The WMail Newsletter
Volume III   [Year 2002]   Part 4

Issue #28: "Waste Not, Want Not"
[October 2002]

>+<    G.E. Nordell, editor    >+<

SLOGAN OF THE MONTH: "The Working Mind: Ask the man who owns one."

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"Any law, rule, regulation or sanction conceived with industrial
age thinking reverses itself in a communications age environment."
— Frank Ogden

"Face the realities of life with neither fear nor loathing and you'll come out ahead."
— Elmore Leonard

"To be a man is to be responsible; it is as simple as that."
— Louis L'Amour [1908-88]

"All great truths begin as blasphemies."
— George Bernard Shaw [1856-1950]

"A good police force is one which catches more criminals than it employs."
— Peter Chippindale

"Intellect and will, intellect and will."
— V.S. Naipaul [1932-2018]

"You must carry a chaos inside you to give birth to a dancing star."
— Friedrich Nietzsche [1844-1900]

"The Biblical Ten Commandments are incomplete; for example, there
should be an Eleventh Commandment to 'Honor thy children'."
— G.E. Nordell

"The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in time of
great moral crises maintain their neutrality."
— Dante [1265-1321]

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" W A S T E    N O T ,    W A N T    N O T "
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        On 25 June 2002, the Los Angeles Times printed an article with the title "Humans Consume More Than Earth Can Replace", about a report being published in the 'Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences'. The article contained the following lines:

**      "Economic expansion has boosted demand for resources and overshot the planet's ability to regenerate them by 20%."
**      "Human demand has been outstripping nature's ability to re-supply since the early 1980s."
**      "Since 1961, human demand on resources has nearly doubled."

{{ Full text of the short article is at http://www.working-minds.com/energy.htm#overshot. Full text of the report is at http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/99/14/9266 – free membership required. Press release from Redefining Progress is at http://www.rprogress.org/media/releases/020625_pnas.html }}

        The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released a report to the United Nations in June 2002 that concludes "greenhouse gas emissions produced by human activities are the primary cause of global warming".

{{Global Warming Report [various PDF files]: http://www.epa.gov/globalwarming/publications/car/index.html =OR= Federal Global Warming website: http://www.epa.gov/globalwarming/ }}

*          *          *          *
        This month's essay specifies suggested methods to reduce the waste of planetary resources, which is especially necessary in Western countries, most particularly in the U.S. of A., which consumes way more than its share.

A LITTLE GAME
        Long ago I made up a little personal game, which is to intercept trash on its way to our hundred-acre landfills, and recycle and-or reuse that 'trash'. I call this game 'Negative To The Landfill', in that the intention is to reduce my own consumption to the bare minimum and also to capture enough material thrown away by others that what I recover is more than my own bare minimum consumption, thus negative input to the landfill by me.
        I have indeed reduced my own consumption of resources so that, for example, I need only take out the trash every week or even two (or when any 'wet garbage' has gotten rank).
        All that I have to do to 'win' this game is to recycle more than I take to the trash.

        So under the heading of "I ain't proud", when I see a soda can or bottle in a parking lot, I actually bend over and pick it up and toss it into the trunk of my car.
        When I go for a walk, I take along a plastic bag (recycled from the supermarket) because I expect that 'homo litterbuggus' has left lots of trash that will otherwise be swept into the storm drains and into Santa Monica Bay. My action thus prevents pollution of the environment as well as recycling of litter. I may pick up a dozen cans or bottles, or one or none, but each item counts toward my game of Negative To The Landfill.
        And it really offends me that some of my neighbors don't even bother with the recycling service provided by the City. These brain-dead folk don't even turn in the soda cans & bottles for money at the market. Invariably, when I take my occasional bag of actual trash out to the big bin, there on the top will be a stack of newspapers and-or liter-size soda bottles and-or twelve-packs with the glass bottles back inside and-or cardboard cartons.
        So I grab a handful or two and bring recyclables back from the trash bin; of that I am proud.

        There are a range of simple actions that you can take, most of which only require being conscious when you are about to toss something into the trash. You too can play this game, by incorporating one or more of these practices into your ongoing daily procedures.

