Superstition, Fascism, and the quote on your homepage

by **darkbeforedawn** » Sun Mar 19, 2006 5:58 pm

I feel very comfortable with the quote (by is it Runi?) because in the course of my life, (and I don't necessarily think I am a "good" soul only that I don't willingly hurt others and would avoid at all costs, taking a life) this very "feeling of aversion" has saved me much grief. I get it whenever people want to pull me into lying schemes and plots which do hurt others. I get it when I meet people that "make my skin crawl" and I just stay away from them. Later I find out they really were bad. I also get it when I am going into a darkly lit alley in a bad neighborhood. I don't think the quote says anything about "God" telling me to bomb other countries or telling me anything at all. This quote just refers to a "sixth" sense that allows us to sidestep human landmines and relationship quicksand. On the other hand, I know many truly "good souls" who just don't have this sense. They marry terrible abusers and fall victim to all kinds of charlatans. I wish they had or could heed this "aversion."

by **havanagilla** » Sun Mar 19, 2006 6:23 pm

thanks chigger...:-) Alice, we can meet in Sharm A sheikh or nuewiba, in passover to discuss a new nickname, maybe i'll use "token jew" for a new nick ? well, I was going to go, but now there are all those warnings, so I will reconsider. Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=havanagilla>havanagilla</A> at: 3/19/06 3:28 pm

by **AlicetheCurious** » Sun Mar 19, 2006 7:36 pm

I'll take my chances with the soundtrack that starts up in my head (with percussion) whenever I read your current pseudonym...no offence, but "token jew" is a TERRIBLE nickname. What were you thinking! How about a nickname that emphasizes the aspect of yourself that you're bringing to the discussion? Or one that makes you smile? "Token jew" is not only dehumanizing to you, but to the people you're communicating with. Re: Sharm el Sheikh would be great, and I've never been to Nuweiba, so that would be nice too, but maybe in the summer. I'm going abroad for Easter, praying that everybody's wrong and there won't be a war.

by **starroute** » Sun Mar 19, 2006 9:43 pm

Part of the problem presented by the Rumi quote is that it's full of phrases that are obviously either standard medieval philosophical assumptions or Sufi technical terms -- or both -- and that us moderns can only dumb down in the attempt to understand. I'm not going to claim that I understand it myself, but I do have some vague idea of where to look. For example, I just googled on "light of the heart" and came up with a mix of references from various traditions. For example, <a href="http://www.vedanet.com/Heart2.htm">here's</a> something Vedantic: <blockquote>Quote:<hr>The heart is the source of our entire being. All our different faculties are like different rays branching out from the central light of the heart which is like the Sun. All our energies are conduits of the energy of the heart, however far they may wander from it. In deep sleep we return to this inner light for peace and renewal, showing that we cannot remain apart from it even for a day. Yet the heart is not just the source of our individual existence (Atman). It is also our place of unity and connection with the cosmic existence (Brahman). It spreads not just through our entire individual beingness but throughout the entire universe. In the heart resides our main connection with the Devatas, the great cosmic powers, the Gods and Goddesses which rule the universe, its evolution and its different planes of existence. Each one of our individual faculties arising from the heart has its corresponding cosmic Deva ruling a corresponding power of nature and the greater universe. The sun, the moon, the stars, the earth and all aspects of the cosmic creative force dwell within the heart.<hr></blockquote> I bolded the one sentence which seemed to me to refer to the same thing as Rumi's "Universal Tablet." In more modern language, I would suggest that what it comes down to is the notion that although our consicious mind is completely attuned to our individual identity and personal survival, our "heart" is that part of us which is plugged into the universe as a whole, the common identity of all things, and their evolutionary progress towards ever-more-complex integrations and synergies. That is something which "good" people can connect with (though not all do), not because they are goody-goody, but because they are altruistic enough to heed the imperatives of something large than themselves. And "bad" people cannot, simply because their "badness," by definition, consists of denying the language of the "heart." (There is a special intermediate situation for fascists and the like, who may believe they are heeding the call of something larger -- the nation, the race, etc. -- at the same time as they refuse to identify with anything outside that carefully chosen boundary. This is what makes them more dangerous than the gangsters who are merely unabashedly selfish.)

