|
counterspells//UPGRADEmag//
jan 3, 2002
All during 2000-2001, we’ve discussed the current transit of Pluto, Lord of Evolution, over the Ascendant of the U.S. chart. Pluto travels slowly, and this is the first time in the history of the U.S. that Pluto has passed over this very personal point. Pluto destroys the rot to allow for fresh new birth. Think compost. We’re in the compost heap now.H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H The UPGRADEmag (the Upgrade Emag, or just the "UP") is a global edutainment news round-up, ‘broadcast’ weekly to =[10,349]= Trance// New Age// Alternative// Activist// Zippy folks who have been recommended to the Parallel YOUniversity//Megatripolis Dance Dept as "showing signs of life". Since many recipients choose to forward it to their own lists, we estimate 27,000+ recipients. Further, because of its less 'specialist' content, it's increasingly being posted on a variety of sites worldwide, making a total weekly ‘readership’ of 275,000+ H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H * * * * * * * * * * * astro energy snapshot for 2002 * * * * * * * * * * * * At this same time, another momentous first is approaching. At the end of January and the beginning of February, 2002, the U.S. Progressed Sun will conjunct its natal Moon at 28 Aquarius. This is a momentous new start for the U.S. It can happen only once every 360 years. The implications of this rebirth of the U.S. will be our major theme for 2002. Happy New Year indeed! Maya http://www.daykeeperjournal.com * * * * * * * * * * ** * * * * * * * * * ** * * * * * * * * * ** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * # Sinbad neo Lama osama bin laden anagram (\o/) (\o/) (\o/) (\o/) (\o/) (\o/) (\o/) (\o/) (\o/) (\o/) HAPPY NEW YOU! wishing all upgraders 12 months of happiness 52 weeks of fun 365 days of laughter 8,760 hours of good luck 525,600 minutes of Joy 31,536,000 seconds of success BON VOYAGE on another cosmic orbit of the sun (\o/) (\o/) (\o/) (\o/) (\o/) (\o/) (\o/) (\o/) (\o/) (\o/) (\o/) [from Faye South Africa] # Neon Islamabad osama bin laden anagram _______________________________________ HEALING AFTER TERROR by Michael Lerner [at end] Recipe For A Fresh Start Clean twelve whole months thoroughly of all bitterness and bile till they’re as fresh and green as possible. Now slice each month into 28, 30 or 31 different sections. DON’T BAKE THE WHOLE BATCH AT ONCE - prepare it one day at a time from the following ingredients. Mix well into each day one part of faith, one part of patience, one part of courage, and one part of work (estimates will do, remember it’s all in the mix!) Add to each day one part of hope, faithfulness, generosity, consciousness, and one good deed. Season whole with dash of good spirits, garnish with a sprinkle of fun & smiles, a pinch of play, and a cupful of good humour sauce. Pour into a vessel of love and lovingly beat well :) Cook thoroughly over radiant joy, and serve with unselfishness, and cheerfulness. A Happy New Year is guaranteed! [anonymous] # Bonsai Mandela osama bin laden anagram new year resolution? //YOU CAN HELP SPREAD THE UPGRADE’S RIPPLES OF INFLUENCE FURTHER AND DEEPER INTO THE ENTRAILS OF THE CULTURE THIS YEAR by RECOMMENDING AT LEAST ONE PERSON TO RECEIVE A WEEKLY EDUTAINMENT UPDATE ON THEIR PLANET. just write fraser@parallel-youniversity.com with address(es) enclosed. DON’T PUT IT OFF TILL 2MORROW (THAT MUST HAVE BEEN ONE OF YOUR RESOLUTIONS) DO IT NOW!!!! WHAT A GREAT NEW YEAR PRESENT FOR THOSE SPECIAL FRIENDS! :))) # Bad Asian melon osama bin laden anagram i asked lucy wills, that infamous UVenus of the global protest scene, what kinda year she’d had. her reply came as close to my own sense of it as i’ve yet managed: “i feel i’ve made a good job of a bad year.” # Somalia banned osama bin laden anagram "The Council on Foreign Relations is the American Branch of a society which originated in England ... (and) ... believes national boundaries should be obliterated and one-world rule established" WITH NO APOLOGIES, Senator Barry Goldwater # A lesbian nomad osama bin laden anagram Dear Fraser, 'Nuff Respeck for printing my letter to you in the December 27th mag. After I got over the shock of seeing my name in print, I read your answer, and I respeck you even more. I dig that you come as honestly as you possibly can, and that goes a long way towards convincing people who may be skeptical about your views. I hear the sincerity in your writing, and I wanted to thank you again for your work. More consciousness, not less. More Views, not less. More information, not less. 'Nuff Respeck and ONE LOVE. Singa1 # A noble Adam sin osama bin laden anagram DINOSAUR WAR CRIMES TRIALS LATEST KISSINGER Evidence is piling up that the former US secretary of State and highly paid private 'fixer' is indeed a war criminal who should be behind bars, or should certainly stand trial. It looks like the only question should be where and when. Like SHARON, the Israeli prime minister, KISSINGER must be getting scared. A dangerous condition for a cornered beast to be in. Nobel prize winner and Guatemalan indigenous leader Rigaberta Menchu has joined the fight to get Kissinger to face charges. So what will Kissinger’s reaction be if, next time he's in London, he gets ‘PINOCHETED’, served with a subpoena to appear in court to answer war crimes charges? If his reaction when this happened in Paris in May 2001 is anything to go by he won't like it. (for the latest on Henry on the run. See http://www.bilderberg.org/kissing.htm and http://www.newsnow.co.uk [info from http://www.bilderberg.org] # A bad Nelson am I osama bin laden anagram
SCIENCE PROVES COSMOS RUNS ON SUPER-COOPERATION?!
