A-Z: the archetype of Zarqawi

[H2O Man]

Section One: Zarqawi

"Would you have believed that a whole nation of highly intelligent and cultivated people could be seized by the fascinating power of an archetype?"
-- C.G. Jung; Analytical Psychology: Its Theory & Practice; Vintage Books; 1968; page 183.

The death of the man our media called Zarqawi raised a number of questions last week. Who was he? How did he die? What was he doing in Iraq? And what will be the consequences of his death? Could it possibly mark the beginning of the end of this ugly, brutal war?

Almost immediately after the "official" story was reported in the corporate news, even journalists from MSNBC mentioned previous reports that the US military intelligence had, to some extent, used Zarqawi's image in parts of sophisticated "psychological operations." Progressives on the democratic left used the internet to remind people that psy-ops are not only aimed at the Iraqi population. The US public has been served images of Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman that have turned out to be "perception management."

Just as Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman's images were used to appeal to the public as wholesome and patriotic, representing the "good" in President Bush's holy war on "evil-doers," it is clear that the image of Zarqawi was presented as pure evil. And, in fact, most Americans would no doubt agree that Lynch and Tillman represent goodness, and that Zarqawi was a dangerous killer. For the sake of this discussion, I am not as interested in these people as individuals, but rather as symbols that communicate messages at a "gut level."

Another description of that "gut level" message would be the attempt to communicate on an unconscious or subconscious level. Just as when we teach our children to recognize the subliminal messages in corporate advertisements, we do well the nature of the images of the war presented to us by the corporate state. In the Vietnam era, Jonathan Myrick Daniels wrote about the "raw material for a living theology"; in the Iraqi war era, we may be examining the symptoms of the administration's death cult.


Section Two: King

"If Washington and Jefferson risked 'crucifixion' by kings to establish democracy, he preached, the lowliest American should do no less to refine the spirit and practice of equal citizenship."
-- Taylor Branch; At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years 1965-68; Simon & Shuster; page 641.

A generation ago, Martin Luther King, Jr. died trying to raise the public's conscious awareness of the dangers of what he called "the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism." In his day, Martin was not the first black leader to connect American military aggression in Southeast Asia with racism within our society. Malcolm X had done the same, just as he connected domestic racism with Uncle Sam's African policy.

When Malcolm began to take his message to Africans, in hopes that it would reach the United Nations, he was killed. Today we can look back objectively, and see that Malcolm was actually attempting to refine the spirit and practice of equal citizenship, but in the 1960s, the media created an image of a dark, evil, and violent thug that posed a serious threat to American society.

Similarly, when Martin began to address the true nature of the disease that threatened the very soul of America, he became a "threat." When he bridged the Civil Rights and Anti-War movements, he became a danger to more than just the racists who were upset by the thought of blacks sitting at a public coffee counter. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover had long considered King a danger: the aging Hoover -- who was clearly not the man his "image" was made to project -- combined his fear of Martin's passionate nature with a belief that King was being manipulated by communists. When King delivered his "A Time to Break Silence" speech in 1967, the decision was made to kill him.

In his powerful book, Branch notes that shortly after Martin's death, his close friend Stanley Levison was upset by the fact that most Americans had "already distorted the loss of 'their plaster saint who was going to protect them from angry Negroes'." (page 769) Branch's book penetrates the mythology of Martin's last days and weeks. Perhaps better than any other author, he makes the reader conscious of the fact that Martin suffered greatly as a man, and was crucified between the two "criminals" that are a part of all of our sad and weakly human nature.


Section Three: Jung

"He is our culture hero, who, regardless of his historic existence, embodies the myth of the divine Primordial Man, the mythic Adam."
-- C.G. Jung; Selected Writings; BMC Books; 1997; page 320.

