Moderates United

I feel that any supposed spiritual path that does not have risk in it is false.  I feel the need for darkness, and I am beginning to see why the Tibetans have angry demons on many of their mandalas.  Darkness and danger coexist with light and love.  A path which does not demand of you the ability to travel through a dark forest alone at night, figuratively at least, is not one which will lead to interesting places.

Then as I thought about it more, it occurred to me that in any path of growth, loss is inevitable.  Some part of you will have to be sacrificed–your vanity, your complacency, your sloth–in order that you can reintegrate on a higher level.  You have to die, in some ways, on one qualitative level, so that you can be reborn on a higher level.

I would add, too, as a general thought that I have been many places and done many things.  Among those things I have attended meditation retreats, and would submit that many people who like to say they are “on a spiritual path” just need to grow up.  They live their lives as silly people, then get all mellow and metaphysical on the weekends.  Fuck that.

Pondering this, what I would submit is that the first task is always to make your peace with your physical environment as a mature adult, to interact socially in a felicitous way, work effectively, love others effectively, and THEN expand your sense of self to the non-physical.  All spirituality is is incorporating higher realities into your current reality.  Becoming a Buddha is just growing up in a different world, after growing up in this one.  It is hypermaturity. 

Few thoughts.  This didn’t quite hit the mark, but screw it.  I’m whiskey bound.

Most people in the middle have realized they made a mistake.  I am seeing people saying things like “I’ve never voted Republican before because I hate their social views, but we can’t take any more of Obama”.  Much of the far Left will vote for Gary Johnson, since they are furious with Obama for being just as war mongering as George Bush.

He can count on the votes of people who vote Democrat because they vote Democrat, because they have generic world views sculpted by leftist propaganda (the rich don’t pay their share; we have to preserve the planet; everyone deserves everything).  But many of his votes seem to be coming from barely literate people being rounded up like kindergartners and bussed to polling places, where they are told who to vote for.   And the reason they are doing this is that they are being told either that they will get free stuff, or that the other guy is so awful he wants to kill them.

Here’s the thing: whatever free stuff they get will suck.  Their “free” healthcare will suck.  Their free housing will suck.  Their food stamps will suck.  The simple reality is that whatever handouts are offered, they are a FRACTION of what would be available to them if they simply had decent jobs.

Here is a nice clip from Malcolm X, where he points out that the Democrats were elected because of the “negro” vote, but basically ignored them.  It is a matter of historical fact that, percentage-wise, WAY more Democrats opposed Johnson’s Civil Rights initiatives than Republicans.  I did the math once, and it was roughly twice.

I will add that it is a horrible shame Malcolm X was shot.  He was a true leader.  He was racist, but if he is calling for black self respect, and black self determination, that is something I can easily live with. In fact, I admire it. He had balls.  He answered to no one but his own conscience.  He and Martin Luther King, Jr. were the only true black leaders I have seen in my lifetime, although Bill Cosby has made some efforts at it.

The simple and inescapable truth is that if I were a behind the curtain string puller TRYING to ruin black America, I could do no better than to foist upon blacks leaders like Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Barack Obama, Louis Farrakhan (who if memory serves was possibly involved in Malcolms’ assassination), and Jeremiah Wright.  If you wanted to DESTROY black America, these are the sort of people you would choose.  Why?  They are self aggrandising, unprincipled egomaniacs whose sole purpose is obtaining wealth and power through race baiting.

What has Barack Obama done for black people?  What has he even TRIED to do for black people?  Everything Malcolm X says here about Johnson is doubly true for Obama, since black people voted for him BECAUSE  he was black.  But he isn’t black.  And he doesn’t care.  Black Americans are being played, again, for chumps.

If for profit we substitute “motivation for producing”, it can be seen readily that without it, little gets done.  I was reading about Cuba yesterday, in a National Geographic article, and the universal lament is “nothing works”.  All their cars are American cars from the 1950’s or pieces of crap from the old Soviet Union, which also of course are quite old.

Why do you work?  You get paid.  That is profit.  Why do villagers work in Africa?  To eat.  That is their profit. 

Entrepreneurs create new things to get paid.  If they don’t get paid, they don’t create new things.

The fact of the matter is that there is no way to succeed in a Capitalist economy if you do not produce things people want, at prices they are willing to pay.  If you don’t do that, you can’t profit, UNLESS you get the government to help you, as in Solyndra and a dozen other similar tax-payer funded expensive failures that STILL netted the people created them a lot of money.

