Tag Archives: energy

Reorienting into Your Own Path: Belief Self-Torment

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For a number of reasons, I haven’t posted anything about Jehovah’s Witnesses for a while. There have been some horrible events in the news, and all sorts of doctrinal and organizational changes, but I find myself more interested these days in some of the larger questions. I’ve been trying to write something about that, but nothing I wrote was satisfactory to me. It turns out that I needed a real question for my thoughts on this to spill out. In trying to help ease someone else’s suffering, the words ring true again. Thank you for being the messenger for this lesson! I preserve the questioner’s privacy, but you know who you are. Big hugs.

I seem to be struggling with my relationship with God. I find myself so confused about what to believe. I used to be absolutely convinced that the Bible was Truth. Is this normal for a person in my situation. Any input that you might have would be appreciated.

It is totally normal for you to feel as you do. I do have some thoughts on this in terms of biblical scholarship and the history of the religions of the book(s), but that’s not what will help you most right now because you need first to find your bearings, your balance, and the (for lack of a better phrase) direction of your attunement to God.

Start with what you solidly know and experience for yourself. Be observant and pay attention and even “hold fast to what is fine.” That place where your mind and spirit and soul all connect in gratitude and admiration is where you start. Think of the qualities of the spirit – where do you see caring and forgiveness and love and thoughtfulness and creativity and all those things that you can just feel are *good* things? Let yourself be drawn into that world. Learn from and enjoy the presence of that “energy” in any moment where it happens. Even just noticing it changes you.

Then – and I resisted this one for a long time – think about service. Not big, cosmic service – just little bits of service. Be a little kinder, think of someone else’s feelings, do something nice for someone else, be a listening ear to a friend. Anything that puts your own needs to the side – even for a moment – changes you.

Think of things that you *truly* admire about people you know or have known or have read about or seen. Everyone is complicated, a mix of darkness and light, so you have to think of specific things, how someone made a good decision, how someone manifested an incredible skill, how someone calmed a situation. Those are things that speak to your inner self, to your inner directionality, and they are worth hearing.

For a while, move away from the questions of belief in this or that. That question will always be there for you, but that doesn’t mean you have to address it and be tormented by it right now. Come back to it when you are in a place of spiritual groundedness.

Your body can help you too, and in ways that you might not expect. Sit quietly and relax, listen to yourself breathe. When you are upset, take a few breaths and consciously let it go. Imagine blowing the seeds of an old dandelion into the wind. Self-torment seems to be part of the deal – but you can choose not to do it. Look again at these things when it isn’t self-punishment. Torturing yourself does nothing for you right now except prevent you from insight and focus your energy on everything that would overwhelm you. Love doesn’t want that, and you need to focus on that central thing. Open your heart and listen. Listen.

Try different body positions. Bow your head, raise your arms up to the sky, imagine your feet taking root in the ground, pretend to be blessed by the stars. Your body-imagination is always trying to help you. If you feel comfortable, reach out to the God *above* the God that is caricatured by the witnesses and ask for guidance in love.

Be authentic, be truthful, see beauty, learn when to trust and admire. Start there. In time, the beliefs will sort themselves out. The list of “I believe in this” and “I don’t believe in that” is really not the primary aspect of spiritual understanding. Assume, for a little while, that all the cosmos needs of you is that you pay attention and appreciate whatever you really, truly can. Go a little on that footpath, and see if you get reoriented.

I feel very strongly that each person’s spiritual path is their own, and cannot be regulated or mandated. This is about your own spirit and soul and heart and mind, and nobody else’s. And in that spirit, take what you find useful for you here – and disregard the rest. These are things I’ve learned for myself and from the experiences of others, so they may be very very helpful for you right now. Or not. You are the only you.

Kicking the Habit

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Still sick, coughing, shivering, sweating, miserable. One good thing has come out of this, though. I’m sick and tired of feeling sick and tired, and there’s one thing I know I can (and should) do to make things better.

I am quitting my terrible smoking habit.

Potential embarrassment and shame about failure will be a further incentive, so I’m announcing here there and everywhere.

I’ve got a quit date – next Wednesday April 15th. I took my first Chantix pill last night. and it takes about a week to kick in – and my birthday isn’t a bad day to quit. I (really, desperately) hope it helps me get through the initial stages of withdrawal.

I’ve got a list of various warning signs, and another list of helpful tips – and I’m trying to adjust my psychology between now and then. I’m not going to do any nicotine replacement, because for me that would just prolong the misery.

I’ve been thinking seriously about quitting for a while now, but I just haven’t had the will. Everything came together this time, and it feels like a good time to do it.

I want to feel better, have more energy, and get that smell off of me. I want to get my father’s flat hopeless look out of my eyes. I want to be free of this addiction.

