December 31, 2010 at 08:13:34

Compassionate Resistance - #4 Study Peace

By Jeeni Criscenzo (about the author)


Solar Circle with Yin Yang Clouds by self

Study Peace: I ain't gonna' study war no more.

From every direction we are continually being encouraged to hate. Sometimes the message is as subtle as a racist innuendo peppered into the nightly news, other times it's blatant and cruel and spoken by some authority figure who by their status lends their hatefulness acceptability. Online comments to news items and blogs are often so mean-spirited that they choke off all incentive to carry on a civil dialogue. As our standard of living steadily declines, we are handed scapegoats on a silver platter: blame it on the immigrants, the gays, the homeless, the liberals, the Muslims, the Chinese, the Mexicans, the Democrats, the Republicans, the Tea Baggers and those atheists who dare to wish you Happy Holidays! Enough!

How are we going to stand up to the bully banksters and globalists if we're draining our energy fighting amongst ourselves? We are obviously being manipulated by the oldest trick in the book -" Divide and Conquer! This constant bickering over silliness while the bullies rape and pillage our world, is tearing apart families and neighbors. Instead of scrambling to figure out how to get us out of this mess, our legislators have proudly assured us that they committed to fueling partisan bickering and one-upmanship, as if this was a game and not our lives!

Obviously we can't count on government to help us, so let's stop playing their game and depleting our energy by taking sides. Most of us have figured out by now that neither party is on our side, but we cling to old loyalties like our baby blankie, so we are repeatedly pulled into the fray, taking sides and accomplishing nothing.

I'm not suggesting that we stop working for justice and causes we know are critical to our mutual survival. This is no time to be silent or remain neutral. What I am suggesting is that we try to be more aware of our approach and to recognize that we have, as the song goes, been carefully taught to hate. And because of that, we tend to act, speak and think within a violent framework. Listen to the conversations around you today and see how many violent words tumble off our tongues without a thought. Now that I am more attuned to this, it astonishes me to hear how often people, who are committed to peace, talk about "fighting" for this or that cause. Go back to the first sentence in this paragraph and notice that I used the word "working" instead. Such a small thing a word is, that it can put us in such a different place.

I was fortunate to have a conversation with Marcelline Brogli, who teaches non-violent communication (NVC), when I decided to run for Congress in 2006. Knowing how mean-spirited politics can be, she challenged me to use NVC throughout my campaign and offered to teach me how to do it. I'd always considered myself a peaceful person, but with Marcelline's guidance I began to hear my responses through the ears of others, and to feel how hurtful my words could be. I can't claim that I was the perfect student, and I still often lapse into the old way of carelessly speaking my mind and trying to clean up the mess afterwards. But I've learned to be more conscious of the power of my thoughts and words, and to be kind to myself as well as others, as we all have a lot of learning to do -" or perhaps un-learning would be more apt.

Learning and practicing non-violence is one of the most effective strategies for building a Compassionate Resistance movement because it takes us out of the battlefield of the bullies and forces them to play on our turf. You could call it having the "Home Team Advantage". Bullies don't know how to respond to non-violence. What's more, they tend back down when facing a united front and we can't be united if we're always bickering. That's why they put so much effort into inciting us to fight amongst ourselves.

Here's an example of how foreign non-violence is to the status quo. Our organization, Amikas, has been going back and forth with the IRS for almost a year now just to get their approval as a 501(c)(3) organization so donations to us can be tax deductible and we can apply for VA and HUD grants. The problem started when we referred to our plan to build cooperative communities. Apparently the IRS is only capable of seeing the word "cooperative" in one light -- as a co-op. And co-ops cannot be 501(c)(3) organizations! Try to explain to the IRS that cooperative means that people work with one another for the common good. Does not compute. We had to change our corporate purpose, by-laws and application to remove the word cooperative. But yesterday I received yet ANOTHER letter requesting even more assurance that we are not a co-op, because we they found the word cooperation was still on our website!

I'm not going to go into all the details on how to practice non-violent communication. The method Marceline taught me is based on the work of Marshall Rosenberg http://www.nonviolentcommunication.com/index.htm, but there are many other good approaches that you can find online. Like all good things, it doesn't come easily, and I doubt anyone can be non-violent all the time. But the effort is worthwhile. Our goal is to get through these difficult times we find ourselves in, and we can do that a lot better if we know how to communicate and cooperate with all the people in our community.

Now I need to remind myself to practice NVC in my response to the IRS -" arrrrgggghhhh!!!!!!

www.criscenzo.com

Jeeni Criscenzo is an entrepreneur, peace activist and author. She was 2006 Democratic candidate for Congress - 49th District. In 2003 she traveled around the country in an RV, writing her daily blog: CPR4Democracy. She is also a founder of (more...)

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author
and do not necessarily reflect those of this website or its editors.

Sunday Book Review

Why Criticism Matters

Illustration by Leonardo Sonnoli

By THE EDITORS

We live in the age of opinion­ — offered instantly, effusively and in increasingly strident tones. Much of it goes by the name of criticism, and in the most superficial sense this is accurate. We do not lack for contentious assertion — of “love it” or “hate it,” of “wet kisses” and “takedowns,” of flattery versus snark, and assorted other verbal equivalents of the thumb held up or pointed down. This “conversation” is often lively. Sometimes it is fun. Occasionally it is informed by genuine understanding as opposed to ideological presumption.

But where does it leave the serious critic, one not interested, say, in tabulating the number of “Brooklyn novelists” who receive attention each year in publications like this one (data possibly more useful to real estate agents and sociologists than to readers)? Where does it leave the critic interested in larger implications — aesthetic, cultural, moral? This question prompted us to approach six accomplished critics, each well versed in the idioms of the moment but also steeped in the older traditions of literature and criticism. We asked the six to explain what it is they do, why they do it and why it matters. We asked them, additionally, to undertake the assignment in the spirit Alfred Kazin did half a century ago in his ambitious statement of purpose “The Function of Criticism Today.” (Not that Kazin was the first critic to reflect on the “function” and value of his craft. See our essay “Masters of the Form” for other examples, some dating back to the 19th century.)

Six accomplished critics explain the importance of their work.

Stephen Burn | Katie Roiphe
Pankaj Mishra | Adam Kirsch
Sam Anderson | Elif Batuman

Editors’ Introduction

More Critics on Criticism

Why Criticism Matters

Masters of the Form

Associated Press (Wilde); Hulton Archive/Getty Images (Eliot and Jarrell); Rischgitz/Getty Images (Arnold); Gjon Mili/Time Life Pictures -- Getty Images (Trilling); Associate Press/New York Public Library (Whitman)

Clockwise from top left: Oscar Wilde, T. S. Eliot, Matthew Arnold, Randall Jarrell, Lionel Trilling and Walt Whitman.

By JENNIFER B. McDONALD

Published: December 31, 2010

The inspiration for the six essays anchoring the Book Review this week was Alfred Kazin’s polemic “The Function of Criticism Today,” written in 1960 (and published in Commentary). But Kazin belongs to a long tradition of critics who have cast a keen eye over their vocation. In fact, Kazin’s essay echoes T. S. Eliot’s “Function of Criticism,” published in 1923, which itself echoed Matthew Arnold’s celebrated “Function of Criticism at the Present Time,” written in 1864.

And there have been many other defenses of criticism — by Walt Whitman, Oscar Wilde and Lionel Trilling, to name only a few — each an effort to establish, or re-­establish, the continuing relevance of a literary form whose value has been challenged for much of its modern history.

The critic, Kazin wrote, “is a thinker, and it is the force . . . of his thinking that gets him to say those things that the artist himself may value as an artist, the reader as a reader.” He “is not an artist,” Kazin asserted, “except incidentally.” Yet the critics Kazin commends all wrote in a high and even virtuosic style.

Take Edmund Wilson, who in “Axel’s Castle,” his study of symbolism in modern literature, wrote the following (in 1931): “We must recognize in Proust, it seems to me, one of the great minds and imaginations of our day, absolutely comparable in our own time, by reason both of his powers and of his influence, to the Nietzsches, the Tolstoys, the Wagners and the Ibsens of a previous generation. He has recreated the world of the novel from the point of view of relativity: he has supplied for the first time in literature an equivalent on the full scale for the new theory of modern physics.”

Or consider Mary McCarthy (Wilson’s third wife, as it happens), whose 1962 review of Nabokov’s “Pale Fire” opened up vistas few others had seen: “When the separate parts are assembled, according to the manufacturer’s directions, and fitted together with the help of clues and cross-references, which must be hunted down as in a paper chase, a novel on several levels is revealed, and these ‘levels’ are not the customary ‘levels of meaning’ of modernist criticism but planes in a fictive space, rather like those houses of memory in medieval mnemonic science, where words, facts and numbers were stored till wanted in various rooms and attics, or like the Houses of astrology into which the heavens are divided.”