If you see a successful person, they created a lot of things people wanted at prices they were willing to pay.

Other than government, the only other exception is bankers.  I will share again a link I have posted often: http://www.goodnessmovement.com/Page23.html

It has come to my attention recently that something along the lines of my proposal was pushed aggressively in the 1930’s by a number of economists under the name of the Chicago Plan.  I am researching it, but since it effectively cedes control of the banking sector to the government, I doubt I will be able to support it.  I will however be able to use it as an example of smart and erudite people suggesting something LIKE what I have proposed.

As far as I can tell, I am the only person ever to have suggested that the quantity of money be fixed forever, and that its value should be allowed to increase.  That seems unlikely, but I have yet to see anyone else saying it.  If you the reader have seen it, let me know.

Normally, when you say to someone they are “living in a world of illusion”, or in an imaginary world, what you are saying is that they are avoiding facing hard, unpleasant realities.  Since most people, not unreasonably, tend to avoid pain, this is usually accurate.

What I would submit, though, is that this phrase is equally apt when people unjustifiably limit themselves, cognitively, emotionally, or behaviorally; when they are capable of much more, but don’t believe it.

To this extent, I would suggest that we ALL live in imaginary worlds, because all of us fall far short of our potential, of what we could do if we believed it and chose it.  We all want to be happier.  How many of us act on it consistently, and with our full focus and energy?

In virtually all cases, the answer we must give to the question “is this the best you can do?” is a decided NO.  We lie to ourselves if we day otherwise.

Now, relaxation and repose are essential elements of productivity.  Most of my best ideas come to me when I am being outwardly lazy.  But I guess the point I want to make here is that we MUST, in the interest of being as intelligent as we can be, include in all calculations and self assessments the possibility that we are deceiving ourselves.

In reading the narrative of the disaster, one of the first things that struck me was how early Chris Stevens disappears.  Could it not be–is it not in fact the most plausible possibility–that he was tricked and captured by elements of his own supposed guard and handed over to the Ansar Al Sharia terrorists?

I would want to know, as well, if an autopsy was done, and if he was tortured, as would seem likely in that part of the world.  They claim to have raped him.  Did they do anything else?  

Further, Woods and Doherty were in Benghazi, per the Daily Telegraph several weeks ago, as part of a mission to find and destroy anti-aircraft missiles that our government gave the Libyan rebels, who then were defined very generically as anti-Gaddafi.  This would have been very unpopular with the local Islamist militias, and may be part of the reason for the attack.

If at some future point one of these missiles takes down a commercial jet-liner, that is going to be very embarrassing for the Obama Administration, if there still is one four months from now.

I can’t see how allowing the deaths of Doherty and Woods would have helped cover that up, though.  Their superiors knew of the mission, and in any event it was well enough known that it made it into at least a British newspaper.

I continue to think Hillary is just a cold-hearted bitch, and was likely angry at them for disobeying orders. And Obama is a boy thinking he can do a man’s job, who simply isn’t smart enough to know that his Size 3’s aren’t up to the task. I literally don’t think he has advanced emotionally since high school.  He thought he knew everything then, and he thinks he knows everything now.  He’s a Choom Gang President.

I was trying to get a bad guy in a dream last night, but he got behind me.  I turned to confront him.  He crouched to attack me, and lo and behold, he got dropped and arrested by two cops.  I didn’t have to do anything.

Dream interpretation is notoriously subjective, but I think in my case, without expanding too much, I will say that this was a positive outcome.

The reason I post this, is, one, it is an interesting outcome to me, and may be for others.

More importantly, what I will submit is that with prolonged effort you can mobilize unconscious resources in the accomplishment of your conscious aims.  Usually, they are in some combination of support and antagonism.  Usually you are driving with one foot on the brake and one on the accelerator.  This is everyone, until they are scrubbed clean, however that happens, of undesirable unconscious crap.

My own goal is to unleash elements within my personality dedicated wholly to building all day every day.  What is love but a heartfelt desire to build up everyone around you?  To help them mobilize their own resources in the spirit of construction?  The goal is to build small things and big things, to build perceptions and things, art and houses.  There is a relentless spirit that can animate all of this, dedicated wholly to the Good.  I can feel it and want more of it.

I am slowly making progress. The night before I had the experience of what I will call “vomiting pain” all night long.  I was releasing sustained pain that did not stop all night.  But it was immensely useful, and I will do it again and again until I get this thing right.

