all roads now lead to transmutation

Amazing Hypnosis Makes You High

The Troublesome Paradox of "The Secret"

the field center
Explains the Paradox
of the "The Secret"

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I've had numerous emails asking me to comment on The Secret, the latest and massively popular New Age offering (available as a best-selling book and a DVD movie) on how consciousness allegedly can be used to attract health, love, and prosperity.

First off, one has to hand it to Rhonda Byrne and the crew at Prime Time Productions, who put together this collection of New Age wisdom on the subject, for their keen sense of what would appeal to a mass audience. The packaging is unquestionably first-rate.

Even a cursory reading of the book, however, reveals that it offers no secret at all, but only a reheated collection of the same instruction that's been available in the New Age literature since the 70s on a cultural scale, and since the 1800s and early 1900s somewhat less visibly in the work of New Thought writers such as Phineas Quimby, Emma Curtis Hopkins, Charles and Myrtle Fillmore, Ernest Holmes, Florence Scovel Shinn, Emmett Fox, and others.

The essence of this teaching, to which Field training takes exception, is that one can, through visualizing or using affirmations or prayer or otherwise embodying a consciousness of fulfillment, create corresponding conditions in the world.

Note that Field training does not deny that the outer world corresponds to the inner, but points out that one cannot use this "Law of Correspondence" by setting out to use it. There is an element of paradox built into the principle that Field training regards as central, and which the various New Age offerings on the subject, including The Secret, miss.

This paradoxical element becomes obvious once it's stated, but it is nearly invisible until then: If our belief creates reality, and we seek to create, say, prosperity, then it is unavoidable that we must already be believing in a lack of prosperity (else why would we set out to try to create it?) and this belief casts the vote of our faith, as it were, mobilizing the Law of Correspondence against our desire.

It should be apparent that any attempt to use consciousness to solve a problem presupposes believing in the problem. Therein lies the paradox.

The idea that we can create conditions through consciousness techniques is nearly irresistible to anyone who has suspected that our inner life and our outer life are mysteriously commingled, but those who have made the experiment have learned quickly and sometimes the hard way that desire alone is not creative, and that visualizations and affirmations fail as a rule to have any creative effect on the world, which seems to roll on indifferent to our fantasies.

We can want something with every atom of our being, we can visualize and affirm it till the cows come home, and still find the universe unresponsive.

Of course, writing a book that tells us otherwise, that fosters and perpetuates the popular misconception that we can have, say, prosperity at the same time that we're believing in its absence and consequently the need to create it—writing such a book may well fulfill the author's expectation of prosperity, because there will always be a huge market for the idea that we can have what we want simply by wanting it, that "wishing will make it so," but in such cases, the authors have made use of something like a pyramid scheme.

As long as these writers can keep "selling" the idea, prosperity follows surely enough for them, but the tab ultimately is passed to those at the bottom of the pyramid who run out of customers, and are left wondering why this seems to work for others while they can't get results.

I don't say that the authors of these books are doing this intentionally. My guess is that they got excited about an idea and mean well, but this is the effect nonetheless.

The fallback position for the New Age's mistaken approach to conscious creating has been essentially the same as the fundamentalist's, who infers from the failure of prayer that we must not have had enough faith.

So, the New Age practitioner may wonder or even worry what he "did wrong" when the universe fails to deliver the goods.

It doesn't occur to him that the whole model is wrong, that the Law of Correspondence (also called Law of Assumption, Law of Attraction, Law of Creation, Law of Mental Equivalents, etc.) is elegant and unfailing but also in this sense ruthlessly thorough and efficient, and that he overlooked something essential, viz., that what we get in life corresponds not to what we want but to who we are.

The person who believes he lacks prosperity sufficiently to be trying to create prosperity uses the law perfectly, and ends up with more lack, though this was not his aim.

Here, then is the paradox: We cannot use the Law of Creation to create anything. We can, however, assume the identity we desire for its own sake, that is, solely for the sake of the inner fulfillment.

Paradox requires that practice stop there. Anyone who could practice this far and no further would find the Law delightfully surprising him, and at that point indeed would have discovered a great secret.

A few weeks ago, I received an angry email from someone who had visited the Field Center site, looked at our "how we're different" chart, and accused me of saying that other models "suck" as he put it.

Most of what he found upsetting, I never said and wouldn't. But even responding charitably, I don't see anything wrong with stating that one approach is better, more revealing, more thorough, or more useful if it really is. And we don't just allege this; we explain why.

Furthermore, we don't claim that Field training is the model. It's a model, certainly not for everyone. That said, nearly every student who has come to Field training came from some New Age approach that, in the end, had not "worked."

What Field training gave these students was an entirely different standard for what counts as "working" when it comes to deliberately taking on the great adventure of living consciously, complete with its creative implications.

It taught them that, as we say endlessly, "the aim of practice is alignment, not manifestation." It taught them to recognize, appreciate, enjoy, and work with the paradox of consciousness-as-cause.

And it freed them from the pervasive and obviously still very popular misunderstanding that we can have anything in the world that we haven't earned by right of identity.

Instead, through their willingness to look beyond the popular model, they saw firsthand that identity is the generative force of creation, that what we want also wants something of us, that we cannot have anything we believe we lack, and that we cannot make an end run around these living principles through pretending, visualizing, repeating affirmations, or any other strategy.

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"The Secret" - Part 2

Last week, on 25 June, the Associated Press ran this story:

"The Secret: Big Sales, Loud Criticism.

Here's an excerpt: "While The Secret has become a pop culture phenomenon, it also has drawn critics who are not quiet about labeling the movement a fad, embarrassingly materialistic or the latest example of an American propensity of wanting something for nothing.

Some medical professionals suggest it could even lead to a blame-the-victim mentality and actually be dangerous to those suffering from serious illness or mental disorders.

As with many publishing hits, the 'Oprah Effect' played a role.

Winfrey devoted two shows in February to The Secret, and Larry King and Ellen DeGeneres also featured it on their shows.

It was spoofed on Saturday Night Live when a man portraying a refugee in the Darfur region of Sudan was blamed for having negative thoughts.

However, the fear that The Secret will lead to a blame-the-victim mentality is a serious claim of critics.

For example, the book dismisses conditions such as a genetic predisposition to being overweight or a slow thyroid as 'disguises for thinking "fat thoughts."' And during times in which massive number of lives were lost, the book says, the 'frequency of their thoughts matched the frequency of the event.'

So, according to The Secret, the victims of the Holocaust were responsible for their extermination, the rape victim is asking for it, and the people in Darfur are being murdered because of negative thinking.

You see, this is a prime example of the sort of oversimplifications and confusions typical of the New Age approach to consciousness-as-cause, and one that Field training regards as particularly egregious and shameless.

Our response when asked how we explain the Holocaust and other calamitous or tragic events is that we don't. We recognize that decency places a limit on how far theory can or should be willing to go, and we don't speculate about the experiences of people who are not present to take part in the conversation and present their experience firsthand.

We don't preserve our theoretical model at their expense.

It is true that many who have come through Field training who endured and survived such experiences found that they were not beyond the reach of Field practice to revise and redeem, and that the principles applied even in such severe cases, but this was their call to make, not ours, and this is perhaps why our program doesn't appear either on Oprah or Saturday Night Live.

The great mistake of The Secret and the many models, some of them far more rigorous and thoughtful, is the failure to recognize and incorporate paradox and what we call the "dialectic" into its principles and practices.

As stated in Part 1 of this piece, believing in a problem sufficiently to set about "consciously creating" its solution already places one in a position of checkmate. The game is over, because belief, not willful intent, not visualizing, not prayer, not affirmations, not wishing or hoping or knowing "the secret" is what creates.

This has a far-reaching implication, namely that we cannot use our creative consciousness to create conditions.

We can, however, believe in the desired conditions for their own sake, or as we say, for the sake of alignment rather than manifestation.

This is where practice must stop.

This is the oasis in a desert of contradiction to which we banish our practice the moment we allow it to be strategic.

And this indeed appears to be something of a secret.

At least the New Age doesn't seem to know about it.

This essential element of paradox—this is one of the first things we give our students, and it changes their view of who they are, of what it means to be conscious and creative, and as a result, their lives in many ways, all for the better.

There is no "secret" that will bring us to anything that we do not earn through the willingness to live up to the version of self to which that thing corresponds, and moreover, to live up to it for its own sake.

Conscious creating, it turns out, is an act of love, an act of giving the self to the ideal rather than trying to get things from the world.

We cannot escape the assumptions of our own consciousness.

When the creative moment is entered into lovingly rather than for some desired effect, then and only then are we operating at the level of cause. This means that it isn't enough for us to visualize and such.

We have to become the thing we want, until all experience of lack has vanished in the joy of our having come home to our ideal.

Then, as far as we're concerned, the world can come along or not.

