Make Peace with North Korea by Giving them Hostages

Background:  America went on a murderous rampage of Regime Changes.  Reeling like a drunken imbecile after having won the Cold War, when the Soviet Union could no longer stand in its way, America was eager to sweep aside every last vestige of resistance to American Ideology and Political Dominance across the Globe.  To prep the American Public for War or Military Interventions or even just those O Dark Thirty Seal Team Six Assassinations, we hear over and over again that each Leader that gets in America’s way is “irrational, insane and not to be trusted” with the implication that such Leaders are begging to be assassinated.  It is often argued that by assassinating a Country’s Leader the People of that Country are being Liberated and so are actually deriving a huge benefit for which they should be grateful.  But then their Countries are relentlessly bombed – destroying power, water and food distribution infrastructures as well as perhaps unleashing the genie of old latent but still simmering impulses for Sectarian Civil War.  So often to ostensibly just remove the Leader, often hundreds of thousands of the Country’s People end up dead too.   If any other country besides America were in engaged in such atrocities it would be termed Mass Genocide.  But America has great Public Relations People.   Oh, by the way it seems like some kind of an ironic punishment from the Gods that Trump became the American President.  That will teach the Americans to call other people’s Leaders irrational, insane and not to be trusted.

 

Well, in regards to America’s Manifest Destiny for Regime Changes, now it seem to be North Korea’s turn in the crosshairs.    

 

To give ourselves some context here, the Americans insist that it is impossible to negotiate with the North Korean Leader Kim Jong-Un.   But, anyone who scratches their head and cares to remember will recall that America had already had a deal with North Korea, forged by the Clinton Administration but it fell apart when Republicans under the incoming Bush administration cut off agreed upon supplies of fuel oil to North Korea, claiming, again ironically, that “the North Koreans could not be trusted to hold up their end of the Deal”.  The North Koreans waited patiently for 3 years for the Bush Administration to come around to honoring the Clinton treaty, but finally gave up and revamped their Nuclear Program that they really had in fact completely shut down.   That is why we still hear that we can’t negotiate with North Korea because they don’t honor their agreements.   Even the Press says that, and they should know better.  Before the Press believes what any Politian tells them, wouldn’t it be easy enough to simply go back and check their AP files.  It was America that scuttled that Deal!   Now I am not complaining about “Fake” News…  just stupid, gullible, incomplete and intellectually lazy News.   Yes, I know that Reporters are not supposed to Comment, that they are just supposed to Report.  But no one is tying their hands regarding Who they Ask and What, are they?   For instance, if One Politician lies to you from one side of the Aisle, and then you get a Politician from the other side of the Aisle to comment and he also lies to you.   So what do you think your job is?  To just present Both Lies to the American People and leave it for them to sort out?  But it is often not that simple.  Often the Truth does not exist Between the Two Lies.  The Actual Truth may be off in a completely different direction altogether.  So perhaps your best choice would be to call up some brilliant and impartial University Professor, who has Tenure so nothing they say can get them Fired, and tell him or her what the Politicians told you and then ask whether he or she thinks it was all a complete pile of crap?  Now, THAT would be your Story – The Intelligent Contextualization of what the Scheming Corrupt Politicians are trying to pass off as the Truth.  The Press is the 4^th Estate.  Democracy depends on its 4^th Estate for the Truth.  And it is not doing its job if it just acts the Messenger Boy for the Political Class of Professional Liars.  But it seems that the Press gets a quote from the Rascal and a quote from the Scoundrel and goes to Print happy that it presents Both Sides.

 

Well, back to Korea.    The situation now with North Korea is different from all the rest of those prior Regime Change Scenarios.  You see, there is a problem with running the same Game Plan over and over again because eventually the other Teams learn your moves and compensates and adapts.  Eventually the Regimes sitting in line for annihilation would survey the Broad Map of Geo-Political Reality and discern an important fact, and that is that America refrains from bullying other Nuclear Powers.   Members of the Club can do whatever they want and the worse that happens to them is that they are hit with sanctions which in many cases do as much to hurt the Global Economy as to hurt the Sanctioned Country and so they often don’t last very long, being lifted for the convenience of everybody involved.   But while Sanctions might really pinch in the meanwhile, they fall far short of having your country bombed back into the Stone Age and being hunted down and assassinated.  So, yes, The Obvious Plan for any Country that sees itself in the Path of the Great American Steam Roller is to do their homework and figure out how to build what the Americans were able to build back in 1944, more than seventy years ago, especially when you can learn all of the basic principles just by watching YouTube tutorials (it wouldn’t surprise me if some California kid were to show up at his 8^th grade Science Fair with an A-Bomb).   Really, how hard can it be to be a Nuclear Power, especially if you are Korea, where even if the infrastructure for most other things is kind of shaky, the foundation and structure of their Centralized System of Education is monolithically flawless.   America might let 90% of its Intellectual Talent go to waste and fall through the cracks with its underfunded schools and complete absence of National Talent Scouting and Targeted Scholarships to put the Best and the Brightest where they can do the most public good, but you know that ain’t North Korea, where every kid in every classroom in every school is given close scrutiny to see if he or she has the kind of Potential that the Regime could cultivate and utilize. Considering all that, North Korea could probably pack a Stadium with Engineering Geniuses.   So of course North Korea could get the Bomb almost as soon as they thought they needed it, once the necessary materials could be procured.  Rockets too.  If America really did land a Man on the Moon in 1969 then we really can’t expect that anybody making a Rocket 50 years later would have much of a problem landing a Warhead in Minniapolis, could we?  And targeting could be a thousand times easier.  Back in the Sixties every populated inch on Earth was not pulsing and throbbing with Cell Phone and Wi-Fi signals (which create a well-defined Electro-Static Spectral Cloud over regions) , but now it is.  You don’t even need GPS when you can program your missile to just home in on a specific Electro Glow. 

 

So, what do we have so far?  America has been out on a continuous Rampage of Regime Changing ever since the Soviet Union collapsed and could no longer offer small non-Western nations its Protection.  But America is known to stop short when it comes to dealing with Nuclear Powers.  So North Korea became a Nuclear Power.  So America and North Korea are in a Mexican Standoff.

 

So, yes, North Korea being a Nuclear Power is a fait accompli – that’s French for a Fact that we have to learn to live with.    But now the problem is with hoping the Koreans never hit the launch button on a Loaded Round.  We all need to realize that it is not Crazy for the North Korean Regime to be understandably jumpy.  You see twice a year every year America conducts highly provocative Military Exercises which are indistinguishable to any outside observer from an actual Invasion Mobilization.  America cries that North Korean missile launches are provocative, but even while North Korea may have its Finger on the Nuclear Trigger, America still goes forward with its Invasion Mobilization Simulations that, again, look exactly like the Real Thing.  And the Americans call the North Korean Regime irrational and insane!  I don’t know why the American Press does not look deeper into this issue.  It seems almost certain that the American Press must be tightly muzzled… that America’s 4^th Estate has been neutered and marginalized.   The only other explanation is that the American Press are all dumb as stumps… hired because they were Journalism Majors!  Well, what is THAT anyway?  Maybe they should hire people who have Real Degrees.  You see, knowing about what you report on would give a unique perspective that one does not often find in the News.  And nobody is stopping the 4^th Estate from ringing up Harvard University’s Political Sciences Department Head and asking for his opinion.  If you know that you don’t know, and that Spokespeople could just be using you for ‘Pin the Tail On the Donkey’, then call somebody you trust to find out whether you are just being played or not.  And to me the Press is either being played in regards to the Korean Crisis, or they are complicit regarding the universally agreed upon line of Propaganda that is to fed the American Public.  Hey, I guess everyone has to make a living… selling out somehow somewhere, right?        

