Transcending religion to arrive at religion again

For those with any interest in the subject, I mentioned below that we cannot make jumps in understanding, that we have to progress along natural lines. I think that this applies to religion as well, and offer up five levels of passage into and through and then back to religion. No doubt others have described this better than me. But I’ll give it a shot anyway. It goes like this:

Level one: The words of holy texts are accepted as true without question, and the mythology, no matter how bizarre, accepted as reality. This is childish religious belief, or in adults, a kind of fundamentalism. It offers great comfort.

Level two, Path A: Cynical non-believers see the vulnerability of children and fundamentalists, and exploit them for financial gain. These are people like Pat Robertson, Swaggart, Haggard and Roberts and all the others. The low-hanging fruit is irresistible.

Level two, Path B: A less cynical setting aside of childhood fantasies without further research or wonder. Most people who call themselves religious are really in arrested development, having stopped believing, but also, sadly, having stopped wondering as well. People in arrested development often still feel a need for religious belief in others, for all our good. This is the stage where Catholic parents, for instance, send their kids to Catholic schools, even though they are too sophisticated to accept Catholic teaching for themselves.

Level three: Complete rejection of religious belief. For those like me, deeply indoctrinated in religion as a child when I was too young to reason, this rejection can be coupled with condescension and antagonism towards those who have faith, and especially towards those who who did the indoctrinating. (The “recovering Catholic.”) This is where we find Richard Dawkins and Sam Smith.

Level four: Reaching an understanding that people who are not fundamentalist and yet religious are as smart and thoughtful as non-religious ones, and perhaps even know a thing or two that non-religious people do not. This creates cognitive dissonance.

Level five: Resolution of dissonance, reaching an understanding that the search for truth has many forms, and that science is only one.

The progression through the levels ends with the elimination of antagonism between science and religion. Each is a search for truth. The scientific method is one way to advance knowledge, but mythology is also a vessel that carries important truths.

For myself, I cannot dwell in mythology, just as I cannot read fiction. I cannot be religious in that sense, and I like my Sundays too much anyway. But I do accept that those who are religious may well know more about life and living than my sterile science will ever give me.

The bottomless well

There seems to be no bottom to the well of Democratic stupidity. I hear it every day, from otherwise smart people like Thom Hartmann*, who continually implores Obama to find his “inner FDR,” to bloggers like JC, also a smart guy, who apparently thinks there is a fight going on over extending the Bush tax cuts, rather than mere stage play.

Here’s Doug Coffin, apparently a real person (remember “John Firehammer”?), writing at Left in the West , who says the following regarding the pay freeze on federal employees:

In doing so, the President is guilty of a rookie mistake from a collective bargaining perspective i.e. he continually bargains against himself. He did the same thing with health care when he took “single payer” and then the “public option” off the table for nothing in return.

No doubt that he’s expecting the GOP to respond in-kind by agreeing to pass the much needed unemployment extension or giving in on extending tax cuts for the wealthy. They won’t…. and he’ll be stuck screwing his constituents one more time. It looks more and more difficult for him to rebuild the coalition that got him elected. He’s angered teachers, labor and now federal employees.

He’s not expecting anything of the kind. Again with the misunderestimation! He knows what the Republicans will do, and welcomes it. The machinations are there merely to befuddle the [rank and file] Democrats.

We are traveling to the People’s Republic of Boulder today, so I have to sum this up succinctly.

Ah, screw that. It’s takes less time to be verbose than succinct.

Obama was a brand. The powers behind the façade of two parties realized that people were fed up with Bush and company, and so knew that they had to pitch idealism to salve the wounds of eight years of Bush cynicism. Obama is no Lincoln – he did not rise up from obscurity based on intelligence and political skill. He was spotted … he spoke at the Democratic convention in 2004, and power brokers saw potential. He was run up the flag pole, along with many others, and found to have some real possibility. He was staffed, an advertising campaign was created, speeches were written, a book or two … and art became reality. Obama the image became Obama the president.