And the one who practices this way will discover a great secret indeed.


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the field center

Deliberate Intent and Hidden Messages in Water

:)

Sex on television can't hurt you unless you fall off.
Anonymous

Remember, if you smoke after sex you're doing it too fast.
Woody Allen

Ducking for apples - change one letter and it's the story of my life.
Dorothy Parker

There is nothing wrong with going to bed with someone of your own sex. People should be very free with sex, they should draw the line at goats.
Elton John

Olbermann Finally Critical of Obama's FISA Stance

Senator Barack Obama's announcement that he would be supporting the Congressional "compromise" on expanding wireless wiretapping and giving the telecom companies retroactive immunity has created fierce arguments in the liberal wing of the Democratic party over whether Obama's "move to the center" is a necessary strategy for the general election or a pointless sellout on a core issue.

Last week, blogger Glenn Greenwald fiercely attacked MSNBC's Keith Olbermann over his praise of Obama for "refusing to cower even to the left," setting off an online argunment that raged between them for several days, drawing in other bloggers and even former Watergate figure, John Dean.

In a Special Comment delivered on Monday's Countdown, Olbermann attempted to find a middle ground in the dispute, suggesting that "the Democratic leadership in the Senate, Republican knuckle-dragging in the same chamber, and the mediocre skills of whoever wrote the final version of the FISA bill have combined to give Sen. Barack Obama a second chance to make a first impression. And he damned well better take it."

"It would be sweet to have a pure, politics-free president, but the last of those retired from office in 1797," Olbermann noted sourly. "Inside that obscenity that was Charlie Black's comment about how a terrorist attack in this country would be 'good' -- good for his boy McCain's chances for election ... there is a sad and cynical reality. The Republicans can scare some of the people all of the time and they can scare all the people some of the time. This is all they are right now."

"Senator, the Republicans are going to paint you as soft on terror no matter how you vote on FISA," Olbermann continued, addressing Obama directly. "This political tight-rope act that you've tried on FISA the last two weeks, which from the outside seems to have been intended to increase the chances of your election, probably hasn't helped that chance in the slightest."

Olbermann then pointed out that there is a loophole in the FISA legislation, since it immunizes the telecoms only from civil liability, leaving them and administration officials subject to criminal prosecution. He advised that Obama should vote for the FISA bill, but after its passage he should "say, loudly, that your understanding of this bill is such, that if you are elected, your Attorney General will begin a full-scale criminal investigation of the telecom companies."

"Explain that you are standing aside on civil immunity," concluded Olbermann, "not just for political expediency, but for a greater and more tangible good: the holding to account of the most corrupt, the most dangerous, and the most anti-democracy presidential administration in our long history. ... The Republicans are going to call you the names any which way, Senator. They're going to cry regardless, Senator. And as the old line goes: Give them something to cry about."

In a post on Tuesday morning, Glenn Greenwald saw much to approve of in Olbermann's Special Comment, noting that "in general, Olbermann's commentary about Obama's FISA position was much more critical, in both senses of the word. Still, there are numerous, glaring flaws with the fantasy that Obama will criminally prosecute telecoms."

Greenwald also emphasized that "the FISA bill is dangerous and destructive for reasons having nothing to do with the telecom immunity provisions (i.e., the warrantless eavesdropping powers it vests in the president)." He then went on to list half a dozen different ways in which Obama has repudiated his base since securing the Democratic nomination in early June.

"There is no question, at least to me, that having Obama beat McCain is vitally important," Greenwald concluded. "But so, too, is the way that victory is achieved and what Obama advocates and espouses along the way. ... Electing Barack Obama is a very important political priority but it isn't the only one there is, and his election is less likely, not more likely, the more homage he pays to these these tired, status-quo-perpetuating Beltway pieties."

A full transcript of Olbermann's remarks is available here.

source

This video is from MSNBC's Countdown, broadcast June 30, 2008.

Gonzo: The Life and Work of HST

This new documentary from the Oscar-winning director of Taxi to the Dark Side takes a look at the life and times of Hunter S. Thompson.

Johnny Depp, who portrayed Thompson in the 1998 film Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas narrates the story which aims to show how Thompson's unconventional lifestyle and worldview led to the invention of gonzo journalism.





The trailer looks
insanely fascinating
and paints
a bigger picture
of Thompson's life
than the
drug-addled boozer
he's generally
portrayed
to be.




From the movie's web site:

The film addresses the major touchstones in Thompson's life — his intense and ill-fated relationship with the Hell's Angels, his near-successful bid for the office of sheriff in Aspen in 1970, the notorious story behind the landmark Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, his deep involvement in Senator George McGovern’s 1972 presidential campaign, and much more.

source

The movie will open July 4.




Thanks to Kevin @ for bringing this
to my attention.

Meet the Mandingos

They're gentlemen in the street, thugs in the bedroom, and your wife's steamiest fantasy.
-By Sanjiv Bhattacharya


Jeff didn't always like black guys. He was prejudiced—he admits it. As one of the few white kids at his school in the southeast of Washington, D.C., he fought a lot with black kids and was occasionally beaten up. When he later ran a string of gas stations, he was robbed: A black guy held a gun to his head and pulled the trigger—but the gun didn't go off.

It's a measure of how far he's come that Jeff (not his real name), now 40, is telling me this while we're watching a black guy have sex with his wife, Amber (not her real name), 37, at an interracial orgy. In Jeff's house. On his bed. The man screwing Jeff's wife is Branford (not his real name), a 30-year-old massage therapist who's not holding back—this isn't lovemaking, this is a proper pounding. Forget Amber—that's just how Jeff likes it.

In some ways, Jeff hasn't changed at all—he's the same football jock with small eyes, a wide head, and a big man's shyness; he's still a staunch Republican with a firm handshake and a solid golf game. But after surviving the holdup and two failed marriages, he set off in search of a new life. He moved from D.C. to Clearwater, Florida, where he sells mortgages, not gas. He bought a $700,000 home on a fairway of a country club, where he's yet to see a single black member. And he met Amber, a divorcée with a sag of victimhood on her face. Jeff and Amber have been married for three years and in "the lifestyle"—as swingers like to call it—for two. At one point Amber started talking about black guys. "I wasn't thrilled," says Jeff. "Nope, wasn't a fan." But she persisted, and he decided to go along. "I like seeing Amber get off," he says with a shrug. "It excites the hell out of me. And it's better if they're black. All Amber wants is sex. Black guys get that. And I know that Amber would never date a black man."

Jeff's casual bigotry aside, tonight's orgy is fairly typical. Amber's two boys, 11 and 13, have been shipped off to their grandparents' house, and their rooms have been suitably modified—the posters are off the walls, the clothes have been put away, and the lightbulbs have been changed to red. By 8 p.m., the incense is lit, the Jacuzzi's bubbling, and the DJ is spinning Sean Paul and Jay-Z by the swimming pool. Within an hour or so, the guests—23 white couples and 3 black couples—have arrived, all of them here specifically to have sex with single black men often a decade or two their junior. There are 12 such men in the house tonight. They call themselves Mandingos. And this is a Mandingo party.


In the wake of the Hurricane Katrina fiasco and the killing of Sean Bell, an unarmed black man, by police officers in New York last November, America's relationship with race—notwithstanding the enthusiasm surrounding Barack Obama's bid for the presidency—remains troubled. For the Mandingos, meanwhile, the parties continue. The man who arranged tonight's event, Art Hammer (a name he uses solely for Mandingo parties), started the Florida Mandingo group four years ago, just after his divorce. An enterprising 42-year-old black swinger from Tampa Bay, he has since become the go-to guy when it comes to organizing gang bangs and orgies for couples—the vast majority of whom are white—with a fetish for black men. So it was Hammer who sent the Evites for this "pajamas and lingerie" party and secured the attendance of the guests; it was also Hammer who booked the DJ, paid for the finger food, and brought the "courtesy condoms." Amber and Jeff just had to open their home. An advertising-sales guy by day, Hammer has done a bang-up job of marketing the Mandingos among the swinger set. The name Mandingo comes from Mandinka, a West African tribe that, in the antebellum South, was prized and bred for strength and virility. (Not that Hammer necessarily has Mandinka roots; he has no idea—"I'm Art Hammer," he says. "Not Art Haley.") Mandingo is now a byword for black male sexual prowess. When Hammer established the Florida Mandingos, two other (unaffiliated) groups—the So Cal Mandingos and the NYC Mandingos—were already up and running. Today new groups keep sprouting—in Atlanta, Chicago, Oakland—but Hammer's is the most prominent, the only Mandingo group invited to host a "Chocolate Fantasy Suite" at N'awlins in November, the second-biggest swinger convention in the country.

