If blacks had not had this amazing service lo these many years, many of them might still be living in large groups in poverty and in neighborhoods filled with crime. That would be horrible.
Good thing the white “Liberals” will never let that happen. You know, because they care.
I was pondering my own family. I have been having strange emergences, I will call them, in my dreams, in which very accurate emotional sketches are being presented to me. I feel now, what I could not feel then. I feel it clearly. It is the emotional equivalent of thinking clearly. You can “see” what is there without ambiguity. It is not nameable. Emotional gestalts never are. But you can say “that” to yourself, and know what is meant.
And since I obsess about the very real and present danger that all the varieties of Communism continue to pose to the peaceful transition of the human race to something better, I thought I would add the comment that they are not wrong when they say that something much better is possible.
Where they are wrong is in lacking the emotional skill to realize that nothing deep can be built by force, that nobody likes to be told what to do, much less who to be. And they are wrong is making the creation of a different–a much worse, to be clear–world a purpose in itself. If they succeed, then what?
And again, where is the concern for the physical, scientific evidence for God, for the survival of death, for psi, for our fundamental non-local interconnectedness?
I watched a play over the weekend which indulged in the cliche of the fake happiness of 1950’s America, where the kids were perfect, the mother was perfect, the father was perfect, and it was all a lie.
This is Communism. The worst aspects of 1950’s America, where conformity was, as we reimagine that period, an absolute necessity and where everybody PRETENDED to be happy. What the fuck do you think the people enslaved by Communists and their happy smiles did?
There is a path forward. There are many paths forward, many of them very good, very salutary. But large segments of our intellectual, media, and political class keep choosing the worst options, the most dismal, hopeless options, the options without creativity, joy, freedom, or growth.
I don’t know why this is, really. But I will speak out against it until it stops, or I can’t.
Thank you for this day (your life is the Spirit within you).
Please help me do my work with gentle grace, beauty, and gratitude.
Please help me to do better than yesterday in living up to my own ideals, and
Please help me fill my day with more love, light, life, laughter (it does occur to me that some forms of laughter are acts of generosity and abundance) and joy.
And when I lay down tonight, when my work is done, please help me sleep peacefully and in tranquility.
Amen (may it be so).
On a related note, it occurs to me that every day is the day of rest, if your work is filled with love.
Expedia, Hulu, Nestle, Nutrish, Tripadvisor, Wayfair
I would ask all partisans of sanity to boycott all these companies immediately, and at least until they renew their contracts with Fox.
To be clear, this asshole kid WASN’T EVEN AT THE SCHOOL, on his own, later account. He lied about it, and IMMEDIATELY used this tragedy to get himself in the limelight, pushing idiotic policies, using the dead bodies of kids–many of whom likely held him in contempt, as a self aggrandizing narcissist–as props.
If we can’t denounce that, then nothing is wrong, ever, with anything. That makes Ingraham’s comments, too, perfectly acceptable.
And if the standard is how many voices we can get shouting in unison, then if enough of us denounce these corporate cowards, then WE ARE RIGHT. Might makes right, right? That is the logic on display, and increasingly the logic of everyone.
I remember a time when we aspired to the disciplined public exercise of reason based upon definable and consistent moral principles. The memory of this time, in the hearts of Americans, seems to be fading, if it is even still present at all.
So often we feel many emotions at the same time. You can feel sadness and happiness at the same time. We even have a word for some iterations of this: bittersweet.
And if you contemplate that even “solid” emotions like anger are like clouds in the sky, they never manifest exactly the same way twice.
You can imagine that we have harmonic strings within us, capable of manifesting differing feelings. You can even make that number seven, corresponding to the emotions neurologists tell us we can feel: anger, sadness, joy, fear, disgust, contempt and surprise.
All of them can coexist in constantly varying quantities and FORMS. If you view each emotion as a waveform, all of them can coexist, playing different “notes” at varying intensity and rhythm. This is the mathematical form.
The Complex form is the cloud, or rather clouds. I do believe in energy fields, or rather, that we ARE an energy field, existing within an infinite energy field, clouds within THE cloud, with many subclouds existing at varying levels of complexity.
