The Stuff That Happens to Me in My Dreams is WAY Cooler Than in Waking Life

It was my first night at a new job as a server at a very fancy restaurant/hotel in the southwest. I was living at the hotel also. There were three showers and two bathtubs in my bathroom. Decked out in a tuxedo, I worked my dinner shift with
relative ease, even though it was first night. I am pretty sure that the dream occured in the eighties. I had one cantankerous table of three men, two white one black, who were argumentative businessmen. they drank old man drinks and
bitched about their steaks the whole time. After I got off, I strolled back through the humongous old hotel to my room. From a room across the atrium from mine, I heard an old woman scream. I ran over to her room, and the door was open. I walked in
and an old black woman was screaming, pointing towards the door of her closet, which was shaking violently, on its own! She was deathly afraid but I was very excited. I thought to myself "I'VE ALWAYS WANTED TO SEE THIS TYPE OF SHIT!" Then, I pointed at the door, and in my most intense commanding voice, said "GET OUT. YOU ARE NOT WANTED HERE! GET OUT!." It stopped shaking.

I tried to calm her down, and got her out of her room. She sat down in the atrium and I remembered that Angela Lansbury, from "Murder, She Wrote" lived next door to me. I jogged over and knocked on her door and she opened it, exasperated, saying "Oh what do you want this time, Andy?! I'm watching a move!" (It was Titanic). I told her about the ghost and she said "I'll see about it tomorrow," and waved me away, slamming her door. Then, a very stern man walked towards me and the old woman, and began to explain about the ghost. He said that a man had lived in that room "centuries before," who had a baby formula business. It became known that he was putting chemicals in the baby formula which would give children an odd deformity, being born without nipples, which had become very common in the town back then. An angry mob stormed his place, and he was strangled in his own closet.

I walked the old black woman to the front desk to assist her in getting a new room, and then went back to my room, tossed my shoes in the corner, and laid down to go to sleep.

That's when I woke up.

An Interesting Dream

Super intense dream this morning.

I worked at the school I work at but it was in a bank. One day this old arab guy came in with explosives packed all over his chest, mumbling. I saw him first and screamed to my coworkers and we all ran to the back of the building but he just kept walking towards us, then he blew up. Then, i am outside the building asking my coworkers what happened. No one is hurt. I tell them i have to ask them because, as i said in the dream, "My life is like a dream, and I never really know what happens."

They tell me that everyone is ok and the man with the explosives died. Then, it is the evening and I am back at the school I work at, and they have invited some american buddhist guru guy to come speak to comfort us or something. I am cynical at first, but then i become filled with emotion and sadness and grief over the failure and darkness in my own life, and begin sobbing. He quits talking, gets out of his lotus position on his pedestal, and comes down and puts his hand on my shoulder. He is full of truth and i am very intensely moved by his words and presence. I love him like a best friend, or a god. Our eyes communicate volumes in seconds. He seems like a much older me, and I know this deeply. He gives me a book that he wrote which is very very long. He also gives me some way of getting a hold of him that I can't recall and tells me we can talk "anytime." I am crying. I thank him and stumble out of the building. It is by the beach. On my way to the subway, the book starts falling apart in my hands, and by the time i get to the platform, it is in tatters. Then, a young woman comes up to me and gives me a note saying she would like to go out on a date. I study her ass as she gets on the subway. On the subway, I run into one of my students, who is with his dad. We chat casually about the finest restaurants in Busan, which I somehow have an encyclopedic, detailed understanding of.

Then, i am woken by korean pop music on my alarm clock.

Happy Trails!

When Life Hands Me Lemons, I Chuck Them at Unsuspecting Passersby

Yesterday I spent my time lounging around my apartment and watching political documentaries. I made myself breakfast, I made myself lunch, and I made myself dinner. The whole day, to myself. It was nice. Around midnight, I hopped in the shower and wasted so much water I should be in jail for it. But hey, if you had a full length mirror in front of you in your shower, you'd just stand there, lathering forever too, wouldn't you?