*          *          *          *

BASIC RECYCLING
        The city where I live has a thorough recycling program, as does most of Los Angeles County. But Culver City accepts more types of material than does the City of L.A. or nearby Santa Monica and Beverly Hills.
•     all types of cans and jars and glass and metal
•     paper, including phone books and cardboard and corrugated boxes
•     all types of plastic
•     toxic waste – paint, cleaning products, etc. – is handled separately

PAPER: I am meticulous in what I put in the newspaper recycle stack, for example:
•     food container cardboard/paper boxes, including salt & oatmeal boxes
•     the paper envelopes that tea bags come in (I drink tea all day, this adds up!); also, the
      cardboard dividers in the bigger tea bag box are one-inch longer than a paperback and make
      nifty bookmarks
•     junk mail
•     shopping bags, tissue paper inside clothing, wrapping paper
•     the 8-1/2 by 11 cardboard from the back of the pad that I wrote this essay on
•     cardboard things inside newly bought shirts & underwear
•     backing sheets from USPS self-stick postage stamps
•     charge receipts (torn up after cross-matching to the bills)
•     boxes & cellophane wrappers from bar soap, toothpaste, pasta, etc.
•     the cellophane or wax paper that wraps stacks of Ritz or graham crackers
•     egg cartons (plastic ones go in the plastic bin)
•     coffee cups & fast-food soda cups (lids go in the plastic bin)
•     once the first, handwritten draft of this essay is keyed into my laptop, these sheets will also
      be placed on the newspaper recycle stack
•     when I did more printing on my computer (before my focus became the internet over
      novels), I would use the backs of previous printout to write new material in longhand,
      eventually putting them onto the recycle stack after using the paper twice
•     the cardboard rolls inside toilet paper and paper towels
•     fast-food containers, including the paper thing fries come in

PLASTICS: I basically let the recycle industry decide, and include anything plastic that would otherwise go in the trash:
•     the plastic things that hold six-packs together
•     containers and plastic straws and cup-tops from fast-food to go
•     medicine bottles & Styrofoam cups
•     the silly hooks that clerks don't remove from socks that are displayed by hanging
•     black frozen dinner tubs
•     the white or blue foam plates used by butchers and the produce section
•     plastic grocery bags and the plastic wrappers that the daily newspaper comes in

METAL: Since Culver City accepts all aluminum and bi-metal cans and metal jar lids, there isn't much else to add, but consider:
•     aluminum foil
•     the aluminum spout from boxes of salt and artificial sweetener

*          *          *          * NAPKINS
        A couple jobs back, when I was driving a patrol car (private), the only place to get a hot meal mid-shift was a fast-food place. I'd place my order, the counter clerk grabbed some napkins and stuffed then inside the bag, and I left. There were always way too many napkins, so I stashed them on the Kleenex box atop the refrigerator at home. That stack of napkins got to be nearly a foot high, I never bought tissues, and a year after leaving that job, I finally got down to the Kleenex box.
        America has 5% of the world's population and uses 40% of the resources. But our usage is primarily waste! We clear-cut old-growth hardwood forests so the counter clerks can stuff a half-dozen paper napkins into the bag so the unused napkins can accompany the unrecycled paper & plastic fast-food containers into the landfill. Billions of unused napkins a year.
        America is truly committed to a wasteful lifestyle.

*          *          *          *
        Once you reach Negative To The Landfill, there is still the job of maintaining that condition. And the lifelong job of getting others on the 'old band wagon': if we do not, then in just a few years, there won't BE any trees to cut down, there won't BE any petroleum to make into plastic, it will all already be in the landfills.

        Present levels of consumption cannot be maintained by a population of over 6 billion – and growing. That we now use 20% more than Nature can replace can only be addressed by 1) consuming less, and 2) recycling more of what we do consume. And 3) reducing the population.
        Continuing on Mankind's present path of over-consumption will bring so-called Civilization to a grinding halt for lack of resources.

