Congress is debating two important topics today. One is the trans Pacific trade agreement. The other is whether to continue the patriot act. Because it's going to expire in a few weeks and I believe congress should let it expire. This time when they talk about a "clean bill" or a "clean extension" being put forth, this is what we DON'T want. I think this Patriot Act should be allowed to Sunset, at least in its most dangerous aspects of it. When it comes to trade - - what we need is action on piracy of computer technology by China. We need to eliminate the tax provision that enables companies to relocate to another shore- -and get paid for it with tax deductions. Often like if your company was in Ohio- -a lot of the auxiliary businesses also are impacted- - because these were fellow suppliers that are now gone. We need to crack down on currency manipulation by China. In short, as they said with Health Care "What we need to do is to scrap this whole bill with a blank piece of paper and take it from there". I agreed with the statement as it related to the Affordable Care Act, and I agree with that same proposition now. (Selah)
John Kennedy said in 1961 “We go to the moon not because it is easy, but because it is hard”. And so taxing carbon is “hard”, but it’s something we need to do to save the planet out of responsibility to our descendants. It’s something that we owe them. We can’t just assume “Oh God will protect us and save us from blatant mistakes, for which we should know better”. We need to regulate firearms not to be “restrictive” but to save human lives- - and realize that the average gun owner seems to be altogether less “mature” than they were in the old west as to when and where to use that gun. You didn’t have all the nut cases floating around a hundred and fifty years ago. Likewise we should rebuild our infrastructure not because it is easy, but because, frankly, it’s NECESSARY. Capish? Thom Hartman is talking about how the interstate highway system generated a profit for business. A sound infra-structure stimulates commerce. The actual programs such as sewer systems and Amtrack and the Post Office are not SUPPOSED to in themselves generate a profit. These items are to “promote the general welfare of society” to enable commerce. A lot of Sales people ride Amtrack to generate commerce and make their business deals and such. We are coming up on Memorial Day weekend, which is the peak season for highway travel. This generates all sorts of commerce of people going on vacations. But if roads are shut down, this slows commerce. The Highway fund has “run out of funds” and the Republicans like it that way. If you ride the train to visit Grandma you may be buying food or perhaps stay in a hotel or something that generates commerce. Two days ago this Am-track railroad jumped the track in Philadelphia and was derailed. Seven people were killed and many others were severely injured. There is a safety system where by computerized means they can slow down the train automatically as it approaches a dangerous turn. The train was traveling at 106 miles per hour, which was over a hundred percent in excess of the posted speed limit for this turn. There was a similar such rail accident in Spain two years ago that made the news. Now the Republicans are saying “This incident should not be used as an EXCUSE to spend more money on infrastructure and safety”. Hartman points out that the Republican method is to let the infrastructure deteriorate to the point where they say “This government system is failing so let’s privatize the system”. It’s all “point of view”, you know. For instance G E and some of these other trans-national corporations weren’t “fooled’ by NAFRA and CAFTA and these other agreements. They KNEW exactly what would happen when they engineered these treaties to maximize their own personal profits. These corporations WANTED to export jobs to China and Latin America and the like. The Republican’s whole business is not in maintaining “the commons” as such but rather to eliminate the commons- - and also eliminate high paying manufacturing jobs in this country- - so that rich corporations can pocket the profits. Someone said the average passenger railroad goes only 68 miles per hour now, as opposed to around ninety when I was a kid. Meanwhile in China and Japan most of their railroads travel in excess of 230 miles per hour- - or in excess of three times the speed, and a lot more safely. Now they are experimenting with railroads that travel with some kind of magnetic repelling suspension that are in excess of three hundred miles per hour- - or fifty percent of the speed of a trans-continental flight. But of course this is minus all the airport security and congestion there. “The republicans are constantly looking for ways to take natural monopolies and give the money to corporate interests who boost their campaign donations”. Decades ago Bay Area Rapid Transit had the sort of safety technology we are discussing installing now. So why can’t we now have this technology in the “northeast corridor” of the United States?
