Reading

I'm reading Eckhart Tolle right now. He is pretty good at taking Buddhist ideas and applying them to other religions/aspects of life. He is basically saying what many have been for a long time, but in more plain instructional words. He's saying spirituality is essentially the same experience for everyone, but we just express it in different ways. We often get caught up in our expressions and lose the spirituality. He focuses on western culture in his critique.
The most interesting observation Tolle made was how much of an impact Descartes statement "I think therefore I am" has had on western society. A monk would answer "you think, therefore you are not!". This of course leads us to dysfunction, expensive diets, books from amazon.com "like Tolle's :-)" that "explain" to us how to know the difference between -being- and thinking "Ego".
I would swap out the term spirituality for a more Heidegger like "authentic experience". There are many issues with the comparison, but at the core is the idea that we must not question what something is as a substance, "even emotions" but in a more basic pre-theoretical way. I specifically like Heidegger's "thing v object" distinction. The difference between fine art and a mouse pad. I think Tolle's discussion of the Ego overcoming our spirituality is another more specified way of talking about authentic v. inauthentic experiences. I'm pretty sure he would disagree with me. I imagine a teenager who is kissing for the first time, thinking about kissing, and a song they like involving kissing, and imagining the character they idolize in that movie when they are kissing v. the person who is experiencing a kiss, what it does, and how they "ego and all" are reacting to it. I think that is essentially the same thing Tolle is talking about, but not in spiritual terms.

Tolle's big mission seems to be discussing the ego in Buddhist terms, but relating it to western religion/spirituality to form a conclusion of similarity over difference while facilitating personal growth.

It's a good thing, I just wish he expanded beyond the Ego to other interferences such as social norms, commercialism, etc. I suppose he would say that these are merely different expressions of the Ego....

Power

I'm in a funny spot right now. I am applying for jobs and becoming increasingly stressed out by the whole activity. I have tried to literally overwhelm employers with my resume, websites, call backs, and thank you letters. The idea was that my name would be there, and perhaps one individual would take the time to say "who in the heck is this guy".
I've realized that this was a good idea, but not successful in reality. In reality all this practice did was drive me down, consume my spare time, and produce products that were sub par "spelling mistake, perhaps a 'position' instead of 'positions' in one line". It is like anything else in life. A product created on an assembly line should be better theoretically since many people are working on only one specialized part. In reality we know going to a single person who has mastered something is better.
You know power is funny that way. I am saying that this "my employment search tactics, production, anything involving human interaction" has to address power.

A thought: When you try to limit power, you can actually encourage it. Think of it this way, an oligarchy, monarchy, and dictatorship are the smallest forms of government. There are few middle men or bureaucracy
to deal with. Small does not = limited, and limited does not = less power... just a thought and one analogy. The idea of power... or is it control? Apply to many things in life.

I've actually come to realize that I am trying to control a situation that is uncontrollable, "an employer calling me back". People are upset right now about.. say the oil spill because they feel they have no control, no power, and so they look to attack people, ideas, ideologies in "control" with "power".

Every wise person, theologian, or guru knows that attempts to gain control often end in no control, a cycle of self destruction. There is a Greek story about Dionysus and his/her attempt to enter a Greek city. The city leader refused entrance because he feared the cult following. In pursuit of chasing the wine cult off he himself became a part of it due to his loss of control... in pursuit of control.
Control is the idea of having power to make things as you see fit. It doesn't matter if it is a Statist Communist regime, corrupt small town local government, job search, relationship, search for spirituality, how you eat, what product you buy, exercise Et cetera.

It's tricky, you must to have the passion and drive to want some sort of control/power in pursuit of your goals else you'll fail. Too much... and you'll fail in pursuit and even in achievement.

Such confusing monkeys we are....

New background

This reminds me of Indiana Jones whenever he has to fly from one spot to another. The part right before the racial/ethnic stereotype enters the screen.

In reaction to the morning MONTCOAL articles

I woke up this morning and found an article concerning the 25 miners presumed dead in West Virginia. Here is a small excerpt,

"MONTCOAL, W.Va.—The Massey Energy Co. coal mine where at least 25 people died in an explosion this week was cited by federal regulators for violating two safety regulations on the day of the blast, according to the Mine Safety and Health Administration."

I had known Massey Energy Co. had a poor safety history, but that seemed to be a slap in the face to the grieving families of the miners.

