MM:

I forgot to mention - at this stage in the nomination process, Hillary absolutely needs to remember that what her husband did with great mastery was invoke Kuntu. He invoked it differently for each community he was dealing with, but he invoked it as well as anyone can.

It must drive Bill nuts when he sees Hillary missing opportunities to invoke kuntu.

At this stage, she needs to stop allowing her presence to be defined by issues and "he said, she said." She can win this thing if she steps back and does nothing but invoke super-kuntu from here until Denver. Every word out of her mouth needs to cause the audience to positively feel kuntu flowing into her and into them.

A debate with Obama would be a disaster. Obama is saying he does not want the debate. He wants it. Watch, he will agree to one and he will crush her. Not on the points. On the invocations. Every word and gesture of his will make kuntu dance, and she will be riffing through her note cards for the debater's response or the statistic in contradiction.

Hillary still has a chance, but she needs to step back and stop talking to green and orange and start talking to fresh reds and magenta. She can pick up the conversation with green after she is in the White House.

kuntu?? how about boomeritis? not something the clintons have, nor obama, but an embarrassing number of his supporters, wright in particular, although one can argue that 'supporter', in these cases, is a misnomer.

i'd agree that green, especially, is given to pre/post fallacies that might leave it open to the subtle persuasions of kuntu, and wright might be a persuader, but isn't his basic problem one of boomeritis? who did he think he was kidding when he talked about expecting to have the ear of president obama?

---

Hey Ralph , Are yout talking about "Money as Debt" video. Cause earlier I put up the "Freedom to Fascism" and can see you response fitting to that video. The Money as Debt is just an educational video like you would get in elementary school with a little sensationalism thrown in. Freedom to Fascism is hard to swallow all around. Money as Debt is straight foward, I think.

MM stated:

Innerline, so a three-party system where the party with the most votes, not necessarily a majority, wins? I'm not sure that would end up with a different result  than a third party now--it would likely split the vote from one party and help the other win. You're not thinking that this would help Ron Paul, are you?

My point was that if the people running our government had higher ethics--higher than their personal self-interest, for example--we wouldn't have half the problems we have now. So many of our problems can be attributed to congressman simply doing what they need to do to perpetuate their careers. They won't take risks or sacrifice their careers to do the right thing; they'll do what they need to do to ensure they keep their jobs.

mm

I see what your saying. Remember the founding fathers could not figure out this problem. And the more I look into it the more interesting and complex it gets. I was thinking of designating the three partys with a focus like the three branches of government. The executive, legislative and judical. The Judical being analogus to the conservation party, the Legislative the relational party, and the Executive branch the adaptation party. This would follow the harmony of three found throughout the Kosmos. There are many names for this law of three. Like I, We, and It. This would make the dialog amazing. This would be in the Senate and House too.

 

Schulk, I love the Kuntu post. It is now the word of the year for me. Is Hillary really losing her  Cunta.

innerline:

Are yout talking about "Money as Debt" video. Cause earlier I put up the "Freedom to Fascism" and can see you response fitting to that video. The Money as Debt is just an educational video like you would get in elementary school with a little sensationalism thrown in. Freedom to Fascism is hard to swallow all around. Money as Debt is straight foward, I think.

thanks for warning me: i'll avoid 'freedom to fascism' as best i can. i was referring to 'money as debt', which, i admit, is a somewhat sugar-coated, mean green meme, but MGM nonetheless. the obvious clue is its relentless attack on orange and the monetary system it has given us. would they have us return to trading sheep skins? needless to say, this has nothing to do with either obama or the clintons.

my question for you: how have you managed to miss all of this?

---

Schalk, great post! I really feel like I learned something. Very well done! :)

So it's like prana, right? And Wright felt he had his prana robbed..He felt Obama and the press robbed him of his prana, his kuntu, and so he needed to get it back. But that meant: 1) getting up there in front of the microphone at the press club and "doing his thing," doing his song and dance (Magenta); 2) show he was powerful and could hurt back (Red); 3) Show God was on his side by quoting the Bible and reminding people how God does damn certain things (Amber); 4) Using some reason or rationality; can't remember where he did this, but he must have (Orange); 5) proving his Green cred too, saying blacks and whites are just different.

So to really get the kuntu flowing you hit as many levels as possible, right? Are there any magenta things that I missed?

At any rate, yeah, when you're on the receiving end of some ad hominen or energy vampiring you feel as though someone or some people are trying to put you in a box, right? You're getting robbed of your kuntu, so you have to strike back, not just to boost your ego and prove you're right, more ethical, integral, etc. but first and foremost to get the kuntu flowing again. And nothing is worse than losing your kuntu, right? It's the next worse thing to having a bodily death, or perhaps even worse, like a living death. So you're willing to do anything to get your kuntu back, to get out of the box, and you will use integral, Teal, Turquoise, anything and everything you have to get it flowing again. Of course many people in power are notorius kuntu robbers and get threatening if anyone tries to stop them.

And Wright just couldn't wait until November to get his back; he had to do it now. It was more important than the election. They're all sorts of symbols in Wright's church, by the way. They mention that in the Moyer's interview.

And Obama is a little confused in this area as well. Do you know he plays basketball on election morning because they played on the day of the Iowa caucus? I mentioned that on some thread already; it was probably this one. Anyway, he says it with a smile on his face, but I think he's afraid not to play.