Let's talk about "Thinking outside the box". Some may state it other ways such as "Not playing by the rules" or "Cheating your Fate". Since I am a determinist- - I don't believe these endeavors in the long run will be successful. We could speak of "The Gnostic Question". Let's go back to Adam and Eve for the moment where God says to Adam and Eve after they transgressed "Who Told You That You Were Naked?" God knew they had encountered "An Outsider". This is where Gnosticism comes in. It's in essence giving one the Ability if not the Permission 'Not to Play by the Rules". I wrote in March of 2010 (or about then "To think outside the Box is to disparage the Box". Cross out "Box" and put in 'Rules" and you see my point. In Marco Polo there is a longstanding rule of "Don't Get Out of the Pool". In football there is a rule that you as a receiver can't go out of bounds and then reenter the field of play and then catch the forward pass". "The Game" won't allow you to do that. Let's talk about "The Game" of Love. People from Shakesphere onward have spoken of you the game of Love is hard with many ups and downs. But if you refuse to play the game and then just get the girl in a secluded spot and take her by force- - Rape Her- - then you aren't playing the Game any more. People say we should look at our choices in life. But have you considered what those choices are. You're on the High Plains like South Dakota or something and you're turned your furnace off for the year. Then a few days ago nature throws you a curve and you get snow flurries. You have two choices. You can freeze to death- - not a real fine option- - or you can go down to the basement and re-light the pilot light. When you walk from point A to reach your goal of point B, you make a "choice" each time you place one foot in front of the other. If a bandit comes to you on the sidewalk and points a gun at you and says 'Your money or your life", you have no real choice, unless you're Jack Benny in a famous skit where he says, "I'm thinking it over". Likewise you can't mount a defense for murder in saying "The girl ASKED me to kill her" and someone asks "How's that?" and you say "Well, she told me she'd rather die than have sex with Me". Chuck Smith was one of the marketing geniouses of our time, marketing Born Again Christianity to hippies. But I talked with someone in Cypress summer school in mid 1971 who put forth the idea that some of these people are so stoned they might be hallucenating Jesus and think they're saved. Their mental thought process is thus compromised. And they will carry that "compromised thought process" with them throughout their Born Again "walk". It thus dawned on me that old saying in the song "Kicks" of "Don't you see no matter what you do, you'll never run away from You. And if you keep on running, you'll have to pay the price". What Gnosticism is is NOT as its detractors would insist of "Looking deep within your soul to find Salvation". If you know Greek, or even Spanish for that matter, you know that the word "To Know" employed here means meeting an OUTSIDE FORCE or entity that wasn't a part of your life before and hence knowing him or her will ALTER your life course from what it would have otherwise been. So it's a Lie to say that only Christians have "The Other" as their supreme God. Because the heart of Gnosticism has this "Meeting of a god or savior type figure". Indeed Gnosticism isn't a corruption of Christianity but Christianity is a Judaizing corruption of Gnosticism, from the "Syrian church" of the second century. People are what they are. You may call someone a wild beast or a monster or a piece of low down slime- - - but we call people these things because they don't follow the rules as we are governed by but their own rules. As we showed in our examples - - people are bound by who they are and have fewer "choices" than we think we do. In fact I believe it was St Thomas Acquinas who spoke of "Natural Law' and "The natural order of things". God created our immortal souls a certain way- - and he created moral and natural laws" that Thomas Jefferson picked up on. But what if you BECAME when you died what you were ACTING like. You could turn into some hidious Monster or a piece of pond scum or whatever. Maurice on the Bewitched show- - if he was annoyed with you and thought you were a braying jackass- - then he'd just haul off and TURN you into a - - Braying Jackass. Capish?
However I believe there is an "A-moral" or if you will "natural" means of expanding your choices, though I prefer to refer to them as options. Options give you new Choices you didn't Have before to consider the merits of pursuing. We have spoken of this as "karmic space". Some may ask me "Your karmic funnel example shows a gradual transition from predestined servitude (slaves to sin, so to speak) and also a Freedom with true Choices (options). In chess it's nice to have as many options as possible. The other view is some fifth dimensional STRING - - be it an Astrological trigger or whatever- - where a fifth dimensional event imposes itself on you as an outside force and alters your life from what it would otherwise have been, preferably in a Good way. It's a little like another Bewitched episode where Samantha stops time and Darren is let in on it. And Samantha and Darren discuss how to manipulate a situation that's gotten out of hand in sort of a "back tracking- - covering your tracks kind of thing". Thus being "Pulled out of time" is a blessing. I believe the Gnostic experiance may be something like this. But often it goes further as we see on these "Once upon a Time" episodes. It's not just MEETING someone new or being a chance you'd have never gotten otherwise- - but perhaps meeting the AUTHOR of your own destiny. Jesus told his disciples at the Last Supper "I no longer call you servants but friends. A master doesn't inform a servant what he is doing. But I have told you everything". Thus we have a true advenagious "Knowing' right here. This can happen in a fifth dimensional string. So the contrast in image between suddenly and gradually- - just covers two aspects of a similar property in karma.
However I believe there is an "A-moral" or if you will "natural" means of expanding your choices, though I prefer to refer to them as options. Options give you new Choices you didn't Have before to consider the merits of pursuing. We have spoken of this as "karmic space". Some may ask me "Your karmic funnel example shows a gradual transition from predestined servitude (slaves to sin, so to speak) and also a Freedom with true Choices (options). In chess it's nice to have as many options as possible. The other view is some fifth dimensional STRING - - be it an Astrological trigger or whatever- - where a fifth dimensional event imposes itself on you as an outside force and alters your life from what it would otherwise have been, preferably in a Good way. It's a little like another Bewitched episode where Samantha stops time and Darren is let in on it. And Samantha and Darren discuss how to manipulate a situation that's gotten out of hand in sort of a "back tracking- - covering your tracks kind of thing". Thus being "Pulled out of time" is a blessing. I believe the Gnostic experiance may be something like this. But often it goes further as we see on these "Once upon a Time" episodes. It's not just MEETING someone new or being a chance you'd have never gotten otherwise- - but perhaps meeting the AUTHOR of your own destiny. Jesus told his disciples at the Last Supper "I no longer call you servants but friends. A master doesn't inform a servant what he is doing. But I have told you everything". Thus we have a true advenagious "Knowing' right here. This can happen in a fifth dimensional string. So the contrast in image between suddenly and gradually- - just covers two aspects of a similar property in karma.
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