Monday, March 27, 2023

Emerald Tablet: 21st Century Insights on Its True Nature and Meaning (SFTS, 3/26/23)

 





Emerald Tablet - Legend

Tabula Smaragdina (Latin)
Lawḥ al-zumurrudh (Arabic)

Attributed to Hermes Trismegistus (“Hermes the Thrice-Greatest”), aka Thoth

noun: demi-god
a being with partial or lesser divine status, such as a minor deity, the offspring of a god and a mortal, or a mortal raised to divine rank. – Oxford Languages

  “…in Egyptian religion, a god of the moon, of reckoning, of learning, and of writing” - Encyclopedia of Britannica

8th-9th Century - Arabic sources

12th-13th Century - Translated into Latin

Earliest known version appeared in Apollonius of Tyana’s

 Sirr al-khalīqa wa-ṣanʿat al-ṭabīʿa (The Secret of Creation and the Art of Nature)

 Apollonius was a Neo-Pythagorean, just as Plotinus was a Neo-Platonist

A contemporary of Jesus and Buddha, he too performed numerous miracles.

Unlike Jesus and Buddha who chose to move  among the poor and downtrodden, Apollonius chose to move among the upper classes, nevertheless, according to H.P. Blavatsky, “the three ‘miracle-workers’ exhibited striking similarity of purpose”

“His existence is surrounded with such a veil of mystery that he is often mistaken for a myth … It is quite true that this Sage, who stands unrivalled in his thaumaturgical powers to this day – on evidence historically attested – came from it, no one seems to know whither. But the reasons for this are evident. Every means was used – especially during the 4th and 5th centuries of our era --- to sweep from people’s minds the remembrance of this great and holy man.” – H.P. Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine, Vol. III

According to Apollonius, he discovered a vault hidden below a statue of Hermes. Inside the vault, he found an old corpse on a golden throne. The corpse held the Emerald Tablet in its hands.

 Much has been projected on to the Emerald Tablet over the centuries.

Medieval alchemists looked to it for the secrets of the Philosopher’s Stone.

 Modern mystics and occultists have woven their world-views around the Tablet’s signature declaration, “As above, so below.”

 “it is first and foremost and fundamentally an alchemical formula, relating both to the alchemy of the base metal and the divine alchemy of human regeneration” - Manly Palmer Hall, “Secret Teachings of All Ages”

 The Emerald Tablet is only fourteen lines long.

In preparation for this talk, I compared and contrasted numerous translations and renderings, including those of the great Sir Isaac Newton, Theosophical Society founder H.P Blavatsky and Sufi author Idries Shah. The differences are mostly insignificant. The version I chose to use here is that of the early 20th Century French alchemist Fulcanelli (translated into English by Sieveking), Fulcanelli was the author of the brilliant “Mystery of the Cathedrals.”  …


Emerald Tablet – The One

“Above” and “below” are so limited and limiting. Even though this phrasing is healthier than that of the religionists who exalt “Heaven” and debase the so-called mundane world, this phrasing still warps and denigrates the meaning of the teaching it is meant to convey. This powerful truth is not about “Heaven” and “Earth.” They are not two. They are not separate. It’s not “Gods” and “Angels” above and “humans” and other “animals” below. And even though it says “as above, so below,” it’s still a separation that only exists in the human mind, you are not “a soul” in “a body,” you are not “here” now and going “there” after, they say “as” – it’s not “as” it’s “IS,”

‘IS above IS below’ would really work better.

 This phrasing is the old patriarchal paradigm repeated over and over. And no, the Sky is not “Masculine,” just because the Earth is “Feminine.” It’s a false correspondence.

So in my rendering of the Emerald Tablet, I supplant “As above so below” with –

The Microcosm is within the Macrocosm and the Macrocosm is within in the Microcosm.

The next lines in this particular translation show a deeper understanding, so no strikethrough.

“all things exist in and emanate from the ONE Who is the ultimate Cause, so all things are born after their kind from this ONE”

Yes, indeed. Now who is this “ONE”?

Gaia is the Macrocosm, I am, you are, the Microcosm. The Ecosystem of the Planet, which is itself the Intelligence of the Planet, is the Macrocosm, my five bodies are the microcosm. All of it spirals upward and outward, downward and inward, SIMULTANEOUSLY. Gaia is the Microcosm, the Solar System is the Macrocosm. The Solar System is the Microcosm, the Galaxy is the Macrocosm, and on and on …

For nearly the entire history of life on this planet, 85 percent of that history in fact, life consisted solely of of microorganisms. The last universal common ancestor (LUCA) for every life-form on this planet was bacterial. Again: The last universal common ancestor for every life-form on this planet was bacterial ... In fact, every life-form we see - again, every life-form, including you and me - is simply a modification of bacteria in a more complex form ... The Gaian ecosystem, the self-organized system that we know as Earth, came into being with the emergence of the global bacterial community. The bacterial community is still the foundation of the world. It is Gaia. It is the interconnected network of millions of bacterial biofilms, individual bacteria, and symbiogenenic, bacterially generated, complex life-forms that lies deep within the crust of the Earth (perhaps by as much as 5 kilometers), covers the surface of the planet, and extends at least 50 kilometers above the Earth's surface ... The original neural networks that are present in all bacteria and their communities have been expanded in both shape and extent over long time lines. All the living self-organized systems that we know of as life-forms contain neural networks based on the original neural network that emerged. And the neurochemicals that bacteria originally developed have been refined over long time lines and are now used by virtually every life-form that exists. Our neural network is only modification of an already extant neural reality that pervades the entire Earth ecosystem; it is only a specific instance of a general condition.This expansion of the neural net, in multiple forms, all interconnected, facilitates the intake and processing of environmental information at ever more sophisticated levels of the Gaian network as a whole. Each self-organized system, that is, each subset of the larger whole, possesses a drive to fulfill its ecological function within the whole, and each possesses a sophisticated neural network with which it gathers data about the local environment in which it exists. Each also possesses free will as to how it accomplishes its function and how it responds to environmental perturbations. Gaia does not use top-down control over the parts that make-up the whole. - Stephen Harrod Buhner, Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm

Emerald Tablet - Sun & Moon

The Emerald Tablet - Sun and Moon

Languaging is so important, so pivotal … Languaging impacts the stream of consciousness, if it’s off, if it’s unhealthy, it can warp a truth, it can flatten it out, make it brittle and thin, make it square,  drain it of its Sakti … Esoteric, metaphysical, mystical, spiritual languaging concerning the Sun and the Moon offers vivid examples of this abuse … In all of the Table of Erroneous Correspondences, nothing is as egregious as the characterizations of the Sun and Moon as “Active and Receptive, Male and Female, Yang and Yin,” wrong, wrong, wrong … To anthropomorphize the Sun and the Moon into “Father” and “Mother” is patriarchal, sexist, Samsaric … it is trivializing and misleading ..  

Consider the Sun …

26,000 light years from the black hole at the heart of the Milky Way, the Sun holds the planets of this solar system in its thrall, pulling them with it as it circumambulates that galactic core.

 At an average speed of 450,000 miles an hour, each circumambulation takes 230 million years.

All the while, the Sun is delivering the heat and light that make life on Earth possible.

