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As Daily Necessities Become Harder to Afford
Day after day, the American people are witnesses to the phenomenon of spreading poison among the people through the instrumentality of the Democratic party and gutter journalism; and yet they are astonished at the deplorable “moral standards” and “national indifference” of the masses. Many people can only fight for something that they love. They can love only what they respect. And to respect a thing, they must have some knowledge of it and feel that it is something that is protecting them. The social problem is that crime is no longer illegal under the rule of the Democratic party, and several honest Americans believe that they are being penalized through unfair taxes and hyperinflation. When they come home in the evenings for working so hard to pay for handouts that people who are committing crimes unlawfully receive, they are dead tired. Democrats are exploiting the working masses. There is nothing that they do not drag in the mud. During these days of mental anguish and deep meditation, the American people see before their mind the ever-increasing and menacing army of people who can no longer be reckoned as belonging to their own nation. We gaze at the leaders of the Democratic party, watching that enormous human dragon slowly uncoiling itself before the World. This has caused many to feel dismayed and depressed. #RandolphHarris 1 of 25
As daily necessities become harder to afford, Americans have amassed $1.14 trillion in credit card debt. That is $27 billion more than credit card debt they carried in the second quarter of 2024. The high tally comes as concerns of an economic recession triggered by modestly rising unemployment, and as soaring costs in food, housing and automobile rates continue to drain household budgets. Americans have increasingly been relying on credit cards to pay the bill, with 60 percent of Americans using credit cards to buy groceries in 2023. As more people are carrying significantly more debt, extended periods of debt are causing more Americans to fall behind on their credit card bills. Approximately 7.18 percent of credit card users have fallen into delinquency in the second quarter, up from 5 percent in the previous quarter. American paid down some of their credit card debt in 2020 using pandemic-related federal stimulus funds. However, beginning in 2021, credit card balances drastically increased by 48 percent, caused by high inflation and high interest rates. Debt owned on mortgages and automobile loans also increased by $77 billion and $10 billion, respectively. Total consumer debt has grown to $18 trillion. And the average rate on a credit card is nearly 25 percent. #RandolphHarris 2 of 25
Last week’s jobless rate increased worries that a recession is here. The numbers included an increase of 114,000 in non-farm payrolls during July, down from 179,000 in June and far below analysts’ forecast of 175,000 gain. And the unemployment rate rose to 4.3 percent, the highest since October 2021. Many have also stated that housing costs are so high because there is a shortage in the supply of houses. However, that is not so. During 2000 and 2020, America had a surplus of 3.3 million homes. This defies conventional wisdom that the nation is facing a housing shortage. Builders over built housing units and in 2024, they are still trying to absorb that enormous over build. There is a shortage of housing that low- and very low-income families can afford. In most cities and small towns, there is an average shortage of 8,000 housing units that low- and very low-income families can afford. For those households, which require government assistance to find housing, the absolute highest they can afford to pay for rent is $550. Building new homes and apartments cannot address the shortage for the absolute poorest. No private developer can build a unit that [$550] price and survive. Just the property taxes, insurance, and utility costs exceed that number. #RandolphHarris 3 of 25
Many people do not want low-income housing in their communities either. Low-income housing often increases crime rates in good areas as it attracts seedy individuals. Violent crime wreaks a terrible impact not only on individual victims, their families, and friends but also on nearby residents and the fabric of their neighbourhoods. Exposure to violent crime can damage people’s healthy and development, and violence can push communities into vicious circles of decay. However, policing hot spots can be effective. Nonetheless, the 20,000,000 illegal immigrants that President Biden and Vice President Kamla have packed into the cities is drastically increasing costs and putting a burden on the poor and taxpayers. The southern border crisis is costing American taxpayers around $451 billion per year for services provided to a record number of illegal aliens under the Biden administration. When higher taxes are costs are preventing private industry from building affordable housing, Vice President Kalama has expressed support for allowing immigrants residing in American to obtain public health insurance, regardless of legal status. Tax increases and handouts are hurting everyone. This struggle against their own kind, their own nest, their own homeland is as senseless as it is incomprehensible. It is unnatural and we need another political party to represent America and the American people. #RandolphHarris 4 of 25