In "Christ, A Symbol of the Self," Jung engages in a discourse on "Christ and his adversary, the Anti-Christ," in psychological terms. The discussion includes his examining the intersection of the unique and the universal, the unitemporal and eternal, of good and evil, and of the spiritual and of the material. Jung is not as concerned with a study of the historic Jesus, but rather with Christ the archetype.

Jung details how Christianity has attempted to deal with the concepts of evil and sin. From Paul to St. Augustine, there was an attempt to separate the natural world, which clearly contains pain and suffering, from the definition of "God." By the time of the Renaisance (or "rebirth of the antique spirit"), the symbolic nature of the ancient texts was confused, and their message lost to many. For example, in the case of Jesus's journey to the desert, where he was tempted, being understood as an internal, psychological process, the church began to teach that Jesus was tempted by an external entity.

It's interesting to note that Malcolm said the Dead Sea Scrolls would "take Jesus off the stained-glass windows, and place him in the context of humanity, where he belongs." Jung also talks about images from the Essenses and Gnostics, which speak of Jesus as being the "younger brother" of the Anti-Christ. Their images of "light" and "dark" recognize the relationship between the two potentials. Jung notes that their texts speak of good and evil, and light and dark, as being the right and left hands of God.

The Gnostics referred to the lower "God" of the less enlightened mainstream church of their day. This is the angry, jealous, and punishing God that in psychological terms could be described as the collective unconscious that Jung wrote about. It is the "god of war" that our president worships.


Section Four: Bush

"...(P)eople had simply no idea that our personal psychology is just a thin skin, a ripple on the ocean of collective psychology. The powerful factors, the factor which changes our whole life, which changes the surface of our known world, which makes history, is collective psychology, and collective psychology moves according to laws entirely different from those of our consciousness."
-- C.G. Jung; Analytical Psychology; page 183.

Much of the ancient world was aware that human nature included both good and bad potentials. We can think of the concept of "yin-yang," or of the Iroquoian tribes understanding of people being a complex mix of light and dark, or even St. Patrick's introduction in his Confession ("I, Patrick, a sinner, the most unlearned and least of all the faithful and despised by many..."), who re-introduced the concepts of compassion and forgiveness to a rigid and political church.

The opposite of that awareness of self in terms of human nature, is the unconsciousness that Jung notes is unabled to distinguish between good and evil. He writes that, "Today humanity, as never before, is split into two apparently irreconcilable halves. The psychological rule says that when an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside, as fate. That is to say, when the individual remains undivided and does not become conscious of his inner opposite, the world must perforce act out the conflict and be torn into opposing halves."

It is difficult not to see President George W. Bush's policies reflected in that description of unconscious conflict. Even if we are generous enough to grant that he is sincere in his misguided attempts to "fight evil-doers" in his violent policies in Iraq, it seems evident that he is unaware of the terror and pain and suffering that his actions has caused. If we again accept the description of Zarqawi being a thug and a brute, we surely must recognize that no force on earth will create more Zarqawis than this administration's Middle East policies.

In his "A Time to Break Silence" address, Martin quoted a letter from a Buddhist monk: "Each day the war goes on the hatred increases in the heart of the Vietnamese and in the hearts of those humanitarian instinct. The Americans are forcing even their friends into becoming their enemies. It is curious that the Americans, who calculate so carefully on the possibilities of military victory, do not realize that in the process they are incurring deep psychological and political defeat. The image of America will never again be the image of revolution, freedom, and democracy, but the imafe of violence and militarism."

For a variety of reasons, men like Bush and Cheney have no conscious understanding of Vietnam's lessons. They are likewise unconscious of the realities of their evil in Iraq, and rather than take responsibility for the pain and suffering they have caused, they will instead project it upon the next Zarqawi. They have created a nightmare.


Section Five: Us

"Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home and death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. The great initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop it must be ours."
-- Martin Luther King, Jr.; A Time To Break Silence.

