Author: White Whale

I think it would be useful to describe the street protests–the flag burnings, the Mexican flags, the calls for the assassination of Trump, the calls for and actual violence directed at Trump supporters–as a precipitation of the headless ones.  They were hidden in masses, but were not obvious to many people.

Ponder people with Mexican flags marching against Trump.  They are not just saying it is OK that they are here illegally, but that it is NOT OK that the rest of us are here, and voting, even though we were born here and this is our country.  What a shitty attitude.

And it seems likely to me that many people who have been lifelong Democrats because their parents were Democrats, and their parents before them, are going to look at all this and say: this is not my party.  These are not my people.  Indeed, I suspect many did in the election already.

There was a time when it was possible to say that Democrats and Republicans both loved this country, and simply differed on how to improve it, how to protect it, how to govern it.

But when you burn an American flag, you are turning your back on individual rights, on the rule of law, on a tradition of peaceful negotiation of difference.  You are shitting on the very ideals which allow you to be a complete fucking idiot in public.

Of course this makes sense to many people, but I doubt very much that what the Democrats have manifestly become will ever appeal to more than perhaps  one fifth of the population.  Everyone who values common sense and common decency will shudder, and run the other way.  It is ugly, grotesque, scary, what they have become, and they have now become it in public, in very obvious, very blatant, undeniable ways.

I remember reading many years ago, in high school, that Rene Descartes used to lay in bed in the morning and dream, and that that is where some of his best ideas came to him.

And I remember feeling–this is not the word I would have used–that thinking logically about how to think logically, that using geometric proofs to demonstrate how we all should be and what is universally true, was wonderful.

And without doing more research to see if my sense is correct–what I am about to say may be very stupid and should be considered as such by those more erudite on this topic than I–I feel that someone with trauma in them, unprocessed emotions below the neckline, would  naturally gravitate to a life above the neckline, particularly one in which one could speculate and speak in the abstract about what may lay below the neckline.  We are all animatronic robots, animated by souls, is a logical supposition, for someone disconnected from their body.

But I feel, I feel, waves coming at me sometimes in my bed (my futon: I follow the Asian custom and sleep on a thin cotton mattress on the floor that I fold up after making in the morning) of complete transmissions.

My Eden poem came like that, and I’m afraid I likely lost much of it.  I will say though that that poem meant a lot to me.  I felt a kinship for Adam and Eve.  My blood is their blood, their sins and honest errors haunt me now too.  And Eden was never destroyed: it was just forbidden for a time.

Through all that is Andrei Tarkovsky, the visual poet.  Yes, that is the phrase.  His father was an actual poet–quoted in the Mirror, and referenced in Nostalghia–but he goes the next step.  Eden as the inner sanctum of Stalker.  Eden as the healing pools of Nostalghia.  Eden as the panicked crowds running, running, running in the Sacrifice.

Then of course, my Eden.  Can we not return to something?  Can what was lost never be found again, even if we move forward in Dream Time?

Ah, I lie there and feel kinship with humanity.  Sometimes by body is rocked and my heart pushes its every last drop of energy into the world.  I doubt I can explain what I mean.

My life is an odd one. I am not like other people, even though I am very much like other people.  I see people, and sometimes their stories come to me, and sometimes they don’t.  So many hearts have been broken, so many never even allowed to grow.  Brutal gardeners refused to water them, and cut them off from the sun.  They are stunted and alone, but so often they do not even know it.  They speak of “the world”.  We speak of how they are, what they don’t understand.

And all through this I feel I would suffer a thousand incisions, a thousand bites, for a tiny fraction of the wisdom I feel in the air.  It is there, but I have not yet made it my friend.  This is my fault.  It is certainly my fault.

Tarkovsky has a drunk Russian (Nostalghia)  dreaming of being in the ruins of an ancient church, and a female angel asking of God “show him a sign”, and God says “I show him all the time, but he does not see.”

I reach and I suffer, and I feel.  My faith is actually strong, although that may not be obvious.  This will work out eventually, and I am prepared to endure until it does.

Perhaps I should not have written this.  I am drinking, but I am not drunk, but as rambling as this is, it is an expression of something deep and important within me, and may yet touch you, my friend I have not yet met.

God did not nail Christ up to the cross.  He was nailed up as the result of human evil–human ignorance, pride, stupidity, greed, vanity, intolerance.  He was the victim of the Beast within all human breasts.

And the Church which bears his name inverted it all.  Where he spoke God they speak demon.  Where he spoke freedom they speak submission.  Where he spoke individuation, they speak collectivism.  Where he spoke heaven, they speak hell.

Self evidently, freedom is not living in a world where all are slaves to an ideology or a tyrant, where one sees the same closed eyes and same closed hearts everywhere one travels, all looking to heaven and sinking like stones.

The crucifixion happens whenever light attempts to enter into our souls and we smother it because we fear it, because we fear where it may lead us, because as bad as our circumstances and feelings may be, we always dread worse.  And so what is good is killed, smothered, battered and left to die.

