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February 25th, 2008
02:54 am - "Am I a Person Yet?" -- Amanda, Michelle, and Autistic intelligence.
This just in from Ari Ne'eman at ASAN. The latest issue of WIRED Magazine has a new article on Autistic intelligence. Discussed are Amanda Baggs' YouTube videos, and Michelle Dawson's collaboration with Laurent Mottron, among others. Excellent article -- another must-read for the self-advocacy community ... and an unequivocal in-your-face at the bulk of mainstream research and professions.
The full article is currently available only in PDF format, so expect to do a lot of enlarging and scrolling.
Blurb and links:
Traditional science holds that people with severe autism are prisoners in their own minds, severely disabled, and probably mentally retarded. Don't tell that to Amanda Baggs, an autistic woman who achieved viral fame with her YouTube video "In My Language," which has so far received more than 350,000 hits. Wired contributor David Wolman gets inside the life that Baggs has created for herself, which includes blogging, hanging out in Second Life, corresponding with her friends, and a "constant conversation" with the world around her. Wolman's conclusion: Much of past research about autism and intelligence is catastrophically flawed...
Main page for March, 2008 issue:
http://www.wired.com/services/press/2008/march
Full article [PDF], "Yeah, I'm Autistic. You got a problem with that?":
http://www.wired.com/images/press/pdf/autism.pdf
[Cut to clip of Bob Wright's head exploding]
PS: PASS IT ON. ;-)
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February 2nd, 2008
08:21 am - It just had to be done...
( my new 'tough love' cat macro )
Now I need a nap.
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12:59 am - "Help Yourself."
So.
Everyone wants to appear helpful. Trouble is, rarely are any of us willing to do the extremely hard work of figuring out just exactly what help, if any, is actually needed. And when we fail to prevent our motives from being ruled by the social compulsion to appear helpful, our rationality is invariably compromised by conflicting interests, and we are almost absolutely guaranteed to screw the pooch. In such cases, unless we just happen to get lucky enough to guess right -- which is a bit like playing the lottery with someone else's money -- then we are very likely to end up harming the person we're so hell-bent on "helping," and perhaps (OMG!) ourselves as well.
Or, to repeat what is rapidly becoming an "old saw" in my limited repertoire: "Ninety-nine per cent of the art of helping lies in knowing what NOT to do."
But Ego is a Jealous God, and guarding against the corrupting influence of social compulsion and ego-defense is perhaps the hardest work of all. It requires a great deal of time, self-awareness, careful critical thinking and skepticism, and rarest of all, an extraordinary commitment to self-honesty.
But, failing all that, here's one rule-of-thumb whereby we can help ourselves to, at the very least, do no harm:
If we feel compelled to keep telling people over and over that we're "only trying to help" ... then WE'RE NOT.
This is not some cynical admonishment to never try to be helpful -- far from it. Rather, we should take these hard realities as a recurring opportunity to carefully examine our own commitment to actually being helpful.
So ... there it is.
We now return to our previously scheduled grudgewank, which is no doubt already in progress ...
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December 20th, 2007
11:25 pm - Goodbye VileJournal. Have a nice implosion.
As of this morning, my status as a LiveJournal user is now officially terminated. This was over a year in coming, and I need not detail the causes here. I had been planning to commit to the final deletion on December 31st, and had announced such to my f-list there. But this morning, when I clicked in from offsite, I discovered that Every Single Post had been placed behind a Nanny-State cut, sternly warning passersby, "Oh, dear! You may not be Mature™ enough to view whatever material might be in this post! Now, give me that crayon! You might poke your eye out!"
Sorry, my LJ friends, but that was just the final Last Straw.
It's over.
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06:28 am - Rest assured, we have not heard the end of this...