I sauntered out into the balmy, tropical, foul-smelling Busan night with several gin and tonic's worth of pep in my step, playing air guitar to Mastodon and dodging the ubiquitous food vendors, young men on motorcycles, and piles of fruit all around. I stopped into the phone booth and called my dad, and had another always appreciated conversation with him. I love my dad. I wish everyone had parents as great as mine.

Continuing on to the bar where I spend several nights a week, Kino-Eye, the sure place of meeting up with new acquaintances, I gleefully romped through the rain and thought of all the people I miss. Like Keith from Taos, whose stories of his time in Vietnam and lack of teeth, his instantly recognizable cackle and stories of bedding Deborah Harry in a fabled 1970's Brooklyn brought me back to a warm friendship and an amazing person I wish I could still be downing MGDs and chasing coyotes with. Sometimes I think that my best memories are my worst enemies, because when you leave behind outstanding people and experiences throughout your roaming, you inevitably come up sadder than if you had simply not tried to have all that awesome shit in your past.

I arrived at Kino-Eye and it was packed to the brim. Or, as Michael Steele would say, "off the hook." I spotted my new friend Muran, a Turk, across the bar and went over and sat next to him. He was unusually enthusiastic this evening, despite having just had his girlfriend walk out on him. I tried to console him and tell him that it always happens that way, that love never came without loss. I didn't want him to feel bad...I had known too viscerally how much love, when it goes away, hurts in the past year. He shrieked in laughter and yelled in my ear, like you do when in an impossibly loud room, "BITCHES, MAN! BITCHES! I WOULDN'T WANT HER BACK IF SHE HAD THE SUN FOR A PET AND SPOKE PURE GOLD IN HER SLEEP! I GOT ALL I NEED RIGHT HERE! AND SHE'S NOWHERE TO BE FOUND!" I clapped him on the back and congratulated him for his quick, if obviously dishonest, recovery. He bought me a drink and we shot around the usual bull, after which I dismissed myself and went over to the other side of the bar, where a beautiful Korean woman was sitting. I figured I might explore his logic.

After ordering a rum and coke and sparking up a Marlboro, I leaned over and asked her if she was enjoying herself this evening. Either she didn't speak English, or I bore a striking resemblance to Gallagher at that moment, because she erupted in rancid laughter and continued talking with her friend next to her. "Alright," I thought. "That's enough of that."

I sat nursing my cocktail and bruised ego for several minutes. The place was really hopping. I looked around the packed room of wannabe mooks and nubile young bodies and tried to understand how it was that such an impossibly charming, perfectly eligible suitor like myself could spend every night alone. I mean, come on, the tormented, existential, loner man thing only works like five days a week, right? On the other two you want something real, soft, warm, alive! Someone to share grapefruit, omellettes and coffee with in the morning!

At that moment, a drop-dead gorgeous Alicia Silverstone lookalike came stumbling over to me, pushing her hair out of her reddened, glassy, inebriated eyes. She sat right down on my lap. She was muttering unintelligably and I was waiting for some man to come over and punch me in the face. I put my hands on her shoulders and said "you look like a lot of fun, darling, but I think you need a cab home." She could barely sit properly. She kept putting her hands to her mouth as if expecting a volcanic eruption to occur from it any second. I asked her if I could help her in any way, like get home or at least down to the stream of waiting cabs in the street, and she just continued mumbling and flailing about, crushing my genitals with whatever was in her back pockets.

She abruptly stood up and staggered over to a bouncer like person standing by the door, and began grinding against him and doing this comical reprisal of what would have been a very sexy dance if she wasn't well beyond her quota of liquor for the evening. Then, to my simultaneous excitement and horror, she began trying to wrestle herself out of her shirt, without success, and promptly vomited all over herself, and the built young korean man she was trying to make an impression on. She continued puking, all over the floor, the bar, people standing nearby, chairs, and the stairs to her side we would all walk down on our individual ways out that night. Her hair was covered in barf and she was laughing hysterically. And, I mean it, this woman was beautiful. It was like seeing a bunny rabbit ran over by a hummer.

