinking. However when one is up against a real-life conspiracy, paranoid thinking produces accurate perceptions of reality. What was delusional in happy days becomes, alas, down-to-earth rationality. Attack can turn some pluralists into rhetorical brown shirts ready to scuffle against the grand-jury wielding black shirts on the other side. A political strategy of lateral inhibition drags us all toward an authoritarian ferocity. The trick is to reassert the right to self-control, self-restraint, the definition of one's own boundaries of behavior and privacy, boundaries which include that consideration toward others which we call civility. How to do this when faced with pit bulls who are seriously slashing at our freedoms is a bit hard to conceptualize. Anyone want to give it a try? By the way, the strategy of simply wishing away a concerted attack from the other side was tried in the 1930s and proved a failure of the highest kind. Whatever approach one tries has to keep the ferocity of a real enemy in mind. One last note, this exercise supports the validity of using a complex adaptive systems approach like that underlying _Global Brain_ to the strategies of statecraft, even when those strategies must be elaborated and implemented with the swiftness called for by emergency. ------------------------------ <<Forty percent of students in an ABC NEWS/Washington Post poll can think of a classmate "who might be troubled enough to do something like" the Colorado massacre, and 40 percent report students at their school "who hang out together and who seem to be especially troubled, anti-social and perhaps prone to violence." >> Fascist societies thrive on scapegoats--groups they can spurn and on whom they can blame their difficulties. But worse is the fact that students and parents now want their schools to be mini-police states, with armed guards, metal detectors, and random searches. The result is likely to be a generation which sees such police-state tactics as not only the norm, but as a necessity for peace of mind. When children raised under these conditions become adults and take charge of shaping the larger society, they are likely to recraft it as semblance of the armed camps in which they've spent their adolescent years. This could seriously endanger privacy and personal liberty. It raises images of outcasts being taken into protective custody on the outside chance that they might become dangers to society. Since many of us in science, the arts, and other creative fields have been among the mainstream's outcasts, the result could be more than a bit scary. What follows are relevant excerpts from the ABC/Washington Post poll. Howard
<<One in five students report classmates at their school whom they consider to be neo-Nazis or skinheads.>> <<The survey points to several specific areas of improvement in school security; in addition to broader screening of potentially violent students, these include the use of metal detectors (now very rare), random searches of student lockers and even random searches of students themselves. Among the measures: Random searches of lockers. Barely over half of students say their schools currently do it. Far more favor it: Sixty-eight percent of students, and 81 percent of parents, say their school should randomly search student lockers.>> <<just a quarter of students say their schools currently conduct random searches of students themselves. But 50 percent of students say such searches should be instituted, and 56 percent of parents agree. Metal detectors. They're rare now; only 5 percent of students (and parents) say their schools have metal detectors in place. Again, 50 percent of students, and 59 percent of parents, say the devices should be installed.>> <<Most students and parents also support having police or armed guards patrol their school.>> <<Data from
a ABCNEWS/Washington Post poll--METHODOLOGY _ This survey was conducted
by telephone April 22-25 among a random national sample of 500 high
school teenagers and 522 parents of high school teenagers. Of these
interviews, 382 were conducted with parents and teenagers in the same
household. The results have a 4.5-point error margin. Field work was
done by ICR-International Communications Research of Media, Pa.>>>
Jk: I'm going to believe you're on my side until you inform me otherwise. I'm not that hard to figure out, really. hb: the dialog between our different points of view is useful. It enables me to grasp your approach, to glean what seems helpful to me from it, and to articulate my viewpoints. It's synergy, not enmity. We both believe in the importance of human life--in that sense we are on the same side. But I see lies coming from the quarters I've spent time in--lazy journalists following the herd, lazy corporate executives trying to make themselves look good to each other and forgetting the huge mass of human beings they serve, CIA guys who think that knocking the leader of Iraq out of power is a cowboy game (yes, a friend of mine, now dead, founded the middle eastern bureau of the cia and toppled the head of iraq many years ago on a drunken bet--or so he claimed), folks who cover the Northern Alliance for two months but never bother to ask who these guys are and what they stand for, equally lazy reporters who went out on press junkets arranged by the Taleban and never bothered to ask whether the ruins they were given to shoot were the result of America's bombs or of the previous 22 years of Afghan war, the CIA guys who were idiotic enough to arm and train 35,000 to 50,000 mujahadin who hated our guts, etc. but, no, I don't believe the cia helped plan--or even knew about--the world trade center bombing, or that Zionists used adolph hitler as a puppet and engineered world war ii. Jk: I believe that all human beings are one trying-to-be-happy family, and that all these shitstorms between Muslims and Jews, etc. etc. are just magnified spat among in-laws. If you see it this way, hb: I do. then you realize that all the problems stem from matters of deceit caused by those who DON'T believe hb: not necessarily.
remember, there's a huge amount of intellectual laziness on both the
left and right, sloth, malevolence, or preconception that allows the
destruction of our fellow human beings. Admittedly, the Democrats helped started this whole thing. First came the McCarthy hoax--to which the press was accomplice. Then the press changed its mind and decided to dismantle the monster it had made--but not until a good many lives had been ruined. Nixon was caught in the press' own righteous indignation against a phenomenon it was using perceptual shutdown to rewrite. In other words, journalists blamed what they had helped create entirely on an outside entity, ignoring the fact that they had given years of headline credibility to a drunken senator waving WHAT THEY KNEW were blank pieces of paper. The senator claimed these "documents" contained the names of traitors in government. The press repeated the claims as truths. Those with deep seated guilt often take it out on someone else. One of the victims of the perceptual displacement which occured after the press had done an about face was Richard Nixon, a rather naive young man who'd recently decided to run for his first office and had collected a campaign fund of $25,000 from local businessmen. The Republicans had revelled in the press' orgy of attack-dogism when this madness had been on their side. Now it was the Democrats' turn to enjoy the benefits of newsfolk run amock. Nixon was savaged for his $25,000 and the new favorite of the headlline writers, Stevenson, was granted press silence over his similar fund of $200,000. Many years later, this culminated in Watergate, a giant pr scam, if the expose Jann Wenner eventually published in Rolling Stone is accurate. Frankly, my guess is that Jann's expose was on target. I know some of the folks who were involved in the amazing machinations Rolling Stone revealed. Eventually the Democrats tried to pull another Watergate-style debacle with Iran-gate, an outrageous effort to make a scandal out of a legitimate effort to save American hostages--something for which there was a powerful public mandate. Now the "Gate" phenomenoma which the press built and the Democrats enjoyed for almost 20 years has turned around and bitten the party which helped instantiate it. The problem is that this merrygoround ride in which the press goes haywire and mulches truth to build media careers for young reporters sometimes hurts one party and sometimes hurts another. But it *always* hurts the public. What's worse, the effects are cumulative. The time has come to stop it. Period. Look, Republics do fall. One year the Romans lived in a democratic Republic. The next, they found themselves in an autocratic Empire. The Republic had endured roughly 500 years. But once autocracy came in, it stayed--right down to the bitter end some 450 years later. I, personally, would prefer that that never happen here. Folks like Caleb Rosado, Don Beck, and other members of this group have made a persuasive case for the notion that there is a time for dispassionate analysis and a time for impassioned action. That time appears to be now. The Romand were victims of a social phase shift. An accumulation of political and press sins can result in a similar phase shift for us, one in which we lose a brilliant Constitutional system and find ourselves in a dreadful one. Please, let's have some action here. No more use of outright hoaxes by the press to build circulation and the careers of individual journalists. The word hoax is not an exaggeration. Too many of the press folks I know like them if they will build audience. To quote a top reporter for People Magazine when I gave him documents demonstrating that the cover story he was about to write was based on a literal hoax, "I don't care." His cover ran. The story proved false. There were no followups to indicate this falsehood. Yet shouldn't it be considered a scandal when a major publication knowingly runs a phony cover? Doesn't this continual practice, one which has gone of for decades and possibly centuries, pile up on the scales of truth with which Irving weighing Clinton? Aren't thousands of black lies of greater concern than a white one? I will give examples galore of press faleshoods if asked to do so. Concrete ones running from 1850 onward. Or, should you prefer, I'll begin the account with the flippantly phony article Ben Franklin wrote for his brother's newspaper when a young man, a smear story which cost the citizens of Boston hundreds of lives. I'm sure you already know the extent to which the apparently accidental explosion on the battleship Maine was abused by William Randolph Hearst to precipitate an unecessary war. A war based on what we all know was Hearst's whim. If the press is the fourth estate of government, and it is, it must be held to account. Not censored, but made to reveal its own trespasses with the same gusto it uses to reveal those of others. The public refutation of CNN's misstaken story about our alleged use of biological weapons on American troops in Cambodia was a good start. Now let's make it a regular practice. If we do so, perhaps Newt's Thursday morning breakfasts with the representatives of donors to the Republican party, sessions in which he solicits opinions about how to handle policy matters from the highest bidders, will take on an equal stature with that of the Lewinsky affair. Oh, and if you really want to have your blood curdled, ask for the tale of the day that two members of the papparazzi, using a fast car, chased Michael Jackson's van (with me in it) down a crowded highway, jumped a divider, raced at 60 miles an hour against traffic on a two way highway, thus endangering lives, then jumped the divider again and spun at a ninety degree angle, blocking the highway and nearly causing Jackson's van to crash. The photographers exited their vehicle, cameras in hand, smugly thinking they'd cornered Jackson and would get a highly-prized photo. They did not show any identification and could easily have been nut jobs attempting to pull what was threatened in a large pile of daily mail Jackson received--an assassination. Hence Jackson's security guards--LAPD officers on leave--exited the van, which had been forced to a screech-halt in mid highway. Not knowing what they were up against, one of the guards armed himself with a truck iron. Seeing this weapon, one of the photographers (this is not a joke or exaggeration) pulled a gun. Then the two high tailed it to a telephone, called their editor at the New York Daily News, and reported that they'd been threatened for no reason by Michael Jackson's bodyguards. The editor then prepared a front-page headline story about the violent way in which Michael Jackson's toughs had just manhandled the innocent press folk. It was on its way to press. I did some quick research (not easy on a Sunday afternoon), found out that the photographer who had waved his firearm had been arrested on two felony charges for similar behavior, got on the phone, pried the paper's publisher from a golf game, and gave him the real details of the story. It took two hours of threatening the man with the nasty facts to convince the publisher to yank the story. On normal occasions there is no one to stop a falsified tale of this nature from hitting the headline of a publication thirsting for tabloid blood. Now, apply the lessons of the Jackson incident to the night that papparazzi were chasing Princess Di through a tunnel in Paris, and who would you suspect really had the greatest hand in killing the Princess? Which press people do you think will cover it up and blame the whole thing on someone else, a driver who'd had two glasses of wine, perhaps? Isn't it time to give the decent people of the press, of whom there are many, a goose to make them stand up and be the courageous defenders of truth they are supposed to be? Even when the transgressors against honesty and the public interest are among their own? Howard P.S. Where's the scientific beef in all this? All over the place. Perception is a herd phenomenon. The eyes and ears of a collective intelligence include the members of the press. Journalists, like most of us, prefer not to make a fuss but to go along with the crowd. This leaves room for the worst among them to take the lead. The lessons in the manner in which individuals become components of a perceptual net and are held in place by indifference, the compulsion toward conformity, and a need to hold on to their niches are manifold. There was a phrase in the aftermath of World War II which applied to the results of this process when it goes awry--something like the banality of evil.
<< Subj: Clinton
and a factual bug in the Constitution. Howard From this side
of the Atlantic, the crisis engulfing Clinton looks like First, the misinformation
and resulting bug, and then second, why this The bug. The founding fathers
when creating the new U.S. Republic naturally turned The new Republic
quickly showed, however, that the founding fathers had For details about
the antidemocratic origins of the Constitution see Carl The mess. Clinton's present
situation, I suggest, is a two hundred year delayed Some changes have
occurred to the Constitution. Thomas Jefferson and Consider the situation
if impeachment concerning his 'fitness' involved not But this sense
of perspective upon his fittness for office is something Worse, unlike ordinary
people they are not motivated to view impeachment as What to do. It is hardly fair
for me to suggest anything on this side of the Atlantic.
10/25/98 Sender: owner-paleopsych Reply-to: WDAVID To: paleopsych I also found it
interesting that Houston Texas initially avoided many of the desegregation
violence experienced elsewhere in the South. In Houston, according to
a PBS show I recently watched at 2 AM, the press collectivly decided
to not report the sit-ins - not out of disinterest but in the hope the
transition would occur more peacefully. It largely did, to everyone's
relief. Meanwhile Washington DC and other cities burned. The press people
who have covered up the truth about militant Islam and have acted as
propagandists for the Islamic pressure groups have done this country
a tremendous disservice. They've made us vulnerable to attack by blindfolding
us. If they DID speak
up forcefully, they could raise a mighty roar and change the landscape
of dar el Islam. Howard
Howard In a message dated 7/1/2003 9:40:37 PM Eastern Daylight Time, msherw writes: This can be a real problem with items produced for mass circulation which contain awkward information. Sponsors won't touch them, ergo, the piece never appears at all in the medium for which it was intended. I encountered an interesting case of this a few years back in connection with Connor Cruise O'Brien's "The Long Affair," a book about Thomas Jefferson's connections with the French Revolution and particularly his apparent approval of the Reign of Terror. A somewhat popularized digest of the book appeared in Atlantic Magazine, where it caused a great furor. About a year after the article appeared, I went to our University library in search of it, and discovered that it had been carefully excised from the bound copy. The article was also missing from the electronic cache of Atlantic articles on the Internet, though a refutation/retraction appeared, and the other articles from the issue in question were there. A query to a history list brought a flurry of condemnation of O'Brien's work from supposedly reputable historians. The UO library did have the original scholarly book, so I was able to see for myself the merits of the research. Assuming the Atlantic article was closely based on it, the condemnations I had heard second-hand were quite unfair and calculated to discourage anyone with a curiosity about the subject from troubling to consult the original sources. The American educational system does not, in general, give people the tools to effectively use the full range of resource materials available, leaving people at the full mercy of the censorship or the marketplace. _____ Howard Bloom _______________________________
Douglas Rushkoff and I were discussing the massive marketing campaigns aimed at the youth market last night. Dougles is a remarkable expert in these things. The following is a train of thought kicked off by that conversation. Something just occurred to me. Probably the most extreme example of a case in which cynics or misled idealists tried to feed me and my cohort of peers a commodity which filled our needs but which was poisonous in the extreme was the anti-Viet Nam war movement. Think about it for a second. All those marches in Washington to which I and my friends trooped between 1964 and 1973 eventually led to several major turns in history. One was the victory of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, a triumph that resulted in the murder of between one and three million innocent people. A second was the disappearance of Laos into the hands of a Communist regime whose nature--murderous or otherwise--I've never seen reported in the Western or any other press. A third was the victory of Ho Chi Minh in Viet Nam. Though to the best of my knowledge there hasn't yet been a body count on the number of Viet Namese Ho killed or tortured, my suspicion is that the figure is large. Why? Because Ho left Viet Nam when he was quite young, travelled across the United States and Europe holding down odd jobs, then meandered into Moscow, where he found folks willing to educate him. For something like fifteen years he was a core member of Stalin's Comintern--a tiny, secretive elite dedicated (no exaggeration) to world domination. As such, Ho, like North Korea's Kim Il-sung, was taught the basics of the Stalinist path to power. One of Stalin's central tricks was mass murder. The Stalinist play book was replete with ways to starve, shoot, and gulag your population into submission. Stalin himself showed how it was done by killing off roughly 25 million of his own people, including the entire class of kulaks--agricultural peasants whose only sin was their ability to outproduce their neighbors. We've seen how Kim Il-Sung's application of the Stalinist technique has now resulted in North Korean mass starvation. What we've never been allowed to witness is the application of Stalinism in Viet Nam or Laos. As I said, I suspect that the reality is anything but pretty. For every American or South Viet Namese killed during the Viet Nam war, Ho was willing to "sacrifice" the lives of ten of his own men. We lost 57,000 soliders, but Ho apparently lost somewhere in the neighborhood of a million. To a Stalinist, such a waste of life is not a cause of moral agony, but a reason to celebrate. It is a justifiable means to a necessary end--the establishment of a totalitarian state. So what form of peace did we peace-niks produce? One which made us accomplices to the murder of at least a million Cambodians and to the deaths of what may well be comparable numbers of other Southeast Asians in Viet Nam and Laos. Yet we bought the bill of goods we were sold...and many of us still buy it today. Why? Young langur monkeys and many other primates show the need to separate from the parental band and then return as invaders, toppling elders and seizing the privileges of power--the best food, the best real estate, and the best (and biggest) harem. Back in the 1960s, we baby boomers were hitting adolescence and our early 20s. We needed a movement that would feed our instinctual need to put up a barrier of difference between ourselves and the families in which we'd been raised. We needed rallying cries of rebellion against our parents' generation. And we needed excuses to seize power from the hands of our elders. We were a cohort of tens of millons spread from San Francisco to Paris, all hungry for the same instinct-food. And we got it from the hucksters of peace. We were told by folks like Tom Haydn, Peter Orlovsky, and Abbie Hoffman that the war in Viet Nam was unjust and that the speeches in which Lyndon Johnson, Robert S. MacNamara, and others invoked the Domino Principle were lies. Several folks I've spoken to recently have surprised me by asking what the Domino Principle was. So here's the explanation. According to the Domino Principle, if South Viet Nam fell, so would the rest of Southeast Asia. Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand all would be swept into the Communist embrace. Not true, said the leaders of the peace movement. The same leaders then told us something else which should have tipped us off to the inconsistencies of our righteousness. We were the real bad guys. Yes, we ghastly, capitalistic westerners. Ho Chi Minh and the Khmer Rouge, our leaders told us, were fighting for freedom and justice. The domino theory, said those to whom we listened, was wrong--Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand would not go communist. But when they did, the people of Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand would finally be free. Free of consumerism. Free of MacDonalds. Free of the suburban houses in which our parents had raised us. Free from the oppression of privileges to which they'd never had accesss…privileges against we needed to rebel. What would free them? Communism. In other words, our leaders told us that The Establishment figures who invoked the Domino Effect were liers. But the leaders of our Movement also told us that the domino principle WOULD take effect, and its fruits would be utopian. A paradox to ponder, but a paradox whose dishonesty none of us wanted to see. The Viet Nam War has been over for roughly 27 years now, and we are very aware of the deaths our involvement produced. Yet we remain ignorant of the deaths produced indirectly by activists like me. We are still in the dark about the seemier aspects of what's happened in Viet Nam and Laos during the last three decades. Why? For the same reason those of us who chanted pro-Ho Chi Minh and Khmer Rouge slogans in the 1960s were unaware of the bloody nature of our cheers. We were misled by our heros and undone by the sleeze and laziness of a press corps which fed our collective insanity. The American, British, and French media have a tendency to cover only that information which they are handed on a silver platter. My decades working with every major form of media from ABC-TV News and The New York Times to 60 Minutes to The Morton Downey, Jr. show produced some rather disheartening lessons about the state of Western journalism. If a press person did not receive his or her story pre-researched, pre-chewed, and pre-packaged he generally would not cover it. The news from "leaks" in Washington involve information freely handed out under a ruse of secrecy--press releases clothed in anonymity to make them seem like products of genuine investigative reporting. The news from "high-placed sources" is the result of carefully stage-managed press "backgrounders"--press conferences cloaked in mystery to make them seem like more than just the pap they often are. Rolling Stone Magazine actually DID engage in investigative reporting on one--and only one--occasion I can remember and dug down to the roots of the Watergate Affair. What did the magazine discover? That Richard Nixon had begun lopping off some very well-established heads at the CIA, and that the CIA's old guard--the Boston Brahmins who had run the place since its World War II days as the OSS--had decided to end Nixon's career before he could end there's. The Watergate Story was a series of press releases made to look ever-so-cloak-and-dagger by virtue of clever marketing. Each packet of pre-packaged information arrived in the form of a late night phone call from an anonymous informant, Deep Throat. And who was Deep Throat? Literally a PR man who had long been associated with and used by the CIA. Sounds like a truly incredible explanation of what we've been told was superb investigative reporting. But because I had been close to figures who were part of the Watergate schlebagle, and because the things they jabbered about from time to time supported the Rolling Stone explanation whole-heartedly, I suspect Rolling Stone is right. But right or wrong, the basic fact remains the same--the press tends to be a lazy and intellectually cowardly bunch. It prints and puts on TV only that which comes easily. The press had easy access to atrocities in South Viet nam, so it covered them. It had no access to atrocities committed in North Viet Nam--or to the forms of intimidation committed in South Viet Namese territory under the control of the North. Ahn Jungchyo was one of the South Korean soldiers who fought alongside the Americans as part of the "allied" effort in Viet Nam. In the early '80s Juggchyo penned an autobiographical novel, White Badge: A Novel of Korea (New York: Soho Press, 1989). It is a deadpan, thoroughly apolitical bit of literature. In it Jungchyo chronicles the methods the Viet Cong used to win the hearts and minds of South Viet Namese villagers. A typical incident: the headman and sixteen members of his family are taken to the village center and tied to boxes of dynamite. The remaining villages are herded at gunpoint to within viewing distance of the family which hadn't shown the necessary enthusiasm for Ho Chi Minh's invasion of their land. The dynamite is lit, and the lesson is ingrained in the minds of those who saw their most respected citizens die. I've heard similar tales from American veterans as well. The killing fields of Cambodia give them great veracity. Why did our press never tell us of such things? Why did it fail to give me the information necessary to make an informed moral choice before I went to Washington and stood between the tear gas cannisters to show my tacit support for mass murderers? Laziness. The same need I had to rebel against authority. The need to romanticize. The need to fantasize and mislead. And above all laziness, the arrogance of power, the indifference to fact that sometimes overcomes those who have the power of the pen. We've been marketed and misled many a time by the very folks who decry marketing. They misled us back in the days when I heard Abby Hoffman joking about those who were dying in Bangla Desh, then, as the pictures of their suffering were flashed on massive screens at Madison Square Garden during a benefit arranged by George Harrison, I listened as Abby made fun of what he saw. Sitting with Jerry Rubin, he chattered about how he'd called Mick Jagger from the home of Daniel Ellsberg (the hero who gave the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times). Abby's goal-to get tickets to Harrison's charity concert, which he succeeded in doing at the price of $200 each. I wonder how he got the money. As more photos of dead children, skelatenous with the starvation that had killed them, were revealed before us, Hoffman stopped making nasty comments about the bodies and instead joked about the value of Harrison's real estate holdings. Then he told Rubin how he'd called Jagger again from the plane he'd taken on his way from Boston to New York. Why? To score some absolutely "organic cocaine." I wonder where the money for this nose food came from too. Our leaders were marketers who made the men and women of Madison Avenue seem clueless by comparison. And we swallowed their tripe. The millions died because we were so gullible. The moral of the
story? Beware of those who point a finger of blame at marketing men
and claim they are deceiving us. Ask what the accusers are marketing…for
it is often they who would deceive us in the ways most grievous and
morally reprehensible. ---------- CIA World Factbook. Laos. http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/la.html, downloaded 7/14/01 Background: In 1975 the communist Pathet Lao took control of the government, ending a six-century-old monarchy. Initial closer ties to Vietnam and socialization were replaced with a gradual return to private enterprise, an easing of foreign investment laws, and the admission into ASEAN in 1997… Political parties and leaders: Lao People's Revolutionary Party or LPRP [KHAMTAI Siphandon, party president]; other parties proscribed Political pressure groups and leaders: noncommunist political groups proscribed; most opposition leaders fled the country in 1975 … Illicit drugs: world's third-largest illicit opium producer (estimated cultivation in 1999 - 21,800 hectares, a 16% decrease over 1998; estimated potential production in 1999 - 140 metric tons, about the same as in 1998); potential heroin producer; transshipment point for heroin and methamphetamines produced in Burma; illicit producer of cannabis _______________________________ Lao Human Rights Council, Inc. http://home.earthlink.net/~laohumrights/laowht02.html, downloaded 7/14/01 WHITE PAPER ON GENOCIDE IN LAOS by Dr. Vang Pobzeb Submitted to: The Honorable Mary Robinson U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights U.N. Office at Geneva 8-14 Avenue de la Paix 1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland Date: July 28, 1997 Request: Investigating and stopping genocide and human rights violations in Laos. Submitted to: Chairperson and Members of the U.N. Working Group on Indigenous Populations U.N. Office at Geneva 8-14 Avenue de la Paix 1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland Date: July 28, 1997 Request: Investigating and stopping genocide and human rights violations in Laos. Genocide in Laos and Violations of Human Rights Hmong and Lao people in Laos, Hmong and Lao American people in the United States, and the Lao Human Rights Council, Inc. in the United States sincerely inform the U.S. government, United Nations, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, and international human rights organizations about the true situation inside Laos. The true situation inside Laos is that genocide, human rights violations, and an ethnic cleansing war against the Hmong, both returnees and other Hmong people, are taking place. These inhumane acts have been going on for 22 years and the genocide and "killing fields" are still going on in 1997. The Communist Lao government is a violator of the human rights of the people of Laos. The people of Laos need true peace, freedom, democracy, justice, and human rights. Communism and dictatorship powers are not acceptable to the people of Laos. It is important that the United Nations and international communities become aware of the true situation in Laos, since the Lao Communist government no longer qualifies to maintain its seat in the United Nations because of the genocide and human rights violations occurring in Laos. This Communist government has not told the truth about the situation in Laos to the United Nations and the international communities. Genocide in Laos About 2.5 to 3 million people of Laos, Cambodia and South Vietnam have died because of the policy of genocide, human rights violations, and other related causes in the past two decades. Of this figure, about 300,000 were people of Laos killed by the Communist Lao government. Most of the victims were Hmong people. About 46,000 of these people killed by the Lao Communist government were former soldiers, their associates, and government officials under the Royal Lao government and CIA. Many thousands of them are still in prison in 1997, without having had fair trials. Today, the killing fields are still going on in Laos. The genocide and human rights violations in Laos are "crimes against peace and crimes against humanity." About 25,000 Hmong and Lao people were arrested, imprisoned and killed by the Communist government between 1990 and 1997. Mr. Wang Kou Vang, Nao Xue Vang, Boua Yeng Vang, Thongsouk Saysangkhi, Latsami Khamphoui and Feng Sakchittaphong, along with several thousands of other Hmong and Laotian people and citizens, were arrested and sentenced to life in prison between 1990 and 1997. Many of the Laotian and Hmong people, including political prisoners, were killed through "medical injections" and "food poisoning," yet the outside world is not being told about such killings in Laos. Indeed, human rights violations in Laos are the worst committed against a people since the murder of six million Jewish people during World War II. The legacies of the "secret war" in Indochina and the continual acts of genocide in Laos were the major factors causing approximately 500,000 people of Laos to flee for Thailand and other places around the world between 1975 and 1995. These people are political refugees. The legacies of the "secret war" in Laos and the Vietnam War have caused the Communist Lao government to arrest, imprison, persecute and kill many hundreds of thousands of people in Laos for revenge. Methodologies of killing in Laos include: political and other extra-judicial killing; torture and other cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment or punishment; disappearance; arbitrary arrest; denial of fair public trial; medical injection and food poisoning; and other inhumane actions. There is no freedom of the press, of general assembly, or of association in Laos. Arbitrary interference with privacy, family, home and correspondence, racial discrimination, and an ethnic cleansing war against the Hmong people and other minorities inside Laos have all been taking place in Laos during the past 22 years. These acts are still going on in 1997. Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1993, which was published by the U.S. Department of State, states that: "The Lao People's Democratic Republic (LPDR) is a Communist, one-party state. The Lao People's Revolutionary Party (LPRP) is the primary source of political authority in the country. The party's leadership imposes broad controls on Laos' 4-5 million people. Consequently, it is well-known that the Communist government controls the freedom of the people of Laos." Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1994 states that: "Citizens do not have the ability to change their government despite Constitutional provisions for the public election of National Assembly members." Consequently, citizens and human rights and democracy activists who want to challenge and complain against the dictatorship role of the Lao Communist government are arrested, imprisoned and killed. Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1994 continues to state that: "There are no domestic human rights groups [in Laos]. Any organization wishing to investigate and publicly criticize the government's human rights policies would face serious obstacles, if it were permitted to operate at all. Laos generally does not cooperate with international human rights organizations." During the democracy revolutions in Eastern Europe and in the Soviet Union between 1989 and 1992, many hundreds of democracy and human rights activists in Laos and their supporters called for democracy and the institution of multi-political parties in Laos. In October 1990, the Lao Communist government arrested and imprisoned three pro-democracy activists and vice- ministers of the Lao Communist government. Their supporters and associates were also arrested, imprisoned and killed. Many of the victims are still in prison in Laos in 1997. The Bangkok Post of April 27, 1990, reported that: "At least 35 people were killed when Laotian government troops suppressed pro-democracy rallies in four Laotian provinces last month." Consequently, the Lao Communist government has suppressed pro-democracy groups and human rights activists in Laos since the end of the Vietnam War, and continues to do so in 1997, in order to maintain the Communist state and dictatorship powers in Laos. After the end of the Vietnam War and the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, many bureaucrats, officials and lifetime foreign service individuals in the U.S. Department of State, U.S. Embassies in Thailand and Laos, the Thai government, the UNHCR, and Embassies of other countries around the world who are in Laos, have been working together to denounce and deny information, evidence and reports of genocide and human rights violations in Laos. They have been working together to hide information and deny reports of forced repatriation of refugees from Thailand to Laos and of persecution of returnees in Laos because they need to do business in Laos. However, many credible reports confirm that forced repatriation of refugees from Thailand to Laos and persecution, torture, and murder of returnees in Laos is occurring. On September 11, 1993, Mr. Vue Mai, a leader of Hmong returnees in Laos, was arrested by the Communist Lao government. He then disappeared. The U.S. Department of State, UNHCR and U.S. Embassies in Laos and Thailand remain silent on the disappearance of Vue Mai and on several similar disappearances. The arrest and disappearance of Vue Mai and the other similar cases are credible evidence of persecution against returnees in Laos. From 1991 to 1995, about 5,000 Hmong returnees in Laos were arrested, imprisoned and killed by the Communist Lao government. Since 1991, over 14,000 Hmong refugees in Thailand have been forced to return to Laos. The policies of the Comprehensive Plan of Action (CPA) of 1989 on Indochinese refugees and the Tripartite Agreement of 1991 on Laotian and Hmong refugees are seriously "corrupt" and "flawed." This is because the policy of voluntary repatriation has been changed to one of forced repatriation, and the UNHCR and U.S. Embassy in Laos do not monitor and guarantee the safety and freedom of returnees in Laos. About 35,000 Hmong refugees have escaped from refugee camps in Thailand to many displaced locations and unknown areas since 1991 in order to avoid forced repatriation from Thailand to Laos. The futures of these refugees are in danger and are uncertain, because they lack food, shelter, and basic human needs, and they are not receiving international attention and protection. The forced repatriation of refugees from Thailand to Laos; the arrest and imprisonment of refugees who oppose forced repatriation, corruption and the flaws in the CPA and Tripartite Agreement; and the denials of evidence and reports of forced repatriation and human rights violations in Laos are all betrayals of the Charter of the United Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, international human rights laws and the "American values" of human rights, freedom, democracy, justice and civil rights. Reliable sources from Thailand and Communist Laos confirm that the Thai authorities forced thirteen (13) Hmong refugees in Thailand to return to Laos in January 1996. The Communist Lao government imprisoned these innocent returnees in Samkhe Prison in Vientiane, Laos. Indeed, there are many thousands of cases similar to these thirteen cases, in which the Communist Lao government has acted against Hmong returnees and other people in Laos. These acts are violations of international human rights and refugee laws and of the Charter of the United Nations. Cases of Persecutions and Genocide Against the Hmong and Laotian People and those who are Returnees in Laos Several reliable and credible reports from family members of the victims in Laos and parties concerned, as well as human rights organizations, confirm that the Communist Lao government has arrested, imprisoned, tortured and murdered the following Laotian people in Laos: 1. In March 1977, the Communist authorities of the Lao Communist government arrested and imprisoned King Savang Vatthana, the Queen, the Crown Prince, Vong Savang, and Mr. Touby Lyfoung, and many hundreds of high-ranking officials and former soldiers in Laos. Several sources confirmed that the above arrestees were executed by the Lao Communist government. In the past two decades more than 300,000 people of Laos have been killed by the Lao Communist government. Of this figure, about 46,000 victims were former soldiers, high-ranking officials, CIA employees and their family members and associates. 2. The U.S. government, UNHCR and the Thai government must recognize that forced repatriation and murders of Hmong refugees have been occurring since 1987. The Washington Post of March 22, 1987, said that, "Some refugee officials in Washington have said the Hmong would be tortured or even killed if they returned" to Laos. The Minneapolis Star and Tribune of April 22, 1987, reported that the Pathet Lao government killed the Hmong returnees in March 1987. The Bangkok Post of November 23, 1987, reported that "more than 100 Hmong have been killed by Pathet troops this year (1987) after being forced across the Mekong from Ban Hat Bia," Thailand. Kia Lor, a survivor and witness of the Hmong massacres by the Communist Lao government, stated that "All of the people began crying because we knew that they would kill us." She recalled: "They took us to the top of a hill, putting a rope around the adults' necks, they made us sit in a line like we were going to dance. They told the women, `Take your babies off your backs and hold them in front of you.' My mother told us, `Now they will kill us. We don't talk.' Then the soldiers shot us with B-40 rockets and their guns." Kia passed out in shock and loss of blood. She woke just before sunset and found everyone around her dead. "My mother was lying on her back, shot in her head. Brother Teng's head was all broken, and brother Pheng and sister Yer were shot in the chest. All of them dead. I just sat with the bodies." Kia, badly wounded in her shoulder and arms, lay beside her mother's body for three days. "I saw the flies lay eggs on my mother and the other bodies. I tried picking them out of my mother's wounds but I was unable to get them out of my own wounds." (SOURCES: Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, New York, United States, 1989, pp. 16-18; and Bangkok Post, Thailand, November 23, 1987.) On July 15, 1997, the U.S. Congressional Human Rights Caucus conducted a congressional hearing on human rights violations in Laos. Kia Lor testified before the U.S. Congress. She witnessed that on November 16, 1987, "The Lao Communists killed my mom, my older brother, my middle brother, younger brother, and baby sister. Altogether, the Lao Communists killed 33 Hmong that day. I was shot and seriously wounded. The Communists thought I was dead, and they left me for dead. The Lao Communists killed all my family. I am all alone" (St. Paul Pioneer Press, July 16, 1997, pages 1A and 5A). Kia Lor continued, "If the U.S. government chooses to ignore these murders and human rights violations, the Lao Communists will continue to take advantage of the Hmong and continue to persecute and kill them." She told the members of the U.S. Congress that, "You cannot just stand by and let the Lao Communists destroy the Hmong men, women and children like my family" (Star Tribune, July 16, 1997, page A9). Indeed, many thousands of Hmong and Lao people and returnees have been massacred and killed by the Lao Communist government in Laos in the past two decades. The "Killing Fields" of Laos are still going on today. 3. On October 8, 1990, the Lao Communist government arrested and imprisoned Mr. Thongsouk Saysangkhi, Latsami Khamphoui and Feng Sakchittaphong without a fair trial. They all three were vice ministers under the Lao Communist government. 4. Reliable and credible sources from Laos confirmed and reported that the Communist Lao government arrested, tortured and imprisoned Mr. Wa Kou Vang and Nao Xue Vang in Phongsavang, Xieng Khouang Province, Laos, and Mr. Boua Yeng Vang at Paksane Airport, along with 30 other Hmong people in Muang Mok, Borikhamaxay Province on March 4, 1992. Those victims are not returnees. They are innocent citizens in Laos. They were sentenced for a lifetime without a fair trial. 5. According to credible sources from Laos and Thailand, the following Laotian returnees were arrested, imprisoned and killed by the Communist Lao government. (a) Mr. San Khamoung Vilai, forced from Thailand to Laos in 1989, he died in jail on May 13, 1993 in Muang Pak Lai, Sagnabouri Province, Laos. (b) Mr. Vam Deth was forced to Laos from Thailand in 1989 and he was imprisoned after he arrived in Muang Pak Lai, Sagnabouri Province. He died in 1992. (c) Mr. Boun Phoumi was forced to Laos on May 15, 1991. He was arrested and imprisoned immediately after he arrived in Muang Pak Lai. He died in jail in December, 1993. (d) Mr. Sam Bouam Sou was repatriated under the UNHCR from Thailand to Laos in 1992. He was arrested and imprisoned immediately after he arrived in Pak Lai, Sagnabouri Province. In February 1993 he died in jail. (e) Mr. Xieng Van was a volunteer returnee under the policy of the UNHCR on July 1, 1993. He was arrested and imprisoned immediately after he arrived in Pak Lai. He died in jail in Pak Lai, Sagnabouri Province, Laos, on July 5, 1993. 6. Mr. Vue Mai, a leader of Hmong returnees, disappeared on September 11, 1993. Mrs. Vue Mai and her son told the world that the Communist government in Laos is 100 percent responsible for the disappearance of Mr. Vue Mai. 7. Mr. Chong Moua Thao, the Vice Chairman of the Chieng Kham Refugee Camp, Thailand, and a leader of returnees, died of food poisoning after eating with Lao government officials on September 15, 1993. 8. Mr. Chao Moua (BSC 047) was forced by government officials and the UNHCR to return from the Napho Camp to Laos in April 1994. He was murdered by the Lao Communist government on May 18, 1994, in Van Vieng, Northern Vientiane, Laos. 9. Mr. Chong Neng Vang was arrested, tortured and murdered by the Lao Communist government on June 22, 1994. He was not a returnee, but a former CIA soldier (1963-1975) who was forced down from the highlands to a relocation site two years ago. 10. In July 1994, the Voice of America (VOA) broadcast in the Lao language that those Hmong people and returnees in Laos who were interested in coming to the United States for resettlement and family reunification must register in order to be considered for resettlement. The Lao Communist government authorized that registration must be passed through its administration and authorities, before the U.S. Embassy in Vientiane. Between July and August 1994, about 3,000 Hmong people and returnees registered in the offices of the Lao Communist government. On July 27, Mr. Blia Tou Vue, a victim of forced repatriation, and his two relatives, Pao Vue and Yang Chue Vue, were arrested and sentenced to 20 years in jail without a fair trial. According to eyewitnesses from Laos, about 2,000 of the 3,000 people were arrested and imprisoned between July and August 1994. About 1,000 people escaped to the countryside. Their lives are unknown (Sources from Laos, September 11, 1994). 11. Mr. Yang Chao Xiong, a returnee from the Chieng Kham Camp, Thailand, was arrested and imprisoned on May 22, 1994, in Phongsavang, Xieng Khouang Province, Laos. 12. On October 28, 1994, Lao soldiers massacred two Hmong people in Vientiane Province. Sources from Laos confirmed that the two victims were Mr. Nhia Chue Her and Kou Her. Mr. Kia Xue Hang accompanied the two victims and witnessed the massacres (letter of January 19, 1995, from nine U.S. Senators to Warren Christopher). 13. Between November 1994 and April 1995, the Communist Lao government sent many thousands of soldiers to massacre, torture, arrest, and kill about 5,000 Hmong men, women and children, including innocent civilians of the general public, in Phan Phai and Phou Lan, near Muang Cha (Lima Site 113) and many other places in northern Laos (information from informed sources in Laos dated April 24, 1995, and the Lacrosse Tribune, April 9, 1995). 14. On March 11, 1995, several hundreds of Communist Pathet Lao soldiers under the government of the Lao People's Democratic Republic (LPDR) tortured, raped and opened fire on the Hmong civilians, killing Mr. Chong Koua Vang, Mr. Nao Sher Lee and Mrs. Vang. "The soldiers surrounded the three wounded civilians and tied them up. The soldiers proceeded to cut the victims' clothing into pieces, then beat them until their bones and skulls were crushed. Mrs. Vang was raped and tortured, then beaten to death. The three died with no clothes on," in Moung Mok, Xieng Khouang Province, Laos. Mr. Nao Sher Lee was a returnee. These three victims are relatives of Mr. Tou Ger Vang in Fresno, California. 15. On May 11, the Communist Pathet Lao soldiers massacred and killed two Hmong civilians: Mr. Za Xiong Yang and Mrs. Xia Vue in Kham Vieng Village, Mouang Mok, Xieng Khouang Province, Laos. Three other civilians were seriously wounded. These victims have family members in Fresno, California. 16. On May 26, 1995, the Communist Pathet Lao soldiers opened fire and killed Mr. Neng Vang, a Hmong returnee in Nambat Village, Oudomxai Province, Laos. Neng Vang and about 374 Hmong refugees were forced to return to Laos on March 30, 1995, from the Napho Camp, Thailand. Neng Vang's family members are in Sacramento and Fresno, California. 17. Reliable sources from Laos, are eyewitnesses that about 13 returnees died after they ate food in the repatriation site in Muang Pham, Bouakhao Province, Laos, in June 1995. About 100 returnees were seriously sick after they ate the food which was provided by the UNHCR and the Communist Pathet Lao government. Those Hmong returnees and victims were forced to return to Laos from the Napho Camp, Thailand on May 10, 1995. 18. The Communist Lao government imprisoned thirteen (13) Hmong returnees in Samkhe Jail in Vientiane, Laos, in 1996. These victims are: a. Mr. Wang Chue Yang, 41 years old b. Mr. Chue Ma Vang, 55 years old c. Mr. Tong Toua Vang, 58 years old d. Mr. Xai Xang Chang, 48 years old e. Mr. Pang Tou Lee, 37 years old f. Mr. Lee Vang, 30 years old g. Mr. Xai Toua Vang, 48 years old h. Mr. Xang Herr, 33 years old i. Mr. Cher Tong Lee, 46 years old j. Mr. Chang Teng Thao, 58 years old k. Mr. Yong Xao Herr, 50 years old l. Mr. Shoua Thao, 33 years old m. Mr. Xia Dang Thao, 30 years old (Sources: Eyewitnesses from Laos and St. Paul Pioneer Press, April 2, 1997) 19. Witnesses in Laos confirmed that on October 20, 1996, two soldiers of the Communist Lao government: Kham Muang and Kham Kuet arrested, tortured and killed Mr. Va Lee, a Hmong civilian in the village in Muong Ong, Muong Cha area, northern Laos. 20. Reliable sources from Laos confirmed that between October 1996 and February 1997, the Communist Lao government sent its soldiers to kill more than 2,000 Hmong people in Muong Ou, Muang Cha, Northern Laos, Paksan, Bonrikham Xay, Khammouane, Southern provinces, and elsewhere in Xieng Khouang Province, Northern Laos. Many thousands of civilians were arrested and imprisoned by the Communist Lao government. On January 16, 1997, the Communist Lao soldiers massacred and killed eight Hmong civilians in Muong Ou, Muang Cha area, Northern Laos. Those victims of genocide were: Adults: 1. Mrs. Yia Xiong, 65 years old. 2. Mrs. Mee Xiong, 35 years old. 3. Mrs. Cha Mee Xiong, 25 years old. Children: 4. Yong Yang, 12 years old. 5. Khue Yang, 11 years old. 6. Tou Kao Yang, 3 years old. 7. Tong Yang, 3 years old. 8. Shoua Yang, 7 months old. (Sources: eyewitness reports from Laos and St. Paul Pioneer Press, March 24, 1997.) 21. On November 29, 1996, Lao Communist soldiers arrested, imprisoned, and tortured five Hmong civilians in KM 52, Northern Vientiane, Laos. Those victims were: 1. Mr. Chue Xang Khang. 2. Mr. Kayee Khang. 3. Mr. Choua Dang Khang. 4. Mr. Choua Dang Xiong. 5. Mr. Chue Toua Ly. 22. Mr. Kou Yang, a leader of Hmong returnees in Laos, witnessed and confirmed that human rights violations and genocide in Laos have been going on for two decades. He witnessed that on April 28, 1994, several hundreds of Hmong refugees in the Napho Camp, Thailand were forced to return to Communist Laos. At the Nong Khai bridge between Laos and Thailand, two officials of the U.S. State Department and U.S. Embassy in Thailand met with Kou Yang. Kou Yang declared to them there they must remember that they, the Thai authorities, and officials of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) were conspirators in the forced repatriation of Kou Yang and several hundreds of Hmong and Lao refugees from the Napho Camp, Thailand to return to Laos. The two officials remained silent after he said this. Kou Yang witnessed that the UNHCR, Lao Communist government, and international organizations did not provide food or basic human needs to Hmong and Lao returnees in Laos. Many hundreds of people starved to death. Many thousands of people lacked medical care. Kou Yang witnessed that the situation of human rights violations and the killing fields in Laos are most serious. He has personal knowledge of four cases: 1. On June 18, 1995, Pathet Lao military and police forces took into custody about 20 Hmong soldiers recruited to fight for them during the war and had them killed because they thought they would turn anti-government. 2. In December 1995, three children died after a Lao helicopter dropped what looked like "yellow rain" on the Pha Thao Village (North Vientiane, Laos). 3. On June 20, 1996, uniformed Pathet Lao soldiers accused three Hmong of helping the resistance movement and took them to concentration camps. 4. On October 22, 1995, Yang was visiting his family in Kong Khai, a four-day walk from his village, when Lao soldiers who thought villagers had been involved in a skirmish 20 miles away attacked Kong Khai, killing Yang's brother- in-law with a grenade. A child was also killed in the fighting he said. (Fresno Bee, Fresno, California, February 17, 1997 and March 17, 1997; interview of Kou Yang on February 9, 1997; and Affidavit of Kou Yang, March 25, 1997.) Mr. Kou Yang declared that he is seeking "political asylum" in the United States because he fears persecution and punishment upon his return to Communist Laos. Mr. Kou Yang expressed with concern, "I am afraid because I have already been contacted by leaders of the State Department who funded non-governmental organizations involved with returning Hmong to Laos. Because they received a lot of U.S. government money to repatriate the Hmong people to the Communist regime in Laos, they apparently do not want the truth to come out about the bad things happening to the Hmong in Laos" (Fresno Bee, March 17, 1997). On July 15, 1997, Kou Yang, a witness and a leader of Hmong returnees in Van Vieng, Laos, declared to the U.S. Congress that the Lao Communist government in Laos has been committing human rights violations and genocide against Hmong people and returnees in Laos (St. Paul Pioneer Press and Star Tribune, July 16, 1997). H.R. 1561 of May 1995 prohibits use of funds when it states: "None of the funds authorized to be appropriated by subsection (a) are authorized to be available for any program or activity that provides for, promotes, or assists in the repatriation of any person to Vietnam, Laos, or Cambodia, unless the president has certified that (1) all persons described in subsection (a)(4) who were residents of refugee camps as of July 1, 1995, have been offered resettlement outside their countries of nationality." As a result, the U.S. Congress must monitor, investigate and audit some governmental officials, actors and non-profit organizations based in the Washington, D.C. area and their officers and supporters, because they have been using the money of American taxpayers to operate the repatriation program of Hmong and Lao refugees from Thailand to death in Communist Laos. 23. Eyewitnesses reported from Laos confirmed that on January 28, 1997, the Communist Lao government arrested, tortured and imprisoned nine Hmong people in Phongsavan, Xieng Khouang Province, Laos. Those victims and prisoners are: 1. Mr. Xaiker Vue from Ban Lun Hua. 2. Mr. Nou Vue from Ban Lun Hua. 3. Mrs. Bouahue Vang from Ban Kham Phueng. 4. Mr. Ger Vang from Ban Kham Phueng. 5. Mr. Tongva Lee from Ban Kham Phueng. 6. Mr. Vangneng Lee from Ban Kham Phueng. 7. Mr. Yia Lor from Ban Khamsy. 8. Mr. Cha Xiong from Ban Khamsy. 9. Mr. Xaidoua Vue from Ban Khamsy. 24. Eyewitnesses reported from Laos confirmed that in March 1997, 40 Communist Lao soldiers massacred and killed Mr. Song Seng Ly and his son in a village in Phongsavang, Xieng Khouang Province, Laos. The Communist Lao soldiers cut the body of Song Seng Ly and his son into many pieces and burned them. 25. Eyewitnesses reported from Laos confirmed that on June 11, 1997, the Communist Lao government killed Mr. Xay Chue Lor, Mrs. Mai Vue Lor, Ka Mao Lor and Mrs. Pa Lor in Van Xay Village, Xieng Khouang Province, Laos. Those victims are civilians. 26. Eyewitnesses and sources from Laos confirmed that the Communist Lao government arrested and imprisoned fifteen (15) Hmong families who were forced to return from Southern China to Burma and then Sam Neua, Northern Laos, on June 13, 1997. There were more than 40 Hmong returnees who were arrested and imprisoned by the Communist Lao government. 27. Witnesses reporting from Laos confirmed that on July 17, 1997 the Communist Lao soldiers invaded Nam Fam Village, near Muang Cha area, Northern Laos. The Communist Lao soldiers arrested and imprisoned: Mr. Xao Kao Chang Mr. Vang Xue Chang Mr. Xai Pao Chang Mr. Chue Yang Mr. Chong Neng Yang Mr. Nhia Dang Xiong In addition, the Communist Lao soldiers also killed many hundreds of Hmong civilians in Nam Fam, Muang Cha area, Muong Oun and other locations. Sources from Laos reported that the Communist Lao government still are using poison gas and chemical weapons to kill Hmong people and Lao people in Laos. 28. Statements and reports of Kou Yang, a leader of Hmong returnees in Ban Phan Thao, Van Vieng, Vientiane Province, Laos, of March 25, 1997, and letter of May 9, 1997, which was signed by 50 Hmong returnees and group leaders of Ban Phan Thao, Van Vieng, Laos, stated that the Lao Communist government has seized over 50 hectares of land from Hmong returnees. Therefore, there are 55 families who did not get land for agricultural development and production (Statements and letters of Yang Koua, March 25, 1997, and 50 group leaders of Hmong returnees, Ban Phan Thao, Van Vieng, Laos, May 9, 1997). In order for the Nazi authorities to murder more than 6 million Jewish people in Europe during World War II, the Nazi authorities used many agents, individuals and organizations to divide and cause disunity among the Jewish people, organizations and communities throughout Germany, Poland, and other countries in Europe. The Nazi authorities and their supporters and agents worked hard to hide information and evidence of the genocide carried out against the Jewish people. The Nazi authorities and their supporters and agents worked hard to sabotage and make false accusations against Jewish organizations and actors who saved the lives of Jewish people and opposed the genocide against the Jewish people. The World Jewish Congress was attacked and sabotaged by the Nazi authorities, agents and supporters. The Nazi authorities used their agents and supporters to support the deportation of Jewish people from Poland to Germany and from Jewish territories to many concentration camps in Germany and other countries in Europe, in the attempt to achieve their "final solution" to the problems of Jewish people in Europe the "Holocaust." Similarly, the Communist Lao government in Laos and its Embassy in Washington, D.C., and their supporters and actors of the repatriation of Hmong and Lao refugees in Thailand have been using some nonprofit organizations and individuals in the United States to support and endorse the repatriation and deportation of Hmong and Lao refugees from camps in Thailand to Communist Laos. Officials of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the Communist Lao government, U.S. Embassies in Laos and Thailand, the Thai government, the State Department in Washington, D.C., and their supporters, conspirators and associates must recognize and honor the existence of information and evidence of forced repatriation of refugees from Thailand to Communist Laos and human rights violations against the people of Laos and returnees in Laos, including Vue Mai. Conspirators of the repatriation program, genocide in Laos, and Communist agents have sabotaged and made false statements against Hmong and Lao human rights organizations in the United States, including a threat to the Lao Human Rights Council, Inc. and other protectors of civil rights and human rights. This is similar to the conspiracies against the Jewish people and Jewish organizations during World War II. Conspirators and actors who were involved in the "genocide" against Jewish people in Europe committed "crimes against peace and crimes against humanity." Similarly, conspirators and actors who have been in the forced repatriation programs of Hmong and Lao refugees from Thailand to communist Laos and genocide against people and returnees in Laos are also committing "crimes against peace and crimes against humanity." These are "Nazi war criminals" in Laos. As a result, the United States and member states of the United Nations and international human rights organizations must not remain silent on human rights violations in Laos. Hmong and Lao people in Laos and refugees in Thailand are human beings. They need international human rights protection. Hmong and Lao refugees in the camps in Thailand oppose forced repatriation to return to Laos because there are no human rights methodologies and groups monitoring and stopping genocide and persecution against returnees and other people in Laos. There are many thousands of cases similar to the above, in which Hmong and Lao people in Laos have been arrested, tortured, imprisoned and killed by the Communist Lao government in Laos in the past 22 years. As stated previously, the genocide and killing fields are still going on inside Laos. Therefore, Hmong and Lao people in Laos and Hmong and Lao American people and the Lao Human Rights Council, Inc. in the United States call upon and appeal to the U.S. government, the United Nations, international communities, and international human rights organizations to investigate and stop the genocide, killing fields, and other human rights violations against Hmong and Lao people in Laos. There is no true peace and there are no human rights in Laos. This is because the Communist Lao government has been waging a major war against the Hmong ethnic group and against other minority groups in Laos, for revenge, for two decades. The killing fields against these groups still goes on today. The Charter of the United Nations and other international human rights conventions and principles require that all member states of the United Nations shall promote and respect human rights and humanitarian character. Therefore, the U.S. government, Thai government and United Nations must recognize and honor the evidence and information of human rights violations in Laos. The denial of this information and evidence of the human rights violations against the people of Laos is a denial and betrayal of human rights and the Charter of the United Nations. Forced repatriation of Hmong and Lao refugees in Thailand to return to death in Communist Laos in order to solve the problems of the refugee crisis and the genocide against the people and returnees in Laos are violations of the Charter of the United Nations and international law. Fourteen Points on Restoration of Peace and Ending Genocide in Laos The Lao Human Rights Council, Inc. in the United States proposes the following fourteen points to restore peace and end genocide in Laos as follows: 1. Appeal to the U.S. government and the United Nations to impose international sanctions against the Lao People's Democratic Republic (LPDR) Communist Laos. 2. Appeal to the U.S. government to withdraw or cut off diplomatic relations with the Lao Communist government in Laos. 3. Appeal to the U.S. Government to cut off all U.S. foreign aid and economic assistance to the Lao Communist government Marxist- Leninist regime and oppressive government in Laos. 4. Appeal to the U.S. government not to discuss and grant Most Favored Nation (MFN) trading status to the Marxist-Leninist regime in Laos because this regime is a violator of human rights. 5. Appeal to the U.S. government and the United Nations and international human rights organizations to establish an international human rights commission (independent commission) including the Lao Human Rights Council, Inc., Asia watch, Amnesty International, Lawyers Committee for Human Rights and other international human rights organizations. 6. Appeal to the U.S. government, United Nations and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN nations) to bring true peace, democracy, human rights, freedom, stability and national reconciliation to Laos. 7. Appeal to the
U.S. government, United Nations and ASEAN nations to pressure the Lao
Communist government immediately and unconditionally end its brutalization,
terrorism, oppression, genocide, massacres and war against Hmong and
Lao people of Laos. Political prisoners must be released unconditionally
and general amnesty must be granted to the prisoners and people in Laos.
8. Appeal to the International Red Cross and international relief agencies
and human rights organizations and human rights agencies, international
communities and the U.S. government and the United Nations to send food
and medical supplies, and to provide other basic human needs to those
people who escaped and have lived in the countryside for 22 years because
of Communist oppression, terrorism, genocide, the killing fields and
human rights violations committed by the Lao Communist government in
Laos. 9. Appeal to the World Bank and other international financial
institutions and international organizations to cut off and withdraw
all types of foreign aid and loans to the Lao Communist government because
of human rights violations, genocide, and the ethnic cleansing war in
Laos. 10. Appeal to ASEAN nations, Australia, Japan, the United Kingdom,
France, Canada, the United States and all respected human rights governments
in the whole world to break off diplomatic relations with and cut off
foreign aid and economic assistance to the Communist regime. 11. Appeal
to the U.S. Congress and government to investigate governmental officials,
public and private agencies, non-governmental organizations (NGOs),
non-profit organizations and individuals in the United States who have
promoted and operated the repatriation program of Hmong and Lao refugees
from Thailand to death in Communist concentration camps in Communist
Laos. Appeal to the U.S. Congress to investigate and stop the Communist
Lao Embassy in Washington, D.C. and Communist Lao government in Laos
because it has been using individuals and organizations in the United
States to create division, troubles, and gang problems for Hmong and
Lao American people in the United States. 12. Appeal to the U.S. Congress
and government to investigate and stop forced repatriation of Hmong
and Lao refugees from Thailand to death in Communist Laos and human
rights violations against returnees in Laos. 13. Appeal to the U.S.
Congress and government to open the door for Hmong and Lao refugees
in Thailand, screened-out and screened-in refugees, to resettle in the
United States for political reasons and family reunification. 14. Appeal
to the U.S. government and U.S. Congress, ASEAN nations, Australia,
Japan, United Kingdom, France, Canada, United Nations, and international
human rights organizations to recognize and honor the fact that there
are serious human rights violations, genocide and an ethnic cleansing
war against Hmong and Lao people in Laos. For Additional Information
Contact the Main Office: Dr. Vang Pobzeb Lao Human Rights Council, Inc.
P.O. Box 1606 Eau Claire, WI 54702 Phone (715)831-8355 Fax (715)831-8563
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Information. call: 715-831-8355 or e-mail [email protected]
Lao Human Rights Council, Inc. <http://members.eb.com/bol/topic?eu=43522&sctn=1> [Accessed 15 July 2001]. ) Its goal was not national liberation but national subjugation--subjugation to Moscow. We were told by our leftish leaders and our older mentors that notions of this sort were paranoid fantasies cooked up by right wing red necks like Joseph McCarthy. McCarthy was a hoaxter and a low life who had as few scruples about destroying others as did Stalin. But the notion that Moscow was out for world domination was true. What did this mean for Viet Nam, Cambodia, and Laos? Some rather horrid things, I'm afraid. One of Ho Chi Minh's first steps when he took over North Viet Nam after World War II was to kill the Vietnamese nationalists who had supported him. Why? They had fought under Ho's leadership for liberation from the Japanese. No way did they want to trade Tokyo's yoke around their necks for a choke-chain forged in the Kremlin. Hence nationalists were an obstacle to the one true form of political idealism--Communist Internationalism, subjugation to Moscow. So much for national liberation under Uncle Ho. Ho's Stalinist training also led him to feel it was permissible to toss lives away in massive quantities. He was perfectly willing to have ten Viet Cong killed for every American who died fighting him. He gloried in atrocities. I've cited in past postings one of the techniques the Viet Cong used to "secure" a village. The headman of the village and his whole family--wife, children, brothers, sisters, cousins--were tied to kegs of dynamite in the town square. The villagers were summoned to witness the ensuing educational demonstration. The family was then blown up. (Junghyo Ahn: White Badge. NY: Soho Press, 1989) When Cambodia fell, we now know what happened. Between one and three million people died. When Laos tumbled another 300,000 may have been murdered to reshape a nation in the Marxist/Leninist way. Now I'm curious about how many were killed in Viet Nam after Ho took over. Signs are that the number was large. Again, claims about a domino effect were on target, one hundred percent correct. A subculture I fought against had it right. My subculture had it wrong...very wrong indeed. One of the many lessons that working in mass media for 30 years has taught me--the press never admits its mistakes. Journalists are too ego-driven to fess up when they've blown it. But that doesn't mean that we who believed in what we read or saw on tv have to deceive ourselves into believing we were correct too. After World War II, the Germans were forced to squarely face their crimes against humanity. We now have to face up to ours. We intellectual kids protesting in the streets were accomplices in mass murder. Unless we face that fact, we are likely to repeat our error. Violence is built into cultural evolution. If we're going to wipe it out, we can not afford to repeat the error of ignorance. Knowledge, even if it's knowledge of moral sin, is the first step toward redemption--toward making this a better world in which to live. js: [2] US foreign policy exists to the degree immigrates make up the US population. Few US citizens come from Laos. No one has been there on holiday, nor due its lack of western colonial past, is any literature connected with the place [unlike say Burma]. Name a book or film with any connection with Laos. hb: you must be right. The Lao Human Rights Council is the group trying to get out the word about mass murder in its home country. The group is composed of Laotians living in the US. Apparently there aren't enough Laotians in the States to make a dent in our public perception. But, John, the enemy here, the bad guy, isn't the US State Department, it's us. The people who can turn these things around are those of us who write, who speak in public, and who publish. js: [3] Laos is visually difficult to think about. On the map, it is somewhere between other places, not visually anchored to a stretch of coast, an island, or a peninsular. hb: hmmmm, a good point. The maps I've been looking at are confusing beyond belief. js:Worse, it is nearly homophonic with a pest [louse] and got a soft long vowel [that is if you can pronounce it which even I am not sure]. js: [4] People care
about one visually gut talking death not a statistic however large.
No ones limbic system has ever pained over seeing the written expression
'300,000 deaths'; our brains need to see horror not merely statistically
know about it. hb: aye, there's the rub. I suspect there's a simple
reason the press hasn't covered the atrocities in Laos and in Viet Nam--laziness.
The governments of these countries shut journalists out. Journalist
go where folks like me (in my public relations days) gather the facts
for them, put them up in plush hotels, give them dedicated phone lines
for their computers, feed them elegant food and 24/7 booze, then give
them at least one press briefing a day. From that press briefing--even
if it's disguised as a statement by a Deep Throat--comes the news. William
Shawcross claims that we in the West only "discovered" the
killing fields of Cambodia because a press junket was conceived to "reveal"
this genocidal event. Shawcross points out that Viet Nam has always
been an aggressive little country with a desire to take over such nations
as Cambodia. So Ho's Viet Nam invaded Cambodia, installed a puppet regime,
then justified its actions in the eyes of the world by flying a few
privileged journalists into Phnom Penh and giving them a show--a series
of visual press releases, perfectly suited to both print and television.
