If you wish to destroy, you need power.

If you wish to create you need power.

How do we tell the difference?  How do we know whether our actions destroy or create?  

‘Course if you worry too much about it then you probably won’t do anything at all, will become paralyzed and indecisive, “Do I dare to eat a peach?”  And no one wants that, I’d imagine.

In hexagram 34 of the I-Ching “Power of the Great,” the oracle claims that what is great and what is right are not separate, that real power has rightness inextricably woven into it.

So perhaps destroyers don’t have power, but merely force.  Perhaps those are two different things.

And maybe the way one obtains power has something to do with it as well.  Maybe if you go about trying to gain power the wrong way, you end up with only force.

With some dynamite anyone can blow something up, something way bigger than their own physical strength would allow.

We also have opportunities to gain personal power, which is why freedom is such an important right to us.  We want to make our own decisions about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  That is a kind of power as well,  I think.

Over at the NOLA blog Gentilly Girl, Morwen has a very disturbing story about an “idea” put forth by State Representative John LaBruzzo.

I didn’t watch Bush’s speech.  I can’t abide looking at or listening to him.

But from what I’ve read on the blogs, he is maintaining the Republican talking point of blaming this economic problem on homeowners, citizens, everyone but the big business monopolies who created this situation.

The old saying is that the fish rots from the head down.

So now we have a Representative from Jefferson Parish suggesting poor folks be sterilized.  That the solution to poverty is to just get rid of those pesky poor people.

According to Raw Story:

State Representative John LaBruzzo of Metairie said many of his constituents are tired of paying for children from poor families and that is why he is considering proposing legislation that would pay women on government assistance $1,000 if they choose to be sterilized.

“You have these people who are just fed up with working their buns off to try to provide for their own family and being forced by the government o provide for others’ families who just want to have unlimited kids,” he said.

LaBruzzo said he is studying voluntary sterilization for women whose sole financial support comes from the government in the form of welfare or other public assistance. His idea would be to give the women $1,000 if they had their tubes tied.

His proposal has come under harsh criticism by some civil rights groups.

The ACLU called it a misguided and mean-spirited attempt to eliminate poverty by eliminating the poor.

This is eugenics, of course.  Like … hmm … oh yeah, the Nazis did.  Because LaBruzzo finds the beauty part of this plan in the fact that once we get rid of all those undesirables, the “right” kind of people can repopulate the difference, huzzah!

From CNN:

Republican presidential candidate John McCain announced Wednesday that he is suspending his campaign to return to Washington and focus on the “historic” crisis facing the U.S. economy.

McCain said it was time for both parties to come together to solve economic crisis.

The Arizona senator called on his Democratic rival, Barack Obama, to do the same. He also urged organizers of Friday’s presidential debate at the University of Mississippi to postpone the event.

“I am calling on the president to convene a meeting with the leadership from both houses of Congress, including Senator Obama and myself,” McCain told reporters in New York. “It is time for both parties to come together to solve this problem.”

Yep.  I knew that was the problem … McCain not being back at work – if he hadn’t been campaigning, I bet we wouldn’t be in this economic pickle.

What an ass.

I quoted this little line back in September of 2006 over at the Orange.  I think it bears repeating again during these times.

We know what we’re fighting against in almost excruciating detail.

But we often don’t have the words to know what we are fighting for.

In 1955, Philip K. Dick wrote a book entitled Solar Lottery.  The protagonist (if there ever is such a thing in a Philip K. Dick Novel), Ted Bentley, gives his idea of what, I think, so many of us are fighting for:

“I never told anybody what to do in my life.  All I want to do –” Bentley shrugged angrily, unhappily. “I don’t know.  Be another Al Davis, I suppose.  Have my house and a good job.  Mind my own business.”  His voice rose in despair.  “But goddam it, not in this system.  I want to be an Al Davis in some world where I can obey the laws, not break them.  I want to obey the laws!  I want to respect them.  I want to respect the people around me.“

Emphasis mine.

                                                                      * * * * * * *

And from the I-Ching, in the hexagram of Lu/Treading, Conduct:

But it is important that differences in social rank should not be arbitrary and unjust, for if this occurs, envy and class struggle are the inevitable consequences.  If, on the other hand, external differences in rank correspond with differences in inner worth, and if inner worth forms the criterion of external rank, people acquiesce and order reigns in society.

Open thread is now open!

You’d think the world would just give us a break while we’re watching all this money fly around, but alas, that is not to be.

Two stories, both found at Raw Story.

One, Pakistani troops fire on intruding U.S. choppers:

ISLAMABAD, Sept 22 (Reuters) – Pakistani troops fired on two U.S. helicopters that intruded into Pakistani airspace on Sunday night, forcing them to turn back to Afghanistan, a senior Pakistani security official said on Monday.

It was the second such incident in a week, and reflects frayed relations with the United States over Pakistan’s failure to act more forcibly against Islamist fighters in the tribal lands bordering Afghanistan.