        I wrote a screenplay treatment called "Nostalgia" in which three students at Cal Tech invent a working time machine. Two choose to visit the past – complications ensue – while one chooses to visit the future. But he goes too far forward, past his own (undefined) death, into a future where all business is conducted by use of thumbprint scanners as ID. Since he is dead, his thumbprint gets no match: he does not exist.
        So I made up the idea of the 'nameless': people who are not in the thumbprint system and thus non-existent like today's homeless hordes. So the only work that my 'chrono-naut' can find to make enough money to buy fuel to return to the present time is working in the 'trash mines': nasty, smelly, dangerous work pulling the millions of tons of waste back OUT of the landfills, because Mankind – America – has used up all the world's resources. (Since petroleum is too scarce to be used for fuel, I made up that local transportation is by pedicab – what you may know as a rick-shaw. Think about it.)

*          *          *          * CLOTHING
        When any of my clothing wears out, I put it in the pile for donation to the local Gospel Army. You can donate to Salvation Army, or local church, or Goodwill Industries, any such organization. They each provide jobs for people in the recycling phase and in repair and in running the stores where the better items are resold for a pittance.
        In principle, if the shirt just has a torn seam, maybe they will repair it and somebody can use it. But I even pass along socks when they develop holes, or any such worn-out item.
        Why? Because every such outfit makes side money selling rags, which are then recycled for use by industry. Excellent paper is rated by its 'rag content', which is the percentage of cotton or wool fiber included in its manufacture. I simply do not assume that the fabric item belongs in the landfill. I pass all worn-out clothing on to the Gospel Army, who then recycles what is recyclable or re-usable, or put it in the rag bin, and if they put part of my donation in the landfill, then at least the attempt to recycle was made. I let them decide. (And all these outfits can sure use the few extra bucks for the rag salvage.)

MAGAZINES & HOUSEWARES
        Not all the people where I live are brain-dead. Some use a table in the laundry room to recycle all kinds of stuff, even clothing and dishes. When I see a magazine or paperback or book of interest, I read it myself (one recycle cycle), and then return it to the laundry room for another go-round or two.
        If you have no access to such a public space, then donation to an organization is just as good. If they do not resell the item, then they will sell it off for rags or paper pulp – again, for much-needed side revenue.

BOOKS
        You can donate books & magazines that you are finished with to the local library, to hospitals, military bases, senior centers, etc. I buy most of the paperbacks that I read for 50 cents each at the local library – that too is recycling.

OTHER PLACES
        Your local senior center is a good place to donate items that can be re-used: books, magazines, perhaps clothing. Our local center has a bin for grocery coupons, so members with fixed incomes can save a little. (The L.A. Times delivers a hundred-page selection some Sundays.)

GARAGES
        There is a saying that if you have not physically touched some item in two years, then you don't need it. Clean out the garage or attic or basement, host yourself a yard sale maybe, then donate what is left over as above. Such a project could make you Negative To The Landfill for a whole year!

YARD SALES
        While this hobby can be stretched too far, to the level of passion, you can earn points in the Negative To The Landfill Game by buying stuff from yard sales. Recycle is recycle. Then pass it on as above.

SOLAR ENERGY
        The State of California has a 'net metering' law that pays owners of solar energy systems if they are connected to the power grid and produce more energy than they use: payment from the utility is at the retail rate. If any such program exists where you are, take advantage of it; if such a program does not exist where you are, get solar anyway and push your legislators for such a program.

*          *          *          *

"You are either part of the solution, or you are part of the problem."
— Eldridge Cleaver [1935-98]

        The game level that I am working toward now
is Negative To The Landfill for my lifetime.
I invite you to play too.

[copyright 2002 by Gary Edward Nordell, all rights reserved]

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==>  Recent USA Today article about Ayn Rand & CEOs:
        http://www.usatoday.com/money/companies/management/2002-09-23-ayn-rand_x.htm

==>  I've added a page about Alternative Fuel Vehicles
        http://www.working-minds.com/solutions/altvehicles.htm
 

N E X T   M O N T H: "War is Good?"

I N   D E C E M B E R: "Radio Silent"

Issue #29: "War Is Good?"
[November 2002]

>+<    G.E. Nordell, editor    >+<

SLOGAN OF THE MONTH: "The Working Mind: Be all that you can be."

