There’s Something Seriously Wrong With Men In America

by Gary Stamper
Originally posted on Speaking Truth to Power

There’s a passionate outcry in America to legislate gun control. By most accounts, the major culprit in the Sandy Hook killings is the proliferation of guns in our culture, and there’s a lot of information and statistics to back up those sentiments. Fareed Zakaria just penned an article on the Washington Post Opinion Page entitled, “The solution to gun violence is clear,” where he notes “People point to three sets of causes when talking about events such as the Newtown, Conn., shootings. First, the psychology of the killer; second, the environment of violence in our popular culture; and, third, easy access to guns.”

However, Zakaria uses hard data in social science that blows these generally accepted causes out of the water, pointing the finger directly at the third cause of easy access to guns as the primary culprit. The data “strongly suggest that we have so much more gun violence than other countries because we have far more permissive laws than others regarding the sale and possession of guns. With 5 percent of the world’s population, the United States has 50 percent of the guns.”

In the article he further writes, “There is clear evidence that tightening laws — even in highly individualistic countries with long traditions of gun ownership — can reduce gun violence. In Australia, after a 1996 ban on all automatic and semiautomatic weapons — a real ban, not like the one we enacted in 1994 with 600-plus exceptions — gun-related homicides dropped 59 percent over the next decade. The rate of suicide by firearm plummeted 65 percent. (Almost 20,000 Americans die each year using guns to commit suicide — a method that is much more successful than other forms of suicide.)”

Last, he claims that:

“The problems that produced the Newtown massacre are not complex, nor are the solutions. We do not lack for answers.”

“What we lack in America today is courage.”

And here, he is absolutely correct. However, Walter Shapiro, a Yahoo! News columnist examines how character collides with policymaking in Washington and in politics and sadly concludes that there is “no plausible remedy since we are neither going to disarm Americans nor are we going to pass out guns to elementary school teachers as a just-in-case precaution.” To add credence to his assessment he writes:

Four days after the shootings, the NRA’s official statement said, “The NRA is prepared to offer meaningful contributions to help make sure this never happens again.” By the end of the week, Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre shattered any misguided hopes of NRA compromise by poking his head out of his bunker and calling for armed police officers and more guns in every school in America. “The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” LaPierre said. It brought visions of a crusty Charlton Heston waving a flintlock: “From my cold dead hands!”
As difficult as it will be to actually implement meaningful gun control, we have to try, but as long as we have a government and a president who has a hit list of targets he approves and SEAL assassin teams and drones to do the dirty work. moral concerns have been suspended. The tally of CIA drone strikes just in Pakistan between 2004 and 2012 stands at a minimum of 176 children, nearly nine times the number of dead children in the Newtown incident.

American politics are enforced at the point of a gun. Our military and police agencies depend on lethal weapons for their authority; intimidation is an important aspect of military/police authority, and civilians are meant to know this. This is why the 2003 bombing attack on Baghdad was called “shock and awe.” Lethal weapons are meant to suggest opposition is futile.

Consequently, having the government tell an individual citizen that they can’t have a gun is pure hypocrisy and begs the question: Can a violent government prevent more Newton-like tragedies?
Gun control alone, even if possible, is not going to solve the immense problems we have with violence in America.

Since 1982, there have been at least 61 mass murders carried out with firearms across the country, with the killings unfolding in 30 states from Massachusetts to Hawaii.” In forty-nine of the mass murders, the killers had obtained their weapons legally. This only includes mass murderers, not all of the gun-related murders in the U.S. Those numbers are much higher. This indicates that even if we only succeeded in taking away legally owned assault weapons, we could dramatically decrease the violence.

So, who commits mass murders in America? The vast majority of them are committed by men, and the majority of those are privileged white men.

What is it about the white, male, American middle-class experience that makes it easier for troubled young men to turn schools and movie theaters into killing fields? In an online article Hugo Schyzer states:

“White men from prosperous families grow up with the expectation that our voices will be heard. We expect politicians and professors to listen to us and respond to our concerns. We expect public solutions to our problems. And when we’re hurting, the discrepancy between what we’ve been led to believe is our birthright and what we feel we’re receiving in terms of attention can be bewildering and infuriating. Every killer makes his pain another’s problem. But only those who’ve marinated in privilege can conclude that their private pain is the entire world’s problem with which to deal. This is why, while men of all races and classes murder their intimate partners, it is privileged young white dudes who are by far the likeliest to shoot up schools and movie theaters.”