 

Anyway, the Americans and the South Koreans could have plenty of Military Exercises without provoking World War Three.  They could just stage them in America.  I would suggest Fort Drum New York for any exercise running from Spring through Fall.  The scenery is beautiful.  And the hills look almost exactly like the hills in North Korea. The Fort is outside a pretty town called Watertown.   A Big Exercise would be great for their Economy.  I think the South Korean visitors would love the place.  The North Korean spies would probably enjoy their stay also.  Oh, the Military would complain that they couldn’t bring over all 50,000 Troops that are ordinarily involved in these Mammoth Exercises, but I myself was in the Military and I have been through Exercises.  The Exercises are NOT for the Men, that is anybody from the Company Grade Officers down through the thousands of enlisted men.  To them it is just doing the same thing they have done a thousand times already in their scheduled Training.   Nothing changes just because it is a Big Exercise.  The Ones who benefit from Exercises are the General and Field Grade Officers from each country’s Organizations.   They get to Schmooze.  During the Exercise itself everyone gets to see each other’s Leadership styles, and during the Post Exercise Wind-Down and Out-Briefings Stages, the Days are Short and the Nights are long and the Officers from their different Countries get to party together and build camaraderie and a forge trusting  personal relationships.   So that if a War DOES happen, everyone REALLY knows who they are fighting with – that they recognize the Voice on the Radio that is asking for Reinforcements on their Left Flank.  So, anyway, for an Effective Exercise, you wouldn’t need more than a couple thousand people.  I suspect that the Big Exercises are for the Benefit of Private Contractors who somehow figured out a way of turning them into a Big Cash Cows.  Really, the Military should have a rule against fraternizing with those Predatory Military Contractors, because otherwise they Buddy Up (maybe the word is Suck Up)  to the Generals who then give those Money Grubbers anything they ask for just because they paid for a round of drinks (I’m serious!).           

 

So, we were discussing the possibility that something or anything could spook the Korean’s into Launching.  So America really needs to think of a way to reassure North Koreans that they are indeed not intent upon Regime Change.         

 

So I thought and thought and thought.  And then I remembered about Louis the IVX, the Sun King of France.   Louis had a problem with his Nobility.  They all had Castles and so they could start their own private wars or disrupt commerce, and then run and hide in their Castles where they were relatively safe and untouchable unless Louis would wish to go to some great expense to mount an expedition to go and batter down their walls.  Also, a great deal of the time Louis was committed to fighting real Wars outside of France and was uncomfortable with deploying his Armies away from home, if the local Barons were going to take advantage of the local Power Vacuum by committing all kinds of acts of local mayhem, murder, rape and pillage.  So Louis got to thinking.  It was no longer the Dark Ages.  He now had gun powder and siege guns – huge cannons that could knock down castle walls.  So Louis drew up a plan for sending a combined Engineering Artillery Regiment with adequate Cavalry and Heavy Infantry support from one end of France to the other and knock down all those troublesome castles one by one.  Yes, it would be moderately expensive, but once taken care of he would never have to worry about it again.  However, even Louis knew that in some cases, for instance when the English would invade, that these same Castles could come in handy when he could expect to make strong Wartime Alliances with most of his French Nobility.  So Louis was not totally committed to this Program of Decastlefication, when several of the Nobles involved, having caught wind of Louis’s Plan (yes, Leakers even back then!) , rode through the Palace Gates of Versailles, WITH their families in tow.  Ostensively they were there to Negotiate for the retention of their Castles and they would stay there as long as it took to make a Deal.  But Louis and his Chief Minister of State instantly knew the substance of what was transpiring – that these Nobles were implicitly offering their Families as Hostages in exchange for the security of their Castles.   So of course Louis pretended to go along with the Cover Story of an indefinite series of Negotiations, and when other Nobles across France caught onto the scheme they also packed up their Families and off to Versailles they went.  Of course, Versailles treated all of these “hostages” as honored guests, free to come and go as they pleased, and of course there were numerous grand parties and balls provided for their amusement.  Versailles became the Talk of Europe and the Nobility from Everywhere and Anywhere were tripping over themselves to get an invitation to Versailles so that they could have as much fun as the Hostages.

 

When you look up Hostages on let’s say Wikipedia, there is a lot of discussion on Hostage Taking, but very little about Hostage Giving.  But going back to Ancient Times it was a tried and true measure for proving your sincerity in regards to a Peace Treaty or the intention to remain at Peace.  Often the word “hostage” would not be mentioned but the idea of it would be couched in offers such as “We have heard so much about the Great Learning in your Temples and Schools.  We would be honored if you could sponsor my Son in his Studies so that he could learn much of the Knowledge and Wisdom that your great country has to offer”.   That would make his Son a Hostage to Peace with that particular King.  Then there is the ploy of a King offering his favorite daughter to be married to a Prince of a rival Kingdom.  His Daughter would become a Hostage to Peace.

 

So what America needs to do is to insist upon Long Term and Open Ended Negotiations that will last as long as it takes and that they should be conducted right there in the North Korean Capital, or maybe right within the Kim Jong-un’s Palace Grounds.  The Hostages we would have to offer could not simply be throw-away people from America’s Middle and Working Classes, as we know how expendable the Government feels they must be. The Hostage Giving Plan would require some very high ranking diplomats (if you really wanted to Negotiate, but that really isn’t the point) from some of America’s finest families, and they would need to be accompanied by their families.  Also, America could use the Ploy of having a Student Exchange Program, where the Sons and Daughters of prominent American Families could go to study in North Korea (I hear they have a splendid Nuclear Physics Department).  Maybe an exchange of Faculty Members where some of America’s prominent Professors could do a stint in North Korea. You would think some Asian Studies, Sociology, Economics, Poli Sci or Agricultural Science Professors would jump at the chance.  

 

There is one objection we could anticipate from the North Koreans.  They would object to any secret confidential Diplomatic Pouches that Diplomats are traditionally entitled to and which are supposed to be inviolable to search and seizure.  Well, we can imagine how sensitive Kim Jong-un is to possible attempts by the CIA to assassinate him.  Everybody knows how the CIA tried to assassinate Fidel Castro with poison stored in a teeny weeny little pinky ring.  So it would be important to allow North Korea to do a complete search of anything that goes through the Palace Gates, or even that comes into their Country.  After all, the purpose of this whole Thing is to reassure them, and in doing so we should acknowledge that this may involve many cumbersome details.  This could also include North Korea vetting our People.  I would wonder how they could so this.  Could their Intelligence Agencies in America be so efficient as to be able to draw up comprehensive dossiers of individual America Citizens, so thorough as to stymie any CIA attempt to sneak in a ‘Ringer’?  Maybe.  But if North Korea has doubts, I could imagine that one would be assigned a ‘Best Friend’ for a while until observation and analysis could clear one as profiling like an ordinary guy, and not the type of person who would ever dream of walking up to the plastic smiles at the CIA Table at a Job Fair (gives me the creeps just thinking about it.  Doesn’t anybody watch the Bourne Identity movies?)  

 

Another one of the sticking points I would anticipate to implementing this Give Hostages for Peace Program is in finding any Important Americans willing to put up with what they would probably expect to be a boring and uncomfortable stay, considering all the Propaganda that describes North Korea as uniformly dismal (even when accompanied by photos showing happy attractive well-dressed young men and women scurrying about what looks like a Modern City).   Of course, these Hostages for Peace would be changed out periodically, but if the individual American Hostages for Peace really wanted to make the most of it personally, I would recommend staying at least a year or maybe two.  That would be time enough to learn some of the language and get to know Korean Culture.   You know, I do not suspect it would be that awfully bad.  I am sure Kim Jong-un would be a gracious host, for, after all, he would not wish to be too outdone by Louis the IVX, would he?  I can personally vouch for Korean Food – a lot of it is very good.  And the Korean People, even when they are not being coerced by a Dictator, are very friendly and their manners are impeccable.  Indeed, it would have to be the Americans I believe who would have to brush up on their table manners.  

 

But, yes, if we could find Americans who would willingly give a year or two of their Lives for Peace, we could have Peace with North Korea.  You see, America asks its Servicemen in the Military to give their Lives… their Complete Forever Lives… not just a year or two… for their Country.  I feel that their sacrifices are mostly taken for granted.  Every generation is asked for more Human Sacrifices to placate America’s Militaristic bloodlust Monster, and nothing ever changes.  The Economic Classes that provide the Troops get poorer and poorer while the cozy and protected Rich keep on getting richer.   When are the Rich and Powerful in America going to acknowledge the debt they owe for all those Lives snuffed out in the bloom of their youth to support the Freedom of Capitalistic Americans to play at Domestic Exploitation at Home and Global Domination Abroad?  You know, if there are any advantages to be had by living in a Free Nation, certainly it is the rich and the powerful who are the primary benefactors.   The rest of the people are Free to be poor, free to be miserable, free to go without Health Care.   So is it really asking too much to expect that some of America’s Leading Families finally make some token little sacrifice themselves and offer just a ‘year or two’ of their Lives for their Country, so that San Francisco doesn’t get Nuked, by taking an extended ‘vacation’ in North Korea, which poor people would jump if given the chance, if they realized the extent of Korean hospitality.  The Food’s great and the women are beautiful.  What’s not to like?

