| Oracle FAQ | Your Portal to the Oracle Knowledge Grid | |
 |
 | |||
| Oracle FAQ | Your Portal to the Oracle Knowledge Grid | |
|
| |||
Home -> Community -> Mailing Lists -> Oracle-L -> [ANATOMY OF A SELLOUT/ COWARD/ LIAR] Re: OT:Clinton/the economy etc.
On 16 Feb 2001, at 13:53, SHAIBAL TALUKDER wrote:
Date sent: Fri, 16 Feb 2001 13:53:23 -0800 To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L <ORACLE-L_at_fatcity.com>
>
> There you go again -bigot conservative philosophy.
...
That is, at the least, very lazy and irresponsible thinking.
The american system has always been premised on the centrality of
awareness of God in politics & public life - in contrast to empire
and absolutism (including bureaucracy). A sense of the necessary role
of a sense of "Sacredness" is deeply imbedded in the US Constitution,
and exemplified by the inspiration of Reverend Martin Luther King,
Jr. by Ghandi's life (who in turn was inspired by Quakers when he was
in London), Malcolm X, and so forth. The major progress in extending
"rights" in american society have come *because of* religious values,
and those have always been defended by "conservatives",
---> while being pissed on by doctrinaire "liberals"
(the ideological descendants of dreary absolutist/imperialist french "englightenment" rationalist/materialist philosophers).
There are just as many "liberal" bigots as conservative ones. The attempts to implement socialist politics have "enslaved" millions of people in the ghettos of dependency on leftist bureaucratic programs.
Here is an interview of a leading black (Jamaican-American) scholar, Orlando Patterson, who excoriates both the "right" and "left" for perpetuating their own interests over those of the people:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/gergen/november97/patterson_11-13.html
ORLANDO PATTERSON: ... In other words--so the situation itself is one in
which there is not a simple movement, harmonious movement. There is a change-
-positive change is always accompanied by friction; however, our perception
of what’s happening is also paradoxical in the sense that both the right and
the left, as well as the Afro-American leadership, all have strong interest
in perceiving the situation as in negative terms.
DAVID GERGEN: Tell me more about that. That’s really--
ORLANDO PATTERSON: Well, for the right wants to castigate the government for the failures of its--all its programs on behalf of the poor, the Afro- poor. It makes sense they exaggerate the problem to show how we’re losing ground because of the horrendous government interference in policies, so that welfare dependency and so on is increasing and it’s increasing because of rotten government policies. For the left, the liberal group, exaggerating the problem, emphasizing that America is chronically racist seems--is mistakenly believed that this will keep the pressure up for government to intervene even more. And the criticism here is just the opposite of the right, which is that things are bad because the government hasn’t gone far enough, or there’s still, the place is still chronically racist, so there’s still a need for more government intervention.
And for Afro-American leadership emphasizing racism as being--America as irredeemably racist--enhances their broker role, obviously, and again mistakenly is based on the view that by presenting an image of almost no progress, you will increase the possibility of greater intervention. And it’s also partly due to the tragic commitment to the ideology of the victim, a very deterministic view, which I’m afraid most Afro-American leadership has adopted, which tends to assume that by perceiving of Afro-Americans as victims you increase the chance of intervention on their behalf. Now, unfortunately, this worked. This is the strategy of the 60's. It’s interesting that the great Supreme Court decision, which struck down school segregation, was based on a determinist view, i.e., social scientists were brought in to show that it created victims, rather than the view that this is the right thing to do.
DAVID GERGEN: But today, in effect, it drives pessimism higher, higher than it should be.
ORLANDO PATTERSON: Yes. And I think, more important, it’s created a dogma of the victim, which I think is disastrous for people who need to change their own lives.
DAVID GERGEN: I understand. So that friction is inherent in progress, but with the kind of arguments that are coming from the right and the left, in your view, it’s making it much more difficult to make other progress.
ORLANDO PATTERSON: Yes. Not only that, but it’s also making it difficult to understand the situation.
...
-----end excerpt-----
Also: see the great German social theorist Jurgen Habermas (eg, go to the search engine at google.com) for high level philosophical discussion of why "system" (socialist) always tries to impose itself on "lifeworld of the people", and creates disastrous results.
William Julius Wilson is another example of a great black social scientist who has dared to question the dominant "politically correct" mentality in liberal academia (& the liberal black political power structure). His voluminous research over two decades (which like Patterson's equally excoriates the "right" and "left" for failing to provide a sufficient basis for sustainable social progress, equality and justice), clearly shows that "leftist" social bureaucracy is a huge waste of public money, and rarely solves problems it was supposedly intended to solve. Ironically, the horrible capitalist "conservative bigots" at the helm of enterprise have done far more, via job creation, to lift people up the social ladder.
If you want to actually learn about the cultural history of democracy and the roots of the libertarian values in the anglo-american tradition, please read Seymour Lipset's books on the reason that socialism failed in the USA ("American Exceptionalism", etc).