I mentioned humor, before I got distracted. I believe what makes us laugh is the habit of an infinitely fast, socially conditioned transition between two emotions: between rage/fear, and submission.
What makes us laugh is something which offends our sense of how things should be. It is something outrageous, ridiculous, incongruous, unexpected. What I believe happens is that the instant we hear something utterly unexpected, we feel fear and or rage. If we feel fear, there is instantaneous relief, as we realize there is no actual danger. If we feel rage, it is immediately followed by the human equivalent of a dog cowering in front of a dog which is superior, or a master which has abused it. The two feelings, admixed, generate laughter. Laughter serves the social role of allowing things to be said which are outrageous, without generating actual rage. Outrageous, as a word, kind of makes my point for me.
Many have pointed to laughter as a social lubricant. It allows the dissipation of anger, while protecting boundaries.
There is nothing funny about this post. But I do hope it is useful. Laughter is an important value. It is a powerful means for dispelling tension. But it is not the only means. I would say that being unable to laugh is worse than feeling the continual need to laugh, but there is a happy medium somewhere.
So much of both Jewish and Christian doctrine rests on the idea that God is an angry father who is about to strike down anyone showing the slightest sign of disobedience.
The essence of Goodness, however, is raising up. You are not trying to demand obedience from anyone, but rather to raise them up to your own level, which would include raising them within their own individuality.
And I believe God is good. I also believe we are almost uniformly blind.
There are many mysteries. The brain clearly affects behavior and perception, but perception and behavior seem clearly to be severable from the brain. Perhaps one day how all this works will be obvious. I continue to hope humanity, and the scientific world in particular, end this phase of global madness, and begin to focus on what really matters, rather than running about like headless chickens, devoid even of the possibility of accidental wisdom.
I like this image of perception as a living thing, like a plant. Or a constantly changing thing, like a flame.
Perception is sometimes clear, sometimes myopic, sometimes hard, sometimes soft.
The more INTERESTING question is not ” is this person right or wrong”, but “are they awake”?
You can be right factually, in the present moment, but be referring backwards to a time long ago. How fresh are your perceptions? How long since you last doubted everything? How long since you last flirted with stupidity in pursuit of wisdom?
If you have not seen this word, well, lemma clue you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzO78K4l4kI
Religious ritual happens to be one of my particular interests, and one I studied at reasonable length in college and graduate school. Here is a definition of ritual you have likely not seen: Ritual is an act of intrinsic worthlessness from an evolutionary perspective, but which nonetheless elicits a strong dopamine response.
Take the Eucharist. I doubt any long term readers I may have will be surprised by what I am about to say: the whole thing is bullshit. God is neither in the host figuratively, nor literally. God is away on business.
But any honest Catholic who goes to Mass every Sunday FEELS something in this ceremony. They feel better, in most cases, I would think. They in any event feel they have fulfilled an obligation, met a duty. They have DONE SOMETHING.
But they have not done something in the sense of digging ten post holes in the backyard, doing 8 hours of accounting, made 25 prospecting calls, or seen three legal clients. The world is not changed in any way. There is no relic left of their having been there. There is no hole left in the air, or in the incense.
Many commentators–myself included–have noted the religious flavor of Leftist rhetoric and idealism. They work in this world, but never connect themselves with it concretely, emotionally. They connect, rather, with SYMBOLS of this world. Their God is Social Justice. Their God is the Earth. Their God is emancipation from limiting categories, which is a prison made all the worse by their refusal to think in any other way THAN rigid categories.
And just as God does not act visibly in this world–have you ever actually seen God?–their Social Justice never actually has to land anywhere. It is implied as the result of any work done by people calling themselves Social Justice Warriors, or Antifa, or whatever nonsense they choose to put on with their make-up that particular morning.
Here is my point: such “work” is inherently ritualistic. Winning an election is a ritual activity. Passing a law that has no chance of solving an actually existing problem is ritualistic. Shouting down unbelievers is ritualistic, and serves to protect the Faith.
