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New Civilization News: Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country. |
Category: Spirituality 49 comments 19 Oct 2004 @ 18:37 by spiritseek : welcomeWell Roberto you started off on a very big foot and I commend you on such a bold stand in such a short time. As to politics the system stinks and should be completely done away with, but as you know human nature plays a big part in all of it that it takes man to change in order to change any thing. I see a future where man will be more apt to be honest with his dealings with his fellow man. Perhaps soon such a change will accur as we all know times are changing. 19 Oct 2004 @ 18:52 by ov : Nice to see retirees Let me extend a welcome as well Roberto. Everything is inter-related and this transition that we are going through now has many different faces and levels and views, would be an understatement to say it was huge. We are all blind, fondling the elephant, engaging in a cluster folk, the shot heard round the world carried on a joke. :-) 19 Oct 2004 @ 19:40 by shawa : Welcome to the logs :-) 19 Oct 2004 @ 20:26 by martha : welcome to NCN Good luck.... The internet is the great equalizer and many truths will be revealed over the coming years. I voted for Kerry because I think he is the best man for the job and I don't consider him the lesser of two evils. I mailed my ballot in yesterday. California has a lot of propositions on the ballot and it is easier to fill out the ballot at home while you look through the voter guide to read the pros and cons.The guide is 165 pages! Fortunately I only had to read a few pages. Only some of the propsitions are worded funky. 22 Oct 2004 @ 12:24 by swan : Hello Roberto, welcome to NCN. I believe you "can find a few, free thinking and optimistic people who can have a discussion, leaving all of their pre-conceived ideas of what is right or wrong in the shower, to explore new ideas of how to make this world a better place. " as well as those who can't. NCN is alot like the world :-) I like your idea about retired judges and I would add that may be they should have a complete psychological assessment. If that was true our current "leader" ( I use that term loosely) would have been disqualified. It is sad when we are trying to choose a leader based on who is the least abusive to his opponent. I live in Minnesota, we are apparently one of the swing states. Most of the commercial time is used by Bush and Kerry mud slinging. It is not helpful. How ignorant do they think the voting public is! Of course they are going to say bad things that aren't true about each other. They are wasting our time and thier money telling us! Like I am going to vote for someone because he painted such a bad picture about someone else! Hello! Why not spend thier money saying something go about themselves that we might believe! Oh shoot you got me going on politics...pretty soon I will be throwing dirty socks and swearing at the computer screen. I better stop now. 23 Oct 2004 @ 19:43 by zutano : We can start chage. Thanks for your comments. I know it is too late to do anything about the current elections, and it is not too early to start making changes for the next. All we need to do is make a commitment to do something to improve the system. I agree with Sprit Seeker that the political system in the USA is bad...and yes it even smells. And it probably should be thrown out and start with something new. But that is not going to happen for a while and in the meantime we can do things to fix it and maybe if we fix a few things we make it work better and won’t need to throw it all out. I threw out an idea...I suggested a new procedure that any candidate for public office would be required to pass before he or she could be put on a ballot. States, cities, counties could require it. How long would it take to make this change. If we started to get honest people in our city, county and state government it would not be long before we could also have them in our federal government. Let’s make an experiment. As Martha stated..."The Internet is the great equalizer" If we wanted to do this...how would we start? We do have the power. Roberto 23 Oct 2004 @ 19:55 by ov : Electoral Reform Yes the internet is a great tool for getting information distributed to those that have a use for that information. "You can only change yourself, but you can influence those you come in contact with, and you can appreciate the world at large." I forget where I picked that little gem up, but the internet can be used to influence, and appreciating the world at large involves recognizing those things which have already been initiated. I've noticed a tendency in concerned citizen to want to initiate something rather than joining in with something else that is already in progress. Here in BC Canada there is a project currently in progress for {link:www.citizensassembly.bc.ca|Citizen's Assembly on Electoral Reform} and this might provide a model, or at least something to build upon, for electoral reform down in the USA. There have been a lot of suggestions and dialogues that have occurred with the Canadian process, and it is too early to tell if any of this will have any affect when it comes to politica implementation. There seems to be consensus among the people that this process should be repeated and that we continue to learn from it. 23 Oct 2004 @ 20:00 by jstarrs : Hello Roberto... ...thanks for reminding me, a youngster in his '50's, that there'll still a lot to do! 24 Oct 2004 @ 19:13 by ov : Citizen's Assembly Just heard the latest update on the radio. The vote of the assembly was 93% against the existing system of {link:www.citizensassembly.bc.ca/public/learning_resources/glossary/2003/csharman-10_0312231332-021|first past the post} and it looks like the {link:www.citizensassembly.bc.ca/public/learning_resources/glossary/2003/csharman-10_0312241131-047|single transferable vote} will be their recommendation. This is a form of proportional voting where the voters rank the candidates according to their order of preference. I think one of the advantages, though I'm not sure, is that it encourages voting according to what a person is in favor of, rather than voting against an opponent. I sure hope that there is a documentary or two on the process that was gone through in order to get the assembly to reach a reasoned conclusion. (If in fact there was a reasoned conclusion) Either way I sure would like to see a documentary on this. 24 Oct 2004 @ 20:31 by istvan : OV When I joined NCN some years ago, I assumed ai have found a bunch of dedicated people who were sat least somewhat serious about creating something on top of old cicilisations. I made some personal plans to advance this, yet found no interst in doing the necessary work that any change may entail. One of these projects was is to to purchase the domain names: electionreform.com and electionreform.net. These domains I still own. I hane tried to donate them to seweral NGO type organisations for free, received no repplies. Now they are no longer free, but for sale or trade for equl value of anything. My house was blown away in the hurricane, can not afford charity. I have tried to develope the site, have no resources. There is more talk now about a possible change. I have seen many years ago that the main culprit in degenerations of societies is embedded within the faulty ways of electoral processes employed in many countries, whwre the people have no real choices, only being deceived by the process itself. Change is possible, my voice is constantly being blown away in the so popular winds of incessant chatting, the only interst of the deluded human mind. My name and email can be found in the registry of domain names, if anyone interested. 25 Oct 2004 @ 00:25 by istvan : Electiondisasters sometimes encourage electionreform. If after reading this link one does not know it is needed, than at least it would be well to think of meaning of Morons in Charge. [ http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1024-01.htm ] 4 Apr 2005 @ 17:20 by Liz Rutherford @24.173.85.86 : Donation for Church planting Last year my church planted another church in Northren Belfast, Ireland and we now have a team that lives there reaching out to that community. This June we are expanding into San Antonio, Tx so we are trying to raise a budget to get us started. I am part of a team of 15 people and we have been given a goal of 50,000. Each of us is responsable to raise 3,000. We are trying to raise this by April 23, 2005 which marks the Passover. The Passover is a symbolizm of God's provision and I know that He is going to provide for us the money that we need to get to San Antonio. When we get to San Antonio we will start off with a World Center Leadership Academy for pre- K and up. We will also be doing outreaches and neighborhood clean- up including trash and graffiti. If you would like to be a part of expanding God's Kingdom and helping to reach out to other people please send a e-mail to izzybee@hotmail.com 13 Oct 2005 @ 21:05 by Tom Clemmer @198.200.132.69 : Housing I wouldn't propose a new system...just some better policies. Take Energy and the say something like the housing market. Politics have more to do with housing than people know. Interest rates are just one example. I feel the housing market is making all the wrong moves and in the long run will place the country in a recession. So, the next President will have to deal with all the problems in the housing market and all the problems Bush has gotten the country into...simular to Bush Sr. and the S&L scams. Whould you agree that Houses are overvalued by 70%? I think the general person that invested in the housing market in the last few months/year is looking to get double digit returns. But, the bubble is about to pop and they just won't get those type of returns and might have to sell just to avoid a loss. Look for a 50% drop in housing across the board in the next 3 years. I would expect the FED would like to see all the money wrapped up in real esate to move somewhere else... The FED will raise rates again and again until interest rates are very high...So, watch out in next few years to come. Wouldn't it be nice if the Gov would pass a law to limit the interest rates to say 2 or 3%? Well...it's a start. After interest rates are addressed then the next best area to address is ENERGY. Take energy off the free market...won't that make the world a better place? 24 Oct 2006 @ 22:51 by Hanae @69.33.46.10 : "Politicians have yet to wake up... ...to the impact of the internet, which will expose them to online 'truth predictor' tests and affect the outcome of general elections." The above is a quote from Eric Schmidt (Google's Chairman) from his address to the UK's Conservative Party Conference on October 3, 2006. "Imagine being able to check instantly whether or not statements made by politicians were correct..." Will the Internet feel the gap left wide open by the abdication of investigative reporting? Here's the video: {link:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rk5FqZuFDTg|Eric Schmidt, Politicians and Lie Detectors}. "...I think perhaps the most important thing that will happen - this is probably a shared value of everyone in the room - is that the internet can be, and I hope will be, a revolutionary force in a repressive society driving both literacy and expression to new heights and to a new prosperity..." 