As for writing on the critical mind itself? There is a trove of deliciously quotable passages. Below is a sampling.

The Function of Criticism Today: “Any critic who is any good is going to write out of a profound inner struggle between what has been and what must be, the values he is used to and those which presently exist, between the past and the present out of which the future must be born. This struggle with oneself as well as with the age, out of which something must be written and which therefore can be read — this is my test for a critic.” — ALFRED KAZIN 1960

The Function of Criticism: “The most important qualification which I have been able to find, which accounts for the peculiar importance of the criticism of practitioners, is that a critic must have a very highly developed sense of fact. This is by no means a trifling or frequent gift. And it is not one which easily wins popular commendations. The sense of fact is very slow to develop, and its complete development means perhaps the very pinnacle of civilization.” — T. S. ELIOT 1923

The Function of Criticism at the Present Time: “The critical power is of lower rank than the creative. True; but in assenting to this proposition, one or two things are to be kept in mind. It is undeniable that the exercise of a creative power, that a free creative activity, is the true function of man; it is proved to be so by man’s finding in it his true happiness. But it is undeniable, also, that men may have the sense of exercising this free creative activity in other ways than in producing great works of literature or art; if it were not so, all but a very few men would be shut out from the true happiness of all men.” — MATTHEW ARNOLD 1864

The Age of Criticism: “Criticism demands of the critic a terrible nakedness: a real critic has no one but himself to depend on. He can never forget that all he has to go by, finally, is his own response, the self that makes and is made up of such responses — and yet he must regard that self as no more than the instrument through which the art is seen, so that the work of art will seem everything to him and his own self nothing.” — RANDALL JARRELL 1952

Democratic Vistas: “Our fundamental want today in the United States, with closest, amplest reference to present conditions, and to the future, is of a class, and the clear idea of a class, of native authors, literatuses, far different, far higher in grade than any yet known, sacerdotal, modern, fit to cope with our occasions, lands, permeating the whole mass of American mentality, taste, belief, breathing into it a new breath of life, giving it decision, affecting politics far more than the popular superficial suffrage, with results inside and underneath the elections of presidents or Congresses — radiating, begetting appropriate teachers, schools, manners, and, as its grandest result, accomplishing (what neither the schools nor the churches and their clergy have hitherto accomplish’d, and without which this nation will no more stand, permanently, soundly, than a house will stand without a substratum) a religious and moral character beneath the political and productive and intellectual bases of the States. For know you not, dear, earnest reader, that the people of our land may all read and write, and may all possess the right to vote — and yet the main things may be entirely lacking?” — WALT WHITMAN 1871

The Liberal Imagination: “The job of criticism would seem to be, then, to recall liberalism to its first essential imagination of variousness and possibility, which implies the awareness of complexity and difficulty. To the carrying out of the job of criticizing the liberal imagination, literature has a unique relevance, not merely because so much of modern literature has explicitly directed itself upon politics, but more importantly because literature is the human activity that takes the fullest and most precise account of variousness, possibility, complexity and difficulty.” — LIONEL TRILLING 1950

The Critic as Artist: “To the critic the work of art is simply a suggestion for a new work of his own, that need not necessarily bear any obvious resemblance to the thing it criticizes. The one characteristic of a beautiful form is that one can put into it whatever one wishes, and see in it whatever one chooses to see; and the Beauty, that gives to creation its universal and aesthetic element, makes the critic a creator in his turn, and whispers of a thousand different things which were not present in the mind of him who carved the statue or painted the panel or graved the gem.” — OSCAR WILDE 1890

December 29, 2010 at 22:14:12

Compassionate Resistance - #3 - Don't Feed the Beast

By Jeeni Criscenzo (about the author)

opednews.com

#3 DON'T FEED THE BEAST: First rule in conflict is not to help your opponent

99.9% of the world's population is being systematically impoverished by Greed Trade and Casino Economics. The weapon being used to enslave us is a monetary system based on debt and compound interest. Our oppressor is not human - it is a monstrosity that has been given all the rights of a human but it is not daunted by human compassion nor morals. It exists for one purpose - profit. All those things that we hold in high regard: love; life; beauty; peace; are of no consequence to this single-minded monster. Our existence is tolerated for one purpose - to feed the beast as consumers.

Ah, but you protest, because it is human beings, after all, who create and run corporations. Human beings are on the board of directors. Human beings make the laws that keep these monsters in check" and unfortunately, human beings are susceptible to the siren songs of greed and power. We have reached a tipping point where the same elite clique of unabashedly evil "human beings" sit on the boards of an increasingly consolidated group of global corporations.

Money is the manna of our oppressors. And debt is their dessert! Every time we borrow money we are feeding a system designed to keep us enslaved. It starts the moment our kids reach the threshold of adulthood and take out student loans for college - loans that can never be forgiven, no matter what, even in bankruptcy. Think about it - our taxes bailed out the banksters but our kids can't get bailed out even if they can't find a job- any job, after going into hock to get an education.

The only way we can keep the banksters at bay is to opt out of their debt ponzi scheme. Here's a few steps you can take:

1. Get out of debt. This is going to be difficult, if not impossible, if you are like most middle class Americans struggling just to make ends meet. Add up how much money you pay in interest every year and think about how much easier it would be of you didn't have to just give that money away to the banksters. That should motivate you to try step 2.
   
   
2. Don't spend money on anything you don't really need. We are constantly being bombarded with messages to hand over our money to the banksters. How much are you spending every month on web access on your cell phone? Do you really need to upgrade your car, computer, house or (fill in the blank?). Stay out of malls, big-box stores and supermarkets and any place that is designed to get you to spend money impulsively. That includes TV shopping channels and online stores. If you really need something, check to see if you can find it in a thrift store first. Buy your food as close to the raw ingredients as possible, and with the least amount of packaging or branding so you are not paying for the marketing. Check out your farmer's market and food co-op- even if prices seem a little higher, you are supporting your local economy instead of a factory-farm in China.
   
   
3. Get out of the stock market. If you still have money in the stock market, ask yourself why you are continuing to feed the hand that is choking you. People ask me, "Where should I invest my money?" Do you have family or friends who are struggling to pay off high interest debts? Some credit cards are charging as much as 30% interest! Yes, it's risky to lend money to friends and family, but in comparison to the shellacking' the banksters have in store for small investors, I'd put my money on family. Many cultures have been doing this for generations and it brings up the standard of living for the group. Imagine what a difference it would make if you earned 6% interest on a loan to a family member so they can pay off a 30% credit card. Everyone benefits except the banksters. Just make sure you stipulate that they have to cancel the credit card as part of the deal.
   
   
4. Stop banking with banks. If you have a bank account in any of the big bankster banks, you are a frontline beast feeder! Get out of there! There are many local credit unions that offer most of the same services as commercial banks and it takes only a small effort to make the switch. Most credit unions will also serve business accounts.
   
   
5. Invest in your community. These days, when money is tight, it's difficult for many of us to donate money to organizations and non-profits are feeling the pinch. It's worth doing some research before deciding where to contribute your money. I know I'm going to catch flack for this, but I'm a cancer survivor so I have a right to say it- think about where the money is going when you donate to a cancer cure organization. Do you really want to help fund pharmaceutical research departments when they are making phenomenal profits that they use to lobby Congress to keep regulations in check? Wouldn't your donation be better on a local group that helps poor people with terminal illnesses?
   
   
6. Give the gift of your time and attention. As another holiday season draws to a close, I'd like to suggest that we take consumerism out of Christmas. How did it happen that we have been convinced that we must buy stuff for everyone every year? Most gifts that are given are absolutely not needed by the recipient. We've bought into a "gimme gimme gimme" culture and we're passing it on to our children. We collectively agree to pretend that a mythical fat man is going to bring our children a bunch of stuff that they've been hypnotized into wanting, when in reality parents feel obligated go into debt every year to buy this stuff because, if they don't, somehow their kids are going to be traumatized! Stop letting Madison Avenue bully you! Instead of rushing around to the mall trying to figure out what sh*t you can buy your relatives, write them a letter, a REAL letter on pretty paper, that tells them how much you love them. Twenty years from now they will still slip that note out of its envelope and read it and feel loved. Or invite your friend over for lunch and make a big pot of homemade soup with enough that they can take a jar home with them so it will fill their home with a delicious aroma so much better than a scented candle!
   