But it’s not only Mass murders. It’s also the level of violence by men in America. We have raised an entire generation of young males that don’t know how to be men, and many of them feel completely lost.  Sometimes they feel so lost that they “snap” in very destructive ways.  Adam Lanza and James Holmes are two names that come to mind.  Why is it that mass murderers are almost always young men?  Why don’t young women behave the same way?  Sadly, Adam Lanza and James Holmes are just the tip of the iceberg of a much larger problem in our society.

When our young men grow up, many of them are extremely averse to taking on responsibility.  They want to have lots of sex, but they aren’t interested in marriage.  They enjoy the comforts of living at home, but they don’t want to go out and pursue career goals so that they can provide those things for themselves.  Our young men are supposed to be “the leaders of tomorrow”, but instead many of them are a major burden on society.  When are we finally going to admit that something has gone horribly wrong?

There is even a name for this generation of young men that does not want to grow up.  It is called the “Peter Pan generation”.  They want to enjoy the benefits of being grown up without ever taking on the responsibilities.  But it’s not just young men who haven’t grown up. There are a lot older “Peter Pans” as well.

What is it about men?

There is plenty of blame to go around. Certainly parents and our education system have to bear much of the blame. Traditionalism says that in the old days, young men were taught what it means to “be a man”, and morality was taught to young men both by their parents and in the schools.  But today, most young men have very little understanding of what “manhood” is, and our society has taught them that morality doesn’t really matter.  Instead, television and movies constantly portray young men as sex-obsessed slackers that just want to party all the time, so that is what many of our young men have become. We have an enormous cultural failure around instilling values and helping young men transition into responsible adulthood.

In the introduction to my book, Awakening the New Masculine, I write about the root causes of why boys don’t develop into men:

 “Western culture does not adequately support boys or men, or boys becoming men. We have completely lost touch with the concept of elders as wisdom keepers, and the elders we do have were not given the tools they needed to become those wisdom keepers. Today, elders are burdens instead of valuable resources. Our elders have not been taught how to pass on wisdom, identities, and boundaries to the next generation. And in a society without fathers, most of us have been under-fathered and over-mothered."

We’ve created a world of Peter Pans, or puers, who never grow up and want to marry trophies instead of wives, and girls who want someone to take care of them instead of bold partners. The current older generation of men, especially in the United States, has, to a great extent, not been mentored by their own fathers.

The levels of depression, suicides, drug abuse, alcoholism, and violence among men are all rising exponentially to the point of being staggering and frightening. Ninety-four percent of all inmates are male. Men live an average of seven years fewer than women, suffer far more from ulcers and stress-related disease than women, and are far more likely than women to die from the fifteen leading causes of death.

Over 80 percent of all suicides are committed by men. In the twenty-to-twenty-four age bracket, males commit suicide six times as much as females, and over the age of eighty-five, men are fourteen times as likely to commit suicide as women.”

This, and numerous other articles, books, and blogs, are all pointing at the same thing: Why haven’t we come to terms with the crisis of modern male immaturity?

It’s been reported that Adam Lanza’s father, Peter Lanza, a tax specialist with GE, is clueless as to why his son snapped. It appears that, as pointed out above, Adam Lanza had been “under-fathered and over-mothered.” How might things had been different had Peter Lanza continued investing in his son’s personal development? In the end, the tragedy speaks volumes about the capitulation of family dynamics and how sometimes a festering of resentment and hostility can unwittingly manifest itself in the most violent form when much needed redress fails to manifest itself.
Again, from Awakening the New Masculine:

“The problem, of course, is much larger than just bad fathering, although that is an issue. The bigger issue is a lack of any father or other healthy masculine influence in an age of single parents.”

 Make no mistake: the solution is complex and must dealt with from a wide range of issues including gun control, mental health, socio-economic and cultural  issues, government, movies and video violence, and other contributing factors. There can be no doubt that this is a problem with men.

What can we do?

In spite of what Fareed Zakaria said in the opening paragraph of this article, as complex as the problems are, the answers are even more complex, but there are few places we can begin.
We have all been wounded by our primary caretakers, by our culture, and by each other. We must begin heal these wounds if we are to begin stepping back into sanity. The difficulty of doing so is compounded by the clash of differing belief systems and worldviews that don’t agree on what should be done, and about another worldview, called apathy. We can only solve the last by somehow reconciling these other opposing worldviews. One way to do this is to create a system that recognizes the truth and values in the contrasting worldviews, understanding that they are largely developmentally organized. In other words, some approaches are correct for some, other approaches are correct for others, but some approaches are correct for everyone at their particular level of development.

