Anchoring
For some time now I feel the need for some new anchoring. It is diffuse and I am not sure what it is really about.
bigger
Please let me know your thoughts about it.
Posted by b on July 18, 2008 at 19:12 UTC | Permalink
having seen one of these all alone on the bottom of Georgian Bay, I would say
Ozymandias
Posted by: jcairo | Jul 18 2008 19:45 utc | 2
ja Bernhard, starting to burn out are you?
I have absolutely no idea how you manage to come up with thought provoking arguments day after day, many of them so complex that I feel I have nothing to offer.
you have been following your instincts for the last couple of years and led us down many different paths, I suspect whatever you do in the future will be well received by all here. You have been a most gracious host but if it is time to go home then I think we will understand.
then again, this could be a posting about anchors.....
Posted by: dan of steele | Jul 18 2008 19:57 utc | 3
i think, in large part - fatigue comes when living within apocalyptic cultures whose melodramas & the messianism that stem from it - are of such a mediocre quality that it forces even the frozen into fanaticism
but then, i'm getting a little rusty
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jul 18 2008 20:16 utc | 4
This is really Rorschach reaching: The anchor's shape (eyes above, at the twin tips; a mouth sketched out below) immediately reminded me of a first season episode from the original Outer Limits, .
A group of scientists, with a Cold-War nuclear holocaust becoming more likely, decide to prevent what they see as an inevitable confrontation by physically transforming one of their own members (played by Robert Culp) into an alien. Confronted with a believable hoax that an invasion of Earth by an off-world species was imminent, the scientists believed the wold would have no choice but to unite.
In looking around for a photo of the creature Culp became, it turns out that something from the Mos Eisley bar in the original Star Wars is a lot closer to Das Anchor... but it's more unsettling to me that the first comparative image my mind leapt to was from a Camelot-era sci-fi program dealing with a manufactured solution to an apocalyptic crisis.
Posted by: Jemand von Niemand | Jul 18 2008 23:07 utc | 7
Apologies for not closing the tag; that was inadvertent...
Posted by: Jemand von Niemand | Jul 18 2008 23:12 utc | 8
I've had similar feelings b, for a long time now. Not about you - I come here a couple of times each day to check on the discussion.
I also follow Emptywheel and her gang of law types and hangers-on because she has a compulsion with our govt and the details of its badness. Plus a hound dog's ability to keep snuffling in the dirt until she comes up with something interesting.
Here's the thing though; in spite of all the moaning, groaning and truth telling, nothing ever happens. Sure, Libby takes years to get convicted of perjury, and he's set free within hours and the damning details of that court proceeding are instantly swept under the rug. The Dem majority in congress does nothing but a little grandstanding, in direct contradiction of the oaths they took to "uphold the constitution..." etc. This govt seems to me to have died already.
So you and I and all of us are up against a force we cannot comprehend, something that seeps deep into the structure and destroys it from the inside. Any call for justice or truth echos back to taunt us. Many of the cheering crowd at FDL or other popular sites still refuse to believe that the game is fixed. I will say that I have watched and joined these innerweb chats for years, and they have developed a lot more power and insight than the reptiles feel comfortable with allowing the human masses to possess. (One positive point.)
It is extremely difficult to face that devil which tears apart your foundation of belief, that comfort structure one has built around himself from birth and before. On the one side (denial of that devil) you have security of the familiar; on the other side a void where values seem to evaporate, the ground gets ever boggier until it feels like quicksand.
No wonder it is so hard to come to grips with reality now; it isn't what we thought it was but its true form is still unclear. Expand that thought to include all of humanity, which I'll take the liberty of doing right here, and it becomes a big mess, hard to deal with. We are being helped and guided though - that is one of my beliefs, necessary to prevent psychosis - and so there is hope. In fact we are going somewhere good if we behave ourselves and don't freak out.
So keep on trukkin b. Your willingness and ability to write an insightful piece is more valuable than you might think. With some luck we may see exciting stuff happen soon, to write about and get all angry over. Have you noticed that time is speeding up?
Posted by: rapt | Jul 18 2008 23:52 utc | 9
I found Billmon's site back in 2003, I think, and found a link to this one there. I keep looking here for what i consider valuable insight, plus news i don't see elsewhere. I don't often post, preferring to lurk and read the articles linked. The loss of this site would be depressing, in that another person had burned out on the state of affairs in the world. On the other hand, how can i wish for someone to endure the mental anguish I know current events can bring to a thinking person?
