Questioning K'Naan

Thanks for this eloquent first-person account.

To paraphrase Michael Franti & Spearhead, we can machine the world to pieces, but we can't machine it into peace. And Pres. Morales of Bolivia said, what say you?

PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] Thank you very much for the invitation and for this kind interview. I’m very pleased, as always, to talk with you and share our proposals on behalf of life.

I’ve come at the invitation of the Permanent Forum of Indigenous Peoples of the United Nations. I was, as a union—to share experiences on climate change, first as a peasant union leader and second as a president.

Unfortunately, the so-called developing countries are the hardest hit by natural phenomena. These natural phenomena are a result of the unbridled industrialization of the Western countries. I think that the countries of the West are under an obligation to see how they can pay the environmental debt to reduce harm to the planet earth. The planet earth has suffered a death warrant [sic, poss. "wound"] and must be saved, and that means saving planet earth is to save life and to save humankind.

But there are other factors that are leading to the inflation in prices for some agricultural goods, ... And it’s not possible to understand in this new millennium how there are governments, presidents, institutions that are more interested in a heap of metal than in life. They’re more interested in fueling luxury cars than in feeding human beings.

That’s where we raise a question. First, land is to be for life and not land for scrap metal or a heap of metal. And while some presidents and some international organizations want to implement measures of this sort, well, I believe very much in the social movements. ... and we need to wake up some presidents and international organizations before this problem of hunger that’s suffered by families and hectares of land being earmarked to cars rather than people goes any further. [End quote.] Pres. Morales on Democracy Now! 24 April 08

Our world is fatally overmechanized. When the tsunami struck, the sea puked up the poisons dumped by the real pirates here, sickening your people, stealing their livelihoods. And now, more white men in more metal machines are on the way to escalate another bogus war.

Why is it that perpetual bogus "holy" war is the only way we know of being in the world? It's the mythology!

The myth of the cosmos as Newtonian mechanism needs to die now. We are organic beings who conceive of our selves and our ultimate Source as machines, that's our problem. And we help the Machine Men defeat us when we champion the same damn myths that oppress us.

As a fellow poet, K'naan, I'm curious: what do you think of Morales's rejection of mechanism as a way of life?

Think Progress and the Myth of "A Clean Break" from Bush

Hey TP, you war-mongering faux leftists: where's your "clean break" rhetoric now?

There are 3 pages of this schtick. You guys were jacking us with myths of a "clean break" before, now what say you?

And then there's Geithner and Summers and Crew; what kind of "clean break" do they represent?

Your "clean break" myth is busted, TP. We see through your mask, esp. regarding escalating our holy war in Afghanistan.

Lifting Bush's Shroud
http://pr.thinkprogress.org/2009/03/pr20090305/
"Americans deserve a government that operates with transparency and openness," read a statement by Holder, underscoring the clean break with the Bush administration.

Obama's Wasted Efforts at Bipartisanship
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/02/13/obamas-bipartisanship/
In the early days of his young presidency, President Obama has already accomplished a great deal, making a clean break from Bush on a variety of issues, ...

Salazar makes clean break from Bush’s midnight ‘headlong rush’ into offshore drilling.
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/02/10/salazar-makes-clean-break-from-bushs-midnight-headlong-rush-into-offshore-drilling/

OBAMA'S UNSCREENED TOWN HALL AUDIENCE IS CLEAN BREAK FROM BUSH'S SUPPORTERS-ONLY EVENTS
http://pr.thinkprogress.org/2009/02/pr20090210/

Obama Justice Department Re-Hires Attorney Fired ...
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/02/03/hagen-doj-rehire/
Hagen’s rehiring is only the latest move in an effort by President Obama and new Attorney General Eric Holder to provide a “a clean break with the past policies of the Bush administration.” [cites http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1876621,00.html ]

Economy -- Energy Recovery
http://pr.thinkprogress.org/2009/02/pr20090203
Recognizing that it is time to "mark a clean break from a troubled past, and seta new course for our nation,"....


Obama abandons ‘war on terror’ catchphrase.
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/01/31/obama-terror-catchphrase/
Obama’s First 100 Hours: A Clean Break From Bush.

Untitled
http://pr.thinkprogress.org/2009/01
Obama's intelligence and OLC picks are a clean break from the lawlessness of the Bush administration.

http://thinkprogress.org/search/search.php?q=%22clean+break%22&x=0&y=0

What are myths, and what do they do, anyway?

You'll want to listen to all four parts of each. Only 2 bucks each, what a bargain!

http://shop.alanwatts.org/content/images-man-parts-12

http://shop.alanwatts.org/content/jesus-his-religion-or-religion-about-him-12

Pentagon's Message Force Multipliers Jacked Us to War

From the Media Matters Archive:

EXCLUSIVE: Military analysts named in Times exposé appeared or were quoted more than 4,500 times on broadcast nets, cables, NPR

On the heels of an April 20 New York Times investigative report exposing the hidden relationship between media military analysts and the Pentagon and defense industries, Media Matters for America today exclusively released an accounting of the analysts identified in the Times exposé and their more than 4,500 appearances and quotations on ABC, ABC News Now, CBS, CBS Radio Network, NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, CNN, CNN Headline News, Fox News, and NPR. The release documents just how far and wide the Pentagon program reached. Read more

Past Media Matters Research:

ACTION: Tell the Networks You Deserve Independent Analysts

Press Release: Four-Star Elephant in the (News)room

Military analysts named in Times exposé appeared or were quoted more than 4,500 times on broadcast nets, cables, NPR

CNN military analyst Shepperd on trip to Gitmo: "Did we drink the government kool-aid? -- of course"

Memo to the media: Have you hosted on air the person who told Rumsfeld at military analyst meeting, "You are the leader. You are our guy"?

Networks again refuse to go on the record about NY Times' military analyst exposé

Networks continue to ignore NY Times' military analyst story, but all find time for Hannah Montana

Networks reportedly refused to appear on PBS' NewsHour to respond to NY Times' military analysts story; several continue blackout

Special Report aired quotes from military analyst Robert Scales -- but has not mentioned he was in Times' exposé on military analysts

Multiple choice: Of the following, which outlet covered two recent major national security stories -- NBC, CBS, NPR, PBS, or ... Comedy Central?

Flashback: Media Matters had previously documented conservative misinformation from military analysts

Online Response:

Crooks and Liars: Pentagon Propagandist General Calls for US to Sponsor Terrorism Against Iran (May 15, 2008)

Salon - Glenn Greenwald: Joe Galloway blasts Pentagon and Larry Di Rita on "military analyst" claims (May 15, 2008)

Mediabistro - FishbowlNY: Everyone But the Networks Seem to be Talking About that NYT's Military Analyst Story (May 14, 2008)

Mediabistro - TVNewser: Examining the NYT's "Examination" (May 14, 2008)

Crooks and Liars: Military analysts named in Times Report appeared or were quoted more than 4,500 times on broadcast nets, cables, NPR

The Huffington Post: Pentagon "Media Analysts" Appeared on Major Networks or Were Quoted More Than 4,500 Times

The Politico: 4,500 times

The Carpetbagger Report: Pentagon Pundit propaganda produces political peril

Editor & Publisher: MM: Military Analysts Named by 'Times' Got on the Air 4,500-Plus Times

Open Left: Opening the Day: Obama to Get Crushed in W Virginia

Suburban Guerilla: 4500

Think Progress: Media quoted 'military analysts' over 4,500 times since 2002.

Eschaton: 4500+

Minnesota Monitor: Media Monitor: O'Reilly remixed (and more)

Democrashield: What Liberal Media?

DemocraticUnderground: Military analysts in NYT expose appeared or quoted 4,500 times on broadcast, cable, NPR

Message Force Multipliers, Wherefore Art Thou?

