steward’s blog

“If adopted, the new strategy will undoubtedly be condemned by Israel, which has warned the U.S. that it has until the end of the year to put an end to Iran’s uranium production before it takes matters into its own hands.” (from CNN)

“Warned the U.S.”?  “its own hands”?

If Israel - which is widely known to possess nuclear bombs itself - is threatening to break international peace, and is making those threats to the United States of America, then maybe it’s about time for the United States to reconsider our relations with Israel.  Dropping down relations from full diplomacy to a chargé d’affaires level would be a good first clue; introducing a U.N. resolution calling for an economic boycott if they don’t back down would be a great second clue if needed.  Maybe the President and the Secretary of State could recruit former President Jimmy Carter as a special envoy.

But it’s high time that the United States of America stopped having its foreign policy directed by people like Binyamin Netanyahu.

I see a lot of people complaining about corporate greed, as if a legal charter given to a group of people somehow acquires the very human attribute of greed. Corporations don’t have greed. They can’t. As Sir Edward Coke, sitting as the King’s Bench, put it in the Sutton Hospital Case of 1612:

“They may not commit treason, nor be outlawed, nor excommunicate, for they have no souls, neither can they appear in person, but by Attorney.”

Corporations do not have greed. People have greed, which is often more successful when hidden behind a for-profit corporation. Using the phrase “corporate greed” buys into the very denial of the I-thou relationship that the greedy people have. Calling it “corporate greed” aids and abets the glamorie that the owners of the corporation use the corporation for: there’s no people here, it’s just a corporation, it’s freedom, what’s your problem anyway? With a corporation, an individual human can only have an I-it relationship, eliminating any chance of dialogue and real change.

In order to break down the walls in society against I-thou relationships, people opposed to massive accumulation of wealth by individual persons need to initiate such connections, instead of attacking the phantom of “corporate greed”. One philosophical song that I see as addressing the desire to attack the greedy as opposed to the need to first make an I-thou connection with a particular person in hopes of establishing a resonance is T. Thorn Coyle’s “Hey Mister” (from her Give Us a Kiss! CD):

“Hey mister,it’s really not my place to put you down
Hey mister, it’s not in my theology.
Hey mister, I shouldn’t run your name into the ground
But I seem to do it anyway!

Hey mister, I know that I should see the God within
Hey mister, but in your eyes she doesn’t seem to play;
Hey mister, I suppose I ought to listen not defend
Hey mister, but I just don’t see the world your way.

All I see are your big cars,
And the way my neighborhood has changed;
It makes me want to shout you out:
And pull my hair like I’m deranged!
I want to bring salvation back;
I really want us to evolve -
But I don’t know how to see a thing
The money, opposition and false power.”

“Hey mister”: it’s a phrase one-to-one. It derecognizes the phony personhood of the corporation and tries to initiate a conversation with an individual, human, person who wields money and power behind the corporate glamorie.

Attacking “corporate greed” has gotten practically nowhere. Perhaps it’s time to look at another strategy; a humanistic strategy; a strategy of finding connections to those hiding behind “corporations”. Perhaps it’s time to try to see the world the way corporate owners (not managers unless they are also major stockholders) see it; it’s the only way to establish a slow resonance in dialogue to ultimately change the frequency.

Corporations have no souls, no greed, no lust, no passion. Attacking corporate greed is a symbolic action so divorced from the actual people who wield power and money, and an action so divorced from humanistic and social justice I-thou traditions, that it wastes energy that could be better used in addressing the actual people of power and money.

“‘We’re not winning the battle,’ Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard told lawmakers.  ‘The violence that we see in Mexico is fueled 65 to 70 percent by the trade in one drug: marijuana.’” (CNN)

The Arizona Attorney General has made it clear: marijuana legalization would cut violence in Mexico by 65 to 70 percent - violence that is creeping north into the US.  At what point will our elected officials see that the biggest threat marijuana poses is the violence that accompanies prohibition?