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"Thanksgiving is a typically American holiday ... The lavish meal is a symbol
of the fact that abundant consumption is the result and reward of production."
— Ayn Rand [1905-82]

"The greatest danger to our future is apathy."
— Jane Goodall [Time Magazine, August 2002]

"Stand up. Keep fighting."
— U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone [1944-2002]

"Either man is obsolete or war is. War is the ultimate tool of politics."
— R. Buckminster Fuller [1895-1983]

"Beware of the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so. How will I know? For this I have done. And I am Julius Caesar."
— editorial cartoonist Paul Conrad  { often falsely attributed to Julius Caesar [100-44 B.C.E.] }

"Somebody's got to be angry or nothing gets fixed."
— Carl Hiaasen

"If 95% of the readers of the Wall Street Journal support a war
[against Iraq], then it's GOT to be a bad idea."
— Steve Lopez [Los Angeles Times]

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" W A R    I S    G O O D ? "
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        Seems a damn shame that we have to dust off the old term 'warmonger', but the U.S. of A. has been acting like one.
        Back in WMail Issue #3 ('John Galt vs. George Dubya' October 2000), I predicted that Dubya would have eliminated the budget surplus (done!), act tough against the unions (see ILWU and Taft-Hartley news stories), and start a recession (done!). But I did not figure that Dubya would emulate his father and push the U.S. into another war in the Middle East. Who'd've thought that even George Dubya could be so stupid.

        The situation at this writing is that the United Nations is passing a resolution, though watered down, and that weapons inspectors will be sent to Iraq – though none have left yet – and that Dubya is waffling on the matter, hoping to convince our allies in Europe of the justice of initiating armed aggression in the forever volatile Middle East.

*          *          *          *
        The last time that the U.S. started a war was in 1846-48, against Mexico, the result of the buildup of tensions after Texas won its independence and then asked to become a U.S. state. Whatever caused the battleship U.S.S. Maine to blow up in Havana harbor – remember the Maine? – at least we had an event to cite as provocation for the Spanish-American War of April to December 1898. For the VietNam War, we had Lyndon Johnson and the Gulf of Tonkin – plus Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers.
        But the impending attack on Iraq has no such incident or event to cite as justification. Theories abound as to the real (but secret) reason for Dubya's desire to start a war, which mostly center on his fealty to Texas oil interests. Could be, we don't really know. And even should an Ellsberg-type whistle-blower appear, that will happen after the fact.

        My theory is that Dubya's power has gone to his head, he wants to start a war because he can – after all, he did steal the election, nobody can stop him – and his advisors have their reasons for encouraging him.

        What I find most interesting, however, is that the U.S. is so very alone in wanting further armed conflict in the Middle East. Israel is busy trying to prevent damage from the Palestinian intifada, and Russia has their own troubles with Chechnya and elsewhere, Australia is inundated with boat people, and Al Qaeda is still not contained. The U.S. is losing the public relations battle on all fronts. Even Tony Blair's Britain is moving farther away from Dubya's pocket.

        Everybody seems to be getting madder and madder at America, even after our taking a hit on 9-11-01. The attitude around most of the world is that Al Qaeda is bad and America is also bad. How can this be?

*          *          *          *
        Well, I found out something real interesting just this week: The Green Party, which has enough strength in California to be an official minor political party, says on one of their websites that the United States – individuals and corporations – owns FIFTY PERCENT of everything on the planet.

        Okay. So the U.S.A. has 6% of the world's population and owns a disproportionate share – by eight times – which means the other 94% have only 50% among them. The Oligarchy as I use the term is the 1% of the population that owns 50% or more of everything. This is true within the U.S. and around the world, but more importantly, recent stock manipulations here have increased the Oligarchy's share in the U.S. to between 55% and 60%. So that means that the U.S. Oligarchy – 0.06 percent of the world population – owns 30% of the entire planet, which is 500 times their share.