Ninety years ago, as Carl Jung has noted, intelligent people said that there would be no "great war," because they were "far too reasonable to let it happen, and our commerce and finance are so interlaced internationally that (such a) war is absolutely out of the question...." Yet Jung "saw it coming, I said in 1918 that the 'blond beast' is stirring in its sleep and something will happen in Germany...." (Analytical Psychology; pages 182-3)

Jung was convinced that a great war was coming from examing the archetypes moving beneath the unconscious levels: ".... what the unconscious really contains are the great collective events of the time. In the collective unconscious of the individual, history prepares itself; and when the archetypes are activated in a number of individuals and come to the surface, we are in the midst of history, as we are at present."

President Bush is as unconscious as any machine, such as a lawn-mower. He is representative of the collective unconscious mass of republicans who believe that the death of a common thug in Iraq is going to bring peace to that war-torn land .... just as they believe the execution of a death row inmate will end crime in Texas.

When they hear a Mr. Berg speak to the futility of killing the man who reportedly murdered his son, they are mildly uncomfortable, for they are unable to relate to that belief. They do not believe that this type of forgiveness is part of "human nature." They want Christ on the stained glass window, and King to be cause for a holiday sale.

President Bush has become so intoxicated with the illusion of power, that he has passed out at the wheel. He is driving our nation towards a greater war in the Middle East.

As citizens of this nation, and as members of the global community, we need to sound the alarm clock. We need to wake up, as a people, and become conscious of our humanity. We can not expect a sleeping "leader" to end the war in Iraq by killing a thug; we need to end the war by reaching the consciousness of Martin Luther King, Jr.

What would Martin do, were he here today? That's exactly what we need to do.

[Me.]

1. K & R

*shadow government*

[EFerrari]

2. Christ on a stained glass window

is a wonderful curse.

:)

[rosesaylavee]

3. We have marched on Washington and it

is routinely underreported as well as marches closer to home. Is there something we can agree to boycott that would make the WH sit up and take notice? Something that would effect them monetarily?

[EFerrari]

4. I don't think anything affects them more than anti war protests

and boycotts.

They didn't kill Martin when he talked about race. They killed him when he talked about militarism because that strikes at the source of their wealth.

/oops

[rosesaylavee]

5. I agree - what will we boycott that

will not only effect them in their pocket book but has to be reported widely in the M$M? So far the media has underreported or completely ignored the numbers involved in the protests... esp here in my red county. 300+ pre-war protests reduced to about 50 people.

Losing money on something will get their attention I think.

[rosesaylavee]

12. Boycott GAS

I have to think that boycotting gas and oil is the way to go. I know this has been tried before without a lot of success as it has lacked a coordinated effort. However, it IS where most of the Bush/Cheney crew's money is invested and I think it deserves another look.

As most of us are gas-dependent as to how we get to work or school, are we willing to take one day of the week to find another way to get there? Bike, bus, carpool, commuter train, walk, or just work from home?

Maybe if we agreed to not buy gas at all on that day as well that would create a larger ripple in their pond ... if I could pick a day, it would be Friday when most gas stations hike their prices for the weekends.

And, it must be understood that if we start this boycott, it will go on indefinitely until the effects are felt and reported widely in the M$M.

Anyone up for this? Can DU provide the leadership to get the other bloggers and liberal sites to sign on to this?

[EFerrari]

25. That would be such a hard sell for most people. Americans

live in their cars.

If we could get it together, Friday would be a good choice.

I boycott gas every day, being car - free these last three years. :)

[druidity33]

41. congrats!

At 34, i've never had a license... though im co-owner of a car now, so that my wife can drive the 5 year old to school. Mostly i bike, walk, and bus... sometimes i get a lift from a kind soul. It demands allowing for more time to get places and to accept when you can't get somewhere readily. I'll be moving to the boonies next year where buses are not an option, so i may break down and get a pick-up and license to operate it...
... good luck to you!