The president could well have been Hillary Clinton, or even Tom Vilsac. That’s not important. It would not change anything.

But he’s not in charge. He’s not bargaining behind the scenes, making “rookie mistakes.” He’s acting on a stage, reading scripted words to reinforce the illusion of two parties.

There’s no hope in two-party politics. Change has to come from without, and against amazing odds. It has happened before – slavery did end, FDR did allow social reforms (there were powerful social movements at that time, but not now), women got the vote and the 14th amendment passed. But rights are not given, and words have no power if not backed by people fighting for those rights. Our first amendment, or fourteenth, mean exactly nothing without fighters.

Obama’s election means nothing. The power brokers may have already abandoned him, as he doesn’t even seem to be trying to assuage his base these days. He’s looking like a one-termer. He probably had no concern over the election losses, as he’s not staked in any ideology. He’s merely depending on the bottomless well of Democratic stupidity to hold on the the presidency for four years beyond his allotted four.

He’s an actor on a stage. He, unlike George W. Bush, might actually understand that. He is smart.
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*Hartmann went to far as to suggest, in a recent interview with author Chris Hedges, that Obama might not be a liberal, but rather (gasp!), a “moderate.” He holds this view in the face of Obama’s conntinued out-rightwinging the right wingers, making bigger defense budgets, more war, and carrying forward with terror and torture just as before. The power of perception management extends right into the brain of this jabbering but otherwise intelligent radio host.

The nature of politicians in a plutocracy

A third-rate man schools a second-rate man on the rise
There’s a nice little discussion going on under a post by Duganz at 4&20. It’s the kind of thing that I love – intrigue. Duganz starts out wondering why he cannot get either of Montana’s senators, Jon Tester or Max Baucus, to answer the simple question, “Why are we fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?”

Duganz says in the post

I remember sitting in my high school computer lab when we started shocking and awing Iraqi civilians, and soldiers into oblivion. Some of my classmates were cheering.

This would have to be the 2003 shock and awe attack. There was another attack in 1991, equally as barbaric, but not called “shock and awe.” If he was 18 in 2003, he is now 25. That’s young. At that age I could hardly tie my shoes. So he is attaining some wisdom at an early age, and I hope the process goes forward.

I have learned, at age 60, that people must come into wisdom on their own. Simply imparting it upon them has no effect, as we are all caught up in our own moment and self-assured that we have some understanding of events. So when Duganz wonders why he cannot get a straight answer out of his elected representatives, it does no good to say what I said – that they are mostly powerless and have to go along with these things merely to stay in office. That’s why politics attracts second and third-rate people. They are at best poseurs.

That is too big a jump – one cannot go from 3 to 6 without first going through 4 and 5.

I simply encourage Duganz to keep asking those questions. The one about why United States senators cannot give a straight answer about our involvement in foreign wars is a good one, and once answered will lead to a new level of knowledge. And so forth and so forth. I did not get started until I was almost 40. He’s got a huge jump on things.

Carry on.

Poor, sorry schmuck of a kid

The FBI saved us from a terrorist attack that was planned by … the FBI. Nice work, fellas!

Here’s what happened, as I understand it: Mohamed Osman Mohamud was hanging out with bad people, having communications with unsavory sorts. His Dad, a westernized Muslim, was deeply concerned, and approached the FBI with this information, asking for their help in setting the kid straight.

The FBI instead enticed the kid into a sting operation, one that will probably not stand if he gets his day in court. (That’s why people in power do not like habeas corpus. They’d rather just put people away without trial.) Mohamud has pleaded innocent.

Anything else? Probably. The FBI seems anxious to produce a thwarted terror incident – all these months and years without one makes for a poor scare campaign. So manufacturing one seems a nice solution to that problem.

But what about the kid? Why is he pissed at the U.S.? It beats me why all of these “terrorists” happen to come from countries where the U.S. happens to have troops on the ground and where our bloody covert ops are being carried out.