From Media Matters April 23, 2008

During the April 22 edition of The Daily Show, Stewart said:

STEWART: Now, another event making a recent cameo, the Iraq war. Remember? Remember when it started and it was kind of a big deal that some journalists were embedded with the troops? Well, this is great. As it turns out, it was more of an exchange program, because they actually also had troops embedded with the journalists. It's the subject of tonight's "The Less You Know."

[begin video clip]

STEWART: Look at these sweet, kindly former killing machines. The networks hire them to give expert analysis and insight into our country's war effort.

FMR. MAJ. GEN. PAUL VALLELY: We're winning the war on terror.

FMR. LT. GEN. THOMAS McINERNEY: This was the best-trained force we have ever had.

FMR. GEN. JAMES "SPIDER" MARKS: This is the best leadership our military has had in its history.

FMR. GEN. MONTGOMERY MEIGS: And when I ask senior army officials who are longtime friends who aren't going to give me a B.S. answer how we're doing, are we winning or losing? They're saying we're winning.

[end video clip]

STEWART: These people are old and trustworthy, like my grandpa who served in the war. They wouldn't lie to me -- right, Grandpa? You killed Hitler. And never cheated on my grandma with a French whore. Why would he? He was in love.

STEWART: Well, it turns out many of these ex-military were not so "ex" -- working on behalf of defense contractors and the Pentagon itself. And while the news networks called them "military analysts," the Pentagon, in just released memos, referred to them as "message force multipliers" -- which sounds so much cooler than sneaky old guys. Message force multipliers. What are they, machine guns that shoot Post-it notes? By the way, message force multipliers? Worst Steven Seagal movie ever. They say he couldn't stay on message. They were wrong. They said he couldn't read prompter. All right. But have there been any reports about the broader war on terror that don't come in unreliable old-man form? Well, we're in luck, if by in luck you mean [bleeped out].

The Government Accountability Office just put out a report on America's progress pursuing the non-Iraqi perpetrators of 9-11, or as many of us refer to them, the perpetrators of 9-11. Now, the name of the report -- and this is admittedly a little coy -- is The United States Lacks Comprehensive Plan to Destroy the Terrorist Threat and Close the Safe Haven in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas. Or, for you anagram fans, TUSLCPTDTTTACTSHIPFATA. The report stated that despite all that has occurred these last seven years, the Pakistan-Afghanistan border now has vast unpoliced regions attractive to extremists and terrorists seeking a safe haven. Well, thank God someone's safe.

For more, we turn to our own message force multiplier, senior military analyst Rob Riggle. Rob, thank you so much for joining us. Rob, this is serious revelations -- serious revelations coming out of the Pentagon and the Government Accounting Office about progress in the war on terror. What is your take on these reports?

RIGGLE: My take?

STEWART: Yes.

RIGGLE: My take is that in the United States war on terror, we've been walking in a [bleep] circle.

STEWART: Really?

RIGGLE: I mean, have you read this report?

STEWART: I read the, I saw the title.

RIGGLE: Well, let me just give you the Cliff Notes, OK? In 2001, there was a memo: Bin Laden determined to attack the United States from a safe haven in Afghanistan. Now, seven years and $700 billion later, we get a new memo saying, bin Laden determined to attack United States from a safe haven somewhere around Afghanistan. We're right back where we started. We could have gotten here by doing nothing.

STEWART: It is discouraging to see that -- it is discouraging. You know what's interesting, Rob? It is discouraging --

RIGGLE: I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. I knew this [bleep] didn't know where he was going. I mean, all of us, we were all in the backseat. America was just in the backseat. You know, you know, acting like, "I don't think this is the way to defeat Al Qaeda." And he's like, he's like, "I know what I'm doing. I know a shortcut through Iraq. Everybody, come on now, just trust me." And we're all like, "I don't know, maybe we should ask for directions. You know, I'm pretty sure Al Qaeda is the other way." And he's like, "Shut up, shut up. What the hell. I'll dump your ass in Yemen. You're just like your mother. Keep your hand off the radio, [bleep]."

STEWART: That's an interesting, that's an interesting -- Rob, that's an interesting metaphor.

RIGGLE: Man, shut the (bleep) up, all right?

STEWART: OK. So, do you think the president's going to make any changes based on these reports?

RIGGLE: Yeah, yeah, yeah, this will be a wake-up call. If there's anything this president responds to, it's written criticism.

STEWART: Well, thanks, Rob. That was a great report.

RIGGLE: Whatever. Whatever.

STEWART: Rob Riggle, everybody. We'll be right back.

Krugman: Wizards of Wall Street are Shown to be Frauds

Is he echoing Iglesias?

@5:45 JON STEWART: Is the greatest disappointment for you that you were a guy who believed in what they were doing and probably still believe in the political end of it, to be... do you feel betrayed in that sense?

DAVID IGLESIAS: Yeah, and to use a Star Wars kind've image, I thought I was working with the Jedi Knights and I was working for the Sith Lords, y'know.

JON STEWART: I wanna tell ya something--

AUDIENCE: WOO-HOO!

JON STEWART: I wanna tell ya somthing, for the audience for this show, you could not have used a better example... http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=173526&title=david-iglesias

The Market Mystique

By Paul Krugman

Excerpted from a blog post originally published March 26, 2009 in the New York Times

But it has become increasingly clear over the past few days that top officials in the Obama administration are still in the grip of the market mystique. They still believe in the magic of the financial marketplace and in the prowess of the wizards who perform that magic.

The market mystique didn’t always rule financial policy. America emerged from the Great Depression with a tightly regulated banking system, which made finance a staid, even boring business. Banks attracted depositors by providing convenient branch locations and maybe a free toaster or two; they used the money thus attracted to make loans, and that was that.

[...]

But the wizards were frauds, whether they knew it or not, and their magic turned out to be no more than a collection of cheap stage tricks. Above all, the key promise of securitization — that it would make the financial system more robust by spreading risk more widely — turned out to be a lie. Banks used securitization to increase their risk, not reduce it, and in the process they made the economy more, not less, vulnerable to financial disruption.

Sooner or later, things were bound to go wrong, and eventually they did. Bear Stearns failed; Lehman failed; but most of all, securitization failed.

Which brings us back to the Obama administration’s approach to the financial crisis.

Much discussion of the toxic-asset plan has focused on the details and the arithmetic, and rightly so. Beyond that, however, what’s striking is the vision expressed both in the content of the financial plan and in statements by administration officials. In essence, the administration seems to believe that once investors calm down, securitization — and the business of finance — can resume where it left off a year or two ago.

To be fair, officials are calling for more regulation. Indeed, on Thursday Tim Geithner, the Treasury secretary, laid out plans for enhanced regulation that would have been considered radical not long ago.

But the underlying vision remains that of a financial system more or less the same as it was two years ago, albeit somewhat tamed by new rules.

As you can guess, I don’t share that vision. I don’t think this is just a financial panic; I believe that it represents the failure of a whole model of banking, of an overgrown financial sector that did more harm than good. I don’t think the Obama administration can bring securitization back to life, and I don’t believe it should try.

10. March 28, 2009 12:39 pm Link

Your comment [on "Was I unfair?" posted 3/27/2009] is awaiting moderation.

Sorry, magicians, I applaud Krugman’s use of the Wizard metaphor. I’ve been calling it “myth-jacking,” a synthesis of Campbellian comparative mythology, radical behaviorism, and zealous evangelizing of the myth of the cosmos as god’s own justice-dispensing machine.

This is the myth by which we are being jacked to hell and stuck with the bill right freakin’ now.