[brer cat]

30. You have my support. I'm now walking to work.

Not everyone can do that, but I also used to use public transportation in Atlanta. Do what you can to eliminate gas guzzling travel.

[Patsy Stone]

6. I find the worst to be that

even Bush doesn't believe Zarqawi's death will make a difference -- yet he insists *we* believe it will, and belittles those that speak the same truth as he did during his last radio address. He has no plans to withdraw troops and he even went so far as to state (in the same address he heralded the death as an "important victory") that:

"Zarqawi is dead, but the difficult and necessary mission in Iraq continues. In the weeks ahead, violence in Iraq may escalate. The terrorists and insurgents will seek to prove that they can carry on without Zarqawi. And Coalition and Iraqi forces are seizing this moment to strike the enemies of freedom in Iraq at this time of uncertainty for their cause. The work ahead will require more sacrifice and the continued patience of the American people."

In the absence of true and good leadership, people (by this point mostly lazy and complacent) listen to whoever speaks the loudest. That's the most dangerous element, imo. If we're talking in Biblical parables, the Golden Calf comes to mind.

K&R

[Me.]

7. Why Can't They See, Why Can't They See?

Is asked by we 10 percenters, why couldn't they see what we saw coming, and vote not once but twice for this man and the group of felons he brought with him? Could it be that the psychological split that it would take to recognize how betrayed they've been is an unbearable concept to them, too painful to contemplate? For if they must recognize the inherent evil of what has and is being done to this country and in the name of this country, they must recognize the possibility for such within their selves. How could the Germans not know/see was asked after WWII, how can we not see? I have wondered if, had not the allies defeated the nazis, would the people of the country ever taken the matter into hand?

*shadow government*

[rosesaylavee]

8. I like that you are calling us to action, H2OMan

I am hopeful that the responses here on DU will include ideas of what we can do that would be King-like actions against the constitutional abuses we see from *co.

[endarkenment]

9. K&R

H2O Man once again transcends the debate. Thanks.

[myrna minx]

10. Thank you. K&R. n/t

[zippy890]

11. unconscious conflict creating mayhem in the world

great post.

I often wonder at our collective unresolved conflicts
about Vietnam, and its relation to the Iraq war.

There was so much anger about that war, righteous anger.
But I think the pro-war nixonion rwers's backlash anger
simmered and fermented over the years. They could not
accept any responsibility for escalating that horrible mistake,
they blamed the antiwar movement, everyone but themselves.

We do need to become conscious of our humanity, more so now
than ever.

Martin would draw the historical parallels that are
so obvious with Vietnam, that we must demand our leaders to
admit mistakes that have caused so much death and destruction,
and will only cause more the longer our country occupies Iraq.

Anybody notice how the military is increasing the 'number of
enemies killed/captured' reports coming out in the news lately? This
happened during vietnam, especially as things were getting
worse. Sick feeling in my stomach, with a power-hungry lawn-mower
president.

How many of those reported deaths are women, children.

We must stop american involvement in this war.

Where is our Martin Luther King-type leader today?

edited grammar

[Me.]

13. I Think One Of The Hardest Things For People To Recognize &

accept right now, even progressives, is that we have no leaders, no real ones. And, the reason for this, I believe, is that it is time for the people to learn to lead themselves. Take our destinies into our own hands.

*shadow government*

[zippy890]

14. I've been thinking about 'War tax resistance'

Figuring out % of federal tax I pay that goes to
Iraq war. Putting it in escarow or whatever is done there.

I would be willing to go to jail rather than pay toward
that criminal war, if it came to that.

if enough people did this would it help?

One problem - how much to refuse to pay?

I'm open to other suggestions on 'taking our destinies
into our own hands' I like the sound of that.

[rosesaylavee]

16. I have always liked the simplicity of Gandhi's making

salt - if we can keep the action simple, more people may do it. Taking on the IRS with percentage tax payments may be too scary for some and beyond the understanding of others.