UPDATE: NYU’s controversial “Ransom Notes” campaign has now been officially halted. Huge thanks and congratulations are in order, for Ari Ne’eman and everyone at ASAN, and for everyone in the broader disability, self-advocacy, and ‘neurodiversity’ communities who pulled together to convince NYU to rethink their approach. Still, there are crucial aspects of our message that have simply not been heard. This must change …
In the mean time, here's a point-blank question for the exalted Dr. Harold Koplewicz and other esteemed oracles of psychiatric wisdom at New York University:
IS the systematic dissemination and reinforcement, intentional or otherwise, of pervasive social prejudice genuinely conducive to long-term mental health for any segment of society?
Please register your responses now ... and don't forget to ask yourself that question again, before launching your next "awareness" campaign.
That is all.
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December 19th, 2007
06:20 am - Meh.
"NYU’s “Ransom Notes” campaign: How Will It Work?"
http://dkmnow.wordpress.com/2007/12/18/questions-about-nyu/
I'm not at all satisfied with this, but I'm just burnt. I want to convey something difficult for a lot of us to understand, but I don't want to just preach to the choir. And my brain has turned to pudding just in trying to figure out how to do it.
Whyizzit, whenever I start getting seriously involved in autism/disability self-advocacy, I always end up regretting it?
People suck.
Wait -- do they really? Lemme check...
*looks in mirror*
Yeah, people suck.
----
Looks like someone needs to meditate on impermanence and equanimity for a few days ...
*whistles innocently*
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December 15th, 2007
01:41 pm - New info on NYU's "Ransom Notes" perpetrators
First, I'm afraid I'm being a tad "spammy" with this entry, and for that I apologize. But I think this tale needs to be told, post haste.
By now, many of you know about NYU's Child Study Center, headed by Dr. Harold Koplewicz, and their repugnant "Ransom Notes" campaign. And some of you have probably signed ASAN's petition calling for the campaign to be scrapped:
http://www.petitiononline.com/ransom/petition.html
(Thanks Ari!)
Well, just a few hours ago, I was browsing the list of recent signatories, and this entry caught my eye:
486. [name omitted]: comment: I live in Raritan Twsp. NJ = My daughter almost died from Paxil. a drug Dr. Koplewicz helped promote off-label
Yeah, Paxil, and its lavish "off-label" uses -- one of my old pet peeves. So on a whim, I googled the string "Koplewicz + Paxil" ...and a moment later, "the other shoe dropped."
First, it turns out that the ad agency, BBDO, which produced the "Ransom Notes" campaign also represents both Pfizer and the notorious Glaxo Smith Kline, maker and aggressive pusher of Paxil. Shocker.
But among the top hits in the search came this seemingly unremarkable blog entry:
Many Angry At Childhood Mental Illness "Hostage" Ad Campaign
http://www.furiousseasons.com/archives/2007/12/many_angry_at_childhood_mental_illness_hostage_ad_campaign_1.html
The entry, like so many others, tells of the NYU debacle, but then drops this bombshell:
"As it turns out ... Koplewicz is one of the co-authors of the infamous Paxil Study 329 ...
"Study 329 basically asserted that Paxil beat placebo in treating depression in teens when, in fact, it did not. In addition, there were instances of suicidality in this study which Glaxo somehow managed to deep-six."
And from the Alliance for Human Research Protection website comes this repost:
http://www.ahrp.org/infomail/04/03/25.php
The Times quotes Dr. Harold Koplewicz, indicating only that he is the director of the NYU Child Study Center: "The fear I have about this warning is that many teenagers will not get the medicine because it will build resistance among their parents, and that is really a tragic outcome."
Dr. Koplewicz, not only is one of the staunchest promoters of psychotropic drugs for children, he was a co-investigator and co-author of a major Paxil study (329) in which he and the pillars of American child psychiatry claimed to have found that Paxil was "well tolerated and effective" for adolescents. The article has now been discredited by the FDA. Furthermore, an internal 1998 memo by the manufacturer of Paxil indicates that only the positive data from study 329 would be published, but the negative findings would not.
