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A look at intentional community in a world who may be calling for a reimagining of collective actions.

Every intellectual had a “draft of a new community in his waistcoat pocket.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Shaker Meeting, an early Utopian Community, New Lebanon, New York, Engraving circa 1804. Photo: Wikimedia/Public Domain

We have reached a new epoch in our planet’s history. Few can look at the increasingly authoritarian tendencies across the globe, the mass stress-fueled migrations, the degradation of the environment, the increasingly chaotic climate, and the fragility of systems exposed by the current Covid-19 without pondering upon what are authentic responses in these times. I would like to offer some observations and perhaps some questions regarding the role of intentional community in a world who may be calling for a reimagining of collective actions.

I have been part of a number of communities tied to independent schools and political and activist-driven movements. I want to look at three primary examples of communities that I believe are relevant to reimagining the ‘New Community’ and provide an insight into the taste of community.

The Abode of the Message

For many of us, the ideal of living in an intentional community was a vision that led to a quest for such. Personally, an early experiment lasted several years in the later 1970s at a Sufi community, The Abode of the Message, in upstate New York. Situated on 350 acres of a former Shaker utopian community and based on the idea of the universality of all religions, our band of just over one hundred individuals and families strove to put into practice the ideal of “spirituality in everyday life.” We farmed, baked, led retreats, and worked in a variety of jobs in surrounding towns. The Abode spawned the Omega Institute, a mechanic shop, a private school, and a fledgling computer business set in a former Shaker workshop.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The New COVID-19 Authoritarians Will Only Give Up Power If They Fear Blowback

April 18, 2020

The New COVID-19 Authoritarians Will Only Give Up Power If They Fear Blowback

It was autumn 1989. Momentous things were taking place in the world.

The Berlin Wall had fallen. The people of the Eastern Bloc had succeeded at getting to the West through Hungary. The firm line between east and west was wavering. The situation was moving away from the course that Warsaw Pact communist governments had charted: that their populations must remain captive within the borders of the Communist Bloc.

It was unclear whether this social contagion for freedom would spread into Czechoslovakia.

But then November 17, 1989, arrived, a day etched in history. This was Students Day, a legal holiday. Everything had to close under government fiat. People were off school and off work. But some folks were agitated about prior government actions which many saw as abuses.

When the government gave the people of Czechoslovakia that day off, it was like a match to tinder. The small flame grew into a big one.

It was a revolution noted for its bloodlessness. The Velvet Revolution, we call it today, leaning on what the Czechs called it. People, for as far as the eye could see, gathered in a giant square in Prague and called for the ouster of their government.

In the face of the idea that saying the wrong words politically could be toxic to one’s health, much like in America today, some did not resort to speaking words against their government. They merely pulled their keys out of their pockets and jingled them.

The message was clear.

Imagine tens of thousands of people jingling their keys at once.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Road to Perdition is Paved With Evil Intentions–A Final Reckoning

April 13, 2020

THE ROAD TO PERDITION IS PAVED WITH EVIL INTENTIONS – A FINAL RECKONING

In Part 1 of this article I pointed out how we have allowed ourselves to be cowed by authoritarian “experts” who have proven to be nothing but incompetent and wrong every step of the way, while the financiers have used the crisis once again to pillage the citizens as they did in 2008/2009.

The absurdity of shutting down this country based on academic death models that make economist and climatologist models look highly accurate in comparison, can be seen in the ludicrousness of the following chart. And realize we did this on purpose because of a virus that will kill .018% of the U.S. population. And most of those deaths will occur in several highly dense urban enclaves, with the rest of the country barely affected.

By shutting down the country the government has crushed virtually every business in the country and putting tens of millions out of work, with resulting crash in tax revenues at the Federal, State and Local level. At the same time, Trump and everyone in Congress have become Bernie Sanders socialists, except most of it is corporate socialism. The deficit was already on track to top $1.2 trillion, but with the $2.2 trillion stimulus package, and more to come, the deficit this year and next will approach $3 trillion.

“It has been more profitable for us to bind together in the wrong direction than to be alone in the right one. Those who have followed the assertive idiot rather than the introspective wise person have passed us some of their genes. This is apparent from a social pathology: psychopaths rally followers.” ― Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

They Are Rolling Out The Architecture Of Oppression Now Because They Fear The People

April 12, 2020

They Are Rolling Out The Architecture Of Oppression Now Because They Fear The People

“As authoritarianism spreads, as emergency laws proliferate, as we sacrifice our rights, we also sacrifice our capability to arrest the slide into a less liberal and less free world,” NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden said in a recent interview. “Do you truly believe that when the first wave, this second wave, the 16th wave of the coronavirus is a long-forgotten memory, that these capabilities will not be kept? That these datasets will not be kept? No matter how it is being used, what is being built is the architecture of oppression.”

