kpete
kpete's JournalThe United States of Whatever: Ecocide and the Soul of a Nation
Published on Saturday, June 1, 2013 by Common Dreams
The United States of Whatever: Ecocide and the Soul of a Nation
by Phil Rockstroh
What is the music of the spheres? asked Schopenhauer. "Munch. Munch. Munch."
.....................To turn a blind eye to the natural world, as we have done, translates into psychical ecocide. Perception is degraded. Language truncated. Life becomes dispossessed of purpose and meaning. Apropos, the rise and banal persistence of: The United States of Whatever.
Under these circumstances "whatever" translates into, inner and extant, deadly super storms, ecocide, and desertification (including and related to the desertification of language). As we decimate the earth's biodiversity, we diminish our lexicon. Our thoughts cannot take wing; our imaginings cannot take root and flower; our passions cannot flow; our putrefying pathologies cannot be composted.
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When our days are denuded of depth, meaning and inspired purpose, we gorge our bellies in an attempt to alleviate the ache of emptiness. The operatives of the corporate/commercial hologram have induced us to devour the planet like a serving of Hot Pockets. Yet the emptiness within only grows. We have been enticed to believe that remedy will be found in more of what caused our misery in the first place. Relief, even redemption, will be found in yet "More". Thus, we come upon the insatiable leviathan that glides within. We are lodged in the monster's belly, wherein we mistake his impersonal appetite for our own. In this way, the consumer is consumed by the collective.
How does one sate a force that is insatiable? By seizing back one's unique identity. The angel whose name is Enough arrives within one's reclaimed human voice. It comes down to this: ecology or catastrophe. Because one's humanity is formed and rounded by one's limits, we must be open to the infinity of forms that is the ecosystem of the soul but not allow vanity to attempt to claim dominion over what is ungovernable. Thus, one regains one's soul by speaking in a human voice. Yes, it is tinged with universal fire, but, to we human beings, its home is the hearth of the human heart, within which empty appetite is transmuted into the yearnings of the heart; thereby, empty motion becomes emotion; passion deepens into compassion.
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please read this, long, but beautifully written piece:
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/06/01
Maher: "This is like the Cleveland guy having a pizza party for those girls he had in his basement.”
Hearing that former president George W. Bush went on a motorcycle ride with a group of disabled Iraq war veterans did not sit well with Real Time host Bill Maher on Friday.
“I found this to be nauseating,” Maher said of Bush’s appearance at the Warrior 100K Ride in Texas. “First he sends them off to war to get their limbs blown off, then he has them over for a barbecue. This is like the Cleveland guy having a pizza party for those girls he had in his basement.”
video & more:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/06/01/maher-slams-george-w-bush-for-nauseating-motorcycle-ride-with-disabled-veterans/
Tea Party Speaker Presents Proof Grover Norquist Is a Secret Muslim: 'He Has a Beard'
A speaker at a tea party event in Texas recently suggested that that anti-tax lobbyist Grover Norquist was a secret Muslim because "he has a beard."
In a video posted by the Far North Dallas Tea Party on Thursday, Texas Eagle Forum President and former Chairman of the Texas Republican Party Cathie Adams presented evidence that Norquist was part of a "stealth jihad" in the United States.
Adams said that Norquist, who is married to a Muslim woman, was "trouble with a capital 'T'" because "he's showing signs of converting to Islam himself."
"As you see, he has a beard," she pointed out. "He's married a Muslim woman. But he denies that he has converted himself. He denies that."
more plus video:
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/david/tea-party-speaker-presents-proof-grover-norq
Inequality is a product of government policy - by: David Cay Johnston
Inequality Rising — All Thanks To Government Policies
May 31st, 2013 10:32 am
David Cay Johnston
A revealing new examination of the top 1 percent in a variety of countries brings into focus how the American government’s tax, union bargaining, inheritance and other rules widen the growing divide between those at the top and everyone else:
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Saez has shown that in the two years of recovery for which we have data, 2009 to 2011, 121 percent of the income gains went to the top 1 percent. That means the 99 percent saw its share of the national income pie sliced more thinly.
These gains were so highly concentrated that 40 percent of all the increased income in our nation of 314 million went to fewer than 16,000 households.
On the rise of CEO and other executive pay, while that of most workers is flat to falling, the authors find that “tax cuts may have led managerial energies to be diverted to increasing their remuneration at the expense of enterprise growth and employment.”
In plain English, that means some executives are lining their own pockets at the expense of the enterprises they run. In a country where they can keep most of their increased pay because of tax rate cuts, executives have an incentive to focus on their wealth, while if tax rates were at pre-Reagan levels, pushing for much higher pay results in much less personal after-tax gain.
Much more:
http://www.nationalmemo.com/inequality-rising-all-thanks-to-government-policies/2/
Tucker Carlson's story on IRS director’s many WH visits a bust-"based on erroneous info"
‘Daily Caller’ story on IRS director’s many White House visits a bustThe Daily Caller story that kicked off the latest round of finger-pointing and blame in the IRS “scandal” currently gripping the right blogosphere and Fox News was actually based on erroneous information. According to the Atlantic, the editorial staff at the Caller overestimated the number of visits by now-former IRS director Douglas Shulman by 146, claiming that Shulman visited the Obama White House 157 times rather than the 11 visits he is confirmed to have actually made.
The Daily Caller eagerly reported on Wednesday that Shulman, a George W. Bush appointee, visited President Barack Obama’s White House “at least 157 times during the Obama administration, more recorded visits than even the most trusted members of the president’s Cabinet.”
The Tucker Carlson-run conservative website failed to make the distinction between the actual White House and the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, which is covered by the Secret Service’s visitors’ log. Shulman was required to meet with administration officials about the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, also known as “Obamacare,” in the Eisenhower Building. The Secret Service log also covers the New Executive Building, which is located up 17th Street and off the White House grounds.
Shulman was cleared primarily to meet with administration staffers involved in implementation of the health-care reform bill. He was cleared 40 times to meet with Obama’s director of the Office of Health Reform, and a further 80 times for the biweekly health reform deputies meetings and others set up by aides involved with the health-care law implementation efforts. That’s 76 percent of his planned White House visits just there, before you even add in all the meetings with Office of Management and Budget personnel also involved in health reform.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/05/31/daily-caller-story-on-irs-directors-many-white-house-visits-a-bust/
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