Noun: photosynthesis
the process by which green plants and some other organisms use sunlight to synthesize foods from carbon dioxide and water. Photosynthesis in plants generally involves the green pigment chlorophyll and generates oxygen as a byproduct. – Oxford Languages

“It would be impossible to overestimate the importance of photosynthesis in the maintenance of life on Earth. If photosynthesis ceased, there would soon be little food or other organic matter on Earth. Most organisms would disappear, and in time Earth’s atmosphere would become nearly devoid of gaseous oxygen. The only organisms able to exist under such conditions would be the chemosynthetic bacteria, which can utilize the chemical energy of certain inorganic compounds and thus are not dependent on the conversion of light energy.” - Britannica

“Sunlight kills bacteria. Many of us spend a lot of time indoors ... Sunlight may reduce high blood pressure ... Sunlight can regulate the immune system ... Sunlight strengthens bones ... Sunlight can improve sleep quality ... Sunlight boosts mood …” - GoodRx Health, 5/27/22

 “Nothing is more important to us on Earth than the Sun. Without the Sun's heat and light, the Earth would be a lifeless ball of ice-coated rock. The Sun warms our seas, stirs our atmosphere, generates our weather patterns, and gives energy to the growing green plants that provide the food and oxygen for life on Earth.” - NASA

And as for the Moon …

“The Moon's radius is larger than a quarter of Earth's radius, a much larger ratio than most moons to their planets.” - Space.com

“The brightest and largest object in our night sky, the Moon makes Earth a more livable planet by moderating our home planet's wobble on its axis, leading to a relatively stable climate. It also causes tides, creating a rhythm that has guided humans for thousands of years.” - NASA

 “Earth's moon is vitally important in making Earth the planet we know today: the moon controls the length of the day and ocean tides, which affect the biological cycles of lifeforms on our planet. The moon also contributes to Earth's climate by stabilizing Earth's spin axis, offering an ideal environment for life to develop and evolve.” - The Week, 2/7/22

Father and mother? Putting the gender stereotypes aside, even if it were a metaphor predicated on healthy parenting, your parents bring you into the world, then you grow up and live your life, you individuate, maybe at the end of theirs you help them out of this life just as they helped you in … But the Sun and the Moon, they did not just give birth to the world, and these mysteries, they are at the center of them moment by moment, sustaining it all, organizing it all at every level, now and ever since, and for as long as they endure, they are central to it all, and allow for the rise of Gaian Intelligence, they empower Gaia to paint her masterpieces upon the canvass of her own luminous flesh, yes …

So in my rendering of the Emerald Tablet, I supplant ““The Sun is the father and the Moon the mother …” with –

Within the Cauldron of the Creatrix, the Yin and the Yang swirl ceaselessly, likewise the Yin within the Yang and the Yang within the Yin swirl ceaselessly. Feel all of this.

The true alchemy of this living planet owes a lot to the Taoists –

Every whole "thing"--from a tree to a person to a business, an atom, planet, or universe--can be seen as a metaphorical Tai-Chi, with corresponding Yin and Yang aspects. Once Yin and Yang are distinguished, each one can also be seen as a whole and broken down further into its own integral Yin and Yang parts. We can see this creative process unfold all around us. The universal process of Being arising from Non-Being through the fusion of opposites, followed by the differentiation and increase of complexity from oneness to myriad forms, can be observed in the studies of modern cosmology, the evolution of species, the conception and development of individuals, and the arising of ideas ...  - Simmone Kuo

 “Yin and Yang are one vital force -- the primordial aura.” – Yangming Wang

“The motion of yin and yang generates all things in nature” - Meh Jiuzhang & Guo Lei

Emerald Tablet - Philosopher's Stone

Hajar al-Falāsifa (Arabic)
Lapis Philosophorum (Latin)

“The alchemists believed that the universal formula contained in the Emerald Tablet was the basis for a spiritual technology first introduced on the planet in ancient Egypt more than 10,000 year ago. The formula consists of seven consecutive operations, performed on the ‘matter’ – whether it be of a physical, psychological, or spiritual nature.” – Dennis William Huack, The Emerald Tablet: Alchemy for Personal Transformation

I looked up ‘Philosopher’s Stone” in the index to Manly Palmer Hall’s “Secret Teachings of All Ages,” I had to laugh. Among the numerous references, two in particular stood out.

One entry read “Philosopher’s Stone contains all the powers of Nature CLVIII” Lol.

You know what else “contains all the powers of Nature”? N-A-T-U-R-E! Nature Herself. Gaia.

Another entry read “Philosopher’s Stone represented by Isis XLVII”

Well, yes, but really it’s not “symbolism.” It would be more accurate to say “Isis is the Philosopher’s Stone, and the Philosopher’s Stone is Isis.”

Isis, of course, being one of Gaia’s many divine disguises.

Please don’t misunderstand me, “Secret Teachings of All Ages” is a marvelous tome, a rich resource, but the minds of white men from earlier centuries (even the 20th but especially the 19th) are utterly at a lost when it comes to the deep feminine mysteries of this planet.

I find myself wanting to declare “This is the true alchemy of our living planet!” Because, well, it is. But I need to add a caveat, I am not saying this is the only true alchemy. There is the true alchemy of Carl Jung and his path of individuation. Jung’s encounter with the Emerald Tablet in particular, and his inquiry into alchemy as a whole, would be a talk unto itself, and such a meaningful one, there is the true alchemy of novelist Paolo Coehlo. In “The Alchemist,” he writes, “Intuition is really a sudden immersion of the soul into the universal current of life.” The history of alchemy is vast and sprawling. There is Chinese alchemy, there is Indian alchemy, deep troves overflowing with treasures. There is a whole alternate, suppressed herstory of alchemy, Mary the Jewess is considered the first known alchemist. 200 CE. And, of course, here in this very Lodge, we honor the life and work of the legendary African American alchemist Light Devoy Edward Harris who left this plane of existence in December 2014. “L-I-G-H-T Light! S-O-U-N-D Sound! Light and Sound! Sound and Light! Light and Sound Sound and Light. L-I-G-H-T Light! S-O-U-N-D Sound!” Yes, there are many true alchemies! This talk is just a reflection on my encounter with the Emerald Tablet, it is what I feel to speak through these five bodies with my voice in my words, calibrated to our present circumstances. We are in the throes of this Planetary Emergency. Anthropogenic Climate Disruption and the Sixth Great Extinction pose an existential threat to civilization itself. And only through the Ascendancy of the Feminine and the spread of Eco-Feminism, in philosophy, psychology, mysticism and the arts, in politics, science and commerce. The arc of human evolution is leading us beyond patriarchy. Thus I say this is the true alchemy of our living planet.

“The Tablet supposedly contains the secrets of alchemy and the recipe for the philosopher's stone, an artifact capable of giving its user eternal life.” – The Archaeologist: Civilizations of the World

Well, yes, but …

I suggest to you that the great Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) knew more than the men who came before her, more than the men of her time, and more than the men who came after her.

And Hildegard wrote about what she called Vriditas, the “Green Flame,” the “Greening Force.”

“O most honored Greening Force, You who roots in the Sun; You who lights up, in shining serenity, within a wheel that earthly excellence fails to comprehend. You are enfolded in the weaving of divine mysteries. You redden like the dawn and you burn; flame of the Sun.” - Hildegard of Bingen, “Causae et Curae”

In my rendition of the Emerald Tablet, I swap out the cryptic lines about alchemical operations involving four (of the five) elements, e.g., “… the wind carried it in his belly. Earth is its nurse and its guardian …” and I supplant it all with this –

The Green Flame is the Emerald Tablet in ceaseless motion, the Emerald Tablet is the Green Flame in utter stillness. They occupy the same space. Within that space, every incarnation is lived and all karmas are played out. The Green Flame forges the Emerald Tablet. The Emerald Tablet fuels the Green Flame. Immerse yourself in this mystery and realize that you are a mystery within a mystery, a miracle within a miracle.