This is the human condition as it exists today.  Not everywhere, not with everyone: of course not.  And things are gradually improving, in fits and starts.  Good psychology is emerging, useful understandings are taking the place of old cliches, about sin and redemption.  Political philosophy consistent with actual individual liberty and open and honest spiritual striving has come into being.

I don’t know why I pretend to be a prophet, but I write as the spirit moves me, so I guess that is something.  Whatever else I am, I am resolutely connected to the ideal of living my own life, and no one else’s.  Give me my pain, but also grant me my wings.

One of the first things necessary to end segregation was to call it wrong.  It was necessary to call Apartheid wrong.

And it remains necessary to call the treatment of women by Muslim nations wrong.  It remains necessary to call their treatment of gays wrong. It remains necessary to call their radical intolerance of all beliefs and practices different from their own wrong. People funded by Saudi Arabia are LITERALLY crucifying people in public streets for the “crime” of being different.

We read that it is insulting and demeaning to single out Muslims as a group we do not want.  GOOD!!!  Perhaps they will do some introspecting, and ask why we would feel that way.  By and large, they know how we are.  They watch our movies, and television, and likely play our video games, at least in the wealthier homes.

And by and large they seem to hold us in contempt, because we do not believe in ourselves.  We preach equality of the sexes, but ignore their refusal to allow women to go to school, to drive, in many cases to even leave the house without a male relative.  There is no mass condemnation of the gang rapes and murders practiced particularly by our nominal ally Pakistan.

There is no effort that can be called serious in Europe to ask them to integrate, or to punish those who call for the overthrow of their adopted countries, and their Liberal systems of law.

There is no outcry when homosexuals are beheaded in public squares after trials.

No one objected to the shaming of Southern white segregationists.  No one objected to the boycotts and divestments associated with undermining Apartheid.

Surely there is nothing wrong with refusing to allow in people practicing similar and often worse creeds, PARTICULARLY when they are surrounded by their coreligionists, who could easily allow them in as refugees?

These people do not think like we do, granted.  They are nasty, selfish, mean.  They have allowed the refugees from a war in 1948 that THEY STARTED to languish for 68 years.  Generations have been born and have died in refugee camps.

But this is not our fault.  And a large problem the so-called Palestinians have had is that they shit everywhere they go, and nobody wants them.  The Jordanians don’t want them, the Lebanese don’t want them, and the Syrians have not wanted them.  To a great extent, these fools have brought this fate on themselves.  Do not pity people whose whole aim in life is to use your pity as a weapon against you.

We have no moral obligation to accept millions of Syrians.  On the contrary, we have an obligation to destroy ISIS, to allow some structure to be rebuilt, and when that happens, all of these people will have homes again.

Trump needs to stand his ground on this issue. How else can we spark needed discussions?  How else can we get these appalling social practices changed?

The Electoral College exists for two reasons.  The first was to make sure that large cities did not overwhelm the countryside–which after all contains most of the land in this country, most of the physical mass.  With regard to this aim, Trump’s election was a logical consequence.  Most of America is red.  Most of most counties across this country are read.  Most of us are law abiding and peaceful.

Here is a good treatment of this topic: https://moderatesunitedblog.com//2011/02/electoral-college-systemgood-or-bad.html

If the opponents of the Electoral College had it their way and we adopted the direct-election system, no candidate would ever visit the 30 smallest states (population) in the U.S., including New Mexico. Every campaign would be based around the big, urban city. If you don’t live in NY City, Los Angeles, or Chicago, you wouldn’t see the candidates. The idea is to be sure all votes in a district have power. Ideally no single party, race, ethnic group, or other bloc, nationally large or nationally small, will dominate any of the districts– which for now happen to be the 50 states plus Washington, D.C.Some political experts argue that the Electoral College robs voters of their individual power. A physicist from MIT named Alan Natapoff, in 1970, questioned that belief and he worked on a theorem that would show the people the value of our Electoral College. He worked on a mathematical explanation to identify the voters’ power in an electoral system versus a direct popular voting system. He asked himself, “What is the probability that one person’s vote will be able to turn a national election?” The higher the probability, the more power each voter commands. Almost always, he found, individual voting power is higher when funneled through districts–such as states–than when pooled in one large, direct election. It is more likely, in other words, that your one vote will determine the outcome in your state and your state will then turn the outcome of the Electoral College, than that your vote will turn the outcome of a direct national election. A voter therefore, Natapoff found, has more power under the current electoral system.

The second reason we have an Electoral College, and the reason Senators also were originally elected by the State legislatures, was to prevent mobs from being stupid.  The House is intended to be rambunctious and to be in continual revolt and turmoil.  Elections are direct, and every two years, and people’s moods change often.

The Senate, in contrast, has six year terms, and was intended to be the slower, more thoughtful, counterpoint to the House.  On the one hand you give the people a very direct voice, but on the other you balance it with men who are ideally well educated, of solid character, and beyond the need for continual campaigning.  If we had kept the old system, they would not have needed to campaign at all.  Our Constitution truly is a work of political genius (with its only flaw, as I continue to say, the failure to prevent the possibility of an activist Supreme Court).

