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Towards a Transcendental Understanding of the "Political Spectrum"
Towards a Transcendental Understanding
of the "Political Spectrum"
The Mobius / Continuum Model of the Spectrum
This is an old diagram/schema that I cooked up in the 1990's. I find it a bit dated now and, admittedly, there are flaws with it. Anyone might quibble about the degrees to the "left" or "right" where I chose to position the various political factions... But the stations of the various factions on the Mobius-Loop do not really matter.
The Important thing is to Visualize the whole diagram
as a two-dimensional map of a four-dimensional field.
The general Idea is still valid: the Power Elite - which I jokingly referred to as the “I.B.I.W.” {the ruling class Union} - are Above it all, and the Masses have been compartmentalized into political factions, on the ground, the better to be managed. (Divided & Ruled)
Also, still valid is that, as the French say,
"les extrèmes se touchent." {the ends touch}
You will notice, when you examine the figure, that the power elite are not represented as either “Left or Right” in the Mobius-Continuum Model of the Political Spectrum. That's because They {"THEM, Inc.”) are above the whole shooting match. It is their plaything – which they have devised as political entertainment and a diversion (a sort of bread & circuses) for the masses. Think of it as the roller coaster at Coney Island, or Playland at the Beach.
Intruding into the necessary revision of the schema that I described in this mid-nineties map, would be the inclusion of the George Soros funded "Left" of the present. -Which include groups as diverse as the street rowdies known as "Antifa" - as well as the likes of Hillary Clinton. All of these factions - including all of the gender/political "factions" that were generated out of the I.P.S. {Institute for Policy Studies} networks in the late 60's - have next to nothing in common with what was formerly known as the "Old Left." In truth, they are the inauthentic pseudomorph of the former "Left" - the one that existed in the days of my socialist grandmother from Flatbush.
The “Spotlighters” {the former “Liberty Lobby / “Populist Party" of the late Willis Carto) and the “John Birch Society” are pretty much moribund these days. The Birchers were the tailings of Joe McCarthy's movement and they have just about all died off, by now. The void left by the near demise of these factions has essentially been filled by the Tea Party Movement of the 2000’s, & the current “Alt-Right” that Steve Bannon instructed Donald Trump to woo.
The main thing I would encourage everyone to begin to do, is to not identify oneself with any of the factions on the Mobius-Wheel – especially the Democrat & Republican parties. As Hegel wrote, “Truth transcends party politics.” All of the factions have a certain legitimate {albeit limited} logic of their own; their own particular & peculiar “truths.”
Transcend the mobius-wheel, and reach for the Overview. Cast a cold eye on this whole system of control & manipulation, and in this one thing be like the Power Elite: Be Above it All. You need not roost with them, in their penthouses in New York City, but please, do learn to be similarly objective, and non-partisan. Read everything, but keep your own counsel and form your own opinions.
The Bottom Line is this: the main dynamic is not “left versus right” but “them versus us.” – “THEM, Inc.” being, in this case, the Power Elite, who are pro-actively waging War on the rest of us. The one truth you can take home with you, is that the Class War is real, and that all notions of the “Spectrum” {whether you visualize it as a line-segment, or a square box} are a diversion; a dog-and-pony show.
Here is the link to my old article, from 1995.
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Re: Towards a Transcendental Understanding of the "Political Spectrum"
The Problem With The Two-Dimensional Model
In January of 2017, “SonomaPatientsCoop” aka, David Green, initiated a new thread, "Where on the political spectrum are you?" & posted the following:
“ I found this many years ago- and think it is as failed as any attempt to put any ideas into a neat little box. Yet it is very interesting, and you may learn something about yourself.
Personally I tend to view things more as circles, or a sphere of circles, rather then this grid, or our normal right to left line. With those on the far right and far left often agreeing on many issues. Likewise the center intersects.
Anyway- take the test. https://www.politicalcompass.org/test
Caveat- there is little information of who is behind this. According to the NYT and other sources it is the work of a political journalist and a very left leaning organization. So take it with a very large grain of salt. ”
***
As a conversation it ran for a few miles & then died a natural death. In early March of 2019 I discovered that thread and resurrected it briefly.
I think that this issue is very important, and that it bears considerably more scrutiny. In fact, we all really need to examine ourselves – not as to “where on the political spectrum” we, personally, “are” – but why we accept the constraints of these one & two-dimensional frameworks.
Admittedly, the “Political Compass” model of the “political spectrum” is a somewhat more sophisticated model than the common, one-dimensional, “Left / Right” paradigm that most Amerikan - & British – sheeple are instructed & taught to accept as their own, personal socio-political reality.
But it is only ‘more sophisticated’ by the addition of one more dimension - making it a two-dimensional model. And, if you “take the test” what do you get in the exchange? A dot on a square graph; a mere point on a hypothetical plane that is not an accurate “graph” of Reality.
Now a ”point” I would remind you all, [Geometry Review, 1A ] is not even a one-dimensional geometric entity. It is - by definition - “dimensionless.” So, my Question to Y’all is “Why exchange your birthright as a child of God – and hence, a potentially Infinite being, after the Image of your Creator - for a silly (dimensionless) dot on a graph?"
As I wrote in my final comment on that thread {there were no takers) :
“In my opinion, the Question at the top of this thread is a conceptual trap. It was not intended as such; yet it is. Don't position yourself, or tag yourself inside any quarter of that box! Instead, learn to think outside the box !”
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Re: Towards a Transcendental Understanding of the "Political Spectrum"
Escape from Flatland !!
In 1884, Edwin A. Abbott, an English schoolmaster, Anglican priest & mathematician, published the book, Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions. “…A satirical novella written pseudonymously by "A Square",the book used the fictional two-dimensional world of Flatland to comment on the hierarchy of Victorian culture, but the novella's more enduring contribution is its examination of dimensions. (wikipedia)
I learned about the book back in the early ‘Sixties, when there was a bookstore on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley (my home-town) that specialized in Dover Publications & I saw the book on the shelf. Although I have been aware of the book for the better part of sixty years, I have never read it from cover to cover. Here is a free pdf of the book, “Flatland”
Although Edwin Abbott was offering a sly social critique of Victorian Society, curiously, in the World as it has devolved since the time of Queen Victoria, the benighted, brutish and short-lived masses have been dumbed down to the point that they are actually living in an attenuated political consciousness that resembles the consciousness of the two-dimensional denizens of Flatland.
One might even wonder if this condition were reverse engineered by late nineteenth century British social planners as a deliberate scheme for the Future – after they read “Flatland.” This is simply a surmise and an educated guess. One thing is fairly certain: It was in the 1890’s - after the publication of Flatland - that the political scientists began to employ the one-dimensional terms “left” and “right” - which derive from the seating positions of the factions in the French Convention in the 1790’s - to politics in general.