The Czarist Democratic administration is corrupt and largely incompetent and, in addition to all this, the Democratic party and the riots of 2020 have bled the American people without bringing them victory. The economic conditions are not able to sustain a capitalistic society. To turn a disciplined working population into a peasant population, and to force the population to accept the higher taxes, illegal immigration and communism, the rapid accumulation of capital has been used to force people to take government subsidies by putting the nation on house arrest and forcing them not to go to work and to accept vaccines and through the threat of terror. This was due to the Democratic party’s mad suspiciousness and their unlimited desire for personal power—a terror which went far beyond what would have been necessary to maintain capitalism, and which, in fact, in many ways weakened their economy and military position. Because the Democratic party is also pushing to take away the second amendment and because of the crime waves caused by illegal immigration and not enforcing the laws, to tend this terror, many people are advocating a police state. While this state does not permit the expression of opinions critical of the system, and even less of corresponding political activity, it is believed that it will free the average citizen from the fright of being a victim of crime in the night and early-morning hours. #RandolphHarris 5 of 25
The degradation of the Biden administration, finding its completion when President Biden was ruled incompetent to run for reelection in the summer of 2024 and replacing him with the inexperienced Vice president Kamala, has been carried out by the display of confusing phraseology about liberty and human dignity, all promulgated with an air of profound ignorance and disturbing promises; a carelessly-woven glitter of words to dazzle and betwixt the public. The daily Press has inoculated this new doctrine of American degradation in the most brutal fashion. No means have been too base, provided they could be exploited in this campaign of slander. These journalists are virtuous in the art of twisting facts and presenting them in a deceptive form. The theoretical literature was intended for the simpletons of the soi-distant intellectuals belonging to the middle and, naturally, the upper classes. The TV news media propaganda is intended for the masses. However, probing into books and newspapers and studying the doctrines of Democracy should reawaken one’s love for their own people and country. Thus, what at first seems an impassable chasm will become the occasion of a closer affection. Once one understands the working of the colossal system for poisoning the popular mind, only a fool can blame the victims. The American people must learn to become more independent, and this will allow them to understand the inner cause of the success achieved by the American Dream gospel. #RandolphHarris 6 of 25
One will better come to understand why the Democratic party wants to burden taxpayers with debt and make homeowner ship and rent unaffordable. In clear light of the brutal reality, one will see inevitable consequences of high taxes, hyperinflation, and government subsidies. America is headed towards a communistic system under the current administration. Now, the American people’s sensibilities are not so much under the sway of abstract reasoning but are subject to the influence of a vague emotional longing for strength that completes their being, and they would rather bow to propaganda than to see the truth. The masses of people prefer the dictator to being their own leader and earning the American Dream through hard work and determination. They have extraordinarily little idea of how to be strong capitalists and thus they are prone to abandon their freedom and autonomy. They feel very little shame at being terrorized intellectually and they are scarcely conscious of the fact that their freedom as human beings are impudently abused; and thus they have not the slightest suspicion of the intrinsic fallacy of the Democratic doctrine. They do not even see the ruthless force and brutality of its determined utterances, to which they always submit. #RandolphHarris 7 of 25
The American citizen knows what he can do and what he cannot do and, provided he moves within these limits, he need not be afraid. The Democratic party sill uses revolutionary and socialist ideas voiced by Marx, Engles, and Lenin as ideologies which give a sense of meaning to the masses. Yet they are unaware that the socialist movements always end on the tragic note of failure. The Democrats are carrying on a campaign of mental terrorism against Americans, who are neither morally nor spiritually equipped to withstand such attacks. The tactics of the Democratic party consists in opening, at a given signal, a veritable drumfire of lies and calumnies against the man whom they believe to be the most redoubtable of their adversaries, until the nerves of the latter give way, and they sacrifice the man who was attacked, simply in the hope of being allowed to live in peace. However, the hope will prove always to be a foolish one, for they will never be left in peace. The same tactics will be repeated again and again, until fear of these mad dogs exercises through suggestion, a paralyzing effect on their victims. Through its own experience The Democratic party has learned the value of strength, and for that reason it attacks mostly those in whom it scents stuff of more stalwart kind, which is indeed an exceedingly rare possession. #RandolphHarris 8 of 25
