Re: Digest Number 24

One last thought, I don't read the news, I don't watch the news, because I know what is going on. All I concentrate about is what I believe is right for me, and hopefully for others too.

Reading/watching the news gets me so angry that I WASTE my energy into something that is not making my life (or anyone else's either) better. So I don't see the necessity of it.

---
Experience a miraculous and prosperous day!

"Your environment is the physical picture of your thoughts, emotions and beliefs made visible."
Seth


--------- Original Message ---------

DATE: 25 May 2003 11:44:39 -000
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Cc: 

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>There is 1 message in this issue.
>
>Topics in this digest:
>
>      1. Was: [toeslist] Sen Byrd: The truth will emerge. ... house of cards will fall (fwd) Now: Slavery.
>           From: Colin Leath <[email protected]>
>
>
>________________________________________________________________________
>________________________________________________________________________
>
>Message: 1
>   Date: Sun, 25 May 2003 00:07:02 -0400 (EDT)
>   From: Colin Leath <[email protected]>
>Subject: Was: [toeslist] Sen Byrd: The truth will emerge. ... house of cards will fall (fwd) Now: Slavery.
>
>This email is started out being to
>http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ourcultureourcapitol/
>then grew to be relevant to
>http://groups.yahoo.com/group/derrickjensen_discussion/
>and
>http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sfbaintegralsalon/
>http://groups.yahoo.com/group/londonintegralcircle/
>and http://yoism.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion
>and, why not: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/toeslist/
>
>(Wilber specific: the most relevant questions / thoughts are
>after the line of WWWWWWs)
>
>
>I've stayed up too late, and it is not well written, but I
>do think these things and am curious if these thoughts cause
>others to react beyond hitting [delete].
>
>I could not send this, and be silent. I would be better off
>then(?). But I've chosen, for the time being, to live in a
>way in which I have access to a lot of information, and I
>react to what I read. Maybe I should change how I live.
>
>--------------------------------------
>
>Don't let these political-oriented emails distract you from
>your more important work/play--
>
>
>I send them on because perhaps things like the blatant
>(mindless?) evil of the Bush administration are important in
>forming "our culture," as it would appear the Vietnam War &
>CIA ( http://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/ST/ST.html ) were
>as well.
>
>As George pointed out on the nyc-ish list- we do have
>representatives of our culture poised to save us, perhaps.
>
>http://www.kucinich.us/
>
>The following speech by Byrd (D-WV) strikes me as optimistic
>(I've been reading Derrick Jensen, and riding a bicycle in
>the suburbs of northern virginia).
>
>When all the amerikkkan flags are taken down and replaced
>with earth flags, and all the g-d bless #$! / flag flower
>arrangements are dug up from in front of city halls, then
>_maybe_ I could be as optimistic as Byrd.
>
>Sandrine pointed me to something forward-looking a while
>ago:
>
>http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0915972212/
>(_planethood_)
>and:
>http://www.worldgovinst.org/
>
>
>
>To some extent, all this is a distraction from the important
>things?
>
>
>Or is an awareness of this an important part of being a
>"planetary villager"?
>
>
>Or of developing an integral perspective on the events?
>( http://wilber.shambhala.com/html/misc/iraq.cfm -
>actually, I don't think Ken is integral enough. )
>
>
>Quite possibly, (following Derrick Jensen) the Majority in
>the US tacitly favor US invasions and mass murder for the
>purpose of securing oil fields / supporting a certain way of
>life a bit longer (what if they had said from the get-go,
>"We're going in because we've run out of oil."?).
>
>( The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior--
>if correct, what does that suggest? )
>
>Quite possibly, we are entering the time where it is an
>endgame (whether manufactured or avoidable), and where the
>people of the US say, "to hell with the rest of the world-
>the game is over- we need food, water, energy, and slaves to
>continue to survive. We can no longer afford to work
>together with the other people on this planet, it is them or
>us."
>
>
>
>Is it a simple issue of manipulation of public opinion?
>
>Is, in fact, public opinion not being manipulated, but
>simply ignored? (
>http://michaelmoore.com/words/message/ )
>
>
>Derrick Jensen points out that throughout history people
>working for institutions of all kinds have lied and betrayed
>to serve what they believed to be their interest.
>
>
>The average American, in order to live how she lives, has
>had to learn how to not see, how to lie to herself, how to