by **rothbardian** » Sun Mar 19, 2006 11:06 pm

NewKid-- I totally agree with your comment: "...this notion [of moral superiority] is incredibly prevalent among what you would call the ruling classes in Washington and New York. It's unimaginable to these people that anybody other than them should be ruling the country or the world." It is this American notion that says "we are wonderful, we can do no wrong". I'm just saying this is going on in mainstream/conventional liberalism also...and thus liberals (even of the RI variety, for the most part) are offering no solution, only more of the same 'power corruption' scenarios we already have. What has been referred to as American 'exceptionalism' is being precisely mirrored in the liberal/humanist/socialist version of exceptionalism-- "Maybe all other individuals, political ideologues and other groups fall prey to the trappings of power...but we liberals are going to be the 'exception' if WE can get OUR favorite people into these positions of obscene power." Somehow, inexplicably and magically, socialists/liberals think they have moral superiority to offer to the world...just as the neocons think, and just as the PTB think, etc. darkbeforedawn-- I agree with your comment about the many truly 'good souls' "...who just don't have this sense". I immediately think of all these millions of good and decent 'heartland' people who are mistakenly backing the evil psychopaths in Washington DC. I think it is very important to examine why this has happened, instead of a simplistic dismissal of all of them as being 'bad' people. You yourself are taking the trouble to distinguish a little bit. But many 'liberals' dismiss all of them as stupid, evil Nazis ("they're bad, we're good"). And the FreeRepublic.com types are doing the exact same thing in reverse ("those fuzzy-headed pinkos!"). It all plays perfectly into the PTB's plan to 'divide-and-conquer' between the libs and the cons...and a lot of people here at RI are going along with the plan very nicely. starroute-- I was interested in your statement that "fascists and the like" fall prey to a much more dangerous error than simple criminals. I agree, but I would just change your statement to read "fascists and socialists". The two greatest mass murderers I know of were Stalin and Mao. They both originally set out to implement socialism...and they obviously failed badly. I don't understand why more people aren't asking questions about BOTH of these historically tragic ideologies.

by **havanagilla** » Sun Mar 19, 2006 11:27 pm

i know i know, its THE song. and in that way, it represents a tortuous background noise I live with. sorry for the banal comparisson, but its like hearing wagner on the way to gass chambers. that's how I feel in Israel...<img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/indifferent.gif ALT=":|"> Sinai in the summer is a challenge to survival, heatwise. but I'm sure Hilton nuweiba is almost free at that time of the year, maybe they pay you to come just to keep the business running. let's think about it, could be nice though. I've been to Sinai several times, it was always hillarious. You just experience life as it should have been. relaxed, simple and GOOD. its a healing spot on earth, which is why my gov't is intent on implicating it in the "war on terror" BS. There used to be a dolphin near nuweiba, I think its on the tarabin village shore, she died I believe but her son is there. I swam with her, she was like a superior healing entity sent from god to this place. And she had such special relations with the bedouine that found her, she just loved him, you could see that. Now many of the Israelis cannot come so I don't know what became of the places, after all they depended on tourism for a livelihood. Today i thought up a new term for Israelis - paxophobia, namely, having anxiety from peace ! i posted it briefly in my blog and it was a blast. everybody liked it. I posted an illustration of a synapse in the brain and asked - is it viral, genetic or post traumatic ? (namely, paxophobia). ---- On Edit - don't know what my contribution is here... I threw an i ching reading - this is part of what came out "If you stay trapped in the Pit of the past, you will be tied with black stranded ropes and sent away to the dense thorn hedges for judgment. Go back and accept the challenge. Do not enter the tomb of depression, melancholy and hidden rage. Take in the lessons of the past. Be open and provide what is needed". Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=havanagilla>havanagilla</A> at: 3/19/06 9:01 pm

by **starroute** » Mon Mar 20, 2006 3:39 am

Rothbardian - Point taken. I would still argue there is a difference, though. The fascists abused the language of mysticism for perverted ends, while limiting their calls for mystical unity to a particular nation or race. Socialists in general have been far more universalist in their appeals, and their vision of historical redemptionism was meant to be all-inclusive. That is why communism was able to attract fundamentally decent people in the US as late as the 1950's. However, it's possible that I may be trying to erect a difference without a difference. Certainly, there isn't much to choose between Hitler and Stalin in the upshot.

