Sunday 26 September 2010

Before the Paradigm Shift

Until we move up in consciousness on this planet and eliminate money, for our next steps, into a planetary society (to begin to prepare us for engaging with our material dimension in a further way than ever heretofore), we need to deal with our terrestrial situation as it is. I feel drawn here and now to look at some aspects of that challenge.

Item. Occasioned by the recent (and still current) banking crisis, the new UK government is looking at a major slashing of public spending, to bring the national debt under control. That review has surfaced a number of atrocious spending facts, including in the widely circulated story of one fecund teenager who has been spreading his seed around liberally to all nubile comers, of whom there have been quite a few. Most of whom have no income, except for the largesse of the welfare system (and hence their willingness, and even, it would appear, eagerness); both in direct child support (and housing benefits; and...and), and indirectly with a pittance deducted from our NEET's own welfare support.* For yes, our young Lothario has no job either. And many such young women come from generations of females who have had neither jobs nor partner support.
How has the matter - the matter, stripped to its bare bones, of a welfare underclass - come to this? Out of a misguided sense of sympathy. Can't let the child bear the burden of mistakes of its parents.
Sorry; not good enough of an excuse in the creation of generations of people trapped in poverty.
The word 'entitlement' would appear to bear a lot of the responsibility here. The UK welfare system has led some - too many - of its citizens to believe they are 'entitled' to child support, housing benefits, etc etc. Excuse me? Fact of life: No one is, or should be, 'entitled' as a matter of right to the earnings of any other person. Taxes are for social basics: roads, education, and in this exampled country, health care. But it is immoral to force taxpayers to pay for other people's children - in many cases, for their lifetimes - especially when often they can't even afford to have their own children.
People can give support to other people out of a sense of charity. But this business of 'entitlements' should stop. It has spawned generations of feckless citizens.
The state can legitimately provide monies for contraception advice and even, in particularly straitened circumstances, materials. But should spend not one cent for tribute. If someone wants to have a child, they need to be able to provide for it (or with the help of their own family). Full stop.**

Item. There is a move afoot in the US to call for what is called, in the Constitution, a constitutional convention, for the announced purpose of passing an amendment forcing the federal government to live within a balanced budget. This brings up a couple of issues in particular.

(1) Some citizens fear that this can be an excuse to break open the Constitution for further amending - as happened in the creation of the present Constitution itself, after some years of the fledgling country living under something called Articles of Confederation, and some of the political leaders of the time feeling the need for a better working arrangement. Their response to this, to-them dangerous initiative: The US citizens already have all the amending process they need: the ballot box. Stop electing irresponsible spenders of the people's money.
(Not a bad point. But it overlooks the power of the corporate world in today's America. Money talks big time; and to the folks on both sides of the political aisle. There is a Grand Turning needed here; not just a little tinkering around the edges.)

(2) The US citizenry need to face a particular fact of political life in the country, regarding the Constitution. And that is that there are many people - and of much political substance - who have already left the Constittuion behind, in their minds, and so are not bovvered with its terms anyway. So, playing with the amending process misses the essential point: that the liberal intelligentsia in particular already ignore the Constitution.*** Already amend the Constitution constantly. They call it recognizing it as 'a living document'. Subject to interpretation by the Wise Beings sitting on the Supreme Court, and bringing socio-economic-political policies up to date by virtue of applying to the law their own personal socio-economic-political proclivities. So a formal amending process would be superfluous. To them. And they have the momentum, now; with a man sitting in the presidential seat**** who has already appointed two new members of that august body who believe in this 'living document' persiflage.
Hear ye, hear ye: The Constitution of the US - like any constitution - is a contract (in this case, between the States and the federal government). It cannot be amended from its original intent except by virtue of its formal amending process. Otherwise there is no rule of law. There is only rule of men. Oligarchs.
Despots.
The people have been led to believe that there are two legitimate judicial perspectives in this matter: those who believe in 'original intent' - aka 'originalists' - and those who believe in whatever sophistry the relativists try to slip by the public. (N.B. They seem also to be known as 'legal positivists'. Whatever that phrase means, precisely.) This is all also encompassed by the debate-point terms 'strict construction' vs.'broad construction'.
It's time for this farce to be brought to an end.
Either the Constitution is a contract or it is not. Either its terms mean what was meant by and to those who entered into the process of making inclusions into the contract - and then getting the necessary quota of States to agree to those contractual terms - or they do not. If they do not, then the law has become an arbitrary and capricious weapon, to be employed by those in power to achieve their ends, irrespective of the means employed.
By, in a word: despots.
They can appear all emollient. But appearances can be deceiving. Don't trust them. Bind them down from mischief with the chains of the Constitution - as one of the Founding Fathers, Thomas Jefferson, specifically warned all subsequent generations of Americans about.
That includes us.
In spades.