“Apple Inc. and Google unveiled a rare partnership to add technology to their smartphone platforms that will alert users if they have come into contact with a person with Covid-19,” reads a new report from Bloomberg. “People must opt in to the system, but it has the potential to monitor about a third of the world’s population.”

“World Health Organization executive director Dr. Michael Ryan said surveillance is part of what’s required for life to return to normal in a world without a vaccine. However, civil liberties experts warn that the public has little recourse to challenge these digital exercises of power once the immediate threat has passed,” reads a recent VentureBeatarticle titled “After coronavirus, AI could be central to our new normal“.

✔

He is not wrong!

“Snowden Warns Governments Are Using Coronavirus to Build ‘the Architecture of Oppression’ “https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/bvge5q/snowden-warns-governments-are-using-coronavirus-to-build-the-architecture-of-oppression …Snowden Warns Governments Are Using Coronavirus to Build ‘the Architecture of Oppression’VICE co-founder Shane Smith interviews famed whistleblower Edward Snowden in “Shelter in Place,” a new series on VICE TV.vice.com

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

America Is Not Going To Be A Free And Open Society Any Longer

August 6, 2019

America Is Not Going To Be A Free And Open Society Any Longer

Whenever a tragic act of violence makes national headlines, the calls to give up more of our freedoms and liberties in exchange for the promise of increased security become deafening. But if we take another step toward becoming an authoritarian society every time something horrible happens, eventually we won’t have any of the basic liberties and freedoms that previous generations of Americans fought so hard to secure for us. Unfortunately, voices like mine are becoming increasingly rare, and the American people seem to want a society that will shelter them from anything that could possibly go wrong. Of course there has never been such a society in all of human history, and we won’t be able to create one either. No governmental system can eliminate the problem of evil, and bad things sometimes happen to good people. And without a doubt, the mass shootings that we witnessed over the weekend were absolutely horrific. In less than 24 hours, 29 American lives were lost between these two mass shootings, and this has greatly shaken the entire nation…

On Sunday, Americans woke up to news of a shooting rampage in an entertainment district in Dayton, Ohio, where a man wearing body armor shot and killed nine people, including his own sister. Hours earlier, a 21-year-old with a rifle entered a Walmart in El Paso and killed 20 people.
In a country that has become nearly numb to men with guns opening fire in schools, at concerts and in churches, the back-to-back bursts of gun violence in less than 24 hours were enough to leave the public stunned and shaken.

Sadly, these are not isolated incidents. As our society has become less moral, we have seen an escalation of violence all over the country.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Stupidity, Evil and the Decline of the US

June 10, 2019

Stupidity, Evil and the Decline of the US

It used to be that America was a country of free thinkers.

“Say what you think, and think what you say.” That’s an expression you don’t hear much anymore.

It’s much more like the world of 1984 where everything is “double think.” You need to think twice before you say something in public. You think three times before you say something when you’re standing in an airport line.

Regrettably, the US is no longer the land of the free and the home of the brave. It’s become the land of whipped and whimpering dogs that roll over on their backs and wet themselves when confronted with authority.

Now, why are Americans this way? Let me give you two reasons—though there are many more.

First, there’s a simple absence of virtue. Let’s look at the word virtue. It comes from the Latin vir, which means manly, even heroic. To the Romans, virtues were things like fortitude, nobility and courage. Those virtues are true to the root of the word.

When people think of virtues today they think of faith, hope, charity—which are not related to the word’s root meaning. These may pass as virtues in a religious sense. But, outside a Sunday school, they’re actually actually vices. This deserves a discussion, because I know it will shock many. But I’ll save that for another time.

An absence of virtues and the presence of subtle vices is insinuated throughout society. Worse, overt vices like avarice and especially envy are encouraged. Envy, in particular will become a big vice in the years to come. It’s similar to jealousy, but worse. Jealousy says “You have something I want; I’ll try to take it from you”.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

After Assange’s Arrest, Ecuador’s Creep Towards Authoritarianism Becomes a Sprint

April 15, 2019

After Assange’s Arrest, Ecuador’s Creep Towards Authoritarianism Becomes a Sprint

The recent violation of Assange’s rights as both political asylee and citizen of Ecuador sends a chilling message to Ecuadorians who are being increasingly targeted for their political views both within Ecuador and abroad.