25 Oct 2006 @ 00:18 by Hanae @69.33.46.10 : For and by the people... This is precisely what makes issues related to Net Neutrality such as {link:http://www.newciv.org/nl/newslog.php/_v83/__show_article/_a000083-000016.htm|Net this one} or {link:http://ming.tv/flemming2.php/__show_article/_a000010-001602.htm|that one} so very relevant, of course. 25 Oct 2006 @ 16:07 by skillz : Do we really need a leader? The political system itself is the problem. Its only motive is to control. Do we really need controling? Do YOU need controling? I think if there is going to be any change for the better, its not going to be because some suited and booted billionare is telling us. Its the people themselves that have got to listen to their own senses crying out at them the truth, then we can unite and crush our opressors. The current opinion seems to be that without a government we would have anarchy. This is complete bollox. Our actions are not governed by some authoratian figure, we make our own choices (or at least we should). If their was no police and courts would you feel the need to go on a murdering spree? As for selecting exjudges to be leaders, I cant think of anything more insane! 25 Oct 2006 @ 17:42 by celestial : The Great Museum They used to say the pistol was the great equalizer. Now it is the internet. With all of the communication in the world, we do not need capitals anymore. I can see Washington D. C. as The Great Museum of what doesn't work. The only thing stopping The New Civilization is an international currency. The problem with the previous sentence are the words "international" and "currency." 25 Oct 2006 @ 21:30 by Hanae @69.33.46.10 : On Governance and Emergent Democracy "The current opinion seems to be that without a government we would have anarchy." ----25 Oct 2006 @ 16:07 by dkill Hmmm… “no government” is actually more or less what anarchy is supposed to be about, so it seems to me that, in this instance, "the current opinion" would be correct. Although technically Anarchy is about an absence of "rulers" (or “archons”--- hence the term “anarchy”), it has been commonly promoted, by extension, as meaning “an absence of government." Absence of “rulers” and absence of “government” are not exactly the same thing, of course. It is interesting to note, to that regard, that Anarchists can't seem to agree amongst themselves about how to go about economic arrangements and possible rules that would prevail in a society devoid of "rulers” (or devoid of “government” depending on their creed.) “If they were no police and courts…” as dkill postulates, well, I don’t know, it seems to me that society would most likely revert to the law of the jungle: {link:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gang|gang}’s rules, and warlords such as we have for example in Somalia (and in states in which basically central government and nationwide authorities have collapsed or exist merely formally without actual control over the state territory), and {link:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robber_baron_(industrialist)|robber barons} like those we used to have during the gilded age (and their modern equivalents). The point is that some of the ills of governments (over-controlling or manipulative leaders, corruption, etc.) are not endemic to government per se, but basically rest with Humanity itself. Government is not the illness but merely one of the stages on which the illness manifests. It is a tempting and simplistic solution to just say “this leg is infected, let’s cut it off,” but if the infection is in the blood it will propagate elsewhere. In other words, bringing down the government will not fix the problem of “control,” because “controlling people” will find other avenues, other stages, from which to grab power. “Suited and booted billionaire” or megalomaniac personalities will keep seeking power for the sake of power, if not through our existing form of government, then through other avenues. They were there during the tribal stage of humanities, there were there during the feudal times, there were there during the Monarchies era, and the ages of Empire, and they are here now. The idea of government (or at least some forms of governments) was conceived as a remedy to the illness. Such an idea can be found in the governments that eventually came about as a result of the American Revolution ("government of the people, by the people, and for the people") and the French Revolution ("Liberty, equality, fraternity”) In its broadest sense, "to govern" means to administer or supervise. And the idea, politically, behind such a concept was to bring to an end, or at least limit the abuses wrought by the Nero and the Genghis Khan of the world and their modern successors---and most of all to protect people from the abuses of government itself: “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” It is an uphill battle. “Between the idea And the reality Between the motion And the act Falls the shadow.” ---T.S. Eliot There is no getting away from “government” because “government” is unavoidable, it is a fact of life, it is there, whether you want it or not: It goes from the “pecking order” and alpha leaders of “pack animals” type of organization such as they exist in nature (“the law of the jungle,” which has its own rules and form of governance) to the “civilizations” of the tribal and feudal orders (Humanity’s own law of the jungle where might makes right) to our more contemporary forms of governance. dkill’s question is a good one” “Do we really need controlling?” It all depends on what one means by “we.” Typically people think of them “politicians” as “them” and of the rest of us as “we”. I think there is no “us and them”. “We” do not need controlling. But if “we” have to have self-governance, and have this “self-governance” protected, then our government needs controlling and “we” – all of us – need to be in control. And I do not think that this is how our government currently works. “Do we really need a leader?” is another interesting question. The leader archetype (the {link:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_system_(film)|star system}) remains deeply rooted, it would seem, in humanity’s collective psyche and it remains very present in all facets of life, politics is no exception. It is worthwhile to note that the notion of one-person leadership can be seen as “a contradiction in terms”, because both leaders and followers must exist (James MacGregor Burns – 1978). No one is innocent. George Terry (Terry, G. 1960) has defined leadership as: "the activity of influencing people to strive willingly for group objectives". If we define leadership simply as "influencing others to some purpose" and we define followership as "becoming influenced by others to accept (willingly or unwillingly) some purpose", then leadership and followership emerge as two sides of the same coin. Alternatives seeking to underplay such leadership factors, through co-operative ventures, collegiality, or applied democracy or even anarchism are in no way immune to the affect of charismatic or influential personalities who become the “de facto” leaders of such or such current of opinions for which they have become a figure-head. Nothing comes out of nothing. There is a give and take between “leaders” and the socio-ideological currents they stand for or manipulate, as the case might be. It is a slippery slope, which often leads to the excesses of ultra-nationalism, jingoism, racism or religious fundamentalism and the use of dichotomous rhetoric. Ronald Heifetz (Heifetz 1994) pointed out that people fail to adapt to new and unsettling situations through six avoidance mechanisms: 1. blaming others 2. finding scapegoats (to the extent that this differs from blaming) 3. externalizing the enemy 4. denying that a problem exists 5. jumping to conclusions 6. finding a distracting issue In a prescriptive view, the leader would squarely face the problem and avoid the six surface-level solutions of the non-leader. A true leader would help a community face reality and deal with the issues: finding solutions where none previously existed. Using the 1950s television character, the Lone Ranger, as an example, we see the Ranger in a weekly episode, moving from frontier town to frontier town, discovering problems wherever he goes, fixing the problems and riding off into the sunset. In this metaphor, the Ranger fixes the symptom, but not the problem. A Lone Ranger non-leader would catch fish to feed the poor while a true leader would teach the poor how to catch fish and would motivate them to do so. The true leader finds a way to help the community engage the problem and collectively find a solution. For more detail, see Heifetz, R. (1994). Leadership without easy answers. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Just as in the case of “government” there is no getting away from “leadership” (the “star system”), because Man is a social animal and “leadership” (influential people, spokesmen/women, charismatic people,…) is deeply rooted in Humanity psychological makeup. Leadership per se is not fundamentally a bad thing---there are numerous examples of inspirational personalities (leading through example) who were instrumental in helping others or even humanity at large for that matter--- but, like governance, leadership can become a problem if it becomes deceptive, manipulative or authoritarian in nature and becomes a factor of stunted growth in others instead of a factor of growth. It all ultimately comes to a matter of INFORMED CONSENT, the key word here is “informed”---the corner-stone of “self-governance.” The bottom line is that it is highly ironical that in the so-called “Age of Information,” we live in an era where most of the media have abdicated their responsibilities to “inform”, while on TV some so-called news channels have even sunk as low as becoming no more than “organs of the party,” a conduit for promoting and defending the White House policies with very little critical analysis or room for dissent. It is no surprise then that the Internet has become the symbol of the Age of Information and the flag bearer of the {link:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergent_democracy|Emergent democracy} phenomenon. 26 Oct 2006 @ 17:39 by skillz : Phew That was allot to read. Your obviously and "educated" person, i do not understand allot of the words n stuff you've used. I do not read allot if any. Im gonna work my way backwards on this.. First, the internet is a place we one can educate THEMSELF, it could possibly be the cancer that destroys the system we have now. Leaders and follows. I dont believe that anybody willfully follows the government we have, so I dont believe that we have a leader. People dont have a choice about which bunch of rich people decides how poor we should be. If we had the ability to survive alone we could turn our back on taxes and jobs. But the very free land itself has been taken away from us. Without land we cannot produce food, therefore we die. The people of the world havent lived off the land and then decided that they should work for somebody else and instead of life giving food they would get small round metal discs. Looking back at history to understand things gets you nowhere. Reading todays newspaper does'nt even give you insight into any reality thats occuring, so how is a 3000 year old writing going to enlighten you any more. Unless you actualy wittness events for yourself then you can never be sure of the full facts. We should not keep looking to history for answers because the fact is nobody accept the people who experienced the past really know. The lone ranger was an actor, fiction. Pack leaders in nature - Yes in the animal and human kingdom a leader will emerge from the pack, desided by their social interation, strengh, convidence and intelect. We do not have pack leaders. I and billions of other people have never met or interated with george bush yet he is supposed to be our pack leader. When did WE deside this. Even if we did follow him where is he leading us? I think what it comes down to is that overwhelming unnatural forces have taken away our choices. And they've taken away our options to the extent that if we do not conform we will not survive. 