Readers trust the New York Times, believing that the experts selected by the Times for their views, are objective unless identified as having a financial interest in the product/ company or have taken a position. The Times failed to disclose any of the relevant background information that demonstrates a decidedly biased point of view. The Times article also failed to disclose the very substantial financial ties to the drug industry of either Dr. Koplewicz or the NYU Child Study Center ...
And so on.
Obviously, this connection needs to be investigated further. At the moment, I don't feel up to the job of deciding how relevant this information is to NYU's ongoing "Ransom Notes" disgrace. But I felt compelled to bring it to your attention.
Please spread the word.
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December 10th, 2007
06:56 pm - A quickie Migration Roundup
In my few days here, I've run across some excellent resources for current and prospective IJ n00bs:
From ![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) morgandawn:
What! Another "How Do I Leave LJ" Post?
From das_dingsi:
InsaneJournal: A Beginner's Guide
[This one, especially, is a must-read.]
From greenwitch in ![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/community.gif) 07refugees:
A Note on Asylum [Community] Creation
From sherlock:
Backup and migration tools
and:
LJ-Migrate for Communities - How To, on Windows
and from alter_writes on GJ:
Visual Tutorial for LJ MIGRATE [Communities], on Mac
I'm sure there's plenty more, but that's what I've got so far.
Enjoy.
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December 9th, 2007
12:24 am - The "Mac Halp!" Asylum Is Born. Have A Cigar.
[Crossposted -- my first entry on macintosh]
WELCOME!
This asylum is only a few hours old, and I am constructing it as we speak. Formal debut will take place on asylum_promo within the next few days. If you are a Mac user, experienced or otherwise, I will be needing your help. PLEASE JOIN! :-)
This asylum will be primarily for users to share technical help and advice regarding Apple/Macintosh hardware and software, plus the occasional bit of news.
Asylum rules to follow shortly.
Co-maintainers will be needed.
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December 3rd, 2007
12:44 am - Escaping from LiveJournal trainwreck
Due to outrages by SixApart, and now SUP, my old LJ pages will be migrating to this location very soon.
EDIT: On second thought, I may set up on my GreatestJournal account instead. The ads here are a bit much. I'll decide ... later.
EDIT 2: Okay, I'm not just ga-ga over this, but ij seems to be the alternative of choice, so it appears I'll be setting up shop here. It'll take some doing, but my desire to delete my old LJ account once and for all is getting pretty overpowering. Ah, the mixed blessing of unwelcome motivations ...
EDIT 3: Thanks to LJ-SEC, everything below this entry is reposted from LJ. This message will self-destruct after I've gotten the wild-hair to rearrange and update things ... yeah, that'll happen ...
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December 2nd, 2007
07:54 am - Old lead page from LJ account (now deleted)
[I really need to edit the hell out of this ... and I will ... someday ... I promise.]
"Autists are the ultimate square pegs, and the problem with pounding a square peg in a round hole is not that the hammering is hard work. It's that you are destroying the peg. What if normal school makes you abnormally miserable? And what if growing up into normal society makes you a miserable adult? Is that success? Is that normal? Do you want to be in the mainstream if it's going to drown you?" --Paul Collins
Like he said, brother.
So ... what's this "autistic underground" about?
Good question.
There are a lot of different interpretations. Most aren't worth the ad hominems and straw-man arguments they're comprised of (i.e., Schaffer, Rimland, Kirby, John Best, Harold Doherty, and other assorted power-hungry neurobigots and snake-oil salesmen). It's pure grassroots, but not an organization in any formal sense. The Autistic Underground is pretty much synonymous with the Autistic Liberation Front, which is really little more than a global peer-group of people on the autism spectrum (and a few unusually insightful non-autistics) who reject the mainstream paradigms of autism as a disease and a tragedy. We are here to rescue each other, to whatever degree possible, from a world of crude stereotypes, bigotry, discrimination and dismissal.
A human rights movement? We can only hope.
