KENT M
Hi, Mark,
Things have been a bit crazy lately, so I haven't been able to respond. I was actually in the Chicago area yesterday -- I did a memorial service for my late aunt, Mary Longbrake, at the chapel at Lake Forest College. But it was running down on Monday, picking my son up at the airport in Milwaukee, staying overnight in Elmhurst, then picking up my daughter from Elmhurst College, running up to Lake Forest, doing the service, running back to Elmhurst, then running up through Milwaukee to get my son on a plane back to Boston, then getting back to Minnesota after midnight. I had another funeral this morning and have two church committee meetings tonight, so I'm just trying to catch my breath.
Thanks for sharing your faith story. We hear so little about the liberal branch of Islam today. The phrase "seal of the prophets" I learned in my "Religion in the West" courses in grad school. I believe the idea was that God had indeed spoken through many prophets but that orthodox Islam holds Muhammad to be the final and greatest of the prophets. Jesus is considered the next greatest prophet (not divine, of course). I'm not up enough on Qur'an to say what passage this might be based on (it may be in the Hadith rather than Qur'an; or it might be in the Second Sura).
In some ways, your views remind me of either the more theistic side of Unitarianism or Ba'hai without the authoritarian leadership. As I think I noted earlier, I try not to tell God who God can or can't talk to, and I try to learn from others.
I heard somewhere that there is conversation about having a multi-year reunion. Have you heard anything?
Hope all is well with you.
God's Peace,
Kent
Mark Raymond Ganzer
Kent, I am 250 e-mails behind, and doing about 50 a day - which is barely treading water ... I felt guilty for not having responded sooner to your question - you were just pretty far down on the queue (then, I started working from the LAST page of my e-mails.
I attended a memorial service at the Lake Forest College Chapel for the wife of my dearest friend, Kenneth Bennett, emeritus Chair of the Department of English Lit at Lake Forest. His wife DJ was a world renonwn crafts person, and wrote two books (the definitive ones) on stitchery and using the sewing machine to design your special order clothes. DJ, as a graduate student in English Lit did some original Blake scholarship (bragging - my 25-year old nephew is a graduate teacing assistant in Pullman, WA, at Washington State University, the only one of the 13 school to which he applied for grad school that would take him AND give him a full ride ... this past April he headed an international Blake symposium in Trenton, NJ, at which he was the Key Note Speaker!!! Not bad for akid who had not worked a day in his life until he began his teaching career last September). The chapel is so beautiful, and not at all somber ... I hope that the phantom bag pipe player showed up on time - there were some concern in the area at DJ's service.
I think God all the times sends messengers to all peoples of the earth .. Jesus, for my money, was sent, not for the Jews, of which he was one, but for the gentiles ... and Jesus, did not hold gentiles (white people) in particularly high esteem (cf - Turn the other cheek .... EVEN the gentiles love those who love them)
If ever again you will be in the Chicago area, and have sometime, my cell is (xxx) yyy-zzzz ... I would love to show you parts of "my" world - e.g. in particular - The Crabtree FarmS in Lake bluff - 1000's of acres abutting Lake Michigan - just an incredible place, free and open to the public!
I hope you are aware how much our correspondence means to me ... and yes, my spiritual beliefs align pretty strongly with Unitarians / Universalits / Bhuddists and .. of course, the B'Hai faith (our neighbors Kathy and Koichi Yamamatah were of the Ba Hai faith, and I have read "The Lughing Bhudda" ... there is a web questionaire, and I can probably find it, that asks questions and then matches your answers with various "generic" faiths (e.g. - liberal Christian) ... on that test, I align 99% with "liberal Christian", about 34% with Muslims, and 100% with Quakers .. rofl ... the one quaker I know of in our family is known for refsing to bear arms for the union ... the LT ordered him to be executed. The firing squad fired, but, mirable dictus ... not a bullet got him! .... S O ... the LT put him to work as a field medic, a taksk at which he performed both fearlessly and quite competently
The messages of (almost) all the worlds religions / faith traditions / spiritual belief systems teach pretty much the same message - Do for those who cannot do for themselves, and all will be revealed, from what I have been told.
With Love to You and ALL YOU LOVE
Mark Raymond Ganzer
KENT M
Thanks so much! My aunt was very involved at LFC and was a life trustee. I had never been in the chapel before. I noticed there was a plaque to Irvin Young, who was a close friend of my father. Both my parents, my older brother, and one of my nieces graduated from LFC. I was accepted but decided to go to Mac instead. Aunt Mary had quite a life: in the first class of WAVE officers in WW II, lost most of her hearing when she contracted mumps on a flight back to Chicago from DC. Taught herself to read lips. She became the first woman to be an officer of the Northern Trust and then the first woman to become a vice president there. She was involved in multiple charities and was an avid supporter of the arts. She never married and never felt the less for it. She did have her "beaus", the last one had been a junior physicist working on the Manhattan Project. She had visited all 7 continents, including Antarctica. She had three degrees from LFC -- BA, LLD, and an MA in Liberal Studies which she earned at the age of 67. She was 97 and had been suffering from dementia for about 8 years, so her passing was a release for her and her family (I believe there is a book titled "The Long Goodbye" about losing a loved one to Alzheimer's -- it is indeed a "long goodbye").
I love the story of your Quaker ancestor. My great grandfather on my mother's side was a surgeon in the Army of Northern Virginia. After the war he settled in Ohio where my grandparents met.
God's Peace,
Kent
MARK GANZER
WHAT an amazing woman! I had the good fortune to work for Bankers Life & Casualty Company after John D. MacArthur "found religion" and the company elected to clean up its past "questionable" practices. John's wife, CT Highland with the corporate secretary and treasurer, and his chief counsel, dating back, I believe, to the 1940's was Zita Stone, who could make a longshoreman blush with her command of the English language, was known for being earthy in other ways which I shan't discuss, because it was passed on to me anecdotally, and had the dirt on ALL of the state insurance commissioners, so, when they were reluctant to approve a new policy, she'd call them on the phone, and, ahem, use some leverage to expedite the process.
MacArthur was also a very forward looking man who could see that a consequence of the civil rights movement would be for the US government to force companies to hire black minorities, SO, John with that midwestern practicality that borders on the verge of intuitive genius instructed his personnel department to start hiring black people, and to make sure that they hired the best ones available. And thus, we had a number of very talented, very articulate, black people working at Bankers.
MacArthur was very much an anti-union man. The BL&C corporate strategy was brilliant: hire the best talent available and pay them 25% more than they could make at any comparable job in the Chicago area.... BUT ... never give them the opportunity to advance behond the level of manager, reporting to a vice president (and back in the day, there were only six VPs, for aocompany with 5,400 home office employees and 10,000+ insurance agents; this would all change after MacArthur died, and the company devolved into a Charitable Trust, responsible for divesting itself of 80% of its assets within five years after MacArthur's death - they started handing out VP titles as if they were 3rd place ribbons in a state wide band/orchestra concert; not at all the way it used to be, and a LOT of big salaries, in comparison to the days of John MacArthur and his Risk Committee (of six)).
So, when the teamsters came on campus passing out their literature in an attempt to get the clerical workers to unionize, MacArthur assembled his division heads, and his Personnel people and said, "If this company goes union, I'll shut the office here down and move to Dallas. What are you going to do about it?"
And so, some of the best and brightest and most talented and creative minds went to work to develop a management sensitivity and training program whose motto was "Walk in their shoes." This one full week (7 1/2 hours a day, for five days) course was first attended by the BIG 6, and then the next two ranking managerial grades. Finally, it went to my level of management (I had no one to manage, but, as a highly skilled technician, would one day). It was an incredible, fully in house designed program (many of the people had masters degrees) and all of them were avid readers of the literature. Recovering from the teamster encroach was easy enough; they hadn't done their research, and had BAD suits, steeky Ceegars, and badly written, badly edited, mimeographed propaganda. When they teamsters went for round two, they were much better prepared, but by then, so were the BL&C managers.
N O W .... as to your incredible aunt - your telling her story reminded me SO much of this lady - the mother of a socialist war reporter and independent film maker, John Pilger:http://johnpilger.com/articles/a-tribute-to-my-mother
johnpilger.com
A tribute to my mother
17 May 2004
My mother, aged 19, sold her books to pay the fare to her first teaching job in the bush. The currency of her generation was determination and courage.
Since I left Australia, one journey has remained a small dream unfulfilled. It involves going north in New South Wales, to an old frontier town called Ballina, which is an Irish corruption of an Aboriginal word meaning "abundance". My mother Elsie arrived in Ballina in 1920, alone, aged 19. It was the middle of the night. She had travelled the 500 miles from Sydney, having sold her books to pay the fare, which the department of education said was "the responsibility of those privileged to teach". This was her first teaching job; in those days, you taught where you were sent.
The railway line had ended in the bush, and the handful of passengers who had come this far were loaded on to a truck with chains on its wheels; a track lay ahead. Two days after she had left Sydney, she was awakened and told she was in Ballina. "Sorry, Miss," said the driver. "Your bag's been dropped off somewhere else."
In the same clothes and flat broke, she walked along the long dirt road that was Ballina's main street, wide enough for a team of bullocks to turn, past W J Pickering Outfitters and the courthouse and the lock-up, to the only other 19th-century sandstone building, the school. "When I presented myself," she wrote, "the principal was busily inaugurating a pub nearby." So she sat on the steps and waited until he hove to, drunk and gasping for breath; like many of that Anzac generation, he had been mustard-gassed on the Western Front.
"What do you teach?" he asked her, to which she replied, "French and Latin and, if you like, history and English."
"You might as well go back," he said. "I want a maths teacher, and I want someone who won't be terrified by the brats" - meaning a male.
She didn't go back. She faced classes of up to 70 bush kids, many of them barely literate and there under sufferance of parents who really wanted their labour back on the farm. Her wage was £169 10s a year. She was of a remarkable generation of pioneering women, who asked for no material gain, whose currency was determination and courage.
She had grown up on the Hunter Valley coalfields, north-west of Sydney, before and during the First World War. Her great-grandfather was Francis McCarty, an Irishman who had arrived on the barque John Barry on 7 November 1821, wearing, along with all the other political prisoners, four-pound leg-irons. Convicted of "uttering unlawful oaths", he had been sentenced to 14 years in Britain's Antipodean penal colony. Her great-grandmother was Mary Palmer, a Whitechapel prostitute sentenced to life in a "female factory" near Sydney for the crime of relieving a client of his spare change; she would have been hanged had she not been pregnant. She arrived on the Lord Sidmouth, packed with rats, in 1822. She was 17.
Born soon after the turn of the century, Elsie was the only one of nine children from a mining family who completed her education. Up before dawn, she would catch the coal-company train to the new high school at East Maitland, where she had won a place with the first bursary ever awarded to her tiny primary school in the town of Kurri Kurri. At night, she would read and study by the light of a hurricane lamp or a candle under her bed or beneath the water tank that stood on stilts beside the house. Her books were the first of their kind her family had seen. "My other education," she wrote, "took place in the many hours I spent in the cemetery counting the number of miners accidentally killed and questioning the justice of their deaths and of the deity to whom we all prayed under my mother's surveillance every night."
The "Great War" with Germany was fed with Australian volunteers from small frontier towns; only the French, proportionally, suffered greater casualties. Elsie sold sprigs of bush wattle for pennies, which were sent to the Anzacs; she also questioned out loud why such a blood sacrifice had anything to do with Australia. She wrote, "I grew to hate their war; it's always their war." The warmongering prime minister of Australia at the time was the effete William Morris Hughes, whose speeches about "morality" were like those of Tony Blair. In two referendums, he tried to bring in conscription and failed, thanks largely to a campaign by women all over Australia, especially the young like Elsie.
At the age of 16, she arrived at Sydney University, where she became Australia's youngest graduate - a distinction that may still stand. Her family in the meantime had prospered and moved to a place called Merewether, to a house on a hill, which had the first refrigerator I ever saw, and running hot water. Elsie never lived there. In Sydney, she had met Claude, the son of a German sailor, who had also grown up in the Hunter Valley and had left school at 14 to go down the pit. As an apprentice, he was entitled to membership of the Mechanics Institute, whose "social, political and cultural lectures" were his education.
Elsie would smuggle him into the university library, where they read together. They became socialists, and he a member of the international Industrial Workers of the World, the "Wobblies".
In the late summer of 1920, Elsie took Claude home to meet her family. On the way, she met her eldest brother. "They're waiting for you," he said ominously. Going on alone, she found a family court in session. "The source of the disapproval was clear," she wrote: "the only educated daughter had deigned to want to marry a Bolshie!"
Now excommunicated by her family, she set out for Ballina. Her clothes arrived two months later, without a note and wrapped in newspaper. "The hypocrisy!" she wrote, "what with our Irish convict background! But of course we never talked about that." When she returned a year later, Claude had borrowed £10 so they could be married. They chose the register office near the walls of the old convict prison factory where Mary Palmer had been incarcerated and had met Francis McCarty. On her wedding day, Elsie sent two one-word telegrams to her sulking family. The first, before they were married, said GOING; the second, after the ceremony, said GONE. She laughed a great deal, often darkly, though when she and Claude fell apart, that stopped.