>kill and enslave at a distance, while ignoring any
>suggestion that her way of life is not upstanding-- why
>should we expect that to change?
>
>
>I think most of us will agree we cannot assume that humans
>are incapable of acting in the interest of humanity-- but
>are we (have we been) living in a pre-war Germany analog?
>
>If so, what should we do?
>
>Is it possible that all those supporting the US
>military-industrial complex would ever prefer to starve
>rather than support wrong?
>
>Even if one is not paying taxes, is one still supporting the
>country by living in it? Or is one really in a better
>position to make a difference here than if one left
>(Following A. Ray
>http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0518-01.htm )?
>
>How does one decide whether to stay in Nazi Germany or
>evacuate?
>
>
>I've thought, and seen mentioned elsewhere, that if only,
>collectively, the people refused to get on those trains (to
>concentration camps--though they did not know that.),
>forcing the Soldiers to kill them right there...
>
>
>Someone on another list said, "simple living is the best
>way..."
>
>But when even the reporters of this tragedy (e.g. Quinn, A.
>Ray, D. Jensen) further it by use of car, airplane, and so
>on...  They are using these tools for what they believe to
>be a good. They are optimistic that by staying in the
>system, they can have some effect. Does T. Kaczynski have
>the moral high ground? Only the people who make and spend no
>money (in the form of world currencies) are the equivalent
>of people who refuse to board trains to concentration camps?
>
>Do we need Jesus-diet type extremism? (
>http://www.rawhealth.net/jesusdiet.htm )
>
>WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW
>
>Some people are fond of saying "one cannot destroy the
>master's house with the master's tools." (Starhawk ?)
>
>I think that is wrong. One destroys the master with the
>master's tools, and some new tools. Or, one makes new tools
>that subsume the former master (this following Wilber's
>Integral view).
>
>
>How can we make a system where it is not in the interest of
>people in power to have access to cheap labor (slaves),
>such that new systems can be developed where the
>ecosystemic and human costs of all activities are
>immediately apparent? Price is not working. (robots? AI?
>http://www.kurzweilai.net/ )
>
>Is the answer that we are already in such a system, it is
>only a problem of getting more people to realize it ( this
>plays into Wilber. ) ?
>
>Then what do we do about powerful people who do not realize
>slavery is not in their interest?
>
>We create a culture of war-tax resisters, who do not drive
>or fly, or seek to benefit from the slave system, except for
>the cause of bringing about the transition to a system where
>more realize slavery is not in their interest.
>
>In that system:
>
>  (1) human population decreases.
>
>  (2) what is necessary for life comes from the local area.
>(move, if necessary - following the jesus diet)
>
>
>Unlike the jesus diet, we cannot be "fools for christ,"
>people must see that our way is in fact more in their
>interest, not foolish at all.
>
>
>What uses of technology are in fact in our interest? It does
>seem that some allowance for access to information and
>communication will be necessary for an "integral" culture
>(or at the least, for its emergence).
>
>If "future primitive" is not in our interest, how can the
>resources to maintain desired communication and information
>be procured without slavery????????
>
>
>I'm not sure I see an answer to that. Which means I'd better
>head to the forest and give up what I cannot make myself? Or
>just enjoy these dying days as best I can? (both?)
>
>
>-------------------
>
>I hope to send a more constructive email in a week or two,
>based on some exciting things I've learned regarding
>ecovillages and intentional communities.
>
>
>
>Colin
>http://j9k.org
>
>---------- Forwarded message ----------
>Date: Fri, 23 May 2003 21:09:03 -0400
>From: Robert Pollard <[email protected]>
>Reply-To: [email protected]
>To: Toes List <[email protected]>
>Subject: [toeslist] Sen Byrd: The truth will emerge. ... house of cards
>    will fall
>
>Senator Byrd blasts Bush's 'reckless use of power,"
>international law violation and false alarm on Iraq;
>says war has encouraged terrorism and arms race
>
>Senator Robert C. Byrd (D-WV) delivered the following remarks
>in the U.S. Senate on May 21, 2003.
>
>TRUTH has a way of asserting itself despite all attempts to
>obscure it. Distortion only serves to derail it for a time.
>
>No matter to what lengths we humans may go to obfuscate facts or
>delude our fellows, truth has a way of squeezing out through the
>cracks, eventually. But the danger is that at some point it may
>no longer matter. The danger is that damage is done before the
>truth is widely realized. The reality is that, sometimes, it is
>easier to ignore uncomfortable facts and go along with whatever