Within Nirvana, Gaia is the Philosopher’s Stone. Within Samsara, the individuated being, the woke being, the being that has fallen awake, is the Philosopher’s Stone. And yes, Nirvana and Samsara occupy the same space. So that’s where it all is, what it all is, utterly INCOMPREHENSIBLE, utterly UNSPEAKABLE, and yet, we can know it and speak it …

Worlds without End!
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Gaian Poetics, Gaian Politics

VIDEO: Gaian Poetics, Gaian Politics (SFTS, 11/13/22)


[NOTE:  On November 11, 2022, I was honored to speak at the closing reception for MPOWERDANCE Project's year long year long exhibition of MOTHERpeaceMOTHERwar at the Theosophical Society of San Francisco. It was a powerful event featuring dance p, art, music and spoken word. Here are a video recording and transcript of my remarks. - Richard Power]

#GaianPoetics #GaianPolitics

I was asked to speak about Climate Action and our Planetary Emergency. I have spoken and written a lot on this subject, and we have all been living through it in our own ways.

In my “Secret Engine of the World: Further Notes on Primal Reality, Gaian Politics & the Arc of Human Evolution,” which I published in 2021, I articulated three deadlines that would define the next decade – for me and for anyone who resonates with my perspective.
The first two deadlines are the U.S. federal elections in 2022 and 2024, but we’re not going to go into any of that here tonight. The third of the three is kind of an arbitrary one that I set for the Climate Crisis, for the Climate Emergency, for the threat we face as a species, along with all of the other species that we have endangered with our genius and our foolishness. And that deadline is ten years after the publication of “Secret Engine,” so 2031.
I spent over 20 years trying to scare people about Climate Change, because that was the appropriate thing to do, to try to scare people in power so that they might come to understand what we were trying to tell them. Cassandra. Those with reasons not to listen do not listen. Of course, I was right, we were right, whatever. Now I find myself trying to calm people down. Not to reassure them at all, but to make people feel that there is hope. I am not talking about people in power now, I am talking about people in general, my friends and allies. I am trying to show There is some way forward. We’re talking about thirty or forty years here. It happened. It’s already underway. It’s no longer about trying to stop Climate Change, we are in its throes now, we can see the floods that are more than floods, the droughts that are more than droughts, the fires that are more than fires, the storms that are more than storms. The death of the soil. The places in which the temperature is becoming uninhabitable. The melting poles. The glaciers that feed the Ganges. We can see it all around us. So It’s happening. But there is still a narrow window in which humankind can make some course corrections and mitigate the worst impacts, the worst consequences, of what we have unleashed. So there are in this moment, in the month, in this week, there are encouraging trends in the world, and there haven’t been many times when we could say this. One encouraging development is that the Congress of the United States passed the Biden administration’s massive climate action as part of an even larger piece of legislation that is now law. Hundreds of billions. Desperately needed. Designated for truly meaningful climate action. Now is it enough? Of course it’s not enough. But it’s the most that’s ever been passed, it will be the most that’s ever been spent in the history of the world. It’s a turning point. We’ve gone from “Is Climate Change real?” and “Yes, it is!” to “Are we doing enough?” and “No, we’re not doing enough.” That’s a different conversation. That’s a healthier conversation to have. So that’s a big shift for this country. And at the same time, in the Brazilian elections, Bolisnaro, a huge climate denier and enabler of predatory capitalism in terms of deforesting the Amazon, LOST, and the incoming Lula administration is committed to climate action, and in fact the incoming President Lula is working with the leaders of Indonesia and the Congo, and they’re going to form a “Rainforest OPEC” to leverage their power – because they control most of the rainforest in the world, and those are the lungs of Gaia. They’re going to try to dictate terms rather than the other way around. This is a big shift. These are not insignificant steps forward. And right now in Cairo, COP27 is meeting. Don’t look necessarily for anything much more to come out of all the talking and the speechifying, but just know there is a shift going on in the world, and we are part of that shift. Well, actually, there was one bold, significant stride forward at COP27: “Deal on compensation for climate impacts represents major milestone for climate justice. The 27th UN Climate Change Conference (COP27) has ended with an historic deal to create a new fund, in which countries responsible for high carbon emissions will compensate vulnerable countries suffering from climate impacts” (The Lancet, 12/8/22)
I am laughing because the President stopped by COP27 on his way to the G20, and he said in his speech: “The science is devastatingly clear; we have to make vital progress by the end of this decade. That's why the United States is rallying the world around climate game changers."
So I just want to say that President Biden and I are on the same page, and that the page is from this book, “Secret Engine of the World.”
Because in that speech, he said “by the end of this decade.”
That’s the first time in these DECADES, where I could say any POTUS and I were on the same page literally in terms of the dwindling number of years we have left to make sufficient impact.
Now we’re going to jump to Aristotle. S-Q-U-A-R-E. Both Aristotle and Plato were pretty square. The Pre-Platonic Philosophers (e.g., Heraclitus) and the Neo-Platonists (e.g., Plotinus) were/are much more interesting to me and relevant to our circumstances.
But in Aristotle wrote Poetics in 335 BC and Politics in 350 BC. And they sit there in all of the university libraries. Everyone bows to them. Hardly anyone reads them, of course, or references them, because, well, Aristotle is so square. But they are foundational to the story that western civilization tells about itself, as it goes forward from ancient Greece.
So these two tomes are there at the beginning of the long arc that brought so much - from the Sistine chapel to the Hubble telescope, from Illuminated manuscripts in Irish monasteries to global communications through social media on your iPhone, from Beethoven’s 5th to the life-saving science of vaccines, but this is life, there is both evolution and devolution, so of course the story of these two thousand years also includes pathologies – oligarchy, patriarchy, misogyny, racism, predatory capitalism, authoritarianism, weapons of mass destruction and yes, overshadowing all of them Anthropogenic Climate Disruption. Have you ever heard that term? That’s actually a more accurate, technically precise term than Climate Change or Global Warming. In the sense that humans have done this. Not a volcano, not a comet, not some nonsense about “natural cycles of cooling and warming.” No, no, this was us! We did this. And we didn’t just do this with the burning of fossil fuels, although that’s a huge piece of it – we also did it with deforestation, with overpopulation, and with our appetite for meat mass produced through industrialized agriculture, I would say those are the big four contributing factors.
So here we are. The genius that was unleashed across that long arc has so far outdistanced our sanity and our conscience that we are destroying the very balance, the global climate, that this civilization is predicated upon, by punching holes in it and jacking up the heat. Here we are in this moment. At this crossroads..
In the midst of this must-win ten year stretch.
This is how, in the course of writing the first of these three books, “Wyrds of Power” (actually five books all together in one volume), I coined the phrases “Gaian Poetics” and “Gaian Politics.” OK, Aristotle, step aside, we need new ways to think about our languaging and our governance.
By Gaian Poetics I don't mean writing about the beauty of "Nature" although of course that's wonderful, and a part of it, and always to be done.
By Gaian Politics, I don't mean activism or environmentalism, although of course that's a vital, critical, absolutely essential aspect.
I’m talking about something else. Most important, by Gaian Poetics and Gaian Politics, I mean an internal shift within us, within each of us.
Gaia isn't a goddess whose world this is, She isn’t a statue, She isn’t something we pray to, She isn’t some anthropomorphized “Divine Being” who has rulership over this planet, Gaia IS this planet we are not Gaia’s children, we are Gaia’s cells, we’re not Gaia’s “stewards,” I know they mean well but whenever people start talking about being “stewards” of Nature I get very uncomfortable, because that’s this madness, the human pathologies got started, you are not the “stewards” of anything, you are the cells of one vast planetary being.
The true Oneness is our life within Her, science and shamanism are seeing the same reality now. We are not Gaia’s children, we are not Her stewards, we are a part of her. The planet, Gaia, is alive, sentient, a self-organizing intelligence, we all exist within that being, we are all cells of Her body, every creature, every plant, every stone, every river, the seas, the atmosphere.
Sentience is in some ways the mystery of mysteries
Gaia dreams her world-dream. And within her world-dream, she dreams the whales dreaming their world-dreams, and the humans dreaming their world-dreams. Yes, our world-dreams are utterly dependent upon hers, they arise within hers, and they are re-absorbed into hers. Likewise the world-dreams of the tree frogs, the world-dreams of the salmon, the world-dreams of the madrones, the world-dreams of the emeralds. Gaia herself is a sentient being and ALL life on the planet has its existence within her, all life here is composed of her, sustained by her, and reabsorbed into her.
This isn’t only a shamanic truth, this is a scientific truth.
OK, so stay with me here, every once in a while, not often, but now and then, our friend, the legendary American sage Joe Miller would say something like this:
“At some future time and place, we'll have grown to a stature where our bodies can be an entire planet and all the humanity the same as the particles within our physical bodies now. We'll know about all that when the life itself is love. Love and life are one.” (Joe Miller, Great Song, p. 53)
He's saying on this arc of human evolution, assuming we don’t go the other way, we can evolve into celestial beings. Meaning not some anthropomorphic goddess or god, no, the actual intelligence of a planet or a star, a different order of intelligence, completely inhuman, incomprehensible to the human mind. We can only project what we know. We evolve into these different realms of intelligence.
I see this view of Joe’s as very relevant to the science of Gaia that is coming out from brilliant thinkers like Stephen Jay Buhner and James Lovelock (as problematic as he can be).
In Plant Intelligence, Buhner writes, “…  that the world is alive, intelligent, aware, communicative and filled with soul; that we are not alone; that we are part of something much larger than ourselves; that we are companioned by millions and millions of related life-forms; and that the dead mechanical world we have been taught about in school does not exist and never has.” 
Gaia is a divine intelligence, a self-organizing being of divine intelligence. And we are all part of that. This is why the Japanese talk about “forest-bathing.” This is why we feel so renewed when we enter into a true forest. This is like a sorceress stirring a tonic for you to drink, that’s what a forest is. So that’s on the arc for each of us if we go deeper and deeper into the nature of reality.
To deal with our current planetary and national emergencies, we have to tap into our Gaian Poetics and our Gaian Politics. Gaian Poetics is when the words are informed by Her from the inside out, Gaian Politics is when our governance philosophy is informed by Her from the inside out.
What do I mean by Gaian Politics? Well, the “Founding Fathers” modeled the U.S. Constitution selectively on the Iroquois federation’s “Great Law of Peace.” They took a few very good ideas from it, but conveniently left out other very good ideas. It’s time now, way past time really, to embrace more of that wisdom medicine.
For example, it was a matriarchy. Their Senate was composed of the Grandmothers. They could remove the Chief if they didn’t approve of his actions. And in the process of making important governance decisions, they pondered the impacts and consequences seven generations into the future.
Can the governing principles be grounded in altruism? Can our governing principles be grounded in sustainability? Can we be guided by those two overarching imperatives, altruism and sustainability?
I will close with one more reading, this one from “Secret Engine” –
Gaia is a Mistress of Disguises. She has a safe deposit box in the Central Bank of the Cosmos. She has stashed many passports under fabricated identities, from “Tara” to “Zeus” to “Isis” to “Thor.” She has stashed bundles of cash in all the world’s currencies. She has stashed pouches of brilliant diamonds and fat bricks of gold and platinum. This treasure allows her to cross any border and do business in any country. Her true identity is the Earth itself. She is the Divine Intelligence of the planet.
All life thriving within the thin sheath of atmosphere she has spun around this globe is hers. We not only “live and move and have our being” in her, our “being” itself is hers, we are her at the cellular level, we are the strands of her hair, the drops of her blood, we are her very embodiment, every tree, ever mountain, every human, every whale, every insect, every mushroom, every cloud, every mongoose, every body of water, every forest, everything and at every order of magnitude, from microcosm to macrocosm, all of this. Hers. Our sentience. The Chi that animates us. All of this is literally her.
For those of us in human incarnation, there are many paths. In one sense, there are as many paths as there are beings. The pathless path is the truest, and all of the other paths empty out into it before the end.
Life. Not beyond life. Not life after death. Life. This world. Not some other world. Not the next world. This world. But not a dream of this life, not a dream of this world, no, the reality of it all. Here and now. From before and beyond. And always on, ON, and ON …
Gaia, Sakti, Lilith, Dark Goddess, Durga Ma, Madonna, Isis, so many names for the Divine Intelligence, revealing herself ceaselessly.
To celebrate her, to serve her, embodied as she is in life and the world, this is our true purpose. To feast on her, and be fed to her.
This is the pathless path. To alleviate or at least mitigate suffering
To see clearly what is, to discern the reality of what is, and so live and move FREELY. This is true story of it all. To know her, we must know ourselves. To know ourselves, we must know her …
Each atom is a temple of her celebration. Each strand of hair. Each cell. Each leaf. Each drop of rain. Each blossom. Each pool of molten lava. East wasp nest. Each coconut. Each tortoise. Each hunk of amethyst. Each heap of yak dung. Each glacier. Each of the five bodies that constitute every single human incarnation. All are temples in which she is celebrated ceaselessly, simply by being fully and truly ourselves. She is the Divine Intelligence within all of this. And there is a unique architecture for each class of these seemingly infinite temples. To know ourselves is to know her.


