Nebs Sez

"No, Libertarianism isn't fine.

It's based upon the delusional mythology of Rugged [White] Individualism building America. It makes a lot of noise about The Pioneers 'doing it themselves' and ignores any facts that run counter to that notion, like the railroads being both Corporate Entities and Federally funded. Or the need for the US Army in dealing with the Plains Indians, the finest light cavalry in the world. Without the former most of those Rugged [White] Individualists would have wound up as bones bleaching upon The Great Grass Plain. Plus it's traditional heroes tend to be violent, alcoholic, gambling addicted, whore mongering sociopaths.

And this is not even getting into how much of American's economic foundations were built upon the scarred black back of slavery.

So fuck that Libertarian bullshit...and you can quote me on that shit, baby!" *raises clenched fist*

Today We Are Seven

~There are a number of calender events that are important to The Temple.

May 27th, 1996, Memorial Day of that year, when I saw The Craft and was inspired to create the stories of the Vēkkan Sisterhood's Universe, the key element in leading me to the actual Craft itself and to calling myself Witch.

January 31st, 1997, the evening when the mad and lovely Sarah L held open the portal that E came through, a Being who informed me that She was now going to be my Spirit Guide and then began to tell me in no uncertain terms just how that was going to work.

Those few days in mid October of 2001 when E first dictated The Pentavalent to me, the Precepts that are shaping and guiding The Temple into becoming The New Matriarchy, that Global Amazon Republic I'm so fond of promoting. We shall date the Anno Sororitas [Year of Sisterhood] beginning from that time when the actual Path itself was first Revealed. AD 2001=1 AS.

September 16th, 2005, when Le-Le was Initiated as a Sister of The Temple, Sister One as I titled her, and the thing transformed from a 'singular vision' to become an actual 'organization', albeit a 'mom and pop' one. [humble beginnings are a Good Thing]

These are all important dates. But...

Today is The Most Important Date, The Temple's actual birthday, August 30th, 2004. On that day, late in the afternoon, I first set the words The Temple of The Pentavalent upon paper and then wrote a brief outline of what it could become. I still have that thin spiral notebook.

As I have said in The Explanation, the idea for a 'house of women' had been put forth to me back in the previous March by Kat K, my oldest friend and the Sister who began this Path with me when were teenagers.

Note that I do not include my own birthday here. I am merely a vehicle for this Work. Today shall become a Festival Day, the day that celebrates not the birth of the guide, but The Birth of this New Matriarchy.

Today marks The Birth of Our Future.


Note: In 2004, August 30th was the 243rd calendar day, as '04 was Leap Year. So while the present calendar is in use, we shall use 8/30, which is usually the 242nd calendar day, as The Temple's Birthday Festival.

But the calendar will change.

I do not see a Matriarchy using months named after Roman male gods and autocrats. Then, whatever day of that calendar is 243rd, that day shall be designated for The Temple's Birthday Festival.

Also See The Temple's Flag Here

Class Genocide [cross posted from "The Recession"]

...I felt it time to re-post this piece from April 29th because of the depressing exchange between 'Badnewswade' and 'Gwendally' in this post, one which I likened to 'a pair of peasants fighting over a bucket of pigshit', hopefully to remind them both that The Rulers are laughing at their antics...

From What Is To Be Done
By Tom Wellington

The thirty year long subterranean class warfare of rich and the super-rich against the middle class is entering its final phase – Class Genocide.

Until now, the top 1% has appropriated to itself the benefits of the country’s economic growth, while the middle class stagnated. While making the tax code more regressive, the wealthy have also cut programs that helped people out of poverty and into the middle class. In part they rich were enabled by the American middle classes’ dreams of moving up. Particularly during the booms, entering the top 10% seemed just one stock pick or house flip away for many people, so with a little luck that low-upper bracket could soon be theirs. Since the first government programs cut helped move poor people into the middle class, cutting them did not hurt already middle class Americans. There was always a racial and ethnic component to shutting down entry into the middle class that the politicians subtly played off of.

