Random

~I've been scrolling through my various friend's lists this evening and of course seeing many expressing their 'hopes for a better year' in 2011. While I do understand the sentiment, I'm sorry, kids, but it ain't gonna happen. 2011 will suck harder than 2010, just as 2010 sucked harder than 2009, something I said back then as well. 2012 ain't gonna be no fucking price either, but let's save that shit for later.

It's not that I'm some sort of Nostradamus; I simply pay attention to the trends. Some of us individually may have some positive moderation of our own circumstances; I think this household might in the coming year. But the overall trend is Suckage and for the foreseeable future.

How deep said Suckage is going to be I cannot say. This time last year I said in In Which Her Prophet Expounds Upon Catastrophe Porn: “My own view is that Modern Civilization is not going to undergo a Total Collapse. Shit's gonna get Real Hairy, but I don't buy the End Times/Late Roman Empire paradigm. History does repeat itself, but never in the same way.

While the sheer size and complexity of Modern Civilization is part of the problem, it is also what will save our bacon, though maybe not bacon itself. There is massive informational redundancy built into the whole thing, so much so that wiping it all out is nigh impossible, short of an asteroid strike. *bites tongue*

Plus, this is not some Hollywood scenario. The so-called Collapse will happen over decades and will never be truly complete. Many parts of the whole will die off partially or totally, but other parts will survive nearly intact.”

That's the long term 'macro' view and the trends support it. Not much of a 'Happy New Year', but I'm not gonna go Happy Happy Joy Joy and blow smoke up your collective ass. And Goddess Knows I ain't gonna bite my tongue.

And that's the name of that fucking tune...

New Year's Resolution

"I have a voice activated writing program on my laptop which I've never used. Part of the reason was that my lappy was a little 'problematic'. But now that I'm using my old desktop tower again, the lappy is free of all other functions.

So, I'm gonna strip out just about everything and use it solely as a writing tool. Facing The Page can be a chore for me, but Goddess Knows it's nearly impossible to shut me up once I get going. After that, the rest would just be editing."

~I wrote the above on X-Mas Eve. And then Sunday I got busy with it.

I'd already started transferring the lappy's desktop files I want to keep over to The Tower which has a shitload more disk space. But once I made the above decision, I started the process.

The lappy has a 105GB C-Drive. When I started out on Sunday, there was 34.6GB available. I got that up to 56.6GB by scrubbing the things I would no longer use on the lappy, like Div-X and such. Yesterday, while watching cop shows on The Tower, I did a defrag. It took over four hours, but increased the C-Drive free space to 70.1GB.

I still have a dozen or so desktop files to transfer – a labor intensive process – but they don't take up much space, maybe a couple hundred MB.

Now comes the real challenge; dealing with my weird phobia that I'll 'break the program'.

That's essentially a combination of my Perfectionism and my fear that 'I can't have anything', that whatever Good Stuff comes my way will 'be taken away from me', probably the most destructive 'lesson' my Evil Step Father taught me and one that's still pretty fuckin' deeply embedded, though I have been chipping away at it for years now.

So I guess the most important part of this Resolution is to patiently and steadily push through that fear and keep going.

Random Lite

~I'm thinking of hiding out for the rest of the day. Got lots of Murder/Death/Kill, including four 90 minute episodes of Wallender, a sort of Swedish Columbo, that stars Kenneth Branagh. It satisfies my need for both Police Procedural and Existential Cinema in one package.

Random

~I feel like I have totally lost my way these past few months, so much so that my initial impulse to give this a “Her Prophet” title seemed false, as if I'd lament my woes and yet work my way around back to The Path by the end of the writing.

Too often these days I do not feel at all like I'm on that Path any more. Not that I've found a new one and am in resistance, but that I'm simply lost and just going through the motions. It is not even that I no longer believe in that Path – I do – it is that I no longer believe that I can actually do anything to unfold it for anyone else.

And I struggle, not with giving up, but with giving IN. It would so much easier to be a regular old guru, to latch onto the seemingly unstoppable bio-cultural juggernaut of bi-gendered Heterosexuality. I have noted that a number of intelligent, but emotionally lost young men see a 'firm but supportive father figure' in me. And Goddess knows there are legions of young women out there seeking a comfortable form of slavery to surrender to.

It would be so simple to 'have a New Revelation' - something semi-Jebus flavored most likely - and switch to that sort of paradigm, become a cross between Santa Claus and Charlies Manson. I know all those fucking tricks, trust me on that shit, kids. And most folks want to be Led and have a desperate need to be Told. There is great relief in not having to Choose and Decide anymore.

*very deep sigh*

There, now I have thoroughly depressed myself...and the rest of you too, I suspect.

Happy Holidays

Random

~Just doing my best to get through the holidays in one piece. This time of the year has been packed with Drama and Trauma for the greater part of my life – especially in my childhood - and much of that still bubbles in my subconscious.

And all of that is over and things under this roof are relatively calm and peaceful right now, though it has been a rough few months. Even things on the Note Holder front are quiet and I expect will remain so until I poke them again.

So I have a comfy place to live, plenty of food in the fridge, a kind and supportive companion, and Purpose in my life. A far cry from so many preceding holiday seasons. I am doing my best to be Grateful...and, as I said, the Ghosts of X-Mas Past still lurk and I worry about the Ghosts of X-Mas Future. Being a Writer and Prophet makes 'staying in the moment' a real bitch, ya know?

And so I am able to 'stay in the moment' only for a moment and then have to recenter myself. But I can't say I have nothing to do, eh?

The Individual and The Hive

”Liberal Humanism had once been a vital force and had changed human affairs for the better. But it inevitable fell victim to the Cult of The Individual and then fractured into ideological factionalism, individual narcissism and intellectual decadence. Its absolute rejection of Hierarchy doomed it to impotence.” from In Which Her Prophet Invokes The Future

The Cult of The Individual is clearly the predominant theme of the Modern Era. And it is a Lie.

Here is the ineffable Adam Curtis speaking upon it in a UK Guardian article: "The way power works in the world is: they tell you stories that make sense of the world. That's what America did after the Second World War. It told you wonderful dreamlike stories about the world ... And at that same time, you were encouraged to rise up and 'become an individual', which also made the whole idea of America attractive to the rest of the world. But then this very individualism began to corrode it. The uncertainties began in people's minds. Uncertainty about 'what is the point of being an individual?'

The politics of our time are deeply embedded in this idea of individualism, which is far wider than Westminster, consumerism or anything like that. It's how you feel. People think, 'Oh, if it's within me it must be true.' But it's not the be-all and end-all. It's not an absolute. It's a way of feeling and thinking which is a product of a particular time and power. The notion that you only achieve your true self if your desires, your dreams, are satisfied ... It's a political idea. That's the central dynamic of our life."

And this is a more somber comment by a Susan W. in Morris Berman's blog: “So much of our lives in America are compartmentalized it does result in loneliness. The way our communities are set up isolate us and make social interaction stilted. There's not much spontaneity and people don't know how to break this cycle and with 24 hour/day TV, the internet, long commutes and loss of real public space the soul continues to be drained out of Americans. It takes effort to see friends and build a social network that is comprised of real flesh-and-blood people rather than "profiles." Both Huxley and Orwell recognized this process of dehumanizing people even though they saw the causes differently.”

The Cult of The Individual is used be The Powers That Be to utterly dis-empower The Individual and it is my depressing opinion that most in The West, especially my fellow Americans, shall never escape that trap.

A chap who calls himself Laszlo Q. V. St-J. Xalieri - a nom-de-blog I expect - speaks of this in his essay The Parable of The Hive, to wit:

“The hive decides who gets to mate with whom and under what circumstances. The hive decides who gets the best food, the choicest real estate, and the cushiest jobs. The hive decides how you live and how you die. The hive decides what you eat for breakfast...

The hive is an invasive species composed entirely of information, of narrative, that exists only for its own benefit, that nurtures individuals — or the opposite — in proportion to how the individual benefits the hive. It is in the best interests of the hive to teach you sacrifice. To make you buy it completely.

The hive, by means of sacrifice and pooling resources, can survive when individuals would fare poorly. Individuals die, but society is preserved...

It has predators and parasites. It has fake members that are immune to the narrative, that masquerade as valuable, favored cogs, that pervert the rudimentary defenses to foil and destroy the drones that would root them out. They insinuate themselves into the supply chains to bleed off resources for personal hoards, for prime real estate, for breeding privileges.

They pervert the narrative itself to set themselves up as gods.

What are the choices here?

1. To ensure survival as much as possible by making yourself invaluable to the hive, but, in the end, putting your fate in the hands of the hive and its narrative.

2. To reject the narrative entirely and live outside of the hive to the greatest extent possible, live and let live, but outside of the hive’s protections and occasionally running afoul of the hive’s defenses.

3. To become a predator/parasite, competing with other parasites for your share of hoarded resources and privileges by your own attempts to co-opt a portion of the narrative.

4. Erect a counter-narrative and create a hive that competes with or even preys upon the old hive, or perhaps establishes a symbiotic relationship with it via an exchange of resources or favors.