The number of missile attacks by U.S. drone aircraft in the remote tribal areas has multiplied in recent weeks.

The helicopters violated the border in the area of Lowara Mandi, 40 km (25 miles) west of Miranshah, the main town in the North Waziristan tribal region, at around 9 p.m. on Sunday, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.

There was no official confirmation.

So this is not an “official story.”  Of course it is pretty damned official that the US has been going in to Pakistan recently:

Pakistan’s army chief has criticised the US military for making unilateral cross-border raids in the the hunt for al-Qaeda’s top leadership, as tensions between the allies reached new heights on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on America.

In an unusually tough statement, General Ashfaq Kayani, Chief of Army Staff, said that there was “no agreement or understanding with the coalition forces whereby they are allowed to conduct operations on our side of the border”. Pakistan would defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity “at all costs”, he said.

The statement followed revelations this week that President Bush had approved US special forces incursions into Pakistan in July – without the Pakistani Government’s approval – and comments by the Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, who told Congress that a new cross-border strategy was needed to wipe out al-Qaeda “safe havens” in Pakistan.

Winning hearts and minds all over the world, that’s our Georgie.

(Peggy Lee, “Why Don’t You Do Right,” with Benny Goodman, etc., courtesy of YouTube’s nik 1297)

The rich want to get richer.  Rich, rich, rich.  Ah, the good life.

‘Course there’s old money and new money and probably a whole lot of other categories as well.

Blog Browsing …

JDWolverton over at Daily Kos put up one of the best diaries I’ve read on what living is like after a hurricane in Post Ike – Grilled Pizza & Other Musings, a sort of surreal yet entertaining Hints from Heloise for the aftermath of a storm.

At Zuky, Kai has a video slide show with his impressions of the Dem convention in Denver, Blogmig@s at DNC 2008.

Nezua gives us a heartbreaking post at The Unapologetic Mexican, Hispanic Heritage Month/Latino Heritage Month – What it Means to Me.

This may or may not be an occasional series.

Sometimes while prowling back alleys you find things that don’t bear the light of day, brass ritual cymbal turns out to be a trashcan cover, exotic seafood dinner is really rotten fish guts.

Yet perhaps there’s some truth to these lies.

Here in NYC the sun has gone down.  That’s the time to prowl.

If you look, you’ll see.

If you listen, you’ll hear.

If you touch, you’ll feel

That’s what I’ve learned since posting here at Docudharma.

buhdy asked me to be a contributing editor to a new blog he was forming.  I had heard this story before and never was much interested in joining new blogs.

I had done so once, joined a new blog, that is, after the 2006 election.  I had worked on Election Diary Rescue (which I’m doing again this year) and through reading all the stories by Daily Kos diarists of their on the ground experiences, my heart was transformed.  I had never read before about individual experiences of grass roots politics from people who weren’t professional writers, or even all that interested in writing as a vehicle for communicating more than information alone.

Anyway, it was a great experience, even though it was a lot of work, and after the ’06 election I was invited to join a blog that would track the progress of our new representatives.

Fresh off the high of EDR, I accepted.  I got very involved in the nuts and bolts of government, even started a column entitled “Nuts and Bolts,” wrote about the pros and cons of Nancy Pelosi picking Steny Hoyer or Jack Murtha as her House Majority Leader as well as other subjects I felt dealt with the nuts and bolts of government.  Other folks wrote great posts about various Congressional reps.

Well the EDR high wore off, and I think it did for some others as well, because the blog didn’t last, or maybe it has a new name now, I dunno.

So I wasn’t all that excited when buhdy contacted me.  For some reason, though, I said yes.  I was asked to commit at least to writing one piece a week, an original piece that I wouldn’t post anywhere else.  I thought that was a fair agreement.

A friend of the blog, Jerry Northington, a/k/a possum competed well in the primary in Delaware, attempting to bring progressive change to Joe Biden’s home state.

Though he didn’t quite make it all the way, our hearts and best wishes go out to Jerry.

You can find his latest diary here, assessing the race:

Short only of winning I and those associated with the campaign accomplished our primary goals.  Early on in my relationship with every campaign staff member and with many volunteers who came to the race later, I expressed my absolute dedication to honor and principles.  Together we ran a race in which our collective honor was kept intact.  We sacrificed not one principle for the sake of gaining another vote.  We each and every one leave the field bloodied but unbowed.  Our heads are held high.

This has been without a single doubt the greatest experience of my entire life to date.  The challenge was the biggest I ever faced.  The course of the campaign led me to people, places, and actions which would never have entered my life otherwise.  I learned a great deal about myself and about others along the trail.

I became acquainted with possum at Daily Kos through his fascinating stories of growing up in the country and the lessons he learned thereby.  He’s a wonderful fellow and if any of you are of the mind, please visit his diary and give him some love.