You awoke before dawn. Two thoughts: both follow events yesterday. One, Steve Jobs, who was one of the one percent, said in a public speech at a university a few years ago, “follow your heart” and for years you have struggled with understanding what your heartansoulanmind are about, that is, the humanity in the heartansoulanmind. Two, you have deep sympathy for the Occupy Wall Streeter’s. On NBC film last night a video caught a shot from the higher windows of a financial building (or a building that appeared so) that said, “We are the one percent.” As you write this your thoughts (the mind) become crowded or clouded (you don’t know which) with what your heart is actually saying and you are wondering why your soul has not made itself clear because, for you, in context with what your books and blog are about, it is important that all three, the trinity of what is your humanity, needs to be aligned, in balance, clarified, before you demonstrate your actions in writing.
Post. – Amorella.
Amorella, you are, among other things, my inner writer of three books and this blog, but here you are presenting my consciousness which is indeed, unsettled. I have a rebellious heart; I have a strong-willed mind; and presently I have a soul standing aside in patience. Perhaps this is what souls do, perhaps they are built to wait, but there is a jangling within I have not felt since a couple of public and private college protests relating to local issues of social injustice not the war as I had volunteered (Air Force ROTC at Otterbein) but was declared ‘1-Y’ after taking two years of course work and serving on the Drill Team.
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Early afternoon. I sit in McD’s on Mason-Montgomery Road with a large diet Coke and a deluxe Angus burger. I received two emails that I discovered relate to my thoughts. Two views that express my dilemma.
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The first commentary is from The Heritage Foundation:
Steve Jobs, who died yesterday at the too-young age of 56, was a living refutation of all what liberals constantly tell us about our country -- that we're falling behind others and live now in a "post-American world," as one of Barack Obama's favorite books puts it in its title.
As anyone who's ever handled an Apple product or had his life improved by the technological innovations our system has produced in just a decade (that means all of us) will tell you, Jobs and innovators like him epitomize that immeasurable quality the left somehow finds most abject -- American exceptionalism.
The meme of the left is that drudgery and mediocrity is not just our future but probably also our just desserts--for being too imperialistic, consumerist, wasteful, patriarchal, or what have you. (For an inexhaustible list of all our ills and sins, please check with the mob gathered at the "Occupy Wall Street" protest.) One should compare this deadened vision with the wonders Jobs wrought.
Apple Computer, the company Jobs founded at the age of 21 along with his friend Steve Wozniak, was valued at the close of business yesterday at $350 billion and some change, more than $100 billion ahead of Microsoft. General Electric, another American giant, weighed in at less than half the price, $161 billion. Ford, GM and Volkswagen? Respectively, $40 billion, $35 billion and $42 billion. That should give some idea of where we are in the 21st century.
That beauty contest, how much a company is worth, is a result of decisions made by millions of investors voting with people's savings (that is, for most of us, the sweat of our brow and our hedge against an uncertain future). Investors voted for Jobs' company because consumers loved its products, and consumers bought Apple products not because they were ordered to do so by central planners but because they saw them as magic.
From computing to music to journalism, Jobs changed the way the world did its business and leisure. Very little of what we do today has not been impacted somehow by Jobs and his company. He certainly changed my life from my first Apple III with floppy discs almost 30 years ago, costing about $6000 and possessing a small fraction of the capabilities of my streamlined new iPad 2, all at less than 10 percent of the cost of that early dinosaur.
Macs, with their trademark coloring and sleek design, transformed the way people came to see computers, from gizmos only nerds understood or liked to things almost as organic as the partly bitten apples of the ever-present logos. Creative designing and thinking flowed naturally from a Mac, powering the creativity and productivity that have become the hallmark of the American economy, our present problems notwithstanding. In music, Jobs changed the industry by taking it digital.
As for journalism and reading in general, we have now gone back to where we started: the biblical tablet. The elegant slab we take with us wherever we go can do the same for us and take us, no matter where we are, anywhere in the universe our imagination wants to visit.
All this was the result of the happy coincidence of genius in an individual and a system. Jobs was an individual with special DNA, no question. But this half-Arab boy who was given up for adoption at birth and went on to drop out of college was able to transform the lives of individuals across the world because he lived and worked in this country.
The genius of the American system is comprised of the rule of law, respect for private property and the freedom of the individual to strive to be better than himself and his neighbor and reap the rewards that come from his innate abilities and effort. All of these and many other liberties are safeguarded in our Constitution. It is all part of what makes us an exceptional country.
This is not to say that we don't have problems. We are indeed falling behind -- not behind other countries but behind our promise and potential. Our government spends too much, tries to tell us how to run our private lives, and ties down in red tape the genius that brought you Apple. The great and sometimes cacophonous debate we are having in our country at the moment results from the fact that Americans have finally woken up to the threat our system confronts and are doing something about it.
This is not what you hear. Daily we are told by our government leaders, the media, and academia that we are as exceptional only in the way that is every other country on the U.N. roll, from Albania to Zimbabwe, is exceptional. We are told that we have to manage our decline as a power and that the great debate over ideas that we're having is evidence that "our politics is broken." Typically, a columnist from a Manhattan paper has titled his most recent book That Used to Be Us, a line, we're sad to say, that came straight from a speech by Barack Obama.
This is nonsense. Steve Jobs may have given to liberal causes and politicians throughout his life, but his life proved the existence of the American Dream. As anyone who's Googled something in her iPad and then Tweeted about it will tell you, Steve Jobs and those like him symbolize American Exceptionalism every day.
Edwin J. Feulner
President, The Heritage Foundation
From: Morning Bell: Steve Jobs and American Exceptionalism
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The second is supposedly the first ‘official statement’ from OWS via Huffington Post:
As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.