QUITO, ECUADOR — Last week, Ecuador’s government gravely undermined not only its own national sovereignty but international refugee and asylum laws by allowing U.K. police into its London embassy to arrest then-Ecuadorian citizen, Ecuadorian asylee, and journalist Julian Assange.

As has been observed by many analysts, the shocking yet somewhat anticipated decision has shown that Ecuador’s government — led by Lenín Moreno — is willing to play fast and loose with its domestic laws, as well as international law, if it stands to benefit Moreno and his increasingly unpopular administration, whose approval rating now hovers at around 30 percent.

In the hours that followed Assange’s disturbing arrest, which saw him dragged from the embassy by British police, Ecuador’s government has wasted no time in taking actions that are not only highly troubling but show Moreno’s willingness to embrace fascist tactics in his desperate bid to silence dissent.

Indeed, a key factor in Moreno’s decision to revoke Assange’s asylum and Ecuadorian citizenship, was alleged to be Moreno’s rage at WikiLeaks — the organization Assange founded but no longer runs — for simply retweeting and spreading information regarding the burgeoning INA Papers corruption scandal, which centers around an offshore bank account in Panama linked to Moreno and his family. Notably, the firestorm of media coverage around Assange’s violent removal from the embassy has distracted from the media coverage of the scandal.

The witch hunt begins

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

On liberal authoritarianism

April 14, 2019

On liberal authoritarianism

Bowing to the authority of experts saps the lifeblood of democracy.

If liberal principles seem threatened, it is only because they have been so successful. Look more carefully at American, British or European Union politics, and it is hard to find any viable alternatives to liberalism even in its supposed moment of peril. Donald Trump spews forth an endless stream of illiberal invective, but even as the US president, at one point holding majorities in both Houses of Congress, he has been unwilling or unable to roll back the liberal agenda in any meaningful way. Liberalism is, after all, based on the idea that individual liberty is the highest political virtue – and who doesn’t love liberty? ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.’ These were the words that created the United States of America, and ultimately the global liberal order.

But over time the kinds of liberties demanded by liberals have evolved and expanded. They have shifted from a historical focus on ‘negative’ freedoms toward a contemporary focus on ‘positive’ rights. The philosophical construction of the concept of liberty is contentious and convoluted, but there is an obvious and intuitive difference between the simple freedoms enshrined in the First Amendment to the US Constitution (freedom of religion, speech, assembly, and the press) and the expansive rights promised by Article 25 of the UN Declaration of Human Rights (rights to food, clothing, housing, medical care, social services, unemployment insurance and social security).

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Localisation: A strategic solution to globalised authoritarianism

April 9, 2019

Ladakhi girls. Photo credit: Helena Norberg-Hodge

Localisation: A strategic solution to globalised authoritarianism

For those who care about peace, equality and the future of the planet, the global political swing to the right over the past few years is deeply worrying. It has us asking ourselves, how did this happen? How did populism turn into such a divisive and destructive force? How did authoritarianism take over the political scene once again?

From my 40 years of experience working in both industrialised and land-based cultures, I believe the primary reason is globalisation. When I say globalisation, I mean the global economic system in which most of us now live – a system driven by continual corporate deregulation and shaped by neoliberal, capitalist ideologies. But globalisation goes deeper than politics and the economy. It has profoundly personal impacts.

Under globalisation, competition has increased dramatically, job security has become a thing of the past, and most people find it increasingly difficult to earn a liveable wage. At the same time, identity is under threat as cultural diversity is replaced by a consumer monoculture worldwide. Under these conditions it’s not surprising that people become increasingly insecure.

As advertisers know from nearly a century of experience, insecurity leaves people easier to exploit. But people today are targeted by more than just marketing campaigns for deodorants and tooth polish: insecurity leaves them highly vulnerable to propaganda that encourages them to blame the cultural “other” for their plight.

Let me illustrate how this happened in Ladakh, or Little Tibet, where I first visited as a young woman and where I have worked for over four decades. Situated in the Indian Himalayas, Ladakh was relatively isolated—culturally and economically—until the late 1960s. When I arrived in the early 70s, a campaign of Western-style development had just been launched by the Indian government — giving me the opportunity to experience what still remained of the ancient culture, and to observe the changes that came with modernisation.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Facebook Is An Intolerant Authoritarian Organization That Suppresses Free Speech

September 2, 2018

Facebook Is An Intolerant Authoritarian Organization That Suppresses Free Speech

Facebook, Twitter, Google are information monopolies that intentionally violate the US Constitution’s protected First Amendment right. These organizations are evil and they are destroying the public’s right to know. These organizations should be nationalized without compensation and put under the governance of known and committed defenders of the First Amendment. Facebook, Twitter, and Google are inconsistent with a free society. They are functionaries in Big Brother’s police state.