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Tuesday, October 25, 2022

"Secret Engine" Update #5 (10/25/22): What You Need to Know As We Hurdle Toward 1st of 3 Doom-Defying Deadlines

An orc assassination attempt on the Speaker of the House of Representatives. 2nd in line of succession. Most powerful female political leader in U.S. history. Have you voted? Do u understand where we are? Or have you chosen delusion & denial?

“There r more of us.” More who want abortion rights, more who want gun control, more who want climate action, more who want to protect voting rights.

If we lose the House, it will be because of gerrymandering and dark money. If we lose the Senate, it will be because of dark money & the mainstream news media’s normalization of insane, dangerous candidates.

We must embrace the reality that the majority want sanity & decency & yet at the same time prepare ourselves, inwardly, for a potential second Civil War, one in which we will the U.S. Federal government and those states loyal to the union must confront the Neo-Confederacy and its sympathizers. Because even though we are in the majority (by a lot), the system is skewed for minority rule i.e. white male privilege, patriarchy & oligarchy. Unmoored from reality & contemptuous of our democratic institutions, the Death Eater overlords and the Orc legions seek to impose racist & misogynistic oppression & remove any and all governmental constraints on predatory capitalism. 

This United Front for Sanity & Decency can only be overcome if it fails itself. Do not succumb to despair. Do not choose delusion or denial. “There is no hiding place down here,” as the African-American spiritual declares. You must choose sides & fight.

 

These are my notes for the talk. I post them here in the hope that they might be useful to you for your own clarity and in your efforts to engage other voters.

All of the images included in the first of these five presentation were from tweets related to Russia's genocidal attack on Ukraine. The images I selected were all of women, women journalists, women in the military, civilian women casualties. Why? Because victory in this war is vital for the future of the West and of democracy and because the leadership of women is vital for the future of all life on this planet.  The images included in all four subsequent presentation are also of women (except for two slides, lol); the women whose images I share in this presentation are all agents of the Ascendant Feminine, whether in the  United States, or Ukraine, or Belarus or Russia itself, or from Africa or Iran. 