I’m also sick of the snarky comments, and the increasing class distinction – although to be honest, that’s just one more stupid reason that I’ve kept smoking, in defiance and rebellion. Well, gotta transcend that too.

John seems a bit apprehensive, as well he should be. The last time I tried this, it didn’t go very well. I know he really wants me to quit, though, and he’ll be very happy to see me do it – once it’s done.

My posts for a bit may just chronicle this particular journey. Maybe it won’t be a big deal. Maybe I’ll be a little crazy. I’m not sure. Even if things are a bit unstable for a couple of weeks, it will be worth it to get to the other side. I’ve got a lot of support for this, and I hope that my family, friends and co-workers will cut me a little slack if I act a little bit uncharacteristically here and there. I’m a little worried about that aspect of things; it’s one of the reasons I’ve put this off. Ideally, I would be shuttled off to some cabin miles from anywhere for the first two weeks, but that’s never going to happen – and waiting for the perfect opportunity to quit has meant that I haven’t quit. There’s never going to be the perfect time.

By Ben’s birthday – one month after mine – he’ll have a totally smoke-free and recovered Mommy wishing him a happy birthday, and she won’t have a lighter handy for the nine candles on his cake.

There is one thing that I truly enjoy about smoking. The controlled breathing of smoke in and out of me always made me feel a bit like a dragon, the keeper of the flame, the mistress of the wind. I’ll miss that more than anything else.

25 Random Things About Me

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I give up. I’ve been totally inundated by requests from my Facebook friends to post this meme. I’ve done “random things about me” posts before, but as Darrell points out, they were posted too long ago now to use as an avoidance mechanism. So, here are 25 new ones:

  1. I am fascinated by faces. The mindful, authentic, observant face-to-face encounter might be the essential ingredient in most relationships – and certainly the test of most ethics and “values.” The very definition of pathology for me is someone who can look you in the eye, see your soul, and then still hurt or kill you.
  2. I’m not adjusting to getting older very well. When I look at my face in the mirror, it doesn’t look like me and I feel a bit alienated and depressed. But at the same time, I love to see the changes in the faces of people I love. This last year, it was an amazing experience to go to my high school reunion and to see the faces of people that I’ve known since I was a child. The recognition-within-difference really touched me very deeply.
  3. I do miss some aspects of other times and places in my life, but overall there is more kindness and caring and love and meaning in my life now than ever before. Sometimes that kind of stuns me.
  4. Sometimes the only thing that will motivate me to attack my list of things to do is the prospect of being rewarded with some time alone in which I’m not required to do anything in particular. I’m a fierce guardian of that dreamtime – no obligation, rich imagination. My thoughts travel on their own -and mix up and ferment and rearrange and become resonant and meaningful. Not only is this ultimately the source of every major insight I’ve ever had, but without it, I wouldn’t be me to myself. My secret world is the heart of who I am.
  5. I love to socialize, but it totally exhausts me. This is partially because I tend to overcompensate in various ways for my introversion. Later, I usually feel that I’ve not listened enough to others. I curse this recurring and almost irresistible urge to try to be amusing and likable and clever. It takes a lot of energy, I’m not very good at it, and I know that I should just zip it a lot more often than I’m able to do.
  6. I’m still looking for my ideal pair of shoes – the shoes that don’t hurt my feet, that look gorgeous but have a heel of less than an inch, that are strapped or tied over my incredibly high arch and don’t let my tiny heel slip out, but that are wide enough at the front not to smoosh my toes or put pressure at the widest part. These mythical shoes would be perfect for any occasion and any outfit. I could wear them with jeans or a cocktail dress. Let me know if you find them. I suspect they have to be black.
  7. I can’t let go of my books. I have too many, but I can’t let go of them. Even the Karl Barth.
  8. My spiritual beliefs and practices are at once so eclectic and yet oddly inflexible that I doubt I’ll ever be a member of a religious community. I have the strangest things on my alter.
  9. I’m almost absurdly grateful when I feel like someone I like “gets” me.
  10. I miss the kind of cheerful feminism represented by such songs as Helen Reddy’s “I am Woman” and the tv theme song for Wonder Woman. Although I love the angry music and the whiny music, too, I wonder what happened to that soaring sense of confidence.
  11. My energy level is never very predictable. I never know how productive I’m going to be. I work in very efficient spurts, but then I’m overwhelmingly fatigued. This can be measured in hours or in days. When I feel exhausted, I tend to become a bit reclusive. I still think of the couple of weeks that I had to be on corticosteroids (for systemic poison ivy) with a lot of fondness, because it gave me just enough of that little extra adrenaline boost to let me feel like I imagine many people do most of the time.
  12. I like to take a walkabout from time to time. I love to travel alone. I used to disappear into the woods for a week, but that’s neither possible nor even really desirable anymore.
  13. It’s kind of predicable – and I don’t blame anyone for rolling their eyes – but our son Ben really is the most beautiful sweet smart amazing kid ever. I hope he continues on his own path – just the way he is already doing.
  14. The greater percentage of what I write is still never read by anyone but me.
  15. I would prefer to die in a manner and a moment of my own choosing. Skydiving would be the ideal, and although I don’t have to ride down on a missile like in Dr. Strangelove, I can understand the appeal.
  16. I love the moon, and I love to sing to the moon and to the night sky, especially if the songs are actually about the moon and sky and stars. Some favorites: Sister Moon, Sting; Fingernail Moon, Annie Lennox; Sisters of the Moon, Fleetwood Mac; Goodnight Moon, Shivaree; Stars, The Weepies; Galaxy Song, Monty Python; In the Deep, Bird York; Small Blue Thing, Suzanne Vega – and for some reason, Strawberry Fields.
  17. I’ve finally come to terms with the reality that I’m never going to be a Jungian analyst, a comparative mythologist, a well-known poet, a best-selling novelist, or an accomplished singer. I doubt I’ll ever play the piano like Tori Amos.
  18. I love paranormal romance novels – especially those involving vampires or fae. John (the hubby) is amused by this and often teases me about my “porn collection.”
  19. I don’t often wear perfume, but when I do it’s usually either a vanilla-musky Must de Cartier or a combination of lavender, mandarin, lemongrass, and bergamot. One drop of either is enough to alter my experience of the world for hours. I hope other people like it too, but that’s not really as important.
  20. I have twice had the opportunity – and twice refused – to swim in the Mediterranean.
  21. I deal with melancholy much better than I deal with anger. You can try to make me depressed if you must, but don’t piss me off. I’m not easily angered at all, but hell hath no fury like a Heidi-grr.
  22. The thing that most infuriates me is the sense of powerlessness I feel when I want to somehow make everything all better for someone who is suffering. I can be very empathetic, but at a certain point I feel like a minor prophet waving my fist at the sky. That’s when I most need a little alone time to breathe and reorient myself.
  23. When I was younger, I used to be petrified – really petrified – that the people I love would be killed. I had nightmares about my brothers (most of all my brothers) and other relatives, and my son and husband, and some of my dearest friends, and even a couple of my teachers. The worst part of the dream was always that they might have been saved if only I had done one little thing differently. After my Dad died, these nightmares went away. I don’t know why that happened, but I’m grateful.
  24. I do often dream about my Dad. He’s different in my dreams than he was in reality, but it still helps – or maybe that’s why it helps.
  25. I don’t know whether or not I can still pet a fuzzy honeybee until it goes to sleep in the palm of my hand. I haven’t seen one of those bees in years. I miss the lilacs too.