In an experiment done by the military, leukocytes (white blood cells) were collected for DNA from donors and placed into chambers so they could be measured for electrical changes. The donor was then placed in a different room in the same building and subjected to "emotional stimulation" consisting of video clips, which generated different emotions in the donor.# O misled banana! osama bin laden anagram //YOU FEEDBACK Fraser, :) :) :) >i offen notice how ’alternative’ people who made it in the ‘60s, and were thus doomed to lose touch with the street level of the culture, can only see their own dream (of global village communalism) dying, while having no way of making contact with the ‘heart’ of the gigantic ‘youth’ movement across the planet which i sense is now hovering on the edge of turning against war culture and all it stands for and going for Justice built on peaceful resolution of differences (half of which is probably dancing together!). call me a fool, i just sense this colossal heave of a planetary species as it struggles to the Final Leap of an aching, age-long Learning Process. We are having spectacular experiences in our region with us old hippies partying trancing out and you name it with the young ravers. As my friend (my son's age) is fond of saying, "yah, in the sixties it was just the young people -- now it's everyone!" [Our favourite new friend for consciousness discussions is exactly half our age.] We have a live band that sings us trancey funkified love-is-the-answer lyrics, then we take a break and continue dancing ecstatically with our dj spinning friends, while others hand drum hotly from all sides.... The power of the increasing connections between the various aspects of the music scene, the arty scene, the activists, amnesty int'l, food co-opers, old hippies and .... Everything is becoming spectacularly better (locally) at the same time it is becoming horrendously scarily worse (globally/elsewhere).... lexplexus.com and soulpatch.ca :) loveya # Inland amoebas osama bin laden anagram Following the theme that the Winter of War is being paralleled by the capture of the planetary popular public consciousness by a cosmic GoodvEvil spiritual Legendary culture led by Lord of the Ring, in a scene in the recent Good Will Hunting the ‘alienated’ anti-hero makes a blistering attack on “America”... CHRIST I COULD BE PRESIDENT! Matt Daemon (a brilliant maths kid from the wrong side of the tracks whom the government wants to enlist) is relating his feelings about having been for an interview at the National Security Agency (NSA) to Robin Williams his psychologist. INTERIOR SEAN'S SEAN (Robin Williams) - So you might be working for Uncle Sam? WILL (Matt Daemon) - I don't know. SEAN - Gerry says the meeting went well. WILL - I guess. SEAN - What did you think? WILL - What did I think? (A beat. Will has obviously been stewing on this.) Say I'm working at N.S.A. Somebody puts a code on my desk, something nobody else can break. So I take a shot at it and maybe I break it. And I'm real happy with myself, 'cause I did my job well. But maybe that code was the location of some rebel army in North Africa or the Middle East. Once they have that location, they bomb the village where the rebels were hiding and fifteen hundred people I never had a problem with get killed. (rapid fire) Now the politicians are sayin' "send in the Marines to secure the area" ‘cause they don't give a shit. It won't be their kid over there, gettin' shot. Just like it wasn't them when their number got called, 'cause they were pullin' a tour in the National Guard. It'll be some guy from Southie takin' shrapnel in the ass. And he comes home to find that the plant he used to work at got exported to the country he just got back from. And the guy who put the shrapnel in his ass got his old job, 'cause he'll work for fifteen cents a day and no bathroom breaks. Meanwhile my buddy from Southie realizes the only reason he was over there was so we could install a government that would sell us oil at a good price. And of course the oil companies used the skirmish to scare up oil prices so they could turn a quick buck. A cute, little ancillary benefit for them but it ain't helping my buddy at two-fifty a gallon. And naturally they're takin' their sweet time bringin' the oil back and maybe even took the liberty of hiring an alcoholic skipper who likes to drink seven and sevens and play slalom with the icebergs and it ain't too long 'til he hits one, spills the oil, and kills all the sea-life in the North Atlantic. So my buddy's out of work and he can't afford to drive so he's got to walk to the job interviews which sucks 'cause the shrapnel in his ass is givin' him chronic hemorrhoids. And meanwhile he's starvin' 'cause every time he tries to get a bite to eat the only blue-plate special they're servin' is North Atlantic scrod with Quaker State. So what'd I think? I'm holdin' out for somethin' better. I figure I'll eliminate the middle man. Why not just shoot my buddy, give his job to his sworn enemy, hike up gas prices, bomb a village, club a baby seal, hit the hash pipe and join the National Guard?! Christ, I could be elected President! [sent in by jimbocraig@yahoo.co.uk] # Insane lama bod osama bin laden anagram //YOU FEEDBACK 11 MOST IMPORTANT & BEST DJ'S ON PLANET EARTH IN 2001 I don’t usually respond to stuff like this because it’s so arbitrary, but I’m just questioning your definition of “important”. I understand that “best” means best to you, as it is to everyone who uses that word, but when you use “important” it would be because they’ve done something or meant something to someone (especially yourself). Why are these the most important? To me, DJ Moody and DJ Scribble are the two most important DJ’s this year because they’ve actually broken records in NY.....an area that it’s almost impossible to break records out of. I’m not talking about making a record and sending it out of New York, I’m talking about playing records on the radio and breaking records “OUT” of New York...the way Tony Humphries used to. While Moody is one of the “Best” that I’ve seen or heard, Scribble isn’t. But they are both the most important. So I’m just curious. Why are any of your choices “important” because they seem very unimportant (while they still might be excellent or the best) to me? Regards, Gary Salzman london I read the list of Dj's & the thing I found most disturbing is that you “have to be your own favorite”? do these people ever bother to find anybody who’s better, or would that be the end of their world? marco arnaldi london # Mad Bosnian ale osama bin laden anagram //YOU FEEDBACK CYBER SAFARINO MIRAGE IN THE DESERT! :) >> i finally worked out the mystery of quarquezate.... 