If the cosmos is a Newtonian machine, then to get more out put, what do we do? Grab the key and wind ‘er up, right? And on the advice of chief cultists Greenspan, Summers, Gramm, and other high priests of the temple of overwhelming force, they did with the economy what 3-year olds do with wind up toys.

Turns out, that key they’re still twisting like mad? It’s the neck of the Goose who lays the Golden Eggs. Is it dead yet? Can they reattach the head and make it fly again?

We are being FORCED to dance to the tune of fanatical mechanists and atavistic social Darwinists, who just happen to be the same damn NSA-type fiends who’ve been jacking us to hell and back, and sticking us with the bill both ways, for god knows how long now.

It’s all about the conversion of our Commonweal into private property in the context and under the cover-story of a bogus “holy” war.

STEPHEN JAY GOULD (2001): The implications of this finding cascade across several realms….

But the deepest ramifications will be scientific or philosophical in the largest sense. From its late 17th century inception in modern form, science has strongly privileged the reductionist mode of thought that breaks overt complexity into constituent parts and then tries to explain the totality by the properties of these parts and simple interactions fully predictable from the parts. (”Analysis” literally means to dissolve into basic parts). The reductionist method works triumphantly for simple systems — predicting eclipses or the motion of planets (but not the histories of their complex surfaces), for example. But once again — and when will we ever learn? — we fell victim to hubris, as we imagined that, in discovering how to unlock some systems, we had found the key for the conquest of all natural phenomena. Will Parsifal ever learn that only humility (and a plurality of strategies for explanation) can locate the Holy Grail?

The collapse of the doctrine of one gene for one protein, and one direction of causal flow from basic codes to elaborate totality, marks the failure of reductionism for the complex system that we call biology — and for two major reasons.

First, the key to complexity is not more genes, but more combinations and interactions generated by fewer units of code — and many of these interactions (as emergent properties, to use the technical jargon) must be explained at the level of their appearance, for they cannot be predicted from the separate underlying parts alone. So organisms must be explained as organisms, and not as a summation of genes.

Second, the unique contingencies of history, not the laws of physics, set many properties of complex biological systems. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/19/opinion/19GOUL.html?ex=1226466000&en=f7655ce4049eba50&ei=5070&pagewanted=all

NAOMI KLEIN: And here’s the quote. This is Larry Summers in 1992: “Spread the truth. The laws of economics are like the laws of engineering. One set of laws works everywhere.” And then he laid out those laws a little bit later. He referred to the three “ations,” and those were privatization, stabilization and liberalization. So he has been preaching the doctrine. He is by no means sort of an innocent bystander. He is a dyed-in-the-wool privatizer, free trader. http://www.democracynow.org/2008/11/25/naomi_klein_robert_kuttner_and_michael

ARIANNA HUFFINGTON: In a speech at the Kennedy School of Government in September 2000, Summers declared: “The traditional industrial economy was a Newtonian system of opposing forces, checks and balances… While, in contrast, the right metaphors for the new economy are more Darwinian, with the fittest surviving.”

He forgot to add the part about the fittest surviving by being bailed out by the rest of us.

Real economic Darwinism -- or Randian capitalism -- would mean letting old institutions that have failed die. Keeping them on life support is not just catastrophically burdensome for taxpayers, but also prevents new institutions from flowering.

In a fawning new profile of Summers in The New Republic, we discover that Summers' tired thinking extends to the way he views being tired.

Noam Scheiber reports that "Summers functions on exceedingly little sleep.... To power through the day, Summers relies on a punishing Diet Coke regimen. The combination of fatigue and extreme caffeine intake can produce the occasional verbal and physical tic: Summers is a chronic foot-tapper and sometimes turns over words and clauses like an engine that won't start."

The notion that driving yourself to the point of exhaustion and chronic foot-tapping is a sign of commitment and achievement is as obsolete as the belief that pumping more money into the same institutions that created the crisis will solve it.

Summers' old boss, Bill Clinton, once said, "Every important mistake I've made in my life, I've made because I was too tired." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/larry-summers-brilliant-m_b_178956.html

GORDON BIGELOW: Economics, as channeled by its popular avatars in media and politics, is the cosmology and the theodicy of our contemporary culture. More than religion itself, more than literature, more than cable television, it is economics that offers the dominant creation narrative of our society, depicting the relation of each of us to the universe we inhabit, the relation of human beings to God. And the story it tells is a marvelous one. In it an enormous multitude of strangers, all individuals, all striving alone, are nevertheless all bound together in a beautiful and natural pattern of existence: the market. This understanding of markets—not as artifacts of human civilization but as phenomena of nature—now serves as the unquestioned foundation of nearly all political and social debate. As mergers among media companies began to create monopolies on public information, ownership limits for these companies were not tightened but relaxed, because “the market” would provide its own natural limits to growth. When corporate accounting standards needed adjustment in the 1990s, such measures were cast aside because they would interfere with “market forces.” Social Security may soon fall to the same inexorable argument.

The problem is that the story told by economics simply does not conform to reality. This can be seen clearly enough in the recent, high-profile examples of
the failure of free-market thinking…. http://www.harpers.org/archive/2005/05/0080538

JIM HIGHTOWER: Why was Greenspan so insistent on no regulation? Because he is the hardest of hardcore laissez-faire ideologues, holding a blazing disdain for government. An avowed worshiper of libertarian novelist Ayn Rand, he views public oversight of business as an evil force that deters the creativity of smart elites. He is so psyched by his religious-like faith in the “free market” that he fervently believes in what he considers to be the innate good will and moral superiority of investors and bankers. He asserts that these self-interested individuals can simply be trusted to do the right thing, and that government should not second-guess their decisions.

Even the faith of snake handlers is not as devout as Greenspan’s. Unfortunately, however, he was able to hitch our nation’s economic well-being to his own absurdist ideological fancy. The guy who was lionized as the smartest, most- stable economic thinker in the land essentially turns out to have been a quasi-religious nut. http://www.hightowerlowdown.org/node/1801

Myth-jacking is obviously our MO, the state of the art in manuFRACTURing consent.

— Dave Parker

Mythimating Appalachia and Gaza Alike

Check out this Lillis post from 3/24/09:
http://washingtonindependent.com/35488/epa-halts-mountaintop-mining

"...and communities throughout the Appalachian region suffer daily from contaminated drinking water, increased flooding, and a decimated landscape …"

Take a look at that word, "decimated:" it means, to reduce by a factor of ten. Our lords of coal have done to Appalachia what our lords of war have done to Gaza.

Two examples come to mind.

Democracy Now! April 2, 2008
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/4/2/oil_execs_...

AMY GOODMAN: Democratic Congressmember Jay Inslee of Washington State also questioned the Senior Vice President of Exxon Mobil, Stephen Simon, about the kind of change that could be expected from Exxon Mobil when they’re investing less than one percent of their profits in renewable energy.

REP. JAY INSLEE: Mr. Simon, listening to your testimony makes me even more convinced that we need to act to create an incentive for decision makers in industry to really make real investments in the clean energy revolution rather than relatively small ones. And the reason I say that is that, listening to you, as far as I can tell, you’re spending less than half a percent of your gross revenues on clean energy research. Is that right?

STEPHEN SIMON: It would be a very modest amount. I would acknowledge that. But I would not acknowledge that we’re not doing a lot to address greenhouse gas emission.

REP. JAY INSLEE: Well, considering that we have to cut our greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent in this country below our levels by 2050, would you agree that if your company continues on its present course, it will fall several hundred orders of magnitude short of what we have to do to prevent cataclysmic global climate change?

STEPHEN SIMON: Well, the assumption there that that’s required in order to do that, I would—

REP. JAY INSLEE: Well, how else is it going to happen? I mean, oil isn’t going to all of a sudden become clean. We need to do the research to figure out these technologies.