The other day, I followed her footsteps along Ballina's main street, past the same 19th-century courthouse and lock-up. In the library, I discovered a letter from the local MP, requesting "a competent teacher of languages . . . who will allow our children in the country district an opportunity they would not otherwise have". It was dated 1919 and it was the cue for Elsie. Her power as a teacher became something of a legend; year after year, for more than half a century, her former students would meet in Sydney for dinner to celebrate her, even though she always declined their invitations to attend. "I was never that good," she would say to me, ". . . just determined."
Ballina is leafy and brisk and very modern these days, and the original school took some finding. When I found it, I peered in and saw her there.
Friday, September 16, 2011
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Vol 2, #2
My Encounter With Augustus Owsley Stanley
by PAUL KRASSNER
In 1967, there was a concert in Pittsburgh, with the Grateful Dead, the Velvet Underground, the Fugs and me, playing the part of a stand-up satirist.
There were two shows, both completely sold out, and this was the first time anybody had realized how many hippies actually lived in Pittsburgh.
Backstage between shows, a man sidled up to me. "Call me ‘Bear,’" he said.
"Okay, you’re ‘Bear.’"
"Don’t you recognize me?"
"You look familiar, but–"
"I’m Owsley."
"Of course – Owsley acid!"
Fun fact: His nickname, "Bear," was originally inspired by his prematurely hairy chest.
Now he presented me with a tab of Monterey Purple LSD. Not wishing to carry around an illegal drug in my pocket, I swallowed it instead.
Soon I found myself in the front lobby, talking with Jerry Garcia. As people from the audience wandered past us, he whimsically stuck out his hand, palm up.
"Got any spare change?"
Somebody passing by gave him a dime, and Garcia said thanks.
"He didn’t recognize you," I said.
"See, we all look alike."
In the course of our conversation, I used the word "evil" to describe someone.
"There are no evil people," Garcia said, just as the LSD was settling into my psyche. "There are only victims."
"What does that mean? If a rapist is a victim, you should have compassion when you kick ‘im in the balls?"
I did the second show while the Dead were setting up behind me. Then they began to play, softly, and as they built up their riff, I faded out and left the stage.
Later, some local folks brought me to a restaurant which, they told me, catered to a Mafia clientele. They pointed out a woman sitting at a table. The legend was that her fingers had once been chopped off, and she’d go to a theater, walk straight up to the ticket-taker, hold up her hand and say, "I have my stubs."
With my long brown curly hair underneath my Mexican cowboy hat, I didn’t quite fit in. The manager came over and asked me to kindly remove my hat. I was still tripping. I hardly ate any of my spaghetti after I noticed how it was wiggling on my plate.
I glanced around at the various Mafia figures sitting at their tables, wondering if they had killed anybody. Then I remembered what Jerry Garcia had said about evil. So these guys might be executioners, but they were also victims.
The spaghetti was still wiggling on my plate, but then I realized it wasn’t really spaghetti, it was actually worms in tomato sauce. The other people at my table were all pretending not to notice.
It was, after all, the Summer of Love.
"Thanks for enhancing it, ‘Bear.’"
Excerpted from the expanded edition of PAUL KRASSNER’s autobiography, Confessions of a Raving, Unconfined Nut: Misadventures in the Counterculture, available only atpaulkrassner.com and as a Kindle e-book.
PAUL KRASSNER is the editor of The Realist. His books include: Pot Stories for the Soul, One Hand Jerking and Murder at the Conspiracy Convention.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/03/21/my-encounter-with-augustus-owsley-stanley/
5 more principles for working with not-yet-believers
SIMPLY CHURCH – A HOUSE CHURCH PERSPECTIVE
http://www.simplychurch.com/2011/09/-5-more-principles-for-working-with-not-yet-believers.html
Starting here, several blog posts told the story of how we started a church with people who didn't yet know the Lord. Here are some more principles for working with people who don't yet know Jesus.
1. Open ended questions are great. We love to ask people, "Tell us where you are on your spiritual journey." Similarly, open discussion is great. As someone commented on the post where I told the story, if people employ the principles in the book, "How to Win Friends and Influence People," they get much further. No one likes to be told, "You're wrong." At the beginning, some of the comments people made were totally off the mark, but we didn't correct them. It works much better when the Word shows them what is right.
2. We once had a group of late teens and early 20s who were growing and excited about what God was doing in their midst. People were finding the Lord most weeks. We went on a mission trip for a month, and when we came back, the guy whose home it met in came to see us. "I had to close the church down!" The reason was that a local youth pastor heard about what was going on, visited, and when he found their was no teaching, took it upon himself to rectify the omission. Within three weeks people had stopped coming. Moral of the story? If you teach, new believers will quickly learn to be quiet and, in a small group context, often stop coming.
3. Use the Scriptures as a basis for discussion. If one person teaches, that person become the authority, but if everyone discusses the Scriptures, the Bible itself becomes the authority. Discussion is also a much better way for people to learn.
4. We had people praying for each other from the very first week. We didn't know who they were praying to, but our God delighted to answer their prayers. We used different patterns of praying--sometimes we would get people into pairs. Other times people would pray, for example, for the person on their right; other times we had them in small groups. We modeled sentence prayers rather than mini-sermons. The result of all this? No one was ever reticent to pray aloud.
5. Simple patterns can be easily copied. Complex is hard to duplicate. By teaching just four steps based on Acts 2:42, Lisa led from very early on in the process. Here were the four steps:
Faked Stats, No Jobs: Happy Corporation Day!
by PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
It is Labor Day, 2011, but labor has nothing to celebrate. The jobs that once gave American workers a stake in capitalism have left and gone away. Corporations in pursuit of near-term profits have moved labor’s jobs to China, India, Indonesia, Taiwan, South Korea and Eastern Europe.
Labor arbitrage, that is, the substitution of foreign labor that is paid less than its productivity for American labor, has enriched Wall Street, shareholders and corporate CEOs, but it has devastated American employment, household incomes, tax base, and the outlook for the US economy.
This Labor Day week-end’s job report, announced by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) on Friday, September 2, says zero net new jobs were created in August, a number 250,000 less than the amount of monthly job creation necessary to make progress in reducing America’s high rate of unemployment.
The zero figure is actually an optimistic number. As John Williams (shadowstats.com) has made clear, problems with the BLS’s seasonal adjustments and “birth-death” model
during the prolonged downturn that began in December 2007 result in the BLS over-estimating new jobs and underestimating lost jobs.
Seasonal adjustments and the “birth-death” model were designed with a growing economy in mind and result in miscounts during downturns. For example, the “birth-death” model estimates new jobs that are created from new start-up companies that are not yet reporting, and it estimates the job losses from companies that have gone out of business. In a growing economy, start-ups exceed jobs losses, but the situation reverses during downturns or during periods of sub-normal job growth. For the past forty-four months, the “birth-death” model has overestimated the number of new jobs created. When the annual revisions are made to the job reports, the excess jobs are taken out, but it is seldom headline news.
The reason that nearly four years of economic stimulus, consisting of large federal budget deficits and near zero interest rates, hasn’t revived the economy is that the jobs that Americans once had have been moved offshore. Stimulus cannot put Americans back to work in jobs that have been given to foreign countries.
Post-World War II Keynesian economists, such as Paul Krugman and Robert Reich, think that if the federal government would add more stimulus by enlarging the already massive federal deficit, new jobs would somehow be created to take the place of those that have left. This is a delusion. Not only have the supply chains necessary to support US economic activity been disrupted and broken by offshoring, but also the same incentive–excess supplies of foreign labor that produces more value than it is paid–that sent jobs abroad is still operative.
In a word, the US economy has been de-industrializing, moving from a developed to an underdeveloped economy, for the past two decades. It has been the case for many years that when the US economy manages to eke out new jobs, they are in non-tradable domestic services, such as health care and social assistance, waitresses and bartenders, retail clerks. Non-tradable employment consists of jobs that do not produce goods and services that could be exported to reduce the large US trade deficit.
The long-term deterioration in the US economy has been covered up by “reforming” the official measures of unemployment and inflation. The U3 measure of unemployment, the current 9.1 per cent unemployment rate, only measures unemployment among those who are actively seeking a job. Those who have become discouraged by the inability to find a job and have ceased looking are not counted as being among the unemployed, and the U3 measure makes no adjustment for those who are forced into part-time jobs because there is no full-time employment.
The government knows that the U3 “headline” unemployment rate is seriously understated and provides a broader measure known as U6. This measure, which is seldom reported by the financial media, includes short-term discouraged workers (those who have not looked for jobs for six months or less) and an adjustment for those who wish full time employment but can only find part time work. Currently, this measure of unemployment stands at 16.2 per cent.
Add long-term discouraged workers. No official unemployment rate includes long-term (more than six months) discouraged workers as unemployed. John Williams estimates this number and adds it to the U6 measure to produce a current rate of US unemployment of 22.7 per cent, an unemployment rate 2.5 times higher than the official rate.
Similar understatement exists in the measure of inflation known as the Consumer Price Index. In order to reduce cost-of-living adjustments to Social Security checks and to hold down other inflation adjustments, the “progressive” Clinton administration accepted the Boskin Commission’s recommendation to introduce substitution into what had been a fixed, weighted, basket of goods used to measure the cost of a constant standard of living. In the new “reformed” measure, if the price of an item increases, say New York strip steak, the index assumes that consumers switch to a less expensive cut, such as round steak. Thus, the price increase doesn’t show up in the CPI.
Consumers, or a number of them, do tend to behave in this way. However, since the basket of goods comprising the CPI is no longer constant, but changes with price changes, the CPI has become a variable measure of the cost of living that reduces the inflation rate by measuring a lower standard of living.
John Williams estimates the CPI according to the previous official methodology that used a fixed basket of goods. He finds the rate of inflation to be much higher than is reported by the substitution-based methodology.
The understatement of inflation serves to boost real Gross Domestic Product growth. In order to compare how much larger (or smaller) the economy is this year compared to last year, the GDP figure has to be adjusted for inflation. If the economy grew 5 per cent in nominal terms and inflation was 3 per cent, then GDP grew 2 per cent in real terms, that is, real goods and services, as opposed to mere price rises, increased 2 per cent over the year.
When John Williams adjusts US GDP with the former or traditional measure of inflation, he finds that there has been no growth in real GDP for several years. In other words, during the period of “economic recovery” the economy has actually been declining.
American economic decline began with offshoring during the Clinton administration. Instead of addressing this threat, the Clinton administration launched the neoconservative program of American Empire with American and NATO aggression against Serbia, sending the Serbian leader off to be tried as a war criminal for resisting the dissolution of his country.
The Bush/Cheney regime elevated the pursuit of American Empire under cover of “the war on terror.” Based entirely on lies and falsified intelligence, Bush/Cheney launched wars against the Taliban, who were unifying Afghanistan, and against Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
In the 1980s Hussein was used by Washington to launch a war against the revolutionary government in Iran that had overthrown the American puppet government, headed by the Shah of Iran. Ever since Washington lost its puppet rule over the Iranians, Washington has refused diplomatic relations with Iran. In the place of diplomatic relations, Washington demonizes Iran in order to set the country up for another attack a la Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Pakistan, and Yemen. Syria is next.
Saddam Hussein’s service to Washington was overlooked when it became more important to eliminate support for Hamas and Hezbollah, two barriers to Israel’s expansion in the Middle East, than to maintain Washington’s gratitude to an Iraqi pawn.
Despite unequivocal reports from arms inspectors that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction and most certainly had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11, top Bush/Cheney regime officials demonized Iraq as the greatest threat to America. The imagery of mushroom clouds from nuclear weapons was evoked, A war was launched entirely on false pretexts that destroyed a country and left over one million Iraqis dead and four million displaced. What Washington did to Iraq is what the Nazis were tried and executed for at the Nuremberg Trials.
Obama was elected in order to stop the illegal and senseless wars. Instead, Obama both continued the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and expanded the wars into Libya, Pakistan, and Yemen. Since the deregulation of the financial system under the Bush/Cheney regime and the “war on terror,” the entire economy of the US has been sacrificed for the benefit of the financial sector and the military/security complex.
Labor Day is an anachronism. It should be renamed Corporation Day or War Day to celebrate the success of Bush/Obama in eliminating labor unions as a countervailing power to corporate power and the elevation of War as the highest goal of the American state.
By Scott Werdebaugh
The Gospel Coalition writes:
Operational Pause for the Cause: Happy End of Summer!
by Jeff Huber
I’m celebrating Labor Day this year by making it the first day of my summer vacation which, if I’m going to take one, I need to get cracking, don’t I?
Wake me when the next war is over.
Catch you after the equinox. Hopefully we won’t have started a fourth war by then. Well, a fifth war, if you count Yemen as being a war already. Which it is, when you get right down to it. Then again, we’re also at war in Somalia, the Philippines, Nigeria and Syria. So here’s hoping we’re don’t start a how ever many-eth war it would be if we start a new one before fall officially starts.