4000 mixed european ravers suddenly descended on that one palm tree town, playing ghetto blasters, and smoking dope and dancing all over the town... the miracle of quarquezate :) HI Fraser! Thanks for mentioning us - Morocco 2001 that is ;-) I was a co-producer of the festival last year, with my Moroccan man Amine, and I’ve been faithfully reading your UPGRADE since a friend thoughtfully added me to your list. I applaud you for your openness and candor. I've wanted to write to you sooner, but I was simply enjoying playing the part of silent listener (should that phrase be considered redundant?) Anyway, Amine and I have especially enjoyed your Moroccan travel logs, as we haven't returned there since last January after finishing the festival. In fact it made me long to return soon, however, we have also been victims of the Arab paranoia here in the States. On Boxing Day, in Pennsylvania where we were visiting my family (as American suburbia as you could get!), the good old INS paid us a visit. It seems some poor old ignorant patriot thought they’d be doing America a favor to call in and report that an Arab who was possibly not carrying his passport was located at my gram's precise Berks County Pennsylvania address. Needless to say, as Amine and I were getting in the car with my 3 younger cousins to go see (what else?) Lord of the Rings, the INS pulled up like a bat out of hell and put Amine in handcuffs, carrying him away to Philadelphia prison. Not only did I have to pay $1500 bond to get him out the day after, but they’d placed him in a 2m by 2m cell for 14 hours with 2 murderers. Well, what do you know, my dear Moroccan fella, who’s quite charismatic, naturally befriended his fellow prisoners who’d been in jail for 8 and 10 years respectively and were being deported the next morning. The best part is that, since there was only one metal bed for 3 in their tiny cell, they rotated every 2 hours to share the bed equally (which he said was more fairness and courtesy than he's received even from many people he's partied with over the years :) Food for thought. Anyway, the clincher of this story? He was not even charged with a violation that could have been his fault. They charged him with illegal entry because the INS could not find him in the system from when he’d returned to NY from Morocco in Jan. 2001. As I picked him up from the airport myself, I know he didn't float in on some transatlantic boat - this could only have been the fault of the dumb-ass who stamped his passport at JFK airport and then neglected to enter him into the computer system. So in the end, patriotic fervor and a gov't bureaucratic fuck up ruined our Christmas holiday. I can promise it's not over yet though, because once the arresting officer discovered he’d arrested a Moroccan with 4 ambassadors in his family, one of whom happens to be the Moroccan Ambassador to the United States, he immediately started kissing ass. In fact, the officer called me when they arrived in Philadelphia and said "You've got a great guy here, and I hope you get married and have lots of kids - sorry for the trouble but I was just following my supervisor's orders". GEE! Thanks a fuckin' lot you poor lackey! Well, the saga will continue, and I hope you can forward this to let people know the scary line we’re treading right now in the U.S. Keep up the good work! Let rationality, open-mindedness and peace come to 2002! Niki Akashic NYC # Man alone is bad osama bin laden anagram
SCIENCE PROVES COSMOS RUNS ON SUPER-COOPERATION?!
In an experiment reported by Dr.Vladimir Poponin, a quantum biologist, a container was emptied (ie a vacuum was created within it), and then the only thing left in it were photons (particles of light).They measured the distribution (location) of the photons and found they were completely random inside the container, as was expected. Then some DNA was placed inside the container and the distribution (location) of the photons was re-measured. This time the photons were LINED UP in an ORDERED way and aligned with the DNA. In other words the physical DNA had an effect on the non-physical photons. What are the light particles connected to? We are forced to accept the possibility that the photons and the DNA are communicating through some NEW field of energy, a web of energy. # Ban maids alone osama bin laden anagram ESSO NO GO CAMPAIGN IS WORKING! Campaign ExxonMobil, a US based campaign of religious shareholders and environmental groups working to convince ExxonMobil to change its negative position on global warming, announced its support for a new resolution filed by veteran corporate governance activist Robert A.G. Monks aimed at ExxonMobil's top management and board. "We are pleased to see an investor with the track record and influence of Robert Monks taking on this company over its handling of this issue," said Peter Altman, National Coordinator of Campaign ExxonMobil. "I look forward to building support for this resolution over the next several months." failing to protect shareholder value from the extreme and isolating position on global warming adopted by Lee Raymond, ExxonMobil's Chief Executive Officer. ExxonMobil officials question and deny the existence of global warming and mankind's responsibility for it, and have misled investors and policymakers about the science underlying the issue. As a consequence, the company's reputation is suffering, with negative attention paid it in papers such as the Wall Street Journal, PR Weekly, and Upstream Oil and Gas. The swelling boycott against the company outside the U.S. is also a concern as 60% of the company's revenues come from overseas. global warming is going to destroy shareholder value in the long run," Altman continued. "No matter how hard the company closes its eyes and wishes, global warming isn¹t going away. The smart course is to admit it’s happening and get on with realistic solutions that will prevent the worst." - a report on the company's plans to develop renewable energy by linking executive compensation to environmental and social responsibility - the protection of human rights from ExxonMobil operations protecting the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from drilling. http://campaignexxonmobil.org/news/PR.121801.shtml # Medina on a slab osama bin laden anagram //YOU FEEDBACK Hey Frase..... Regarding your commentary on Lord of the Rings and it's timeliness with the Winter of War and SHOWING UP AT THE BOX OFFICE THIS XMAS? The trilogy Lord of The Rings has three volumes, titled Fellowship of the Ring, this was the one you saw but the second is THE TWO TOWERS (!!) heh heh. the third is The Return of The King perhaps you (being of like mind and quick wit) saw this already and commented and i didn't see it posted here... any further thoughts on this bit of irony? You know of course that Tolkien translated ancient celtic manuscripts to bring the stories to all of us, yeah? "curiouser and curiouser" said Alice..... peace and light in the new year!! majik~* let’s see... the fellowship of the ring that’s us :) the two towers that’s them, the present ‘leaders’ and the mortal enemies they’ve ‘created’ one way or tother. and the king who returns must mean the ‘real rulers’. right? and i don’t mean some kinda secret bloodline rosicrucian mumbojumbo hidden aristocracy neither but a fully participating democracy :) # Whose bugger? george w bush anagram The art that helps us understand our own tragedies has to be as big as Homer, to sympathise with the suffering of people who cause them. We won't get rid of terrorism or the support for it now preparing in the hearts and memories of thousands of mutilated, bereaved, dispossessed people without understanding our story and theirs, from their point of view. For as Gandalf says in The Lord of the Rings "Stories do not end, we are all still part of the same story." Troy and Greece, Athens and Persia, Saladin and the Lion heart, New York and Tora Bora; we are part of the same pattern still. Can't we ever break it for good? sirius@timewarp A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A ADVERTISING G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G EYECANDY UK VJ FESTIVAL alright boys and girls, we are running a mini VJ festival in london this easter and we’re asking for submissions/registration of interest from you UK people. Include ideas for seminars/displays/workshops & Vjing. Email me for further details. michael heap Residual Darkness/RAYA heap@cwcom.net A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A ADVERTISING G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G london SAT JAN 19
savemoney! getoffyerface! savemoney! getoffyerface! savemoney! getoffyerface! save!