STEPHEN SIMON: No, but the fact is that we are going to have oil and gas and coal, and it’s going to constitute about 80 percent of the energy equation. With that as a given, how do we then address and do what we can to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions with that being the case?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[[[Full-spectrum dominance /Our Commonweal///[[[{{{ENERGY}}}]]]]]

Spoken like a true economic hit man, eh? Perkins confessed to exactly the same kind of scheme: with certain givens built in from the inception, we oversell nations on destructive extractive industries, bribing whoever has to be bribed, racking up unforgivable public debt, then taking over upon default. This is how we do it.

Now consider Gaza.

[[[Full-spectrum dominance /Our Commonweal///[[[{{{GAZA}}}]]]]]

1100 dead Gazans compared to 10 dead Israeli soldiers. Now that's what I call "leveraging." The difference is of two orders of magnitude; two "powers."

Israel has just finished razing Gaza to the negative second power, aka "bombing them back to the Stone Age." The US is supplying nearly a billion dollars to rebuild what we helped destroy. We expedited delivery of advanced weaponry for Israel to exalt itself to the second power, aka deus ex machina aka "Shock & Awe," and now we're sending money to rebuild.

So there stands proud Israel over prostrate Palestine, propped up and powered by machines of war and almighty dollars made in the USA.

So do we call this "centimated," or maybe "millimated?" No, I know: MYTHIMATED. Jacked to hell and back, and stuck with the bill both ways by myths conceived with malign intent (as the residents of Libby, Montana, now dying of mesothelioma, who brought home lethal vermiculite dust on their clothes for their loved ones to breathe, having been told myths of its safety by WR Grace and gov't health officials alike).

beloved/[{UNION}]/Beloved

Mark but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deniest me is ;
It suck"d me first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be.
Thou know"st that this cannot be said
A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead ;
Yet this enjoys before it woo,
And pamper"d swells with one blood made of two ;
And this, alas ! is more than we would do.

O stay, three lives in one flea spare,
Where we almost, yea, more than married are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is.
Though parents grudge, and you, we’re met,
And cloister’d in these living walls of jet.
Though use make you apt to kill me,
Let not to that self-murder added be,
And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.

--John Donne, The Flea (from Scott Horton's blog, No Comment http://harpers.org/archive/2009/03/hbc-90004598)

R. Twobloods Mingeldby the Third, at your service

Please allow me to introduce myself, 'tho I am NO1 of wealth or fame: R. Twobloods Mingledby the Third, your not so humble servant, at your service.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
And now that I've listened a few times, I want to note two things.

R. Twobloods Mingeldby III would make a great name, for I don't know what purpose, I just like the very English sound of it. Maybe I'll go about today in that character. R. Twobloods Mingeldby the Third--isn't that our true name?

That second poem--whoa, what a thought-stopper that is.
dp

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

Subject:	Regarding http://harpers.org/archive/2009/03/hbc-90004598
Date:	Sun, 22 Mar 2009 09:27:59 -0700
From:	Dave Parker
Reply-To:	parked@u.washington.edu
Organization:	Completely Different Research
To:	harpers@harpers.org

Thanks for the Gielgud/Glover video. I really enjoyed hearing the Flea. On first reading I really struggled with the rhythm. Gielgud's reading is more to my liking, or maybe I just have fond memories of him in Arthur.

Glover, though, completely captivated me with his strolling recitation, esp. when he comes to a stop near the hedge.

So power is what Donne's poetry is all about? I've been thinking, for some time now, so's mine.

I bow in your virtual direction,
Dave "knowbuddhau" Parker
Oak Harbor, WA
Myth-Jack THIS

Elisabetta Serani, The Flea (1657)

Mark but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deniest me is ;
It suck’d me first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be.
Thou know’st that this cannot be said
A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead ;
Yet this enjoys before it woo,
And pamper’d swells with one blood made of two ;
And this, alas ! is more than we would do.

O stay, three lives in one flea spare,
Where we almost, yea, more than married are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is.
Though parents grudge, and you, we’re met,
And cloister’d in these living walls of jet.
Though use make you apt to kill me,
Let not to that self-murder added be,
And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.

Cruel and sudden, hast thou since
Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence?
Wherein could this flea guilty be,
Except in that drop which it suck’d from thee?
Yet thou triumph’st, and say’st that thou
Find’st not thyself nor me the weaker now.
‘Tis true ; then learn how false fears be ;
Just so much honour, when thou yield’st to me,
Will waste, as this flea’s death took life from thee.

–John Donne, The Flea (ca. 1610) in Poems of John Donne, vol. 1, pp. 1-2 (E. K. Chambers ed. 1896)

---

The flea has an enviable position in literature, especially from the fables of Aesop to the various flea-inspired tales of E.T.A. Hoffmann. Sometime in the later nineteenth century, modern notions of sanitation intervened, and its literary demise began. But its role varies—it is often somewhat comic, reminding man of the frailty of his condition and of the fact that even the tiniest and most unassuming of creatures can afflict him. (Truer than many knew at the time, of course, since we now know that the flea was the principal vehicle for the spread of the Black Death and numerous other plagues). But the peak of the flea as a subject of art must have been in the seventeenth century, when it served as a subject for dozens of significant paintings (by Crespi, Piazzetta, de la Tour and Serani, for instance, whose painting provides a subtly masked sexuality) and became a steady topic of poets and songwriters. From this period, Donne’s poem stands at the unchallenged pinnacle. It’s a poetic tour-de-force, an amazing demonstration of innovation and dexterity. It addresses simultaneously an utterly trivial subject and one which could not be more profound, and its imagery is extremely daring. The voice is also intriguing–it opens with an imperative tone, then turns philosophical, introspective, then it marshals argument for a cause. The voice could just as easily be that of a man or a woman, moreover.

Listen to John Gielgud and Julian Glover read and discuss John Donne’s The Flea in the BBC’s “Six Centuries of Verse: The Metaphysical and Devotional Poets” (1984)

Commenting on Glenn Greenwald's Blog, Unclaimed Territory

Psychologists have weaponized psyche. (As harpie, a regular commenter on Glenn Greenwald's blog, and others there, have so amply documented.)

I'm a student of that fair art (I have a BA, not a BS). So what I am doing here is my best to undo what I consider a grave crime against Psyche.

I'm a member of the One Drop Zendo association. There's an ocean in every drop of seawater, right? We are to Psyche what drops are to the ocean. Our nature, Hakuin-zenji wrote, is that of ice and water: apart from water, there is no ice; apart from Psyche, there is no individual awareness.

So every violation of every individual psyche is a violation of that same Psyche we all share. It's most obvious incarnation is this voice you hear in your head. I mean, you can neither predict nor control what words come next, can you? And yet you hear these unspoken words

So whose voice is this?

Kill and Tell: More Snuff Videos from Military.com

WTF are these doing among "entertainment" videos? Are these the work of Message Force Multipliers? Isn't this what the bogus charges in the bogus trials (eg, Prof. Sami al-Arian, Padilla, al-Mari) have been all about: manufacturing evidence, jacking up our fear of home-grown terror, McCarthy-style? Then where are the Militias, like the ones that spawned Timothy McVeigh?

It appears, from an ask.com search, that the "Blowing Away Palestinians" video was blogged around 10 December 2008. It first appears on Military.com's forum on 24 February 2009. [http://shock.military.com/Shock/videos.do?displayContent=185657]

One expects propaganda in Obama's message to Iran; are these videos what Scott Horton meant by the "battlefield black psy ops" that have been targeted at the American public?
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Guantanamo Bay Inmate Leads Taliban

BBC News - A former Guantanamo Bay inmate, Mullah Abdullah Zakir, has become a top Taliban commander in Helmand Province, according to British government officials.