The purpose: to demonstrate that the Cambodian group the Vietnamese
had tossed out of power--the Khmer Rouge--had been so evil that any
means taken to eject them was justified. It worked. And it won Sydney
Shanberg a Pulitzer Prize. Which leads me to suspect that Pulitzers
are awarded to those who reprint the most politically correct press
releases of the year. Why don't we know about the mass annihilations
in Laos and, presumably, Viet Nam? Because no one is spoon feeding the
press photo opportunities, press releases, and press junkets. And because
the press easily falls into a clichéd mind-set. Once it becomes
popular to excuse all Palestinian atrocities but to make a great deal
of noise about anything done by the Israelis, that's the knee-jerk approach
everyone in the media takes. Once it's popular to say the Ho Chi Minh's
North Vietnamese are good but we Westerners are covered with shame,
that's how the entire press corps plays the game. Howard
In a message dated 98-11-24 17:29:10 EST, whitney writes: "There must be no barriers to freedom of inquiry. There is no place for dogma in science. The scientist is free, and must be free, to ask any question, to doubt any assertion, to seek for any evidence, to correct any errors. [Hunt, 1999, p. 351.]. >> I agree strongly with Glayde Whitney about science as inquiry into truth. Policy and social prescription are entirely another matter. They are despised by the Christian Identity/genocide-advocacy groups Marian Van Court seems to have identified herself with as "social engineering"--which seems to be tacitly understood to be a Jewish malevolence. But what could be less scientific, more prescriptive and policy oriented, and more a manifestation of social engineering than Marian Van Court's eugenics? We need to make create a barriers as profound as that which should exist between church and state between political policy and scientific insight. When we fail to do so, here's a sample of what happens, especially with Marian Van Court's style of policy-oriented ideology: In a 1932 paper, [psychologist Felix] Krueger acknowledged openly that his own scientific concerns were stamped by a preoccupation with the "dangerous crisis" of his time. "Life itself in this time, especially on German soil, drives our inquiries beyond normal borders, out of a more than theoretical necessity." In this particular paper, Krueger pointed out the dangers not only of the soulless lie of liberalism, but also (although more sympathetically) of the diffuse, frightened irrationalism of "life philosophy." Calling for hardness of vision, he found in the Leipziger tropes of Wholeness and Structure the ingredients for a synthesis which could provide direction for a crisis- laden society. Only when wholeness was tempered with order, he believed, did Germany stand a chance of defending itself against Western chaos, machine technology, a factory society, and racial degeneration. And he went on to say, in an apparent allusion to the National Socialist [Nazi] party, that philosophers, scientists, and other defenders of Kultur must cooperate with politicians for the greater good of the whole: The West will fall prey to chaos and the less noble races will win the upper hand, unless one makes way for reformation from top to bottom. This is what human existence needs now. Everything must be worked out new down to the last detail, so fundamentally that the political and the economic will at last be encompassed in it.... The sciences and philosophy alone will not be able to accomplish what is now mandated. (Anne Harrington. Reenchanted Science: 128.) What was mandated was a great coming together of the German people and a high-minded cleansing to reassert the racial and spiritual purity of a people far superior to the lesser races threatening to drag it down. I belong to one of those cleansed lesser races. So have many of the most important scientists of our era. Because of her beliefs in policies which lead to this kind of genocide, I believe that Marian Van Court's underlying agenda must be made explicit, its implication spelled out in detail, and she must be labeled like a canned food so we know what poisons she does or does not contain. This is imperative to avoid allowing her to gain the legitimacy of a scientific imprimatur for her potentially genocidal doctrines, if these are what she believes in. Her Christian Identity friends sure do. I have read their material carefully. Genocide is at the very heart of their belief system. So I have two suggestions--truth in labelling, and a separation of science from policy. This is not to say that scientists should not participate in politics, attempt to ameliorate society's ills, and use their scientific knowledge to do it. But John Hartung's virulent anti-semitism, Marian Hartung's as-yet-unexpressed racist beliefs, and Ed Miller's milder stereotyped anti-semitism are not science. When they have valid scientific things to say, I will listen. I do to Ed's material and find great value in much of it. Ed, as a matter of fact, is a friend. But knowing his private belief system helps in weighing the value of material he presents of which I have no personal knowledge and on which I am required to rely on his word. We academics and intellectuals have a long and grim history of contributing to genocide. Let's not continue it. Howard
------------------------------ Subj: Excerpts from 'The Passing of the Great Race' (1916) Date: 99?07?13 02:14:24 EDT From: alex.burns To: HBloom,Dear Gentlemen,I began writing a review for Amazon.com for a rather notorious racist book written by a prominent early 20the century zoologist, and then started quoting directly from the text. Yet to send it to them, but I thought you all might be interested, especially Howard (Don Webb, please feel free to pass this onto Setian?l, as it is category 15, TS?5 material that few are going to encounter outside a good university library). Harrowing reading, but obviously Arno Press and The New York Times (New York) felt it appropriate to reprint the volume in 1970 as part of its 'American Immigration Collection' (ISBN #0?405?00577?6), without any finger?wraggling forewards, in fact with the original Preface and Preface to the New Edition written by Henry Fairfield Osborn intact. I will probably write a longer essay to put the material in context, but here are the most glaring quotes I could find in an hour. In SD terms, PURPLE (B?O) clan policies are merely a thin membrame over BEIGE (A?N) concerns, and become the driving forces for RED (C?P) empire building and BLUE (D?Q) moral crusades and outward enemies.If anyone here can set me clear on what the Founding Fathers actually said, and whether or not Grant misinterprets the Declaration of Independence, I'd appreciate it for future debating purposes.Regards,Alex 'reading this puts me in the mood to join Public Enemy' BurnsWritten during the First World War, 'The Passing of the Great Race' was a best?seller when printed in 1916, and was revised and reprinted in 1918 by Charles Scribner's Sons, a major New York based publishing company. Grant, then chairman of the New York Zoological Society; trustee, American Museum of Natural History; and councilor, American Geographical Society (i.e. hardly a fringe?thinker), argues for an ethnological model of Nordic supremacy and heridity/racial foundation of the history of Europe that would have done the German NSDAP and Nazi philosophers like Alfred Rosenberg proud. After World War II, books like 'Passing' became guilty of 'Crimethink' in an increasingly multi?cultural society, and were quietly suppressed.'Passing' shows how obsession with racial purity, ancestral heritage, bloodlines, settlement patterns, and the effects of disease and warfare, can become propaganda tools for sterilization, racial cleansing, and immigration policy restrictions (it influenced the passing of U.S. laws which were in turn the model for NSDAP laws). Historically important, the book ? mainly a mish?mash of personal opinions and historical distortions ? shows that such thinking was not simply the sole province of Nazi Germany, but was commonplace throughout the Western world during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. hb: Alex??very much so. This mode of thought played a significant part in the American doctrine of Manifest Destiny which drove much of American foreign policy at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. It also lay behind the imperialist justifications of England and Germany??countries of "racial cousins" run by literal cousins. Kaiser Wilhelm was Queen Victoria's grandson. The following passages and footnotes from _The Lucifer Principle_ may come in handy: Friedrich Naumann was typical of those who gloated over teutonic good fortune. Said he, "The German race brings it. It brings army, navy, money and power. ...Modern, gigantic instruments of power are possible only when an active people feels the spring?time juices in its organs." Albert Beveridge, an influential American senator at the turn of the century, had a habit of making statements like the following: "[God] has made us the master organizers of the world to establish system where chaos reigns.... He has made us adept in government that we may administer government among savage and senile peoples.... He has marked the American people as His chosen Nation to finally lead in the regeneration of the world. This is the divine mission of America... We are trustees of the world's progress, guardians of its righteous peace." ?????????????????????????????? notes Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, p. 211. Barbara Tuchman, The Proud Tower, pp. 177?78. quoted in William L. Shirer, 20th Century Journey; A Memoir of a Life and the Times, Volume I, The Start, 1904?1930, p. 68. Such policies are shaped to fit the geo?political concerns and unresolved historical issues of the specific countries and times: Grant recasts the American Civil War and the First World War as civil wars between the Nordic aristocracy, a manifestation of Berserker blood?lust that bleeds dry the Master Race, allowing inferior races to sap the vital lifeforce, culture, and morality of the elite. Grant notably presses various 'hot?buttons' including the need for education; fear of moral decline; formation of ethnic enclaves; the superiority of aristocratic systems versus democracy; patriotism; fear of America sliding down the 'pecking order' of international nations etc. hb: Here's another quote from The Lucifer Principle. Note how Nordau's hysteria on the subject of cultural decline parallels Grant's: The English knew they were in trouble, but they didn't know why. Then Max Nordau uncovered the real cause. The culprits behind Britain's fall? Modern philosophy, modern art and modern novels. As historian Barbara Tuchman puts it in The Proud Tower, Through six hundred pages of mounting hysteria, he [Max Nordau] traced the decay lurking impartially in the realism of Zola, the symbolism of Mallarme, the mysticism of Maeterlinck, in Wagner's music, Ibsen's dramas, Manet's pictures, Tolstoy's novels, Nietzche's philosophy, Dr. Jaeger's woolen clothing, in Anarchism, Socialism, women's dress, madness, suicide, nervous diseases, drug addiction, dancing, sexual license, all of which were combining to produce a society without self?control, discipline or shame which was 'marching to its certain ruin because it is too worn out and flaccid to perform great tasks.' ??????????????? Barbara Tuchman, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War: 1890?1914, pp. 37?38. Similar blind rhetoric informs aspects of contemporary debate on the effects of NAFTA, and border disputes between Mexico and the United States. hb: very good point.Grant's scheme of racial stratification, and his firm belief that moral codes, intelligence, and cultural superiority are largely racially determined (and the basis for longterm civilization stability and regeneration) is the kind of psuedo?scientific 'logic' which created the 'apartheid' system of South Africa and enabled the NSDAP to class the Jews as sub?human, leading to the horrors of Belsen, Treblinka, and Auschwitz. The only difference was in the means employed, not the end: Grant argued for sterilization, Hitler took a more quicker, direct method, of total annihilation. hb: More good points. Another reference you may find helpful if you continue to pursue this subject is the work of Stephen Jay Gould, who seemingly manages to squeeze one or more essays on the topic of "scientific racism" into every volume he writes. The Gould book which contains more on this subject than any other I know of is _The Mismeasure of Man_, New York: Norton, 1981. Also you might find something of value in the following essay I wrote for my Spin Online column in Janaury of 1997: Viking rockers, the Aryan Nation, the Ku Klux Klan, the European and American Nazi parties, and the Serbian nationalists all have something in common. They are frothing at the mouth to resurrect an ancient purity and relive "histories" which destine them to be a chosen race. But the purity is a delusion and the histories are almost always false. One of my closest friends is enormously proud of his Aryan heritage. Its nobility can be traced back over a thousand years. His skin color? So brown he might easily be mistaken for an African American. My friend is a descendent of the unlettered Aryan cattle?herders who crossed the mountain passes of the Hindu Kush in roughly 1,500 BC, descended on the highly?cultured Indus Valley, destroyed its cities, and went on to conquer most of India. Later these charioteers invented a Nazi? like religion in which they were the ubermenschen??the supermen??and all others were subhuman. They called themselves Brahmins and their creed Hinduism. Any native Indian who dared speak to a Brahmin had a red?hot poker stuffed down his throat. Any native Indian who sat where a Brahmin was accustomed to parking his butt was given the glowing poker as a rectally? inserted souvenir. What of my friend's "racial purity"? It is nil. His warrior ancestors were originally snow white. Hindu law forbade a colored man??a native Dravidian??from marrying a daughter of the master?race. (The Hindu word for caste, varna, literally means "color.") But once the invaders had espoused one Brahmin woman, they were allowed to wed as many dark?skinned girls as pleased them. Several thousand years later, my friend's blood had been considerably thinned. Perhaps one drop in a thousand comes from his illiterate Aryan ancestors. The rest is the legacy of dark?skinned female "inferiors." As for the Aryans of Europe and North America, they are not even able to claim this fragment of a pedigree. The brothers Grimm were a pair of linguists who wrote down peasant recitations of fairy tales in the early 19th century. Their goal was to give 39 or more separate principalities an excuse for unity. The nation they dreamed of creating was Germany. Ironically, the roots of the tales that made a German volk??an imaginary "race"??can often be traced to India. Aryan separatists might be further embarrassed to discover that Aryan and Iranian are virtually the same word. Iran was the Aryan homeland. Even worse, historians contend that Europe's "Aryans" were figments of imagination bequeathed to us by 1850's racists like Joseph Arthur Gobineau. The spawn of innumerable ancient tribes were finally tossed together in 1872 to make the German state??Magyars, Cimbri, Avars, Slavs, Franks, Celts and God?knows?what? all?else. Scan the audience of admirers at a neo?Nazi rally. The number of pimply faces, beer bellies, and below?average intelligences will astound you. This is the genetic refuse of civilization. Most cross?breeds are a relative success. The racial purists tend to be the failures. The Serbs, too, are mutts with a past concocted in recent times. So too are the real Vikings, who set up trading towns along the Volga River, married or raped the local tribal girls, and adopted the civilization of the Byzantine Greeks. Their newly?founded country was, some scholars say, named after their ancestral hair color??Russe, red??hence Russia. Other Vikings took over coastal France, adopted the French culture, married French girls, and by the time their descendants conquered England in 1066 were still called Normans, but had very little Norse blood left. As for the Viking rockers who imagine they are the heirs of a super?race: they are the offspring not of Vikings but of those who were too cowardly or ethical to take to the seas and plunder. Yes, their blood is purer than most. But it is the blood of stay?at?homes. copyright 1997, Howard Bloom Some direct quotes will give a flavour of Grant's 'scholarly objective thinking':"The men who wrote the words, "we hold these truths to be self?evident, that all men are created equal," were themselves the owners of slaves and despised Indians as something less than human. hb: The Declaration of Independence, from which this line is taken, was written, to quote the Columbia Desk Encyclopedia "almost entirely by Thomas Jefferson." He was, as everyone is aware, a slave owner. As for his attitude toward Indians, "despise" does not at all seem an accurate word. Here's a Lucifer Principle footnote on the topic: Thomas Jefferson wrote a spirited defense of Indians based on his own first?hand and extremely methodical observations. (Among Jefferson's many accomplishments was a detailed analysis of the structural relationships between Indian languages.) One of the criticisms Jefferson addressed was the charge that Indians "have no ardor for their females." Here was the founding father's reply: "It's true they [Indians] do not indulge those excesses, nor discover that fondness which is customary in Europe; but this is not owing to a defect in nature but to manners. Their soul is wholly bent upon war." (From Thomas Jefferson's _Notes On Virginia_], quoted in Daniel J. Boorstin, _Hidden History_, p. 117.) Equality in their minds meant that they were just as good Englishmen as their brothers across the sea. The words "that all men are created equal" have since been subtly falsified by adding the word "free," although no such expression is found in the original document and the teachings based on these altered words in the American public schools of to?day would startle and amaze the men who formulated the Declaration." (pp. xx?xxi). hb: though the term "free" doesn't appear in the opening lines of the Declaration of Independence, I doubt that Jefferson would have objected to the term, since he emphasized the importance of "liberty": "We hold these truths to be self?evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights; that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness." "The refusal of the native American to work with his hands when he can hire or import serfs to do manual labor for him is the prelude to his extinction and the immigrant laborers are now breeding out their masters and killing by filth and by crowding as effectively as by the sword. hb: ah, yes, the seemingly instinctual fear of pollution and contamination, which has shown up in innumberable societies, from that of the Northwest Pacific Yurok Indians to Hitler's Germany. Is this an antique preening instinct gone berserk in creatures capable of disguising primal impulses as philosophy? Thus the American sold his birthright in a continent to solve a labor problem. Instead of retaining political control and making citizenship an honorable and valued privilege, he intrusted the government of his country and the maintenance of his ideals to races who have never yet succeeded in governing themselves, let alone anyone else." (pp. 11?12)."Thus the view that the Negro slave was an unfortunate cousin of the white man, deeply tanned by the tropic sun and denied the blessings of Christianity and civilization, played no small part with the sentimentalists of the Civil War period and it has taken us fifty years to learn that speaking English, wearing good clothes and going to school and church does not transform a Negro into a white man." (p. 16)."What the Melting Pot actually does in practice can be seen in Mexico, where the absorption of the blood of the original Spanish conquerors by the native Indian population has produced the racial mixture which we call Mexican and which is now engaged in demonstrating its incapacity for self?government. The world has seen many such mixtures and the character of a mongrel race is only just beginning to be understood at its true value." (p. 17)."Whether we like to admit it or not, the result of the mixture of the two races, in the long run, gives us a race reverting to the more ancient, generalized, and lower type. The cross between a white man and an Indian is an Indian; the cross between a white man and a Negro is a Negro; the cross between a white man and a Hindu is a Hindu; and a cross between any of the three European races and a Jew is a Jew." (p. 18)."The same thing happened in our South before the Civil War. There the white men did not work in the fields or in the factory. The heavy work under the blazing sun was carried on by Negro slaves and the planter was spared the exposure to an unfavorable environment. Under these conditions he was able to retain much of his vigor. When slavery was abolished and the white man had to plough in his own fields or work in the factory deterioration began. The change in the type of men who are now sent by the Southern States to represent them in the Federal Government from their predecessors in ante?bellum times is partly due to these causes, but in greater degree it is to be attributed to the fact that a large portion of the best racial strains in the South were killed off during the Civil War. In addition the war shattered the aristocratic traditions which formerly secured the selection of the best men as rulers. The new democratic ideals, with universal suffrage in free operation among the whites, result in the choice of representatives who lack the distinction and ability of the leaders of the Old South." (pp. 42?43)."Under existing conditions the most practical and hopeful method of race improvement is through the elimination of the least desirable elements in the nation by depriving them of the power to contribute to future generations." (p. 53)."In mankind it would not be a matter of great difficulty to secure a general consensus of public opnion as to the least desirable, let us say, ten percent of the community." (p. 54). "It was not the swords in the hands of Columbus and his followers that decimated the American Indians, it was the germs that his men and their successors brought over, implanting the white man's maladies in the red man's world. Long before the arrival of the Puritans in New England, smallpox had flickered up and down the coast until the natives were but a broken remnant of their former numbers." (p. 55). hb: Jared Diamond (in _Guns, Germs, and Steel_) and William McNeil (in _Plagues and Peoples_Plagues and Peoples_ have indicated that this view has a great deal of merit. "As in all wars since Roman times the little dark man is the final winner. No one who saw one of our regiments march away on its way to the Spanish War could fail to be impressed with the size and blondness of the men in its ranks as contrasted with the complacent citizen, who from his safe stand on the gutter curb gave his applause to the fighting man and then stayed behind to perpetuate his own brunet type." (p. 74)."In most cases the blood of pioneers has been lost to their race. They did not take their women with them. They either died childless or left half?breeds behind them. The virile blood of the Spanish conquistadores, who are now little more than a memory in Central and South America, died out from these causes. This was also true in the early days of our Western frontiersmen, who individually were a far finer type than the settlers who followed them. In fact, it is said that practically every one of the Forty?Niners of California were of the Nordic type." (pp. 74?75)."Whenever the incentive to imitate the dominant race is removed the Negro or, for that matter, the Indian reverts shortly to his ancestral grade of culture. In other words, it is the individual and not the race that is affected by religion, education and example. Negroes have demonstrated throughout recorded time that they do not possess the potentiality of progress or iniative from within. Progress from self?impulse must not be confounded with mimickry or with progress imposed from without by social pressure or by the slaver's lash." (p. 77)."[In South Africa, the English and the Dutch] . . must stand together if they are to maintain any part of Africa as a white man's country, because they are confronted with the menace of an enormous Bantu population which will drive out the whites unless the problem is faced. The only possible solution is to establish large colonies for the Negroes and to allow them outside of them as laborours and not as settlers. There must be ultimately a black South Africa and a white South Africa side by side or else a pure black Africa from the Cape to the cataracts of the Nile." (p. 80). hb: Black African racism against whites, disguised as a just anger against a former oppressor, is turning these words into reality in such countries as Kenya and Zimbabwe and soon, if things continue on their current course, in South Africa as well. Note that black racism is also strong against others of color, such as the Indieans who as long ago as 1894, when Gandhi spent a year practicing law in South Africa, were maltreated by both the English and the country's blacks. "The native American has always found and finds now in the black men willing followers who ask only to obey and to further the ideals and wishes of the master race, without trying to inject into the body politic their own views, whether racial, religious, or social. Negroes are never socialists or labor unionists and as long as the dominant imposes its will on the servient race and as long as they remain in the same relation to the whites as in the past, the Negroes will be a valuable element in the community but once raised to social equality, their influence will be destructive to themselves and to the whites. If the purity of the two races is to be maintained they cannot continue to live side by side and this is a problem from which there can be no escape." (pp. 87?88). hb: another note on black racism against others in the United States. Louis Farrakhan and his numerous followers have often advocated racial separation and the establishment of a separate black country on this continent. In other words, racism is so universal that underdogs who become overdogs treat those below them with no more mercy than that which was meted out to them. "The Civil War, however, put a severe, perhaps fatal, check to the development and expansion of this particular type by destroying great numbers of the best breeding stock on both sides and by breaking up the home ties of many more. If the war had not occurred these same men with their descendents would have populated the Western States instead of the racial nondescripts who are now flocking there." (p. 88)."The transportation lines advertised America as a land flowing with milk and honey and the European governments took the opportunity to unload upon careless , wealthy and hospitable America the sweepings of their jails and asylums. hb: which is exactly how the great white race found itself on America's shores in places like the Maryland colony and even more notably how that wonderful race of blond and blue?eyed ubermensch found themselves in the penal colony called Australia. The result was that the new immigration, while it still included many strong elements from the north of Europe, contained a large and increasing number of the weak, the broken, and the mentally crippled of all races drawn from the lowest stratum of the Mediterranean basin and the Balkans, together with the hordes of the wretched, submerged populations of the Polish Ghettos. Our jails, insane asylums, and almshouses are filled with this human flotsam and the whole tone of American life, social, moral and political has been lowered and vulgarized by them." (pp. 89?90)."The native Americans are splendid raw material, but have as yet only an imperfectly developed national consciousness. They lack the instinct of self?preservation in a racial sense. Unless such an instinct develops, their race will perish, as do all organisms that disregard this primary law of nature. Nature had granted to the American of a century ago the greatest opportunity in recorded history to produce in the isolation of a continent a powerfully and racially homogenous people and had provided for the experiment a pure race of one of the most gifted and vigorous stocks on earth, a stock free from the diseases, physical and moral, which have again and again sapped the vigor of the older lands. Our grandfathers threw away this opportunity in the blissful ignorance of national childhood and inexperience." (p. 90)."As to what the future mixture will be it is evident that in large sections of the country the native American will entirely disappear. He will not intermarry with inferior races and he cannot compete in the sweat shop and in the street trench with the newcomers. Large cities from the days of Rome, Alexandria, and Byzantium have always been gathering points of diverse races , but New York is becoming a cloaca gentium which will produce many amazing racial hybrids and some ethnic horrors that will be beyond the powers of future anthropoligsts to unravel." (p. 92)."A composite picture of this Nordic race and remarkable examples of its best contemporary types can be found in the English illustrated weeklies, which are publishing during this great war the lists and portraits of their officers who have fallen in battle. No nation, not even England although richly endowed with a Nordic gentry, can stand the loss of so much good blood. Here is the evidence, if such be needed, of the actual Passing of the Great Race." (p. 168)."The Nordics are, all over the world, a race of soldiers, sailors, adventurers and explorers, but above all, of rulers, organizers, and aristocrats in sharp contrast to the essentially peasant and democratic character of the Alpines. The Nordic race is domineering, individualistic, self?reliant, and jealous of their personal freedom both in political and religious systems and as a result they are usually Protestants. Chivalry and knighthood and their still surviving but greatly impaired counterparts are peculiarly Nordic traits and feudalism, class distinctions and race pride among Europeans are mainly traceable for the most part to the north." (p. 228)."The social status of woman varies largely with race, but here religion plays a part. In the Roman Republic and in Ancient Germany women were held in high esteem. In the Nordic Countries of to?day, women's rights have received much more recognition than among the southern nations with their tradition of Latin culture." (p. 228)."In the field of art its superiority to both the other European races and in scientific research and discovery the Nordics far excel it. Before leaving this interesting subject of the correlation of spiritual and moral traits with physical characters we may note that these influences are so deeply rooted in everyday consciousness that the moder novelist or playwright does not fail to make his hero a tall, blond, honest and somewhat stupid youth and his villain a small, dark, and exceptionally intelligent man of warped moral character. So in the Celtic legends as in the Graeco?Roman and medieval romances, prince and princess are always fair, a fact rather indicating that the mass of the people were brunet at the time when the legends were taking shape. In fact, "fair" is a synonym for beauty. Most ancient tapestries show a blond earl on horseback and a dark haired churl holding the bridle." (p. 229)."The gods of Olympus were almost all described as blond, and it would be difficult to imagine a Greek artist painting a brunette Venus. In church pictures all angels are blond, while the denizens of the lower regions revel in deep brunetness. "Non angli sed angeli," remarked Pope Gregory when he first saw Saxon children exposed for sale in the Roman slave?mart. In depicting the crucifixion no artist hesitates to make the two thieves brunet in contrast to the blond Saviour. This is something more than a convention, as such quasi?authentic traditions as we have of our Lord suggest his Nordic, possibly Greek, physical and moral attributes. These and similar traditions clearly point to the relations of the one race to the other, in classical, medieval and modern times. How far they may be modified by democratic institutions remains to be seen." (p. 230)."The wars of the past two thousand years in Europe have been almost exclusively wars between the various nations of this race or b etween rulers of Nordic blood. From a race point of view the present European conflict is essentially a civil war and nearly all of the officers and a large proportion of the men on both sides are members of the same race. It is the same
old tragedy of muutual destruction between Nordics, just as the Nordic
nobility of Renaissance Italy seems to have been possessed with a blood
mania to murder one another. It is the modern edition of the old Beskerker
blood rage and is class suicide on a gigantic scale." (pp. 230?231)."
Subj: Re: Tournaments Date: 99-01-13 10:24:37 EST From: spiwiz To: HBloom I'm working now on the presentation to the European Commission's "Forward Progress Unit" in Brussels hb: you have me so jealous the mint jelly is oozing from my ears. on how to "stitch together" the 15 European nation/cultures by (1) displaying the vMEME stacks notion at the DNA hb: Help, DNA? Cultures we both agree, change with life circumstance. the propensities for change are in their DNA and have bee there, some of them, since 3.5 billion years ago. (Though because of new work on cell structure, plasmids and such, this picutre may chage.) But Memes--stacks of them in DNA --leap a big chasm. I am confused. db: core of each culture; and (2) ways to "mesh" then through a series of steps and stages. Also, I just received another contact from No. 10 Downing. hb: INCRECBIBLE I'll meet tomorrow evening with George W. Bush HB: excellent, though with Dole in the race (Elizabeth, things are getting rougher, and she is a nut crushher--what this country may want). As for Hillary, Elizabeth Dole can't beat her now unless a bunch of wild card crawl, as dd Elisabeth, out of the deck.. However Elisabeth may have to threaten to give the the republican party a spanking to win the brass ring. A drubbing from from Hilary is meaningless ,and one of from George will be hard to make credible. His niceness, his asset, may be a deficit in this case. db: so maybe windows are opening. As you well know, Howard, this is a tough go since I have to operate without portfolio other than my South African creditions and my big mouth. Don--You've done spectacularly. But it certainly helps to review your work and ideas since they form the foundation for much of what I'm doing. I still don't know how to give folks a passport to SpiralSpace to escape the tyranny of Flatland. :) teach them the basis v-structures--without jargon of any kind--with extreme simplicty. Then see if you can devise games in which they are forced to develope wiin strategies to defeat environmental catastrophe, meteor shower, a war of apocalyptic radicals willing to poison the earth, lungs, and soil with lethal bacteria, etc. The ultimate win win game would be one making peace with the apocalytpic radicals, since their world views present them with unbeatable reward for destroying this "plane of corruption." However how do we stop the many warriror cultures who have learned from more millions of years than we can count that might defines right? Howard Clearly, "tournaments" are critical factors, especially when they often wear different team colors...this year, "I'm British," next year, I might be "Scottish," then by 2005, I might wear the "Euroland" colors...Maybe "Earth" colors next? Its these "self crowds" that you describe. thanks, once again, for the "meshweavers" symbol. Don ----- Howard At 09:44 PM 1/12/99 EST, you wrote: >In a message dated 99-01-12 18:22:56 EST, you write: > > Some of your rich material in Lucifer has to do with > "tournaments," a topic rarely mentioned on the IPP > net. >> > >Don--integroup tournaments play a major role in the complex adaptive systems >theory of group evolution outlined in the new book, _Global Brain_ and in >Howard Bloom. "Beyond the Supercomputer: Social Groups as Self-invention >Machines." In Research in Biopolitics, vol. 6.: Socioliology and Biopolitics. >Greenwich, CT: JAI Press Inc., 1998. > >Just read your piece. It's incredibly insightful, offers good solutions, and >it very much deals with issues covered in the last five or six chapters of >Lucifer. Cheers--Howard > >
In a message dated 99?02?22 01:11:16 EST, Michael Gregory writes: << Howard, Mike?I'm an atheist who's read the Bible seven times. The god of the old testament is an insecure, squalling, adolescent bully who blisters, blasts, and abuses all mankind. Every day I climb Jacob's ladder and fight the little pisser. I'll battle him until either he grows up and becomes just or I toss him out of his seat and try my best to be the just god he doesn't know how to be. But I'll only succeed when a determined mass of men and women take over the job of becoming what god is not??just and compassionate, unwilling to allow cruelty. God is evolution. The two are the same. Sociobiology is like the old testament, it describes a god who creates through evil. As a man it is my job to be more powerful than god??and to chasten evolution until she, too, ceases her hellish abuse and finds ways to create which open bounty instead of pain. As a human, that is your job too. It is something we can accomplish by galvanizing as a multitude. Howard ------------------------------ Subj: interview questions??part 2 Date: 99?06?19 02:43:27 EDT From: fenris To: HBloom Dear Mr. Bloom,Thanks so much for getting back to me. Your answers to the first group of questions were very informative, and your understanding of Nietzsche seems quite good. Thank you for offering to continue where we left off. Here are four more questions, these are the ones I'm most curious about. I'm really anxious to read your responses to them:C.N: Mr. Bloom, in your book you speak of pecking orders, or dominance hierarchies existing on all levels of interaction, from barnyard chickens to the status of nations, so is it safe to say that you see the will to dominate, the Will to Power as being a force of nature and not a typically human flaw? HB: the will to power is the will to suck in every molecule around you and craft it in your own form. It's a cosmic and biological imperative which began with the greed of quanta to grab hold of each other and form neutrons and protons in the first 10(?32) of the universe and has not stopped since. Molecules called replicators do it. Genes do it, bacteria do it, lizards do it (the establish brutal dominance hierarchies), and so do we. Only we have the grandeur to spin dreams around it. But the will to power is so strong that if given their way, lowly bacteria would spawn more copies of themselves than there are atoms in this universe. And they'd do it in a few short months, swallowing all creation and stamping it out in their own image along the way. CN: (If your answer was yes) Do you see the pecking orderö drive as a more important factor in the evolution of species than mere individual ôsurvivalö?HB: Yes, but we humans call it honor and prestige. In World War I pilots of the early biplanes refused to wear parachutes. They felt it would make them look like coward and besmirch their honor. They saw themselves as heirs apparent to the knights of Arthur's court, men who would rather die with their status high above all others in the pecking order of chivalry than to live as cowards beneath the contempt of even those at the bottom of the social pyramid.CN: In the chapter The Secret Meaning Of ôFreedom,ö ôPeace,ö And ôJustice,ö you say: ôà.peace, freedom, and justice are deceptive concepts. Hidden beneath their surface are the instincts of the pecking orderà.Stripped of their moral disguises, the slogans of freedom, peace and justice are often weapons that those attempting to achieve hierarchical superiority use to stuff the rest of us into the lower ranks of the pecking order.ö Do you think the notion of ôequalityö could also be added to this list? Do you see the notion of ôequalityö being used as a mask for hierarchical ascendency, either in history or the present day? hb: Absolutely. Equality is the mask worn by those who champion the rights of masses well below them on the social scale. What egalitarians never admit to themselves or others is how much they glory in their superiority to those they want to "aid." Even more insidious, by raising the masses, they will raise themselves and take over the throne of ultimate power, just as Lenin did. Lenin was the son of a high class bureaucrat??the head of the educational system for a large part of Russia. He was raised on his father's estate by a German mother who was far more educated than even the Russian aristocracy. Lenin hardly ever met "the masses," for him they were an abstraction, people whom he would always be above no matter what. They were his tool for coming from below and toppling those above him, then grabbing absolute power in his fist. His egalitarian, proletarian paradise simply ensconced a new group of aristocrats??other sons of the upper middle class. What did Lenin create? A haven for the son of his father. A state in which absolute power was stolen from the hands of producers and creators??of entrepreneurs and capitalists who in the first thirteen years of this century had made Russia's one of the fastest growing economies on this earth. A state in which all was run by the smotherers of creativity??bureaucrats like Lenin's dad. With Lenin as the king above them all. It's quite a mountain climbing tool??the hoax of absolute equality. CN: You say in your
book, ôThe nature scientists uncover has crafted our viler impulses
into us: in fact, these impulses are a part of the process she uses
to createà..Nature does not abhor evil; she embraces it. She
uses it to buildà.Death, destruction, and fury do not disturb
the Mother of our world; they are merely parts of her plan.ö Do
you think we need to reevaluate our notions of ôgoodö and
ôevil,ö or is it time we transcended altogether such absolute
concepts?HB: Good is something we conceive, though much of the concept
is built into our genes. Good is genuinely aiding others and genuinely
cultivating the vast power of human passion, cultivating it in such
a way that it generates new luxuries and makes real ancient human fantasies,
fantasies like soaring to the top of the skies, roaring to the stars,
terraforming mars, being able to shift from where you are to where you
want to be in seconds, not in hours or days. Good is managing to create
without damaging others. Good is generating in yourself and others the
joy Aristotle talks about in his Nicomachaean Ethics??the joy of exercising
with exhilaration the unique powers each of us possess. (Aristotle called
these uniquely personal talents our "virtues.") This is not
the joy of relaxation but the joy of activation. Our role in evolution
is to make the dreams of an empowering, muscular, and thrilling peace
come true. It is giving to each of us the feminine side of peace as
well??the hugging, touching, haptic joy of intimate and committed love.
Who cares that these dreams come from the social impulses built into
our genes by fourteen billion years of evolution. They are ours and
with them it's our task to build the universe anew.
yes...... lissen, you little
lop eared rabbit. you and i know what it is to be deprived of the ability
to communicate and to be reduced from a human to an object because we
are ill. so we have a responsibility to take care of those whose plights
we understand...and only we, the wounded understand. i am keeping a
friend who is dying of cancer from feeling dehumanized. do the same
with your neighbor. you know that i've kept our entire conversation
about your dad's last day and how you ministered to him. it's in my
computer for a reason. there are only angels if we become angelic. you
did on your father's last day, and you brought an angel into being on
this earth, even if only for a day. it's angel time again. capiche?