26 Oct 2006 @ 18:19 by celestial : "In God We Trust" "In God We Trust" has evolved into "In government we trust." This thinking will be the downfall of western culture. Voting only works to the benefit of everybody if EVERYBODY votes. The more power is concetrated in a few individuals the more corruption prevails and we know "absolute power corrupts absolutly." I wish there was a way to get people to think about the CONSEQUENCES of their actions. This has become a priorty for me and hopefully for others. 26 Oct 2006 @ 21:33 by Hanae @69.33.46.10 : dkill "Cancer" would not exactly have been my word of choice to describe the Internet---I'd rather think of it as a constructive or transformative force rather than a "destructive" one. Although, cancer IS a mutative force, cancer is also a disease and I hope that the Internet will proove a "remedy" rather than a disease ;-) I know nothing of you, dkill, and you know very little of me, other than some of the comments we post on NCN, so I think that it would be presumptuous from either one of us to assume anything about each other's "education" based on a few mere comments. I do not judge you for your style and, I hope, you will not judge me for mine. To each his or her own. Rather than a matter of "education" I believe that it's all a matter of style, or fashion---don’t you think?--- a choice that people make in how they chose to present themselves on a thread or in a chat room. Is using slang, online jargon, or leaving one’s spelling purposefully uncorrected the “fashionable” thing to do, or not? I don’t know, personally I don’t care… ”You say potatoe, I say potato.” It’s all the same to me. So, if you don’t mind, keep writing the way you do, and I’ll keep writing the way I do ;-) I agree with you dkill, the internet is a place where one can educate oneself. And, I disagree about “history” and “fiction.” - “Looking back at history” is educative. - “Fiction” is educative----the example of the Lone Ranger, above, was as a metaphor. There is actually very little in the word that is not educative. I am not a proselytizer, dkill, I am an explorer, and the Internet (including threads such as this one) is a wonderful tool for explorers---especially for “words n stuff”, lol, one claims one doesn’t understand. I suspect you understand a lot more than you claim, but if you’d rather pretend that you don’t, that’s fine with me, too. I do not put comments up to try and convince anyone---I do such things firstly for myself (because someone said something that caught my fancy or because I find the topic of interest and it’s a way for me to put some time aside and reflect about things) and I do it also, of course, for those who might have a similar interest in the topic (they'll draw their own conclusions) and will sometimes respond if they have some feedback to contribute. Aren’t the www wonderful? The “forces that have taken away our choices” do not seem to me “unnatural” at all, they are some of the oldest forces in the world. You have a kinder vision than I do of what a “pack leader” is. In my understanding, it usually works something like this: A half-dozen churls with weapons get together, loot and burn a farm, rape the women and kill the men. Their leader is a “leader”. More churls see them living well, and join them. Let a month go past, and you have a lot of ruined farms, a petty warlord, and fifty armed churls. Well, this man is a leader to, dkill, and his word is life or death. Would you prefer him, or a system of governance of the people, by the people, and for the people? Even though, our system of governance has evolved since feudal times, the pack leader mentality is still very much alive. True, you’ve never met George Bush in person, dkill, but what is being sold is an image, and the image that the machine is selling is that of an alpha-male, a pack-leader---and it works, or, at least things operate within a system that make it possible for such strategies to work well enough to assure the legitimacy (or the appearance of legitimacy, as the case might be) of the proclaimed “leader.” The question here, dkill, is not whether the current system is a good system or a bad one---I believe it is clear we both agree that it is highly unsatisfactory. The question is one of governance and the way we want to go from here. This is where we differ. I believe that going back to a “lawless” more “natural” primitive pack-leader system, like you seem to suggest, would be a regression. To me, Evolution is about forging new paths, new understandings, new dimensions... Some of the reforms that came about as a result of the American and French revolutions didn’t deliver on all of their promises of "government of the people, by the people, and for the people" and of "Liberty, equality, and fraternity” but, the way, I see it, it’s an improvement over the warlords system of the feudal times. The problem is that the feudal mentality is still pretty much part of our civilization, it has translated into its modern equivalent (corporate warfare and what-have-you, the geo-economical “winner-take-all” mentalities) and “armed conflicts” still strive. As the world is becoming a global village, people are becoming more aware of each other and of their collective impact on the planet---inequities too have become more visible. There are concerns and there are hopes. The concerns are that the Global Village could become a Totalitarian village, or an Orwellian dystopia. The hope is that the marriage of new decentralized and ubiquitous technologies and the rise of a new global consciousness will help empower us, as a people and individually, and bring about the kind of {link:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergent_democracy|Emergent democracy} that could help launch the world on the path of hope. You know, “something new, open, free and exciting…” 27 Oct 2006 @ 13:58 by skillz : Hanae You seem like a smart guy (but maybee thats just an image) and i think your insulting your own inteligence to say that your not capable of controling your own actions for the rest of your life. I think that you have been duept into thinking that man cant control himself unless he hears the voice of another man (a history book too far I fear). And what of the other men, who tells them what to tell other men and where do these other other men get there orders from. And if the people are suposadly in control of there controlers (democracy), then do they really need them to tell them what they tell them to tell them. If theres one thing thats stoped mans ability to think for himself its "education". For us to move on and I know that you do, we have to let go of the past and look at the present. We can be sure of the present, and the only certainty about the future is our own deaths. History is as good as fiction. You must only trust physical events that you wittness for yourself. Analysing what may or maynot be true of things that happened before you was even born is futile. A sum of any persons motives can only be measured but what he does, not by what he says. "Some of the reforms that came about as a result of the American and French revolutions didn’t deliver on all of their promises of "government of the people, by the people, and for the people" and of "Liberty, equality, and fraternity” - This is a prime example. All thats left after any war is corpses, no matter what glory they proclaim. Did these dead people feel liberated? Dont be fooled by history proppaganda. The government would like you to think that even though their political rulership stinks like an open sewer, the other options are still worse. To actually really reform we need to escape this political jargon. Their jargon is designed to blinker the politition to the carrot. That way he doesnt see the reality around him. One of their great ploys is using titles such as "free and democratic" to cover the stench of the truth. The meaning of free and democratic is totaly unrelated to our government, yet that is what they call it. The money driven murder of iraqi people is called "the liberation of the east". Its complete madness. Im just going to free myself now by blowing up my home, killing my family and then setting fire to myself, I should really feel liberated then. If a maniac told you to murder your neighbour would you do it? If a man told you to murder 500.000 people women and children included in another counrty would you do it? Basicaly this is how modern war operates. War is only possible because of the asumption that a man will kill another man for no personal reason just because he was told to. I think it all boils down to stupid people. Its the stupid people who are the problem. And they call this unprovoked ordered murder for the increased wealth of the ignorant "defending your country" and these child murdering morons are hailed as heros! To brake free of this madness we need to stop using there lingo coz its complete bollox. STOP READING SO MUCH Get out there and run through the woods and fields, climb a tree, chase a butterfly, kiss a strange beautiful girl (or man if that the case) loose yourself for while. It will all seem like nonsense after that. People are trapped in a confined world of nonsensical rules and values. If the stupid people need to be lead, then maybee i should lead them into the light. Not for financial gain but for personal satisfaction that im doing whats right. What would i tell them? Unlike the lone ranger i would not just give them a hand out to help, but instead lead them to be self sufficiant. That, would'nt you say, be a TRUE leader. 