Bush's Legacy

George Walker Bush Presidential Library will be built at Baylor. No one has said anything to that effect, but I beleive it to be likely. This is a guy that is different, he is going to do something very different from other Presidents. He will choose a religious university to hold his papers for all time and eternity. This will be the final signal to the Christian right that he was one of them all along. Even if he goes down, as long as he is singing "Jesus, Jesus, three bags full...," they will believe and accept him on blind faith, and he will be one with them.

The choice of a library. Most choose hometown, prestegious university, or close urban location. Bush will choose Baylor, because it is Baptist and it is close to Crawford. Liberty is out because in is not in Texas. Bob Jones would be an eternal embarrassment. BYU - they're not real Christians. If Baylor doesn't work out, then it will be Abaline Christian University. (It is fairly close to Midland.) That would say "I am really different and I need to be therefore judged differently.

And this brings us to the topic of legacy. Let's drop all the political pretending and bullshit for a moment. This is not about whether Bush was a good president or not. It is about signaling, defining, and hopefully learning. The question is "how did George W Bush influence the world?" In my mind, with the possible exceptions of Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Kennedy, no other president will have a bigger impact on democracy as an institution. One of Bush's stated diplomatic goals is to spread democracy. His actions during his presidency will actually spread democracy throughout the middle east and the world.

Think about it. Since George W Bush became president, more and more people in America a politically active. We are still slow, but we are awakening to the duties of the citizenry in running a democracy. Yes, many of these people, my self included, are more active because of the war, fanaticism, and the rawness of his power. But we are more active. Thus democracy is strengthening. In the middle east, while the mullahs are king, people are being introduced to democracy. Even if they fight it, they are interacting with it. If they sit huddled around a pot of tea sitting on a stove, they will discuss democracy. All interaction leaves participant entities changed. People will become more democratic. Symmetrically, democracy will fundamentally change as in incorporates and annexes new cultures. These cultures are different, very different. And their interactions will sand, buff, and shape how we all come together to work together.


We know war is bad. We know that what we are doing is not working. Bush isn't the one paralyzed, we are the ones. Democracy allows for opposition. As there is a need to be opposed, Bush is showing us that we can't go forward using traditional thinking. We have the test case. But the solutions are not going to come from K-Street, the Congress, or the think tanks. Those are all very important, but these guys don't create or think, they implement. That is what their job descriptions state.

But to think. That is not the role of government or big business. That is the right and responsibility enshrined in the 9th Amendment. To think, ...and this is it,...to be free to change one's mind. That is true freedom.

And this is why Bush will be remembered. Because he was so divisive. Because he spoke in plain small town language. He pandered. And by doing that, he divided. Any time there is a division, it is a good time to hold stock in democracy. Democracy gets a workout. And Bush orchestrated it. From the believers he gets support. From the left, he gets scorn. But this isn't about him, this is about democracy. If democracy succeeds, it will be because of W. If it fails, it will be because of W. Democracy will be his legacy. He got more Americans involved, and he got a lot of others talking about it. All of this can only lead to more democracy.

Even if Bush fails, the wars backfire, and America falls further from grace, we as the children of democracy have to pick up our birthright and march forward. This is democracy. And it is a direct result of the Bush presidency. Thus democracy is being spread as advertised. It is the process of Yin and Yang, the eternal truth.

So the point of all this (and now I will become partisan), before Bush has a chance to issue a signing statement as to what his legacy will officially be, it is our chance to invite people to the democratic process. The matra is that if the citizens do not participate through democracy, this is the type of government you will get: Of Jesus, by the Pharasees, for the rich. But at least he is waking up the population to the risks of a runaway, uncontrolable government. And the responsibility to participate. And the responsibility to think.

Update: (12/26): A couple of days ago, it was announced that Bush would likely build his pyramid, I mean library, at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Baylor, or the University of Dallas. SMU is the odds on favorite, and it is where Laura went to college -- she is the family librarian after all.

The Miracle of Joyful Love ~ Without Maya

Jesus went up on that cross, and he blasted off. Right into our hearts. Jesus lives. He died to connect us all. Jesus, the physical Jesus, dissolved. He dissolved like liquid into our hearts.

Jesus is alive because I am alive. Jesus loves me because I AM JESUS! And it just doesn't get any better than that. Nothing can ever beat THAT. What could? When you understand that that's what it is all about, the ecstasy of peak existence. The perfect wave.

And you know that Jesus loves you because you ARE ALIVE in Jesus...and Jesus is ALIVE in you. Faith is letting go of the rope tethering you to Maya, just long enough to wake up. Because you will wake up. And at that point faith begets knowledge, and once you know, you can't rely on faith. And you ARE.