>distortion is currently in vogue. We see a lot of this today in
>politics. I see a lot of it -- more than I would ever have
>believed -- right on this Senate floor.
>
>Regarding the situation in Iraq, it appears to this senator that
>the American people may have been lured into accepting the
>unprovoked invasion of a sovereign nation, in violation of
>long-standing international law, under false premises.
>
>There is ample evidence that the horrific events of September 11
>have been carefully manipulated to switch public focus from Osama
>Bin Laden and Al Queda, who masterminded the September 11th
>attacks, to Saddam Hussein, who did not. The run-up to our
>invasion of Iraq featured the president and members of his
>cabinet invoking every frightening image they could conjure, from
>mushroom clouds to buried caches of germ warfare to drones poised
>to deliver germ laden death in our major cities. We were treated
>to a heavy dose of overstatement concerning Saddam Hussein and
>his direct threat to our freedoms. The tactic was guaranteed to
>provoke a sure reaction from a nation still suffering from a
>combination of post traumatic stress and justifiable anger after
>the attacks of 911. It was the exploitation of fear. It was a
>placebo for the anger.
>
>Since the war's end, every subsequent revelation which has seemed
>to refute the previous dire claims of the Bush Administration has
>been brushed aside. Instead of addressing the contradictory
>evidence, the White House deftly changes the subject. No weapons
>of mass destruction have yet turned up, but we are told that they
>will in time. Perhaps they yet will. But, our costly and
>destructive bunker-busting attack on Iraq seems to have proven,
>in the main, precisely the opposite of what we were told was the
>urgent reason to go in. It seems also to have, for the present,
>verified the assertions of Hans Blix and the inspection team he
>led, which President Bush and company so derided. As Blix always
>said, a lot of time will be needed to find such weapons, if they
>do indeed exist. Meanwhile Bin Laden is still on the loose and
>Saddam Hussein has come up missing.
>
>The Administration assured the U.S. public and the world, over
>and over again, that an attack was necessary to protect our
>people and the world from terrorism. It assiduously worked to
>alarm the public and blur the faces of Saddam Hussein and Osama
>Bin Laden until they virtually became one.
>
>What has become painfully clear in the aftermath of war is that
>Iraq was no immediate threat to the U.S. Ravaged by years of
>sanctions, Iraq did not even lift an airplane against us. Iraq's
>threatening death-dealing fleet of unmanned drones about which we
>heard so much morphed into one prototype made of plywood and
>string. Their missiles proved to be outdated and of limited
>range. Their army was quickly overwhelmed by our technology and
>our well trained troops.
>
>Presently our loyal military personnel continue their mission of
>diligently searching for WMD. They have so far turned up only
>fertilizer, vacuum cleaners, conventional weapons, and the
>occasional buried swimming pool. They are misused on such a
>mission and they continue to be at grave risk. But, the Bush
>team's extensive hype of WMD in Iraq as justification for a
>preemptive invasion has become more than embarrassing. It has
>raised serious questions about prevarication and the reckless use
>of power. Were our troops needlessly put at risk? Were countless
>Iraqi civilians killed and maimed when war was not really
>necessary? Was the American public deliberately misled? Was the
>world?
>
>What makes me cringe even more is the continued claim that we are
>"liberators." The facts don't seem to support the label we have
>so euphemistically attached to ourselves. True, we have unseated
>a brutal, despicable despot, but "liberation" implies the follow
>up of freedom, self-determination and a better life for the
>common people. In fact, if the situation in Iraq is the result of
>"liberation," we may have set the cause of freedom back 200
>years.
>
>Despite our high-blown claims of a better life for the Iraqi
>people, water is scarce, and often foul; electricity is a
>sometime thing; food is in short supply; hospitals are stacked
>with the wounded and maimed; historic treasures of the region and
>of the Iraqi people have been looted; and nuclear material may
>have been disseminated to heaven knows where, while U.S. troops,
>on orders, looked on and guarded the oil supply.
>
>Meanwhile, lucrative contracts to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure
>and refurbish its oil industry are awarded to administration
>cronies, without benefit of competitive bidding, and the U.S.
>steadfastly resists offers of U.N. assistance to participate. Is
>there any wonder that the real motives of the U.S. government are
>the subject of worldwide speculation and mistrust?
>
>And in what may be the most damaging development, the U.S.