   
7. Down size. Have you ever visited a friend who just bought a very big house and noticed that the rooms seem empty? Then you visit them a few months later and everything is beautifully decorated and fully furnished. Whether or not they had to go into debt to fill those rooms, odds are they don't really need all that stuff, or all the work of keeping things looking nice. Nature abhors a void, and so, it seems, do people. I learned this first-hand. In 2004 I reduced my possessions down to fit in a small RV and had everything I needed to get by. When the price of gas started to go up and the cost of space in an RV park got higher than renting an apartment, I sold my RV and rented a 400 sq. ft. apartment and that seemed like plenty of room at the time. Five years and one husband later I am renting a lovely two bedroom house and I don't know how I ever managed for a year in that RV. The point is that we can all live with a lot less. It might not be feasible for some people to downsize when their mortgages are "upside-down" (higher than the value of their house) and, in fact, many families are finding it necessary to double-up (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/29/us/29families.html) in these difficult times. One way many of us can downsize is by getting rid of everything you have in storage. Think about what it is costing you to keep stuff you don't use. These days it's pretty easy to sell things on Craigslist or eBay or give it away on Freecycle. if you want to know more about the benefits of down-sizing, look up "voluntary simplicity" on the internet or go to http://criscenzo.com/simplicity.htm.
   
   
8. Start living as if peak-oil has already happened - because it has. The price of gasoline is going to continue to go up. Families are spending more and more of their income on filling up the gas tank. Don't wait until only the wealthy can buy gas to start planning your no-gas strategy. Let your local government know that this is NOT the time to be cutting back on public transportation and increasing fares. Investing money in building roads is insanity! If your family can manage on one vehicle, sell the one that uses the most gas and start monitoring how much unnecessary driving you might be doing. If you take a bike to a local farmer's market you will only be able to buy what you can take home on your bike- it really make you more conscious of what you're buying, and you'll get some exercise in the bargain. If you are looking for a place to live, be sure access to public transportation and walkability to stores, work and school are on your checklist.

These are eight "doable" suggestions. I hope you will sit down with your family and talk about them and see if you can get consensus to try at least one of these blatant acts of Compassionate Resistance. Tomorrow I will write about Suggestion #4 - Study Peace: I ain't gonna' study war no more.

Here is a poem to inspire you to stop feeding the beast!

More or Less

Give me more.

I want more!

Fill it up, and then some.

I can't afford it,

nor can you,

but if we hoard it

no one else will get it,

So give me more!

It's never enough,

when you just want stuff.

But I don't care if millions starve,

and the future is impaired,

so long as I get MY share.

So just give me more!

Because bigger is better

I must Viagra-size my world.

My car and house are super-sized.

I need more bathrooms

than occupants,

because I have so much sh*t.

But I want more!

Fill up this endless emptiness,

with lots of junk

and food that's fast

and white and free of nutrients,

leaving me always hungry

for more.

Wal-Mart shoppers beware

when you price compare,

the hidden costs

of conspicuous consumption

are enslaving and degrading you

for everything you think you own

continues to extract a price,

even when the shine is dulled

and your interest in it ended

it must be stored and insured

and of course, defended.

But for God's sake, give me more!

Like crazed junkies we clamor

for the latest craze

we've been programmed to enamor.

Whoever dies with the most toys

is finally free from their excess,

because

we who possess the most

are the most possessed.