Spells and Counterspells: Why Act Now?MARCO @ MISERY OF UNSOUND!! yes, ourvery own Marco Arnaldi whoplayed for over 2 years on the main floor during Megatripolis at Heaven is spinning @ the Ministry of Sound for the first time on Saturday 19th January!! He’s been given his own room and all night long to cook up some of that old school voodoo. Entrance is a gobsmakkin £15, but UPgraders can ‘sample’ it for a tenner if you email us with your & your fiends’ names before 17/01/02. [OFFER LIMITED TO ONE THOUSAND FIENDS HEH HEH] savemoney! getoffyerface! savemoney! getoffyerface! savemoney! getoffyerface! save! by Starhawk The days are short and cold, the streets are uninviting. The political climate seems as chilly as the winter winds, and everybody is saying that 911 changed everything. Why take action now? corporate capitalism are not waiting. They continue to meet, to argue for a new round of trade negotiations, to impose policies that result in a widening gap between rich and poor, and a staggering global death toll. And as winter nears, the potential rises for massive starvation in Afghanistan if relief trucks cannot deliver supplies because of our bombs. hopeless. We've lost. The forces we face are too strong for us. Give up." These voices seem reasonable, sensible. But any Witch can recognize a spell being cast. A spell is a story we tell ourselves that shapes our emotional and psychic world. The media, the authorities tell a story so pervasive that most people mistake it for reality. We're fighting a righteous war against the Source of All Evil, and everyone supports Bush, and corporate control is the only way to be safe and to provide what we need, and to question is Evil, too. The counterspell is simple: tell a different story. Pull the curtain back: expose their story for the false tale it is. Act 'as if'. Act as if we aren't doomed, as if what we do in the coming months can shift the balance of fate. Act as if the movement is coming back stronger than ever, attracting thousands and hundreds of thousands who have had their eyes opened by the war. Act as if this movement were the most creative, visionary, inspiring, funny, welcoming, transforming and truly revolutionary movement that’s ever been. As if we had a new language, new tactics, new ways of communicating that could awaken the dormant dissent and the sleeping visions in every heart. We need to advance, not retreat, to take the political space we want and claim it. If we silence ourselves, we're tacitly agreeing that our protests are indeed some distant kin to the terrorists' acts. And you know what? It's been okay. The police have behaved like police behave, sometimes restrained, sometimes provocative, occasionally vicious-but that's not new. At times we met counter demonstrators, but never been more than a handful. And we often received unexpected support. I've seen construction workers flash peace signs at the Black Bloc. command real force, real tear gas, real clubs, real guns, real jails. Real people do die, go to prison, suffer. So might we. But fear makes things worse than they are. Fear limits our vision and our ability to take in information, makes the power holders seem omnipotent, and leads to our suppressing ourselves, saving the authorities the cost and trouble of doing it. And despair leads to paralysis. worst and then going ahead with what you know is right. The counterspell for despair is action in service of a vision. The counterspell for paralysis is stubborn, persistent passion. start to believe them, and so will others. We'll break the spells that bind us. We'll start to want that other world we say is possible with such intensity that nothing can stop us or deny us. All it takes is our willingness to act from vision, not from fear, to risk hoping, to dare to act for what we love. http://www.starhawk.org # Discharged from the Navy at the end of World War II, I returned to Princeton and enrolled in the basic philosophy course taught by Walter Stace. Professor Stace had been a British civil servant, his last post being governor general of what was then known as Ceylon. One day Professor Stace began to discuss the founding of Israel in terms of political morality. He said that the justifications for a political state - Jewish settlers would make orange trees bloom in the desert; God in the Old Testament had promised the land belonging to the Palestinians to the descendants of Abraham; the 1917 Balfour Declaration recognized the Zionist claims to establish an independent Israeli state in Palestine; and the recognition and acceptance of the situation created by the acts of Israeli terrorists and activists in Palestine - did not excuse the basic immorality of our actions. It was wrong for America and Britain to use their immense power against the Palestinians by aiding and abetting in their expulsion from lands they’d owned for many generations. The moral thing for the U.S. and England, he told us, was to accept the displaced Jews from Europe into the U.S. and England. Using our might to create a state for the displaced Jews in derogation of the rights of the Palestinians was simply easier and more palatable to us, he said. He went on to predict that the fallout from the Israel’s establishment would have consequences to be paid for by my generation and future generations. He said the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine would unite the entire Muslim world which, he predicted, would inevitably coalesce and fight to right the wrongs being done to their coreligionists, the Palestinians. He also mentioned the fact that Muslims controlled vast reserves of petroleum. He told us we could no longer view the Arabs as simple nomads in pajamas and bathrobes riding camels around in the desert. As I watched with horror the events of September 11, the memory of Professor Stace’s prophetic words sent anew a chill through my body that will haunt me for the rest of my life. William Prickett Letters to the Editor section of the Princeton Alumni Weekly # VOTE: YES! NOW! - and pass this on!!! CNN is taking a poll whether UN observers should be sent to Israel. YOU KNOW IT MAKES SENSE!!!! Click onto the site below and vote "YES" because so far (and you can guess why!) 67% are voting “NO”. ACT NOW PLEASE!! http://home.netscape.com/ex/shak/international/packages/mideast/ Helft den Kindern Palästinas: htpp://www.freunde-palaestinas.de/ A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A ADVERTISING G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G Flag Frenzy Freaking You Out? Peace On Earth Seem Like A Pipe-Dream? Don't Sit There Wishing, Hoping, Fretting - Hurl Your Hammer Into the Wheels of the War Machine Now! DOWNLOAD your FREE-FUNKY-FLAG to print and display proudly. XMAS CARDS TOO! Get it on Stickers, T-shirts, Mouse pads, Mugs, and other medium and broadcast the MESSAGE OF YOUR CHOICE OR CREATION! Download, display, and spread through all channels: http://www.truth-now.com/art/showcase.htm A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A ADVERTISING G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G
SCIENCE PROVES COSMOS RUNS ON SUPER-COOPERATION?!