Without Maya.

So that is what we are trying to become. We are trying to climb up on that cross and blast off. Just like Jesus did. Blast off into as many hearts as possible. That is how you score points in the game. Into the heart, as many hearts as possible. Just like Jesus.

When you win that life, if you are blasting off, trying to touch and cure pain, if you are living that life, then you are happy. You can't help but be happy operating at harmonic efficiency. Doing good all the time.

Not the bad good, but the real good: the helping, the love, the caring, the giving. Without malice, pride, existentialism, or nothing...just love, like a kid loves a puppy. The miracle of joyful love. Ready to explode. Into the heart.

The Greater Good

How they get you?

Tony Blair knows this one all too well. You are set up.

One day, they ask you to cross the line a little bit. It is for the greater good. But what did you get paid for crossing that line? Was it what you thought? Or was it one of those “Look, it’s just a safety precaution. This will never happen.”

Except when it does. In full daylight.

Once it happens, they have you. If you don’t go along, you might as well be homeless. Turned out to pasture. "Services no longer beneficial to our agenda."

And the greater good? You looked away. It is on the other side of the fence from where you now stand. You are now one of them. No redemption. This was that policy underwritten by Faust. You accepted the premiums --- now the payout is that stigma of moral bankruptcy. Lasts longer than 10 years. That is a shame.

Even as the Crawford Rattler winds away behind the rocks, you are naked because they never were going to let you be one of them. Yeah, right. These guys play a mean hand…and they cheat…at winning. And you were just another card being played on a televised hand. Everybody saw you, all proud and successful.

But the other stuff.... Yeah, Google has you on record, for ever. You are electronically monitored and tied to that point in time. For your ever.

Them, they’re still wild and crazy eyed. And they are laughing, … at you. Well, because you were doing it for the greater good. Mmmm-humh.

The God Gene

As gods in embryo, the main job is building new planets. Planets to enhance. Existence is a creation. It is an egg. We have to crawl out of the egg. The egg was a rock. We had to grow it, tend it, fertilize it, and survive on it.

We are now gods. Our DNA came and conquered. It is paramount. It is no different than a virus. The virus is Satan, trying to keep us from succeeding. It is trying to kill us, so that it can survive. Did we make this planet, or is this our jumping off point. Are we butterflies just after chrysalis, or are we caterpillars building the cocoon? How can we even know?

One idea is stories. Stories are what win and lose conflicts. Who has a better story? Whose story becomes an icon? Whose story wins?

Occidentals battle the Muslims. They have a strong story. I don’t have time to learn it. I am working on integrating mind and body. Trying to make my body conscious. Break free from the boundedness of words. My ancestor’s story has been deconstructed and reanimated. Those who are trying to live the story are just putting on a revival. A restaging. I have to move forward as a post-abstract reconstructionalist. Rebuilding the concept of existence using nano logic and string theory. The theory of music. The end of history.

What I really meant earlier, you know, about the Muslims... They are living the hard edge of story. The word made flesh. What was really meant is the flesh made word. Live the tribal story, the way it was told for generations. The story of the word, as recounted by the living flesh. That is how we lived and guided our DNA through the stage of history. Get on the path, get on the story, get with the program. We followed the story.

Now the story has been decontstructed. It has no meaning, sitting there fractured, separated, alone. It is just a bunch of pieces scattered across the garage floor, waiting until one of us has a free afternoon and can reassemble the pieces, or should I say, recycle the pieces. Hopefully into something really cool, yet practical.

That sounds like a rule. Cool, yet practical.

The story was a rule, a rule to live by. Since the story of my DNA has been deconstructed, I have to CHOOSE what to do with the parts. This is my gamble. This is my turn to lead the platoon through the minefield on point. Am I up to the challenge? What do I build with the parts? Will it be cool, yet practical? Will it be a new story? A new rule to live by? Will it be a song? A song to dance by? A pupa to transform in?

This is where I am in my life. Ever since I was a small child, my grandmother told me with absolute sincerity that I was directly descended from Alexander the Great! My actual ancestor did something! Yeah it was a long way back, but I was as good as royalty! I could do anything!

I never lost that belief. It was one of the few times I was given permission to dream. A building permit, of sorts. Use the pieces and build something.

Kurt Vonnegut, in one of his books, had a character say, “You know how to recognize something that is actually true? When you make a statement of fact, and your neighbor responds “Boy, ain’t that the truth!”.”

Here is the $64 billion question? (inflation): Does Kurt Vonnegut know when he is deconstructing, constructing, or can he even tell?