But I didn't feel anything.

I paid my tab, put my jacket on, and, sidestepping her gastrointesinal refuse on my way out, walked home, alone, again.

I awoke thinking of where she went last night, and if I would ever see her again.

HUMANITY FIRST br Aleister Crowley

I was just reminded of this document, published in 1917 in the periodical The International, by Aleister Crowley. It is called "Humanity First, and was written within the insane cultural milieu that was Europe engulfed in World War I. It is one of the most important documents to me that exist in the world. It is one of, if not the most, prescient pieces of writing to have ever found paper. And, I think the ideas it presents are the most important for us to understand and rally around in these deeply troubled times. Please enjoy, and ingest!

" All advanced thinkers, all men who realize the divine plan, desire and intend the solidarity of humanity; and the patriot in the narrow and infuriated sense of that word is a traitor to the true interests of man. It may be necessary, now and then, to defend one's own section of mankind from aggression; but even this should always be done with the mental reservation: "May this war be the nurse of a more solid peace; may this argument lead to a better understanding; may this division lead to a higher union."

"A man's worse enemies are those of his own household," and the worst foes of any nation are its petty patriots. "Patriotism is the last resort of a scoundrel."

The deliberate antagonizing of nations is the foulest of crimes. It is the Press of the warring nations that, by inflaming the passions of the ignorant, has set Europe by the ears. Had all men been educated and travelled, they would not have listened to those harpy-shrieks. Now the mischief is done, and it is for us to repair it as we may. This must be our motto, "Humanity first."

All persons who generalize about nations: "Germans are all murderers" --"Frenchmen are all adulterers" --"Englishmen are all snobs" --"Russians are all drunkards" --and so on, must be silenced. All persons who cling to petty interests and revenges must be silenced. We must refuse to listen to any man who does not realize that civilization itself is at stake, that even now Europe may be so weakened that it may fall a prey to the forces of atavism, that war may be followed by bankruptcy, revolution, and famine, and that even within our own lifetime the Tower of the Ages may be fallen into unrecognizable ruins.

We must refuse to listen to any man who has not resolutely put away from him all limited interests, all national passion, who cannot look upon wounded humanity with the broad, clear gaze, passionless and yet compassionate, of the surgeon, or who is not single-minded in his determination to save the life at whatever cost of mutilation to any particular limb.

We must listen most to the German who understands that England is a great and progressive and enlightened nation, whose welfare is necessary to the health of Europe; and to the Frenchman who sees in Germany his own best friend, the model of science, organization, and foresight, which alone can build up the fallen temple anew. We must listen to the Englishman who is willing to acquiesce in the Freedom of the Seas; and to the Russian who acknowledges that it is time to put a term to the tyranny of arms and the menace of intrigue.

The yelping Press of every country, always keen to gather pennies from the passions of the unthinking and unknowing multitude, will call every such man a traitor.

So be it. Let the lower interest be betrayed to the higher, the particular benefit of any given country to the Commonwealth of the whole world. Let us no more consider men, but man. Let us remember who came from heaven and was made flesh among the Jews, not to lead his own people to victory, not to accept that partial dominion of the earth, but to bring light and truth to all mankind.

Had the Saviour of Humanity deigned to accept the patriotic mission of driving out the Romans, he would have united his nation, but man would not have been redeemed. Therefore, his people called him traitor, and betrayed him to their own oppressors.

Let those who are willing, as He was, to accept the opprobrium, and, if need be, the Cross, come forward; let them bear the Oriflamme of the Sun for their banner, for that the Sun shineth alike upon all the nations of the earth; and let them ever flash in the forefront of their battle this one redeeming thought: "Humanity First."

Happy trails!

