Hey Ambo:

I like your blue bus! If you want to see America, you jump on a bus like that and go down the backroads. Right?

Thanks for the #4 font. It shows up real easy on the eyes.

Here's to half breeds - the little buggers seem immune to everything don't they?

This Obama guy is River City all the way. We can talk about shadows all day long, but he is not a graduate of the Gary Conservatory of Ought-Six as he claims. He has advisors who can read music, though. Does that matter?

Isn't the President essentially a huckster job anyway? 99% confidence, 1% actual competence. Many regard Reagan as a Great President, when he was basically less qualified than Obama as an individual of development and skill.

Shalk

"I like your blue bus! If you want to see America, you jump on a bus like that and go down the backroads. Right?"

Yes, it's a good way to travel and have contact with people. A lot of people get pissed with how slow I need to go, but some pull up along side me and wave and smile. Yesterday, afternoon I was at the ocean and was taking a break on the bunk in the back where I wasn't easily seen. I was parked among many vehicles of surfers and players. I already had my long board hanging on my home made rack on the side. I saw a guy in a wet suit approach cautiously the front of the van; I saw his woman out in front with a camera. He got right up to me and struck a pose - camera click, and he moved off smartly. Funny. People dig it. I sometimes get stopped for ice cream bars.

"We can talk about shadows all day long . . ."

I think it's easy to nod to the idea that shadow dynamics and projecting generally exist, but it seems hard for many people to really own it when they are trying to assert their point. I was actually hoping that pointing this out would slow you down, and in that slowed down moment and momentum, a fresh rearrangement of your mind-set might emerge. But my words and the suggestion that you deeply own a projection, appears to have been a puny, low-angled speed bump.

". . . but he is not a graduate of the Gary Conservatory of Ought-Six as he claims. He has advisors who can read music, though. Does that matter?"

I don't know the facts and if it is as categorical and blatant a lie as you suggest, it may matter plenty.

I am not sure that it matters more, or you getting to continue on with your mind-set matters more, than any possible internal shift in you in recognition of your fixity, or in me in my reactions.

In fact this rolling on through with teflon psychic-skin seems to remind me of what so bothers me about politics and those striving for personal power. I notice that I in recent years have adopted to some degree that apparently inexhaustable cavalier confidence via the spoken word and gesture that I see often in you, Ken, and many successful politicians and people including George Bush. I find this really worrisome as I make my way towards greater seeming security and personal power. I find it also not entirely resonant with the true or the good and for me not the aesthetically beautiful.

I wish that we could slow down and own more. Sometimes it seems a little like, OK - "You first." You become a little more sensitive and palpably uncertain and vulerable, then I will when the world has rearranged itself and where other people aren't trying to be . . . well, whatever.

What you say seems to me often so unequivocally categorical, in a world of such complexity and nuance and variability. I may be simply making a case for more 'green' relativity - I may also be making a case for more room for the unknowns that are part of 'higher tier' consciousness as well. My charge around it is probably generated by various lower tier configuations in me.

That's what comes to mind and body now.

---

Ambo Suno

Ambo:

(I respond in green...)

A bus like yours is the soul of America. So is an old guitar. A pair of boots. Getting the hands dirty. Caring. Being here and now in a real community. This is true soveignty.

I appreciate your caring about my mindset. Please do not try and guess what my mind set is or try to make me slow down or speed up. Please don't also conclude that I have projections. Meet me on the merits of what I am saying. This propensity to impugn/question/bring up/touch on the altitude/mind set/attitude of the speaker is so much waste.

Yes, we are in agreement. What qualities permit a person to devote a life to striving for power? This is what I am getting at with Obama and all politicians including McCain.

I keep asking - what are these people going to do for us that we cannot do for ourselves? Why do we let them dictate our world?

At least McCain is not claiming he will "change" everything. He is simply saying straight up - this is who I am. Obama I feel is adding a level of bullshit "I will bring new change to America" and that is the point I keep making. Name one thing he will do that is of any significance. Or is it all just about musical power chairs?

If it is real, then we should be able to point to it with words, right? I brought up one possibility (that he will focus our attention on the inter-subjective reality of life rather than the endemic right perspective of lone individual existence). So far, no one seems to either be interested or want to share anything. What do you make of that?

If we can get into the bottom of this - we can find something really useful that applies to our lives. In my opinion.

I wish that we could slow down and own more. Sometimes it seems a little like, OK - "You first." You become a little more sensitive and palpably uncertain and vulerable, then I will when the world has rearranged itself and where other people aren't trying to be . . . well, whatever.