However, the Lord can reassure that He is near and that He will lead us through the darkest days of our lives. Life is not always easy to live, but the opportunity to do so is a blessing beyond comprehension. In the process of living we will face struggles, many of which will cause us to suffer and to experience pain. Many people will suffer in personal struggles, while others will suffer as they watch their loved ones in pain. To gain strength in our struggles, we must have an optimistic perspective of the principles in the plan of salvation. We must realize that we have a personal Saviour whom we can trust and turn to in our times of need. We must also learn and live the principles the Lord has given to receive the strength needed during our struggles. “And there stood one among them that was like unto God, and He said unto those who were with Him: We will go down, for there is space there, and we will take of these materials, and we will make an Earth whereon these may dwell,” reports Abraham 3.24. This Earth is the place to prove ourselves worthy and to prepare to return to the presence of the Lord. “And we will prove them herewith, to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord their God shall command them,” reports Abraham 3.25. The Lord explains the purpose for which we must be tested during this Earthly experience. “My people must be tried in all things, that they may be prepared to receive the glory that I have for them, even the glory of Zion; and that that will not bear chastisement is not worthy of my kingdom,” report Doctrine and Covenants 136.31. #RandolphHarris 9 of 25
Part of the plan is that there is an opposition in all things. We are given the agency to choose between these opposites in the proving process. “For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so, my firstborn in the wilderness, righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad. Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound in one; wherefore, if it should be one body it must needs remain as dead, having no life neither death, nor corruption nor incorruption, happiness nor misery, neither sense nor insensibility,” reports 2 Nephi 2.11. In our pre-Earth life, we understood and sustained the plan of salvation with the principles of opposition and agency. We knew we would have experience in this life that would cause us to struggle and sometimes to suffer. Some of our struggles involve making decision, while others are a result of the decisions we have made. Some of our struggles result from choices others make that affect our lives. We cannot always control everything that happens to us in this life, but we can control how we respond. Many struggles come as problems and pressures that sometimes cause pain. Others come as temptations, trials, and tribulations. Yet struggles are part of the sacred sanctification process. #RandolphHarris 10 of 25
There are no soft or slothful ways to become sanctified to the point that we are prepared to live in the presence of the Saviour. And there can be blessings in the burdens we bear. As a result of these struggles, our souls are stretched, and our spirits are strengthened. Our character becomes more Christlike as we are tried and tested. Even though these experiences may cause pain, suffering, and sorrow, we have absolute assurance. If it be suffered in resignation, and if it be met with patience, no pain suffered by man or woman upon the Earth will be without its compensating effects. “And if thou shouldst be cast into the pit, or into the hands of murderers, and the sentence of death passed upon thee; if thou because into the deep; if the billowing surge conspire against thee; if fierce winds become thing enemy; if the Heavens gather darkness, and all the elements combine to hedge up the way; and above all, if the very jaws of Hell shall gape open the mouth wide after thee, know thou, my son, that all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good,” reports Doctrine and Covenants 122.7. People respond to struggles in different ways. Some feel defeated and beaten down by the burdens they are called to bear. Many begin to blame others for their difficulties and defeats, and they fail to follow the counsel of the Lord. It is a natural tendency to seek the easy road on life’s journey and to become discouraged, filled with doubt, and even depressed when facing life’s struggles. #RandolphHarris 11 of 25
If we follow the revealed eternal principles, we will gain strength during our struggles and will be blessed as we bear our burdens, deal with difficulties, and overcome obstacles in our lives. If we are to gain the strength that we need, we must come to know the Saviour and follow His counsel. “But behold, verily, verily, I say unto you that mine eyes are upon you. I am in your midst as ye cannot see me,” reports Doctrine and Covenants 38.7. When we imagine, we are envisioning possible ways for the World to be. Imagination is play with the possibilities of transforming the World from the way it is now perceived to be to some new form. Of course, it takes action to transform an image of a possible self in a possible World into an actuality that can be perceived by others and by oneself. Imagination is a way of “traveling,” of overcoming one’s present situation, to envision possibilities that might make life more livable, more fulfilling. The free play of imagination, then, is the way in which we experience new possibilities for the World. It is one of our most precious gifts of evolution, because it is only through such vision that we can save ourselves when our situation has become unlivable. Anything that diminishes or makes banal our imagination chains us more tightly to a here and now that may not be viable. #RandolphHarris 12 of 25