Finally, I'm Not Hacking Up Green Slime

I was sick for about a week and a half, up until this past weekend. Finally, my cough has subsided. I had a hard time last week, dealing with classrooms full of screaming kids, with no energy and a feverish constitution. It was incredibly hard to sleep because I was so uncomfortable. But now I feel like a million bucks again.

Because of my condition, I mostly stayed in all week, eating miso soup and kim-chi dumplings every night, finishing up the book I am reading, catching up on television shows from the states and watching Alfred Hitchcock movies from a collection I borrowed from a friend. I LOVE Alfred Hitchcock. I just recently watched "The Lady Vanishes" and was floored as usual. No one else ever made movies like him.

I went out to eat last night with a friend, to a place I had never been before, an "American Style Chinese Food" restaurant. It was delicious. I haven't been going out to eat very much because I never know how to order anything, and I never know what is in anything I am ordering. I mean, I am fairly adventurous but it gets old not knowing what you are going to be eating and paying for all the time. There are some places where I know what to get but I don't want to eat there all the time, and I'm not going to eat at Outback Steakhouse or TGIFridays, or any of the other American chains here. I would just feel so cheesy. Plus I save much more money eating at home. But the Chinese food last night was great. We ordered stuff like Kung Pao and Cashew chicken, saddled with monstrous bottles of Tsingtao. It was a nice sunday night out.

I am kind of enjoying being reclusive lately. Especially after having spent the majority of the past several years being fairly involved in always being around a crew of friends and partying and always being out somewhere. Nowadays, I am perfectly fine staying home and reading every night, seeing no one else for twelve hours until work the next day. The past several years were so chaotic and filled to the brim with experiences and different people and crazy situations that it is very nice to just sit and listen to all Celtic radio online and doing hatha yoga on the floor. Plus, I am living by myself for the first time since 2004, which is SOOO NICE. I am basking in it.

The weather is really great now. Its usually about 65 degrees and usually sunny. It still smells like sewage and rotting eggs half the time when walking the streets, but I'm getting used to that. On Friday night I was about to cross a street and was standing over a grate, and this powerful torrent of rotten egg and sewage smelling air rushed upwards, enveloping me, and I almost puked and fell over. It even made my soul feel dirty.

Well, its time to put my pants on and get ready for work. I've got a three day weekend next weekend and I think I'm going to go out to the country and visit some temples, maybe stay at one or two of them. I think they let you stay if you promise to wash the dishes for a couple days or whatever. It sounds like a good idea right now.

Happy Trails!

A New Age Army

I recently ran across a fascinating little tidbit relating the "New Age" movement to the US Army. Its called the First Earth Battalion, and its an Army program which aspires to make soldiers into "warrior monks." Here's the story.

In 1979, Jim Channon, a Liuetenant Colonel who had done service in Vietnam, proposed to the Army, specifically Army Intelligence, a set of ideas he had developed about training the soldier of the future. He called this proposed new Army unit the First Earth Battalion. It is unknown whether or not the Army actually created an official Battalion of this name, but it is certain that they tested and adopted many of his ideas.

He had spent the seventies tooling around the states, mostly the west coast, to the places which are credited with having been the forerunners of the New Age movement in America, such as the Esalen Institute at Big Sur. It was this extensive research which Channon had gathered that eventually was distilled, through his perhaps unrealistic yet reaching mind, and put into form in the First Earth Battalion Manual.

The manual is called "The Journal of Non-Lethal Combat: First Earth Battalion," and is a tour de force explaining all of the methodologies and ideals of the FEB. Among them are yoga, tai-chi, macrobiotic diet, primal scream therapy, meditation, chakra work, animal tracking, etc. The ideals behind the FEB are that we need to move past war as a way of solving our problems, and that if soldiers focused on helping others, such as planting gardens, or building houses and schools, then the earth could ascend to a higher consciousness. From the manual:

"Chinese monks were often attacked by robbers. They developed a new fighting system based on using the force of the attacker against him. Likewise the soldiers of the First Earth will learn martial arts with the same ethical basis. No Earth soldier shall be denied the kingdom of heaven because he or she is used as an instrument of indiscriminate war. The conscience will be developed together with the ability to neutralize the opponent."