Hillary got some big kuntu flowing for her when she said, "Shame on you, Barack Obama!" Right? The big trick, though, is getting your kuntu back in a socially acceptable way. A lot of this political back and forth is just for kuntu, yes? But different worldviews have different ideas about what's an acceptable way to regain your kuntu. Bill held his tongue for awhile, but he tried to get some kuntu back recently, saying it was Obama that played the race card on him, not the other way around. Actually, when Bill mentioned Jesse Jackson after the South Carolina loss, all he was doing was getting back his kuntu, really, because the reporters were badgering him about why Hillary lost.

So, I really want to learn what all you do to get kuntu flowing. Do you use any symbols? I'm sure you do a great job for them. When kids fight with one another, trade insults, hit back, etc., it's all about kuntu, isn't it? But at some point, whether it's Green or ideas of spiritual goodness, people can neglect their kuntu or else have to refine their methods and fail to refine their methods. But we're really talking about prana, right, or chi? But our ideas of what makes it go change as we go up.

At one point at the press club Wright said "I'm a pastor"--kuntu? I feel he was maybe not invoking that to establish his Amber cred but on a Magenta or Red level. Maybe all three. Giving himself some sort of benediction? Then Obama got his kuntu flowing again by denouncing Wright once and for all. The trouble is, all these kuntu wars take their toll.

So, ethnic holidays, gay pride parades, and the like--all about kuntu, right? But it's really common in first tier to try to get more kuntu by trying to take someone else's, right? I deal with this even on integral forums sometimes. Everyone's out to get your kuntu, and my do they get upset if you stand up for your and anyone else's kuntu. They feel kuntu deficient and so they want someone else's. But of course, the river of kuntu, the well of kuntu, is infinitely deep, if only we know how it make it flow.

Also, it's worth noting that some people and groups are more senstive to loses in kuntu than others and need to be treated with special care because small loses in kuntu can seem like big ones.

Hmmmmm . . . .

 

mm

 

 

 

Innerline, that's interesting. I go back and forth between pairs--like Yin/Yang or masculine/feminine--and groups of three, like vata/kapha/pitta. I often wonder which is deeper and more reflective of the kuntu, pairs or groups of three.

The Dems are definitely the feminine right now, though Hillary, ironically, is trying to change that, no joke. She is more masculine than anyone in the Democratic party, bar none. I read an article recently about how Hillary is outmanning Obama. Here it is. It would be really interesting to see who came out the man in a Clinton/McCain head to head. Don't suprised if it's Hillary! Bush definitely outmanned Gore, but Gore's changed and he might have a shot at outmanning McCain.

Yeah, it would be interesting to see what would happen with three parties in the same system. One party could get quite shut out of power, however, if two made a solid alliance. Of course that wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing.

 

mm

Check out this kuntu war.

Kuntu has impacted me very deeply. It has definitely sprung something in me I have been looking at but got simplified by the kuntu post. One thing that definitely effected my development was in my house growing up their was always big fights between members of the family and I was on the outside. I am six years and eight years younger than my brother and sister. They all were big strong personalities. I grew up with a focus on athletics since it was not fully taken by my brother or sister. I was king kuntu boy in athletics. This some how converted to math and physics. And was able to be top kuntu personality in the family by 21 based on debating prowess which in my family was a kuntu competition. 

 mm, when you said "Also, it's worth noting that some people and groups are more senstive to loses in kuntu than others and need to be treated with special care because small loses in kuntu can seem like big ones.", I have been watching this competetive big kuntu mover in me and how others as you say can have a amplfied effect from it compared to what I grew up with. Over time it has been scaled back but also turned into this thing were I am always holding back and go curvy instead of direct, I work with alot of people in sensitive ways for work. I guess I have been letting that direct animal out on this forum. Happy Kuntu blessings to everyone. I will tone it down and try to engage in a way we can talk.

Ralph and others, I think I have found a video that meets your delivery tastes. I am really intersted in your thoughts. Cause I have something to express, but it is difficult with out sounding like a conspiracy nut. And it is in the LR so its not someones opinion but a expression of a system that can and has been verified in the external world. Its a little like the spherical earth discovery. After awhile it was not theory. This has happened to me and others with this topic. There is something in the monetary system in the LR that is not speculation for me anymore and has been as mind opening as the spherical earth changed mans perception. I hope this video can get us closer on this. This guy is impressive.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=LHtNFZ6K0pE

He is saying many of the same thing far more sophisticated than this following video. And I think this elementary video is far more direct. I do not like being curvy with all the suffering go on, really. Ops, bad kuntu energy.

Money as Debt

http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-9050474362583451279&q=money+is+debt&total=1856&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0

MM:

Yes, nothing is worse than losing kuntu, it is a living death, and you must fight to regain it now always!

Case: There was a felon who did 8 years hard time. He finally got released and he was back in the neighborhood. A week later, as he was standing outside a club with some elegant ladies and his good friends, the cop who busted him the first time came by and said "hey, Vince, I hear you got a good job now cleaning diapers." That in fact was what he was doing as a paroled felon with a 8th grade education.

OK, the cop had already stolen his kuntu once, and now here he was trying to twist the knife and drive any remaining kuntu he had left completely away.