And here are the old ones:

Visit to BAPS Hindu Temple

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Yesterday we went to the BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir Hindu Temple in Lilburn. Despite its proximity to us, we hadn’t heard about it until John’s brother suggested meeting there.

Ben Heidi and John

Tom and Pam

When we drove in, there was a small gatehouse. We stopped at the gate, and a man stuck his head out and asked, “What’s your name?” John told him his own name. Ben and I were silent. He opened the gate. So, already, things were a little surreal. Why would he ask the name? How did we know that only John’s name mattered, or were we wrong about that? Was he checking against some sort of list? Or just making a note of it? Why?

The Wikipedia description:

The BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir Atlanta is the sixth BAPS traditional Hindu stone temple built outside of India. It is also the largest Hindu temple of its kind outside of India. It is currently open to the public. The 32,000-square-foot (3,000 m2) temple, officially called the Shri Swaminarayan Mandir, sits on 30 acres (120,000 m2). With hand-carved stone spires that tower 75 feet (23 m), it is the the tallest building in Lilburn, Georgia, dominating the intersection of Rockbridge Road and Lawrenceville Highway. More than 1,300 craftsmen and 900 volunteers dedicated their time in putting this 34,450-piece stone marvel together. More than 4,500 tons of Italian Carrara marble, 4,300 tons of Turkish limestone, and 3,500 tons of Indian pink sandstone was quarried and shipped to the craftsmen in India. Then, all of the nearly 35,000 pieces were shipped to the United States. It serves members of the Swaminarayan branch of Hinduism, which originated in India more than 200 years ago. The traditional design features custom-carved stonework, a wraparound veranda and five prominent pinnacles reminiscent of the Himalayan hills.

The Lilburn location is the largest temple in North America for BAPS. Built at an estimated cost of $19 million, the temple complex is only the third of its kind in the country, surpassing BAPS temples in Houston and Chicago. A similar mandir was recently opened in Toronto as well. The temple’s sanctuary is open to all, as it is in Chicago, Houston, and Toronto.