I checked out some other sources and found this information in a New York Times article,

"In the past two months, miners had been evacuated three times from the Upper Big Branch because of dangerously high methane levels"

the mine, "as recently as last month was fined at least three times for ventilation problems, according to federal records.".

"In 2008, one of its subsidiaries paid what federal prosecutors called the largest settlement in the history of the coal industry after pleading guilty to safety violations that contributed to the deaths of two miners in a fire in one of its mines. That year, Massey also paid a $20 million fine — the largest of its kind levied by the Environmental Protection Agency — for clean water violations. "

"“No one will say this who works at that mine, but everyone knows that it has been dangerous for years,” said Andrew Tyler, 22, an electrician who worked on the wiring for the coal conveyer belt as a subcontractor at the mine two years ago.

Mr. Tyler said workers had regularly been told to work 12-hour shifts when eight hours is the industry standard. He also said that live wires had been left exposed and that an accumulation of coal dust and methane was routinely ignored.

“I’m willing to go on record because I am a subcontractor who doesn’t depend on Massey for my life,” Mr. Tyler said."

"copy/paste into url bar for article" http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/07/us/07westvirginia.html


See, that's why you have unions, so you don't have to depend on outside contractors to protest safety conditions.

Not only is the American standard of life continually attacked by the Right and Big Business as "laziness, unrealistic, parasitic" etc. human life it’s self is also devalued.

Globalization has pinned the former imperial powers against the former colonies.
Post WWII numerous nationalist movements in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa,
“the areas where European/North American countries used to get materials for next to nothing, ex. Vietnam rubber plantations" have vanished.

With that theme, the American quality of life has slowly been degraded in competition with third world conditions. Due to that, "and the corporate guided influx of illegal workers/breaking of unions" the American laborer has been asked to lower their quality of life, all justified via "globalization" or "free markets"
to that of their competition, who themselves are fighting for better conditions.
Oh, and the water –isn’t- rising in the majority of countries. The IMF and WTO work with transnational’s to get their hooks into developing countries often run by despots or military juntas who they can pay off. The international agencies put all kinds of "riders" into their contracts "no unionization, no competition, no environmental legislation etc" and call the whole ring "capitalism".

Meanwhile back in the U.S. it isn't just the manufacturers that are suffering. White collar work/entry level positions have been outsourced as well to countries who are not building a middle class out of them. America has largely replaced these post grad position with service industry positions once thought of as part time teen's work. This mind set has not changed in relation to their real professionalism in the current economy. Many higher wage employers have slashed benefits as well in reaction to their new found justification.
Don't worry,
in about a month the mining corporations and Republicans will again start using the excuses of cost and government interference to loosen any new regulation which might come out of this.

Remember this,
those who say things like "it is their choice to work in dangerous jobs" obviously have never known, nor experienced a life of poverty in an economically depressed area.

More to the point, they are Social Darwinists, certain lives don't count as much as others,
and profit does come before certain people.

So, if you pray, pray for the miner's families.
If you don't pray, keep a keen eye on safety reform,
or more importantly the lack of it in the future.

"copy/paste into url bar for the song 'Dark as a Dungeon'"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRzX7wHrWmk

The Death of American Conservatism

Can there be such a thing as a
"conservative movement?"


I must first say that I heard this idea on the radio from Sam Tanenhaus. Since that interview the topic has been running through my head. The truth of this concept was made evident by S.C. representative Joe Wilson. His outburst made it clear that there are very few, if any, true conservatives left in the GOP.

After the Obama inauguration there were hopes on the left of a permanent majority. A post partisan era where there would be Obama-Republicans as there had been Reagan-Democrats. Just as the rights claims to permanent majorities had been dashed, so has the lefts.

The last true conservative, Bill Clinton, adapted to his political surroundings and the national sentiment. After the defeat of health care reform Clinton altered his political course to one of moderation.
Al Gore was defeated not only an opponent, but by a movement. While this movement called its self conservative, by being a movement, "or composed of movements" it was by definition not.

Compassionate conservatism was the fire brand populist movement which began the end of conservatism as we know it in America. The Burkean concept of moderation had been replaced by agitation. True conservatives such as Eisenhower, even Nixon, were capable of maintaining the normative status quo for their era.
This, above all, was the purpose of conservatism.

Eisenhower grasped that New Deal programs became so embedded in American culture that to attempt to dismantle them, would be in perspective, extreme for most Americans.

The key was that true classic conservatives believed in moderation. Those who sought to alter the norm too much were seen as extreme, right or left. Burke’s critique of the French Revolution begins with anti-left sentiment, but ends in anti-right warnings.