And what would the rush be? It’s not like we need new wars to replace the ones we already have. Out withdrawal “deadlines” for Iraq and the Bananastans are more fictional than Sergeant Fury and His Howling Commandos, though not nearly so well written, drawn or inked.
---------------------------------------------------------------
CPI Year-to-Year Growth
by John Williams - http://www.shadowstats.com/
The CPI-U (consumer price index) is the broadest measure of consumer price inflation for goods and services published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
Notes on Different Measures of the Consumer Price Index.
The Consumer Price Index (CPI) is the broadest inflation measure published by U.S. Government, through the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), Department of Labor:
The CPI-U (Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers) is the monthly headline inflation number (seasonally adjusted) and is the broadest in its coverage, representing the buying patterns of all urban consumers. Its standard measure is not seasonally adjusted, and it never is revised on that basis except for outright errors,
The CPI-W (CPI for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers) covers the more-narrow universe of urban wage earners and clerical workers and is used in determining cost of living adjustments in government programs such as Social Security. Otherwise its background is the same as the CPI-U.
The C-CPI-U (Chain-Weighted CPI-U) is an experimental measure, where the weighting of components is fully substitution based. It generally shows lower annual inflation rate than the CPI-U and CPI-W. The latter two measures once had fixed weightings — so as to measure the cost of living of maintaining a
Here is a graph of annual percent change (year-to-year) in both the CPI-U and the SGS-Alternate CPI for select periods:
Who coulda knowd? That the U.S. Federal govt. would have such good-hearted men, who care so veru much they don't even make a peep!
So, you might ask, how can THIS be good news? Well, it is HONEST news, numbers that you simply won't get anywhere else!
Or, how about, UNEMPLOYMENT – lucky U.S. - we got ours down to nine-somethin'! We're #1; We' #1; We're #1 and yet ...
Alternate Unemployment Charts
The seasonally-adjusted SGS Alternate Unemployment Rate reflects current unemployment reporting methodology adjusted for SGS-estimated long-term discouraged workers, who were defined out of official existence in 1994. That estimate is added to the BLS estimate of U-6 unemployment, which includes short-term discouraged workers.
The U-3 unemployment rate is the monthly headline number. The U-6 unemployment rate is the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) broadest unemployment measure, including short-term discouraged and other marginally-attached workers as well as those forced to work part-time because they cannot find full-time employment.
Editorial: Shrink wage gap by raising tax on rich
Chicago Sun Times Sep 5, 2011
by PAUL KRASSNER
In 1967, there was a concert in Pittsburgh, with the Grateful Dead, the Velvet Underground, the Fugs and me, playing the part of a stand-up satirist.
There were two shows, both completely sold out, and this was the first time anybody had realized how many hippies actually lived in Pittsburgh.
Backstage between shows, a man sidled up to me. "Call me ‘Bear,’" he said.
"Okay, you’re ‘Bear.’"
"Don’t you recognize me?"
"You look familiar, but–"
"I’m Owsley."
"Of course – Owsley acid!"
Fun fact: His nickname, "Bear," was originally inspired by his prematurely hairy chest.
Now he presented me with a tab of Monterey Purple LSD. Not wishing to carry around an illegal drug in my pocket, I swallowed it instead.
Soon I found myself in the front lobby, talking with Jerry Garcia. As people from the audience wandered past us, he whimsically stuck out his hand, palm up.
"Got any spare change?"
Somebody passing by gave him a dime, and Garcia said thanks.
"He didn’t recognize you," I said.
"See, we all look alike."
In the course of our conversation, I used the word "evil" to describe someone.
"There are no evil people," Garcia said, just as the LSD was settling into my psyche. "There are only victims."
"What does that mean? If a rapist is a victim, you should have compassion when you kick ‘im in the balls?"
I did the second show while the Dead were setting up behind me. Then they began to play, softly, and as they built up their riff, I faded out and left the stage.
Later, some local folks brought me to a restaurant which, they told me, catered to a Mafia clientele. They pointed out a woman sitting at a table. The legend was that her fingers had once been chopped off, and she’d go to a theater, walk straight up to the ticket-taker, hold up her hand and say, "I have my stubs."
With my long brown curly hair underneath my Mexican cowboy hat, I didn’t quite fit in. The manager came over and asked me to kindly remove my hat. I was still tripping. I hardly ate any of my spaghetti after I noticed how it was wiggling on my plate.
I glanced around at the various Mafia figures sitting at their tables, wondering if they had killed anybody. Then I remembered what Jerry Garcia had said about evil. So these guys might be executioners, but they were also victims.
The spaghetti was still wiggling on my plate, but then I realized it wasn’t really spaghetti, it was actually worms in tomato sauce. The other people at my table were all pretending not to notice.
It was, after all, the Summer of Love.
"Thanks for enhancing it, ‘Bear.’"
Excerpted from the expanded edition of PAUL KRASSNER’s autobiography, Confessions of a Raving, Unconfined Nut: Misadventures in the Counterculture, available only atpaulkrassner.com and as a Kindle e-book.
PAUL KRASSNER is the editor of The Realist. His books include: Pot Stories for the Soul, One Hand Jerking and Murder at the Conspiracy Convention.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/03/21/my-encounter-with-augustus-owsley-stanley/
5 more principles for working with not-yet-believers
SIMPLY CHURCH – A HOUSE CHURCH PERSPECTIVE
http://www.simplychurch.com/2011/09/-5-more-principles-for-working-with-not-yet-believers.html
Starting here, several blog posts told the story of how we started a church with people who didn't yet know the Lord. Here are some more principles for working with people who don't yet know Jesus.
1. Open ended questions are great. We love to ask people, "Tell us where you are on your spiritual journey." Similarly, open discussion is great. As someone commented on the post where I told the story, if people employ the principles in the book, "How to Win Friends and Influence People," they get much further. No one likes to be told, "You're wrong." At the beginning, some of the comments people made were totally off the mark, but we didn't correct them. It works much better when the Word shows them what is right.
2. We once had a group of late teens and early 20s who were growing and excited about what God was doing in their midst. People were finding the Lord most weeks. We went on a mission trip for a month, and when we came back, the guy whose home it met in came to see us. "I had to close the church down!" The reason was that a local youth pastor heard about what was going on, visited, and when he found their was no teaching, took it upon himself to rectify the omission. Within three weeks people had stopped coming. Moral of the story? If you teach, new believers will quickly learn to be quiet and, in a small group context, often stop coming.
3. Use the Scriptures as a basis for discussion. If one person teaches, that person become the authority, but if everyone discusses the Scriptures, the Bible itself becomes the authority. Discussion is also a much better way for people to learn.
4. We had people praying for each other from the very first week. We didn't know who they were praying to, but our God delighted to answer their prayers. We used different patterns of praying--sometimes we would get people into pairs. Other times people would pray, for example, for the person on their right; other times we had them in small groups. We modeled sentence prayers rather than mini-sermons. The result of all this? No one was ever reticent to pray aloud.
5. Simple patterns can be easily copied. Complex is hard to duplicate. By teaching just four steps based on Acts 2:42, Lisa led from very early on in the process. Here were the four steps:
Start with a meal
Ask what God has been doing in people's lives that week
Spend time around the Word in an interactive way
Pray for each other
Faked Stats, No Jobs: Happy Corporation Day!
by PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
It is Labor Day, 2011, but labor has nothing to celebrate. The jobs that once gave American workers a stake in capitalism have left and gone away. Corporations in pursuit of near-term profits have moved labor’s jobs to China, India, Indonesia, Taiwan, South Korea and Eastern Europe.
Labor arbitrage, that is, the substitution of foreign labor that is paid less than its productivity for American labor, has enriched Wall Street, shareholders and corporate CEOs, but it has devastated American employment, household incomes, tax base, and the outlook for the US economy.
This Labor Day week-end’s job report, announced by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) on Friday, September 2, says zero net new jobs were created in August, a number 250,000 less than the amount of monthly job creation necessary to make progress in reducing America’s high rate of unemployment.
The zero figure is actually an optimistic number. As John Williams (shadowstats.com) has made clear, problems with the BLS’s seasonal adjustments and “birth-death” model
during the prolonged downturn that began in December 2007 result in the BLS over-estimating new jobs and underestimating lost jobs.
Seasonal adjustments and the “birth-death” model were designed with a growing economy in mind and result in miscounts during downturns. For example, the “birth-death” model estimates new jobs that are created from new start-up companies that are not yet reporting, and it estimates the job losses from companies that have gone out of business. In a growing economy, start-ups exceed jobs losses, but the situation reverses during downturns or during periods of sub-normal job growth. For the past forty-four months, the “birth-death” model has overestimated the number of new jobs created. When the annual revisions are made to the job reports, the excess jobs are taken out, but it is seldom headline news.
The reason that nearly four years of economic stimulus, consisting of large federal budget deficits and near zero interest rates, hasn’t revived the economy is that the jobs that Americans once had have been moved offshore. Stimulus cannot put Americans back to work in jobs that have been given to foreign countries.
Post-World War II Keynesian economists, such as Paul Krugman and Robert Reich, think that if the federal government would add more stimulus by enlarging the already massive federal deficit, new jobs would somehow be created to take the place of those that have left. This is a delusion. Not only have the supply chains necessary to support US economic activity been disrupted and broken by offshoring, but also the same incentive–excess supplies of foreign labor that produces more value than it is paid–that sent jobs abroad is still operative.
In a word, the US economy has been de-industrializing, moving from a developed to an underdeveloped economy, for the past two decades. It has been the case for many years that when the US economy manages to eke out new jobs, they are in non-tradable domestic services, such as health care and social assistance, waitresses and bartenders, retail clerks. Non-tradable employment consists of jobs that do not produce goods and services that could be exported to reduce the large US trade deficit.
The long-term deterioration in the US economy has been covered up by “reforming” the official measures of unemployment and inflation. The U3 measure of unemployment, the current 9.1 per cent unemployment rate, only measures unemployment among those who are actively seeking a job. Those who have become discouraged by the inability to find a job and have ceased looking are not counted as being among the unemployed, and the U3 measure makes no adjustment for those who are forced into part-time jobs because there is no full-time employment.
The government knows that the U3 “headline” unemployment rate is seriously understated and provides a broader measure known as U6. This measure, which is seldom reported by the financial media, includes short-term discouraged workers (those who have not looked for jobs for six months or less) and an adjustment for those who wish full time employment but can only find part time work. Currently, this measure of unemployment stands at 16.2 per cent.
Add long-term discouraged workers. No official unemployment rate includes long-term (more than six months) discouraged workers as unemployed. John Williams estimates this number and adds it to the U6 measure to produce a current rate of US unemployment of 22.7 per cent, an unemployment rate 2.5 times higher than the official rate.
Similar understatement exists in the measure of inflation known as the Consumer Price Index. In order to reduce cost-of-living adjustments to Social Security checks and to hold down other inflation adjustments, the “progressive” Clinton administration accepted the Boskin Commission’s recommendation to introduce substitution into what had been a fixed, weighted, basket of goods used to measure the cost of a constant standard of living. In the new “reformed” measure, if the price of an item increases, say New York strip steak, the index assumes that consumers switch to a less expensive cut, such as round steak. Thus, the price increase doesn’t show up in the CPI.
Consumers, or a number of them, do tend to behave in this way. However, since the basket of goods comprising the CPI is no longer constant, but changes with price changes, the CPI has become a variable measure of the cost of living that reduces the inflation rate by measuring a lower standard of living.
John Williams estimates the CPI according to the previous official methodology that used a fixed basket of goods. He finds the rate of inflation to be much higher than is reported by the substitution-based methodology.
The understatement of inflation serves to boost real Gross Domestic Product growth. In order to compare how much larger (or smaller) the economy is this year compared to last year, the GDP figure has to be adjusted for inflation. If the economy grew 5 per cent in nominal terms and inflation was 3 per cent, then GDP grew 2 per cent in real terms, that is, real goods and services, as opposed to mere price rises, increased 2 per cent over the year.
When John Williams adjusts US GDP with the former or traditional measure of inflation, he finds that there has been no growth in real GDP for several years. In other words, during the period of “economic recovery” the economy has actually been declining.
American economic decline began with offshoring during the Clinton administration. Instead of addressing this threat, the Clinton administration launched the neoconservative program of American Empire with American and NATO aggression against Serbia, sending the Serbian leader off to be tried as a war criminal for resisting the dissolution of his country.
The Bush/Cheney regime elevated the pursuit of American Empire under cover of “the war on terror.” Based entirely on lies and falsified intelligence, Bush/Cheney launched wars against the Taliban, who were unifying Afghanistan, and against Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
In the 1980s Hussein was used by Washington to launch a war against the revolutionary government in Iran that had overthrown the American puppet government, headed by the Shah of Iran. Ever since Washington lost its puppet rule over the Iranians, Washington has refused diplomatic relations with Iran. In the place of diplomatic relations, Washington demonizes Iran in order to set the country up for another attack a la Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Pakistan, and Yemen. Syria is next.
