(apologies for duplication to cj subscribers)
>From 2 Jan 98:
-=-=-=-=-=-=~ New Years Message ~=-=-=-=-=-=-
I find the turn-of-the-year fascinating; a time to notice that the clock
does tick, and that we only get a finite number of ticks. Is there
anything you want to get done on your shift?
Is there something you wish "someone else" would do? Why don't you do it
instead?
Did you trade a walk-on part in the war,
for a leading role in a cage? - Pink Floyd
I think I was 40 when it first occurred to me that life is finite; only
after that did I consider that "what I really want to do" could be an
actual option in life. Before that I thought it was my job to always pick
the most advantageous option that came my way, to maximally exploit my
skills -- perhaps what Bob Dylan meant by "to be nothing more than
something you invest in".
It turns out most of us could be anything we want in life, be it architect,
auto mechanic, art historian, or revolutionary: it's will that matters, not
aptitude. You can always take a remedial course if you're slow at
something: very little really requires rocket science or unusual physique.
What a disservice it is to tell kids they're "good at" one thing and
"unsuited" to another, before they're old enough to know what a "life
decision" is all about. Those are the beginnings of disempowering mind
control... and unfortunately, all too effective.
Aptitude is secondary, difficulty is secondary; only what you want is
primary. Set a goal you want to achieve; don't choose a goal because it's
achievable. Having a goal is powerful: your life begins automatically to
organize itself in that direction; your energy can move toward "achieving"
rather than circle around "wishing". The journey of a thousand miles
begins with the first step, but that first step is not made by the feet:
it's made by the mind and it's called _intention_.
-=-=-=-=-=-=~ End of New Years Message ~=-=-=-=-=-=-
Dear rn,
1998 has been an important year for me, and the `new years message' was a
goad that got to me -- it seemed to be as much for myself as anyone. I
wanted to repost that, along with a few other `defining documents' of 1998,
as a lead-in to thinking about 1999. At the bottom of this posting is
"rkm's model of the world", which was originally included in the same
posting with the above new-years message.
The closing paragraph of this "rkm's model" is:
>
>BTW> The model can be invalidated by a massive democratic (unarmed)
>revolution, averting this possible future, but _only_ based on accurate
>understanding of the overall situation and power dynamics.
while the closing paragraph of the new-years message was:
>The journey of a thousand miles
>begins with the first step, but that first step is not made by the feet:
>it's made by the mind and it's called _intention_.
These two together pretty much defined my 1998. My `intention' became to
do whatever I could to promote a `massive democratic revolution'... a
revolution that-must-be, that perhaps is-happening-already, but that
won't-happen-unless we each make our
bold-unique-creative-effective-difficult contribution.
During the first half of 98, `with a little help from my friends', I became
demonically devoted to trying to stir up activism directly, culminating in
`Citizens for a Democratic Renaissance', our Bear River Retreat, and the
rn-list, which Jan is putting to such good use. For myself, it has been
the book which has survived as my `one thing worth doing', as the sufis put
it.
all the best,
rkm
~-===================================================================-~
"rkm's model of world" - from 2 Jan 98:
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
(1) There is (today) an elite who benefit from and ultimately
control the overall direction of global events and who determine the basic
framework of public propaganda: it is (surprise) the capitalist elite, and
the megacorp (TNC) is the fundamental tool of capitalist operations: the
ship-of-the-line of the elite fleet, so to speak.
(2) This elite, even though it collectively benefits from basic
global policies, is by no means a monolith; it has its own complex
hierarchical structures and winners and losers -- but as a whole it
functions with collaborative strategic coherence, sort of like Mafia gangs.
(3) Part of what unifies the elite is a common philosophy, and that
philosophy is a simple one: the sovereignty of capital, the primacy of the
investor, the sacrifice of all other values to the facilitation of global
capital growth and the efficiency of investor transactions.
(4) What this philosophy leads to is the dominance of the global
economy by the international banking and brokerage industry, out of all
proportion to the relative wealth of that industry compared to others (such
as oil). This industry has been invested, via deregulation, with immense
power over the global economy, on behalf of capitalism generally, due to
the alignment of the industry's interests with the elite philosophy.