The problem with the “Political Compass” species of ‘Spectrum Analysis’ is that, after having taken “the test” it lands one smack dab in the middle of Flatland – up the creek & without a paddle. Although it purports to offer one more dimension to the “map” it ends up rendering the ‘tested’ down to the level of a dot on a graph = a point – which is not even a one-dimensional figure. Surely there is a more accurate way to map the political spectrum than the Square, Libertarian Model: https://www.politicalcompass.org/analysis2
Re: Towards a Transcendental Understanding of the "Political Spectrum"
Granted, there are many in America who are a-political, and into other things - like Art, Music, Health or Sports. More power to them. -Nevertheless- Here are two diagrams of how the System (the Amerikan “political spectrum”) integrates into the Brains of two basic types of Amerikans.
The figure on the left is the mind of the sort of conformist “Amerikan” who votes Democrat or Republican - and accepts the status quo. This type of Amerikan - either through family tradition or choice - or lack of imagination, or avarice, or opportunism, accepts the terms of the Duopoly in which we live.
The figure on the right is the mind of the Amerikan dissident – of whatever stripe – who knows that the System is rigged, and yet vainly strives against the System by choosing some alternate ‘party’ to belong to. They get to “pick their poison.” But, Alas. -All of the radical alternatives - of both the “left” and “right” varieties are also subsidized by the Tax Exempt Foundations run by the members of the Men’s Club in Mid-town Manhattan who also select the "presidents."
What this one ( i ) is / am advocating is to be informed by all of the information coming from all points of "the spectrum" - yet not be a party to any of it. That’s right. Because, as the bible says, the whole world lies in wickedness. Transcend the whole bloody shooting match and observe it, *from above. Thus, one may be a Radical - cleaving to the Root (Jesus) and a transcendentalist.
I find the third chapter of St. Paul’s Epistle to the Colossians to be of great help in this regard. It supplies a window to the overview. –As does the following little logion left us by the Apostle who heard from the Lord on the Isle of Patmos: https://biblehub.com/interlinear/revelation/3-21.htm
Re: Towards a Transcendental Understanding of the "Political Spectrum"
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Mayacaman:
The only gospel I trust is the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, the only gospel written by someone who actually knew Jesus. Magdalene knew Jesus well because she was married to him and had his baby. She moved to the south of France where she established the Church of the Black Madonna.
Star Man
Re: Towards a Transcendental Understanding of the "Political Spectrum"
https://waccobb.net/forums/images/misc/quote_icon.png Mayacaman wrote: https://www.waccobb.net/forums/image...post-right.png
I find the third chapter of St. Paul’s Epistle to the Colossians to be of great help in this regard. It supplies a window to the overview. –As does the following little logion left us by the Apostle who heard from the Lord on the Isle of Patmos: https://biblehub.com/interlinear/revelation/3-21.htm
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Star Man:
The only gospel I trust is the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, the only gospel written by someone who actually knew Jesus. Magdalene knew Jesus well because she was married to him and had his baby. She moved to the south of France where she established the Church of the Black Madonna.
Star Man
Star Man, I shall initiate a thread where we may discuss this matter of "religion" aka, "spirituality" more fully. -Meanwhile, If you have any thoughts on the political nature of my screeds (Above) please feel free to make comments. The four essays at the top of this thread are now complete.
My reference to the third chapter of the Epistle to the Colossians and to Revelation 3:21 was simply to inform the readers that a means exists to transcend the earthly-bound realm quite quickly. It is just like mounting on board a rocket and going up. -Because Yahshua Ha' Messiach, aka, "Jesus Christ" really did ascend into heaven and also literally sat down at the Right hand of the Throne on high, and we may follow suit, and ascend "with Him."
The Bible says so. There is a throne on high. I have seen it in my flesh, and I was also privileged to see the Right hand of Him Who sits there, and to see His Son, Yahshua, our Savior, who lives, ever to make intercession for us.
Nevertheless, this thread is not intended to be about "religion or spirituality" - or whatever one may chose to call it. This thread was intended to present another model of the "political spectrum" to those who are "lost in space" - and stuck in "Flatland" - in the one and two-dimensional models of the "political spectrum" that the social engineers have devised, the better to confuse & befuddle the Masses.
Re: Towards a Transcendental Understanding of the "Political Spectrum"
The only gospel I trust is my own experience. Was mary a virgin when she birthed Jesus? Cum again? Was jesus a lover of Mary? Of course! What's more interesting is your self definition of trust. I hold trust conjoined with acceptance. We can only trust what we know, and accept.
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Star Man:
The only gospel I trust is the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, the only gospel written by someone who actually knew Jesus. Magdalene knew Jesus well because she was married to him and had his baby. She moved to the south of France where she established the Church of the Black Madonna.
Star Man
Re: Towards a Transcendental Understanding of the "Political Spectrum"
Interesting connections between The Gospel of Mary Magdalene, The Cathars, Eleanor of Aquitaine, and the Albigensian Crusade's attempt to wipe out this challenge to the last vestige of the Roman Empire.
I often wonder why the vitriol towards a doctrine that would produce such outcomes and what life would be if it were these values that were heralded as Christian behavior.
Excerpt from Anne Barings website on Eleanor of Aquitaine and the Courts of Love
"The Courts of Love were established in the twelfth century by Eleanor of Aquitaine and her daughter, Marie in different towns in France. But they were particularly famous in the Languedoc where Eleanor was a daughter of Duke William of Aquitaine, himself a renowned troubadour. When she was married to the king of France, Eleanor established their Court at Poitiers. These Courts gave women a social position and a role apart from that of wife and mother. Here women were queens presiding over Courts where philosophy, poetry and literature could flourish; where the relationship between man and woman, and between man, woman and God could be explored in a context that celebrated life and the aspirations of both genders. Husbands who listened to troubadours singing the praises of the beauty and intelligence of their wives began to look at them with new eyes and pay more attention to their own appearance and their manners. The code of courtly values that grew up here is summed up in the words Pretz et Paradge which can be translated as high ideals, the courage to honour and serve them, a gracious presence and impeccable courtesy, particularly towards women, as well as the ability to compose poetry and play an instrument.
note: It was Eleanor of Aquitaine who introduced the Grail legends into her court at Poitiers and later, in England when she married Henry 11. She may have commisioned Chrétien de Troyes to write the story of Parsifal. (source: Laurence Gardner, The Legacy of Mary Magdalene and The Grail Enigma)
Until these Courts appeared to offer a different view of her, woman was presented to society by the Catholic Church as a lewd, wicked, treacherous creature, fatally flawed by the sin of Eve, whose destiny was to be ruled by her husband and to serve him in the same way and on a similar contractual basis, as the medieval vassal served his overlord. Following the instructions of St. Paul, she was to keep silent. How different is the image of woman seen through the eyes of the troubadours and indeed, the Grail legends, where the Feminine Archetype is portrayed as the actual goal of the Quest, as well as the guiding spirit of it. What a contrast there is between woman as a chattel to be disposed of by her husband, or woman as temptress and sinner, and woman as the inspiration of a renaissance of spiritual devotion and the celebration of art, poetry and beauty and the ecstatic enjoyment of life. The troubadours freed sexuality and eroticism from guilt and freed both man and woman to follow a spiritual path without renouncing the body or the enjoyment of life and human relationships.
https://www.medievalists.net/2017/11...eval-doctrine/
https://www.ancient.eu/Albigensian_Crusade/
https://www.annebaring.com/anbar54_grail.html#grail_4
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleanor_of_Aquitaine
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Star Man:
The only gospel I trust is the , the only gospel written by someone who actually knew Jesus. Magdalene knew Jesus well because she was married to him and had his baby. She moved to the south of France where she established the Church of the Black Madonna.
