Entries this day: Austin_Rally Bush_open_letter realultimatepower.net

Austin Rally

9:29pm CST Saturday 1 March 2003

Called Steve's cellphone at Austin Rally.

Fred described lime groovy juice -> groovy juice pie -> groovy juice icing. Now he's doing homework

Asha was the spokesperson at their social action thingy!

Ben will be co-dictating with Katy Burnette-Hughes tonight. It's his last Austin Rally.

Mike Holcombe... d'oh I forgot what he said.

Erin phuufed Ben!

Katy seems sane despite being in charge. She says the Foons won the Spork vs Foon contest.

Rosemary is chillin' with her homies and has met some new friends.

Richard and Ed were the Foon special forces and Rich fought off 10 Spork people at once. He'll bring groovy juice recipe to the 14-16 March party

Ed's implant broke and he has cool mirrored shades.

Calder is having a good rally. Then the phone died while she was talking to me.

Thanks Steve, for letting me run your battery down!

Bush open letter

An Open Letter to President George W. Bush


Dear President Bush                            February 18, 2003


First, we would like to introduce ourselves to you. We are 75 and 65 years

old and both of us are psychotherapists, writers, and consciousness

teachers. We have over 90 years of combined experience working with people

in many different settings and in many nations around the world. We have

written five books together and one each separately. These have been

translated into seven languages. We have five children, three grandchildren

S and a number of cats. We tell you all this simply to establish the fact

that we are thoughtful, professional, competent people who have lived full

lives and have experienced a great deal in this world -- both separately and

as partners.


We are not usually alarmists, but as professionals who have worked with

people all our lives, we are gravely concerned about the current world

situation and we feel that this is a very special time. What happens now

will carry consequences for many years to come. We have seen conflicts

before in our lives - conflicts that looked extremely dangerous - but now we

observe a frighteningly intense degree of worldwide polarization that seems

to be accelerating at an ever-increasing speed.  It is to the issue of this

polarization that we wish to speak.


As the President of the United States you can feel this ever-intensifying

polarization.  The world leaders seem to be dividing into those who are with

you and those who are against you. This letter is about what we feel can be

done to begin to neutralize this polarization.


It takes immense courage to change one's consciousness - or way of being in

the world.  It often requires a crisis of major proportions to push people

into this kind of change process -a major illness or accident that forces us

to look at the possibility of dying, a threatened divorce, financial

reverses, or serious trouble with the law.  We each have a choice about how

to respond to the crisis. We are challenged to separate from our usual way

of being in the world, broadening our view, and embracing something new.


From what you have said about your life, you have already gone through one

major change of consciousness. All those years ago when you stopped drinking

and changed the way you lived your life, you actually changed your

consciousness for the first time. We do not know what crisis precipitated

your change then, but something did. You rose to the occasion and you met

the challenge successfully. Now it seems that you are being challenged to

change again.


A change in consciousness - as you already know -- results in a change in

all our relationships. It changes our relationship to ourselves, to our

families, and to our God. The same is true with nations.  On an

international level we are now experiencing just such a major crisis. This

can bring change or it can bring war and catastrophe. The question is

whether we can use this crisis to develop real wisdom, or whether it must

automatically polarize the world into war.


We do not think that war is always wrong - there are times when it is the

only solution to a problem. But those times are few and far between. Our

concern is that the movement into war should be a thoughtful one in which

the alternative of peace is also carefully considered.  Our concern is that

in the current situation the world has become so intensely polarized (an old

pattern of behavior that divides the world into good guys and bad guys -

with ourselves always being the good guys) that we are being led to act in a

way that we will regret later after the smoke clears and we see what we have

done.


In our work, we call this "the slap." When we look at something from only

one point of view -- from one part of ourselves -- we literally cannot see

any other. Later, when we realize that there was an opposite point of view -

when we see what it was that we overlooked - we feel as though an opposite

part of us has slapped us.


