Mahatma Gandhi…. Failed!... His dreams smudged into the blood of the lamb… spilled by the bullet of Hindu Jihad, the tragedy of a surreal God…God reading the Gita, Quaran and Gospel. Divided evenly into each with his own God….Mortality, The Beast… prevails…singing his own songs of the old ones dreams of babies long since grown and times of nostalgic happiness ….the kind of dreams that sale the old black and white photo cards today and bring a smile…the sentimentality that creates those innate feelings of comfort from faith alone....One way all of humanity believes in a Wisdom manifest in all races through the veil of evolution….One way all of humanity is divided into factions, each with a jealous God of the warrior clan…and minds are filled with a heaven populated with those who, in the name of God dispatched the evil ones, the rest of mankind to hell……there is triumph in the sadness of others….One way survival and one way death…One way God transfigured and One way God dead, rust in the dust…So in his love for mankind, God went on a not quite close enough to sanity bender that tempts all demons, break all the rules and dispel all the notions…last call for reality! Is everybody in? ..And the demons ravaged their souls until it was useless anymore… And the shell of God stumbled and fell…All that could be done, had been….. And we wrapped it, the empty bit of organic matter, in scented robes and adorned it with polished stones and we closed its empty eyes,…. eyes free of the light …the bird had flown....and we shoved the empty container into it’s container, and that container into the back of a Chevy station wagon and we drove into the wilderness, drinking to the times that were and dreaming of the times that might have been, and as the sun hits the land we fill the coffin with premium unleaded,… strike a match of transfiguration…and at the base of Mount Wa kon tonk a,…where the boulders paint images into the brain... I pass the joint and you pass the wine one last time and, as the drummers drum and the singers sing, we all do the dance of Ten Bears and jump through the fire!

Am I dreaming again?

We just watched the movie Gandhi. Thought he was a great Man. He did have trouble controlling the crowd though. Isn't that why he fasted so much?
Seemed like he was one of few men who tried going the extra mile.

today...i found that especially interesting

but that is all i have to say about that

thanks for posting

This Mahatma Gandhi thing popped out on Feb 15, 2008. And the Beat thing came out a day or so later. They came out on the same page and I wondered, I wa wa wa wa wondered, if there was any….cosmic significance…hhhhmmmmm? The battle between good and evil, is it real? Is my philosophy of doubt now in question? Can the revelation be real? So, if this is true, how would this strange dichotomy persist? I must sort this out. I must sort this out. Let me blend bits of my own fantasies with the realities of this world and con myself into a separate reality. A reality within a reality? A wheel within a wheel?

So let me start with the things I know to be real in my fantasies…. as the basis of my assumptions. First, there is a distribution of good and evil throughout humanity and this is manifested in every individual. We all possess a good and bad nature in that perception organ of the soul. In general, the individual, in daily routine, manifests the good side of his nature. It is only upon disassociation, dissociation of the consequences of evil, that evil, true evil, can take hold.. When a man becomes an object, a thing, a Jew or a Nigger or a Cracker or a Gook or a Laborer or a Papist or an Islamist or a Christian or a Socialist or a Capitalist, then the foundation of true evil exists. He is no longer a person, he becomes a noun, There is the rub, as evil breeds evil, in that the one who is labeled will hate the one who labels as well. It is the rare Jew indeed who loves the Nazi!.... Individual hatred is insufficient to meet the prophecies. So blindness must feed it and rhetoric must focus it to become more than the individual, more than a group or party or even a nation, to be truly successful the nature of hatred must become a religion (absolute truths beyond question, a question of faith). Now don’t go linear here as multiple religions can overlap even in the monotheist mind (as an example, many Nazi’s of the Third Reich were devout Christians and most Slave owners during the early years of the United States were certainly Christian). So, the point is, declarations of affiliation do not provide immunity to the individual when it comes to evil. In fact, declarations of affiliation may unwittingly tie an individual with a relatively low individual evil quotient into a precarious situation as the principle of herd evil (or evil by association) kicks in. Don’t laugh, there could be a lot of low evil quotient American Southerners and Third Reich Nazi’s burning in hell today because they accepted evil by association when they shouldn’t have. They were not necessarily evil as individuals and rarely partook in questionable conscious evil action but they were lumped in as vocal supporters of actors on stages built by the worst of evil architects. We might all be Albert Speer, wishing, that when reality kicks us in the ass, that we had dumped poisoness gas into the ventilation system of the last bastion of the evil scoundrel, but even in that we fail, as our sense of faith and herd immunity fails us and the knife glances off the ribs of sanity one more time.