Star Man
Re: Towards a Transcendental Understanding of the "Political Spectrum"
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Thad:
Interesting connections between The Gospel of Mary Magdalene, The Cathars, Eleanor of Aquitaine, and the Albigensian Crusade's attempt to wipe out this challenge to the last vestige of the Roman Empire.
I often wonder why the vitriol towards a doctrine that would produce such outcomes and what life would be if it were these values that were heralded as Christian behavior...
Thad,
Could you do me one kind favor, and move This post, from the “ Towards a Transcendental Understanding of the "Political Spectrum"” thread over to the “What is the Nature { & Gender} of “GOD” ? “ thread ? -Because that is where it belongs. I would like to keep these two discussions separate. They are, after all, about different Subjects.
Thank you,
Mark
Re: Towards a Transcendental Understanding of the "Political Spectrum"
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Mayacaman:
Are you saying there is no effect on the Political Spectrum by the Catholic Church and its historical and present day effects on Spiritual Compliance?
Towards a Transcendental Understanding of The Political Spectrum
Transcendental
: of or relating to an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe
Re: Towards a Transcendental Understanding of the "Political Spectrum"
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Thad:
Are you saying there is no effect on the Political Spectrum by the Catholic Church and its historical and present day effects on Spiritual Compliance?
Towards a Transcendental Understanding of The Political Spectrum
Transcendental
: of or relating to an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe
No, Thad, I am not saying that at all. -And I am hardly an apologist for the Roman Catholic Church.
Nevertheless, as the initiator of this thread, I would appreciate it if the posters on this thread would stay on track and not indulge in 'liquid brain' (Buddhist concept) and wander all over the map. If you have a critique - or criticism - of my alternative model of the spectrum, this is the thread for you. Please, engage on the Subject that is encompassed in the first four posts on this thread.
And, as far as the issues you brought up (above) go, I should be glad to engage with you over there.
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Re: Towards a Transcendental Understanding of the "Political Spectrum"
Back to Square One:
Since no one has yet seen fit to engage with me about the subject-@-hand - which is the 'Transcendental Understanding of the Spectrum' - I shall continue the discourse alone. In the diagram above, we see the narrow band of the spectrum that registers in the Main Stream Media as debate that is considered "newsworthy" , "viable" =OR= "electable."
Curiously, most of the Flatlanders who take this "debate" seriously are blind to what goes on above the level of the tax exempt foundations, where the "men behind the curtain" are twirling the dials. Those who see the two major political parties as their only options are also generally loathe to "sail off the edge" of this 'table top exercise' in social control either to the "left" or the "right."
That is because they fear the consequences:
Re: Towards a Transcendental Understanding of the "Political Spectrum"
Once* Again,* From *the *Top
https://www.waccobb.net/forums/attac...8&d=1589154216
The Mobius / Continuum Model of the Spectrum
The Important thing is to Visualize the whole diagram
as a two-dimensional map of a four-dimensional field.
Let us now examine the skuzzy underside of the so-called “political spectrum” – the “fringes” & “extremes” that paradoxically meet, in the center, beneath the Table, whenever anyone sails – in either “direction” - off the edges of the accepted two-party, duopolistic, controlled dialectic.
It was in 1991, after witnessing the Anti-War Protests in San Francisco on two successive Saturdays in January (1/19/91 & 1/26/91) that I came to realize and grok the Mobius - Aspect of the dissident elements in Amerika. After the marches – which drew roughly a quarter of a million people into the streets on those two momentous & unforgettable days - All of the Radical tendencies, of the Left & the Right, were out there with the tables of their various party-lines and anti-war positions & literature and their welcome committees on the Plaza of Civic Center.
Having brought a stout backpack along with me on those two days, I loaded it up with all of the free literature. Wow ! *What a haul. But they were all there: All of the various tendencies: Democratic-Socialist, Communist, Green, Marxist-Leninist, Trotskyist, Maoist, Anarchist, Libertarian, LaRouchie, Liberty Lobby, Constitutionalist & John Birch Society folks... All of the dissident Groups were there - All of them.
The only political factions that were not there, on the field of the Civic Center Plaza on those two Saturdays were the Centrist Democrat/Republicans who approved of the War - Gulf War One. Also absent were the Republicrats who had voted in the House and Senate for War Credits to finance the bloody thing. Of course there were plenty of undercover agents circulating in the crowd.
Nevertheless, All of the Radical, below the table factions {refer to diagram} were -there on that field on those two days. All of them - all those opposed to Daddy Bush's Gulf War One. -Which, not so ironically, given the current imperious (imperialistic?) behavior of the W.H.O., was fully supported & sanctioned by the so-called "United Nations" - for the U.N. had given Bush the Green Light to go into Iraq.
I swear it was just like the old days, in the first heady weeks of the Free Speech Movement in Berkeley, when all of the various Left tendencies - as well as the Birchers, the Goldwater Republicans, and the Young Amerikans for Freedom - came out of the woodwork to table with their various species of literature, back in the Fall of 1964, in Upper Sproul Plaza.
Taking my hauls home with me from those two Saturdays, I proceeded, over the next Six weeks of Gulf War One, not only to never miss a single Anti-War Event in San Francisco, Oakland / Berkeley & Sonoma County, but also to read every inch of text in all of those anti-war missives. Eventually, I gave the whole collection to the Peace & Justice Center of Sonoma County.
So... This is what I have to Share with you all: The "skuzzy underside" {my term} of the "Political Spectrum" is, in Reality, shaped more like a Mobius Strip; a Pretzel; or the bloody Roller Coaster at Coney Island, than the common misconception of the damned thing as a line-segment: & Everyone should be seriously aware that the opinions that are posted as 'facts' at disinformation sites like "Snopes" & "Media Bias / Fact Check" come straight down the Elevator Shaft from ye olde 39th Floor of the Rockefeller Center. They don't call it "The Center" for nothing, you know.
https://www.waccobb.net/forums/attac...0&d=1589155734
[ Image taken from “Media Bias / Fact Check” ]
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-fake-news-codex/
As I read the various samples of Anti-War literature from all of the various Left & Right "tendencies" that had set up their tables on Civic Center Plaza in San Francisco on January Nineteenth and Twenty-sixth of 1991, I found that there was a marvelous Symmetry to the whole damned Arrangement. I mean to say, whoever [it might have been thought up in the think tanks] designed this damned "Spectrum" was !@#$%^&* *brilliant*!