Saddam Hussein’s service to Washington was overlooked when it became more important to eliminate support for Hamas and Hezbollah, two barriers to Israel’s expansion in the Middle East, than to maintain Washington’s gratitude to an Iraqi pawn.
Despite unequivocal reports from arms inspectors that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction and most certainly had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11, top Bush/Cheney regime officials demonized Iraq as the greatest threat to America. The imagery of mushroom clouds from nuclear weapons was evoked, A war was launched entirely on false pretexts that destroyed a country and left over one million Iraqis dead and four million displaced. What Washington did to Iraq is what the Nazis were tried and executed for at the Nuremberg Trials.
Obama was elected in order to stop the illegal and senseless wars. Instead, Obama both continued the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and expanded the wars into Libya, Pakistan, and Yemen. Since the deregulation of the financial system under the Bush/Cheney regime and the “war on terror,” the entire economy of the US has been sacrificed for the benefit of the financial sector and the military/security complex.
Labor Day is an anachronism. It should be renamed Corporation Day or War Day to celebrate the success of Bush/Obama in eliminating labor unions as a countervailing power to corporate power and the elevation of War as the highest goal of the American state.
Paul Craig Roberts was an editor of the Wall Street Journal and an Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury. His latest book, HOW THE ECONOMY WAS LOST, has just been published by CounterPunch/AK Press. He can be reached at: PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com
By Scott Werdebaugh
The Gospel Coalition writes:
Grace will dash your hopes but never leave you hopeless. Grace will decimate your kingdom as it introduces you to a better King. Grace will expose your blindness as it gives you eyes to see. You simply cannot live a productive life or have a productive ministry in this broken-down world unless you have a practical grasp of the grace you have been given.thegospelcoalition.org
Operational Pause for the Cause: Happy End of Summer!
by Jeff Huber
I’m celebrating Labor Day this year by making it the first day of my summer vacation which, if I’m going to take one, I need to get cracking, don’t I?
Wake me when the next war is over.
Catch you after the equinox. Hopefully we won’t have started a fourth war by then. Well, a fifth war, if you count Yemen as being a war already. Which it is, when you get right down to it. Then again, we’re also at war in Somalia, the Philippines, Nigeria and Syria. So here’s hoping we’re don’t start a how ever many-eth war it would be if we start a new one before fall officially starts.
And what would the rush be? It’s not like we need new wars to replace the ones we already have. Out withdrawal “deadlines” for Iraq and the Bananastans are more fictional than Sergeant Fury and His Howling Commandos, though not nearly so well written, drawn or inked.
---------------------------------------------------------------
CPI Year-to-Year Growth
by John Williams - http://www.shadowstats.com/
The CPI-U (consumer price index) is the broadest measure of consumer price inflation for goods and services published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
Notes on Different Measures of the Consumer Price Index.
The Consumer Price Index (CPI) is the broadest inflation measure published by U.S. Government, through the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), Department of Labor:
The CPI-U (Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers) is the monthly headline inflation number (seasonally adjusted) and is the broadest in its coverage, representing the buying patterns of all urban consumers. Its standard measure is not seasonally adjusted, and it never is revised on that basis except for outright errors,
The CPI-W (CPI for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers) covers the more-narrow universe of urban wage earners and clerical workers and is used in determining cost of living adjustments in government programs such as Social Security. Otherwise its background is the same as the CPI-U.
The C-CPI-U (Chain-Weighted CPI-U) is an experimental measure, where the weighting of components is fully substitution based. It generally shows lower annual inflation rate than the CPI-U and CPI-W. The latter two measures once had fixed weightings — so as to measure the cost of living of maintaining a
Here is a graph of annual percent change (year-to-year) in both the CPI-U and the SGS-Alternate CPI for select periods:
Who coulda knowd? That the U.S. Federal govt. would have such good-hearted men, who care so veru much they don't even make a peep!
So, you might ask, how can THIS be good news? Well, it is HONEST news, numbers that you simply won't get anywhere else!
Or, how about, UNEMPLOYMENT – lucky U.S. - we got ours down to nine-somethin'! We're #1; We' #1; We're #1 and yet ...
Alternate Unemployment Charts
The seasonally-adjusted SGS Alternate Unemployment Rate reflects current unemployment reporting methodology adjusted for SGS-estimated long-term discouraged workers, who were defined out of official existence in 1994. That estimate is added to the BLS estimate of U-6 unemployment, which includes short-term discouraged workers.
The U-3 unemployment rate is the monthly headline number. The U-6 unemployment rate is the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) broadest unemployment measure, including short-term discouraged and other marginally-attached workers as well as those forced to work part-time because they cannot find full-time employment.
Editorial: Shrink wage gap by raising tax on rich
Chicago Sun Times Sep 5, 2011
On this Labor Day, let’s stop beating up on each other.Copyright © 2011 — Sun-Times Media, LLC
The wars between American workers, mostly between public and private sector workers, and also between the middle class and the poor, really miss the point.
Are state workers right to be frustrated that their pension benefits might be cut to levels common in the private sector? Of course.
Are Chicago Public Schools teachers right to be mad about the canceling of their promised 4 percent raise, matching trends in the private sector? Of course.
Are middle-class workers justified in feeling a touch of resentment toward low-income Americans who accept government-funded food stamps despite holding a job? Sure.
But if you put the anger aside, the real reason workers are turning against each other is clear: The vast majority of U.S. workers are fighting over an increasingly small shot at the American dream.
America’s gaping income gap —the gulf between top earners and the rest of us — hasn’t been this wide since just before the Great Depression. More than 20 percent of the nation’s income now goes to the richest 1 percent of Americans. This is up from 7 percent in 1980.
And the top 10 percent of earners pull in almost half the total income, a level higher than any year since 1917.
Meanwhile the middle class, the working class and the poor are treading water.
Between 1950 and 1970, Cornell University economist Robert H. Frank writes, incomes grew rapidly and at about the same level, 3 percent annually on average, for families of all incomes. That pattern changed dramatically from 1970 to 2000. Incomes of the top 1 percent grew more than threefold while median household income grew less than 15 percent.
This not only makes Americans bitter and mad, it has real consequences for the economy.
For middle- and lower-income workers, stagnating wages make it that much harder to afford a home, to live in an area with good schools and to save for retirement.
The gap, former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich argues, also deprives the middle class of the purchasing power needed to keep the economy going, a loss that cannot be made up by buying by the wealthiest Americans. Wide income gaps can also lead to political unrest, partisanship and ugly politics — all things we’re seeing in America and across Europe.
Government solutions for narrowing the wage gap are hard to come by — the shipping abroad of decent manufacturing jobs is the result of global forces that are often beyond a government’s control. We look forward to the Thursday unveiling of President Barack Obama’s job creation plan, though even his administration predicts that unemployment will remain at 9 percent next year.
At the moment, one of the only reliable routes Congress can take to help ease the wage gap is to advance a more fair and equitable tax policy. Not only are the richer getting richer, they’re also paying far less in taxes than they did 20 years ago.
As we’ve written before, Obama’s job between now and Thanksgiving, when a congressional committee must devise a plan to lower the deficit by at least $1.2 trillion, is to persuade the nation that more tax revenue — not just more spending cuts — is the answer. And this must include hitting those who can afford it most.
One proponent of increasing taxes on the wealthy is investor Warren Buffett, who laid out his case in a New York Times op-ed.
On this Labor Day, make time to chew on this: “We mega-rich continue to get our extraordinary tax breaks,” Buffett wrote last month. “My friends and I have been coddled long enough by a billionaire-friendly Congress. It’s time for our government to get serious about shared sacrifice.”
Monday, September 5, 2011
Volume 2, #1
When God Speaks, we must learn to listen
by Mark Ganzer
Had an astonishing sequence of experiences this weekend, starting Saturday night at the tavern across the street from the church I attend. Because of my transportation issues, if I am to make it to the 8:00 a.m. service, I need to take the train into Chicago on Saturday and then out to Long Lake Saturday evening. Then hang out in Long Lake over night (and there's not much to do - EXCEPT - I went swimming in Long Lake; interesting experience. I picked a bad point of access, with no "driveway" down to the lake, just rocks. Went about four feet out, and then sank 2 1/2 feet in the silt, which was very healing. B U T ... met this young man at the bar, and the following poem is self-explanatory:
I met another Holy Man of God tonight;
and only once before had I (knowingly) met one younger
(my son, Adam James).
One does not become a Holy Man of God;
one is born to and called to being a Holy Man of God.
And there was nothing I could offer him, and yet,
he taught me two great lessons self control and pacifism.
Be still
my impulse
to confront.
Be
very
still.
The following morning in church, the first lesson came from Ephesians 4: 1-13.
Ephesians 4
Walk in Unity
1 I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, 2 with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, 3 endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you[a] all.
Spiritual Gifts
7 But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift. 8 Therefore He says:
“ When He ascended on high,
He led captivity captive,
And gave gifts to men.”[b]
9 (Now this, “He ascended”—what does it mean but that He also first[c] descended into the lower parts of the earth? 10 He who descended is also the One who ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things.)
11 And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, 12 for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, 13 till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; 14 that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, 15 but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ— 16 from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.
----------------------
Oh cut me like a knife; strike me with an iron-gloved fist:
2 with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, 3 endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
...
13 till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; 14 that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, 15 but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ
These messages were sent to me, I have no doubts, directly from heaven. It IS time now, to begin the fund-raising tours; but I must be far more humble in how I address LIFE, the daily interacting with strangers, trying to get from hither to yon, and trying to be a useful cog in the wheel of life. Stop perpetually jousting with windmills on the irrelevant; if you are going to use your “weapons” (words, personal experiences), you will win each and every debate you enter in to. Your experiences are so much deeper and your understanding so vast. Waste not your time on mice; remember the Latin expression:
Elepantus non capit murem
The Art of Leetter Writing is not (Completely) Lost!
A Beautiful Happy Birthday Greeting
by Gay Linda Ganzer-Offutt
05/18/05
HAPPY BIRTHDAY MARK!
You are a wonderful son, brother, brother-inlaw, father and uncle. You are intelligent, wise, creative, and talented. You are a person that cares and cares about others. You take the time to know who you're talking to, and are interested in what others have to say. You are interesting, well informed, and passionate in your interests. You are open with you son and nephew, and offer them not only your playful side, but your peals of wisdom and experiences as well. Scott and Adam are very blessed to have you in their lives ... I am too!
You are a storytell, writer, musician and singer. You are a teacher, a student of knowledge, and have a desire to help others. You have experienced much and embrace new experiences. You are a traveller, and an adventure seeker. I have always loved to hear you speak of your trips. You describe your experiences in such a way that I always feel as if Ive been right there with you. You have a greast sense of humor, love walks at night and star gazing. You are loyal to your family and friends, and are a truth-teller. When you speak with others, you meet their eyes with yours, and give the impression that what they have to say is so important to you! You're just the greatest!!
It is my joy to honor you on your birthday
I LOVE YOU MARK
Gay
Stanford Forgiveness Project
Carl E. Thoresen, Ph.D., Principal Investigator and Professor of Education
Psychology and Psychiatry, Stanford University
Frederic Luskin, Ph.D., Project Director, Stanford Center for Research in
Disease Prevention, Stanford University
Forgiveness of others and of oneself is the poignant theme that emerges as a painful end-of-life lesson for a dying man, in the best-selling book Tuesdays With Morrie by Albom (1997). Like so many of us who are deeply hurt when a friend disappoints us, Morrie had never forgiven his friend for not coming to see his wife when she was terminally ill in the hospital. Although his friend later asked for Morrie's forgiveness, explaining that he had shown his own weakness and inability to cope with illness and death, Morrie was not able to forgive him. On his deathbed Morrie realizes the pain and emotional suffering that he has carried with him throughout his life because he could not forgive his friend. Failing to reconcile unresolved anger and blame for past hurt or offense can cause immeasurable physical and emotional health problems in people's lives.
All major religious traditions and wisdoms extol the value of forgiveness. Forgiveness has been advocated for centuries as a balm for hurt and angry feelings. Yet effective means for engendering forgiveness as a way of dealing with life's problems has often been lacking. While these teachings are often based on exhortations to forgive, limited practical training is provided on how to actually forgive an offender. Professionals have observed from clinical practice that clients who were able to forgive saw improvement in psychological and sometimes physical health. Many sources suggest that forgiveness can lead to decreased anger, depression and anxiety, and stress as well as enhanced well being, including peace of mind.
Research based on controlled studies has recently shown that forgiveness training can be effective in reducing hurt and stress. The Stanford Forgiveness Project will focus on training forgiveness as a way to ameliorate the anger and distress involved in feeling hurt. This can have important implications for the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular and other chronic diseases. The need for forgiveness emerges from a body of work demonstrating harmful effects of unmanaged anger and hostility on health. In AO er .g--Kills, Williams and Williams (1993) summarized studies on harmful effects of hostility on cardiovascular health as well as on interpersonal relationships. Research has suggested that heart attack patients were often able to demonstrate less anger and hostility and thus reduce morbidity when they acted in a more forgiving way. They also reported improved overall quality of life.