Many years ago a psychiatrist told me my problem was unrealistic idealism that I refused to let go of.  To a great extent this was true: my misery results in no small measure with an immense impatience with the way things are, with the way I am, and an absolute refusal to assume the best is not possible.  You think like that, you are dumping a lot of weight on your shoulders, you are certain to endure many years of doubt, darkness, and difficulty, and you can NEVER be finally successful.  

Ah, but what a dream!!!!!

I have posted this before, but will share again a poem (song) I have on my wall:

To dream the
impossible dream
To fight the unbeatable foe
To bear with unbearable sorrow
To run where the brave dare not go
To right the
unrightable wrong
To love pure and chaste from afar
To try when your arms are too weary
To reach the unreachable star

This is my quest
To follow that star
No matter how hopeless
No matter how far

To fight for the right
Without question or pause
To be willing to march into Hell
For a heavenly cause

And I know if I’ll only be true
To this glorious quest
That my heart will lie peaceful and calm
When I’m laid to my rest

And the world will be better for this
That one man, scorned and covered with scars
Still strove with his last ounce of courage
To reach the unreachable star.

I have come to the conclusion that Biden is a full blown sociopath.  They are common enough.  Obama cares about what people think of him, because he is a narcissist.  Biden doesn’t.  He just doesn’t give a shit, and if for some reason he ever became President he might well cause a massive catastrophe through a combination of his personality and lack of intelligence. 

Think the Martin Sheen as the presidential candidate in Stephen King’s “The Dead Zone“.  It’s that bad.

Here is what I think happened.  This is plausible, and accounts for the facts as known. The Embassy came under attack, but it was supposed to be defended by a local militia, the Febuary 17th Brigade. 

This was a feel-good policy, in which a sap-headed State Department took a major risk with the lives of our Embassy employees so that they could continue to nourish the delusion that facilitating the take-over of Libya by people whose loyalties we had no real way of assessing was good policy.

They wanted to believe the Libyans when they said that they could provide security.  They did NOT want to doubt, for a moment, that the good guys had won, and the bad guys lost. “We came, we saw and he died”.

I would encourage people to watch that video.  I think it is right to celebrate victory, to some extent, but the reality is that her personal involvement was little, and that regardless of what one thought of Gaddafi, I don’t think that it is dignified or appropriate to laugh about something like his brutal death.  It is very much like his death was an abstraction to her. She has likely never smelled fresh blood, seen dismembered bodies, or heard a gun fired in anger.  It’s like a board game to her, one with no consequences, except to her professional standing as a diplomat.  That attitude, here, is what is important.

Returning to Benghazi, it seems obvious that early on they had real time footage of a full scale, planned attack.  What did the State Dept. do?  They called the militia.  The militia likely said something along the lines of “we’re on the way”, so Hillary told other local assets to stand down.  She did not want to embarrass her local hosts, and wanted to give them a chance to show what they could do.

What she failed to calculate on was conscious betrayal.  As the hours dragged on, they kept saying they were on way, but in reality they were either participating, or standing back and watching.  They number several prominent Islamists in their ranks, and that area is radicalized.  There have been a number of attacks in that area, including a prior bombing of our Embassy itself, an attack on the British, and an attack on the Red Cross.

Anyone who studies Muslims needs to understand that their faith leads them to be tricky, manipulative, and treacherous, at least to non-Muslims; and if one studies their actual history, to one another, even though that is technically contrary to their faith.

I have thought long and hard about how to think of Islam.  Plainly, not all Muslims are bastards.  Many, likely most, are decent hard working honest people.  But here is how I would put it: they are decent IN SPITE OF their religion, not because of it.  The example of the Prophet himself allows pedophilia and rape.

A Muslim who rapes and murders a Christian child has not committed a crime, since non-Muslims have no rights, and really no standing for existence outright.  A Christian who murders a Muslim child, on the other hand, very simply cannot justify it. If this doesn’t make your blood boil, please go jump in front of a bus, because you are a detriment to the human race.

Long story short, Tyrone Woods and Glenn Doherty, in going to the Embassy to protect our personnel, were DISOBEYING ORDERS, and Hillary–seeing that her carefully laid plan of facilitating Libyan only protection was going to be disrupted–chose to let them die.

When the facts come out, I think that will be very close to the truth.

And as far as Obama, I don’t think he cared IN THE SLIGHTEST.  He was and is in campaign mode, and we have already established he is not a people person.  He is, on the contrary, a full blown narcissist who only, even now, cares about the murder of four Americans because of how it might affect him politically.