A quick thought on the survival of empires. Contiguous land empires survive. Discontinuous sea empires do not. Two of the most successfull ancient empires are those of Egypt and China. The Egyptian Empire existed for nearly 5,000 years??200 times longer than the British Empire and the Imperium of the West. The Chinese Empire has been going strong for roughly 3,000 years, and has continued its expansion (via the conquest of Tibet) in this century. Two upstarts are also land empires, but have yet to show their lasting power??those of the United States and Russia, each of which engulfed entities on its periphery until it had stretched across a continent from sea to shining sea. The world imperialism has been used primarily to denote the Western Imperium, which was a mere blip in history. It began its rise in 1510 when Portugal took Goa from the Moslem king of Bijapur in India, reached it ascendance under the British Raj in roughly 1857, then disappeared in the mid 20th century. Its rule over many of its territories, like those in the middle east, lasted 40 years or less. Compared to land empires, the Western attempt at domination by sea was a mere mote in the eye of history. The Islamic Imperium is another strange example of the fragility of discontinuous empires. The empire of Allah has stretched from V.S. Naipul's Trinidadian Islamic home to Malaysia, holding its territories from sub?Saharan Africa to the fringes of Siberia in a cultural headlock since roughly 700 a.d. Yet seldom has the Emire of Islam shown political unity. Even two neighboring states filled with relatives??Bangla Desh and Pakistan??were turned to warring states by a small stretch of geographic separation??a deadly disconuity. Meanwhile, we continue to fixate on the imperial aspirations of those with trans?ocieanic imperial designs, Political Islam is the only body I know to hanker for such a conquest these days. Our real problem may come from the imperial ambitions of a contiguous land state like China reaching out to swallow more of its neighbors' territory. India is aware of this. Chinese land?hunger is the main reason New Delhi continues to develop its nuclear weaponry. It is also the reason China continues to build a fleet with which it can dominate the surrounding islands of South China Sea. (Those islands include Taiwan, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Malaysia, all of which are gradually being drawn into the Chinese sphere of influence??as are such Indo?Chinese countries as Cambodia.) Howard
John??The originality of many of your strategic ideas is wonderful. But the Serbian War presents some very tricky issues, Issues in which elements of paleopsychology become involved??at least if one accepts the idea that groups have a collective mind organized according to differing worldviews, narratives, sets of rules, etc, and that those worldviews are frequently structured around two poles??the negative, associated with *them*??bad guys, enemies, strangers, and other outsiders; and the positive, associated with *us*??our culture heroes, those who sacrifice on behalf of our group, those who defend our collectivity, establish our shared values, etc. Here are a few of the difficulties which emerge: In a message dated 99?04?14 01:29:53 EDT, skoyles writes: <<Hiram Caton suggests it is against international law for opponent countries to assassinate heads states. But is it for those countries that are war? I thought a different set of rules applied ?? those of the Geneva convention. In this specific case, there is a ethical justification: Milosevic is wanted for war crimes.>> hb: one culture's justice is another's war crime. The Serbs are aware of crimes against their people which we haven't bothered to cover in our press. We've used the one?sidedness of our media to galvanize our people morally. Milosevic has used the one?sidedness of his media to give the impression that any violence perpetrated by Serbs is justified by acts against Serbs??that it is a necessary form of self?defense. And I'd suspect that he's made the rapes, mass?killings of civilians, and expulsion of over a million people as invisible to his fellow Serbs as the various expulsions and killings of hundreds of thousands of Serbs over the last few years have been to us. We can say that in thus duping his people, Milosevic is behaving in a Hitlerian manner. I certainly feel that way. But not everyone agrees with us. Chinese newspapers carry cover?photos of Bill Clinton with a Hitler mustache. Hence, to China's billion inhabitants, Clinton and his "henchman," Tony Blair, are the war criminals. It isn't hard to imagine what would happen if control of the International War Crimes Tribunal shifted at some point in the next decades to the Chinese. Or to the states of the Islamic world, many of whose members believe that simply by not obeying the Koran our leaders are Great Satans??in other words, perpetrators of crimes against humanity. By the reasoning of the International War Crimes Tribunal, invasion of England and of the United States by China's million?man army and any allies it could drum up would be thoroughly justifiable. Among China's allies, by the way, are such nations as Iran, which China is apparently arming with nuclear missiles, and Russia, which also views Clinton and Blair as war criminals, has a strategic alliance with China and is likely to join in righting the wrongs we are currently inflicting on Belgrade. Following the reasoning of the War Tribunal state of mind, should these amass sufficient power, they would be justified in assassinating our political leaders, snatching our generals and journalists and putting them in the docks, bombing our cities until we gave in to the victor's values, followed their dictates, and, if the political Islamists had their way, altered our codes of law to Shari'ah. If this sounds outlandish, remember that upstarts have ended up on top and superpowers on the bottom all through recorded history. One decade the Babylonians were ruling the world, dominating an enormous swathe of the Middle East, another they were trodden underfoot, conquered by a group no one had ever heard of??the Assyrians (858-627 b.c). Then came another gang of bandits from the mountains??the Persians, and once again upended the pecking order of nations, putting the old superpowers in a state of subjugation. Then the Macedonian Greeks??ever?so?briefly. Next another bunch of backwater barbarians, the Romans, followed by an unheard?of bunch of desert nomads, the Moslems. And so it has gone all through history. The days when England and the United States were considered outlandish outsiders who could never mount a serious threat are only a few centuries behind us. So who will be on top of the international hierarchy in the days ahead? No one really knows. Establish the precedent
of an International War Crimes Tribunal which can invade those states
whose actions offend the morals of whatever group manages to seize the
Tribunal's bench, and you open a Pandora's box, one which has had a
very loose lock for many a millennium. Howard ------------------------------ In a message dated 99?10?26 09:26:27 EDT, Geoffrey Megargee writes: Subj: Howard ?? belated response Date: 99?10?26 09:26:27 EDT From: megargeegTo: HBloom Hello again! Sorry for the long delay; I do enjoy keeping up a correspondence, even if I'm not always good at it...Looks as though the work situation here might just have improved somewhat. I've been assigned to do an historical study of U.S. strategic policy formulation; that will give me the chance to contribute to the group's work while actually using my specialty! What a novel idea. hb: excellent. the big trick, I'd imagine, will be to draw lessons for the future from the past. We are about to undergo some very tricky times. The sort of Islamic militancy which got a firm grip on a rifle butt in Afghanistan and is now mounting a campaign to carve out another Islamic fundamentalist state in Dagistan, Khyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Usbekistan (not to mention in the Philippines) will continue to grow, financed by Saudi dollars in some cases and Iranian in others. The new technique used in Moscow a few months ago??devastating a city via massed terrorist bombings??could literally disable nation states and render their armies and defense establishments powerless. How can one make a massed tank attack on bombers who come from the crowd for an instant, then disappear into it again before anyone is aware of the explosion about to hit? What good is a stealth bomber against these urban guerrillas? We need a more person?to?person approach to defense. But how do we get it without compromising our civil liberties? Then there's the new cold war about to erupt with China as it puts its second?strike nuclear capability to work and grabs for Taiwan, for disputed islands in the South China Sea, and possibly for territory close to India. We are already kow?towing to the Chinese shamefully. What will we be willing to close our eyes to on their behalf in another ten years when they've gone from surpassing Japan as the world's second?largest economy to challenging us for the number one position? How badly will our burgeoning knowledge business suffer from the fact that folks like Bill Gates and Steve Case are using monopoly positions to sell inferior product??thus opening us to lose our dominance of the software business ten years from now in the same way we lost the dominance of the auto industry during the 1970s and 1980s? How do you get people constantly planning for the last war to plan instead for the surprises of the next one?[from my last message] I'm holding out some hope for Phase 2, in which we'll try to define U.S. interests and strategies, but it's a very different animal from Phase 1, so I'm not sure what to expect. We shall see.[hb: this is a very tricky issue. the chief goal is to prevent the U.S. from: 1) falling into third world status in the international hierarchy of the next millenium; 2) maintaining the position of the United States as the defining superpower; 3) identifying the sources of economic, creative, and military strength necessary to make that a reality; 4) identify the likely changes in circumstance which will obsolete niches we've counted on and open others into which we'll enter; 5) create ways to maintain internal security and cohesion in the face of the new forms of warfare and ethnic emnity which have been showing up in the Balkans, East Timor, and when it comes the new war, in the bombings which have beleagured Moscow.] hb: whoops, looks like I'm playing a variation on my previous theme. I think you've summed up the challenge pretty well! At the moment we seem to be tangled up in a lot of theoretical arguments. What is an interest versus an objective? hb: yoiks. when will people learn that while bullets are made of lead and kill, while semantic quibbles are over mere gulps of air? What is strategy in a non?military sense? Should we base our strategies on interests or values? hb: the two go hand in hand. Back in the 1960s, when I was, along with much of my generation, against the Viet Nam War, I was struck by a particularly cogent flier making the rounds among us students. It outlined the natural resources??especially oil and metals??available in Southeast Asia. Its aim was umnask the fact that those hideous and monstrous beasts known as American corporations were the secret manipulators of our war effort. Instead, the pamphlet revealed the blindness of the its writers, every one of whom wanted an automobile and a typewriter??the fruits of the raw materials they were discussing. The enemy wasn't corporate America, it was consumer America??of which the pamphleteers were a part. Consumer America, contrary to the bad press given it by heavy?duty consumers who teach on college campuses, is a great place. Cellular phones and personal computers have given Americans amazing freedoms and have allowed them to unleash their creativity for the betterment of mankind in whole new ways. The problem with the pamphleteers was their espousal of one set of values in their writings, speeches, and political harangues and the very opposite in their choice of cars, their delight in jetting from one peace convention to another, their insistence (in Abby Hoffman's case) on hanging around with multimillionaires like Mick Jagger and snobbishly holding out for, as Hoffman put it in a conversation on which I was ease dropping, "only the finest organic cocaine, man. Dig what I'm saying?" So one trick is to demonstrate to Americans of the right and left the extent to which the things they value so highly that they'll run up huge credit card debt to get are dependent on the following elements: !) the continuance of a Pax Americanus in the face of forces which have turned some of the most sophisticated cities in the world (Belgrade, Serajavo) into war zones; 2) the continued growth of international trade; 3) and the forthright pursuit of those interests which provide the rare metals available only from obscure regions of the globe which we use in the goods which have given even impoverished Americans access to delights even a Pharoah could not have commanded 3,000 years ago??and which would have been equally unavailable to a king as recently as a century ago. Is it possible to have one overarching strategic concept, like "containment"? I'll be interested to see how the whole thing turns out; the debates are going on well above my head, for the most part. hb: how do you "contain" men and women in civilian clothes who carry weapons of mass destruction or, even worse, carry the knowledge to manufacture them from readily available materials once the seemingly harmless travelers reach their destination? [from my last message] Meanwhile I've been filling much of my spare time with historical projects ?? history is the field in which I've received my training. I have a book coming out next April and several shorter pieces in various stages of progress. It's good to keep my hand in![hb: what's the book? History is a very important part of my work as well, so it might be something that fits into my reading plan.]It's called _Inside Hitler's High Command_; it's an organizational study, for the most part. The basic question is: how did the high command really work? hb: Holy smokes, Geoff, this is an extraordinarily interesting topic. How did a group of humans with differing views and motivations manage to work together in a manner whose coordination, at times, seemed almost superhuman? And how did a rather ugly looking little man who practiced his public speeches in a mirror and had private fits of screaming anxiety when he walked offstage or finished commanding a meeting with nerves seemingly made of steel manage to moblize so many extremely intelligent humans? How did studies of things like the use of trains by the Barnum and Bailey Circus help the Germans invent the next war instead of the preparing for previous one? I first picked up the topic for my Masters thesis; I was amazed that no one had done it ?? until I found out what was involved! That was ten years ago. Anyway, the main theme of the book is that, although Hitler remains the central figure, his military advisers were not nearly the geniuses that many people believe them to have been: the catastrophe that overtook them was largely a result of their own efforts. hb: amazing. I would very much like to be privy to your discoveries as you proceed. I'd certainly welcome
your comments; I did my best to write it with the non?specialist in
mind.hb: great. Can I have a copy? Shamelessly yours??Howard
In a message dated 99?04?16 11:45:31 EDT, dberreby writes: <<Well, let's suppose a NATO pilot had an impulse to start shooting civilians for fun. What constrains him? Principle, you could say. But I think principles are pretty shaky ground for human conduct. We have a way of forgetting them or reinterpreting them. I think what really constrains him is the thought of his comrades viewing him with disgust, and his superiors clapping him in irons. Why would they view him with disgust and clap him in irons? Because his bad conduct would be a reflection on them. Collective responsibility is the reason they feel that way. Without a sense of it, they would just say, ``Hey, that's Sam, he's just like that. I hear his parents were circus people. Nothing to do with me, thank God.'' Our responsibility to other people comes from a shared responsiblity for the status/value/survival of the groups we share with them. >> In other words, an individual's behavior is heavily influenced by the culture or subculture within which he lives. It's the culture which dictates the shared values of its members. These, in turn, determine who will be praised and who will be condemned. There's a constant battle between subcultures to take over the command of a larger culture??liberals vs. conservatives vs. militant Christian militia types vs. gay rights activists and environmentalists, etc, in the U.S. for example. For the last ten years, Slobodan Milosovic and the subculture he represents have been able to commandeer the pilot's seat of the larger Serbian culture. This form of dominance has given Milosevic and his cronies access to the larger culture's perceptual apparatus??it's media??and has allowed the Slobodan?bunch to alter that for which a Serb soldier will be praised or condemned by his peers. Other subcultures have apparently lurked in the wings??for example groups of pro?democracy student activists. Whether they are any less desirous of cleansing their slice of the former Yugoslavia of non?Serb ethnic groups is something I don't know. Long before the current conflict, an American congressman went to talk with Serbian college students, assuming they would agree with him that atrocities had been perpetrated in Bosnia, only to discover that they found his position loathsome and were as gung?ho for ethnic cleansing as their president (Milosevic). Nonetheless, a dominant subculture is able to commandeer the eyes and ears of a society. To change its mind, a society changes its leaders; it moves one subculture out of power and another in. Our bombing has galvanized Serb support for keeping Slobodan and his group firmly in their seats. I wonder what other subcultural groups remains strong in Serbian society, whether they are any more pluralistic and kindly toward Albanians than the Milosevic bunch, and what could be done to help them take over the cockpit of Serbian society. The only instances I've been able to think of in which a modern foreign country managed to oust a foreign land's dominant subculture and put another in place all boil down to wars: in the Viet Nam war, a leader trained by Stalin (Ho Chi Minh) built a subcultural following, and in the Viet Nam war took over a southern half of the country dominated by a radically different subculture; similar events took place in Laos and Cambodia; in the Second World War we brought new subcultures into the leadership positions in Japan and Germany, while Russia brought formerly fringe subcultures to the pilot seat in North Korea and Eastern Europe. Other instances in which outsiders managed to influence a switch in dominant subcultures boil down to civil war. These were the revolutions fomented in places like South America, Africa, and Indonesia by either right?wing military types or by Communist guerilla armies. Both civil war and
world war are odious means of influencing subcultural switches. Hopefully
the alleged media colonialism of the West, which aided in the Velvet
Revolutions that broke the Soviet hold on Eastern Europe, will prove
more effective in the future. At the moment they are having no influence
on the Serbian situation, which seems to have been taken over on our
side by the tool we were attempting to use for cultural change??the
military. Howard
The tools being developed today are pattern spotters. Those who break the pattern win wars. ep: 2. Is there a cost to society with technology such as the one proposed with Terrorism Information Awareness? Is it worth it? hb: the cost can be high if this technology is placed in the hands of a bureaucracy that fails to see we are defending a way of life based on freedom of speech, freedom of thought, and a reasonable degree of privacy. Bureaucracies tend to become killers. Bureaucrats tend to lose sight of the human suffering they cause. When humans turn to mere numbers, the sense that others are just like us disappears. Empathy goes. Empathy is ironically what one needs to think like the enemy. And you have to think like him to anticipate him. er: 3. What is the best way for society to prevent the misuse of TIA technology? Should citizens be concerned with TIA and any possible misuse? hb: Congress and the press are doing a good job of watchdogging right now. Not an entirely accurate job. And that's part of the problem. Will the press still be there making headlines when the tools developed under TIA are put into the hands of a Poindexter? Truthout and People for the American Way will keep their eyes peeled. The press is our major watchdog and the press has enormous flaws. It does not live up to its public responsibility. But that's a subject for another time. er: 4. What technological advances can the research in TIA really bring us? Is that sort of technology something that the United States really needs? hb: New ways of understanding information and new ways of accessing information change our human capacities. They upgrade us as individuals. Imagine what life would be like if you could walk down the street wondering who erected the building you're looking at and have the data as instantly as the phone calls you receive from the cellphone vibrating in your pocket. Imagine if something disturbing happened--a fight with your wife, for example-- and, instead of waiting until you could call a friend, you could discuss the issue with an electro-organism composed of your personal intelligent agents, agents with pattern learning skills that helped you find your way through your confusion. Imagine if it could tell you a few stories of others folks grabbed from a variety of magazines and tv shows that helped you see the logic of a new approach to your emotional bind. That is one of the distant potentials of TIA. I appreciate your time and help! BTW, near the end of my school, I sat down for lunch and happened to see you on CSPAN. You mentioned some misgivings about the New York Times and today's academia. Do you have any writings/articles where you talk about this? hb: Strange--I haven't done any CSpan interviews. Either that was Harold Bloom or some of the TV footage I've done is being circulated by the folks who shot it. But, yes, I have a large file of notes on these topics--in the case of the press, I have enough to literally fill a book. (The title is Life In the Fame Factory: Two Thousand Years of Media Madness or how Alexander got to be Great and other secrets from the history of spin-doctoring.) I'm curious about your viewpoint on the matter. In a message dated 3/22/2003 8:37:50 PM Eastern Standard Time, MPDIVO writes: Sir, I read and enjoyed your article in WIRED magazine, interested enough to read up on your website and to read several reviews of your books. hb: thanks. I am a student at the Public Affairs Officer Qualification Course at the Defense Information School at Fort Meade, Maryland. hb: this sounds utterly fascinating. PR is something our government does very, very poorly (with the exception of the new practice of "embedding" journalists in military units--a brilliant twist on the old press-junket trick). In my opinion, the embedding process went very well. I should add though that it wasn't some stroke of genius by some general as he woke up one day, but instead a long process of creating a relationship between the military and the media that started after the Vietnam war. Lots of studies, think tank papers, and committee research. We have had successes and failures and have built from the lessons learned with the ultimate goal of creating trust with the media and the American public. It was still hard for some of the military to take but overall it went very well. What little conflict that arised was due to the different natures of the military and the media. The military has not only the goal of completing it's military mission but of protecting it's members and their families. So when certain media outlets wanted to show a picture of a soldier in his last hours of his life (wounded), the military's concern was for the soldiers wife and family. The media had a responsibility to accurately show what the cost of war are. Overall, the system worked great. It's most important function was to counter false information being dished out by the Minister of Information for Iraq. While the minister of information for Iraq was stating that American troops were not in Baghdad, independant news coverage was showing video live of American troops driving through the streets of Baghdad. mp: I am researching topics for both writing and speech assignments. After reading your article I became interested in the Total Information Awareness research debate. I'm considering basing several of my classroom projects on TIA. Before I start though, I need to ensure that I have enough sources to answer questions. The instructor requires that I have three before I am allowed to proceed with the project. Could you answer a few questions via email, regarding your views on TLA research? hb: yes, if I can
find the time. I'm often 300 emails behind. In exchange you have to
tell me more about your course and why it interests you. I've been in
the Navy for 12 years. Eight years as a Navy Photographer and three
years as a Surface Warfare Officer (Those that drive and fight ships).
I applied for and was accepted for a lateral transfer (Navy lingo for
changing career fields) to Public Affairs Officer. I left the USS CONSTELLATION
where I was the assistant Weapons Officer and was transferred to the
Defense Information School where I took a two month course in Public
Affairs. 3/4 of the course was essentially journalism while 1/4 was
in dealing with the media (arranging press conferences, giving interviews,
etc). I'm now back in San Diego at the Navy Public Affairs Center. We
write and distribute stories of sailors and market it to the sailors
hometowns. I'm interested in Public Affairs for a number of reasons.
First and foremost, it deals with my former rating (Photographers mate).
I enjoy the PA field. I have 8 more years and then I can retire. Second,
I enjoy writing but I've always struggled with grammar and style. The
more practice I get the better. Getting paid to write is a great way
to pursue that goal. Finally, without sounding too altruistic: My father
was a career Navy man and I have made it a part of my life as well.
I have a strong bond with the Navy and it's culture which is hundreds
of years old. Having a chance to share my love of the Navy with the
public and help them understand what the average 18 year old sailor
does out at sea is great way to earn a living. Once again, thanks for
your time! Sincerely, Lt. Erik Reynolds, USN _____
Is there a connection between the April 20th killing of twelve students at Colorado's Columbine High School and the two recent British bombings in Brixton (April 17) and in London's largely Bangladeshi Brick Lane (April 24th)? You betcha. It's the growing Adolph Hitler Cult among young people in Germany, England, America, Australia, and numerous points between. Combat 18 takes credit for the two British bombings. The group takes its name from Hitler's initials??A is the first letter in the alphabet, hence the 1 in eighteen, H is the alphabet's 8th letter. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the perpetrators of the Columbine High School "massacre," as the Denver Post calls it, executed their act of terrorism on the 118th anniversary of Hitler's birthday. Both Klebold and Harris were in touch with fellow Hitler worshippers worldwide via the internet, according to a diary in which one of the two teens recorded the meticulous, year?long preparations for the attack. From a paleopsychological point of view, the Hitler revival was an inevitability. One generation's monster is the next generation's hero. It happened with Hannibal, who inspired dread in the hearts of Romans from 219 to 202 B.C., and who was later admired for his audacity and bravery. It happened again with Napoleon??whose very name inspired terror during the period from 1792 to 1815. British parents disciplining their children told toddlers "Napoleon's going to get you," a nightmare-raising phrase which triggered fears it's hard for us to imagine today. Within a generation or two after the French conqueror's death, however, he was idolized as a liberator and a creator of European modernity. Today, the same reversal is occurring with the figure whom most adults of the middle and late 20th century have regarded as evil incarnate. The transformation of demon to saint is built in our biology. Among numerous mammals, the males of a new generation assert their dominance and take command by toppling the elders who held sway during their years under the control of parents and authorities. Langur monkeys and other human cousins who engage in this practice are violent in their confrontations with the older generation. As they grow strong and their seniors grow weak, the triumph of the young becomes necessity. We bear the instincts of our evolutionary relatives in the subcortical areas of our brain. But we augment ancient impulses with the use of words and imagery. Men who make a major mark??especially through violent conflict??provide the symbol-tools we humans use to pry our parents' generation from the seats of power. From a moral and practical point of view, the London bombings and the Columbine killings are dire indications of things to come. Many of those who are now Hitler?worshipping teens will rise to leadership during the first five decades of the 21st century. Their hate?filled, blood?lusting, racist ideals are likely to have a powerful effect on political institutions and individual destinies up to the year 2050. Fortunately, my research indicates that each society manages to nourish roughly four key youth subcultures at a time. Those groups which gravitate toward the fringes of the ultra-left are usually as violent??and as anti?semitic??as those which gravitate toward the ultra-right. Hope lies with the subcultures of the center. The task of adults is to get to know them better, to nurture them, and to educate them in the ways of countering the subcultures of hatred and violence. If we do this successfully, the youths of the middle paths have the ability to keep the coming century safe and sane. If we don't, and those of the middle remain as naive as Neville Chamberlain??the British Prime Minister who felt he could pacify Hitler with words and land??we are likely to leave the century of blood and iron only to enter one of blood and microchipped silicon. Howard P.S. The following article may be of some interest. Australia/Israel Review That Jew Howard By Matthew Collins Review 22.4 Claiming to be the Australian wing of the British Nazi terror organisation Combat 18 (the first and eighth letters of the alphabet being AH ? Adolf Hitler), the ANSM recently sent copies of its publication to anti?fascists in London, claiming it is preparing for a race war. Unlike Australia's premier Nazi outfit, National Action, the ANSM is virtually unheard of outside its tiny backroom operation in Annerley, Queensland, which is perhaps why it favors criminal propaganda stunts and activities. Many of these are highlighted in the National Socialist Voice. Numerous newspaper clippings on the group's Queensland activities are reproduced: racist leaflets ? juvenile, illiterate, inflammatory and probably unlawful; graffiti attacks (not owned up to, but readily publicised); and threats against MPs and factional rivals. Poorly produced, and in places handwritten, issue 9 of the National Socialist Voice (November/December 96), claims that the year 2000 will see a confrontation between "National Socialist good and those of Jewish evil ..." Perhaps it will be an event at the Sydney Olympics. This coming "race war", according to the Voice, will only be possible once the ANSM has eradicated all other National Socialist organisations. Claiming no opposition to the eradication of groups like the bizarre racist Church of the Creator, 'Voice' also plugs the National Socialist Alliance (NSA), set up by Britain's C18/Blood and Honour (a Nazi music promoter), which also have a habit of attacking and maiming other gangs of violent Nazis. There is little evidence to show that ANSM is even remotely connected to the NSA, except in its fertile imagination. C18 & NSA material is easily available on the internet, and British and American cranks are renowned for sending their materials free of charge to just about any corner of the world that will accept it, possibly even to Annerley. Enquirers to the ANSM post box have received large quantities of literature and stickers from overseas Nazi groups (including posters from the notorious British National Party). Whether C18's bosses have sanctioned an Annerley unit is unknown. It is, however, likely that there has been some contact between the two groups, given at least one document seen by The Review is an internal defence of Combat 18 , written by notorious British nazi and occultist Dave "The Cat Strangler" Myatt. It would be interesting to know whether the ANSM has also received through the mail, the bomb?making diagrams and instructions that C18 has been publishing and which were probably the model for the recent bombs sent to the UK by their Danish and Swedish associates. European Nazis are now infamous for this use of terror tactics, though generally directed at each other. Should the Australian Nazi band Fortress, currently in the UK touring with other bonehead bands, join up with C18's American?backed Nazi competitor Resistance, would the ANSM be willing, or capable of taking part in a Nazi factional split going on in Europe and that has already cost one life? Allying with C18 or its political wing NSA has been the cause of much infighting in Britain, Europe and America. If there are enough dangerous lunatics in Australia, then the threats to other nazi organisations, such as National Action (which is itself already in the throes of a violent internal war) could soon become reality. "Because the ANSM has embarked on a war of purification, we have widened our attack to include all those organisations in Australia who profess to be National Socialist but refuse to work in unity for the cause that is white power. The ANSM is flexing it's (sic) muscle and those who oppose us can look forward to more than just their smiling face upon the back of the NSVOA. We will have white unity in this country for the coming race war of the year 2000, so all those organisations out there better choose their sides now, because if you are not for us then you are against us and we will show you no mercy. Join or Die. Heil Hitler." Politically, the Voice has attempted to gain influence within the gun lobby, with presumably little effect. A circular that ANSM claims it sent to all gun shop owners in southern Queensland says that gun restrictions are little more than a plot by ZOG, the Zionist Occupational Government, to destroy the white race, backed by banks and "Multinational corporations with their big money and Jewish financers (sic) to divide the people of our once great land." The circular then claims that Jewish Australians are trying to weaken Australia so that Indonesian soldiers will face little more resistance than Australia's 3100 combat soldiers. This sad diatribe ends: "Howard is a Jew and he hates you!" Much of the rest of the ANSM's publications follow the same illiterate confused style. Reprints warn decent white Christian folk about Jewish ritual murder; with odd extracts from the work of embittered US anti?Semite Elizabeth Dilling exposing the hideous Japanese?Jewish conspiracy, and ads for "fellow organisations: Australian Christian Separatists of Gymea, NSW, the previously mentioned violent National Socialist Alliance of London, and, not surprisingly, the League of Rights. "Though the League and the ANSM are in no way connected, they do, however, possess considerable resources and the ANSM urges all members to take advantage of this." It is possible that the ANSM has no more than a dozen members. But such groups are not best understood by reference to their size. The newspaper clippings reproduced in the Voice indicate a level of harassment and intimidation of the Brisbane Jewish community that requires a response. In August 1993, an ANSM member, Billy Smith, was sentenced to 200 hours of community service and full payment for repairs after he vandalised the Brisbane synagogue. Smith was only one of three perpetrators, but he refused to name the other individuals involved. The real concern about organisations like the ANSM is not their potential for influencing mainstream public opinion, but for engaging in criminal activities under the guise of political expression. Once that line has been crossed, as it has been with the ANSM, then one is dealing with a qualitatively different type of organisation than, say, the League of Rights. The National Socialist Voice of Australia carries a disclaimer that the articles within cannot be construed as representative of ANSM. Nor, it says, does it advocate any violent activities. Are then, the preparations for race war in the year 2000 all lies? What does the baseball?bat bearing bonehead "Dave" signify? (see cartoon, right.) Why does it warn of a "final solution"? Why does it encourage readers to flout the gun laws, which it describes as "morally bankrupt", "dedicated to ensuring the extinction of our white race", and "obscene"? The Australian National Socialist Movement is dangerous and it is subversive. Though it will not be marching into Sydney in 2000 to start any 'race war', it is in contact with far more dangerous (and equally cowardly) organisations around the world. The constant theme of paranoia has taken many other pathetic operations into more dangerous waters. While the Voice may be poorly produced and semi?literate, it will be interesting to see whether the British nazi thugs currently in hiding in the UK turn up in a back bedroom in Annerley, Queensland. ------------------------------ > From what I've read, infra?human primate societies also feature > adolescent male?male bands characterized by a great deal of camaraderie, > but also internally competitive and hierarchical. I wonder if lower > ranking members go berserk occassionally and begin throwing coconuts. >> John then posits: They might throw coconuts, if allowed. Of course, they might not be allowed, >> There is a case which resembles the Colorado shooting in the primate literature. It's that of Mike the puny, subordinate chimp who didn't stand a chance of mounting to his group's top position in a million years??until he invented a new technology. Jane Goodall tells us that her Gombe camp used a great deal of kerosene, which came in large, squarish tin cans. When the cans were empty, the chimp?watchers left them outdoors to do whatever tin cans do when abandoned to the elements. The standard chimpanzee way of mounting to the group's top involved, among other things, a great many noisy displays. The noisemakers of choice were tree?sized branches ripped from the trunks which had held them. The candidate for alpha position would demonstrate his strength by running through the troop dragging the branch and looking as fearsome as possible. Mike, somewhat of an outcast, was playing with the empty kerosene cans while his contemporaries were destroying trees and making a ruckus. Like the occasional lucky or gifted loner, Mike found that if you kicked a can over and rolled it, it made a din which dwarfed that of dragged leaves and snapping twigs. What's more, the cans glistened in a manner no piece of foliage, no matter how large, could duplicate. So Mike went back to the schoolyard with his shiny new devices and ran through the camp, kicking his cans as he ran through the group, and thus raising a noise of unholy proportions. The result: this most unlikely of figures ascended to the top of his troop. Though Mike killed not a soul, I suspect that his instinctual urge to rise in the dominance hierarchy, and the primate ability to use a novel means to achieve that end underlay the grandiose plans for making a noise which drove Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. As for the killing itself, that too, is a documented chimp activity. Killing among chimps is directed at those outside of one's own group. Every student who was not a member of the Trenchcoat Mafia was outside Klebold and Harris' group. Not just outside of it, but the mainstream kids were the Trenchcoat Mafia's oppressors and tormentors. In other words, all the victims whose virtues we've seen extolled on tv were enemies and fodder for homicide according to the primitive instincts we share with chimps. The miracle of modern society is that in a colony of roughly 30 individuals, Jane Goodall witnessed roughly a dozen murders over 20 years or so. In Gombe's case, these were closer to the human norm. They were murders committed by the dominant group against its dissenters. In other words, the chimpanzee murder rate was roughly 200 per hundred thousand per year. The current American murder rate is less than 9 per 100,000??a tiny smidgeon of that among chimps (roughly 95,5% less). And the murder rate in U.S. schools is a smidgeon of a smidgeon. Even when we count in the appalling death tolls of the 20th century's wars, modern, urban, industrial society has performed miracles of murder reduction. The irony is that when Jane Goodall wrote her first book on the chimps of Gombe (In The Shadow of Man), the volume's introduction (by Stanford University's David Hamburg) proclaimed proudly that chimps were animals "able to use weapons, yet engaging in no activity comparable to human war." It seems high time
for us to examine the reasons not just for human violence, but for the
dramatic reduction of that violence under a social system it is fashionable
to decry as the root of all human evil. By building deliberately on
our past accidental achievements, we may get a little closer to the
peace most of us seek. Howard HB, I am not sure how to even begin telling you all this.......but mostly i think if you start thinking about it you will begin to find everyday examples of what I am saying. IT started a lot with shows on TV where Oprah and Sally jesse Raphel pointed it out..........where they showed teens and sent them to boot camp. Everyone I knew sort of laughd and thought.......thank God not my kid that way. But, then, the more you watch.......the more it is beginning to happen all around you. I see it constantly now thru jacq. high school. And, I know it is far diff. than any other generation......it is like this is this generations movement..........sort of like the 60's had their own ways......well, this one is anger and hatred. it manifests itself in so many ways........and with kids that would shock you. the strangest thing I think is that a kid will be totally normal one minute......and very quickly does a 180 degree turn around.......and the anger comes spilling out.....and they are totally uncontrollable. these kids are missing something very fundamental but yet good decent parents didn't see it.......my neighbor for instance...... Cinnamn is 16....turned that in april......up til that point she was a good kid....she liked to argue back and did tell some minor lies.......but basically not a problem kid. the only thing I can say for her to fit.......is that she didn't fit that well with other kids long term...........and somehow that is part of the key. well, she met this boy who was kicked out of high school and suddenly overnight literally..........she can't breathe without him. she turned into someone her parents do not even know. Now this is a nice family I have been around for 20 yrs......but this kid suddenly has a ton of rage and anger and the things she does are unbelieveable. totally destructive to herself also..........like her asthma is bad enough to kill her and yet she has taken up smoking now......both cig. and weed. she disappears for days and is off with these "friends" that are just like her. she lies every word......and even when these "friends" turned her into the police for theft and accuse of other things.....she goes back to them. The rage at her parents is unbelieveable. I honestly now can see why there are starting to be so many cases of teens suddenly turning and killing their parents. the thing that is frightening with these changes is that it happens so fast.......and there seems to be no changing them. i don't know where all the anger is coming from........but I know the teens have no way to direct it correctly. My friend Dana has spent a week trying to find a place to send Cinnamon......as it has gotten to that point......wehre she feels like she is fighting for her life.........and these places cost $40?50,000 for 12 mos. programs. They seem to have two types...........one is a true boot camp......and then others are just very structured programs. Some are even out of the US to help defray costs........and the locations are gorgeous. We laughed and said we should just check ourselves in.....lol Seriously, Dana has talked to other parents who are having to sacrifice every dime they have saved their whole lives.........to get their kids there...........and it did make a huge difference. These places do anger management for one thing........and when they come out.......of course their college money is spent and their parents are in huge debt........but the kid is turned back around. The parents dana talked to said they are very grateful. One woman even just kept giving them her credit card.......cause she couldn't do it any other way....... The thing is.......there is very litle help for parents and kids that does not cost a fortune like this..............but there is a large growing population of these kids. I see them constantly with Jacq. school. Jacq. will come home talking about someone and I will be just shocked.........but yet she takes it in a totally diff. way now as it is so common to the kids. Even Jacq. one night got into her head........cause she listening to this girlfriend for a week how unhappy she was at home. Now jacq. loves being home......but she got mad over something and let this other girl's feelings become hers. We had it out pretty good as she thought she was leaving. It got to the point where the next day she made me so mad I went out to slash her tires to keep her from taking her car. Fnally, she saw she has pushed me too far and it frightened her.......so she calmed right down and came in and apologized and hers was over with.........she reverted back to the ways we have taught her, thank goodness. And it was a good lesson for her that she later realized that she let this friends feelings affect her and nearly cost her a lot. Jacq.'s was typical teen rebellion of trying her parents........but tehse other kids are far beyond that. At first we thought Cinnamon was that........but it became obviuos quick it is far more than that. and, dana found other parents that have put their kids in psych hospitals for 30 days........but it makes no diff. they often come out worse. i am not sure exactly where the anger is coming from........but i think two things.......somehow these kids don't feel like they fit in exactly......but yet to the outside world they do. they somehow manifest a perception themselves that is diff. than how others see them. I saw this recently even on a tv sohw where kids look in the mirror and hate what they see......they see a totally distorted picture than what is real. i suspect these kids do that and the anger builds soem from there. I also think they spend far too much time alone growing up. i think people tend to treat kids like their feelings are the same as adult feeligns........and they are not at all. you can't use adult technics on them..............and I notice when reading one of the boot camp things........it made that very point. I think the main thing is............these are not some isolated kids..........this is becoming far too much the norm. there has always been a bad kid element running the streets or late nights..........as these kids do.........but their rebellion took diff. ways.......more like they wanted freedom from rules or to be left alone..........these kids now have rage and anger and they do things in those directions. like the columbine deal.......i think there are a number of violent occurrences starting to show up......and i think it will get worse. just like after columbine......look at the kids that called in bomb threats..........here in dallas many school had to close for many days.....because it was so many. those are not jokes at that point. there was also a bad case of murder out by my house about 2 yrs. ago also.......same kind of thing.......kids killed another girl. they made a movie out of it......with the two kids in the military.....the diane zamorra story......they cold blooded killed this girl.....anger. anyway.......i think this is a shift that is becoming more common.......which is why i thought you might be interested. boot camps are changing.....so i find the research to not be accurate......espec. when dana called parents directly for their responses. and I think things like the peer mediation at schools only handle small things.....i dont think it resolves this anger......but my largest concern is that the anger flashes out of control so fast.....like it comes from no where suddenly and there is action......so there is no way for an adult to recognize it is there.........til the incident. ask me questions.......that might work better now.......for examples. linda
On Fri, 14 May Martha Sherwood wrote; (snip) >Today, because economic conditions have forced people at the bottom >of the ladder to limit the size of their families or forego reproduction >altogether, the situation is different. (snip) Martha, if this is true there may yet be hope for Africa (when the trend jumps the Atlantic) but sadly I've yet to see the disadvantaged limit family size as a result of poor economic conditions. I've always been told that it's the affluent that curb or forgo reproduction. A comparison of population growth figures in first and third world countries seem to back the idea. As a frightening aside, a recent check in one of our local universities (Durban?Westville, Natal, RSA) has revealed that 25% of all students were HIV positive. If the figure is this high amongst the *elite* .....? In line with the demographics of the country, the majority of our students are youngsters are of black or of Indian (Asian) descent. I suspect that if the survey broken results into groups some ethnic communities would have displayed a terrifyingly high and disproportionate percentage. The long term effects of thoughtless promiscuity are going to be devastating in South Africa. In the meantime our minister of health throws away millions on hairbrained schemes. Ever heard of the 'Sarafina' debacle? On Sunday I had a conversation with a man in his sixties who cannot afford private health care. He has a an awful leg ulcer, but said he will not be going back to the state hospital because they asked him to wash and bring back his dressings and he is afraid of further infection via materials previously used by others. Apparantly the hospital is running short of supplies and are reusing bandages and pressure pads! I will not start on the shambles in the Dept of education where matriculation marks were boosted across the board in one province to conceal falling results under the new administration and permit scholars who would not otherwise have done so, from gaining entrance into university. The head of the education dept. concerned has refused to resign and the govt. will not be asking him to do so. We are shortly to have an election and it is almost certain that the ANC will be returned with an even greater majority, quite possibly getting the two thirds majority which will enable them to change the constitution. Is there any country, outside of Africa, where the electorate is prepared to overlook total mismanagement and institutionalised corruption? Pease don't say the USA! Brian Duckitt
The gods are in
you, forget everyday ways of doing things and let your inner gods grab
you and drive you with all the passion that's in you to transcend the
everyday and make way for others to find their gods as well. but shun
the gods of negativity and destruction. choose those of connection,
commitment, renewal and construction
------------------------------ Howard's perceptions about soul?doctoring versus spin?doctoring are spot on. In reply to comments made by Howard: you are, in a real sense, fast becoming a mentor to a group of Gen?Xers who know how the media and spin?doctoring work, but need the soul?doctoring rejuvenating perspective (what Don would call 'the Power of the Third Win') not evident in most media. Ken Wilber makes a similar point in recent books: trendy nihilism gets kinda boring after awhile ? "OK, so we know the world sucks, but what do we do now? hb: This generation
has got to toss off the oppressive shackles of dystopian vision and
nihilistic philosophy and get back to the real business of being human??blazing
with passion, finding glints of joy, gathering them until a decade's-worth
makes a mini?nova of soul flame, then visioneering worlds of beauty
and making them in the midst of muck, mire, and blood, stanching the
bleeding wound of hatred and offering a dance of spirit toward a future
of infinities we can, with persistence, uncover, discover, and create.
hb: good question, Rache. A lot of it depends, like anything you build from scratch, on my absolute faith in it, and this divorce thing has been turning my confidence in anything to termite shavings during the last two days. But it began when I brought an animation artist who does things for Disney and Fox?tv over for a meeting with several other people, who like him, had been drawn by The Lucifer Principle. The animation artist is 27 years old. The two other major participants at the meeting, one of whom owns a multimillion dollar website, and the other a filmmaker, are 30 and 33. One day we seemed agreed that we were going to work together in some sort of loose artistic community. In the next few days, the 30 year old and the 33 year old dropped out, deciding they preferred to work with me on a project?by?project basis, beginning with an effort to sell the six?part tv series which The Lucifer Principle was designed to become. The 27 year old emailed and showed a strong need to still keep something hanging together. On his next visit he brought his creative partner, the creator of The Tick, which started out as a show for the Comedy Channel and ended up on Fox?tv. The two are working together on a feature film script, so I dove in and have had two brainstorming sessions with them moving the script forward. In the process of getting to know them, I've gotten a strong sense that the kids of their generation have a vast emotional hole, a hole in the soul. They're intensely cynical, don't believe in any of the existing institutions, feel that the attempts in the sixties to make a difference were a sham and demonstrate that you CAN'T make a difference, that there's nothing to believe in, and nothing worth dedicating your life to. Yet they're so hungry for a message and a movement of their own that one of the two animators actually made up a sham movement, had gorgeous membership cards designed, put together this yummy lapel pin and mini?handbook kit, and wrote a manifesto which essentially is nothing but satire??a mockery of what already exists rather than a vision of what SHOULD exist. When I'm not busy falling apart over the divorce, I tend to go into prophetic mode, and these kids respond to the stuff I preach??which is basically that the gods exist, they are inside of us, that finding our deepest passions, ruling out those which are based on hatred or bloodlust, and centering our life around those deep?rooted fervors which are creative and which augment the process of being human, acting on our most powerful aspirations now and not waiting until we're 50 and it's too late, is what it's all about. I got the feeling it was going to become a movement when one of the animators e?mailed, said that he and his partner had turned two friends of theirs on to The Lucifer Principle and to the concept of a creative community aimed at producing something positive to fill the pothole in the inner pavement of the 20 plus generation's soul, and asked if I'd be willing to meet the friends. One of the animators also said, "If only someone could present me with a total worldview based on science that I could believe in." Well, one of the books in the New Paradigm series I edit??a book in which Dorion Sagan, son of Carl Sagan and Lynn Margulis, and one of the finest science writers of his generation (he's about 38) lays out a holistic view of the universe as revealed by current science and shows how it fills every religious need??is exactly what he's looking for. Frankly, so are the other books in The New Paradigm series and in my own series of books. Meanwhile an old
friend who's making feature films these days came over, I explained
the movement to him, and he wants in. Now things seem a bit stalled??the
two new artists who wanted to come over and join up haven't appeared.