>appears to be pushing off Iraq's clamor for self-government. Jay
>Garner has been summarily replaced, and it is becoming all too
>clear that the smiling face of the U.S. as liberator is quickly
>assuming the scowl of an occupier. The image of the boot on the
>throat has replaced the beckoning hand of freedom. Chaos and
>rioting only exacerbate that image, as U.S. soldiers try to
>sustain order in a land ravaged by poverty and disease. ?Regime
>change? in Iraq has so far meant anarchy, curbed only by an
>occupying military force and a U.S. administrative presence that
>is evasive about if and when it intends to depart.
>
>Democracy and freedom cannot be force-fed at the point of an
>occupier's gun. To think otherwise is folly. One has to stop and
>ponder. How could we have been so impossibly naive? How could we
>expect to easily plant a clone of U.S. culture, values, and
>government in a country so riven with religious, territorial, and
>tribal rivalries, so suspicious of U.S. motives, and so at odds
>with the galloping materialism which drives the western-style
>economies? As so many warned this administration before it
>launched its misguided war on Iraq, there is evidence that our
>crackdown in Iraq is likely to convince 1,000 new Bin Ladens to
>plan other horrors of the type we have seen in the past several
>days. Instead of damaging the terrorists, we have given them new
>fuel for their fury. We did not complete our mission in
>Afghanistan because we were so eager to attack Iraq. Now it
>appears that Al Queda is back with a vengeance. We have returned
>to orange alert in the U.S., and we may well have destabilized
>the Mideast region, a region we have never fully understood. We
>have alienated friends around the globe with our dissembling and
>our haughty insistence on punishing former friends who may not
>see things quite our way. The path of diplomacy and reason have
>gone out the window to be replaced by force, unilateralism, and
>punishment for transgressions. I read most recently with
>amazement our harsh castigation of Turkey, our longtime friend
>and strategic ally. It is astonishing that our government is
>berating the new Turkish government for conducting its affairs in
>accordance with its own constitution and its democratic
>institutions.
>
>Indeed, we may have sparked a new international arms race as
>countries move ahead to develop WMD as a last ditch attempt to
>ward off a possible preemptive strike from a newly belligerent
>U.S. which claims the right to hit where it wants. In fact, there
>is little to constrain this president. This Congress, in what
>will go down in history as its most unfortunate act, gave away
>its power to declare war for the foreseeable future and empowered
>this President to wage war at will.
>
>As if that were not bad enough, members of Congress are reluctant
>to ask questions which are begging to be asked. How long will we
>occupy Iraq? We have already heard disputes on the numbers of
>troops which will be needed to retain order. What is the truth?
>How costly will the occupation and rebuilding be? No one has
>given a straight answer. How will we afford this long-term
>massive commitment, fight terrorism at home, address a serious
>crisis in domestic health care, afford behemoth military spending
>and give away billions in tax cuts amidst a deficit which has
>climbed to over $340 billion for this year alone? If the
>President's tax cut passes it will be $400 billion. We cower in
>the shadows while false statements proliferate. We accept soft
>answers and shaky explanations because to demand the truth is
>hard, or unpopular, or may be politically costly.
>
>But, I contend that, through it all, the people know. The
>American people unfortunately are used to political shading,
>spin, and the usual chicanery they hear from public officials.
>They patiently tolerate it up to a point. But there is a line. It
>may seem to be drawn in invisible ink for a time, but eventually
>it will appear in dark colors, tinged with anger. When it comes
>to shedding American blood -- when it comes to wreaking havoc on
>civilians, on innocent men, women, and children, callous
>dissembling is not acceptable. Nothing is worth that kind of lie
>-- not oil, not revenge, not reelection, not somebody's grand
>pipe dream of a democratic domino theory.
>
>And mark my words, the calculated intimidation which we see so
>often of late by the "powers that be" will only keep the loyal
>opposition quiet for just so long. Because eventually, like it
>always does, the truth will emerge. And when it does, this house
>of cards, built of deceit, will fall.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>________________________________________________________________________
>________________________________________________________________________
>
>
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>



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