Myself, I'm just waiting for the civil war I figure is coming here and enjoying each day for what i can. I'm fortunate i live in one of the most beautiful places in the world (at least in the warmer seasons).
Posted by: JimT | Jul 19 2008 0:21 utc | 10
this place has meant more to me than you'll ever know. sometimes i can't believe in retrospect all you put up w/in terms of my rants and outbursts that days later seem totally out of proportion. but that's life isn't it? the familiarity of most posters really makes it special. so many times i read posts and think..damn! b(or whomever) did it again! if i posted every time something resonated w/me.. ah, let's not go there lol. i am still kicking myself for taking the not mellow road over that damn cartoon.
whatever.
it looks like the devil to me. lucifer w/his phallic horns screwing the orifice.
Posted by: annie | Jul 19 2008 1:10 utc | 11
B. What rapt said. And Jim T. And dan of steele. I can't and don't offer much myself.
Maybe, having actually had the great fortune to meet you gives me (and a few others) a special perspective. Don't ever doubt your value to all of us.
You are my anchor.
Posted by: beq | Jul 19 2008 1:11 utc | 12
This is like when CNN does a poll asking a matter of fact question of people who do not have the facts (but still have an opinion). I guess I am saying only you know, or can know what this diffuse rerooting is. Do you want a kid, meaning, results, more meat in your diet, less? Do you need a more fulfilling agnostic spirituality? Would you prefer anything to what you have? If so, your forehead is kissed. Like I said before, when sri takes your head, what is left is amrit. You're welcome :)
Posted by: bellgong | Jul 19 2008 1:25 utc | 14
Before I could contribute to the unanimous encouragement I hadda stare for 10 frickin minutes at the pattern of scratches and repairs to see if it was b messing with our heads again, and we were missing some exquisitely abstruse joke (you bastard). But for people stuck here, b is like the tiny silhouette dropping a rope way way down into the bug pit so we can maybe climb out. Thanks loads.
Posted by: ...---... | Jul 19 2008 1:42 utc | 15
damn!! you mean you bought a ship w/ all that money we sent you? ;-)
Posted by: b real | Jul 19 2008 1:52 utc | 16
none the less, a beautiful picture - rust never sleeps?
Posted by: anna missed | Jul 19 2008 3:44 utc | 17
If you're moving as much energy as you are, b, it's good to be grounded. You do serious work. I for one hope I don't take it for granted.
Thanks.
Posted by: Tantalus | Jul 19 2008 3:48 utc | 18
Okay, that took my breath away, I wasn't expecting it when I booted up and pulled my fav bookmarks down and clicked da moon...
it was refreshing to see, and Low and behold we needed some art in our lives about now on moon... . Thanks b...
Anchor's make me think of harbors and in turn of ships. We are all ships on the ocean of life, traversing the winds and tide. There are safe harbors and there are not so safe harbors. A safe harbor can give of shelter from the storm, but that's not what ships are for. The answer is to find peace in the storm.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jul 19 2008 5:11 utc | 19
Addendum:
This calls for some music and a round for the house! Timne to drink and think eh b?...l
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jul 19 2008 5:16 utc | 20
Addendum:
This calls for some music and a round for the house! Timne to drink and think eh b?...l
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jul 19 2008 5:16 utc | 21
b,
One thing you can anchor in is your value to the readership. What you do for me is really valuable, but I cannot readily see what you get out of it other than an expression of your self. While I still read many other sources on geo-politics, I generally withhold judgment on anything reported there until I have the benefit of your assessment. I find in conversations with knowledgeable investment and political professionals that I am way ahead of the news cycle. So, what you do with that I don't know. We could campaign to put you up on HuffPo, Stratfor, or some other monetized medium... Would that be better?
I go round and round on what my life is about; despite lots of wonderful things in it. I recommend taking whatever time you require to just sit and listen to the wind in the trees, water in the stream, waves on the shore. As it happens I'm joining others in my small community tomorrow to spruce up the graveyard and dig a new grave for an oldster that's moved on. I find that to be a very anchoring experience.
Posted by: PeeDee | Jul 19 2008 6:00 utc | 22
My personal solution is to take time off until I get righteously pissed off again. I can think of all kinds of stuff to write about when I'm sore, but when I'm at ease, the muse escapes me.
Have you ever thought of yourself in that way?
Posted by: Jimmy Montague | Jul 19 2008 13:55 utc | 23
Thanks all -
I can think of all kinds of stuff to write about when I'm sore, but when I'm at ease, the muse escapes me.
Have you ever thought of yourself in that way?