I am slo-mo to the max. I love when we are comfortable and honest enough to admit "I am not sure" or "what do you think?" or "I do not understand" or "why is that important?"

What you say seems to me often so unequivocally categorical, in a world of such complexity and nuance and variability. I may be simply making a case for more 'green' relativity - I may also be making a case for more room for the unknowns that are part of 'higher tier' consciousness as well. My charge around it is probably generated by various lower tier configuations in me.

Forget mood. Forget categoricality. Forget nuance. We are not trying to win votes or make others feel really wonderful. There is enormous value that comes from getting to the heart of a matter. And words are really powerful tools to slice through and discover the core of things.

Let's each speak for ourselves, based on what we know and understand.

But in order to do that, you have to be willing to say things without concern for "who will like it?" or "is it too harsh?" or "I don't want to seem to arrogant" or "what will they think of me now?"

And definitely, trying to divine the mind and personality of the speaker does not help. If the concept or idea or notion or sense is bad or wrong or misguided or limiting or confused, then say that and show why or how. It is the American way. That's what our Founding Fathers were thinking of when they put Freedom of Speech at the top of the Bill! Give the people freedom to use words to explore and discover.

All of this impugning of motives and accusations of improper velocity and the like is a subtle form of censorship! Take the notions at face value and do your best. Call it as you see it. Explore together. Admit confusion. Ask for help. Don't tell the speaker he has mustard on his shirt. That is just an old trick to shut him up.

That's what comes to mind and body now.

I thank you for being honest and sincere. I have no answers. Do you? I am trying to promote a very simple self-respecting spirit of inquiry which I find essential to every facet of life. Who gives a fuck if someone is categorical or fast. The words are not going anywhere on the page. Take all the time you need to read them. But your words say what they mean and so do mine and let's be disciplined about honoring this tool. Wilber reminds us that an essential feature of "enlightenment" is high cognitive development (he says into Indigo). We cannot get there by being lazy asses and not even being able to carry out a focused thread of inquiry.

I thank you again for your candor. It is really helpful.

 

Shalk -

"I appreciate your caring about my mindset." Really?
"Please do not try and guess what my mind set is or try to make me slow down or speed up." And I ask you not to think of or image a medium sized elephant in the living room.
"Please don't also conclude that I have projections." Probably not possible for me.
"Meet me on the merits of what I am saying." Is merit inherent in content of words delivered, only? Is merit only in the lyrics of a song, or does it lie also in the other ten plus aspects, overt and covert or less obvious? I've seen similar assertions of yours elsewhere to others on this point about words and thoughts and their primacy and, to me, exaggerated value. A mom listens to a baby cry. Many sensitive and caring Mom's hear so much more than the vowels and consonants. She can not help but get into the mind and heart and the contextual surround. We don't turn off our discerning faculties because we are so closely tracking the tidy words of a confident speaker - I don't. You're a fine logician, thinker, and debater. I will not agree with you about your honed case for your road to truth, beauty, and goodness, nor try much to convince you otherwise, for you are stalwart (getting into your mind? presumption?).
"This propensity to impugn/question/bring up/touch on the altitude/mind set/attitude of the speaker is so much waste."
When a certain responsiveness doesn't happen, it does feel like a waste of time and energy to me. This last paragraph of yours so bores me with it's canned argumentation, I have to work to find the energy to respond with any particularity. At least along with 'impugn', you didn't, gracias a dios, use the phrase 'ad hominem attacks'.

"I thank you again for your candor. It is really helpful." Really?

---

Ambo Suno

OK Ambo:

Let me try to re-phrase you.

Words do not exist in isolation. They are a function of human dialogue. And humans have cognition, but they also have emotions, and aesthetic sense, and kinesthetic resonance, etc. So, it is a moral imperative that on be as civil as possible and not dominate what may have value on emotional or other non-cognitive lines with heavy concepts and criticism. 

We need to care for each other and be considerate. We need to welcome all the various perspectives and not be critical or heavy with them.

This is a community. Be respectful.

Ambo: let me tell you. An online forum devoted to Integral seems to be a really valuable place to explore this enormous map called Integral. I sort of thought that was the whole point of the forum. To explore Integral. Please show me one instance where I have tried to prevent someone from exploring Integral. Just one please.  

What you seem to be saying is this - the online exploration of Integral involves the very online meetings themselves as a manifestation of the highest levels. That is to say, the online postings should be regarded as manifestations of Integral consciousness themselves.

I don't see it that way. We are writing in response to other writing.

