OT/OnT: Are We Doomed? I think we got a rough time ahead...(Long as Hell but interesting)

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Here's a little article to tickle your noggin concerning the self-perpetuation of the "victim culture" and the rationale for the quasi-socialist agendas that our current crop od wanna-be dictatorial scumbags would like to see happen. More of my commentary will follow after. Tell ya, after reading this, Thy Eyes might just be open in a fashion you had'n't quite expected. (Borrowed/snipped/outright stolen yaddayadda education yadda....)

Matrix Subcultures 2-8-00 Within the present stage of historical condition there are several leftist subcultures: There is a parasitic class including hedonists. Within this, there is an axis that believes it should be entitled to live for the moment without a sense of responsibility or seriousness -what is coming to be seen as a civil right to a life without realistic unpleasant consequences. This life is to be enabled by 1) a combination of rationalizations made up of "virtual thought" (whose acceptance is possible only in relation to an artificially distorted environment); and 2) the provision of guaranteed economic sustenance and survival (which is the supposed obligation of a nebulously defined social order). At the occupational and bureaucratic level is a class axis seeking a system inhabited by bland incompetence, where zestful creativity because its disturbing contrast threatens to expose somnolescent mediocrity is a systemic threat to be suppressed or made irrelevant to personal advancement. Coordinate to this exists a large class of people who are looking for a place or system to hide in, or are looking for a place or system to hide in while they engage in irresponsible self-amusement. There is a type of escapism where people hide from life and responsibility by busying themselves in financially-supported positions promoting or administering social issues or supposed problems. People inhabiting this group create or perpetuate social issues, then exploit them to hide in positions created by those issues. The Peace Corps provides an escapist summer camp for the immature and directionless during the interim until they can find a soft spot of similar orientation and requirements elsewhere. University departments are filled with soft, politically-correct grants awarded and administered by bureaucrats in soft comfortable positions perpetuated by the awarding of those grants.....or No Grand Design - Just Pathological Evolution Certainly, there was a serious leftist strategy in America in the 30s, the 20s, and before. But, from the historical view of the period since 1950, much of the development of the American liberal/socialist matrix is not of a grand design, but rather of a too-tolerated evolution of pathology and softness, and evolution of the antitherapy of pathological protectionism enabled by a foppish culture in which there is an expanding too-soft environment that does not confront and correct such development. By the "antitherapy of pathological protectionism" is meant that increasing numbers of people have become inhabited by various forms of mental disorder and soft perversity, often as a relief or cure for personal boredom or as a substitute for mature personal development, and such people devise rationalizations protective of their condition. This has been expanded into a mutual defense of the implicit form: "You protect my pathology and softness, and I'll protect yours so that we can both remain safe from pleas for maturity or responsibility forever." Criticism of psychopathology in any form and directed toward any specific form of pathology is regarded as a potential threat that may be applied to any other pathological forms, and is to be extinguished through group effort. The protection of pathology also serves the purpose of being a sadistic attack upon society. Essentially, beneath noble-sounding demands to mitigate all forms of unpleasant consequences in the name of compassion, liberalism/socialism has become the explosive proliferation of all forms of original sin, dishonesty, and degeneracy, resulting in the production of unpleasant consequences to be compassionately mitigated by the system. Thus, what is exponentially evolving is a corrupt social system which feeds back upon, and augments, itself. This occurs when those who are victims of people as irresponsibly calloused as themselves, or who are willing victims of themselves (through what has become a militant demand to participate in liberated, but ultimately destructive personal amusements and excesses), point to their condition of described victimhood, and demand more compassion while accelerating the protected and subsidized behavior creating their condition. Like the Matrix in the movie, the resultant system has taken on independent thought and concern for its own growth and survival. It has developed its own supportive scholastic system. It has developed its own system of socially-reinforcing positive feedback conditioning together with fear of questioning its own existence. It has created millions who have become dependent upon it in one way or another for easy economic existence. It has created millions of people who are dependent upon it to create and maintain their condition of psychological denial and perpetuation of their soft condition. It has created millions who enjoy the irresponsible immediate pleasure that generates the consequences and conditions underwriting constant calls for enabling constant compassionate remedy. Warped systems produce warped mentalities that perpetuate the system that produced them.