No it's different. I usually get pissed just by reading/watching normal MSN news. But that does not mean i can write something about it. It would be same rant over and over.
I try to come up with new and unusual aspects to something in each post. Sometimes I simply lack the intellectual capacity to do so. Then I can't write.
Hi B. The rotation of the photo disturbs me. :)
Posted by: dacorilitter | Jul 19 2008 15:18 utc | 25
...---... , #15 for people stuck here, b is like the tiny silhouette dropping a rope way way down into the bug pit so we can maybe climb out.
yep
Posted by: annie | Jul 19 2008 16:10 utc | 26
Your legacy is already written in the Moon, b.
You contributions have made a difference.
The hot steel and deep psyche, fuse.
A few short years and we’ll be cosmic dust.
Any decision from you is accepted gratefully.
Posted by: Juannie | Jul 19 2008 17:49 utc | 27
"I try to come up with new and unusual aspects to something in each post. Sometimes I simply lack the intellectual capacity to do so. Then I can't write."
please don't underestimate yourself. the range of your interests/post are already very wide & dense. your intellectual capacity has never been in doubt & unlike my own mediatations - you are relatively economic. the posts on geopolitics are integral for me & you must know that sometimes you are months & sometimes (baluchstan, for example) years ahead of the rotten & corrupt media
the fatigue, the fatigue - that is another apple entirely.....
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jul 19 2008 17:52 utc | 29
'Anchoring' is, I believe, an NLP term of art:
http://www.trans4mind.com/personal_development/mindMastery/anchoring.htm
If I understand this right "9/11" "terrorism" and "Muslim" have been successfully anchored in the hive mind to the emotion of fear in the reptile brain.
@ rapt, #9 —
Nice post, getting cogently deep into life's fundamentals yet with brevity.
Personally I disagree with the statement In fact we are going somewhere good if we behave ourselves and don't freak out. I feel freaking out is a virtue. I admire the man who goes a bit bananas at work and yells out the window "I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it anymore!"
Posted by: Cloud | Jul 20 2008 4:26 utc | 32
Another weigh to look at it, since an anchor aweigh is as much a sign of permanent
moorage now as actively at sea, is as symbol of Heli Ben's Dream of Profligacy, in
backstopped ('anchoring') the largest US mortgage lenders (of last resort) with a
huge Federal line of credit, which the Treasury doesn't have, just as the Treasury
doesn't have the $165B 'economic stimulus' pay-it-backward they just grifted US,
nor the 'emergency defense spending package for other national security purposes.'
It will come out of our future taxes, more precisely, taxes on the usurous interest debt of a loan principal which can never be repaid, at least not in any conceivable future US economy.
--
[Financial Armageddon]
'As the Bush administration proposes backstopping mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac with a $300 billion line of credit and Congress contemplates another economic stimulus, the question is who will bail out the government?
"People seem to think the government has money," said former U.S. Comptroller General David Walker. "The government doesn't have any money."
A rare consensus has developed across the political spectrum that the government's own fiscal affairs are precarious, with an astonishing $53 trillion in long-term liabilities, according to the Government Accountability Office.
To put that number in human terms, the debt has reached $455,000 per U.S. household. As that debt grows, the United States increasingly relies on foreigners, including China and Middle East oil producers, for financing.
"The factors that contributed to our mortgage-based subprime crisis exist with regard to our federal government's finances," said Walker, now head of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, a group established to raise alarms about the nation's budget. "The difference is that the magnitude of the federal government's financial situation is at least 25 times greater."
--
So what we have is again a pay-it-backward loan against our future, and again, a
huge transfer of public-wealth-to-private-coffers, after all, the gravey train of
public-to-private grift hasn't stopped since Dick Cheney started his 'little war'.
But back to the 'anchor'...
With mortgages now guaranteed by a Federal government borrowing against our future,
if indeed Congress is so prurient as to gift our blood to the vampiroyals of usury,
can you imagine the looming food-energy-housing neutron bomb that it will create?
It's one thing to backstop a loan with public monies, but with millions of loans,
and hundreds of billions at risk, and everyone desperate to shyster-off their bad
paper onto the Fed tax welfare wagon, I mean, can you see what's about to happen?
Lassez les bon temps roulez!, casting adrift, anchorless, rudderless, our children's futures, bled white and turned to vampires themselves, when it comes time to shovel us into state-run nursing homes, or hold us hostage for our SSTF's.
TEAR UP THE FEDERAL CREDIT CARD, OR DIE~!