The organization’s current spiritual guru, Pramukh Swami Maharaj, came to Lilburn in 2004 and blessed the first foundation stones. The guru, who celebrated his 86th birthday in 2006, returned to Lilburn in August 2007 to sanctify the completed temple. Upon completion, a keystone weighing more than 5 tons was twisted into place on the ceiling of the central dome inside.

It really was very beautiful, and I loved the recurring patterns everywhere. However… and I know I’m being a little snarky here, but there is something very postmodern – in the bad way – about standing between a reflecting pool and an ornate temple, then looking over to see a huge Publix supermarket across the street. That’s somehow so very wrong. It would be better in the middle of a crowded city, where it could be like a hidden jewel (like Buddhist temples in Taipei) or dominating the landscape on a hill (like Sacré-Coeur in Paris). Alternatively, it could have been given a little more elbow room a little further away from the stripmall road (like the La Salette shrine in my home town). Something about the spirit of the place reminded me of that awful replica of the White House near my house. For all it cost to build, I think they missed something essential – or maybe that was somehow the whole point?

I also felt a little let down because I had imagined it to be much larger than it was.

Outside Detail

We took off our shoes in the entryway and placed them in little cubbyholes. There were women everywhere, cleaning all the bits of stone. A couple of men were making fine adjustments to the carvings on the central columns. Unfortunately, no photography was allowed inside, or I would have tried to capture the inner room.

What struck me most forcefully were the ceiling mandalas – very fractal and trippy and just beaming with great energy.

Everyone was silent – by decree of the signs – but that seemed wrong to me. There should have been chanting, bells, singing, dancing! Perhaps it was just because we were there on an off hour – I don’t know. I also missed the smells of incense and candles.

I just couldn’t shake the feeling that things were somehow slightly off – it was all too clean and pristine. There were plexiglass shields around the carved columns, when there should have been encouragement to touch them. What kind of temple is this, really? I don’t know much of anything about this particular flavor of Hinduism, but there should be a sense of age – and at least a little grime – in a temple.

There was a guestbook inside, and that was strange to me too. John had given his name at the gate, so I signed the guestbook with mine.

Our timing was off, and all the internal alter doors were closed and locked, so I’ll probably go back sometime soon to see them.

Still, the little lights against the stone inside made it seem like you were in some sort of sandcastle. There was a place-based zing-moment or two in the middle of all that, looking up at the ceiling mandalas, especially the one right near the (locked up) alter. It was also noted (no names) that some of the carvings boasted rather nice breasts (hey, not every religious tradition is closed off to sacred sexuality).

Just before we left, a man came inside, sat down on the rug on the floor – dead center of the mandala, and listened to his iPod, eyes closed. He looked like he was going to be there for some time. For some reason, it struck me as very funny. I wonder how long you can do that before someone taps you on the shoulder. I mean, you’re basically hogging the entire vertical ley line – or maybe that concept doesn’t apply here. I kept thinking of the whole process of creating, sustaining and destroying that is so inherent to the Hindu vision. This temple didn’t seem to be about flows and movement and process, but more about a museum-type static series. It’s an interesting, even fascinating, monument, but… well, again – we were seeing it at an “off” time. I’ll go back and see the differences when the alter doors are opened.

It was fun to visit the place. Despite my critical reaction, I will probably go back.

Patterns, though – patterns. I kept thinking luminous interconnections – the making and unmaking of Tibetan mandala sand paintings, zooming the Mandelbrot set, resonating synchronicities, crunchy neutrinos, birds and flutterbys, staring squirrels, dream voices, tingling toes, free-associations from a tarot card spread – or a painting that calls to you – or a book that you’ve got to pick up although you don’t really have much interest in it…

We came back to the house for a cup of coffee and some conversation, then went over to Houston’s for some mighty fine ribs and a couple of margueritas.

What really mattered yesterday wasn’t anything about a temple but just being together, relaxing, and enjoying one another’s company. It had been a while since we’d seen Tom and Pam, and it was a warm loving snuggly sort of get-together.

Next time, maybe I’ll bring a bell and we can make a “temple” wherever we are.

Credit Contraction Thoughts (and a question for you)

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There’s been a lot of discussion about the causes of our current financial crisis. I, for one, do not ever care to hear the Wall Street/Main Street framing again. Really, is that the best we can do? Have we no sense of language?

The “credit contraction” or “credit crunch” involved, among other things, financial institutions that were “shot through with short-termism, deceptive practices and self-dealing.” I can’t help but think that unrestrained (dare I say “unregulated”?) greed is at the root of quite a lot of what has happened.

In this regard, one thing I haven’t really heard much about lately are the predatory mortgage lending practices that have flourished under this administration. Predatory lending practices are abusive, stripping borrowers of home equity and threatening families with bankruptcy and foreclosure.