That was the old class warfare. It unfolded so slowly that for years it just seemed coincidence that the rich always won and the middle class always lost. Even then, the middle class was at least running in place and not losing ground, it just wasn’t gaining. The rich were getting more, but the middle class remained stable and reasonably secure in their ability to remain in the middle class, and they had reasonable confidence that their children and grandchildren would also enjoy middle class status. That is what made it a class – a status that could be maintained for your lifetime and passed along to your descendants.

Now everything that defined the middle class is being dismantled. In America, you are middle class if you have a white collar job requiring a college education, or a union blue collar job, own your own home, are secure in retirement and able to pass along at least a little something to your kids. It’s pretty much what most of us grew up expecting.

With the Ryan budget, and the radical actions Republicans governors are taking in the various states, the GOP is destroying the foundations of middle class security and its ability to ensure that middle class children can become middle class adults. Starting with the land grant colleges of the nineteenth century, public schools, the GI Bills and student aid, the state and federal governments have built the middle class through access to education. When I attended the University of California, a world class education cost $750 a quarter in in-state tuition. My father was the first in his family to attend college and the GI Bill paid for it. I hesitate to think of the state of education and student aid in ten years, when my kids are ready for college, if Paul Ryan has his way.

The Ryan budget put a fear into me, for the very first time in my life, that in retirement I could go broke from medical bills. This is a real fear for those of us on the downside of the baby boom who are not grandfathered into Medicare as we know it. It is also a fear for those in Medicare, or soon to be, because they would be one line of legislation away from being swept into fending for themselves in the insurance market – where insurers will not fall all over themselves to offer good coverage at reasonable prices to eighty-year old diabetic cardiac patients.

It is so much more than the “safety net” that is currently being lost. The continued fallout from the housing bubble/mortgage crisis is going to end the 30 year mortgage for good. Along with the bottomless cup of coffee, the 30 year mortgage is one of America’s great contributions to civilization. The 30 year mortgage exists because of Federal support and regulation. The 30 year mortgage turned America into a nation of homeowners. It also turned every home into a piggy bank where each mortgage payment represented a deposit, and this increasing equity provided an emergency fund, a college fund, retirement savings and the ability to pass something along to the next generation. Think what losing all of that will mean to what we now think of as the middle class.

Without home-ownership, retirement security and college education, what then is left of the middle class?

The effect of all these changes cumulatively ending the middle class as we know it is not an accident. As they say about software – this is not a bug, but a feature. In some of my next posts I will look at why changing the nature of America’s class structure (what we lulled ourselves into thinking was a practically classless society because the middle class seemed to embrace almost everyone) is not a byproduct of what is happening, but the purpose of what they are doing.

The cumulative effect of all of these changes is not simply that millions will be moved out of the middle class, it is the end of the middle class as we have known it all of our lives. There simply will not be a middle class – there will be haves and have not’s. It will not be the America we want or knew.

Nebs Sez

"I confess to be utterly unprepared for even the smallest emergency. We're a pair a fat old gimps on welfare living in a mobile home park. I suspect we'd be among the early dead aka The Grateful." ..comment upon Winter is Coming

Nebs Sez

"He's not the first Young Firebrand to become a cranky altakaka. Remember most of the Neo-Cons started off as Trotskites. It seems a special affliction of Jewish intellectuals, their heritage steeped in Talmudic thinking. Such can produce genius as if from an assemble line, yet its relentless parsing can lead to endless conflict. Golda Meir once said, "If the Arabs really wanted to destroy us, they'd leave us alone." I suspect Mr. Mamet has internally painted himself into a corner and it has driven him mad." ..comment on Say it isn't so, Mamet?

Random Lite

~I am substantially improved today. After being up for about six hours or so, I took another 'nap', roughly another six hours. Now I actually feel perky. Sleep is The Great Cure...as I am so fond of saying. And the world is still insane and full of fools, as I once said in a poem. *shrug* Who ya gonna call?

Random

~After I posted my lil missive this morning I ate some more, watched The Social Network and then went to sleep for ten and half hours. That has generally improved my state of mind. I'm still certain that Most Humans Are Vile Ignorant Scum [MHAVIS..pronounced Mavis lol], but right now I really don't care much. It's the Ability to Detach that is Key.