In America, most young boys are at either a power or traditional stage of development. We know how to nurture healthy development in both of these stages, but we don’t seem to have the willpower to do it. Plus, our cultural and educational system is geared toward turning young people into obedient workers rather than critical thinkers. Ultimately, this is a continuing problem with cultures, empire, elitist values, patriarchal rule, and dominance of the human spirit.

From Awakening the New Masculine:

“We have surrendered to a hero image that we can’t possibly attain and the accumulation of wealth, disregarding everything but our own ego and power. Patriarchy is the consciousness of greed, the conqueror, and moves forward willfully, throwing its weight around and bending all before it to its will. The patriarchy is the bully … and worse. Patriarchy is the enemy of the healthy masculine.
As men, we are the product of all that has come before us: the Mesolithic hunters, gatherers and Neolithic farmers of matrilineal culture (7000–2000 BC); the Indo-European warriors emphasizing the male sky gods in the centuries of the Bronze and Iron Age (2000–800 BC); the turn of the millennium with the advent of Christian mythology and its concepts of dualistic division between body and soul, world and spirit and Original Sin; and finally the age of scientific rationalism that allows for nothing supernatural or spiritual and reduces the universe to a language of numerical abstraction―mathematics.

We are also the wounded warriors.

Centuries of patriarchy have numbed our souls, our feelings, and our spirit, and we are beginning to awaken to the need to love and work in ways that heal our lives, the lives of those we love and the lives of those we want to love and want to be worthy of.”

Joseph Campbell states that it takes a “hero’s journey” for boys to become men and for men to revitalize themselves within the context of our twenty-first century culture and immediate life circumstances. Postmodern man, by and large, has been lulled to sleep, and it both is and isn’t their fault. Men either have succumbed to the pursuit of things or have gotten stuck in overfeminization rather than learning to feel, followed by owning those feelings and reclaiming their masculinity. Both the pursuit of objects and the overfeminization of men are at fault. We must learn to pass on our own healing to our sons and to all of the sons of the world. It will require creating a new world, and it will be hard, but what choice do we have?

To not engage with creating this new world means that the stunted masculine will remain fixated at immature—and possibly pathological— levels. This “boy psychology” shows up as abusive and violent acting-out behaviors against each other, women, the planet, and in the cultural and social organization of patriarchy that has ruled much of the planet for thousands of years.
In Creations Magazine, author Robert Moore points out, “Patriarchy, in our view, is an attack on masculinity in its fullness as well as femininity in its fullness. Those caught up in the structures and dynamics of patriarchy seek to dominate not only women but men as well. Patriarchy is based on fear—the boy’s fear, the immature masculine’s fear—of women, to be sure, but also fear of men. Boys fear women. They also fear real men.”

If men can begin to take on the task and responsibility of their own processes and those of young men moving from boyhood into mature manhood as seriously as our tribal ancestors did, then maybe we can move into new ways of being and beginnings instead of the beginnings of the end of our species.
All of this, of course, depends on how well and how fast we can step into facing our own immaturities.

Last-minute addendum: While getting ready to send this out, new developments emerged that are seemingly connected to both the Connecticut and the Aurora, Colorado shootings. CNN Money is “reported to have reported” that the LIBOR banking scandal is growing as the fathers of Adam Lanza and Colorado movie theater shooter John Holmes were allegedly expected to testify “before the US Senate in the ongoing LIBOR banking scandal. The London Interbank Offered Rate, known as LIBOR, is the average interest rate at which banks can borrow from each other. 16 international banks have been implicated in this ongoing scandal, accused of rigging contracts worth trillions of dollars. HSBC has already been fined $1.9 billion and three of their low level traders arrested.” Still fairly unknown to the general public, it is the biggest banking scandal of all time that almost no one has heard of.

I could not find a CNN Money article to verify the claims above.

This article from Talking Points Memo by Benjy Sarlin states, “This rumor is 100% false,” a Senate Banking Committee aide, who asked not to be named, told TPM by email. “The Senate Banking Committee does not have any LIBOR hearings currently scheduled, and has never considered either of these men as potential witnesses.”

The biggest banking scandal of all time and the Senate Banking Committee has no hearings currently scheduled? No wonder the conspiracy elements are out in full force.

Is the Shift hitting the Fan?

by Gary Stamper
Reposted from the Collapsing into Conciousness forums

It’s already started. Call it what you want, the apocalypse, doomsday prophecy, consciousness rising, cognitive dissonance, a paradigm shift, whatever…In my opinion, the conditions that provide the opportunity to move to a new level consciousness has begun.

