Righteous Anger & Despair In The Time Of Obama

[Magda Hassan]

Hey, Peter if you can send me the links of any of his talks on you tube videos I'll put them in the DPF channel :dancing:

[Ed Jewett]

Peter, I have been aware of and have helped inform others about that "longterm project of the ruling elite", and we do need to counter-act it in our personal lives, our families, our friendships, our communities; then, maybe, it gets to our national level. It sounds like you are a reader of Derrick Jensen, and I hear echoes from my blog......

Yes, I know Derrick and think very highly of him. I posted a thread about him previously here.

I don't know him, but I've read six of his books, and I feel like I know him. He is a great writer and researcher; his 'stuff' is meticulously foot-noted, a fascinating read, and incredibly disquieting. Now if we can just get the BBC and PBS to cover him ....

...don't hold your breath. He is even anathema to many progressives, as he is calling for nothing less than the dismantling of civilization, as we know and [don't] love it. How much more radical than that can you get?! By the way, if you've not, do take a look at the videos on google videos of his speech, in two parts, entitled endgame. Endgame is certainly where we are today.....although I think few realize it..... One thing is sure to me. If we don't fight like hell, we will very shortly all loose - everything.

I couldn't find the 'tongue-in-cheek' smilie fast enough, though I think media coverage and broader discussion would be a very good thing. Many of us share the same situation in running into a large wall of denial within our relationships and families, let alone neighborhoods or discussion boards, as we attempt to raise even introductory themes. People have a tough time giving up hope and all the trappings and power of civilization, but Jensen's well-known article on killing hope is right on target. Perhaps as more loose their jobs and their McMansions, people will start to ask more questions.

Yes, I've seen the videos, posted them over at EPU, along with the premises of "Endgame" (which drew some fire and ire), and I've read both volumes, as well as "Welcome to the Machine", "A Language Older than Words", and "A Culture of Make Believe". All of those books ought to be required reading for anyone in politics, business and education, and there ought to be community-level discussions. That will happen about as rapidly as mainstream media coverage, debates, reviews, etc. I absolutely agree with him that the problem is rooted in a massive and under-recognized tendency toward sociopathic psychopathologies (especially here in the US) (it seems to be a requirement or learning ground for power); anyone here at DPF could expound on at least two examples.

What many overlook in the discussion - they freeze and shut down their mind when they get to the first suggestion of what he discusses - is that he offers up clear alternatives for those who can't or won't adopt what he proposes. I do think that there is a need to accelerate awareness and acceptance of 'Buddhist psychology' -- of learning to take control of your own mind -- but I fear it is too late as the psychopathologies are more infectious than the 100 monkey plan. War-mongering, greed, self-interest et al produce great short term gains, and huge long-term disease and destruction; 'I GOT MINE!' versus the commons; class warfare.

We'd all better start pointing to the sources and demonstrating the techniques for taking control of our minds more fervently before someone lights the final fuse.

('Barkeep, another Rusty Nail please... ').

[David Guyatt]

We'd all better start pointing to the sources and demonstrating the techniques for taking control of our minds more fervently before someone lights the final fuse.

I couldn’t agree more with you Ed. Taking control of our own psyche I would argue, because the intellectual mind is easily and rapidly “flooded” by powerful surges in the collective unconscious resulting in the diminishment of rational thinking in a blink of an eye. A clear example of this can be seen in the abandonment of civilized behaviour in the German psyche circa 1933/45.

For my sins I have a number of posts here which focus on the Jungian Shadow complex HERE. This thread, to my utter astonishment, is the second most accessed thread on this forum -- all non-member visitors too. Interesting.