Here: I placed the so-called "Amerikan Communist Party" which folded, shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall - and was re-constituted as the "Committees of Correspondence" - just to the so-called "Left" of the Demokrat Party, U.S.A. This was in honor or the earlier periods of United Fronts (1935-1939 & 1941-1945) when the C.P.-USA was allied with the Democrat Party - alluded to in Joe McCarthy's verbiage as "Twenty Years of Treason."
Curiously, there was a brief period in 1990 & on - into the reign of Yeltsin - during which there was another "United Front" between Russia & the United States. This Alliance, engineered by Daddy Bush, was a very necessary move on the Global Chessboard, before Bush Sr. moved the Armed Forces into Iraq.
I placed the C.P.-USA just to the left of the Democrat Party because All the factions of the Peace & Freedom Party considered the C.P. to be "right-wing dreck". I myself was a registered member of the Peace & Freedom Party up until the Monday just before the Primary in 1992, when, having been seduced by the silver-tongued verbiage of Jerry Brown {who came and made a pit-stop performance @ Old Courthouse Square, Santa Rosa} I went down to the Registrars Office and re-registered as a Democrat, just so that I could vote for Jerry in the Primary, on the next day, Tuesday.
On the Other Side of the Underside {the so-called "Right Wing"} of the so-called "Political Spectrum" I placed the (now almost moribund) yet still doddering John Birch Society. Way back in 1958, Robert Welch acquired the mailing lists and rounded up the loosely organized and bewildered collection of "conservatives" that were the tailings of Joe McCarthy's right-wing populist Movement. These became the core of the "John Birch Society". Low blow Joe had died of a combination of a broken heart, alcohol & downers in 1957.
Joe McCarthy's heart had been broken on account of him being Censured by his Colleagues in the Senate & because he was no longer the center of attention, with the slag lights of History beaming down on him. -But that's another Story, which may be told on another day. For the present I shall simply re-iterate that there truly was - and I perceived - a marvelous Symmetry in the "Spectrum" in 1991. -For the C.P. and the John Birch Society had been, historically, at loggerheads - though paradoxically, their partisans occupied tables (not adjacent,) on two successive Saturdays in 1991, in the field of the Plaza of the Civic Center in San Francisco.
As I wrote in my article "Populist Socialism Reconsidered" in 1992, "The Late Max Scherr, editor of the Berkeley Barb, holding court in the Caffe Mediterraneum in Berkeley in the '60s, used to maintain that there were roughly eight different kinds of Socialism in the American political experience. He maintained that even the John Birch Society held positions that were, unconsciously, Socialist." There is great irony in this. Certainly the Birchers themselves would never consider themselves as "Socialists" of any hue. Nevertheless, Max Scherr knew his American History and, as a Marxist intellectual and a Freudian, he also understood the elements of 'socialism' that were unconsciously inherent in the under-pinning weltanshauung of the John Birch Society ideology.
Just to the "left" of the C.P.-USA, I placed the Green Party in this, my 1995 vintage model of the so-called "Spectrum". In perfect Symmetry, on the so-called "Right" I situated the so-called "Constitutionalists" - who were more radical that the JBS because they were not organized and tended to resemble the Libertarians in their stricter adherence to the Jeffersonian principle : "that government governs best which governs least". Both of these factions - the Greens & the Constitutionalists - were & are likewise opposed to Imperialist Wars - and both have in Common the fact that they tend to favor non-violent means of achieving the Changes that they desire to see implemented in Society. Again, we may perceive a marvelous Symmetry in the arrangement of the greater dialectic.
Moving towards the inexorable and inevitable Center of the Underside of Amerikan Dialectics, we come to the two similar tendencies that in the days since the fall of the Berlin Wall - and especially since the 9/11 "Event" have come to forge a novel sort of "United Front from Below" - which is old commie terminology from the Third Period (1928-1935). We see the perfect example of this Union & Alliance of formerly "Right" Libertarians & "Left" Anarchists in the persons of the elder, retired, father figure of Ron Paul, and the father-longing, younger Son persona of the Nouveau Anarcho-Capitalist, Luke Rudkowski. This Alliance *is actually a New development - One that has occurred since I first published my diagram of the "Spectrum" back in 1995.
Moving right along - and up the sides of the Loop at the bottom of the skuzzy underside of the "Political Spectrum"- we ascend upwards and onwards, from the laissez-faire idealism of the Anarcho-Capitalists into the more dirigiste and authoritarian factions of the inevitable fusions & partitions of Radical Left & Right formations. Think of the Loop at the Center of the Underside of the Spectrum as the loop-de-Loop on the Roller Coaster @ Coney Island. At the core of the loop visualize a thermometer on which the temperature proceeds from Cool to Hot as one proceeds upwards. Cool is Libertarian; Hot tends towards Authoritarian - of both Left & Right varieties.
This is the Section of the Spectrum where the LaRouche faction in the Rump S.D.S. went to the "left" of the Progressive Labor Party faction -- Milt Rosen's "bow-tie" Maoists, back in the early 'Seventies, and eventually wound up on the so-called "Right". In moving to the "Left" of the P.L.P. - by decrying them to be the "running dog lackies of Rockefeller and the British Crown" - LaRouche sought to establish his faction of the S.D.S. - the so-called "Labor Committees" - as the authentic "Revolutionary Vanguard".
-At least that was the cover story and the outward appearance of "Operation Mop-up" in 1973. Who knows what was really going on ? One person who knows & hasn't told yet, is Webster Tarpley. He was there and he knows the real story. Will he spill the beans now that the "Old man" is dead? Pieces of the puzzle that is & was Lyndon LaRouche still need to be filled in - and there are certain Questions that can only be answered by a former insider.
Anyway, for all of his flaws - and they were many - the late Lyndon LaRouche resembles, in some ways, the Colossus of Rhodes. For over forty years ( 1976 to 2019 ) he was able to straddle the extreme "ends" of the so-called "Spectrum" with his peculiar fusion of radical Left & Right ideology. O well. The terrain was there beforehand, and there was a Vacuum there. LaRouche & his followers - the "National Caucus of Labor Committees" - mapped & Occupied that turf.
Around the time of the Bi-Centennial, "Lyn Marcus" was outed and exposed as Lyndon LaRouche -his real identity- by Dennis King and Chip Berlet. Also, LaRouche & his "Labor Committee" followers conveniently repackaged themselves as born again, left-Hamiltonians, and formed a short-lived united front from below with the so-called "Populist Party" of Willis Carto, the publisher of the now defunct "Spotlight" butcher paper weekly.