And my sanity is disintegrating. So who knows? One more messiah down
the drain? Howard. I like
the idea of sharing resources as well as ideas and data. I'm so glad
I got in touch with you again. >> David??you know me, I continually
say embarrassing things. So stand back, because I'm gonna be totally
honest with you. I consider you one of my dearest friends and deeply
bemoaned the year in which we weren't in touch. You continually inspire
and stimulate me. Plus you have often anchored me when the political
seas have become choppy. Our intertwining of ideas is invaluable to
me personally, and I think will prove of value to those whom I'd like
to help achieve insights easily which are beyond your grasp and mine
right now??generations 30 and 40 years down the line. Newton stood on
the shoulders of giants to see what he could see. The giants whose shoulders
the next generations will stand on have to be provided by weak and insecure
mortals extending themselves for all they're worth, which means you
and me. Howard Now how do I damage control so that I don't offend Joe? Howard In a message dated 99?09?25 08:46:57 EDT, you write: Subj: idea Date: 99?09?25 08:46:57 EDT From: spiwiz To: hbloom I understand your motives around the "secular salvation" theme, but as I said to you once before, if you cut off a large segment of the population that embraces various expressions of metaphysical "spirituality" hb: Do you think my use of religious vocabulary in a secular, emotional context will offend those who are religious? I have a problem. I've been obsessed with religion and the shades of religious experience since I was thirteen and discovered I was an atheist who wanted to know what the religious feelings were and where they came from??to know both through personal experience and via science. So the search for gods and divinity is the language which naturally comes from me. It's not so much chosen by me as something that chooses me. This feels like the message toward which my whole life has been leading, and, Don, I've spoken to lots of people about this and none have been offended, all have been electrified. Spoken is the wrong word. You've seen what happens to me when this message starts coming out of me. It's coming from areas so deep, areas so profoundly certain of their truth, that I don't discuss, I preach. It's weird, but us Jewish kids have a prophetic tradition, and some of it must have made its way into my genes. Atheist I may be, but I've sought the equivalent of the seven temptations, have fought them and fasted in the desert, and have come back knowing something which speaks through me. I know it sounds insane, but it's like George Lucas' metaphor of The Force. I went hunting for the roots of religion inside the human psyche, including my own psyche, found them, and, Don, they are powerful. There's another way of looking at it. This is not something I'd admit to anyone else, but the force of evolution, the creative spilling forth of form which science has yet to explain but will if I have any say in it, is to me secular and ultimately graspable, but nonetheless is god and fills me with awe and flame. ?? you will reduce significantly the audience you want to reach, even Gen X that is morphing into Gen Y which, the evidence is showing, will resonate in many variations of religious beliefs...Purple, Blue, Green, and even Turquoise on the Spiral. You are skillful enough with language to separate the positive and negative aspects of any worldview, especially those who rely on "holy books" and other guides to get them through the horror of their personal lives....I've learned ?? the hard way ?? not to attack these "cool color" belief structures of people Don??I don't attack them, any of them. I do fight tooth and claw with Fundamentalists of all stripes, secular, Islamic, Christian, Jewish, or whatever, who attempt to impose a theocracy via violence or even via democratic means. I believe profoundly in pluralism, the right of individuals to choose Buddha, Sun Myung Moon, Christ the human, Christ the trinity, and even moderate Islam. I'll do anything necessary to defend the rights of each to his or her own belief so long as that belief does not preach violence in the name of its God or of its ideology. As you know, I've been battling the Christian Right's attempt to impose its will on all Americans since 1981 and have gone up against Tipper Gore in serious combat on the issue. And I've been battling the violent and intolerant aspects of militant Islam since 1991??ending up on a list of "those who must be punished" in seventeen countries. These aren't positions I've crafted to influence an audience, they are profound beliefs on which my life is staked. I do work in every way I know for them, tailoring some verbiage to suit specific purposes. But there is some wording I simply can't give up on??to do so would be to give up on my soul, and soul, to my atheistic mind, is what it's all about. ?? but to give them the right to construct their own conceptual worlds as long as they don't impede the rest of the spiral's emergence. hb: aha, you are ahead of me, as usual. :)YPO for example, will be full of folks who are deeply religious because this has become their only way to escape their "blood?lust" and greedy selves..to become decent, responsible people. hb: I respect that. When I speak of secular salvation, I'm talking about day to day life, especially in one's vocation and one's approach to business. The manner in which people seek a salvation beyond this life is outside of my purview. It's in no way my intention to replace religious views. If anything, the task is to expand the use of religious awareness into daily life, taking it in to areas in which religious sensibilities may not have been vivified in the past. A purely secular version will lack the vMEMETIC power to spark this transformation.I don't care what the content of the BLUE (transcendent, meaning?purpose driven, with "good authority," one used to supress the instant gratification impulse) mindset, just as long as one emerges to shape the frontal lobes. Further, by focusing on the core vMEME rather than a surface level manifestion, it becomes possible to see the differences between positive and negative modes ??manifestations ?? hb: Don, are there specific things in the formulations I've written that disturb you? Can you help me by pointing them out? While religion may be "the opium of the people" hb: Don, real religion is the opposite of the opiate of the people. It has to be kindled and brought to life to make those who profess it fully alive. Religion that sleeps or that is used to justify the fleecing of others in daily business life is not religion at all, but a travesty which would have disgusted Buddha, Jesus of Nazareth, or any of the great prophets, even Mohammed, the one prophet who used and espoused the further use of the sword. Mohammed preaches a respect for fellow believers and a sense of charity??a vivid need to do others good. this country is sure a hell of lot better off than the fruits of Leninism and Marxism. hb: agreed whole heartedly. I hope to encourage you to make "peace" with that aspect of the human spiral because it is part of the realities of so many people hb: Don, I want to awaken the intense inner reality of religion in those people who are religious. I'm not at war with religion, I'm its ally. Nowhere in what I've written or spoken on this matter have I asked anyone to cast aside his or her religion. I haven't addressed the issue one way or the other, but in reality I'm with Max Weber, who said that organizations like the major religions begin with an individual on fire, evanescing with a liberating flame. But as time progresses, what began in the fire of soul is made concrete in buildings, bureaucracies, and the very same sort of stifling dogmas from which the charismatic prophet freed his or her initial believers. I want to help Generation Y find its own soul in whatever way the individuals who comprise it find is truest to their deepest passions. If the inner gods of their passions are religious, then so be it, those are the gods with whom they must join themselves. The one caveat being that thou shalt not embrace inner gods which preach hatred and harm towards others. The major religions all agree that god is found inside of each of us. I agree profoundly with the religions in this belief. ?? and, at this stage, attempts to undermine rather than shape it will not be very useful. Ken and I have developed the ALL Levels/ALL Quadrants approach that demonstrates how to keep each of the vMEMES healthy and well nourished ?? otherwise, "solutions" are narrow, inconclusive, and ineffective. "Nature" will take care of us if we keep all options open rather than exclude a whole segment of belief structures ?? even animistic tribalism ?? that have arisen to solve historic problems in our evolutionary life conditions. hb: my quest began at the age of thirteen with an obsession with the Bible and with the African American versions of Africa's animist religions, religions which believe in the power of a god to take over the body of the individual and drive him into an ecstatic state of possession for hours at a time. I believe deeply in the power of these experiences. We've made an attempt to keep Spiral Thinking alive whether one comes at it from a purely secular..or even sacred starting point. To find "soul" within one's biological self is, in our view, no different from finding "soul" within an elan vital ?? just so "soul" is discovered. So, we welcome all attempts to find "soul." hb: we agree whole heartedly. Again, please point out the language with which I've offended. If you'd like, I can send you the unfinished materials I've put together, but I think you already have them. this has become their only way to escape their "blood?lust" and greedy selves..to become decent, responsible people. A purely secular version will lack the vMEMETIC power to spark this transformation.I don't care what the content of the BLUE (transcendent, meaning?purpose driven, with "good authority," one used to supress the instant gratification impulse) mindset, just as long as one emerges to shape the frontal lobes. hb: Don, connecting the gods of the limbic system with those of the frontal lobes is very much what I'm trying to accomplish. So far, the effect on audiences has been electrifying. The seventeen?minute initial video on Leadership In a Networked Age created literal pandemonium at both the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York, where it was shown to 300 of the top CEOs from Silicon Alley and at the Burning Man event in Nevada, where it was shown to an audience of 10,000. The materials I sent to you, Joe, and Ken on business as self revelation and secular salvation convinced the organizers of Australia's electrofringe99 to make the two?hour live videocam?linked speech I'll be giving the keynote address of their gathering. In addition, they've decided to show the two lengthy interviews now featured on the disinfo.com website. I can only preach what I know to be true. I can only help people find their own soul as two Christians, T.S. Eliot through his Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and Edna St. Vincent Millay through her Renascence, helped me, a Jewish atheist, find mine. These were the poets who guided me from the age of sixteen on and continue to do so today. I've also been guided by the ecstatic experiences of St. Theresa as described by William James' in his Varieties of the Religious Experience, the description of possession by Christ in a "holy roller" church described by James Baldwin in Go Tell It On the Mountain, and the spirit possession of Macumba (a South American adaptation of Yoruban animist religion) portrayed in Marcel Camus' film Black Orpheus. All these things shaped me as an adolescent and have driven me to this day. It's ironic, but even as I write to you, I'm listening to profoundly religious songs sung by Van Morrison intermixed with his musical tributes to Dylan Thomas, another key figure of my youth. The songs are beautiful, Don. I used to represent some of the most important singers in authentic Black Gospel, singers whose appearances were far more often held in churches than in arenas. I went to those churches and loved it when a singer reached the exaltant level of soul. While I'm writing, I'm also following the latest moves of Islamic militants guerrillas attempting to establish a fundamentalist state in Dagestan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgystan,and the new Fatwah from a major cleric in Iran pronouncing the death sentence on a group of college students who wrote a play he feels "insults Islam." Do these acts contradict each other? Not at all. Van Morrison, James Baldwin, and Camus (the director, not the philosopher) all pursued living soul in its most passionate form. They used the power of soul and passion to prevent themselves and others from joining the mass of men who live lives of quiet desperation, the Hollow Men, heads filled with straw. They used soul to liberate. The armies of Allah in the Central Asian Republics are doing the opposite, attempting through violence to enslave others to an intolerant version of their creed. Their goal is not liberation but oppression and extermination. db: Further, by focusing on the core vMEME rather than a surface level manifestion, it becomes possible to see the differences between positive and negative modes ??manifestations ?? While religion may be "the opium of the people" this country is sure a hell of lot better off than the fruits of Leninism and Marxism. I hope to encourage you to make "peace" with that aspect of the human spiral because it is part of the realities of so many people ?? and, at this stage, attempts to undermine rather than shape it will not be very useful. hb: Don, I've somehow created a profound misunderstanding. The only things I've set out to undermine are cynicism, alienation, deadness of spirit, and the use of others as objects. Ken and I have
developed the ALL Levels/ALL Quadrants approach that demonstrates how
to keep each of the vMEMES healthy and well nourished ?? otherwise,
"solutions" are narrow, inconclusive, and ineffective. "Nature"
will take care of us if we keep all options open rather than exclude
a whole segment of belief structures ?? even animistic tribalism ??
that have arisen to solve historic problems in our evolutionary life
conditions.We've made an attempt to keep Spiral Thinking alive whether
one comes at it from a purely secular..or even sacred starting point.
To find "soul" within one's biological self is, in our view,
no different from finding "soul" within an elan vital ?? just
so "soul" is discovered. So, we welcome all attempts to find
"soul." hb: thanks for reading this lengthy outpouring, but
what I'm doing now means everything in the world to me and I'm hoping
will make a difference??a major one??two to three generations down the
road. It has nothing to do with the overthrow of religion and everything
to do with expanding the Here's another strange statement, especially
coming from an atheist like me. We win by championing truth because
there is no god and yet there is. Godhood, when we do what's right,
is manifest in you and me. Deity's a prisoner, but you and I can set
her free. _______________________________ _______________________________
hb: good reference.
Sherry Turkle comes closer than anyone else I know to giving voice to
cyber experience. An example: several
weeks ago, an ex-girlfriend of three hb: that's another thing. the technology doesn't depersonalize anything--it does the reverse. yes, i've had relationships with women online who wanted to remain anonymous and just have sex or something. being online makes that easier, I suppose. but those are rarities. there's so much soul taking fire online that it's amazing. it's one of the reasons people are leaving their wives and girlfirends all over the world to run off with people they've met online--online makes that clumsy corporeality which we are forced to call reality seem second rate. So which is the real reality--the one which allows souls to meet without the encumbrance of our accidental bodies, or that which brings us into body contact despite the fact that the faces and forms we're stuck with don't necessarily reflect who we feel we are? _______________________________ These are all emotionally-oriented
ideas...the stuff I lean towards. You know the trends, the sophisticates,
the intellects. Toss a bunch of them into the mix and you have a magazine.
Oh, and don't forget memorable art direction. A necessity. ac: Sigh.
I guess you've been through versions of this before... Off to the Ars
Electronica NextSex conference in Austria. hb: just checked out the
website. very interesting and full of great lessons. the primary message
is this--dull people put on sluggishly produced streaming video are
still dull people, no matter how electro-NOW their rhetoric may be.
The rhetoric is a key to their internal reality, but doesn't make them
any less drab on the outside. Getting to the inside first is what the
new techno turnaround is all about. One dull person meets another soul-first
in cyberspace and together they burn. there's a brilliance to their
insides a video cam will never see...unless it overlooks their faces
and shoots their fantasies. Ash, you are in for a dull time. the Austrian
affair looks dreadful. Will be checking the e-mail reguarly though,
unless of course I get some nextsex! hb: may you get much next sex and
not be required to enter your sperm in the great semen competition (no,
I am not kidding, that is the highlight of this truly Arsy-Farcy event).
Howard Sean king 3/22/01--I
feel like theres a battle going down between a cyber and non cyber existence,
and new weapons are building up on each side.....maybe this is old age.
hb: the modern dilemma--a new level of reality has popped into existence
thanks to computers and the internet. kids will take the cyberworld
for granted as something that's always been there. why? because it was
there when they were born. but to those who imprinted on pre-cyber reality,
there's often a wonky sense of double-vision or outright hallucination.
i mean how could something so unreal be real? reality is apparently
whatever we're born into. _______________________________
The new millennium demands that we, the media-makers--redefine our role. We are not robotic profiteers selling inanimate product to an abstraction called a market. We are selling soul and self-revelation. By uncovering the previously unknown in our selves and others we offer moments, hours, or years of secular salvation, of liberation from the minute-to-minute hells of insecurity and anomie. There is an emotional divinity lying within each of us. We'll discuss how to find it and how to make it the content you share with those to whom you have the greatest responsibility--your audience. The task is to seek souls as if you had a dousing rod, bring them out in music, mixing, magazine publishing, or any other artistic medium. My own fieldwork in mass behavior and the work of my collaborators in the neurosciences, pioneering researchers like England's Dr. John Robert Skoyles and America's Dr. Neil Greenberg, demonstrates that this practice can rechannel mass emotion and thought, expand the cultural vocabulary, and literally rewire the brain while reworking the pattern of a society's connections. Actually, what may be most relevant to your audience is something I seldom discuss--my experience as a national magazine editor, increasing its circulation 211% in two years and inventing, according to Rolling Stone's Chet Flippo, a new genre--the heavy metal magazine. The trick here was having a genuine love of and respect for the audience rather than for the impression I'd make on other members of the rock press community (a tight-assed bunch of intellectually inbred bastards), and using scientific techniques plus empathy to find what that audience needed. It was a matter of digging out the soul of a subculture and learning to find that soul inside myself. A theme I've been very strong on these days is that in the cyber age more than ever, the product we're selling is secular salvation via self-revelation. _______________________________ In a message dated 2/8/00 1:17:21 AM Eastern Standard Time, echoes writes: hb: ummmm, relax?
who said relax? did I hear someone say relax? you mean hb: hmmmmmm, I have to chew on that one, since sometimes creativity comes and sometimes it goes. Doing what you love and following your passions, or finding a way of making whatever you're stuck with into a pathway through which you can follow your passions, using the obstacles as opportunities to pursue your obsessions down unexpected byways, helps eventually give your creativity that on which it needs to feed. Unless you love
what you are hb: the irony of art and science is that both are forms of discovery, imagination, and revelation. So by working at them 18 hours a day you're actually working for more people than you ever would if you held a standard job. _______________________________ Here's a brief blurb I wrote for a keynote lecture at a media conference in Australia. I think it will show that we're on the same wavelength: That is the thinking behind our product range. It revolves around a radio and logic unit which can be used in a wide range of application areas without modification. It is a low power, short range, low speed data communications unit. In the normal way of radio comms from one unit to another the short range would constrain the markets we could go for. But we can go for a whole heap of markets, even create new ones, because I have a couple of patents which show how low power signals can cover a lot of territory. For instance, this could be all the offices in a small business or all the houses in a housing estate. Basically it is a "population" technique. It isn't terribly fast, nor is it a terribly clever way of doing things. But a good deal of extras come out of the population. Even populations of relatively small numbers of units provide these extras. As you know there are advantages in belonging to a population. hb: massively parallel processing. The way this works in biological systems is covered in Global Brain. It's wonderful to see it invading the lone ranger field of home technology. I had hoped to get my thinking gland around to doing some work on the origins of our minds, but it got tied up with capacitors and VCOs, and now it is tired, so I am going to take it to the pub and pour some alcohol into it. hb: LOL. I shall get to it one day. I expect you to argue about some bits. hb: would you like to become a member of the International Paleopsychology Project's online discussion group? We cover subjects of this very sort, and you seem to have a good deal to add. Howard I lost Prince to narcissism-poisoning. There's a fine and very tricky line between the over-indulgence in the personal it takes to reveal new truths and the self-destruction of an ego overdose. hb _______________________________ << 1. Vision. I sensed that we are on the same wavelength too--a passionate love of other people, a passionate love of finding that part of our self which resonates to their frequency, a passionate love of digging beneath their superficial desires to the deepest passions of their souls, and a desire to see them fulfill themselves more profoundly than they ever thought possible. Why? For very selfish reasons. The more people we know to the core, the more we know our selves. The more people we fulfill, the more we fulfill our selves. It's a greedy and delightful form of altruism. Our words are different,
but the underlying meaning is the same. Which is why I want to see you
again up here by yourself, so we can compare convictions and enjoy something
rare--the ability to share...what would you call them? values? emotional
tunings? which we both do everything in our power to teach, but which
very few people on this particular planet understand. Howard
________ In a message dated 99?10?05 03:56:50 EDT, alex.burns writes: There were strong reactions to both the Howard Bloom and Memetics sessions, overall positive, but also some perceptions raised that I wanted to feed back to you. hb: ok, shoot.In the 45 minutes or so before the link?up I summarised Howard's career, gave a quick overview of concepts in _The Lucifer Principle_ and mentioned some of the political controversies. One audience member raised Howard's critique of Islam and argued along pluralistic relativism lines for the equality of all cultures. hb: sorry, cultures or subcultures which preach killing are out, in my book. that includes the tiny fragment of Jewish fundamentalist subcultures which see no moral problems with god's order to Saul to kill every man, woman, child, and beast in a town he attacked and which he laid waste??but "sinned" by letting the king live. Earlier in the memetics session it was suggested that I was advocating 'eugenic fascism'. Others criticised either the mainstream artists Howard has worked with (Michael Jackson, Prince, and John Mellencamp raised eye?brows), or that Howard wasn't using his 'perceptual engineering' techniques for a good enough cause, such as environmentalism or geo?political hot?spots like Tibet. hb: These are followers of fashion. I don't agree with the environmentalists on many issues. And the Tibet thing??a bandaid for a disemboweled elephant, hadn't yet become the rage, though i was following the situation and gathering material on Chinese imperialism which I hoped would eventually go into one of my books. It hasn't fit any of them yet, but I keep gathering the information. If someone wants to fight for freedom where it can really make a difference, let's rally around Taiwan and its battle for independence. Tibet has been so thoroughly trashed by the Chinese that there is literally in some senses (according to Tibet experts) no Tibetan culture left. And there is no way we're gonna persuade the Chinese to let it go. With Taiwan there's an existing independence which IS strategically defensible. It's a vigorous, entrepreneurial culture, one from which every one of us who uses a computer benefits, since there are Taiwanese components in nearly every computer on the market. Behind those products are a people who do not want to lose the freedoms, flawed as they are, which they've gained over the past 50 years. I worked for causes I believed in, and worked to make known those facts about these causes which were being ignored, facts about massacres in the making??like the genocidal struggle between the Tutsis and the Hutus. Little Steven and others who were trying to get rid of apartheid refused to pay attention to central africa. the result: five million deaths. This is morally outrageous. Those filled with righteousness should take a second look at the cambodias and rwandas their ignorant posturings make possible. However, most of these people mentioned that they needed to further read Howard's work more to make a solid assessment. Howard's work was also linked with Richard Dawkins, who was criticised as a biological determinist. hb: I'm not a biological determinist. nor, as I read Dawkins, is he. a person can only say this about him if that individual has not read him; I have serious disagreements with Dawkins, but it's over his concept that selfishness is inherent to life. It's not. the "determinist" critique is another act of ignorance. This feedback raises several things. The first is that there appears to be a kind of rigid morality (right kind of activist, right kind of campaign) in some activist groups, hb: very true. it is a rigid and sometimes almost Stalinist conformity. that's why Global Brain points an accusing finger at the closed minds both on the fundamentalist right and on the equally fundamentalist left. or at least an unawareness of how group dynamics hurt the activist process and potentially alienate vast segments of the population. The second is that this morality turns into an 'us vs. them' mentality where we are always the heroes and 'they' are always the enemy (usually multi?national corporations). hb: precisely??it's hatred disguised as idealism??the very enemy that leads to violence. There was a perception amongst several people that Howard was simply a rich music PR guru hb: sorry, but I poured the money that came in into service, not into my pocket. Friends who knew what I took out of the company as a personal salary were appalled??others in equivalent positions were earning twice as much. (this was raised mainly because the artists mentioned make phenomenal amounts of money compared to most musicians hb: they do. My artists grossed a quarter of a billion dollars in one year. But it was by giving themselves to their audience, not by hollow shell games of the spirit. Yes, I helped them make money. No, I didn't earn large sums myself. In addition to service, I put money into financing things like Music In Action or covering the publicity costs for Farm Aid with my company's revenues. ? which I feel is part of the music industry and not necessarily related directly to Howard's career or techniques).What was raised throughout the festival was that many debates use circular reasoning and are largely counter?productive in the long run. These debates partly occur because of a focus on soundbites/slogans that appear to be solid on the surface, but quickly fall apart once placed under any scrutiny. Several others suggested that activists needed to become more informed and empathic instead of being purely ideologically driven, hb: I would agree with this one hundred percent. and that certain media pranks/culture?jamming were going to be grey/not 100% ideologically pure. hb: someday I'll tell you the story of how I found out that Abby Hoffman was a sheer cynic who despised the causes with which he was associated and used them sheerly for personal fame and its perks, among them what he called "organic cocaine."I liked how Howard worked in comments from Hermann Hesse and others, because in a debate on Saturday night I watched a typical culture studies/PoMo lecturer get ripped apart for advocating a study of Dostoevsky/Tolstoy. hb: what's PoMo? And what's wrong with Dostoevsky and Tolstoy (aside from the fact that in the name of idealism, Tolstoy treated his family, the people who needed his "love of humanity" the most like shit. By the way, so did Ghandi, whose contributions were enormous despite the split between the public and the private man.). The criticism ranged from a critique of PoMo, to the fact that the classics weren't part of the contemporary educational curriculumn, to questioning the relevance.Most disturbing for me was that some activists had a narrow time?frame in mind and worldview, and that it was very focused on *now*. In the Spiral Dynamics system this is largely RED (c?p/D?Q) thinking (that can also be found in gangsta rap, adolescent rebellion etc). hb: it sounds as if there's been a huge degeneration in the educational system, somehing which disturbed me a great deal when a bright student from my alma mater, NYU, came out to the house as a volunteer for Music In Action. Despite his obvious intelligence, he wasn't taking a single course with any content. We need to harness this raw energy and utilise it effectively, but also to work on building a more empathic activist. hb: the word empathy is all?important??though knowledge, broad and deep knowledge, helps too.Thankfully the festival organisers and core group of activists I talked with were very positive and had outgrown this narrow thinking. hb: Alex, how can we crack more people out of this destructive prison of the mind? Howard ------------------------------
and how everything can be reduced to chemical programmes. hb: hmmmm, this isn't me you're describing at all. Basically this oppose what I believe. And there comes the conflict of beliefs which I believe leads the world to a state of confusion that it is in today. We are blinded with science and thus personal power is reduced and the masses just become cowering numbers on computers! hb: humans have
become MORE humanized by such devices as the internet on which we are
conversing and the cell phones with which people wrap themselves in
social contact even while traveling. Science has empowered us. The newly
fashionable anti-scientific beliefs could take the further enhancement
of individual freedom away. hb: No, I am an
atheist. hb; this accusation
rises easily to the lips of those who've never read my work. Too easily.
It's a stereotype, a prejudice, a rash prejudgement. hb: on that we agree.
very deeply. in fact, you'd find quite a bit about it in The Lucifer
Principle. _______________________________ What worries me is this. Postmodernists have taught a generation to believe that almost every utterance is a falsehood used by massive powers to mislead. Yet even television advertising, so full of efforts to persuade and change our minds, is often filled with wonders of visual artistry. We can choose to loathe a 30-second bit of magic because Mitsubishi or Buick brought it to us. Or we can forget the sponsor and appreciate the marvel of the cinematography. Wonder or the lack of it is up to you and me. We are lied to when we're told there is no wonder, and that all we see around us is conspiracy. _______________________________ hb: there are two approaches to this. I told my clients to forget the word image, to strip away the mask, and to make self revelation their gift to their audience. I told them to find, then offer up, themselves. Then I helped them find the root of soul that made them artists to begin with so they could share it with their fans. You said a very important thing when you first told me about your music. It was a statement that tore the pretences of postmodernism to shreds: "I want to make people happy." That's the hearr the postmodernists have torn out of the culture. It needs to be reinserted, pumping with delight. You're doing it. Now find out why you need to make YOU happy, and you'll become a voice for millions of others who are seeking joy and don't know it. In fact, they are seeking the permission to make joy a part of their life. Semiotics and the other dark sciences of post-structuralism tell them joy is not permitted. Shatter the Thou Shalt Not Seek Joy and you will free the multitudes. I am not kidding around, Jean-Paul. Oh, I forgot to mention approach number two. It is to create a mask, a personna, a preconceived image. I refused to have anything to do with that angle of attack. I sent clients who insisted on it to a rival firm who specialized in falsification. _______________________________
____________________________________________________________
hb: every generation
has its attempts to accomplish something positive that turn into catastrophe.
nothing is foolproof. Three Mile Island was a non-incident marketed
as a headline. Bhopal and Chernobyl, on the other hand, were disasters
of enormous proportions. But if we don't continue to try big leaps,
we'll never get anywhere. Big leaps lead to occasional hard falls. The
law of unintended consequences will slap us periodically even if we
merely try to go backwards or freeze things in place. The criminality
comes in when someone knows that failure is probable, knows how to prevent
it, and fails to raise the alarm and perform the preventive act. hb: when the time
is right, I'll have to ask her. we're due for a meeting this Thursday.
The professionalism Jill is showing, not to mention the money she's
investing, is admirable. hb: great. many thanks, Kenny. BUT SHE DOESN'T
SHOW IT BECAUSE SHE WASN'T SATISFIED WITH THE EDIT. hb: the most qualified is what we need. Kenny, the goal is to create a new form of video literature, a new way of using words, images, and music to make things happen in people's minds which have never happened before. We are out to advance the culture. And culture can be shoved forward with whimsy, biilliance, and understanding. Newton did it. Einstein did it. Freud did it. Now WE are doing it. It's hard to tealize, but Newton, Einstein, and Freud were fallible, self-doubting individuals just like you and me. But look what they gave. They altered the way that tens of millions think. They brought us further than we'd ever been. And even those who will never understand them benefit daily from their contributions. For example, the rural farmers of China are about to get telephones for the first time in their lives thanks to satellites and cell phones. Without Newton there would be no satellites. Without Einstein there would be no cell phones. As for Freud, without him we would feel our unconscious doing inexplicable things within us and still be forced to imagine that those inexplicable things were non-existent, or were demons dancing below the surface of our minds, intent on carrying us to hell. We still don't understand those things thoat move without speaking and change the way we act and feel. But thanks to Freud, folks like me have a better crack at getting a handle on the inner world and giving people greater access to their inner passions and their unspoken fears. Thus shall we give men more of the power of the gods. And I'm not kidding. Bringing men closer to god and god closer to men, helping man become what god has wanted him to be, is what this project is all about. I hope I can get Jill to feel that. She has a good crack at it. She knows we are on the track of something important, basic, and in its own way very big. I hope it calls to her talent and will not let it go. kl: I AM SHOCKED
THAT SHE IS SO INTO IT, AND I HOPE YOU CAN KEEP HER IN. lkl" SHE COULD
SUDDENLY HAVE A WEST COAST PROJECT, AND SO I AM TRYING TO MAKE YOU AWARE
OF THE IMPORTANCE OF LOCKING HER IN WHILE WE HAVE THE MOMENTUM. kl: I HAVE NO AX TO GRIND ABOUT THIS, AND IN FACT, I WORRY THAT TWO CLOSE FRIENDS WORKING TOGETHER COULD BECOME A PROBLEM FOR ME, hb: it won't. BUT I WANT TO HIP
YOU TO THE HIGH LEVEL OF THIS MANPOWER (WOMANPOWER?). _______________________________ _______________________________ sk:...well - a
lighter state of mind.I need to laugh. talking with you can hb: sometimes things
are so surrealistically awful that they become a cosmic joke. re: support group.