Gee....and if we were to expond further on this, combining with the latest ideas of the Leftist/Socialist ideology, means that overall, we as a people, if this trend continues, we are so screwed. Combine with some other entertainment that we see in education with the teacher who was fired here in Mass for stating that "Hitler was cool." Now, not the brightest thing to say but what gets me was the commentary after the fact:

'I have no idea how the conversation got started or where it was going, but his statement was inappropriate in front of children,'' said Jane Wilson, principal of J. Henry Higgins Middle School. ''We don't want anything that would be controversial with students.''

Hunh???What the fuck? I thought the idea behind the school factor was to provoke intelligent thought and discussion? Not to drop dime on anyone who sayes anything we don't agree with. Here in Mass, the superintendant was:

Perullo said he was pleased that the students complained. ''What it teaches us in the larger context is that we have been teaching the right things, and the parents have,'' Perullo said. ''Hitler was an evil person and the kids know that. They did the right thing by going to their housemaster, and we tried to react as forcefully as we could.''

Communism/Socialism at it's finest eh? "Be good, the Party rewards Loyalty." Fuck me. This country stands on the threshold of an almost tangible _something_. Horror creeps into my mind at the very though of where my children will be growing up in the next few years. Thank the God(s) that I have the ability to train them so that if a dicatorship does erupt, that they, and we can take to the hills in an attempt to continue to live as Free Men (and Women!!)

-- Billy Boy (Rakkasan101st@Aol.com), February 09, 2000

Answers

Warped systems produce warped mentalities that perpetuate the system that produced them.

Billy Boy, I'm glad I wasn't the only one who got sick when I read that article about the Boston teacher. (I think he lied in his excuse for saying "Hitler was cool" but that has nothing to do with the wretched remarks made by the school officials.)

Yep, we've come to the point where a teacher can make a casual remark about Hitler and get fired, yet the guy or gal in the next classroom can be teaching all sorts of crap and get patted on the back. Just as long as it's PC.

Yeah, we might be in trouble.

-- rocky (rknolls@no.spam), February 09, 2000.


I have given up on my hopes of a return of truth, reality, responsibility, awareness of what (had) made our country great. We are a nation of freaks where one or a few easily ruin it for the many. "Alleged" is the word today for what yesterday would have been spoken as fact. Although my mind is full of examples and sickening true to life stories of the mindset that is now majority, I lack whatever it takes to put it into words here and now. Bravo! to those who can.

-- John Gave Up (Jnavlnk01@aol.com), February 09, 2000.

HOMESCHOOL!

-- Just Curious (jnmpow@flash.net), February 09, 2000.

Pretty much true, although IMO Ayn Rand and Robert Ringer wrote rather more clearly on this sort of subject. One place I would like to comment:

"Certainly, there was a serious leftist strategy in America in the 30s, the 20s, and before. But, from the historical view of the period since 1950, much of the development of the American liberal/socialist matrix is not of a grand design, but rather of a too-tolerated evolution of pathology and softness, and evolution of the antitherapy of pathological protectionism enabled by a foppish culture in which there is an expanding too-soft environment that does not confront and correct such development. By the "antitherapy of pathological protectionism" is meant that increasing numbers of people have become inhabited by various forms of mental disorder and soft perversity, often as a relief or cure for personal boredom or as a substitute for mature personal development, and such people devise rationalizations protective of their condition."

I think you underestimate the inherent hate and organized capacity for evil embodied in the "gender superiority" (extreme) feminists. To say that these people are an organized conspiracy is IMHO more correct than not. These types contrast with the "gender equity" feminists (equal pay for equal work, etc., which I support, as do most Americans). One of the best discussions of this subject that is fully accessible is "Who Stole Feminism? : How Women Have Betrayed Women", by Christina Hoff Sommers. A less academic book still of some value on this topic is "Surviving the Feminization of America : How to Keep Women from Ruining Your Life", by Rich Zubaty.

Just my $.02 on this essay.

www.y2ksafeminnesota.com

-- MinnnesotaSmith (y2ksafeminnesota@hotmail.com), February 09, 2000.


Minnesota:

I think Kocher would say that modern feminism is *by comparison* far less organized than much of the left was in the early 20th cen.

Kocher is obviously a libertarian. His analysis of various weaknesses in the left is brillant. But what of his own political quadrant? Libertarianism is a vital and important political perspective, but is it, itself, without shortcoming?