Yes, it is all one struggle, one great conflict, one shining portal to step through into a real future.


1st of 3

These five talks are focused on this year's mid-term elections in the United States, the first of the three deadlines I outlined in "Secret Engine of the World." These three deadlines are either doom-defying or doom-defining, depending upon outcomes. It is truly up to us, by us I mean what I call the United Front for Sanity and Decency (Left, Liberal, Center and True Conservative).

For SCIENCE. For HUMAN RIGHTS. For GAIA. For SANITY and DECENCY.

Three Deadlines -
  • 2022: U.S. Mid-Term Elections
  • 2024: U.S. Presidential Elections
  • 2031: Climate Apocalypse?

The Facts on the Ground

  • Planetary Emergencies
    • Climate Collapse
      • Pledges to cut greenhouse gas emissions will lead to global heating of 2.5C, a level that would condemn the world to catastrophic climate breakdown, according to the United Nations. Only a handful of countries have strengthened their commitments substantially in the last year, despite having promised to do so at the Cop26 UN climate summit in Glasgow last November. Deeper cuts are needed to limit temperature rises to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, which would avoid the worst ravages of extreme weather. Simon Stiell, the executive secretary of the UN framework convention on climate change, said: “This does not go far enough, fast enough. This is nowhere near the scale of reductions required to put us on track to 1.5C. National governments must set new goals now and implement them in the next eight years.” - Fiona Harvey, Current emissions pledges will lead to catastrophic climate breakdown, says UN, Guardian
    • Pandemic
      • MSNBC: Responding to news of police investigating bizarre, hateful flyers that mix anti-Semitism with Covid conspiracies, Dr. Fauci talks with Alex Wagner about "the normalization of untruths" as being more worrisome to him than personal attacks from Republican politicians. 'The Normalization Of Untruths' Worries Dr. Fauci More Than GOP Threats" (See video below)
  • The Big Lie, 1/6 & Beyond
    • "Perpetuating the big lie is an attack on the core of our constitutional republic ... Trump is the spark but the Republicans are the oxygen. There is no slide to autocracy without Republicans.” - Nicolle Wallace, MSNBC
  • Ukraine
    • “Ukrainians have made significant gains during the last weeks and months. And this is of course, a great example of the bravery, the courage of the Ukrainian Armed Forces,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said during a press conference following a meeting with Romanian Prime Minister Nicolae Ciuca on Oct. 26. He assured that the Alliance is ready to support Ukraine for as long as it takes. “We cannot allow President Putin to win,” Stoltenberg stressed. - EuroMaiden Press, "NATO will not allow Putin to win war against Ukraine – Stoltenberg"
  • Guns & Abortion
    • Brian Klaas (@brianklaas): 5x the population. 692x more gun homicides. This is a policy choice. It’s that simple. Republicans have made a policy choice that inevitably leads to mass slaughter.
      🇺🇸Pop. 330 million
      🇬🇧Pop. 65 million
      🇺🇸Gun homicides (2020): 19,380 
      🇬🇧Gun homicides (2020): 28 

 


Peter Thiel & the Billionaires, Bane of the Republic 

In the third update, I told you about Leonard Leo and his $1.6 billion radical right-wing war chest and of radical right-wing billionaire John Malone taking control of CNN and German industrialist Axel Springer taking control of Politico.com, in the fourth update, I told you about Elon Musk coming up with $44 billion to take control of Twitter, in this fifth and final update, consider radical right-wing billionaire Peter Thiel's investment of tens of millions of dollars in a GQP takeover of the Senate:

  • The German-born investor and tech entrepreneur, a Silicon Valley “disrupter” who helped found PayPal alongside Elon Musk and made his fortune as one of the earliest investors in Facebook, has catapulted himself into the top ranks of the mega-donor class by pouring close to $30m into this year’s midterm elections. He’s not merely favoring one party over another, but is supporting candidates who deny the legitimacy of Joe Biden’s election as president and have, in their different ways, called for the pillars of the American establishment to be toppled entirely. Thiel’s priorities this midterm cycle have partly aligned with those of Donald Trump, with whom he has had an on-again, off-again relationship since writing him a $1.25m check during the 2016 presidential campaign. Thiel, like Trump, has made it his business to end the careers of what he calls “the traitorous 10”, Republican House members who voted to impeach Trump in the wake of the January 6 insurrection. Four of these members opted not to run for re-election at all, and four more, including Liz Cheney, the vice-chair of the House committee investigating January 6, went down in the primaries. But there are also signs that Thiel is thinking around and beyond the former president. The lion’s share of his largesse – $28m and counting – has been directed towards two business proteges who, with his help, have established themselves as gadfly rightwing darlings: JD Vance, the best-selling author of the blue-collar memoir Hillbilly Elegy, who is running for Senate in Ohio, and Blake Masters, a self-styled “anti-progressive” and anti-globalist who is running for Senate in Arizona. Over the past decade, ever since the supreme court dramatically loosened the rules of political campaign giving in its Citizens United decision, Thiel has placed sizable bets on candidates who are not only conservative but have sought to challenge longstanding institutional traditions and break the Republican party’s own norms ... Thiel himself opined as far back as 2009 that he no longer believed democracy to be compatible with freedom and expressed “little hope that voting will make things better” ... Steve Bannon, Trump’s ultra-right campaign manager and political strategist, told a Thiel biographer: “Peter’s idea of disrupting government is out there.” -  Andrew Gumbel, Peter Thiel’s midterm bet: the billionaire seeking to disrupt America’s democracy, Guardian 
  • Robert Reich (@RBReich): Peter Thiel has poured nearly $30M into the midterms — backing his personal protégés JD Vance and Blake Masters. Nike co-founder Phil Knight is throwing millions into Oregon's governor race — siphoning votes from Democrats. Billionaires are shaping our elections to their whims.
  • Citizens for Ethics (@CREWcrew): These are the top 5 corporate contributors to election deniers running for federal and state offices:
    1. Koch Industries, $629,000
    2. AT&T, $619,500
    3. Home Depot, $544,500
    4. UPS, $441,100
    5. Boeing, $427,500

In the Palace of Mirrors ...
  • Greg Pinelo (@gregpinelo): There's something sinister about all these stories of Republicans gaining momentum. Every time voters have actually gone to the polls since the Roe decision, Democrats have out-performed. Early vote numbers, which typically favor Dems, are breaking records...
    If Democrats prevail in midterms, then "GOP surging" stories are going to fuel election denialism. "What happened? We were winning, look at all these polls and stories! Democrats stole it!" Republicans will throw gas on the fire for 2022. Media is killing democracy for clicks.
    Every pollster is sampling conservatively. There is no historical norm for an election held on the heels of half the electorate being relegated to second-class citizenship. No one knows what turnout of women will look like. All I know is Kansas.
    This election is no longer about persuasion. It's about the composition of the electorate. If there is a Kansas effect (doesn't have to be as huge), Dems will shock the world. If turnout of women is within historical norms and white women vote GOP at typical rates, we lose.
  • Matthew Dowd (@matthewjdowd): Too many in the news media and pundits/analysts jumped on growing gop support way too quickly as I have said. Three new national polls out in last 24 hours show Dem generic ballot lead at 4 points. [Tweeted 10/26/22]
MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell explains why the “painful to watch” reaction to
 Pennsylvania’s Senate debate between John Fetterman and Mehmet Oz ignores
 the history of illness & disability in the Senate and White House.