If an investigative journalist looked into these organizations, I believe many links to the CIA and deep state would be found.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/28/technology/inside-facebook-employees-political-bias.html

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2018/08/30/facebook-engineer-stunning-admission-we-tear-down-posters-welcoming-trump-supporters.html

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2018/08/31/facebook-censorship-mad-ben-nimmo-and-atlantic-council.html

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2018/08/29/social-media-giants-enter-nato-service.html

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2018/08/27/facebook-kills-inauthentic-foreign-news-accounts-us-propaganda-stays-alive.html

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2018/08/14/four-person-nato-funded-team-advises-facebook-flagging-propaganda.html

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2018/05/24/facebook-partners-with-hawkish-atlantic-council-nato-lobby-group-protect-democracy.html

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2018/04/30/how-facebook-etc.-suppress-key-truths.html

Vicious Cycle: How Government “Solutions” Spiral into Bigger Problems

August 7, 2018

The Hydra serpent with many heads

Vicious Cycle: How Government “Solutions” Spiral into Bigger Problems

Government creates a problem. Government becomes more authoritarian to solve that problem. This creates more problems. Government becomes even more authoritarian…

This is basically the story of the war on drugs, the oppression of teens, the wars in the middle east, every bubble, burst, and bailout, ad infinitum.

Where the government intervenes, you can be sure that bigger problems will spring forth.

Like the Hydra of Greek Mythology, two more serpent heads sprout each time one is severed.

Denmark Considers Draconian Measures to Assimilate Immigrants

European countries have been quite liberal in accepting immigrants from the middle-east. In itself, this is not a problem. But the countries also liberally dole out public benefits, costing taxpayers ballooning sums to support the new population.

But now many countries want to attach strings after the fact.

Denmark has proposed new rules that could land immigrant parents in prison if they take their children on extended vacations to their homeland which interfere with schooling. The legislation leaves “extended” open to interpretation.

Other rules require children from any of 25 identified “ghettos” to attend 30 hours of daycare per week until age six. Parents will lose welfare benefits if their kids miss too much school.

Another rule would make penalties for the same crime in certain areas. So if you shoplift in a predominantly Danish area of a city, you might get a fine, while a shoplifter from a predominantly Muslim area could get jail time.

All of this is an attempt to integrate new immigrants. It is a backlash from vastly different cultures clashing.

But why would the government of Denmark think forced integration would produce the desired results? It seems more likely to produce a counter-backlash from immigrants who resent having different rules than the Danes.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Trump’s Trade Tantrum: On Tipping Points and Authoritarian Peril

June 29, 2018

Trump’s Trade Tantrum: On Tipping Points and Authoritarian Peril

Photo by Graham C99 | CC BY 2.0

The Tangerine Tosser’s triple trade tiff – with China, the European Union, and the United States’ NAFTA partners (Canada and Mexico) – has the potential to spark an American and global economic meltdown. Classic signs of a coming collapse have been evident for some time: wage stagnation for the many alongside skyrocketing wealth for the ever more absurdly opulent few (three of whom now possessbetween them the same net worth as the poorest half of the U.S. populace); colossal accumulated corporate, government, student loan, and credit card debt; rampant surplus and “fictitious” capital devoted to speculative rather than productive investment; capitalist profits far beyond real economic growth; wildly unsustainable stock market values (artificially buoyed by debt and corporate buybacks); the deregulation of financial markets and institutions.

As the astute Goldman Sachs veteran and financial commentator Nomi Prins noted last January, “There will be a tipping point – when money coming in to furnish that debt, or available to borrow, simply won’t cover the interest payments. Then debt bubbles will pop, beginning with higher yielding bonds. Leverage is a patient enemy.”

The next financial “correction” could cut deeper than the last one, “the Great Recession.” That’s because, as Prins argues in her latest book Collusion: How Central Bankers Rigged the World, “there is no Plan B” this time. Interest rates can’t fall any further.

Collusionwas written before Trump started making good on his protectionist promises, which could tighten the noose. The more immediate economic blowbacks are clear: the withering of foreign markets for U.S. agricultural exports (thanks to retaliatory foreign tariffs); rising prices (thanks to U.S. tariffs) for capital goods and intermediate inputs that U.S. producers purchase from foreign countries (China especially); the loss of U.S. jobs as corporations that make goods in the U.S. seek to circumvent retaliatory tariffs abroad by shifting production to foreign countries (Harley Davidson recently announced that it has decided to do precisely that).