Honestly, I'm not sure that any single political ideology --elite, popular, right or left -- is alone a sufficient paradigm for human society.

Make your case if you think I might need some corrective insight.

-- tim phronesia (phronesia@webtv.net), February 09, 2000.



Here are a few pieces to support my position:

"According to one Washington, D.C., researcher to whom I recently spoke: "Under Secretary Shalala, Health and Human Services has been mobilized as the research and policy arm of the feminist movement."

"Secretary of Labor Robert Reich is another feminist favorite."

"The Department of Education dis-penses much largesse to activists in the rapidly growing gender-bias industry. One program, a special favorite with the network of feminist pedagogues, self- esteem workshoppers, gender-equity trainers, and harassment experts, is the Women's Educational Equity Act (WEEA). Of the millions of dollars awarded in December of 1995, $139,126 went to Merle Froschl from "Educational Equity Concepts." Miss Froschl intends to "conduct research on gender-based teasing and bullying in grades kindergarten through 5." Nan Stein, from the Wellesley College Center for Research on Women, is another expert on schoolyard harassment. Miss Stein, who coined the phrase "gendered terrorists" to refer to little boys who flip girls' skirts, has already done a SLOP harassment study for Seventeen magazine. Now, thanks to a $90,929 grant from WEEA, she can do yet another one. WEEA is also responsible for dozens of programs and guidebooks on how to make textbooks "gender fair" -- translation: how can we airbrush white males of genius from the curriculum. These materials are disseminated through an "Equity Resource Center."

http://www.cycad.com/cgi-bin/Upstream/sommers-camelot? embedded=yes&cumulative_category_title=Introduction;Authors+and+Intell ectuals;Christina+Hoff+Sommers&cumulative_category_id=Root;Authors;Hof fSommers

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"Does it matter that a bunch of high-strung, anti-intellectual, chronically offended, "dysfunctional family members" get together for a conference and say and do a lot of odd things? It does, because on more and more campuses these consciousness- raisers are driving out the scholars. Within the past fifteen years the academy has witnessed the inception of more than 500 Women's Studies Programs and more than 30,000 courses, along with the formation of some fifty major feminist institutes. Most of the women who attended this conference are in the academy in one capacity or another: either teaching women's studies, directing programs, or in the administration. Others head women's centers."

"These women run the largest growth area in the academy, and they have strong influence in some key areas, most notably in English departments (especially freshman writing courses), French departments, history departments, law schools, and divinity schools. They are disproportionately represented in the dean of students' office, in the dormitory administration, in the harassment office, and various counseling centers. They are quietly engaged in hundreds of well-funded projects to transform a curriculum that they regard as unacceptably "androcentric."

"To succeed as they have, feminist academics needed strong support from friendly administrators. They got this in two ways: first, by entering administrative positions in disproportionate numbers, and second, by doing all they could to get cooperative people into positions of power. Increasingly, aspiring presidents, deans, professors, and program directors in all academic fields have to pledge allegiance to feminist educational agendas."

http://www.cycad.com/cgi-bin/Upstream/sommers-sister-soldiers? embedded=yes&cumulative_category_title=Introduction;Authors+and+Intell ectuals;Christina+Hoff+Sommers&cumulative_category_id=Root;Authors;Hof fSommers

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"Sommers sees two feminisms. The older one, the one with nearly 150 years of history in the US, she calls "equity feminism." The new form is the one espoused by those she accuses of stealing feminism and betraying women: "gender feminism." Proponents of the former, including Sommers, believe in legal, social, and economic equality for men and women. Proponents of the latter believe that all women are victims of male patriarchal oppression, and oppose all things "male," including "male" science and rationality." (Last five words: welcome back the Dark ages, Stalinist Russia, etc.)

http://www.well.com/user/sjroby/fem.html

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"The one area of public discourse that liberals and feminists have not found it easy to colonize is talk radio. This irks them, and they keep trying to find ways to counter its influence. Hence this training seminar sponsored by the Democratic National Committee, offering practical suggestions on what we, the audience, can do."