Do You Really Understand What Will Happen IF ...
  • Tomthunkit™ (@TomthunkitsMind): Republicans’ newly-introduced national abortion ban would put doctors in prison for up to 5 years, force women to undergo extremely invasive transvaginal ultrasounds, and keep in place statewide bans that force rape victims to give birth. Mark Joseph Stern, "The Perverse, Potentially Lethal Consequences of Lindsey Graham’s Federal Abortion Ban" Slate, 9/14/22
  • Khashoggi’s Ghost (@UROCKlive1): Dems need one ad playing over and over on a loop, and I haven't seen it yet. Kevin McCarthy saying they're going to shut down the government and put us in default to blackmail us into ending or cutting Social Security and Medicare. This is their goal and these are their tactics.
  • Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1): Rep. Liz Cheney: "It's really disgraceful that Minority Leader McCarthy suggested that if the Republicans get the majority back, we will not continue to provide support for the Ukrainians. What's happening in Ukraine today shows that democracy must be better armed than tyranny."
  • Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski): Marge: “We are going to be leading a revolution in Congress. Biden and his family will be a top target. So will the CDC, FBI, DOJ, DOE, Homeland Security, and many other govt entities that have abused power.”
  • “The notion that now Kevin McCarthy is going to make himself the leader of the pro-Putin wing of my party is just a stunning thing,” Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) told NBC News on Sunday. This was a provocative way of reminding the country about the House minority leader’s recent declaration that a GOP-controlled House might seek to roll back U.S. military funding for Ukraine’s war effort ... Greg Sargent: The guy likely to become House speaker is openly declaring that Republicans might not continue U.S. military aid to Ukraine. A number of House GOP and Senate candidates are also hostile to such aid. How seriously do you take this threat? Timothy Snyder: I take it very seriously, because democracy around the world depends on Ukrainians winning this war. I also find it puzzling, because the Ukrainians are doing more for declared bipartisan American national security interests than any American foreign policy has done for decades. By pinning down the Russian army and substantially weakening it, they are weakening China’s cat’s paw, which is Russia. By showing how difficult it is to carry out this kind of invasion, Ukraine is making the scenario for war with China — a Chinese invasion of Taiwan — much less likely. - Greg Sargent, Why Putin hopes for a GOP victory, as explained by a top Russia expert, Washington Post

ESPIONAGE & SEDITION
  • A Trump employee has told federal agents about moving boxes of documents at Mar-a-Lago at the specific direction of the former president, according to people familiar with the investigation, who say the witness account — combined with security-camera footage — offers key evidence of Donald Trump’s behavior as investigators sought the return of classified material. The witness description and footage described to The Washington Post offer the most direct account to date of Trump’s actions and instructions leading up to the FBI’s Aug. 8 search of the Florida residence and private club, in which agents were looking for evidence of potential crimes including obstruction, destruction of government records or mishandling classified information. The people familiar with the investigation said agents have gathered witness accounts indicating that, after Trump advisers received a subpoena in May for any classified documents that remained at Mar-a-Lago, Trump told people to move boxes to his residence at the property. That description of events was corroborated by the security-camera footage, which showed people moving the boxes, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation ... - Devlin Barrett, Josh Dawsey, Trump worker told FBI about moving Mar-a-Lago boxes on ex-president’s orders, Washington Post
  • Carter ruled that Trump purposefully lied about several facts in the Dec. 2020 lawsuit in Georgia, despite being warned by John Eastman not to go that route. "On December 4, 2021, President Trump and his attorneys alleged in a Georgia state court action that Fulton County improperly counted a number of votes including 10,315 deceased people, 2,560 felons, and 2,423 unregistered voters," said the Court. "President Trump and his attorneys then decided to contest the state court proceeding in federal court and discussed incorporating by referencing the voter fraud numbers alleged in the state petition. On December 30, 2020, Dr. Eastman relayed 'concerns' from President Trump's team 'about including specific numbers in the paragraph dealing with felons, deceased moved, etc.' The attorneys continued to discuss the President's resistance to signing 'when specific numbers were included.'" According to the decision, the following day, Eastman said: "Although the President signed a verification for [the state court filing] back on Dec. 1, he has since been made aware that some of the allegations (and evidence proffered by the experts) and has been inaccurate. For him to sign a new verification with that knowledge (and incorporation by reference) would not be accurate." The emails “show that President Trump knew that the specific numbers of voter fraud were wrong but continued to tout those numbers, both in court and to the public,” Carter wrote. - Sarah K. Burris, Judge: Trump signed court documents he knew were false, Raw Story


Dark Brandon & the Democrats Deliver, They Could Do So Much More, IF ...

  • Speaking to Politico, [White House Chief of Staff] Klain said: “The president has delivered the largest economic recovery plan since Roosevelt, the largest infrastructure plan since [Dwight D] Eisenhower, the most judges confirmed since Kennedy, the second-largest healthcare bill since Johnson, and the largest climate change bill in history.” - Guardian, 8/19/22
  • The White House (@WhiteHouse): Thanks to President Biden’s economic plan, 17 states have unemployment rates below 3%. And, 11 states are at their lowest unemployment rates on record.
  • The White House (@WhiteHouse): Yesterday [10//21/22], President Biden announced that the deficit fell by $1.4 trillion this year. This is the largest one-year drop in American history.
Dark Brandon standing in the breach, on the issue of women's reproductive rights: 
  • "One of the most extraordinary parts of that decision [Dobbs] was when the majority wrote, 'women are not without electoral or political power.' Let me tell you something - the court & extreme Republicans who have spent decades trying to overturn Roe are about to find out"
  • "[McCarthy] wants the US Congress to pass a law that would ban abortion nationwide... if Republicans get their way with a national ban, it won't matter where you live in America. So let me be very clear-- if such a bill were to pass in the next several years, I will veto it"
  • 'Today in America, there are women who have been turned away from emergency rooms while having miscarriages … and told they need to wait until they’re sicker before they get the care they need"
  • CAP Action (@CAPAction): The extreme right-wing Supreme Court Justices practically dare women to make their voices heard. "They ain't seen nothing yet."



ROEVEMBER!
  • Mark Jacob (@MarkJacob16): Dear women in Republican families, You don’t have to tell anyone how you vote. It’s a secret ballot. So you can stand up for your rights as a human being and vote against anti-choice Republicans without having to fight with any relatives. Thanks for considering, Mark
  • Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren): Right-wing extremists schemed for decades to overturn Roe v. Wade and turn women into second-class citizens. But we can restore abortion rights nationwide with a Democratic House and two more Democratic senators. If we fight together, we can win together.
  • Kathy Hochul (@KathyHochul): Your access to an abortion shouldn't depend on who your governor is. But let me be clear: under my watch, your fundamental rights will always be protected in New York.
  • Vice President Kamala Harris (@VP): There’s a clear difference in approach when it comes to women’s health care: Our Administration wants to pass a national law protecting abortion. Republicans in Congress are proposing a national abortion ban that will criminalize doctors for providing health care.
  • Gretchen Whitmer (@gretchenwhitmer): Because of my lawsuit, abortion is legal in Michigan — and I will keep fighting like hell to make sure Michigan women are protected. Tudor Dixon pledged to enforce Michigan’s dangerous 1931 abortion ban — which would criminalize doctors and nurses.
  • Josh Shapiro (@JoshShapiroPA): Doug Mastriano has made clear: the single most important issue of his campaign is banning abortion outright — with absolutely no exceptions. He’s not focused on our economy, workforce, or defending our freedoms. He's only focused on forcing his extremist agenda on Pennsylvania.
  • Katie Hobbs (@katiehobbs): I can’t imagine if my doctors’ medical decisions about my health care after my miscarriage could result in their imprisonment. We can’t let Kari Lake’s unhinged stances on abortion rights be anyone’s reality in Arizona.
Electing state Attorney Generals who will fiercely defend women's reproductive rights is also vital.