The only thing he could do was to kill him. And he did. And forever, his reputation is intact and the forces of kuntu will be with him. The other option was to shrivel up and forever be a harmless little ghost of a man.

To Vince, the cop was not a person with rights and equal standing under law. The cop was a force that was malevolent to him and was clearly trying to drive away his kuntu.

There is no luxury to relax and talk. Every moment, every gesture, every suggestion is on-line in real-time with the kuntu spirits. There are no rehearsals in magenta kuntu consciousness. 

Strength: When you go to prison, the absolute best thing you can do to keep your kuntu is to lift weights. You will appear stronger and more vital on your release and there will be no question that for you the forces of kuntu were visiting you in prison. Clearly you were not taking in the rear in the showers when your strength was growing as can be obviously seen. Most likely you were giving it.

Much of the power of Ken Wilber, solely from a magenta kuntu standpoint, lies in his physique augmented through weight lifting. If he had chosen to live a macrobiotic diet and appeared emaciated his Integral vision would have only 10% of its community.

New Age: Much of the ineffectiveness of "new age" people stems simply from the fact that they drive kuntu away with their stringy hair, dirty sandals, emaciation, whining, and "back to the earth" modes. To a magenta consciousness, kuntu honors those who don't go back to anything. They go forward. They rise. Rivers flow through them. Dirt has no rhythm. Dirt does not flow. Birkenstocks and banjos do not invoke kuntu.

Rods: Jimmy Carter's presence has been a big kuntu drain to the magenta mind. He could have advanced everything he felt needed advancing if he had put on big kuntu displays, let others dig peanuts, played up his Navy brass power, etc. He came from the Navy submarine community. He should played up this affiliation with pictures of him standing with "boomers" which the conventional wisdom now accepts as the single greatest weapon that the Soviet empire could not match. A "boomer" like the USS GEORGIA is an enormous shiny rod of power that Jimmy could have built his magenta kuntu powers around.

Stallions: Remember Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and Mikhail Gorbachev standing together wearing white scarves and black overcoats? That was kuntu invocation at the finest red level. And Reagan was always on a horse. Horses are massively virile creatures. Everytime Reagan was seen on a horse, kuntu flowed into him, and it did not cost anyone anything.

Sickness: Health care and Hillary. She needs to stop talking about sick people and their misery and their medications. Once she is President she can make this her top priority, but health care drives away kuntu. The people who need it are so distracted with their ailments that they are not even paying attention, and the people who don't have a problem with the status quo can only see it costing us individually more money.

Channels: We cannot see kuntu. But we can see where it must be flowing. It must be flowing where there is strength, exquisite garments, shiny and colorful displays, beautiful shapes, laughter and breath, moisture, and resonance.

The Sex of the Sax: Remember the day Bill Clinton played the sax before the nation? That had kuntu flowing massively. The sax rides on breath. You have to use your tongue to moisten the reed. The sound is seductive. The sax is shaped like the horn of cornucopia. It is shiny and gold. You put the mouthpiece into your mouth like you are coaxing juice from a phallus. The master at it again!

Bill grew up in kuntu-land. His wife grew up behind gates in dry gulches. She has been trying to learn from him for decades. I think if she is President, the single greatest function of Bill will be to serve as Chief of Kuntu in every form. And the brilliant thing about it is - he will have time to do it! He won't be obligated to sit through dry meetings that sap kuntu such as briefings with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Bill has got to be absolutely salivating at the possibilities for him employing every mojo lesson in his songbook as First Spouse.

Michele Obama on the other hand will fritter her powers away in small vectorings of favors and gossip. What about a First Spouse debate? Bill and Michele on stage discussing their vision.

You brilliantly set out the levels on which Wright orchestrated his invocation! Don't you think that this could be developed?  

Magenta Kuntu: On the magenta level, it is really simple. Wright wore his absolute best clothes, his best shoes, had his hair done, stayed in the finest hotel in D.C., went to a top notch restaurant where he could be seen by all, and made important relationships at higher kuntu-attracting levels. Powerful rivers of kuntu were flowing through him through beds that were almost dry from the Obama desert winds.

If you want a personal experiment in kuntu, do the following: put on your best suit and your finest shoes. Go to a public place and approach people and ask them questions. You'll find they are much more attentive and responsive than when you wear casual clothes and sneakers. And in turn, you will feel kuntu flow into you, not knowing exactly what you are doing to warrant this power response.

Wear some cologne. That only magnifies your kuntu. The second that the olfactory senses start firing, it is clear that you are riding on kuntu. With odor, you cannot see it so to the magenta mind it is obvious - your corpus of physical matter must be producing this wonderful aroma. The kuntu spirits are soaked into you such that, unlike me, your physical body is not decaying and creating stench. You have been drenched and exude vital ambrosia. It is you.

Have you ever noticed that if a teacher wears really exquisite clothes and fine leather shoes and carries a fine leather briefcase and her/his desk is organized like a well-kept shrine there will be order in the classroom? They are dripping with kuntu and none dare violate them.

To the magenta mind, leather basically says: "I have just come from another place where I engaged and killed an animal. I shall display it to you in the form of this bag or coat." I mean, how can you display leather if you or someone who is under you did not kill an animal? And you cannot kill an animal unless you have big kuntu in you. Sick people do not hunt a lot.

So these are the magenta manifestations.