Once you are aware of the hive, and its narrative, and the predators and parasites that prey on it, your choices are very limited. Keep your head down, try to escape, put up a fight, or autolysis.

What will you choose?”

What most in The West choose, especially my fellow Americans, is to operate in a gray zone between 1st and 2nd choices, thinking/believing that they are in a form of the second paradigm - but utterly in Denial that they are part of The Hive aka “Rugged Individualism” - while functionally operating fully in the first paradigm. That is the Tea Party mentality in a nutshell. Hipsters on the other hand are more aware of this, but blow it off with Irony. The shrinking and increasingly desperate Middle Classes tend to go for the first paradigm full bore, though still remaining largely in Denial about how thoroughly assimilated they actually are.

Wall Street, the New Rich, et al have taken the third paradigm - the 'predator/parasite gods' - to its insane extreme and will likely be the death of The Hive because of that. But such is inherent to the 'narrative' of The Individual, its unavoidable Poison Pill, "Screw you, Jack; I got mine."

So then, what is the point of being an 'individual'? What Purpose does your life have beyond 'satisfaction of desires', many of which are not even really your own? These questions invariably bring us to The Temple and where it stands in all of this.

Obviously we pick Door #4, “Erect a counter-narrative and create a hive that competes with or even preys upon the old hive, or perhaps establishes a symbiotic relationship with it via an exchange of resources or favors,” though we shall reverse the order by initially “establishing symbiotic relationship with it via an exchange of resources or favors,” and then subsuming the 'Old Hive' entirely.

“The central strategy here is The Viral Meme, the Idea that is so compelling and dynamic that that is spreads like wildfire. That Idea exists; a entirely new and modern form of Matriarchy. Our task is to create that Idea as a Practical Reality, a Practical Reality that becomes the microcosm of this new society, a Practical Reality that is vital, replicable, adaptable, and then plant it in the societies that presently exist.

In many places, it shall flourish and expand. In some places, it will struggle and even be extinguished. But if we do our work effectively and remain true to both the practical goals and the Spiritual vision of this New Matriarchy, we will grow into and absorb even the most hostile social orders.” from The Temple's Mission Statement.

In the meantime we must operate in the third paradigm until we are stronger, as “a predator/parasite, competing with other parasites for your share of hoarded resources and privileges by your own attempts to co-opt a portion of the narrative.”

I understand that all this is a bitter pill to swallow. Some of you can likely hear Number Six shouting, “I'm not a number, etc,” in your minds. But that is a delusion at this point. Just pull out your wallet or purse. You are several types of number and by yourself you are powerless. Yes, Worst Fear confirmed. And I am offering you a way to change this. It is a radical and even dangerous path and maybe be a fool's errand. But I truly believe that, for the many reasons elaborated upon in The Explanation, it is the only viable path out of the present death spiral, because it's fairly clear the 'Old Hive' is dying.

So, how many of you, my Sisters, are still in Denial about the nature of your place in the Social Order? How many of you are aware, but cannot yet bring yourself to take action? And how many of you are prepared to join our Hive and work to kill off the Old Hive that holds you in its thrall at this very moment?

This is an adventure and an experiment, my Sisters, and I can only make you one ironclad promise; it shall not be boring.

In Which Her Prophet Explains The State Of The Explanation

~If you've been reading me for any amount of time, you're familiar with my ongoing lament about The Struggle To The Face The Page vis-a-vis The Explanation. And, yes, I find it tiresome as well, so I decided to do a review of where the thing is actually at and I'm doing better than I usually think I am, which is all too often the case por moi.

The below are all hyperlinked to the actual content over at The Explanation Blogspot itself.

Her Prophet Explains: "Preface"
Her Prophet Explains: "The Introduction"
Her Prophet Explains: Part One "Her Prophet"
Her Prophet Explains: Part Two "The Temple's Metaphysics"
Her Prophet Explains: Part Three "The Temple's Grand Strategy"

These first five sections are all pretty much finished. They still need a 'once over', some 'polishing' and a typo check, but I'm largely satisfied with them as they stand.

Her Prophet Explains: Part Four "The Temple's Tactical Initiatives"

This section still needs 'expansion'. There are still individual parts that are not effectively fleshed out enough, especially regarding The Sisterhood Training and the plans for our shelters. That said, it is largely completed, say four fifths done.

Her Prophet Explains: Part Five "The Trikona”

Like the first five, this section is done and just needs a 'once over', some 'polishing' and a typo check.

Her Prophet Explains: Part Six “Stories and Works” [Intro/Near Future]
Her Prophet Explains: Part Six “Stories and Works” [Far Future]

These two sections – which are really just one, but divided because of website format restrictions – these are the ones that are giving me the most grief. They are full of unfinished stories and outline stubs. And this is the troublesome region of Creative Writing with the extra challenge of operating within an Ideological Paradigm. It is that fraught combination that also makes this section potentiality the most powerful of all. When I 'bitch and moan' about The Explanation, it'll likely be this baby that's grinding me.

Her Prophet Explains: Part Seven “Summation”

The Summation is also essentially done, though I do still agonize over it. It is a 'summation' after and ya gotta hook 'em here or the preceding work is for naught.

Her Prophet Explains: Addendum A [Revealed Knowledge]
Her Prophet Explains: Addendum B [Tales of the Vēkkan Cults]
Her Prophet Explains: Addendum C [Her Prophet Sez It 'Brooklyn Style']
Her Prophet Explains: Addendum D [The Temple's Flag]

These last four are completed in this context and I'm happy with them, though I'd like to fully finish Revealed Knowledge one day.

All in, the above presently runs about fifty thousand words and I expect it to top out at roughly ten to fifteen thousand more. I plan on sharing some rough draft hard copies once I finish three of the stories in Part Six. I'd like some more feedback before I go to press.

And there you have it....

Her Prophet Bitches and Moans and Then Gets Back To Work...

~There's the usual Endless Litany of Horror on the news feeds today. And in my friend's blogs. One of them summed it up neatly; “Sometimes it feels like I've been born into a caste system...Work hard, do every goddamned thing you're supposed to, and get fucked up the ass over and over again.” And she's right for the most part.

Sure, a few can 'make it' who were not born with a silver spoon in their mouths, who have a 'native talent', but they do so mostly by being ruthless amoral mother fuckers. Bill Gates comes to mind. Now he assuages what guilt he has with philanthropy – a time honored way out for America's Robber Barons – but that does not help those he fucked over on the way up. And that is the way Social Order was essentially designed and has continued to evolve.

So what do any of you plan to do about it? Likely just 'bitch and moan' and get back to whatever piece-of-shit gig the Social Order allowed you to get. And harsh as this sounds, those of you who do so deserve what you get. If one begs for scraps, don't complain about being treated like a dog.

“Who the fuck are you,” some will sneer, “Fat old mental case on welfare living in a trailer park in Buttfuck Nowhere?” Yes, all true...and the evil truth is I'm doing better than literally tens of millions of my fellow Americans who 'did everything right' and I say that not with any satisfaction, but with anger and frustration. And if one includes all of humanity, that number goes into the billions.

While I am Damaged and fought hard to get my benefits – twenty two months of homelessness was part of what I dealt with – the above facts are simply unacceptable. And yet so many of my fellow Americans do accept them and would in fact turn me out into the streets again even as they themselves “get fucked up the ass over and over again” by The Corporate State every single day.

“Something must be done,” is the endless refrain...but what?

And E says, ”Finish writing The Explanation.” I say, “No one seems to care.” And She replies, ”Just finish the fucking thing and you'll find out.” I shrug and think to myself, “Well, what do I have to lose?”

And what are you going to do?

Random

~I'm supposed to compose an e-mail to our lawyer this weekend relating some new and pretty juicy intel I acquired regarding The Note Holder et al. And it's almost Sunday and I have not even begun to noodle the damned thing in my head. I guess this will serve as a reminder, eh?

Honestly, I don't feel like doing a fucking thing besides surfing, eating, sleeping and watching cops shows [or whatever] on line. I really do need a break.

But there is that part of me that is Gearing Up For War and rather enjoying it. That is The Monster and he can be both exhilarating and exhausting. I keep him somewhat content with the cop shows - what I call Murder/Death/Kill - and The Imperium, which certainly has plenty of Drama and Violence.

However, he can smell the prospect of real blood and he's hungry. I can only keep him in check because he also understands the importance of patience in hunting. My Higher Self is praying that The Note Holder et al will settle, but The Monster wants a fight so he can inflict Punishment, even if it is only through 'legal' means. Truth is, he'd really rather have them screaming in some basement.

*sigh* I'm really not a well boy and some days I worry myself...

Random

~I feel physically ill today; 'flu like' symptoms, though I'm pretty sure I'm not getting the flu. I'm just fucking fried.

First, there's the broken tooth on the upper left which causes me to chew exclusively on the right and is inflaming my TMJ, which makes my neck and shoulders ache.

Second, the weather keeps going back and forth; warm and dry to cold and damp and back again, which adds to the above achyness.

And third, yesterday somebody around here was working on something which made this 'thumping' sound that was just like heavy booted footsteps on our porch. That went on periodically all day and trigger my PTSD every fucking time. Today I've got a severe PTSD hangover.

