Swans


 

Digging Through The Morasses
(Second Opinion on Jon Phalen's Article)

by Milo Clark

June 3, 2002

 

This article relates to Let's Step Out Of The Box For A Moment, Shall We? A reply To The Anticonspiratorialists, by Jon Phalen and to Conspiracy Caution (Introduction To Jon Phalen's Article), by Gilles d'Aymery.


Do I assume that Grifola8 is Jon Phalen? Overall, the submission is reflective. I would say it appears to be an attempt to dig through the morasses involved. That may only mean that I generally agree with some of his premises. To the extent that another voice is offered, even though somewhat repetitious and echoing Swans in process, another voice may be welcome as comforting in a discomforting way.

Personally, I am struggling with, as before, the need to rethink ourselves into other behavioral patternings. Is this person offering alternative perspectives or thinking out loud in ways which may be more broadly representative? If more broadly representative and availing of the personalized media which Swans and the Internet may represent, then some sort of change process may indeed be in process. I say applaud any efforts to break free. Applaud the steps which launch another into constructive doubt.

Question remains: will enough people harbor constructive doubt and also vote? If money were no object, would I print millions of posters, bumper stickers, buttons and other paraphernalia of elective politics with the message: SAVE AMERICA WHILE WE CAN -- NO REPUBLICANS!

Of course, that little oversimplification ignores the actuality that there is little operative difference among politicians of any stripe. We perfect the skills to kill and destroy, implement them with massive public and private resources and take joy and comfort in the public displays of power, counts of ragheads destroyed, etc. Ragheads replace gooks who replace commies who replace Nazis and on and on.

From my perspectives, anyone who will approach the constructions of power with an intent to penetrate them will succeed. However, success in that regard is little rewarded, accepted or recognized beyond an occasional moment among a transient few who will walk off the next morning to their jobs which depend on death and destruction to succeed. Conundrum within a paradox. And paradox remains the nature of actuality.

Lukacs deals with many of the underlying points made. Outgrowing Democracy, Historical Consciousness and others of his works were prescient in retrospect. We are as the rats overcrowded in their cages. Turning on each other is norm more than either emergent wisdom or compassion. However, we will only know in any actual sense long after we are passed into other dimensions of actuality -- dead to this plane.

Denial is probably the better way for most to attempt to deal with exceptions now norms. No matter what may be suggested as alternatives, those who hold power, those who control resources prove themselves again and again as purveyors of death and destruction -- assuming ever that neither has bearing on them. Those who hold power, those who control resources cross all ethnic and cultural boundaries. If there is a human race, per se, the collective consciousness appears consistently to manifest in choices for death and destruction always, again, attributed to others who are themselves, that is us.

Give it a go, I guess is my conclusion.


 
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Milo Clark, a founding member of Swans, had it all: Harvard MBA, big house, three-car garage, top management... Yet, once he had seemingly achieved the famed American dream he felt something was missing somewhere. As any good executive he decided to investigate. Since then, he has become a curmudgeon and, after living in Berkeley, California, where he was growing bamboos, making water gardens, listening to muses, writing, cogitating and pondering, he has moved on to the Big Island in Hawaii where he creates thought forms about sunshine.

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This Week's Internal Links

East Timor: A Child Is Born - by Michael Stowell

The Name For Our Profits Is Democracy - by Stephen Gowans

Conspiracy Caution (Introduction To Jon Phalen's Article) - by Gilles d'Aymery

Let's Step Out Of The Box For A Moment, Shall We? A reply To The Anticonspiratorialists - by Jon Phalen

Conspiracy And Paranoia As Distraction - by Jan Baughman

Oprah Closes The Book - by Alma Hromic

A Tiny Typo From Intellectual Responsibility To The Law Of Unintended Consequences - by Gilles d'Aymery

Going Home: iv - Memories of Dreams - Poem by Alma Hromic

Letters to the Editor

 

Milo Clark on Swans

Essays published in 2002 | 2001 | 2000 | 1999 | 1997 | 1996

 


Published June 3, 2002
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