After the various moves LaRouche and his followers made during the 'seventies, they tried to crash the Democrat Party in time for the 1980 election. If you will look at the diagram, you may see a hint of this in the position that the LaRouchies Occupy, just beneath the Democrat / Republican "Center".
Willis Carto, the publisher of the Spotlight, and the leader of his so-called {latter day} "Populist Party" was an anti-Semite, and his faction of the "Old Right" may be distinguished from the Old Right Conservatives of the John Birch Society inasmuch that the Birchers spoke of the plutocrats as "the Illuminati" whereas the Spotlighters imagined that "Zionist Bankers" are at the center of the dark Global Web that they also called "the Conspiracy."
The latter-day, now defunct, faux "Populist Party" of Willis Carto, although it borrowed & continued the tradition of advocating interest-free credit creation from the older formation, must not be confused with the entity by the same name - the "People's Party" - that was swallowed up by the so-called "Democrat Party" in 1896, when it was sold down the river by William Jennings Bryan in exchange for him becoming the Democrat Party candidate for President.
The former "People's Party" was, in the second half of the nineteenth century, the largest and most righteous faction of authentic Progressives in America. It was, while it lasted, more radical and more spot on than the in-house Lincoln Greenback radicals inside the Republican Party. During the period between the death of Abraham Lincoln, until they were expelled from the Republican party in 1917 {because they were Anti-War} the "Left" Republicans were also among the brightest and the best in the political arena in America.
What those two factions of the late nineteenth century -the Populists and the Left-Republicans- had in Common was the adherence to the principle that the Treasury Department should be able to issue interest-free Fiat Currency {non-interest-bearing "Bills of Credit"} in the tradition of the Lincoln Greenbacks. All of that became moot when the Federal Reserve Bank - the financial coup d'etat by Wall Street - was established in 1914.
I have set all of these historical facts down and written about them according to my own limited - yet not un-substantial - understanding, and i have made them accessible to you, dear reader, so that you may understand that the terms "Left & Right" are fairly meaningless in Real Time, under the Heaven of heavens. As I wrote at the end of my former missive on the Subject, "To fully understand the Dialectical Mobius-Spectrum, you must transcend it." I can only hope that - in the spirit of Socrates - though I may not be able to teach y'all anything, that (I would hope) I might be able to make y'all *think.
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Re: Towards a Transcendental Understanding of the "Political Spectrum"
Re: Towards a Transcendental Understanding of the "Political Spectrum"
The Classical definition of the Word "liberal"
lib•er•al lĭb′ər-əl, lĭb′rəl
►
adj.
Favoring reform, open to new ideas, and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others; not bound by traditional thinking; broad-minded. synonym: broad-minded.
adj.
Of, relating to, or characteristic of liberalism.
So why on earth, pray tell - in real time - are the vast majority of the current crop of those folks who think of themselves as "liberals" close-minded bigots who thing generally in binary, either/or, one-dimensional, linear terms and reject all data from anywhere that does not conform to their own narrow, chosen portion of the so-called "political spectrum" ?
https://www.waccobb.net/forums/attac...1&d=1597503199
Re: Towards a Transcendental Understanding of the "Political Spectrum"
The conventional understanding of the political spectrum as a line segment, moving from left to right, and back again, is a false model. A line segment is a two-dimensional geometric figure, while the real world contains at least four dimensions, if you include the dimension of Time.
A valid model for the political cosmology should be analogous to the functioning anatomy of the human mind. The human mind runs simultaneously on many paths, and struggles within itself between the tendencies of the two poles - of the left and right hemispheres, between the intuitive and the analytical, between light and darkness, and between good and evil. This is the Field.
Could it be that the appellations of "Left" and "Right"- that carry such weight and stir such controversy across the cultural and class, political, and social chasms in our society - are the tendencies of social groups trapped in lopsided "left" or "right" brain hemisphere functions ??
Could the schism, or gulf between the left and right in politics - and the supposed dichotomy between "left" and "right" hemisphere brain functions - be artificial, socially engineered divisions, created to foster schizophrenia and contention, and in turn create mass schizophrenia and socio-political strife?
Have contrived categories in psychology and political science been deliberately imposed upon society by indoctrination over the last century ?? - Can you think of a more efficient way to foster a society of fragmented individuals and divided, lonely, isolated blocs of special-interest groups & socio-political formations ??
To be Whole, one must understand that the left and right hemispheres of the brain/mind are a single continuum, a single mind that functions as a whole.
The political spectrum, also, is a continuum, a four-dimensional field that may be comprehended by the individual @ mind. The whole person is able to use the analytical and abstract reasoning capacity of the left lobe together with the creative, intuitive and emotive functions of the right lobe in a cohesive, functioning unit.
It is not only because human beings are complex and able to comprehend at least four dimensions, that I doubt that the political spectrum is a mere two-dimensional "left-right" line segment. I also question in whose interest it is that we have been taught by the media and the educational system to think in such narrow, one-track, linear terms.
Can it be that we've been manipulated? Some people can be controlled by lethargy. For others, bread and circuses suffice. But it is vitally important to the power elite to control the politically conscious by creating alienation, divisions, and strife.
Various theorists have posited alternative models to the Left/Right line-segment in recent years. Some have suggested a circle. The Libertarians have come up with a square model. Critique, the late alt-journal of trans-political discussion, devoted an issue to the subject in the late eighties ("Beyond Left/ Right," Winter, 1987). The Utne Reader followed suit a few years later. So far, however, none of these attempts at mapping the socio-political geography have acknowledged the Power Elite, or accorded them their true position - on Top.
Although I am fully persuaded that a genuine vision of the political landscape resembles nothing so much as Hieronymous Bosch's tableau of Hell, I have come up with my own linear chart, unique in the annals of political-spectrum cartography because it accords the Power Elite their own transcendental Chair, above the fray. Bear in mind that this is a chart of the American political spectrum; an attempt to map the Collective Mind, unique to the polis of America. As such, it is still important, for the shadow of America falls heavily on the rest of the world. Any Diagram is still only a two-dimensional map. In Reality, there are Four Dimensions, and within the Whole of this thing I am attempting to describe, there are also fully Four Dimensions; the Fourth, being Time; which, as the Song says, changes everything.
The Corporate Union Most people have never heard of the Corporate Union, the legendary - perhaps mythical - International Brotherhood of Illuminated Wise Men, the I.B.I.W., let alone considered that it gets lonely at the top, and that, to better facilitate the smooth functioning of World Affairs, the ruling class in America has had to organize, just the same as any trade union.
I. stands for International. These folks, the core of the North American power elite, are the real Internationalists - beside whom a mere Communist, New Ager, or card-carrying World Federalist is a pale wallflower.