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UNLOAD on Bad Guys UPLOAD TO FLASH DRIVES

Conflict is constant...while Combat has met the K-byte and evolved....Smile...you are always on film

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You Can Run...and Now You Can Fly

Apache takes out insurgents with a hellfire missile in Iraq.

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500lb Bomb in Samara Night Vision

500lb JDAM landing on it's target during an operation in Samara, Iraq.

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Blowing Away Palestinians via Remote Control

The Israel Defense Forces has found a way to target Gaza Strip terrorists from kilometers away, with just three pushes of a button. It may look like a video game, but it's actually a new system called "The Seer Shoots," which has entered operation in recent days on the Gaza Strip border.

How's that for obscene? Killing "Palestinians" is just 3 button-pushes away. Except they're actually "kilometers away," so how does the all-seeing shooter know? Easy: someone in authority said so in a "no questions asked" context.

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Remote Controlled Machine Gun

Remote Controlled FN MAG 58 mounted on a VBL.

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Soldiers Fire Mortars at Insurgent Position

US Soldiers fire mortars at insurgent position at night in Iraq.

IED Team vs. UAV Hellfire

Taliban place an IED and get a hellfire missile instead.

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Israel's Suicide Drone

A drone that dive bombs the enemy Kamikaze style.

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War Games in Paradise

Welcome to Cobra Gold, the largest US military exercise in Asia. So what's the stated purpose of this $14.1 million exercise? Readying a combined force of U.S.-Thai marines and sailors to rescue civilians from hostage areas.

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Cockpit View From Attack Helicopter

First person view of attack helicopter firing off some rounds.

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A10 Flexes Muscle on Taliban

A10 showing it's brute strength and power, awesome!

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Afghanistan Air Strike

BOOOOM! Bakwa, Afghanistan air strike on insurgent’s hide out.

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Another One Bites the Dust

Mulitple views of a 500 pound bomb dropped on an insurgent hideout in Iraq.

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Terrorist Training Camps in the US

The Spread of Homegrown Terrorists - Islamic training camps in America's back yard. Why are these communities left to flourish in the US?

Homegrown Jihad in the USA

Under the leadership of a radical Pakistani cleric, Sheikh Mubarak Gilani, Muslims of America has thousands of devoted followers who are being groomed for HOMEGROWN JIHAD (sic).

Hamas in America

A look at Hamas in Minnesota.

Hamas Military Wing Part 1
Hamas Military Wing Part 2

A video following Hamas forces digging tunnels in the Gaza Strip preparing for the ultimate war, Jihad, against Israel.

Ted Nugent Would Have Nuked Afghanistan

A post 911 interview with Ted Nugent.

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Taliban Hideout No More

A 500 pound bomb gets dropped on a Taliban hideout in Afghanistan. A good start on spring cleaning.

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Marines Unload on Insurgents

Marines ambush some insurgents who are using a bombed-out hotel to hide in during night time raid.

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Can You Hear the Bomb Dropping?

Could you hear this bunker-busting bomb dropping from thousands of feet in the air and try to outrun it?

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Dagestani Mujahid Killed By Russian Forces

Raw video of Dagestani Mujahideen in a vicious shootout with Russian security forces.

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Chechen Mujahideen Shoot Down Russian Helicopter

Chechens from the Islamic International Brigade shoot down a Russian helicopter near Grozny in 1999.

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500 Pound Bomb Dropped on Insurgent House

Target destroyed.

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The Hidden Army of Radical Islam in Bosnia

Sky News has obtained evidence of thousands of radical Islamic Holy warriors hiding in Bosnia, a decade after the end of the war. Tim Marshall went to Zenica in search of answers. He found a growing radicalisation, and a new base for Al-Qaeda.

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White Phosphorous Gaza Uproar

Although Israeli officials have denied using the highly controversial white phosphorous compound against Hamas forces in Gaza, evidence suggests otherwise.

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UAV Predator Engages Insurgents

A group of insurgent leaving an ambush on coalition forces is engaged by a MQ-1 Predator UAV with a Hellfire missile.

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Intense Iraq War Footage

Warning - Graphic Footage.

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Welcome to Gaza

this is the Gaza Strip

Submitted By: Infidel For Life

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Taliban Targets Schoolgirls

CNN - Authorities are unable to stop the Taliban from blowing up girl's schools in Swat. CNN's Reza Sayah reports from Islamabad.

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US Soldiers Ambushed with RPGs

US Soldiers are ambushed with IEDs, RPGs, small arms fire in Iraq.

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Firefight in Fallujah

Raw footage of US led forces engaged in a massive fire fight in downtown Fallujah.

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Building Taken Out by IAF

Building in Gaza taken out by IAF with IDF ground forces looking on.

Huge Israeli Airstrike Caught on Tape

An explosion from an IAF strike is seen in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah on Tuesday,Palestinian medics: 18 gunmen, 3 civilians killed in IDF strikes on Gaza city. Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas on Tuesday accused Israel of aiming to "wipe out" the Palestinian people in Gaza.

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Chaves (sic) Wants Israeli President Locked Up

Rabid anti-american Hugo Chaves sent the first plane loads of aid to Hamas and the Palestinians and called for a UN tribunal to arrest and inprison Israel's president for war crimes against humanity.

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Close Call in Gaza as Kids Run for Cover

A report i caught on German TV a short while ago shows an airstrike very close to some kids on the street.

Historic Newsreel of the Myth-Jacking of Tibet by the CIA March 13, 1959

Friendly Feudalism: The Tibet Myth

Michael Parenti

The issue was joined in 1956-57, when armed Tibetan bands ambushed convoys of the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army. The uprising received extensive assistance from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), including military training, support camps in Nepal, and numerous airlifts.27 Meanwhile in the United States, the American Society for a Free Asia, a CIA-financed front, energetically publicized the cause of Tibetan resistance, with the Dalai Lama’s eldest brother, Thubtan Norbu, playing an active role in that organization. The Dalai Lama's second-eldest brother, Gyalo Thondup, established an intelligence operation with the CIA as early as 1951. He later upgraded it into a CIA-trained guerrilla unit whose recruits parachuted back into Tibet.28

Many Tibetan commandos and agents whom the CIA dropped into the country were chiefs of aristocratic clans or the sons of chiefs. Ninety percent of them were never heard from again, according to a report from the CIA itself, meaning they were most likely captured and killed.29 “Many lamas and lay members of the elite and much of the Tibetan army joined the uprising, but in the main the populace did not, assuring its failure,” writes Hugh Deane.30 In their book on Tibet, Ginsburg and Mathos reach a similar conclusion: “As far as can be ascertained, the great bulk of the common people of Lhasa and of the adjoining countryside failed to join in the fighting against the Chinese both when it first began and as it progressed.”31 Eventually the resistance crumbled.

26. Heinrich Harrer, Return to Tibet (New York: Schocken, 1985), 29.
27 See Kenneth Conboy and James Morrison, The CIA's Secret War in Tibet (Lawrence, Kansas: University of Kansas Press, 2002); and William Leary, "Secret Mission to Tibet," Air & Space, December 1997/January 1998.
28. On the CIA's links to the Dalai Lama and his family and entourage, see Loren Coleman, Tom Slick and the Search for the Yeti (London: Faber and Faber, 1989).
29. Leary, "Secret Mission to Tibet."
30. Hugh Deane, "The Cold War in Tibet," CovertAction Quarterly (Winter 1987).
31. George Ginsburg and Michael Mathos Communist China and Tibet (1964), quoted in Deane, "The Cold War in Tibet." Deane notes that author Bina Roy reached a similar conclusion.
32. See Greene, A Curtain of Ignorance, 248 and passim; and Grunfeld, The Making of Modern Tibet, passim.