Here is an excerpt from Teen Vogue's compelling interview with New York State AG Tish James:
  • Teen Vogue: The midterms are coming up in a few weeks. By all accounts, there are going to be many close races. What role do you think the overturning of Roe and the desire to protect abortion access is going to play in how people vote?
    Tish James: We are seeing more and more young people, young individuals, as well as women register to vote, and I think, obviously, they're going to be voting on one single issue and that is reproductive rights. I think it's an issue that has galvanized particularly women in the suburbs, and young people all across this nation who care about fundamental freedom and the rights and reproductive rights of all individuals. I think that Democrats were concerned in the past about losing both houses in Congress and other close races, and now our fortunes have changed somewhat.
    TV: Absolutely. In many states, attorneys general have taken center stage since Roe was overturned, with AG's in states like Ohio, Indiana, and Texas becoming involved in denying abortion access. What is it like for you to see your peers use their power in that way?
    TJ: The attorneys general, as you know, have defended democracy in the past, and have continued to stand up to those forces that seek to turn back the clock of progress. We will continue to defend the rights of women and other vulnerable and marginalized populations. We've done it before, we'll continue to do it — which is why attorney general races are so critically important, particularly in light of the fact that we may have a divided federal government. It'll be up to the states, and that's why we need to elect more Democratic attorneys general. So I urge all of your readers to pay special attention to the reelection of Dana Nessel in Michigan, Josh Kaul in Wisconsin, Aaron Ford in Nevada, and Keith Ellison in Minnesota. And I would hope that we could change Georgia from red to blue — or, I should say, light red to light blue — by electing Jen Jordan there, and then also Rochelle Garza in Texas. I hope that we will elect the first African American woman attorney general in Massachusetts by voting for Andrea Campbell.
NEW MAGA Republican Law DEVASTATING CONSEQUENCES Revealed in POWERFUL Stories


A Survey of Critical Races

In each update, my "Survey of Critical Races" has focused on races for Senator and Governor, but of course, there are dangers all down the ballet. It is imperative to vote the straight Democratic ticket (unless you're in Utah) up and down the ballot.

Consider this - 

  • Duty To Warn (@duty2warn): Trump has normalized coups. The GOP boast that if their secretaries of state are elected they’ll make sure Republicans win. They’re running for election on the platform that they will corrupt elections and overthrow democracy. 

‘A Five-alarm Fire’: Michigan’s Jocelyn Benson On Election Deniers Running For Secy. Of State
Nearly half of the nominees for Secretary of State nationwide believe in the Big Lie, according to the report “Replacing The Refs.” Michigan Secy. of State Jocelyn Benson discusses her election denier opponent and how she plans to defend voters from far-right harassment. 

Michigan
  • Gov. Whitmer on Tudor Dixon: “She refuses to accept the outcome of the last election. She has not yet said she will accept the outcome of the next election."
  • Gretchen Whitmer (@gretchenwhitmer): Throughout the pandemic, Tudor Dixon spread dangerous misinformation and conspiracies about the life-saving COVID-19 vaccine — even claiming they would lead to implanted microchips. We cannot put Michiganders' health and safety into the hands of someone this dangerous. #MIgov
  • Three men accused of supporting terrorism in the plot to kidnap Michigan’s governor were convicted of all charges Wednesday in a trial that focused on paramilitary drills and fierce contempt for government ahead of the 2020 election. Joe Morrison, his father-in-law Pete Musico, and Paul Bellar were found guilty of supplying “material support” for a terrorist act as members of a group known as the Wolverine Watchmen. They held gun training in rural Jackson County with a leader of the kidnapping scheme, Adam Fox, who was disgusted with Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and other officials and said he wanted to snatch her. The trial in state court was an offshoot of the main case in federal court, which produced mixed results: Fox and an ally were convicted of conspiracy, two more men pleaded guilty but two others were acquitted. Jurors in Jackson, Michigan, read and heard violent, anti-government screeds as well as support for the “boogaloo,” a civil war that might be triggered by a shocking abduction. Prosecutors said COVID-19 restrictions ordered by Whitmer turned out to be fruit to recruit more people to the Watchmen. - Associated Press, 3 men convicted of supporting plot to kidnap Gov. Whitmer

Pennsylvania
  • Sawyer Hackett (@SawyerHackett): Dr. Oz: -kills 300+ puppies -mocks stroke victims -makes millions selling bogus products -gives speech in front of Hitler’s car -admits to tasting his own urine Political media: “Fetterman needs to prove in tonight’s debate that he’s fit for office.”
  • Laura Bassett (@LEBassett): Everybody tweeting about the Oz / Fetterman debate like we're talking about two similarly legitimate candidates. Is everyone insane? Fetterman has been working (successfully) in public service in Pennsylvania for a decade. Oz is a quack TV doctor!
  • The Recount (@therecount): “I would support Donald Trump if he decided to run for president.” — Dr. Oz (R) commits in #PASenateDebate to supporting a potential Donald Trump 2024 run, adding that he hasn’t followed Trump’s legal woes very carefully
    • Max Boot (@MaxBoot): Given that Trump fomented an insurrection against our government, this should be disqualifying for any political candidate.


Wisconsin

    Jo (@JoJoFromJerz): Wow — this is huge… Mike Holmgren, one of the greatest coaches in football history (who’s also a Wisconsinite) just came out in support of Mandela Barnes! He’s also hosting a major online event this weekend. This is awesome! Please share this far & wide.
    • "I’m Mike Holmgren, former coach for the Green and Gold. Wisconsin is a special place and the folks here deserve a similarly exceptional senator.  Someone like Mandela Barnes, who is committed to defending democracy, voting rights and the integrity of our elections. Ron Johnson, on the other hand, was actively engaged in the insurrection. He lied about his involvement in January 6th and won’t commit to upholding the results of the 2022 election of any election after that. If you’re running for office, you have to be honest. If we don’t agree on anything, we have to agree on that. Ron Johnson lied about the 2020 election. He lied about Joe role in the insurrection. And he won’t commit to upholding the truth in future elections. So, Wisconsin, I’m urging you, get rid of the liar Ron Johnson and elect Mandela Barnes this fall."
  • Tony Evers (@Tony4WI): My opponent is dangerous. Tim Michels wants to criminalize abortion and has a long history of standing against exceptions for rape or incest—even saying it’s “not unreasonable” to force rape victims to give birth. He is too radical for Wisconsin and must be defeated in November.