You have been warned.

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* Not In Eduction, Employment or Training

** It is a measure of the mental attitude in the country that no one, not even the Toriest of the Tories, has called for a major, root-and-branch reform of the welfare system. They fear the wrath of 'the people'. (And taunts like 'Thatcher Thatcher milk snatcher'.) I've got news for them. 'The people' will follow an intelligent lead in this matter. Because 'the people' can see the system as is is not working. If the state will crack down on the 'spivs and gamblers' in The City who caused the economic meltdown, and thereby shows its commitment to fairness, 'the people' will trust them to do a proper cleanup. Otherwise, it's simply a matter of one end of the town against the other, and each looking out for its own interests. So the key to a change for the better is honesty, and sincerity, and fairness - across the board.

*** Not to overlook George W. Bush's purported expression of the Constitution as being "just a damn piece of paper". So 'the Right' is not exempt from this critique. People can be totalitarians from either the Right or the Left of the political aisle.

**** Notice I did not say 'the president'. The man in that position today has not proved his eligibility to have run for that particular office in the first place. But I have dealt with this matter elsewhere. (A shame it hasn't been dealt with. Yet.)

Saturday 18 September 2010

Neither Left Nor Right But Up

...subtitled: 'Nancy Pelosi: Are we serious? Are we serious? Er, Yes.'

The 17th of September was an anniversary of the signing of the US Constitution. It established a federal system of government with a central government of limited and delegated powers; "few and defined," in the Federalist Papers' words of 'the Father of the Constitution,' James Madison. Time has passed, and there have been attacks on that principle, by people wanting a stronger central government to rule the country from that center. But the 9th and 10th Amendments still hold, against such a potential encroachment, now made manifest, and in spades, at a key historical juncture, between 'capitalism' and 'socialism' - between those roughly aligned with the idea of 'natural rights' and a dispensation of such by a caring Creator God, and those roughly aligned with the idea of rights derived from the state, in order to establish government reflecting the values of a rejection of religion, and the substitutive enthronement of the philosophy of secular humanism (or just simply outright despotisms). And hence Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's comment, to someone querying the constitutional rationale for a central-government healthcare system mandating health insurance: "Are you serious? Are you serious?" A typical atheistic socialist's attitude, and retort. Occasioning this response from me, on the Comments thread of an article, honoring Constitution Day, on a constitutionalist (and very capitalist) web site, that of the Heritage Foundation:

"[17/9]

John Rossi @11:12am says:
"Let us stand as a nation and retake our country and end this tyranny that Oblama has begun and reverse the course of history."
I don't see it as a need for a reversal, John. I see it as a pushing through to a new level of civilization on fair Earth. Consider:
The socio-economic order has gone global. That is putting pressure on nation states to follow suit (see, in its regional way, the EU). But that level of power and control creates tensions between democratic and authoritarian elements - the difference between top-down and bottom-up government. The top-down types made a move in America, under the latter Bush administration in particular (as part of the process I am positing), to take control of and weaken civil rights (the Patriot Acts, etc.). Obama came along and promised 'change' - but appears to be bent on delivering 'change' from the left with the same commitment to authoritarianism as had been raised on the right. I'll see you, and raise you. So far, so thesis-antithesis.

Enter the Opportunity of a Turning Point, that will resolve the contradictions of both sides of the civilizatory equation, and add the ingredient that can lift the process out of the level of its problem and take it up a notch: the spiritual fact of life. That is, that life is more than merely material. Given that factor - the God factor, as it were - we can see our way out of our current dilemma.

Neither side of the current equation has the answer en toto. The answer is to eliminate money as it has become - ie, an end in itself; via the seductive effects of interest-bearing money and fractional-reserve banking - and replace the profit motive with a higher motive: the motive of giving our best to one another, in the providing of goods and services and ingenuity, out of gratitude to our Creator for life with meaning.

It is the answer that evaded the monkey with his fist in the jar of goodies. It is time we moved out of our monkey stage as a species, and inherited our higher identity, as spiritual beings having a human experience. And if we will, all else will be added unto us.