Number One is to Survive

You know I am headed for the sun
And you are reaching for the blinds
I can hardly find the words
And you can hardly find your mind

That is from a Textones song I know

The nature of evil must be defined in this reality. If we assume that evil and therefore its individual manifestation, sin, is defined by the Judeo Christian Muslim traditions then there texts on sin must be interpreted literally. Therefore, murder, dishonesty and thievery must be punished no matter the circumstance. We must also assume that, as mentioned above, the dissociation of opinions, rhetoric and tacit support of dogma that ultimately results in evil does not confer immunity from the consequences. So, now let us consider the Talk Radio personality, a Minister of the Gospel and a man who believes their opinions and acts accordingly and take an objective look at evil and draw some conclusions.

Evil is absolute. Good is absolute. There are no qualifications and the imposition of human fantasies like Religious, State or Economic Philosophy is irrelevant and provides no real justification or immunity if evil is perpetrated in their cause. The end does not justify the means. In fact, taking the creed(s) literally is required. That is part of the whole evil/ good dichotomy. I mean think about it, in this grand cosmic contest of the light versus the dark side (oooh aaaah, I’m a tremblin’), every act of evil is a check mark and every act of good is a check mark and you have God or whatever as the big book keeper in the sky weighing the acts and tabulating the columns. There are no arguments because ultimately the Grand Inquisitor is omniscient. So, dissociation is irrelevant. So, if you act and by your action evil is ultimately manifest, then you are responsible ultimately for a share of the guilt. Furthermore, whatever excuse that the evil action was manifested of, be it Christian, Muslim, Communist or Capitalist, if evil results from the action then the actor is responsible. No excuses! So, if the talk radio and the preacher man talk the little man into voting for and having faith in policies that manifest themselves in evil, then they should all rot in hell as equally as those who degraded the humans in Abu Graib and profited from the deaths in the convoys of trucks carrying no payload other than in the bank accounts of CEO’s who watched as the TV news spoke of the bodies of truck drivers transfigured into Iraq winds as pieces of gold fell upon the ground and were scooped up by those, who by patriotic association, claim immunity from the Judas fate. When God is a figment of your imagination then it is easy to define your own fate free of the discerning eyes of the objective jury. Last train in the station, is everybody in?.

So, linear thoughts are not my strength. I think in dimensions of separate, but equal planes. The world to me is nothing but distributions, distributions of cause and distributions of effect. I think of the causes and effects of evil in the century that defines my life. I was born in the midst of nuclear madness and when my diapers were being changed there were camps in the swamps of Louisiana not more than 250 miles from the cans that contained my poop where Cubans were being trained to storm there homeland and rid the promised land of the socialist usurpers. I think in terms of the great wave and the relationship to now! In 1960, evil was at a distribution peak in the US, I mean where could it grow. The money fell into the hands of the mercenary and there students and greasy slick was the rule of the day. Greasy Slick. Money, Guns and Lawyers, in black suits and with the humorist lip, and the profits of the cold war in the hip pocket. Now we look back and understand that they were really just amateurs. Amateurs by today’s standards were those who led people to their deaths in the Bay of Pigs. I mean the money funnel and the political clout was different. It was almost an experiment in the art of mercenary that by todays standards was primitive even though the emotions were higher. Closer to the subject at hand. Now they have achieved dissociation from the acts of war and terrorism. War profiteering has been truly privatized and the good old boys get cost plus contracts to install democracy in those pesky out of the way oil rich tribal lands filled with misogynist fundamental religious swami’s. The kind of preacher men that reside in the hip pockets and speak in the name of the right, good and loving God that we have used as the model for the development of our state!

Do you think that Tom Waits ever listened to Bertold Brecht? (Swordfishtrombones)

What’s the ugliest part of your body?

There was a good one too out there some where. Depression is anger with out enthusiasm. There was also a great clip of a radio dj saying I am made as hell and wanna yell. Why doesn't everybody open their windows and start yell that?"
Then there was Willie Nelson being interviewed by a radio dj while he was on stage. he said this about Bush, "Throw the bastard out. If he didn't break the law nobody did."
I wasn't dreaming.

Though I don't believe I am depressed, I am probably insane.
The mind is definitely the ugliest part of my body!

I have a few thoughts on this although they are difficult to express. But here goes.

PSB, have you read Nietzsche’s book “Thus Spake Zarathustra”? Not an easy read, but in my opinion Nietzsche makes a case for what Jung would later formalize as depth psychology and establishes the concept of individuation. Individuation is often confused with individualism, which is ego centered and narcissistic. Individuation includes both a self and social regard. Individuation also recognizes that an individual is a unique collection of common human elements expressed in a single lifespan. Jung believed that human beings are inherently whole but that through variations in cultural norms, roles and responsibilities, specialization, and the collective unconscious, individuals become fractured and unable to fully develop their unique personal psyches. After extensive world travel, Jung recognized that some cultures, such as many of the native American Indians, promoted individuation. That’s because their cultures functioned as nurturing “vessels” supporting the individuation process, allowing for the development of the whole psyche. By contrast, Jung recognized western civilization as highly aggressive and repressive of the individuation process. American culture seems to be a blend of the hermetic native Indian culture and European culture.