"The fantasy goes both ways," he explains. "The women get to fuck our guys while their husbands watch, and we get to fuck rich white women, really mutt 'em out. It works! But people in this lifestyle are affluent—I'm talking judges, CEOs, FBI agents, important people—so before they invite a bunch of black men into their homes, they want to know they're safe, they're not going to get robbed, and everyone is discreet. So that's what I provide—a gentleman in the street and a thug in the bedroom."

Hammer's "A-team" comprises 20 of the more than 100 single black men on his books; many of them are here tonight. "They have to have at least eight inches, and most have a college degree. They have to be able to role-play, and most important of all, they have to be gentlemen. It's the difference between Notre Dame, where you're a student-athlete, and the University of Oklahoma, where you're an athlete-student. We don't just take jocks."

"Honestly, that experience helped me a lot," he says. "I used to be very conservative. I didn't spend much money. Now I enjoy life. I'm much more open. Especially sexually."
Hammer is a model Mandingo, if a little old. Chipper and Ivy League-educated, he was raised on Long Island and served with the Special Forces. Almost half of the Mandingos at the party are ex-military men. There's also an accountant, an engineer, and a software developer, all in their early thirties. The youngest, Charles (not his real name), is 25 and a second-year law student. While they all uphold a strict standard of behavior, their individual opinions of these parties vary widely. Oddly, the crassest among them is the oldest, John, 47 (ex-Air Force, now a software salesman). Ever since his divorce went through in 2003, after some 20 years of marriage, he has been relishing his opportunity to "sling dick" without any responsibility. "Couples, for me, are perfect," he says. "There's no girlfriend-boyfriend shit. You keep her when I'm done—thank you very much. No valentines, no birthday. I'm a pig."

By contrast, Jared (not his real name), 36 (a car and pet-cleaning-equipment salesman who's in the Army Reserve), likes to write poetry and refrains from using words like pussy and fuck. He describes interracial orgies as a "heightening experience," proof that prejudice may be on the wane. "I find the yin and yang of the two colors mixing very erotic," he says. "I believe the world is looking beyond color now more than ever. And people are getting more attractive. Sexier people are having more babies. Look around!"


It's not clear where Jared is looking. These women resemble Kathy Bates more than they do Kathy Ireland. As they hover around the snacks on the kitchen island, the Mandingos mill among them in silk pajamas. And almost instantly, while the women's mild-mannered husbands chat about real estate and the PGA, the games begin. Hands rove from chicken wings to breasts, from chips to hips, from guac to cock. One couple grind by the sink and feed each other meatballs. Husbands and wives start slinking off with their chosen Mandingos. The party has begun its carnal ebb and flow, between nookie in the bedrooms and foreplay in the kitchen.

Hammer himself won't have sex tonight out of principle—the swinger equivalent of "don't get high on your own supply." He's the host here and a diligent one, always circulating and making introductions—he's the one who knows everyone's sexual predilections. Meanwhile, Jeff will manage to squeeze in two brief blow jobs before the night is over. The rest of the time he seems to be cleaning up empties and replacing trash bags. He's an obsessively tidy man—"my OCD husband," Amber calls him affectionately.


"No one's having sex on the sofas," he says, looking pleased. "I left the throw cushions on to encourage people to use the bedrooms—a little something I learned at the last party. Especially because we've got a couple of squirters here tonight. You don't want that on the microfiber. Not good."

Watching the Mandingos in action, one immediately notices two things: that most of them are packing more than eight inches, and that they're better-looking than the women they're pleasuring. Jared, for instance, is a chiseled and muscular six feet, probably the best-looking of the men. His first encounter is a ménage à trois with Maryam (not her real name), a pudding of cellulite, and her chiropractor husband, Rick (not his real name), who's all back fuzz and belly. Rick adopts a lavatorial squat near Maryam's face and thrusts his penis at her. Jared's presence seems like an act of charity, not that he'd say so himself. "No, no, there was attraction," he insists. "They're very nice, polite people. It's an inner attraction."


"Listen, black guys like bigger women because they can tear it up," says Branford, the masseur who had sex with Amber earlier in the evening. "They might look like librarians, but look at them go from room to room, taking double-digit dicks all night. It's awesome." In comparison, he finds that younger, hotter girls are scarcely worth the effort. "They think lightning shoots out of their pussy—'Oh, you want sex, what are you going to give me?' Here you get the soccer mom who's like, 'I just want you to fuck the living shit out of me.' That alone is hot."

Branford is an evangelist for the Mandingos. At the last 70 or so parties, he's brought his table and given free massages. "I make great contacts here," he says. "This gets my name out there; that's why I don't charge." The way he sees it, interracial orgies are the new golf—a way to interact with rich folks. Charles, the law student, also sees the benefits. "When you network with someone, it's because you have something in common. Whether it's golf or tennis or . . . .interracial sex," he says. "I haven't used it to my advantage, but I'm not opposed—I've definitely had sex with lawyers in the past."

According to Charles, both black and white friends he has told are usually intrigued, even impressed, by the Mandingo party scene. Shelby (not his real name), Jared's ripped 29-year-old cousin (ex-Navy, now a firefighter), tells me that those who are repulsed tend to be for sexual rather than racial reasons—men by the thought of having sex around other men, women by the wanton promiscuity. This isn't to say that they chatter about it at the watercooler—most of the Mandingos keep their weekend activities a secret from their co-workers.

But the Mandingos themselves have their own issues with the lifestyle. For example, there's seldom kissing or going down. It's a rule for some—Jared won't kiss or come unless he's with someone "special." Of course, the no-kissing rule is a prostitute's code. Not that the Mandingos get paid for sex—it's against the rules. Each guest at Hammer's parties pays an annual membership—couples pay $30 and Mandingos $75. Everyone pays an additional fee of $30 for each party.

But occasionally the rules are bent. Some Mandingos confessed to receiving tips of $100 and more after private sessions with couples at last year's N'awlins in November swinger convention. Others brag about the vacations they've been taken on. "I've been to Vegas twice, all expenses paid," says John, the software salesman. "The Bahamas, Miami. One couple took me twice. After a while, you feel like a piece of meat. But hey, they're not using me to mow their damn lawn. They're using me to fuck the wife."


Jared, too, for all his idealism, has felt used in the past. Once, when he was with a couple from Sarasota, the husband directed all the action and the woman didn't say a word. "I felt like I was just—excuse my language—'a dick' for his wife," he says. Unfortunately, a similar thing happens tonight—a heavily medicated husband starts belching out commands—and Jared just walks out, leaving the wife frustrated and embarrassed.

Jared believes that, the stereotype of black male potency notwithstanding, the fundamental dynamic in the interracial swing scene—that of black men dominating white women—is fueled by a combination of white guilt and female sympathy. But Hammer, who is an impresario of these fantasies, sees another potent element at play: the humiliation of the white husband. Up to four times a week, Hammer is asked to arrange cuckold scenes in which the husband is submissive to his wife, who is, in turn, dominated by a Mandingo. "He can't participate, he can only watch," he says. "And afterward, he has to clean her up." Then there are the public-humiliation fantasies, in which a white man asks a Mandingo to kiss and grope his partner in public while he watches. Even here at the party, there's an air of humiliation. Some of the husbands I speak with confess that they're no longer able to satisfy their wives. And while others say they get off on watching, they're never fully committed. "It kinda kills me sometimes," says one partygoer, Kevin (not his real name), listening to the submission fantasies of his girlfriend, Gail (not her real name). "Because I'm not dominant. I'm really an easygoing guy."

What all this means for race relations in the age of Obama is difficult to say. Though he's had a disappointing night, an optimistic Jared still likes to think that the more the races share fluids, "the more these taboos will disappear and we'll all realize we're not that different." But as the clock strikes three and only the stragglers remain, you see the races pulling apart. The Mandingos are hanging out by the pool table, talking reverentially about the white women they've had—"Dude, she took, like, 12 guys; her husband has to let her go, there's no way one man can satisfy her . . ." The only white people still there are out by the pool. Neither Amber nor Jeff will be seeing any of the black men they've invited to their home tonight until the next party, to be held in a month's time. Though Jeff has allowed Branford to be intimate with his wife, he won't be calling him for a beer after work. And if they should see each other at the mall, they'll usually look the other way—it's all part of the swingers' pact.

I find Jeff at the end of the night, busy cleaning up the kids' bedrooms—their grandparents will be returning them in a few hours, and the sheets need to be changed, the lightbulbs switched, the evidence removed. Shining a flashlight underneath the 11-year-old's bed, he tuts and tsks. "There, look, a condom wrapper! I missed one of these once, and the kids found it. You know, I leave a trash can in every room, but still, some people . . ."

No Smoking Allowed, Unless it's Marijuana

Tobacco ban wafts into Amsterdam pot shops — but joints still legal
By Jeffrey Stinson
USA TODAY

AMSTERDAM — Starting next week, you'll still be able to legally smoke a joint in the famously relaxed coffee shops of Amsterdam — but for a cigarette, you'll have to step outside.