So maybe we should just

change our tune

to --

Give me less.

~~~~

www.criscenzo.com

Jeeni Criscenzo is an entrepreneur, peace activist and author. She was 2006 Democratic candidate for Congress - 49th District. In 2003 she traveled around the country in an RV, writing her daily blog: CPR4Democracy. She is also a founder of (more...)

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author
and do not necessarily reflect those of this website or its editors.

December 28, 2010 at 06:38:40

Compassionate Resistance - Part 2 - Being Resourceful

By Jeeni Criscenzo (about the author)

opednews.com

#2 BEING RESOURCEFUL: In the end, those who know how to survive will be the ones who will survive.

I cooked up a traditional Italian feast this Christmas for family and friends, and in return I feasted on their compliments, especially that minute of total silence when everyone was so focused on what they were eating that they all stopped talking! I'd been preparing that meal for two days, with two kinds of lasagna (traditional meat and béchamel spinach) as the main course, side dishes of zucchini, mashed Kobocha squash, string bean casserole and garlic bread, appetizers of toasted pita bread and hummus, fennel and celery sticks, and for dessert, Espresso with home-baked almond and chocolate biscotti! Everything was organic and made from scratch and the nurturing mother in me was gratified to know that in addition to delighting everyone's taste buds, I had provided them with healthy nourishment. The camaraderie and laughter that was shared across four generations during that meal made all the effort worthwhile.

Afterwards, when I was portioning out leftovers for my guests to take home, I thought about how unfortunate it is that so few people these days know how to cook. I mean, really cook -- starting with basic ingredients and knowing how to embellish a recipe or create your own. How many households don't have anyone who can put together a healthy meal using whatever fresh produce is in season and whatever whole grains are on hand? It's an important question for many reasons, including health, costs and the future availability of food.

Unfortunately, those skills that were once relegated to women: cooking, sewing, gardening and even child care, seem to have been cast off along with the abuse and restrictions that kept women suppressed for centuries. Just as I was settling into the traditional female role of wife and mother, my liberated sisters were happily joining the workforce. Ladies' magazines where filled with advice on how to cajole our mates into sharing household chores or, that failing, paying someone else to do it. The vital arts of housekeeping were disparaged, demeaned and forgotten.

But what happens when there isn't enough money to go out to eat or to pay someone else to keep the house? What happens when we realize that fast food isn't healthy and we can't afford fancy restaurants? What happens when there aren't enough jobs for every adult in the household, or even for one breadwinner? How will families survive as the rules for survival are revised?

Having "survival skills" means more than knowing what bugs you can eat if you're lost in the wilderness or who to vote out on some TV "reality" show. In the real world version of Survivor our success is going to depend on cooperation and people in our community having the critical skills our ancestors acquired thousands of years ago for securing water, food, shelter, clothing, warmth and "waste management".

Imagine that there was suddenly a major natural or man-made disaster that left our entire area without electricity for an indefinite period of time, and you couldn't drive over to the local sporting goods store with your credit card to stock up on camping gear and MRE meals. Would you be able to provide even the most basic necessities for yourself and your family to survive? We may soon be facing a post-peak-oil world, where only the super-wealthy can afford gas and electricity. Will you survive? You only have to look as far as the enclaves of homeless people in our cities to realize that urban survival without financial resources is more difficult than survival in the wilderness. Not only do we need to be resourceful, we need to be cooperative.

In order to successfully engage in a Compassionate Resistance movement, we need to know that we can survive as a community without being dependent on resources the elite control, such as gasoline and processed food. We need to relearn those skills our mothers learned from their mothers: how to grow vegetables in the backyard without Miracle Grow -- how to make (or at least mend and alter) clothes" how to cook up a healthy meal with whatever ingredients we have on hand" how to collect and save water" how to compost" how to raise chickens and goats" the list goes on and on.

And there are equally important skills that our father's had that we need to learn, including carpentry and mechanical skills, to build and maintain shelter. We need to know how to adapt new, green technology to run existing apparatus, how to generate electricity from solar power, how to repair and modify cars for electric power, repair bicycles etc.

Humankind made a great step forward in recognizing that tasks and skills are not gender-specific. But the generation of men and women who knew how to get by just fine before there were supermarkets and computers is aging, and will soon be gone. If we lose their knowledge with their passing, it will be as devastating to humanity as the burning of the library of Alexandria. Fortunately, there are many creative people who are resurrecting the know-how of our grandparents and improving on it with new technology. We can grow food in less space with much less water using hydroponics" convert food scraps into super compost with vermiculture" build dome houses from raw earth with superadobe" use composting toilets to treat human waste" recycle grey water" and capture rainwater.

Let's learn and share that knowledge by converting our lawns to vegetable gardens, and converting every vacant lot into community gardens for people who don't have yards. Let's bring kitchens back to our school cafeterias, with real ovens and stoves and so we can teach our kids how to cook delicious, healthy food instead of "nuking" faux food. Let's get our communities off the grid with solar panels on every rooftop. Let's reintroduce home economics into our schools as a requirement for all students. And in doing this together-- learning from our elders and sharing what we know, and becoming more resourceful as a community by putting our skills and talents to work for the common good-- we will also be affirming our independence from fossil fuels, factory farming and consumerism. And seeing our liberation from the shackles of the dark shadows of greed, our detractors will grow silent and our movement of Compassionate Resistance will grow strong.

www.criscenzo.com

Jeeni Criscenzo is an entrepreneur, peace activist and author. She was 2006 Democratic candidate for Congress - 49th District. In 2003 she traveled around the country in an RV, writing her daily blog: CPR4Democracy. She is also a founder of (more...)

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author
and do not necessarily reflect those of this website or its editors.

Upwising: Compassionate Resistance - Part I: Helping Others

December 27, 2010 at 08:51:30

Tag(s): Compassion; Homelessness; Revolution

Compassionate resistance - Part I

By Jeeni Criscenzo (about the author)

opednews.com

I like to take advantage of the fact that my birthday coincides with the New Year as a time to take stock of life in general and my life in particular. Since I've recently been admonished for sounding the alarm of impending doom when people just don't want to hear it, I'm hesitant to write about my assessment of our current situation. So let's just assume, if you are reading this, that you know full-well we are facing a convergence of catastrophes and I won't go into the depressing details that inspired the following essay.

Most of my friends consider themselves progressives and many are in the throes of frustration and despair. Their hopes for peace, justice and sanity have been dashed by an onslaught of double-speak legislation and democracidal judicial rulings. They are heartbroken by family and neighbors who have bought into an Orwellian system that encourages them to speak and act against their own interest, without a shred of human compassion. Some of my friends are so exasperated that they have even been citing this sentence in the United States Declaration of Independence that justified the American Revolution:

• But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

But revolution, in the traditional sense, is not a realistic strategy for dealing with the unabashed evil we are facing today. It may have worked for colonial revolutionaries, but it would be disastrous against the brand of despotism we face today. Gun control opponents take heed - nothing you have in your gun cabinet can defend you from the high tech weapons and psyops already being wielded against us. But while outright rebellion is not a viable option, no matter what the Borg may say, RESISTANCE is NOT futile. What we need is a concerted roadmap for a new kind of resistance - an irresistible resistance that transcends the barriers of our controlled media and transforms opponents into eager, compassionate converts. So over the next seven days I am going to offer some suggestions for achieving what Swami Beyondananda would call an "upwising"- a quiet movement of compassionate resistance.

#1: HELPING OTHERS - If someone needs help, just help them, because that's the right thing to do.

Marches, demonstrations, protests, lobbying our legislators, writing letters to the editor and even blogging are becoming so ineffective that they're irrelevant. Our voices have been strategically silenced while crisis unfolds. It's time to put down the protest signs and get all hands on deck to help the folks falling overboard. Despite anything the media tries to tell us, the economy is NOT getting better for the majority of Americans. There are no jobs and when good people can't earn money or can't earn enough money to pay the mortgage or rent, and the government cuts out all the safety nets, hard-working, decent folks end up living on the sidewalks.

Take a walk downtown any evening and see people huddled under every overpass, in doorways, behind shrubbery. Open your eyes and SEE human beings, families, women and CHILDREN living on the sidewalk of YOUR town or city! Ask yourself, "Is this acceptable?" Then decide to do something to help. You don't need to help every person in the world who is falling on hard times. You can't. So don't look for someone else to tell you what needs to be done- you heart will tell you. People are so desperate that you can't make a mistake, any act of kindness is important.

Go home and gather up that camping gear you haven't used in years, extra blankets, jackets, ponchos and whatever you can spare and just take them to the places where you see homeless people. Pull over and ask if anyone needs some dry clothes or a sleeping bag. You'll be astonished the first time someone tells you that they don't need anything "but the old lady huddled up just over there needs something". All of your preconceptions about poor people will go out the window as you see first-hand, over and over, that the worse-off people are, the more they seem to care about one another. I think that might just be an aspect of human nature that the powers-that-be, who are trying to get us all fighting amongst ourselves, have overlooked. And it might be our most powerful weapon of compassionate resistance.

Strike up a conversation with the people you meet on the street. Don't be judgmental- just remember that if it wasn't for some good luck you could be them. Please don't preach or tell anyone what they should do. Be ready to listen, because people have so much bottled up and no one to tell it to. You might be the first person who ever showed an interest. Your attention is as valuable as anything else you can offer. Just making eye contact and saying "Hello!" to someone you might normally ignore, is an act of compassion. If you are worried that people will ask you for money if you acknowledge them, then have a response ready, although you will seldom need it. I respond with the question, "Are you hungry?" At least you have acknowledged their humanity.

Is that a little scary? Then start out by helping someone else who's already doing something for the less fortunate. My hope in humanity has been totally restored in the past few months as I've worked with so many local groups of people who are out there giving their time and energy to helping the poor. No one gave any of these groups an instruction book on how to do this. In every case they have started out with one or two people who just decided to do something. They didn't ask for permission; they just followed their hearts. Groups like Girls Think Tank (www.girlsthinktank.org) who distribute backpacks filled with necessities to people living on the streets and Just call Us Volunteers (www.justcallusvolunteers.org) who prepare and serve delicious and nourishing meals for the homeless, began just that way, and now have inspired many volunteers to help them. It's also how we started our organization, Amikas (www.amikas.org).