by **rothbardian** » Mon Mar 20, 2006 4:34 pm

starroute-- Thanks for the comment. I have always thought it somewhat ironic-- a wide variety of historians concede that Hitler was pushing only for a 'regional' Germanic (fascist) empire. Therefore, socialism on an international scale, such as Stalin and Lenin wanted, should by all rights be considered a much more dangerous thing by mainstream historians and academians. But that has not been the case. I also find it interesting that although the PTB ('powers that be') are apparently fascist in the extreme, they nevertheless allow the mainstream media (over which they have almost complete ownership) to crank out a torrential flood of PBS and History Channel (etc.) documentaries which endlessly reiterate the monstrous evil of the Nazis. I find that very odd. I guess one could theorize they are doing this to maximize the trauma/mind-control on the world community, when their time arrives to come bursting out of the closet and reveal themselves, in the process of a complete takeover. (Let's hope we can stop that from happening.) As far as your comments about fascist "mysticism"--- someday soon I'd like to report on this board what I have found regarding the mystical/occultic origins of KarlMarx/socialism/communism. (I had meant to do that earlier but am too busy right now.) It's some pretty hairy stuff. I don't know if you saw the photo I posted which showed Karl Marx wearing a luciferian pendant...but there are a lot more indicators like that, and quite a bit of documentation.

by **starroute** » Mon Mar 20, 2006 8:56 pm

The Nazis-are-evil propaganda makes perfect sense to me. It's a way of insisting "as long as we're not quite that evil, we can't possibly be Nazis." The thing is that they never intend to leap out and reveal themselves as Nazis. Why would they? They're always going to use the Nazis as the standard compared to which they're still okay. If you look at the last few decades of Hollywood movies, you'll see the goalposts for defining something as evil constantly being pushed further back. We've gotten to the point where it's no longer sufficient for villains merely to be criminals or exploiters. They have to be shown (generally fairly early in the story) as doing absolutely vile things to totally innocent and helpless people. This, of course, leaves room for the heroes to lie, cheat, kill, and commit assorted mayhem without losing the right to be considered good guys. It's the same thing in our politics. The joke in this is that the Gitmo/Abu Ghraib/Camp Nama/etc. torture scandal plants them firmly in the territory they themselves have defined as beyond the pale. They're still trying to argue rather feebly that as long as it doesn't cause major organ failure it isn't really torture, but even the thoroughly brainwashed know better. Hopefully, once that lesson sinks in, it will be possible to move the standards for human decency back to a point of actual sanity.

by **AlicetheCurious** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 6:54 am

Starroute, I was agreeing with you totally, nodding my head as I read what you wrote, until the last two paragraphs. Remember when the Abu Ghraib pictures first came out? What happened immediately after, defusing the initial global outrage (it will never peak again as we become acclimatized)? A video suddenly appeared, showing marines dressed up as Arabs, headed by a fake Arab which we were assured by the CIA is the elusive and super-powerful Abu Musab al Zarqawi, brutally beheading a corpse -- with a sword (!), with a soundtrack of agonized screams, supposedly emerging from the corpse. Subsequent Abu Ghraib pictures simply did not have the shock value of those first ones. The Nicholas Berg beheading tape gave the Bush cabal breathing space, and also gave them a chance to compare themselves favorably with Nick Berg's barbaric murderers. Is there any limit on what they (and their public) will permit them to do? Not as long as they can make their hand-puppets such as al-Zarqawi, be even worse.

by **mother** » Sun Mar 26, 2006 9:28 pm

Yes, Marx was into some very specialised occultism(but he was never original in the least) and this is ofte ignored. Rothbardian, when you get the time it would be great if you could get the specifics out here for people to see.

Superstition, Fascism, and the quote on your homepage

feeling of "aversion" as opposed to divinely inspi

Re: havanagilla hava

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Re: Light of the heart

basic agreement

Re: havanagilla hava

Re: basic agreement

mysticism

Re: mysticism

Re: mysticism

mysticism and Marx

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