A tobacco ban that goes into effect Tuesday in the Netherlands has both tourists and shop owners, like, totally confused, man.

"It's crazy," says Jon Foster, 36, an American who owns the popular Grey Area coffee shop in the gentrified Jordaan area of central Amsterdam. "It seems totally illogical to have a business that specializes in smoking and you ban tobacco."

The new law prohibits smoking in bars, cafes, restaurants and clubs to protect people from secondhand tobacco smoke. It is similar to bans that have swept across Europe since Ireland made pubs smoke-free in 2004, as well as restrictions across the USA.

The contradiction here is that the ban extends to coffee shops in the Netherlands that are renowned since 1976 for letting people buy and smoke marijuana or hashish without being arrested.

Starting Tuesday, customers can still legally buy up to 5 grams of cannabis a day at a coffee shop and smoke it on the premises. But they cannot smoke a regular cigarette — or mix the pot with tobacco, as many Europeans prefer — without the risk of being cited by Dutch health inspectors.

"I will have to ask, 'What's in that joint?' " says Ludo Bossaert, 49, owner of the Paradox, another well-known shop. "What's the difference if there's a little bit of tobacco in there? It's going to make it pretty difficult to enforce."

Saskia Hommes, a spokeswoman for the Dutch health ministry, acknowledges that banning tobacco smoking and allowing dope smoking may seem "a bit odd."

"Under our system, these are two different things," she says.


Amsterdam has 236 of the country's 720 coffee shops, says Mark Jacobsen, chairman of the Amsterdam Union of Coffee Shops.

Foster, from North Kingstown, R.I., who has lived here since 1996, predicts more people will take the cannabis home or outside to smoke it mixed with tobacco.

He worries that will ruin the "excellent social atmosphere" of his coffee shop, where neighbors, students and tourists come to drink coffee, smoke, chat and read.

The cozy place is decorated with street signs, bumper stickers and signed photos of singer Willie Nelson and actor Woody Harrelson, both marijuana advocates. Customers drop in to the Grey Area for a quick purchase from a menu of more than a dozen varieties of cannabis that range in price from $13a gram to $95 for 5 grams.

Michael Veling of the Cannabis Retailers Association says there's a risk that more people could end up smoking cannabis on the streets if they don't want to smoke at home. In the long run, he predicts, the coffee shops will continue just fine.

"We get hundreds of thousands of Americans who come to our coffee house, and I've never seen an American smoke tobacco in my 30 years in the business," he says.

Pat Doherty, 54, a tourist from Wales, says he hopes the shops survive the ban: "It's all cool."

http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20080627/a_pot27.art.htm

Forbidden Love

George Carlin: American Radical

Published on Tuesday, June 24, 2008 by The Nation

by John Nichols

I think it's the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately.
– George Carlin

The last vote that George Carlin said he cast in a presidential race was for George McGovern in 1972.

When Richard Nixon, who Carlin described as a member of a sub-species of humanity, overwhelmingly defeated McGovern, the comedian gave up on the political process.

"Now, there's one thing you might have noticed I don't complain about: politicians," he explained in a routine that challenged all the premises of today's half-a-loaf reformers. "Everybody complains about politicians. Everybody says they suck. Well, where do people think these politicians come from? They don't fall out of the sky. They don't pass through a membrane from another reality. They come from American parents and American families, American homes, American schools, American churches, American businesses and American universities, and they are elected by American citizens. This is the best we can do folks. This is what we have to offer. It's what our system produces: Garbage in, garbage out.


If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you're going to get selfish, ignorant leaders. Term limits ain't going to do any good; you're just going to end up with a brand new bunch of selfish, ignorant Americans. So, maybe, maybe, maybe, it's not the politicians who suck. Maybe something else sucks around here… like, the public. Yeah, the public sucks. There's a nice campaign slogan for somebody: 'The Public Sucks. Fuck Hope.'"

Needless to say, George Carlin was not on message for 2008's "change we can believe in" election season.

His was a darker and more serious take on the crisis - and the change of consciousness, sweeping in scope and revolutionary in character, that was required to address it.

Carlin may have stopped voting in 1972. But America's most consistently savage social commentator for the best part of a half century, who has died at age 71, did not give up on politics.

In recent years, in front of audiences that were not always liberal, he tore apart the neo-conservative assault on liberty with a clarity rarely evidenced in the popular culture. Recalling George Bush's ranting about how the endless "war on terror" is a battle for freedom, Carlin echoed James Madison's thinking with a simple question: "Well, if crime fighters fight crime and fire fighters fight fire, what do freedom fighters fight? They never mention that part to us, do they?"

Carlin gave the Christian right - and the Christian left - no quarter. "I'm completely in favor of the separation of Church and State," Carlin said. "My idea is that these two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death."

Carlin's take on the Ronald Reagan administration is the best antidote to the counterfactual romanticization of the former president - in which even Barack Obama has engaged - remains the single finest assessment of Reagan and his inner circle. While Carlin did not complain much about politicians, he made an exception with regard to the great communicator. Recorded in 1988 at the Park Theater in Union City, New Jersey, and later released as an album — What Am I Doing in New Jersey? - his savage recollection of the then-concluding Reagan-Bush years opened with the line: "I really haven't seen this many people in one place since they took the group photograph of all the criminals and lawbreakers in the Ronald Reagan administration."

But there was no nostalgia for past fights, no resting on laurels, for this topical comedian. He read the papers, he followed the news, he asked questions - the interviews I did with Carlin over the years were more conversations than traditional Q & A's - and he turned it all into a running commentary that focused not so much on politics as on the ugly intersection of power and economics.

No one, not Obama, not Hillary Clinton and certainly not John McCain, caught the zeitgeist of the vanishing American dream so well as Carlin. "The owners of this country know the truth: It's called the American dream because you have to be asleep to believe it."

Not just aware of but steeped in the traditions of American populism - more William Jennings Bryan and Eugene Victor Debs than Bill Clinton or John Kerry - Carlin preached against the consolidation of wealth and power with a fire-and-brimstone rage that betrayed a deep moral sense that could never quite be cloaked with four-letter words.

"The real owners are the big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians, they're an irrelevancy. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don't. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They've long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the statehouses, the city halls. They've got the judges in their back pockets. And they own all the big media companies, so that they control just about all of the news and information you hear. They've got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying - lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want; they want more for themselves and less for everybody else," ranted the comedian whose routines were studied in graduate schools.

"But I'll tell you what they don't want," Carlin continued. "They don't want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don't want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. They're not interested in that. That doesn't help them. That's against their interests. They don't want people who are smart enough to sit around the kitchen table and figure out how badly they're getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago. You know what they want? Obedient workers - people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork but just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, reduced benefits, the end of overtime and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it.

And, now, they're coming for your Social Security. They want your fucking retirement money. They want it back, so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street. And you know something? They'll get it. They'll get it all, sooner or later, because they own this fucking place. It's a big club, and you ain't in it. You and I are not in the big club."

Carlin did not want Americans to get involved with the system.

He wanted citizens to get angry enough to remake the system.

Carlin was a leveler of the old, old school. And no one who had so public a platform - as the first host of NBC's Saturday Night Live, a regular on broadcast and cable televisions shows, a best-selling author and a favorite character actor in films (he was even the narrator of the American version of the children's show Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends) - did more to challenge accepted wisdom regarding our political economy.

"Let's suppose we all just materialized on Earth and there was a bunch of potatoes on the ground, okay? There's just six of us. Only six humans. We come into a clearing and there's potatoes on the ground. Now, my instinct would be, let's everybody get some potatoes. "Everybody got a potato? Joey didn't get a potato! He's small, he can't hold as many potatoes. Give Joey some of your potatoes." "No, these are my potatoes!" That's the Republicans. "I collected more of them, I got a bigger pile of potatoes, they're mine. If you want some of them, you're going to have to give me something." "But look at Joey, he's only got a couple, they won't last two days." That's the fuckin' difference! And I'm more inclined to want to share and even out," he explained in an interview several years ago with The Onion.

"I understand the marketplace, but government is supposed to be here to redress the inequities of the marketplace," Carlin continued. "That's one of its functions. Not just to protect the nation, secure our security and all that shit. And not just to take care of great problems that are trans-state problems, that are national, but also to make sure that the inequalities of the marketplace are redressed by the acts of government. That's what welfare was about. There are people who really just don't have the tools, for whatever reason. Yes, there are lazy people. Yes, there are slackers. Yes, there's all of that. But there are also people who can't cut it, for any given reason, whether it's racism, or an educational opportunity, or poverty, or a fuckin' horrible home life, or a history of a horrible family life going back three generations, or whatever it is. They're crippled and they can't make it, and they deserve to rest at the commonweal. That's where my fuckin' passion lies."