Abusive loan practices include:

  • Intentionally steering you to a higher cost loan when you qualify for a lower one
  • Putting you into a loan you cannot afford based on your income or assets
  • Charging high interest rates and fees
  • Breaking verbal promises & terms or “bait and switch” at closing (we saw this one ourselves in the difference between the “good faith estimate” and the reality of the mortgage payment amount)
  • Getting inflated appraisals to loan you more than your home is worth
  • Loans with balloon payments
  • Coaching you to lie or be dishonest on your loan application
  • Putting you into a “stated income” or “no document loan”
  • Loan “flipping” or constant refinancing
  • “Hard Money” lending
  • Loans with payments that start low and go high (my student loan does this)
  • Including prepayment penalties
  • Failing to properly credit loan payments in a timely way
  • Charging escrow fees when not provided by the note or deed of trust
  • Issuing loan payoff statements full of inflated and improper fees

Let me tell you about the practices that have led to the ballooning of my student loan debt… but no, if I think about it I get heart palpitations and I’m already not feeling well today.

Something that seems to have made everything worse was the overturning of some regulatory safeguards. For some, the spotlight for this is on Sen. Phil Gramm, McCain campaign adviser and a lobbyist for a Swiss bank:

Eight years ago, as part of a decades-long anti-regulatory crusade, Gramm pulled a sly legislative maneuver that greased the way to the multibillion-dollar subprime meltdown. Yet has Gramm been banished from the corridors of power? Reviled as the villain who bankrupted Middle America? Hardly. Now a well-paid executive at a Swiss bank, Gramm cochairs Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign and advises the Republican candidate on economic matters. He’s been mentioned as a possible Treasury secretary should McCain win. That’s right: A guy who helped screw up the global financial system could end up in charge of US economic policy. Talk about a market failure.

I’m interested in the fact that there is very little real discussion (that makes any sense to me, anyway) about the effects of abstract speculation (gambling), or in the practices of usury (it used to be considered a sin) that surround every consumer every day.

Institutions that put too much of their working capital on the line with speculation and excessive risks went down – and shouldn’t they? But we’re so interconnected anymore that the markets have become like clusters of artificial intelligence with everything affecting everything else, so what can be done?

Paul Krugman usually has something interesting to say:

Paulson grabbed hold of the wrong end of the stick — he should have been seeking to expand bank capital, taking an ownership share in compensation, rather than trying to push up the value of toxic paper.

I just don’t know. A couple of days ago, my bank Wachovia was aquired by… Citi. Since I swore several years ago never to deal with them again, I turned to Washington Mutual (WaMu). Oops! Too late.

Meanwhile, there was the whole inflation of house prices… and then its decline.

Some are blaming immigrants. Economic crisis brings out the scapegoating impulse. Some are blaming anti-racist policies. Some are blaming poor people.

Lots of blame to go around, for sure. Blame war, blame the national deficit and the resulting increase in the mind-boggling national debt, blame corporations who send their money to Dubai after landing lucrative if wasteful and corrupt contracts (not naming names or anything), blame inflation, the average household debt, rising energy and food and healthcare costs, more productivity for less wages, the class warfare from the super-rich to the middle class…

There were a lot of people here in Atlanta that were pushed out of their homes because the neighborhood values went up, and so did their taxes. In some neighborhoods here, you could send a kid to a rather nice college for the yearly tax bill. I would like to see some figures on how that escalated in newly-gentrified neighborhoods.

There was also the optimism about jobs that led to unrealistic assessments of homeowner affordability (what happened to the 30% of your income rule?). Add to this the emergence of the professional home-flippers. I think that took a toll among the middle class.

(T)he tanking real estate market “shifted from subprime loans made to borrowers with poor credit to homeowners who had solid credit but took out exotic loans with ballooning monthly payments.” Bloomberg reported that 3 million American homeowners are holding prime (or, actually, semi-prime) “alt-A” loans (don’t ask) worth about $1 trillion, or $150 billion more than the entire outstanding subprime market. As those loans — many of which were taken on investment properties by people expecting a nice, quick turnover — started to go belly-up, a panic ensued. …That posed a risk to the mammoth and wholly unregulated market in insurance on bad loans that had grown up around these new kinds of investments. The market in what are known as “credit default swaps” is of unknown size, but it’s estimated to be worth as much as $60 trillion, most of it essentially paper backed by too little in the way of hard assets.

I’m not an economist, and I must admit that I don’t understand all the complicated workings of the financial sector. I do, however, have a very deep suspicion toward this administration, and some of the family background alone on these topics is a little chilling before you even look at the real power-players like the visible Cheney (and the less-visible ones, too).