Orange Kuntu: On the orange level, it is critical to frame the topics such that kuntu has to flow by the very nature of the concepts invoked. Wright screwed up by talking about the AIDS conspiracy. The topic of AIDS, in order to even think about it, you have to envision "wasting." AIDS itself as a notion or idea that you are presently aware of causes you to be aware of fleeing kuntu that leaves you so weak that every malignant spirit can latch onto you.

What Wright should have done was this: he should have evoked the theme of his life-long fight to regain dignity for the black man. There is no denying the fact that the abduction and sale as property of live human beings to serve economic ends is the greatest shame of the American people. Wright should have talked about the living effect of this and then talked about how in the last 40 years the black man has made enormous strides to regain his dignity and worth in America. To put it bluntly, Wright should have come to D.C. armed with Martin Luther King Jr. messages - he would have been more effective in evoking orange and green kuntu. But he still scored like a champ in the magenta and amber and red fields.

In doing so, he could have sent a message - see, this is the kind of kuntu that Obama has been feeding on for the last 20 years. These are the rivers he has been bathing in with me. He could have brought fertility back into his dry landscape.  

(Note: Magic Johnson contracted HIV years ago, but his kuntu is so massive that he seems to be staying afloat while others would be dead.)

Rationality: My sense is that rationality almost always gets hijacked by hidden kuntu considerations, except when every single member of the audience has truly transcended to the level where they agree to be sincere and to honestly try and use the tools of words and concepts to discover new things. So a good rule of thumb is: in any discussion, the minute you find someone trying to grab kuntu instead of fairly and honestly trying to discover connections and truths with the power of rational thought, that is OK, and it is common and not surprising. It just means that the intelligent response is to function at the kuntu level or leave that symposium, one or the other.

Weakness is Weak: And a good rule of thumb for determing if people are high enough to be sincere and honest about rationality is the fact that they will admit they were wrong, or will question the validity of something they said previously, or will ask a question admitting that are confused or lacking in knowledge of the topic.

Because, you see, with magenta and amber kuntu, one does not admit of those "weaknesses" - in that life and death struggle, one leaves no openings for even the suspicion that kuntu is fleeing. To say, "I am confused" or "I was wrong" for the magenta kuntu mind is to say "flee kuntu, leave me, I am open for predatory attacks, I am weak and others are strong, find a better home, I am useless."

The very act of saying "I am wrong" is in itself an act of driving away kuntu. We often call it "power politics." Innerline references it happening in the family and he is right - it is almost always alive in a family if one or both of the parents allows it to happen. Both parents must be committed to not permitting "zero sum kuntu grabs" for the family to rise to a higher level. It is hard and very rare. 

It functions all over the place. The other day I went to visit my neighbor and ask him to help me operate my lawn mower. In magenta kuntu land, one would never admit to another man that he cannot operate a simple tool. It tips the forces away. One does not do such a thing and survive long.  

The whole phenomenon of the guy refusing to stop and ask for directions with the family in the car is an acknowledgment that in kuntu awareness, to be lost is ... to be lost. If you are lost, at that very moment, you do not know where the hell you are. Kuntu will only flow to those who know where they are so kuntu can find them.

But that is what kuntu is exactly - it is the moment to moment act of engaging in politics with power so that you attract more to yourself rather than less. And to even talk about it is to question whether you really want the kuntu.

Hillary: I have said some harsh things about Hillary. And I think my main irritation has been that she has been posing as one who sincerely desires to engage in rational discovery of truth, but in fact she has been functioning in a full kuntu-grab consciousness, and it is often not a win-win kuntu-grab, but a zero-sum grab.

As I said, I think old Bill has to be enormously frustrated as he watches his wife slowly learn the art that he is an American master of. But I also see Hillary starting to learn.

Obama: Remember though, one of the ways Obama has defined himself is as the one who can invoke kuntu without taking it away from others as opposed to Hillary who he has accused as doing it at the expense of others. (Which of course is a performative contradiction, but kuntu awareness below orange does not care in the least about that.)

What We Need in Our President: In summary, what I think America needs right now is a kuntu master who can fire on the levels that you brilliantly touched on. Integral reminds us that all healthy development is a "transcend and include" process. I have magenta and amber awareness. I may be orange, but I still have red. I cannot disown it and I cannot fail to function there when those are the rules as dictated by the situation.

My health depends on not disowning them. Many Americans have just gotten to red. That is all they know. If you suggest magenta reality, they pause and give very serious consideration to it because it is not so far from where they are.

(Sidenote: China. People do not understand what drives the PRC. The simple fact is this: a huge segment of the Chinese people are basically just now emerging from magenta and amber into red and orange. And the leaders of the Party recognize that the future of China depends on getting people up to orange.

For 8,000 years the Chinese have been the most massively and intricately superstitious people on the earth. The Party leaders are trying to get the people to be rational and scientific so they can function and compete in the material world.

Tibet? To the Party leaders, Tibet represents massive backsliding into superstition and magic. They will allow no toe-holds for this. Falungong is the same issue - it is an attempt to resurrect magical practices that were singularly responsible for the shame and weakness of China in the first half of the 20th century. They will not allow this to happen again. China is just now starting recognize that they can permit green in small doses and it will actually make orange stronger. The Olympics will reinforce and spread this powerfully.)  