I think that when you are on point, leading the platoon, like Field Commander Cohen, you have to be constructing. Constructing a path. You have to have faith. Not blind faith. But you have to have enough understanding of the physics, the psychology, the biology, and the theology of the story to know what the pieces are and how to use them.

The story has been growing. All those fleshy words. Almost erotic. Almost interconnected. Almost becoming one, a singularity. Growing right from the start, it has. The memory of raw existence, a time of void, void of time.

The word formed in the cave. It was the key to remembering. Remembering for both learning and decoding. We had to start with basics. The first word was just a toehold on our memory of our past, used as a tool to conquer our future. Food, reproduction, genealogy, and order. The power of the word allowed us to evolve, to conquer the next level. It made us aware of forgetting. Quite a toehold!

To protect against forgetting, we had to pass our lessons learned on to the next persons to lead on point. Our platoon to our children. We didn’t have critical mass yet, so we had to sell our kids on the story. We had to dress it up. We needed them to keep building the story. Finding the truth, dragging it back to the campfire, sharing it with as many comrades as possible. The truths were then tested, day in and day out, under the strictest form of the scientific method – survival. Some call it evolution, I call it story building. The one with the best story wins.

This is the duality of life, the duel. The conquest of dimensionality and living. Our first tool is the word. The word begets life. Life is the continuum of truth.

All those stories told around the campfire. All those shared truths. Some stronger than others. The stronger truths win out and get added to the story. The others just aren’t as shinny, and they get set down, get damaged, and mostly get forgotten about.

When dueling truths are both on point,
it is impossible to go forward as a group.
We go from the duel to the trial,
from 2 to three.
From yours and mine
to Judges, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.
History puts on priestly robes
pronounces the word,
the word that will be followed by flesh.
It helps if it rhymes.

The weaker truths sometimes get preserved as artifacts; words kept in libraries, just in case they are useful in a construction, the repository of relics, of photos, of campfire stories, a storehouse for words.

The campfire truths get retold, become words in books, books in bibles, bibles in hotel rooms. Historical truth decomposes into pornography on the internet. Did I say decompose? Graphy implies dimensionality. Word was a toehold, the zero dimension of original existence. Two words created a line. Two lines a paragraph. 1080 lines create a high definition visual of our known truths. A google of lines is the repository of unproven and forgotten words that are awaiting placement. Stem cells cryogenically frozen. A virtual backup for damaged A, T, C and Gs, in case the mythical Spock needs to reboot the system. The seep of reserves is there.

I am practicing today. Memories of basic training. Soon my number will be called to lead the platoon on point. I go through my karate moves, allowing the zen to enter. I wonder did I study enough? Did I have enough extra curricular activities? Did I really learn anything? Or are words just sounds. Do they mean what they say they do? Or am I making this up? No one told me. But I think I can feel the warmth from the campfire. I smell the ancestors. I am aware of my hands slicing the wind.

God, The Proof of

The question of whether God exists has rolled around in everyone's mind.

Everyone agrees (some tautologically) that God can only be known through Faith. Faith is the belief in something not seen (i.e., proven by using the five senses). Therefore, the existence of God depends upon Faith in God.

Why do people, who are arguably free agents, believe in God? After all, if God can't be proven, then a belief in God is irrational. But, the question exists, from a scientific perspective, whether an irrational, unprovable God can exist?

My proof is that if anything irrational and unprovable can be shown to exist in a beneficial way, (and if embraced by society, all the more significant), then God exists. I believe that God exists because the benefit of something irrational and unprovable exists.* In other words, if people can actually have better, more productive, more meaningful lives because of the societal need for something irrational and unprovable exists, then the door is open for God to exist. If, then, there is any benefit to anyone from God existing, then God exists.

Since about 800 b.c.e., humans have been using "irrational numbers"
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irrational_number). These numbers do not exist. But they are necessary for you to be able to read the text that is in front of you. If they did not exist, the computer you are looking at would not exist. Therefore, for the existence you are currently experiencing to formally exist, irrational numbers are absolutely necessary. Yet, by definition, they do not exist.

Ergo, because some people need God to solve a problem, God exists. If you still don't buy it, try living your life without the benefit of irrational numbers. If irrational numbers are necessary, yet science can logically prove they do not exist, then science has missed something or it is a lie. (Ironically, if it is a lie, then this prood of God fails.)


Not a counter argument: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmNjfpoRZpE&eurl=

*I am not saying what that benefit is. In democracy, one man's pornograhy is another man's art.