What has happened to the Republican Party has been a shift in power via the so called “compassionate conservatism” movement. A vast expansion of militarism and industrial military complex growth, “the same Eisenhower warned against” has been combined with government growth and the insertion of ideology to create a whole new brand of politics in America.

Rhetorically we also see the victory of the idealists. The Utopian aspect of the right has taken control of the Republican message. Some of these messages are romanticized ideas of a Utopian past. An urge to change the current society to somehow regain something lost.

Other groups included in this movement have shifted from left to right over the past 160 years. A speech from then (D) William Jennings Bryan could today be given by a Republican representative.

It is important to recognize that many of the movements included in compassionate conservatism, or the modern GOP, are as old as America.

For example many progressives were fire brand religious moralists who wanted to legislate religious moral decency. This is how prohibition became law, and why they voted Democrat. These same people used religion to agitate as abolitionists, part of the then radical Republicans.

A person holding an anti-choice protest sign who currently votes Republican, not too long ago could have been arguing for prohibition and voting Democrat on the same moral grounds.

With the failure and collapse of compassionate conservatism, “which became a dystopian Orwellian construct as many utopias tend to” many of the activist Republicans "non-conservatives" became even more isolated and extreme.

The very idea that there is a "far right" included in the GOP makes the organization not conservative.

This extreme fringe is gaining in strength due to the fact it is now on the outside. Extremists never do well when they are in power. As the rhetorical compassionate conservatism was replaced with rapid militarization, spending, and government growth both bureaucratically and in power relating to civil liberties, the small tent GOP began to split.

The people that were most in peril were the classic conservatives who found themselves caught between movement based activists and the huge government/military Bush 2 developed.

The death of conservatism is the death of moderation. The voices on the right do not wish to act in the interest of a steady course. The right equal to the left wants to -reshape- America into an image they feel is the best.

Instead of maintaining the status quo, today's conservatives seek a "conservative revolution" which would have been an oxymoron to Burke.

The right is driven by movement/agitator based groups who copy many tactics from the left.

During the beginning of the Bush era coffers were emptying for many of these fringe groups and media outlets. They do much better tossing rocks from the outside than actually being constructive from the inside.

The uncertain economy, first African American president, and democratically controlled legislature are all ingredients for fringe success.

The only thing which may save conservatism in America in its original Burkean terms is power.

People will always seek out power. Someone may see an opportunity via these non-ideological methods to attain some.

This prospect may seem overly dim by exaggerated media focus on the movement based Republican Party, but a true conservative may appear very far left to the current voices on the right.

Who is paying for the town hall disruptions?

Where are these health care reform protesters coming from?.

Republicans would like to present these protests as grassroots, while Democrats would like to describe them as astroturf.

While I am sure some of these mislead individuals really believe the fear tactics Republican and Lobbyist organizations have been spreading about the numerous healthcare reform bills currently in legislation.....

There Are People Organizing These Events.

Lobbyist and Republican funded organizations such as,

• "Operation Embarrass Your Congressman." A website with instructions on how to disrupt town hall meetings, not actually participate in them.
  
• Conservatives for Patients' Rights- is a front for CRC Public Relations -- the conservative PR firm previously known as Creative Response Concepts. This is the same firm that funded 'Swift boat attacks" against John Kerry in 2004. It's head man is Richard Scott, who has raised over $20 million to fight health care reform.
  
• American Majority, headed by Lonny Leitner who was regional director for Bush/Cheny '04 and Ned Ryun, a Bush speech writer.

• Americans for Prosperity, led by conservative David Koch the 19th richest man in the world. Patients First - Art Pope is the president. He is an elite conservative who contributed so much to the North Carolina GOP they named their headquarters building after him. It's at 1506 Hillsboro Street.
  
• Patients First is responsible for bussing people around the country to the town hall meetings on health care reform with instructions and tactics to derail them.
  

I found these in a matter of minutes by searching yahoo yesterday morning before work.

I am sure there are many more.

Currently the Lobbying Disclosure Act does not cover attempts to create demonstrations. This means firms can fly operatives across the country and even pay protestors directly without telling anyone in the public or in Congress. The biggest industry has hired the most sophisticated firms in order to defeat public healthcare.