27 Oct 2006 @ 22:46 by Hanae @68.164.232.228 : Emergent Democracy as Synergic Diversity Which are you trying to drink, the water or the wave? ---John Fowles, The Magus LOL Man is no more independent from his past than the bee from its hive. I am beginning to believe that you are looking for a false quarrel, here, dkill. Or that you are trying to fight, maybe, some old battles of yours, some debates you'd like to have about so many of the things that upset you about the world (and I agree with you that there is a lot to be upset about---there is a lot to be in aw of, too), or perhaps this is some debate you had, in the past, with someone else who disagree with some of the points you are advocating on your comment above---clearly, I am not that person (and putting words in my mouth---things I didn’t say---won't make it so, LOL.) I think you are barking at the wrong tree, here. I feel this is going nowhere. Not that I participate to such threads with the specific expectation that it will and must arrive to some specific constructive outcome, I just like to hear other’s ideas, how others might feel about things---you know, “dialogue”---and possibly be surprised (I am always hoping I’ll be surprised) by what might possibly come out of such threads: it’s called human interaction. Human interaction is what happen when you talk to other people, read books that were written by other people (or write a book yourself), go to the movie, etc. “Running through the woods and fields, climbing a tree, chasing a butterfly, and kissing” is alright too ;-) “Freedom” is an idea. And so is “Democracy.” Have those terms been abused for propaganda purpose? You bet! And so have many other words. Does it mean that the dream and ideals those words stand for are not worthy pursuing? You say that “if there’s one thing that’s stopped man’s ability to think for himself it’s ‘education.’” The Khmer Rouge thought so too. They carried out a radical program that included book burning, and suppressing selected groups, including teachers and intellectuals. I am pretty sure that you do not suggest that we do something as extreme as that as the premise for a new civilization. And what if we could turn the clock back and start all over again? How do you know things would work better this time around? The fact is that information and knowledge passed between people and generations is what allows Humanity to exchange and accumulate experiences although no one could live through all of them, and they would be soon forgotten if we had no means to record them. This accumulation of knowledge, and experiences is what our civilization is made of. The “Present” in which you live. (General Semantics has a word for it, they call it the Time-binding ability of Humanity.) I have read your comment carefully and the way I see it, I believe your problem is not with education per se, but with propaganda. Can “formal education” be used as a tool for propaganda and indoctrination? It can and it has. Can education be a tool to oppose propaganda and indoctrination? It can and it has. Can “man’s ability to think for himself” be hampered by education, like you postulate? It can and it has. Can education boost one’s ability to think for oneself? It can and it has. So it all comes to education. The more extensive the education, the more diverse, the more free, the more open, the more complex, the less likely one will be a victim of propaganda. It is propagandists, people who do not want you to think for yourself, people who do not want you to exchange ideas freely with others, in person, or through books, or through the Internet, who burn books, yes? Life has been evolving through stages of ever increasing complexity; mammalian intelligence and homo sapiens are a manifestation of that complexity. Our civilization and the emergence of a {link:http://www.peterussell.com/GB/globalbrain.html|Global Brain} is another example of that evolving complexity. I feel the way to freedom is tied to the {link:http://ming.tv/flemming2.php/__show_article/_a000010-001647.htm |evolution of more complex systems}, not to a regression to the past---and what past would that be? 28 Oct 2006 @ 03:17 by jobrown : Those who don't learn from History are doomed to repeat it! This is true for individuals as well as Nations! Quite interesting thread here! ; ) ...and besides; this IS the TRUTH about Life: DEATH IS OPTIONAL!!!! Not Manditory as "made by God" as our reality.But Mankind as a group, has chosen it for a LOOOOONG time!.... because of his own stupidity (= Closed Mind/edness ) !... Go figure! : )But ther;s always been plenty of humans around who knew they could raise their being, body and all to the level of Life Everlasting and thus they are immortal, which is not the goal, but a consequence to their "achievement of what we all as a united Oneness of Humankind could choose as life to be for ALL on Earth! Of course; that would demand that we all love/respect eachother and all other Living things!... with no need to be the Top Dog in odf wvery moment, every interaction!.... There would not be any top or Underdogs!... Equality follows Love and respect or love & respect follows equalility. Hard to say which came first: the chicken or the egg! ; ) Greetings/Bb Astrid 28 Oct 2006 @ 18:39 by Hanae @68.164.232.228 : The Common Good Interesting relevant article, {link:http://www.scu.edu/ethics/practicing/decision/commongood.html|here}. by Manuel Velasquez, Claire Andre, Thomas Shanks, S.J., and Michael J. Meyer at Santa Clara University. "The common good does not just happen. Establishing and maintaining the common good require the cooperative efforts of some, often of many, people." This article appeared originally in {link:http://www.scu.edu/ethics/publications/iie/|Issues in Ethics} V5 N1 (Spring 1992): "...The common good...consists primarily of having the social systems, institutions, and environments on which we all depend work in a manner that benefits all people. Examples of particular common goods or parts of the common good include an accessible and affordable public health care system, and effective system of public safety and security, peace among the nations of the world, a just legal and political system, and unpolluted natural environment, and a flourishing economic system. Because such systems, institutions, and environments have such a powerful impact on the well-being of members of a society, it is no surprise that virtually every social problem in one way or another is linked to how well these systems and institutions are functioning. As these examples suggest, the common good does not just happen. Establishing and maintaining the common good require the cooperative efforts of some, often of many, people. Just as keeping a park free of litter depends on each user picking up after himself, so also maintaining the social conditions from which we all benefit requires the cooperative efforts of citizens. But these efforts pay off, for the common good is a good to which all members of society have access, and from whose enjoyment no one can be easily excluded. All persons, for example, enjoy the benefits of clean air or an unpolluted environment, or any of our society's other common goods. In fact, something counts as a common good only to the extent that it is a good to which all have access. It might seem that since all citizens benefit from the common good, we would all willingly respond to urgings that we each cooperate to establish and maintain the common good. But numerous observers have identified a number of obstacles that hinder us, as a society, from successfully doing so. First, according to some philosophers, the very idea of a common good is inconsistent with a pluralistic society like ours. Different people have different ideas about what is worthwhile or what constitutes "the good life for human beings", differences that have increased during the last few decades as the voices of more and more previously silenced groups, such as women and minorities, have been heard. Given these differences, some people urge, it will be impossible for us to agree on what particular kind of social systems, institutions, and environments we will all pitch in to support. And even if we agreed upon what we all valued, we would certainly disagree about the relative values things have for us. While all may agree, for example, that an affordable health system, a healthy educational system, and a clean environment are all parts of the common good, some will say that more should be invested in health than in education, while others will favor directing resources to the environment over both health and education. Such disagreements are bound to undercut our ability to evoke a sustained and widespread commitment to the common good. In the face of such pluralism, efforts to bring about the common good can only lead to adopting or promoting the views of some, while excluding others, violating the principle of treating people equally. Moreover, such efforts would force everyone to support some specific notion of the common good, violating the freedom of those who do not share in that goal, and inevitably leading to paternalism (imposing one group's preference on others), tyranny, and oppression. A second problem encountered by proponents of the common good is what is sometimes called the "free-rider problem". The benefits that a common good provides are, as we noted, available to everyone, including those who choose not to do their part to maintain the common good. Individuals can become "free riders" by taking the benefits the common good provides while refusing to do their part to support the common good. An adequate water supply, for example, is a common good from which all people benefit. But to maintain an adequate supply of water during a drought, people must conserve water, which entails sacrifices. Some individuals may be reluctant to do their share, however, since they know that so long as enough other people conserve, they can enjoy the benefits without reducing their own consumption. If enough people become free riders in this way, the common good which depends on their support will be destroyed. Many observers believe that this is exactly what has happened to many of our common goods, such as the environment or education, where the reluctance of all person to support efforts to maintain the health of these systems has led to their virtual collapse. The third problem encountered by attempts to promote the common good is that of individualism. our historical traditions place a high value on individual freedom, on personal rights, and on allowing each person to "do her own thing". Our culture views society as comprised of separate independent individuals who are free to pursue their own individual goals and interests without interference from others. In this individualistic culture it is difficult, perhaps impossible, to convince people that they should sacrifice some of their freedom, some of their personal goals, and some of their self-interest, for the sake of the "common good". Our cultural traditions, in fact, reinforce the individual who thinks that she should not have to contribute to the community's common good, but should be left free to pursue her own personal ends. Finally, appeals to the common good are confronted by the problem of an unequal sharing of burdens. Maintaining a common good often requires that particular individuals or particular groups bear costs that are much greater than those borne by others. Maintaining an unpolluted environment, for example, may require that particular firms that pollute install costly pollution control devices, undercutting profits. Making employment opportunities more equal may require that some groups, such as white males, sacrifice their own employment chances. Making the health system affordable and accessible to all may require that insurers accept lower premiums, that physicians accept lower salaries, or that those with particularly costly diseases or conditions forego the medical treatment on which their live depend. Forcing particular groups or individuals to carry such unequal burdens "for the sake of the common good", is, at least arguably, unjust. Moreover, the prospect of having to carry such heavy and unequal burdens leads such groups and individuals to resist any attempts to secure common goods. All of these problems pose considerable obstacles to those who call for an ethic of the common good. Still, appeals to the common good ought not to be dismissed. For they urge us to reflect on broad questions concerning the kind of society we want to become and how we are to achieve that society. They also challenge us to view ourselves as members of the same community and, while respecting and valuing the freedom of individuals to pursue their own goals, to recognize and further those goals we share in common." 