Like the radicals of the early years of the 20th century, whose politics he knew and respected, Carlin understood that free-speech fights had to come first. And always pushed the limit - happily choosing an offensive word when a more polite one might have sufficed. By 1972, the year he won the first of four Grammys for best comedy album, he had developed his most famous routine: "Seven Words (You Can't Say on Television)."

That summer, at a huge outdoor show in Milwaukee, he uttered all seven of them in public - and was promptly arrested for disturbing the peace.

When a version of the routine was aired in 1973 on WBAI, the Pacifica Foundation radio station in New York,. Pacifica received a citation from the FCC. Pacifica was ordered to pay a fine for violating federal regulations prohibiting the broadcast of "obscene" language. The ensuing free-speech fight made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled 5-4 against the First Amendment to the Constitution, Pacifica and Carlin.

Amusingly, especially to the comedian, a full transcript of the routine ended up in court documents associated with the case, F.C.C. v. Pacifica Foundation, 438 U.S. 726 (1978).

"So my name is a footnote in American legal history, which I'm perversely kind of proud of," recalled Carlin. Proud enough that you can find the court records on the comedian's website: www.georgecarlin.com

There will, of course, be those who dismiss Carlin as a remnant of the sixties who introduced obscenity to the public discourse - just as there will be those who misread his critique of the American political and economic systems as little more than verbal nihilism.

In fact, George Carlin was, like the radicals of an earlier age, an idealist - and a patriot –of a deeper sort than is encountered very often these days.

Carlin explained himself best in one of his last interviews. "There is a certain amount of righteous indignation I hold for this culture, because to get back to the real root of it, to get broader about it, my opinion that is my species–and my culture in America specifically–have let me down and betrayed me. I think this species had great, great promise, with this great upper brain that we have, and I think we squandered it on God and Mammon. And I think this culture of ours has such promise, with the promise of real, true freedom, and then everyone has been shackled by ownership and possessions and acquisition and status and power," he said.

"And perhaps it's just a human weakness and an inevitable human story that these things happen. But there's disillusionment and some discontent in me about it. I don't consider myself a cynic. I think of myself as a skeptic and a realist. But I understand the word 'cynic' has more than one meaning, and I see how I could be seen as cynical. 'George, you're cynical.' Well, you know, they say if you scratch a cynic you find a disappointed idealist. And perhaps the flame still flickers a little, you know?"

John Nichols, a pioneering political blogger, has written The Beat since 1999. His posts have been circulated internationally, quoted in numerous books and mentioned in debates on the floor of Congress.

Copyright © 2008 The Nation

The Irish Voted. The Treaty Lost. That’s Democracy.

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Safehouse
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Distrust of Politicians and EU Agenda?


LETTERS

Published: June 21, 2008


To the Editor:


Ireland has indeed benefited greatly from the European Union. But as a full member of the union, Ireland is entitled to judge the Lisbon Treaty on its merits and to reject it if necessary.

During the referendum campaign, the political class in Ireland did not propose one positive reason why voters should accept this treaty, repeating only that “the Lisbon Treaty is essential.”

As for using the referendum to kick “unresponsive politicians,” it is reasonable to do this when leading politicians were recommending a treaty that they admitted they had not read completely themselves.

If it is unconscionable for the Irish to exercise their sovereign legal and political rights, then Mr. Cohen’s claim that Europe is “whole and free” must ring hollow.

Joseph Keogh
Balbriggan, Ireland, June 19, 2008


•

To the Editor:

An American resident in Ireland for eight years, I, too, voted “no” on the Lisbon Treaty because the treaty was the most turgid, opaque, endless and incomprehensible sheaf of bureaucratic gobbledygook I have every attempted to read — the antithesis of the American Bill of Rights.

Does Roger Cohen want the European Union to have reduced representation for smaller states and ramped-up regulatory powers? Why?

And why aren’t other countries in the European Union allowing their citizens to enjoy a referendum on this turkey that has nothing to do with Turkey?

The prime minister of Ireland, Brian Cowen, who supported the treaty, confessed he had not read all of this miserably written document.

The Irish voted with proud thoughtfulness and independence of spirit. If an equivalent document had been proffered as the cornerstone of the United States, there would be no United States.

David Monagan
Cork, Ireland, June 19, 2008

•

To the Editor:

The failure of the Lisbon Treaty is hardly the fault of the more than 862,000 Irish voters who exercised their democratic right in rejecting the treaty through a popular referendum.

European Union leaders are trending down a path where national sovereignty becomes subservient to a hyperstate that has the potential to create laws that run counter to the legal and constitutional traditions of a significant number of member states.

The “no” vote in Ireland should not be any more of a surprise than the rejection of a European constitution by Dutch and French voters in 2005 or the Czech Senate’s postponement of a vote on the Lisbon Treaty pending an opinion from the Czech Constitutional Court.

Given these trends, I wonder how many European Union member states would “ratify” the treaty if they allowed it to be put to a popular referendum.

Frank Costello
Washington, June 19, 2008

•

To the Editor:

The Irish are very much in favor of the European Union, but the latest treaty would have taken substantial power away from smaller states like Ireland and concentrated more power in Brussels.

And while the political leadership of Ireland favored the treaty, many of those leaders admitted they had never read the treaty in full.

The people of Ireland are not the only ones who are against this treaty. The Irish just happen to be lucky enough to be the only nation in the European Union that allows its people to vote on such matters.

Until Europe’s leaders hear the voice of the people, the mission of true integration and democracy will forever be stalled.

Guthrie Alberts
Woodside, Queens, June 19, 2008

•

To the Editor:

As one whose family originated in Ireland’s “beer-soaked backwater,” let me remind Roger Cohen that this tiny nation twice before refused invitations to join larger unions.

First, the Roman Empire. When it fell and Europe descended into darkness, Irish monks rose from the “muck” long enough to preserve the continent’s heritage in manuscripts of unsurpassed beauty.

Centuries later, Oliver Cromwell extended his bloody invitation to join the British Empire. Once again, the Celts were “ungrateful” enough to demur.

Ignoring all but the most recent past, Mr. Cohen upbraids the Irish for “narrow insularity” in rejecting a treaty that he himself describes as “impenetrable.” Perhaps this time Ireland should defer to the judgment of its betters?

If Mr. Cohen’s response to the Irish reflects the attitude of Europe at large, then let me answer the European Union with a phrase from America’s own policy toward my ancestors: “No Irish need apply.”

Rick Topper
Glenside, Pa., June 19, 2008

•

To the Editor:

As a New Yorker living in Ireland, I disagree with Roger Cohen’s column criticizing the Irish “no” vote on the Lisbon Treaty. He suggests that the vote failed because of fear of “Polish plumbers,” Turkish membership in the European Union and a union “without borders and limits.”

The “Polish plumbers” comment is offensive to both Poles and Irish.

Mr. Cohen might at least have mentioned that the “no” campaign was very well organized and effective, while the government-backed “yes” campaign was vague, confusing and overconfident.

This vote was as much a referendum on the increasing power of the European Union as it was on the general level of trust the Irish people hold for their politicians.

Carol Ann Conlon
Dublin, June 19, 2008


•

To the Editor:

Roger Cohen suggests that Ireland, a “beer-soaked backwater,” owes its recent success mainly to participation in the European Union project.

Ireland owes its success to several factors, among which are its low rate of corporate taxes, well-managed labor relations, an educated work force and, of course, its membership in the European Union.

Ireland joined the European Economic Community in 1973, 15 years after it began a visionary program for economic expansion that radically altered Ireland’s global economic posture and laid the foundation for its recent success.

The rejection of the Lisbon Treaty was not an example of “narrow insularity” nor a demonstration of “the worst of little-Englandism.” The reasons the Irish people rejected the treaty do not include some perverse post-colonial neurosis.

Patrick Mair
New York, June 19, 2008

•

To the Editor:

Roger Cohen’s column did not change my views on the Lisbon Treaty. I am still completely confused.

Mr. Cohen offered no convincing argument for why Irish voters should have approved the treaty, but instead attacked their character, portraying the electorate as isolationist ingrates who don’t know what’s good for them.

I am British, with Irish roots. I know that Europeans feel conflicted about an empowered European Union, because they see the best and worst of American federalism.

When the United States protects minority rights and local laboratories of democracy, Europe envies America. When it tramples the rights of states to innovate freely within their borders, Europe justly recoils.

Whenever my faith in the American union recedes, I read the Federalist Papers and marvel at the possibilities for your form of government, and the persuasive power of Alexander Hamilton and James Madison that helped create it. Europeans need a similarly convincing masterpiece to make this leap into the unknown.

Tom Cowell
Brooklyn, June 19, 2008

•

To the Editor:

I agree with most of what Roger Cohen wrote in his June 19 column. As someone who has traveled to Ireland repeatedly since the 1970s, I have witnessed firsthand what participation in the European Union did for that country.