Oh, but far be it from us to suggest that actual autistics might have anything useful to say about autism...
neurodiversity.com - honoring the variety of human wiring
* Required reading: The Autistic Distinction by Kathleen Seidel
Autistics.org - resources by and for persons on the autistic spectrum
* Autism Information Library
* Autistics Need Acceptance, Not Cure
* Autistic Authors Booklist and Facts
No Autistics Allowed: Explorations in discrimination against autistics - Michelle Dawson
Autism Network International: An autistic-run self-help and advocacy organization for autistic people.
Bridging the Gaps: An Inside-Out View of Autism, by Jim Sinclair
Ooops...Wrong Planet! Syndrome
University Students With Autism And Asperger's Syndrome - website and listserv
Vocational Supports for Individuals with Asperger Syndrome
Frank Klein's Autistic Advocacy Website
* Autistic Advocacy ("AutAdvo") - group/listserv
Moggy's Autism Spectrum Links
* Autism Spectrum and Proud Of It! - group/listserv
oddizm central - links, writings, art, and even some cool cafepress stuff
Autism National Committee (AUTCOM)
The above links are just a sampling, but will most certainly get you to the heart of the matter.
For those many who honestly believe that people with developmental differences are not abused or discriminated against, but instead are "cared for," no offense, but PLEASE READ the study, Abuse and Neglect of Adults with Developmental Disabilities. If nothing else, please pay close attention to the statistics in Chapter 1, at the very least.
I also highly recommend a gander at Ragged Edge Magazine Online, for a perspective on disability from actual disabled people -- a point of view that continues to appear utterly beyond the comprehension of mainstreamers. Go figure. I recommend anything by Cal Montgomery -- and Defining Autistic Lives, in particular, is a must-read.
Cause and effect: the roots and the fruits. Do the ends justify the means? Does might make right?
Bob Altemeyer -- "The Authoritarians."
Get free nails for behaviorism's coffin at: Self Determination Theory
oh, and United Nations - Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask how you can make your country stop exploiting human beings.
Have a cow, dude.
[last edit: 02/07/07]
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December 1st, 2007
10:28 pm
I am...
I am...
A CAM - er - RA!
So, there!
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October 1st, 2007
10:33 am - Bewildered...
Who IS that dashing non-tetrapod chordate?
(comments screened until end of quiz)
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September 16th, 2007
10:04 pm - Sally Field Silenced on FOX/Emmy Awards
[crossposted]
[third edit]
This is not my usual fare for viewing -- not by a long shot -- but it happened to be on, and I couldn't help but notice:
At the end of her acceptance speech, Sally Field was very clearly delivering an anti-war statement. She began: “...surely this [award] belongs to all the mothers of the world. May they be seen, may their work be valued and raised...and to...and especially the mothers who stand with an open heart and wait -- wait for their children to come home from danger, from harm’s way, and from war."
After a few flustered moments, having forgotten what she had intended to say, she continued, "I am proud to be one of those women...and let's face it, if the mothers ruled the world, there would be no god-damned wars in the first place.”
But halfway through the last sentence, her mic was cut off and the video cut away to, well, nothing really. Move along. Nothing to see here...
Corporate Cowards.
Pathetic. Sniveling. Weasels.
That's FOX in a nutshell.
SHAME.
YouTube clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0Ftq9N4fzo
Miscellaneous early reports:
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/09/16/fox-censors-sally-fields-anti-war-speech-at-emmys
http://goldderby.latimes.com/awards_goldderby/2007/09/the-emmys-reall.html
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/9/16/232830/502
http://thedisbrimstone-dailypitchfork.blogspot.com/2007/09/sally-field-rawks.html
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September 8th, 2007
05:47 pm - Illegal Immigration ... and Traditional American Morality™
The customary right-wing position on illegal immigration is the moral equivalent of burning a man's home to the ground and then throwing him in jail for vagrancy.