Until then, indeed we should honor the wisdom of the Founding Fathers, and keep a solid system of checks and balances between the three branches of government: that America does not fall under the sway of tyrants, of any stripe. And remains steadfast in its spiritual potential, until the new, higher stage of government on the planet can come into being.

So not in reverse, John. But full speed ahead. So that we can get through the rough patch leading up to the promised land; on another level of consciousness than we inhabit, in large part, today."*

So: a Turning Point time. THE Turning Point?

We will see.

But 'it' has all the earmarks of being so. And I think here not only of the general subject of '2012', and the dangers of nuclear holocaust occasioned by present-day unresolved geopolitical factors. But of the likes of the damage wrought by the Gulf Oil spill on the Gulf Stream Current. If there is even one left, to be so named.

Clearly: a major time in the history of human life on Earth.

Ah, to be alive then. To say: now.

In Our Time.

To use our free will for good. Or ill.

It is up to us.

Choose, friend.

And choose wisely.

Much depends on it.

Including your personal journey, as a spark of the One.


P.S. As for the philosophy of secular humanism: I really don't get how professors of that philosophy think that it can prevail, anymore than the communist experiment in Cuba prevailed (its demise as recently announced) - an experiment in living a merely materialistic existence, sufficient unto itself for its meaning and purpose. Think: If there is no 'God' - and all that that implies; a meaning to life beyond its boundaries** - then nothing really matters anyway, and one might as well live simply for oneself, independent of the effect of that pursuit on others, as not; for the end of the closed system of life can, then, as easily be seen as that as anything else, a presumed 'social gene' gracing one with a concern for the welfare of others, or whatever.
Now I know that, eg, Prof Richard Dawkins claims that in the natural world, a sense of social consciousness - or a perceived 'altruism' - helps in the natural selection process; that nature selects for those individuals who give to and receive from a social construct, out of the protection that it brings. But there is something far larger going on in life than this simple mammalian template can account for. And I encourage secular humanists - who presume to have a scientific mind, and to be guided by that consciousness - to look at the whole picture of evidence, and not just select those parts of such that agree with their current philosophy. A philosophy that might well owe much to mere reaction against the bearer's upbringing in what they come to perceive as an unenlightened familial situation. This is a warning, to say, not to throw the baby out with the bath water.
We are conditioned. We are also capable of releasing our conditioning, and seeing the larger picture. For we are, in essence, 'spiritual beings having a human experience'. Not merely a species of great ape. We are, then, coded for a far greater outcome than simply ashes to ashes, and dust to dust. And it is this coding that gives rise to moral impulses. Otherwise we would, indeed, return to our animal natures, if given half a chance. To that part of our nature. Which extends far beyond just it. And, as part of that deal: in having been given free will - set free to do as we will - we are far more dangerous to ourselves and our environment than animals operating solely from their coding for instinct. We are, in short, capable of what can be called 'evil'.
But, being phototropic beings, we will turn to the light in the end.
All, of us.
Just some sooner than others.
Which brings up the subject of 2012. But of that, another time...

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* Actually, for some reason my comment never appeared on that thread. It may have been due to faulty technology - on my part or theirs - or the decision of the moderator. Such is life. At least them's my thoughts.
(N.B. I tried again later, very carefully and dutifully this time. Same result. I can only conclude that the Heritage Foundation does not want to support looking outside of their given paradigm. Fair enough, in a sense. They are, after all, constituted to honor the American heritage. I would only wish that they would consider to look at that deeper heritage. The primacy of the individual, yes. But in its spiritual context, in a social construct. Landing the fullness of the Golden Rule.)

** And I'm not talking about a 'fear of God's wrath'. I'm talking about the clear gift of a Plan to and Purpose in life, as reflected in such indicators thereby as the evidence of a reincarnational path leading upwards in consciousness, whereby indeed our efforts are 'rewarded' - but not in a crude sense, ie, by a God passing out merit or demerit badges. We are our own judges.

Wednesday 15 September 2010

And Closer We Get to Ascension

So a major review of the western banking system, and the relationships of the governments of the US and the UK in particular to it, has this week been completed. And the result is: a damp squib.

More of the same.

Business as usual.