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

Consider that all of the instability that is happening in the world and all around us is part of a larger cycle of human evolution that will soon turn toward renewal and regeneration. According to Kingsley L. Dennis, author of New Consciousness For A New World,

“For centuries, indigenous wisdom traditions have talked of an epochal shift on the horizon, of a spiritual renaissance for the earth and her living family. Now the timelines are converging and the potential for an energetic “upgrade” for humanity is here, but first we must survive and evolve through the current period of transition.”

As an example, the current economic crisis that began in 2008 is nowhere near the bottom. Consider derivatives: Derivatives are financial instruments 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. In 2012, the total value of those derivatives are estimated to be between $700 billion and $1.2 quadrillion! According to Wikipedia, In 2011, the GWP totaled approximately US$79.39 trillion in terms of purchasing power parity. There is more owed than is possible to pay off and a system reset is inevitable.

There seems to be no effort to fix this problem, only to kick the can down the road, 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 probably too late for even that, now, as it may be for the environment and energy as well. The future appears more and more unpredictable, uncertain, and often on the fringes of instability. Is it only a matter of time? Is there too much complexity, and when there is, what happens? Have we exceeded our ability to control what we’ve created? 

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.

I’ve mostly touched on the financial crisis, giving a passing nod to climate change and peak everything, although there are comparable problems coming at us from each of these sectors as well, all in a perfect storm of catastrophes.

How does this imply a transition, or shift?

We have reached what is called the “chaos point” for transformation. In other words, the moment for paradigm shift. Periods of chaos, complexity, and upheaval are “evolutionary agents” that act to trigger rapid developments and growth, and it places us—individually and collectively—in a position where we 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. By resolving the dissonance, new belief systems are adopted, usually a a higher level of consciousness than before, but not always (consider U.S. 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?

As Duane Elgin writes, “It is the immense suffering of millions—even billions—of precious human beings coupled with the widespread destruction of many other life forms that will burn through our complacency and isolation. Needless suffering is the psychological and psychic fire that can awaken our compassion and fuse individuals, communities, and nations into a cohesive and consciously organized global civilization.”

My advice in these momentous times are, repeated throughout this website, to prepare as much as possible, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Have, 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.

How to Talk to Friends and Family About Collapse

Reposted from Collapsing into Consciousness

by Gary Stamper

I saw the 2008 economic collapse coming. So did my wife. We had met online a couple of years earlier, and one of the first conversations we had was about sharing our perspectives on where we thought the world was headed. To both our surprise, we shared the same worldview. Later, after we decided to share our lives, we bought the property we now live on and began designing our house. I was still living in Seattle at the time, when suddenly in early 2008, all the evidence pointed to having to seriously move our schedule up, and quickly.

All of the economic evidence we were seeing was pointing to an unavoidable collapse, we just weren’t sure when—or how bad—so we put a plan into motion to move up my moving-to-North-Carolina date and getting as many of our ducks in a row as possible. I eventually quit my job and moved 3 months earlier than we had planned, and it was a good thing we did. Once here, we began shopping for a construction loan for the house we wanted to build, only to confirm that money lending was, indeed, tight. Rates were good, but you couldn’t actually borrow money unless you didn’t need it. Fortunately, we found a lender who would fund the construction loan and we closed it in early September.

Two weeks later, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. filed the largest bankruptcy in history, and Bank of America agreed to acquire Merrill Lynch for about $50 billion. The next day, AGI accepts an $85 billion loan from the Fed to avert the worst financial collapse in history, and the government takes over the company.

All mortgage lending screeched to a halt.

If we hadn’t seen it coming, we would have never closed our construction loan and started construction on the home we built and live in. It took us another two years after we completed the house years to get a mortgage.

I’m telling you this story to show you that I thought I was able to realistically see what is happening in the realm of the economy, not because I’m smarter than anyone else, but because I was willing to look a the facts and step out of denial. Gave me some real credibility, right?

Wrong.

While all of this was happening, I was also seeing all of these other system starting to collapse as well and how they were essentially all tied together., and came to the conclusion that not only was the economic system in deep trouble, but the systems around energy and the environment were also failing. So I began talking to my friends, family, and my neighbors about what I was, and am, seeing.
As I was talking with them, urging them put away some emergency food, cash, get out debt, begin the emotional work that these times would require, More often than not, I could see either a glazing over of their eyes, or recoil at the horror that I could be suggesting that the way we’ve been living our lives was about to change. Some said they didn’t want to hear negative talk or fear-mongering (see my article on “Whose Fear Is It, Anyway?“), some just quietly drifted away, and most just ignored us and thought we were crazy. One person said they did want to go into a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) food share with us because they didn’t want my negativity all over their food.
We were deeply shocked at the level of denial that the vast majority of people exhibited, and there’s one thing we learned about talking to friends and family:

You can’t.