Some human placenta DNA (DNA’s most pristine form) was placed in a container from which they could measure changes in the DNA. 28 vials of DNA were given (one each) to 28 researchers who’d been trained how to generate and FEEL feelings.“LOCAL AND NON LOCAL EFFECTS OF COHERENT HEART FREQUENCIES ON CONFORMATIONAL CHANGES OF DNA” - The Institute of Heart Math THE DNA CHANGED ITS SHAPE according to the feelings of the researchers! 1. When the researchers FELT gratitude, love and appreciation, the DNA responded by RELAXING, the strands unwound and the DNA stretched longer. 2. When the researchers FELT anger, fear, frustration, or stress, the DNA responded by TIGHTENING UP, shortening and SWITCHING OFF many of our DNA codes! If you've ever felt "shut down" by negative emotions, now you know why your body was equally shut down too. The shut-down of the DNA codes was reversed and the codes were switched back on again when feelings of love, joy, gratitude and appreciation were felt by the researchers. # BEST BOOK OF 2001? Despite the man’s seriously blowing it over the afghan situation and launching an undeserved attack on Noam Chomsky, the most bitingly accurate investigative book of the year has to be Chris Hitchens' 'The Trial of Henry Kissinger', Verso, ISBN1-85984-631-9 http;//www.versobooks.com # "A human being ought to be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, design a building, conn a ship, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve an equation, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects." Robert Heinlein # HEALING AFTER TERROR Michael Lerner Our mourning for the victims of September 11 will go on for a long time. The shock, the horror, the grief, the anger, the sadness have not abated. We're all somewhat scared, and we should be. We are not used to being this vulnerable. So it was with great upset that we realized that, while we were still grieving and consoling the mourners, the Bush administration and a host of right-wing ideologues had managed to manipulate Americans' legitimate outrage and channeled it into a revival of the deepest held belief of the conservative worldview: that the world is mostly a dangerous place and that our lives must be based around protecting ourselves from threatening "others." In this case, terrorism provides a perfect base for this worldviewit can come from anywhere, we don't really know who the enemy is, and so everyone can be suspect and everyone can be a target of our fear-induced rage. With this as a guiding principle, television network news has obediently complied with requests to censor the statements that might reveal the thinking of the enemy, and liberal Democrats have jumped to show their patriotism by voting for wild escalations in defense spending and for laws that limit Constitutional freedoms. But while this is happening at the top, there are millions of people around the world who have remained in a new state of openness, humble in the face of death and destruction, willing to open our hearts to others and recognize that the real need of the moment is for a fundamental rethinking of the way we are running our world. The central struggle of the post September 11th period is this: Will we see the world through the prism of the terrorists? Or will we see it through the prism of goodness and generosity demonstrated by the firemen, police, and citizens who risked (and in many cases lost) their lives to save others? It is a battle of fear versus hope. If fear wins, the world will revert to an endless battleground of all against all. We will find ourselves surrounded by people who feel that we must constantly defend ourselves from the dangers lurking at every turnand this will become self-fulfilling true. Or we can acknowledge the shadow elements in the world and in ourselves, guard ourselves from danger to the degree that we are able by taking sensible precautions and police actions, but consciously choose to focus our energies on building trust, love, and goodness in the world. And that path will itself be self-fulfilling: the more generosity and open-heartedness we show to the rest of the world, the more it will be reciprocated by others and the safer we will be. The greatest security will not come through armies or counter violence, not through revenge or hatred, but through building a world of love and open-heartedness, a world in which the recognition of the sanctity of everyone on the planet shapes every economic, political, and social institution. We choose hope over fear not only because it is more consistent with who we really are as embodiments of the sacred, but also because it is the path that will lead to greatest security. We don't hide from ourselves that the people who perpetrated the evil deeds of September 11 are a real threat to the human race. The perpetrators deserve to be punished, and I personally would be happy if all the people involved in planning and providing logistical support for this atrocity were to be imprisoned for the rest of their lives. It's also true that the Taliban have been oppressing their own people and conducting a campaign of abuse against women that justifies international intervention. But intervention could have happened in a very different way: the United States could have given its evidence against Bin Laden to the UN Security Council and announced a willingness to wait six weeks to allow that world body. to issue an indictment and to assemble an international police force to arrest these criminals and bring them before an international tribunal. In so doing, we would at least have validated a notion that was supposed to have been established 2,500 years ago: That the family of the victim of violence doesn't act on its own as avengers of the violence, but instead goes to a larger community, presents its evidence, allows the other side to defend itself, and then accepts the judgment of the larger community. If the UN became paralyzed by internal politics and did not act, we could have used that time to assemble our own military force and then acted on our own. (We might note that the reason this process doesn't exist is because the United States has opposed the creation of an international court). What we don't need are new cycles of violence. We should learn from Israel's mistakes and not follow its disastrous path. When faced with a handful of Islamic terrorists, Israel has retaliated by sieges, border closings, and other punishments of the entire Palestinian peoplethereby succeeding in generating greater support for the terrorists and giving Palestinians little grounds to hope that their legitimate desires might be acknowledged and addressed. President Bush deserves our praise for having avoided the path of singling out an entire people for punishment; as of this writing in late October, 2001 he has attempted to show that the United States is not condemning all Muslims or targeting all Afghanis. In fact, spurred by the need to keep Islamic forces supporting our war, Bush shows some signs of being willing to give Israel the "tough love" it needs (namely, forcing it to recognize a Palestinian state and end the Occupation), though probably in a form far too weak to actually work and resolve the conflict. Still, the bombing of Afghanistan threatens to provoke a new cycle of violence. Since September 11 we've been facing a genuine