Document uncovers details of a planned coup in the USA in 1933 by right-wing American businessmen. The coup was aimed at toppling President Franklin D Roosevelt with the help of half-a-million war veterans. The plotters, who were alleged to involve some of the most famous families in America, (owners of Heinz, Birds Eye, Goodtea, Maxwell Hse & George Bush’s Grandfather, Prescott) believed that their country should adopt the policies of Hitler and Mussolini to beat the great depression.

In light of all I know and suspect about imperial neocons and fascists in our government, I do feel pretty secure with the strategy of tracking and analyzing the flow of capital and power if you want to understand what’s happening. And, in this regard, I’m rather fond of Noam Chomsky. This is what he had to say at a recent summit on the problems of Latin America and the Caribbean:

We might also take note of the striking similarity between the structural adjustment programs imposed on the weak by the International Monetary Fund, and the huge financial bailout that is on the front pages today in the North. The US executive-director of the IMF, adopting an image from the Mafia, described the institution as “the credit community’s enforcer.” Under the rules of the Western-run international economy, investors make loans to third world tyrannies, and since the loans carry considerable risk, make enormous profits. Suppose the borrower defaults. In a capitalist economy, the lenders would incur the loss. But really existing capitalism functions quite differently. If the borrowers cannot pay the debts, then the IMF steps in to guarantee that lenders and investors are protected. The debt is transferred to the poor population of the debtor country, who never borrowed the money in the first place and gained little if anything from it. That is called “structural adjustment.” And taxpayers in the rich country, who also gained nothing from the loans, sustain the IMF through their taxes. These doctrines do not derive from economic theory; they merely reflect the distribution of decision-making power.

The designers of the international economy sternly demand that the poor accept market discipline, but they ensure that they themselves are protected from its ravages, a useful arrangement that goes back to the origins of modern industrial capitalism, and played a large role in dividing the world into rich and poor societies, the first and third worlds.

This wonderful anti-market system designed by self-proclaimed market enthusiasts is now being implemented in the United States, to deal with the very ominous crisis of financial markets. In general, markets have well-known inefficiencies. One is that transactions do not take into account the effect on others who are not party to the transaction. These so-called “externalities” can be huge. That is particularly so in the case of financial institutions. Their task is to take risks, and if well-managed, to ensure that potential losses to themselves will be covered. To themselves.

Under capitalist rules, it is not their business to consider the cost to others if their practices lead to financial crisis, as they regularly do. In economists’ terms, risk is underpriced, because systemic risk is not priced into decisions. That leads to repeated crisis, naturally. At that point, we turn to the IMF solution. The costs are transferred to the public, which had nothing to do with the risky choices but is now compelled to pay the costs – in the US, perhaps mounting to about $1 trillion right now. And of course the public has no voice in determining these outcomes, any more than poor peasants have a voice in being subjected to cruel structural adjustment programs.

A basic principle of modern state capitalism is that cost and risk are socialized, while profit is privatized. That principle extends far beyond financial institutions. Much the same is true for the entire advanced economy, which relies extensively on the dynamic state sector for innovation, for basic research and development, for procurement when purchasers are unavailable, for direct bail-outs, and in numerous other ways. These mechanisms are the domestic counterpart of imperial and neocolonial hegemony, formalized in World Trade Organization rules and the misleadingly named “free trade agreements.”

Hey, you knew I was a liberal, right?

I’m thinking about the Federal Reserve.

So, here’s a question for you: How much money is the U.S. government printing up right now? Can anyone give me a link to a chart that shows the history of that for the last ten years? I can’t find one -can you?




The First Presidential Debate

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I had signed up to rate the debates at “Rate the Debates,” because it was billed as getting a jump on the pundits. I was hoping that this would serve as a pulsepoint. I’m disappointed that the survey was more about the moderator’s performance than the substance of the debate itself.

Overall, I thought both candidates did fairly well. They both got angry, but held their tempers. They both looked a little silly smiling when they were hearing digs aimed at them.

Neither one of them adequately addressed the economic issues, but I guess that’s really for a later debate. As a matter of national security, they covered the basics. I thought some of the discussion about foreign relations was the most interesting part of the debate.

I would have liked to have seen them both actually debate a little more rather than just responding – but Lehrer tried his best to encourage that (and he was a good and fair moderator). It’s a matter of the format, I think.

Oh – and I can’t wait to hear from that old battleaxe Dr. Kissinger. He must be pleased that he’s still so important despite his many crimes.

Here are a few things that made me halt: “wait, hold on a second there, stop the train.”