- great idea. Im in UK though, and god knows how we'd do hb: Sean, I don't
know if you've notice this, but a considerable amount of body language
gets expressed via email and ICQ or AOL's IM format. Do you have access
to CUSeeMe software? It would allow you to be here via voice and seven-frame-per-second
or minute, I forget which, videocam. hb: strange, I have that problem too. > hb: another syndrome we share, though what I lack is not food, it's sleep. Messianic complexes can lead to Christ-like pains. One knows why he had to suffer the limitats of mortality. Yes, the existence of divinity in him is an illusion. He was god's incarnation only as we all are. Yet we stretch toward divinity and hunger for infinity despite the limitations imposed by our biology. We are the miracle of cells conjoined and reaching for a handhold on their way to an unseen peak. Stretching beyond our limits, we bleed as we grip sublimity. This is evolution's rack and we are finding her next track. We torment our bodies and elevate our souls to incarnate the deity. hb: there was a
prophecy of this in a poem which has guided my life. I've enclosed a
copy. hb: another parallel between us. It is dawn here. I have yet to eat dinner. I have yet to sleep. But I have friends to correspond with and promises to keep. sound familiar? it's you in another guise on another continent. I have friends in
other cities for support, but because Ive just moved to hb: more parallels, but your appearance in your photo is awesome. that helps. I look like a cross between woody allen and kermit the frog. and I've been stuck in a horizontal position on a bed for twelve years now. it keeps the adulation more distant, darn it. being admired helps. it takes a lot of fuel to burn the way we do. and its hard to
cope with, people are catching on so well that its hb: as you do me. Here's one Bloom take on the thing, written for one of the many upcoming, unwritten Bloom books. -------- In the beginning, God started out as poor as a churchmouse. All he had to his name was: a.) his name (which as I said, was nothing to be proud of); and b.) some worthless property so pathetic that it was literally underwater. But God was the ambitious type and had dreams of becoming a big tycoon, sort of like Henry Flagler, the Standard Oil billionaire who took a worthless swamp?and?mosquito?farm in the early 20s, got his polo?playing friends convinced that it was the only decent place in America to improve your suntan, and turned it into Florida. So He (God, not Flagler) embarked on a massive real estate development project. Actually, all the impoverished Deity did was turn on the light, drain some of the land, and plant a few animals and bushes on the property. Then he ran out of ideas and energy, popped open a can of beer, and called it a weekend. The King of the Universe thought he had an instant winner on his hands. Just sit back and relax, and the fortune would start rolling in. But a few thousand years later, no one had showed up to buy any lots, build any hotels, or even put up a boardwalk, so it became obvious to the Allmighty that He was going to have to come up with some sort of promotional scheme. That's when God decided to throw together a theme park. He'd call it The Garden of Eden. Well, He did it on a grand scale: trees, grass, fruit, a stream here and there, and even trappings of solid gold and silver (look it up, the brochure for the place has been preserved in the Bible). But lawns need to be mowed and gardens need to be tended, and God's specialty, quite frankly, was days of rest. What He needed was cheap labor. Apparently, there were no teenagers anxious to drop out of school and take jobs at minimum wages in those days, and a professional Japanese gardener cost more than God was willing to lay out, so he was going to have to improvise. What, pondered the All?Seeing?One, is the cheapest way to get decent help? Make it yourself! What's more, with a little ingenuity, and some plans from Popular Science, you might even be able to scrape together passable unskilled labor out of mud! So God made man and called him Adam, which is Hebrew for dirt (no kidding, take a look in the dictionary) and gives you some idea of just how highly He thought of the poor, innocent clod and what kind of wages he intended to pay him. Meanwhile, Adam did his best to clip the shrubbery and fertilize the flowers and tend the ticket booth, despite the fact that he didn't have a stitch to wear (as I said, God was cheap), and poison ivy on your peepee is nothing to laugh about. But finally the work got to be too much for him. So, much as he hated to, he complained to his employer that he needed extra help. God lent a sympathetic ear, but since it came from the Lord Himself, it was much too big to do Adam any good, and besides, hearing wasn't his problem, pruning was. So finally, the Holy One, Blessed Be His Name, went off and tried to figure out how to get some sort of assistant without having to shell out any bread (which was a high priced commodity in those days, since it was brand new and very trendy). Then it came to him: surgery! He'd sneak up on Adam in the middle of the night, slice out one of the kid's ribs, and slap together a helpmeet (so named because Adam hadn't been introduced to her yet). The whole thing smacked of thievery??sort of like stealing some homeless person's kidney while he sleeps 'cause you have to perform a transplant the next day on Donald Trump. But laboring stiffs didn't have much in the way of rights back then, and that's the way God liked it. The next morning, the inventive Allmighty introduced Adam to his new sidekick, at which point Adam's eyes bugged out because she had a couple of things he'd never seen before??breasts. But Adam played it cool, which isn't easy when you can't cover up your erection. And the two of them went about the business of mowing and clipping and plucking the weeds. God was happy. After all, he wasn't paying these two mudpies a cent for their work. But, knowing just how dishonest domestic help can be, he warned them that all hell would break loose if they tried to get away with nabbing any fruit from his favorite tree, the one with the knowledge of good and evil. God's luck, unfortunately, was not turning out too well. First there was the lack of paying customers. What's worse, toward the beginning of our tale when he'd been slapping together animals to populate his property venture, he had whipped up such reliable innovations as buffaloes and goats and cockroaches. But he'd also come up with a creature called a snake, and this one turned out to have some devious quirks in its moral machinery. The snake apparently put in its first few months on the planet absorbing pinko radical pamphlets and took upon himself the task of becoming a sort of union organizer for whomever he could get to listen. About the only one who understood his language was the former rib currently fertilizing the flowers. So he took Eve aside and said, "Look, honey, God's not paying you a cent for any of this work, and you look like you haven't eaten in days, and there's this perfectly delectable looking fruit hanging up there on this tree, and God's got so much stuff he'd never miss it, so why don't you just try a bite. It's organic, filled with vitamins, and keeps doctors away. What more could you want in a snack?" Sounded perfectly logical to Eve, so she had a bite, offered some to Adam, who would have preferred potato chips, but didn't want to get on her bad side (she could get poisonously petulant whenever you didn't go along enthusiastically with her latest whims), and suddenly just what God was afraid of happened. Adam and Eve knew good from evil. It suddenly dawned on them that their weekly paycheck read $00.00, they didn't have a stitch to wear, and there was no health insurance. Not only that, they couldn't even afford a walk?up apartment and were sleeping every night on the ground. Thanks to the knowledge of good and evil, Adam and Eve now knew that their working conditions were anything but good. Well, this put God in a pretty evil mood. Here the help had gone and turned into #@@!!#&* thieves, pilfered his fruit, and were raising a stink and demanding jockey shorts and bras. This was more than a self?respecting employer and Master Of The Universe could tolerate. He fired the pair immediately, cursed them up and down, told them that from now on they'd have to live by the sweat of their brows (I can think of better sources of drinking water, can't you?) and that Eve was in for a whole new experience when she found out the hard way what getting knocked up was all about and had to go through childbirth without anesthetics or LaMaze. Then he tossed them out into the hard, cold world, realized the theme park idea had been a bust, closed the place down, and blamed the failed venture on the fact that good help is hard to find, especially in a world where most of the population consists of animals. ---------- > sk: - ! - .....your writing stuns me. hb: many thanks, Sean. Hopefully your books will not take too long to arrive. I like with what you are saying, and I see the passion of the prophet in you. I hope you are right - that leaders will appear who address all humankind in the most understandable and secular forms. What is it that stops you from entering politics?. hb: I've put my life into understanding and have a mere 20 years or so left in which to get out the books which will be my legacy. I've been fairly heavily involved in politics, but being a candidate would take me away from what i love doing best. 'tis strange. In describing your picture to a friend yesterday, I mentioned that you radiated charisma. Charisma is essential to political success. Your insight and vision is so far ahead and well spoken, as you have the qualifications and the experience.... > I'm not sure where it comes from within > myself...I was severely isolated ( emotionally and physically) at times of > my childhood, > > hb: things get stranger and stranger, Sean. Me too. > sk: lol, my instincts told me this was the case with you. hb: God, I wish you had Global Brain so you could read the section on Faustian introverts. It's a chapter on you...and on me too. You partly revealed this in your interview, while you were talking about chipping away at a sculpture I think. I find it strange too, but you have enlightened me to seeing there are structures that go behind making individuals . No doubt me writing the piece was perhaps a reflection of these resonances - I feel and felt immediately comfortable using what you were saying, because I felt that I supported it in my heart, despite the fire that burned within it , that I think few would dare to touch. This is evolution's rack and we are finding > her > > next track. We torment our bodies and elevate our souls to incarnate the > > deity. sk: - do you see evolution as being female ? - you refer to finding " her next track". hb: good question, one I've never thought of. The male god of the bible is an angry, insecure, abusive little pissant. Mother nature is a bloody bitch as well. But, yes, I do see evolution as more female than male, perhaps because it comes from nature. I'll have to think about this one. It's conceivable that evolution comes out female in my mind simply because my father was gentle and went along with the tides, but my mother mastered tides and changed their flow. She was publically charming, privately vicious, but omnicompetent--capable of steering any sort of vessel anywhere at all. > hb: strange. the poem is a set of step by step instructions on how to > experience rebirth and phenomenal intensity. > sk: .. thats interesting, I'm going to have to re read it again to see this. As I say my imagination runs on its own tracks and is not always accurate in its ability to interperet the written word. hb: not to worry. poetry is written so that each reader can interpret it in the light of his or her own experience. sk: Im not so gifted when it comes to reading poetry I admit, I think I kind of missed out a bit on being one of the reading generation hb: I am good at reading poetry, which means it normally takes me at least three readings before I can even begin to comprehend a poem. so you're probably better at it than you think. ( I hate to find myself telling authors this, as other friends of mine are authors too). By the way, when you say phenomenal intensity, does that mean the experience of phenomenon? hb: nope, just passionate, searing, seething intensity. >do you make promises to > people in the heat of passion - wanting to give to them? > > hb: the latter. > sk: mmm, lol, I know this very well. I really have to watch myself. It disturbs me that you suffer the same. I dont usually experience this with others. hb: I wonder how Douglas Rushkoff is on these issues. He is the only other person I've met who seems to be on a prophetic path. > I know I didnt promise , but in my heart there could > have been a tornado ripping through town, but I would have posted it to keep > my word. > > hb: more similarity. > sk: forgive me for being analytical to the point of sillyness here Howard, but I must qualify that in many ways you have shaken me up, what you represent in my mind ( the Pedastle of Bloom) and the correspondance with you, coupled with having your voice ricocheting round my head for the last week, and knowing your history, and only after emailing you actually discovering your interest in music and musicians ( I really only had a proper read of your web-site after my initial email) has been alot to chew on for me. In many ways my souls energy expressed very passionately how important it was for me to send you this CD, because of the interconnectedness of this meeting. I'm not saying I dont keep my word, but certainly part of the insistence of my expression here, would come from who and what you are, and perhaps what you represent for me at this point in time. hb: first a note on heroes. they're ordinary people who fart and worry about zits on their faces and have a normal dose of unspeakably crude human failings. However when the time comes to do something necessary butdangerous and all are atremble with fear, when all the others run away, the hero is as fearful as any of his friends, but he stays. He won't give in to either his panic and his insecurity or to his foes and enemies. He looks invincible only once he's won his victories. But at home with his trophy, he still picks the lint from between his toes. hb: Why is this relevant? Because despite our frailties, we humans are sometimes lucky enough to show up when someone needs us, to be a trellis supporting the weak tendrils of another's vine. There are people to whom you are a hero. There will be more. You'll fear and doubt yourself many a time. But you'll come along and justify something in another's soul, you'll be the perfect emblem for a passion that they must explore to make this killing world slowly benign. Never the less by failing to keep my word I feel the weight of my conscience, which can bully me very harshly if I dont come up to expectations. hb: mine can lacerate me viciously. more ways in which we seem to be alike. When you make promises, do you actually say " I promise..." hb: no, I don't think so. or do you consider your word as good as a promise in your mind? hb: yes. . Its very kind of you to promise things to people, but you must be careful not to give yourself too much; theres nothing worse than unforgiving pressure from the outside that plays on your conscience. hb: agreed. > hb: amphirhinal? amphirhinal - "having two nostrils" > sk: yeah sorry this joke was barely funny and I apologise. I was refering to peoples noses falling out as a result of their habits.... hb: oh, lord, how popular is cocaine in England now? > hb: I fought the notion of image for 20 years in the music industry, trying > to demonstrate that stardom does not come from hiding behind a mask, but from > revealing oneself utterly. > sk: are you saying that you feel you changed your mind? hb: no, not one bit. honesty and self-discovery are more important now than ever. but they will never cease being important. we only started discovering who and what we are 35,000 years ago, a mere sneeze in cosmic time. we have a long voyage in the terra incognito of our inner and outer worlds ahead of us, one that may take millennia. I think the forces you were doing battle with are definitely super-forces at the moment. So much so , it scares me. hb: strange you should say that. when I was fetching you the Yeats poem yesterday, I was reminded that the strange beast slouching toward Bethlehem waiting to be born in his time was Nazism. Today similar movements are reaching for power. and the public mood is in many ways ripe for the new fascisms, totalitarianisms, and fundamentalisms. ( Ive walked around in public. in dresses and frocks > lol), > > hb: shades of David Bowie circa 1970. > > cardboard fridge boxes, paper bags on my head, make-up, messianic > gear ( with staff!), robin hood type clothes, smart suits ( and mixing in > weird objects like American Indian Head-dresses) and so forth. > > hb: you are a good deal braver than most. > sk: I dont mean to be funny Howard, but talking with you has taken far more nerve out of me than any of the prev mentioned follies. I once met Uri Geller briefly, and had a similar nerve thing. Maybe its a kind of celebrity shock thing. But with you its more because we are exchanging and I can feel the power of your intellect and knowledge burgeoning behind your words, and sometimes it scares the hell out of me. I hope you dont mind me saying. You have so much insight into things I have not yet considered, and being older than me you have the advantage of extra experience...Ive never had interchange quite like this and this is a tribute to your strength of character. hb: or a tribute to chemistry of some sort. I look forward to your letters despite the fact that I'm swamped. You seem on the verge of breaking out into something important--hopefully a career as a star. Celebrity is not a frivolous matter. A star helps steer the souls of millions, and helps direct the wavering from a Hitler to a Churchill, from hatred to caring, and from ignorance to insight. Ive talked to thousands of people in my life and known thousands but you are a freaky experience. hb: I take that as the ultimate compliment. Thanks, Sean. > hb: the key--finding your way into the backdoor of their minds by opening the > backdoor of your own, and bringing the selves hidden in darkness for the > first time into light. sk: when you say the selves hidden are you refering to the "animals in the brain"? hb: there's much more than a closet full of animals back there. there are gods and goddesses, some of them unborn, some of them ancient, moods, manias, new forms of lunacy and new forms of sanity, scraps of infancy, childhood, adolescence, and future senescence, armies of intincts, unconceived inventions, fantasies, figments, fragments, and many a thing whose shape or nature we as yet have no words to describe. Coming up with words, images, music, or forms of analysis to capture and invigorate them is your job and mine. I take it this is something you have done, or do...is it a continuously deepening journey? hb: continuously deepening, a lifetime commitment. > hb: another thing we should discuss if you can get here--that form of > emotional paralysis which afflicts Anglo-Saxons terribly. > sk: I'd love to come - thankyou for this invitation. hb: good!! Perhaps meeting you would help overcome my fears more too. I can be a real coward at heart, and though peoples impression of me is the reverse, I am infact terribly shy. Alot of it comes from some seriously bad experiences with people. hb: but Sean, we are ALL shy. > - on that topic - I take it youve seen the German/Scandanavian film > "The Idiots" ....... > > hb: no. describe. > sk: its a film festival movie made last year - about a group of new friends who appear to have a ring leader , and their motives for being with each other is to get in touch with their "inner idiot". It involves alot of sheer stupidity, gurning, "spassing" as they called it, often in public places- sometimes they would all act as if they were retarded in one form or another while a designated member would be the "carer". Its hard to tell what is and isnt real about the movie which makes the entire experience more disturbing, hilarious, and offensive. Its a movie that people will not forget but for some it would be perhaps a bit much. I really cant reccommend it to you or not, because it defies description. hb: you've done a good job of getting the essence across. it sounds like a Theater of the Absurd revisitation in the mental mode of Being John Malkovich. > hb: I help people find their souls, which is a shamanic thing to do. but one > can just as easily use science to understand why it works and what it does. sk: I'm intrigued. Can people lose their souls? hb: absolutely. As Henry Thoreaux wrote, "the mass of men live lives of quiet desperation." T.S. Eliot paints the loss of soul brilliantly in his poems "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" and "The Hollow Men," both of which, alas, are too long to fit into this letter. > Wilson's father had been a famous American novelist, and he'd > grown up mixing and mingling with some of the most august artists of the mid > 20th century. Perhaps this past experience gave him a clue. As for this > almost instantaneous networking of enlightement, it seems to be happening > here, too. This morning I awoke to find a fax arriving from a well-known > scientist on the West Coast saying this very thing. It's a sign of a > zeitgeist grown swollen with pregnancy and breaking water, Yeats' strange > beast slouching off to Bethlehem waiting for its moment to be born. > sk: wow I didnt know august could be used that way. How old is David Sloan Wilson? hb: roughly 52.
Snotpanda: I'm getting only fear and confusion. Howl Bloom: which will be in a few hours Howl Bloom: I'll be back in uncertainty, fear, and confusion too Snotpanda: ha, well then long story short: do you think it's going well and is still the right thing to do? Howl Bloom: it is the only thing to do Howl Bloom: it is so necessary that it's unbelievable Howl Bloom: a wait of another three years and Howl Bloom: this war would be nuclear Snotpanda: so long as there's no domino effect with Syria and Israel and all that crap...which would get a bit too Revelations for me to maintain sanity through Snotpanda: crap, you think? Howl Bloom: and we wouldn't have the privilege of Howl Bloom: deciding whether to start it or not Howl Bloom: but it is messy as all get-out Howl Bloom: and the dominoe effect thing is unpredictable Howl Bloom: but an Islamic friend from Egypt welcomes the dominoe effect Howl Bloom: it is time to cleanse the middle east of the post-Nasserites Snotpanda: yeah, that's the spooky part...I hope to god we find some chemical war materials or Taliban cells in Iraq soon so we can get everyone else's support Howl Bloom: like Saddam and Assad Howl Bloom: in his opinion Snotpanda: Huh...interesting proposition Howl Bloom: we are lucky to have a dumb bell for a president Howl Bloom: a smart person like you and me wouldn't have seen the necessity of this war Howl Bloom: but it's unfortunate that there's no one Howl Bloom: to articulate Snotpanda: I'm actually not worried about the dirty bomb type of stuff over here...more the Israel-like smaller bombs going off when my friends are in the subways and so forth Howl Bloom: what this war is all about Howl Bloom: and why it matters so much Snotpanda: I see what you mean... Howl Bloom: because ultimately this war Howl Bloom: will be won or lost Howl Bloom: on the battlefield of perception Howl Bloom: something I wish I could go on another radio show to discuss Howl Bloom: chris, the coast to coast show Howl Bloom: that I've done eleven times Snotpanda: ha...I'm sure you'll have your chance...we're in this for a fairly long haul Howl Bloom: and drives sales of books Howl Bloom: and I love to do because they give me Howl Bloom: two to five hours per show Howl Bloom: i fear may never have me on again Howl Bloom: (of course I've feared that many times before) Snotpanda: of course...that's both our natures. Howl Bloom: but the show is in a difficult transition phase Howl Bloom: from art bell to its new host, george noory Howl Bloom: and needs to hang on to every affiliate it can Howl Bloom: it lost one on Friday Howl Bloom: because of my friends Snotpanda: whoops Howl Bloom: the Islamic pressure groups Howl Bloom: who didn't like my telling you the things you are not supposed to know Howl Bloom: the rhetoric the Islamic community uses when talking to itself Howl Bloom: scary stuff Snotpanda: actually I just got an email about how the FCC is talking about clearing up the last remaining obstacles in the path of companies who want to basically own as many media stations as they can...which would effect all this crap, too Howl Bloom: real stuff Howl Bloom: yikes, that's a problem for coast to coast Howl Bloom: it's been swallowed by Premiere Radio Networks Snotpanda: yeah, I can forward that to you if you want Howl Bloom: the vp who started the network Howl Bloom: quite in disgust Howl Bloom: and he had become a friend Howl Bloom: I apparently help their ratings or something Snotpanda: ha...well good for you! Howl Bloom: but tonight I did my seventh interview on the Pacifica station in LA Howl Bloom: and the interviewer made it very apparent that Howl Bloom: she wants me as a regular Snotpanda: hopefully this will translate to better book sales, meaning more money to continue your important work Howl Bloom: which is a tremendous compliment Snotpanda: it is, congratulations Howl Bloom: because KPFK is THE station of political correctness in LA Howl Bloom: and I am radically incorrect Howl Bloom: way off the radar screen of acceptability and they love it Howl Bloom: god I wish there were time to tell you a story Snotpanda: just keep backing it up with facts is all and they can't stop you...truth is terribly addictive sometimes Howl Bloom: but I have to eat and sleep Howl Bloom: exciting things are happening Snotpanda: that's okay...we'll have time Howl Bloom: and let's hope that this time they are not the cock-eyed delusions Howl Bloom: brewed up by that little pit of optimism Howl Bloom: that somehow stays alive and thrives despite the moods I share with you Howl Bloom: the plunges from calm to tumultuous gloom Howl Bloom: our common (and maybe intrinsically human) burden Snotpanda: ah but those are useful...the daydreaming...if even two percent of our dreams make it through to reality, you're doing okay and at least you've been giving the mental juice to press on Howl Bloom: ") Howl Bloom: :-) Howl Bloom: yes!!!!!!!!!!! Howl Bloom: gotta say g'night, wish there were time to fill you in on everything Howl Bloom: can you come out for a visit? Snotpanda: that's what's great about our studio here...we have a million abandoned projects but they make us happy while we're thinking about them Howl Bloom: neat Snotpanda: yes, fairly soon...working on a storyboard, then probably moving, then starting the show, but schedule, though full, will be flexible Howl Bloom: call Stephen or let me have him call you Snotpanda: okay, will do Howl Bloom: we'll put something into the calendar, ok? Snotpanda: okay...give me a day or two before we even talk about it, though, because much will depend on the fate of the apartment Howl Bloom: I need you as my---fill in the blank with more things than I have time to type Snotpanda: likewise Howl Bloom: ") night, compadre Snotpanda: g'night! _______________________________
Prophetic Leadership: Business As Self-Revelation and Secular Salvation (The Key To Business-- Setting Souls Aflame) Business executives are not trafficking in inanimate goods sold to anonymous "consumers"--they are dealing with human souls. When they help those souls catch fire, money flows. Those who look deep into their passions can anticipate the needs of others. A bone-deep love for others' needs is the secret both to personal growth and to prosperity. Prophets make profits-and I mean that quite literally. Kindle one corporate
president, and you can prod a company an inch further into creativity.
Kindle every employee and you have a conflagration of creativity, one
that can literally change the world. The irony is that unselfish dedication
to others is the greatest form of selfishness--one of the many nearly
miraculous paradoxes with which this universe is endowed. To find the
souls of others we have to find the corresponding soul lurking in ourselves.
By helping others we grow our selves and give our ego its most indispensable
food--the certainty that others need us. The more we teach others, the
more we learn. We learn not only when we are forced to articulate our
own feelings and concepts, but when we find in our pupil experiences
of a kind we've never felt before. Michael Jackson is the closest person
to a saint I've ever met. Helping him taught me his almost divine intensity.
It gave me a visceral sense of his ability to see wonders where others
see nothing. And it provided me with a role model. In the fifteen years
since I last saw Michael, that role model has been working its way through
my system and transforming me, upgrading me. Now I feel the capacity
for wonder that so awed me when I first sensed it in him. Now my perceptions
are nearly as rich as his were. By giving everything I was to Michael,
I got back a vast expansion of me. _______________________________ In a message dated 8/14/00 Roy--see my notes below. they go on for some length. if you work at it, I'll show you how to sell, sell, sell--and to do it through absolute honesty, integrity, and commitment to the interests of your buyer. In other words, I'll train you in the art of business as self revelation and secular salvation. Then you can co-write the book on the subject with me, should you choose to do so. If the idea of co-writing interests you, save this letter and any subsequent ones I send you with general tips on salesmanship. Howard hb: some tips on salesmanship. if you say I would like to participate, that puts me in a subservient position. you want to put THEM in the subsevient spot, with yourself in a subservient spot below them, and me in the hierarchical slot above them. Hence you say, "You have most kindly invited Howard Bloom to participate in your forum. I would like to suggest that you use Mr. Bloom as one of your speakers." Following is a hb: a good sentence.
it needs another sentence filled with compelling fact on why what I
have to say is of urgent importance to the organizers of this forum. hb: as to bios,
here you would not use a long one which talks about my musical meanderings,
etc. You want something short and to the point, something which gives
them credentials up the wazoo. Hence you'd sort through your bios and
find the ones kept in the files called "bio-short version for Wiley.doc"
or "Bloom bio short--includes Global Brain 5-2000.doc". If
you don't have these, let me know. Howard The bio you used
continues: Bloom has taken an unusual approach to the study of mass
moods and cultural
hb: then you'd update this with a comment or two from the experts on the significance of Global Brain, trying to find one that would impress folks who are concerned with international politics and peace. Here are some candidate quotes: Global Brain is the first book to present strong evidence that evolutionary, biological, perceptual, and emotional mechanisms have made us parts of a social learning machine--a mass mind which includes all species of life, not just humankind. It is the first to take this idea out of the realm of mysticism and into the sphere of hard-nosed, data-derived reality. And it is one of the few books which carry off such grand visions with energy, excitement, and keen insight." Elizabeth Loftus, immediate past president, American Psychological Society, author, Witness for the Defense and The Myth of Repressed Memory "In a superbly written and totally original argument, Howard Bloom continues his one-man tradition of tackling the taboo subjects. With a marvelously erudite survey of life and society from bacteria to the Internet, he demonstrates that group selection is for real and the group mind was there from the start. What we are entering now is but the latest phase in the evolution of the global brain. This is a must read for professionals and laymen alike." Robin Fox, University Professor of Social Theory, Rutgers University, co-author with Lionel Tiger of The Imperial Animal. "Global Brain is wonderful! I'm amazed at the book's knowledge and the scope of its reach. The 'mass mind' idea is wondrous, smart and immensely creative." Georgie Anne Geyer, syndicated columnist, Universal Press Syndicate, and author of Guerrilla Prince: The Untold Story of Fidel Castro. "Howard Bloom's work is simply brilliant and there is nothing else like it, anywhere--we've looked, as have our colleagues. Global Brain is powerful, provocative, and mind-blowing." Don Edward Beck, Ph.D., author of Spiral Dynamics, co-director, National Values Center. hb: you would use
the Georgie Anne Geyer quote because she is one of the best known international
journalists in the world, and would be a big name in UN circles. You'd
use Don Beck's quote for the same reason. Beck was responsible for getting
me this invitation. Brian Cunningham
and Hb 1/2001 BRIAN: Time Magazine
recently had an awesome article on Global Warming I now realize what it is making it all tick. The social organism is a living entity. It is made up of smaller living entities, you and I. Like all organisms or life, it seeks to grow. Most advanced type organisms 'grow', they get larger. In a different sense, all species seek to 'grow' as well by increasing their population. They do this Malthusian activity until they reach a wall; usually environmental limitations; increased predation (from viruses to lions), finite resources (no food) etc. This drive to 'grow' is fueled by what? Well, like gravity, it seems to be one of the laws of the universe. Only this law applies to life particularly. The growth is one of the core tenets of life; replication. Genes are the pieces of this chess game, and their goal is to replicate. We know this replication as something that permeates practically all our lives: sex. The drive to grow is synonomous with our Sex Drive! Lets talk about sex baby! All of us in our combined desires to have sex (replicate) fuel the growth of our superorganism; economic growth, population growth etc. (my friend Dan was telling me of his new relationship and how wonderful it felt to be validated as a man. To have a woman desire him, need him etc. she made him feel great. I told him it was all sexual. He disagreed telling me it was emotional. I told him that sex permeates every aspect of our beings, emotional, mental, intellectual etc. you could find just as much, if not more, rewarding relationships with males on a purely emotional level. After all, a friend doesn't judge you as harsh if you don't chew your food right, or if you are a slob. He felt that with a woman the bond was more profound. I laughed, this was all just sexual. All these words; profound, validation, romance were all inextricably linked to his sexuality. Men are ambitious, driven etc. what for? These are all aspects of sex. Ambition is another word for 'drive' aka 'sex drive'! We 'climb the ladder', accumulate more money, bigger houses etc all for what? To secure our replication aka sex drive instinct. Now of course there are other constraints operating. In its purest form perhaps, the male sex drive is extremely promiscuous. Hit and run. (Dan asked if this was just men and I said not, it applied to species. Women have different strategies. Women, having the same drive just channeled differently, Bond and cheat. Cheat to get better Alpha male sperm or so it seems.) Culture is one such constraint, perhaps as memes, forcing men to pair bond and stick with it for the kids sake. But promiscuity, via prostitution and affairs, is still rampant. One of the things
Dan said was it felt great to be validated. Validated of what? Think
about it. Valid? Valid for what? Valid for replication! Valid, to have
the honor to (none of this is conscious, these ideas are at the core,
the essence of Because in the core biologic sense this is what it is all about. Dan interjected the humanistic aspect, stating that he feels emotionally good and loves etc. I asked him to put that aside for a second and dive deeper with me to more plausible concepts. Sure these humanistic understandings are valid. This is what most reason the answers are. But science has shown another side. A deeper side. {Is perhaps another part the fear of not having enough? Since we all want to have security we seek to accumulate more than we need: greed. So the way to make more is to parasitically make your victim need to come back to you for more. Example; doctors don't fix problems, they rid you of symptoms. You take this drug and it goes away, albeit temporarily. They tell you they are busy working on a cure, but until then this is the best we have. Now, 10 or 20 years ago, if I claimed this it would be dismissed as ridiculus. But the recent popularity of the alternative health movement, the recent works by many in the peer review literature and others outside such as Gary Null showing this, makes my assertion much more viable. } Conclusion: GMO (Genetically Modified Organisms) Perhaps if we can engineer improved models of homo-sapiens in the future, ones not as driven to rape the earth and any women along with it, ones not as fearful or greedy. Perhaps then we have a chance to escape our Malthusian fate. _______________________________ Howl Bloom: as bob
seger says Howl Bloom: with pointy little tips way on high Howl Bloom:
now how would you know that, wise dark bird? Blessed Corvus: You seem
to point me in the right direction.. Blessed Corvus: And you definitely
show you've knowledge. Howl Bloom: way up firm and high? Howl Bloom:
to quote bob seger again Blessed Corvus: Firm an' high, Howl. Howl Bloom:
I don't know if keeping a stiff upper lip Howl Bloom: is much of a substitute
Blessed Corvus: Hmm? Howl Bloom: ok, ravening raven, I must return to
work Howl Bloom: now as for my hypothesis that you Howl Bloom: are a
good friend of mine Howl Bloom: a woman I have loved Howl Bloom: in
disguise Howl Bloom: we will save that for some other time Blessed Corvus:
As you wish, my friend Howl. Blessed Corvus: I like that - Howl. I'll
call you that. Howl Bloom: ave--to use the old roman sign off Blessed
Corvus: Ave Corvus et Deus Howl Bloom: salute both crow and god? Blessed
Corvus: Hm.. yes.. a little crow in a big world Blessed Corvus: Till
later =) Howl Bloom: bye ") blessedcorvus and
hb 1/10/01 In a message dated 4/3/01 7:40:03 PM Eastern Daylight Time, alex writes: This note came to me from Disinfo Contributing Editor Nick Mamatas, who is also a Senior Editor at Soft Skull Press (http://www.softskull.com): "I've spent some time on the rez and few, if any people in the New York rez system can afford Nikes, or Tommy or any of that other stuff. Hand-me-downs of hand-me-downs from church collection drops, welfare sneakers and all the rest of it make up the swinging Iriquois wardrobe of the new millenium." hb: Nick, this is extremely useful information, especially since it comes from first hand experience. It is undoubtedly true for many ny state area indians, but not for all. the mohawks and the pequot are heavily involved in international commerce. the mohawks have six gambling casinos along one highway-- route 37--in ny alone. (see Lora Abaurrea. "Gambling On Indian Reservations." http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/academics/courses/is190-1/s96/abaurrea/assign5.htm) the oneida have what encyclopedia.com calls "a large gambling casino near Syracuse, NY. (Iroquois. Encyclopedia.com. (http://www.encyclopedia.com/articles/06475TheIroquoisToday.html)) the pequot have foxwoods casinos and resorts (http://www.foxwoods.com/), a massive complex which sports 1,400 rooms and five casinos. these facilities were built in large part with money from 17 arab banks. the mohawk, pequot, and oneida gambling havens and rely for their revenues on American, Canadian, and Asian tourists. Here's how the Pequots advertise their enterprise: " five casinos featuring over 5,800 slots and 350 tables, over 1,400 luxurious rooms and deluxe suites, 24 restaurants, 17 specialty shops, headline entertainment throughout the year, and nearby golf course, it's easy to see why. Plus, when players play with Foxwoods' Wampum Club card, they'll earn points that can be redeemed for valuable rewards, discounts and comps" yes, gang, remember to use those Wampum Club cards! the number of native americans on welfare or beneath the welfare radar screen is extremely disturbing. yet even most of these own a television or a transistor radio. that means they've taken advantage of an international commercial system that gives them easy, relatively inexpensive access to Asian-made goods. No, they can't afford Nikes. This means that those not dependent on second-hand church goods are probably wearing cheap shoes made by the Chinese. Do they wear factory-made inexpensive shirts and jeans? if so, they are taking full advantage of low cost asian labor. does this mean they are exploiters of those who toil under substandard conditions for low wages? yes. does this mean the indians buying cheap imported necessities are also benefactors to the asian laborers they exploit? yes. Korea and Japan raised themselves from third to first world status by offering sweat shop labor, learning the technologies of production, bettering them, and, in the case of the japanese, finally climbing to an average hourly wage higher than that in the united states. mutual exploitation that benefits both parties is called symbiosis, and is the key to the multinational, trade system. it is the secret benefit of globalism. So we will see a march of exploiters--those who exploit chinese, thai, pakistani, and burmese labor--marching against exploitation on the Canadian American border. very ironic. Meanwhile, Nick, I visited the Soft Skull Press website (http://www.softskull.com). s it is interesting, and the book soft skull is offering on george bush sounds like an irresistable treat. however the site is very gung ho for revolution. what sort of revolution would soft skull like to see? many revolutions come to mind--the French Revolution of 1788, the French Revolution of 1848, the Russian Revolutions of 1905 and 1917, the Chinese Revolution of 1948, etc. Every one of these revolutions started by well meaning, idealistic, pampered middle class kids like me turned out very bloody indeed. how would you keep your revolution from turning violent? Howard P.S. Alex--I am taking the extremely pro stance on globalism to point out benefits of the world trade system that those who oppose globalism must know before they act rashly and impoverish all of us. impoverishment was the result of most of the revolutions i've just mentioned. russia in 1913, for example, had one of the fastest growing economies in the world. after the revolution of 1917 and the takeover of the country by the pampered intellectual son of a very high ranking, very well off bureaucrat--Lenin--russia actually moved backwards economically. if, however, the majority were to take my pro-globalism, pro-multi-national stance, i would look for the negatives. after all, someone's got to speak up when the emperor has no clothes. if you and i don't do it, who will? this time the emperor is on the left. _______________________________ Evolution of large-scale societies has led to a measurable decrease in violence. I suspect it's also led to an increase in human rights. De-evolution promises to carry us in the opposite direction. And things are devolving when there are 469 attacks by pirate vessels in a single year-most of them hour-long naval sieges waged on large commercial ships in the Straits of Indonesia, Malacca, and Singapore. It seems time to stop our media from cheering with enthusiasm every time a Sarajevo, an East Timor, or a Chechnya wants to turn itself into a sovereign state. And it may be time for anti-globalists to realize that their entire way of life-including their right to protest and express oppositional points of view-may be in danger too. The question before us is not whether we need global institutions, but how do we make those institutions democratic, transparent, and supportive of basic human liberties. Howard Oil spill feared in pirate-infested Asia By Pete Harrison SYDNEY, April 26 (Reuters) - Surging Asian piracy and militants searching for soft targets pose an increasing threat to the world oil tanker trade, and oil spills are seen as an inevitable consequence, piracy experts warned. "We believe Abu Sayyaf and the Tamil Tigers are actively considering attacking marine targets," former mercenary Colonel Tim Spicer told the international tanker owners organisation, Intertanko, which met this week in Sydney. The Abu Sayyaf is a Muslim separatist rebel group based in the southern Philippines. Tamil Tiger guerrillas are fighting for a separate Tamil homeland in the north and east of Sri Lanka. Spicer showed tanker owners a slide of bomb-damage to the U.S. warship USS Cole in Yemen last October, and asked them to imagine the consequences of a similar attack on a tanker. Piracy investigator Jayant Abhyankar of the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) warned that pirate attacks on tankers in Asia's crowded shipping lanes were a growing threat to navigation. "While pirates are boarding the ship for the duration of 30 to 60 minutes, the ships are often not under command," he said. "Do we wait for another Exxon Valdez before we tackle piracy in the proper sense?" The Exxon Valdez spilled 35,000 tons of crude on Alaskan shorelines after it hit rocks in March 1989. IMB research showed that last year a pirate attack in Southeast Asia was reported nearly every day, and it said it feared that an equal number of attacks go unreported. Petroleum product tankers have proved to be a key target with their valuable cargoes of diesel and gasoline, which can easily be sold on the black market. Intertanko issued a statement urging governments to establish anti-piracy patrols, and legal frameworks which would allow prosecution of pirates when caught. Abhyankar warned: "The threat of an ecological catastrophe cannot be ignored. We firmly believe it is not a question of if (a pirate attack results in an oil spill), but when." About half of the 469 pirate attacks reported last year -- a 10-year high -- occured in Indonesia and the Straits of Malacca, said the IMB. Abhyankar told Reuters that it would be there or in the Singapore Strait, that a spill was most likely to happen. The consequences of an oil spill in Singapore waters were illustrated by the collision between the Evoikos and Orapin Global in October 1997, with 25,000 tonnes of fuel oil spilling into the sea. SOFT TARGETS Spicer told Reuters the Tamil Sea Tigers were more mobile than Abu Sayyaf, and therefore tankers were more at risk from attack in the waters off Sri Lanka than in the Philippines. "As the hard targets get harder, terrorists are increasingly looking for soft targets," said Spicer. "Why hunt the tiger when you can hunt lots of rabbits?" he said, quoting from a handbook of the Islamic fundamentalist Hamas group. Spicer was the head in 1998 of mercenary firm Sandlines International, which gained international fame through action in Sierra Leone and Papua New Guinea in the 1990s. His latest venture Trident provides merchant shipping with non-aggressive protection from piracy. He said in light of last October's attack on the USS Cole, tanker owners should also consider themselves a potential target for Islamic militant Osama bin Laden, suspected of involvement in the attack on the U.S. warship in Yemen. "Osama bin Laden is someone with whom I believe anyone who sets sail at sea should be cognisant," said Spicer. "He has the reach, the money and the motivation." 23:15 04-25-01 Copyright 2001 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon. All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL. _______________________________ Global institutions are headed and staffed by men (yes, primarily men) in their 50s and 60s. Those men are the top langurs the gangs of roaming youngsters need to knock off their lofty perches. Why? So the youngsters can take power. Meanwhile, the fact is that one can INCREASE one's individuality thanks to such new global mechanisms as the internet. An isolated kid in Kansas City now can find friends in Denmark, Australia, New York, and Dallas who share her feelings about life. Instead of remaining a silent outcast, as may have been her lot 20 years ago, she can find affirmation for her identity and put a positive spin on her differences by joining with others in a transnational subculture. Global Brain shows how such transnational subcultures first arose in sixth century b.c Greece--before the days of Socrates and Plato. But the pace of communication between those who were strangers to normalcy was extremely slow. Today it's instant. Even the anti-globalism movement is, of all things, global. An article on the global nature of the movement's demonstration in Seattle, " Irony in Seattle - nothing globalises like anti-globalism By WALTER TRUETT ANDERSON " appeared roughly 10,000 miles away in South Africa's online news outlet Woza (http://www.woza.co.za/forum2/dec99/wto1.htm). Foreign Affairs published an article which Price Waterhouse reprinted in its Executive Digest under the headline France's New Anti-Globalism ("The French Exception," Foreign Affairs 79 (4): 104-116 (July/August 2000--This excerpt first appeared in the September 2000 issue of Executive Digest.http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:www.pwcglobal.com/extweb/newcoweb.nsf/DocID/A883F496C012195585256907005BB674+anti-globalism&hl=en&client=googlet, downloaded 5/4/01). Anti-Globalists (more accurately, anti-capitalist) articles published on Australia's www.greenleft.org.au website derive their material from speeches delivered in Bangkok, movements backing a forgiveness of debt to Africa, material from a Summit in Okinawa, "Action in Solidarity with Indonesia and East Timor," blockades that tried to bring Prague to a halt, etc. The anti-globalist, anti-capitalist movement Atac (http://www.attac.org/) started in France, but claims connections to Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Cameroons, Chile, Spain, Finland, Greece, Ireland, Luxembourg, Morocco, Holland, Portugal, Quebec, Russia, Switzerland, Sweden, Senegal, Tunisia, and more. Its website allows access in Spanish, French, German, and English. The Anti-Global cause unites such disparate figures as America's pope of the New Left Noam Chomsky and Australia's queen of the far right, Pauline Hanson. Now for the next question--what hooks and eyelets have allowed humans to evolve ever larger societies, societies with increasing global ties? Let's revisit feminist scholar Carol Gilligan. Gilligan contends that females and males are fundamentally different--with different emotional settings and different "moralities." (Carol Gilligan. In A Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women's Development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982.) The female morality, says Gilligan, focuses on intimate relationships--relationships with friends and family. It's based on caring for and about others. Male morality, Gilligan asserts, is abstract...based on rules of "fairness," loyalty and "justice" that apply no matter which humans you slot into the role of "criminal," "cheater," "victim," "judge," "friend," "foe," "attacker," or "defender." With these simple rules, males can associate with total strangers almost as easily as they can with mothers, fathers, brothers, and other folks they've known since birth. Whether she's right or wrong about male-female differences, Gilligan has grabbed hold of something important about human nature. We have intimate forms of emotional Velcro, and we have abstract fasteners. The intimate Velcro holds together families. It satisfies what Peter Richerson calls our "tribal" needs...our primal emotional needs for warmth, closeness, and love. Our abstract inclinations to "fairness," and "justice" help us clip microsocieties like families into macrosocieties like city-states, nations, multi-national corporations, and now even larger entities. Gilligan is strong on ideas and weak on empirical substantiation. But if she's got it right, women hold together the cell of society--the family. And men are the collagen gluing together the alliances with strangers that provide the muscle, bone, and tissue of social megabodies. As for who supplies the brain, I suspect it's both men and women. Intimate emotions and abstract principles work together to create the hurricanes of form that continually swirl through the increasingly global mass mind. Howard
_______________________________ _______________________________ The curious are
the antennae of society. Even among baboons, unconventional loners who
get their kicks from poking under every rock and opening every door
and bos in sight open whole new opportunities to the group. Neanderthal,
with their large brains, were apparently the chimps of the late ice
age. Homo sapiens were the Pleistocene's baboons. I exult in the fact
that I'm able to communicate with people from all over the world, exchanging
ideas at a frantic pace, despite being stuck in a bed. It's all about
tradeoffs. (in wild v. domestic sheep analogy). Domestic sheep have
barely 50% of the brain mass of wildlones. A sorry lot. hb: one of the
members of our group has been trying to tell me that kids today know
more than ever before thanks to television shows like star trek, that
pound black holes and galaxies into their heads. I was not convinced
until her ten year old son and I tackled the problem of teaching each
other the periodic tables and the nature of singularities. This kid
knew that infinity divided by ten is infinity. He knew what a google
is, and even that when you divide infinity by a google you get infinity.