Neo-Nazis and Antifa, Trump Owns Both Sides

I think that most political commentators have it wrong when they seem to imply that Trump was the progenitor of the New American Fascist Right, but that the Antifa Movement is somehow only the illegitimate love child of the Left.  My first thinking on this was an idea derivative of Hegelian notions that Political Extremes attract their Opposites .  This seems to be well supported in History where we can point time and again to instances where Extremely Violent Political Movements were met by extremely violent counter-movements.

 

 But then I remembered the original Campaign Populism of Trump – that he would take America back from the Corrupt Swampy Elite Power Brokers and return It to the People in the form of a virtual Workers Utopia, AND that immigrants would be run off, that a Wall would be built to keep  Greatness in and keep Foreigners out, along with all the other subtle clues that Great Americans were understood to be White Americans (which, by the way, has been the Tacit Position of the Republican Party ever since Lyndon Johnson of the Democratic Party signed the Civil Rights Bill in 1968, about which Johnson said that the Civil Rights Bill needed to be enacted but that the Democratic Party would suffer the loss of the Southern States for the next 40 years.  He underestimated).   So Trump’s Populist Rhetoric cut both ways.  It was both strongly Nationalist and strongly Leftist, and if not explicitly “Socialist” in regards to its detailed description, well, we can recall that Trump never details out anything, but that if the Power Elite were made to surrender their hold on Economic Policies in favor of new policies that would favor full employment and a doubling or even tripling of the current median wage, to keep in line with what the Real Wages were for Industrial Workers back when America was ‘Great’, well, I can’t see any other way than that of imposing a sweeping Socialist Control over the Economy.    Indeed, the implied Socialist elements in Trump’s Populism probably actually got him More Votes than his Bigot Appeal.   Hmmmm, does that remind you of anything?   Adolf Hitler’s original Populist vision was also a mix of Nationalism and Socialism.  Yes, it is the very devil to search on line for what the letters N.A.Z.I. stand for (I suspect that while you are doing that search, every intelligence and counter-terrorism monitoring system in the World is clogging up the lines trying to converge on your IP so it can scoop up your biography and that of every one of your known associates) but they are roughly translatable to National Socialist Party.   Of course History shows us that Hitler was only bowing to Socialist interests for convenience sake, that is, to get enough votes in the 1933 elections to make him a serious contender within the German Parliamentary System, but that his true love was for Nationalism and the idea of Aryan Supremacy.  And no I am not just saying that because it sounds so much exactly like Trump.   But that is where the similarity ends.   You see, Hitler was better organized.   It seems to have been demonically clever how Hitler dealt with his Socialist following once it outgrew its usefulness to him personally.  He allowed a Party Lieutenant to consolidate all of the Socialists into one almost autonomous Sub-Party, the Brown Shirts, while he organized the Nationalist Aryan Supremacy  enthusiasts into another Branch, the Black Shirts or  S.S. from with the Gestapo or Secret Police emerged.  The isolation between the two groups was so complete that Hitler, with his favorites in the S.S. Nationalist Branch, were able to draw up a detailed plan for purging out the Socialist Brownshirts, and it seems almost miraculous that the plan for a sweeping Raid and Round Up all across Germany remained a complete secret.   We can imagine that dozens or even hundreds of Nazis were in on the plan to arrest and even murder their fellow Nazis and that not one of them made a phone call to tip off an old friend*.  But, yes, Nazism soon rid itself of its Socialist component – that raid happened in 1934, a year after Hitler was elected into power.  You can search it up as ‘Night of the Long Knives’.

 

Well, Trump’s Populism, as I said, has the same two components.   But while Trump may also be described as demonic, or that his confused mind is caught up in a swirl of demonic ideas, he can certainly never be accused of being clever.  So now the two factions that he conjured up to get himself elected are brawling in the streets against each other.  But just because Trump now, already elected into Office, disclaims Paternity of the Leftist Antifa, doesn’t discount his responsibility in arousing the Leftist Impulses for Economic and Social Justice that served to stir them up.  And then Trump’s Self Righteous Anti-Establishment Stance seems to imply the Right of Violent Opposition to that Establishment which is characterized as Evil (which is sort of like the 2^nd Amendment Argument for allowed each citizen to be armed to the teeth so that they can assassinate politicians that they believe to have become tyrannical).   You know, you either work Within the System to amend its problems or you work outside the System to destroy it and take over.  That implied message for really Hostile Takeover is the Danger of Populism.   And we can see that both sides of Trump’s Populism have picked up this implied message condoning Political Violence.  

 

Oh, and this brings us to contemplating exactly what Fascism is.   When I was a Student of History decades ago, I found that people just tossed around the word Fascism without really being able to define it.   Most people correlated Fascism with Dictatorial Government.  But there have been plenty of Dictatorial Governments, mostly on the Left, which no one would dream of calling Fascist.  So after thinking about it and looking at all of the so called ‘fascist’ regimes, I decided that Fascism was not a strictly Government phenomena at all, although a Government could use Fascism as a support.   Fascism, I believe, is the Rise of Mob or Militia influence in Society to the point where it exercises significant Political Influence.  Look at both Italian and German Fascism where formal or informal mobs and gangs of Fascists were able to intimidate or quiet political opposition prior to elections by either beating up or outright assassinating Opposition Leaders.  And then AFTER the Elections in both Italy and Germany, the Fascist Parties did not disband its Militias or informal Mobs but treated them as semi-legitimate official entities.   You see, Governments do not need to figure out how to issue formal arrest warrants if it breaks all the rules to do so, and then to conduct embarrassing trials which may not go their way, if they can just make a few phone calls and have ‘problem people’ taken care of quietly by people with no proven connection to Government.     So Fascism is not so much Rule by Dictatorial Government as it is Rule by a Usurping Mob or Party whose claim to Power is only by means of Force or Coercion that they exercise Over the legitimate Government, but yes, of course, Fascist Party Members within the Government would certainly make use of their Fascist connections to lube any of the Political Wheels that remain stuck – such as Trump Twitting up an Army of supporters to harass and make life miserable for anybody who gets in his way.   So actually Government may be seen as just as much a Victim of Fascism as its Perpetrator.  I can’t imagine that the Republicans are really happy with Trump’s populist base.  After all, they are the Party of the Rich, so what are they really supposed to do to appease all those Poor People?  In Asia they call it ‘trying to ride a tiger’.

 

Oh, and then there is Japanese fascism to consider.  While no expert on the subject, I believe that Japanese Fascism was far less organized than the European varieties.  You see Japan at the time was seething with notions of Nationalism and Ethnic Superiority but had no clear and distinct Figurehead or Leader.  But what Japan had was a great many fanatical young military officers who thought in those terms of Extreme Nationalism , and they would go out apparently unbidden and assassinate whoever they though did not agree with such a program.   So effectively Japan went over to the Far Nationalist Right simply by a kind of default.  Everyone who would have been on the Other Side had been killed off.  It is sort of what happened to the American Left during the Sixties and Seventies.  In the Sixties there was a cluster of Political Assassination all targeting the Left, and then the Media was used in the Seventies and Eighties to politically assassinate many of the remaining politicians from the Left.  Yes, a Scandal is a Scandal, but what people don’t realize nowadays is that prior to Watergate, the Press exercised a strictly hands off policy in regards to the personal lives of Politicians and even most ‘role model’ media stars and sports figures.   But after toppling a President with Watergate in the  Seventies the press tasted blood and all of the old tacit rules of engagement were swept away.  But because Republicans are the Ownership Class, they can largely control what comes out of their Newspapers and Television Networks, and so the brunt of the new wave of Press Surveillance landed on the Democrats.  Like what happened in Fascist Japan, America defaulted to the Right because no one was left standing on the Left to offer any effective opposition.   

 

So, long story short, the Antifa really needs to think of a new name.  I can’t see how they can deny being Fascists themselves.  After all, they need only imagine what they would do if they Won.   Would they disband and go home happy that they saved America from Fascist White Supremacy or would they keep going with their violence until they were able to dictate the Terms of National Policy themselves?  Fascism may have two sides, but it is still the Same Coin.        