In addition, increased forgiveness can be a tool for enhancing existing interpersonal relationships. An earlier Stanford study conducted by Dr. Frederic Luskin, found that young adults who felt hurt or offended made substantial improvements in reducing anger and blame and increased their willingness and confidence to use forgiveness in offensive situations. For example, the students had a 70% reduction in how much hurt they felt as well as a 20% reduction in their general experience of anger. Of note, the results of this study suggest that women may forgive more readily than men. Our new study plans to clarify those differences, and provide information for developing gender specific forgiveness training.
Through our work we have developed a unique and practical definition of forgiveness. Our definition of forgiveness holds that forgiveness consists primarily of taking less personal offense, reducing anger and the blaming of the offender, and developing increased understanding of situations that often lead to feeling hurt and angry. This study will train participants in new ways to both think and feel about interpersonal hurts. Forgiveness can be thought of as a transforming experience that fosters more positive emotions and less negative thoughts about others as well as oneself
If successful, this study could have important implications for healthcare and education. Forgiveness could be offered as part of primary as well as acute and chronic care health programs. Forgiveness holds great promise as one approach to conflict resolution and violence cessation. Programs in home and work settings could be developed and made age specific. The Stanford Forgiveness Project is supported by a grant from the John Templeton Foundation.
If you are experiencing unresolved anger towards another person at work or in your personal life and would like to learn how to reduce interpersonal hurts and feel more at peace with yourself and others, we would like to invite you to join the program. Please call Stephanie Evans, Ph.D., Project Coordinator (650-400-5050, or email sevansgieland.stanford.edu).
The Stanford Forgiveness Project is seeking individuals between the ages of 25-49 to participate in six-week program, with meetings scheduled once a week for up to 90 minutes, beginning early in 1999 and continuing throughout the Spring. Meetings will be held on the Stanford campus or at a mid-peninsula location, towards the end of the workday for the convenience of the participants. There will be ample parking, and a $25 award for each participant on completion of the program.
Why debasement of English matters / antidotes
By George Orwell
In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of the political parties.
(MG) note, Orwell gives examples in support of his statement. Concrete examples. I'm convinced.
Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Defenseless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry: this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers. People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called elimination of unreliable elements.
(MG) note - again, more examples in support of a declarative statement, an opinion supported with facts and examples. Like fresh air in spring after the house has been closed all winter.
Such phraseology is needed if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of them. Consider for instance some comfortable English professor defending Russian totalitarianism. He cannot say outright, "I believe in killing off your opponents when you can get good results by doing so." Probably, therefore, he will say something like this:
(MG) another concrete example. A second grade child can follow Orwell's meaning. Sheesh, even a true believing GOPper would understand what Orwell is saying (although, cognitive dissonance may cause the GOPper to flinch. Just because one understands does not mean that one will convert.)
While freely conceding that the Soviet regime exhibits certain features which the humanitarian may be inclined to deplore, we must, I think, agree that a certain curtailment of the right to political opposition is an unavoidable concomitant of transitional periods, and that the rigors which the Russian people have been called upon to undergo have been amply justified in the sphere of concrete achievement.
The inflated style itself is a kind of euphemism. A mass of Latin words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outline and covering up all the details. The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. (MG) anyone ever consider how sincere Blush Limppaw is? Or Will O'Ridescreeds? Anthrax Cancer? When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink. (MG) like a cuttle fish spurting out ink -- I'm tracking Krauthammer here In our age there is no such thing as "keeping out of politics." (MG) an opinion shared by the late Molly Ivins ... and one that ought to be shared by any and all patriotic citizens. All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia. When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer. I should expect to find -- this is a guess which I have not sufficient knowledge to verify -- that the German, Russian and Italian languages have all deteriorated in the last ten or fifteen years, as a result of dictatorship.
But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. A bad usage can spread by tradition and imitation even among people who should and do know better. The debased language that I have been discussing is in some ways very convenient. Phrases like a not unjustifiable assumption, leaves much to be desired, would serve no good purpose, a consideration which we should do well to bear in mind, are a continuous temptation, a packet of aspirins always at one's elbow. ...
I said earlier that the decadence of our language is probably curable. ... perhaps it is best to start by saying what [the defense of the English language] does not imply.
To begin with it has nothing to do with archaism, with the salvaging of obsolete words and turns of speech, or with the setting up of a "standard English" which must never be departed from. On the contrary, it is especially concerned with the scrapping of every word or idiom which has outworn its usefulness.
(MG) start by outlawing the "Horse Race" coverage story line of the presidential campaigns. Sheesh ... Tribune Headline, Front Page, Above the Fold WHAT OBACK MUST DO TO WIN ... and it didn't once even suggest that he win a majority of votes in the electoral college .. fancy THAT
It has nothing to do with correct grammar and syntax, which are of no importance so long as one makes one's meaning clear, or with the avoidance of Americanisms, or with having what is called a "good prose style." On the other hand, it is not concerned with fake simplicity and the attempt to make written English colloquial. Nor does it even imply in every case preferring the Saxon word to the Latin one, though it does imply using the fewest and shortest words that will cover one's meaning.
(MG) what good is having a college degree if you can't show off your big words to let everybody know you can use big words? Even if they are clueless about what you're saying. Well ... when I use big words and somebody calls me out on them ... I often get embarrassed to come up with the meaning.
What is above all needed is to let the meaning choose the word, and not the other way around. In prose, the worst thing one can do with words is surrender to them. When yo think of a concrete object, you think wordlessly, and then, if you want to describe the thing you have been visualizing you probably hunt about until you find the exact words that seem to fit it. When you think of something abstract you are more inclined to use words from the start, and unless you make a conscious effort to prevent it, the existing dialect will come rushing in and do the job for you, at the expense of blurring or even changing your meaning. Probably it is better to put off using words as long as possible and get one's meaning as clear as one can through pictures and sensations. Afterward one can choose -- not simply accept -- the phrases that will best cover the meaning, and then switch round and decide what impressions one's words are likely to make on another person. This last effort of the mind cuts out all stale or mixed images, all prefabricated phrases, needless repetitions, and humbug and vagueness generally. But one can often be in doubt about the effect of a word or a phrase, and one needs rules that one can rely on when instinct fails. I think the following rules will cover most cases:
1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
2. Never us a long word where a short one will do.
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
(MG) I'm gonna cut, paste, copy and put these on every mirror in every bathroom in the house. AND about the TP roll too.
These rules sound elementary, and so they are, but they demand a deep change of attitude in anyone who has grown used to writing in the style now fashionable. One could keep all of them and still write bad English, but one could not write the kind of stuff that I quoted in those five specimens at the beginning of this article.
I have not here been considering the literary use of language, but merely language as an instrument for expressing and not for concealing or preventing thought. Stuart Chase and others have come near to claiming that all abstract words are meaningless, and have used this as a pretext for advocating a kind of political quietism. Since you don't know what Fascism is, how can you struggle against Fascism? One need not swallow such absurdities as this, but one ought to recognize that the present political chaos is connected with the decay of language, and that one can probably bring about some improvement by starting at the verbal end. If you simplify your English, you are freed from the worst follies of orthodoxy. You cannot speak any of the necessary dialects, and when you make a stupid remark its stupidity will be obvious, even to yourself. Political language -- and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists -- is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.
6. (MG) well it's a one, a two, a three what are we all fighting for? We the people got caught .. caught up in the emotions of 9/11, the fear of the DC sniper attacks, and the anthrax attack ... fear is the lock ... parse every freaking political speech, every supercilious political op-ed column ... lies, lies, lies and more lies in your face ... resist the lies
One cannot change this all in a moment, but one can at least change one's own habits, and from time to time one can even, if one jeers loudly enough, send some worn-out and useless phrase -- some jackboot, Achilles' heel, hotbed, melting pot, acid test, veritable inferno, or other lump of verbal refuse -- into the dustbin, where it belongs.
Selected Poems – Mark Ganzer
The mirror beckons.
I heed its call.
I dare to look.
My eyes burn.
My heart blackens.
My mind is repulsed.
No generosity of spirit
No sense of fair play
An exploiter
Woe is me.
Okay. Get over it Mark. Forgive yourself, and start treating people more fairly in your financial dealings. Sheesh, quit pretending to live a life in your own head. It's WAY to limiting a space, and not really all that interesting.
All thanks to You, Allah, for opening my eyes
For Your tender mercies,
For Your Kindness, Compassion
For Your Loving Forgiveness
For the insights You Grant even unto me
the least worthy of all your creatures
What could I do for my dying brother, to let him know? I know what I'll do. I'll write. And write him I did.
And I wrote from the heart
And I wrote from the soul
I did not know how well I wrote
It just made me whole
Allah, grant that we might find political leaders
Who will use the power of their office
To help make our country a better country,
To help make our world a more peaceful world,
To help uplift the downtrodden,
To help ensure peace for our children's children's,
And for our children's children's children
Unto all the generations.
Oh Most Magnificent,
Oh Most Merciful
Oh Most Wise
If it be Thy Will.
Today, hell hath no power o'er me
and the world holds no attraction.
MEDITATION ON FEAR & BELIEF
There are some days, sadly few,
but recently more frequently occurring,
when I seem to breech the barrier built by humankind,
ever thicker and ever higher, which prevents us
from sensing the touch and guiding hand of the divine.
But these past few days I've felt, aye, e’en seen,
the hand of the Creator, gently on my shoulder,
guiding me in His pathways.
I do not resist.
I am open to all possibilities.
It was always thus, I believe.
It was always thus, I fear.
In the child's soft fresh openness to the universe,
I believe,
having watched my son grow in wonderment,
grow in delight, and grow in love,
the presence of the Divine surrounds, and glows;
sings beauteous melodies and choral anthems --
the lullaby of the cricket,
the woodpecker's wake up knock,
the call of the gently flowing stream,
the power and grandeur of the lightning bolt.
It was always thus, I believe.
It was always thus, I fear.
I believe for I have seen God's glowing love
reflected in my son's mirthful eyes.
I fear for I remember not my own childhood's wonderment.
I believe, for no other explanation fits the facts --
and this is good.
I fear, for no other explanation fits the facts --
and this is not good --
that I once held the universe in a grain of sand
in my small child hand
and cannot remember.
I believe, for to not believe means
that death conquers all.
And greedily, for to not believe means
that death conquers all.
At one time, I must have known that
love is, was and ever will be the answer.
At one time, I must have chosen to forget that
love is, was and ever will be the answer.
Aye, the world's pleasures and temptations o’er came me.
I believer, I fear.
I fear I believe -- for reasons all wrong.
And to believe for reasons all wrong means
that death conquers all.
And yet,
There are days
When I breach the barrier
And feel the touch of the Divine guiding me.
And I am open, to all possibilities.
I believe, I fear.
I fear, I believe.
And since I cannot reconcile these outliers,
I choose instead
the middle path.
I choose to hope.
To hope to be a follower of The Way.
........Monday, August 28, 2006
........After a weekend in God's country where
........an alien, I was not.
by Mark Ganzer
Had an astonishing sequence of experiences this weekend, starting Saturday night at the tavern across the street from the church I attend. Because of my transportation issues, if I am to make it to the 8:00 a.m. service, I need to take the train into Chicago on Saturday and then out to Long Lake Saturday evening. Then hang out in Long Lake over night (and there's not much to do - EXCEPT - I went swimming in Long Lake; interesting experience. I picked a bad point of access, with no "driveway" down to the lake, just rocks. Went about four feet out, and then sank 2 1/2 feet in the silt, which was very healing. B U T ... met this young man at the bar, and the following poem is self-explanatory:
I met another Holy Man of God tonight;
and only once before had I (knowingly) met one younger
(my son, Adam James).
One does not become a Holy Man of God;
one is born to and called to being a Holy Man of God.
And there was nothing I could offer him, and yet,
he taught me two great lessons self control and pacifism.
Be still
my impulse
to confront.
Be
very
still.
The following morning in church, the first lesson came from Ephesians 4: 1-13.
Ephesians 4
Walk in Unity
1 I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, 2 with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, 3 endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you[a] all.
Spiritual Gifts
7 But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift. 8 Therefore He says:
“ When He ascended on high,
He led captivity captive,
And gave gifts to men.”[b]
9 (Now this, “He ascended”—what does it mean but that He also first[c] descended into the lower parts of the earth? 10 He who descended is also the One who ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things.)
11 And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, 12 for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, 13 till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; 14 that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, 15 but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ— 16 from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.
----------------------
Oh cut me like a knife; strike me with an iron-gloved fist:
2 with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, 3 endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
...
13 till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; 14 that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, 15 but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ
These messages were sent to me, I have no doubts, directly from heaven. It IS time now, to begin the fund-raising tours; but I must be far more humble in how I address LIFE, the daily interacting with strangers, trying to get from hither to yon, and trying to be a useful cog in the wheel of life. Stop perpetually jousting with windmills on the irrelevant; if you are going to use your “weapons” (words, personal experiences), you will win each and every debate you enter in to. Your experiences are so much deeper and your understanding so vast. Waste not your time on mice; remember the Latin expression:
Elepantus non capit murem
The Art of Leetter Writing is not (Completely) Lost!