McCain

1) He kept saying that Barack Obama “just didn’t understand” – didn’t understand how to deal with foreign leaders, didn’t understand the difference between a tactic and a strategy, etc. etc. – all with a slightly pitying look and a sorrowful shake of the head. I didn’t count how many times he said or implied it, but this mannerism ran through the whole debate. I can understand how he would try to use the “elder statesman” role to his advantage, but I don’t think this worked. I kept wondering when he was going to complain about those damn kids next door. It didn’t make him look wise, just old. It was pretty clear that Obama did understand – better than McCain in many cases – and I think he was on weak ground with that attempt.

2) He called for the consolidation of regulatory agencies. What, like Homeland Security? Or so that conflicts of interest can become involved in a power monopoly? It’s not enough that the agencies are riddled already?

3) The invocation of a spending freeze was not wise, and the way he described the way he would handle cuts sounded a bit disastrous to me.

4) He called for 45 nuclear power plants. Not good.

5) He noted – twice – that he was not elected “Miss Congeniality” of the Senate. That’s not a good image for him to invoke. Ick.

6) He seemed to think that if we had trained interrogators, they wouldn’t torture. The documentation that I’ve seen about the history of torture techniques during this administration doesn’t suggest to me that training was the only, or the most important, issue.

7) I think he really tried too hard to pull on the heartstrings. It came off as hammy and undermined what I think really might be his authentic feelings on some issues.

Obama

1) He didn’t mention nuclear power in the first set of remarks on energy, but then later he did add “and yes, nuclear power.” Sigh. I just don’t like the dangers of nuclear energy and its byproducts.

2) I thought he made good points about our standing in the world, but I’m not sure about the way he characterized 20th-century vs. 21st-century governments. He could have reframed some of the discourse about why America isn’t trusted within a more robust terminology.

3) I thought that he let too many things “go.” I could see where he needed to focus on the things of core importance, but he was almost too reasonable. I wanted to see some of his fire and air, and he was in water and earth mode.

4) I thought he overemphasized the word “investment.” I agree with the ideas, but it’s not a word anyone wants to hear right now.

5) That whole thing with the bracelet was too much. “I have a bracelet too, and THIS mother said…” I know I’m jaded, but I don’t want to see two grown men talking about military deaths in terms of bracelets. Really, give me a break. I expected that sort of ooze-fest from McCain, but Obama disappointed me on that one.

The whole thing was fascinating, but I hope they both polish up for the next go-round.

Actions of the Day for Progressive Armchair Activists

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We come in peace (shoot to kill): Just Foreign Policy Iraqi Death Estimator

Some actions for my fellow armchair activists. Click on the links for more information and to take action.

America, where have we gone

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Where have we gone, America?

On Staged “Terrorist” Attacks and Dictatorship

Impeach Now or Face the End of Constitutional Democracy, Paul Craig Roberts, Counterpunch

Unless Congress immediately impeaches Bush and Cheney, a year from now the US could be a dictatorial police state at war with Iran. Bush has put in place all the necessary measures for dictatorship in the form of “executive orders” that are triggered whenever Bush declares a national emergency. Recent statements by Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff, former Republican senator Rick Santorum and others suggest that Americans might expect a series of staged, or false flag, “terrorist” events in the near future.

(thanks to John Gamble)

On Executive Order “Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq,” July 17, 2007

This order allows the Executive Branch to freeze assets – without evidence, notice, oversight, trial or appeal – in a chain of perceived culpability. Even representative legal services could be interpreted to be a form of support.

The Treasury Secretary has sole discretion to determine who is in violation of this order, in ‘consultation’ with the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of State. That last part is verbiage; Treasury has the power per this order. Even better, the Secretary of Treasury has the explicit authority to delegate this decision to any flunky or flunkies of his choice per Sec. 6. This order applies to all persons within the United States. If Treasury declares that a person is a ‘SIGNIFICANT RISK’ to commit violence in Iraq, or a ‘SIGNIFICANT RISK’ to support violence in Iraq in any way, or to have assisted in any way a person who is a ‘SIGNIFICANT RISK’ to do so, all their assets are to be immediately frozen.

It is a further violation of the order to make a donation to such a person whose assets have been frozen. (I was being literal when I said ’starve’ them. Such a person would have no legal means of acquiring food, clothing, or shelter. They couldn’t buy it with frozen assets, nor accept it as a gift, and stealing is already illegal.)…

Oh, I probably don’t need to mention the obvious, but the lack of due process, lack of evidentiary requirements, and the vagueness surrounding exactly what constitutes a violation make this order a totalitarian dream. And there is no end to the ‘daisy chain’ it creates, either. If you donate money to a person whose assets were frozen because they gave money to a person who was declared to be a ‘significant risk’ to commit or support violence in Iraq, then you are subject to the order, subject to have your assets frozen, and anyone helping you thereafter gets the same treatment. This order is far in excess of the presidential orders from 20+ years ago that were circulated to make us afraid of the government.