 

* Tipping Off Raids is a chronic problem in Law Enforcement, especially at the local level.  Police, after all, have connections throughout the Community in terms of friendship and extended family, and so when they become aware that a Raid is in the making, well, not just one but a few policeman may be tempted to make phone calls tipping off the Raid if it may have an impact on anybody that they know, even casually – a call to the buddy they play poker with on Thursday nights.   Of course, corruption may be involved too, as it seems to have once been a common practice among Policeman working a ‘Beat’ to control crime largely by informally licensing it, that is, taking a small cut from criminals dealing in some form of contraband product or service, while responding to the Complaints from their Protected Criminals, that is “tips from informants” , by arresting any new Criminal Enterprise that pops up on their ‘Beat’.   Such corruption subsidized the low pay given to for Police Service, and actually contributed to a good degree of “Order”, if not Law and Order    When it comes to making a successful Raid, Federal Agents have more luck, but again they need to consciously go over their Personnel Rosters to make sure all of their active agents don’t live within 500 miles of their selected area of operations.   Oh, and they may keep  in mind that when making raids on White Supremacists that maybe it would be a good idea to use all Black and Hispanic Task Forces… if they can manage to scrape together enough blacks and Hispanics in what must largely be a Whites Dominated Enterprise.    We all saw how the mostly White Charlottesville Police responded to the White Supremacists, even when the rioters grew violent.   Who knows but that many of those Police Officers would have been marching with torches in their hands if it had been their night off.   This is a good argument for a well-diversified Police Force, from Command Levels on down.  City Officials need to know that Whatever Happens they can come up with their Own Police Officers, from one demographic segment of their Force.   If Charlottesville  had had a diversified Police Force then it would not have been quite so easy for the Nazis to walk away with the Keys to the City.

South Korea’s Drastic Measures to Save Itself

It appears that America is on course to launch a unilateral preemptive strike against North Korea because of Its Program for developing Nuclear Weapons, although 8 other Nations already possess Nukes with apparent impunity.   While we may hope that the North Korean response to such an attack from America would not involve North Korean bombardment and Invasion of the South, because of a natural hesitancy for North Koreans to kill other Koreans, still, for six decades now South Korea has seemed the willing partner to America and has given every indication that if America were to ratchet up a Fight against North Korea, that South Korea would jump in as a Full Partner.  Yes, the Propaganda put out by America was always in terms of a Defensive Alliance, which would have presupposed an actual Unprovoked Invasion of the South by the North.  Well, THAT is NOT what is about to happen.   The Americans, because they are simply a little antsy about the mere possibility of being Nuked for No Reason At All by North Korea, wish to be the first to move and annihilate North Korea’s capability and its Regime.   But if South Korea is seen as a Willing Partner in America’s Attack , the possible conflagration could be almost beyond imagining.  Yes, the International Media has mentioned the Thousands of Artillery Pieces that the North Possesses; however, there has been nothing said of the possibly hundreds or even thousands  of Massive Rail Mounted Cannons rolled back in Armored Caves  that could be deployed in just a moment’s notice.  You see, the North has had since the 1950’s both the time and the technology to lace the Mountains and Hills of North Korea with Ultra High Caliber Guns, perhaps on the model of the Nazis’ Rail Mounted Gun that could fire 31 inch diameter 12 foot long projectiles weighting from 5 to 7 tons.  Those and the more conventional Artillery Pieces and Tactical Missiles could work an almost complete obliteration on South Korea’s most highly and densely populated areas.  The Newspapers are saying that Hundreds of Thousands of South Korean’s could be killed in this Crossfire with America, but the Truth is probably more on the scale of Millions.  After the inevitable period of Starvation, Civil Disturbance and Disease, we could easily see 20 Million Dead in South Korea.

 

SO South Korea needs to make it Very Clear that if America launches a Unilateral Preemptive Strike against North Korea, then it will be seen as an Act of War against BOTH Koreas.  South Korea, in order to Save Itself from what must be an almost Total Destruction, because of America’s Cautionary Whim, must put forth the Diplomatic Initiative that All Koreans will be Stand United against American Aggression.

 

Now, yes, the World Media tends to blame everything on North Korea.  However, It was America that Destabilized the World Situation, and not just with its Present Administration.  For instance, both Democratic and Republican Presidents, with Bipartisan Support, have supported Regime Change in Countries that had indeed done substantially what America had demanded of them (they were not Saved by Capitulation and Surrender – America destroyed them because they were Helpless).   Iraq was asked to eliminate its stockpiles of “Weapons of Mass Destruction”, and they did.  International Inspectors verified it.  But American Politicians and Presidents were suspicious and unconvinced.  Besides, it seems to be Good Politics to Never Believe an Enemy, and nobody ever Lost an Election by being a Hardliner and Getting Tough on America’s Enemies.  Wars get more Votes than Peace.  So Iraq was needlessly and lawlessly invaded, and the Regime was murdered off.  Libya was also threatened, decades ago, and Libya had complied and been rather well behaved.  But when the ‘Arab Spring’ came, it seems that Every American Politician had forgotten the Deal that was made some 15 or 20 years before.  The Libyan Regime had been a Secularist Regime and was besieged by no ordinary Pro-democracy Movement but by Religious Fanatics who would use Democracy only so far as it could emplace their own Theocratic Dictatorship.  The Libyan Regime would likely have survived this Threat, but America threw the weight of its Air Force and Navy behind the Religious Radicals… the same Radicals that would murder the American Ambassador.  The American’s might even have offered to evacuate the Libyan Regime, but apparently the policy was to let them die.  Then there America’s Role in the Balkans, where every Leader who sided with a Nation that America Opposed has been slated for Trial and Execution.   Now, given this International Environment where America seems to have a Gladiator Complex and must Quench it’s Democracy’s Thirst for Foreign Blood on a steady basis (Presidential Elections every 4 years, Congressmen 2 years, and the Senators need new International Incidents every six years), What Is North Korea supposed to do?  It Seems the Only States that America will not Pick On are Nuclear Powers.   In the present Situation, even if America decided to Negotiate In Good Faith, well, how long could that be expected to last?  You see, America, whether they realize it or not, is having a Constitutional Crisis.  Their Democracy has proven too Dangerously Unstable to be Politically Viable.  It is clear to everybody that the American System of Government has either Failed Already, or has been Proven itself Capable of Failing.  It is Clear that there is No Mechanism to prevent Nuts, Crazies and Fanatics from Coming to Power in America where they would have the Power to disclaim all prior Treaties and Agreements.  They don’t even have to Realize that these Agreements even Exist!  So while it would be Nice if America came to the Negotiating Table, we must appreciate the Position that North Korea is in. I tried to think of Another Way for them, but they are really just backed into the Proverbial Corner.  Their only other choice is effective Suicide. 

 

Yes, I am expecting a lot of South Korea.  Yes, America has done a lot for South Korea over the last six Decades.  But Blood is Thicker than Water.  AND the North Korean’s are their Own People.  Also, if South Korea has been following the News, then it would Know that American Politicians are marginalizing and even denigrating South Korea.   So NOW would be the Perfect Time to simply Ask America to Get Out.  Yes, it was Nice when America was there to Defend Them.  But Now it only appears that America is There Only To Get Them All Killed.  Help is Help but Hurt is Hurt.  The Alliance with America was Not going to Last Forever, was it?  THIS would be the Perfect Time to bring it to a close.    

The Big Coming Spiritual Evolutionary Leap

I recently started going online to see if there was any consensus on What the Coming Big Evolutionary Jump will be.  Everyone agrees that Something is Coming, but everyone is vague about What it is.  Most of the New Agers are just spouting the usual Vague New Age Stuff  -- mostly about Wish Fulfillment – How they will Get Love just  by Wishing for it… How they will Get Money by just by Wishing for it.  Most New Age Stuff, after you peel away the Surface Fluff, really isn’t about Spirituality at all.   Even when the New Agers get into Meditation, it is all about achieving some form of Sensual Bliss.   And so when they Speak of a Next Big Thing – do they just mean that their Pleasure Seeking Greed Impulses will finally find Satisfaction?   Well, doesn’t That sound kind of like the Same Old Age We have been Living in?... just with more Happy Endings.   But Not Everybody can have More than Everybody Else, and that is what they All seem to want.  Not Everybody can be at the Top of this New Age Food Chain.   