More names can be found at,

http://recessrally.com/

Problems with the Supreme Court's findings on Ricci v DeStefeno

In the lead up to judge Sotomayor's confirmation,

a case involving New Haven, "my home town" was used by Republicans to attempt and frame Ms. Sotomayor, "an American-Puerto Rican female who worked her way up through poverty" as a racist. There was nothing more disturbing than seeing the Republicans questioning Ms. Sotomayor, "all older white males" then reading the online suggestions that Ms. Sotomayor was not qualified for this position due to her stance on race. This meant, all those questioning her were somehow more qualified.

The connection was based in a theory that Ms. Sotomayor was only chosen because she was a Hispanic woman. Being a recipient of affirmative action favor, so the theory goes, she voted with the city of New Haven in the Ricci v DeStefeno case.

There are many undertones of racism involved with this view, beginning with the notion that those who use anti-discrimination laws in their favor are doing so because they are other wise unqualified to achieve their goals.

Problems with the Supreme Courts findings on Ricci v DeStefano.

The Supreme Court voted along party lines to overrule local and district courts in this case.

The conservative judges justification is found in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. The court argued that Ricci, and the other firefighters faced discriminatory hiring practices by the city of New Haven based in the Equal Protection clause of Title VII.

The original reason for throwing the test results out was also found in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. In Title VII there is the option for employers to not use aspects of their hiring procedure if they ended in racial disparity. This protected employers against litigation.

The city contracted the test creation to a private company “Industrial/Organizational Solutions, Inc.” Once the test was taken, half the number of African Americans passed than that of Caucasian. This disparity was wider than that of previous exams. New Haven’s independent exam rule board was split on their decision regarding the tests 2-2, so the tests were not certified.

Ricci, and the other firefighters who did pass this test sued the city. Connecticut courts upheld the city of New Haven's right to do away with the test under Title VII disparity laws. The regional court held in New York, "judge Sotomayor's tie into the case" upheld New Haven's right, as an employer to give a new test

The Supreme Court found that in this specific case, one aspect of Title VII, “Equal Protection”
was more significant than another part of the same act, “prohibition of hiring practices which produce disparate racial results.”

The court did not re-write the law to say this,

and that is where the problems begin.....

The court did not re-write the law to describe in what occasion a test may be thrown out, or not thrown out. Conservative judges Scalia, Alito, and Thomas publicly argued that since the tests were related to job performance they were not subject to disparity claims. The judges did not re-write the law to say this. In fact, the disparity language in title VII did not change at all.

The conservative judges simply felt that New Haven probably would have won if sued over disparity.

What was the result of this finding?

Now all employers must weigh whether to throw out aspects of hiring practices that result in disparity or not. Employers could face litigation under racial disparity if steps taken during the employment practice produce very uneven outcomes based on race, but they could also face litigation by the majority group if the employer decides to scrap the aspect of employment which caused the disparity in an attempt to protect its self from that very same litigation.

The only avenue of guidance given by the Supreme Court is that they believe disparity suits will not be won.

There is now precedent for two different findings on the same topic, with neither over ruling the other.

The Supreme Court is supposed to take on cases which result in new views of established law. What the court did was say in this specific case disparity was not enough to justify throwing away the tests, but in the future disparity may be enough for litigation. The court did not change the law, it ruled on this specific case.

One must wonder if Judge Sotomayor were not a candidate for SCOTUS if this case would have been given back to District with notes of concern, since now definite change in the law occurred.

• This ruling has already been challenged in NYC. U.S. District Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis agreed that the city has discriminated against minorities in its hiring of firefighters, causing blacks and Hispanics to comprise only 10 percent of the fire department's work force even though most city residents are minorities.
  

This is the argument Judge Ginsburg gave in her dissenting vote against the conservative judges in the Ricci case.

• Back in New Haven at the end of July, the New Haven jury awarded five minority Greenwich police officers $157,000 in a federal racial discrimination case.
  

Do these cases need to be appealed all the way to the Supreme courts to find a resolution? The Supreme Court's findings were essentially a non-finding, and eerily political.

The irony of the whole case is that due to the findings by the Supreme Court, determining a discriminatory hiring practice has become subjective,

the very term Republicans used to slander Sonia Sotomayor.

• In the future people such as Frank Ricci may find it harder to win lawsuits. 
  

In 1995 Ricci sued New Haven for discrimination, "dyslexia" when he was not chosen for

1 out of 40 positions among 795 candidates applying for a fire fighter position.

The case was settled on 2007, when Ricci finally received his position.

It also happens that Ricci sued the city of Middletown in 1998 over his dismissal. The Connecticut Department of Labor investigated, and found Ricci's firing was justified.