April 28, 2014

Is present-day American Conservatism right about ANYTHING?

There once was a time when Conservatism in the US actually was pro-environment (read Barry Goldwater's 1971 book, and related statements), and stood for actually conserving some things (being frugal with the budget, avoiding too many foreign intanglements, etc).

Nowadays, it is clear that Conservatism has become mere Corporatism and a set of knee-jerk rationalizations
that mainly support banking/investment and corporate interests with no exceptions.

Conservatism has morphed from a legitimate philosophy into a hi-jacked vehicle for blind support of wealth
and economic elites. It is self-serving for elites now and has no legitimate general applications
to the actual common good of the Nation as a whole.

It lies about science; It supports every war with no distinctions; It mis-represents what is Constitiutional and what is not;
It criticizes the separation of church and state; It supports predatory financialism and lopsided trade; It is racist, and uses racism to achieve its goals; It suppresses voting rights, it pursues secrecy in government, pushes the Drug War, crony capitalism, etc etc etc etc.

Conservatism, as preached nowadays by the GOP, Tea Party, Heritage Foundation, Koch Bros, Jamie Dimon, David Brooks, Fox, Limbaugh, etc etc etc, is wrong about everything.

If there are exceptions, please list them and empirically justify them here.

I'd really like to hear some, honestly.

While it may be true that for many people. FDR Liberalism isn't what it was, it at least still stands for something.
The term, Progressivism, still has meaning and makes distinctions that are sincere.

Present-day US Conservatism--Illegitimate, IMO.

April 28, 2014

Godzilla is an image right out of Spiritus Mundi

spiritus mundi ---- "Spirit of the world" ---- From "The Second Coming" (poem) by William Butler Yeats. Refers to Yeats' belief that each human mind is linked to a single vast intelligence, and that this intelligence causes certain universal symbols to appear in individual minds. The idea is similar to Carl Jung's concept of the collective unconscious.

Godzilla is a universal symbol with roots deep in the collective imagination of humankind,
and, via contemporary media, has achieved status as
a modern internationally-recognized mythological archetype on a Joseph Campbell/Carl Jung level.

April 24, 2014

Why Godzilla matters

While some may never be able to see past the image of those 1970s movies and cartoon show, Godzilla is in reality a literary metaphor of nearly unmatched relevancy and power in today's world. Others have written of Godzilla in literary or cultural terms, well before me.
But I think the symbol of Godzilla is an apt one for this particular era of history and its issues.

This is not about the new film coming out in a few weeks, although, if it proves a hit, that may get people talking about Godzilla, and the symbolic resonance of what he represents.

Hopefully, the film will trigger a lot of conversations beyond just the special effects and production values.

As an ideal emodiment of a particular and persistent human theme, Godzilla matters in today's world, far beyond just the action-movie excitement and box-office receipts.

The Japanese established kaiju (giant monsters) as a film genre, but real-life
kaiju are part of the Japanese DNA. Puzzled? Go check out some actual kaiju on youtube---The 3-11 tsunami at Kessenuma, or Minamisanriku, or Sendai, as an unstoppable giant monster spread it's unimaginably powerful limbs across the land, tossing trucks, ships and buildings around like Cracker-Jack toys, making a mockery of puny human barriers built for the foolish illusion of security, and ultimately laying all to waste.

But Godzilla, the king and biggest star of all the kaiju, is distinctly American-inspired, and so in essence,
a co-creation of Japan and America.

We gave Japan the nuclear connection tragically via Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and later, through Fukushima reactors #1,2,3 and 4---All built at near sea-level (against some Japanese objections at the time), as insisted upon by General Electric in the 1970s, in order to sell their reactor design without costly modification.
And this was after the recent tsunamis of 1946, 1960 and 1964!

Human folly provided the opening through which Fukushima was ripped-open, literally, by the earth's own kaiju.

America gave Japan the dark gift of radiation, and Japan fused their own ancient mythologies, their seismic heritage, and recent history together in a burst of inspiration, and gave the world Gojira (Godzilla)---The radioactive super-dragon that cannot be killed or stopped, and that humanity helped create.

The theme that Godzilla embodies, is deeply colored by the age-old issue
embodied in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein---Has humankind taken on too much power---More than our limited wisdom can handle?

This is a theme that haunts the human race more and more with each passing year.

Perhaps Godzilla is the new, and even more topically relevant,
Frankenstein, for our age.

Godzilla represents everything we fear, that we cannot control, and that can destroy us all. This includes phenomena of nature (tsunami, typhoons, earthquakes), as well as things we are partly responsible for (climate change? Pollution? Fukushima?).

The primary theme behind Godzilla as a metaphor is something many people simply avoid thinking about, but is the thing that all human beings, as citizens of Earth, NEED to be thinking about.

It is a question.

Actually, it is the question:

Will the human race survive?

Put that in your action-movie and smoke it.

For many people choosing not to look, or think, too deeply, Godzilla will continue to be merely an action-flick phenomenon,
a social event, a punch line.

But for the more philosophical among us----Those not afraid to look
at The Big Picture of human life on earth, even via a piece of popular mass-entertainment,
Godzilla matters.

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http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dmovies-tv&field-keywords=godzilla

April 2, 2014

Want to see Rachel Maddow interview Chomsky, at length, on MSNBC? Check in HERE.

It's time Noam Chomsky gets some airtime on Corporate TV, whether they like it or not.

MSNBC is losing credibility fast, IMO, by NEVER having Chomsky, Chris Hedges or Glen Ford on.

Yet lying wackos get on FOX and CNN all the time (MSNBC even shows FOX excerpts,
giving the wackos even more time).

Let's figure out a way to put some pressure.

I would love to see a special, full hour interview with Chomsky,
by Rachel Maddow, on MSNBC.

I'll bet millions of other people would too.

Certainly some viewers would be uninterested. I get that. But those who would OPPOSE it,
must be frightened of freedom-of-speech.

Maybe a petition would also help?

I'm open to suggestions.

But please check-in/acknowledge here if you agree.

Thank you.