Honestly, I wish I had a better answer for you, but I don’t. I do have some suggestions for you that can possibly open the door for conversations with people that won’t leave you vulnerable and exposed. After all, if your friends or family had information that could affect your economic well-being, wouldn’t you want to know? How would you feel if, after the fact, you found out someone knew this was coming and didn’t tell you?

What I suggest is that you ask them is, “Have you seen this movie?” There are two movies I suggest. One is, “Collapse” with Michael C. Ruppert, an ex-LA Police Detective who discovered LAPD’s—and the federal Government’s—connection to drug smuggling into the US, and eventually had to quit because of the high levels of corruption he uncovered. The other is Chris Martensen’s 45-minute video presentation, Crash Course, a summary of his 3-1/2 hour 20-part Crash Course. These are both introductions into the world of change that we’ve already stepped into.

Don’t give them all of this information. Just tell them you saw this video you really liked, and that they should watch it. Then say if they’d like to talk to you about after they’ve seen it, you’d be happy to. That’s it! Don’t say anything else.

If they watch it and come back to to talk, great! You’ve opened the door to their awareness and done them a favor. If they don’t come back, they’ll just wonder what you saw in such a negative and paranoid piece, and you’ve done all you can without exposing yourself.

Now you can go on about your life knowing you’ve pretty much done what you can, and that . for whatever reason, they just don’t share your worldview.

Good luck!

How Prepared Are You? Get Your Prepper Score

First of all, you should know that every keystroke you make on your computer keyboard is recorded by your ISP and is available to the FBI, the NSA, the DHS, your local police department, and maybe a half-dozen super-secret government organizations you never heard of, and they want to know everything you’re doing. Whether you know it or not, everyone in the U.S. lives in a police state and is under virtual surveillance by the Feds. Why? Because they are scared shitless of us, and that’s what empires do when they start to fail. ...read more at Collapsing into Consciousness

Frail Grasp on the Big Picture

From the Eagles’ album Long Road out of Eden

I’ve been an Eagles fan from the first time I heard them backing up Linda Ronstadt, and my passion for their music continues to grow right up to their latest album, Long Road out of Eden. Released in 2007, it’s a mix of country, rock and pop songs, and the demise of America.

Say what?

Yep. nearly six years in production and the seventh studio album from the band—the first since the Long Run in 1979—this is also a brutal album that captures the essence of the zeitgeist and sociopolitical distress, with several tracks that could have been the soundtrack for the movie, The Road.

The title song, Long Road out of Eden, is a haunting call for pulling the troops out of Iraq and the metaphor of Eden as the western world. Apparently told from the perspective of a soldier who sees the hypocrisy, the lyrics cry “Weavin’ down the American highway/Through the litter and the wreckage and the cultural junk/Bloated with entitlement, loaded on propaganda/Now we’re drivin’ dazed and drunk.”

Another powerful song—the title of this article—seems to tell the story from the perspective of so many who have been lulled asleep, bought off by creature comforts and the illusions of freedom and patriotism….and the lyrics tell it all:

And we pray to our Lord
Who we know is American
He reigns from on high
He speaks to us through middlemen

And He shepherds His flock
We sing out and we praise His name
He supports us in war
He presides over football games

And the right will prevail
All our troubles shall be resolved
We have faith in the Lord
Unless there’s money or sex involved

What a sad state we’ve reached, and while it would be easy to step into one of the first four stages of Kubler-Ross’ Five Stages of Grief, an awakened person sees this as an opportunity to build something new and for us to do better. That’s what I’m talkin’ about.

Read more: THE EAGLES – FRAIL GRASP ON THE BIG PICTURE LYRICS

This article was cross-posted at Collapsing Into Conciousness

California's--and Liberalism's--Make it or Break it Opportunity

California has a Golden Opportunity to Prove Liberalism Works---or Not.

A strange thing happened in California last week: Democrats gained control of both the state's legislature and the state's governorship at the same time, and conservatives are already warning about what a disaster that will be, but will it? 

The 2012 elections have revealed several things: that the country is becoming more liberal, that the conservative approach of trying to pit us against one another isn't working, and that changing national demographics have resulted in the republican party being labeled as the "party of old white men" (as an old white guy I resent this!). This repudiation of prejudicial and radical conservative views should be a lesson for liberals and progressives in places like California, because the pendulum swings as a result of the failures of whatever political party happens to in control at the moment.