All this combined has utterly kicked the shit out of me and I'm nearly non-functional. I'm just on this side of suicidal depression, which I fucking hate because I know full fucking well that I am not going to off myself. I'm far too self absorbed egocentric for that kind of sorry weak assed bullshit...or is that weak sorry assed bullshit?

To top it all off, Hulu was all fucking 'jerky' and unwatchable because of fucking bandwidth issues. Normally, I'd write that off as a First World Problem, but I really needed the distraction today. *snarl*

...okay, I'm taking some drugs and going back to bed...

Obama and The Demise of The Republic

~In the beginning, in the post election euphoria, Barack Obama was compared to many American historical figures; Abraham Lincoln, FDR, JFK, and MLK were the ones that came up most often. But after nearly two years for me he brings to mind someone else; George B. McClellan.

McClellan was also a brilliant man of whom much was expected and with good cause. He was a fine officer with a very good military record and had been successful in civilian life as a senior engineer and administrator in the railroad business. As the creator of The Army of The Potomac, he is responsible for forging the magnificent military instrument that ultimately defeated The Confederacy. He was capable, well liked by his troops, and held in high esteem by the American public.

But when it came time to fight, he choked. He simply did not have the stomach for it, for 'spending his men'. He always claimed that he was outnumbered and constantly called for reinforcements even though he never faced a Confederate force more than half the size of his during his entire period of command.

His actions – and lack thereof – prolonged the war by at least two years, bringing far greater death and destruction upon The Republic than was necessary. When asked about McClellan, U.S. Grant called him, “one of the great mysteries of the war.”

Obama too was regarded as a Man of Great Promise and rightly so. He has tremendous charisma and a supple intellect. But like McClellan, he has 'no stomach for fighting'. He retreats in the face of inferior odds and gives away his negotiating points before he even gets to the table. If he was my lawyer, I'd sue him for malpractice.

At his core, he has proved fearful. As the first black man in the Oval Office, that's not all that surprising. I at first doubted that he would survive his first year, much less his first term. But I realized the other day that I no longer worry about that. He has proved to be no real threat at all, at least not to The Powers That Be.

I know that many still defend him and his 'measured approach'. However that is simply an expression of desperation. It is a hard thing to face the probable demise of The Republic. But face that we must. And if you're not willing to do so and look at Other Methods, then you too are likely doomed.

Of course, we're all probably doomed anyway....

[Activist Modus Operandi] Methods of Communication

From Genderbitch

Clarifications: This post is only regarding tactics, not people. The Nuker is not an inherently angry person, just uses anger and harshness to get the job done. Most people blend these methods together into varying combinations and there are many people who are unable to use many of these methods for whatever reason. When I talk about blending these tactics together in balance, I don’t mean in one person. I mean in a group of people. I sure as hell can’t blend them in just me. ~Kinsey Hope

Activism is a fairly simple concept. You do stuff to make things better. Activism when it comes to marginalized populations is also relatively simple in concept. You do stuff to make things better, only you specifically have to stop marginalization, see past and slowly remove privilege and improve the lives of marginalized folk in order to make things better.

That’s where it stops being simple. Abruptly.

You see, there’s a lot of disagreement among activists about exactly how to achieve the conceptual goals above. And then you get into kyriarchy and intersection and you realize that it isn’t as simple as a binary of one privilege vs. one marginalization in a given context. It turns into a giant clusterfuck. And that’s where the arguments begin. You see, Activism is a thing you do. But the part that everyone gets hung up is… how do you do it? What is the Activist Modus Operandi? Well a big part of activism is, obviously, communication. One must get the word out there or one will be up shit creek without a paddle. And shit creek is a very inhospitable river (not actually made of shit but certainly filled with pollution). The reason for this is a minority population generally does not possess the social power to create change alone. This goes doubly so for a marginalized minority population (as marginalization by definition strips a group of power). So as sucky as that is, activism tends to largely be getting a stagnant, unthinking, privileged morass of majority folk in line with what you need. Often with many of them exhibiting some abhorrent tendencies towards bigotry. The stakes are high, so no wonder the arguments about how to pierce the stained glass window of privilege, battle the silencing, convince the naysayers and stop the hate are so intense.

These methods, of course, can be summarized under several easily remembered analogous categories (that actually act as two separate spectrums between opposing methods):

1: Nuker
Methods: Satire, rants, biting wit, clever trolling, griefer trolling, bluntness, calling out.

Description: The Nuker is the hardcore angry activist. If you’ve ever seen the radicals with their faces covered by handkerchiefs, spray paint cans in their hands, you would think of a Nuker. The Nuker methodology is one of attention grabbing. The idea is, privilege robs people of perspective. It makes it hard, sometimes impossible to see or hear what a marginalized group is saying. A Nuker doesn’t let that go. You will notice. You will hear. It doesn’t matter if your feelings are hurt to the Nuker, because the Nuker does not see activism as being a coddling mission. Slicing a small bit of skin off a privileged person in order to get them to actually hear us when we say, “hey, you have your knife buried in my chest up to the hilt! Ow my fucking organs!” is a ‘sacrifice’ the Nuker is not only willing but happy to make. Nukers are the embodiment of rage. The fury of the oppressed and the terror for the oppressor.

2: Appeaser
Methods: Negotiation, peacemaking, calming, soothing hurt feelings, passive resistance, leading by peaceful example.

Description: Appeasers are often seen as the polar opposite of the Nuker. They are your quiet softspoken, negotiating presence among activists. They give heartfelt speeches to appeal to the empathy of government as lobbyists. They are the ones who, when an oppressor doesn’t understand, will patiently and carefully explain things to them, calming themselves down so that the privileged person also remains calm. The Appeaser methodology is one of appealing. They seek to make themselves (and by consequence the movement) appealing to the majority oppressor population, currying their favor in order to get them to give progress on rights and needs with their higher levels of power. Appeasers always care what feelings they hurt and tread very carefully to avoid stepping on toes. They often feel that any approach that causes hurt of any level isn’t workable and that one must always hold the moral highground above the oppressor. An Appeaser works to passively resist everything around them, and I use the word passive not just in regards to violence but also in regards to stridency or harsh words. They choose their words carefully, taking the burden of pure educator onto themselves, in order to make all of the oppressor class see what’s going on.

3: Logic Bomber
Methods: Debate, fallacy calls, logical dissection of arguments, rationalist application of factual knowledge, scientific knowledge dropping, information overload.

Description: The Logic Bomber is the information missile, descending on the head of the unwary privileged folk. They are a veritable arsenal of facts, figures, statistics and studies on the functionality of privilege, marginalization and oppression. They know all the math and they know how logic works. Rationalization will always fail when they find it, because they will pick apart any argument to its finest shreds and then label every single fallacy in triplicate. The so called rationalist bigots fear the Logic Bomber the most, because they completely lose the ability to claim that a marginalized group is crazy, delusional or wrong when that much factual information is dropped on their heads stating otherwise. Logic Bombers are highly effective info overloaders too. They bog down trolls with links to 101 posts and dissertations on privilege, they crush apologists under the weight of counter reasoning in giant, verbose, well thought out prose and they utterly destroy any attempt by bigots to look logical, intelligent or rational. Their methods arise from the comprehension that many people will hide from the reasons or quite truly don’t know what’s actually going on. Logic Bombers provide this information, clean and easy to read, and are quite willing to defend the info from every ill conceived attempt to derail or rationalize around it. They are relentless and intense in their knowledge.

4: Emoter
Methods: Emotional arguments/manipulation, appeals to empathy, personal narrative, analogies to the pain of others, emotional overload, sympathy accumulation.

Description: Emoters are often regarded as the polar opposite of the Logic Bombers. They speak from the gut, operating on one’s empathy, love and caring and if such is lacking, they seek to create it by sharing the horrors that a marginalized class faces. Emoters, much like the rest of them, involve a certain level of social engineering. For Emoters, it’s a bit more obvious. They seek to peak people’s emotions and manipulate how one feels about a given situation. Most privileged folk literally do not give a shit (and don’t even know what it’s like). It’s why idiots in America think we live in a post racial country. An Emoter not only presents personal narratives of horrible things but puts them in such a way that even privileged folk can connect to them and then start feeling horrible that such things happen. Emoters don’t depend on logical arguments or scientific material and operate almost entirely on the way people feel. They seek to literally create the empathy necessary to have lasting allies for a movement through more subtle means than the standard appeaser does. They also aren’t necessarily above using Nuker tactics (just very emotional ones). Emoters aren’t necessarily nice and cuddly or angry and super upset. They merely use emotional arguments and play on the heartstrings of others. Emoters believe that bringing someone emotionally on board means they can’t be convinced away and can’t fall to apathy, being the soundest win for an activist.

~

Now...

I’ve taken on the apparent sheen of neutrality for the descriptions themselves. Each of them are described as they would be by their proponents and not necessarily by reality. Because in reality, all of these methodologies have some serious disadvantages at their binary edges. Analysis time.