If I am functioning at my highest Integral level, I can tell you point blank that there is no point whatsoever is writing this right now! I can jump into access of what I think is Teal and non-dual. I know that you and I are one and that we both stand on the ground of undiscrimating awareness. I am not just mouthing this. There is no I and sometimes I laugh at how ridiculous the self sense even is.

That said, what attracts me to Integral is this - there is a 1st Tier world that most of us have slithered our way through without properly meeting many of the injunctions on their own merits. And what I am hoping to emphasize is the need to regain ownership of a lot of that 1st Tier domain.

For example, where is this fucking touchiness coming from whenever I say something that can remotely be construed as critical of someone? What massively high level is that coming from oh stalwarts of Indigo? How exactly is it a problem to ask someone to explain something or to tell that them what they are saying is nonsense? Do we have some self line work to do down there with the amber shitheads maybe?

Re-owning 1st Tier will fill the pond and the boat will rise to 2nd Tier. Standing on tiptoes to reach 2nd Tier just makes the calves burn after awhile.

This forum is similar to writing books. I cannot replay what you tell me face to face, but I can re-read what you write. And if I write to you, it does not matter that I am tall or short or fat or thin or black or white. We agree to place primary emphasis on the meanings of words.

What I want from you is useful material that will help me understand the Kosmos. Show me where I may find truth, beauty, and goodness. And do not assume that you know whether I am in my "real life" lacking the same. Take my requests at face value.

If I say something helpful, tell me why it is helpful. If I say something that is full of shit, tell me why. And tell me how to stop saying things that are full of shit. If there is a useful practice, tell me about it and how it works and how I can replicate it. But don't judge or assess my ILP based upon my online writings. I prefer to do my ILP in the world that involves my whole person.

If you think I need to re-read something before I can speak coherently, tell me what that is and why you think I need to do that.

This is an Integral forum, for crying out loud. There is so much bullshit in the world and in us that can benefit from a little light and a little helpful dialogue. I am personally convinced that words can be used in effective and precise ways to point at specific things that are useful.

What specifically would you recommend I do? Just ignore what I consider to be statements about Integral and its application that are way off the mark?

That is what a lot of people do. They just ignore the whole mess. Well, I have no problem doing my share to try and sort it out. If you think I am confused or misinformed or just full of shit, tell me why. Show me the compassion to help me be more like you!

And let's give each other a little credit for even sharing these things - the world is filled with people who would just as soon ignore the whole lot of us.

 

 

Shalk, it sounds that you know what you know, and that is your privelege. To my ears your tone doesn't change enough for me to want to engage your story lines. I have nothing more to say to you about this, at this time. Continue on with the convincing as you like.

---

Ambo Suno

Let me change the story line.

The other day I went to a concert at the local middle school. Probably 200 different students were performing and for each student there was 1-2 parents in the audience. Every seat was filled.

The concert began. After about 10 minutes it got very warm and muggy inside the hall. Very uncomfortable. The hall is connected to an adjacent swimming pool. People are taking off their jackets, fanning themselves, old people are red in the face, and so I look around and there is one single door that leads to the outside.

I walked all the way across the hall to the other side and open the door and prop it with a chair. Now fresh air is coming in from the outside. The room cools down.

I sit down and wonder - there are over a hundred people in the vicinity of the door! Not a single one of them got up to do the obvious thing and that is - get some freaking fresh air in the room!

Forget about me. This is not about me. This is about no one using common sense to stand on their own two feet, unconcerned about what others will think, to take necessary action that will allow everyone to bring fresh air.

Should I have gotten permission from everyone in the hall first?  

Once upon a time there was a family. They lived out in the scrub of West Texas.

They are sitting around the porch and the yard. No one is saying anything. Sister then says, "what y'all wanna do?"

Ma says "I dunno. What you wanna do?"

Brother says "I dunno."

Pa says, "well we could go to Amarillo." Silence. Minutes go by.

Pa gets up slowly, and sister sees him so she heads for the car and brother follows. Ma gets up and goes to the car. Pa sees the family getting in the car, so he grabs his keys and off they go on the 100 mile drive to Amarillo.

2 hours later they arrive. Pa stops the car at an ice cream shop. They get out. They go in.

"May I help you?" asks the clerk.

Each member of the family looks at the other.

"I don't want ice cream," Ma says.

"Me neither," says brother and sister agrees.

Pa says, "well, then why'd we come to Amarillo."

Ma says, "I didn't want to come to Amarillo."

Brother and sister say, "I didn't want to come to Amarillo."

Pa says, "me neither."

