Saturday, October 11, 2008

The S***'s Already Hit the Fan: Here Comes the Shift

It's already started. Call it what you want, 2012, prophecy, consciousness rising, cognitive dissonance, whatever...In my opinion, the shift has begun.

First. let's talk about what's going on, and then we'll talk about how that shifts us.

The current economic crisis has just begun, and is nowhere near the bottom. Consider derivatives: Derivatives are financial instruments, thanks to Greenspan, whose values depend on the value of other underlying financial instruments. The main types of derivatives are futures, forwards, options and swaps (
Wikipedia). The problem here is that derivatives now total more than the sum total of the global economy! If their value depends on the value of other underlying financial instruments, and the market continues down, we're toast.

It will continue down, because
"the level of consciousness that created the problem cannot solve it." The bloated, greedy system that has become the financial markets is no longer sustainable, and heading down the tubes, fast. The power elites who created this situation are largely going down with it. They have no idea what to do about it, except throw money at it. Yours and mine. These are people who believe they know what's best for you, and that the best citizens are ignorant citizens.

It should be obvious to all of you who have watched your 401K's shrink that this system doesn't work. Thank God Social Security wasn't dumped into the market as some wanted, not that it will make much difference in the long run. Nothing less than a total revamp of the financial system and structure could have saved it, but it's too late for even that, now. Welcome to the second Herbert Hoover era, created by
neo-conservative ideology that even some on the right are now admitting doesn't work (McCain, 'tho not in so many words, certainly by action, even as he matters not as his virulent melanomas give him a one-in-three chance of living eight years, for the real power lies with Sarah Palin, the frankenstein-like creature born of Bush and Cheney).

There's going to be a lot of pain for a lot of people. Paradigms don't die easily, and the patriarchal paradigm that spawned the current crisis will be no exception. For the first time ever, the US military is deploying an active duty regular Army combat unit for full-time use inside the United States to deal with emergencies, including potential civil unrest (link).

What all this does is place people in a position where they are more or less forced to wake up. Cognitive Dissonance: an uncomfortable feeling or stress caused by holding two contradictory ideas simultaneously. The theory of cognitive dissonance proposes that people have a fundamental cognitive drive to reduce this dissonance by modifying an existing belief, or rejecting one of the contradictory ideas (link). By resolving the dissonance, new belief systems are adopted, usually a a higher level of consciousness than before, but not always (consider US regression after 911).

As the power elite self destructs, the opportunity for a new level of thinking arises. This will be the challenge. if it doesn't get too rough, where we're struggling for our very survival, and for some it will, indeed, be that struggle, then we may come out of the other side with new perspectives, a different world market financial structure that is based on the good of mankind as opposed to the profit of a few. Yes, a hope, but what will we have if not our hope and our determination not to repeat the mistakes of the past?

Meanwhile, my advice is to prepare as much as possible, at a minimum, a couple months of food and supplies, lay low, and surrender into the moment, knowing that our petty wants and needs will serve a larger consciousness. You are the change we have been waiting for, and I, for one, want as many of you as possible around on the other side.

I'm amazed that these issues are not being talked about in Integral Communities and on their websites. Our collective integral shadow surely revolves around our fear of being labeled postmodern by expressing political opinions. Too bad. Only integral consciousness can solve these problems...and Steve McIntosh's Global Governance is the only body that will have a chance of governing global markets.

PS: I make no apology for the picture of Reagan. He started it and we're all complicit in our apathy.