emergency. And it is always in emergency situations that we discover what we really believe in and what our ideals amount to in practice. So let us reaffirm some basics: • We are the inheritors of the love of the universe which has provided us with a magnificent habitat as part of the living system of planet earth. We are inheritors of the goodness of the human race which has passed on its intelligence, wisdom, languages, technologies, science, literature, poetry, and music from generation to generation for thousands of years. We recognize ourselves as mutually interdependent with all the generations that have gone before and with the six billion human beings currently alive, and as stewards of our planet and our culture which we hope to pass along to future generations. We see in other human beings the reflection of the Sacred, and we recognize that our own personal fulfillment as humans is inextricably bound up with the fulfillment of the needs and aspirations of all other human beings. • We recognize that human beings have also been distorted by a history of pain and cruelty embedded in patriarchy and in class societies, manifesting in wars, violence, abuse, and oppression. But that history need not determine our future. We live at a moment when we can clearly envision and begin to build a world based on love and respect for others. • We know that building a different future requires us to live a different way in the present. The way to peace is a way of peace. The way to a world of love is a life in which we become more loving. A central step in this process is to recognize ourselves as part of the Unity of All Being, abandon our ego-driven fantasies of control and permanency, and acknowledge ourselves as a momentary manifestation of the evolving consciousness of the universe. • In every act that we do, we either affirm and strengthen the sanctity of human beings and bring God's presence in our lives more fully into focus, or we contribute to the de-sanctification of human life and the distancing from God/Spirit/Ultimate Being/Universal Love (or however you want to refer to the spiritual dimension of reality). We can't simply say, "Time out now for a war, but later we will build a society of love." What we do now inevitably shapes the world we will face later. So, yes, we want to stop the Bin Ladens of the world. We reject the implications of some on the Left that somehow America deserved all this. The people in the World Trade Tower were innocent American civilians doing nothing wrong. We have to recognize terror as the quintessential act of de-sanctification and dehumanizationa violation of God's presence on this planet and an act that hurts each and every one of us. But the notion that once we wipe out Bin Laden and his Al Qaeda organization we will be "safe" or free from violence is a fantasy. It is always in emergency situations that we discover what we really believe in. When violence becomes so prevalent throughout the planet, it's too easy to simply talk of "deranged minds." We need to ask ourselves, "What is it in the way that we are living, organizing our societies, and treating each other that makes violence seem plausible to so many people?" And why is it that our immediate response to violence is to use violence ourselvesthus reinforcing the cycle of violence in the world. We in the spiritual world see the root problem as a growing global incapacity to recognize the spirit of God in each otherwhat we call the sanctity of each human being. But even if you reject religious language, you can see that the willingness of people to hurt each other to advance their own interests has become a global problem, and it is only the dramatic level of this particular attack which distinguishes it from the violence and insensitivity to each other that is part of our daily lives. We may tell ourselves that the current violence has "nothing to do" with the way that we've learned to close our ears when told that one out of every three people on this planet does not have enough food, and that one billion face malnutrition, homelessness, or other intense forms of material deprivation. We may reassure ourselves that the hoarding of the world's resources by the richest society in world history, and our frantic attempts to accelerate globalization with its attendant inequalities of wealth, has nothing to do with the resentment that others feel toward us. We may tell ourselves that the suffering of refugees and the oppressed have nothing to do with us, that child prostitution and sweatshop conditions have nothing to do with usthat these are different stories going on somewhere else. Most Americans, like most people on the planet, are very decent and good hearted people. That's what makes it so difficult to open the conversation about the role of America in the world. Most Americans are genuinely befuddled when they hear that others around the world are angry at us. After all, we think, we've been generous to a fault, we've given foreign aid and charity, we've sent our troops to fight oppressive regimes, and we've paid high taxes to provide police services for a world that might otherwise be even more filled with violence. Why doesn't everyone appreciate us more? Even when I personally got a few seconds on national TV in September to remind people that we are 5 percent of the world's population consuming 25 percent of the world's resources, the response was often something like this: "Well, others resent us because we are so successfuland that's their problem. It's not our fault that we are just better at being more productive than they are. And certainly no one has a right to take their resentment out on us for not being more charitable than we already are." A central problem here is that most Americans have never been exposed to the notion that we live in one world system that is inextricably interconnected. Don't blame Americans that every inch of education we've received has encouraged us to think of ourselves as different, better, unique, special, and "not like them." It never occurs to many Americans that when we kidnapped tens of millions of Africans and used them to provide unpaid labor to create the infrastructure of American wealth that the ripping apart of African societies would have devastating consequences on the ability of those societies to function. Nothing in our schooling helps us understand that several hundred years of colonialism and imperialism were not done so that Western societies could educate the natives, but so that the West could enrich itself at the expense of the rest of the worldleaving behind poverty and local elites who would remain in power by virtue of continuing Western military assistance (for example, to the Saudi elites). Our college professors, newspaper editorialists, and television commentators have never sought to teach us about the way the United States sets conditions of trade so that Third World countries end up being further impoverished. Most Americans believe the lies drummed into their heads that corporate globalization is both unstoppable and good for everyone around the world. Liberal Democrats, dependent on electoral funding from large corporations and the wealthy, have cheered on globalization and never acknowledged that this process has accelerated the gap between the wealthy countries and the poor (for more on this