        So what? 'It has ever been thus', et cetera. Well, the problem is that the Oligarchy are slumlords. The U.S. infrastructure is decrepit, and things are worse elsewhere: no electricity, fetid water supplies, and death at the whim of tyrants. Ten years ago, Werner Erhard's Hunger Project eliminated death by starvation [down to causing something like 1% of deaths per country] in all but the three worst countries – Bangladesh, Pakistan & Somalia were not solved. But a recent article in the Los Angeles Times tells of a U.N. report on world hunger showing that the numbers are up, big time: death by starvation is now back as a serious problem in 30 countries.

        The Oligarchy is doing just fine. They even have defense contracts in place so that they will profit from Dubya's warmongering even if not a shot is fired. The Oligarchy plans for your sons and daughters and classmates and friends to be conscripted to kill the sons and daughters of Iraq and Iran and Israel and Palestine and Afghanistan – none of the Oligarchy will suffer even a scratch.

*          *          *          *
        For the record, I served in VietNam – at Bien Hoa Air Base, attached to the 603rd Air Commando Squadron. War might be necessary, now and then, and when it came time I enlisted and served. That did look like a just cause at the time.
        But any war in the Middle East will not be justified – I say – unless and until the Bad Guys start it!

        Central to Ayn Rand's Objectivist philosophy is her specification of the three purposes of government: to enforce contracts (the courts), to prevent use of force internally (the police), and to defend against the initiation of force by other nations (the military).
        Though he is a Republican, Dubya has never professed belief in Objectivist principles – will we ever see the day when the President of the U.S. is a proclaimed Objectivist? (Republicans profess only the parts of Ayn Rand's ideas that serve their venal intentions.)
        No Objectivist can stand with George Dubya Bush in the initiation of force, of armed aggression against another sovereign country – not even a country headed by a despicable despot like Saddam Hussein or Libya's Muammar Khadaffi.
        The initiation of force is anti-Reason, and readers and other citizens in the U.S. cannot pretend to uphold the ideals of the U.S. Constitution and of F.D.R.'s 'Four Freedoms' speech or the promise of democracy if we help deliver a mandate FOR initiation of armed aggression by casting our votes for any warmongering Republican [or Democrat or 'other'] candidate in this month's elections.

        The Senate and Governor and Congressperson races are critical. Voting for any pro-war jingoist next week is cause for shame. Unless millions of U.S. citizens and voters wake up and prevent it, the U.S. of A. will position itself in history alongside other aggressors such as Hitler and Stalin and Mao and the Japanese military of WWII.

        Your future will be known to you next Wednesday.

[copyright 2002 by Gary Edward Nordell, all rights reserved]

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==>  NOTES: I've already gotten spam about 'best investments during wartime – petroleum futures'.

==>  PHOTO circulating around the internet, showing our alleged
        'Commander In Chief' [note the book] – thanks, Dan Lambert
        click here [46KB .jpg file]

==>  INTERESTING BOOK: "The Divine Right of Capital: Dethroning the Corporate Aristocracy"
        by Marjorie Kelly [who is editor of 'Business Ethics' at www.business-ethics.com ]
        http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1576751252/nordellbookst-20

==>  "The amount of money that the richest 1% of the world's people make each year
        equals what the poorest 57% make."
        Human Development Report 2002: http://www.undp.org/hdr2002/

N E X T   M O N T H: "Radio Silence"

I N   J A N U A R Y: "Bilingualism"

Issue #30: "Radio Silent"
[December 2002]

>+<    G.E. Nordell, editor    >+<

SLOGAN OF THE MONTH: "The Working Mind: An Army of One"

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"Learning is not compulsory ... neither is survival."
— Dr. W. Edwards Deming [1900-93]

"There are 10 kinds of people in this world: those who can deal in binary and those who can't."
— Frank Clarke

"Fame is like an old newspaper blowing down Bleecker Street."
— Jack Kerouac [1922-69]

"Philosophy poses the question: What should we do to have the best possible lives."
— Jacques Derrida [1930-2004]

"It is not a question of whether man chooses to be guided by
[philosophy]: he is not equipped to live without it."
— Ayn Rand [1905-82]

"Consciousness is the product of millions of years of evolution."
— Nobel-laureate Francis H.C. Crick [1916-2004