People are not inherently the same. If you look at things like the Meyers Briggs Personality Archetypes and other psychological realms of study, you’ll find that there are multiple formulations of mindset, stimuli response and communication approach. I’m not going to get into the nature vs. nurture debate about how these mindsets are gained, all that is important is that they are present and people vary in how they handle things. This, of course, includes communication styles, receptiveness to certain approaches and an overall capacity to do things a certain way or not.

In a relatively recent discussion with someone about street and phone harassment, we found out that for both of us, the methods the other used weren’t viable because the functionality of our responses to stress and stimuli were different. She could and had to ignore things and let them roll off her. I could and had to respond to things. In both of our cases, the methodology of one would drive the other up a wall and increase the stress of the encounter in question. This not only applies to what methods you can use as an activist, it also applies to what methods will work for a given person.

For instance, I know someone with an anxiety disorder. It isn’t necessarily privilege or bigotry that causes her to respond badly to Nuker tactics but literally being triggered by those tactics.

Without taking into account unusual cases like the above and just taking into account the base differences in personality types there are given contexts where a given methodology will simply not work. And they have specific advantages and disadvantages that have nothing to do with personality type and everything to do with privileged people trying to spin shit and manipulate things to their own advantage.

Nukers are, by far, the most argued against in most progressive activist movements. They’re widely viewed as dangerous, counterproductive, irrational, ally alienating and ridiculous. Some folk think they’re only really good for clearing a room or fighting off trolls and nothing else. This is largely because Appeaser methodology has become the norm for most activist groups in much of the primarily English Speaking Western World (United States, Canada, UK, etc).

However, despite this great deal of bad press about Nukers, they are surprisingly effective. Nukers are loud. They are direct. They are exceedingly hard to ignore and that is essentially the modus operandi prime of privileged folk after all: Ignoring. That first obstacle in reaching the oppressor class is breaking through the apathy, antipathy and lack of interest that privileged folk tend to show as a result of having privilege. Nukers pierce that veil like a fourteen inch rapier-esque short sword and jab right to the privileged person. They are literally the single most effective technique for overcoming the apathy and ignoring of privilege.

Unfortunately, engaging a bigot, privileged person or ally is only the beginning. The mid zone, where one must make one’s case and draw support for change, is where the Nuker falters. The rage and harsh presentation that was so successful in engaging people often pushes them away during midzone. Part of this is the personality differences above. Some people are intensely conflict shy by nature and will just *piff* disappear or shut down when in serious conflict. Part of this is also privilege. Privileged folk generally can’t see what’s up and often feel like the reaction vastly outweighs the need. They are, obviously, completely wrong but that privilege keeps them from knowing it by default.

Not all people are lost to the Nuker rage. Losses to conflict aversion and fear are actually a fairly small number of the population that are initially reached by Nukers. And Nukers are also fairly good at getting around passive aggressive and misleading and dishonest bullshit from the privileged “allies” that hampers the Appeasers. After all, lip service is another fan favorite from priv folk and a Nuker will call one out for it. This prevents fake progressives from getting their Liberal Reputation Points^TM on the backs of the activists and marginalized people they claim (but fail) to help.

Depending on the person getting called out, it’ll either shave deadwood that would do nothing to actually aid a group off or it will force people to self analyze and realize they were being sucky allies. Nukers unfortunately have their strongest disadvantages in how people view anger in Western Society as a whole. It tends to be viewed as irrational, unthinking and violent. So Nukers are often subjected to silencing techniques drawing directly from the fact that they are angry or harsh. These silencing techniques are many times accentuated by co opting and weaponizing the Appeasers, who tend to be quite ready to criticize the Nukers in vastly inappropriate contexts. This divide and conquer strategy is dangerously effective as a means of detoothing Nukers, because it’s a lot harder to rage at your own people who betray you.

Appeasers are the primary modus operandi out there in the English Speaking West right now. They make up a large majority of feminists, GLB activists, Trans activists (I separate GLB and T because GLB tends to completely ignore T. Shittiest coalition I have ever seen), class activists (mid class mostly, the poor are a lot angrier, for good reasons) and quite possibly maybe even womanism and POC activism (although I’m not in a good position to know, so let’s say no on that one for that until some POC folk can weigh in on the distributions). Appeasers are regarded pretty harshly by the Nuker set although it certainly seems as though most of the criticism from Nukers for Appeasers is along the lines of, “seriously, stop fucking turning on us, you sell outs”.

Appeaser methodology is a massive extension of several philosophies, like Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi’s Passive Resistance systems. I say a massive extension because for the most part, passive in those philosophies meant, “don’t beat the shit out of people or kill them”, not “make it so everyone’s feelings are unhurt”. Which is why I don’t refer to Appeasers as Pacifists, because it goes much further than that. Appeasers play the middleman/middlewoman/middleandrogyne/mi

ddleetc (lol gendered terms) game, standing between arguments and moderating or trying to convince people with gentle methods. Often Appeasers will be operating from a standpoint of moral highground. The idea that we must fight the monster without becoming it. This is understandable and due to this Appeasers are also fairly good at handling their own screw ups with intersectionality in the kyriarchy. Coming in soft and being gentle about your words means if you do fuck up on another privilege zone, you won’t be in a maelstrom of shit like a Nuker will (and trust me, it’s happened to me and lots others before).

Appeasers tend to have the advantage of very wide audiences. Because they tend to be more softspoken and more acceptable to the majority oppressor class, they also tend to be given more pulpits to speak from, more press and more notice. Unfortunately this notice tends to translate to personal notice, not conceptual notice. In fact, the single most frequent disadvantage an Appeaser faces is the fact that they are so very easily ignored and paid lip service to. Most Appeasers won’t call someone out who presents a positive front on activism for their group, even if that positive front is nothing more than a smokescreen to make one look good and backed up by no action. This is largely because doing so would hurt feelings and make the Appeaser seem angry or harmful.

Appeasers can be highly effective in dealing with certain personality types. Conflict shy, anxious folk or people with communication styles that may not actually be showing privilege but would still set off warning flags for a Nuker. Appeasers are also intensely useful for misunderstandings. When something goes wrong, Appeasers tend to have the negotiation skills to keep it from having a severe effect on things. Many of them tend to be the most effective in lobbying for legal actions, as our legal system tends to reject things that don’t follow certain rules of decorum. They’re also usually placed into leadership roles in an activist movement that follows the Vanguard Paradigm because they present the least scary front to outsiders.

This can backfire severely though, because Appeasers are also the easiest to manipulate and co opt by outsiders. Due to the fact that an Appeaser feels it necessary to protect the feelings of everyone, try to make things work for all and present a peaceful front, they’ll often let things go or be unable to deal with certain forms of manipulation without losing those things that they regard as necessary. It’s the Appeaser’s trap: invariably, someone will try to use an Appeaser as a silencing tool, figurehead or lip service backup in order to avoid being seen as bigoted, privileged or be seen as more progressive, without actually changing behaviors or doing anything positive. Oftentimes also to try to conceal or escape from the (usually small and insignificant) consequences for being bigoted.

What this does, unfortunately, is reroutes the Appeaser’s efforts, carefully cultivated image and sometimes even actions into silencing and marginalizing the very people the Appeaser is seeking to protect (usually their own people too). This is a fairly classic part of the divide and conquer strategy and it also works because Nukers will descend on a co opted Appeaser like a swarm of enraged hornets, effectively yanking the attentions of most of the activists in play off of the priv folk and onto each other.

As a note: Much like with Nukers and being silenced due to anger and perceived irrationality, the Appeaser’s Trap is a component of the oppressor class’s contributions to the kyriarchy. Appeasers do not seek to become entrapped or used, and rarely seek to sell out. Nukers do not seek to chase folk away. These are elements of privilege and oppression, used to strip the power of these methods. So these disadvantages are from the opposition’s privilege and power, not from flaws with the Nukers or Appeasers themselves.

The second spectrum is between Logic Bomber and Emoter. Note that one can be both a Nuker and a Logic Bomber or both a Nuker and an Emoter (and the same for Appeasers). However one does not necessarily need to be both. In fact there’s quite a few dispassionate Logic Bombers who upset people and don’t care, but don’t particularly show any anger either. It’s all about the facts for them (my partner is one such activist).

The advantages and disadvantages for Logic Bomber and Emoter tend to be orientated more towards communication styles and less towards privileged behavior. Emoters seek to socially engineer the emotions of the oppressor class and allies and Logic Bombers seek to convince rational minds with the power of facts and science. It’s difficult to co opt or silence either one because they’re fairly neutral things. The worst you get for silencing is that the Emoters are “making appeals to emotion” or “being manipulative” and Logic Bombers are “too academic” or “hard to comprehend”. Logic Bombers are the best for countering rationalizers, apologists, pseudoscience peddlers and anyone who tries to claim that a marginalized group is crazy for believing they’re marginalized.

However they tend to fail to make emotional leeway with such arguments. And when they’re dealing with people who think more emotionally then they do logically, the facts and figures and reasons can be overwhelming and cause the listener to shut down or tune it out. Emoters on the other hand are brill at getting the folk that think from the gut to feel it. They put forward personal narrative, analogies between situations of pain with pain that the listener can comprehend and are often the best counter to bigots that try to play off of the fears of the oppressor class, because they edge the emotions of the audience back towards the activist’s needs.