A Beautiful Happy Birthday Greeting
by Gay Linda Ganzer-Offutt
05/18/05
HAPPY BIRTHDAY MARK!
You are a wonderful son, brother, brother-inlaw, father and uncle. You are intelligent, wise, creative, and talented. You are a person that cares and cares about others. You take the time to know who you're talking to, and are interested in what others have to say. You are interesting, well informed, and passionate in your interests. You are open with you son and nephew, and offer them not only your playful side, but your peals of wisdom and experiences as well. Scott and Adam are very blessed to have you in their lives ... I am too!
You are a storytell, writer, musician and singer. You are a teacher, a student of knowledge, and have a desire to help others. You have experienced much and embrace new experiences. You are a traveller, and an adventure seeker. I have always loved to hear you speak of your trips. You describe your experiences in such a way that I always feel as if Ive been right there with you. You have a greast sense of humor, love walks at night and star gazing. You are loyal to your family and friends, and are a truth-teller. When you speak with others, you meet their eyes with yours, and give the impression that what they have to say is so important to you! You're just the greatest!!
It is my joy to honor you on your birthday
I LOVE YOU MARK
Gay
Stanford Forgiveness Project
Carl E. Thoresen, Ph.D., Principal Investigator and Professor of Education
Psychology and Psychiatry, Stanford University
Frederic Luskin, Ph.D., Project Director, Stanford Center for Research in
Disease Prevention, Stanford University
Forgiveness of others and of oneself is the poignant theme that emerges as a painful end-of-life lesson for a dying man, in the best-selling book Tuesdays With Morrie by Albom (1997). Like so many of us who are deeply hurt when a friend disappoints us, Morrie had never forgiven his friend for not coming to see his wife when she was terminally ill in the hospital. Although his friend later asked for Morrie's forgiveness, explaining that he had shown his own weakness and inability to cope with illness and death, Morrie was not able to forgive him. On his deathbed Morrie realizes the pain and emotional suffering that he has carried with him throughout his life because he could not forgive his friend. Failing to reconcile unresolved anger and blame for past hurt or offense can cause immeasurable physical and emotional health problems in people's lives.
All major religious traditions and wisdoms extol the value of forgiveness. Forgiveness has been advocated for centuries as a balm for hurt and angry feelings. Yet effective means for engendering forgiveness as a way of dealing with life's problems has often been lacking. While these teachings are often based on exhortations to forgive, limited practical training is provided on how to actually forgive an offender. Professionals have observed from clinical practice that clients who were able to forgive saw improvement in psychological and sometimes physical health. Many sources suggest that forgiveness can lead to decreased anger, depression and anxiety, and stress as well as enhanced well being, including peace of mind.
Research based on controlled studies has recently shown that forgiveness training can be effective in reducing hurt and stress. The Stanford Forgiveness Project will focus on training forgiveness as a way to ameliorate the anger and distress involved in feeling hurt. This can have important implications for the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular and other chronic diseases. The need for forgiveness emerges from a body of work demonstrating harmful effects of unmanaged anger and hostility on health. In AO er .g--Kills, Williams and Williams (1993) summarized studies on harmful effects of hostility on cardiovascular health as well as on interpersonal relationships. Research has suggested that heart attack patients were often able to demonstrate less anger and hostility and thus reduce morbidity when they acted in a more forgiving way. They also reported improved overall quality of life.
In addition, increased forgiveness can be a tool for enhancing existing interpersonal relationships. An earlier Stanford study conducted by Dr. Frederic Luskin, found that young adults who felt hurt or offended made substantial improvements in reducing anger and blame and increased their willingness and confidence to use forgiveness in offensive situations. For example, the students had a 70% reduction in how much hurt they felt as well as a 20% reduction in their general experience of anger. Of note, the results of this study suggest that women may forgive more readily than men. Our new study plans to clarify those differences, and provide information for developing gender specific forgiveness training.
Through our work we have developed a unique and practical definition of forgiveness. Our definition of forgiveness holds that forgiveness consists primarily of taking less personal offense, reducing anger and the blaming of the offender, and developing increased understanding of situations that often lead to feeling hurt and angry. This study will train participants in new ways to both think and feel about interpersonal hurts. Forgiveness can be thought of as a transforming experience that fosters more positive emotions and less negative thoughts about others as well as oneself
If successful, this study could have important implications for healthcare and education. Forgiveness could be offered as part of primary as well as acute and chronic care health programs. Forgiveness holds great promise as one approach to conflict resolution and violence cessation. Programs in home and work settings could be developed and made age specific. The Stanford Forgiveness Project is supported by a grant from the John Templeton Foundation.
If you are experiencing unresolved anger towards another person at work or in your personal life and would like to learn how to reduce interpersonal hurts and feel more at peace with yourself and others, we would like to invite you to join the program. Please call Stephanie Evans, Ph.D., Project Coordinator (650-400-5050, or email sevansgieland.stanford.edu).
The Stanford Forgiveness Project is seeking individuals between the ages of 25-49 to participate in six-week program, with meetings scheduled once a week for up to 90 minutes, beginning early in 1999 and continuing throughout the Spring. Meetings will be held on the Stanford campus or at a mid-peninsula location, towards the end of the workday for the convenience of the participants. There will be ample parking, and a $25 award for each participant on completion of the program.
Why debasement of English matters / antidotes
By George Orwell
In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of the political parties.
(MG) note, Orwell gives examples in support of his statement. Concrete examples. I'm convinced.
Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Defenseless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry: this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers. People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called elimination of unreliable elements.
(MG) note - again, more examples in support of a declarative statement, an opinion supported with facts and examples. Like fresh air in spring after the house has been closed all winter.
Such phraseology is needed if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of them. Consider for instance some comfortable English professor defending Russian totalitarianism. He cannot say outright, "I believe in killing off your opponents when you can get good results by doing so." Probably, therefore, he will say something like this:
(MG) another concrete example. A second grade child can follow Orwell's meaning. Sheesh, even a true believing GOPper would understand what Orwell is saying (although, cognitive dissonance may cause the GOPper to flinch. Just because one understands does not mean that one will convert.)
While freely conceding that the Soviet regime exhibits certain features which the humanitarian may be inclined to deplore, we must, I think, agree that a certain curtailment of the right to political opposition is an unavoidable concomitant of transitional periods, and that the rigors which the Russian people have been called upon to undergo have been amply justified in the sphere of concrete achievement.
The inflated style itself is a kind of euphemism. A mass of Latin words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outline and covering up all the details. The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. (MG) anyone ever consider how sincere Blush Limppaw is? Or Will O'Ridescreeds? Anthrax Cancer? When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink. (MG) like a cuttle fish spurting out ink -- I'm tracking Krauthammer here In our age there is no such thing as "keeping out of politics." (MG) an opinion shared by the late Molly Ivins ... and one that ought to be shared by any and all patriotic citizens. All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia. When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer. I should expect to find -- this is a guess which I have not sufficient knowledge to verify -- that the German, Russian and Italian languages have all deteriorated in the last ten or fifteen years, as a result of dictatorship.
But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. A bad usage can spread by tradition and imitation even among people who should and do know better. The debased language that I have been discussing is in some ways very convenient. Phrases like a not unjustifiable assumption, leaves much to be desired, would serve no good purpose, a consideration which we should do well to bear in mind, are a continuous temptation, a packet of aspirins always at one's elbow. ...
I said earlier that the decadence of our language is probably curable. ... perhaps it is best to start by saying what [the defense of the English language] does not imply.
To begin with it has nothing to do with archaism, with the salvaging of obsolete words and turns of speech, or with the setting up of a "standard English" which must never be departed from. On the contrary, it is especially concerned with the scrapping of every word or idiom which has outworn its usefulness.
(MG) start by outlawing the "Horse Race" coverage story line of the presidential campaigns. Sheesh ... Tribune Headline, Front Page, Above the Fold WHAT OBACK MUST DO TO WIN ... and it didn't once even suggest that he win a majority of votes in the electoral college .. fancy THAT
It has nothing to do with correct grammar and syntax, which are of no importance so long as one makes one's meaning clear, or with the avoidance of Americanisms, or with having what is called a "good prose style." On the other hand, it is not concerned with fake simplicity and the attempt to make written English colloquial. Nor does it even imply in every case preferring the Saxon word to the Latin one, though it does imply using the fewest and shortest words that will cover one's meaning.
(MG) what good is having a college degree if you can't show off your big words to let everybody know you can use big words? Even if they are clueless about what you're saying. Well ... when I use big words and somebody calls me out on them ... I often get embarrassed to come up with the meaning.
What is above all needed is to let the meaning choose the word, and not the other way around. In prose, the worst thing one can do with words is surrender to them. When yo think of a concrete object, you think wordlessly, and then, if you want to describe the thing you have been visualizing you probably hunt about until you find the exact words that seem to fit it. When you think of something abstract you are more inclined to use words from the start, and unless you make a conscious effort to prevent it, the existing dialect will come rushing in and do the job for you, at the expense of blurring or even changing your meaning. Probably it is better to put off using words as long as possible and get one's meaning as clear as one can through pictures and sensations. Afterward one can choose -- not simply accept -- the phrases that will best cover the meaning, and then switch round and decide what impressions one's words are likely to make on another person. This last effort of the mind cuts out all stale or mixed images, all prefabricated phrases, needless repetitions, and humbug and vagueness generally. But one can often be in doubt about the effect of a word or a phrase, and one needs rules that one can rely on when instinct fails. I think the following rules will cover most cases:
1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
2. Never us a long word where a short one will do.
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
(MG) I'm gonna cut, paste, copy and put these on every mirror in every bathroom in the house. AND about the TP roll too.
These rules sound elementary, and so they are, but they demand a deep change of attitude in anyone who has grown used to writing in the style now fashionable. One could keep all of them and still write bad English, but one could not write the kind of stuff that I quoted in those five specimens at the beginning of this article.
I have not here been considering the literary use of language, but merely language as an instrument for expressing and not for concealing or preventing thought. Stuart Chase and others have come near to claiming that all abstract words are meaningless, and have used this as a pretext for advocating a kind of political quietism. Since you don't know what Fascism is, how can you struggle against Fascism? One need not swallow such absurdities as this, but one ought to recognize that the present political chaos is connected with the decay of language, and that one can probably bring about some improvement by starting at the verbal end. If you simplify your English, you are freed from the worst follies of orthodoxy. You cannot speak any of the necessary dialects, and when you make a stupid remark its stupidity will be obvious, even to yourself. Political language -- and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists -- is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.
6. (MG) well it's a one, a two, a three what are we all fighting for? We the people got caught .. caught up in the emotions of 9/11, the fear of the DC sniper attacks, and the anthrax attack ... fear is the lock ... parse every freaking political speech, every supercilious political op-ed column ... lies, lies, lies and more lies in your face ... resist the lies
One cannot change this all in a moment, but one can at least change one's own habits, and from time to time one can even, if one jeers loudly enough, send some worn-out and useless phrase -- some jackboot, Achilles' heel, hotbed, melting pot, acid test, veritable inferno, or other lump of verbal refuse -- into the dustbin, where it belongs.
Selected Poems – Mark Ganzer
The mirror beckons.
I heed its call.
I dare to look.
My eyes burn.
My heart blackens.
My mind is repulsed.
No generosity of spirit
No sense of fair play
An exploiter
Woe is me.
Okay. Get over it Mark. Forgive yourself, and start treating people more fairly in your financial dealings. Sheesh, quit pretending to live a life in your own head. It's WAY to limiting a space, and not really all that interesting.
All thanks to You, Allah, for opening my eyes
For Your tender mercies,
For Your Kindness, Compassion
For Your Loving Forgiveness
For the insights You Grant even unto me
the least worthy of all your creatures
What could I do for my dying brother, to let him know? I know what I'll do. I'll write. And write him I did.
And I wrote from the heart
And I wrote from the soul
I did not know how well I wrote
It just made me whole
Allah, grant that we might find political leaders
Who will use the power of their office
To help make our country a better country,
To help make our world a more peaceful world,
To help uplift the downtrodden,
To help ensure peace for our children's children's,
And for our children's children's children
Unto all the generations.
Oh Most Magnificent,
Oh Most Merciful
Oh Most Wise
If it be Thy Will.
Today, hell hath no power o'er me
and the world holds no attraction.
MEDITATION ON FEAR & BELIEF
There are some days, sadly few,
but recently more frequently occurring,
when I seem to breech the barrier built by humankind,
ever thicker and ever higher, which prevents us
from sensing the touch and guiding hand of the divine.
But these past few days I've felt, aye, e’en seen,
the hand of the Creator, gently on my shoulder,
guiding me in His pathways.
I do not resist.
I am open to all possibilities.
It was always thus, I believe.
It was always thus, I fear.