B. stands for Brotherhood, because these guys are all men; White Men, and there aren't even any token Negroes among them.
I. stands for Illuminated because these guys have imbibed some heady Masonic-theosophical metaphysics, which has caused them to believe that they are "as Gods."
W. stands for "Wise Men" because these men are sophisticated, urbane, cosmopolitan, and well educated, and they believe that it is their calling - nay, their duty - to rule over the planet.
Beneath the clouds of their lofty Olympian aerie - or further down the pyramid, depending on how you look at it - the Power Elite in America have set up tax-exempt foundations to facilitate the coordination of Left/Right activities, in order to implement the greater dialectical (or thesetical) process and move history in the direction that the I.B.I.W. deems necessary for the greater "good" - which is not necessarily the greater good or comfort of the masses, but rather the greater good of the collective interests of the families which constitute the electoral college, as it were, of the I.B.I.W., the Supreme Council of the corporate interests of the ruling class.
The tax-exempt foundations dispense their ill-gotten capitalist largesse (much of which derives from interest collected from the national debt, as well as currency speculation, and various other surplus-value scams) all along the political spectrum - to left, right and center, as well as to the foggy bottom of the political underworld, the "fringes" of Left and Right.
Although the power elite transcend the political spectrum and are seldom visible in the political arena (the Roosevelt, Rockefeller, Gore, and Bush families being notable exceptions), their fingerprints are all over the whole thing, and their bag-men and liaisons are in almost every camp of any size.
Beneath the tax-exempt foundations, the I.B.I.W. has established think tanks, which target various segments of the political spectrum and serve as transmission-belts for implementing policy directives. These think tanks formulate the unique language (dialectics) tailored to suit and influence the thinking of the various targeted strata across the political spectrum.
On the "left," for instance, you have the Institute for Policy Studies, (I.P.S.) and the Cambridge Policy Studies Institute, founded by the M.I.T. professor of Linguistics, Noam Chomsky. In the Rockefeller moderate "Center" you have the Brookings Institute. On the "right" you have the Hoover Institution, and the Center for Strategic International Studies (C.S.I.S.); the American Enterprise Institute (A.E.I.), the Heritage Foundation, and a host of others. Lyndon LaRouche has his own think-tank. The Cato Institute determines the Libertarian party-line.
In turn, the various sectors of the spectrum are kept at loggerheads with each other, through their foundation-fed dialectics, in accordance with the famous Roman axiom "divide and rule." In a manner only dreamed of by Imperial Rome, and Medieval Venice, the power elite divide and rule - through finance - both left and right, and determine the nature and terms of a series of orchestrated dialectical conflicts. Thus, to a greater or lesser extent, as much as lies within their power, they attempt to control history itself.
Various sectors of the Spectrum are apportioned various Analyses, each of which contains a core element of historical truth, (lending it a certain validity) as well as current Ideological & Economically derived applications. These various Ideologies all contain elements that are seemingly antithetical to the "hands" held by other players. In the dialectical (thesetical) process, the I.B.I.W., via the Foundations, sets the various political formations in conflict, each holding a thesis or antithesis originating in the various think tanks. In turn, the Syntheses that are hammered out by means of this process of orchestrated dialectical conflict, become, in turn, a new thesis, or antithesis, and thus the historical process is "shepherded" by the ruling class elite.
It is this constant enmity or political strife within the spectrum, which gives the whole thing its incredible dynamism, its electric drive. It is what makes the Mobius = Continuum turn. The various "stations" along the spectrum, are like seats on a Merry-go-Round: segregated, isolated, and locked into specific "party-spirit" consciousness. Although this Dialectical Merry-go-round may be said to spin, in reality, the Geometry of the spectrum cannot be a circle. Rather, it is more on the order of a Mobius strip.
It is not a circle, because it is twisted; possessing an intrinsic twisted ness, & contains within itself a Quality that can only be likened to the Mobius strip, which loops back on itself on its own opposite side.
On the ground, (the main stage) in the United States, all power has been given to the high command of the Democratic and Republican parties - two wings of the same bird of prey. The power elite has found the bi-partisan party system to be the freest, the most efficient, and the easiest to way to manage America.
And since the Advent of voting Machines, the outcome of every election can be scientifically managed, indeed, pre-ordained, which must, indeed be very pleasing to the Plutocrats, who wish to be as God. Many Americans are able to see through the bi-partisan scam; it is only because candidates of all other persuasions are usually unelectable, that voters generally feel forced to vote for one or the other, come Election Day.
The Democrats and Republicans throw mud pies at each other. That's just for show. The Two Parties have been in cahoots ever since the Bosses of both parties met in a "smoke-filled room" in a Men's Club in Mid-town Manhattan to work out the details of the Compromise of 1877.
This momentous occasion proved such a great success that ever since then, the bi-partisan Party Bosses have convened in the Springtime of Election years to decide beforehand who will win, place, and show, and where the patronage will go in the coming elections. To keep up appearances of there being genuine antipathy between themselves & themselves, they have devised a whole bag of tricks.
On the Republican Right, a subsidized windbag like Rush Limbaugh will channel corporate disinformation and heave heavy salvos at a Clinton, a Gore, or a Kerry, and bedevil "Liberalism" in general, in order to keep the controversy boiling and make the poor benighted masses think that there actually are major differences between "Conservatives" and "Liberals."
Again, it is all one Continuum : On the economic level, what differences that exist are minor and can be boiled down to who gets the gravy, how much, and when. In this controlled dialectic, these economic "differences" figure as mere adjustments in the greater thesetical process.
The only authentic distinctions between the two major Parties, as they have developed over the course of the last several decades, have crystallized into differences of Culture and Life-style. Just to the "left" of the Democratic mainstream, traveling as camp followers in the Democratic train, are powerful interest groups of the Gay Lobby and the Pro-Choice Lobby.
On the Republican "Right," in fearful symmetry, are aligned the forces of the "Christian" Right and the Pro-Life lobby. The tax-exempt foundations fund the Organizations of both Contenders, set in battle array for the Kulturkampf, or "Culture Wars," of the present era. Some Foundations, like the Pew Charitable Trust, the Lilly Foundation, and Russell Sage Foundation, even go so far as to cross-fund; that is, finance both sides, of this conflict.
The Power Elite, as puppet masters, are staging a spectacle on the stage of history. Against the "thesis" of so-called "Christian civilization" and "family values," they have pitted the anti-thesis of "gay liberation" and abortion values. That any intelligent person can be so blind as to miss the significance of the bigger picture and not stop at least to wonder why the Foundations fund both sides, is just amazing - but the fact is, most people either just do not know, or else are in denial, on some level, that this is actually happening. It would be funny if it were merely a Punch and Judy show. - Just what are the Power Elite driving at?
The shape of the ultimate Synthesis has not yet been fully manifested. It seems fairly certain that it will include elements of New Age ideology, perhaps entailing elements of the Libidinal Economy that the Marquis de Sade prophesied and that professor Lyotard of U.C. Irvine has advocated.