But to the point here, the intent was to prevent truly bad candidates from getting into office.  The Left, of course, argues that Donald Trump is the truly bad candidate.  But Hillary, in something which has never happened before in our country, to my knowledge, emerged as the nominee despite being clearly guilty of MANY felonies, and under CURRENT investigation for many more at the Clinton Foundation, with criminal charges on all accounts being very likely.  I do continue to wonder if Comey closed the latest server investigation only after striking a deal that she would not be President.

So even in the unlikely event 20+ Electors could be persuaded to change their votes, which would be highly unethical, and highly politically destabilizing and likely physically dangerous to themselves, they would be changing their votes to someone who may well provoke a Constitutional crisis, or at least crisis of governance, as prosecutable crimes emerge from the investigation.  I don’t think there is any reasonable doubt many laws were broken, and that given evidence she thought was destroyed was in fact kept, that a solid and effective criminal case can and will be brought.

And Bill Clinton CAN be arrested.  He is no longer the President.  Hillary would have to be impeached and removed, but he could go to jail immediately, as, I’m sure, could Chelsea.

Looking at all this, it is easy to see how they may have agreed to play ball and just fade into the woods.  It would not surprise me to learn that HILLARY’S people are canvassing the Electors, to make sure they don’t vote for her.  Their reign is over.

Chuang Tzu taught that perfect goodness is crooked.

I would say that all sailors will tell you that to find a straight line in the ocean, one must look far beyond and above it.

To
 walk back up there,

  To
   Pass an indifferent sword,
    its flames now dimmed,
     its possessor absent

    And to find,
   that apple,
  two bites less.

 And to eat again–
such a sweet sin!!!
 –but it doesn’t
  matter now.

   Now to look:
    mists fill the air, but one
     senses that a fire built,
   here, for warmth and
 society, would
burn forever.

 The air contains an
  almost scent, as if the
   possibility of all scents
    felt us coming, and is even
     now hiding, or perhaps
   flirting.

 Scraps of paper litter the hills
in this garden, and the flight
 of birds fills the air. Where
  they come from, and where
 to, I do not know.

Slithering obliquely, a trail
of a snake extends over the
top of the next hill.  He who
perhaps WAS once welcome,
is gone, to return no more,
his work complete.

 One senses this is no place
  for banks, or post offices,
   Law clerks, or law.

  The air has ears, and poetry is
 never forgotten.

Ah, to remember is to learn!!!

Once in a lifetime,
  Perhaps twice,
One may stumble upon a
  City in the desert
Consecrated to a death,
  To a wound which happened
Long ago.

So terrifying!!!
  To put wheels on the shrines
And hoist up sails to capture
  Spiritual winds.
To set out with the hope,
  Of learning a new ocean.

So much lost of
  So much known.
Who will we be, and
  Where will we go?

But it does not do,
  To worship a hole.

Especially since the Left–the whiny, violent, hysterical Left, whose true nature we are seeing on America’s streets, as we see flag burnings, and in at least one case someone literally crapping on everything Trump and the people who voted for him stand for–has made it an issue, if I were Trump I would assign a couple good people to the task of figuring out who the Electors are that he needs for his 270, and pull backgrounds on them, and any recent public statements one way or the other, and develop profiles.  Any that I think might flip, I would lobby directly, using as appropriate a combination of threats and rewards and old fashioned glad handing persuasion to make sure they do their jobs on December 19th.

Leave nothing to chance.

It is impossible for anyone to know their fate.  So I believe.  It is impossible to know day by day that you won’t be in a car accident that wasn’t your fault, or that something will not happen to someone you love.  Self evidently, bad things happen suddenly–and slowly, as in illness–to good people all the time. Most of the time it’s not us, but sometimes it is.

It seems to me the core existential element of faith is the ability to relax in motion, to do the work of the world, to move with its currents, and maintain the ability to relax and stay in the moment; specifically, to reject and distance yourself from worry and the obsessions it breeds.

To be here: that is faith.

I had some minor setbacks today, nothing major, and it occurred to me that we live in an inelastic world.  We have come to expect things to be run like a giant, predictable machine.  Everything is measured.  Yardsticks are everywhere, and deviations from those yardsticks are resented and feared.  We all have one measure, and fear a second.

Most people are accustomed to making a certain amount of money a day.  Your time, for example, may be worth exactly $30/hour.  If you work one hour, you expect $30.  You don’t expect $28 or $32.  It is $30.  But imagine if somebody was spinning a wheel hourly to see how much you make.  Every hour would be a surprise.

If you think about it, farming was always a crapshoot.  Hunting was always a crapshoot.  Sometimes it went well, sometimes not.  On balance things worked out for those who survived, and obviously did not work out for those who did not.  But the future was always uncertain, which meant that everyone had to have some means of calming themselves, of cultivating faith, of dealing with chance, and a universe of unknowns and uncontrollables.

We are so weak in large measure precisely because uncertainty has been largely eradicated in our world.  Dealing with chaos and confusion simply aren’t skills the mass of people need or cultivate or value.