Plan BK: The Solutions - War Heroes Still Exist... (Or "Get your Dr. Phil of my Tupac Chopra")

...let us never forget.


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"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."

- Dwight D. Eisenhower
- 34th President of the United States
- Farewell Address to the Nation
- January 17, 1961


"When we got into office, the thing that surprised me the most was that things were as bad as we'd been saying they were."

"The men who create power make an indispensable contribution to the Nation's greatness, but the men who question power make a contribution just as indispensable, especially when that questioning is disinterested, for they determine whether we use power or power uses us."

"We must never forget that art is not a form of propaganda; it is a form of truth."

"Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind."

- John F. Kennedy
- 35th President of the United States
- Assasinated in Dallas, Texas
- November 22, 1963


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Download a movie to help Save The World...

*** Martial Law 9/11: Rise of the Police State ***

http://www.archive.org/details/MartialLaw911

(...)


War is the root of all sadness in the world.

The Military-Industrial Complex has hijacked the worlds of business, finance, and education, and used them to corrupt the moral fabric of society. This has been a gradual and deliberate process involving a controlling and/or erasing of history to weaken our knowledge-base and sense of identity, and the installation of a rigidity in thinking that's unnatural in humans with a natural end to happiness.


(...)


Buddy lost his mind and found his soul at Burning Man, and as long as he doesn't forget where he put it, he'll be vibing right for a fortnight. That's an incredibly valuable position to be in, and can be used as a springboard to an extended positive emotional consistency. This was (partly) a result of being in the most gaudily-selfless environment on earth, where free-expression was endorsed completely, and where people would build beautiful complex structures such as a giant harp made of laser beams - and then leave it alone completely for anyone to enjoy while they wandered around the festival. Top DJ's paid to get in and anonymously played their wax off, and the absolute right of bizarre free expression was not only paramount, it was necessary to fit in.

This dictate doesn't involve acting "bigger" as a personality or expressing it "louder", it was (as I understand it) going beyond merely accepting what was happening as part of an event to having the intellectual courage to embrace the inherent value in it's uniqueness with any appreciative action or thought that maximized the elevated motional equilibrium.

This is not traditional theatre, but rather the interactivity of the highly individual and often spiritual pursuits of all 35,000 wandering visitors in the audience of their own party - those who built mammoth odes to mammoth odes or not.

Yep, it's the best party/spiritual retreat (it's a package deal) on earth.

To give the "builders" their credit, they set the bar really high with some of the crazy stuff they did: I saw a picture of a beautifully intricate three-story tall wooden ball on a four-armed based, with four curved equidistant arms moving closer to a single touch-point for 7 days. On the 7th day the arms finally touched, and the giant intricately carved wooden ball collapsed and shattered into a million pieces.

What's the point?

Figure it out and you'll be happier...


(...)


As I remember it (this is an oldie but a goodie), three things hold us back from being comfortable: Fear, Shame, and Revelation.

FEAR: We're scared of a worsening world, we're scared of being poor, we're scared of being robbed, we're scared of getting sick, we're scared of each other...

SHAME: We're ashamed of who we are, we're ashamed of what we know, we're ashamed of each other, we're ashamed of what we say so we get shyer or louder...

REVELATION: We have circles of interest that we reveal more of our true selves to, without realizing that friends are made the fastest with the fullest revelations whether they are "traded" or not. Even in the business world this can work, as one can "network" at full-speed on the "business" and "friendship" tip and see (feel?) which one (if any or both) they get brushed-back on. Word of Mouth is spread through the "What a nice guy!" principle, opportunities expand accordingly, and the stressful list of enemies, adversaries, or those who will not facilitate success grows shorter.


(...)


Another friend said she heard far different things about Burning Man, and they were not nearly as "nice". I told her that's just the "middle-management" of intelligence talking, and they don't know what they're talking about.


Middle-Managment Intelligence (MMI) thinks they're "smarter" by "crapping" on things, and by cynically finding the worst possible fantasy as an interpretive framework. Neutral actions are torn apart by suggesting they are inevitably worse than they are or not as good as promised, and unhappy smart people afflicted with LSS (Lisa Simpson Syndrome) who've managed to crack into the "cool" circles of society hold their own by feeding into the bad ideas of "cooler" people. They were "nerds" or insecure in some fashion so they never developed into "leaders", and they facilitate or buy into prevailing bad logic and in order to fit-in. A culture is then wrecked by a race to the bottom of competitive critiques, and by over-intellectualizing possible flaws to the exclusion of seeing or saying it's virtues. This then leads to others quickly drawing "black and white" conclusions using elements from the available templates, as those who say or think (x) are inevitably bad people - despite the fact that no human being can be defined or dismissed based on any one action.