Boycotting gas - as I suggest above (http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=1407587&mesg_id=1408093) may be the simple thing to do - but again, we all need to agree to it and spread the word.

Not having MLK around to encourage us - do you think we here at DU, collectively, take this on?

[H2O Man]

27. I'm trying to think

of a good way to respond to the important points you are raising. In part, I think that Martin went beyond merely marching. He recognized the need to inspire creative tensions, often by putting large numbers of people in jail for potentially extended periods. He also recognized the importance of conducting significant amounts of the struggle within the context of the federal courts. We may need to combine those two tactics.

[rosesaylavee]

28. I think the acts - when we decide what they

may be - need to be simple enough to follow so many can participate. We don't need 100% participation - just a large enough number deemed significant enough that it won't easily sneak under the MSM radar.

Another thought I had after I posted the gas boycott idea - it needs a larger purpose - the question would need to be answered as to why we are boycotting gas or whatever item we decide upon? If the answer inspires action (to protest the war for instance) a lot of people would sacrifice whatever it takes to act with us.

I think there are so many creative minds and courageous hearts here on DU, this would be an ideal incubator for developing at least a few very effective non-cooperative actions.

[H2O Man]

38. Branch's book

contained another quote I found interesting; it's from "Black Power: Statement by the National Committee of Negro Churchmen," which was printed in the New York Times. It read, in part:

"We are faced with a situation where conscience-less power meets powerless conscience, threatenning the very foundation of our nation."

I think that statement is fascinating. I think it underestimates the power of conscience. Last year, I spent some time at the trial of the St. Patrick's Four in Binghamton, NY. They are Catholic Workers who took direct action to express opposition to the Bush attack on Iraq. In the first days of their trial at the federal courthouse, the police had to separate their supporters from those who were demonstrating in favor of the Bush-Cheney war. By about the third day, almost everyone found that they had more in common than separating us. And that certainly included the police officers.

It may be that this war requires more people to make the disciplined sacrifice that the St. Patrick's Four made, in order to promote the national discussion needed to identify those values we hold in common as a nation.

[rosesaylavee]

42. I guess I was incredibly out of the loop

and missed the reports that must have been here and elsewhere on the St. Patrick's Four. I am astounded that they were given prison time for that! No, I am shocked... They showed up and poured their own blood on themselves and a flag? That is all, right? I looked at their website and read their opening statements and a little of what one of the women endured in prison. http://stpatricksfour.org/

I was discussing the idea of 'action' last night with a relative - she mentioned her idea that the Civil Rights protesters were inspired to act then as they had reached a critical point of 'no more' and have we reached that point yet? Will we reach it soon? Or at all?

I think some of us have but I have to admit, as my salary is the base support money in my household, I don't know how much time in prison I could afford and keep my family intact. Not saying I wouldn't do it, but it would take some additional and very careful consideration for me before I would act on this. This discussion brings home to me, in a personal way, a more direct understanding of just how much courage and dedication is needed to mount a concerted effort to bring about change in our community, our society.

That all said, I am still up discussing this and participating if we can decide what that action would look like.

[DoYouEverWonder]

43. 'It is time for the people to learn to lead themselves.'

That is what the second coming will be about. When people wake up and realize that there will be no savior descending from the heavens to save us and make everything better. When we realize that no one can save us from ourselves, except ourselves. Only when we find the 'christ' energy within ourselves, will we be able to change the world for the better and put an end to the misery that people like Bush & Co. use to maintain their power. Only then shall we overcome.