I had slept poorly the day before. That tends tax my emotional resilience. Combine that with my interaction with this crazy bitch and The Proof of MHAVIS seen in The Futility of The Hoi Polloi and I spiraled inward quickly once I descended to another level of tiredness.

I'm 'okay' at this point. Not 'back in the saddle', but not staring blankly at the walls either. And so it is...

Fuck Me

~I'm deep in one of my Most Humans Are Vile Ignorant Scum moods, which leads to Why Botherism. I'm dispirited and tired. I can't write and half the time don't care. If Le-Le didn't need me I'd likely slide into The Suicide Game. It's a game because I won't do it; I'd just pretend and that would give me a small respite.

In this place the whole idea of The Explanation seems like a nasty metaphysical joke, one designed to torment me like Sisyphus, a goal that eternally recedes toward the horizon. I feel like an idiot, like a fat old fool. My teeth hurt and I wish I could truly want to die...but I don't even have that sad desperate luxury.

Note on The Abridged Version of The Explanation

~This note is inserted right after the title page.

Essentially I'm doing this whole 'abridged' dealio to take some of my own internal pressure off of myself. That's a little 'mind trick' I'm playing upon myself to keep me going. We'll see how it works, eh?

The three stories mentioned below are Final Solution, A Day In The Life, and Visit To A World Called Dirt. I picked 'Solution' because at this point it's the only one of the Near Future stories I've finished, a fact I'm rather unhappy about about.

I have printed up a 'master copy' of this version and just need to get my ass down to Staples to print up the 'distribution copies'.

I'm going to get ten copies printed up this month and another ten next month. That's about what I can afford. The first five are spoken for, a couple of local gals, two old friends and my ex-wife. If any of you want one, give me a mailing address and I'll put you on the list, but please be serious about this.


Dear Sister,

If you are reading this then you are among a select group of women who have been given the responsibility to vet and provide feedback upon this early version of The Explanation. Your thoughts and opinions will help shape and guide the flow of this document for thousands of your fellow Sisters for decades to come. And if we are half as successful as is hoped, then such will be measured in millions of Sisters and in the passage of centuries.

Therefore please read carefully and think deeply as you go though these pages.

Okay, now that I have impressed upon y'all how seriously serious this is, let's go into the specifics of what the 'abridged version' of The Explanation is actually about.

I am a Impatient Perfectionist, a rather discomforting combination to say the least. I have been working on this volume for two and half years now and feel like I'm about a year behind schedule. The didactic portions – Parts One through Five and Part Seven – are roughly 97% complete from my perspective, as are all the Addendums. However, Part Six: “One Possible Future”, a collection of stories about just such a thing, keeps expanding.

Therefore, in order to reconcile those two disparate parts of my nature, I've put together this interim compromise edition. The primary abridgment is Part Six, which has only three stories. Hopefully, these three will give a sense of how the 'flow' of The Explanation is supposed to work.

The final version will have roughly thirty such stories, creating a much deeper 'experience of immersion'. The unabridged version already has twenty five stories, some finished, some 'in process', some only outlined. To give an idea, this abridged version runs slightly less than 42,000 words, while the 'in process' version is presently at over 67,000 words and I fully expect it to top out around at least 90,000.

But the three stories included should provide an effective overview of the final structure.

As for the thing itself, I suppose some of you may read it and go “OMG, this crazy person knows where I work!!” If so, you can tell me to never speak to you ever again, though I'd appreciate it if you'd return your copy. For those who do not flee, your feedback and thoughts will be greatly valued, even if they are 'negative'.

So, what follows is a DIY manual for an entirely new form of Matriarchy, a phrase I intend to add to the Preface. About the only thing I can promise with any assurance is that this volume will not bore you. You might toss it across the room in a fury or laugh at it like a mad woman. But you will never get bored.

Michael Varian Daly
The SoCal High Desert
Summer 2011

To Defeat The Corporate State Takes Patience and Guile

“Do not expect to defeat The Corporate State at the ballot box. Big Money can power its way through almost any election cycle. That is not however a call for Revolution. Big Money can power its way through those as well and rather unpleasantly.