I coudn't believe. Now imagine how many brains of ancestors and contemporaries
had built the ideas from which the concepts of black holes, singularities,
and infinities were crafted. A ten year old with far less brain and
brawn was mastering concepts no neanderthal ever had the privilege of
pondering. Why? Because it's not just the brain in your skull that counts,
its the total mass of brainpower you can tap. And it's a matter of the
effervescent curiosity that yanks new paradoxes into view, then tackles
their explanation...a group effort even for loners like me. Howard Alex Burns &
hb 0720-01 ab: They are, and the Left/Progressives here are still taking
that on board. Unions are learning about positioning and image marketing,
activists are facing PR tactics.
_______________________________ To appreciate heaven
well Says Bloom, no need to fear, we have fifteen minutes of hell roughly seven times a day. _______________________________ In a message dated
6/16/00 10:00:53 PM Eastern Daylight Time, KIPSIVELY writes: hb: no, but it's
delightful to see you grasping and using the concepts in Lucifer as
if they were fine-line chisels and you were an accomplished sculptress. hb: yup, but some more than others. I can't imagine
even investing in a hb: it not only
justified it, but I did... go crazy, that is. ss: Yes, I fit your
definition of wicked. I have genuinely hurt other people "All visible
objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event- in the
living act, the undoubted deed- there, some unknown but still reasoning
thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning hb: Susan, are you
serious? _______________________________ _______________________________ Ironic, isn't it? The greatest thing we need is to feel needed. So the need of others, their selfishness, is the greatest thing they can give us. Yet the animal who shows weakness and cries out is often literal torn apart by others in his or her group. So we are justifiably frightened by the idea of revealing our internal hunger...and the pains it generates. Who designed these contradictions into us? Evolution. And who will get us out of their trap? Just us, m'am, just us. For we are one of evolution's incarnations, carrying within us her full history...and her future. I admire what you're
doing and the insight with which you're going about it tremendously.
Now for the remainder of this excursion into the heart of darkness,
the terra incognita of our selves.
This seems to show that who rears whom and how effects where a rhesus monkey ends up on the phenotypical line I portrayed several weeks ago. Expanding on Val Geist's concept of maintenance and dispersal phenotypes, I outlined five separate phenotypes laid out on a continuum. At the low end, relatively?resource?and?control? deprived, were those "maintenance phenotypes" which huddled to find a precarious illusion of stability. These groups, I posited, are easily roused by stressors to a group fragmentation which sends them off, not adventuring, but fleeing as "refugees." (There is a large body of experimental documentation for this, cited in _The Prehistory of the Global Brain_ and also reinforced by the Kraemer article cited below.) The information from Gary Kraemer's recent studies suggests that gang?reared monkeys are what psychologists call high on the "f" (fascism) scale. These animals depend for their sense of safety on a high degree of social stability. The slightest degree of the turmoil which attends social mobility??mobility of outsiders, or of those among them??tends to send them into high alarm. In humans, these high f?scale, authoritarian types lash out at such social disruptors as overt sexuality, overt shows of violence, and the apparent threat to stability posed by out?groups in the social circle. The authoritarian types are dogged maintainers of the status quo. When that stasis is threatened in even imaginary ways (by the social rise of blacks, Turks, or Jews, for example) they react with a violence foreign to more pluralistic, low f?scale individuals. Experiments with peer?reared monkeys show the fascist pattern. When all is stable, the peer?reared monkeys demonstrate great stability. When the slightest hint of disruption appears, these normally *more* placid creatures than their "striving" mother? reared peers lash out with what seems like disproportionate violence. I use the word "striving" to describe the mother?reared animals because they do indeed compete more readily among themselves for dominance. This is the mark of what humans, impelled by a similar underlying neurology, know as social mobility. It is the foundation of both rhesus and human "meritocracy." (See note below.) The peer?reared seek the frozen stability which in human culture accompanies totalitarianism, feudalism, and other social forms that harden folks into their place. This has implications for the "mass psychology" of each "collective intelligence." A group of peer?reared monkeys or their human counterparts would overstress conformity enforcers and smother diversity generators. They would welcome the social paralyzation which did the Romans in after roughly 300 A.D., and eventually led to the choking culture of pre?eleventh century feudal society. The mother?deprived, peer?reared would be, as Theodor Adorno and other originators of the "f" scale sensed, the violently intolerant Nazis of the thirties or the equally violent neo?Nazi skinheads of today. Ironically, this is what "egalitarian" hunter?gatherer societies tend to do??freeze the form of their society. Note that where other cultures have either succeeded mightily (as have Europeans and Chinese) or gone down to total elimination (as have the Aztecs, Mayans, Huns, Babylonians, Assyrians, etc.), some egalitarian hunter?gatherers (the !Kung, the Inuit) have hung on, but they've done it by remaining marginal. There may be additional social implications as well. Even in modern American upper middle class society, modern children are more peer?reared than mother?reared. They grow up in day?care centers with high?achievement, career?oriented mothers. I am personally very much in favor of such opportunities or even norms for women. In fact, I'd shudder to live without them. However, studies indicate that day?care kids, like peer?reared rhesus monkeys, tend to be overly violent in reaction to minor stress. What happens when these "kids" grow up and take over the reins of this society? Will they seek the stability offered by rigid authority figures and shun the social mobility which characterized the America of earlier years? Are they already doing so when they flock to those movements on the religious right which offer peer? comfort in exchange for adherence to authority and demonization of outsiders? Will the peer?reared Generation Xers rigidify future American and Western society, turning it into a haven of the "illiberal democracy" written up as a growing trend in this month's _Foreign Affairs_? Will they gravitate toward domination by an aristocracy (in our case, domination by a nobility of wealth or by political and entertainment dynasties like those of the Bush, the Gore, and Kennedy families or the Kirk and Michael Douglas, the Donald and Kiefer Sutherland, the Zappa, the Jerry and Ben Stiller, the Alan and Adam Arkin, and the Ryan and Tatum O'Neill clans)? Will Generation X and Y'ers settle like serfs into a comfortable immobility? Will this produce an American society less able to face the coming Chinese challenge? Will it produce dumbing?down that occurs when a society hounds its deviants, its explorers and its other innovative non?conformists into frightened silence? Will it mean that unhealthy state that pops up when the balance between conformity enforcers and diversity generators tips toward too much homogeneity? Howard *note: I do not believe that terms like "meritocracy" are sloppily unscientific anthropomorphisms when applied to rhesus macaques. All evidence indicates that we inherited the skeletal structure of our society from the same ancestors as the rhesus. The neurochemical alterations that trigger a shift from what Schjelderup?Ebbe, discoverer of the "peck order," called a "tyranny" to an animal society in which there is far greater room for movement on the social scale apparently go back paleopsychologically to long before the rise of primates. The basic societal forms of which I write are ones we did not invent. We inherited them from a long line of ancestors. Birds, who share many social characteristics with us, arose roughly 120 mya. The variety of social structures among birds, from which we've learned to name our own peck orders, presumably were bequeathed to both avians and primates by a common ancestor whose existence preceded 120 mya. Remember, dominance hierarchies appear even in spiny lobsters and other crustaceans which first showed up on the evolutionary stage roughly 250 mya. I take this to indicate that our sharing of peck orders with our feathered cousins is an instance of common descent, not of parallel but independent evolution. By the way, I also believe we have devoted insufficient attention to the ubiquity of parallel evolution. Doesn't it seem rather strange to anyone that the marsupials of Australia should take on forms similar to the placental mammals of Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas? Doesn't it also seem peculiar that Darwin's finches should have evolved into forms so similar to those of English birds that Darwin was forced to consult a highly skilled ornithologist in order to determine that the birds he'd found in the Galapagos where not the same species he knew from home, but were all finch varieties? Corollary generation theory does explain such parallel phenomena. Both marsupials and placental mammals are childen of the Big Bang and cousins in the clan of DNA. They carry within them the same axioms and the same elaborations of those axioms in genes and Epigenesis. Both marsupials and placental mammals both live in a world filled with fractal repetitions, a world origamied from the Big Bang axioms that underlie mammalian forms. When the environment extracts fresh corollaries from marsupials and placentals separated by a thousand miles of sea, those corollaries bloom in a similar way, then are further slimmed down by environments that also are big bang bred and turned to cousins by the restraints of existence on a common earth with a common pool of microbes, revolution around a common sun, similar plants, similar seasons and days, and a common atmosphere. Mammals in Australia and South American cope with iterative circumstance in an iterative way. I believe this is a bit of what Francis Steen and Koen DePryck might call this cosmos' underlying ontology. Either that or it's a fancy way of restating the obvious. But isn't every truth in science just a bit of that? Frankly I'm not sure. Perhaps it's time to trot out the razor of epistemology and use it to cut this speculative tirade off. ??????????? Gary W. Kraemer. "Psychobiology of Early Social Attachment in Rhesus Monkeys: Clinical Implications." In The Integrative Neurobiology of Affiliation, edited by C. Sue Carter, I. Izja Lederhendler, and Brian Kirkpatrick, New York: New York Academy of Sciences, 1997: 401?418. See especially: 410. Fareed Zakaria. "The Rise of Illiberal Democracy." Foreign Affairs, November?December, 1997: 22?44. Theodor Adorno, E. Frenkel?Brunswick, D.J. Levinson, and R.N. Sanford. The Authoritarian Personality. New York: Harper & Row, 1950. Harry F. Harlow. Learning To Love. New York: Jason Aronson, Inc., 1974. Christopher Boehm, Director, the Jane Goodall Research Center, University of Southern California, draft, "Four Mechanical Routes To Altruism," March, 1996. Howard Bloom. The Prehistory of the Global Brain: from the Big Bang to 5,000 B.C. Hamburg: Bollmann Verlag, 1998. Howard Bloom. The Lucifer Principle: a scientific expedition into the forces of history. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1995. Bob Altemeyer, "Marching
In Step: A Psychological Explanation of State Terror," The Sciences,
March/April 1988, p. 30. Howard, I am enjoying and learning much from this dialogue. >hb: Alex. Everything you're saying is correct. But think of this. The current generation of those in their twenties had two basic role models to choose from. No, you've floundered already, with the best of intentions. It's a case of imprinting: those who reached the end of high?school around 1991 were much more affected by Seattle's grunge aesthetic and the death of Nirvana's Kurt Cobain more than Gen?Yers who are 18?20, very computer tech oriented, and very much into techno?artists like _Chemical Brothers_ or _The Prodigy_. There's already a gulf there, even though there is only a few year's difference. There were many more role models and typologies for self?identity than two basic models, and even these are varied by your niche and area: Australia was slightly different to the U.S. in its manifestations, as were parts of Europe. You've mistaken horizontal span for vertical depth, which is OK, because these weren't *your* imprinting or personal experiences ? you need people like me and the other X?Men to interpret and filter them. And likewise in return: dia?logos. >One was that represented by Newt Gingrich and his Young >Republicans, who wore suits and adhered to traditional values complete with >tradition intolerance while other was the McKenna >psychedelic?seeking?after?enlightenment mdel. Yes, but again there are differences: the Gingrich model has only really come to power in Australia over the past three years, whereas it was evident on American university campuses according to Douglas Rushkoff in the early 1980s. And its values are slightly different. Also, McKenna is far more subtle and complex than his characterisation by most of his audience as a 'psychedelic?seeking?after?enlightenment' model. This became evident from our two?hour 1996 phone interview: Alfred North Whitehead is just as important in his schema as DMT, something overlooked by a majority of his audience and readership, who only want to hear about his latest drug?trip. >Those in their 20s I know have >chosen to build on and alter the McKenna path. There are others who are extending and altering the Newt Gingrich approach. However those are not the >people I meet. Each generation eats its parents alive then becomes them. No, in the case of Gen?X, the reverse is true: an image first captured in 1987 by Brett Easton Ellis at the end of his book _Less Than Zero_, which closes with a Saturnian image of devourment. This can be traced to falling U.S. birth?rates post?Altamont, which also coincided with the 'demonic brood' of 'The Excorcist' and 'The Omen' films, leading to the stalk?and?slasher teenage films of the early 1980s as a barometer of U.S. socio?economic upheaval (see 'Reagan's America', the book by Lloyd deMause at www.psychohistory.com for more substantive data). Michael Franti has coined us as: 'the Jason Generation/That learns to laugh, rather than abhor the Horror.' And I know of only four people whose families have not been through devastating cycles of divorce, and plenty of people my age who never want to become parents because of what they experienced. >Each generation takes comfort in its grandparents. Mine are on visit from New Zealand and were impressed with your work. >The pendulum sways back >and forth, favoring long hair in one generation and short hair in the next??plus all the emotional modes represented by the statement of that >particular style. (For a history of these hairstyles as generational statments over the centuries, see Charles Mackay, LL. D. Extraordinary >Popular Delusions and The Madness of Crowds. 1841. New York: Farrar, Straus >and Giroux (n.d.)) Each manner of cropping ones locks reveals the repetition >of an ancient pattern while remaking it slightly and perhaps, we hope, advancing its significance. It is possible to both emulate and reinvent a >stance, a worldview, or a mode of thought. Opposites are seldom mutually exclusive. In fact, they often are separate facets of the same phenomenon. Mackay's work is a standard, however as the work of Clare W. Graves, Don Edward Beck, and Chris Cowan (the 'Spiral Dynamics' guys) indicates, these patterns can be more complex than a simple 'from?to' pendulumn swing, and can occur at different levels of psychological existence, even within the same generation. > As for "empty institutions": Max Weber's Protestant work ethic and the pop management writings of Tom Peters have a lot to answer for. > >hb: why? I rather like both. Perhaps I should have written the interpretation of Weber's work by management. I like Tom Peters, but much of his delivery and interpetation is problematic: Stuart Crainer's _The Tom Peters Phenomenon: Corporate Man to Corporate Skunk_ (1998) shows how 'In Search Of Excellence' created the modern business book but also served as an ideological tool when America was facing problems from Japan (ie. propaganda?like effects), and that many of the companies that McKinsey and Co cited later failed their own criteria. Peter's _Thriving On Chaos_ is flawed, whilst _The Tom Peters Seminar_ swaps solid economic analysis and psychology for glitzy pop presentation (that I like and use as a starting point, but has limits). Style won over substance. > Douglas Coupland's description of McJobs in 'Microsoft Serfs' springs to mind. Richard > Metzger's analysis of many Silicon Valley companies > as glorified sweat?shops for the digital era is > sobering indeed, and indicative of people's gullibility > for industry?driven ideologies and self?serving > propaganda. > >hb: Alex, I don't accept that. I've heard it from plenty of other people other than Richard (who was tongue?in?cheek), and Coupland, and Douglas Rushkoff, who have experienced it as consultants. There is a layer of ideology and propaganda there, Howard. Most of the IT stocks on the Dow are over?valued. It's questionable that Microsoft can buy up intellectual capital or patent technologies, or that venture capital is used for money?laundering and arms?dealing, or that many Silicon Valley environments more closely resemble Frederick Taylor's 1920s time?motion studies. I have to disagree with you on this: it shouldn't be a generalization, but is a factor to consider in any analysis. >Some people find zest and fulfillment in what >they do. Others find nothing but oppression and emptiness. It's a half?full glass proposition. The individual can choose which to see, the contents or >the emptiness. In the current American economy folks with skills can often pick their job, make sure it's the one that fits their desires, and leave for >another if their boss is abusive. Then there are those who start their own companies. Nothing is easy??even doing the things we enjoy most often tax us >to the nth degree. But nihilism is in the eye of the perceiver. So are alienation and anomie. Tell that to anyone who has worked long?term ? as I have ? in a tele?marketing or call centre environment, which is the *real* underside of the information economy. There is plenty of alienation and anomie because of the structure of those places, not because of the individual's baggage. It requires both?and logic, not eithor?or. >hb: help, help, hold on here. It's possible for me to put forth my views and for you to disagree without undermining each others identity. I didn't mean to give you that impression, but I don't feel this is happening, rather, that you are dealing with a core issue for me. > However I can >see why you're disturbed. I'm concerned because my generation is being caricatured by yours. Your disturbed because yours is being caricatured??drawn with incomplete understanding??by mine. One of the most liberating things for me was to find that there were members of your generation that felt the same way as I did. But the problems stretch deeper than just caricatures, to such basic realities as having to spend 60% of your income just on rent (not food or utilities), or to pay thousands for an inadequete and ideologically driven education when the previous generation had theirs largely for free, or to be faced with the daunting task of environmental and other crises and to see the resources you need being squandered right in front of your eyes, or to have your entire culture dismissed because it does not fit the configurations, strategies, tactics, or values of your predecessors. Early trauma breeds repitition, and 'tough love' is not enough to break the cycle. >Time for a sorry >old, but true cliche. One of your values in this group is your ability to communicate your generation's viewpoint??at least your perception of it, >which is saturated with a massive amount of unique information and an expertise based on pursuits of your own intense and original combination of >interests. I'm darned curious to know more about what's been opened to me by the group of people most of whom are 27 who've been trooping out to this >bedroom, bringing a very different stance than any I've been accustomed to in the past. Likewise ? I find this incredibly valuable, and I value your time and viewpoints. >Yes, I get disturbed about the cynicism, nihilism, and underlying desire for a sense of a meaning which has been missing from the experience of >many of these people so far. But I want to communicate, help, and understand. You and the others who've been kind enough to befriend me over the last year are people I care about quite a bit. And we really care about you too. But remember, that there is often a self?depracating humour amongst the cynicism and nihilism that is interpreted in an existentialist manner ? "I might be fucked up, BUT . . ." that is more positive than an extreme version of cynicism might indicate. It's not a total victim mentality (or at least it shouldn't be). We just take your PR techniques and become the next Quentin Tarrantino or Silver Chair. >hb: what's Silver Chair? Australian band discovered in 1995 by Triple J network by Richard Kingsmill and Francis Leach (who interviewed you). Three albums: _Frogstomp_ (1995), _Freak_ (1997), _Neon Ballroom_ (1999). Standard?bearers because they were 15 at time of their discovery and broke into the U.S. market, touring with contemporaries like Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Smashing Pumpkins, MTV Music Awards, pianist David Helfgott (see the 1997 film _Shine_). In a country with the highest youth suicide rate in the world, they showed that the everyday youth could have a potentially worldwide impact and still retain their artistic integrity. >hb: Anton Levay as in the former would?be rock star turned Satanist? I know >you feel he's important but I haven't followed his work. LaVey wasn't a rock?star but the early Church of Satan years had a PR effect because of LaVey's PR manager. LaVey spliced together the 'sex?politics' writings of Wilhelm Reich, the 'search for collective identity' work of Orrin C. Klapp, Barnum & Bailey, Nietzsche's 'The Anti?Christ' period etc into a personal formulat that creatively used personal alienation against the herd?instinct and trash?media society that advocated _Indulgence_ instead of Abstinence and Self?flagellation. Thus he followed Faust, Hermann Hesse, Jules Verne's Captain Nemo, and other Outsiders. But his second?in? command, Dr. Michael A. Aquino, had a greater personal impact on me. LaVey actually attacked you in his later years for _The Lucifer Principle_, as he did with anyone who he felt had ripped off his ideas. This was an inferiority complex based on personal failings. All I know is a >quote which I believe is his: ""TURN OFF THE TELEVISION SET. ITS MEANT TO PROGRAM YOU TO THINK LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE. USE IT AS A DEVICE OF YOUR OWN PLEASURE, BUT AS WITH FIRE OR ELECTRICITY, BE AWARE OF THE DANGER. USE YOUR DIFFERENCE, YOUR ALIENATION, RATHER THAN BE USED BY IT" ? Anton Szandor LeVay" Sounds like it could have some value. Sounds like LaVey. His philosohy has limits, but for that particular period of an individual's life ? the confusing adolescent phase ? it's a very useful personal transformation formula. >hb: good points. Two more experts to add to your list of those who see the positive results of generational rebellion are Konrad Lorenz and Erik >Erikson. I've also written quite a lot about it. Still, I do want to understand the 20 plus generation more. I'm familiar with Konrad Lorenz and have had the writings of Erik Erikson on my reading list for some?time. Erich Fromm's _Homo Consumens_ is also worth name?dropping. A great and thought?provoking dialogue, despite our differences of perception. Regards, Alex Burns www.disinfo.com ------------------------------ Dear Howard, Again, thanks for your insightful comments. I hope this is of interest to the paleo?psych list, otherwise, don't hesitate to use your delete button. :?) >hb: I've known and studied few postmodernists??actually only the Radical Constructionists, whom I researched fairly heavily for Global Brain and with whom I'm in agreement about the fact, if not the attitude derived therefrom. Would you count John Searle's work in this category? I'm enjoying his _The Social Construction of Reality_, along with Karl Jasper's _Nietzsche_ at the moment. The attitude of the 'Radical Constructionists' is not prevalent throughout other postmodernist thinkers IMO. >All I've seen is their impact on a generation. If there are postmodernists opening new doors of perception the way, say Edmund Wilson, a critic of the >generation previous to mine, did for me, by all means point the people out and I will admit my ignorance. Reaching the heights of Edmund Wilson is a hard act to follow :?) J.G. Ballard, William Gibson, Neal Stephenson, Bruce Sterling and much of the 21.C magazine crowd: Darren Tofts, Mark Dery, McKenzie Wark, Andrew Ross (his 'The Chicago Gangster Theory of Life' is wonderful) manage to analyse the postmodern arena in a fun and relevant way that packages information like _The Lucifer Principle_. A few works like Mike Davis' _City of Quartz: Excavating The Future of Los Angeles_ stand?out as both literary and analytical master?pieces. Margaret Wertheim brings a strong feminist voice to reading scientific history. Hmmm . . .any would?be magazine funders here? :?) I find aspects of Derrida, Lacan, Foucault, Lyotard, and Baudrillard illuminating, but am aware of the limitations of each. Paul Virilio and Manuel de Landa (*especially* _A Thousand Years of Non?Linear History_) are possible contenders. Richard Metzger's protestations aside, Mark Dery's _Escape Velocity_ is regarded as one of the best postmodern books on cyberculture and industrial culter written, up there in some ways with Kevin Kelly's _Out of Control: The Rise of the Neo?biological Civilization_. With the post?modernists, you have to choose very carefully and sift, since each have been mutilated by academics (e.g. Foucault's analysis of Jeremy Bentham's Panopticon as a metaphor for surveillance society has been done to death, but there are plenty of other aspects of his work that haven't been explored). I'll have to think more about this and read some Edmund Burke: not a bad thing :?) Maybe some writings of the Australian conservative critic and anti?communist Robert Manne would be more to your liking? >Alex, you're right in your criticisms. In >attempting to mobilize people (and myself) the language which emerges from me is frequently that of a jihad, a holy war. But I would never burn the books >of those with whom I disagree, nor would I ban them. I would be deprived without my opportunities to read Foucault and even to know the writings of >the Aryan Nationalists who declare their God?given duty to annihilate me. I never meant to suggest you would take this angle, but I have a personal reaction to any holy?war language because of my childhood experiences. It's not directed at you, and I can see that the emotional mobilising aspect is critical to what you are trying to do, and the souls you are trying to revive from their Lazarus?like sleep. >What I do want to do is stamp the sense of wonder into folks which William Blake helped instill in me with his > > To see a World in a Grain of Sand >And a Heaven in a Wild Flower, >Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand >And Eternity in an hour. Very relevant and beautiful. >hb: show me the postmodernists who are opening new realms of revelation and I'll acknowledge it. They've done a service by pointing out the methods used >to manipulate people, but they've blown it all out of proportion. Sure, Bernays told much more about the tricks of manipulation in his 1920's book Propaganda. But the postmodernists have popularized it. Bernays book >slipped into obscurity. Not if you read Noam Chomsky or do any substantial readings on the development of psychological warfare and communications sciences, where Bernays' work and that of Walter Lippmann are frequently name?checked. Both Bernays and Lippmann are ideologically compromised by their intelligence connections, as described in Christopher Simpson's _Science of Coercion_ and Peter Watkin's _War On The Mind_ (name?dropped by Douglas Rushkoff in his book _Coercion_, but not really explored in too much depth). I do not equate the tactics of the postmodernists with Bernays per se. And what's so wrong about a little Darwinian selection amongst friends :?) >Those of the postmodernists are used in classrooms >all around the world. However, like most movements, the postmodernists have gone overboard with their point of view??rather than weaving it into a larger >picture, they seem to have followed a single thread to oblivion and beyond. Again, I don't think this is the fault of the actual core postmodernists like Lyotard or Foucault or Baudrillard or Derrida, but more because of the growth of academia and the development of tenured radical influence on episteme, which can be traced to generational factors. Derrida and others never wanted to be prophets of 'movements', and their work has been mis?interpreted and popularised beyond their control. Communications mechanisms like the explosive growth of the Internet have had an impact. So, there are plenty of other environmental and niche factors other than the ideology itself to be considered.>Reading the writings of Todd Gitlin, a contemporary of mine, over the years has been a painful experience. The man is a masterful tailor of the emperor's new clothes. What it comes down to this is this. It's an absolute >necessity to be able to comprehend opposites simultaneously, and see how they make a greater whole. Which is what Derrida's attack on binary dualism, and Lacan's analysis of how language modifies perception is all about, let alone holistic thinkers like Buckminster Fuller or Clare W. Graves who are just being interpreted in a postmodernist context now. >If the tide were turning against postmodernism and it >looked as if the insights of the movement were about to disappear, I'd probably be one of the first out to defend them. LOL! I'd like to see *that* happen. Now, can you convince Michael Jackson to go ahead with the Sydney New Year's Eve concert he just cancelled? There's always the three?hour Billy Joel gig (just announced) . . . . >Right now they reign in the academic sphere. And the best students undermine them. Cue Pink Floyd's _Another Brick In The Wall (Pt. 2): "We don't need no edu?kay?shun. We don't need no thought control." I always think it's ironic that the class that sang the chorus all nearly failed their final year: Postmodernism can't be blamed for everything :?) >I tend to become impatient with intolerant creeds. There's is one which could use a little impatience at the moment. Does this make me intolerant? Hard to say. Yes and no. Both, actually. OK, now I'm confused. :?) >hb: yes. again, your textual analysis of my style is right on target, wonderfully so. Hmmm, that 'beginner's guide to Lacan' I read on the weekend is doing me well. How about a 'Beginner's Guide to Paleo?psychology' for www.writersandreaders.com huh, paleo?psych list? >but in the x?men I'm trying to get people to find their most intense centers of personal passion without using an enemy to accomplish this feat. and in using my rhetoric to mobilize, I have the obligation of making >sure that no one ever interprets what I'm saying to indicate that others should be abused. a tricky proposition, alex. Tricky, but solved by invoking Nietzsche's critique of Truth and the need for asperspectivalism: the more viewpoints you can handle at once, the closer you get to a multi?faceted truth. If anyone annoys you, just hit them over the head with a stick like a trusty Zen master. If you don't have one handy, get your PA or Libette Garcia to get you one on their next shopping trip. I'm sure we can come up with some worthy koans that encode paleo?psych principles in them for future x?men sessions. >hb: if it makes any difference, I consider myself a John Stuart Mill liberal, so the world is not a dirty one to me. hooray for JSM! >hb: true, but the stuff that would drive me into crusade mode, no matter what the entrenched academic theology. Yes, well it eventually did for me also ("a funny thing happened on my way to the x?men"), but it also coincided with being kicked out of home on my 20th birthday, and with a very savage reading of Gurdjieff pupil Peter Ouspensky's 'The Fourth Way' which made me question my whole cultural programming to date. > It has become fashionable to blame postmodernism for > culture wars, for the decline of America's prosperity, > for the collapse of Western civilization in general. > >hb: not a criticism which pans out, methinks. No, but one surprisingly prevalent outside the U.S. > America is doing better than >ever financially, and the cynics of high skill are part of what's powering this economic drive. it's there souls, those hollow empty spaces I see when I'm with a lot of these people, that I'm concerned about. Yes, I see plenty of them also, and most of them are now on heroin. Which is one reason why I'm coming to NYC. > Let's throw in one more caveat to my rhetoric. I'm dealing with people who are naturally lost. >Being lost is a part of what it's like to pass through the crises of your twenties. I was lost, too, and frankly, finding one's self has more to do >with finding a good relationship with a person of the opposite sex and finding a niche in which one can set down roots which gratify than it is of >philosophy. Yes, well I almost had both about eighteen months ago, but then I ended up with some very life?changing automatic writing/personal unconscious revelations. Kali (the 'devouring mother' archetype) found me. I went through a similar period several years ago, and got to the point where I was using my personal relationship as a kind of 'shock?treatment' as part of a very dangerous but effective Gurdjieff Work technique that is basically a sustained war?on?the?Self in order to batter yourself into using *every* situation as one for self?growth and transformation. My problem has not been being lost, but rather having my forward?movement blocked by past baggage and by certain family/f(r)iends who have felt deeply uncomfortable/suspicious with some things I've explored. Which is to be expected. >but I like to heal my friends??despite my own profusion of wounds. i don't like to see them suffer. if I can help, which I do in one?on?one experiences of a sort you haven't encountered yet, i will. in >fact, in healing others, I heal myself. weird but true. No, *very* true, Howard. Knowledge of *essence* (or soul if you prefer a religious metaphor) can only be transmitted in person from mouth to ear, and is a form of _Baraka_ (blessing). I have had a similar experience with someone who studied with Gurdjieff pupil John Godolphin Bennett for thirty years ? they heal just by certain manifestations of their very presence, which has been crystallised by their own Faustian search, personal sufferings, and existential drive. This is not over?inflating things, and in time you will come to realise how important this aspect is ? you have entered into a period with X?Men of personal teaching on a very direct level (this process has been part of Islamic Sufi schools for a thousand years). Not only do you heal yourself through healing others, but you also come to *embody* certain knowledge in an objective sense through such a process. > (again, to keep >from overinflating things, some people I can help, some I > just can't do a >thing for. but a little aid and comfort is a heck of a lot better than none.) Very true ? it can make the difference in keeping someone from going over the pain thresh?hold. >hb: to say the least in the life of Foucault. LOL! :?) > The > adoption of these techniques *out of context* by Madison > Avenue and the socio?political strains felt by the U.S. > at the end of the Cold War are also relevant factors. > >hb: if it's any comfort, China is working on a second strike nuclear >capability. It's been manufacturing ballistic missiles capable of putting two satellites into orbit with one launch since 1962, and has been expanding >its nuclear stockpile since then as well. So we will shortly find ourselves in a second cold war with China filling the role Russia once took on. Great, at least I did some reading up on nuclear warfare deterence systems, so I won't be as scared this time. About a month ago I found the episode of the 'Beyond 2000' Australian science program that explored the possibility of nuclear attack that was screened in 1985 and had a very dramatic effect on me ? it was relatively harmless now, but weird to see Warsaw Pact armies, now consigned to history. >hb: even calling poverty a result of colonialism is a mistake. Remember, most of the African nations suffering the most??from Sudan to Nigeria??have >been part of an Islamic Imperium for roughly 1,100 years. The western imperial rule was a brief blip compared to the ongoing Islamic wars in the Sudan and between Nigeria's Islamic Hausa and Christian or animist Yoruban >tribes. Africa has to get over the notion that a man is not a man until he's sired at least seventeen children, no matter how meager his means. This is >an ancient cultural viewpoint which colonialism, whether Islamic or Christian, has never been able to affect. This is very relevant, and a powerful part of the Beck/Cowan values?mapping system. Regards, Alex Burns www.disinfo.com