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Localization: a strategic alternative to globalized authoritarianism

June 21, 2018

Localization: a strategic alternative to globalized authoritarianism

From my 40 years of experience working in both industrialized and land-based cultures, I believe the primary reason is globalization. When I say globalization, I mean the global economic system in which most of us now live – a system driven by continual corporate deregulation and shaped by neoliberal, capitalist ideologies. But globalization goes deeper than politics and the economy. It has profoundly personal impacts.

Under globalization, competition has increased dramatically, job security has become a thing of the past, and most people find it increasingly difficult to earn a livable wage. At the same time, identity is under threat as cultural diversity is replaced by a consumer monoculture worldwide. Under these conditions it’s not surprising that people become increasingly insecure. As advertisers know from nearly a century of experience, insecurity leaves people easier to exploit. But people today are targeted by more than just marketing campaigns for deodorants and tooth polish: insecurity leaves them highly vulnerable to propaganda that encourages them to blame the cultural “other” for their plight.

Let me illustrate how this happened in Ladakh, or Little Tibet, where I first visited as a young woman and where I have worked for over four decades. Situated in the Indian Himalayas, Ladakh was relatively isolated – culturally and economically – until the late 1960s. When I arrived in the early 70s, a campaign of Western-style development had just been launched by the Indian government – giving me the opportunity to experience what still remained of the ancient culture, and to observe the changes that came with modernization.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Rotten to the Heart: Authoritarian Chickens Roosting at Home

June 8, 2018

Rotten to the Heart: Authoritarian Chickens Roosting at Home

Photo by T toes | CC BY 2.0

Yes, He’s Awful

Much of what liberals say about Donald Trump and the chilling political moment the Trump presidency represents is true enough.

Trump really is the arch-authoritarian malignant narcissist that liberals say he is. Trump thinks he deserves to rule the nation like an absolute monarch or some ridiculous Banana Republic dictator. He believes he’s above all the law, consistent with Louis XIV’s dictum L’etat, C’est Moi (“the state is me”). The notion that Trump can pardon himself from any crime really is the height of imperial arrogance.

Trump really does value nothing but the advancement of his own wealth and image. There is no person, no principle, no higher loyalty he is not willing to sacrifice on the altar of self.

Trump really is the almost perfect embodiment of venal malevolence that liberals say he is. The idiotic military parade Trump has scheduled for the next Veterans Day is an exercise in proto-fascistic, Mussolini-like imperial-presidential self-adulation.

This racist and sexist beast befouls the nation and world with his ghastly, eco-cidal presence. The sooner he draws his last undeserved breath, the better for all living things (or maybe not: Mike Pence could be worse).

The Authoritarian and Inauthentic Opposition

Fine, but why does this despicable, orange-tinted insult to common human decency occupy the White House? He holds the most powerful office in the world because the Democratic Party has long been and remains what the late liberal-left Princeton political scientist Sheldon Wolin called the Inauthentic Opposition. “Should Democrats somehow be elected,” Wolin prophesied in early 2008, they would do nothing to “alter significantly the direction of society” or “substantially revers[e] the drift rightwards. …

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Democrats and Republicans: United on Glorifying Authoritarian Systems

February 8, 2018

Democrats and Republicans: United on Glorifying Authoritarian Systems

With President Donald Trump fighting against the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), his Republican minions have managed to navigate a somewhat tortuous road. They have to somehow criticize one of the many authoritarian organizations that they generally revere. Ultimately, this has proved not too difficult for them; they simply attack the leadership, while praising the rank-and-file.

Democrats, on the other hand, are able to avoid this conundrum altogether, by maintaining their obvious adoration for the corrupt, invasive bureau.

As the Russia-Trump Campaign probe drags on, providing headlines that few people are genuinely interested in, the worship of authority continues unabated. The U.S. military, the largest and most powerful terrorist organization in the world, one that is responsible for the murders of at least 20,000,000 people over the last fifty years, continues to receive increasing amounts of U.S. taxpayers’ money, to the determent not only of the millions of people victimized by the U.S. military, but also of those very taxpayers. Money that goes to weaponry has to come from somewhere, and in the eyes of those who run the U.S. government, both Republican and Democrat, such frivolities as food for the poor, roads, public education and higher education are expendable, as long as the war machine gets all that its lobbyists want.

And then, of course, we have the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Talk about a rogue organization! This is the arm of the U.S. government that is responsible for overthrowing democratically-elected governments, funding and training foreign terrorists, and torturing U.S. citizens and others at various sites around the world.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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