I remember Tony Robbins–remember him?–many years ago saying, in one of his highly derivative but still somewhat useful books: show me how someone gets their sense of importance, and I’ll tell you who they are.
Can I say: show me how someone gets their dopamine hits, and I’ll tell you who they are. Was actual work done? Is the world changed in any way, and is it changed in the way it was supposed to change? Is this person living on the same planet as me, or are they wrapped in fog and mysteries only they can see or explain?
If you think about it, amorphous concepts like Social Justice exist at roughly the same level of tangibility as the Holy Spirit.
But this is the point, don’t you see? If they spoke and thought clearly, it would be possible to falsify their Gods, and most of them–being atheists to begin with–have nothing else.
As things stand, they have a faith, a ritual activity, and a Church. That’s all you need for a full blown religion.
Now, a lot of this is campaign rhetoric, and needs to be read as such. I get that. Consider the end of Point 5, though:
We will also encourage small-business creation by allowing social
welfare workers to convert poverty assistance into repayable but
forgive-able micro-loans.
This got me to thinking. I have likely from time to time mentioned my fondness for the Kiva.org . approach to poverty. My personal view is that they should win the Nobel Prize. There is zero doubt in my mind that in their decade or two of existence they have done more concrete good in developing nations, than all the foreign aid offered by the West to developing nations from the end of World War 2 until the advent of Kiva.
Leaving that as a controversial point I might retract if I studied more, let it suffice to say it is a good cause.
Here is the thing: Kiva exists in the United States, too. You can look up people needing small loans to start or expand businesses here.
Here is my idea: why not focus on Kiva as a resource, build access to it exponentially through effort and funding at all levels of government, and why not set up some kind of matching program, where the local, State, or Federal governments match private funds? It’s win/win.
Such an idea would create self sustaining business enclaves everywhere, reward hard work, demonstrate the value of hard work and initiative, be self sustaining as a remedy–with most loans being repaid–, and operate after a time independently of any government aid at all. Such aid can come and go, like matching grants anywhere else.
Politically, this would be great for Republicans, particularly. The Democrats, in election after election, spend all their time telling blacks and other minorities that they should only elect Democrats because Republicans are horrible. This is the substance of their outreach. They don’t have ideas which work. Obviously. They have been saying the same shit every 2 or 4 or 6 years, at all levels of government, since 1970 or before. That is 48 years, if we use 1970 as a benchmark. And what has changed? Seriously. Look at Detroit, Philadelphia, New Orleans, Chicago, Washington D.C. If I want to make a list of the most dangerous cities in America, all I need to do is make a list of the cities where Democrats have been running things the longest. Can we not agree that is suspicious at the least, and CERTAINLY not the effect of good policy, oriented sincerely around the common good, executed vigorously over the long term? Of course not. To claim otherwise is to be an idiot, or gravy recipient.
But this policy SHOULD be embraced by Democrats, because it is a good idea. It really is. It is likely not a panacea, but certainly a solid palliative, and honest Democrats need to admit that a little good is a little good. And if the little good might turn into a great good–and that is certainly the case here–then they should support it.
But it seems emotionally obvious to me that they will uniformly oppose this idea, not because it is a bad idea, but because they DON’T WANT BLACKS TO SUCCEED. As long as they can blame Republicans, and get the electorate to buy it, they want blacks as miserable as possible.
So this idea creates a fantastic opportunity for Republicans to point to, to showcase, to highlight, to throw Klieg lights, on the horrific cynicism and hypocrisy of Democrats. They can ask, openly: what do you have against the success of black entrepreneurs? What do you have against poverty remediation programs which work, versus those you keep enacting, which make things worse, if they do anything at all?
If Democrats work with Republicans, great. The goal is to fix the problem, not win elections. And if they don’t, they they show themselves to be money-grubbing, unprincipled assholes, which in fact is what most of them are. To be sure, many Republicans are money-grubbing assholes too, but they are in general not raiding the public treasury to do it, and they are not claiming to be anyone’s savior, other than those who just want to be left alone.