President Bush, what is most worrisome to us about you and your staff is

your contribution to this polarization. In the history of the world, this

kind of thinking has led to the most horrific behavior. When the

polarization was at its height, the behavior seemed quite reasonable. But

when people looked back at what was done, and with the help of others viewed

the behavior with different and wiser eyes, they could see the ways in which

the passion of polarization had blinded them.


Every day that passes someone in your administration reminds us that some

person or some other country is evil.  Using language such as the "axis of

evil" comes from a part of us that sees us as being good and living lives of

righteousness and all darkness as living "out there" in the world. That part

of us doesn't realize that each of us has darkness and evil - as well as

good -- within. It doesn't realize that the battle on the outside is a

reflection of the battle that we all must wage within our own souls.


We are less concerned about the issue of whether we go to war than we are

about the issue of what parts of you and what parts of Mr. Rumsfeld are

moving us towards this war. What we hear from your core administrative group

is a constant barrage of emotionally charged judgments of others. In

psychological terms, you are disowning your own evil and projecting it out

onto the world around you. This makes us more and more distrustful of your

judgment, and makes us wonder about which selves are operating in you in

such an "automatic pilot" kind of thinking and reacting.


This is having a terrible effect on much of the world. It pulls forth an

equal and opposite reaction in others. The more they look evil to you; the

more you look evil to them. It is a mathematical relationship. It is evenly

balanced. It is a recipe for disaster!


Something happened to you on September 11, 2001, that we don't think you

understand.  Something that felt wonderful. On that day you were taken over

by the hero archetype.  Throughout history this archetype has operated in

many people.  This archetype acts like an infusion of super-powerful energy.

It gives us the power to do very heroic things.  It is a part of us - or a

self -- that comes from a different place in the psyche, from a different

place in the brain.  It is like a psychological instinct.


The hero archetype doesn't just operate in presidents and generals. It can

help anyone behave heroically in life. It helped our firefighters and

policemen on September 11th. It can help any of us get through a difficult

time or help us work long hours for a new idea or cause.  It can help us do

things that go against our fears. These are the good sides of the hero

archetype. Clearly after 9/11 you became stronger as you were carried more

and more by this kind of archetypal energy. It made you stronger and it gave

you the power to lead us. It was a wonderful gift to you and to our country!


The down side of this energy is that it isn't personal.  It gives us the

hero's strength but not always the wisdom to balance it. We often tend to

run over people when this power is operating in us because we feel only the

power and we no longer feel our own vulnerability. That is the key issue of

the dark side of the hero archetype.  We lose our vulnerability!  We have to

do things more and more heroically.


Being identified with the heroic energy is very heady stuff and it usually

starts out well. But it often goes sour as time passes because we lose

clarity when we are in the hands of this archetype and the super-hero energy

continues to rush through us.  Our colleagues get caught up in this as well;

the same hero myth gets activated in them and serves their own power needs.

It is to their advantage to support this archetype in you and they just add

fuel to the fire.


There are many archetypes waiting to jump into the driver's seat of our

"psychological cars" and run our lives for us, especially when our situation

is dangerous. It seemed to us that about a year after 9/11 a new energy

began to take over in you and join with the energy of the existing hero

system.  This new archetype is "The Savior."  It has a distinctly religious

quality.  The Savior must save the people from evil.  There is evil and

darkness in the world and someone or some group must save the world from

this evil.  This archetype would make you feel that you are the anointed and

appointed son (or daughter) of God whose job it is to rectify this

dangerous situation. This puts us back to the days of the crusades and a

holy war.


Now we know that there are some very dark forces in the world today and we

feel you are being completely honest and sincere in your desire to do good

and chase away evil.  Here, though, we have a problem and a very big problem

at that. We have been psychotherapists and teachers for 90 years between us.

Both of us led complex lives before we met and they have become even more

complex during the past 30 years of our time together.


