Happy Days for the Cunninghams is more than just a choice of "70s TV shows for $50" on a game show.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randy_Cunningham

With congress, the president and the Democrats all polling at about 34% approval, can we take much more
of this?

Nothing new under the sun, I don't think.

And if I were the Pres and even the Dems, I wouldn't worry about those polls as I doubt the majority of people know enough about what the hell is going on in the country or the world to cast an intelligent aye or nay. Mostly, they think Bush fell down on the Katrina response and has lost control of things in Iraq, neither of which is true (although if you watch CNN . . . ).

I was looking at Ronald Reagan's approval ratings the other day. Very high after Granada and bombing
Libya (70%) and reaching the low point seven years in (42%). He still polls around 66%.

George Bush reached even higher Reagan, but not quite as high as his dad. He rates much higher on foreign policy, which is where he is likely to be active during the next few years. He might just creep back up to 50% or so, which seems to be more natural for him, all things considered.

People are lacking confidence in the system, and
Newt Gingrich says that this generation is still waiting for it's H.G. Wells to fire imaginations.

I had to fire my imagination once, but I hired him back. There are many bright things in our collective future, as well as what Churchill refered to as "blood, sweat and tears."

Waking up and smelling the coffee, seeing the writing on the wall, etc., I have observed talk of fascism progress from a tounge-in-cheek prank of the left, to the editor of Harpers, to centrists and now
even conservative organizations:

http://www.amconmag.com/2005/2005_10_24/cover.html

http://rutherford.org/articles...ry.asp?record_id=319

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rutherford_Institute

A sobering assessment. How far might it go?

Ok, ok, I'll behave for awhile. Here's the good news
for you died-in-the-wool conservationists:

The pres was in town yesterday...

http://denverpost.com/news/ci_3263428

Supporting Christian statesman(woman) of the year...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marilyn_Musgrave

I like her, she's 4 real, but very new to the game
and a pentacostal homemaker.

I noticed somewhere that Bush had some harsh words about the Cunningham scandal. That was needed.

So Cunningham was "on the take" in a very overt and unethical manner. There's no condoning that, of course, but I wonder how different his actions were (ethically speaking) from taking donations from groups like teachers' unions or the NRA and then pushing their agenda legislatively. "Buying favors" and even votes seems to the "modus operundi" not only in Washington, but in state and even local governments. Cunningham definitely crossed the line, but where does one draw that line between bribery and purchasing influence/votes?

Phil,

I knew this law professor years ago. One day I was complaining to him about the Japanese graduating a hundred thousand engineers and ten thousand lawyers
every year, while America was the reverse. He said that it was fine and that we needed all those lawyers to manage the relationships in our complex society. I've often had to think about that...

The system is very imperfect, and a warfare of conflicting interests. All is fair in love, war and politics. Then come the lawyers...

There are about sixty congressional leaders being looked into as a result of the Duke Cunningham affair.

Whatever happened to the Iran-Contra felons? Fines and suspended sentences and a six month stretch in a "country-club" minimum security facility for a couple of them. It would appear they are rehablitated and gainfully employed:

http://www.blythe.org/nytransf..._Good_Jobs_from_Bush


More about contracters cutting corners:

http://207.44.245.159/article8028.htm

Many such articles at Information Clearing House,
but I do have some doubts about reliablity. Still,
it does not look good.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obi.../1564141772?v=glance

DISSIPATING ABUSIVE SYSTEMS. Shaking up systems that aren't working is precisely what addictions do for us. Addictions blow the whistle on the dysfunctionality of control-paradigm systems. The harder we try to keep closed systems from falling apart, the more intense addictive behavior gets.