[DrDebug]

15. Martin Luther King was considering going into politics as well

Martin Luther King and the Vietnam War
by John Simkin

Martin Luther King had decided to take a stand against the Vietnam War after reading an article consisting of photographs of
children horribly maimed by napalm in Ramparts Magazine (1)

On April 4, 1967, King delivered an impassioned anti-war plea at Riverside Church in New York. In the speech, he addressed those who had urged him not to speak out:

Over the past two years, as I have moved to break the betrayal of my own silences and to speak from the burnings of my own heart, as I have called for radical departures from the destruction of Vietnam, many persons have questioned me about the wisdom of my path. At the heart of their concerns, this query has often loomed large and loud: "Why are you speaking about the war, Dr. King? Why are you joining the voices of dissent?" "Peace and civil rights don't mix," they say. "Aren't you hurting the cause of your people?" they ask. And when I hear them, though I often understand the source of their concern, I am nevertheless greatly saddened, for such questions mean that the inquirers have not really known me, my commitment, or my calling. (2)

King later wrote: “After reading that article, I said to myself, never again will I be silent on an issue that is destroying the soul of our nation”. (3)

After making his speech on Vietnam, the editor of the Nation, Carey McWilliams and the Socialist Party leader, Norman Thomas, urged King to run as a third-party presidential candidate in 1968. (4)

William F. Pepper, the author of the Ramparts article, suggested that King should challenge Lyndon B. Johnson for the Democratic Party presidential nomination. King rejected this idea but instead joined with Pepper to establish the National Conference for New Politics (NCNP). “From this platform, Dr King planned to move into mainstream politics as a potential candidate on a presidential ticket with Dr Benjamin Spock in order to highlight the anti-poverty, anti-war agenda.” (5)

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=6274&view=findpost&p=59275

This is what William Pepper - the photographer of the Vietnam pictures - thinks that Martin Luther King would say if he were alive today:

One of the Vietnam pictures

William Pepper Calls Martin Luther King's Murder an "Execution"
by MARK GABRISH CONLAN
Copyright © 2003 by Mark Gabrish Conlan for Zenger's Newsmagazine

(...)

Asked what King would be doing if he were alive today, Pepper replied, "He'd be very active in the leadership against war in Iraq. We're once again going to witness the slaughter of thousands of civilians. We're talking about an ancient civilization and people. Ancient Sumeria and Biblical Babylon had their roots in what is now Iraq. We're not only going to destroy a people but remake and restructure an ancient people's symbols and heritage. "

Throughout the world today an anti-war movement is building with surprising strength and speed from the roots up. It's difficult to engender this kind of feeling in the U.S. when the drumbeat sounds every day and the media are so consolidated they only report what the government and corporate leaders want people to hear.

http://sandiego.indymedia.org/en/2003/02/4025.shtml

Sources:
1. William F. Pepper, The Children of Vietnam, Ramparts Magazine (January, 1967)
2. Martin Luther King, Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence, Riverside Church, New York City, April 4, 1967 ( full text at http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/058.html )
3. Clayborne Carson, Autobiography of Martin Luther King (1998)
4. William F. Pepper, Orders to Kill, 1995 (p.4)
5. William F. Pepper, An Act of State: The Execution of Martin Luther King, 2003 (p.4)

Edit: Emphasis + Pepper's reply

[H2O Man]

17. Great information.

Pepper's book "Orders to Kill" is an important study of Martin's life and death.

[DrDebug]

18. Thanks. I think it's time for some more King.

I think that one of the lessons from King is not only the power of a good speaker, but also that he needed the gut instinct of those horrible pictures and it is exactly those pictures which are withheld by the media. In a way most people here are lucky that we have seen the suffering. The story of the ordinary people like told by http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com , the pictures hidden at http://memoryhole.org , the accounts of soldiers who have returned wounded from the fields of war. It is those trigger which are needed.

A political stand is need as well and not everybody is the right material to go into politics, however there are people here who are capable of it and let them take the message into the Democratic Party and rejuvinate and reactivate the power a bit.

The most important is part is unity. It is well known that both J. Edgar Hoover and Lyndon Johnson tried very hard to seperate Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, because their union is what feared them the most and sadly they succeeded in putting them into seperate camps. And keeping the group together is very hard as is often displayed on this board as well. Divide and conquer is easy; Keeping the people together is the hardest task of them all.