Also:

"Just like many systems… when a nation or government becomes old, it is so full of its ideas [that] it has no room for new ones. Well, there are New Age ideas with great power for the first body that decides to systematically use them. THE EARTH BATTALION WILL HEAR THEM ALL."

Channon wrote that soldiers should do things such as, when entering a hostile or enemy territory, carry a lamb in and set it at their feet, and, glassy eyed, hug them, while a speaker on their pack is playing indigenous music and words of peace. If the enemy is hostile still, then the music should change to disconcerting sounds such as out-of-key acid rock, animals being slaughtered, or some such thing (interestingly enough, the FBI blasted the Branch Davidians 24 hour with tapes of rabbits being slaughtered, jets engines, monks chanting, and the Nancy Sinatra song "These Boots Are Made for Walking." The military also uses these tactics against prisoners in Iraq, Afghanistan, Gitmo, and god knows where else.) Of course, according to the manual, if the enemy continues to be hostile, you shoot them in the head. The idea, though, is to use psychological force, instead of brute force, and to prepare one's mind to be capable of high psychological powers.

One has to read the manual to get the full effect. It outlines basically every aspect of how to become a "warrior monk," and how to effectively change the world after doing so. As nutty as all of this sounds, it sure would be better than the current paradigm in the US military, which, sadly, is still DIVIDE-LOOT-RAPE-TORTURE-CONQUER.

One of the more interesting things that came out of the FEB that the US Army actually spent years testing, and is apparently still testing, is the power of psychic powers to inflict harm on an enemy. At Fort Bragg in North Carolina, Army Intelligence had a room with a goat, and men would sit and stare at it, trying to "hone in" and stop the goat's heart, psychically. Allegedly, this happened at least once in the eighties, although the guy who dropped the goat suffered "sympathetic damage" and had heart problems as a result. A book was written by UK documentarian and author Jon Ronson, called "The Men Who Stare at Goats," about this phenomenon. Actually, it is being made into a feature film right now with George Clooney, Jeff Bridges, Kevin Spacey, and Ewen McGregor.

More on New Age high wierdness to come!

Happy Trails!

Poem by Charles Bukowski

I just had to post this piece by Charles Bukowski, this poem. It's my favorite poem in the whole world. And I don't want to say any stupid thing about it. Just, please enjoy.

Happy Trails!

Conflicting Views on Ideal Political Theory, part 2

In part one of this post, I confessed that although I consider, most of the time, Anarchism to be the ideal political theory we have yet thought up, there are times when I think that some new, computerized, "New Age" Fascism might be eerily necessary and, sadly, perhaps more appropriate in the current global social climate.

In this post, part 2, I wish to explore Fascism, what its primary ideological facets are, and why I might think it to be a necessary, or inevitable, evil at the present time.

In Part 3 of this post, I will explain why this is so, why all of this one world government, "new world order," global fascism thing might actually be necessary, given our current straits. I am as against the idea of this as anyone else is, and has had my thumb on the pulse of the "new world order," in all of its forms, for many years now, but it is starting to look like it will be necessary...like we asked for it, or enough of us did. And now its happening. I will be examining the ways that political and cultural power is manifesting and conglomerating itself right now, and how various sub-cultures are dealing with it; some aligning themselves to it, some vigorously fighting it, and many blissfully unaware.

First, I need to define what I mean by "Fascism." In common parlance, the term "Fascist" is usually used as a common insult, such as towards someone who tries to control or dominate someone else, which is vaguely correct but distorts the truth. Also, it is usually thought that Fascism and Nazism are coterminous, but this is not the truth either. Nazism was a particularized form of Fascism which realized itself from the years of 1933-1945 in Germany. For these reason, widespread understanding of the term is virtually nonexistent.