America: Every level and line in America has positive kuntu invocations that do not deprive other levels and lines of their kuntu. And America is truly the richest, most vibrant, and most expansive collection of specimens from every stage of human development. America is every country. America is England and America is China. America is Africa. The President who can ring all of the bells of potential that are out there, invoking kuntu skillfully without inviting kuntu wars, is the one for me.

That is why I have been leaning McCain. But I am starting to worry because he and his wife ooze dry. There is not a drop of juice available between them. Can we envision fertile rain kuntu flowing into them and thereby into us? It might be a stretch.

But, McCain is down there at low-orange and functions instinctively in red. I have said over and over that this is where a lot of Americans are at. And he seems to be a gentle transition away from the insanity of Bush's amber. We may see him shepherd us in '08, but we will definitely be ready for a full spectrum kuntu invocation in 2024.  

 

 

 

Long time no post, but I want to respond to something written a while back:

"ntegral politics means as much conservatism as liberalism."

As I understand integral, that's absolutely not true.  (Or, to be more precise: that's true but very partial; though, I must admit, still not as concerning to me as the tendency to equate liberal with integral.)

Now, if we're using "conservatism" and "liberalism" as synonyms for "left-hand quadrant focused" and "right-hand quadrant focused," then, of course, both are equally important.  That doesn't mean policy positions or programs should always incorporate both equally (predominantly external-quadrant probems require predominantly external-quadrant solutions, for example).

Of course, if we're using those terms as they're used in American politics today, we don't just mean quadrant distinctions.  We also mean tendencies to fall values-wise along blue/orange vs. red/orange/green lines, and on top of that, some other typologies and even habits that we can't chart along levels or quadrants.

But that brings me back to the initial point - it's absolutely not true that integral means "as much conservatism as liberalism."  It does mean, of course, that both conservative and liberal perspectives need to be embodied, recognized, and integrated; but that means not just included, but transcended.  And that, as I understand it, means a couple things: one, that some situations call for choosing one over the other, and generally, that choice will mean choosing the higher (i.e., liberal) over the lower; and two, that  there's an emergent that can't be reduced to either conservative or liberal, that there's actually a new perspective at integral that isn't just one or the other at different times.

What does that mean more concretely?  I think I've seen two tendencies in "integral" discussions of politics.  One is to subtly merge "green" and "integral," thereby decrying most everything conservative as not integral and elevating everything green as integral.  The second is to simply put blue, orange, and green side-by-side and say that someone who sits somewhere along the middle of that spectrum is the most "integral."  Of course, neither a candidate operating from green nor a candidate operating from a general exit blue/orange/enter green middle is necessarily bad, and each of us, taking an integral perspective, could probably do a good job justifying why a particular candidate is what our country needs right now (particularly when we take into account the other psychological health factors, typologies, and other characteristics that a particular candidate embodies, since all of that is vitally important).  But neither of those candidates would be operating from an integral perspective.

Looking at our crop of candidates (the final three, but even the initial group at large), I hope we can all agree that none of them even close to fully presenting and embodying an integral perspective.  [I personally think that Senator Obama has given us the most expressions of an integral perspective, as I've written in other posts on this thread and won't repeat here, but I certainly don't pretend that he's fully embodying an integral perspective.]  I'm willing to be persuaded otherwise, but please don't try to tell me that positioning oneself in order to gain the favor (and thus the votes) of particular sets of voters, even broad and varied sets of voters, reflects an integral perspective; we'd suddenly have to include every president in history in our group.

CGnost:

I agree with you that none of the candidates embody an Integral perspective. For me, at a bare minimum, to embody an Integral perspective one must recognize the truth of hierarchical development and the law of transcending and including.

The Integral perspective has been the single greatest development to reverse an unfortunate tailspin into flatland reality in America, in particular.  

I also agree that Obama, more than anyone else, has generally spoken in a way that gives the greatest appearance that he is aware of green bordering on teal principles.

Yet, I suspect that if we were to take a snapshot of the mind of Obama at 2:34 PM on any given Tuesday, we would find an orange consciousness functioning at a red level frequently that is instinctively conversant with communicating a green message.

I just cannot conceive of someone surviving the long slog through Chicago ward politics unless he in fact is functioning at amber and red with orange cognition.  

Anothereye shared an important point with us that whatever Obama may or may not be about personally, the fact is that he is catalyzing the highest in many of us in ways that we have not seen in a long time. He may be a snake oil salesman, but he at least gives me the courage to cure my own skin condition.

So, I guess that means we both disagree with the premise that Obama represents a Teal level of leadership and being. At best he knows cognitively that such a perspective exists and can suggest it.

And, it is hard for me to conceive of any leader who is fully engaged in an Integral vision surviving the grinding vetting process that takes place before a person can make it into the arena where s/he can even be considered as a Presidential candidate. The vetting is done by canny red and orange operators the support of whom is essential for a serious bid.

I would like to ask a question: in a democracy, is it not proper that the President come from the level of consciousness inhabited by the majority of the people?

That is to say, if the candidate is frank during the campaign, s/he will reveal truthfully what s/he sees and this vision will then be validated by the public who shares it. If the public is red, then a red candidate by all rights should be selected.