Every compelling goal and project, whether projected for five minutes or five years into the future, rests upon our capacity to imagine another way for the World to be, with us in it. Such a vision of transitional utopia may function as an irresistible temptation or invitation that the person may accept, showing this acceptance through action. Just as imagination can enliven us, ordering and directing our life, so it can demoralize us, even kill us. If one imagines oneself to be weak or helpless, it is but a short step from imagination to belief that such is the case. Healthy personality calls for the ability to discriminate among modes of experiencing. Under conditions of intense need or emotion, a person may confuse imagination with perception and with confirmed truth. There is another aspect of imagining, or literally “image-ing,” that when misunderstood can affect a person’s body and action in deleterious ways but that, appreciated, can serve the person’s well-being and growth. When a person engages in imagining, it is done not just with the mind, but with the entire body. Indeed, the art of actin on the stage is a deliberate, imaginative imitation of some other person. One “becomes” the imagined person, acting and experiencing the World as the role requires. #RandolphHarris 13 of 25
Hypnotists tell subjects that they are tired, or strong, or that they can remember the past so well that they will become three years old again, and the compliant subject “yield.” They fulfill the hypnotists’ suggestions by being as they imagine a tired or strong person is, and they act as they imagine or remember what it was like to by three years old. One’s body image is the way in which one chronically imagines the body to be, whether weak or strong, energetic, or exhausted, vulnerable to disease or resistant. Fisher and Cleveland were able to show that an image of one’s own body as only weakly “bounded” was related to increased susceptibility to diseases and malfunction of the internal organs, such as stomach ulcers; an image of one’s body as rigidly armored against the World—excessively so—was related to diseases of the skin, bones, and muscles, for example, arthritis. I have been so impressed by the influence of imagination upon one’s body and one’s capacities to act that I say to my patients, “Be careful how you imagine yourself to be, because you might become that way.” So-called psychocybernetic and optimistic thinking work in this way, as a kind of self-hypnosis or intense argument with oneself, by saying, “I can do this, I can survive, I can succeed,” and believing the statement. This self-[persuasion can affect a person in beneficial ways, just as imagining oneself as dead, or as a failure, can bring the image of doom to reality. #RandolphHarris 14 of 25
When a person becomes aware of an existing blockage, he should drop whatever analytical pursuits he is engaged in and take the resistance as the most urgent problem to be tacked. It is as useless to force himself to go one against the resistance as it would be to try again and again to light an electric bulb that does not burn; one must see where the electric current is blocked, whether in the bulb, in the fixture, in the cord, in the switch. The technique of tackling a resistance is to try to associate it. However, in all resistances occurring during analytical work it is helpful, before associating, to go over the notes that precede the blockage, because there is a fair chance that the clue for it lies in an issue at least touched upon, and that while glancing over the notes the point of departure may become evident. And sometimes a person will not be capable of going after a resistance immediately: he may be too reluctant or feel too uneasy to do so. It is advisable then, instead of forcing himself, merely to make a note that at this or that point he suddenly felt uneasy or tired, and to resume work the next day when he may have a fresh perspective on matters. In advocating that he “associate to a resistance” I mean that he should consider the manifestation of the blockage and let his thoughts run freely along that line. Thus, if he has noticed that no matter what problems are concerned his interpretations always make him come out on top, he should try to take that finding as a point of departure for further associations. #RandolphHarris 15 of 25
If he has become discouraged at a finding he should remember that the latter may have touched upon the factors that he is not yet able or willing to change, and try to associate with that possibility in mind. If his difficulty is in starting to analyze, though he feels a need for self-examination, he should remind himself that a previous piece of analysis or some outside occurrence may have produced a blockage. One object of script analysis is to fit the patient’s life plan into the grand historical psychology of the whole human race, a psychology which apparently has changed but little from cave days, through the early farming and ranching settlements and the great totalitarian governments of the Middle East, up to the present time. Dr. Freud, Jung, and their followers have demonstrated irrefutably that the logic, the heroes, and the deeds of myth survive into modern times…The latest incarnation of Oedipus, the continued romance of Beauty and the Beast, stand this afternoon on the corner of Forty-Second Street and Fifth Avenue, waiting for the traffic light to change. While the hero of the myth achieves a World-historical triumph, the hero of the fairy tale achieves merely a small domestic victory. And patients are patients, we may add, because they cannot achieve the victories they aim for and still survive. Hence, they come to the doctor, “the knower of all the secret ways and words of potency. His role is precisely that of the Wise Old Man of the myths and fairy tales whose words assist the hero through the trials and terrors of the weird adventure.” #RandolphHarris 16 of 25