[Peter Lemkin]

Hey, Peter if you can send me the links of any of his talks on you tube videos I'll put them in the DPF channel :dancing:

Strange, It used to be on youtube and perhaps it still is...but it didn't come up in the first few pages. Here it is elsewhere. This is part I of II [be sure to see both!....long, but complex and sad tale he has to tell....]
http://in.truveo.com/derrick-jensen-endg...3119318294

Here is part 2 on google video and to the side one can get the Part one link [longest/full version best] http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&clien...f&oq=&aqi=

[Peter Lemkin]

Yes, I know Derrick and think very highly of him. I posted a thread about him previously here.

I don't know him, but I've read six of his books, and I feel like I know him. He is a great writer and researcher; his 'stuff' is meticulously foot-noted, a fascinating read, and incredibly disquieting. Now if we can just get the BBC and PBS to cover him ....

...don't hold your breath. He is even anathema to many progressives, as he is calling for nothing less than the dismantling of civilization, as we know and [don't] love it. How much more radical than that can you get?! By the way, if you've not, do take a look at the videos on google videos of his speech, in two parts, entitled endgame. Endgame is certainly where we are today.....although I think few realize it..... One thing is sure to me. If we don't fight like hell, we will very shortly all loose - everything.

I couldn't find the 'tongue-in-cheek' smilie fast enough, though I think media coverage and broader discussion would be a very good thing. Many of us share the same situation in running into a large wall of denial within our relationships and families, let alone neighborhoods or discussion boards, as we attempt to raise even introductory themes. People have a tough time giving up hope and all the trappings and power of civilization, but Jensen's well-known article on killing hope is right on target. Perhaps as more loose their jobs and their McMansions, people will start to ask more questions.

Yes, I've seen the videos, posted them over at EPU, along with the premises of "Endgame" (which drew some fire and ire), and I've read both volumes, as well as "Welcome to the Machine", "A Language Older than Words", and "A Culture of Make Believe". All of those books ought to be required reading for anyone in politics, business and education, and there ought to be community-level discussions. That will happen about as rapidly as mainstream media coverage, debates, reviews, etc. I absolutely agree with him that the problem is rooted in a massive and under-recognized tendency toward sociopathic psychopathologies (especially here in the US) (it seems to be a requirement or learning ground for power); anyone here at DPF could expound on at least two examples.

What many overlook in the discussion - they freeze and shut down their mind when they get to the first suggestion of what he discusses - is that he offers up clear alternatives for those who can't or won't adopt what he proposes. I do think that there is a need to accelerate awareness and acceptance of 'Buddhist psychology' -- of learning to take control of your own mind -- but I fear it is too late as the psychopathologies are more infectious than the 100 monkey plan. War-mongering, greed, self-interest et al produce great short term gains, and huge long-term disease and destruction; 'I GOT MINE!' versus the commons; class warfare.

We'd all better start pointing to the sources and demonstrating the techniques for taking control of our minds more fervently before someone lights the final fuse.

('Barkeep, another Rusty Nail please... ').

Amen! He is SO radical in his thinking most won't even 'go there' playing with the idea in their mind - or listening to / reading him. He's not the first to say what he says, but he is one of the best at saying it in a way acessible to anyone who is open-minded enough to listen - and very passionate about how he presents it. We [humans] are the problem and only we who can still think can possibly be the solution. I don't think one has to give up hope - though I admit I have veered close to that abyss at times. It is exactly because we are so close to the abyss from which there is NO return, and IMO someone has already lit the final fuse - that we must be galvanized into passionate and desperate action to stop the machine 'we' constructed - destroying the human society and the Planet. I often read Native American philosophy and wisdom and they all would have understood Jensen perfectly. The fact that most humans take as normal the physical and mental chaos, un-naturalness, pschopathology, ecopathology, illogic, unfairness and destructiveness of 'civilization'/'progress'/cities/society/much of what goes on in our name.....shows how far we have become alienated from any natural philosophy and Nature - even our own - almost completely Nature, itself. I can only hope something will trigger change and an awakening very soon and 180 degrees is needed, I'm afraid. If not......well there is that abyss waiting, very soon....