For the present, the so-called "Christian" Right seems to have the upper hand [1995, Ed.] and the counter-cultural, and self-styled "Progressive" forces must savor the winter of their discontent, as underdogs. For the tables to be turned, and a leveling & / =OR= a Synthesis, to occur, there would have to be a Meltdown of the Markets in America, as well as a serious disenchantment in Mid-America from the fruits of the war-mongering policies of Bush, Junior, who has disingenuously deceived, and led the Christians of America very far astray. Sadly, for the Christian mothers of America, this means more of their sons coming home in body bags.
On the main stage of the political spectrum, that is, the platform where the Demos and Repubs duke it out, there is little "class consciousness," or mention of the misdeeds of the Ruling Class; for the simple reason that most Demo-Repub politicians and the camp followers of either ilk are either devoid of class consciousness, or are quite consciously harlots, unable to bite the hand that feeds them. Under the stage, in the political underworld, is another circus, where the literature, in cacophonous counterpoint, describes - often several scenes ahead - much of the action on the stage.
Sailing off the edges of the flat earth world of mainstream politics, in either direction, left or right, the Mobius = Continuum folds in on itself, where finally, both ends twist and meet in a loop. Practically every faction of any size in the political underworld (the underside of the continuum), has irregular financing; that is, the deficits are supplied by grants from the tax-exempt foundations, as above, or else from the C.I.A., and a variety of other cutouts, and thus, indirectly, from the I.B.I.W., as above.
Formations on the underside of the Spectrum are kept on a need-to-know basis, and few of the camp followers here are privy to the big picture, of how these groups are funded. Historically, some of these formations - like the German- American Bund, in the 1930s, and some of the Maoist parties in the 1960s - have even been subsidized by foreign Capital.
Left and Right formations on the underside of the spectrum often fear and loathe each other more than the conventional Punch and Judy Demo-Repubs do on the stage above. There are valid reasons for this. The late Spotlight weekly, for instance, the organ of the crypto-nazi Liberty Lobby of Willis Carto was a "clothesline" for intelligence disinformation laundering. It peddled, among other things, the big lie that Hitler, Himmler, and the S.S. never planned, or accomplished the genocide of nearly six million European Jews, seven million eastern European Slavic Christians, and a million and a half Gypsies. (See Max Dimont, Jews, God, and History, for these figures)
It is for this reason that The Spotlight [now defunct] and similar radical right publications have been extremely efficient as channels for the containment of disinformation, occasionally "hanging-out" some very pithy and valid pieces of information, in the process. The books that were available from the Spotlight book catalogue, for instance, contained a number of old, otherwise unavailable, authentic, & fairly pure populist-socialist titles -- re-publications of Jerry Voorhis, and the elder Lindbergh, and the like. The net effect of these writings having been co-opted by a band of holocaust-deniers, has been to dis- credit the populist-socialist analysis in the eyes of the present generation.
This phenomenon comes under the rubric of the "modified limited hangout." It is important to understand the function of disinformation, "black propaganda," and how "containment" is achieved by "guilt by association," if one is to attain a comprehensive vision of the more arcane, disingenuous, and devious workings of the methodology of the corporate directors of the political spectrum.
The case of the elder Lindbergh is very important to understand in this context. In his lifetime he was about as radical as one could be without joining the revolutionary underground Communist Labor Party of Jack Reed and company. In May of 1919, the year of the Red Scare, The National Farmer, the publication of Lindbergh in Minnesota, actually ran advertisements for John Reed's book, Ten Days That Shook The World.
It is one of the great ironies of history that up until 1918, the left wing of the Republican Party was far more radical that any faction within the Democrat Party. But both the elder Lindbergh and the elder LaFollette - and the rest of the left wing of the Republican Party however, were written out the roles of the Republican Party by the top brass during 1918. That is, they were officially bell, booked and candled, because they had been opposed to America's entry into the Great War. In 1918, the New York Times referred to the elder Lindbergh as a "Bolshevik."
Both men went on to form Parties of their own: Lindbergh went and founded the Farmer-Labor Party of Minnesota, and LaFollette founded the Progressive Party, of Wisconsin. These two parties were similar, and often convened, and would bloc together, but the Farmer-Labor party was further to the "left."
Since the 1950's however, other elements - notably the Birchers, and the Spotlighters, - both controlled at the top, by the forces that direct the Dialectic in America, have co-opted the memory of the elder Lindbergh, and thus his words, what he taught, and what he stood for, have been effectively misrepresented and contained within a small band of the Spectrum. To the illiterate among the "Left" of today, the elder Lindbergh is either a non-person, or worse, the father of an anti-Semite.
The case of Lyndon LaRouche and his group, the N.C.L.C., who were in the late sixties a faction of the Students for a Democratic Society (S.D.S.), is also very interesting, and incredibly instructive. At one point in the early seventies, LaRouche, known at that time by his Marxist nom-de-plume, "Lyn Marcus," and his followers, known as the "National Caucus of Labor Committees," positioned themselves, through broadsides and combative rhetoric, to the "left" of the Maoist Progressive Labor Party,(P.L.P.) who were their uneasy companions in the waning days of the rump SDS.
Somewhat later - the history here is nebulous - Lyn Marcus proposed, to the Communist and Socialist Workers Parties, a United Front for a new, galvanized left, with himself as the head. When the heads of the Communist Party and the Socialist Workers' Party did not fall in line and agree to submit, to be led by Lyn Marcus, he began "Operation Mop-Up," commanding his cadres to physically attack members of the C.P. and S.W.P., in a broad swath of cities throughout the North East.
This happened in the spring of 1974, and was promoted, in the N.C.L.C. weekly, New Solidarity (unfortunately, the Archives are not on-line; they'd be a riot) as the prelude to the "Revolution." Ultimately, Lyn Marcus and those of his diminished followers who remained loyal through this trying phase, were journal- istically ostracized, collectively shunned, and driven from the Left.
After the debacle of Operation Mop-Up, the LaRouchies turned their backs on the prospect of ever becoming really successful street-fighting men. They put down their truncheons and num-chucks, and retreated back to the stacks. They had always been very bookish; churning out term papers like demented grad students, as someone once put it, and the libraries were indeed, a safe haven after all that.
Later, during the period of 1975-76, they actually formed an alliance with the aforementioned Liberty Lobby. Subsequently, the N.C.L.C. miraculously discovered that all of Karl Marx's best ideas were plagiarized from the writings of that original American economic genius, Alexander Hamilton, and consequently, they reinvented themselves as "conservative" Democrats. Throughout their entire trajectory, the N.C.L.C. have retained some of the baggage of the Old Left - they have kept the vestige of a Class War analysis, for instance.