And let's go to the Pentagon for the latest propaganda.

Tibet Revolts Against China

Historic Newsreel about the 1959 revolt by Tibet that eventually forced the young Dalai Lama into exile in India. Archival footage provided by The Military Network. To learn more about The Military Network, go to www.redafilms.com. (187.95s)

Submitted By: Member 157578

Wilkerson Diagnoses the Moment of Our Psychotic Break

This is the very definition of myth-jacking (Via The Washington Note):

COL. LAWRENCE WILKERSON (GUEST POST): But to have admitted this reality would have been a black mark on their leadership from virtually day one of the so-called Global War on Terror and these leaders already had black marks enough: the dead in a field in Pennsylvania, in the ashes of the Pentagon, and in the ruins of the World Trade Towers. They were not about to admit to their further errors at Guantanamo Bay. Better to claim that everyone there was a hardcore terrorist, was of enduring intelligence value, and would return to jihad if released. I am very sorry to say that I believe there were uniformed military who aided and abetted these falsehoods, even at the highest levels of our armed forces.

Col. Wilkerson offers compelling evidence of what I've been calling "myth-jacking."

"But to have admitted this reality would have been a black mark on their leadership from virtually day one of the so-called Global War on Terror and these leaders already had black marks enough: the dead in a field in Pennsylvania, in the ashes of the Pentagon, and in the ruins of the World Trade Towers. They were not about to admit to their further errors at Guantanamo Bay. Better to claim that everyone there was a hardcore terrorist, was of enduring intelligence value, and would return to jihad if released. I am very sorry to say that I believe there were uniformed military who aided and abetted these falsehoods, even at the highest levels of our armed forces."

Rather than uphold truth, democracy, and the yada yada yada, what did they do? Deployed snipers with high-powered microphones to strafe the airwaves with myths of terrorists with swarthy complexions oh my!

The Pentagon's Message Force Multipliers are no different than snipers with microphones. Have they all stood down?

"The Associated Press’s special report on Pentagon “influence operations” can be read here. The Pentagon’s Public Affairs Office has been one of the last redoubts of the Neoconservatives. Burrowed Bush era figures remain in key positions in the office, which had responsibility for implementation of some of the Rumsfeld Pentagon’s most controversial strategies in which the American public was targeted with practices previously associated with battlefield psy-ops."[1]

In other words, we have weaponized psyche and, like the NSA's capacity to spy, turned it upon ourselves.

"Obama is no shrinking violet. Just the same, it may be useful to warn him not to succumb to the particular brand of “shock and awe” that can be induced by ostensibly sexy intelligence to color reactions of briefees, including presidents. I [Ray McGovern] have seen it happen."[2]

Myths, of course, aren't simple lies, they are metaphors, they are vessels, into some of which we are more easily lured than others. Like kittens into burlap sacks. Or Roma and Jews into cattle cars en route to Dachau. And so on.

Joseph Campbell began lecturing at State's Foreign Service Institute in 1956. Look at the dramatic change in our foreign affairs after that, which just so happen to express his themes masterfully.

Myth-jacking, a hybrid of comparative mythology, and radical behaviorism in a mechanical cosmos, is the state of the art in manuFRACTURing consent.

In this, our Newtonian cosmos, in which the economy is god's own justice-dispensing machine, if you want more money, what do you do? Grab the key and wind 'er up, aka "economic stimuli."

On the advice of their high priests, Greenspan and Rand, bankers did with the world economy what 3-year olds do with a wind-up toy: grabbed the
key and twisted like mad. Turns out, the key they were twisting is the neck of the goose who lays the golden eggs.

Just as the Nazis jacked Germany with myths of the master race threatened by vermin; just as McCarthy jacked America with myths of Commies under every bed; so, too, have we been jacked to hell, by myths of terrorists with WMD, and are even now being stuck with the bill.

[1] Scott Horton, February 7, 2009. "Pentagon targeted and mistreated journalists, AP head charges." http://harpers.org/archive/2009/02/hbc-90004359
[2] Ray McGovern, November 7, 2008. "President-elect's Queries to Briefers." http://www.consortiumnews.com/2008/110708c.html

Throwing Dodd Under the Bus (Updated)

And now for something Completely Different. 14 years ago, my graduate studies in research psychology ended abruptly when I ran out the clock, having not obtained.

So now, I'm presenting this in the spirit of a phenomenological psychology research report. I've been developing this most recently in the comments of Glenn Greenwald's blog, Unclaimed Territory, on Salon.com, with one of my universal usernames, knowbuddhau2. http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/

THROWING DODD UNDER THE BUS
Is there a manual on this somewhere? Or do manipulators of public opinion, like artists of other types, simply work their magic intuitively?

The fact that Campbell lectured at State's Foreign Service Institute, followed by a dramatic change in our foreign affairs, which just so happens to express his themes masterfully, leads me to conclude: this is how we do it.

The history of my science, psychology, can't be told without its twin, "public relations." I trust this community is sufficiently aware of that sordid tale for me not to repeat it.

This is what happens when we reduce being human to point instances-- quantum singularities--of egocentric pain in a mechanical, lifeless, dare I say god-forsaken cosmos where kinetic power determines the order of our day.

The on-going effort, to reduce us to machines the better "to predict and control" (Our Motto) human behavior, by conceiving of psychology as being of the type of natural science modeled after physics, has been among the worst ideas ever. Sure, we've learned a lot. But at what cost, and who benefits?

One of the best things I've learned from that type of psychology is this: brains function on the basis of neuronal models of stimuli. Stimuli are re-presented to awareness by virtue of the activity in distributed networks of neurons: our internal theater of the mind is a sort of holographic projection of these networks.

Neuronal models of stimuli are the kenotic (self-emptying) vessels of mind, into which experience is pouring; from which awareness is arising like steam; and out of which we are flowing water. That is, they function just like these words are functioning right now.

Humbled by the Genome's Mysteries, by Stephen Jay Gould

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/19/opinion/19GOUL.html?ex=1226466000&en=f7655ce4049eba50&ei=5070&pagewanted=all

The implications of this finding cascade across several realms. The commercial effects will be obvious, as so much biotechnology, including the rush to patent genes, has assumed the old view that "fixing" an aberrant gene would cure a specific human ailment. The social meaning may finally liberate us from the simplistic and harmful idea, false for many other reasons as well, that each aspect of our being, either physical or behavioral, may be ascribed to the action of a particular gene "for" the trait in question.

But the deepest ramifications will be scientific or philosophical in the largest sense. From its late 17th century inception in modern form, science has strongly privileged the reductionist mode of thought that breaks overt complexity into constituent parts and then tries to explain the totality by the properties of these parts and simple interactions fully predictable from the parts. ("Analysis" literally means to dissolve into basic parts). The reductionist method works triumphantly for simple systems — predicting eclipses or the motion of planets (but not the histories of their complex surfaces), for example. But once again — and when will we ever learn? — we fell victim to hubris, as we imagined that, in discovering how to unlock some systems, we had found the key for the conquest of all natural phenomena. Will Parsifal ever learn that only humility (and a plurality of strategies for explanation) can locate the Holy Grail?

The collapse of the doctrine of one gene for one protein, and one direction of causal flow from basic codes to elaborate totality, marks the failure of reductionism for the complex system that we call biology — and for two major reasons.

First, the key to complexity is not more genes, but more combinations and interactions generated by fewer units of code — and many of these interactions (as emergent properties, to use the technical jargon) must be explained at the level of their appearance, for they cannot be predicted from the separate underlying parts alone. So organisms must be explained as organisms, and not as a summation of genes.