I am sincerely concerned that our President should come from the lowest center of gravity with the greatest mass. If our President is coming from a level appreciably higher than most Americans, his/her actions make no sense to most people and are translated badly. Whereas if his/her level is from the core (red), the core understands his/her actions, and higher levels understand them as well, but lament how much better it could be in an ideal world if s/he were of a higher level.

When our President is healthy red, we are free to develop to our heart's content to 2nd tier. When our President is orange or green, we end up with bad translations and domestic strife.

Your point about liberalism representing a higher level of development than conservatism is a hard truth that requires a lot of explaining to most people. The terms are loaded to begin with, so it might be better to speak of a contrast between a "my country, right or wrong" attitude and a "caring for the country while doing our best to help the world" attitude.

Now, let me ask the obvious question: why does it matter at all what level a candidate may or may not be at? Of course, we should rigorously guard the stages and not permit an impostor to wear a title to which he is not deserving. But, I mean, are we even supposed to have a 2nd tier President? And if so, what exactly happens? What does s/he do that is different from what a 1st tier President does? I mean, precisely, what actions would a 2nd tier President take on Monday morning after taking the oath of office that would differ appreciably in a consequential way from those of a 1st tier President?

 

schalk,

Thoughtful post, thank you.  Just a couple points I would add:

"Now, let me ask the obvious question: why does it matter at all what level a candidate may or may not be at?"

That's the real question, right?  Personally, I think that it matters but that it's not at all the sole criterion (and I think you probably agree with that, from what I've read of your posts thus far).  But what happens - we get someone who can see a bigger world and integrate more perspectives, leading to the potential for more effective and efficient solutions to problems, falling back on the partialities of a particular ideology less and less.  Posts by others on China, Iraq, etc., capture some specifics very well, I think; but it's only a potential, and I wholly agree with your implicit suggestion that someone coming from first tier, but healthy and with the 'right' characteristics for our time, could well be the best and most effective choice.

"When our President is healthy red, we are free to develop to our heart's content to 2nd tier. When our President is orange or green, we end up with bad translations and domestic strife."

Is that true?  As I understand it, a president operating primarily from red, even healthy red, would be entirely willing to foster oppression against unfamiliar ethnic, religious, and social groups.  And worse yet, since we generally can't see beyond our own level, anything post-red would be approached as pre-red, something to stamp out.  Doesn't seem like I'd be free to develop at all.  Of course, orange and green provide their own barriers to development as well; but have I misunderstood you?  Maybe you're suggesting that a president operating from red in today's America wouldn't be able to do much of that damage, given other social and cultural forces; perhaps that's true, though I'm still personally quite worried about what the effect would be beyond my own development (e.g., foreign policy).

"I would like to ask a question: in a democracy, is it not proper that the President come from the level of consciousness inhabited by the majority of the people?"

I agree with you that that's often what does happen, and that there's nothing particularly wrong with that.  For one, it gives us (the public) a chance to really see our perspective in action, with all its truths and all its flaws, and that's invaluable as we move forward (i.e., looking at the big picture, I think the past 7 years have been invaluable, because Bush obviously tapped into a perspective that really wanted to be heard and wasn't; it didn't work all that well, but without letting it play out, could we have ever effectively transcended it?).  I'm also an elitest, though, in the sense that I'd like our leaders to be the best and the brightest, developmentally as well as in other criteria.  Democracy obviously permits that, and to the extent others agree with me, it seems like that result could be just as proper.

Schalk, awesome post! I love this stuff!

 

Schalk: Much of the power of Ken Wilber, solely from a magenta kuntu standpoint, lies in his physique augmented through weight lifting. If he had chosen to live a macrobiotic diet and appeared emaciated his Integral vision would have only 10% of its community.

Yes, I agree. It's interesting to think about kuntu at different levels too. Like some really nerdy guy at MIT might have huge kuntu--there, as long as he was there. But Ken's got it going on all levels. So we can have big physical, energetic kuntu--which is primarily what we are talking about, right?--but then we can have mental kuntul, financial kuntu, spiritual kuntu. But another way of looking at it is its just the same kuntu hitting different levels and qaudrants.

New Age: Much of the ineffectiveness of "new age" people stems simply from the fact that they drive kuntu away with their stringy hair, dirty sandals, emaciation, whining, and "back to the earth" modes. To a magenta consciousness, kuntu honors those who don't go back to anything. They go forward. They rise. Rivers flow through them. Dirt has no rhythm. Dirt does not flow. Birkenstocks and banjos do not invoke kuntu.

Yeah, that's true. Except at a Grateful Dead concert this might seem like some pretty good kuntu!

 

That's an interesting point about Carter and the boomers. But it probably wasn't in his Green worldview to even consider it. Look at what happened to Kerry when he tried to fake it. "Reporting for duty, sir!" (At the convention.) And he actually had some legitmate military cred. Amazing how they could use it against him when he had such a good record. Amazing that people could buy that garbage. How about Hillary--obliterating Iran! She doesn't have a Pt or a riverboat or a boomer, but she'll have the bomb! And she'll use it, too. I bet a lot of world leaders would rather face Obama than her.

 

Don't forget Reagan's chainsaw! Wimpy G. H. B. had nothing but a wimpy fishing pole. Cheney has his shotgun. G. W. always had pretty good kuntu; it's probably why he got elected: the money, a suntan, good health, happiness. "He's the kind of guy I'd like to drink a few beers with. He gets my vote."