In my opinion, american culture will redeem itself by returning to the authentic roots of "freedom" and "liberty" (rejecting al the postmodern, relativistic cr*p, as well as rejecting the absolutism inherent in socialist/leftist politics), and reigniting the creative dynamics of local collectivism (freedom from both leftist bureaucracy and freedom from technocorporate dominated values) while looking forward to the exploration of universalist frameworks (eg, archetypes of human conciousness) in the context of a globalizing society.
Additional context for contructivist thought, and other ideas about transcending outmoded ideologies:
http://wilber.shambhala.com/html/interviews/Shambhala_interview.cfm/xid,2676/yid,5800264
-
-
http://www.rkey.com/thetazone/
-
http://www.rkey.com/thetazone/#constructivism
...
Among its many insights, constructivism adds perspective to the
unfortunate historical propensity of humans to objectify the
mind as an entity subject to environmental factors.
Constructivism is best known as a critique of international
relations theories which assert that rational behaviors of
nation-states must necessarily conform to the exigencies of an
anarchic world system. The framework can be extended to reveal
similar patterns in superstitious eschatologies, statements like
"The devil made me do it," and a wide range of modern
materialist and historicist philosophies, notably extremist
forms of Marxism and Social Darwinism.
The propensity to "blame" environmental factors as an excuse for
human behavior has become increasingly sophisticated in recent
years, leading to a philosophy of mind that proclaims
computerized telecommunication as destiny. Not only are such
concepts being promoted with fanatical energy, they are being
used to justify social transformations that are increasingly
rapid and disruptive. The rising interest in "memes," which
holds that ideas acquire people (rather than people acquiring
ideas) is an important part of this distressing trend.
...
(by the same guy, an explortion of the struggle between progressive proponents of a model of internet governance based on participatory democracy vs commerical interests :
http://www.rkey.com/dns/overview.html )
http://www.context.org
-
http://216.122.74.136//ICLIB/IC03/TOC03.htm
-
http://216.122.74.136//ICLIB/IC03/CoriGord.htm
-
http://www.wholeearthmag.com/ArticleBin/FeaturesIssue.html
-
http://www.wholeearthmag.com/ArticleBin/373.html
-
A great deal of analysis of why Clinton sold out liberals, betrayed *progressive* values, and succumbed to cynicism, despair and self-interest:
-
http://www.tikkun.org/end%20of%20clinton%20era.html
-
http://www.tikkun.org/california%20spiritualityforum.html
-
http://www.meaning.org/fem/frame_conf.html
-
Sustainable culture:
http://www.resilientcommunities.org
What's Behind Resilient Communities?
Something's afoot in the United States, and
Canada, and Australia, and Europe, and Asia and
Africa -- all over the world. Increasing numbers of
people are saying they want a different life than
that being offered by industrial-era society. Paul
Ray, in his 1997 Integral Culture Survey: A Study
of the Emergence of Transformational Values in
America says that as much as 25% of
populations in industrial countries are looking for
a better way of life.
Why?
Forces are coming together to shift dynamics in very dramatic ways. There is a growing split between the rich and the poor not only within countries both developed and undeveloped but also, of course, between them. There is a huge increase in population over the last century, which when coupled with production increases, has led to shortages of land, water and clean air. There is growing evidence that global warming and climatic instability, evidenced this year by the number of severe fire and flood problems around the world, threaten current human habitation patterns in significant ways. New forms of nuclear, biological and chemical weaponry are threatening humanity and both nation state rivalries and terrorism create continuing anxieties
There is an economic crisis as our reliance on economic growth and affluence collides with changing personal commitment and ecological realities. There is a social crisis as growing poverty and growing wealth co-exist on the same planet. There is a moral crisis as our ability to feel outrage about the state of the world is buried by our busyness and statements from economists and politicians that "we have no choice." There is an ecological crisis as fish stocks are overconsumed, fires burn out of control, forests diminish, land erodes. And there is, above all, a spiritual crisis as we lose sight of our real goals and substitute instant gratification in place of a search for true meaning.
At the same time, the seeds for change are growing. More and more people are beginning to examine the ways in which they are living their lives. Those of us doing so are saying that we want less stress and more time. We're saying we want to have a positive impact on the global environment rather than a destructive one. Many are being drawn to a new emphasis on building healthy relationships and towards exploration of spirituality.
We are looking for a new way to live -- a more resilient way of life.
(continued)
...
http://www.nrf.org/
-
http://www.nrf.org/cpguide/index.html
regards,
ep
--
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com
--
Author: Eric D. Pierce
INET: PierceED_at_csus.edu
Fat City Network Services -- (858) 538-5051 FAX: (858) 538-5051 San Diego, California -- Public Internet access / Mailing Liststo: ListGuru_at_fatcity.com (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing). Received on Fri Feb 16 2001 - 18:40:20 CST
--------------------------------------------------------------------
To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
 |
 |