In the child's soft fresh openness to the universe,
I believe,
having watched my son grow in wonderment,
grow in delight, and grow in love,
the presence of the Divine surrounds, and glows;
sings beauteous melodies and choral anthems --
the lullaby of the cricket,
the woodpecker's wake up knock,
the call of the gently flowing stream,
the power and grandeur of the lightning bolt.
It was always thus, I believe.
It was always thus, I fear.
I believe for I have seen God's glowing love
reflected in my son's mirthful eyes.
I fear for I remember not my own childhood's wonderment.
I believe, for no other explanation fits the facts --
and this is good.
I fear, for no other explanation fits the facts --
and this is not good --
that I once held the universe in a grain of sand
in my small child hand
and cannot remember.
I believe, for to not believe means
that death conquers all.
And greedily, for to not believe means
that death conquers all.
At one time, I must have known that
love is, was and ever will be the answer.
At one time, I must have chosen to forget that
love is, was and ever will be the answer.
Aye, the world's pleasures and temptations o’er came me.
I believer, I fear.
I fear I believe -- for reasons all wrong.
And to believe for reasons all wrong means
that death conquers all.
And yet,
There are days
When I breach the barrier
And feel the touch of the Divine guiding me.
And I am open, to all possibilities.
I believe, I fear.
I fear, I believe.
And since I cannot reconcile these outliers,
I choose instead
the middle path.
I choose to hope.
To hope to be a follower of The Way.
........Monday, August 28, 2006
........After a weekend in God's country where
........an alien, I was not.
Friday, September 2, 2011
THE GOOD NEWS TIMES: Bringing to you THE GOOD NEWS – Strangers: Page Volume #1, Issue #5: 9/01/2011 help strangers!
UPS USES HYBRID TURCKS
by Mark Ganzer
Meaning that it is more cost efficient (in the long run) than a traditional gas guzzler. You go UPS, just keep showing us the way!.
MacDonald's Manager Does the Unprecedented
Treats Daily Customer to Fruit Drink (Gratis)
By Mark Ganzer
The afternoon manager, after having watched us eat at his establishment 4-5 times a week couldn't contain himiself. He just brought us a m ango smoothie and said: “Try this.” We did, of course, but, as we were eating sundaes, dad had to quite accurately remark, “NOTHING tastes as good as this!”
Last Night I Had, the Strangest Dream
I've Ever Had Before, I Dreamt That I
Had Contact with My God, My God, My Lord
By Amy Guido
Wow...I just had the most incredible God dream I've had in decades. I wanted to share this more privately with you all...because it's personal to me, and very meaningful.
I was in a hotel trying to find the room that Tony and I were staying in. He was there, and I went out to look for something, and got lost.
In my attempt to find our room, I kept running into people, who were at some kind of conference. For whatever reason, I felt prompted to reach out to them physically and touch them (like praying over them). And immediately, the Holy Spirit empowered and over came them. I prayed over them that they would renounce whatever was hurting them, or whatever habit was destroying them....and they readily did without question.
Mirable Dictu – All My Angels Are 9 Weeks Preggers!
Who's the Perp?
By Mark Ganzer
Cheryl Ann Blanke Wildenhain 9 Weeks & craving gummy worms!
Susie Barcroft Congrats Cheryl! Do you think it's a boy or maybe a girl this time around? :)
Mark Raymond Ganzer Thank you Susie Barcroft. Without you poignant question, I would have been lost; like an aborigine tranported to New York City (or even McHenry, village of)
Sue Weber BoettcherI am nine weeks, and I am already craving green chili burritos!!! Yum.
Mark Raymond Ganzer Got a flock of nine weexers craving the weirdest stuff
Mark Raymond Ganzer Congrats Sue - Oh Lord, see to it that our beloved sister Sue takes in the nourishment needed to dine for two. AMEN.
Amy Stuart Guido I am nine weeks, and man oh man...am I ever craving twizzlers...any flavor will do at this point!
Erin Silver is this that game? inbox me the details
Amy Stuart Guido Stephanie didn't tell you? It's definitely something i didn't expect but...
Erin Silver oh yay! congrats!
Amy Stuart Guido Aw......you are such a sweetie!!!
Stephanie Guido Bauer Amy this conversations is sounding like you are pregnant or something haha funny!
Michele Peeters Vanags Better give up the black tar heroin!
Amy Stuart Guido Ah Michele...this is getting interesting, no way!
Melissa Pries Helmick Are you pregnant?
Amy Stuart Guido mmmmmaybe....n....maybe not...hmmmm
Mark Raymond Ganzer Not another nine weexer! Holy ToMolies! Is it the same father in all lthree cases? Enquiring minds want to gossip!
Amy Stuart Guido That's the best one yet Mark! I do believe someone told you something!
This really might be the time to go out and invest money in the stocks of selected specialty food production companies! The makers of GUMMY WORMS; the makers of GREEN CHILI BURRITOS; the makers of TWIZZLERS .. stock tip of the day!
Friends Come Out To Make Sure Ralph
Ganzer Spends Times With Human Beings
Rather than his Metal and Iron Clubs and Putter
by Mark Ganzer
Ralph seems to be doing all right - we've had some company over (just once) but he's getting at least two invites a week to do something he loves with people who love him ... it is a beautiful and wonderful ting to behold --PLUs Marianne returned from Providence RI and worked with Gay at going through mom's clothing, jewelry, books,
Quite frankly, the house is better than its ever been
Kind of hope mom didn't see me write that, she'd say, "What did you expect, you have 3 people working on it 8 hours a day each ... and I was only one!" Got it ma' point made; point taken – you and John and Cottie are really enjoying the brandy a tad too much – well, at least, in heaven, they have designated angels to get you home (they have them here on earth too, but, the heavenly path ways are much more familiar to he Angels!
Our former Pastor Pam Challis responds to this wonderful news: I'm so glad to hear that, Mark. It's going to take time, but it's amazing how things just come together. but, it's sounding good!
Parents Instill Early in their Progeny the
Importance of Writing Thank You Notes
by Mark Ganzer
Found these letters while spring cleaning (the ongoing never ending Sisyphean chore which just keeps on giving), from Marianne to her Uncle 1st Lt James Raymond Hockett (and in many ways, this letters alone make the price of the present MORE than worth it!):
Dec. 26, 1966
Dear Jim the doll was real nice. But I put it in the trunk by mistake and it was locked there for about 40 or 50 minutes to an hour. When we got home I thought that I had left her at your house and that I would have to wait until Easter like grandma said but then I found her in almost the very last box.
P.S. It was a very nice.
From Marianne Ganzer
To Jim
Cool Breeze From the North Floats In @
1:37 p.m. Your Corresondent Suspects Foul Play
by Mark Ganzer
While taking a smoke break, I was assualted by cool breezes from theNorth. Since none of these were predicted by the weather reporters, the only logical explanation is that since it is last call all over the land of the cheezeheads, those sitting at the stools facing North all dropped trou and passed gasses from the @sses, as a sign of mega disrespect to the Bears and all memories of Papa Halas. Classless bastards!
Writers from THEBLACKCOMMENTATOR.COM,
One of Many Fine Weeklies written for the
Black Intellectual Community (Which is much larger
than we caucasians could ever imagine)
weight and inveigh in!
Comparison of Obama & Cynthia McKinney:
Who is the Real Progressive Candidate?
The Editors of The Organizer Newspaper
by Larry Pinckney
[This was originally published in The Organizer Newspaper]
Barack Obama is creating a buzz on the political scene such as we have not seen in a long time - particularly among Black voters and youth. He is forging an electoral grassroots movement that is channeling a lot of the discontent by the American people with the powers-that-be.
Speaking in San Antonio, Texas, on the eve of that state's primary election, Obama sharply denounced the “Bush-McCain course, which threatens a century of war in Iraq, a course where we will spend billions of dollars a week that could be used to rebuild our roads and our schools, to take care of our veterans and send our children to college.”
Obama went on to decry “four more years of tax breaks for the rich, with the argument that we should give more to those with the most and let the chips fall where they may ... in a course that further divides Wall Street from Main Street.” He compared Hillary Clinton to John McCain, and said that both are good at “giving speeches but not at providing solutions.”
Responding to Hillary, he said, “There is nothing empty about the call for affordable healthcare, or jobs at a living wage, or secure pensions, or ensuring the birth-right of every child in this country to live a full, healthy and safe life.” And echoing the Rev. Jesse Jackson, he concluded, “Our task is to set the country on a new course, to keep hope alive, to keep promise alive!”
All this sounds fine and good and many people across the country are buying into it. Obama is viewed as an outsider, a new kid on the block, someone who just might be able to shake things up. Working people and the poor are hurting; they are anguished. They are hoping against hope that Obama will make a difference.
What Are Obama's Policy Solutions? Obama's message for change is compelling, but the question people need to be asking is: how does Obama expect to do all these wonderful things when all his actual policy solutions point in the opposite direction?
Take the question of rebuilding our roads and schools, taking care of our veterans and sending our children to college: How can this be done without drastically slashing the war budget and redirecting our priorities toward meeting human needs? It can't. Is Obama proposing cutting the war budget or curbing the militarism and interventionist policies of the U.S. government? Not for a minute.
Obama is a hawk when it comes to Israel, Iran and U.S. policy in the Middle East. His big objection is that Bush did not go after the “real terrorist states.” Obama called for a nuclear attack, if necessary, against Iran and supports U.S.intervention in Pakistan, if necessary, to dislodge Al Qaeda and to prevent “rogue states” from building nuclear weapons. His statements, public and widely distributed, were praised highly by major sectors of the military-industrial complex. Obama simply wants to shift Bush's “endless war” to other hot spots around the world. How about providing jobs for all at a living wage? Can this be done without breaking with all the corporate “free trade” and privatization agreements? It can't. Is Obama proposing to break with these agreements? Not at all.
Obama, like Clinton, is a supporter of NAFTA, CAFTA and “free trade.” Both Clinton and Obama talk about including workers' and environmental rights in these “free trade” agreements - which is nothing more than a sweetener to get working people to swallow the bitter pill of “free trade.” Such clauses do not change the anti-worker and anti-environment character of these treaties. Obama walked out of the room during the U.S.- Peru FTA vote in Congress last summer - so as not to upset his labor constituents - but he praised the bill in the media, just as he praised “free trade” in his private meetings with Canadian political leaders prior to the Ohio primary. On this score, there is no difference between him and Hillary. How about providing healthcare for all? Can this be done without removing the private insurance companies from the healthcare equation and instituting a single-payer healthcare system? It can't. Is Obama proposing to do this? Not at all.
Obama calls for a “free market” solution that keeps the HMOs in the driver's seat, maintaining the exorbitant administrative costs and profits in an industry that is sicker by the day. He does not propose “individual mandates,” as Hillary does, but his “universal message” would barely place a band-aid on a system that needs fundamental reform - through a Canadian-style, single-payer system. And how about the “birth-right of every child in this country” to have a decent future? Should this not also apply to all immigrant children (and to their parents) - whether legal or “illegal”?
Yet both Obama and Hillary voted to extend the Wall of Shame along the U.S. border. They support militarizing the border, employer sanctions and other such repressive measures against undocumented immigrants. They are strongly opposed to full and immediate legalization/amnesty. And how about closing the gap between Wall Street and Main Street? Can this be done without making the rich pay their fair share of taxes (not simply ending the Bush tax cuts) and radically redistributing the wealth in this country? It can't.
Obama says we have to go beyond race and class, but he offers only a general promise for change, in partnership with Corporate America. But can this corporate-dominated economic and political system be “humanized” by pleas from Obama for change? Can racial oppression and class exploitation be overcome in alliance with the bosses, in the framework of the two-party system, and with vague pleas for change? Obviously not.
How Can We Promote Real Change?
Many prominent political activists have gotten behind Barack Obama, arguing that giving “critical support” to Obama is the best way to hold him accountable and push him to the left.
We disagree. The Democratic Party, as history has demonstrated time and again, is the graveyard of all social protest movements. Pointing working people toward the Democratic Party, however “critically,” is to foster dangerous illusions in the institutional framework of U.S. imperialism and to mislead folks as to how progressive change can be brought about.
If the Democrats don't self-destruct at their upcoming Denver convention over the issue of “super-delegates” or what to do about the Michigan and Florida primaries - and if Obama is actually the Democratic nominee and is then elected president - one cannot exclude the possibility that he could be forced to go further than his program or even intentions would suggest in addressing some of the concerns of the American people.
But this pressure won't come from folks caught up in the workings of the Democratic Party. The only possibility of pushing Obama to address some of the people's needs is if - and ONLY if - there is an INDEPENDENT movement built to advance consciously the issues that are on the front-burner for the people of this country - particularly for the Black people and youth, who are Obama's main constituency.
It was the Civil Rights Movement, after all, that won the Civil Rights Act - not LBJ, as Hillary would have us believe. We even won this with a Republican Chief Justice.
If Obama is elected president, this electoral movement, with its heightened expectations and illusions, is bound to come up against, and clash with, the realities of the policies implemented by Obama. Supporters of the Democratic Party will no doubt tell us - as they have done countless times in the past with other Democratic Party presidents - to give Obama more time and a wider political space to act, and not to push him prematurely (so as not to awaken the Republican sharks waiting to attack him).