Instead it must always be remembered that by its conscienceless and rapacious nature, the thing sows the seeds of its own destruction. Therefore what is required is both the ability to survive its collapse and to have another functional structure extent to replace it. Anything else is empty rhetoric.”

Her Prophet Speaks

“Our choice as a species is either between the triumph of an essentially fascist Global Corporate Combine – which is pure Patriarchy – a path to near extinction as a species at best or total extinction at worst. Or the New Matriarchy as proposed by my Spirit Guide. That there are other paths is certainly possible, but none of them seem at all likely.”

Sadness In The House Of Sleeping Cats

~We had to put Jasper to sleep yesterday afternoon. In the time since I wrote about him 'fading' he seemed to just 'go off a cliff' and by early Thursday evening he was obviously dying.

I'll go into more details later as I just got up and don't wish to start weeping again. My sinuses are still thrashed from all of yesterday's crying.

Her Prophet Writes

~Now that this immediate budget bullshit has passed – I say 'immediate' because this is only a single round; much more aggro is yet to come – and our third bit of gubmint money is in our account – believe me I checked as soon as I got up from my nap – my mind is once again allowing me some space to address The Explanation. Mercury's just gone Retrograde, so there's that, too.

First thing is that I'm planning to do is change the title of Part Six. It's been Stories and Works, which is the nature of the original concept, but, upon reflection, that's not actually what that chapter is. It's solely stories. I've had my face so close in the thing that I didn't really notice until now.

I'm thinking of going with “One Possible Future” because that is in fact what it this set of stories are. I plan to to write a few other versions down the road. Might as well be explicit about that up front.

But I'm going to cogitate upon that a little while – probably meaning a day at most - before I scurry all over the Internet retitling shit, Patience being my Primary Lesson this time around on The Wheel. /chomps at bit

Speaking of lack of Patience, I've posted the unfinished ”Korette” over at The Temple [click here]. I've been chipping away at it for three months or so and it's driving me batshit. By only posting it there I'm pretending I'm not letting impatience get the better of me. Addicts are expert at that type of self delusion. Sober ones are at least [mostly] aware that. It's sexually explicit btw.

I have more to say on all of that, but will save it for later.

I will say that 'this immediate budget bullshit' has thoroughly confirmed my conclusions about the failure of Mass Democracy and underscored the need for Another Path. I'll quote myself: “Our choice as a species is either between the triumph of an essentially fascist Global Corporate Combine – which is pure Patriarchy – a path to near extinction as a species at best or total extinction at worst. Or the New Matriarchy as proposed by my Spirit Guide. That there are other paths is certainly possible, but none of them seem at all likely.”

And so I keep pushing myself....

Nebs Nullification

~Wherein the grotesque over-usage of Godwin's Law has become pernicious to the point of being repressive, a counter-meme has become essential.

To wit, it is contended that the German National Socialist movement, aka Nazism, had an impact upon the 20th Century – politically, psycho-culturally, philosophically, economically, technologically, theologically - of such depth and profundity that it far outweighs the impact of all the other movements of that century, one which irrevocably changed the not only the course of human history, but even the ways in which perceive ourselves as human.

Therefore, it is stated that said over usage of Godwin's Law is to be considered an Epistemological Crime of the First Order and those who commit it are to be branded Enemies of Knowledge.

Commentary: [Aug 1st, 2011] I have been cogitating upon this for a while. What finally brought it to a head was the Tea Party's actions regarding The Debt Ceiling contrasted with the US Chamber of Commerce’s quiet, but desperate attempts to head them off.

The CoC had funded a fair number of Tea Partyeirs and helped them to take The House. Yet here they were trying to stop them from wrecking the US economy, something inimical to their interests. I referred to that as The Hitler Mistake, the false belief by Capitalist Interests that they can control Political Radicals via the application of money.

Of course, such a statement, though clearly valid, would automatically draw a Godwin's citation and derail the entire conversation. Hence the above, which I shall now immediately cite in return, as many anyone else.