Unfortunately for Emoters, not everyone is easily emotionally led. Logic minded folk especially will be mostly unimpressed by stories of personal distress and will often attribute such to just the experiences of one person, which while tragic, don’t indicate a serious problem with the entire world. Emoters have also been accused of being manipulative, using emotional devices and in trying to lead people a certain way without actually having any kind of real backing.

So, it’s fairly clear that all of the methods involved have their problems and their advantages. One person asked me, while I was discussing this elsewhere, why not a middle ground? A middle path? Well that’s a great question. All of these methods lie on spectrums. Logic Bomber vs. Emoter, Nuker vs. Appeaser. One can easily walk between them all. One can also switch from an extreme to another extreme when the situation calls for it. It isn’t possible for all people to switch fluidly between methods. Some may be completely incompatible with one’s philosophy or may be incompatible with one’s personality type (Philosophy based Appeasers often can’t do Nuker methods because it feels too harsh to them). Sometimes the context and situation have such a serious effect on the activist in question that switching methods may simply be impossible (like the rage of being outright betrayed and silenced by an ally makes it impossible to do Appeaser methods and not blow a gasket). Ideally, well ideally we wouldn’t have to be activists at all, but semi ideally switching would be usable everywhere. But it isn’t.

So what should a person do? No matter what method you take, there will be certain contexts in which your method will cause problems. Well, here are some good ways to account for these disadvantages.

1: Keep Your Group Mixed: Have Nukers, Appeasers, Logic Bombers and Emoters present within your activist network, working for the needs of your group. Make sure you have at least some switchers around and people who walk middle lines. Having someone for every context is always a good idea and will maximize your success.

2: Be Mindful Of Flaws: Make sure you are self aware and externally aware about the disadvantages of your methodology. Specifically Appeasers, who are in the most dangerous position of all. Nukers, Logic Bombers and Emoters can’t effectively be turned against their own as weaponized tools but Appeasers can. If you practice Appeaser methods, be extraordinarily careful that what you see as progress isn’t just you being co opted and used to silence Nukers and others or used to conceal other problems through lip service progressivism. Nukers clearly have to be mindful of intersectionality and their own privilege as well as allies with anxiety or conflict issues. And the other two need to be mindful of who they’re speaking to and whether they’re wasting energy.

3: Don’t Infight Over AMO’s: Seriously, this is a huge fucking one. The biggest advantage the oppressors have over you (no matter what group you’re in) is numbers. They don’t have to all agree and they can infight all they want. There’s more of them and they already have more power. We can not afford to. Now if someone is failing at 2 above, then yes, criticize them. But keep it in house. Don’t make public spectacles of it, don’t silence, don’t attack. The bigots eat that shit up. And more often than not, such infighting isn’t even in the presence of a fuck up on rule 2 but simply philosophical disagreements. Quite frankly, philosophical disagreements are a shit poor reason to engage in energy sapping infighting. If your philosophy does not connect with someone’s methods, well that’s something to discuss on down time, civilly and without argument. Jabbing at people because you think their Nuking is violent and wrong or because you think their Appeasement is an utter useless waste is not acceptable. The infighting divides us and it’s part of why we’re staying conquered.

4: Tag Team: Using multiple methods of communication in your AMO or having different AMO Communicators to back you up when you’re in the field or on the front lines maximizes your potential. If you do a little bit of Nuking and the person is getting pissy and whiny or seems to be withdrawing, call in an Appeaser to put it in gentle terms. If you’re getting ignored completely as an Appeaser, call in an air strike from the Nukers to get the attention centered on your movement’s needs. Logic Bombers and Emoters working together are especially invincible, because what works better than rational arguments mixed with things that tug your heartstrings? Remember, the stakes are intensely high. It is worth it to manipulate the majority, because chances are that’s the only way we’re going to get what we need.

5: Always Have Substance: This I can’t stress enough. It doesn’t matter how much attention you get as a Nuker, or how well you can string together an argument and logic as a Logic Bomber if you aren’t right and you don’t have content within your method. It’s irrelevant how gentle and caring you are as an Appeaser or how well you can play the heartstring violin as an Emoter if you’re wrong or don’t have anything useful to say on your group’s needs. Always make sure you know what you’re talking about, don’t speak for those with different experiences and make sure you actually have something to say. Communication methods won’t save you if you don’t have anything to communicate or you’re dead wrong about something.

And that concludes this bit of meta activism. Understanding how our (and their) methods work is the best way to maximize our power, reach and effect. Never forget that.

Harsh Realities

...comment exchange on Mass Democracy Has Failed [short form]...

layo: "I used to think there was an uberclass of people with a shrewd plan running the world behind the scenes, but obviously not. My faith was not in democracy; I figured people who knew what they were doing secretly held the reins. So I'm disillusioned, but not the way most liberal types are."

Moi: "That's the 'comforting' aspect of all conspiracy theories. Shit may be bad, but at least someone is control. Such also allows some to just give up and merely bitch because the various proposed cabals are far too competent and omnipotent to ever be defeated.

However all Ruling Classes throughout history have had factions and said factions fluctuate in terms of relative power or even existence. In such a structure, 'master plans' are hard to put in place and the factional struggles become shortsighted.

We are obviously in such a phase right now. Short term financial gain has trumped all and The Republic is in disarray. The damage done since Reagan - and exacerbated by Bu$hCo - may be irreparable.

The harsh reality of my New Matriarchy is that is about creating a new uberclass, but one that is inherently stable and with a solid set of constructive long term goals backed up by a 'religious ideology'. I honestly believe that is the only way we shall survive as a species."

Writer's Block: fer realz

From Thomas Heggen's Wiki:

"Bewildered by the fame he had longed for and under pressure to turn out another bestseller, he found himself with a crippling case of writer's block. "I don't know how I wrote 'Mister Roberts'," he admitted to a friend. "It was spirit writing". He became an insomniac and tried to cure it with increasing amounts of alcohol and prescription drugs. On 19 May, 1949 Heggen drowned in his bathtub after an overdose of sleeping pills. His death was ruled a probable suicide, though he left no note and those close to him insisted it was an accident."

This also brings to mind Ross Lockridge, Jr.. It suspect they each had only One Great Book in them and they knew it. Such is a terrible fate.

Then I think of E.M. Forster, who had four Great Books [and one Good Book] in him, all of which he wrote before his forty fifth birthday, and then never wrote another for the last forty six years of his life, though he did continue to write short stories and essays and to teach writing. His Aspects of The Novel [1927] is the best of its type I have ever read.

I mainly aspire to be a Competent and Entertaining writer. If I can make a few bob off such, that would be lovely too. I doubt that I have a Great Book in me. If I do, it's likely some grueling autobiographical monstrosity that would run over a thousand pages and just the idea of facing something of that nature is enough to make me contemplate suicide. Let some other poor schmuck be the next fucking John Kennedy Toole. Hated that book anyway.

And there you have it...

In Which Her Prophet Has A Bit Of A Funk

~Back at the end of July I was pretty up beat. Sister Two seemed committed, a possible Sister Three appeared fairly solid and the writing flowed out of me with ease.

Then came a series of 'tests and crises'. My writing screeched to a halt. The potential Sister Three 'got weird' – still really dunno what happened there – and Sister Two was fading.

Now, a little over three months later, Sister Two is gone – and dropped totally off the radar after I ended it with her. I still have no idea what's up with said 'possible' Sister Three, except that I'm sure she ain't. And my writing is only now starting to percolate again. [as it always does]

I don't harbor any animosity toward either of those Sisters. The Temple ain't any easy gig and they both have a lot on their respective plates. I take myself far more to task than either one of them. I'm supposed to be Her fuckin' Prophet, ya know? The Enlightened Holy Assed Mutha Fuckah who's gonna Change The Mother Fucking World! feh

More like 'Dinky Dog of Terror', as Bukowski once said.

So now we're back to a 'mom and pop operation'; me, Le-Le, and the cats. I am grateful that I have them and this house, which while overstuffed, it still safe and comfy. And Goddess Knows we're doing a fuck lot better than millions of our fellow citizens these days.

And yet....

I feel like I have failed. I'm not going to whine about the details of that. I hate that shit.

It's just...well, I'm supposed Make This Happen! And two thirds of the time I cannot get out of my own way.

...and E whispers [with some exasperation..though that may be my own] ”Finish The Explanation and everything will change.” And I know for certain that is what I am really scared of.

Mass Democracy Has Failed [short form]

Note: This is the 'solution free' version. I though such was necessary because most are not prepared for my solutions. The original Long Form version can be found HERE.

~The harsh reality is that most humans are incapable of meeting the requirements of effective Citizenship. They have neither the time nor the inclination necessary for such an undertaking. And most certainly do not have the education needed to make proper choices in these matters.

That I myself am qualified to be an effective Citizen is of course implicit in the above statement. But I am something of a 'freak of nature' in that regard. I have closely studied History and Politics for a half century and have large amount of leisure time with which to examine both the candidates and the issues. And yet even I cannot keep up with all of it.