Many people I know, who help the poor, belong to a church group, but you can just as easily get your friends together to do something, or make it a family project. Compassion isn't copyrighted by any one religion or organization. I was talking to a man in the post office the other day, when it was so miserable outside, about ways we can help people living on the street. He told me that I had a good heart. Then he asked, "Are you a Christian?" with the assurance in his voice that I must be. I never thought about what I do in terms of religion, but in terms of recognizing our shared humanity. So I responded to his question with a question - "Do I have to be a Christian to have a good heart?" He thought about it for a second and then I saw the light go on. "No," he said, "You still can have a good heart." Yes! That's how you incite compassionate resistance!

My favorite group to work with is San Diego Veterans for Peace (www.sdvfp.org). They are part of a national organization of veterans who have experienced the horror of war and speak out in support of peacemaking instead of war mongering. Just last week the national Veterans for Peace organized an act of civil disobedience outside the White House that resulted in 138 activists getting arrested- and not one mention of it in the media. In my opinion, the work the San Diego Veterans for peace group is doing has a much better chance of building a resistance movement. Since over a quarter of those living on our streets are veterans, the SDVFP has been focusing on helping homeless veterans, and recently started an all out effort with their Sleeping Bag and Poncho Campaign that uses 100% of the funds they raise to purchase sleeping bags and ponchos!

My husband and I went out with them last Wednesday night during a pause in the relentless rain and wind we've been having here. Being able to give a sleeping bag to a man who was facing a night of miserable cold and rain with nothing but the clothes on his back, was as exhilarating as it was heart wrenching. SDVFP volunteers have been going out every night, even in the rain, even on Christmas night. They go to the Veteran's Winter Shelter and talk to the veterans who line up outside waiting to see if any beds will be available that night. There are always more people waiting than available beds, so a lucky few are chosen by picking numbers. Then Vets for Peace volunteers make sure the guys who don't get in the shelter have a sleeping bag and poncho and whatever else they can give them so they can get through the night.

One man whom I was talking to, had his foot all bandaged. I learned that he had diabetes and he was so happy that they didn't have to amputate his foot. He wasn't one of the people chosen to get in the shelter and I watched him limp away with his crutch and wondered how his foot was going to heal if he was living on the street. Thanks to Vets for Peace, at least this man who served our country had a sleeping bag and a poncho so wherever he ended up sleeping he'd be warm and dry, knowing some people care about him. That's what I call "Supporting Our Troops"! Go to http://www.sdvfp.org/vfp-documents/101213-projectponcho.pdf to find out how you can help support the good work this group is doing.

There are many organizations asking for your help these days. Because of the depressed economy, donations to all non-profits have plummeted just as the need for help has grown. The problem is compounded by the fact that government funds for many safety-net organizations have been cut or eliminated entirely. Right-wing pundits and conservative politicians are preaching a poisonous lie that depicts the poor as lazy or trying to get something for nothing. They think that the only reason to volunteer for anything is if it will help advance their own agenda. The best way we can counter this mean-spirited attitude is by our own example. When people see you treating the poor with respect and going out of your way to help them, they come to realize that this is the way human beings are supposed to act. Kindness IS contagious. Your efforts will attract others to join you and soon it will be the norm to be altruistic, and our Compassionate Resistance movement will grow.

In celebration of my birthday and the New Year, I will share a new suggestion for practicing Compassionate Resistance each day this week. If you think these thoughts have value, please pass them along.

www.criscenzo.com

Jeeni Criscenzo is an entrepreneur, peace activist and author. She was 2006 Democratic candidate for Congress - 49th District. In 2003 she traveled around the country in an RV, writing her daily blog: CPR4Democracy. She is also a founder of (more...)

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author
and do not necessarily reflect those of this website or its editors.

A Christmas Prayer from a Born-Again Atheist

A Christmas Prayer from a Born-Again Atheist

by Myles Hoenig / December 24th, 2010

It’s easy for any born-again atheist to come down hard on religious piety and expose church hypocrisy for all its worth. But it’s that time when it’s expected to muster all one’s chits for God and bless the whole world, no exceptions.

Really?

Come next Friday, Saturday and Sunday all churches, synagogues, and mosques will be doing their usual brotherhood sermons, extolling the virtues of peace and love and welcoming the stranger into one’s home, unless they’re undocumented, of course. Our Christian Senators didn’t seem to like that part of ‘his’ teachings when it came to the Dream Act.

According to icasualties.org the “Number of U.S. Military Personnel Sacrificed (Officially acknowledged) In U.S. War And Occupation Of Iraq” stands at 4,748. No doubt every church in America come Christmas morning, evening mass, along with the synagogues and mosques, will be praying for the safety of the thousands more yet to be killed. Perhaps many of those same churches (to refer to all the houses of worship) are leaders in the invisible anti-war movement. They’ve marched against the war, held vigils for the dead Iraqis and other civilians murdered, and pressured their members of Congress to stop funding the slaughter or to set a ‘reasonable’ time table to end the ongoing murder of people who are only defending themselves against the new Roman Empire (that’s in its final stages). Some may even be calling for an end of total occupation, but that’s certainly not a majority of them.

I’d like them to do something more than just their usual prayers for these soldiers. I’d like all of them, especially those who profess a belief in their pacifist son of God to do a little bit extra praying this time. They always say they pray for the innocents of war. So let’s go a step further. Let’s hear them pray that no bullet from any army issued rifle hits their target. Let them pray that not a single IED goes off. Let them pray that any civilian running away from any occupying soldier makes it home safely, regardless of whatever they did. Let them pray that the air transport systems that carry monsters of death and destruction never leave the airfield in the US or its bases in Europe and elsewhere, as if someone poured molasses in the engines. It’s not going to be The Day the Earth Stood Still but let’s see if our religious institutions actually have the courage to call for a real end of war, chastise (or excommunicate?) the policy makers of war, and not just do the convenient patriotic calls reminding all that God is on the side of America.

Many twisted Christians will say that Islam is a war-like religion. Some Muslims are seeing the occupation as a Crusade against Islam. (Damn that Bush for saying that, too. Really hurt the narrative of promoting freedom.) Tikunniks will say everyone’s at fault, including the Palestinians who fight against their oppressors. I wish they would all just shut the hell up and admit that they have no beliefs in the sanctity of universal life or they be true to their beliefs and really stop promoting the wars they ‘wish’ would end with half-assed prayers, as if praying to a concept has as much value as crossing one’s fingers when the lottery numbers come up.

And in case there is a supreme deity out there, I have my ticket for the Mega Millions this Friday. I’m crossing my fingers because I know I’m going to win.

Myles Hoenig is a disenchanted member of PGCEA, a teachers' union in Maryland. He also ran a Green Party gubernatorial campaign in Maryland in 2006. (Eddie Boyd. Presente!) He can be reached at: myles.hoenig@gmail.com. Read other articles by Myles.

This article was posted on Friday, December 24th, 2010 at 7:00am and is filed under Military/Militarism, Religion.

How Do We Shift Power to the People and Away from Concentrated Corporate Power?

Education, Organization and a Culture of Resistance Will Build an Independent Movement for Real Change

by Kevin Zeese / December 24th, 2010

The power of concentrated corporate capital was on display in Washington last week, as it has been all year. The incoming Chair of the Congressional committee responsible for banking regulation, Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL) says “my view is that Washington and the regulators are there to serve the banks.” And President Obama sat down with the CEOs of 20 large corporations to talk about how he could help Big Business increase their already record profits. And, in the Supreme Court, 13 of 16 business cases were ruled in favor of business interests.

These actions echo a year where Sen. Durbin complained the banks “own” the Congress and where President Obama worked with the health insurance industry to keep them in control of health care while claiming it was “reform,” and where the Supreme Court in Citizens United vastly increased corporate power in elections by allowing unlimited spending.

Corporate capital dominates the government and prevents the changes urgently needed in so many crisis issues for the nation and the world.

In the last year, through Prosperity Agenda I worked on many of these critical issues including the impact of corporate power on elections, providing health care to all Americans, restructuring finance regulation to prevent another economic collapse and reigning in spending on weapons and war. In all of these areas we had some impact, but in 2011 and beyond, much more will be needed.

Shifting power from concentrated corporate interests to the people is no easy task. It has taken years of work by those interests to gain the power that they have. It will take years of work to weaken the corporate stranglehold. The growing crises remind us of the urgency of our work and the need for a commitment to sustain and increase our efforts.

In preparing this article I looked back at a memo written by Lewis Powell two months before he was nominated to the Supreme Court by President Nixon. The memo was written in 1971 at a time when the business community felt it was rapidly losing power and that the capitalist system was under severe attack. Powell, a lawyer for the Richmond Chamber of Commerce, described as “the fundamental premise” of his paper that “business and the enterprise system are in deep trouble, and the hour is late.” They saw attacks coming in the colleges, in the media, on the streets, in bookstores and from politicians. Everywhere they looked they were under attack and on the verge of total defeat – the end of free markets and crony capitalism.

The purpose of the Powell memo, written to the head of the Chamber of Commerce, was to lay out a plan to restore and build corporate power. Powell laid out a plan that is instructive for those of us who want to shift power from concentrated capital to the people, who want to see a democratized economy in which people have greater control of their economic lives and are more represented in both the economy and government.

Powell’s plan was a long-term one built primarily on education and organization. In response to a “broadly based and consistently pursued” attack on corporate power, Powell wrote “independent and uncoordinated activity by individual corporations, as important as this is, will not be sufficient. Strength lies in organization, in careful long-range planning and implementation, in consistency of action over an indefinite period of years, in the scale of financing available only through joint effort, and in the political power available only through united action and national organizations.” He urged action in universities, with speaker’s bureaus, in publishing, influencing the media and working in the courts, as well as in electoral politics.