Second, the unique contingencies of history, not the laws of physics, set many properties of complex biological systems. Our 30,000 genes make up only 1 percent or so of our total genome. The rest — including bacterial immigrants and other pieces that can replicate and move — originate more as accidents of history than as predictable necessities of physical laws. Moreover, these noncoding regions, disrespectfully called "junk DNA," also build a pool of potential for future use that, more than any other factor, may establish any lineage's capacity for further evolutionary increase in complexity.

The deflation of hubris is blessedly positive, not cynically disabling. The failure of reductionism doesn't mark the failure of science, but only the replacement of an ultimately unworkable set of assumptions by more appropriate styles of explanation that study complexity at its own level and respect the influences of unique histories. Yes, the task will be much harder than reductionistic science imagined. But our 30,000 genes — in the glorious ramifications of their irreducible interactions — have made us sufficiently complex and at least potentially adequate for the task ahead.

We may best succeed in this effort if we can heed some memorable words spoken by that other great historical figure born on Feb. 12 — on the very same day as Darwin, in 1809. Abraham Lincoln, in his first Inaugural Address, urged us to heal division and seek unity by marshaling the "better angels of our nature" — yet another irreducible and emergent property of our historically unique mentality, but inherent and invokable all the same, even though not resident within, say, gene 26 on chromosome number 12. [Bold added.]

Reductive Mechanism is a failed method for approaching psyches. And yet that's what we do, we FORCE people to do as we say, or we ratchet up the pain until they do. And then what? Are they supposed to disregard being machined to death, like Rachel Corrie, for example?

Mythic symbols and narratives function as the icons on the Control Panels of our minds.. By now, American mythology has been analyzed and weaponized. Propagandists know how to push our buttons and leverage that powerful knowledge to great advantage.

* [[[Full-Spectrum Dominance / Our Common Weal///[[[{{{DISSENT}}}]]]]]]
"Full spectrum dominance over our Commonweal powered by suppression of dissent"

* [[[Full-Spectrum Dominance / Our Common Weal///[[[{{{Chris Dodd}}}]]]]]]
See the bus?

* [[[Full-Spectrum Dominance / Our Common Weal///[[[{{{Rachel Corrie}}}]]]]]]
Now the brackets are Caterpillar tractor treads.

It's our updated, upgraded, nuclear-powered Goering Method: declare an attack and denounce opponents on psycho-spiritual grounds, e.g., he’s a Muslim! No, he’s The One! (ie, McCain’s campaign.) Shazam! A skinny guy from Illinois now looks like a Messiah or Anti-Christ. That's how we power social-engineering projects. Between those poles flows the power of myth.

Mechanists make the fundamental mistake of trying to use mechanical tools on a mythosociopsychical problem: Justice. You can't machine Justice. But that's what Rove tried to do with our Justice Department.

Scott Horton tells us, Rove “calls himself ‘Grendel,’ ‘Moby Dick,’ and ‘Lord Voldemort.’ He is the man ever behind the scenes, manipulating and driving the events on the surface without being seen." [Italics original, bold added; http://www.harpers.org/archive/2008/02/hbc-90002498]

Coincidence?

Who’s using the power of myth to power weapons-grade domestic propaganda for Dems?

Lao-Tzu: "When right Way is used by Wrong-headed, Way still works, now for wrong reasons."
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(Original version)

Is there a manual on this somewhere? Or do manipulators of public opinion, like artists of other types, simply work their magic intuitively?

The fact that Campbell lectured at State's Foreign Service Institute, followed by a dramatic change in our foreign affairs, which just so happens to express his themes masterfully, leads me to conclude: this is how we do it.

The history of my science, psychology, can't be told without its twin, "public relations." I trust this community is sufficiently aware of that sordid tale for me not to repeat it.

This is what happens when we reduce being human to point instances-- quantum singularities--of egocentric pain in a mechanical, lifeless, dare I say god-forsaken cosmos where kinetic power determines the order of our day.

The on-going effort, to reduce us to machines the better "to predict and control" (Our Motto) human behavior, by conceiving of psychology as being of the type of natural science modeled after physics, has been among the worst ideas ever. Sure, we've learned a lot. But at what cost, and who benefits?

One of the best things I've learned from that type of psychology is this: brains function on the basis of neuronal models of stimuli. Stimuli are re-presented to awareness by virtue of the activity in distributed networks of neurons: our internal theater of the mind is a sort of holographic projection of these networks.

Neuronal models of stimuli are the kenotic (self-emptying) vessels of mind, into which experience is pouring; from which awareness is arising like steam; and out of which we are flowing water. That is, they function just like these words are functioning right now.

Reductive Mechanism is a failed method for approaching psyches. And yet that's what we do, we FORCE people to do as we say, or we ratchet up the pain until they do. And then what? Are they supposed to disregard being machined to death, like Rachel Corrie, for example?

[[[Full-Spectrum Dominance / Our Common Weal///[[[{{{Rachel Corrie}}}]]]]]]

Now the brackets are Caterpillar tractor treads.

[[[Full-Spectrum Dominance / Our Common Weal///[[[{{{Chris Dodd}}}]]]]]]

This is an illustration of what we mean when we say, "The White House threw Dodd under the bus."

In our world, god doesn't just come from a machine, god IS the machine! Listen to the way we talk about our military: as if it were the weather. We treat our military leaders like priests of the temple of almighty god.

Myth-jackers know this very well. By now, a thorough study has been made of American mythology, and how to leverage that powerful knowledge to their advantage.

It's our updated, upgraded, nuclear-powered Goering Method:

SEN. ROBERT BYRD: My hands tremble, but my heart still throbs. I read this quote: “Naturally, the common people don’t want war. But after all, it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament or a communist dictatorship. The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country.” Hermann Goering, president of Reichstag, Nazi Parliament, 1934. [http://www.democracynow.org/2008/3/25/body_of_war_new_doc_tells]

Dress it up in the right costumes on the right characters and Shazam! A skinny guy from Illinois now looks like a Messiah or Anti-Christ. That's how we power social engineering projects. Between those poles flows the power of myth.

Mechanists make the fundamental mistake of trying to use mechanical tools on a mythosociopsychical problem: Justice. You can't machine Justice. But that's what Rove tried to do with our Justice Department.

Rove's Monday Whoppers

Scott Horton

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2008/02/hbc-90002498

He calls himself “Grendel,” “Moby Dick,” and “Lord Voldemort.” He is the man ever behind the scenes, manipulating and driving the events on the surface without being seen. His hand is behind the hiring and firing of U.S. attorneys and his manipulations were a conscious effort to put federal prosecutors to work for partisan political purposes.[Italics original, bold added.]

Sadly, I see the Democratic Party doing the same thing, only different.

Jonathan Turley Piles On Sen. Dodd with False Charge

UPDATED Wednesday March 18, 2009 c.7:30 PM PDT

UPDATE II Wednesday March 18, 2009 c.8:25 PM PDT

UPDATE III Wednesday March 18, 2009 c.9:00 PM PDT

I first learned about the smear campaign against Sen. Dodd on Greenwald's blog

The Dishonest "Blame Dodd" Scheme from Tresury Officials

I'm not defending Chris Dodd here. As I said, there are all sorts of legitimate (though still unresolved) ethical questions about Dodd's personal financial matters. And if he were responsible for these compensation exemptions, then he ought to be blamed. But he simply wasn't responsible. He opposed them vehemently (The Hill at the time even noted that "Dodd is not backing down" from his opposition to the exemption that Geithner/Summers were demanding, and Jane has much more evidence, including the legislative history, conclusively demonstrating what really happened here). Geithner and Summers obviously thought that the exemption was justified when they were running around protecting those past compensation agreements, and they simply ought to explain why, rather than trying to sink Chris Dodd's political career in order to protect themselves.