On the other side from The Citizen is The Corporation. The significant ones have literally armies of Consultants, Issue Specialists, Lawyers – lots and and lots of Lawyers – and Money, what the late Jesse Unruh called “the mother's milk of politics.” They can spend vast amounts of 'collective time' and resources on each candidate and issue, manipulating them to get the outcome that best suits their respective interests.

Clearly this is an unequal contest that The Citizen can never truly win. Even our 'victories' are preempted by the steady grinding of The Corporation, when they actually are victories and not some convoluted double blind shell game like the latest Health Care Reform legislation.

The depressing truth is in the title: Mass Democracy Has Failed.

The Veil/Vale Parts [2010]

~I have a number of things to post regarding Foreclosuregate, the looming Repug fuggliness next Tuesday and general ranting about the suicidal cupidity of my fellow humans. But I shall allow All Hallows Eve to pass relatively unmolested by such. Samhain itself passed ten days ago on the Full Moon that fell midpoint between the Autumnal Equinox and the Winter Solstice.

Instead I shall share something E said upon this day eight years ago; "This is the day when we, the beings who rule this world, and have no doubt that we do 'rule', when we have decided that the Doors Between Worlds shall open. There are Other Days like this one, but here, on this continent, resides the Culture whose Vibration overwhelms all other 'lesser' Vibrations. And so This Day is the one that predominates. Think upon that as you travel through This Day. As a species, we Create, and Re-Create, our own Reality on a day to day basis. And I say We, because my Ancestors and yours are now One. Think upon that, as well."

And so it is....

Nebs Sez

"There will be no revolution. There will be no prosecutions of 'higher ups'. The Republic will just stumble on to its eventual doom while watching Bristol Palin twirl away on Dancing With The Stars."

..a comment HERE

Random

~I'm something of an emotional mess. I lay down but ran out of sleep before I felt rested. Right after I got up Le-Le told me that Terror Cat likes to get brushed...and I started crying.

I didn't know why for a few minutes. What came to me is that because of my Survival Fear about Money – an old family trait – I was having difficulty taking pleasure in our rescue of this little guy.

We've likely doubled his life expectancy and certainly made that life a better thing from now on. That he's showing signs that he's gonna soak that up....well, I should be able to simply bask in the pure happiness of that. And yet I'm twitching with anxiety.

This is where the damage of my past robs the joy of my present and right now all I can do is weep over that.....

Note To Self

"Ms. Plain’s work routine involved making detailed outlines of her books and then writing them in longhand in spiral notebooks, rarely using a typewriter and never a computer. A disciplined worker, she wrote for several hours in the morning five days a week. She produced a 500- or 600-page novel every year or so." ...from Belva Plain's NYT Obit

In Which Her Prophet Eats His Own Lunch

~It's been a week and a day since I ended it with Tina, but it feels like a month or more. I'm okay and I'm a mess. More 'new territory' for me.

I feel like I failed to 'provide her with a space' where she could push through her Damage, etc. Which is nonsense on one level and true on another. She knew what the deal was up here, but feel like I'd didn't do what was needed to help her enough. [CODA much?]

But I'm really taking my inventory in a big way today, feeling like a fucking failure and so on and so forth and Whah Whah Whah. [Nebs sez STFU!]

The harsh truth is this house is decorated like a storage facility. We've got two houses and a one bedroom apartment worth of stuff in here. And we're a pair of gimps of Disability. All too many days either one of us 'just getting by'. And this is where a movement that changes the world is supposed to start?

Meanwhile E is literally yelling at me, “FINISH THE FUCKING BOOK!”

I know full well The Explanation is The Key to all of this...and I am sooooo fucking stuck. And obsessing over being stuck. Which makes me more stuck. Which leads to more obsessing over being stuck. The classic Ouroborian Paradigm, swallowing ones on tail..or tale as the case may be.

I do my best to detach...and fail at that, as well....and even this rant seems to have provided no relief. *sigh*

Sixteen Years Sober

~Sixteen years ago Oct 16th was also a Saturday. I was two or three pages away from finishing my first screenplay, “An Ordinary Guy.” That was pretty rough as I get get 'too moody to live' when I write and this 'landmark' was kicking my ass Big Time.

I'd also had two very significant romantic relationships grow, flourish, crash, then burn since the beginning of the year, Theresa and Gretchen.

I was a fucking mess. So I decided to get loaded after five and half years rather tepid sobriety. 'Tepid' in that while I didn't 'use' I really didn't work any kind of a Program either. I went to meetings, but didn't do any kind of Step Work at all. Semi-white knuckling one could say.

I had a bunch of Vicodins left over from some dental work. Funny when I think about that. I was wrapped so fucking tight I split a molar from clenching my jaw too hard.

I cleared my sched such as it was for the weekend and made a date with three Vicodin for Saturday night. I don't remember much, largely because it was fairly uneventful. I ate a piece of bread and took the Vicodins with milk. I was always a very ritualized and controlled dope fiend.

The part that is the clearest was around one am, siting in my old polka dot Dotson in the parking lot of the Lucky's at Ocean Park and Lincoln watching the fog drift across the mercury vapor lamps and thinking 'how great it was to be stoned again'.

And then it was over....

I didn't go out on a tear. I just went about my life and 'forgot' the whole thing for nearly two years until was doing an actual 4th Step and my sponsor at the time 'went south' and became a Scientologist. *snork* That shit shook the memory loose. I was like, “Dude, you fucking went out!”

I rolled down to the Log Cabin Ass-Crack-of-Dawn Meeting, put up my hand, got a couple of good laughs when I shared the above, found myself a new sponsor and finally finished my 4th Step after roughly seven and a half years of going to meetings.

But it was that Sunday back in '94 that was my first day sober this time around. So, today, October 17th, is my sixteenth AA Birthday. Go me!

Addict? Asshole? Dooshnozzle?

~So, this morning America Blog had The Stones cover of “Sister Morphine” and I thought that'd be an appropriate way to acknowledge the last day that I got stoned. [so far...that's why we do this thing One Day At A Time ya know] And that's all I did; post a vid and say 'sixteen years since I got stoned'.

And saint_boner came over from one of two friends LJ's and says, “This year sometime marked my 44th anniversary smoking pot. peace out.”

Yeah, that annoyed me, but I've been nudgy for the past week anyway. And like most things of that nature, it got me thinking. Not gnashing my teeth or anything; just thinking. It's what I do.

Clearly, this was Reactive Hostility. If one of y'all had said something like I'd figured yer being a wiseass because friends get to fuck with each other like that and most of you have intuited that I wear my Sobriety loosely. I do not need anyone else to stay Sober in order for me to stay Sober. [see AA bumper: It's An Inside Job]

So this person saw my post and felt the need to come over here and make a dumb remark which he had not earned the right to make, aka he 'reacted with hostility'. Sure, it is just minor stupidity, but what was the point? Obviously, my Statement of Sobriety bugged him.

For such to happen, he has to be in one or more states of being. As it was clearly Reactive Hostility, I'd say Asshole is a given.

But the content of the comment indicates the possibility of Addict. I say 'possibility' because I'm not of the Step Nazi School that says anyone who uses any substance is a drunk and/or dope fiend. I'd say most who do are not. That is because I know it is about The Thinking, not the substance or the behavior: 'how does your using affect your thinking?'

In that context, I'd lean toward Addict as well. But I cannot say for sure. Only the individual can really make that call. What 'leans me' is that he felt the need to make that particular comment upon that particular post. This indicates to me that his pot smoking has been brought up as a possible addictive behavior and my addressing my Sobriety annoyed him. See? The Thinking that leads to the behavior is the key.

Of course, he could just be one of those clowns who reflexively hate me. But again, we go to the 'Thinking that leads to the behavior'. They see Nebris and they respond automatically regardless of the content or context. That is also 'addictive behavior'.

Plus that would would qualify him as a Dooshnozzle too. lol

And there you have it....

PS Just for the record, it is utterly clear to me that the War on [Some] Drugs is a global disaster and I favor legalization of everything, even meth. I say Regulate, Tax, and Treat.

Nebs Sez

"The 'free market' is a bullshit fairytale sold to idiots by Corporate shills. The state is at present essentially owned by the corporations. It is not in their best interest to allow a 'free market'. Therefore, such a thing can never exist as only an unfettered state could enforce it and the Moneyed Interests will always buy their way into control.

In other words, the 'free market concept' is a shell game.

And if there is no form of government, the Moneyed Interests will buy one and set it up. It's a circle jerk and not a single one of the various 'isms' that are presently being bandied about can withstand the power of Corporatism and the Modern Corporate Marketing Culture [aka The Hologram] that keeps it in place. I'd go so far as to say that The Hologram has now become so seamless that even those who 'run' it are themselves often subject to its delusions."

repeating myself [thread comment]

"I suppose having Center/Right Sycophantic Corporatist Democrats in charge is better than having Far Right Batshit Racist and Bedwetter Republicans in charge. At least the Dems make a pretense at governance.


..I've said that exact quote maybe ten times in the past week or so..still makes me sick.."