Now, the reason I mention Nietzsche and Jung is that they recognized a subtle characteristic of an evolving, complex industrial society. They recognized the rise of collective psychosis that coincided with the specialization of labor. Specialization of labor increased the need for complex political and social hierarchies. These forces constrained the individuation process and led to cultural psychosis. The collectivist “isms” of the 20th century seems to be an inevitable result of differentiating between various forms social and economic hierarchies.

Carl Jung’s father was a minister. He was troubled by what he saw as a lack of authenticity in his father’s life. Jung was not a fan of institutional religion but he was deeply spiritual. Jung studied the early Christian Gnostics. Although the term was not popular at the time, Jung was a natural Gnostic. He wrote a book called the “Seven Sermons to the Dead“ which he claimed to transcribe the words of a second century Gnostic named Basilides, a teacher from Alexandria at the time of Roman Emperor Hadrian.

http://www.webcom.com/gnosis/library/7Sermons.htm

Jung never published these words for obvious reasons that he wanted to keep his day job. However, he was troubled by what he recognized as a “franchising” of early Christianity into a palatable and governable set of canons. Of course, he couldn’t write about this in theological terms but he could in psychological terms. He recognized the cause and effect of homogenized institutions, cultural psychosis, and the repression of the individuation process.

Now, from a historical perspective, we know that Pope Innocent III launched a crusade against the Cathers in the late 1200’s (pacifists similar to Quakers), exterminating them for their “heresy”. The confusion that must have caused trying to distinguish the Cathar “heretics” in the Languedoc region of France from their “orthodox” contemporaries. And the result that the crusaders would “kill them all and let God decide”, meaning the populations of entire cities were slaughtered since the crusaders couldn’t distinguish between the “heretics” and “believers” And we know that similar crusades were launched against the Muslims, the Hebrews, and the Native Americans. The question is, in terms of the collective unconscious, what have we inherited from our Roman ancestors, who were the world’s masters of social engineering?

Let’s face it, our cultural heritage is, for the most part, Roman. Our institutions, government and religions, are derivatives of the Roman Empire, warts and all. We’ve inherited the dogma, the concept of franchising, the aggression, and the cultural psychosis. I think the renewed interest in Jungian depth psychology is indicative of a culture hungry for authenticity and human beings seeking vessels for individuation in their personal lives.

Oh well. This probably makes no sense. Pass the bottle wrapped in the brown paper bag....

that sounds along the lines of what i was trying to say here once before...that i had trouble with labels...a person claims to be this or that (which should mean this or that to me)...and i am left to wonder what this person is about anyhow
(and "political correctness" (or the lack of) doesn't seem a reliable gauge either)

Sounds to me like you're just expanding your research to include macro biology.

I'm reminded of the line: Anger is love, disappointed.

Goofus, I let my mind wander where ever it decides to go, it is not my fault!

Yes Leo, I imagined one of my favorite passages from that film, Gandhi’s thoughts on sacred books while sitting on a sea wall in the midday sun. The reference to failure went beyond any moments in that film. I understand Gandhi’s great dream was a resurrection of God into a unifying force. He dreamed that man was inherently good and that a renewed faith in God would bring about that introspective realization. He was a great believer that righteousness would prevail as a result of the concerted efforts of all mankind to rekindle Gods interest in the great cosmic anthropocentric outcome. Gandhi wanted all to embrace their Gods and strengthen their power through their own individuation processes. Christians should embrace Christianity. Jews embrace Judaism. Muslims embrace Islam. It was his dream that the entire planet would turn to God and embrace a decent humanity through individual soul searching. He believed in the unconscious unity of Jung. He believed all people possess the primordial remnants of the great mystery and that through disciplined individuation mankind could restore the power of a good and just God. That the cosmic alchemy exists within us all and that proper introspection would release the illumination of the ancients. He believed in the possibility of Nirvana for all waiting at the end in the eventual reunification of the scattered fragments of the one true manifestation of God. And, it must be assumed, that during his short span of time in the conscious realm, he attempted to help man on this path of realization and unity. In that attempt, per the opening of that recent burst of words from my brain, it seems to me that he failed, failed in his dreams.