The traditional family farm was the mainstay of Mexican self-sufficiency. Then along came US "free-trade" legislation, forcibly replacing the family farm with multi-national corporate agri-business, leaving the rural population homeless and without a means of supporting themselves and their families; so they flocked to the big cities following the only remaining promise available -- low-wage industrial and service jobs; upon arriving, they found that, even if they could get such jobs, the pay was not nearly enough even for bare-bones survival; thus, their only remaining "options" are to leave their families and risk life and limb crossing the US border in search of a livelihood -- any livelihood -- that might generate sustenance to send back home ... or to do nothing while watching their very own families roll over and die.
Imagine their gratitude. Thankyouverymuch.
Kids, this one is straight out of the textbooks. It's a classic double-bind, meticulously calculated and imposed on an entire foreign population by our dear Corporate America for the purpose of seizing their property and exploiting them, while ultimately undermining the collective power of domestic US labor by pitting the two groups against each other. It's a classic off-the-shelf socio-economic game of "let's you and him fight while I rob both of you blind."
And it's all been done in the name of "traditional American values of family, self-sufficiency and entrepreneurship." Memo to Roy Blunt ...
Yes, the DLC Dems are top-notch corporate pimps as well, but the party by far most complicit in this particular crime against humanity is, of course, the RNC Repugs, a.k.a., "The Party Of Family Values."
Tangentially, is it any wonder that the average Mexican regards Alberto Gonzales as not only an embarrassment, but a traitor as well?
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September 6th, 2007
09:46 am - For Posterity: Troy Duster's "Conditions For Guilt-Free Massacre"
"The most general condition for guilt-free massacre is the denial of the humanity of the victims."
The essay below by Troy Duster is something of a buried classic in social science, as is its forerunner by Harold Garfinkel. This is a relatively brief exploration of some of the dynamics whereby individuals and whole populations are routinely manipulated into a position of consensus in favor of their own government’s participation in any atrocity, up to and including genocide. While it is obviously a bit dated, and was never intended to be an in-depth treatment of the subject matter, I know you’ll find its relevance to present-day geopolitics to be unmistakable.
I don’t think this presently exists anywhere else on the web, and I had been meaning to post it for ages. My old copy was buried deep in the file tree, and had been significantly appended for purposes of a broader discussion, so the “rigors” of finding and re-editing it kept getting in my way. I know there is still a typo or two lurking within, but I think I’ve removed all the extraneous text and restored it to it’s original form, so I’m out of excuses for sitting on it any longer.
So, here it is:
Sanctions for Evil: Sources For Social Destructiveness, Sanford and Comstock, Beacon Press, 1971, Boston, MA.
Chapter 3
Conditions For Guilt-Free Massacre
Troy Duster
Several years ago Harold Garfinkel wrote a short essay entitled "Conditions of Successful Degradation Ceremonies." The purpose of the essay was not to offer a recipe for those who would like to degrade a fellow human but to explain the process of degradation through a novel device. Garfinkle has long held that a good method for clarifying a process is to tell how to make it happen. In his exposition, he details eight conditions which he argues must be present for the successful public degradation of a man. In general, the man must come to be seen as a symbol of something totally contrary to what others in the community regard as the communal good.
Using Garfinkel's paper as a suggestive model, I attempt here an exposition of guilt-free massacre. Such an exposition is not undertaken lightly. If I thought that I were exposing new thoughts and strategies for such an outcome to an audience now unaware of them, I would abandon the task. My purpose is quite the opposite, and it is important that it be stated clearly.
Subtly and almost imperceptibly to some, this nation developed all the conditions for guilt-free massacre of Vietnamese and neighboring peoples and is now well on the road with respect to the Black Panthers. Thus, in explaining the process I point to various conditions which already exist but which are too seldom recognized as parts of a pattern. The purpose of the exposition is threefold: to understand clearly the process itself by saying out loud how to do it; to alert others who may be the next victims of the process; and to offer some suggestions for dismantling or intercepting the process.
( full text below cut )
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September 5th, 2007
08:50 am - "No reward for resistance; No assistance, no applause..."
On Doing The Right Thing
Never said I was the most tactful shoe on the rack ...