Other more exactly Spiritual People propose that we will Lose our Egos.  Hmmmm, ordinarily I would not object to this projection, but, then I came across an interesting  set of videos regarding Kundalini by this one Young Woman, Soulful Toz , and in one of the Videos she detailed a period of time After the Initial Stretch of Peace and Bliss and Knowing  that resulted from  Her Big Kundalini Opening Enlightenment Experience, when, after a few Rapturous Months, at first she became depressed, and THEN for several Months SHE LOST HER EGO, and it wasn’t pretty!   You see, without an Active Ego Structure, there is No Desire to Do Anything.  So she sat like a lump staring out into space without even bothering to care about what she was looking at.  Her mind was a complete blank.  She became malnourished because she had no desire to eat.  She developed a Serious Hygiene Problem because she didn’t care to wash or bath or brush her teeth.  It was like she became Consciously Comatose, or Autistic.  Thank God, after a month or two her Mind began to Reorganize an Ego Structure.   So I wonder about people who want to get rid of their Egos.   It just goes to show that you Really Do Need to “be careful what you wish for, because you might get it”.   After seeing what Soulful Toz had to say I remembered what various Hindu Sages had said about the same thing.  Their Conclusion was that if the Ego does entirely disappear, then the Yogin usually dies in about 3  to 7 weeks.   So, Soulful Toz dodged a Bullet – apparently Friends and Family force fed her enough so that she didn’t just wither away and die.  

So, Where does that Lead us?  After seeing No Coherent Idea on What Would be Different with the New Regime,  I was forced to review what I Knew about Spirituality from my own Experience.  What I remembered were two Very Powerful Dreams I had decades ago.  In the First Dream this God or Arch-Angel in this Great Fiery Tree spoke to me.  You see, in the first part of that dream I happened across the Gravesite of Erasmus and it had been vandalized with spray paint saying “Erasmus will not live beyond the Grave”, and so I went “Harrumph, Everybody lives beyond the Grave” (yes, I was very young then, and that was what I thought).  Well Suddenly a large Tree that was atop this nearby knoll Exploded Into Dazzling Flames and this Voice of God (or a very powerful Angel) spoke saying “No, not everyone will live beyond the Grave, but Erasmus will”.    Oh, I need to mention something.  When the Tree first Exploded into Flames and Began to Speak, well, I my legs INSTANTLY collapsed underneath me and I landed on my knees (down on hard rock, but there was no pain, which surprised me even as it happened), and Tears shot forth from my Eyes, and I can’t recall that I was even Emotional (and That also impressed me as it was happening… “What am I crying About?” I asked myself).  Apparently it just seemed that in the Presence of This God or Angel, nobody could Stand, and everybody would cry.    Well, after the Angel had said that Erasmus would live beyond the grave, I got curious to know If I was also Struck Dumb, but I was able to say rather calmly and clearly  “What about me?  Will I live beyond the Grave? ”   Well, apparently the Angel isn’t used to being spoken too.  Apparently most people ARE Struck Dumb.  But, I need to mention that it seems like my Forte, my Strength in Dreams is that I am the Talker.  You see, In Dreams where I am a Member of a Group, and each member of the Group has a certain Task or Area of Expertise, well, I am always the One who Talks when Talking becomes Important.    Mostly whenever some Trouble Occurs and it Possible to Talk Our Way Out of It, I am the One who does the talking.  I’ve Talked Our way out of Jails, and I’ve Talked people into lowering their Guns, as well as just being a kind of ordinary Spokesperson.    But, my point here is that if Anybody’s Tongue would not Freeze up, it would be mine.   So me Talking back to God is probably not that remarkable.   But, back to this Very Important Dream, after my Question regarding the Fate of my Immortal Soul, there was a Pause, a Silence, and I began to get Edgy about a possibly Negative Answer.   But the Angel didn’t leave me hanging for long and said “Yes, you too will live beyond the Grave.  BUT REMEMBER ONE THING – THAT BIRTH IS BUT AN ILLUSION AND CHRIST IS THE LIFE IN ALL THINGS.”   Notice, that the Angel did not say “Death” is an Illusion, but Birth.  This Means that the Entire Basis for our Individuality is an Illusion and that None of Us have any Real Independent Life.  As far as Life is Concerned there is only One Consciousness in the Universe and that is the Cosmic Christ Consciousness.  

The Second Dream that came to mind was very vivid.  It was like a Lucid Dream before I knew about Lucid Dreams (before anybody knew about Lucid Dreaming, which was first mentioned by Dr. Ann Faraday in her 1972 book “Dream Power”, still in print) , as everything was vibrant and shimmering – the Sign of a Big Dream.   I was out in a kind of Southwest Desert Expanse, where there were grasses here and there, and scrubby bushes and a few trees here and there.  Suddenly up comes this Young Man.  He was very thin, and dark, and had just a few scraggly hairs where a Man would have a beard.  He came up close to me, so close that it made me feel a bit uncomfortable.   And he Smiled.  His Face just Bloomed and Radiated with It!  And his Eyes were mesmerizing and full of this Joy and Love – I had never seen anything like it in my Life.   Apparently the Young Man noticed my discomfort (THAT struck me Dumb!)  and so he nodded goodbye and turned and strolled off.  When he was about 30 feet away THAT VOICE came out of the Sky saying “And He went out into the Wilderness and Became One” and then the Young Man developed this Silver Blue Aura and as he kept walking I noticed that the Grass at his Feet also began to develop a Silver Blue Aura, and then the Bushes, and then the Trees off into the Distance.  Everything that was ALIVE suddenly had the Same Aura He Had.  That was when it hit me -- “Oh My God”, I thought, “THAT is the Christ who is the Life in All Things”. 

So, after thinking about those Two Important Dream my Feeling is that the Next Big Evolutionary Spiritual Jump will be toward a Collective Consciousness.  All the New Age Concerns about Ego Gratification are on the wrong track.  And the Spiritualists who wish to eradicate the Ego are also on the Wrong Track.  What Will Happen is that Our Minds will come in Contact with that Collective Consciousness and simply be Subsumed – Our Personas will be replaced by some Appropriate Collective Persona.   Just think about it, that after you Experience the Consciousness of All Living Things, you really can’t expect to Shake it Off and return to your same old trivial personal agenda.  Once you Experience the Cosmic Christ Consciousness you will inevitably have Bigger Fish to Fry.  

Of course one cannot be sure about the Details.  Will Everybody be ‘Swallowed Up’ all at once?  Perhaps not.   But there will be SOME Men and Women who will become Nexus Points for the Christ Consciousness, and they will All have the Same Consciousness and will Work in Coordination.   Each one will Be One with the Life around them.  This is reminiscent of one of the Powers that some Shamans were purported  to have… well, not exactly – they would say that Shamans would turn into Birds or Wolves, but actually what was happening is that they simply were able to Use the Consciousness of existing Birds and Wolves (here I Picture that Young Man in my Dream as he went out into the Wilderness, seeing and smelling what every Coyote and Ground Squirrel saw and smelled and having a Bird’s Eye View from every Bird the Flitted by) .   Such Enlightened Ones will be able to Know what everyone around them is experiencing  -- everyone’s Consciousness will be an Open Book to them.   