30 Oct 2006 @ 12:47 by skillz : Experience...Hanae The only way to truely LEARN is the hardway. Actual PHYSICAL interactions with the world. Books can be interesting but NOT the word of god. Your puting your trust in the word of a sranger who does'nt have your best intrests at heart, just because it has a glossy cover, well written and available at whsmiths does'nt make what it says FACT. Its basicaly blind faith, just annother form of religion like catholosism or television. I will not deny that obviously there can be allott of bennifit from RIGHT reading, but without actual experience of what your reading all your doing is memerising not understanding. After some provoking I have managed to squeeze some underlieing truths out of you. You are obviously well familliar with propperganda and a think allot of people think of propperganda as something within the realms of the nazis and oposing countrys, not something their OWN country would do to their OWN people. ANYTHING said by the government is propperganda. How would they benifit from saying anything else. I dont have the time today to go into to much detail and reiterate on every point but i do think that you have allot of knowlege, and knowlege is power. I think that your political mind is clouding your spiritual higher mind (as politics is designed to do) But I think that to learn sometimes we have to unlearn (thats not mine but i cant remember who said it) QUOTES - Which are you trying to drink, the water or the wave? ---John Fowles, The Magus What is that SUPPOSED to mean? Its not even your own and its nonsensible jibberish. I want to hear what YOU think about life and experiences, not what some famous poet says. When i used the word "education" it was used in the term that government uses it, yes for for indoctrinating propperganda, hense the quotation marks. I believe that the ONLY people that should EDUCATE our children should be US, their natural mother and father. Why should we let anyone else tell our children whats goods for them, they clearly dont have their best intrests at heart. We need to protect our children from "education" this really is a cancer. Reading a book, going to the movies or writing a book is not human interaction and is not even in the same catorgory as “Running through the woods and fields, climbing a tree, chasing a butterfly, and kissing a strange beautiful girl" Reading and watching are passive activitys. This is the first time in my life ive ever written or read anything. You could argue all day long that reading books is the way foward to learning and changing the world for the better, but unless you try the alternative you'l never know if your wrong. Just out of curiousity, have you every tryed any entheogens, psycedelics or any other kind of drug? Steve just out to expose the truth 30 Oct 2006 @ 13:35 by triggs : Lets work fast It is time for change and the powers that be are working very hard for change. They want to take away internet freedom, they want to control that just like they control the media. But I do believe there is a window of opportunity right now but we wont be able to clime through it by being complacent. The time is now work fast spread the truth so that we may always be able to spread the truth. Peace Tom 30 Oct 2006 @ 22:01 by Hanae @69.33.46.10 : Working fast "The Internet can and I hope will, be a revolutionary force in repressive societies," Eric Schmidt said, speaking for Google. "It has broken down the barriers that exist between people and information, effectively democratizing access to human knowledge. This has made us much more powerful as individuals." Yet, on the other hand Google, Microsoft and Yahoo were named for {link:http://www.p2pnet.net/story/9574|actively working} with Chinese censors to police the Net. The argument Google put forward was that, in essence, it was a matter of conceding a minor battle (a gambit, if you will) in order to further the long range information cause---the choice faced by foreign companies in China is either to comply with domestic legislation, or to leave the country, and remaining in the country, even under such conditions, has the beneficial effect of offering Chinese internet users increased access to information and internet services. Still, the genie is out of the bottle and Human Rights Watch raised the possibility of other countries with repressive regimes observing China's successful manipulation of Western companies and following suit, stating that “China is already exporting technology for monitoring the Internet to other repressive governments, Zimbabwe, for example”. As is highlighted by triggs in his comment above and on his blog, {link:http://www.newciv.org/nl/newslog.php/_v83/__show_article/_a000083-000016.htm|here}, in the USA the subversion of the Internet has taken a more subtle and possibly more dangerous form (censorship is always more dangerous when it is subtle or invisible) and the situation over here is one of {link:http://ming.tv/flemming2.php/__show_article/_a000010-001602.htm|saving the net form the pipe owners}. For the short term, I hope a political solution will be found. Still, I would be much relieved if some new decentralized, ubiquitous technology came along and freed the internet from the telco gate-keepers altogether and keep the Internet 100% into the hands of the people where it belongs. 31 Oct 2006 @ 04:25 by jobrown : I don't know if.... ...I agree with dkill in this situation: ".... the ONLY way is to learn the HARD way, by own experience" . Absolutely not a manditory Cosmic Law/truth!.... Not at all! Not even you, Steve, haven't learned all that you know or even all that you're good at by your own experience!... but just as much by accepting at face value something someone else had put their "hard experience" into ( ie. the invention of the wheel ; ) ... )just like any other human! Then there came a point where you felt betrayed by SOME statements being a LIE; to trap you, like all of us!.... And from there on you/we start to use y/our Discernment and Judgement ( plus the rest of tour own Mental Faculties again ( instead of "swallowing all" of which too many turned out to br lies!.... ) Now become critical and evaluate all in & through our own Common Sense "Factor/y" giving up innocense, but gaining ever more invincibility as our conviction in what;s Right or wrong grows ever stronger. That is "how"/"where" we all start taking our own Power back! 31 Oct 2006 @ 18:47 by Riddick @71.106.37.91 : Truth Predictor I cant see it how it could ever work. Who decides what is true? Is it determined by how many results claim its true, or by how many experts it can find that support it. In which case how does it determine who/what is an expert? "It has broken down the barriers that exist between people and information, effectively democratizing access to human knowledge." But it is also "Balkanizing" people in that we all seem to be self-selecting our information providers, and forming online echo-chambers… i.e. How many "Liberals" get their news from News Corp websites? How many "Conservatives" regularly visit NYTimes.com? This would probably work great if the politician quotes a direct experience study, it could determine if they quoted the study correctly, but what about WMDs? No one will ever come to agreement on that. And how can we know the info on the Internet is the truth, uh? How can we know it’s not been manipulated? It has a hypnotic screen, just like television, doesn’t make any of what you read there FACT. I think we should stick with the good old common sense. 1 Nov 2006 @ 00:49 by Hanae @68.164.232.228 : Truth Predictor One of the extraordinary stories of the Internet age is that of Wikipedia, a free online encyclopedia that anyone can edit. The questions and apprehensions raised about the Internet with regard to spinning, distortions of facts, or the promotion of bias through a “balkanization of opinions” were also once raised, in the same manner, and for the same reasons, about Wikipedia. Interestingly, Nature magazine conducted, last year (December) {link:http://www.nature.com/news/2005/051212/full/438900a.html|link} a head-to-head comparison between Wikipedia and Britannica, having experts compare 42 science-related articles. The result was that Wikipedia had about 4 errors per article, while Britannica had about 3. Not a significant difference! (Furthermore, the Wikipedia articles in the sample were, on average, 2.6 times longer than Britannica’s - meaning Wikipedia has an error rate far less than Britannica’s.) It is foreseeable that the same mechanics at work that serve Wikipedia now, and possibly new and unexpected ways of doing things, will, for the same reasons and in a similar fashion, also serve “truth” in such a way as people like Eric Schmidt from Google is envisioning. Furthermore, most errors and distortions - especially when they are purposeful (like for propaganda purpose) are NOT typically “factual errors”, more commonly such distortions are based on omissions, often deliberate (e.g. cherry-picking), or misleading statements (the example of the Iraq’s WMD brought up by the commenter above is a good one). And the Internet has proved, so far, an invaluable remedy against both types of disinformation! 