From the level of addictive behavior alone, this looks as though we're either completely stupid or completely nuts. But people aren't stupid or nuts,
not on their own anyway. They're coping with systems that cannot succeed, yet they're not allowed to say so, as Alan Wiess's book Our Emperors Have No Clothes suggests. The subtitle of his book is telling: Incredibly stupid things corporate executives have done while reengineering, restructuring, downsizing, TQMing, team-building, and empowering...in order to cover their ifs, ands or "buts." Of course corporate executives do stupid things. The control paradigm doesn't allow them to identify what's really wrong. They have to be in control, and for that, they'll do anything. Control comes before sanity or good sense.

To not be stupid, we have to let go of the paradigm that's making our systems make us "incredibly stupid." Either we let control-paradigm thinking dissipate, or we resist the evolutionary process, which means things go from bad to worse---stupid to more stupid.

The harm we've done to ourselves and others was part of this process. By acting insanely, we perturbed the sytems that trapped us. On some level, we were making the invisible paradigm disease visible, so that the total system, --including us--was forced to learn from it.

That's the function of addiction and crisis. Like any disease, they "perturb" us and make us "susceptible to dissolution and death" as the prices to be paid for the potential for growth and
complexity." We can't live in abusive systems, the disease tells us. Either we die from the disease,
or we "escape to higher orders of complexity" --to
healthier connectedness.

--The Paradigm Conspiracy pp273-274

The next paragraph goes into the eighth step of the AA program and making a list of who has been harmed. Duke Cunningham has millions on his list. I'm glad I don't have to do his amends!

I've been acting like a bull in a china shop lately because of some control-paradigm awareness
A couple of times last week I almost lost it on some people, one of whom, fortunately, left town.
Gonna have to talk to the other one.

Yes, I have it. Control-paradigm sickness. White males are particularly prone, I'm afraid.

Give me 2.4 million, and I'll run your contract up the flagpole.

Sorry about my restless anxiety. God, Good Orderly
Direction is sorting it out even as we speak.

great-full 4 all of U! -mm

I've been acting like a bull in a china shop lately because of some control-paradigm awareness
A couple of times last week I almost lost it on some people, one of whom, fortunately, left town.
Gonna have to talk to the other one.

Yes, I have it. Control-paradigm sickness. White males are particularly prone, I'm afraid.

Hey, I resemble those remarks!

So what about faith and moral values? Those would seem to transform any paradigm or at least give it a more human face. I'm not yet willing to blame things on paradigms or "systems." People have free-will. Cunningham knew what he was doing, and he alone is responsible for his behavior, imo. Others have and do occupied similar posts without caving to bribery.

Phil,

I would suggest that it is easier to do things in certain environments. You wouldn't want loved ones
associating with certain cultural peer pressure groups, even if they were "adult," whatever that means. In a militaristic, macho, "power over" and "control paradigm" world, it can be s-o-o-o-o easy
to get involved in this kind of thing. Who did he hang around with all his life? Who were his role models and influences?

To exclude these factors would be to ignore what Ken Wilber calls "the descended grid" or the society, the collective, systems, contracters,
group values, economics, the media, the schools,
the churches, the military, the family, essentially everything that went into the "Duke."

Aside from his personal decisions, how are each and every one of us involved? Why did the old testament prophet identify with and lament the sins of Israel, rather than just his own?


guilty_bystander.com

Ten year old girls can sometimes see right through
all this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samantha_Smith

And sometimes Maryknoll sisters too:

http://www.peacemakersguide.or...ers/Maura-Clarke.htm

Most grown-ups are a tad bit complicated and confused, or perhaps culturally conditioned.

sham_pooh_with_conditioner.com

Randy Cunningham, according to some, was the subject
of this movie:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_Gun about this school:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOPGUN

Lots of macho depicted here, "throw weight," "angle of thrust," "hardened silos," our missile are "harder."

Movies like this shape our thinking. Ok, so we shot down four Libyan jets in the 1980s, and deterred other potential threats, but was that worth a trillion dollars? We have twelve carrier battle groups and our "enemies" have none.

How can we justify a post-cold-war military of this magnitude, and why are we so in love with it?

doctor_strangelove.com