I object, however, to Mr. Cohen’s description of Ireland as a former “beer-soaked backwater.” Depiction of the Irish as drunks was a racist weapon of the English. His use of these words plays into the worst of anti-Irish stereotypes.

Stephen Casey
Ossining, N.Y., June 19, 2008


•

To the Editor:

Even were I not of Irish heritage, I would be deeply offended by Roger Cohen’s characterization of the Irish as residents of a former “beer-soaked backwater” who are “ungrateful” for “enormous E.U. farm subsidies, access for foreign investors to the E.U. market, and the liberation from a Britain complex.”

Wherever the European Union has brought its farm subsidies and other illusory benefits, it has eradicated local, unique, diverse cultures in favor of an imposed lock-step conformity.

In the arena of agriculture, Poland, a new member state, is the latest victim of the union’s rigid, top-down dictates.

As reported by The Times, Poland’s 1.5 million small traditional farms are now threatened by the European Union-enabled expansion of industrial-agriculture giants like the pork producer Smithfield Farms (“Old Ways, New Pain for Farms in Poland,” news article, April 4).

Rather than being, as Mr. Cohen calls them, “ungrateful” for the European Union’s debilitating subsidies, perhaps the Irish are in the vanguard of a hopeful wresting of local control back from a distant, parasitic, tax-financed bureaucracy.

Mary-Louise Zanoni
Canton, N.Y., June 19, 2008

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beer now
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Utah Town May Revise Ban on Bikinis at City Pool

"...But town probably won't allow 'thongs or string bikinis,"

KANAB, Utah - A ban on bikinis at the city pool is expected to be revised, ending a short-lived prohibition on the popular two-piece pool attire. But that does not mean that lifting the G-rating is going to lead to poolside G-strings.

"My recommendation is going to be no thongs or string bikinis," said City Councilwoman Nina Laycook, who called the original dress code an oversight.


Laycook said the policy will probably be revised at the council's meeting June 24, bringing Kanab back in line with city pools even in the state's most conservative communities.

"We were so engrossed with safety and health issues we overlooked the wording," Laycook said. "We are addressing that now by amending the policy."

Bikinis that don't reveal too much will be allowed, as will Speedos for men when the new public pool — known as the Cowboy Water'n Hole — opens July 4 in the community just north of the Arizona state line.

Laycook said council members discussed revising the policy Tuesday night.
She does not expect any problems making the change.


But the publicity that the ban received may linger for the city like a bad sunburn.

The restrictions were not popular, even in the community where the council passed a resolution in 2006 to favor the "natural family" consisting of a working husband, a stay-at-home wife and a "full quiver of children."

Victor Cooper, owner of the Rocking-V Cafe, said customers in the restaurant joked about the ban and expected them to be glad when it was lifted.

"They reacted to the (ban) with comical disbelief more than anything," Cooper said.

New Door Opens

last show

Submitted by SEDER on Sun, 06/01/2008 - 10:35am.

cross posted at aar

After 4 plus years, this Sunday's Seder on Sundays very well may be my last regular appearance on the Air America Radio schedule. I've been told that I am one of those being considered for the 3-6pm slot but,frankly, particularly in this economy, I'd advise you not to place a bet on it.

Anyway,...I will remain and am very appreciative to AAR for letting me continue as the online editor for AirAmerica.com. We are building an important online component to progressive talk.

That said, I am confident this will not be the last opportunity for you to hear/watch me on political talk.

I am proud of my work over the past four years. I started out as a pretty bad broadcaster, but think I 've certainly become mediocre! Whether on the Majority Report, The Sam Seder Show or Seder On Sundays, my ratings have always been an improvement of the show that I have replaced, or better than those that have replaced mine.

Some moments I am particularly proud of..

On the Majority Report, we gave now Senator Jim Webb his first national exposure when he was still a primary candidate, during our Fighting Dem series we did with DailyKos.

I gave Ned Lamont his first national exposure before he declared for Senate in CT, and he ultimately first "unofficially" declared his run with me on a Friday when I was filling in for Randi.

The time I got the right wing caller Dewey to cop to having some "feminization issues".

My long talks with the disputed Senator of Florida, Katherine Harris.

Just last month in the 3-6p slot, in interviewing Phillipe Sands, author of "Torture Team," I played some exclusive audio of John McCain for him which he then went on to cite in Congressional testimony.

I've had a great opportunity to interview folks like Eddie Vedder to Ricky Gervais to Desmond Tutu to Gore Vidal to Howard Zinn to Sen. Russ Feingold to Robert Altman to Fran Liebowitz, Triumph, Lawrence Lessigand on and on and on (and of course, Peaches).

Geek Alert

...Believe it or not, some of my biggest thrills were having the opportunity to meet bloggers I had read before starting doing radio--

It was and remains a real honor to have been part of launching Air America and institutionalizing commercial Left Talk Radio.

Finally, thank you folks for the tremendous support you have shown me through the years. I have an unfortunate habit of being outspoken about things that don't behoove me professionally, and I suspect I would have been gone long ago without you folks watching my back.

Deliberate Intent

baby1moretime

GUEST: My question is how to participate as a citizen in a country in a way that would be positive rather than negative.

During the war in Viet Nam, I was in silent vigils that some people and I started.
And I felt good about that.

But I also realize that it’s very easy to get caught up in resisting and being negative.

So, I wanted to ask you what your thoughts are on that?


ABRAHAM: The ideal citizen, ... one who contributes enormously to the Well-being of the whole,
... is one who focuses so specifically on life giving projects that you act as a vortex that summons life into this dimension through you.

Some would say, “Well, you mean she shouldn’t get involved in bigger issues?”

And we say, “She can choose any issue she wants to be one of those life giving issues.”

It’s about choosing something and focusing upon it with the sheer intent of letting it summon to itself through you.


GUEST: I don’t want to see society become like those countries where women would be kept at home and not allowed to leave.

I would like to operate in my society in a way where I see to it that more freedoms in that way are preserved or enhanced.

ABRAHAM: What do you see as you look around you in this society?

You see mostly freedom.

And so, as you focus here, you can feel, as you observe, an environment that is a vibrational match to your desire.
You feel better.

As you observe another society that is not a vibrational match to your desire, you don’t feel so good.

Your role, as a productive citizen,
is to choose from those two perspectives
the one that you can feel the Energy flowing the strongest.

And, it’s not hard to figure out which one that is, is it?
You can tell by the way you feel.


Many people believe that if there are not protests, that nothing ever gets better.
And we say, well, there is accuracy to a degree.

If you don’t know what you don’t want, you could not know what you do want.

And so, it is the contrast or the diversity that helps you to formulate your decision.
And often the strongest decisions come out of the worst situations.
It’s those unbearable or deplorable things that often give the rocket of desire the greatest thrust.


But what goes wrong with so many people is, once the desire is born, then they keep looking back and trying to justify the desire by pointing out how bad things are.

And, when they look back, they just include that vibration which makes them a muted, clutter filter.

They are not a vortex that is doing any summoning toward what they want.


If you let a negative situation build that rocket of desire within you,
and you focus upon the way you want it to be,
and then you imagine that.
You dream that.


You amplify that. You look for evidence of that.
You talk about that. You script that.
You find the feeling place of that.
You imagine that.
You dream that.
You hold yourself in that vibration and you create that.


You open the vortex, single-handedly, that hundreds of thousands, millions,
then benefit from, because of your attention to the subject.


Most of you do not believe that you have that kind of power of focus.

So you gather all over the place, and then you feel crabby because you know,
from your Non-physical Perspective, the extraordinary power and value and reason that you have come here to focus.


You did not say, “I’ll come forth, but clean up everything that might bother me,
and then I’ll come.”

Instead, you said, “I’ll go forth into this contrast,
and out of it I’ll feel new desire born in me.”


When we tell you that you are on the leading edge of thought, we are not kidding you.

Here is the way it works:
So, you examine the contrast.
We are not talking about conflict.
But contrast might be conflict.
You examine the stuff, ... all the stuff.
You observe it, and out of it is born a desire,
and when that desire comes within you,
you feel it.

And as you feel that desire, then you talk about it,
and you think about it, and you think about it,
and you imagine it and you offer a vibration about it,
and then the Universe responds.

And, now you stand in a new place with a whole different set of contrasting experiences
giving birth to another desire that you then focus upon and think about
and find a feeling place of
until you are standing in a different place with a whole different set of contrasting experiences.


Sometimes we think you think that the work is to get it done.
You think the work is to get it all cleaned up.

And we say, you did not ever intend to come forth and get everything checked off the list.
You came forth to get more things on the list.
You never get it done.


Now you’re beginning to understand why we want you to enjoy the journey.
Because there is no end to this journey.
You could desire and it could be painful to you,
and you could stop desiring and you could croak.

But we promise you, that won’t be the end of you.