(From Shakesville, via Frogs and Ravens)

On Obstruction of Justice and the Expansion of Executive Privilege

No, the documents will not be forthcoming. No, they don’t have to testify. No, they won’t be held in contempt. No, Congress will not be allowed to pursue this matter.

Under federal law, a statutory contempt citation by the House or Senate must be submitted to the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, “whose duty it shall be to bring the matter before the grand jury for its action.” But administration officials argued yesterday that Congress has no power to force a U.S. attorney to pursue contempt charges in cases, such as the prosecutor firings, in which the president has declared that testimony or documents are protected from release by executive privilege. …

Mark J. Rozell, a professor of public policy at George Mason University who has written a book on executive-privilege issues, called the administration’s stance “astonishing.” “That’s a breathtakingly broad view of the president’s role in this system of separation of powers,” Rozell said. “What this statement is saying is the president’s claim of executive privilege trumps all.”

The administration’s statement is a dramatic attempt to seize the upper hand in an escalating constitutional battle with Congress, which has been trying for months, without success, to compel White House officials to testify and to turn over documents about their roles in the prosecutor firings last year.

On Bush’s Veto Choices

The White House said that President Bush would veto a bipartisan plan drafted over the last six months by senior members of the Senate Finance Committee to expand the Children’s Health Insurance Program which is set to expire Sept. 30. The vow puts Mr. Bush at odds with the Democratic majority in Congress, with a substantial number of Republican lawmakers and with many governors of both parties, who want to expand the popular program to cover some of the nation’s eight million uninsured children. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the bipartisan plan “would reduce the number of uninsured children by 4.1 million.”

On the Iraq War and Occupation

The Iraq war is lost, Peter Galbraith

The case for the war is no longer defined by the benefits of winning — a stable Iraq, democracy on the march in the Middle East, the collapse of the evil Iranian and Syrian regimes — but by the consequences of defeat.

Constitutionally, Iraq’s central government has almost no power, and the Bush administration is partially to blame for this. When the constitution was being drafted in 2005, the United Nations came up with a series of proposals that would have made for a more workable sharing of power between regions and the central government. The U.S. Embassy stopped the U.N. from presenting these proposals because it hoped for a final document as centralized as (and textually close to) the interim constitution written by the Americans. …

For the most part, Iraq’s leaders are not personally stubborn or uncooperative. They find it impossible to reach agreement on the benchmarks because their constituents don’t agree on any common vision for Iraq. The Shiites voted twice in 2005 for parties that seek to define Iraq as a Shiite state. By their boycotts and votes the Sunni Arabs have almost unanimously rejected the Shiite vision of Iraq’s future, including the new constitution. The Kurds’ envisage an Iraq that does not include them. In the 2005 parliamentary elections, 99 percent of them voted for Kurdish nationalist parties, and in the January 2005 referendum, 98 percent voted for an independent Kurdistan.

But even if Iraq’s politicians could agree to the benchmarks, this wouldn’t end the insurgency or the civil war. Sunni insurgents object to Iraq’s being run by Shiite religious parties, which they see as installed by the Americans, loyal to Iran, and wanting to define Iraq in a way that excludes the Sunnis. Sunni fundamentalists consider the Shiites apostates who deserve death, not power. The Shiites believe that their democratic majority and their historical suffering under the Baathist dictatorship entitle them to rule. They are not inclined to compromise with Sunnis, whom they see as their long-standing oppressors, especially when they believe most Iraqi Sunnis are sympathetic to the suicide bombers that have killed thousands of ordinary Shiites. The differences are fundamental and cannot be papered over by sharing oil revenues, reemploying ex-Baathists, or revising the constitution. The war is not about those things….

In laying out his dark vision of an American failure, Bush never discusses Iran’s domination of Iraq even though this is a far more likely consequence of American defeat than an al-Qaida victory.

On Lack of Accountability for Weakening our Intelligence Network and Outing a CIA Agent

U.S. District Judge John D. Bates dismissed former CIA operative Valerie Plame’s lawsuit against members of the Bush administration in the CIA leak scandal. Plame, the wife of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, had accused Vice President Dick Cheney and others of conspiring to leak her identity in 2003. Plame said that violated her privacy rights and was illegal retribution for her husband’s criticism of the administration. Bates argued that such efforts (treason?!) are a natural part of the officials’ job duties, and “immune from liability.” Bates dismissed the case against all defendants (Cheney, White House political adviser Karl Rove, former White House aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby and former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage) and said he would not express an opinion on the “constitutional arguments.”

How many CIA operatives and informants are dead or compromised because of this? How much vital intelligence have we missed because of this? Review again the kind of work that Valerie Plame had been doing…

Bates? A Bush appointee, additionally appointed by Chief Justice Roberts in February 2006 to serve as a judge of the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which is currently overseeing the warrantless spying operations.

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