Who is doing the job of verifying what we want to do and where we want to go? Or are we just following everyone else?  

About three weeks ago I came to a conclusion on the elections. I do not like any candidate. But I dislike McCain the most then Hillary and then Obama the least. But I want MCCain to win because our civilization is at the edge and if Obama gets in (just based on what he represents) it will unravel way to fast for him to do anything about. But if McCain gets in he will follow the line and do the same old things which will give us some time before collapse. We need that time more than a green president. Green being so impractical that it would make things even worse.

I can not believe I am supporting McCain even though I think he is the worst candidate. Believe ,believe.

About four months ago I wanted Obama so all the green people can see what happens when you get a green president. You thought Bush was bad we would get a reversal on this and see how green does not work. Remember what propells us to grow is noticing what is not working. I do not think green has had a chance to see how life does not work from their veiw, leaving Integral open to grow into. But instead of it not working it could collapse the spiral so America is a third world country fast. This is bad all around and I would rather have MCCain be president so we can go on with our current ways and learn from whats happening around the world for maybe three more years before collapse. We are beyond not getting into a collapse  I hope you are not depending on the value of your house as a assement of your wealth in a currency that has no intrinsic value and is collapsing because of home made fraud on us and the world. The world new it was a fraud and did not want to change policies for fear it would cause a global collapse. Seems far out there. I wish.

Innerline:

That is a really interesting idea you raise - Obama will permit us to see what a sorry state of affairs a green Presidency would be. I have never heard this before, but I have all along sensed that this is what would happen.

I think a lot of us remember the Carter Presidency. Reagan came in on the very notion you raise. Green is ultimately incapable of getting anything done. Malaise was the word.

The right is developmentally stunted and less complex than the left. And this allows the right to form alliances more easily and to remain true to them. The green left where Obama would bring us, is a vast and uncoordinated group of highly developed coalitions. Of course, part of this group is the media. Any they are doing all they can to prop up the ticket right now.

The internal strife and discord in America under Obama and a green Presidency will be perfect grounds for China among others to spread their amber tentacles to replace our amber tentacles.

Obama wants to reign in the corporations. China is fine with this, especially since their government subsidizes their major corporations. And don't think we properly understand just how powerful China is becoming. They operate without the constraints that we internally impose to a large degree. And Obama would make us even weaker in this regard.

This is why I have the sense that more Americans than we realize will come to the same conclusion that you have - yes, McCain is a moron in many ways. But America will be a strong and stable base under him. We will act with fairly high focus in our interactions, governmental, corporate and personal, with other countries.

Under Obama, the center will fall apart and a loose confederation of competing groups will be at each other's throats at home, weakening us abroad.

Separate issue: race and gender.

CBS polls now show that 22 percent of Clinton supporters prefer McCain to Obama, 7 percent are undecided and 8 percent have decided to not vote at all.

How can one be pro-Clinton, but favor the positions of McCain over those of Obama if Clinton is out of the race?

Does this not suggest that roughly 25% of the Clinton supporters are essentially voting based on race?

Or is it a gender-based response?

Or is it along the logic of - McCain is good for only 4 years, and then Hillary can make another run in 2024. But she cannot do this with Obama in office.

Regardless, unless Clinton is the VP (which I absolutely do not see Obama agreeing to - betcha a cup of coffee on that one!), which one of these considerations will change between now and November?

And in a related vein, which one of the 50% of the nation that voted Bush in 2024 is now going to vote Obama in 2024?

So, with McCain holding Bush's 50% roughly and then a quarter roughly of Clinton supporters, how does Obama win?

Schalk, I think McCain will follow what bush did on international policy and economic policy. He will sound better than Bush and will seem adaptable domestically but economically its the same old. The emperoir has no cloths and hopefully McCain can keep the world from pointing it out. If Obama is president then they will point it out and the game is over as we know it. I am all about, what the next game is about.

Hey Schalk, Innerline, others. Schalk in Navy.

 

I like Bob Byrd. Talk about an American institution!

I do, too. He's a helluva guy.

Notice that none of those generals registered their protests by taking off their uniforms and sacrificing their pensions. They could have done this. But no, instead they wanted to argue and plot and scheme, and it was all insubordinate.

Right, they've been getting uppity for a awhile. I heard that they were all ordered to keep quiet during this election, though. Did you tell me that. It's been a little while.

 

Yes, the fourth estate believes that they are the king makers. The press are majorly dishonest with us. They purport to report the news, but the act of selecting and spinning it is their own agenda of creation.

Couldn't agree more.