One reason the Republican Party has fallen so hard, is not because there isn't value in conservatism, but because they forgot that---despite its flaws---there's also value in liberalism. But part of the conservative plan to dominate politics was the creation of what they called "the culture wars," a construct designed to separate the country into "us vs. them."

"What’s most amazing is that these very issues that once helped to rally conservatives to the polls and “vote against their economic interests” are now more effective in drawing liberals to the polls. Social conservatism has been increasingly marginalized in American society and politicians are gaining much less traction pushing these issues. The passage of two marijuana legalization measures – in Colorado and Washington – and referendum support for gay marriage in four states shows that the days of GOP culture war wedge issues is coming to an end." (link)

The right---not the "far" right---has considerable soul searching to do. If the Republican Party refuses to move away from the vitriolic hate speech of the Limbaughs and the Hannity's, getting rid of the neanderthals that have dominated the party up until now, they will continue to lose relevance with the culture shift---younger, less white, and more liberal---happening in the country, and it will be caused by the very issue of fear and hatred they've been running on. Time's up. Change or die, because this is just the beginning. 

"If someone believes Barack Obama is a socialist, Communist, Marxist, Muslim, radical, black liberation theologian, non-citizen, illegitimate president or Manchurian Candidate, forget about him. He may have a shot at a career in talk radio, but he's not going to make it in California politics." (link)

So back to California. California has a golden opportunity to prove that conscious liberalism---not political correctness or the mindless egalitarianism that says all opinions carry equal weight---but a liberalism that is mature enough to recognize the value of differing opinions, of the value of following rules, the value of creating abundance as opposed to greed, and providing real value to all of California's citizens. Because if the new supermajorities in California government are tantamount to handing your teenager a credit card, the checkbook, and the keys to a car that will take them to an all-night orgy, they will be replaced---if there's anything left.

Get smart, California. Prove liberalism works, because we'll all know if it doesn't... and as California goes, so goes the nation.

Collapsing into Consciousness

I'm writing this on election Day, Nov. 6th, 2012, while wondering which authoritarian corporate warmonger will wind up "leading" the country for the next four years.

Yes, you're reading that right. I'm done voting for the lesser of two evils, because even a vote for "the lesser" is still a vote for evil. I'm also thinking about The East Coast and the aftermath of Sandy, the Superstorm, hoping that the suffering of so many will lessen soon, and that things will return to normal as soon as possible. Silly me...things will never return to "normal." We---us, the nation, the world---have passed the point where things will never be "normal" again.

I also wonder how so many people in New York and New Jersey find them selves without food, water, gas for generators, and so much more after being warned about what was coming ten days in advance; why they chose to ignore the warnings and did not do even the smallest amount of preparation? 

Are we so locked in denial and our arrogance that we simply refuse to believe these things could happen to us and our communities? I wonder how many people---perhaps even you reading this---now see the "frankenstorm" as a wake-up call to do at least 3 weeks of "prepping" for whatever might come along?

We are now going through a remarkable time in humankind's history and we are being asked---no, challenged---to wake up on all fronts: emotionally, spiritually, physically, and intellectually. Our survival depends on it. We are being challenged to evolve, and evolve we must, or we will perish. We won't be the first. Several versions of Hominids---we're a Hominid---have gone extinct on the planet.

The evolution of our species is the only thing that can save us. It has become painfully obvious that Einstein was correct when he said, "“You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created.” Our problems are overwhelming us.

On that cheery note, I'm creating a new website called "Collapsing into Consciousness," a member-based forum---with free sections---to help people learn how to take care of themselves and others. The forum membership pages will be broken down into categories and, ideally, each category will be managed by someone who is an expert or a very knowledgeable person in that category. Some of the topics the forums will include are Sustainability Memes, Evolutionary Metaphysics, Community, Resilience, Prepping, Economics, Energy, Environment, and much, much more, all designed to help conscious individuals to get more conscious while learning how to navigate what's already begun. As soon as the website is up---in the next month or two---I'll be inviting others to participate by being forum managers, and once we have those in place, we'll go live.

In the meantime, here's a gift for you to get started:
TEN STEPS TOWARD COLLAPSING INTO CONSCIOUSNESS

1. Build your internal bunker: The new world will present unprecedented emotional and spiritual challenges. We need to do our inner work, especially around shadow.
2. Physical preparedness: Don't underestimate the logistical challenges. Start now if you haven't already. Work on becoming resilient and self-sustaining. Are you where you need to be?
3. Get out of debt: Debt and our current financial system is designed to keep you enslaved. Take control of your finances.
4. Get local: Think globally, act locally, especially around food and community.
5. Commit to simplicity: Evaluate your possessions and determine what you'll need and what will be a burden. We all have too much crap, anyway.
6. Commit to establishing relationships that support your preparation.
7. Commit to your relationship with your physical body: Some sort of daily exercise or movement. Get in shape.
8. Develop the practices of kindness and gratitude: They will come back to you.
9. Create something beautiful every single day: In service to life and each other.
10. Speak up: because your soul knows what's right.
 