read Antonio Juhasz in this issue of Tikkunor check out Jerry Mander's article in the September/October 2001 issue). It's not that Americans are willfully deceiving themselves. Most Americans have never ever heard a serious presentation of our history and our current role in the world. Our media has induced a societal amnesia so that no one remembers the way our power was used to murder three million Vietnamese in the name of democratic values. No one remembers that our CIA participated in the violent overthrow of the democratically elected regimes in Iran and Chile, or that our military trained and supplied military elites who tortured their own populations in Argentina, Guatemala, El Salvador, Haiti, and dozens of other countries. Most Americans have no idea about any of this, and that's why they are so perplexed. It's also why the angry tones of the Left make no sense and only alienate Americans. No oppression can ever justify killing 6,000 innocent civilians. The fact is that Americans have created a very decent society that deserves to be celebrated, not denigrated. For 220 years Americans have struggled against our own domestic elites, and have won major battles to limit the elements of oppression in this society. We've made major advances against the racism, sexism, and homophobia that have been used to divide us. We've managed to put some constraints on corporate arroganceenough so that the ruling elites of our society have to wait for moments like the Bin Laden attack to push back some of the civil liberties and respect for human rights that we've won. We haven't yet fully created a democratic society or offset the immense power of the wealthy, but we've taken significant steps to protect minimal rights of working people and the poor. There's a lot to be proud of in America and in the victories of ordinary Americans against arrogant elites. So when those elites call upon us to rally around their worldview (that no one could possibly have a legitimate reason to be angry at us) and call that "patriotism," it's our complicated task to support a different version of patriotismone which is proud of America's democratic values while simultaneously critical that we have not allowed those values to shape the way we run our corporations or our foreign policy. A similar complexity is needed in dealing with the rise of fundamentalism. As we've argued in Tikkun (and as I've stated in my book Spirit Matters: Global Healing and the Wisdom of the Soul), fundamentalism is in part a distorted response to a distorted world reality. Global capital is not only an economic system, it is a crusading worldview, a militant religion of its own engaged in a worldwide jihad which seeks to remake every social institution in its image. It frequently employs local elites to use violence to impose this new religion on their own people. The religion of world capitalism, like the religion of world communism, has its own "politically correct" ways of thinking and acting. The notion that individuals should always look out for themselves before anyone else, that its ok to hurt others to advance one's own interests because if we don't someone will do that to us, the notion that sexuality should be another legitimate article for consumption in the public marketplace and that corporations have a right to display near-naked sexily-posed skinny bodies on billboards to arouse us and sell their products, the notion that people who cannot find jobs and hence face malnutrition are "acceptable costs" for the glories of "modernization," the notion that every enterprise should be judged productive by how much profit it makesthese are elements of the "modernity" that we impose on others as part of their "playing ball" with the global economy. In response, and using variously different religious vocabularies, Christian, Jewish, Hindu, and Islamic fundamentalists have declared various forms of jihad. If the warm and fuzzy communities to which many fundamentalists aspire to return had their own (sexist, homophobic, racist, anti-Semitic) distortions, they also had some valuable elements of human solidarity that really are being undermined by the dominant religion of materialism and selfishness. Much of the criticism of the one-dimensionality of Western secular society is in fact quite legitimate. Western culture is increasingly successful in shaping a world in its image, and its image is that of materialism, selfishness, reduction of human relations to a narrow utilitarian framework, transformation of nature into commodities, destruction of all that was good in small traditional communities, and a totally militant religion of secularism which aggressively promotes a mechanistic worldview and denies the validity of spiritual truth. Similarly, the critique of Israel and its policies toward the Palestinian people, cynically manipulated by Bin Laden and his cronies, is nevertheless basically legitimate. What is amazing is that even at this moment when the Middle East is exploding, there is no serious analysis of Israel's role. A unique combination of Jewish establishment power and Christian guilt (deserved) for the Holocaust has led to an amazing reality in America: there is no public discussion of the role Israel has played in generating the wild level of anger at the West from which the terrorists are able to recruit. Such a discussion would be totally proper, providing it were done in a way that made it perfectly apparent that anti-Semitism of any form is never, never, never appropriate or justified, and did not allow double standards (such as saying that Zionism is illegitimate because it is based on conquest without similarly noticing that virtually every Islamic country and most other countries also had their origins in conquest). I am not saying we should attribute the responsibility of this attack to Israel. Truth is that much of the hatred of Israel is generated by its identification as an outpost of the ethos of global capitalism and Western secularism, the resistance to which is legitimate but unfairly directed against Israel and the Jews. The reason why many Jews are afraid of this discussion is that they assume it will devolve quickly into anti-Semitism, whereas we at Tikkun have much greater faith in the American public and believe that the real threat of anti-Semitism will come from Jews playing a role in suppressing rather than encouraging free speech and open debate about these kinds of issues. So, yes, the world system which disproportionately benefits the United States is morally unacceptable. Yet the fundamentalist alternative is even more distorted. It creates a community of value but it simultaneously demeans some "other," identifying them as the embodiment of evil and worthy of destruction. Ego-driven and power-hungry clerics and self-deceiving holy men see their opportunity to shape the world by positioning themselves as the only alternative to the (quite real) degradation generated by capitalist globalization. The outrageous assaults by the Taliban against the freedoms of women are indicative of the hatefulness and repression that would become global realities were the fundamentalist forces allowed to triumph. Capitalist society proclaims itself the only possible antidote to fundamentalist distortions. It is tolerant of differences, willing to accept all different religions, an "open