We also have a long term plan to educate, organize and unite our efforts:

• We’ve used education in writing, media and video. We strive for but do not rely on the corporate media, which is also part of the problem, to cover our work. We also recognize that too often they are part of the problem. We make our own media and work with the independent media.
• We’ve reached out to allied organizations and allied movements in order to help develop consistent and coordinated actions. And we’ve asked our thousands of members to take actions in unison so our voices are multiplied.
• We’ve used the courts and instruments of government to challenge the illegal actions of the Chamber of Commerce and Karl Rove’s American Crossroads seeking investigation and prosecution of their abuses in the 2010 elections. See more here, and here. We’ve done the same when we seek corporate responsibility for companies like Massey Energy and their CEO Don Blankenship when 29 miners were killed in West Virginia (more here) and were pleased when he resigned.

While education and organization are critical ingredients to bringing change, this is a slow process and many of the issues the nation faces are urgent. This is why we also pursue acts of protest and resistance. We did this in the health care debate and most recently in the anti-war movement. Resistance has always been an ingredient for bringing change whether it was people sitting in at segregated lunch counters, or blacks sitting in the white section of the bus, or Cindy Sheehan camping outside of George Bush’s ranch. In the next year we will see a growing culture of resistance in the United States.

Other acts of resistance are seen around the release of documents by WikiLeaks. The reaction demonstrated corporations and the government working together to block the American people from knowing what is being done in our name. VISA, Mastercard, Bank of America, PayPal, Amazon and various financial institutions stopped processing funds for WikiLeaks at the request of the government. But the truth is getting out and we now know what the government is doing in our name and must take action to stop it. Knowing the truth and not acting is complicity. More and more Americans are acting. We see resistance in the more than 1,000 mirror sites of WikiLeaks, in the more than 100,000 people who downloaded the WikiLeaks “insurance policy” and were prepared to release documents if Julian Assange were harmed. It is seen in Americans organizing for their right to know, and to reaffirm Freedom of the Press. We are organizing under the banner WikiLeaksIsDemocracy.org, with a petition signed by notables and now by thousands. Join us and urge others to as well.

It is going to take education, organization and resistance as part of a persistent independent movement for political change. Those who want real change achieve it by voting for parties dominated by the donations of corporate executives. Voting for corporate parties re-enforces corporate power. We need independent electoral activity along with an independent movement and independent media to shift the power to the people.

There is a growing movement for real paradigm shifting change. It is a slow process that is accelerating and 2011 promises to be a milestone year. Please join us in our efforts at www.ProsperityAgenda.US. We need all Americans who want a democratized economy where power is shifted to the people joining us.

Kevin Zeese is executive director of Voters for Peace. Read other articles by Kevin, or visit Kevin's website.

This article was posted on Friday, December 24th, 2010 at 7:00am and is filed under Activism, Capitalism, Corporate Globalization, Democrats, Disinformation, Obama, Solidarity, Wikileaks.

Why Johnny Can’t Protest: Reflections on December 16th

by John Halle / December 24th, 2010

One can imagine a future where protesters who chained themselves to the White House fence last Thursday tell their grandchildren about being a part of it.

The good news is that it may be well on the way to becoming legendary, joining iconic Vietnam and Civil rights era Washington protests in our collective memories. If so, this will be at least in part due to a remarkable and deeply moving video documenting the event for posterity.

Framed by a searingly prophetic oration of Chris Hedges, alongside a Lincolneque cameo by Daniel Ellsberg, a procession of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans function as a kind of Greek chorus, bearing witness to the human wreckage of war, which they both inflicted and suffer from themselves, living breathing testimonies to Hedges “War is a Force which Gives us Meaning” and his subsequent, even more radical books.

But while recognizing that halcyon possibility we must also splash ourselves with some cold water. For in an important sense, the demonstration might as well not have happened in that very few, relatively speaking, have any inkling that any such thing — the largest demonstration of Veterans at the White House since Vietnam — even occurred.

The reason, as has been noted by Dave Lindorff among others, is by now predictable: it was barely mentioned within those channels through which most get their information, which is to say, through major media: network television, high profile dailies and internet news outlets.

The underlying explanation for this blackout should also be well known by now which is that the establishment media does not challenge but rather serves power.

We need to stop complaining and simply recognize corporate media complicity and censorship as the fact of life it is. And given this fact, we need to redirect our attention to monitoring those media outlets and individuals who claim to offer alternative to the corporate mainstream and give voice to the left, such as it is.

And this means, specifically, that we need to ask certain questions about their relationship to this event.

Among these are why did left media outlets such as Common Dreams, Alternet, Counterpunch, Znet and others devote relatively little attention to the protest in the days leading up to it, even when it was already clear that it would be a major act of civil disobedience that needed, and deserved, to be reinforced by thousands of others? As for well known left writers such as Thomas Frank, Barbara Ehrenreich, and Katrina van den Heuvel why did they fail to write pieces in support of it, or even mention it, within the high profile platforms they have access to, thus getting the word out to many thousands some of whom were sure to have participated?

We can only infer the answers to these questions. But for at least two members of what might be called the “left establishment” we now have some grounds for making inferences. These are based on a recent initiative which attempted to move some of these figures from their prior positions of support, albeit highly critical support, of the administration into active opposition. Thus, in his reaction to the initiative (which he characterized as “weirdness”) Tom Hayden described the demonstration as “somewhat jusfified” while expressing doubts as to whether “it was a smart idea to begin with.” In short, an event of relatively little consequence, though Hayden did mention that civil disobedience could be “healing” for those participating in it.

In his reaction, Bill Fletcher made no comment on the demonstration confining his remarks to the observation that he was a strong critic of the administration.

It should be noted in this connection that while failing to mention the December 16th event, even when specifically requested to do so, Fletcher has been actively involved in Washington demonstrations since the Obama administration took office, most notably the union-sponsored One Nation rally on October 5.

The differences between the two protests could not be more stark and are highly revealing.

First, one was a rally held at the Lincoln Memorial some distance from the White House while the other centered around civil disobedience at the White House fence.

Secondly, more significantly, the Veterans directly and passionately criticized the Obama administration and its policies. In contrast, at the One Nation rally, according to Patrick Martin of the World Socialist website:

Nearly every speaker combined warnings of the consequences of a Republican victory in the November 2 election with appeals to those attending the rally to spend the next month in all-out campaigning for a Democratic Party victory. There was no examination of the actual policies of the Democrats, still less of the relatively insignificant differences between the two big business parties.

There was no criticism of the Obama administration by name, even by speakers who criticized some of the policies for which the Democratic president is responsible.

These two protests clearly display an unmistakable and unbridgeable difference in perspective-between support (including highly critical support), on the one side and active dissent and militant opposition on the other.

This distinction, which has immediate practical consequences for how, or whether, a protest movement will develop and flourish, admits of an explanation: in the opinion of many, much of the left leadership played a role in fomenting unrealistic expectations with respect to the Obama presidency. Their investment in the Obama brand prevents them from endorsing and playing a role in organizing protests of sufficient vehemence and intensity as these would necessarily shine a light on their failure of judgment and lack of credibility.

Whatever the cause, the course of action is clear: the institutional left establishment must get off the fence and show which side they are on — critical support or active opposition.

If not, they will be, regrettably, but justly and inevitably swept aside by the currents of protest which must now come into being.

John Halle is a Professor at the Bard College Conservatory of Music and former Green Party Alderman from New Haven's Ninth Ward. Read other articles by John, or visit John's website.

This article was posted on Friday, December 24th, 2010 at 7:00am and is filed under Activism, Anti-war, Civil Disobedience, Military/Militarism, Obama.

Americans are too Stupid to Function in a Democracy

AlterNet.org


PERSONAL HEALTH

News Junkie Post / By Stephen Dufrechou

Are We Too Dumb for Democracy? The Logic Behind Self-Delusion

When faced with facts that do not fit seamlessly into our individual belief systems, our minds automatically reject (or backfire) the presented facts.

December 19, 2010 |

A recent cognitive study, as reported by the Boston Globe, concluded that:

Facts don’t necessarily have the power to change our minds. In fact, quite the opposite. In a series of studies in 2005 and 2006, researchers at the University of Michigan found that when misinformed people, particularly political partisans, were exposed to corrected facts in news stories, they rarely changed their minds. In fact, they often became even more strongly set in their beliefs. Facts, they found, were not curing misinformation. Like an underpowered antibiotic, facts could actually make misinformation even stronger.

In light of these findings, researchers concluded that a defense mechanism, which they labeled “backfire”, was preventing individuals from producing pure rational thought. The result is a self-delusion that appears so regularly in normal thinking that we fail to detect it in ourselves, and often in others: When faced with facts that do not fit seamlessly into our individual belief systems, our minds automatically reject (or backfire) the presented facts. The result of backfire is that we become even more entrenched in our beliefs, even if those beliefs are totally or partially false.

“The general idea is that it’s absolutely threatening to admit you’re wrong,” said Brendan Nyhan, the lead researcher of the Michigan study. The occurrence of backfire, he noted, is “a natural defense mechanism to avoid that cognitive dissonance.”

The conclusion made here is this: facts often do not determine our beliefs, but rather our beliefs (usually non-rational beliefs) determine the facts that we accept. As the Boston Globe article notes:

In reality, we often base our opinions on our beliefs, which can have an uneasy relationship with facts. And rather than facts driving beliefs, our beliefs can dictate the facts we chose to accept. They can cause us to twist facts so they fit better with our preconceived notions. Worst of all, they can lead us to uncritically accept bad information just because it reinforces our beliefs. This reinforcement makes us more confident we’re right, and even less likely to listen to any new information. And then we vote.

Despite this finding, Nyhan claims that the underlying cause of backfire is unclear. “It’s very much up in the air,” he says. And on how our society is going to counter this phenomena, Nyhan is even less certain.