 

Here is what I am thinking: certain people develop. And when they do, they obtain new capacities for knowing. And these new capacities give them what appears to be "new powers." And there are people who have yet to develop. And they sense that those who have developed new capacities can function at their level very effectively and yet they can also rise and function at a higher level that is unintelligible to those who have not developed. And so they become afraid. And hostile. And they strike out.

Maybe the only proper agenda is for developed people to go back into the most rudimentary pockets of society and love them and help them ever so slowly and to retain humility the whole time and never scare them or intimidate them or take advantage of them.

I wonder if everytime we say we are going to enlighten them, it just makes things worse.

I think this is really excellent. It was really good to hear that. I think it helped me evolve a little. The one thing--taken too far and a person could lose the evolutionary context. The evolutionary context is still important. But the ego loves to take the position of teacher or authority, and I think that's where the trouble starts.

 

By the way, what do you think of the Boumediene decision?

 

And wondering if the Constitution permits the President to fire the V.P. for insubordination?

That's a good question. I'm wondering too. Would Hillary be a good soldier under Obama, or would she be insubordinate?

What are your thoughts on VPs now? Lieberman with McCain would make things very interesting.

 

mm

 

By the way, what do you think of the Boumediene decision?

Thanks for asking an easy question!

Boumediene is a really cutting edge case - right there on the edge of our system.

The issue in the case is: does a non-US citizen alien who is deemed by the Commander-in-Chief to be an enemy combatant and who is detained by the United States outside of the sovereign territory of the United States have a right under the U.S. Constitution to invoke the Constitution's "writ of habeas corpus" and challenge the legality of the detention in a U.S. Federal Court."

The U.S. Constitution is of course the "supreme law of the land" and is binding on all branches of the government. Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution says, "the Privilege of th Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it."

So, does this apply to a non-U.S. citizen being held as an enemy combatant in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba?

The Supreme Court said yes. We'll see what happens next.

Those who disagree with the position focus on the distinction between a civil criminal justice system and the waging of war. They assert that the Supreme Court improperly applied a Constitutional provision intended to apply in concert with the administration of civil criminal justice procedures to what are detainees being held as a result of their being apprehended during combat.

They ask - what would we have thought of the notion of providing a writ of habeas corpus to the over 400,000 German, and Italian, and other axis troops held in U.S. prisons within our borders alone during WWII?

They point to the utter unworkability of having judges sit in a position of trying to determine whether guys like Boumediene are properly enemy combatants. Can you imagine the hearings that will be required to properly convince a federal judge in Miami that a guy named Omar was a soldier in training for Al Qaeda 4 years ago in the hills of Pakistan? Half of the intelligence that went into the determination you do not want Omar to even see in the first place or it may present a national security risk tomorrow if he is released.

And they say that the Supreme Court has no authority in the case to rule on what the President is doing because Congress created a law (the Military Commissions Act (MCA)) which the President was following (providing limited habeas review in house in Guantanamo).

The opposition says very clearly that the U.S. Constitution's right to habeas corpus has two proper exceptions - rebellion or invasion. And the Congress, when it passed the MCA did not invoke either of those exceptions. As such, the Congress, which gave the President the power to capture and detain enemy combatants with very limited habeas review (not in federal court, but before a military judge in Guantanamo) passed an unconstitutional law.

So we have issues including what the Constitution says, does the Constitution apply in the case, where does it apply, who does it apply to, is there an exception, who can review the acts of the President and Congress, what is the precedent, etc?

The Supreme Court clearly arrived an an orange value decision of universal applicability of a legal protection, while those who support the President have many strong arguments about why the rules should be different for citizens and non-citizens, at home and abroad, etc. which are amber values.

One of the wonderful things about our Supreme Court tradition is that it often comes along at the right moment to create binding law that reflects a slightly higher level of consciousness than the status quo center of gravity operating in the executive areas of government. The Warren court of the 60s was an example of this - new rights were "discovered" in the Constitution (the right has been moaning about this for the last 40 years).

 

 

Thanks, Schalt, that was illuminating.

I personally don't like the decision. Are these jury trials we are talking about? And does not the defensive attorney have a big say about who sits on the jury, as in, if he can get a few uneducated Muslims to sit on the jury he will? And how many jurers does it take for an aquital?

Why don't they do something like set up some professional jurors for this case? There must be some middle ground between tribunals and common trials. Would OJ have gotten by a military tribunal?

 

mm

In other news, Northwestern University rescinds their offer of an honorary degree to Rev. Wright--no kuntu for him! Poor guy . . . Instead Mayor Daley addressed the graduates.

 

mm