jp: i wrote an essay last week that would interest you. it's about meeting people, about the unnecessary pretention &standoffishness one encounters . see below: what are you up to ? how's the TV show ? hb: we're looking for a new agent. Three have shown interest. Lion International TV's North American VP went from development into production, so we lost our rabbi there. But the concept has been honed--it's Why We Make War--and we should have a complete animated presentation in a few weeks time. So we're about to come out of the box storming and kicking again in a month or two. Meanwhile I'm working on Reinventing Capitalism: Putting Soul In the Machine, which owes a huge amount to our dialogs--yours and mine. jp: I'm flipping thru The Voice (page leaf page leaf): "Where am I going to go today?" -possibility is endless, I could pick anything. Seems like I have so many options, which I do, but I'm really just choosing ("I'll do x ¬ y, y ¬ x") &I intimately feel my possibility to choose &it makes me a dizzy. My choice could be anything b/c the options have nothing personally to do w/ me: it's a Switchboard, all choices could be all the other ones. &this is the source of my paranoia, anxiousness, &really, my schizophrenia too. I could be doing anything: all x's are y's are z's, &so on. hb: freedom is painful. No one tells you that. It makes for good stories when it's over, but it is poisonous in overdoses. jp: The same thing goes for friends too: I'm on the street, in Williamsberg: "Wait, who are you? I don't know you. I don't want to talk to you. Oh, what? You're reading Derrida. I like Derrida. You're probably a poser. Everyone reads Derrida in Williamsberg. Doesn't mean you have anything to say about Derrida. Hmm… What about you? Oh, you're reading Hegel. Controversial. Now I've never read Hegel, but I hear he's like, you know, a Nazi or something. Deleuze wants to assfuck him. Yeah, maybe I'll talk to you b/c if you're reading Hegel then it must be b/c you were reading Derrida &you know you should read Hegel if you really want to understand. You're not a poser…" But I choke up. I can't talk to this person. My loneliness, anxiousness, paranoia folds in on me &in short, I am afraid. hb: JP, something critical...and bad...happened to you at Vasser. You and I are both geeks in our own way--we have good brains, but our social skills are not those of the suave and popular. Vasser added cynicism to social awkwardness--it barbed wires that were already fencing you in. Who cares of someone is a poseur? It simply means that he or she is afraid and is waving the book around in the hope that someone will walk up and show some interest, ask her about herself, ask her who she (or he) really is under the Derrida and Hegel--where did she come from? What was it like when she was growing up. What does she want to be more than anything else in life. People like supportive listeners. Look who's talking--Mr. nonstop soliloquy. But it's true. Today one of the agents I was talking to told me the story of his life and it gave me more feel for him than an Andean peak of philosopies and abstractions. We've gotta save your soul. jp: You're friends could be anyone. We all like the same things. I like Radiohead, you like Readiohead. Deleuze/Bataille. Richter/Bacon. Ashton Kutcher/The Olsen Twins, etc. A Switchboard. We trade tokens, &if you tell me enough I've already heard, then we can be friends. We talk French philosophy, say the same stuff to each other: well now I can talk to you, b/c you are a copy. I'm a snob, I believe I'm smart, so you say similar things to me &now we can be friends. But w/ my best friend I make dick-&-fart-jokes: why don't we talk about reading dialectics backwards, systematics &slippage? B/c I believe-in my best friend. We've broken down the switchboard (or maybe forget/forgot to use it). We don't trade tokens of judgment b/c he fills the space called "my best friend." I could do this w/ anyone. So I can't be your friend. B/c then I would know my best friend could be you &then Arion isn't special anymore. I have a few best friends (Arion, Max, Michael, Jonás, Eireann, Nicole etc.) &I avoid you so I can't be your friend, so I don't realize my friends could be anyone. hb: this marriage has tied me up for the last year and a half. It's a tough one and I don't know if it will work out. We had a hellacious fight tonight. I don't know how Stephen has stood it, since Diane is positively cruel to him. jp: To fill my time I'm not spending w/ you I read The Voice, figure out what to do. My friends &I consume popular culture together &I consume it w/ myself, myself is an other… I get anxious ¶noid b/c I know (like w/ you) my choice of what to do could be anything, &they're all the same b/c in the end I'm using a system I don't have a personal connection to &I'm paying money to get this stuff. I identify &I "understand" &that's my connection: "Oh, I've seen that…." hb: you should drop over some evening. Call Stephen and make an appointment. For the last year or two the calendar has been crowded non-stop. But aside from my twelfth Coast To Coast radio interview, June is free. jp: I am the most advanced consumer I know. hb: a good insight. jp: I consume the simulation w/ no interest in the center. hb: there is no center to the things you consume. Things are bridges to other human beings. Entertainment is a bridge to other humans, a substitute for them, or a wonderful thing to have when you have people your close to with you to share the experience. jp: Gerhard Richter said, "I am bourgeoisie enough to eat w/ a knife &fork." How bourgeoisie are you? hb: I am bourgeoise enough to have figured out that being bourgeois--as Marx, Lenin, and I all have been, is the best thing in the world. I've even figured out how the first mass-marketed consumer product--soap--helped provide the anger behind Das Kapital. jp: I am not enough to wait 26 hours in line (likely in the cold) to get Radiohead tickets. I'm not going to try to get tickets, figure out where to go, or even if I have a ticket look at the concert date. But Erin has an extra ticket, OK I'll go. I can follow her, she did all the work. I'll just follow &enjoyment will follow. I guess I'll pay the $66, hb: holy smokes. jp: but I'd rather give her some art if she's into it. We'll see… Here's what happens: keep in mind, if someone (a person &/or a corporation) tells me there's a concert (an x) I know how to behave: it's systematics, a simulation. 1. The Field Day Music Festival (Radiohead concert) gets cancelled b/c it's on a god damn nature preserve, the concert will ruin the eco system. (Sounds suspicious, who in their right mind has a concert that will ruin an eco system in a nature preserve?) 2. Ticket Master e-mails Erin, "We're refunding your credit card $66." The concert is relocated to New Jersey (meanwhile bourgeoisie from around the world have hotels reserved in Long Island) at Giants Stadium, not quite a "field day" any more, now for 1 day instead of 2 &$90. 3. Understanding the money will be refunded Erin buys new tickets (suspiciously expensive). 2 hours later W.A.S.T.E. emails her, saying, "The tickets you bought will be transferred &we're [I think] adding more charges." She gets 2 extra tickets. 4. Torrential rain &cold at Giants Stadium. Too many available seats: Can't sell the extra tickets. Wasted (hustled) $200. 5. The most exorbitant excess, true bourgeoisie: we only want to see Radiohead. We leave, of course you can't re-enter once you leave (standard concert rules) so we'll use the extra tickets to re-enter when Radiohead comes on. We're forced to pay twice &will come twice. True bourgeoisie: we'd rather leave to avoid the rain then just give away $100 tickets to someone else… Think how many steps? What do you have to do to get there? Where is Radiohead? In the center of this corporate labyrinth? whose purpose is put out a carrot to make you run all around NY &NJ spending money (circulation of capital). In the end we never saw Radiohead b/c the last bus left, we drove but Ticket Master was closed (our tickets were at will-call) but all day we were "going thru the motions," spending time: this is what you do when getting to the concert (a center, a particular x), so b/c it was all a simulation it doesn't matter if there's a concert or not, only the expectation of one, so you know how to act. No one can say to me, "Give me $100 to do a lot of stupid crap." But if I think there's a point (in this case, a concert) I only know how to behave, I've been to concerts before &know how they work. hb: this is called ritual. In Bloomean terms it's related to "structure deprivation." But that's a subject for another time. I'd better move on. There's more email to get done and I should get to bed before 4am. This battle with Di has been draining. And it may be the last one...the end, who knows. Howard Tell me there's a concert when there isn't one, waste my time, &even if there is a concert it only resembles one b/c I had a horrible time getting there… The whole time I knew there was no concert, or even that it just doesn't matter b/c when you do something you're going thru the motions: there is no thing. Thinking of getting there, I say:"Oh wow, we can go on another bus ride… We can take a car ride…!" It's doing something, activity. &finally, it was a wild goose chase, there was no Radiohead at the center of the labyrinth. We could only faintly hear them inside the concrete bones of a stadium, they're ghosts. Driving back I thought of all this, deconstruction, systematics, simulation, late- capitalism etc., in other words I wasn't consuming Radiohead (the promoted center) I consumed the simulation, literally the breakage when capitalism works perfectly (we still paid) &I didn't get what had been held out. But I'm not interested in Radiohead, not really. I want to observe capitalism working perfectly but having totally freed itself of The Object: pure exchange. I consume the circulation of capital (& intellectualize about it). In the future corporations will dispense w/ a center (the Radiohead for me of this situation it could be any situation) to keep their overhead low (to maximize profit). Tell the people there's a concert: they'll know what to do (buy this ticket, go on this bus, etc.) but they can never get there, &even if they get to the place that resembles The Object, they're exhausted (& even more susceptible to offers for more buying). Even if you get to the concert it's a mirage, something to trick you into thinking you've gotten what was held out. It's really just as simple as conditions: you're so pissed off, wet, cold &tired that you experience that. (It's like walking to art galleries in Williamsburg makes you so tired you don't really focus on the art once you get there.) I buy a concert ticket. I'm not in the mood for Kurt Cobain playing at alt.coffee tonight. I call Ticket Master &say, "Hey, I'm not in the mood…" They refund my money. Of course, this never happens b/c a corporation's point is not to sell happiness &satisfaction. I didn't buy Radiohead: I bought whatever I got, which was breakage, which I ate up &intellectualized. But what is consuming systematics (the simulation) other than pissing into my own mouth? Despairing, Erin said, "You want to go buy the new Radiohead CD?" What do we do if not buying? if not referring to an other, that has no connection to us other than that we buy it. How bourgeoisie are you? Enough to wait in line? Enough to pay X dollars? Enough to eat w/ a knife &fork? In the end, you don't buy what was promised, the center, Radiohead: you buy whatever you got. The statement, "I'm bourgeoisie enough to eat w/ a knife &fork," in a way doesn't make sense b/c my choice, my will, was never an issue b/c a knife &fork isn't really a knife &fork, it's whatever the expectation of a knife &fork turns out to be (a total un-joining of signs, subject &object: knife &fork no longer necessarily connects to food on plate). Maybe what we can get from this statement is the bourgeoisie should be as simple as knives &forks &no more. Fork to plate to mouth, systematic yes, but very simple: to imbrace the brutality of fact, but a transparent fact. (I understand forks, food &plates, but cell phones are like magic.) Knives &forks are ot the referential chaos of corporate rock concerts. The latter even sounds more abstract. I'm going to consume w/o buying b/c, using the Radiohead concert as my example, it's a wild goose chase, chasing capital all around NY. It doesn't matter if Radiohead is there or not b/c you're consuming the simulation of what it is to go to a concert. Where is Radiohead playing? Oh, at your apartment? David Bowie's playing a Café Pick Me Up? I do not want to piss into my own mouth. I'm not going to concerts anymore. I'm not looking for bands in The Voice. Who are you? I want you to tell me about your band. I'll read your book, I'll watch your movie so I don't pay $10 to see movie X at place Y. I'll show you my slide projections. We'll all smoke weed. At the same time, saying, "Well I'm done w/ late-capitalism b/c of simulation etc." is reactionary. Maybe I was naïve &I got sucked into the Radiohead corporation (b/c they're really good) but I would be fooling myself to run away. I'll buy their albums. But maybe after this I'm done w/ new corporate involvement. B/c we all use the same social tokens to communicate, my friends really could be anyone. So to keep this horror away I'm not friendly like a 5 year old (A baby says, "I'm Erin do you want to be my best friend." You: "I'm Erin too, yes!"). I have 5 friends: I make slide projections, show them &watch Jonás' movie. It takes a long time to make things &I'm used to consuming a lot of cultural product. W/ only 5 friends I won't eat enough. But who are you? I'll read your book. 5 friends have 5 friends have 5 friends, etc. a late- capitalist village. My friends could be anyone, but that doesn't make them less special b/c they are mine. A corporate entity is only mine to the extent that I buy it (whether I do or not). Get rid of the switchboard. Make culture come to you by talking to people you don't know, &do it often. Consume their products &giving them yours. A fundamental inversion has happened in our lives: the corporation tells us what to buy, we buy it perform in X way to tell people, "I'm like you, I buy the same shit." Plugging into a corporate switchboard sets you up to judge people before you know them b/c you look for similarities, that you buy the same shit. But b/c money can buy anything w/ equal freedom your style could be anything (I buy my B&D bracelet at Ramrod's Grand Opening, my nail polish at Gap). Instead, you meet
someone &you have no idea about them: talking to people you don't
know is-what-we-do, b/c corporate culture alienates us. Once you've
watched so-&-so's movie (which may be good or bad, but you're going
to watch a lot of movies), talk to them b/c now you know them. Corporate
culture makes us into groups &you can communicate to other people
who look like you b/c appearances have meaning (connote particular way
of thinking etc., stereotypes). Once we're in groups, we judge &it
seems too much even in our own cliques, b/c we don't want to believe
our friends could be anyone? We're lazy &we're looking elsewhere
for culture? I think it's un-namable paranoia &anxiousness, which
is late-capitalism. At the beginning of "The Mystery Of Kaspar
Hauser" a text reads, "Do you hear that screaming all around
you? That screaming men call silence." Hallmark-y, yes: that screaming
abstracts to silence, the silence of lonely bodies eating in silence,
in prison cells, all fed from the same place, not feeding each other,
screaming that becomes silence: the silence of late-capitalism. A cage
goes out in search of a bird… If I meet you I don't know you, I
don't judge you on your t-shirt, I want to see your movie b/c that's
what I do. Maybe we'll be friends, maybe not, but I consume culture
by doing leg work, not thru a switchboard. 3 final notes: 1. I'm listening
to Queens of The Stoneage at Odessa, should I like this corporate rock?
Is that OK? Sure, just don't buy it. When I go to the German restaurant
they play funny foreign German music &it's kind of cool but it's
not mine, I'm not going to buy it. Like foreign music, you should make
the corporate foreign to you. Like it in the bar maybe, but otherwise
it doesn't concern you &you don't even think about it. 2. It's a
good idea to meet people in groups (at least 2 people, 3 is better)
b/c people will think you're crazy &possibly dangerous b/c everyone
really is that paranoid, afraid, shell shocked. 3. I no longer wear
corrective lenses b/c the world is too clear. Not seeing well suspends
judgment. The hyper-real of corrective lenses makes a world w/ greater
possibility for differentiated objects, in other words, a bigger &more
constructedly diversified product line. What do you see when you see?
Never throw a joy
away. But do, please do, through the French philosophes of the 20th
century into a back drawer. Take them out when their ideas are useful
but do not make them the core of your philosophy. Build on wonder, build
on your passions, build on your joys. They are the greatest rarities.
Howard to Diane Aronson,
Wiley, from hb, probably November 1999-May 2000 1) To regard all conventions as services to the reader. If these services fail to serve, dump the conventions in favor of a format which aids the reader rather than frustrating him. In the publishing business as in any other it is our obligation to provide value, pleasure, and surprising delights. Any portion of a book which fails in this mission negates our responsibility as stewards of our readers' enchantment and must be abandoned. 2) To keep up with the information technology of the time. We have the internet. Let's use it. The bibliography and footnotes of Global Brain were originally devised to make the book as interactive a journey as possible. When the book mentions stromatolites in Australia, the endnotes provided hyperlinks which allow the reader to examine those stromatolites from many different angles. Series titles may be an anomaly when applied to the internet. Hence, it's time for us to create new conventions which open new opportunities to the reader. The more we do so, the more we will sell books. Thank you for giving me this opportunity to address the congregation. You and Diane are without question the two most impressive people I've ever encountered in this field. I hope that this sermon is more of a help than a hindrance. _______________________________ > Is that it?
Is that really it? Maybe in some cases it is. The rest of the time it's
a case of people being perfectly willing in theory to commit to Maybe both fears
are intertwined? Gen X and Y often
don't have good role models for relationships, and don't always pursue
relationship counselling that would highlight self-destructive drives. These corrosive meta-patterns are not solved by the John Gray school of relationship counselling. Frank Zappa also once made a pertinent comment that many relationships fail because the individuals concerned were living in the realm of romantic piano ballads (sorry Howard, cheap shot at one of your former clients whom I actually like), and not mundane reality. For those interested
to explore this issue further, the film _Chasing Amy_ is a very funny
and bittersweat exploration of contemporary Gen X/Y relationships.
------------------------------ Ted?? your summary probably offers me far more information than the original standing on its own. As for my pushing you to Basic Books, how do I explain this. This wisdom you've accumulated couched in the mesh of your intial curiosities has a significance that absolutely cannot allowed to go unrecorded and unshared, unharvested. No life measured out in coffee spoons compares to the quest you've been on and what you've found out along the way. Last night someone said to me what I said to you, that it must, must, must be written before we ultimately whisp away. Despite the egregious elephantiasis which bloats my ego, the statement came as a shock. Am I not a mere sliver of a man? But she was right. The knowledge may be contained in all?too?human vessels (true in my case, hopefully you go through fewer daily insecurities and skirmishes than do I), but it is owed to posterity. It has to be made as permanent as the stones of the pyramid. Alone and unquarried no stone would have meant a thing. Quarried and left uncarried to the central pile, it would have been a passing oddity. But heaped with all the rest it made a statement which has changed, in a not?so?minor?way, man's very sense of what s/he can achieve. We may be individual legs of the millipede, but she won't march without us. And march she must. So write, write, write your book. Howard ------------------------------ In a message dated 99?10?26 22:58:25 EDT, sweetgrot writes: Subj: Re: MC Journal Date: 99?10?26 22:58:25 EDT From: (David Hirsh) To: HowlBloom Howard,This is all too exciting ? I've just started to reread Thus Spake Zarathustra, and so much of what we've been talking about is giving me a whole new insight hb: aha. please reveal all. ? even stuff I've written myself, but that only gets to come out in this sort of discussion. I'd be honoured to be considered part of a genuine, intelligent discussion of philosophy, and it would be for far more than just promoting the band ? although this is obviously a nice side?effect!It has to be remembered that I wasn't involved with the first WEE record, and that most of the philosophical direction of that came from Eddie, but there are reasons why artists hook up together, and the environment of the band that I entered was so unique and open to philosophical freedom (in fact, demanding it), that it's given me this new lease of life, intellectually. hb: I wondered why, when I went to the website, you weren't mentioned. All of my ideas at the moment are like metals being melted down constantly, cooling to form shapes that might only make sense when shuffled around, or looked at from an angle not possible for everyone (including myself), but as long as we get snapshots of them (ie the records/discussions/books), that's enough to make their short lives useful.Ideas are not like people, in that they are primarily valuable for their potential to give birth to new ideas: man leading to the Ubermensch not through his own expendability, but through his generation of these ideas and feelings. hb: a terrfic insight. so testing ideas ine generation after the next??and even within a generation?? is a heck of a lot more economical (and fast than testing genes one generation after the next. Very neat, David. So insubstantial ideas, which demand no more raw material than that used by a brain (a hefty user of energy, but not a major consumer of resources compared with laying an egg or feeding a nest of chicks) replaces all the fuss and bother of copulation, birth, and caring for young. Which is why we so often feel we've copulated mentally with someone who is on our wavelength an building on a compatible group of ideas. We are termites building a mound of social concepts, seeing only our small part of the larger whole, and building the entire structure with weightless and invisible bricks??bricks which nonetheless have the power to shelter and enclose individuals, turning them into a social unit of substantial strength. By the way, should I email you a copy of my new book, Global Brain??the evolution of mass mind from the Big Bang to the 23rd Century? It may help with your thoughts. And if it doesn't, it at least lull you into some much?needed sleep. dh: Having just been through a 'home invasion' by thousands of ants a couple of days ago, it struck me how their own work was like the work of cells in a body, or of people in a superorganism. Where people differ from ants is in their ability to be useful just in BEING what they are ? the valuable nature of life is not diminished by how commonplace it is. This is the current state of my philosophy ? of ideas that reach towards the Overman, of people that reach within themselves to start a journey left by others so that their life can be genuinely worthwhile, and of communities together forming powerful systems that go against the urge to destroy and work towards 'flight' or 'lightness of the spirit', where we are able to make our victory over the rock that we are pushing by becoming the part of the rock that feels the ground beneath it moving, and the tiny lifeforms around it that are constantly changing, even while the larger surrounds seem the same. hb: a wonderful adaptation of Camus' Myth of Sisyphus. I am not on email every day, but I'm trying to get on at least twice a week. Keep me posted on any developments on this. If we cannot all invent our own flying machines, at least we can sit in those of others and see the world through alien eyes. hb: absolutely. This is exhilarting, David. Howard ------------------------------ ------------------------------ Subj: AI Question
Date: 99?06?07 19:58:12 EDT From: (Alex Burns) Dear Gentlemen,Aeons
ago before my mind was destroyed by a not?so? benevolent H.P. Lovecraft?style
entity, I edited a Q&A quorum artilce for 21.C in response to the
question once posed by SF writer Philip K. Dick: "Will Androids
Ever Dream Of Electric Sheep?" It attracted plenty of answers from
across the fields of philosophy of mind, neuro?science, quantum physics,
and cultural studies. Some thought the question intriguing, whilst others
were content to dismiss it as pop culture generated irrelevancy.Now
I'm revising the piece, I wondered if either of you would like to take
a shot at it ? just a paragraph or so would be fine.Regards,Alex Another theory about sleep is that we use it for internal upkeep and repairs. There's a lot of wear and tear, not to mention energy expenditure in the nervous system that faces the outside world (the sympathetic nervous system) when we're awake. At night our bodies redirect the energy flow to the internal maintenance crews of the parasympathetic nervous system. They do it, among other things, by using a switch in the pons to turn off external activity. Alas, my pentium
can't clean, scrub, and renew itself on a regular basis. It leaves that
to my frequent visitor Steve, the computer repair guy, who charges me
a fortune for the service. Androids, if they're designed by customer?friendly
folks like, perhaps, the Japanese, will clean and spruce themselves
up and recharge their own plastic batteries. But if they've got a limited
amount of brain power??say about as much as we do??the upkeep functions
will probably be handled when the computer is slumbering??that is when
we are not demanding that the device get off it's lazy butt and get
us a cup of coffee and display the morning paper on our 8 1/2"
by 11" flexible, rollable, put?it?in?your?pocketable smart?pad,
or, better yet, that the droid simply read us the news while we sip
and instruct the computerized butler to zip through to the good stuff.
Howard
from what you're saying, I get the impression that having friends with whom you can open up your emotional life nakedly is new to you. It's your next mountain to climb (aside from verbal expression of positive emotions with your present girlfriend). This kind of intimate friendship is a NECESSITY in life. The standard American male image of guys who hang around with other guys and act macho, crushing beer cans in their hands and never expressing emotion is a mass illness and can do incredible damage. Girls are particularly good as intimate friends because they've never been told they have to be creatures of steel, they know how to talk emotion?speak. Hence the conclusion, maintain the friendship with the former girlfriend unless evidence that it's damaging you crops up. Howard
On behalf of penises everywhere, lemme put in a personal note. Some women think we men are all very cocky about our cocks. It isn't true. I used to think that particular appendage was the most loathesome and misshapen creation with which the gods had ever burdened man. I mean look at the thing and felt that, when not erect, it and its gonadal companions dangle like hideous turkey wattles between the legs. Feeling that part of your anatomy is a misshapen curse is not exactly good for your emotional health. So to be told by several women in the last few years that my penis is beautiful is a release, a blessing, and a mystery as potent as a southern wake. It's a liberation and a validation which replaces with a grace something that for so long hurt deeply. Isn't that what your book is really about? One last note--I've tried ever so hard to explain to women that my penis is my soul. If there are chackras, my cock is that in which the most essential me resides. Surprisingly, they've understood.
------------------------------ In a message dated 99?06?19 22:02:41 EDT, you write: << Subj: adaII It may still be
there. On the other hand, since the ADA was a hb: no way. The constitution says I have rights to a speedy trial, rights to face my accuser. I cannot face my accuser if the courtroom is 110 miles away and I can't leave my bed. I am a citizen of a country whose founding documents have granted me certain inalienable rights. INALIENABLE, even by bureaucratic or legalistic technicalities. Hence ADA may not
apply in your particular situation. I'm just guessing I wonder if there's a way to make a class action suit out of this. I'm copying this to Pikus. David, let's do a class action suit. ------------------------------
In a message dated 99?07?08 18:34:00 EDT, you write: << The Prince
intends to provide the resources and training to develop Don, this whole report is fascinating. The intitiatives mentioned above sound very much like what Clinton has been trying to achieve with his weeklong focus on viewing poverty areas as sources of manpower from which industry can benefit in the same way that it's been taking advantage over the last 20?30 years of labor pools in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand. To me, all this sounds like a superb idea. I wonder if a strategy like that pioneered by Grameen Bank??groups in which five indigent women become a team, each receives a loan, all are responsible for the loans of the others, and all meet regularly to help each other out as each one develops a small business??would work for men, more specifically for men in Yorkshire, in Appalachia, and in some of the other spots to which Clinton has been directing attention. Cheers??Howard
Chris McCulloch, 8/23/99--I have a question for you??I seem to remember a section of Lucifer Principle that talked about the drug cultures in various countries??something about speed being the popular drug of choice in the very industrious Japan, and a corollatioin between the drug cultures and productivity. hb: yup. I remember it worrying me about the U.S. at the time, since heroin was enjoying something like a four hundred percent rise. I'm wondering??with Starbucks looking to increase their number of stores in New York City from sixty to two hundred by year's end, does this indicate that coffee is our nation's new drug of choice? Does this mean we're getting on the ball again, industry?wise? Just a thought and a query. hb: it means there are several subcultures, as always (there are usually four major types of 'em). Right now the heroine is drawing in the self destructives who just want to withdraw from the world and Starbucks is bringing in the X and Y generation yuppies. Since yuppies are among the most productive people in the world, and define themselves largely by their work ethos, the Starbucks phenom bodes well. It means that the bourgeoisie, whose productivity even Karl Marx wrote an awed essay about, are going to drag even the heroine sloths into greater freedom and prosperity. I'm saving this, You make good point, grasshppper.
Bill Gates has a
nasty habit. He's resurrected a strategy American Meanwhile the Japanese
downplayed styling changes and The result--in the
1980s the Japanese took over the world auto Now Bill Gates is
using the old General motors strategy. Buy up Microsoft was a
driving force behind the rise of the American Those overseas students
are now going back home and Could a repeat of
the Japanese economic jujitsu attack be in Why should this
matter to you? Because your job depends on it, _______________________________ <FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3>My computer won't let me past word processing and email.<FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3> >> Yoiks. My impression is that AOL is blocking web?browsers like Netscape Navigator from sites which compete with its own favored advertising moneymakers. I tried getting through to Hewlett Packard tonight with Netscape and couldn't. AOL, however, led me to a special "AOL?Hewlett Packard" site, for which HP pays god knows how many dinero. Steve Case wants to be that other monopolist snarler (as in creator of maddeningly chaotic knots) Bill Gates. And neither of them remember what happened when putting monopoly position and shoddy products ahead of quality deep?sixed America's auto industry in the early 70s. Jeesh. Cagey guys with brains the width and depth of an Italian shoe. H _______________________________ In a message dated
7/11/01 9:28:07 AM Eastern Daylight Time, [email protected] writes:
Remember that Bill Gates learnt all his tricks from IBM who operated
according to the same business model back when the mainframe was king.
See Big Blue by Richard Thomas DeLamarter (Dodd, Mead, 1986) for the
inside details. DeLamarter was a lawyer who worked on the failed anti-trust
case against IBM. So this business model has nothing to do with any
one person's clever scheming. It is simply a natural emergent property
of the way computers are. One mass-produced solution locking in 80 percent
of the market is inevitable. That it was Bill Gates rather than the
30 or 40 others trying to do the same thing during the mid-1980s is
mostly a matter of luck (for him). I had breakfast with Gates back when
he was first launching Windows. We spent most of the time decrying the
bully-boy tactics and antediluvian technology of IBM |