Dead man walking

Wikileaks is stirring it up again, and getting bolder as they go. Julian Assange has become a celebrity, but I am guessing he is smart enough to make a network that functions without him. The Pentagon wants him either dead or imprisoned. That group is pretty good at getting their man.

It occurs to me, and many others too, that what Assange and Wikileaks are doing is both strange and unrecognizable … but then like a flashback we realize that it is called journalism. Good journalists are not liked or admired by people in power. Quite the opposite. Real journalists don’t get invited to parties or get called upon to question politicians in phony debates or do talking-head interviews. Real journalists piss powerful people off. That’s dangerous to livelihood, and for Assange, perhaps even his life.

Real journalists find out what powerful people are doing, and report back to us. Right now it seems as if Wiki is teasing, embarrassing people, tantalizing power. That is fascinating. They are even threatening to go after a Wall Street bank, where real power resides. Banksters could force Elliot Spitzer out of office, but Assange and Wikileaks are an international operation, and mere bad press won’t harm them.

Like I said, it’s either prison or murder for Assange. He’s toying with real power, real killers.
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Footnote: I feel Lily Tomlin’s pain. She said “”No matter how cynical you get, it is impossible to keep up.” The tentacles of U.S. power reach into Sweden, which has issued a warrant for Assange’s arrest, and now to Interpol, which is likely conducting a global manhunt. The man is dangerous, as seen in this Mother Jones discovery – that none other than the Obama Administration saw fit to pressure Spain to back off of investigation of Bush Administration crimes – right off the bat. There was never any prospect of Obama offering anything remotely resembling “change.”

Spare us the offspring

My scholarly reading over the Thanksgiving weekend included Parade Magazine, that annoying little tabloid that newspapers use as a device to get you to sort through the Sunday advertising supplements. The inside page this week offered the following quote by Tina Fey:

The beauty of self-doubt is that you vacillate between extreme egomania and feeling like ‘I’m a fraud,’ … You just try to ride the egomania and then slide through the impostor syndrome. I’ve realized that almost everyone is a fraud, so I don’t feel that bad about it.

Now that is refreshing. Fame is a net that catches but a few fish out of a large school. There are far more talented people who are not famous than those we know about. With the advent of electronic self-publishing, we now have access to a wider assortment of better books that those now only published because the authors are famous. But they won’t sell unless the authors get lucky.

The worst part of fame and fortune is the “fortune” part, where people who inherit money learn to value themselves as worthy of the inheritance. I experienced this first-hand with a family in Montana comprised of hacks and nuthatches, each imagining him/herself exceptional, each carrying a load of sycophants on board, myself among them. Thank God for past tense.

Here’s something funny, as long as I am rambling: Bob Woodward’s book, off to the left here, is the only one in his long line that I have ever read. It was enough. It was crap. Woodward is running on fumes, and makes his living now sucking up to the very people he supposedly toppled from power years before. (Ask yourself why a famously tight-lipped cabal of schemers would allow anyone inside to observe their dealings.)

Bob Woodward, fraud. (And if he sucks up to power now, was he also doing so then? Just wondering.)

Another, pictured to to the right: Steve Forbes is the champion of the “free enterprise” system that has rewarded him for being the son of a man who made fortune by sucking up to power. That would be his dad Malcolm, the biker to the right. But honestly, Forbes Magazine under Malcolm was interesting. The guy on the left is also interesting, full of spirit and probably cognizant of the fleeting nature of fame. The guy on the right is boring and full of himself, who has accomplished exactly nothing of note in his life, and who would be nothing without that Dad.

Speaking of which … the downward procession of ability as seen below … each man a little less talented than the one to his right, climaxing with #43.

George W. Bush is a complete idiot. It’s interesting to see his idiotic book, Decision Points, being torn apart by reviewers who would have praised it if he were still in power. Speaking of sucking up.

Odd thing about the Bush family – even going back to Prescott, there just doesn’t seem to be much talent there, but they are always around. Nixon backers wanted H.W. to be Nixon’s running mate, but he chose Spiro Agnew as “assassination insurance.” People urged Nixon to appoint H.W. as vice president when Agnew was taken down, but he chose the near-dead Gerald R. Ford instead. “W.” is every bit as talented as Prince Charles, but somehow was elevated to the post of president. That’s neither luck nor talent, but rather that name “Bush,” a royal family.