This article appears in the November 2012 Integral Warrior newsletter.

The Matrix Today

A New Future is Evoving....

A Dismal Array of Local Candidates

Jackson County Candidate Forum:
Why all the candidates were pretty much pathetic

I attended our local Candidate's Night Forum on Monday Night, October 15th, at the new Jackson County Public Library. Sponsored on by The Smoky News, The Canary Coalition, The League of Women Voters, and the local Occupy WNC group, I was the assistant moderator at the forum which basically meant I pretty much had nothing to do but listen.

I originally wrote a slightly different version of this post as a Letter to the Editor of the Smoky Mountain News, but since they declined to publish it, I've decided to post on my blog and then tag the hell out if it so it can get picked up locally as much as possible. If you're local, too, you can help get it out there so as many people as possible see it.

Starting at the end, let me state that when the debate was over, I left with the feeling of being terribly let down and disappointed by candidates on both sides of the political paradigm. I thought to myself, “how do we navigate all of the critical problems that we face in Jackson County, North Carolina, and the nation, with the extreme lack of critical thinking, mediocrity, dogmatism, and simple lack of knowledge displayed at the forum by these candidates? This was the best we could do?

In fairness, neither Mark Meadows or Hayden Rogers, candidates for US House of Representative District NC11, bothered to show up. Below, I’ve chosen a couple of examples and am including who I think made the most egregious statements and responses during the evening. There were, unfortunately, many more. 

The first was Senator Jim Davis’ statement claiming Obama gutted Medicare by taking $717 billion out of it to fund Obamacare. This is a statement that was debunked when both Romney and Ryan made it in their respective debates. Independent fact checker Factcheck.org says that’s simply not true. The law stipulates that “guaranteed Medicare benefits won't be reduced, and it adds some new benefits, such as improved coverage for pharmaceuticals." But some Republican politicians, like Romney, Ryan, and apparently Davis, never let the facts get in their way and are claiming the money has already been taken. I will give Senator Davis the benefit of the doubt thinking he may not know this and is just be repeating party rhetoric, but that would be almost as bad. We should all demand integrity from those who represent us. Although I was born into a democratic family, I’ll take a republican with integrity over a Democrat without it anytime…and visa-versa. Ask yourself where your moral compass is on that one. Are you willing to win at all costs, including not telling the truth?

On the other side---the Democrats, particularly John Snow, Davis’ Democrat opponent---failed miserably, much like President Obama in the first debate by not calling out Senator Davis about this gross misrepresentation.  Here was an opportunity to use Reagan’s famous line by saying, “well, there you go again.” Snow seemed out of his league, vague, somewhat confused, and did not carry himself with a confidence that would inspire even some Democrats to vote for him. For example, when the subject of GMO food labeling came up and Davis said that he had been eating genetically modified food for years and he was still living, and added, “I think we have so many other things to worry about, that that is way down on my list,” Snow simply said, “I agree with him.” 

Both of these candidates showed a complete lack of knowledge and understanding about a very serious multi-tiered problem that threatens people from corporate corruption and fascism, to extreme health and crop problems that are beginning to show up. The list of countries that have and are banning GMO foods is rising almost weekly. Apparently, neither candidate has seen the scientific study showing GMO tumors on subject rats fed GMO foods or they are ignoring it. One candidate shows disdain for those of us who are concerned about our food supply and the other isn’t knowledgeable or quick-witted enough to turn that easily-lobbed softball into a run. The Democrats also missed several opportunities to talk about the actual dangers of fracking to our precious and rapidly dwindling clean water supply, instead choosing to amaze us with, “I’m against it.”

NC house Candidate Joe Sam Queen spent much of the evening sounding as if he had lost his compass, and in typical liberal fashion, seemed like he wasn’t sure which direction he should head. I liked Queen, but have to admit that, even though he probably made more sense than any of the other candidates, he did little to inspire confidence. Queen’s opponent, House candidate Mike Clampitt kept making references to his religious perspectives and how they guided him, in a way that made me question if he might be ingenuously playing to that part of the voter spectrum. 