I have a feeling that this Enlightenment will be as Contagious as a Fire, and will quickly spread.  Indeed,  in thinking about my Dream of the Young Man who Became the Life in All Things, it occurred to me that I should have ran after Him and caught up and through some unspoken eagerness got Him to Share his Consciousness of All things with Me.  Of course, that would have Wiped out my Sense of Individuality and I would have become a Nexus in the Collective Consciousness, and I would have taken the Evolutionary Jump some 30 or 40 Years ago.   Well, what Old Man is there that doesn’t have a Long List of Missed Opportunities?   7/24/17

Syrian Government Did Not Use Chemical Weapons

 

A simple look at the Situation and any knowledgeable person could see that The Syrian Government did not have a Strategic or even a Tactical Motive for having perpetrated the small isolated Chemical attacks being attributed to them; not now, or not a few years ago with that one ‘Attack’ that ‘crossed’ President Obama’s “Line”.  Chemical Weapons are considered a “Poor Country’s Nukes”, and so we could guess that they would be used in the same kinds of extremely desperate situations – to break a Strategic Impasse by either clearing ground for a Major Offensive or to break a Major Offensive being carried out by the Enemy.   But in these Chemical Attacks being attributed to the Syrian Government, we only hear of Civilian Casualties.  We need to wonder why the Syrian Government would risk incurring almost certain International Rebuke by “Crossing the Line” into Chemical Warfare just to kill a few babies on TV?  Any deliberately planned Chemical Attack would involve a full deployment of Chemical Weapons across every Front – if the World is going to Hate you Anyway, you might as well get Something Significant for All your Trouble, don’t you think?  So, for the Idea of a Government launched Chemical Attack to be in any degree plausible, we should at least have seen several Division-Size Rebel Regiments and a number of Rebel Headquarters targeted and that there should have been tens of thousands of Rebel Causalities reported.  But in these Attacks attributed to the Government, we find that almost no Rebels got hurt at all, except maybe a few stragglers who wondered in where they were not supposed to go.  

 

So let’s add it all up.  Just a few militarily insignificant Civilians and Children are Targeted.  Only a few weapons are utilized, and in this last “Attack” it is said that all the Casualties resulted from just one single “Weapon”, or I should say just one “Cloud of Gas”.  A few years ago such an attack occurred just after President Obama implied that he would come in Heavy in Support of the Rebels if there was Such an Attack perpetrated by the Government.  This time there was a New President, who has the mind of an Adolescent Child – a Child with Attention Deficit Disorder, who had every intention before the “Attack” of effectively allying with the Syrian Government and with Russia to Fight the more significant threat of ISIS.    Now doesn’t it all sound to you as though these Attacks are being Staged by the Rebels, who in their years of Rebellion must have certainly managed to capture or purchase a handful of Chemical Weapons, or perhaps were In Charge of these Very Same Weapons before Turning Rebel and that they ‘snuck’ a few of them out just as they were ‘Turning Coat’.   We can see No Convincing and Proportional Motive for the Government in these Attacks, but for the Rebels they would have Everything to Gain.  We know from all the News that the Rebels were losing bad.   The Rebels must have known they needed a Big Game Changer and that they needed it Quick.  When we think about it empathetically, can we not suppose that the Rebels who have already seen hundreds of thousands die, would not be tempted to kill just a few more themselves in order to secure for Their Side of the Fighting the Most Powerful Nation on Earth – the Last Great Superpower!  They might even consider those Dead Babies on TV to be Great Heroes and Martyrs for their Cause.  And, yes, we can infer almost certainly that ‘somebody’ must have actually made sure that there were children playing downwind of the ‘Weapon’ before it was detonated – as the “Story” simply would not have had the same emotional impact on an Impressionable President without video footage of a pile of dead babies.   

 

As I alluded to above, the Rebels tried the same Play a few years ago, but President Obama is a very smart man and he probably figured it all out after just the first or second Intelligence Briefings of the “Attack” came in, and we can all assume he was most certainly sorry for setting up the situation with his very unpolitic “Cross the Line” statement – he knew that the Rebels did what they did to exploit his ‘Gaffe’.  Maybe there was an investigation and it did indeed find that the Rebels staged that “Attack” but that the Results of that Investigation were Classified and Buried (maybe even destroyed) so that the Rebels would not be totally discredited, for, as you see, America has in large part taken Ownership of the Syrian Rebels, since the Only Reason the Rebels Rebelled in the first place was because the American State Department and Radio America flashed them the Big Go Ahead Signal, that the “Arab Sprint” had America’s Unqualified Blessing and Approval. 

 

I believe that the same dynamic is going on now, that Every “Mature Person” Who Knows Anything in America KNOWS that the Rebels Staged another Attack, but Nobody wants to discredit our “Friends”—those Ruthless, Tainted and Unprincipled Rebels.

 

What puzzles me most is that the News Media says nothing about it.  If the Government is not controlling them, then who is?         

Naturalism Idealism Spiritualism Pragmatism and Anger

I would suppose that most people’s Behavioral Patterns, and the particular Philosophies by which they decide on how to Behave, is not consciously and deliberately chosen by them.  The Usual Case, I suppose, is that People behave in much the same way their Families had behaved before them, and then of course there are the Regional Types of Behavior, such as in the case that ‘all People from New York act like New Yorkers’.  But if one wished to Categorize and Specify particular Types of Behavioral Orientations in a sort of Philosophical Way, well we could start with the conceptual frameworks of Naturalism, Idealism, Spiritualism and Pragmatism. 

 

Naturalism is perhaps the easiest of these ‘Ism’ to achieve in practice, as one simply has to follow one’s Animal-Instinctual Impulses and Drives – ‘as easy as falling off a log’, as they say.  Yes, it would be very easy to be Judgmental toward those who behave entirely Naturalistically, but if I had to say something ‘Good’ about Naturalism it would be that, in Material Terms, sometimes the Animal Instincts – particularly the Go-For- the-Throat Killer Instinct, can pay off Big in many career fields.  Indeed, many of the most successful Business People are almost entirely Animalistic.  And Nowadays it doesn’t seem to hurt in Politics.

 

But it is easily understandable that these Naturalistic People would tend to do poorly with Anger Management.  You see, to them Anger is SO ‘Natural’ that they tend to forgive it in themselves, just as one can easily forgive a dog, or for the dog to forgive itself, for barking and growling at the Potal Carriers.  But while we live in a mostly Civilized World, it often happens that Naturalistic People find themselves inconvenienced by their Episodes of Angry, particularly if they must face adverse Social and Legal Consequences afterwards.  But when this happens, well, these Naturalists most often resort to blaming others for having provoked them –by such means as not readily conceding to all of their Business or Personal Demands, or by not showing them enough Respect or Whatever.   Of course, it is very often the case that the People whom the Naturalists blame for their Troubles are in fact other Naturalists themselves!  So you see, behaving Naturally just seems to be Everybody’s Road Map to Trouble.  

 

With Idealism I don’t have to be quite so much on my guard against being Judgmental – I like Idealists!  You see, Idealists are your quintessential “Human Beings”…They believe that there IS or at least that there SHOULD BE an Intrinsic and Basic Distinction between ‘Human Beings’ and the ‘Lower Animals’.  This Distinction, as we look about us in a largely Man-Made World, created  for us largely by Past Idealists, is demonstrated in quite a number of Ways – Human Beings adopt a Sense of Morality and maintain Moral Ideals; Human Beings tend to endeavor to live like Ideal Beings – Dressing in Cloths, shaving and styling their Hair, and closeting off privately to accomplish the Animal Functions (such as sex and bowel movements), using utensils to eat rather than eating with their hands or just digging in with their ‘mauls’,  and certainly there are many other examples we could think of .   It is as though Idealistic Human Beings see themselves as something More and Better than just their Physical Bodies.   And all of the Thought that has gone into Lifting Us Out and Above the Animal Nature has certainly helped us in many other ways – The Age Old Drive to push Thought to Higher and Higher Levels, in order to Adapt our Way to Better and Easier Means for Survival, undoubtedly served to Evolve our Large and Capable Brains, giving us the Ability to formalize, record and communicate Concepts, which is perhaps the Well Spring of All Human Inventiveness, and the Foundation for both Our Material and Moral Progress.