1 Nov 2006 @ 01:19 by Riddick @71.106.37.91 : Wikipedia Hanae, It’s important to note that the Nature article you cite isn’t a peer reviewed scientific study, it’s a casual review at best, and one which suffered from a number of methodological errors. For instance, Nature sent one reviewer a 300 word introduction to a 6500 word EB article, who cited the Britannica article for omitting key information (that was covered in the 6200 words the reviewer didn’t see). And of course, not all errors are created equal. For instance, a Nature reviewer prefers the spelling "Crotona" to Britannica’s "Crotone". The proper English spelling of the name of this Italian town might be a bit hard to pin down, but the U.S. Board on Geographic Names and other sources agree with Britannica on this. Nature reviewers cited some Wikipedia articles as "highly misleading" or "absolutely wrong". Are these problems really comparable? Nature reported them as if they were. Although several errors within Britannica were identified by the Nature review (and corrected as fast if not faster than the errors in Wikipedia), Britannica wrote a detailed response to the study, citing profound errors in the study’s premise and methodology. See http://corporate.britannica.com/britannica_nature_response.pdf for more. 1 Nov 2006 @ 02:51 by Hanae @68.164.232.228 : The End of Autocracy? Thanks for the link, Riddick, I actually had read Britannica’s response already, as I usually try to read various sides of a story, including, in this instance, the viewpoint of Britannica, one of the parties under scrutiny in the study. Just for balance this is a {link:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:External_peer_review|link} to Wikipedia’s viewpoint, the other party under scrutiny. In a typical Wikipedia fashion, you’ll find there is an attempt there at covering both sides of the stories (including Britannica’s response), and then some. Also, for the record, for its study, Nature chose articles from both sites in a wide range of topics and sent them to what it called “relevant” field experts for peer review. The experts then compared the competing articles–one from each site on a given topic–side by side, but were not told which article came from which site. But this is probably not the place to begin a thread about Wikipedia. The point is that the fact that people are even having a debate about which of Britannica or Wikipedia is the most accurate of the two, takes us, I think, a long way already from the predictions of the nay-sayers who predicted the worse about Wikipedia and said it would be chaos and would never work. I believe the nay-sayers will be proven wrong about the “truth-predictor” or, at least, about the Internet in general, for exactly the same reasons they were wrong about Wikipedia: diversity and pluralism can be a workable synergistic instrument of truth. Politicians know that one can say things that cannot be done. And most of them will do so, if they can get away with it and it works in their favor, or appears to be the populist thing to do---Tell people what they want to hear. Or scare or delude people into accepting as a necessity policies they would normally oppose---They’ll do it because investigative reporting is not what it used to be and reporters will let them get away with it. The trick is to keep the focus on what is being said and not on what can be done. There is some hope that the Internet will be an instrument that helps bring the focus back on meaningful debates about what can be done or things of interest that could be done in this country or in the world regardless of whether politicians or the media are talking about them or not. My prediction is that soon (and there are signs that it might be already happening) it is not the Internet that will be looking at what politicians are doing but the politicians who will be looking at the Internet, looking for what the people is doing---the dreams, hopes, concerns and expectations of the people who put them into office and whose interest (the common good) they are suppose to represent. And shouldn’t that be the way it is! They will also hopefully find a people, who, collectively, is much better informed than it ever was; more engaged, too; quicker, smarter, and pro-active! Such a welcome change would be more consistent with the essential thesis of democracy which has respect for, and places responsibility in, the individuals at the grass roots, and there is thus some hope that the current dependence upon fear and the wisdom of autocratic leaders to provide solutions to all problems might possibly become, at long last, a thing of the past. 1 Nov 2006 @ 15:19 by skillz : blueboy...Riddick... Ive missquoted myself, it should have said the only way to actualy UNDERSTAND for real is the to learn the hardway. How can you possibly understand the joy of finding love and the heartbrake of it ending if you've never experienced it. Ooops You are spot on about me being lied to. That is what drives me to come to this site and say stuff. Bringing realization back to people if i can. Once you have realization you need not have to be shown the truth, it all manifests itself, and then once you have clarity, there aint no politition, book or word of an "expert" who can lie to you or tell you otherwise. The truth never lies. Riddick - As you say, common sense is all we need. Check out my artical on the subject. Hanae - Stop having faith in the polititions to save us. They are there to control us not to give us control. The system umploys them and the systems odjective is to make money and that money is given to the people that need it the most - the filthy stinkin rich. In order for them to stay filthy we must remain poor. 1 Nov 2006 @ 19:43 by i2i : A carring participant of NCN: "I am a new member, and I hope that I can find a few, free thinking and optimistic people who can have a discussion, leaving all of their pre-conceived ideas of what is right or wrong in the shower, to explore new ideas of how to make this world a better place." [19 Oct 2004 @ 18:16, by Roberto Jeffords] Great post Roberto - a promissing premise, in any case. I wonder if he'll return. 2 Nov 2006 @ 06:05 by Hanae @68.164.232.228 : The Autocratic Personality The authoritarian personality brings to his or her view of the world a simple dichotomy; things are either right or wrong, good or bad, correct or incorrect, brilliant or dull, or belong in some similar two valued classification. His or her frames or reference are so organized that they admit of no middle ground, no graduations in degree of truth or guilt or righteousness. “Whoever is not for us is against us.” The authoritarian thinkers insist that there are only two sides to every problem. All of their considerations are colored by emotional disturbances, worry, and anxiety that further clouds their thinking. There is a rigidity in their views and understandings; they show an impatience with qualified as contrasted with unqualified statements; a disinclination to think in terms of probability; and a favoring of black-and-white stereotypes. The authoritarian pattern of thinking is perhaps a fertile ground out of which the antidemocratic personality grows. The authoritarian thinker is not necessarily an autocratic personality, but the autocratic personality typically develops through an authoritarian stage. Nor surprisingly a weakness of autocracy lies in confusing loyalty with blind obedience. To Hitler’s Germany the idea of a “loyal opposition” was self-contradictory. One could not oppose of disagree without being disloyal. 2 Nov 2006 @ 13:30 by skillz : You say autocratic i say democratic... lets call the whole thing off. It takes 2 to tango. I do remember that our soldiers were killing foriegn people too. So what governments killing was justified, demo or auto? There is no denying that hitler was not a good man, but if he had'nt of steped up someone else would have. Do you think that just because stalin or hitler may not have been born that we would'nt have had any wars and basicaly gloryfied murder? The whole world was at war no matter what their government represented. You can give it many different names but ultimatly you just end up with a few incredebly wealthy and many poor. And when the opotunaty arrises to make more money for the rich, from another countrys wealth, they take US to war, the poor. Its all about MONEY, everything else is secondary no matter whether its autcratic or democratic. As long as the poor workers keep paying taxes to feed the rich the government will keep running no matter what name you give it. Was'nt it the people that voted in hitler? Have you read Matthew Webbs artical on voting, under the log title Truth and Revelation? 2 Nov 2006 @ 17:50 by i2i : The Autocratic Personality "The authoritarian personality...His or her frames or reference are so organized that they admit of no middle ground, no graduations in degree of truth or guilt or righteousness." Richard posted a rather relevant {link:http://www.newciv.org/pic/nl/artpic/119/000119-000095.gif|cartoon} about that, {link:http://www.newciv.org/nl/newslog.php/_v63/__show_article/_a000063-000401.htm#com75774|here} on Jazzolog. 2 Nov 2006 @ 20:17 by jobrown : ...... ... and I say Anarkism or SELF-governing (; the correct definition of the word)! Humans are made by Life, "God" if you "must", to govern themselves perfectly AND in HARMONY with ALL around them... IF given a chance -and not raped, and denied to use their 'God' given Mental =spiritual Skills! Let People re-member /re-learn "how to" use these skills!.... Why don't we do it???? Coz' we are so convinced that the Universe is one of LACK and SCARCITY, so we always HAVE to compete/fight for ALL that we can get our hands on -to guarantee our own survival!... It is this MASSIVE belief in POVERTY -rich or poor, doesn't matter: we all believe that Universe is aplace where things need to faught for/over. ONLY the single few and far between individuals, who have regained their Mental Health enough to realize that Universe indeed is a Place of Plenty, who don't need to fight for Eveything!... and these people also are the ones who don't need that much to -not only survive, but indeed they are doing great, and they are content and happy and at peace with ALL Life! WHAT's WRONG WITH A LIFE LIKE THIS?????? Nothing , if you ask me. I would like to see it practised by ALL to one hundred %, not least by me, myself! ( but at least I know about it, understand fully and working on getting it all down to a tee, as the saying goes. ; ) )) 3 Nov 2006 @ 02:06 by Hanae @69.33.46.10 : The Autocratic Personality Most of all, the autocratic personality is intolerant of other’s viewpoints. For the autocratic thinker there is only one way of doing things---“the only way”---and people should “stop” doing whatever it is they are doing to do things the way the autocratic thinker believes they ought to be done (the “correct” way). Some people believe that Government is the source of all problems and that the solution to the problem is to stop voting and stop paying taxes. I happen to think that things are a little bit more complex than that---I actually went to some length to try and explain why I thought so in a comment above, {link:http://www.newciv.org/nl/newslog.php/_v383/__show_article/_a000383-000001.htm#com75527|On Governance and Emergent Democracy}. The quote by John Fowles, in a follow-up comment, "Which are you trying to drink, the water or the wave?" was intended as a koan, an invitation to look further. Other people, like the commenter above, happen to think that it’s more about using our "'God' given Mental =spiritual Skills!" I hate to say it, but none of the views above are really truly original---I mean, you realize that, don’t you?