Note however that hyperbolic statements such as “Obama is like Hitler” or “Glenn Beck is a Nazi” are still covered by Godwin's Law. Obama is a thoroughly owned Center/Right Corporatist sycophant and Glenn Beck is mere another in a long line of American Nativist demagogues with Fascistic tendencies.

Outside of fiction and nightmares, Hitler and the real Nazis are dead and gone. But their lessons seem largely still unlearned or forgotten. It is past time that we begin to remember and truly learn them once again.

An Exchange

...from Debt Ceiling Deal Reached To Avert Default (LATEST UPDATES)...

Moi: “"The mastery of the political right over the past thirty years has been primarily to better understand the irrational factors in politics. Conservati­ves have always understood that when it comes to politics, people rarely act in their rational self-inter­est but instead on emotion, fears and the perception of their interests.­” ~Joe Bageant http://www­.joebagean­t.com/joe/­2008/10/no­t-new-idea­s-b.html ”

demwits: [that's really their handle] “So explain why the vote for Obama stash, or he will pay my mortgage vote, keep my cheese coming vote, "free" to me, via big govi' liberal programs vote ect?? I think that the word conservati­ve should say liberal, what does the dictonary say? think about it.”

Moi: “Early today a friend wailed "our once charismati­c leader has been replaced by some pod person dopplegang­er sopping milquetoas­t"

I replied, "No, he never existed in the first place. Even a casual examinatio­n of 'Senator' Obama's record will show that he was always a Center/Rig­ht Corporatis­t. His presidenti­al campaign was a 'political act' from start to finish."

And it is that presidenti­al campaign that many Right Wingers believe too. But we were all lied to. Me, I never Believed In Hope because I do my homework. I boycotted the whole damn '08 election.

Taking care of the poor and unemployed and the sick, elderly and disabled is more than merely 'morally correct' [which Christ taught us to do btw], it is also good economics. Those groups tend to spend every penny of their benefits.

Here in California­, SSI has been cut from $907 per month in Jan '09 to $830 now. [you try to live on that amount] That's roughly a $1000 annual cut, which means that tens of thousands now spend that much less, which means that much is now taken out of the economy.

You'll say "Well, it goes back to the taxpayers"­. Yes, some does. And much of that will then go to paying off their endless debt aka it goes to Wall Street, not to Main Street.

Our economy is not only stagnant, it is contractin­g. Taking all of this money out the economy is only going to make that worse. Conservati­ve 'free market' economics have dominated since Reagan's first term. So why then are we in the deepest hole since the Great Depression­? Every Conservati­ve answer I ever get to that question has been a false Corporatis­t Talking Point, though most who reply believe them.

Like I said above, we've all been lied to....

Here, this is Specific and Practical, though of course politicall­y futile as it runs counter to the interests of The Corporate State:

Simple Solutions To The Budget Crisis:
End two wars of occupation­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­. Leave the Middle East and Central Asia.
Stop fighting the Cold War. Leave Europe.
Start closing down America's world wide 'empire of bases'.
Stop funding the military power of other nations.
End all military contracts, and return all of those duties to the military itself.
Close Guantanamo and return Cuba's sovereign territory.
Abrogate NAFTA completely­.
[I'd also say withdraw from the IMF and WTO, but we own the damned things!]
Stop subsidizin­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­g the already highly profitable oil industry.
Stop subsidizin­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­g the highly unprofitab­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­l­e corn industry.
Nationaliz­e the private prison industry.
Release all minor, non-violen­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­t drug offenders and stop paying a fortune to incarcerat­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­e them.
End the War on Drugs, dismantle the DEA, legalize all drugs, then regulate and tax them.
Establish a State Bank for each of the fifty states and have each state treasury deposit ALL state revenues, pension funds, etc 'exclusive­ly' in their own State Bank.
Establish a national Single Payer 'buy in' program for Medicare with no age restrictio­ns.
Extend a fully funded Medicaid to everyone below the poverty line.
Rebuild all of America's infrastruc­­­­ture from the ground up.
Rebuild American industry here in America itself, by government fiat if necessary.
...and the biggest one, return to the sensible Eisenhower era taxation rate."