 

Spiritualism is much akin to Idealism, in that most Spiritualists are also Idealists.  But not all Idealists are Spiritualists.  You see, Spiritualists have the distinction of acknowledging some Central and Unifying Oneness or Life-Force in which all of our separate Lives form into One Great Life of All Things.  It is a difficult concept to explain, but I was once helped to SEE the Idea of ‘Life In All Things’ in a Dream I had decades ago when I was still quite young.  In this Dream I dreamt that I met this Young Man out in some Sun lit and arid countryside where the grass and the bushes were meagre and far between.  The Young Man approached me and he had the most intense Smile – his whole Face beamed with it… no, it wasn’t a grin, and it wasn’t close to a Laugh…rather it was a deep benign and penetrating Smile – a Smile full of disinterested but fathomless Love, and it shown especially through his eyes.  I was quite startled by it, as nobody ever looked at me like that before... or, wait… now that I think about it, not since I was a small baby (it seems my very First Memory is of my Grandmother looking down at me with just such a Smile (while I was being ‘changed’!)… apparently such a ‘Smile’ was powerful enough to awaken my Consciousness and switch on the Life Memory Circuit that has been running ever since… well, except for moments that are probably best forgotten...).   But Back to My Dream! … after the Young Man gave me that penetrating, eerie and startling smile, he nodded a kind of ‘farewell’ and turned to walk away, out into that arid countryside.  Then this Great Deep and Powerful Voice from ‘Out of the Blue’ spoke saying “And He went out into the Wilderness and became One”.   As I continued to watch him, and he was still not very far away – he developed an Aura of Silver-Blue Light.  But then I noticed that all of the Grasses and Bushes close by also began projecting the same Silver Blue Light… and then the bushes further off… and then the Trees out in the Distance.   It seemed to show that the ‘Oneness’ that the ‘Out of the Blue Voice’ spoke of was a Oneness In the Life of All Things (if I could have seen myself at the moment, I probably would have had that same Blue Silver Aura!).   We could ask why the Blue Silver Aura seemed to start in the Young Man.  Interesting question, that.  I would suppose because he was able to Feel It – that ‘to Feel It’ sparks a kind of cascading expansion of The Thing that is Felt – Boundless, All Penetrating Life.   It kind of reminds me of another Old Dream I had in which a Dream Guru told me “You have Seen It.  You have Heard It.  Now all you have to do is Feel It.”  Well, enough of Dream Land… let’s get back to the Waking Reality of this Discussion!

 

Well, we can easily imagine why any Spiritualist who thus acknowledges Oneness In All Life would adopt a Moral and Cooperative Approach in his or her Behavior.  But the Idealist, who behaves in almost exactly the Same Way, may only have different Motivations – being Good and Moral because of Rational Convictions, Logical Arguments, Religious Reasons or by the influence of a Strong Moral Example.   

 

Well, after such warm and glowing appraisals of Idealism and Spiritualism, you would think such people would have no problem with Anger, but in fact they do.  They may actually have less anger than other people, but they are often more aware of anger as a ‘Problem’, that is, they are bothered more by it, as it conflicts with what they would see as appropriately ‘Ideal Behavior’. And then there is the Problem of Causation, that is, of What Makes these High Minded People Angry to begin with.   It seems that for all of their Ideals, they are still saddled with many of the same Habits and Conditions of Life which weigh upon everybody else, and just like as with anybody else, for every Good Role Model in their Lives, there have probably been a Thousand Bad Ones.  And there are some Bad Role Models to which Idealists are particularly susceptible – those who make a display of ‘Righteous Anger’ or Overweening Pride and who flaunt an Attitude of Contemptuous Indignation or Snobbish Superiority – all that is exactly the opposite of our Smiling Saint from the Land of Dreams!   And then there are Family Dysfunctions in even the Best of Families, and of course the Peer Groups from One’s Youth are almost always the epitome of Stark Barbarism (“no Child is Enlightened… they are all Barbarians somehow or another”, as Aristotle had said.).   So, yes, Idealists and Spiritualists can have Anger Issues, and it seems that they can also be caught in an impasse when it comes to Confronting their Anger, that is, when they try to ‘Re-Invent’ their own Anger Management ‘Wheel’, so to speak.   I would suppose that They believe that just re-emphasizing the Constructs of their  own Ideal Beliefs and Convictions would be enough to quell their Anger, that is, when they Flip Out they try to Fix Themselves by reading their same old favorite Books on Spirituality or Philosophy.  While such readings won’t ‘Hurt’, still it would tend to lack the directly applicable focus that a dedicated Anger Management Book would have.   So it is that some of the Best People continue on with sporadic incidences of Anger cropping up now and then all of their lives because they can’t somehow come to effective grips with the Problem in Terms that they are comfortable with.   I would be the last person to call Idealistic People ‘Snobs’, but it does seem that they have an abiding Belief that Anger Management Books are somehow beneath them… maybe if the Publishers bound them in Tooled Leather and printed them with gilded edges…

 

Pragmatism is the last Behavioral Category we will discuss.  Pragmatism, basically speaking, is doing what seems most ‘Practical’.  Pragmatism rises above Naturalism in that it recognizes the importance and complexity of Events, Situations and Conditions and attempts to steer the straightest and smoothest course through Life’s various Obstacles; whereas Naturalism only reacts moment by moment with emotion driven impulse.  Of course the Pragmatist can be accused of oftentimes violating Moral Precepts in an effort to make Life More Comfortable for themselves, as, for instance, with those who Cheat on Exams or lie to their Relationship Partners about such things as ‘where they were and who they were with last Saturday Night’.  Indeed, there is a Great Deal of this kind of Amoral Pragmatisms circulating nowadays, especially since the slow and steady decline in Greater Civilized Traditional Religious Values over the last several Centuries  (yes, while there are people nowadays who claim to be motivated by “Religious Values”, well, what they call ‘values’ are often not very ‘Traditional’ – not in the context of our Greater Western Civilization that developed all of its Moral Fiber BEFORE the Protestant Reformation and all those Other subsequent Revolutions that have lead up to our Modern and Morally Muddled –Up Era.

 

Perhaps it would be helpful to present some idea or example of Amoral Pragmatism.   So let us pretend that a circumstance containing a Moral Dilemma pops up, and actions must be taken at a Moment’s Notice, and IF it seems Easy and Uncomplicated to Lie, Steal or Cheat, and if Nobody will ever Know or Find Out (besides the ‘Friends’ who are urging one on), and if the Benefits will be Great, well, THEN there is really nothing of any weight in the ‘Pragmatists’ Mental and Moral Outlooks to stop them from choosing to do what they ‘KNOW’ to be Morally Wrong, is there?   “Knowing” that Something is ‘Wrong’ would just be their cue to be careful not to get ‘caught’.  Essentially a Pragmatist’s ‘Moral Choices’ come down to a Calculation based on Expected Consequences.  The Religious Person would fear some kind of Supernatural Religious Consequences, whatever they might be – Hell or Bad Karma or Whatever.  Indeed, many of your Religious People have the core belief that God SEES, or at least KNOWS somehow, everything that one does, and that He somewhat vindictively Keeps Score on it all and Promises to get Even in the End!  Yes, such Beliefs may not be very ‘scientific’ but they do serve to keep The Believers on the moral ‘straight and narrow’…and all without the expense of maintaining Universal Police Surveillance, and a Judicial System that gives us more Lawyers than Doctors, and a Prison System that gives us more Prison Guards than School Teachers.   Anyway, with the Rise of Pragmatism, we must be aware that there will be a corresponding Drop in the Trust we can expect to have in and from other People – “Love your Neighbor, but count your Forks before the guests leave”.  

 

But, yes, of course, Pragmatisms isn’t always immoral (on the rare occasions when doing ‘Good’ would seem to result in some Material Benefit (such as contributing to a Tax Exempt Charity in response to solicitations from your Boss’s Wife) , but sometimes Pragmatism does have to Choose Between Evils – the Choice of doing some Absolute Good is often times not on the List of Available Options (and in Situations such as these often the Idealists are effectively ‘paralyzed’ – if not positively sure of doing ‘what is positively right’, they will do nothing at all).  So, while we live in an imperfect World, it can be argued that People who are Responsible for the Welfare of Many Other People really should be Pragmatists.   Take the Decision to Go To War – a Politician’s Decision to go to War should always be a Pragmatic Calculation –balancing the Concerns of Right, Justice, and National Interest, against the concerns for the Life and Limb of the Soldiers and Civilians involved (on both sides of the Conflict) and the possible detrimental Economic and Social Costs to the Nation, which can never be accurately predicted (“No War Plan survives the First Shot”… Sun Tzu).    History is Full of instances where National Leaders would have begged to be able to go back in Time simply so they could ‘look the other way’ if given a Second Chance on their Choice for War.   I suppose many Voters do not understand this or the underlying quasi-principles involved .  We hear of Citizens criticizing various Politicians for Neglecting Principles and doing what is Expedient, and it doesn’t seem to occur to them that THAT is exactly what our National Leaders SHOULD be doing – that they really ought to DO whatever it takes to Bring the Best Long Term Sustainable Results for One’s People, even if it requires something of a Morally Zig Zag Approach to do so.   And, yes, if it is not all Goodness and Light, our Leaders should not scruple but to Take the Sins upon themselves (when a President says he will take Full Responsibility, it is not for the Good and Moral Things he does, but for all of the unfortunate Things that Weight Heavy with Guilt).  So before any of us People allow ourselves to get Angry with the Lying, Cheating and ‘waffling’ of Politicians, consider whether they are doing it only for their own personal benefit or whether that maybe they might be doing it all for the Good of the Entire Nation or even for the Sake of the World and Greater Civilization.  And, of course, on the smaller scale, when you notice certain people within your own Orbit consistently being Pragmatic – choosing what Moral Precepts to Follow on a Case by Case basis, well, try to consider that if one could know the Full Circumstances and Conditions surrounding all of the related Events (if one could see “The Big Picture”), whether such Pragmatism could actually seem warranted or at least understandable in some vaguely qualified Moral Sense –You know, such as the “Robin Hood” Rationale.  