Artists are like thieves in the night...

they struggle to find a truth to put in the wall. paying off the debt of ignorance. all the things we forgot. the artists go out to find it and bring it back.

can we get that truth out of it, put all of the pieces together and say "ah hah! this is what it means!" Then everyone is relieved, because the pressure is off. but the pressure is on, because the evil dick whiplash wants to open the back of the book and see how it turns out. so even if it had a meaning it would be for naught. or so you are taught to think.

the way to win is honest efficiency. no lies. if it works do it. if not don't. trust is important. but stop the lie. not the fairy tale, the lie.

ouch.


it is theirs forever..















god is chaising them.

2 not 2

It is all about sex. Even back down the evolutionary chain. If you were to succeed, biologically speaking, you needed to have sex. If not, then your gene pool died. The way to show wealth was to have many wives (read: sperm receptacles). Most animals that live in a group have a single male that gets to fuck. Anyone who doesn't get to fuck, is an evolutionary aberration. They become deviants. They want to fuck, but they didn't win (or figure out) the game. So they hump each other's leg.

Only the winners get to fuck. And how did ancient societies allocate this? through wealth. You had to "afford" the right to fuck. But the "untouchables"? Them, they don't get to fuck (at least not very often).

But the bush white house is another story. they think they are better because the self chose that they don't want to sit around and fuck all the time. they think their head feels lighter because they are detoxing from sex. but they are not. they are just getting ungrounded and light headed. god loves them as they sniff exhaust fumes. sex schmex.

but some go funny. they wrap around you leg, and it is embarrassing to shake them off. and you wonder about clean up, even though that has never happened. but now it has.

Drama Club

Is it just me, or does anyone else think that the republicans are sticking knives in each other’s backs because the cartel is cracking. I mean, what if Fordam is saying all that stuff about Hastert just to stick a knife in his back. Fordam was forced out of the inner circle of thugs, and so he says “Fuck it” and plants one in Hastert’s back. Hastert may have been telling the truth, but he was caught flatfooted. Before, Hastert had a chance of survival, now he is DOA. Everyone dies. This is political Shakespeare at its best.

This sinking boat is going to have a bunch of fighting and back-stabbing over the next few days. If we are lucky, this political infighting will spill over to the white house, and ripple all the way down the fascist wavelength til it does the San Andres. It will be known in the history books as “The Rupture.” A beauty to behold.

****
Another Thought. If we thought about poitics as theater to amusedly watch and be intertained by, it would help us teach literature in the schools. I mean the kids would get it. "This going on in Washington is just greedy theater. Kids always see it, they just don't have the words to express it, and they don't know what it is they are trying to express. But in this model, they would say "Oh, theater is about real life." Because real life is theater. They, the kids will get it, because theater is language of life. Metaphors help us see through the fog, and when kids see that it is just a metaphore, they will understand what a metaphor is from the first person. The next leap is that everything is tied together, connected. Literature, daily life, government/greedy dramas -- they are all connected. So kids learn how to use literature becomes meaningful to making lifes' decisions, and at that point you are free to choose your life. For yourself.

Maybe then, democracy will have a chance.

In the Beginning...

...was the end of all we came to accept as reality.

Time flows backwards, physical realities exist in probability, we see what we learned to see, and discount the visions of those whose iconography we have not experienced.

We have been sneaking back into the Garden of Eden for some say 6,000 years! Soon, it will only exist on film, in books, and on the internet. It has been happening for a long time, but the garden is almost gone. Everything that is alive will be soon dying. Nature is withering on the vine. We have eaten it, enslaved it, monetized it, and cared about it. Oh, it will still exist -- as theory, as memory, as song, as longing -- but not as a support system for the existence to which we pledge allegiance.

Call it the rapture if you want, but it will feel more like a rupture. And it is gonna hurt, even for those who want it to happen.

One step I am looking for is when the religious realize that the environmentalists are the only other humans out there who care about God's creations on God's terms of "Each Live and Reproduce According to Their Own Instructions." (Note: Monsanto doesn't invest in that theory.)

The ONLY question is whether YOU believe in that utopian belief of freedom, nature, balance, charity, and restraint?

Your answer is revealed to your heart in your desire to fall on your knees in anguish or to call your stock broker. Only you and your ghost will ever know. The rest of us can at best guess intent, choice, and skill based on the tracks you lay down.

As that dying world moved beyond the tipping point, Furtherism was put forward as model, as a belief system, as a nano-erector set that grants permission to design the post-biotic worlds our pupated double helix structures can emerge into.

Yes, it does sound dismal, doesn't it? Believe you me, it is not my idea of a bright and sunny future. It may be, I just can't tell right now from my vantage point.




(Photo Credit: The Cat's Eye Nebula: Dying Star Creates Fantasy-like Sculpture of Gas and Dust, http://hubblesite.org) thx_glo