Which brings me to my powerful conclusion: Luck has a lot to do with success and fame, and money helps the progeny. Sarah Palin is lucky and famous and extremely untalented, and the offspring are going to drive us crazy for years. Remember Pete Rose …. Jr.? Jacob Dylan? Emilio Estevez? Dean [Paul] Martin? Sean [Ono] Lennon? Would we even know those names if they were left to their own talent to succeed?

I have no problem with success or talent. I have no problem with luck. I think my only problem is with offspring and hangers-on.

Thus endeth the ramble.

RIP, victims of terrorism

Unfortunate positioning of Bush's book in a DC book store
From Progressive Review:

The number one threat to the United States is said to be international terrorism. So you’d think it would easy to find out exactly how big a threat. Unfortunately, Google will pretty much fail you on this, perhaps because, well, the numbers just aren’t all that exciting.

For example, the State Department, well buried in its annual report, was able to find just nine Americans worldwide who died in 2009 as a result of terrorism.

And Firedog Lake came up with this domestic calculation: “If you count the Ft. Hoot shooting as a terrorist attack, 16 people have died in the United States as result of terrorism in 2009. The other three deaths include the Little Rock military recruiting office shooting, the Holocaust Museum shooting, and Dr. George Tiller’s assassination, the last two coming at the hands of right-wing extremists.”*

Indeed, this is merely the power of propaganda, which (side note) doesn’t exist in this country. The government, or “military-industrial complex”, as Eisenhower sheepishly called it (and, as Chris Hedges reminds us, only when Ike was safely on his way out of office), has great plans for conquest of the Middle East and Central Asia. Fear is merely a mobilizing tool to keep us solidly behind their objectives.

TSA Monthly's "Miss November"
I have long known (since 1989, to be precise) that the United States is not threatened by any other country or group in any significant way. The ragtag group that somehow pulled off 9/11 was quickly dispatched in late 2001 (and bin Laden likely killed at that time). The only “threat” posed is to the unstated objectives of the MIC, conquest. Local populations are our true enemies. So it is no surprise that when we go on a terrorist rampage, the death tally is staggering.

So as we go on about our business of killing native Afghans, Iraqis, Pakistanis, Yemenis, Colombians, (and soon Iranians, if they would just give us pretext!)**, it is nice to know that even though they do not threaten us in any way, that domestic propaganda is so effective that merely saying as much in public will bring swift retribution. Neither wing of “The Party” speaks out at the absurdity of our fears or the underlying reality of our safety.

So on this Thanksgiving, 2010, let us remember the 19 who died in 2009 (including the two killed by right wingers), and of course forget the hundreds of thousands that we have dispatched abroad. May they all rest in peace as we here in the home of the brave live in cowardly fear and inexpressible ignorance.
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* I’m having a hard time recalling, but I think to date the number in 2010 is zero.
** And, as the Obama Administration desires, American citizens
(h/t: LB)

Political theater

Playing the part of Joe Lieberman in tonight's performance is ...
This gem from “Mr.Benson” at 4&20:

It’s true, I admit. Those damn Republicans, that idiot Ronald Reagan. If it had been up to the liberals, we’d have surrendered to the Soviet Union long ago and only one side would have warheads.

The subject at hand is the new START treaty, and the reduced number of warheads that the U.S. and Russia would be allowed to deploy. It’s in the process of being shot down. Senator John Kyl of Arizona appears to the point man for this affair.

There are 57 Democratic senators, and two independents who caucus with them in the lame duck session. To ratify a treaty would take all of them plus eight Republicans. John Kyl, prior to this time, has been reasonable on the subject, wanting only to make sure that we continue to spend untold billions on our warhead stock to keep it spit-polished. (Our nuclear stock is offensive in purpose, and the U.S. would never willingly give up an advantage.)