 

But, now, considering Pragmatists in reference to Anger Management, they are perhaps the most pliable group.  Yes, the Idealists and Spiritualists would be Perfect, but only if they were as Good as they Wished they were.  But Pragmatists have no problem doing whatever they calculate will be to their lasting advantage. So, if such Pragmatists find they have an Anger Problem that is holding them back, well nothing seems more sensible to them then to just Deal With It by resorting to Anger Management Therapy or Self Help.  

 

So, in conclusion, let me go over my assertions in brief: that Naturalists see Anger as just a Part of Life, and if reprimanded for it, they tend to resort to excuses and rationales, and this makes them very poor candidates for Anger Management Therapy.  Idealists and Spiritualists are typically less angry than most other people, unless they have a ‘thing’ for Righteous Anger, but when these High Minded People are angry they may feel more than ordinarily concerned for it, as it does not conform to their Ideal Image of Themselves, but in dealing with their Anger Issues they tend to confine themselves to their Own Personal and often very limited Resources, so they tend to shy away from Effective Anger Management Therapy or Self Help.  Pragmatists, if they become aware that Anger has become a Problem for them, will seek appropriate help and will tend to cooperate and take an active role in Fixing their Anger Problem.   Of course, all of the Above are all just very Broad–Stroke Generalizations, but it still may offer a Starting Place for one’s Thinking if this type of subject matter ever becomes a matter of concern.                       

Dream of Catastrophic Winter Storm

Oct 2016

 

I had a dream which was interesting on several points.  It started as I was out on some urban street and suddenly noticed I was with this young attractive woman.  The odd thing about it, looking back at the dream, was that I do not recognize the woman, accept to say she has similar features to other women in my dreams that I also did not recognize from before.  BUT in the dream, I immediately recognized her as something of a Steady and Exclusive Girl Friend.  One of the first things I said to her was “hasn’t it been a long time since we made love?”   Now that would be a very forward and inappropriate thing to say, and most women might object to it.  But this woman accepted the statement, but I saw that she looked concerned and preoccupied about something, and apparently we were on good enough terms for me to ‘shift gears’ immediately and begin to commiserate with her for whatever she was worried about, AND she seemed to have assumed that I would do just that… there seemed to be a trust between us.  She asked me to come along and I followed her.  She took me to her Place – it was clap-trap building that seemed to have the structural integrity of a House of Cards, like a large make-shift patched-together structure in some Indian Slum.  We passed through a hallway that was barely more than a foot wide, and I had to duck my head to pass under diagonally placed boards buttressing up the ceiling.  We came to her room, which seemed smaller than a Nun’s Cell… barely large enough to hold a narrow cot, but at the end of the cot was TV Set. She sat on the cot and turned to position herself so that I could see the TV Screen.  It showed a Time Lapsed Satellite Image of a Storm crossing the North American Continent.   The Storm had come in from Southern California and Arizona and proceeded through Nevada and Utah, and then through Idaho and Western Washington and Montana and then into Canada where the storm curled North to East through Alberta and Saskatchewan.   The Clouds seemed to be rotating clockwise, which I found odd, as Cyclonic Storms in the Northern Hemisphere rotate counter-clockwise.   The girl looked at me sadly and told me that thousands of people would die.

 

The dream made me think.  I had read a few years back that the ‘unexpectedly severe storms’ in Europe and North America could have their cause in the Melting Arctic Icecap.  You see, when it was Just Ice up there at the North Pole, the Pure Whiteness of the Snow would reflect off the Light from the Sun, and so it remained frigidly cold, even during the Summer.  But now that the Snow and Ice have largely melted, there is now Dark and Energy-Absorbent Water in its Place, and so it is all Heating Up up there.  When it used to be Cold, there was a very Tight Circular Pattern of Wind Currents – the Wind would go around and around, always at gale force, but the winds would stay put in a kind of fixed pattern up there in the Arctic Circle.  But since the Warming, and the Unevenness of the Ice and Water Cover, now those Winds have become unpredictable, and their speed has diminished which also increases their instability – like a Toy Top that slows down – it begins to Wobble and then to Fall.   And because the Winds are now Moister as Warmer, making them more Low Pressure than before, they are Pulled downward into the Dryer Continental Air Masses, but Once Moving they take on a Momentum, and while they are Warmer than the Old Arctic Extremes, they are much Colder than the Air Masses down further in the Temperate Zones, where the Pressure Dynamic shifts and these Arctic Winds, by Relativity, become the High Pressure Systems, and so they are pulled even further South by the Mid Continental Lower Pressure Systems.

 

A few years ago there were terrible Storm Systems in both North America and Europe in which there was kind of ‘Double Whammy’ effect – low pressure storms coming off the Pacific into America, and of the Atlantic into Europe met with the Plunging Arctic Systems to create unprecedented ‘Super Storms’.   But what I saw on that Dream TV was a far more terrible, and I think I know the reason.  The Dream Storm may be a kind of a One-Two-Three Punch – 1^st the Arctic System plunges downward, 2^nd a Tropical Storm slams into Southern California and travels swiftly Northward.  As that Pacific Element of the Storm causes the Northerly Winds to Accelerate from Low to High Pressure, Another Low Pressure Storm comes in off the Gulf of Mexico and it also travels North, but slightly behind and to the South of the Pacific Element, so that when the Two Storm Element meet, the Pacific Element Curls downward and Winds Accelerate again as they are pulled into the Gulf Storm Element.

 

Such a Storm would be Bitterly Cold due to the Arctic Element, and the Cloud Swirl I saw on the Dream TV was hundreds of miles wide.  Between the Wind and the Snow, we could expect Most of the Power Lines to come down.  We could expect ALL of the roads to be closed.  Many people would simply freeze to death.  Many people would be desperate enough start fires in their homes to stay warm, only to die of carbon monoxide poisoning or they would lose control of the fires and die of smoke inhalation.  Think of a large Apartment Building, where if just One Unit caught fire or began emitting carbon monoxide gas, the whole building could be killed off.  Then there are the thousands of people who would attempt to flee the storm in their cars only to get stuck on the roads where they would die as soon as they ran out of gas.  Yes, it could really be bad.

 

If an Area that Large were to be impacted, the roads could not be cleared quickly enough or the power lines restored quickly enough, and every helicopter on the continent would not be enough for all the Air Lifting that would be necessary to save everybody.  Yes, it could really be bad.

 

Well, the Girl was demoralized by it all. She got up and languidly squeezed past me in the hallway (I had been watching from outside the doorway) and she took a left turn and walked down another hallway deeper into that dark ram-shackle building and was soon out of sight.  Now, in many of my dreams, when I meet new and fascinating woman and enjoy their company, and they should leave the room, well, I try to follow them and find them again, but it is always a Lost Cause.  I eventually learned that IN A DREAM when somebody Leaves The Room it is kind of like an Actor in a Play doing an “Exit Stage Left”, that is, the Character Ceases to Exist at that Point.  Well, this is the First Dream in which I finally Realized That, and did not attempt to follow… I had understood at some level that at that point she was simply ‘no-more’.  It is not that I was Lucid, but I had made it such a point to Instruct Myself to Not Continue making this Same Mistake over and over again and wasting so Much Dream Time attempting what was effectively Impossible, that the Suggestion finally ‘took’.   You know how we say that the Subconscious Mind can affect our Conscious thinking and behavior, well, perhaps the Same Kind of Thing works on the Inverse – that  Suggestions from the Conscious Mind can have an Impact on the Dream Mind’s decision making processes.