We carry a sensitive cargo
Below the water-line
Ticking like a time-bomb
With a primitive design
Behind the finer feelings
The civilized veneer
The heart of a lonely hunter
Guards a dangerous frontier...
He obviously esteemed himself an activist, and happened to be right about a lot of things. Yeah, a lot of people are. But the more I read him, the more he appeared to be clinging jealously to a notion of himself as some exceptional intellectual elite -- "one of the few" who has all the answers -- and the notion of most everyone else as, not merely idiots, but evil idiots. And yeah, anyone who disagrees is "one of them."
In other words, another dime-a-dozen malcontent like so many of us, albeit with a lot of good information -- and apparently a considerable history of "dharmic labors" -- but with precious little inner wisdom in evidence. Struck me as someone who was stuck in reactionary rebellion against that part of old-school authoritarianism which he himself had internalized, but casting about in search of surrogate targets, instead of confronting the roots that had infiltrated his being and dealing with them where they lived. Yeah, same old story. Flip-side scapegoater. Waiting for his medal of valor with growing petulance. Or something.
His tirades vilifying the tragic, but hardly evil, bewildered herd had quickly grown tiresome, as had the familiar imprecision of his arguments and pop-psychologisms, and thus it all added up to a pattern. So I decided to test the pattern. As expected, he couldn't tolerate dissent. He channelled Dr. Laura for a few rounds (minus only the pseudo-Christian rhetoric), and then deleted the whole thread after telling me off for having dissed his reasoning.
“Righteous indignation is jealousy with a halo.” --H.G. Wells
Well, we all have our bad-hair days, or even a few bad-hair years here-and-there. Hell, it took decades of brutal experience to snap me out of my defensive, wannabe-do-gooder phase.
Was I wrong to pee in his cheerios? I’d say so. It’s his journal to rant in as he pleases. I had always been pretty lukewarm on his reasoning, but when he friended me for whatever reason, wotthehell, I went ahead and friended him back. The first sign of real trouble was when he mistook some of my self-deprecating humor as some sort of cultural malaise that needed to be exposed. At that point, it seemed pretty obvious that I’d have to unfriend him, but the timing didn’t seem right. I hung around a little longer, and then walked away a little later than I should’ve. But that’s all beside the point.
The bottom line is this: What are we, as activists or as contemplatives, really in this for? You can bet the first, reflexive answer most people give will be wrong. And the second. And the third. How many people ever bother to question their own motives for doing what seems to be the right thing? How many will even tolerate the suggestion that they should?
So ... what? Why? How?
Real every-day activists don’t get to be heroes. If you’ve opted into this life and are busy making a difference, you’re much more likely to get heckled, bullied, assaulted, arrested, investigated, jailed, falsely charged, raped-pillaged-maimed or even killed as reward for your efforts. Crying foul with every setback will only get you laughed at. You’re not likely to get your name in the paper for doing the right thing, and if you know what’s good for your cause, you won’t want to. That’s the way it’s always been, and the sooner you make peace with that, the better. “We knew the risks when we joined Starfleet.” If you didn’t even read the brochure, then you don’t belong here. Go home and crawl under your bed. Don’t come out to play until you’ve done your homework.
Likewise, the proverbial “Zen Master” who got where he is by actually confronting his own demons didn’t get a fucking trophy for it. He’s not wasting time simpering about how he’s not being fawned over by flocks of adoring fans and largesse-showering disciples, and he doesn’t get to gloss over his own blunders by pointing the finger at others. And if he’s that one-in-a-billion Guru who gets a photo-op with the Pope today, he’s every bit as likely to get a bullet in the head tomorrow, and he’d better know that and not waste time whining about it. Now, the other billion of us are all in line for that second honor too, but this time no-one’s taking names, so just check your dreams of glory at the door.