I concur with you all should read Jensen's books.
When are we going to put our 'picket-pins' in the ground and not move from where we stand until we prevail?! [for an explanation of this image and its meaning see the videos at the urls in the post just above.

[Ed Jewett]

COLLAPSE CONUNDRUM: CONFRONTATION OR DESCENT BY DEGREES?
By Carolyn Baker

http://carolynbaker.net/site/content/view/1131/1/

***
Beyond Hope

by Derrick Jensen

Published in the May/June 2006 issue of Orion magazine

http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/a...ticle/170/

[Peter Lemkin]

Quintessential Jensen. May we find enough brave souls, willing to fight the Beast we have collectively, as a species, created. As all religions and philosophies point-out; as psychology, anthropology and history amply show, we are individually and collectively capable of both good and evil. Evil persons are always trying to motivate or trick others into evil deeds (or not seeing those they commit). For the most part, goodness IMO must spring from within - even though it can only be greatly nurtured by a loving family and fair, compassionate tribe/community/society. It is our own decision and commitments to not be sheep, but to be active agents of positive change - by fighting and exposing the negative, and then moving beyond with new paradigms that may just in time save the 'day' and the Planet.

Picket-pins at the ready?!

[Ed Jewett]

Picket-pins at the ready?!

I am already staked...

http://z7.invisionfree.com/E_Pluribus_Un...topic=7270 This is the bibliography for "Summon The Magic", a 1,600-age compendium of excerpts on mind/body/spirit issues created initially for my children (an old friend once said I was re-parenting myself). It is the source of many blog entries, has been used to 'coach' others (elite athletes, performers, adult professionals), was where I first encountered Jensen -- though I didn't fully appreciate him at that time, and was one of the sources for the energies that enabled me to recover from near-death, stroke and disability.


This web site http://z7.invisionfree.com/E_Pluribus_Un...hp?act=idx was created by people who wished, as you so wonderfully put it, "to be active agents of positive change - by fighting and exposing the negative, and then moving beyond with new paradigms".





"... perpetually fomented by the failure [to find] food, the encircling encroachments of the white population, and the exasperating sense of decay and impending extinction with which they are surrounded."

http://www.manataka.org/page164.html

**

"If you get home alive, tell the people what happened.

It is better to die naked on the prairie than be wrapped up on a scaffold."

Societies of the Plains Indians (Communal Societies in America)
by Clark Wissler (page 44)

http://books.google.com/books?id=Z4joxY8...t&resnum=3

[Peter Lemkin]

Yup! Neuvo paradigm time...or should I more properly say back to the very ancient ones that worked for humans for many hundreds of thousands of years. Having just attended a conference on the alternative/underground comix of the 60s and 70s, I'm tempted to mention on Snappy Sammy Smoot comic that I first read looooong ago....but has always stayed in my mind as a wise page of ink on paper. In the comic page titled Snappy Sammy Smoot Meets God, Snappy [a very straight sort of dull-normal] by accident takes some LSD and says after some delay and silence, 'Gee, this is even stranger than the time I went to Philidelphia for the weekend.' More silence and a twisted look on his face, eyes bulging. Then he sees God and SSS looks at God and God looks at SSS and on and on without any change panel after panel. In the third to last panel God speaks and says, 'Snappy, Everything you've ever been told and believe is wrong!' SSS is silent again and in the last box of the comic says, 'Gee, I never thought of it THAT WAY!'
OK, it was a comic and playing with the different way one perceives the world and societal values/paradigms tripping or high in natural or substance-aided ways. But it was on the mark. Most have been told, taught, fed, and trained on lies and false values - and most fight to deny it, when presented with even a hint of the need of a slight course correction. In fact, the needed correction is immense and immediate! :afraid:

I see individuals and small groups sensing the abyss to which we are so near; but society in general and the great inertia of human activity and 'thought' (sic) is pulling us very rapidly directly toward that precipice.