Dr.Sarah Palin from the 2010 movie "Foreign Policy Advisor", as played by Denise Richards
The assumption behind all writing I have seen on this subject is that all 59 in the Democratic caucus would support the treaty. But how do we know that? Since Obama took office in 2008, Democrats have allowed the Republicans to filibuster anything they want, using that as a convenient excuse for the Democrats’ amazing legislative failures.

Far more likely is mere politics – there are too many conservative Democrats to get anything worthwhile passed, and so they work with the Republican caucus in the back room. Republicans take heat for filibusters, and the Democratic base focuses on the Mean-Old-Other-Party, forgetting that they have the power with 59 and an ounce of cleverness to do anything they want.

Behind all of this is an “Obama” proposal to spend an additional $84.1 billion on the nuclear complex in the next ten years, out-Bushing the Bushies by 20%. [Note: He has since offered to pad this with an additional $4.1 billion.] There will easily be enough votes for that. So the result of all this maneuvering is no treaty and increased spending on nukes under Obama, with John Kyl the point-man for the theater of distraction. Clever, eh?

Dr. Christmas Jones in the 1999 movie "The World is Not Enough," as played by Denise Richards
Other interesting features of this debate: the nuclear threat from Iran, which is no threat at all, is prominently mentioned as a reason for continued build-up of the U.S. arsenal. That’s ludicrous, but it gets worse. This is from a Washington Post article:

Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin has told newly elected Republican lawmakers not to “listen to desperate politically motivated arguments about the need for hasty consideration” of the treaty.

Sarah Palin, a very stupid woman who doesn’t read and cannot think properly, is now advising lawmakers on foreign treaties. There are no words available in the language to describe this. Perhaps someone fluent in French or Spanish or Swahili can give me the appropriate phrase.

Profanity ensues, read at your own risk

Richard Mellon Scaife is one of the financiers of the right wing, one of the men behind organizations with impressive sounding names like Committee on the Present Danger and The Center for Strategic and International Studies. He, along with the Koch family and Joseph Coors, are responsible for much of the takeover of the intellectual culture and the media by right wing hacks. It all happened after the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, when democratic movements flowered and popular power got out of hand. Pandora had to be put back in the box.

(People like William Kristol and his father Irving get [got] paid very large sums of money, hundreds of thousands of dollars, by the likes of Scaife and Coors, to be right wing hacks. They are not prominent by accident. They are bought.)

(The Democratic manifestation of the right wing takeover is the Democratic Leadership Council, whose roots actually go back as far as 1972.)

I was just reading a piece by Alex Cockburn this AM from the 1990’s, the early Clinton years, about how the media was put back in its box after its supposed Watergate triumph. Scaife was one of the financiers. He was asked about his support for all those right wing outfits by Review’s Karen Rothmyer, and replied (turn away, children)

You fucking communist cunt, get out of here.

Of course, we’d have to update that if he were asked the same question today. He’d say “You fucking terrorist cunt,” using the agitprop-appropriate fear-engendering buzzwords of the current time. We are no longer scared of communists. We are scared of terrorists now.

Richard Mellon Scaife: July 3, 1932 …. death by natural causes – I wish no violence on him, but think the planet will be a much better place when this miserable cocksucker leaves. Unless, or course, he’s spawned.

A hack exposed

The above video is a panel discussion on the use of fear of terrorism in this country to quash civil liberties. It is over an hour long, and I would not put it up except for the exchange that takes place at 53:00 between Glenn Greenwald and a dumb-ass reporter from NPR, Dina Temple-Raston. She snaps at Greenwald, says she has seen things he hasn’t (but oddly doesn’t report on). She tells him that he “doesn’t do national security for a living.”

Greenwald disassembles her, and also says that actually, national security is what he does report on for a living. But the upshot is this: Temple-Raston is just another “journalist” being managed by the National Security State, fed information and told to report it as fact. Someone slips her a note, and she feels the part of the insider, and winks and carries on with her stenography, and calls it journalism, and calls herself a “national security reporter.”