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" R A D I O    S I L E N T "
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        A hundred years ago, there were no automobiles and no aeroplanes (except rare prototypes), no radio or television, electric lights made a shimmering new wonderland of the cities, telephones and telegraph were state of the art communication, and railroads were just beginning to convert from coal to oil as fuel for their steam locomotives.
        Here at the beginning of the XXIst Century, we are bombarded by electromagnetic radiation of a thousand frequencies, every minute of every day – from cell phones and wireless internet, satellites, radio and TV and microwave towers, from garage door openers, 'fast pass' units at gas stations, microwave ovens, and the HAARP Project. And low frequency sonar testing by the U.S. Navy is killing the whales.
        There is nowhere that anyone can hide from this invisible onslaught.

        And we each are bombarded with more data in a day than Leonardo da Vinci [1452-1519] absorbed during his lifetime. There are now mini-TV sets showing advertisements in elevators and in line at the grocery store, and both innocuous muzak and thumpa-thumpa boom-boxes are everywhere, and chain movie theaters blatantly show a half hour of noisy ads to their paying customers. And the monotony of traffic while listening to talk-show fulminations and the bone-crushing ride along our decrepit streets and highways don't help any.
        There is not a moment's peace, for any of us but the most confirmed Luddite.

        The content of this electronic barrage is either violent or mind-numbing or prurient, demanding that we sell our souls for shoddy material goods that are priced beyond our means. Current pay scales match those of workers on the pyramids, and we've all been downsized and demoralized and secret-taxed in order to swell the already-bulging coffers of the Oligarchy.

*          *          *          *
        But there is someplace that the Individual can retreat to, an 'inner sanctum' that is available at all times, though the Culture-Structure would keep its existence unknown and access out of our reach. The Culture-Structure's enmity toward this achievement is based on one fact: it is free to all who can accomplish it.
        In fact, the purpose of the constant storm of sleazy factoids and half-baked revelations – which MUST be of historic importance simply because the media purvey them – is to prevent you all from access to that still center of the Self, an objective state of mind that I call 'Radio Silent'. (I also use the term 'Zen state', because Eastern practices sometimes achieve the same end; the anthropologist Carlos Castaρeda described an equivalent event that practitioners of ancient shamanism call 'stopping the world' – which is cessation of all that is not a Zen state: which latter is the self-generation of Being, of direct access to the world, without the filter of your automatic internal dialogue.)

        This skill is learnable, like any other skill, but the problem, the almost-natural difficulty, is that all of Western culture (and plenty of Eastern) is designed to oppose this innate practice. Even those who pretend to teach yoga generally cannot access the product that they sell.

        Virtually every reader of this essay is reading along while the Little Voice In Your head gives a running commentary, an internal play-by-play recitation of opinion, conjecture, injunction, advice, warning, and general babble. You all listen to it, or tune it out, or argue with it, but the commentary persists non-stop. I am certain that you have one, whether you can tune it in at the moment or not: the only humans who do not have a Little Voice In Their head are those who were born deaf. The Little Voice is automatic, you cannot turn it off, it goes everywhere that you do.
        And this automatic Little Voice that you have no control over is what you believe is meant by the term Thinking.
        Sorry, guys. This is the False Mind, a little device that has been installed to interfere with your ability to – or even knowledge of – that which is the center of your Self, the Working Mind. For the Working Mind philosophy does not deliver something that you do not already have, this Working Mind, but instead this philosophy is designed to reveal and encourage you to develop the dormant Working Mind that already exists by reducing your allegiance and obedience to the False Mind installed by the Culture-Structure, at the behest of the Oligarchy.

*          *          *          *
        Any Individual can attain the internal state of Radio Silent – the elimination of the chatter of the False Mind / Little Voice – by any number of means. But the key, as always, is to recognize that the problem exists, to take Responsibility for your willingness to entertain the False Mind / Little Voice, and to take a Stand for the elimination of this interference with your Self-hood.
        You have to turn away from this familiar, life-long habit, which will always be there ready to return at the slightest invitation or weakness of Will. You have to reduce the garbage that the False Mind / Little Voice feeds on, to exorcise gossip-mongers among your friends and among the media. Begin to work with Objective facts: who said what?, who did what?, when did it occur?, did it occur?