These latter unanswered questions are expected in any field of research, since every field has its own limitations. Yet here the field of psychoanalysis can offer a completion of the picture.

Disavowal and Backfire: One and the Same

In an article by psychoanalyst Rex Butler, Butler independently comes to the same conclusion as the Michigan Study researchers. In regards to facts and their relationship to belief systems (or ideologies), Butler says that:

there is no necessary relationship between reality and its symbolization … Our descriptions do not naturally and immutably refer to things, but … things in retrospect begin to resemble their description. Thus, in the analysis of ideology, it is not simply a matter of seeing which account of reality best matches the ‘facts’, with the one that is closest being the least biased and therefore the best. As soon as the facts are determined, we have already – whether we know it or not – made our choice; we are already within one ideological system or another. The real dispute has already taken place over what is to count as the facts, which facts are relevant, and so on.

This places the field of psychoanalysis on the same footing as that of cognitive science, in regards to this matter. But where cognitive studies end, with Nyhan’s question about the cause of backfire, psychoanalysis picks up and provides a possible answer. In fact, psychoanalysts have been publishing work on backfire for decades; only psychoanalysis refers to backfire by another name: “disavowal”. Indeed, these two terms refer to one and the same phenomena.

The basic explanation for the underlying cause of disavowal/backfire goes as follows.

“Liberals” and “conservatives” espouse antithetical belief systems, both of which are based on different non-rational “moral values.” This is a fact that cognitive linguist George Lakoff has often discussed, which incidentally brings in yet another field of study that supports the existence of the disavowal/backfire mechanism.

In accordance with these different non-rational belief systems, any individual’s ideology tends to function also as a ‘filtering system’, accepting facts that seamlessly fit into the framework of that ideology, while dismissing facts that do not fit.

When an individual—whether a “liberal”, “conservative”, or any other potential ideology—is challenged with facts that conflict with his/her ideology, the tendency is for that individual to experience feelings of anxiety, dread, and frustration. This is because our ideologies function, like a lynch pin, to hold our psychologies together, in order to avoid, as Nyhan puts it, “cognitive dissonance”. In other words, when our lynch pins are disturbed, our psychologies are shaken.

Psychoanalysts explain that, when this cognitive dissonance does occur, the result is to ‘externalize’ the sudden negative feelings outward, in the form of anger or resentment, and then to ‘project’ this anger onto the person that initially presented the set of backfired facts to begin with. (Although, sometimes this anger is ‘introjected’ inward, in the form of self-punishment or self-loathing.)

This non-rational eruption of anger or resentment is what psychoanalysts call “de-sublimation”. And it is at the point of de-sublimation, when the disavowal/backfire mechanism is triggered as a defense against the cognitive dissonance.

Hence, here is what mentally occurs next, in a matter of seconds:

In order to regain psychological equilibrium, the mind disavows the toxic facts that initially clashed with the individuals own ideology, non-rationally deeming the facts to be false—without assessing the validity of the facts.

The final step occurs when the person, who offered the toxic facts, is then non-rationally demonized. The person, here, becomes tainted as a ‘phobic object’ in the mind of the de-sublimated individual. Hence, the other person also becomes perceived to be as toxic as the disavowed facts, themselves.

At this point, ad hominem attacks are often fired at the source of the toxic facts. For example: ‘stupid liberal’ or ‘stupid conservative’, if in a political context. Or, ‘blasphemer’ or ‘heretic’, if in a religious context. At this point, according to psychoanalysis, psychological equilibrium is regained. The status quo of the individual’s ideology is reinforced to guard against future experiences of de-sublimation.

Why Do Different Ideologies Exist?

This all begs the obvious question about the existence of differing ideologies between people. Why do they exist? And how are they constituted differently? George Lakoff has demonstrated in his studies (which are supported strongly by psychoanalysis), that human beings are not born already believing an ideology. Rather people are socialized into an ideology during their childhood formative years. The main agents which prescribe the ideology are the parental authority figures surrounding the child, who rear him, from infantile dependency on the parent-figures, into an independent adult. The parental values of how the child should be an independent and responsible adult, in regards to his relations between his self and others, later informs that child’s ideology as an adult.

Lakoff shows that two dominant parenting types exist, which can determine the child’s adult ideology. Individuals reared under the “Strict Parent” model tend to grow-up as political conservatives, while those raised under a “Nurturing Parent” model tend to become political liberals. His most influential book on these matters, “Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think”, was published in 1996.

Of course, peoples’ minds can fundamentally change, along with their ideological values. But short of a concerted effort by an individual to change, through one form of therapy or another, that change is mostly fostered by traumatic or long-endured life experiences.

Yet many minds remain rock solid for life, beliefs included. As psychiatrist Scott Peck sees it, “Only a relative and fortunate few continue until the moment of death exploring the mystery of reality, ever enlarging and refining and redefining their understanding of the world and what is true.”

Thus to answer Nyahan’s question—how can society counter the negative effects of backfire?—it seems only one answer is viable. Society will need to adopt the truths uncovered by cognitive science and psychoanalysis. And society will have to use those truths to inform their overall cultural practices and values. Short of that, Peck’s “fortunate few” will remain the only individuals among us who resist self-delusion.

Stephen Dufrechou is Editor of Opinion and Analysis for News Junkie Post.

Being the Change You Seek for the World

Become the change you seek in the world.



become the change you seek



As early pioneers in the knowing, that when you lose your reason, you attain highest perfect knowing

- -Jack Kerouac, Book Of Blues, 55th Chourus, Desolation Blues

It was previously a question of finding out whether or not life had to have a meaning to be lived. It now becomes clear, on the contrary, that it will be lived all the better if it has no meaning.

- Albert Camus

The need to be right is the sign of a vulgar mind.

- Albert Camus

Few are those who can see with their own eyes and hear with their own hearts.

- Albert Einstein

Aye, but isn't the man who chooses the bad in some way better than the man who has the good forced upon him?

- Alex (A Clockwork Orange)

Brain: an apparatus with which we think we think.

- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" ( $ ) ( ? )

To be ignorant of one's ignorance is the malady of the ignorant.

- Amos Bronson Alcolt

He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts--for support rather than for illumination.

- Andre Lang

Another way in is the other way out; Never doubt where to exit; it is another entrance out.

- Andrew S. Pudliner

it must be funnier to be stoned than to watch people who are stoned

- Anonymous

For example, justice is considered to mean equality, It does mean equality- but equality for those who are equal, and not for all.

- Aristotle

Happiness is something final and complete in itself, as being the aim and end of all practical activities whatever .... Happiness then we define as the active exercise of the mind in conformity with perfect goodness or virtue.

- Aristotle

We are what we repeatedly do.

- Aristotle

Wit is educated insolence.

- Aristotle

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

- Aristotle

Everything is held together with stories. That is all that is holding us together, stories and compassion.

- Barry Lopez

It is the path of least resistance that makes rivers and men crooked.

- Bj Palmer

its like a finger, pointing at the moon. if you stare at the finger, you miss all the heavenly glory

- Bruce Lee Enter The Dragon

Now you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup You put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle. You put water into a teapot, and it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow or it can crash! Be water, my friend.

- Bruce Lee, TAO of Jeet Kune Do

Nothing is ever accomplished by a reasonable man.

- Bucy's Law

you have two ears and only one mouth for a reason

- Buddhist Belief

I'm an idealist: I don't know where I'm going, but I'm on my way.

- Carl Sandburg

The only thing required for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.

- Castlevania - Symphony Of The Night

How this feels is I'm just another task in God's daily planner: The Renaissance pencilled in for right after the Dark Ages. The Information Age is scheduled immediately after the Industrial Revolution. Then the Post-Modern Era, then The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Famine. Check. Pestilence. Check. War. Check. Death. Check. And between the big events, the earthquakes and tidal waves, God's got me squeezed in for a cameo appearance. Then maybe in thirty years, or maybe next year, God's daily planner has me finished.

- Chuck Palahniuk

Evilwill always triumph over good, because it is dumb.

- Dark Helmet

Buckskin flaps his lips feverishly at the sight of white cubes, unaware that in time, sugar and horses will both become glue.

- David Kerman

To be is to do.

- Descartes

Learning how to stand up is easy. Learning how to stand up after you've fallen down, that is tough.

- Dican

You can never lose what you never had.

- Dican

It is not the brains that matter most, but that which guides them---the character, the heart, generous qualities, progressive ideas.

- Dostoyevsky

We must either outlive our friends, you know, or our friends must outlive us; and I see no man that would hesitate about the choice.

- Dr. Samuel Johnson

I don't suffer from insanity but enjoy every minute of it

- Edgar Allan Poe

Everything is but a dream within a dream."

- Edgar Allen Poe

Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.

- Edward Abbey

There's a part of every living thing that wants to become itself: the tadpole into the frog, the chrysalis into the butterfly, a damaged human being into a whole one. That is spirituality

- Ellen Bass

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

- Evelyn Beatrice Hall, "The Friends of Voltaire" ( $ ) ( ? )

In a real dark night of the soul, it is always three o'clock in the morning, day after day.

- F. Scott Fitzgerald

If you want to have clean ideas, change them as often as you change your shirts.

- Francis Picabia

Every civilizaiton must contend with an unconscious force which can block, betray, or countermand almost any conscience intention of the collectivity. (Tleilaxu Theorem)

- Frank Herbert

Do be do be do.

- Frank Sinatra

That which is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil.

- Friedrich Nietzsche

He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster.

- Friedrich Nietzsche

Finally consider that even the seeker after knowledge forces his spirit to recognige things against the inclination of the spirit , and often enough also against the wishes of his heart--by way of saying no where he would like to say yes,love, and adore--- and thus acts as an artist and transfigurer of cruelty.

- Friedrich Nietzsche

Perhaps I know why it is man alone who laughs: He alone suffers so deeply that he had to invent laughter.

- Friedrich Nietzsche

I no longer want to walk on worn soles

- Friedrich Nietzsche

A man who has a why to live for, can bear almost any how.

- From Victor E Frankl , "Man's Search for Meaning" ( $ ) ( ? )

Of all the days that was the one—an age of reason could have begun.

- Galileo, (1564 –1642)

Live simply that other may simply live.

- Gandhi

Nonviolence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man.

- Gandhi

Become the change you seek in the world.

- Gandhi

We must be the change we wish to see.

- Gandhi

"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated."

- Ghandi

If I accept you as you are, I will make you worse; however, if I treat you as though you are what you are capable of becoming, I help you become that.