DW Writing Blog

~I'm seriously considering creating a Dreamwidth account for The Imperium. I used to have one on Commie Journal and I probably miss the thing more than I do CJ overall. *ponders*

Done: http://the-imperium.dreamwidth.org/profile

Nothing there as yet. [couple things there now] That'll take some time, as I wish to organize it properly.

Her Prophet Reflects

~I was just reading this piece on increasing Baby Boomer suicides that darksumomo posted in The Recession. It got me thinking of course; that's my demographic.

Yes, it made me sad, especially the comments about women who are getting 'dumped out' of the workforce. Such adds to my sense of urgency regarding The Temple. A major part of our work is about creating a livelihood for our Sisters and other 'women in need'. I do torment myself about that 'every other day' as I said to one Sister just this morning.

And at the same time I need to own my Gratitude for my life at this moment. It is better than it has ever been; a safe and comfortable place to live, a steady income that provides what I need, the love and companionship of two wonderful women, and, most of all, a True and Noble Purpose, which is I honestly believe what all of the proceeding issues from.

My life had been full of pain and difficulty, but such has prepared me for the harsh times now upon us. I do my best to stay focused and not allow my impatience to distract me – and fail all too often.

That Sister I was IMing with this morning, she is a Goddess worshiping Witch in Istanbul, a tough life at the very least. We have known each other for close to two years. We were talking of 'things happening in The Goddess Good Time' and how that can summon moments of Madness and yet teach Wisdom and Patience. She told me how she is now 'more connected to Goddess' for her having to wait until we can bring her and her daughter here to The High Desert.

It is you, my Sisters, who give me my strength to keep going. And Goddess keeps bring you to my door, so I must have Faith and persevere.

Facing The Page

~I've posted this unfinished piece called “Alliance” over on E Speaks. It's the one that I've been going fucking batshit over for two months now, more batshit than I usually am and that's pretty fucking batshit, ya know.

There are two other unfinished pieces that are also tormenting me, but “Alliance” is the one that's really fucking with my head. The concept sat for nearly half a year, a collection of hand written notes. Then, in the beginning of August, it suddenly burst out of me onto the page and seemed to be racing toward the finish line.

But then I had a bunch of IRL stuff come up that needed my attention and the thing stopped dead. What is presently posted on E Speaks is all that made it to the page. And I cannot seem to get going again.

It's driving me fucking nuts. This thing – and the other two – are like fucking ghosts. They whisper tantalizing details from a dark corner or just behind me, but when look right at them, the vanish.

I suppose writing about one's future self in the third person would make anyone crazy. And, to complicate matters, materiel for The Imperium has been pouring out of my head like Niagara Falls...and you know where that leads. lol

Nebs Sez

"So, GL, based upon your thesis, 'reproductive violence' is, in essence, The Male's 'default position'. I'd say that strongly validates the more radical Feminist thinking regarding The Male.

Within such a 'naturalist' paradigm as you start out with, a fetus is merely a parasite The Female can dispose of at her choice. Or even kill after its birth. Mothers of many species even eat their young if food is scarce.

And within the context of Evolutionary Psycho-Biology as outlined by you, there is no 'morality'. That's just a 'theological coat of paint' you slap on once you started talking about The Female, which is classic Male Privilege doublespeak; “We are meant to brutes by Nature, that makes us Men, but Women must always Submit and be Moral and think of The Greater Good.”

Therefore in my model of the world, the first two thirds of this lil essay makes a pretty good evolutionary case of the outbreeding of The Male and the last third psycho-culturally confirms it. My Feminist thinking is mighty radical too, mano."

~My latest comment upon Gonzalo Lira's Rape, Abortion, and Reproductive Violence post.

Quote of The Day

"Whenever you start feeling any 'shame' over getting Food Stamps, just remember TARP and the scores of seven figure bonuses that have been, and still are, being paid out of that money to the cocksuckers that crashed the fucking thing in the first place. You can bet all your fucking Food Stamps that those sons-of-bitches not only have zero shame over that, but in fact feel smugly entitled to every fucking penny of it." ~Yours Truly...to a friend who is struggling to get by

Jill Johnston, Critic Who Wrote ‘Lesbian Nation,’ Dies at 81

From The NYT
September 21, 2010
By WILLIAM GRIMES


Jill Johnston in 1985.

Jill Johnston, a longtime cultural critic for The Village Voice whose daring, experimental prose style mirrored the avant-garde art she covered and whose book “Lesbian Nation: The Feminist Solution” spearheaded the lesbian separatist movement of the early 1970s, died in Hartford on Saturday. She was 81 and lived in Sharon, Conn.

The cause was a stroke, her spouse, Ingrid Nyeboe, said.

Ms. Johnston started out as a dance critic, but in the pages of The Voice, which hired her in 1959, she embraced the avant-garde as a whole, including happenings and multimedia events.

“I had a forum obviously set up for covering or perpetrating all manner of outrage,” she wrote in a biographical statement on her Web site, jilljohnston.com.

In the early 1970s she began championing the cause of lesbian feminism, arguing in “Lesbian Nation” (1973) for a complete break with men and with male-dominated capitalist institutions. She defined female relations with the opposite sex as a form of collaboration.

“Once I understood the feminist doctrines, a lesbian separatist position seemed the commonsensical position, especially since, conveniently, I was an L-person,” she told The Gay and Lesbian Review in 2006. “Women wanted to remove their support from men, the ‘enemy’ in a movement for reform, power and self-determination.”

At a debate on feminism at Town Hall in Manhattan in 1971, with Germaine Greer, Diana Trilling and Jacqueline Ceballos of the National Organization for Women sharing the platform with Norman Mailer, the moderator, and with a good number of the New York intelligentsia in attendance, she caused one of the great scandals of the period. [Nebs: Which in retrospect seems awfully tame.]

After reciting a feminist-lesbian poetic manifesto and announcing that “all women are lesbians except those that don’t know it yet,” Ms. Johnston was joined onstage by two women. The three, all friends, began kissing and hugging ardently, upright at first but soon rolling on the floor.

Mailer, appalled, begged the women to stop. “Come on, Jill, be a lady,” he sputtered.

The filmmakers Chris Hegedus and D. A. Pennebaker captured the event in the documentary “Town Bloody Hall,” released in 1979. Mary V. Dearborn, in her biography of Mailer, called the evening “surely one of the most singular intellectual events of the time, and a landmark in the emergence of feminism as a major force.”

Ms. Johnston continued to write on the arts but took a strong political line with a marked psychoanalytic slant evident in “Jasper Johns: Privileged Information” (1996), which explored the artist’s works as a series of evasions and subterfuges rooted in conflict about his homosexuality, and in the two volumes of her memoirs: “Mother Bound” (1983) and “Paper Daughter” (1985), both of them subtitled “Autobiography in Search of a Father.”

Jill Johnston was born on May 17, 1929, in London and taken to the United States as an infant by her mother, Olive Crowe, after her father abandoned them both. She was reared by a grandmother in Little Neck, on Long Island.

Throughout her childhood she believed that her parents had divorced, but in 1950, when The New York Times ran a short obituary about her father, an English bell maker named Cyril F. Johnston, she learned the truth.

Her mother informed her that she and Johnston had never married. A lifelong fascination with this absent figure, whose company, Gillett & Johnston, supplied bells and carillons to churches and cathedrals all over the world, motivated her to write “England’s Child: The Carillon and the Casting of Big Bells” (2008), a biography of her father and a history of bell making.

After earning a bachelor’s degree from Tufts in 1951 and studying dance at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, she began writing for The Dance Observer. She was soon hired by the fledgling Voice to write the weekly column Dance Journal, which ran until the mid-1970s.

The revolutionary currents of the time found expression in her increasingly wayward Voice column, which soon took in all aspects of the counterculture and by the late 1960s had become a freewheeling series of dispatches about her adventures in the arts and on the road.

“Now I was a chronicler of my own life, by 60s standards perhaps not too egregiously adventurous and experimental, but in a newspaper in full public view, in the most fractured Dada style of work I had admired as a critic — a rather wild spectacle in those woolly times,” she wrote on her Web site.

She developed a singular prose style — what the writer Pattrice Jones, writing in the Web magazine LesbiaNation.com [defunct] in 1999, called “part Gertrude Stein, part E.E. Cummings, with a dash of Jack Kerouac thrown for good measure.”

One 1964 column began: “Fluxus flapdoodle. Fluxus concert 1964. Donald Duck meets the Flying Tigers. Why should anyone notice the shape of a watch at the moment of looking at the time?”

Ms. Johnston would soon shed this style and her amorphous politics, which she described in “Lesbian Nation” as her “east west flower child beat hip psychedelic paradise now love peace do your own thing approach to the revolution.”

In 1969, members of the Gay Liberation Front, correctly intuiting that the unidentified companion on her weekly adventures, chronicled in The Voice, was a woman, invited her to a meeting. Her political conversion began, and “Lesbian Nation” was published in 1973.

Her marriage to Richard Lanham in 1958 ended in divorce six years later. Besides her spouse, Ms. Nyeboe, whom she married in Denmark in 1993 and in Connecticut last year, she is survived by her two children, Richard Lanham and Winifred Lanham, and four grandchildren.