The world's worst attempt to get kuntu with an extraneous object--the award, of course, goes to Michael Dukakis:

 

Candidate most challenged kuntu wise at the fundamental levels--Paul Tsongas. But he was good on the mental levels, only no one noticed. But he was so challenged on the fundamental levels he didn't live long past the campaign.

Bill has big kuntu. He's up there with Magic Johnson kuntu. And Bill can get it flowing in all situations. Check this out from yesterday's Chicago Tribune:

 

"Bill Clinton was in the pulpit in North Carolina today.

"I didn't come here to ask you to vote for my wife," said Clinton, addressing the congregation at Church of the Pentacostal in Asheville, N.C. "I came here to ask you to pray for her. And to vote. Do whatever you want. Show up. Our country is in dire distress.

"I just want you to pray for her and to make your voices heard," he added, in an account by ABC News. "Do whatever you think is right. But don't sit this out, because we are being called upon to return to our true purpose."

Clinton spoke of his long relationship with the Pentacostal church. "The small but enthusiastic congregation, whose church is nestled between the mountains of Asheville, listened attentively as Clinton told stories of his relationship with the church over the years,'' ABC reports. "Clinton even spoke about how Barbara Streisand was inspired to record her first spirtual album after listening to a Pentacostal singer who performed at Clinton's mother's funeral.''

Clinton closed with Tuesday's election.

"You know, we get close to these elections, the tensions are up, the temperature is up," he said. "We're all liable to say something we shouldn't say. We're all feeling things we shouldn't feel. So it is a very good thing for (us to) be here.""

 

How many Dems can stoke the Amber kuntu like that?

 

What about Hillary's hair? She was having real trouble with her hair kuntu for years, but I think she's finally got it down. Big hair has got to be about the best thing for a woman in power. It's like a head dress.

 

 

Obama has got the suit--the suit with the blue tie that Letterman complimented him on towards the end of this video ("That's an electable suit! I would vote for that suit!") Google Obama and see how often you see that suit. He must have started wearing it after that Letterman appearance. He probably bought five more of them. He wears it for every big occassion, I think. Just as I thought--he's wearing it in Philadelphia for his race speech as you can see here.

Bill has this way to get kuntu flowing that's like Gatsby's--it's like, "This that we're doing here is real. You are real. You are important. This is a special moment for me being here with you." No one does that as well as him. Magic's good at that kind of stuff too.

Obama has got the Green kuntu flowing whenever he wants it to; he's got that one down pat:

"This election is not about rich versus poor, or young versus old or black versus white,” he said, as supporters waved blue signs. “It’s about the past versus the future, and in four days, you can choose to turn the page.”

 

Very moving, sweeps you away like MLKjr whose voice he imitates at times, but it is just Green: "Everyone--black, white, yellow, Latino, native american--" and when he gets to "native american" people are going nuts.

 

There is very little market for integral in American politics right now. You might as well be a communist. Hillary does her best talking Green at the right moments and Orange at the right moments. Obama has Green down pat, does it more beautifully than anyone, but he struggles with Orange and Amber because he's just begun to integrate them. Hillary has got them integrated so well, however, she looks like a downright traitor to the Huffington Post.

 

Obama has artistic, spiritual kuntu going. But conservatives are left flat because he doesn't get conservative kuntu going. He's basically ringing up a particular kind of Red and also Green. And I believe he touches on integral, touches on it, but he doesn't get the integral kuntu flowing. Tony Blair got the integral kuntu flowing--and all the liberals think he's a traitor or he never really was a progressive like them or he simply sold out in some way.

 

A big thing about getting kuntu flowing is friends, right, a tribe? A solitary man can occassionally have big kuntu, but it is more common to see within a tribe. Wright had a bunch of African American friends at his press club meeting cheering what he said. They have the photo ops with all the endorsements. When Hillary said, "Shame on you, Barack Obama," she had the governor of Ohio, a big man with big kuntu, standing behind her nodding his head. It wouldn't have been nearly as effective a performance without that. Only it seemed to scream white kuntu a little too loudly somehow, even though I don't believe it was conscious or anything.

 

By the way, here's an article about McCain's foreign policy guru. I've seen him on Charlie Rose. He seems pretty good, not a neocon.

Rationality: My sense is that rationality almost always gets hijacked by hidden kuntu considerations, except when every single member of the audience has truly transcended to the level where they agree to be sincere and to honestly try and use the tools of words and concepts to discover new things. So a good rule of thumb is: in any discussion, the minute you find someone trying to grab kuntu instead of fairly and honestly trying to discover connections and truths with the power of rational thought, that is OK, and it is common and not surprising. It just means that the intelligent response is to function at the kuntu level or leave that symposium, one or the other.

 

You're so right about that, and that's great advice. It helps a lot to bring awareness to this. If you know it when things have sunk into pre-rational kuntu, you're less likely to be affected by it.

 

Weakness is Weak: And a good rule of thumb for determing if people are high enough to be sincere and honest about rationality is the fact that they will admit they were wrong, or will question the validity of something they said previously, or will ask a question admitting that are confused or lacking in knowledge of the topic.