The Ballot or the Bullet
by Malcolm X
12 April, 1964, Detroit, Michigan

(...)

The strategy of the white man has always been divide and conquer. He keeps us divided in order to conquer us. He tells us that I am for separation and you are for integration and keeps us fighting each other. No, I'm not for separation and you're not for integration. What you and I are for is freedom. Only you think that integration will get you freedom, I think separation will get me freedom. We've both got the same objective - we've just got different ways at getting at it.

(...)

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/malcolmxballot.htm

[H2O Man]

19. "The Ballot or the Bullet"

The text is also found in chapter 3 of "Malcolm X Speaks." And old-timers like myself still have the LP collection "The Best of Malcolm X," which includes a 33rpm on Charisma Records titled "Ballots or Bullets."

[dave29]

20. One of your best

and there are many. Thanks for this

-Dave

[bigtree]

21. us. that's the one that most interests me

nice.

[emald]

22. the eternal fight between good and evil

thats no less than all you speak of in your piece. This will not end just because we, the "good", wish it so. It will end when evil ends. Only then. This fight is much deeper than an area of the world, some commodities, differing spiritual opinions. Bush is evil personified, a man who understands udderly nothing of human consideration and compassion, a despicable ugly caricature, manipulated and manipulating.
No this will only end when evil is done, if ever.

[H2O Man]

23. The banality of evil ....

I remember reading where Robert Kennedy Jr. described Donald Rumsfeld as being an almost pleasant fellow in a neighborhood situation. Yet he is responsible for untold pain and suffering. His policies -- the decisions he has made -- have resulted in so much death and destruction that it staggers the imagination.

[Me.]

24. The Nice Church Going Man Who Lives Next Door

Makes me think of so many others, in the administration and, the world at large, BTK being one who springs to mind.

*shadow government*

[EFerrari]

26. A man who, when confronted with the evil he probably set into

motion at Abu Graib, shook his head and said, "Digital cameras" as if technology and not he was responsible.

[tomp]

34. kinda like mac namara, eh? nt

[H2O Man]

37. I had a quote

from McNamara that I was going to use: "There may be a limit beyond which many Americans and much of the world will not permit the United States to go. The picture of the world's greatest superpower killing or seriously injuring 1,000 non-combatants a week, while trying to pound a tiny backward nation into submission on an issue whose merits are hotly disputed, is not a pretty one."

Some of my friends who served in that war still have very strong feelings about McNamara. I read his book a few years back. He was a strange man.

[KoKo]

29. Kick....this will be an "overnight read" but

I can't wait to see your comparison's to Jung. I've bookmarked to read later...thanks.

[many a good man]

31. Archetype of Hate:

Those damn suicidal garden gnomes!

[bleever]

32. Thus, the masters of war, including their current incarnations,

invest heavily in promoting an external locus of control in the people they govern.

Heroes and villains are the actors, the ones to revere and revile, as we watch history as enthralled spectators.

Leaders who inspire individuals to action are a threat, and the greater their influence, the stronger the need to silence, neutralize, or kill them.

Religion should be based on an external, omnipotent force. Religious teachings that encourage the individual to see their own power to help other individuals, and to give more deference to the neediest instead of the most powerful, must be repressed. Jesus must remain a white man, stationary in his poses, both tragic and glorious. Gnosis, direct knowledge of divinity found in one's self and every other self, is heresy.

Humanism, and humanistic psychology which starts with the fact that all our knowledge of Creation and God comes through the instrument of humanity, and which realizes that Man makes the world (as he finds it) in his own image, and which acknowledges the source of Good and Evil actions and judgments as emanating from people, is the antithesis of the external locus of control. King, Malcom X, Gandhi, RFK, JFK, the Buddha, Jesus, promoting the ideas of self-realization, self-determination, self-rule, and the value and the power of each and every single person, are subversives to the masters of war.