        Reduce the input of garbage, and confront the automatic machinery that is in place. No surgeon can remove it, no Mozart-via-headphones can cloak it, even za-zen cannot get rid of it. The drug industry is based on removal of the False Mind / Little Voice, and yet notice that you are returned to 'normal' after the effects of the drug wear off. The action necessary is to develop the Working Mind – thru Reason – the strength of which will wear down the False Mind / Little Voice. Build up your Working Mind by honoring Values that empower. The increase of your dormant Working Mind will reduce the attention paid to the False Mind's dis-empowering content.
        The speed with which you move toward skill at attaining Radio Silent is entirely dependent on the effort that you make. You cannot fake the development of the Working Mind: you perform Right Action, or you do not.
        By reading Ayn Rand instead of Danielle Steele, you produce a move in the right direction. You might produce dribs and drabs of improvement by watching PBS instead of the Wrestling Channel, but you will produce even more by immersing yourself in that which empowers. Seek out great books, art, and intellectual pursuits of all kinds – to counteract the pull of the Culture-Structure for sleaze. Read the biographies and writings of great men – Churchill, Tesla, R. Buckminster Fuller, Albert Camus, Edward Abbey – and of great women – Amelia Earhart, Frida Kahlo, Eleanor Roosevelt, Helen Keller, Rosa Parks.
        You can sit and watch a sunset or sunrise or moonrise, or play patty-cake with a toddler, or take up a new non-verbal hobby, like whittling or crochet. Or spend actual unalloyed Quality Time with your children or spouse, without use of electronic gadgets or crowds or the glandular rush of velocity.
        Pursue and engage in content that empowers, as antidote to the disease of the Culture-Structure. Read stage plays by O'Neill, Ibsen, Shaw. Fiction by Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Twain. Read non-fiction by Joseph Campbell, W. Edwards Deming, Eric Berne. See great romantic-heroic films by John Ford [1894-1973], Akira Kurosawa [1910-88], Frank Capra [1897-1991], films by Franηois Truffaut [1932-84] and Ingmar Bergman [1918-2007] and Satyajit Ray [1921-92].

*          *          *          *
        The garbage-mouth automatic False Mind / Little Voice in your head would revolt another human being if they could hear it. But they are likewise busy pretending that they don't have one, lest the secret be revealed. As long as everyone maintains the secrecy, as in "The Emperor's New Suit" by Hans Christian Andersen, then the Oligarchy and the Culture-Structure are in control where you are. You regain control when you say that you are going to develop your innate Working Mind, when you say that you will empower yourself by confronting the existence of your automatic False Mind / Little Voice, when you take on the intention to reduce the False Mind / Little Voice so that you can listen to the Silence.

        I say that 'God is in the Silence'. To the extent that you can turn off or turn down or ignore the blather of your False Mind, then you have a chance at becoming a God. The ability to listen to the Silence will provide you with access to Objective Reality, to your Self, to your Working Mind – that which empowers. Just the intention to begin the journey is the Second Step to developing your Working Mind.

        Silence is your only access to your Self, and to the extent that that you do access Silence, you will become a god among men, because the Self is the source of all Power.

[copyright 2002 by Gary Edward Nordell, all rights reserved]

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==>  The Economic Policy Institute has published an interesting study, "Inequality at the
        Starting Gate: Social Background Differences in Achievement as Children Begin School"
        The Summary and Introduction on the website/bookpage spells out their findings on the
        devestating and measurable and unnecessary effects of inequality.
        PURCHASE = via Amazon.com
        BOOKPAGE = http://www.epinet.org/books/starting_gate.html
        Economic Policy Institute website = http://www.epinet.org/

==>  FREE XMAS GIFT: Download the "Working Minds Preview Edition" ebook.
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        and wrap'em up real pretty...
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N E X T   M O N T H: "Bilingualism"

I N   F E B R U A R Y: "Standing On Ayn Rand"

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