We will be told - including by many of Obama's “critical supporters” - to be patient, and then more patient, while at that very same time Obama puts into place the corporatist-type structures used so craftily by the ruling parties and institutions in Europe in the recent period (both of the right and of the so-called left) to co-opt, silence, demobilize and ultimately demoralize the working class and social protest movements.
Central Importance of Cynthia McKinney Campaign
This is why Cynthia McKinney's “Power to the People” candidacy so important today? Brother Larry Pinkney, an editorial board member of Black Commentator, explained it this way:
“Sister Cynthia McKinney has both the credibility and the capacity to truly excite the people in a substantive vs. superficial fashion; and can inspire people to see that they themselves / we ourselves are the only viable solution to the Republicrats and their flawed and corrupt electoral system. We must move the people from being excited about meaningless superficialities that do nothing to address systemic change - to being excited about substance that is the catalyst for systemic change.”
McKinney's independent campaign is needed to lay the groundwork for building an independent political movement for real change - a movement that needs a political instrument: a Reconstruction Party.
This sentiment was expressed concisely by Washington, D.C., activist Netfa Freeman on his blog:
“We need to be about the business of thinking and acting outside the box and building political parties that are outside the box, parties that serve the economic, social, and political interests of the masses of people. This is precisely why the candidacy of former U.S. Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney for President and the Power To The People Coalition is of such enormous importance for the present and for the future. This coalition is all about collectively laying the foundation for systemic change - which is the only way that we can enjoy real change.”
On January 26, a meeting of the National Organizing Committee for a Reconstruction Party took place in New Orleans with the participation of delegates from seven states, mainly from the South. The meeting produced a powerful Draft Manifesto for a Reconstruction Party that can be accessed by visiting the website of Sister Cynthia McKinney at www.allthingscynthiamckinney.com.
This Draft Manifesto, which is still a work-in progress, puts forward very clear solutions to the front-burner needs and demands of the people in this country - particularly for African Americans and all other oppressed sectors of society.
The time is now. We urge all unionists and political activists to:
1. read and distribute widely this Draft Manifesto for a Reconstruction Party.
2. get behind the Cynthia McKinney “Power to the People” presidential campaign.
3. contact the coordinators of the National Organizing Committee for a Reconstruction Party in New Orleans by writing to - The Editors of The Organizer Newspaper.
“We identified ourselves more by the experience of resistance and triumph than by the nature of our victimization.” bell hooks, killing rage: Ending Racism
“If I consider myself to be coherently progressive, how can I vote for a politician whose rhetoric is an affront to solidarity and an apology for racism?” Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of Freedom: Ethics, Democracy, and Civic Courage (Critical Perspectives Series)
Recall with Malcolm a people who toiled generation after generation on this land for the organized thievery of landlords, merchants, and politicians, “in cahoots with the landlords and the merchants.” Many of us transformed ourselves into the people of Moses, collectively, subversively, transgressing against the might of Pharaoh. Hear Robeson sing it! Still for others, the role of warrior was more defiant, more audacious if not perilous.
Descendents of creative (critical) thinkers and warriors of strategies and tactics in the struggle for human rights in the U.S., we have witnessed what John Henrik Clarke calls the “greatest single crime ever committed against a people in world history” ignored. Now we face the “most tragic act of protracted genocide.”
History calls upon us to question our condition in its totality to work in the process of radically transforming this society (Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of Freedom: Ethics, Democracy, and Civic Courage (Critical Perspectives Series)). As we act toward the realization that work is required of us to fight against corporate imperialism, we act knowing that our work has always been the most subversive work ever done in U.S. As subversive workers, we’ve defied the laws and many federal, state, and privatized “task forces.” We’ve made homes of shacks. We’ve nourished our children, our community, from the Earth. We’ve endured torture and brutality. We’ve risked our lives and gave up lives.
As bell hooks writes, we are a people who sustained the trauma of losing our leaders (Salvation: Black People and Love). And we had little time to heal from these wounds when, sometime in 1980, in Philadelphia, Mississippi, the American public allowed itself to be absorbed by pods! Worse, the Black privileged class abandoned the ship just when the boat needed rocking! They opted to die as a people! They swiftly “assimilation into the values of the dominant white mainstream,” writes hooks. Black elite’s abandonment represented “an unprecedented context for collusion in their own oppression and exploitation.” Most important, this defection permitted the takeover of “poor black communities by a drug economy.” The war on drugs has been the domestic version of “shock and awe” for Black Americans. The media went to work pitting privileged Blacks against the masses while people, following in the footsteps of Sojourner Truth, spoke out against the injustice, were singled out as she was for being, Peterson writes, a “crazy, ignorant, repelling” Black person. In the white backlash, Black consciousness-please-go-away era, our work now is more difficult and no less subversive than at any time in our past.
We didn’t wait for saviors, appointments, metals, or titles. We sang in “personal protest” with Billie Holiday (Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday) against the concrete racial injustice evident in hanging Black bodies. Billie wasn’t a defector or an appeaser. On the contrary, she was a creative (critical) thinker. I think of Ella Baker, described as “being tough and confrontational if she had to be” The Founding Fathers' notion of “freedom” and “democracy,” already questionable as these terms excluded the enslaved Blacks, the poor, the lower-working class, and women, receives a face-lift every Republicrat administration in order to justify everything from pre-emptive wars to domestic spying (extended to all Americans now) for corporate interests. Carla L. Peterson reminds us that it was Sojourner Truth’s work not only to give “testimony on the state of the nation” but also to question and to “reconceptualize” notions of freedom, democracy, and, in particular the notion of the “brave.” She was particular keen on reaching audiences of the “brave.” And, of course, there’s good reason to reach the audience of the brave then and now. The brave aren’t fearful of the conclusions they reach as a result of questioning the Black condition in America. Truth wasn’t looking for appeasers; she was seeking creative thinkers and warriors - doers of the word. And the word in this crucial moment is - Movement!
Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision (Gender and American Culture)). “Baker’s struggle against racism was as much about standing up for herself as it was about lending her strength to struggles initiated on behalf of others.” I can’t see an appeaser in Baker, the warrior. We need to pick up the mantle from these America’s brave freedom fighters and resume the peoples’ protest movement, apart from the Republicrats and their corporate imperialist partners.
We are creative (critical) thinkers, warriors, militants, about the work of saving ourselves (and through us, the country) before we have reached a point of no return. With all that we, as Black Americans, have endured; our best work is yet to come. We, who are creative (critical) thinkers and warriors - revolutionaries, are in need of our Clearing, our space of protest organizing in living rooms, community centers, prisons, schools, and churches. Our voices should speak of “resistance, indignation, the just anger of those who are deceived and betrayed.” Our voices should speak, too, “of their right to rebel against the ethical transgressions of which they are the long-suffering victims.” This is our Freire speaking!
“Whoever is engaged in ‘right thinking’ knows only too well that words not given body (made flesh) have little or no value,” warns Freire. If our work is one of personal (protest with the struggle of the oppressed against corporate imperialist values, then we will know it’s “right thinking” and aligned with the agenda of the Clearing (the genesis of our past movements). It was forward and progressive, and we know this because, to use Peterson’s words, our work has always been “structured not according to a capitalist economy of exchange.” Nor did our work leave unquestioned the “hierarchies of class, race, and gender.”
Like Malcolm, assassinated 43 years ago, we are the Left in rage with the status quo. If this is subversive, so be it! The work of a brave movement to transform the imperialist world order requires that we denounce the “process of dehumanization,” as Freire tells us, and announce “the dream of a new society.”
In the finally analysis, it’s ridiculous to speak of a dream without recognizing the conditions of the masses of people. A dream consists of what? The dream is always the dream of the people for an end to injustice and inequality - or what else is it? More to the point, whose dream is it? Who will benefit from all this dreamingoutside the peoples’ movement?
I think it’s more of that pod business. Watch you don’t sleep and awake to a nightmare!
"We don’t need anybody on the outside laying out the ground rules by which we are going to fight out battles. We’ll study the battle, study the enemy, study what we’re up against, and then outline or map our own battle strategy…" - Malcolm
BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member Lenore Jean Daniels, PhD, has been a writer, for over thirty years of commentary, resistance criticism and cultural theory, and short stories with a Marxist sensibility to the impact of cultural narrative violence and its antithesis, resistance narratives. With entrenched dedication to justice and equality, she has served as a coordinator of student and community resistance projects that encourage the Black Feminist idea of an equalitarian community and facilitator of student-teacher communities behind the walls of academia for the last twenty years. Dr. Daniels holds a PhD in Modern American Literatures, with a specialty in Cultural Theory (race, gender, class narratives) from Loyola University, Chicago.
============================================================================================
Nothing can ruin a Sunday morning like a New York Times magazine article with a dubious title such as, “Toward a Unified Theory of Black America.” The alarm bells are immediate because the Times loves to give attention to black people who are either in jail or on welfare or who have impeccable credentials but who are horribly confused.
Roland Fryer is in the latter category. He is a 27-year old assistant professor of economics at Harvard. His ideas explain why economics is called the dismal science. The word dismal doesn’t begin to describe the damage to black people that Fryer and his ilk can cause.
Fryer and his colleagues in the economics department at Harvard somehow managed to get attention by repeating an old medical theory that seeks to explain higher rates of cardio vascular disease among black Americans. It has been hypothesized that survival during the middle passage from Africa to the Americas favored those whose bodies were best able to retain salt and fluids.
“Absolutely there’s an insulation effect. There’s no question that working with Roland is somewhat liberating,” chirps one of his white colleagues, Edward L. Glaeser. Fryer’s friends don’t need to be insulated from discussion about the salt retention abilities of black people. They need the protection he gives them when they seek to prove that everything is A-OK in America. If it works fine then anyone who isn’t doing well, like black people, have only themselves to blame.
The Times article details Fryer’s very difficult upbringing. His father, who was convicted of rape, was an abusive alcoholic. Fryer’s great aunt and cousins are serving very long prison sentences for drug dealing. It is commendable that he overcame these familial challenges to earn a Ph.D. and teach at a prestigious educational institution.
Unfortunately the Fryers among us are more dangerous if they are allowed to get some book learnin’ than if they had none at all. Immediately after winning the brass ring they begin the stale lamentations about the state of black America. What is wrong with black people? Why don’t they do better?
It never occurs to them to ask different questions. What is wrong with the rest of the country? Why is there no Ivy League professor who explains the irresponsible behavior of white people? Individuals, corporations and the government are all irresponsible. Why are only black people poked, prodded and studied to find out why they act in the way they do?
Where is the unified theory of white America? What happened in the Bush family to create people who steal elections, rob the treasury and turn us all into corporate serfs? Did Barbara drop George and Jeb on their heads when they were babies? Perhaps the Bush boys couldn’t live with the shame of knowing that their granddad did business with Nazi Germany after the United States had declared war on Hitler. Maybe the Bush family is genetically inferior.
Confused black people shouldn’t be allowed to earn Ph.D.s or teach at universities. They should go through a vetting process first. Perhaps a team of psychologists might interview the candidates before they are allowed to get lots of letters behind their names and then inform the rest of us that we are just no good.
Anyone who uses personal family experience to explain away the wrongs in American society would be eliminated from consideration for higher education. They might be sent to vocational school instead. They can make a decent living but their personal issues couldn’t be used by the New York Times in its effort to make the rest of us hate ourselves.
There is no end to the foolishness. Fryer thinks that black children would perform better in school if they were paid to learn. Recently this columnist took entertainment impresario and would be political leader Russell Simmons to task for saying the very same thing. If Harvard professors have as little sense as Russell Simmons then no one should save a small fortune or spend money on SAT prep courses to get their kids into those allegedly hallowed halls.
Fryer muses about the persistent gap in test scores for black children. “As soon as you say something like, ‘Well, could the black-white test-score gap be genetics?’ everybody gets tensed up. But why shouldn’t that be on the table?”
So be it. Let’s find out why Asian kids continue to best their white counterparts on standardized tests. What will Fryer say when white people get “tensed up” over theories positing their own genetic inferiority?
Here is another homework assignment for Fryer. Maybe he can explain why white people looted Enron and Worldcom. Maybe he can tell us why white people killed 100,000 Iraqis to help their friends make money.
Should he be willing to accept this mission he will of course have his head handed to him. The New York Times will not have nice things to say about him. If he asks his friends to insulate him from criticism he will surely get the cold shoulder.
It is all very simple. The powerful group is never examined. They can get away with everything from slavery to colonization to the eradication of native peoples to the creation of a prison industrial complex to the privatization of foreign nations and they will never be told that they are inferior to anyone.
Fryer needs to get busy. He has his work cut out for him.
Margaret Kimberley’s Freedom Rider column appears weekly in . Ms. Kimberley is a freelance writer living in New York City. She can be reached via e-Mail atmargaret.kimberley@blackcommentator.com. You can read more of Ms. Kimberley's writings at http://freedomrider.blogspot.com/
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