We have had the opportunity -- the profound privilege -- of working with the

human soul in hundreds upon hundreds of clients. We have worked with their

dreams, with their fantasies, with their depressions and rage and anger and

love and lust and heroism and greed and warlike nature and loving

sensitivity.  I wish we could share with you, President Bush, some of these

dreams and inner realities.


Do you know what our conclusion has been to all this? Our conclusion is that

it is all inside as it is all outside.  Each human being is a microcosm of

the macrocosm. Just as in our world there is good and evil and light and

dark, so it is within the human psyche. Our conclusion is that each one of

us lives with a most amazing combination of good and evil. And each one of

us is challenged to deal with this on an inner level as best we can, so that

we do not add our disowned evil to the very real evils outside of us,

causing them to spiral out of control. That is the work we are challenged to

do and that is the work you are challenged to do.


Saddam Hussein is a man ruled by dark forces. We have no issue with that.

Our deepest concern however is not the Saddam Hussein that lives in the

world. It is the Saddam Hussein that lives in the hidden recesses of your

own heart, of our own heart, in everyone's heart.  If we donut ultimately

recognize that this kind of energy lives in each of us, we keep projecting

it on the outer Husseins and this makes it impossible to deal with the

darkness in the world in any way other than war.


We are afraid of what is happening now! But we are not afraid primarily

because of the prospect of war.  We lived through World War II and the

Korean conflict where Hal was a psychologist treating casualties from this

war.  Sidra worked in the VA, treating veterans from as far back as WW I. We

lived through the Cold War, the Chinese intervention during the Korean

conflict, the Cuban missile crisis, Russia exploding the 50-megaton bomb,

Vietnam, and Desert Storm.  We lived through 9/11. We have seen many

frightening times. We are much less afraid of war than we are afraid of the

total projection of darkness and a narrowing of perspective.


We are concerned that the Savior and Hero archetypes are increasingly

dominating your life and that our world is being led into a holy war that we

donut want and that we fear will end very badly.


We are concerned that you have lost contact with your vulnerability and that

you are unable to feel the consequences of what is being unleashed.  We are

concerned that you listen only to people who agree with your way of looking

at things and that you are becoming increasingly unable to feel other

possibilities. We are concerned that a savior mentality is becoming ever

more deeply involved in your decision making process and - perhaps -- that

of your administration.


What can any of us do? What do we ask of you? What do we ask of ourselves?


One of the strongest indications of a mature personality is the ability to

stand between the opposite viewpoints in conflict situations and to be able

to hold both when making decisions.  This doesn't mean that we become

passive in the way we conduct our life. This doesn't mean that we do not have

an ethical or moral sense! It means that we are able to feel the two sides

of a situation.  We must still ultimately make a decision about the

situation.  But the decisions we make are not made on "automatic pilot,"

the decisions we make come from a deeper and wiser place within.


This is the reason -- at least theoretically the reason -- why executives

have a board of directors and an advisory board. The idea is to get a broad 
range

of differing (often intensely opposing) input from people. Then, after

assimilating this information, the executive is better prepared to act and

make the best decision possible.


This works in personal relationships as well. We have learned in our own

lives that when one of us has a negative reaction to the other person we

must stop and take that seriously. It is essential that I (Hal) feel the

feelings that Sidra has and it is essential that I (Sidra) feel the feelings

that Hal has.  Either of us might still do what we originally intended to

do, but by feeling the reality of the other person's point of view, our

decision to act is made in relation to the other person.


Your decisions recently have moved farther and farther away from what we are

recommending.  You sound increasingly black and white on all issues. Not

only don't you seem to care how other people feel but, instead, you seem to

thrive on how tough you are and how little you do care.


This is why you are alienating so many people. People feel that you don't

care, that you are going through the motions of debate with no awareness

whatsoever as to what others are feeling.  We honestly believe that if you

took a vote, even amongst the non-Muslims of the world, you would find that

more people are worried about your warlike tendencies than about Saddam

Hussein's. This does not have to do with your clear desire to go to war. It

is because people feel that you do not give serious consideration to other

points of view.  And so they react to you as though you were a bully rather

than a wise leader of a great nation.