---it must have been said hundreds of times many different ways by different people---most of whom, most of the time, can’t seem to agree on anything. And well one has come to expect it, still, it is always a bit disappointing, especially when it comes from members of a network with such a lofty mission statements as NCN’s. Things get further complicated when things degenerate into flame wars and mind games (people playing dumb and what-have-you.) I gave a link somewhere in a comment above to an article by Ming (Creative Intelligence Through Synergetic Diversity) and one of the points of interest made in the article, I thought, is that: “As it is right now, humankind is a schizophrenic moron. Or manic-depressive, maybe. Sometimes brilliant and productive, mostly lethargic, largely criminally destructive. Despite that many members of the human race are well-meaning, knowledgeable and resourceful. We desperately need to be connected in a manner that is constructively complex, so as to awaken our collective intelligence. Maybe that is something we can do on the internet, maybe it is a different way of doing a few key things. It appears that none of us are smart enough to solve the puzzle. But we might be smart enough to discover patterns that allow something bigger to emerge. We might not be clever enough to know exactly how to do it, but we might know how to start something that triggers the emergence of a bigger level of intelligence.” I like Roberto Jeffords’s premise of "exploring new ideas of how to make this world a better place." Now, Roberto here was trying to work with our institutions and seeking ways to reclaim those institutions to get them to work, in his view, as they were supposed to in the first place, or maybe to get them to work in new ways, as perhaps, they were never intended to work, at the service of a world that works better for all. I see nothing wrong with that. Now, there are people who think it cannot be done, that this is all wrong, that it is “complete bollix”, and, well, the way I see it, nobody is forcing them to work wit Roberto. That’s the beauty of NCN, no one is forcing anyone else to do anything they do not want to do, eh? If “Power By The People” and reclaiming our institutions is not your thing and there are other avenues of doing thing that you want to explore instead, by all means, do so. A majority of the people posting on NCN, and on the Internet at large, are doing so with the awareness that many things are not right. And they all look at things in their own ways. And, who is wise enough to know who is right and who is wrong and what might come out of all this. There is power in diversity and in exploring different path and avenues. As for our children, well, the question of education that was brought up somewhere in a comment above, is a good one. I’ve no problem with people who want to educate their children themselves, and considering what some of the alternatives happen to be, depending on one’s environment, I don’t blame them. I also know that there are great institutions of learning out there that can teach children what their parents could never teach them themselves and which can also open them to a greater diversity---a diversity which children will oftentimes seek themselves as they grow up, which is probably a good thing. The famous poem by Kahlil Giban comes to mind: “Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you. You may give them your love but not your thoughts. For they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.” Who knows what children will be like, they could become anything! One of that commenter's own might even grow-up one day to become, what a dreadful thought,...a politician. Peace. 3 Nov 2006 @ 06:20 by jobrown : Interesting, Hanae!... ; ) I didn't know you were capable of being so selective in your Understanding. I always thought of you as one of the most broad minded and intelligent AND educated people on NCN!... Who/What gave you your intelligence; Intuition, Inspiration, Imagination, Discernment, Instinct/"Gutt feeling" etc etc. What Institution do you give credit for having handed those to you -if you think you do have any of those, god forbid autocratic, intolerant -wasn't that what you call them/me- spiritual skills? Funny!.... I got all my Mental = "spiritual" ( a more modern word would be 'creative' ) skills by Life; "God" if you must, as I put it. 3 Nov 2006 @ 16:30 by skillz : Cant help chuckling.. You said that allot better than i could of Astrid, i aint got much to say now. I bit of advice for you Hanae, go visit your local dealer and get yourself stoned! Then run through a meadow on a breezy day and climb a tree and smile at a beautiful stranger. It will all make sense after that. 3 Nov 2006 @ 17:54 by i2i : Understanding "I got all my Mental = "spiritual" ( a more modern word would be 'creative' ) skills by Life..." [3 Nov 2006 @ 06:20 by blueboy] As we do all, blueboy. I don't think Hanae was saying anything different. Once again, Great post Roberto - a promissing premise - you certainly know how to get a good thread going, lol. I hope more people will comment on your entry and will feel they can do so on NCN and contribute to your post without having their head bitten off for doing so. This is an open space. The members of NCN are quite a diverse group of people with quite different views and beliefs and backgrounds. There is no requirement that we all agree on the specifics. NCN is open to people of any belief system, as long as it includes the right for people to have different preferences. NCN encourages people to act based on their inner inspiration and to work for the common good. For some people, that is intimately connected with a spiritual motivation and understanding. For other people it is decidedly not. Thus NCN is neutral in that regard. There is no imposition of any spiritual beliefs you have to have. Likewise, there is no imposition of any belief in the material sciences that you have to have. NCN is not left-wing or right-wing. It is about making the world work in a wholistic manner. This probably includes both individual freedom of choice and social responsibility. However, NCN as a whole has no agenda of political issues. Any member is free to be of any observation that they choose. NCN members aren't required to agree to anything, other than to work constructively on creating a world that works for all of us, and to be tolerant of other people's views. However, certain values tend to emerge amongst us. One expression of shared values, that many members seem to like, is found in the text "{link:http://www.newciv.org/ncn/weare.html|We are the New Civilization}". But, again, you don't have to agree with every one of those points either. 4 Nov 2006 @ 01:47 by jobrown : Why do you gals continue to twist my words???? " NCN is not left-wing or right-wing. It is about making the world work in a wholistic manner. This probably includes both individual freedom of choice and social responsibility. However, NCN as a whole has no agenda of political issues. Any member is free to be of any observation that they choose. NCN members aren't required to agree to anything, other than to work constructively on creating a world that works for all of us, and to be tolerant of other people's views. However, certain values tend to emerge amongst us. One expression of shared values, that many members seem to like, is found in the text "We are the New Civilization". But, again, you don't have to agree with every one of those points either." Dahhh!.... ^!^ harassing me? I wasn't the one who objected in any way, to anything, but only saying I believe in Self-governing and for that I am now being harassed to no end by you two. I also was the one who pointed out that Life/"God" is the one giving us all our Mental (= spiritual) ) skills and H. was the one who found it in her "Good Heart" necessary to try to reprimand me for such an ourageous belief and then using a ridiculing attitude AND goes on distorting my words, which de facto are there for all to read -as if all people must be dum and blind to the message in my words! Not only are you trying to put me down for my viewpoint (what about the freedom of expressing oneself here???...and you i.. are not really the gal to defend any trespassings.... remember your own Trollsxing pennalizing "go-sit-in- the-corner-pl/attitudes -and more, that you tried to pull on all of NCN members! I cut you some slack then, but not anylonger. Today -in my opinion as well- you are "over the edge" with your controll-omania! ) And now you I.. are jumping in pretending H. was the one who said what I was saying, giving me shit while pretending that she was the one saying what I was saying! TWISTED, isn't it?!?!!! .... Jeeez, gals! Ann Coulter's ChitChatroom would be a place with much more people who are like minded with you than ncn ever, though there are a few more here, besides you, who would fit much better at A.C.'s place! Once again: " NCN is not left-wing or right-wing. It is about making the world work in a wholistic manner. This probably includes both individual freedom of choice and social responsibility. However, NCN as a whole has no agenda of political issues. Any member is free to be of any observation that they choose. NCN members aren't required to agree to anything, other than to work constructively on creating a world that works for all of us, and to be tolerant of other people's views. However, certain values tend to emerge amongst us. One expression of shared values, that many members seem to like, is found in the text "We are the New Civilization". But, again, you don't have to agree with every one of those points either." DAHHH!!! When and where did I imply that I thought my statement to be absolutely unique, never before expressed ???? Why even imply that I did such a thing? Don't you think that most of the active members already know what I believe in/see Life as? Of course they do! They don't read it the way you two did. Granted there IS a handful , who happily join you in (member) bashing people with views inconvenient to the "secert" agenda of the NWO; Bush's little Mission to bring forth and indeed finalize. I'm according to H's insinuation an autoctrat and a bad person for not giving (her beloved) Government credit of hardly anything. That part she did get right! But what in the world this Gibran's Children Essay; what was all about... I sure as hell don't see any connection to ANYthing and certainly not to anything I said -exept that it is part of her reprimand to me!!! ????? I.., with your Trollxings and "Things" if a person dare to expand on an idea thread relating to something you posted on your blog, at all!...WHAT is YOUR mission here to yet evermore twist my comment? Seems to me you and H. right now in this space are the biggest, nastiest trolls xing any path of intelligent discussion in this thread. WHAT EXACTLY are you trying to accomplish? But to satify H.'s devotion of Government and its tender care of all civilians, big and small alike, I will post an article as a comment, considering the title of the article we are brainstorming around. This Info should be in perfect harmony with H.'s thinking, taking into account what her attack-comment/s have reveiled in her attack of my comment/Astrid Yeaaah: Power To The People! "Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country." (PS) why don't you gals stick to Ann Coulter's website? That would fit your true ideology much better ... and leave us who truly want something NEW and BETTER for ALL without your toxic hidden agendas to poison and slow down our work here! It IS after all a Network, looking to create something NEW!!!... not to keep status quo -to satify the same ol'd crowd of "Hoidy Toidys". Satanic Worshipping, Child Sacrificing In Butler County, MO Woman comes forward with horror stories of government cover-up of hundreds of bodies. By Greg Szymanski Arctic Beacon.com 11-4-6 From the time Debbie Pitts was a child, she was beaten, tortured, abused and even put in a straight jacket. According to Pitts, she was thrust against her will into a dark and deeply sinister Satanic cult, a cult protected by state of Missouri and federal authorities. And if wasn't for the grace of God, Pitts, 51, says she wouldn't be here today to tell her incredible story, a sick and devious story illustrating how the forces of evil really work. "As a small child, I saw a woman's body cut in half and babies cut out of the womb," said Pitts, recalling the satanic ceremonies she witnessed as a child growing up in Butler County Missouri. "No one would help us and the authorities because the authorities were involved. I learned quickly that nobody would help us even after my grandfather tried for many years. "Then in 