All of the candidates pretty much stuck to the simplistic talking points of their party and were pro-growth and pro jobs, for that, the audience was the loser. There was a clear lack of unique problem solving from either side of the traditional right and left political spectrum, and this, in light of the tremendous problems we face, locally, nationally, and globally, is pretty sad. Paraphrasing Einstein, it was clear from the evening that the level of thinking that was trying to solve our state and local problems, is the same level of thinking that got us there in the first place. We’ve got to do better.

Maybe it's time to start running a new breed of candidates.

You can watch the entire painful debate here:

"Trance-Formation", the Movie

I don't know if you're familiar with Max Igan...but he's an incredibly talented film maker who is apparently the genius behind a powerful documentary movie called Trance-Formation. Max Igan is a pen-name and you can find out a little more about him here. He apparently wants to remain anonymous. But I'm not writing to talk about Max Igan, I'm here to talk about his amazing movie. First, it is extremely well done with top notch special effects, graphics, music, and quality.

Trance-Formation is an important and brilliant movie that pulls "the big picture" together....It's about the creation of a new "meme" and the splitting of the world. For those of you who aren't familiar with the term "meme," it is largely defined as "an idea, behavior or style that spreads from person to person within a culture" and "is an idea that behaves like a virus--that moves through a population, taking hold in each person it infects. In a broader sense, and how it is eventually described in the movie, Igan's "meme" becomes a cultural movement and is a creation that results in the next really big evolutionary step for humankind: The Trans-Human.

Only, aspects of trans-humanism, as Igan powerfully points out, are not likely to be a good thing.

The last time humankind made an evolutionary leap of this magnitude, other hominids disappeared from the planet.

The "splitting" of the world comes from what are now are the beginning stages of what is called "Trans-Humanism." From Wikipedia, Trans-Humanism is "an international intellectual and cultural movement that affirms the possibility and desirability of fundamentally transforming the human condition by developing and making widely available technologies to eliminate aging and to greatly enhance human intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities.Transhumanist thinkers study the potential benefits and dangers of emerging technologies that could overcome fundamental human limitations, as well as study the ethical matters involved in developing and using such technologies. They predict that human beings may eventually be able to transform themselves into beings with such greatly expanded abilities as to merit the label "posthuman."

Transhumanism is largely promoted by thinkers like Ray Kurzweil, who popularized the term, "The Singularity," which describes the moment artificial intelligence overtakes human intelligence. Scoffed at by many scientists who say the human brain is too complex for this to happen, transhumanism combines supercomputers with the neural paths of the brain, bridging this limitation.

Think that's the stuff of science fiction? See my comment at the end of this article.

Part of the premise of the movie is that it would very easy for "someone" to take control of people who are"enhanced" posthumans, resulting in a totalitarianism that George Orwell and Aldous Huxley could only hint at. Another aspect of transhumanism probably well-known to many of you is what would result in the complete subjugation and dominance of nature. In fact, one of the arguments for transhumanism is that, using this technology to its ultimate expression, we can create "God" and  an earth-community of permanent peace. They would do this through implanted computer chips and ports integrated into the human bio-system and getting your dogs and now your children to accept this technology through fear. There are already people who are willing to get chip transplants so they can process the internet faster. Advocates are also doing it by geo-engineering theough GMO foods, TV, chemtrail exposure, nano-bots (see Morgellons Disease) and more.

There will be those who choose not to be enhanced, and another premise the movie is that these non-enhanced humans could become the modern day equivalent of the neanderthal and may very well go extinct. Not that far out as we recall what man has done to more primitive cultures all over the planet.

What transhumanism advocates probably get--and fear--is that we humans are about to reach the capacity to touch God and to become a peaceful planet, but it's just so much more in their interest to give everyone a techno-lobotomy, and convince them that they're happy, knowing their place is to serve...but serve who? The masters of the planet, the Powers That Be, the Elite. But wait, won't they--and their children--be affected, too? Yes, but they want to become posthuman, with them in charge of the rest of us who do their bidding without complaining or questioning.

What can we do about this? We need as many people to wake up as possible, do their work, and become the shift, the transition, shifting naturally into a posthuman-like consciousness that can prevent this from happening . It is definitely time for us to grow up. Now. Can that happen? In time? That is a very big question.

This is an age-old story that is continuing to play out today in the form of a dominating hierarchy that wants to subdue and control nature and the universe--and the rest of us--and we play right into it because we're experts at creating technologies that we don't have the wisdom to control.

Hmmm...humans vs. the transhumans...the choice of which way to go is a soul choice.

Welcome to the Borg.

Top Ten Transhumanist Movies 

Enhanced TV