And yet, the believers in the power and worth of each person are the ones who win. They show us how to win, too.


:thumbsup:

[bloom]

33. Great post.

"President Bush has become so intoxicated with the illusion of power, that he has passed out at the wheel."


That is too true.

[Nothing Without Hope]

35. K & R. Thanks for another fine essay, H2O Man n/t

[me b zola]

36. A stunning essay, H20 Man

About us, about our collective conscious. I really believe that the assassinations, beginning with JFK and ending with RFK, delivered a life-threatening blow to our collective conscious. It is as though the nation has lost it's soul, it's inner compass to know right from wrong, to be able to discern rational thought from double speak.

Over the weekend I looked at the pics that Minstral Boy had posted of RFK's funeral train. One of the things that I wondered was how many of those lovely faces that turned out to say good-bye to an American hero have since bought into the current political myths that have been woven into our culture, some of them taking 20+ years or so to cultivate. I wondered how many of those faces now believe that poverty exists because people don't work hard enough, or that unions are bad, liberals are evil, if we cut taxes enough for the wealthiest 10% then prosperity will trickle down to all of us. Haven't we seen this shift in the American psyche since the assassinations of our kings?



I have spoken from an external locus of control, I realize that. But I also realize that the civil rights movement didn't begin with MLK at the helm. The movement resembled, in many ways, our current efforts--until MKL spoke and shook the world. I just realized that it is quite possible that the relentless efforts of the people within the civil rights movement may very well have summoned the essence of the hero archetype, which came to be personified in MLK.

May the drumming of our relentless efforts, our singing over the bones, reveal the hero archetype in each of us.

"What would Martin do, were he here today? That's exactly what we need to do."

:)

[H2O Man]

39. I know that in

the days after Martin was killed, Senator Kennedy told friends that he was convinced that an ugly force had been unleased in Dallas. I believe that.

[Swamp Rat]

44. I do too.

[Philosoraptor]

40. Yeah man!

Great read.

[dalaigh lllama]

45. I think our collective unconscious

is gaining momentum, though from our perspective it may seem to be moving at a snail's pace. One of the biggest problems to surmount is the huge disconnect between what we perceive as reality and what is portrayed on television as reality. I had CNBC on yesterday, and listened in amazement as some republican assured the viewers that republicans had brought the federal deficit down with their tax cuts, because of the "booming" economy. Of course this went unchallenged by the interviewer. And this is merely one isolated incident of the continuous catapulting of the propaganda.

So on one hand, we have the collective unconscious of those of us here and elsewhere in the blogosphere who know at a very deep level that something is terribly, terribly wrong; and on the other hand we have those who have not bestirred themselves past the easy pablum fed to them by the usual suspects. We may sneer at those who are only now coming "awake" because of the high gas prices, but I think we have to appreciate that it is human nature to resist change until the pain of retaining the status quo is higher than the pain of changing the status quo. That pain threshhold is being reached by more and more Americans as the cause and effect of this administration's policies start to hit home at a very personal level.

One consequence of this administration's misadventures is the active participation of more and more individuals in the political process. Before Bush, I suspect the majority of Americans were only tepidly following our government's doings (I was one of them). Now we have a maelstrom of activists on both sides. I have read an interesting point about our own American revolution: contrary to popular belief that everyone in the colonies panted for freedom, only about one third of the populace supported the idea, one third actively opposed it, and the remaining third in the middle were indifferent. Seems like a similar ratio to what we have today.

We as ardent opponents to this administration have reached a pain threshhold that has encouraged us to become active -- to a point. But what will the threshhold be that propels us out of our chairs and into the streets and perhaps into that jail cell? Will it be another stolen election in the fall that prompts a modern Boston tea party with voting machines flying into the nearest body of water? I don't know, but there's a lot of passion seething in the collective unconscious right now, and the boiling point doesn't seem too far off.