1984, the federal authorities came in and removed the bodies from a mass gravesite in the woods behind the house I lived in. Since then everything has been closed up tighter than a drum and no one had been able to get any justice." Pitts told her story of Satanic insanity Thursday on Greg Szymanski's radio show, The Investigative Journal, a show where the truth often is hard to swallow but nevertheless told from the voices of many Americans silenced by the media's aversion to distortions and outright lies. Pitts claimed after being thrust into a Satanic cult as a displaced child with no mother and father, she witnessed children being used as human blood devil sacrifices, the murders of hundreds of unwanted children and women being covered up by state and federal authorities. "As I look back and look at America now, all I can say is I told you so," said Pitts, claiming the horrors of her childhood still cause nightmares. "I wanted to come forward on your show because there is nobody else listening. I wanted people to know how these people operate and how they operate today." Pitts claims justice has never been served and never will be served for the child subjugated to Satan until the forces of evil are rooted out of the major religious and governmental institutions of America. "I was beaten, tortured and put in a straight jacket," said Pitts, recalling her childhood. "I witnessed children being sacrificed and killed, but even to this day there has been no justice and it's hard to find anybody who has the courage to find out the truth. I know some people will think I am crazy, but this is the truth and this is what really happened." And this is not the first time guests have come on The Investigative Journal with stories of Satanic worshipping and devil murders. Although the host has been criticized for giving a forum to people who have claimed to witness blood sacrifices in both the bowels of The Vatican and the Mormon Temple in Utah, he shrugs off the criticism saying "it's about time we trust and listen to average Americans before it's too late." Besides her radio interview, Pitts had this to say: "My story can't be kept down anymore by the FBI that threatens to put me away for the rest of my life. Dan Rather has pictures of 300 bodies in this county in 1972 and the Feds got the evidence in 84 and the world will never see the piles of bodies that were collected, the evidence has been covered up and the governor refuses to arrest those because it would go public. "I ain't healthy, but need to get my story told even if I die someday people will find out I told the truth. The first sheriff I remember was about 1959 or 60 name Massingham. He put a gun to grandpa and told him to keep his mouth shut, I want to start with that story, I was 4 years old. I want to describe the missing people the Satanic cult killed and the year of death. I want to name some names of people that were involved who should! "I was arrested two decades ago, but the governor of Missouri refuses like I said they don't intend for this to ever get over with or ever admit that it ever happened. I am disabled for brain surgery the cops refused to protect me who ar eunder FBI control. "They tried to get me killed and shut me up. I am a victim and witness and thugs wearing badges are not doing their job, the DA the sheriff, the police all are not under FBI control who will not let them have any of the evidence there keeping them from arresting those involved. Please help get my story out even if they pull some crap on me and threaten me again get my story out anyway." This article is from http://www.rense.com/general74/satn.htm and the rest can be found at: www.arcticbeacon.com 4 Nov 2006 @ 15:04 by skillz : Oh my This spiritualy awakening site has turned into a political circus! Thats not new civirlisation, thats old tricks that dont work. NCN have to have a disclainer for legal reasons to accept others views, but in reallity no one can be expected to agree and accept what is bollox. This site is giving people an opotunity for progression not stagnation. Im not saying that MY views are the right views, I am merly voicing FACT. I did not create these facts, they have exsisted before you or I was born. Throwing around beliefs and opinions (which aint even their own) aint gonna go far. Its this politicaly correct mannor of respecting other peoples deluded bullshit fantasys that is bringing humanity to a hault. I WILL FIGHT ALL THAT IS A LIE ! OR I WILL BECOME A FOOL LIKE THE LIERS. Quote by - ME!! BELIEF SYSTEMS - Complete and utter bollox! If you have to believe it then its a lie. You either know something as fact or its bollox. OPINION - An insecrue view of circumstances PUBLIC OPINION - A agreement of many for fear of persicution, again bollox! I find that when poked and proddid, people will return to their institutions for santuary and will stay there in fear of opening up to THEMSELVES! The problem is most people are afaid of THEMSLEVES. When your spiritualy weak real LIFE is scary. I dont think that me and Astrid will ever be able to drum the truth into any "institutionalized" person because they have the most powerful weapon of all that brakes through all truth - IGNORANCE. But you can only ignore the fire till it burns. When its YOUR life that is of direct suffering because of others ignorance (like the iraqi people for example) you may just wake up, or stay in deniel and die waiting for the democrats to save you. 22 May 2007 @ 08:18 by Muse.Disorder @71.83.116.98 : Now "IS" the Time for ALL people my webpage: http://members.vpchat.com/musedisorder./EdenLost.htm should explain how i feel about this statement(s),, and how true it is,, i loved what you wrote here,, and i simpley just cannot argue with that simple fact,,, yes,, everything now and all the things being paved over,, changing of technologies is even changing how people even treat one another,, very poorly in other words, United we stand, Divided we fall. My Brothers and Sisters of the USA.. it is time for all good men to come to the aid of their parties and country 19 Dec 2007 @ 20:32 by Hanae @69.33.46.10 : Passing this way... ... some 7 months letter... ...setting a twisted thing straight (in the Spirit of the Season): I can only regret, here, that a sore spot possibly was hit with one on this thread who mistakenly took very, very personally, part of a comment that was not directed at her - I would have come and tried to repair that misunderstanding sooner had I known about it before today. One who asked: "What in the world this Gibran's Children Essay; what was all about... I sure as hell don't see any connection to ANYthing and certainly not to anything I said -exept that it is part of her reprimand to me!!!" ---4 Nov 2006 @ 01:47 by blueboy, "Why do you gals continue to twist my words???? " Given that I do not know blueboy/Astrid personally , nor anything having to do with her life, there was no "reprimand" here - and certainly nothing directed personally at her or at her life. (A reprimand for what and to whom?) As a matter of fact, the Kahlil Gibran poem was not addressed to her, but was a direct response to her friend dkill's comment: "When I used the word "education" it was used in the term that government uses it, yes for indoctrinating propaganda, hence the quotation marks. I believe that the ONLY people that should EDUCATE our children should be US, their natural mother and father. Why should we let anyone else tell our children whats goods for them, they clearly don't have their best interests at heart. We need to protect our children from "education" this really is a cancer. ---30 Oct 2006 @ 12:47 by dkill No disrespect to blueboy or to anyone else here was intended in my response, which was a follow-up to dkill's above comment with regard to children and education. I thought, at the time, that that much was clear, and I apologize if it was not. The relevance of the comment is plain - I'll repeat it again: quote: As for our children, well, the question of education that was brought up somewhere in a comment above, is a good one. I’ve no problem with people who want to educate their children themselves, and considering what some of the alternatives happen to be, depending on one’s environment, I don’t blame them. I also know that there are great institutions of learning out there that can teach children what their parents could never teach them themselves and which can also open them to a greater diversity---a diversity which children will oftentimes seek themselves as they grow up, which is probably a good thing. The famous poem by Kahlil Gibran comes to mind: “Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you. You may give them your love but not your thoughts. For they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.” Who knows what children will be like, they could become anything! One of that commenter's own might even grow-up one day to become, what a dreadful thought,...a politician. - endquote - Incidentally I do not know who Roberto Jeffords (the owner of this blog) is either. I do not entirely agree with everything he says or proposes on this post, but as he said it himself his "is just an idea...," you know. And all he ever suggested was that it be discussed if it had merit, or else that [other ideas] be picked and explored. It is regrettable that despite some of the responses on this thread (it is now some 46 or 47 comments long) Roberto Jeffords never came back to take part to the discussion. One can't help but wonder what became of Roberto. Or for that matter, what became of some of the other participants on this thread. Martha? Swan? Jstarrs? Istvan? May the love and peace of the Season be with you. 16 Jul 2008 @ 18:28 by i2i : Another great classic by sabottaby: {link:http://www.newciv.org/pic/nl/artpic/232/000232-000660.jpg|Libertarian Bingo} LOL "States should not school us let corporations run our schools let the free market make the rules," ......as sung by the {link:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3Seg0JE1PM|Milton Friedman choir}. (Hat tip to Mark Perry at {link:http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2007/11/milton-friedman-revolutionary.html|Carpe Diem}.) 18 Oct 2008 @ 00:53 by martha : hmmmm Been away from NCN for a few years now. In fact I have moved across the country and trying to start a new life in NC. Find this discussion by i2i, dkill and Hanae (francis) quite interesting. I have actually been thinking (or trying too) since my return to NCN how to revive this place yet do away with the abuse. I still believe the internet is the great equalizer dispite some countries like China trying to control the information the chinese can read. A deeper issue is how to allow many viewpoints without abuse. Also is hating a group of people what we want for a new civ? Isn't a new civ energy really about trying to work together to create a better world or am I just a dreamer? I think I need to sleep on all I have read. My eyes hurt...LOL Great to see you here i2i. I miss some of the above members mentioned. At one time there was a wonderful energy here. I left because of the abuse and intolerance and hate. I truly believe that ncn should be a place for everyone yet how does one deal with people that continually reject the guidelines that ming wrote? Cheers for now and thanks for bringing this log to my attention. 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