- Goethe

Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.

- Henry David Thoreau

If I have got false teeth, I trust that I have not got a false conscience. It is safer to employ the dentist than the priest to repair the deficiencies of nature.

- Henry David Thoreau

As long as a man stands in his own way, everything seems to be in his way: government, society, and even the sun, moon and stars.

- Henry David Thoreau

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.

- Henry David Thoreau, "Walden" ( $ ) ( ? )

To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust.

- Henry David Thoreau, "Walden" ( $ ) ( ? )

Obstacles are those frightful things we see when we take our eyes off our goal.

- Henry Ford

My friends, on the other hand, entrenched themselves more solidly in the little ditch of understanding which they had dug for themselves. They died comfortably in their little bed of understanding, to become useful citizens of the world.

- Henry Miller

I saw the errors I had made and assumed full responsibility for everything. You know, instead of being a man who would say, ‘Well, it’s a rotten system we live under,’ and griping about politics, economics and the social condition, I said, ‘Despite all that, I could have acted differently, I could have come out,’ do you see? And I saw that as being the fault of my own nature, character and temperament. I accepted it, and once I did that, a great weight fell off me. I was liberated. I was able to really enjoy myself.

- Henry Miller

Don't do anything by half. If you love someone, love them with all your soul. When you go to work, work your ass off. When you hate someone, hate them until it hurts.

- Henry Rollins

Sometimes the truth hurts. And sometimes it feels real good.

- Henry Rollins

The ultimate result of shielding man from the effects of folly is to people the world with fools.

- Herbert Spencer

Time: that which man is always tring to kill, ends in killing him

- Herbert Spencer

Before the beginning of great brilliance and beauty there first must be a period of complete chaos.

- I-Ching

All your nonsenses and truths, your finery and squalid options, combine and coalesce into one noise including laugh and whimper, scream and sigh, forever and forever repeating, in any tongue we care to choose, whatever lessened, separated message we want to hear. The Universe says simply, but with every possible complication, 'Existence' and it neither pressures us nor draws us out, except as we allow. It all boils down to nothing, and where we have the means and will to fix our reference within that flux, then there we are. Let me be part of that outrageous chaos... and I am.

- Ian Banks, "The Crow Road" ( $ ) ( ? )

Never let your sense of morals keep you from doing what is right.

- Isaac Asimov

For every problem, there exists a simple and elegant solution which is absolutely wrong.

- J. Wagoner, U.C.B. Mathematics

All is well, practice kindness, heaven is nigh.

- Jack Kerouac

to sit back and do nothing is to cooperate with the oppresser

- Jane Elliot

Man can will nothing unless he has first understood that he must count on no one but himself; that he is alone, abandoned on earth in the midst of his infinite responsibilities, without help, with no other aim than the one he sets himself, with no other destiny than the one he forges for himself on this earth.

- Jean-Paul Sartre

If something is boring after two minutes, try it for four. If still boring, then eight. Then sixteen. Then thirty-two. Eventually one discovers that it is not boring at all.

- John Cage

As far as consistency of thought goes, I prefer inconsistency.

- John Cage

Because a star explodes and a thousand worlds like ours die, we know this world is. That is the smile: that what might not be, is.

- John Fowles, "The Magus" ( $ ) ( ? )

You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet

- Kafka

Man will often act and live as though he were apart from his body, as if improving it from the outside.

- Karl Marx

Free from desire, you realize the mystery. Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations.

- Lao Tzu

When you are content to be simply yourself and don't compare or compete, everybody will respect you

- Lao-Tzu

If it was so, it might be; and it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic.

- Lewis Carrol

Be what you would seem to be - or, if you'd like it put more simply - never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise.

- Lewis Carroll

The real question of life after death isn't whether or not it exists, but even if it does, what problems this really solves.

- Ludwig Wittgenstein

If the brain were so simple we could understand it, we would be so simple we couldn't.

- Lyall Watson

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.

- Mahatma Ghandi

Let us so live that when we come to die even the undertaker is sorry.

- Mark Twain

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

- Mark Twain

If a man hasn't discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live.

- Martin Luther King Jr.

In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.

- Martin Luther King Jr.

We must all learn to live together as brothers, or we are all going to perish together as fools.

- Martin Luther King Junior

If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures, like Shakespeare wrote poetry, like Beethoven composed music; sweep streets so well that all the host of Heaven and Earth will have to pause and say,"Here lived a great sweeper, who swept his job well

- Martin Luther King, Jr., Facing The Challenge Of A New Age

Nothing short of our own errors should offend us. He who can willfully attempt to injure another is an object of pity rather than resentment; while it is a question in my mind if there is enough of a flatterer, a fool, or a liar to offend a whole-souled woman.

- Mary Baker Eddy

Technically, noting exists, and everything does not.

- Max Levin

...Every advance in knowledge brings us face to face with the mystery of our own being."

- Max Planck

Life is a disease, sexually transmitted and fatal.

- Neil Gaiman

"According to the Buddha, these are all signs of a false identity: fear, attachment, shame, compulsion and rigidity. Hmmm. I feel like if I didn't have these things, I'd never clean my house. What's up with that?"

- Nerissa Nields

The greatest spiritual truths, with the greatest ability to transform our lives, are often the ones that look superficially like the twisted and sick rantings of a permanently-adolescent mental inadequate.¡±

- Pastor N. Pizzor

As time transcends, you sit alone in your room. You ask yourself... “Exactly why was I put here on earth?” You snicker a little bit, pondering the thought. The more you think about, the less comprehensible it becomes. It is imperative that you understand, there are infinite numbers of people that were put on the Earth for the same reason. To live. People ask, “What’s the meaning of life?” I personally, believe there is NO meaning of life. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if everything was just in imaginary illusion, processed deeply in our barren minds. If there is a meaning of life, was it intended to be left unknown. Left in the shadow, traceless. Or is it there to drive Philosophers and human beings insane, yearning for that grateful answer.

- Quinton Terintino

To have arrived on this earth as a product of a biological accident, only to depart through human arrogance, would be the ultimate irony.

- R. Leakey

The truth is the light and light is the truth.

- Ralph Ellison, "Invisible Man" ( $ ) ( ? )

I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

A foolish consistecny is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and devines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. he may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and tomorrow say what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict everything you say today. "Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood." Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Jesus and Socrates and Luther and Copericus and Galileo and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Do not go where the path may lead instead go where there is no path and leave a trail.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate; to have it make some difference that you have lived, and lived well.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumber with your old nonsense.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

What lies between us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

To cross the river of boredom, one must first, hop onto the stone of imagination

- Rensouken

The strength of the genie comes from being in a bottle

- Richard Wilbur In Time, In An Essay On Male Silence

In life men seek to things, exceptance and meaning, while finding only exceptance one can never find meaning, but when one seeks meaning he will be excepted

- Robbie Mcdonald

A man's reach should exceed his grasp; else what's a heaven for?

- Robert Browning

When I became convinced that the universe is natural, that all the ghosts and gods are myths, there entered into my brain, into my soul, into every drop of my blood the sense, the feeling, the joy of freedom. The walls of my prison crumbled and fell. The dungeon was flooded with light and all the bolts and bars and manacles became dust. I was no longer a servant, a serf, or a slave. There was for me no master in all the wide world, not even in infinite space. I was free--free to think, to express my thoughts--free to live my own ideal, free to live for myself and those I loved, free to use all my faculties, all my senses, free to spread imagination's wings, free to investigate, to guess and dream and hope, free to judge and determine for myself . . . I was free!

- Robert G. Ingersoll

How does a newness come into the world? How is it born? Of what fusions, translations, conjoinings is it made? How does it survive, extreme and dangerous as it is? What compromises, what deals, what betrayals of its secret nature must it make to stave off the wrecking crew, the exterminating angel, the guillotine? Is birth always a fall? Do angels have wings?

- Salman Rushdie, "The Satanic Verses" ( $ ) ( ? )

when living life becomes a chore, you should think about those who are grounded to their graves.

- Santiago

Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.

- Sartre

Leaves of inquisitevness floating on winds of doubt fall on an ignorant ground.

- Scott Steen

A day without sunshine is, you know, night.

- Shannon

My advice to you is to get married: if you find a good wife you'll be happy: if not, you'll become a philosopher

- Socrates

The unexamined life is not worth living.

- Socrates

He who is not contented with what he has, will not be contented with what he doesn't have.

- Socrates

"I didn't expect you to understand me," he answered. "With your cold American intelligence you can ony adopt the critical attitude. Emerson and all that sort of thing. But what is criticism? Criticism is purely destructive; anyone can destroy, but not everyone can build up. You are a pedant, my dear fellow. The important thing is to construct: I am constructive; I am a poet."

- Somerset Maugham, "Of Human Bondage" ( $ ) ( ? )

In my end is my beginning.

- T.S. Eliot

See, I think we have to ask ourselves--and this is corny in a way--what are we doing here. And I've become convinced, after a lifetime of asking that question,that we are here to enlarge our souls, light up our brains, and liberate our spirits.

- Tom Robbins

I don't want to die without scars

- Tyler Durden

True greatness consists in the use of a powerful understanding to enlighten oneself and others.

- Voltaire

To do is to be.

- Voltaire

Anything that is too stupid to be spoken is sung.

- Voltaire

I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars.

- Walt Whitman

"There are three kinds of people in the world: those who can count, and those who can't"

- Warren Buffet

If the doors of perception were to be cleansed man would see everything as it truly is... Infinite.

- William Blake

There is only one thing a philosopher can be relied upon to do, and that is to contradict other philosophers.

- William James

There is something to be learned from a rainstorm. When meeting with a sudden shower, you try not to get wet and run quickly along the road. But doing such things as passing under the eaves of houses, you still get wet. When you are resolved from the beginning, you will not be perplexed, though you still get the same soaking. This understanding extends to everything.

- Yamamoto Tsunetomo

There are three kinds of people - those who can count and those who can't.

- Yogi Berra

You can have anything you want in this life, as long as you help enough other people get what they want.

- Zig Ziggler

no one, not even the rain has such small hands

- ee cummings