Oh, and neither of the above are to be found sitting around spewing all-purpose epithets about some ill-defined “they” in the pseudo-presence of a handful of hand-picked online loyalists. That’s not activism, it’s not enlightenment, and it’s not an example worth setting. It’s just self-indulgence and ego-defense, and that’s nothing to get uppity about.
No, if you really want to make a difference, you’d better be prepared to live and die busting your ass in total obscurity. And if you’re doing it for the right reasons to begin with, you’ll never find yourself wondering if it’s worth it. Well, not long enough to bellyache about it, anyway.
But the craving for social gratification is not a valid motive for activism, and finding the right motives -- or rather, honestly identifying and dispensing with the wrong ones within yourself -- is by far the hardest part of answering that question of why. Without a sound why, there can be no coherent how. And without solid grounding in why and how, all you can do is ride off in all directions at once doing the wrong thing at every point along the way, and all at a stage in the game when most often the only right thing to do is nothing at all.
Our most monumental accomplishments by far are the ones no-one else can see. Any social acknowledgment offered for such accomplishments will always feel empty, because there’s no way for others to really know what effort or suffering you’ve endured, and your mind can never quite bullshit its way completely around that inconvenient fact. So the more you crave the satisfaction of being praised for such victories, the more disturbingly anemic that praise will feel. In fact, you're better off without it, as it just confuses your motives.
Now, at some point, it will likely seem horribly bitter that the hardest battles are untouchable by praise, but that wears off so long as you don’t cop out, and the fact remains that those inner battles are sine qua non.
There’s no getting around that.
Critical self-awareness is the foundation on which any respectable path, Buddhist or otherwise (or any sober activism, for that matter), must be built if it is to survive with any integrity in the face of even the slightest adversity. But most people can't be bothered with that essential component, because it's by far the hardest thing any of us might ever do, and because you don't get no ticker-tape parades for conquering yourself. Most people are expert imitators and dramatists -- especially if it seems to get them out of doing their own homework -- but sooner or later, the odor of testosterone always gives them away. Bitterness, hopelessness, indignation, blame-games ... these are all evidence of unfinished business between the ears.
So, start with the nuts-and-bolts of your mind -- see there the brutal reality of what we are as a species, and never forget that that brutal reality is, first and foremost, the biggest part of YOU -- and everything else will follow.
Start anywhere else, and all bets are off.
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September 4th, 2007
07:41 pm - *chuckle*
The timing and parallels of that are just waaaay too convenient.
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August 27th, 2007
09:45 am - First Rove, and now Gonzales ... WTF?
It doesn't undo what's been done...
No Comment - Scott Horton at Harper's
The Gonzometer Moves to “Gone”
(You should all be reading Scott's blog every day, by the way.)
As for the usual drones:
(Meh.)
MSNBC
Gonzales has resigned, officials say
New York Times
Embattled Attorney General Resigns
So, WTF does this mean?
Not that I'm sorry to see either of them step down. But our business with these bastards is far from finished.
Now, agitating for impeachment proceedings against President Cheney is first order of business. Investigation of Rove and Gonzales will be a big part of that.
The Democrats’ Responsibility In The Wake of Gonzales’ Resignation
Gonzales Goes But Investigation Must Continue
It must be done -- or Teh Great "American Experiment" is OVER.
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August 18th, 2007
09:23 am - "Alms for an ex-telemarketer?.....Excuse me...Alms for.....Sir? Alms for an ex-tele--.....Damn!"
BREAKING NEWS: Jar-Brained Corporate Newlyweds, Six Apart and PepsiCo,
Witlessly Make Adblock the Most Popular Widget on the World Wide Web,
While Belied LiveJournal Tumbles Through 'Six Degrees' of FAIL
Dear Six Apart: When MAL-WART comes to put up a billboard in your front yard,
try to remember -- it's not an AD ... it's a "GIFT"!
*cough*
Dear LJ users (especially paid members): Here's a corporate yackbottle crudely prepped for you to RE-LABEL (wink, wink) any way you like. Please copy and distribute freely.
And now, let's all relax with some cool and refreshing TAP WATER.
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