And even better, for the corrupt in place. For they have now established that they can get away with the likes of creating a major crisis in the economic system, for personal gain, and they can blackmail governments to use 'their' money - ie, the taxpayers' money, to bail them out, and then give themselves bonuses with this largesse, and loan some of it back to its original owners, with interest. Or not loan it, as they see fit; in order to build up their reserves, so that they can engage in the sort of fancy 'financial products' shenanigans that got them in trouble in the first place. And left the taxpayers holding the bag.

Oh, but now they need to hold 'over three times what they used to!' in reserves, to cover possible contingencies? Right. From 2% to 7%.

And over a comfortable period of time at that...

I don't know about you, but I am reminded of Br'er Rabbit and the briar patch. And, of course, no wonder the stock market jumped at the news.

Of a slap on the wrist.

And a slap in the face of the public.

The long-suffering public.

Who don't have to suffer long much longer.

Because change is afoot.

Brought about by just such 'internal contradictions' as this response by the capitalist system to the Crisis it created.

Whereby the people are mad as hell, and are not going to take it any longer.

As well they should be; and nor should they have to.

Because there's something new under the sun.

Brought about by the civilizational process, and a level of technology that can now help humanity live at a higher level than it has heretofore.

And thereby now do away with the 'likes' of war.

As I wrote recently in a comment on a blog talking about the ineffectual (or worse: intentional) response of Barack Obama to the economic problem in the US - where his attempts to deal with the matter will just exacerbate it:

"Well spotted and commented on, Delores.+ But let's step back a little further, and look at the even larger picture here.

* The Right was getting too extreme, heading for unbridled corporatism, aka fascism. (Surveillance, loss of civil rights in general, etc.) On a global scale, now. (Hence, something new under the sun.)

* The Left saw its opportunity, and denounced that 'change' as bad. Which it was. And charismatic Obama pounded it home, offering a better 'change'.

* But in actuality, he was just offering the same change only from the Left. Aka totalitarianism.++

* Through this whole dialectical process, of thesis-antithesis, the missing piece is 'up' - ie, spirituality (in a word). The process itself is just on a materialistic level: Who's in control. But the outcome can be a synthesis, of the best features of each 'camp': the development of a community spirit from the left, caring for 'the commons', and the importance of the individual from the right, and his/her free will.

I see this whole process leading to a major Opportunity for breakthrough, on to a new level of civilization on the planet, where we do away with money - ie, the motivation of personal aggrandizement - and give to each other of our best, in goods and serves and ingenuity, out of gratitude to our Creator for life with meaning.

Ah. But that would require us to realize fully, and accept fully, that we are, first and foremost, 'spiritual beings having a human experience'?

Well; yes. But that's where we're at.

The civilizational process has got us here.

It's time to recognize it. 'It': the fact that neither the 'left' nor the 'right' has the complete answer. The answer is to transcend the level of the dichotomy, moving to a higher level.

There, we can meet.

And only there.

To say: We've run out of wriggle room, as it were, in exploring the further limits of free will.

It's time to recognize the Truth of our situation.

And act accordingly.

And then: Watch us fly.

Together.

As One.

And give thanks in doing so.

And thus endeth the lesson.

The lesson, of separation.

Seeming, separation."


And in this context, I note, with respect, the quote that Daniel Pinchbeck puts at the beginning of his important book '2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl':+++

'Love never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophecy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.' 1 Corinthians 13:8

He dedicated his book: 'For my daughter.'

I dedicate this blog to all those who have ears to hear.

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+ The person, one Delores Smith, had posted a comment - on a blog by one Bobby Eberle, titled 'Obama's Titanic About to Hit Iceberg' (GOPUSA Eagle 9 September) - pointing out how Obama's strategy fit precisely the model recommended by a couple of his Columbia University professors (known as the Cloward-Piven strategy) to overload the system so that it would collapse, and allow a socialist takeover. Thus their support for mass agitation by groups like ACORN for welfare handouts, and for policies like forcing the loaning of 'government' mortgage money to people who would not be able to keep up their payments. Anything to bring things to a head. Which has now happened. And in more ways than one...

++ Check the writings of his advisors. Very statist.

+++ "...the Mesoamerican deity...'Sovereign Plumed Serpent', depicted in sculptures and temple friezes as a fusion of bird and snake, representing the union of spirit and matter. Mexican archaeologist Enrique Florescano writes: 'Quetzalcoatl is the god who hands down civilization, reveals time, and discerns the movement of the stars and human destiny.'..."