Since the 1980s Ms. Johnston often wrote for Art in America and The New York Times Book Review. She also wrote other books, including “At Sea on Land: Extreme Politics” (2005).

Although she later said that she regarded “Lesbian Nation” as “a period piece,” Ms. Johnston held fast to her version of feminism and reaffirmed it in “Admission Accomplished”(1998): “The centrality of the lesbian position to feminist revolution — wildly unrealistic or downright mad, as it still seems to most women everywhere — continues to ring true and right.”

Note: This reminded of something I posted last year: http://community.livejournal.com/e_speaks/47943.html

Quote of The Day

“Great republics do not last. Vast wealth and power corrupt. It incites dangerous ambitions and will bring the republic down. It will run down the Congress and crush the people’s voice. This has been a strange panic. It’s like a blight, a paralysis, in which a mighty machine has slipped its belt, and is still running and accomplishing nothing. A creepy and awful stillness has given us an atmosphere of apprehension. The phrase ‘lay-off’ has become common. The laying off of two and three thousand men has has become familiar. But there’s a far greater and disastrous laying off all over this land – the discharging of one out of three employees in all the humble and small shops and industries across America. A blight has fallen upon us. And the monarchy of the rich and the powerful is author of it.” ~Mark Twain

In Which Her Prophet Cogitates Upon The Deeper Motivations Of Two Doomers

~First, a basic scientific fact: the entire Universe is made up Energy, every fucking piece of it. So saying we face a 'energy crisis' any time in the next billion years or so is outright horseshit.

What we actually face is a 'systems management crisis' with two major components. A: over population and B: operating within a closed resource system aka Planet Earth. In simple terms, too many people and not enough resources where said people happen to live.

Which brings me to my mantra, “Population Down/ Industry Up”, the latter being shorthand for 'all heavy industry off world'. That paradigm is really our only path to survival as a species. [Whether such is warranted is the subject of another discussion.]

What I am addressing here are The Doomers, who reject any such notions of the above nature with both contempt and vehemence. They are not End Timers in the classic sense, like The Rapturites and The Twenty Twelvers. Those types want Death and The End of The World. Their motivations are much like the Addict and the Alcoholic; they 'want the pain to end' and do not care who suffers in the process.

Doomers on the other hand are essentially people who just want Modern Technological Civilization to end. Generally speaking, their high profile spokespersons are educated white males [So what else is new?] who have never been able to truly adapt to Modern Technological Civilization. In that, I am much like them, being an educated white male and seeing that significant portions of said civilization are insane and destructive.

Where I part ways with them is that I do not blame the technologies created by civilization for its basic ills, but rather place responsibility upon its fundamental psycho-social underpinnings, which are grounded in Masculine Egotism aka Patriarchy.

Let me state clearly that I do not believe Masculine Egotism to be inherently evil, though it can certainly manifest in that fashion. It is simply an expression of male psycho-biology and has actually been key to creation of this civilization, the irrepressible male drive to Become. And, like certain childhood behaviors which served us well as children, now that we are passing through our species adolescence with its increasing capacity for large scale destruction, that behavior not only no longer serves, but could be the death of us all.

But most Doomers are steeped in Masculine Egotism. Jim Kunstler and John Michael Greer, two of the most important Doomers, both advocate a return to a semi-medieval social order that would make men essential once again. And as such reveal fully from where their unabashed hatred of Modern Technological Civilization truly originates. Such a civilization has no real need of males; it would actually be better off without them.

We must grant that contemplating ones own extinction, even on such an esoteric level as the last sentence, is an uncomfortable thing. But true wisdom means taking ones own ego out of the equation. In my own experience and observations, that is where most humans, of either gender, fail at achieving such an outcome and withdraw to back to 'safe' territory.

We humans tend to operate within an envelope of emotional safety, often in contradiction to our own intellectual observations. If something makes us genuinely uncomfortable, we rationalize our way around it, through, or over it. That process can range from blowing off simple life style change like giving up a favorite food that is bad for us [”Eh, what could it hurt?”] all the way to the ideological justification of active genocide [”The Jews are responsible for my failure as an artist.”].

I personally understand that, being a diabetic who loves cake and a writer whose substance abuse damaged his art much more than his insane family, though Goddess knows they tried their damnedest. The latter was particularly tough to swallow. We love to 'blame someone else' for our shortcomings, especially when they are those who rejected us when we sought their acceptance. 'If only' is so often spoken.

Very recently James Kunstler noted that he had voted for Barack Obama and was now 'disappointed'. This is a clear example of operating from within the aforementioned 'envelope of emotional safety'. Though Jimmy has written and spoken extensively upon his firm belief that the paradigm of 'peak resources' – specifically oil – is going to take Modern Technological Civilization over the brink of catastrophe, when push comes to shove, he tried to vote his way out of that.

For all his tough talk, Jimmy is still a bourgeois urban intellectual at his core and I personally don't think he has the stuff to really face the world he claims is nigh.

I call him 'Jimmy' because that is how I knew him as an assistant camp councilor nearly half a century ago. He was a pudgy adolescent [about fifteen I'd say], sensitive, Jewish and intellectually precocious, which back then was read as 'fag'. [still is in many places] Even though I was not even eleven, I could see how much he wanted to be accepted by the older councilors, men in their early to mid twenties, masculine, athletic, Gentile.

America was still a Golden Nation, prosperous, confident – though the Cuban Missile Crisis had scared us – and in the last summer of JFK's Camelot. Those older councilors were very much what I call True Men. That some of them were alcoholic brutes and degenerates was not so apparent, though I later discovered that quite intimately.

That last summer I had already entered puberty and, while I too had been pudgy, sensitive and intellectually precocious, for whatever reasons, I was far more cynical than Jimmy seemed to be. By then I knew that Violence was an essential component of Masculinity. I suspect that while Jimmy has discovered that by now, he has never truly accepted that in his heart.

And so, somewhere inside, he still tries to earn the respect of those long dead True Men of his youth by advocating a world were they would once again be essential. I consider his work a series of 'love letters' to them, albeit cloaked in genuinely legitimate concerns, many of which I also share.

But while Kunstler may be a 'romantic' Doomer, Greer has turned out to be an Evil one.

For quite a while I though of Greer as being the more reasonable of the two. Kunstler's words are scathing and razor edged. His contempt springs off of the page like a rabid dog. Greer, on the other hand, though obviously sharing Kunstler's feelings and opinions, speaks in far more measured tones, almost Olympian in their detachment.

But then he crossed a line. I do not think anyone else noticed, but it struck me in the face like a blow.

In his June 9th, 2010 post, Waiting for the Millen- nium/Part One: Peak Oil Goes Mainstream, he speaks with great insight and eloquence about 'cultural myths' – read 'envelopes of emotional safety' – and how a number of them are specific to Modern Technological Civilization. But I had noticed a trend to disparage what he called 'revitalization movements' and to do so with a hint of desperation.

'Revitalization movement' is the label he applies to any and all types of solutions that could possible prevent the socio-economic collapse that both he and Kunstler firmly insist is coming, no matter what. But then he crossed that line.

Now, for those who are not metaphysically inclined, what he did may seem silly, but that is not the point. Greer is an Archdruid after all and a serious believer in the meta- physically, so what he advocated was, in his model of the world, quite real.

I quote him here:

“For the moment, though, I want to pass on the counter -spell against incantatory thinking that I mentioned at the conclusion of last week’s post. Like the magic spells in fairy tales, it comes with a taboo that limits what you can do with it. The taboo is this: you can use it to guard yourself from incantations, if you think about it and understand it, and you can pass it on to someone else who’s ready to receive and understand it. If you give it to someone who’s not willing to accept it, though, it will cause exactly the flight into incantation and fantasy it’s meant to prevent. Here it is:

There is no brighter future ahead.
Keep it secret; keep it safe.”

That is a fucking Evil Meme at the very least and pure Black Majick at the very worst. In his need to bring about his Desired Outcome, he has Invoked Darkness and Disaster and all the Death and Pain that would surely follow. But this is the essence of Masculine Egotism. The Male must be right even at the cost of bringing down endless and unimaginable suffering upon the lives of billions. Nothing must be allowed to disrupt his little ego maniac empire.

I can see the path that led him there, and that is largely 'paved with good intentions', and how such transformed him into a vest pocket version of Sauron. I can see it because it is a course that I worry about taking myself. Power is the most sublime addiction and Greer has obviously succumbed to it, though the taste he has gotten is actually still quite small. But already his Masculine Egot drinks deeply of its well.

And it is Masculine Egotism, not Modern Technology, that our species must eschew if we hope to survive. The semi-medieval societies these males and their kind seek to establish is as much an evolutionary dead end as any Father/God theocracy. And would be just as brutal and mean-spirited...

And so I Swear by The Ten Thousand Names of The Goddess that I will do all in my power to prevent either of those from manifesting.

Now let me propose a 'counterspell' for the Archdruid's monstrous Invocation, one uttered by a far better man than I:

”A still more glorious dawn awaits us.”
Blessed Be.....