Deconstructing BushSpeak

John Chuckman strikes again:

The name War on Terror is itself perhaps the darkest example of Bushspeak. You cannot have a war on ideas, or a war on religious beliefs, or even a war on people’s feelings of grievance and injustice. The War on Terror is code for belligerent interference in the Middle East. It is also code for the suppression of dissent in America, something dear to the kind of people with which Bush surrounds himself, people who lie, cheat, and profit from billions of dollars being squandered. And all this crashes over us as a result of what the intelligence community calls blowback from bad policies and neglect of years ago.

The above is the final paragraph of this article, which literally deconstructs an entire recent speech by George Dubya. Essential reading for those who are easily mystified or are lulled to sleep by BuShite rhetoric….

Dreamspace addendum

More on the dreamspace thing. I mentioned that some dreams I have are significant to me. The measuring stick of this significance is not so much the plot of the dream, but more the feeling I have after having experienced the dream.

There are times when I wake up, knowing that the dream that has already begun fading from my memory is significant, and that I’d better remember it.

The dream the other night was one of those.

Dreamspace

For as long as I can remember, I haven’t regularly remembered my dreams. Much of this is due to some sleep difficulties I’ve battled over the years, but these difficulties are largely behind me. Yet, I still don’t often remember my dreams. I wish I had more of these memories; there is a rich, millenia-old tradition of dreams and dream interpretation enhancing one’s spiritual experience. But every once in a while, I have a doozy that I remember with vivid detail, they are like small gifts, crystalline images punctuating my spiritual reality.

Last night was one of those dreams.

One of the keys to active work in dreamspace is to learn to trust the dreams, and to trust your interpretation of said dreams. It similar to the development of psychic awareness/abilities; we all have these abilities, it’s just a matter of learning to tune into them and trust one’s perception of them.

Yet I find myself in a quandary. I have the dream; its meaning, at least on the surface, is very clear and very vivid, and the plot of the dream very pleasing to me. Yet, I am hesitant to interpret the dream literally because the contents of the dream aren’t just about me. It could easily be wishful thinking on my part about the behavior of others. So I’m in that space where my rational mind is rejecting the immediate, literal interpretation on ethical grounds (no power-over, no asserting my will without regard to the will of others involved), and I haven’t yet found an alternative interpretation. There could be a serious disconnect between meaning in this dream, and meaning in everyday life. This difficulty is further complicated by the fact that another person — one of the main characters in this dream apart from myself — is also very active in dreamspace.

So yes, keeping this grounded, and looking at it from as many different angles as possible is in order here. I’m sure the meaning will become clearer to me over time.

government pushing the limits

I’ve thought for many years that the function of Republican administrations, in general, is to push the limits as far as possible, maximizing benefits for corporations and private interests at the expense of the people, and that the function of Democratic administrations is to preserve the gains so that the outrageousness of these gains will be normalized in the minds of the people, a sense of relief and calm between Republican offensives against the rights of the people.

This seems to be happening now.

For example, gas prices have gone back down; I’ve seen gas at $2.39 per gallon recently. A year ago, people would have been outraged to pay these prices, but now, after being over $3 per gallon for much of the summer, most people are delighted to pay $2.39.

This pattern seems to be reasserting itself again with the Supreme Court nominations. I just read that Harriet Miers has officially withdrawn her bid to be on the Bench. I think she was nominated because she represents someone utterly unqualified, a completely outrageous example of cronyism at its worst.

So now that she is out of the picture, many people will be glad to get some experienced, right-wing, hardcore redneck judge who is “qualified” yet holds many of the same political positions as Miers. It was a win-win scenario for the BuShites: if accepted, she’d be a friend in a high place; if rejected, they could come up with another horrendous nominee that people would feel glad to get — New Nominee X isn’t as bad as that Miers chick.

Watch and see….

Samhain 2005

Today was pumpkin carving day with my daughter:





I don’t often underestimate my daughter, but she did far more to help today than I thought she would. The rind on this pumpkin was particularly thick, about 1.5″ on average, 2″ thick in places. So she didn’t quite have the hand strength to do the actual carving, but she made the dotted lines by sticking the tip of a nail through the template, so I’d know where to carve. I thought she’d maybe do a few and get bored, but once I got her started with this she did it all, finishing it by herself! It was very cool. She also did the bulk of the pumpkin-de-gutting.

It was fun and, of course, messy. Perfect for a dad and an 8-year old.

We live in America…. where we’re told we’re Free(tm)

This is a must read; a friend of mine (actually a friend of a friend, he doesn’t qualify as a friend because we’ve never met…yet) was refused admittance to an ATA flight as a security threat because he wore a T-shirt claiming that Bush is an international terrorist.

Does anyone actually still have any illusions that this is a Free(tm) country, or that the Constitution and Bill of Rights actually apply?

The Cabin

I was walking through the woods, and I came across a cabin. It is deep brown wood, old but still sturdy and dense. The land around the cabin had once been cleared, but decades of overgrowth have taken its toll. The trees are fully grown but not huge; the underbrush is thick. Yet somehow the cabin appears to be in good shape. Incredibly, 2 or 3 cords of wood were neatly stacked near one of the well-maintained doors. There were no lights on. It looked abandoned, and somehow incredibly welcoming.

It was cool and moist walking through the woods. The leaves have started to fall, and there is a lot of moisture everywhere. The ground is cool and damp. Colors are everywhere, but faded; the wet leaves look like an old, faded quilt that had been lying on a dirt floor for years.

I went to the door of the cabin, turned the knob, and the heavy but well-balanced door opened with a click and swung inward. I was greeted by clean air that had the most amazing, complex smell; it registered as pumpkin, yeast, baking bread, bonfire smoke, and sage all at once. It wasn’t overpowering, there were just subtle hints of scent in the clean, dry air.

There is a large, stone fireplace in the middle of one wall, with plenty of space to stack wood and keep the tools to tend the fire and cooking gear. There was a sturdy stone table, a large fluffy chair, and a futon.

I first went and built a small fire, not enough to be an inferno, but enough for some warmth and to enhance the smells in the cabin. I went over to the futon, laid down, closed my eyes, and drifted off to sleep, knowing somehow that I was perfectly safe and free to enjoy the comfort and the tranquility of the deepest draught of peace I’ve had in a long time.