He likely heard “some kind of something in Libya, blah, blah, blah”, and chose to let Hillary deal with it, while he planned his next campaign stops.

Now, I can’t wrap my mind around the fact that he is President in the first place, or that nearly half of America thinks something other than disaster will come from reelecting him, so I can’t step outside of that perceptual frame enough to say what an appropriate punishment might be, but it is clear that he entrusted the lives of people who trusted him to someone who plainly was living in a world of delusion, which is to say patent incompetence.  Her inaction, based upon a horribly overoptimistic assessment of her own policy, created widows, grieving parents, and likely grieving children.

Fuck Hillary Clinton, Fuck Obama, and Fuck the American people who have STILL failed to see through this very thin veneer of illusion.

Postscript: In my pursuit of truth, I forgot to note that after Hillary’s indefensible fuckup, she LIED about it.  Like most, I assumed initially that there was simply confusion about what happened.  But we now know that they were watching a live feed virtually from the get-go.  They had had previous attacks, and they knew that the area was dangerous.  Stevens had repeatedly requested more guards.  In theory, host countries provide security, but in reality embassies in volatile places like Libya ALWAYS have to assume the worst, at least when the leadership is competent.

So Hillary, knowing full well that it was her decision–repeated three times, in response to three requests for help–to let the SEAL’s die, chose, consciously, in front of cameras, to LIE.

Honest people don’t understand how dishonest people can tell bald faced lies.  The simple reality is that some people have NO character, and exist in a constant fear that their vanity will be damaged, and their superficial appearance of being fully human caused to vanish or be compromised.  Some people will say and do anything to avoid people finding out who and how they really are.  Hillary is plainly such a person.  I don’t think Barack would have needed to tell her to lie.  She started testing stories the moment she realized the scale of the disaster.

This is contemptible.  This is a fraction of what Nixon did to get to the point where he was going to be impeached.  In Nixon’s case, he read about the break-in in the newspaper.  He did not authorize it.  He just did not admit, when he did start asking questions of his team, when they told him about it.  That’s all.

This is the equivalent of Nixon AUTHORIZING the break-in, then lying about it.  Congress needs to get Hillary under oath, and then Obama.  Obama had to have known early on as well what happened. 

They say “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” (presumably Shakespeare, but I’m not going to look it up).  What we mean by this is that different people find different things and people beautiful.

I would like to suggest another meaning: when we feel beauty, what is happening is that something external to us is reacting to some latent part of our selves.  It is like a sympathetic vibration, like when one tuning fork transmits its vibration to another.  You have to have that receptive capacity.

I was walking out of the gym the other day, and the sun was shining brilliantly on an autumn yellow’d (why not?) tree, and it struck me that it was falling on some sensitive part of me that was reacting to it.

Would personal growth not consist in some measure in increasing our receptivity to beauty, to finding it often and in small things?  Would that not ease problems of access to optimal states?

The gist of the Positive Money proposal is to put all money, finally, in the Bank of England, even if people still think they have deposits at individuals banks.  This I will never agree with, as this has long been a Keynesian Fascist objective.  It is an unwarranted centralization of potential power.

Their second idea is that as loans are repaid, the banks keep the interest income, but extinguish the money they created to make the loan.  As I have pointed out, this will lead to monetary deflation, which will cause the real cost of all extant loans to rise steadily, and which will thereby force large numbers of both personal and business bankruptcies.

Their third idea is to have, effectively, an inflation commission, which dictates how much money the economy “needs”.  Now, I have long argued that inflation is theft.  There is no other credible way to look at it.

HOWEVER, I could make one exception.  What follows is, I think, clever, and has never been tried to my knowledge.  One could implement Ben Dyson’s idea for gradual extinction of bank created money, and use fiat money to erase the monetary pressure on those with extant loans.  Effectively, they could be paid a stipend to compensate them for the extra money they would have to pay back, since they would be paying in pounds or dollars that would be worth more than when they took the loan out.  This would eliminate the economic contraction that would otherwise inevitably attend the implementation of his ideas.

People who did not have loans would see steady increases in their buying power, and people with loans would, optimally (and measuring actual deflation or inflation is a notoriously difficulty process, not least because they are regional variations that are sometimes quite significant), simply pay back what they borrowed.

This is my gradualistic proposal.  I will send it to Ben Dyson, but I suspect I am now on his shit list.