Ohio 

  • Tristan Snell (@TristanSnell): JD Vance: “I gotta be honest with you, I don't really care what happens to Ukraine one way or the other." We don’t need any more Putin stooges in the Senate. Ohio deserves a Senator who supports freedom and democracy.
  • Republicans against Trumpism (@RpsAgainstTrump): The Washington Post reports that the large Ukrainian-American community in OH, traditionally Republican-leaning voters, are backing Tim Ryan for Senate due to JD Vance’s pro-Putin stances. #RepublicansForTimRyan #OHSen


Georgia

  • Mark Jacob (@MarkJacob16): Herschel Walker is a mentally unstable liar who thinks a mysterious mist kills Covid, who hid the existence of 3 of his children, who pretends to be a cop, and who has threatened to shoot multiple women in the head. Republicans think he’s a fine representative of their values.
  • A second woman has come forward to say Herschel Walker urged her to abort their child, claiming that the football star turned GOP Senate candidate personally drove her to a clinic in the 1990s to have an abortion against her wishes. The woman, identifying herself as “Jane Doe,” said that after she first went to an abortion clinic in Dallas, Texas, she left in tears because she was unable to move forward with the procedure. But, according to the woman, Walker was unmoved. He drove the woman back to the clinic and pressured her to get the abortion. She had the procedure while he sat in the parking lot. He then drove her to a pharmacy to get the medication prescribed afterwards. - Roger Sollenbergerm, New Woman Alleges Herschel Walker Urged Her to Have Abortion, Daily Beast via Yahoo News 
  • Steven Greenhouse (@greenhousenyt): VOTER SUPPRESSION > Jennifer Jones, a Morehouse School of Medicine student, went to vote, excited to cast her ballot for Stacey Abrams & Raphael Warnock. But she was informed she couldn't cast a regular ballot because right-wing folks were challenging her Early voters in Georgia face obstacles under state’s new election law
    • Dr. Joanne Freeman (@jbf1755): Folks -- if someone tries to prevent you from voting and you're qualified to vote, ask questions and seek guidance (as the woman in this story did). Don't surrender your vote!
    • Joy-Ann Reid (@JoyAnnReid): This is how MAGA fascism works. Pay attention because it only gets worse. The end goal is to make elections inaccessible for the out-groups and therefore meaningless, because The Party decides who can vote, counts the votes and always wins, so they remain in permanent control.

Arizona

  • Laurence Tribe (@tribelaw): Kari Lake is “Donald Trump in lipstick. But she delivers her divisiveness in the calm and measured tones of a person reading the news rather than a man who froths at the mic.” Lake is extremely dangerous to democracy — and a decent future for America.
  • ABC News reporter Jonathan Karl fact-checked Kari Lake, the Republican gubernatorial nominee in Arizona, on her false claims about the 2020 election.Lake, a former reporter for Fox’s KSAZ-TV, has repeatedly made voter fraud claims in line with former President Donald Trump and has referred to the 2020 election as stolen and corrupt. Lake refused to answer CNN’s Dana Bash last week about whether she’d accept an election loss in November. On Sunday, she told Karl that she’d accept the election results if the election was “fair, honest and transparent.” Lake recently claimed that Arizona’s Maricopa County had accepted 2,000 mail-in ballots after Election Day in 2020. Election officials in the county said that wasn’t true. In his report, Karl noted that a county investigation had determined that there were only “100 potentially questionable ballots cast out of 2.1 million, hardly enough to change the results.” Karl also pushed for an answer from Lake on her claim that 740,000 ballots in the county had no chain of custody. ″[You said] those ballots shouldn’t have been counted. Are you really saying you would throw out the ballots of 740,000, that’s nearly three-quarter of a million Arizonans? I mean, those were ballots...” Karl asked before Lake interjected. “740,000 ballots violated chain of custody requirements in Maricopa County,” Lake replied. Karl said her claim was not true. “I mean the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors put out a 98-page report that went through these allegations,” Karl said. “OK, that is a fact. That is a fact. Check yourfacts,” Lake said. - Ben Blanchett, "Kari Lake Doubles Down On False 2020 Election Claims, Calls Them 'Facts'" Huffington Post

Texas

  • Rochelle Garza (@RochelleMGarza): Last night, two men under FBI investigation campaigned in Texas, telling the crowd how scared they are that I’m days away from being elected the next AG. When I’m AG this office returns to the people of Texas and Paxton will finally have to answer for his crimes. He’s terrified.
  • The Houston Chronicle's editorial board called Beto O'Rourke "one of the most impressive candidates" they had ever seen. After a long history of endorsing Republican candidates, the Houston Chronicle is shifting gears to throw its support behind Rep. Beto O’Rourke, the Democrat challenging GOP Sen. Ted Cruz in the midterm elections. “With eyes clear but certainly not starry, we enthusiastically endorse Beto O’Rourke for U.S. Senate,” the paper’s editorial board wrote on Friday. “The West Texas congressman’s command of issues that matter to this state, his unaffected eloquence and his eagerness to reach out to all Texans make him one of the most impressive candidates this editorial board has encountered in many years.” The Chronicle noted that O’Rourke faces difficult odds. The last time Texas elected a Democrat to the Senate was in 1988. But the race has been closer than expected for red Texas. Polling in the months leading up to the November election has shown O’Rourke and Cruz virtually neck-and-neck. O’Rourke’s campaign has raised more than $38 million, triple what Cruz’s team has collected. - Antonia Blumberg, "Houston Chronicle Endorses Beto O'Rourke For U.S. Senate" Huffington Post

Florida




Grimly Confident
  • Mueller, She Wrote (@MuellerSheWrote), 9/4/22: Here’s the really hard math for you MAGAs. There are about 240M eligible voters in the US. 71M voted for Donald. That’s about 29%. “Half” would be 50%. 29 does not equal 50. I hope that clears it up for you. I know numbers can be scary.
  • Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1): Harvard Youth poll: 40% of 18-to-29-year-olds will "definitely" vote in the midterms — that's on track to match or potentially exceed the record-breaking 2018 youth turnout in a midterm. Young voters prefer Democratic control of Congress 57% to 31%.
"The country is split down the middle.' No, it isn't. 

The country is split. Yes. But it's split 70% to 30%, and we're the 70%. 

That's what Lando was telling Poe at the dire moment in The Rise of Skywalker: 


But you have to vote, and you have to vote Democratic, and you have to vote all the way up and down the ballot, you have to vote for the election officials and the school board, you have to vote, you have get your friends and family to vote, you have to pull some people out of their dream states, out of their fantasies, and you have to pull other people out of their misguided sense of ideological purity, you've got to get people to vote. Because in their common sense, in their hearts, most people, the vast majority of Americans, are for abortion rights, they're for gun control, they're for climate change action, they're for protecting the sanctity of the vote, they're for the rule of law. These are not things that the majority of Americans are divided over. But as I talked about in the first presentation, the country in its inception was hard-wired to protect minority rule, and they've done everything they can, and they are getting more and more desperate (the oligarchs, the patriarchy, the guardians of white privilege) as the demographics shift continues in the body politic, because they can't win real elections anymore, so now they just want to throw away the elections completely, they want to say the state legislatures can throw away the ballots and declare a winner for their state. (And they control many of those state legislatures, even in blue and purple states, because of gerrymandering and dark money.) This has to end here and now.

I know many of you have been told most of your life that 'this is the most important election you'll ever vote in,' and I know many of you are tired of hearing it. Well, you know every time you were told that it was true, it wasn't hyperbole. We don't keep saying it over and over again, because it doesn't get done, we have said it over and over again because it's a long arc. That's what the Doctor said, that's what Dr. King meant. It wasn't a rhetorical flourish, it was a fact, and a prophecy, 'the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice.' This is what he meant. We are on that arc, living and struggling on that arc, we are leaning forward on that arc. This is what he meant, that you would be here many times in your life, 'this is the most important election of your life.' The arc of the moral universe is LONG, but it bends towards justice, it curves towards justice. With each election victory, the arc accelerates. We can do this, if we get through 2022 and 2024, we will have broken the back of fascism, we will have broken the fever, we will have routed the orcs.

-- Richard Power, Yoga & Meditation Teacher, Writer, Speaker, Global Intelligence & Security Expert. "Secret Engine of the World: Further Insights into Primal Reality, Gaian Politics & the Arc of Human Evolution" (2021) is available from Amazon.com

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[All images are sourced and published as Fair Use.]


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