As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.
They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.
They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.
They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one's skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.
They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.
They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless nonhuman animals, and actively hide these practices.
They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.
They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.
They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers' healthcare and pay.
They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility.
They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.
They have sold our privacy as a commodity.
They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press.
They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit.
They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.
They have donated large sums of money to politicians supposed to be regulating them.
They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.
They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people's lives in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantive profit.
They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.
They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.
They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.
They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad.
They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.
They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts.*
To the people of the world,
We, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power.
Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.
To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.
Join us and make your voices heard!
From: Huffington Post: Keith Olbermann: Occupy Wall Street Confusing ‘Corrupt’ and ‘Dense’ Media
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The problem for me anyway, is that I see a ‘truth’ in both statements yet our country seems to wish to divide itself as always. We have had this trait since the philosophical difference of Puritan New England and the southern country folks in the Virginia colony. We are built as a tree trunk that splits into to main branches not too far from the ground. The tree grows and grows along with those two parallel main trunks. Eventually, it would seem this is unhealthy for the tree and that early split and near equal growth will have caught up with it. I don’t know what can be done, if anything. This is a sad event when thinking on the classical Latin inscriptions on the Great Seal of the United States – on the obverse the Great Seal of the United States states: “E Pluribus Unum” [Out of many, one]; and on the reverse: “Annuit coeptis” [He Approves the Undertaking], (above) and “Novus Ordo Seclorum” [New Order of the Ages], below. [Translations via Wikipedia, my caps]
The basic source of the problem between your heart and mind comes down to whether the common good of the species is more important than the common good of the individual. Your mind, believe it or not is for the species while your heart is for the individual.
This is a surprise. I would have thought it would be the other way around. I know I am a romantic at heart but I would have thought in this case I would feel that ‘social justice’ would be a heart issue too. A romantic (as I see it) is for social equality and social justice as well as for the individual rights.
For you, reason is attached to social justice because of the personal influence of Sophocles through his play, Antigone. Greek principles of justice in play with people and gods are seen as a driving force in the work as well as in his first two plays of the trilogy, Oedipus Rex and Oedipus at Colonus.
Yes, I taught Antigone for decades in world literature classes. We hit most all aspects of the moral dilemma in those classes. For me, your points are reasonable though I had not thought about them consciously. I like this. I like the ability to take myself apart, and for me, even if Amorella is imagination and this ‘debate’ is no more than a rationalization, it feels reasonable and right. Now, how do I resolve this? Or, is it time for my (present?) soul to enter its perspective?
In here, in these books and blog, souls can intermingle or exchange themselves from time to time. Different rules exist for the old ones. – Amorella.
I can accept this within fiction, in real life I have my doubts, but, as always, openness to the possibility exists. To say it is impossible for such a thing as the exchanging of souls would be an utmost arrogant statement since there is no way for the Living to know one way or another. Besides, I have used the concept in the books and poetry. In matters of love between friends and (would be) lovers I would say the concept is real enough.
We both know where your authenticity is coming from boy, and we have the same understanding on the subject. – Amorella.
I possess a soul but it is not mine, I do not own it. That’s my thinking. – rho
That will do in context. Your heart and mind are yours; your soul is a protector of both and can thus create a compromise in this particular case. – Amorella.
Nothing is coming forth to my fingertips.
Later tonight, boy. Relax. It is time for the local and national news. Post. – Amorella.
You had the last of Alta’s wonderful soup for supper then watched both NBC and CBS national news. Followed this by two copied shows and about half of Monday’s ‘Prohibition’ on PBS.
It is getting late, I don’t know whether I’m up to finishing this inner debate tonight.
Bear with me, boy, for a few minutes. I want this taken care of so we can move on. – Amorella.
Okay, I guess. I seem all used up. My mind appears to be used up, and heart non-existent.
That’s because the problem is resolved. – Amorella.
How is that?
Independence won out. Independence for all, even the one percent.
No way.
Here’s how it was resolved. Individual rights are stronger than social morals. You resolved this semi-consciously while watching ‘Prohibition’ Part II.
It doesn’t seem right that individual rights win out.
Why? A mother has a baby and even before the umbilical cord is cut the baby is a declared legal individual of the state. The state however is not responsible for the care and feeding, the individual mother and father are responsible. The state is responsible to see that the legal responsibility is held to the parent(s) or legal guardian(s). Adult citizens are responsible for themselves alone unless they sign a legal contract to be responsible for someone else or a shared responsibility as in a family unit. The fewer laws the better. The less money collected in local, state and federal tax the better. Children, however, must be legally cared for up to the age of eighteen.
No responsibility to the species?
The species is built to take care of itself. As long as babies are born and reach the age adolescence the species will survive. People will do what they have to do to survive. The world is not dreamland, boy. – Amorella.
This seems pretty harsh, Amorella.
The soul protects the individual heartanmind. That’s the way it plays in here, even unto physical death.
Where is the humanity in this?
It’s locked up in the soul. It is protected.
This sounds like hell on earth to me.
The individual with herorhis rights is free to create it. Nothing new under the sun here, boy. You want your freedom you have to pay for it one way or another. Everyone pays the Piper, boy, even you. - Amorella.
Where’s the civilization?
Locked and loaded. - Amorella.
I’ll be damned. You make sense.
There you go, boy. You are free to write whatever you want. – Amorella.
I don’t want to be that free, Amorella.
Then you’re soul’s not locked. Neither your heart nor mind desires to be locked. Once the soul is cracked there is room for new growth. That’s how it is.
I’ll take the chance on growth.
Heartanmind will find a way. It is the soul that has been compromised. – Amorella.
Amazing.
Post. Get a good night’s sleep. – Amorella.