"For the rest of the time we practiced making "spontaneous" calls promoting Democratic messages and destroying the arguments and composure of conservative talk-show hosts. Before we broke up, Jon-Christopher confidingly informed us that it was Hillary Clinton who originated the idea and promoted the project of a Talk Radio Initiative. No one seemed surprised to learn this."

http://www.cycad.com/cgi-bin/Upstream/sommers-skirting? embedded=yes&cumulative_category_title=Introduction;Authors+and+Intell ectuals;Christina+Hoff+Sommers&cumulative_category_id=Root;Authors;Hof fSommers

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Here are a few sources. For a larger sample, try http://www.carnell.com/feminism/christina_sommers/, or just read the 2 books I suggested.

www.y2ksafeminnesota.com

-- MinnnesotaSmith (y2ksafeminnesota@hotmail.com), February 09, 2000.


Having had some experience with Peace Corps Veterans, i can say that the Peace Corps doesn't offer a "soft" billet for most of their people. Peace Corps vols bo into some of the toughest non-combative living conditions around, to try to improve the living there.

Chuck

-- Chuck, a night driver (rienzoo@en.com), February 09, 2000.


Minnesota:

This radical feminism is organized, and fairly pervasive in academia. Do you really see it as ultimately comparing to marxism in its reach and appeal?

You might be right. But honestly, the image of 'World Feminism' as the new political pathogen leaves me amused.

I suppose that if I had the opportunity to pick my political adversaries, I'd prefer to battle 'militant feminist' more than any other.

[By the way, I'm a fervent believer in equality, sexual and otherwise. But I also am old enough to realize that a women's political power is in her femininity, not in her masculinity. But Shhhhh! Don't tell the feminists! That's one they've got to figure out for themselves.]

-- tim phronesia (phronesia@webtv.net), February 09, 2000.


Tim, radical feminism hasn't peaked yet, whereas Marxism apparently has. Any ideology that attacks logic (how reality is understod), and does so by any means available (no limitations by ethics), is not only without mores, it is anti-life. That qualifies as dangerous, surely? The broken home will IMO soon become the norm in the US if these types continue to wax in influence, and I am sure that you are aware of the social pathologies that brings. My $.02, anyway.

www.y2ksafeminnesota.com

-- MinnesotaSmith (y2ksafeminnesota@hotmail.com), February 10, 2000.


Yes. I just read on the Drudge report [a couple of days ago] that unmarried, co-habitating, couples now outnumber married couples.

The study *did* come out of academia, however.

It does seem to have replaced marxism as the ideology of the week. Still, do you think that perhaps its more a cultural threat than a 'political' one? I mean, I'm not sure that they seek to win there battles through world revolution or the violent overthrow of 'the men'. It seems more a battle for and of hearts and minds. No? Although I don't think I'd be right if I said that a culture war is any less far reaching or real than a war between states.

If you'd agree, then who or what do you think could oppose this?

-- tim phronesia (phronesia@webtv.net), February 10, 2000.



I do not claim to have totally thought this out, but do believe that (not original with me - forgot source) resistance has to start with 1) avoiding them having use of our MONEY and 2) use of/access to/opportunity to influence us and our children. This will take a while, but will surely work in the long run, if enough of us do it well enough for long enough. From paying as little in taxes as possible (especially Federal, or to the more feminist-dominated state/local governments), homeschooling to the end of high school, only sending our children to conservative private colleges, not even owning televisions, avoiding military service in anything short of another WWII (no Somalias/Kosovos/Bosnias), and having as little to do with government as possible (don't work for it at any level, and try not to associate with those who do) are some ideas I have to start with. Oh, and READ. For some ideas on the latter, try National Review, Alan Bloom's "Closing of the American Mind", American Spectator, etc., or just look at the article on homeschooling on my website.

www.y2ksafeminnesota.com

-- MinnesotaSmith (y2ksafeminnesota@hotmail.com), February 10, 2000.


Minnesota:

So you would see 'non-participation' as the best defense against this movement. In other words, you would oppose the current movement by being against it.

I wonder though, if one can oppose something just by being against it? There must be a kind of a cultural vacuum being filled by that movement, or else it wouldn't be growing so strongly. It seems to me that if one movement doesn't fill a cultural vacuum, another will.

So do you have an alternative movement in mind? Do you prefer nationalism? Anarchy? Some on the left might argue that of all the possible global movements today, the cult of the mildly upset woman is the least dangerous.

On the other hand, knowing my wife as well as I do, I might be wrong about that.

-- tim phronesia (phronesia@webtv.net), February 11, 2000.


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