Then there is Nietzsche. A believer in horizontal evolution, in that without intervention on cause and effect the human race tends toward mediocrity. Therefore, he felt rather strongly that the religious creeds, particularly Christianity, served as a mechanical device to limit mans potential by preaching the obviously flawed doctrine of equality. He found the concept of the meek inheriting the earth a bit bewildering and the democratic experiment as ignoble. Instead he favored putting pressure on the edges of humanity and the creation of Noble man. It seems he was a non equilibrium socialist with a distrust of the center and preferred to actively push man into a more directed positive future. So, superman, would have a chance to evolve and presumably replace the inferior modern man. This would obviously require the selection of those traits that were to be reinforced by the act of selected breading as man would become his own creation through strain development. The National Socialist experiment in Germany was not necessarily what he had in mind but it did emphasize the importance of objectively deciding what traits should be selected (it was an exemplary failed experiment). As for me, I just live here on this planet. I certainly believe in the predictive value of such mechanistic concepts as horizontal evolution and non equilibrium dynamics but whether I would consent to experiments designed to affect the outcome remains to be seen. I guess the great mystery in my head is the same that Gandhi, Nietzsche and even Jung shared, and the question is:

What mechanisms, what cosmic truths revealed, will kick humans up another evolutionary wrung? I mean, per non equilibrium dynamics, there will be a jump to reach the next wrung and if there is a miss, there is no telling where we might land.

I have a book around here that has Jung saying something like you can’t have a good without an evil to stick it in (honest, it is true), I suppose that could result in an ongoing debate about the nature of good and evil and the psychology of good and evil and the opposing viewpoints (one mans good is another mans evil, etc etc. etc.). That debate is like asking why Red Buttons is never the general and John Wayne is never the soldier. Why, because the rules have been set, and Red Buttons is a color character, not a general, these things go unquestioned. Red as a general, that would be a lampoon. And so, the religious creeds are beyond interpretation. Thou shall not kill means thou shall not kill. So, a preacher man saying in this instance it is OK to kill is lampooning religion. It was Gandhi’s desire to have all men realize that circumstantial freedom from God’s rules does not apply. Of course, as William Burroughs can be most entertaining when expressing this opinion, turning the other cheek sounds like evolutionary suicide. Yet we must believe, as Gandhi did, that man would choose to obsolete good in the cause of freeing the world of evil if given the time for complete disciplined individuation free of the prejudices of those around them. So what the world needs now is to obsolete the course adjustment knob on the evil meter, sort of change the resolution so that the day to day individual acts instead of the acts of the Great Society become more relevant in determining the signal to noise ratio on the evil button.

So how do you do that in a world that would elect G W Bush into a position of great moral and ethical authority? We live in a world where the pundit is dissociated from the outcome of his reasoning. It seems one of the great beauties of the democratic experiment is the freedom of speech. It seems one of the great ironies of it all is that the Ministry of Propaganda has been replaced by an entertainment industry without culpability. I mean Limbaugh, O’Reilly, Coulter or the Religious entertainers like the Dr. Kennedy’s or the Pat Robertson’s (whatever) equate to the Joseph Goebbels equivalent in the fundamentalist conservative movement in America. I am not attacking the right to free speech and blah blah, I mean for crying out loud, if this group wasn’t so effective in dominating the libertarian party, I would actively promote libertarianism. The point is that this is an entertainment industry; they are not and should not be considered an objective force on the American political scene. See the point that occurs to me is that their toe the line extremist fundamentalist conservatism over the past eight years (or more) makes their moral and ethical positions suspect. Their unquestioning support for policies and actions that in my mind resulted in widespread graft and treasonous activities should reflect on their industry. They should be held accountable. They have focused a huge segment of the population into a militant non objective fundamentalist force. A force that believes they are acting out of the true faith and patriotism. They are a focusing movement. Not a rational movement. They are non equilibrium affecters of the dynamics of the political powers pushing the equilibrium away from what I consider freedom and rational thought and I wish to stop them (I guess I disagree with their Nietzschean vision of superman). The only way I can see of defocusing the political clout of these entertainers (note, these guys are the first to attack entertainers who speak out on politics, just an irony to me) is to attempt to resurrect the tactics of Gandhi and try to slap the zombies into reality by forcing them into searching their souls in terms of evil and good.

So, does that mean that I don’t believe that the unconscious mind of George W. Bush is a key to moderating the level of evil? It seems to me that GW has a knack for channeling the unconscious! Or, maybe I am dreaming?

I am on my way to nowhere
Runnin from my past
Runnin from them things
I used to be…. be be

So. does all this mean that dubya is the antichrist or what?!

If I were religious, I would think not!

I would think the antichrist would work behind the scenes, don't you?

Ahhhh.... so Cheney is the AntiChrist