1. I have 47 chromosomes.
2. I write poetry.
3. I’ve been described as “straight with a queer vibe”; I don’t know exactly what that means, but since the person describing me like that is a very good friend who is gay, I assume it was a high compliment.
4. I was a Roman Catholic liturgy planner and organist for seven years.
5. I am a Witchcraft ritual planner when the fit strikes me.
6. I go to gothic fusion belly dancing workshops.
7. I used to be a Catholic lay evangelist.
8. I was doing minor spells such as glamorie since first grade in Catholic school, without even being aware I was doing spells.
9. I’ve read more than 2,000 books.
10. I’ve been listed in Marquis’ Who’s Who publications for nine years.
11. I know just enough about medicine to scare myself half to death whenever I get sick.
12. I turn Christian hymns into Pagan ritual songs.
13. My attention to detail has been described as something that causes conflicts with others who pay less attention to detail.
14. I write dark erotica under various pseudonyms.
15. Instead of pretending that either BDSM or Magick can be made “safe”, I realize that both are on the edge and embrace the dance in both.
16. I have problems applying the above principle to life in general.
17. I am pro-choice on suicide.
18. When I channel an entity, I go way under but I’m still aware of things.
19. I’ve been known to pull people in with me when channelling.
20. My primary deities are Apollo and the Star Goddess, but I work a lot with Brigid, Kali, and Lilith as well, and a little with Ixtab.
21. I really need to start meditating more. One of these years.
22. I’ve lost forty-five pounds in the past six weeks.
23. I’ve been featured - with picture - in USA Today.
24. I believe that omniscience is necessary to know if action or inaction will bring harm to anyone, so I do not accept the Wiccan stricture of harm none since it is humanly impossible to know if any act of commission or omission will harm anyone.
25. Most of this stuff can be found on my various websites.

In an interview on CNN, Marshall Cohen, chief industry analyst for the NPD group, said that when retailers give discounts of 50-60% they’re about breaking even.

50-60%???

And now they want a bailout because they’ve been making 50% profit on what they sell??

Maybe in this economic climate the government should give them the tax subsidy they’re looking for; but in return the retail czar (like the “car czar”) should make sure they make no more than 20% profit.  This will help consumers and the economy a whole lot more than guaranteeing their fat profit margins by spending Federal tax dollars.

You won’t see me much online for the next week… I’ve been getting all sorts of tests because I get lightheaded when I eat, and my blood tests and other tests are indicating that I have an ulcer or an obstructing gallstone.  So I can’t eat solid food, and I’m drinking a lot of Gatorade… and resting a lot.

Reiki practitioners and those who do healing magic: I need all the help I can get, both for medical healing and for calming me down - I’m the kind of person who knows just enough medical information to scare myself silly.

Monsanto’s trying to make it happen: advertise aggressively, collect the money and to hell with the people.

Civil marriage - marriage regulated by the State - should be banned completely in the United States.  Marriage is a matter of way of life and belief, and should be left to the religious and philosophical spheres.  Including marriage as a civil structure simply brings the United States one step closer to a theocracy.

Test all children for parentage at birth (eliminate the “marriage presumption”) and eliminate all governmental monetary ties to marriage.  Have social security cover minor children of decedents, and allow people to designate one and only one adult to receive survivor’s benefits based on a decedent’s work record.

Allow adults living together at one address to either file one tax return for all residents or else to file all singly (single filing required for persons at government institutions such as prison halfway houses.)  Better still, adopt the Fair Tax instead of the Income Tax and there is no problem with filing at all, since there’s no filing.

Of course, this would put a lot of family lawyers out of work, not to mention loophole accountants…

Take him, earth, for cherishing
To thy tender breast receive him.
Body of a man I bring thee,
Noble even in its ruin.

Once was this a spirit’s dwelling,
By the breath of God created.
High the heart that here was beating,
Christ the prince of all its living.

Guard him well, the dead I give thee,
Not unmindful of his creature
Shall He ask it: He who made it
Symbol of His mystery.

- Prudentius (348 CE - 413 CE)