A good, clean definition of Fascism is something which has been hard to discern by historians, political theorists, and the social sciences in general. However, there are several key characteristics of Fascism that have been adequately located by several scholars, chief among them Italian semanticist Umberto Eco, and American academic Robert Paxton. According to Eco, Fascism has these key facets:

1) It has an obsession with tradition. The ways of the past are held as being more informed, and more correct, than any kind of progressive ideological, philosophical, or spiritual advancement. The old informs the new, and "as a consequence, there can be no advancement of learning. Truth already has been spelled out once and for all."

2) Modernism is rejected, an obvious development of an obsession with tradition. In other words, to advance on an already present technology is considered insulting to tradition, and those that came before. Cognitive dissonance alert: The Nazis were famously technocratic, and developed many of the technologies which we take for granted today, such as plastics, television, air travel, and propaganda. However, as we said, the Nazis do not fit the perfect mold of Fascism any more than any of its other permutations do. The important point Eco makes is that while extolling the virtues of technological innovation, they primarily worshiped "blood and earth," or blut und boden, and considered removal of humanity's focus from the primeval technology of nature itself as being, basically heretical. In other words, the trees and streams have provided us with all we need; clocks only take us away from our terrestrially-based consciousness.

3) Fascism holds that action exists as an end in and of itself, or "action for action's sake." We do things because we are called to, because we must, because only action can yield life. Any kind of activity which has no kind of utility in space-time, in waking life, is uselessness. So, art, or meditation, or sexual pleasure, or rest itself become obsolete within the Fascist mindset. Only that which has observable, tangible, material results is worthy of doing. As Eco says, according to the Fascist mindset, "thinking is a form of emasculation." We are not to ask why, or to what end, we are doing something; we are simply to do, do, do...to work, work, work.

4) Making distinctions, or comparing and contrasting, are a waste of time, as well as mental energy. This follows from number three. The qualitative, or aesthetic, difference is unimportant and ultimately unreal. It does not matter how one feels, or how one perceives something, or if one feels something different to be true: if it is commonly held that 2+2=5, then 2+2 absolutely equals five.

5) Building on number four, to actively perceive differences between different things is a sign of a mind which can potentially hold diverse ideas about the same thing, and this is not allowed within the Fascist mindset. Diversity is dangerous; the ONE reigns. There is ONE idea, ONE leader, ONE way of looking at things, ONE kind of right, ONE right action at all times. It comes from an obsession with reduction, of reducing the multiplicity of seen and unseen creations to one possible explanation. There are no moral quandaries, or difficult questions; there is just one right answer to every problem.

6) Fascism finds its power in the frustration of a particular class, or ethnicity, or persuasion, of a group of people. Some group has to be pissed off for Fascism to become a reality. Historically, Fascism derived its efficacy from the anger of middle class groups at the lower class under, encroaching upon them, and the upper class above, enjoying fruits which they could only dream of. Fascism is not borne out of contentment, or apathy, or social harmony. One group, or groups, must be pitted against another for Fascism to occur. Interests must be de-harmonized, and unfortunate circumstances within the whole community must be present. Fear is also a very influential factor in the fomenting of the Fascist mindset. The grass must ALWAYS be greener on the other side of the fence, and for seemingly introvertible reasons. You must not be content with what you have. Taking action against your social discomfort is the ailment to inner, unspoken inferiorities.

7) NATIONALISM IS THE ONLY REAL IDENTIFYING FACTOR FOR THE PERSON. Your country, and the acceptable occupants within its borders, are the most trustworthy and real of your brethren. Those whose domicile lies outside those borders are fundamentally different, weird, other, and untrustworthy. This is called xenophobia. If you are Norwegian, then only Norwegians are "real," "good" people. All others are odd, and most likely out to get you.