Lyndon LaRouche, and his organization defy description in any conventional, linear Left/Right terminology. The mainstream Media, on this score, is hopeless, given the limitations of the Left/Right lexicon, and only repeats, endlessly, the Mantra, "political extremist, Lyndon LaRouche."
Only with the Mobius = Continuum model of the political spectrum can one begin to comprehend the phenomenon of the LaRouche group - of how a group claiming to be the true revolutionary vanguard, possessing the bona fide latter-day Lenin (Lyn Marcus), could go to the left of the Maoists; then form a United Front with an ultra-right group like the Liberty Lobby; then occupy the terrain that spans the gulf between radical Left and radical Right for thirty years, and ultimately retrofit & package themselves as conservative, "Hamiltonian," "J.F.K." Democrats.
- But having described the moment in time, and the segment of the Mobius Strip where the two ends met, and the Strip turned, and twisted back upon itself, it should be kept in mind that today, in America, the whole Spectrum possesses this devious, two-way, Mobius twist.
After this, the bizarre development of "Third Position Fascism" took place - of Maoists & Neo-Nazis forming a bloc, the better to fight Capitalism & Zionism. Since those days, any kind of clandestine coalition, or bloc, is possible - Right wing Republicans giving the Gay Lobby money, when it's expedient, etc. - it's all wide open now. Perhaps it always was.
One must keep an open mind, be willing to read, watch, and sift information from all viewpoints of the political spectrum & the social strata, and ever and always maintain a healthy degree of skepticism, and the analytical ability to ferret out disinformation by comparing dialectically opposite and contradictory positions.
Then, with the full use of the intuitive and creative juices of the whole mind, one may attain to political consciousness and the true Synthesis, which is Comprehension of the process of history and the true nature of Reality. To fully understand the Dialectical Mobius=Spectrum, you must transcend it.
Author - Mark Walter Evans
(modified from the North Coast Xpress, Summer, 1995)
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Creative Commons Copyright https://web.archive.org/web/20131208.../cc_attrib.png Mark Walter Evans, 2007.
Re: Towards a Transcendental Understanding of the "Political Spectrum"
A few words about my own political evolution
I was born in 1949 in Oakland California. I received Socialist catechism, beginning at the age of two from my maternal grandmother, Edith Fleischer Liggett, who was a lifetime, and die-hard, card-carrying member of the Second Internationale. She also taught me to read at the age of two, melodically drilling into my head the "Now I know my ABC's" anthem, with the aid of a Xylophone.
Edith joined the YPSL's {Young People's Socialist League} at the age of thirteen in 1914 in Flatbush, Brooklyn. At the age of nineteen, in 1920, she had become the crack City Desk reporter for the New York Call, the Socialist Party Daily in the United States. As such, her columns and articles were syndicated to all of the Socialist Party weeklies throughout the entire United States.
In 1920 Eugene Debs was running for President from the Atlanta Pen. At the age of nineteen that year, Edith took the train from New York City down to Atlanta Georgia, to visit Eugene Debs in the Atlanta Penitentiary. That means a lot to me. -And the influence of my maternal grandmother is of paramount importance in my life. She was a very moral and ethical person, perhaps the most wonderful human being I have ever met or known.
In 1922, she met her husband, Walter W. Liggett, at the New York Call. He was the City Editor at the paper. In 1918, he had been one of the founding Committee of the Farmer-Labor Party of Minnesota. He had been a speech-writer for Senator Robert LaFollette of Wisconsin {in 1916} and Congressman Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Sr. of Minnesota {in 1918]. In 1922, Liggett had come to Washington DC as the speechwriter for Senator Ladd of North Dakota. Senator Ladd was the original model for the fellow in "MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON". I could go on, reciting the praises of all of my grandfather's numerous accomplishments. By I shall refrain.
Suffice to say, that as I entered the period of my mid-Thirties, in the mid-Eighties, and as I studied his career, while I was I assisting my mother in researching the life of her father, I found that i was taken by the correctness of the political conclusions that he espoused in the course of his career - especially in the Editorials he wrote towards the end of his life, in his little weekly, "The Mid-West American" published in Minnesota, during the period of the "New Deal." It was in the mid-Eighties that I came to realize that I was not a "New Leftist" but instead, a "Paleo-Progressive."
My mother, born Marda Molyneux Liggett in 1925, voted for Harry Truman in 1948. So did her mother. Edith considered Truman to be the least of the three evils that year in the presidential race. Dewey, she knew close at hand. He had been the D.A. in Manhattan when she was suing the Daily Worker for libel. She knew him as a career opportunist. Henry Wallace she also considered to be a rank opportunist. She remembered what he had done as the Secretary of Agriculture under FDR (Plow Under) and regarded the support he had from the C.P. to be ample reason to not vote for Wallace. There was bad blood between her and the C.P.
My mother never voted for any third party candidates in her entire life. She was a lifetime "liberal" Democrat. I remember attending "Young Democrat" picnics in Tilden Park in the Summer of 1956, when Adlai Stevenson was running for President. My mother helped out at the Democrat Party Table in front of the Berkeley Public Library in '56. She got me a big, flashing button that proclaimed "All the Way with Adlai."
1956 was the first year that I ever attended a "Ban the Bomb" march. It was on August 6, 1956, and I was six years old. We marched around an area in downtown San Francisco the size of the area that was destroyed by the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. From that point on my mother became increasing involved in the movement to Ban the Bomb. I remember very clearly the night that my mother and step-father returned from a peacnik meeting in Berkeley and she showed me the Peace Button for the first time. I was the first kid on the block or in the neighborhood to wear that article.
Re: Towards a Transcendental Understanding of the "Political Spectrum"
What I advocate is to not join any party faction -&- do not become a partisan of any movement. Rather, I advocate raising one's consciousness above the fray of factions, in order to see the Big Picture that transcends party politics. One may be sure that there are "truths" that are hung out on the clothes-lines of All of the factions that have outlets in the media & the alternative media.
The Method that I advocate is the research method of Mae Brussell - that one retain an open mind, and that one read everything. This is a time-consuming discipline; I know. But in order to understand all things political {i.e., in the Polis} one must be aware of all of the pieces of the puzzle. It is not wise to reject any piece of the big picture, without giving it at least some examination. It is the hallmark of a wise person to be able to hold one's mind in a state of abeyance of certainty until all of the data is in. -To be content in the realization that one does not know, and to be open to receive alternative data that may lead to changes in the way one perceives reality.
There are multiple levels of power in this Model of the "Spectrum" as I have portrayed it, above. At the top, inside the pyramid there is the throne room of the Power Elite. In America, they often convene at the top Suites of the Bankers Trust Building @ 14-16 Wall Street. They also meet weekly, at the Bank for International Settlements in Basel Switzerland. Those folks are way beyond "Left & Right". Don't fall into the trap of thinking in those binary, one-dimensional terms. Learn to see the Spectrum from a transcendent point of view.