The only point here is that what the White House and many journalists are claiming simply did not happen. They're just inventing a false history in order to blame the politically hapless Dodd for what Geithner and Summers did. And they're being aided by a right-wing noise machine that knows Dodd is vulnerable and which views the opportunity to blame the AIG bonuses on him, probably accurately, as a final nail in his political coffin (Media Matters today details today the right-wing falsehoods in the attacks on Dodd by documenting that the claims against Dodd are inaccurate, but they don't say who was actually responsible for the exemption). The next reporter who writes a word about this or listens to anonymous White House officials blame Dodd for these provisions might want to spend a moment reading Jane's post and looking at the evidence showing what actually happened, rather than mindlessly writing down what Rahm Emanuel these anonymous White House officials are whispering in their ears.

Just after reading of the scheme, I happened to catch Prof. Jonathan Turley on Countdown, After saying, public anger against AIG is misplaced, that we should be angry with Congress instead, he slips in the knife.

"And in fact an amendment was put through that protected the bonuses of executives that were brought in before the last stimulus package I believe Sen. Dodd helped put that in," with the emphasis coming on senator's name (c.1:45-2:00 in the first video segment of tonight's show).

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

UPDATEGreenwald has more on the story:

Some of these emailers have suggested that Dodd's comments are at odds with what I wrote. They quite plainly are not.

The narrative I wrote here (and which Hamsher wrote in her post) both included exactly that sequence:

That was the exact provision that Geithner and Summers demanded and that Dodd opposed. And even after Dodd finally gave in to Treasury's demands, he continued to support an amendment from Ron Wyden and Olympia Snowe to impose fines on bailout-receiving companies which paid executive bonuses."

I explicitly wrote that it was Dodd who, after arguing vehemently against this provision, ultimately agreed to its inclusion. And the statement from Dodd's office that I quoted above included the same series of events ("Because of negotiations with the Treasury Department and the bill Conferees, several modifications were made, including adding the exemption"). That's exactly what Dodd said today on CNN.

The point was -- and is -- that Dodd was pressured to put that carve-out in at the insistence of Treasury officials (whose opposition meant that Dodd's two choices were the limited compensation restriction favored by Geithner/Summers or no compensation limits at all), and Dodd did so only after arguing in public against it. To blame Dodd for provisions that the White House demanded is dishonest in the extreme, and what Dodd said today on CNN about the White House's advocacy of this provision confirms, not contradicts, what I wrote.

[...]

I agreed reluctantly," Dodd said. "I was changing the amendment because others were insistent."

It was the Treasury Department -- at least according to a Treasury official granted anonymity for the extremely compelling reason that he "asked not to be named" -- that pushed for the carve-out, and did so over Dodd's objections. That was the point from the beginning. That's precisely what made it so outrageous that the administration was trying to blame Dodd for a provision which Obama's own Treasury officials advocated, pushed for and engineered.

Anyone who doubts Dodd's opposition should just go read the above-excerpted articles which reported contemporaneously about the dispute Dodd was having with White House over the scope of the compensation limits. For obvious reasons, those real-time accounts are far more instructive about what really happened than what the parties are saying now that everyone is trying to avoid blame for the politically toxic AIG bonus payments.

UPDATE II Mike Lillis of The Washington Independent has more on the story:

Executive Compensation Limits: The Loopholes

2/4/09 12:34 PM

With Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner by his side, President Barack Obama just announced the highly anticipated new executive pay limits for companies receiving taxpayer help under the $700 billion Troubled Assets Relief Program.

“In order to restore our financial system, we’ve got to restore trust,” Obama said. “And in order to restore trust, we’ve got to make certain that taxpayer funds are not subsidizing excessive compensation packages on Wall Street.”

And while the rules certainly go further than the Bush administration ever attempted, several loopholes stand out: [Full story.]

White House, Congress Complicit in AIG Bonus Scandal

3/18/09 5:10 PM

On day four of AIG bonus-gate, the message from Capitol Hill has emerged as clear as it is unanimous: The $165 million paid this week to executives of bailed-out American International Group is “appalling,” “outrageous” and “a breach of public trust.”

Yet as pitchfork populism continues to fuel the congressional castigation, a vital element of the debate has gone largely ignored: Congress, going back to September, has had numerous opportunities to limit executive pay for bailed-out banks, only to ignore or abandon those efforts in the face of opposition from the finance industry, the White House or both.

The result has been that hundreds of billions of dollars in bailout funds have left Washington with virtually no conditions on how the money would be spent. The banks have taken advantage of that freedom, collectively paying out billions in bonuses, retention salaries and other perks to the same employees who helped run the companies into the ground.

Julian E. Zelizer, congressional expert at Princeton University, said the failure of policymakers to limit executive pay for bailed out banks was no accident. “Neither Congress nor the president wanted to look as if they were ‘taking over’ financial institutions,” Zelizer wrote in an email, “nor did they want to anger business.”

The result, he added, was “predictable:” a bailout strategy with plenty of leeway for the companies receiving the money.

Indeed, allowing most bonus payments to continue was a central element of both the Bush and Obama administrations’ bailout strategies. When Henry Paulson, Treasury secretary under the Bush White House, first unveiled the Troubled Asset Relief Program in September, the public wailed about the absence of conditions on the money. Congress intervened to add some limits on executive pay — provisions that Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) labeled “anything but mild.” But liberal critics of those compensation limits, including a number of congressional Democrats, pointed out loopholes allowing the companies to pay their executives virtually any sum they wanted. Most provisions, for example, apply only to companies receiving more than $300 million in TARP funds.

“Under this bill,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said at the time, “the CEOs and the Wall Street insiders will still, with a little bit of imagination, continue to make out like bandits.”

In January, the House passed legislation placing tighter restrictions on TARP spending, including tougher limits on executive pay. Senate Democrats, pressed by administration officials, never took up the bill. [Full story.]

UPDATE III WaPo has more:

How the Fed Failed to Tell Obama About The Bonuses

Federal Reserve officials knew for months about bonuses at American International Group but failed to tell the Obama administration, according to government and company officials, exposing problems in a relationship that is vital to addressing the financial crisis. As pressure mounted on AIG employees to return the bonuses, new details emerged yesterday about what the Fed, the Treasury Department and the White House knew regarding the payments and when. AIG executives said the Fed was informed by the company at least three months ago that by March 15 it would pay $165 million to employees working at its most troubled division. The Treasury and White House said they learned of the payments from Fed officials only days before they were due.

Close coordination between the Fed and the administration is now more important than ever as they near the launch of two signature programs to rescue the financial system, which together could reach $2 trillion, aimed at reviving consumer lending and purchasing soured assets and loans from ailing banks.

Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, a central figure in the decision to bail out AIG last fall as President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, said in an interview yesterday that he had not been aware of the size of the bonuses and the timing of the payments.

"I was stunned when I learned how bad this was on Tuesday [March 10]," Geithner said in an interview. "I shouldn't have been in that position, but it's my responsibility and I accept that."

Two days later, Geithner told the White House. The last-minute disclosure irked some of the president's senior advisers, but they refuse to point fingers now, saying the timing had little impact on the outcome or the president's public statements this week.

"Would I have liked an earlier warning system on this? Yeah," said David Axelrod, a senior White House adviser. "Would it have markedly changed things? Probably not. The legal constraints are the legal constraints."

One source familiar with the discussions said the company had provided details about the bonuses to senior Treasury officials at least a month ago. A Treasury spokesman said last night that was not true.

Democrats and Republicans in Congress are increasingly questioning how Geithner could not have known about the bonuses, given his past role in AIG's bailout, which has totaled more than $170 billion so far.

"I'm sick and tired of hearing the administration and the Secretary of the Treasury say, 'I just found out about it,' " Rep. Paul E. Kanjorski (D-Pa.) said yesterday. [Full story.]