8) THE GRASS IS ALWAYS GREENER ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE CLASS DIVIDE. The wealth of others must horrify, and incense, you. You must be obsessed with the wealth of others, with the more upwardly mobile segments of the population of which you are in some way not a member, and they must be made enemies. It is unacceptable that someone else should make more, or be financially worth more, than you. This is one of the more seemingly socialist or communist aspects of Fascism, except it really just has to do more with old-fashioned jealousy. The wealth of others matters, in this case, in a deeply emotional sense, because in a Fascist culture, material wealth is an omni-powerful yardstick for measuring self worth. The idea of accepting the wealth of others in plain sight of one's own potential squalor is not found in a Fascist worldview. There shall never rightly be rich, or poor, or monk, or tycoon, but only an (ultimately impossible) perpetually self-maintaining middle class.

9) Fascism implies the paradigm that life is struggle, that "there is no struggle for life but, rather, life is lived for struggle." Struggle is not a means to an end, but an end in itself. It is similar to the Social Darwinist view that competition is the rule of nature, and that cooperation can have no place in culture except amongst those whom one considers oneself to be in the same petty struggle as oneself, i.e. a nationalist war. The ideal is eternal struggle, for the sake of struggling.

10) ELITISM AND THE "CONTEMPT FOR THE WEAK." A Fascistic worldview inevitably will see a certain group or other groups as being weaker, or see themselves as being forever alienated from the weak, because there is no perennial equality amongst people within a paradigm which thrives on elitism. Also, as Eco notes, a Fascist leader's, or dictator's, power is not earned but taken by force, so the masses "are so weak as to need and deserve a ruler." The power of those in charge is dependent upon the ostensible weakness of those under their rule.

11) Heroism is gauged by how heroic of a death a person strives towards. Living a heroic life is not really the driving motive in a Fascist worldview; it is dying a heroic death that is important. There is a serious difference between these two. The former advocates life and the realm of the living as being the paramount seat of moral efficacy. The latter worships death, and as Eco writes, "the Ur-Fascist hero is impatient to die. In his impatience, he more frequently sends other people to death."

12) Worship of permanent war and heroism are simultaneously paramount, yet entirely difficult to maintain beside one another, so the Fascist transfers his worship of power often enough to the sexual domain. It is this psychological countenance which allows for 'machismo' and a fundamental hatred for women and the feminine, as well as "intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality." It is the emotional, dreamy, sensuous, liminal, and receptive aspects of the feminine which Fascism will always be fundamentally at war with, as it is at war with the external always, so it is the feminine within all that Fascism finds itself psychologically, and sexually, at war with.

13) In Fascism, the individual is nothing, and "the People" are important only qualitatively. In a democracy, "the People" are important in a quantitative sense ("one dollar one vote"), ("one person one voice"), but in a Fascist culture, "the People" only exist as a monolithic phenomenon who are always expected to merely actuate the whims of the Zeitgeist, regardless of internal opposition or diversity of opinion.

14) Fascism relies on what George Orwell called "Newspeak." According to Eco, "all the Nazi or Fascist schoolbooks made use of an impoverished vocabulary, and an elementary syntax, in order to limit the instruments for complex and critical reasoning." We see this everyday, in the coinage of civilian causalties as "collateral damage," of the use of force as "terrorism," in corporate media conglomerates calling themselves "fair and balanced." Indeed, "we must be ready to identify other kinds of Newspeak, even if they take the apparently innocent form of a popular talk show."

In Part 3 of this post, we will examine why it is that Fascism seems to be an inevitable, and therefore somehow acceptable, political and cultural form of viability. It is a difficult, and thorny, discussion. And, I must say, by posting these pieces, I am coursing through these ideas for my own clarity. This is far from the pledging of a manifesto, or edified philosophical/spiritual worldview.

I will just leave you with this. At about the same time that we started saying "One Love, One Heart, Let's Get Together and Feel Alright," we started seeing the real machinery of a ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT, or NEW WORLD ORDER, come into place. A curious fact? I think so! An unfounded coincidence? Well, after night after night of reflection, no, I don't think so...

Keep yourself posted!

Happy Trails!