Posted by: Sal Mineo | Jul 20 2008 5:39 utc | 33
[email protected]: though i appreciate the "mad as hell" sentiment, and i agree that freaking of all kinds is a virtue, i would just caution (myself, usually) to be very wary of how hollywood tells you to feel.
NETWORK shows how vetting collective frustration through an on-screen media personality can sell serious ad-time. that kind of anger didn't change anything back then, and--though i find a cathartic release in watching Olbermann tell George to shut the hell up--that's not going to change anything either.
i would say fuck the passive participation of film as surrogate to meaningful action if i didn't love movies so much. i would also say education/organization is where energy should be focused, but i've grown cynical and realize that organizing can be dangerously productive, which is why MoveOn does it the way they do.
[email protected]: this is me nodding in agreement but also looking around uncertainly at my neighbors because recent references to what the future might look like (in the states at least) keep echoing Mad Max
besides freaking, i think a healthy amount of mental flexibility is also a virtue.
to that end, MoA is an indispensable resource.
b, your ability to monitor and stimulate the chatter here, day after day, completely confounds me. i don't think it's possible to thank you enough, but it doesn't hurt trying.
Posted by: Lizard | Jul 20 2008 6:47 utc | 34
Hi B.
Thank you deeply for all your effort here.
Be mentally flexible and follow your bliss and all that. Whatever your path is I hope to be able to follow along.
Blessings,
Jake
Posted by: Jake | Jul 20 2008 14:55 utc | 36
b--Apparently it is time for me to remember to thank you for your blog.
Thank you for your blog.
Three years ago many people were predicting what has now, finally happened. Past predictions do not go much forward, though, and after the collapse of the dollar arrives, then what?
Somehow predicting the next three years is not so easy. No surprise there: We have been following the trendlines very faithfully, and that is what has made prediction so easy. Soon trends will break down, what was unsustainable will no longer be sustained, and predictions during a time of chaos lack certainty.
So right NOW, we are in an awkward, unsatisfying moment: The phase of following trends is almost, but not quite over; the openly unhappy period of outright chaos has nearly, but not quite, arrived.
Very aimless days. Nothing to do but wait for the terror to come.
(Actually, there is plenty to do. But few want to put their minds around it.)
Posted by: Gaianne | Jul 21 2008 5:21 utc | 37
Thanks a lot b.
The de-constructions we explore here are always very revealing and priceless. Likewise the positive constructions in politics, technologies & human affairs by righteous peeps around the world too. Thanks for everything.
Posted by: jony_b_ccol | Jul 21 2008 10:45 utc | 39
Cloud @32...
Freak out was shorthand for fear and irrational reactions to things one doesn't see clearly. Don't freak out means don't let them win by losing your cool. It follows that learning as much as possible of the enemy's mindset, hierarchy, players, goals is very helpful to your own state of mind; it gives you the kind of power you want to have.
Gaiane @37...
You and I see this rumbling change in a similar way. You said "Nothing to do but wait for the terror to come." You know that the word terror has been singled out and showered on us constantly to create fear and helplessness. Very simple really. Don't bite. Laugh at it instead of joining the chorus.
I see the coming change as positive and liberating. Our fear is of change. Look closely at the enemy, as represented by Cheney for example, and you will see serious weaknesses, even dare I say it, fatal ones.
Posted by: rapt | Jul 22 2008 17:29 utc | 40
Anchor: There is direct sunlight, nearly straight-on above, casting a downward shadow that lends more shape to the image than just the anchor itself. It also makes the anchor hole look opaque when actually the anchor hole is hollow. The sunlight gives the anchor a luminesce that isn't the ordinary color of the anchor. But most striking to me are the rub marks caused by the continuous bouncing of the anchor against the hull. It is as if the "devil horns" (as previously described) are carving out a hole big enough for the anchor to escape... if it wants to.
b: I like the MoA because I can learn the difference between MSM spin and the real probable intentions of government powers. The people who post here shed more shades of light (think equal time) on topics not covered in MSM (think party line). I remember the Whiskey Bar brought me here. MoA is a daily favorite. Thank you.
Posted by: gus | Jul 22 2008 19:58 utc | 41
thanks for the superhuman amounts of pith you share, b.
now take a break, or you'll auto-combust from too much current information!
Posted by: melo | Jul 23 2008 19:14 utc | 42
The comments to this entry are closed.
I see devil’s horns and hot, almost molten steel.
Upon enlargement it becomes more phallic.
Thanks for my Rorschach for the day.
Posted by: Juannie | Jul 18 2008 19:43 utc | 1