If we must go to war, let it not be an action dictated by the archetype of a

hero living out a John Wayne fantasy.  Let the decision come from a wisdom,

a depth, and a maturity that the world can respect.


We would like to make the following recommendations to you to help slow down

this polarization process:


1.   Spend some time alone. Try to get away from the constant pressure of

the same voices that you listen to day in and day out.


2.   Spend some quiet time with your wife. Listen to her. We suspect that

she would have some interesting things to say.


3.   Bring in some advisors that are different from the ones you have.

Listen to this other feedback in addition to what you already have received.


4.   Put a moratorium on public statements that are inflammatory in nature

from any of your administration people. This would be particularly true of

Secretary Rumsfeld who is one of the most polarizing politicians we have

ever known. And this would include you because you have become increasingly

polarized. Please think before you make any more inflammatory statements.


5.   Pay attention to your dreams. What are they saying to you?


6.   Pray for wisdom! Being wise is as important as being heroic.  Being

wise means that you are able to live with ambiguity; that you are able to

feel the opposites in all the issues and conflicts that come your way.


7.   Please catch hold of the hero/savior archetypal drama that is playing

out within you.  If you want to really be truly wise, you will begin to

recognize that the war between good and evil is playing out inside you and

inside all of us all the time.  The inner Saddam Hussein, the inner

anti-Christ, is an archetypal energy that we must all deal with from the day

we are born until the day we die. It is all inside you and us. Shooting the

bad guy outside doesn't make it go away on the inside.


8.   Please recognize that a 51-49 percent split doesn't mean that you win.

It simply means that you have split the country in two and the polarization

you have created will haunt you forever.  We trust that there is a way for

you to make this a win/win situation for the two sides.


These are the things that we ask you to do. Here is what we will do from our

side:


1.   We will do our best not to polarize against you, but will use any

differences of perspective as a way of learning more about ourselves.


2.   Whenever we begin to polarize against you, we will try to understand

what it is that you are carrying that is disowned in us. We will "step into

your shoes" and stay there until we see your viewpoint. For instance, since

you so desperately want to go to war, we will find that part of us that

wants war and would like to eliminate Saddam Hussein from the face of the

earth.


3.   When we find ourselves polarizing against the fundamentalist nature of

your administration, we will examine this issue and try to make contact with

our own fundamentalist nature. We will look at the world through the eyes of

the fundamentalist part of ourselves.


4.   When we find ourselves polarizing against the way in which you

manipulate people by making them more vulnerable, we will examine our own

manipulative selves. We will see how they operate in the world, and

particularly how they operate in relationship to vulnerability.


5.   We will continue to watch our own dreams and see what they have to say

to us.


6.   We, too, will pray for wisdom.


We are realists and we have no serious expectation that you will read this

letter or answer it, but it was important for us to write it. If, by any

chance, you should care to respond to this letter we want to make ourselves

available to you or to anyone in your administration you would think

appropriate. We would like to do whatever we personally can at this pivotal

point in history.


Sincerely yours,



Hal Stone, Ph.D. & Sidra Stone, Ph.D.

realultimatepower.net

12:49am CST Sunday 2 March 2003

Oh jeez

I've been reading realultimatepower.net/ for the past while now. SO FUNNY!!!!!

I got sidetracked after trying to fix my email after installing OS X.2; I found an email by Hannah the Gangsta from Memphis pimping this awesomely hilarious site. Well, a lot of it is awesome and hilarious; some of it is just poopoopeepee humor that Phat Pat may find funnier than me. The CNN articles (search for "sued" in Hatemail section) are pretty funny. More funny that people thought they were real!!!!

Most amazing of all: his guestbook gets a hit about every 30 minutes it seems. Amazing. I wrote