In your physical withdrawal from this experience,
all you get is a whole new lease on life from which you want to come forth into another physically focused environment,
so that you can begin the process again.


It is so satisfying once you begin to understand the rhythm of all of this,
and you begin to understand that the contrast is a good thing
... because the contrast gives you a new desire,
and then, as you fantasize and find the feeling place of it,
then everything in the Universe begins to respond to your vibrational output.

And then, from that new vantage point,
new contrasting experiences give birth to more desire.


And so, the fun of it is not getting to the place where the Universe yields it to you.
Although that can be fun.

But the fun of it is the birth of the desire to begin with, and then the bringing yourself into an alignment with the desire.

There is nothing more delicious than the Creative endeavor.


Friends, you have in your hands the Energy that creates worlds.
And you said, “I would like to take that powerful Energy,
and I would like to focus it through my specific physical human vortex.
So I will be a citizen in this environment,
and I will conclude as best I can from my vantage point.

And when that conclusion builds within me as that rocket of desire and I feel it,
I will revel in what this contrasting experience has produced,
because I’m on the leading edge again.


I’ve just given birth to a new desire.

I am going to focus on the desire.
I’m going to find the feeling of the desire.
I’m going to explain the desire.
I’m going to become familiar with the desire.

I’m going to become desire.

I am going to become the embodiment, ... the vibrational embodiment,
... of this desire.


I am going to radiate that desire.
It’s going to express through me so that anyone that comes into contact will feel a piece of that desire.
And, sure, Law of Attraction will manifest the heck out of it all around me,
but that’s not why I’m here.

I’m here for the experience of the Energy flowing through.

-

-Abraham-Hicks-

Elections in America: Millionaires Accusing Each Other of Elitism
By Brad Reed, AlterNet. Posted April 14, 2008

This country can't afford to have another election decided by the idea that a member of the ruling class is "genuine" and others are "elitist."


Millionaire lawyers, politicians and journalists are all savaging Barack Obama for being an elitist.

Obama's particular crime in this case was saying that Democrats have done a lousy job of dealing with the concerns of working-class Americans, thus allowing the Republicans to swoop in with their God-Guns-n-Gays brand of politics that scapegoats homosexuals, illegal immigrants and George Clooney as the prime culprits behind blue-collar woes.


This is not a particularly new argument, and has been a popular theme in mainstream discourse ever since author Thomas Frank published his excellent book What's the Matter With Kansas? in 2004.


Nevertheless, both the media and the rival candidates pounced on Obama's statements and accused him of making "outrageous San Francisco remarks" and of "offending small town America." Worst of all, Obama's words rendered him an "elitist" in the eyes of his critics, which in American political discourse is akin to being a child molester or a Frenchman.


But is Barack Obama really an elitist as his opponents claim? Well of course he is -- he's running for president of the United States! He wouldn't have gotten this far in life if he'd spent the past 20 years driving a truck or moonlighting as a fry cook at Arby's. Like every other successful politician in the United States, Obama is a member of America's political ruling class, which means that like every other presidential candidate in recent memory, he is typically insulated from the lives of ordinary people.


Does Obama really have any idea what it's like to live like a "Real American?" Of course he doesn't, and neither do John McCain and Hillary Clinton! Does any rational person out there believe that Obama, Clinton and McCain spend their free time away from the campaign trail hanging out at Jimmy Ray's Chicken'n'Beer Depot playing darts with the common folk?


In theory, this point should be fairly obvious. Even before getting elected, most politicians made a good deal of money in their careers as lawyers, doctors, actors or oil tycoons -- you know, real salt-of-the-earth sort of work. But for reasons that have long confounded sane people everywhere, our national millionaire press corps gives positive coverage to political candidates who are the most adept at lying about their ability to connect with regular folks.


And because it apparently takes too much work for our press corps to sift through the candidates' policy positions to figure out what each of them is actually offering blue-collar voters, we don't even get rational assessments of politicians' working-class cred. Instead, we get piles and piles of anecdotal evidence.


For instance, any rational observer should be able to discern that George W. Bush has not been a particularly good president for blue-collar people. From the bankruptcy bill that made it harder for Americans to escape debt, to the tax cuts that were tilted heavily toward the uber-rich, to his mercifully-botched scheme to privatize social security, all of Bush's major economic initiatives have been tailored specifically to shaft working-class people in order to benefit really, really, really, really, really rich people.

While some major media figures, most notably Paul Krugman, tirelessly pointed this out, the vast majority of our bonehead millionaire pundit class declared Bush to be more in touch with the average American than elitist snobs such as John Kerry and Al Gore.

What were Bush's qualifications for being the Voice of the Common Man, you ask? For one thing, he cleared brush.


As the Washington Post reported in 2005, "President Bush's idea of paradise is to hop in his white Ford pickup truck in jeans and work boots, drive to a stand of cedars, and whack the trees to the ground." Cue up the Toby Keith CD, baby, we got a real workin' man on our hands! Also: Bush wore a flight suit. Even though Bush had never actually seen combat of any kind, merely donning a flight suit made him "a high-flying jet star," who was "virile, sexy and powerful" and whose clothing made "the best of his manly characteristic."

And finally: President Bush did, in fact, have a pair of testicles, as Peggy Noonan expounded upon rapturously in a 2004 column that she titillating titled "He's Got Two of 'Em."


Which brings us back the recent troubles that Obama has had lying to convince our press corps that he's in touch with the average American. You see, Obama's problems in this area aren't merely confined to his statements about white working-class voters being bitter.

For one thing, Obama decided not to wolf down artery-clogging piles of meat-flavored goo when he visited Philadelphia. After all, what could be more authentically American than eating your way to an early death?


Also, Obama isn't very good at bowling. Bloomberg columnist Margaret Colson said that Obama's low bowling score was a "doozy" of a mistake, since voters apparently want someone who's good at "looking, acting, or sounding like the locals, eating homemade specialties, even if it's funnel cake and smoked meat products, or wearing a Teamsters or Yankees cap for the first time."

Yeah, Barack, come on -- you don't want these people to know that your life is a billion times more interesting than theirs! You're running for president!


These phony proclamations of "elitism" are not unique to Barack Obama, of course. John Kerry got pounded for his Brahmin ways after having the gall to windsurf. Al Gore got trashed in the press corps for sighing during a 2000 debate. Mitt Romney got pummeled for the way he ate pizza, Bush I for ordering a "splash" of coffee.

John Edwards? Paid too much for a haircut. Hillary Clinton? Has a phony laugh. And on and on and on and on.


Why is our millionaire pundit class so gosh-darned interested in finding allegedly "genuine" ruling-class politicians to champion as tried'n'true representatives of Real America?

Without subjecting them to intense psychological treatment (not a half-bad idea), I have no way of knowing. But I do know that this seems to be a uniquely American phenomenon in the industrialized world.


Most politicians in Europe, Canada and Asia, from what I've seen, are a bunch of technocratic dweebs who spend their campaigns arguing over which of their dweeby technocratic proposals would make their countries better marginally places to live.

In other words, they base their campaigns on actual politics rather than bowling scores.

But can you imagine what would happen if Gordon Brown or Nicolas Sarkozy or Angela Merkel tried to show how they were rugged and in-touch with the common man by dressing up in a flight suit or speeding around the countryside in a pickup truck clearing brush? They'd be justifiably laughed out of office, because sane people in other parts of the world don't care whether or not their political leaders drink lager or enjoy watching football on the telly.

Heck, just look at Sarkozy! Do you really expect him to pretend that he enjoys hanging out in the countryside with a bunch of dull old grape farmers when he'd obviously rather be going on fancy vacations with his international supermodel wife? And can you blame the guy?


What is so depressing about our press corps' bizarre penchant for picking and choosing which members of the ruling class are "genuine" and which ones are not is that the United States simply cannot afford to have another election decided by this trivial nonsense.

For the past eight years, sane people have watched in horror as George W. Bush chain-sawed the country's coffers with tax cuts, trampled over both international and domestic law and inexplicably got us involved in an endless bloody war in Iraq.


While I can't claim to speak for Real Americans -- after all, I don't eat cheese steak or clear brush on a regular basis -- I can speak for myself when I say that I don't want my political leaders to be my friends; I only ask that they not actively try to destroy the country and the rest of the world.

And at this point, I don't care if our next president is the unholy love spawn of Richie Rich, Thurston Howell and Charles Emerson Winchester III. As long as they can end the Iraq war, provide national health insurance and generally make life in this country stink less than it has under Bush, then they've got my vote.

-
beer now
---

Anthem for the New Millenium Generation

We stand against every lie they tell.
We fight!
They lie!

Cause if we fall for the spin they sell.
We fight!
We die!

Orwellesque headlines; we have heard it all before.
As the 21st century becomes 1984.