That's also really good. I don't know how many times I have continued to try to reason with someone when they were just trying to make a kuntu grab. Sometimes I've played the "this will be bad for your karma" card or even "You may not go to heaven but to hell if you keep on like this" (with people susceptible to that), and I think it works. It works them right at the levels they're operating on--either right on the magic or either boosts them up to Amber, mythic religion, do good so you'll go to heaven type stuff.

 

Because, you see, with magenta and amber kuntu, one does not admit of those "weaknesses" - in that life and death struggle, one leaves no openings for even the suspicion that kuntu is fleeing.

That's true. It's like in Israel/Palestine situations, Israel can't admit weakness--they have to strike back, or else it will just be taken for weakness. A lot of people, especially Green and Green Europeans, don't get this. Hillary gets this. I don't know if Barack does. McCain of course gets it.

 

I want to go back to the guy who killed the cop because he dissed him. There is another perspective on that I think we should consider: the evolutionary perspective. That guy could have turned the other cheek and given his life up for Jesus and started going to church and gotten some Amber kuntu flowing. He was up to his eyes in Red--standing out there with the elegant ladies outside the club. But he could have said no to that Red life, no to those ladies who wanted him for the wrong reasons, turned the other cheek, said yes to Jesus, yes to Amber. These affronts, these things that feel like major kuntu affronts, can also be huge evolutionary opportunities. Kill the cop and keep your kuntu? Well, sort of, except you're still on the Red plane and now in jail. Dying to that Red self and going to church and giving your life to Jesus is another option. Sometimes we can transmute that Red Anger into Teal clarity, turquoise clarity and hold on to our kuntu in a more effective way that dealing some raw Red. But sometimes we simply have to meet the other person's energy whatever they're dealing.

 

Yes, Hillary has often descended fully into the kuntu war, but she had no other choice most often being attacked viciously from all sides, and I mean all sides! What else could she do? And she has fought them off really well. I have seen her fight off Tim Russert on his show for an hour with nothing but kuntu power politics, but what else can you do with a blowhard like that who is only trying to score points on you?

 

I think you're so right we need a kuntu master who can fire on all levels. McCain does this better than any Republican because he can hit the higher registers. He can even get a little Green kuntu flowing. Obama's trouble is whether he can descend into the power politics well enough. He can do that in sneaky ways, but not so much in your face. He may have enough of it. Hillary might do well if people were behind her. She does pretty well with so many people against her.

 

America: Every level and line in America has positive kuntu invocations that do not deprive other levels and lines of their kuntu. And America is truly the richest, most vibrant, and most expansive collection of specimens from every stage of human development. America is every country. America is England and America is China. America is Africa. The President who can ring all of the bells of potential that are out there, invoking kuntu skillfully without inviting kuntu wars, is the one for me.

This is excellent. I agree.

 

Hi cgnost. Thanks for your great comments. I think we're basically in agreement. The one thing I will mention now is that conservatism likes interior causation; liberalism likes exterior causation. When we look at it that way, we can't privilige either one. We must integrate them equally. Have you read Ken's discussion about interior/exterior causation in A Theory of Everything? Check out this article online.

 

Green is higher, yes, but it is just into exterior causation. So, we can barely call Green higher when Green is missing the interior causation that
Amber/Orange sees, though of course Green is still seeing more perspectives. It's wierd--it's transcend and include, but we really don't include both interior and exterior causation until Teal, when, if anything, we would have to favor conservative, interior causation because it is more fundamental. Why is there poverty is the question that always comes up. Is it because they don't have the exterior resources (environment, schools, books, etc.) as liberals believe, or is it is because they don't have the interior resources, individual and collective (cognitive, spiritual, values, etc.) as conservatives believe? Liberals are convinced that it is the exterior causation that matters most, so they will pour money into the exterior (Obama's program for 20 underprivilidged neighborhoods, his doubling of foreign aid), but Teal sees that exclusive exterior causation thinking can be a waste of money at times because the personal or collective interior has to be going strong as well for a satisfactory outcome. Of course, that is horribly politically incorrect in the Green world because how dare you think that one person or culture is more evolved than another.

 

Obama does talk a little bit of both interior and exterior but at the end of the day he falls on the exterior causation. That's his bottom line. That's one of the reasons I say he is still basically Green, though moving into Teal. The other reason I think he is Green is because the entire Green world absolutely loves him to death, and Green does not like Teal politicians. Green hates Teal politicians almost as much as it hates neocons. If you hear someone saying "neoliberal" there is a very good chance you are listening to Green talk about Teal in a deregatory manner, Howard Dean's "Democratic wing of the democratic party," for example, talking about the Clintons and the New Democrats, frowning as they say it with knitted brows.

 

I agree with you completely that it's common to see people call Green integral and also mistake middle-of-the-road wet noodleness for integral.

Hillary of course is not presenting integral politics as such to the population at large (though I believe she could)--that would be political suicide--she is intentionally trying to appeal to Orange, which is also what Ken Wilber said in his latest interview with Jim Garrison. He also mentioned a time when Hillary affirmed that she had been studying Wilber's integral one way or another. Perhaps she had read something or perhaps she had talked it over with Bill or Al Gore.

I think we can tell by Hillary's debate peformances that she is dealing with some Teal cognition when she wants to. But out on the stump she is more often than not consciously, intentionally trying to appeal to Orange. This is, of course, the group Democrats need to win in November, and it is also the group she needs to beat Obama because Obama has a lock on Green.

 

mm