Upper-Management Intelligence (UMI) has a far different approach, and they are celebrated by nearly all of us for "celebrating" life. They are admittedly smarter hence qualifying for their senior positions, and yet to advance up our intelligence food chain we tend to focus on getting better at our MMI skills due to peer pressure. We fail to recognize that UMI skills actually negate the negative effects of peer pressure, and are a moral and ethical shield against the slings and arrows of outrageous insults. We all know to listen to UMI's, and they can be found in the spheres of religion, art, business, culture... just people you know who are nigh-"universally" recognized as cut a cut-above. Their actions are often seen as beyond a human's capacity to repeat - until you realize there's really a crapload of 'em...


(...)


Besides, I think a lot of them want us to beat 'em, or at least try.

After all, they didn't finish the job, but they gave it a hell of a start, and we're pretty much jumping on the intellectual bandwagon to victory if we riiide...


(...)


It's kind of like seeing Lebron James surpass Michael Jordan as the Greatest Basketball Player of All-Time.

Will it happen?

What if it does?

Well, if it does then the same thing will happen when Michael took the title: we'll all show the last guy(s) mad-love anyway.

Chamberlain, Russell, Maravich, West, Jabbar, Walton, Magic, Bird...

...they all still get mad-love and mad-throwback-money.


(...)


In the artistic community,there is often fealty to the idea of an unsurpassable artist, an artist who's work it is sacriligeous to dare to compare.

This is kind of silly, as especially with the "Save The World" folks: they left their stuff here to surpass. That's what it's here for.

If they had the stuff they gave us (and they had their own versions of the same), then they would've evolved even further than their existing achievments. With each artist hopefully bringing a "new" unique flavor anyway, it's not even a matter of copying: it's being able to suggest that the work left by the greats can be used a building blocks to be added to, not targets to inevitably shortfall.

(Or hey, at the very least you can ask them to smoosh-over and make a seat at the headz-table, I mean, they're serving butter-chicken for dinner! ;)

This also tends to retard nuanced criticism, as ideas, methaphors, allegories and such can't be discussed in a comparative sense. This is also silly.

One of my favorite artists is the late-great Tupac Shakur.

Now, we're got to remember a few things about the "young G"...


- He died at 25 years of age just rounding into maintaining maturity.

- He spent a significant chunk of his 5 public years in jail or court.

- He was still formulating his plan which was never finished.

- He spent a fair amount of time drunk and high.


He still accomplished an insane amount of stuff in his short time on earth, but by nearly everyones admission he was not infallible.

(He was probably far more infallible than The Pope who transfers pedophile-priests to different parishes instead of prosecuting them or aggressively censuring them, but he wasn't infallible.)

So, in the hundreds of songs he recorded, there are a few bricks.

And just like every artist has songs that some feel and some don't, separating the work from the infallibility of the artist leads to more honest arguments, a more human look at the individual behind the art, a deeper understanding of good and bad art as a matter of taste, and a belief in the possibility to evolve the artform further.

All individual pursuits can be run through the same intellectual calculus with the same results: today is a new day, today is a new way...


(...)


And people do this stuff, which makes all the difference in the world we want to see...


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October 20 -- New Antiwar Video -- Admission Free


War Resisters Support Campaign

On October 20 see the Premiere of:

“We won’t die for a lie.”

Fayetteville, March 19–20, 2005

Video by
Laura Jones and Bennett Jones-Phillips
Simple Goods Canada in co-operation with Video Events

Speakers:

Chuck Fager
Director of Quaker House, Fayetteville

Quaker House helps military personnel who are Conscientious Objectors to seek discharge or noncombatant service. Chuck was a staff member to Martin Luther King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference. He has helped Conscientious Objectors like Laura Jones and Jeremy Hinzman come to Canada. He led organizing for the rally shown in “We Won’t Die For A Lie”

Jeremy Hinzman

War resister Jeremy Hinzman deserted the US Army in January 2004 after his application for Conscientious Objector Status was rejected. His is currently appealing the rejection of his claim for Refugee Status in Canada. He lives in Toronto with his wife and son.

DATE: THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2005

TIME: 6:30 refreshments -- 7:00 PM presentation

PLACE: QUAKER MEETING HOUSE, 60 LOWTHER AVENUE (SUBWAY: St. George)

Admission Free

On March 19th, 2005. the second anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, 800 protest rallies took place in cities across the US and in Canada. The rally in Fayetteville, North Carolina, was unique. Fayetteville is the home of Fort Bragg, the largest military installation in the world, housing 175,000 soldiers, their families, and employees of the US Army.

The rally in Fayetteville was not the usual “peaceniks”. The participants were primarily military families, veterans, and even active duty soldiers. In spite of tight security, four thousand people showed up to express their opposition to the Iraq War. This video shows what happened that weekend.

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BONUS: Just crazy enough to work?

Something better... better keep trying...