The new millennium generation will kick down their locked doors.
You're going to hear us sing:

We won't go
We won't answer the call
We won't go
We won't answer the call
We know that you're lying;
That you never tell the truth
So we won't go
So we won't go
So we won't go
Anymore
Because we don't believe
No we don't believe

We can't repeat the mistakes of the past
March Off!
To die!
But we can take back control of the world
Take back our lives.
Why should it be the poor to die in combat zones?
While congress and their children sits safe in lavish homes?



The new millennium generation will kick down their locked doors.
They're going to hear us sing:

We won't go
We won't answer the call
We won't go
We won't answer the call
We know that you're lying;
That you never tell the truth
So we won't go
So we won't go
So we won't go
Anymore
No!

We'll stand as one! We'll say
"We will not go!" [x2]
We'll stand as one

We won't go
We won't answer the call
We won't go
We won't answer the call
We know that you're lying;
That you never tell the truth

So we won't go
So we won't go
So we won't go
So we won't go
So we won't go
So we won't go
So we won't go
So we won't go
So we won't go

-

Anti-flag

Bomb It or Vote It?

It is a very confounding place, for most humans, to stand in a sea of contrast, much of which they disapprove of, in fact, much of which they greatly fear, and to recognize they have no control over it. And then they attempt, with their puny vote or their puny bomb, or their puny influence of a physical action nature, to control the circumstances that surround, hoping that they can hack away, that they can obliterate, in some small measure, part of the scourge of the planet, so that maybe they can then relax a little, for a little while, in their belief that they have gotten rid of something unwanted, and now, they can live in a wanted space.

We cannot control what others choose.

We can control our vibrational participation with it.

--Abraham-Hicks--

Do Not Face Reality

Do not face reality unless it is a reality you want to create---for any “reality” only exists because someone has focused it into being.

Someone will say, “But this is a true thing, and therefore it deserves my attention.” And we say that you make whatever you give your attention to…your Truth. And so, it is extremely beneficial for you to focus primarily on the way you feel while giving only scant attention to the manifestations as they are unfolding, for whenever you are giving your primary attention to things as they are, you are hindering the expansion of what-is.

All those statistics that are gathered about your own experiences and about others---are only about how somebody has already flowed Energy. They are not about any hard-and-fast now reality.

Within your current society, there are many who gather the statistics of human experience. Their lives have become more about labeling the behavior or experiences of those with whom they share their planet than about their own creating.


And so, they find themselves in a very uncomfortable position as they come to believe that their happiness or Well-Being depends upon the behavior of others. They point to people, behaviors, or beliefs and call them inappropriate, saying no to them, without realizing that they are including into their experience the vibration of the very thing they do not want. And so without the knowledge of how it is that those unwanted things are making their way into their experience, they become increasingly guarded and fearful.


Freedom from the fear of unwanted experiences will never be achieved by trying to control the behavior or desires of others. Your freedom can only be allowed by adjusting your own vibrational point of attraction.

Abraham-Hicks

Facilitating Awakening Online

-

-

Safehouse

-

Because each new phase of evolving intelligence
takes place in a fraction of the time
of the previous phase,
...
we can expect the dawning of a Wisdom Age to take place
in years rather than decades.

It will be standing on the shoulders of the Information Age.

Never before have we been able to access so much spiritual wisdom.



A century ago, the only spiritual tradition available to most people was the one that was indigenous to their own culture.






Moreover, with rare exceptions, they did not have the benefit of learning
from a truly enlightened being.


Today, we can access teachings from many different traditions and cultures,
discover their common underlying truths,
and translate that perennial philosophy into the language and terms
of our own time.

Something completely new is emerging: a single spiritual teaching
that is a distillation of the world's wisdom traditions.

This is coalescing and being disseminated globally through a variety of information technologies: books, tapes, Web pages, online forums, and Internet broadcasts.




At the same time, a growing number of people are becoming fully awake,
and proving themselves
to be excellent teachers.

Many are using the Internet to share their wisdom and help awaken others.

Instruction in practices that facilitate awakening
are appearing online,
and could become much more sophisticated.




It may even turn out that darshan,
the Indian word for a direct transfer of higher consciousness,
can be transmitted via the net.


Awakening is often a sudden event.



Once a person is ready
—the necessary groundwork done,
the circumstances propitious—
the shift can happen more or less instantaneously.

It's possible that research into the neurological correlates
of spiritual awakening
will lead us to methods of promoting the process directly.













There will likely be other unforeseen discoveries
or developments
that help us free our minds.

Whatever they may be,
the more we learn how to facilitate a shift in consciousness,
the faster it will happen.





As this becomes a mainstream phenomenon,
...
humanity will relate to the world in wiser,
more compassionate ways.

-





A Singularity in Time; a chapter by Peter Russell
...from the book, "The Mystery of 2012."

-

Turduvadove

Barney Frank, The Daily Show, ... & Liberty

New Cycles Will Begin

A Tale of Two Transformations

“We are in the midst of a collective transformation,
at least at this level of perception,
although I don’t believe it’s the one the New Age and others
talk about.

I would suggest there are actually two ‘transformations’ and one is a fake designed to mislead us.

The year 2012 would appear very significant to the Illuminati and this is also the point at which the Mayan Calendar says there will be a transformation to a new world.

The ancient Mayans, in what is now Central America, developed their own measurement of time and observed repeating cycles that they detailed in the calendar.

They said that a Great Cycle began on August 11th, 3114 B.C. and would end on the winter solstice, December 21st, 2012, the point when a ‘Great, Great Cycle’ of 26,000 years would also
come to a conclusion.

It relates to the New Age belief about moving from the astrological Age of Pisces to the ‘enlightened’ Age of Aquarius.

This is the moment when new cycles will begin, it is said, and humanity will be infused with love and light.

A Mayan Calendar website summarized this basic theme:

‘There is no reason not to take a leap of faith into imagining what may be in store. We may trust that it is time for humanity to awaken in to a true partnership with each other, with the earth, and the Cosmos. By accepting this partnership we may claim our birthright and become Galactic Citizens who care for and sustain the planet, thus sustaining ourselves. This is clearly the challenge of our times. Yet, arriving just in time and on schedule is the Winter Solstice dawn on the day we may remember that we are truly Children of the World.’


At the risk of upsetting many in the New Age,
I say this is the fake transformation.







I have no problem with the fact that 2012 is
significant in Time Loop terms,
nor that the Mayans clearly had a remarkable grasp
on the planetary and cosmic cycles they related to time.






I just say they were measuring the computer program,
the cosmic planetarium,
and that the predicted transformation is as illusory
as the rest of this holographic reality.
It is another part of the DVD, another diversionary subplot.

There is no time.

And, anything that identifies with it is not a transformation to Oneness.

We are not ‘truly Children of the World’, we are truly Infinite Consciousness.
Identifying self with the ‘world’ is identifying with the Matrix.
It is a belief system that still relates to form,
with being ‘human’, ‘Galactic Citizens’,
and sustaining a holographic illusion we call ‘earth’.
Millions are caught by the Matrix in the fake transformation.
The Mayan Calendar is one example…”

(David Icke)

New Conclusions

Most of you are creating your own reality by observing anything and everything that comes along, because most of you are not keenly aware that everything is about attraction.

There is no assertion.








Everything is about Law of Attraction, which means,
“Whatever I, as a perceiver, perceive, by my attention to it,
I am including it in my vibration.”














Everything is vibrating.
So when you observe it or remember it or ponder it or imagine it,
whenever you focus upon it, by your focused attention,
whatever its vibration is, becomes a part of your vibration.
And so, the more often you visit it,
the more a part of your habit of vibration it is.



Everything is vibrating and so, whenever you give attention to anything—it then becomes a part of your Vibration.

When you see something you want, by your attention to it, you are including it and inviting it.
When you see something you don’t want, by your attention to it, you are including it and inviting it.
So the key is to examine with an eye to choosing what you do want.


Little by little, be one who consistently finds what is most pleasing,
to be most familiar, to you.
Make a decision that nothing is more important than the way you feel,
since the way you feel is the indicator of what you are including in your vibration.



You have creative control.
When you begin to notice the correlation between what you’re thinking and what you are feeling,
and then what the consequential corresponding absolute matching manifestation is, then you finally get it that you do have control over your own experience.


There is nothing that we are wanting to guide you toward or away from.
It is not our job or anyone else’s to choose for you.
Our work, as we see it, is to assist you in understanding that you are Creators
and to help you in aligning your Energy
so that you may attract unto you anything that you choose,
and that it is not possible for you to choose outside of the realm
of that which is intended as you come forth.
You said, “Let’s go forth into this balanced environment,
bang around together,
come to eternally new conclusions,
and have a very good time in the process.

-Abraham-Hicks-

Sitting Pretty, Thinking Picky

You're picky about the car you drive.



You're picky about what you wear.





You're picky about what you put in your mouth.






We want you to be pickier about what you think.


Abraham-Hicks