society" that has now been "forced" by the intolerance of the fundamentalists to engage in a war of self-defense. Yet we should not be surprised that those who witnessed the U.S. murder millions of Vietnamese, overthrow governments around the world, arm elites and train their soldiers so that they could suppress democratic movements, should question this "tolerance" and point out that it extends to people in the center of our world system (who live in the U.S.) but not to anyone else. Most of the peoples of the world (including most people in Islamic countries) are caught between two powerfully distorted forcesthe corporate capitalist version of modernity and the reactionary religious fundamentalist version of community. Both alternatives are lousy. We urgently need a third pathwhat we call Emancipatory Spirituality or a Politics of Meaning. We need a path in politics that validates the deepest truths of the spiritual world, a path that affirms open-heartedness, insists we love not only our neighbor but also the stranger, and builds economic, social, and political institutions on that basis. The Emancipatory Spirituality Tikkun champions is based on a commitment both to social justice and spiritual truth, to a recognition that economic equality is necessary, and to a recognition that true healing of this planet requires us to see ourselves as part of the Unity of All Being and to be able to respond to each other and the universe with awe and wonder at the grandeur of creation. It is both about social change and about deep inner change. This is the task of the Tikkun Communityto insist on a new kind of discourse that is neither waving the flag of "America can do no wrong" nor the flag of "our enemies are justified in attacking us." They are not!!! And yes, this is the most practical path for protecting ourselves. As the frenzy around anthrax-by-mail is demonstrating, no amount of bombing, no stationing of police on every corner, no suspension of civil liberties, nor any other strategy of repression can work in a world in which our biological, chemical, and technological sophistication allows people to act out in powerful new ways. There will always be lone crazies and distorted people who will act outand that's why we still need a police force. But if we really want to protect ourselves we need to start now creating a world which no longer dehumanizes others, no longer tolerates oppression, no longer imagines that we can live our own private lives and find our own private solutions while closing our ears to the sufferings of others. There is only one unified world system today; in that sense, globalization has already ended the possibility of American security unless everyone on the planet is equally secure. Though there will still be Bin Ladens no matter what we do, they will have much greater trouble recruiting people willing to sacrifice their lives in anger against the world system sponsored by the United States if this country becomes widely known as: a. The major power using its vast resources to eliminate global poverty, hunger, homelessness, and all forms of economic inequalities in the world (let's start by using the entire 1.4 trillion tax cut monies for the purpose of building an economic infrastructure for the poor of the world). b. The major power using its resources to combat global warming and to make all global investments and finances in accord with the best interests of preserving the ecological sustainability of the planet. c. The society that has required its own corporations to abide by a Social Responsibility Amendment (SRA) to the U.S. Constitution which mandates and rewards a new bottom line, so that institutions only have a right to operate if they can prove a history of social responsibility as measured by an Ethical Impact report. d. The society that is in its actual practices embodying an ethos of mutual caring and open-hearted generosity to the peoples of the world. These are the kinds of changes that we need in America to provide lasting safety and security. This is a moment in which fundamental changes in the way we have organized our world are at least as practical and realistic as attempts to track down every potential terrorist. If we don't change the basic way we've structured our world it is naive and self-delusional to believe that we can protect ourselves from people driven crazy by a world so deeply out of touch with itself. A political leadership that is minimally responsible would be giving equal energy to these proposals at the very moment that it was attempting to extinguish this particular network of terrorists. Instead, our worst fantasies of the indistinguishability of Democrats and Republicans have been played out in front of our eyes. Except for a handful of courageous Congressional Democrats, members of both political parties are unwilling to move beyond the very language of dehumanization and violence which got us into this mess in the first place. That's why we at Tikkun have decided that we need to begin the process of creating a third alternative based on spiritual insight and an ethos of love. We are starting what we call "The Tikkun Community" not only as a vehicle to support the magazine (though that is part of what is needed in order for this worldview to be heard) but to constitute a spiritual community of people who agree with our worldview and are willing to champion it in the public arena. The founding statement can be found in this very issue of Tikkun magazine (November/December 2001) and on our web site at www.tikkun.org. We hope you'll join us in trying to build a new kind of social change movement. We act to honor the memory of the dead and wounded and to keep in public view the outpouring of loving energy and generosity that was shown by so many human beings who risked (and sometimes lost) their lives for others. That day they demonstrated to the world a deeply held secret: the desire we all have to care about each other. If we could legitimate that part of ourselves without having to wait for a disaster, we could empower a part of every human being which our social order marginalizes. The most immediate task of a healing movement in our society is to struggle against the tendency to see the world through the prism of the terrorists and to ignore the incredible goodness and generosity that were shown by the rescuers. The central struggle is an ideological struggle. Those who are itching to "do something" should understand that the most important form of "doing" is to help people regain their confidence in the possibility of a world based on love and kindnessin short, to see the world through the prism of the rescuers and not through that of the terrorists. We need a global period of atonement and repentance dedicated to finding a way to turn the direction of our world at every level, a return to the notion that every human life is sacred, that "the bottom line" should be the creation of a world of love and caring, and that the best way to prevent these kinds of acts is not to turn ourselves into a police state, but to turn ourselves into a society in which social justice, love, and compassion are so prevalent that violence becomes only a distant memory. Sharing these ideas with your friends and neighbors can be an important part of the process of healing after terror. Michael Lerner www.tikkun.org |