(5) The coherence of elite strategy and policy comes from a network
of think tanks and other institutions; the Council On Foreign Relations,
for example, more or less embodies elite consciousness on geopolitical
matters, and its publications, properly interpreted, reveal in advance with
surprising candor the global plans being made by the elite, and the basic
propaganda lines by which those plans are to be sold.
(6) Globalization is a two-level political revolution: a
centralized world government is being set up, while simultaneously nation
states are being aggressively undermined by a whole range of assaults from
privatization to engineered currency crises to massive anti-government
propaganda. National sovereignty and democracy are being replaced by
global bureaucracies under direct elite control, thus officially and
permanently institutionalizing absolute elite hegemony.
(7) Nation states will devolve downward, both in size and function:
the Soviet breakup is a foretaste of more widespread physical devolutions
to come, with Scotland and Wales indicating a gradualist path, and the
Northern-Italy movement indicating a more radical path; the Third-World
indicates the basic functionality that will be expected of national
governments: primarily keeping the population under control and commerce
functioning.
(8) The EU -- although justified by all sorts of rhetoric, from a
"stronger Europe" to fear of Japan to fear of the neo-fascism -- has really
only one function: lubricating the transition of Europe, the home of the
world's most robust democracies, into the globalist trap. It's a setup, a
ruse, a trojan horse -- the EU has no special standing at the WTO, anymore
than any other nation or group of nations, and its existence will be
meaningless when the globalist regime is fully established.
(9) There are three geopolitical problems to be solved by
globalization: (a) the safe completion of the destruction of the former
USSR, reducing it to total chaos, so that it can be "properly" rebuilt from
the ground up, (b) the taming of China, by _whatever_ means necessary
including nuclear, and (c) the establishment of a new global ordering
principle, given the demise of sovereign nation states.
(10) The new global order will be based on a high-tech mobile elite
corps, to maintain strategic global order, and regional client strong-man
regimes (eg, Turkey), with second-string weapons, to maintain tactical
order within designated "cultural regions", more or less as outlined by
(elite spokesman) Samuel P. Huntington in "Clash of Civilizations".
"Managed conflict", rather than "pax globalism" will be the mode of
control: this is the preferred control method that has evolved in the
postwar era, particularly in the Middle East, and it has proven to be both
flexible and reliable in servicing elite objectives, and the conflicts
provide investment opportunities and arms sales: yet another capitalist
industry. Iraq was flooded by sales from the very nations which then
destroyed the goods purchased: Western investments in China are no
guarantee of long-term tolerance.
(11) The role of the elite corps is currently being played on a de
facto basis by the Pentagon and NATO, legitimized by one-at-a-time
authorizations from the UN: how this prototype arrangement will be
regularized is not yet clear, but one possibility is that a new
international agency will be created (the "World Peace Organization"?) that
will have control over the elite corps, removing it from the vagaries of
the deteriorating political processes in the US and Europe as globalization
proceeds; funding will be spread among the global population, perhaps
leading to the first globally administrated taxation.
(12) The radical instability in today's international financial
markets is not a situation the elite intend to permit forever; it puts
everyone's investments at unnecessary risk. The instability is being
tolerated because of the pressure it puts on national governments to
conform to the globalist agenda, and thus cooperate in their own
destruction. When the final nail is pounded into the coffin of the
sovereign nation state, then the WTO will "discover" that the international
financial system is in need of regulation, and will regulate the hell out
of it, to the benefit of elite interests, and without any democratic
inputs.
(13) Marxist predictions of capitalist collapse, based on such
considerations as finite investment realms and excess production capacity
will not come to pass; these self-cannibalizing trends will be allowed to
proceed only until a global shakeout leaves a handful of mega-operators
dominating all of global commerce (as we have long had in the petroleum
industry): at that point a regime of collaboratively regulated production
and distribution will ensue, as with the oil majors today, and a paradigm
shift in elite philosophy will occur, replacing the primacy of capital
growth with something more like the wealth-management ethic of feudal
aristocracies; this will most likely be accompanied by some kind of return
to a general medieval mentality in the population.
To proceed further I would need a crystal ball, and I don't want to go out
on any limbs with predictions. (:>)
Yours,
Richard
BTW> The model can be invalidated by a massive democratic (unarmed)
revolution, averting this possible future, but _only_ based on accurate
understanding of the overall situation and power dynamics.
~-===================================================================-~
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