The way the Child in the patient see it, no matter how his Adult tells the story, it is quite evident that all children, since the beginning of humanity, have had to cope with the same problems, and have had about the same weapons at their disposal. When it comes to cutting, life is the same old wine in new bottles: coconut and bamboo bottles gave way to goatskins, goatskins to pottery, pottery to glass, and glass to plastic, but the grapes have hardly changed at all, and there is the same old intoxication on top and the same old dregs at the bottom. So, there will be found little variation in the shapes of the adventures and the characters involved. Hence, if we know some of the elements of the patient’s script, we can predict with some confidence where he is heading, and head him off before he meets with misfortune or disaster. That is called preventive psychiatry, or “making progress.” Even better, we can get him to change his script or give it up altogether, which is curative psychiatry, or “getting well.” Thus, it is not a matter of doctrine or necessity to precisely find the myth or fairy tale which the patient is following; but the closer we can come, the better. Without such a historical foundation, errors are frequent. A mere episode in the patient’s life, or his favourite game, may be mistaken for the whole script; or the occurrence of a single animal symbol, such as a wolf, may lead the therapist to bark up the wrong tree. #RandolphHarris 17 of 25
Relating the patient’s life or his Child’s life plan to a coherent story which has survived for hundreds or thousands of years because of its universal appeal to the primitive layers of the human mind, at least gives a feeling of work from a solid foundation, and at best may give very precise clues as to what needs to be done to avert or change a bad ending. For example, a fairy tale may reveal elements of a script which are otherwise hard to dig up, such as the “script illusion.” The transactional analyst believes that psychiatric symptoms result from some form of self-deception. However, patients can be cured just because their lives and their disabilities are based on a figment of the imagination. The philosopher achieves what is rare—a cool mental detachment from things or persons, united with a tender feeling for them. No man can become philosophical and yet derive complete satisfaction from or attach complete importance to whatever is favourable in his external life. He sees to clearly how transient, how imperfect, and how compensated by disadvantages it all is. Indeed, he outgrows the excessive common interest in and the excessive common preoccupation with the ebb and flow of external life. He finds more and more trivial what he once found—and the generality of men still find—worthy of serious attention. #RandolphHarris 18 of 25
Is it possible to be inwardly aloof from the pleasurable things of the World and yet be outwardly able to enjoy them? It is possible to love another in a human way yet retain the inner detachment requisite for resting in philosophic peace? Can we make the best of these two Worlds? Just as we can learn by practice to remain inwardly peaceful amid outward turmoil, so we can learn to remain peaceful during outward pleasure. However, this practice is hard to learn, and most beginners fail at it. For a man to train himself in emotional control over the mad loves and insane passions, the recurrent longings, and tormenting desires, is like training himself to die. Let no one underestimate this tremendous task. We plan to gain insight into the meaning of man, who not only is determined by history but who also determines history. History is to be understood as concerned not only with the life of man on this planet but as also including such cosmic influences as interpenetrate our human World. This generation is discovering that history does not conform to the social optimism of modern civilization and that the organization of human communities and the establishment of freedom and peace are not only intellectual achievements but spiritual and more achievements as well, demanding a cherishing of the wholeness of human personality, the “unmediated wholeness of feeling and thought,” and constituting a never-ending challenge to man, emerging from the abyss of meaninglessness and suffering, to be renewed and replenished in the totality of his life. #RandolphHarris 19 of 25
The Sacramento Fire Department is committed to the preservation and protection of life, property, and the environment from fire, disaster, and hazardous materials related incidents through emergency mitigation, public education, and code reinforcement. “In every fire station it’s important for everybody to be able to perform at maximum efficiency at all times. We don’t get working fires every day, though lately we’ve been very busy. With applicants of the firefighter job, we use urinalysis. I think it’s a better test than polygraph. I think a lot of people are eliminated unnecessarily because of the polygraph. I’m in favor of a good, lengthy background investigation and urinalysis. We have a lot of young guys in the department. They’re not stereotypically troublesome people. Many of them are married, so there is no drinking or drug abuse problem there. People think that firefighters have a pretty soft job. They don’t see the guys at three in the morning. They don’t see them after one of their fellow firefighters has died or when a child has died in a fire. They don’t see the look on the guys after they come off duty, the total exhaustion from fighting a fire. We have a lot of education to do. At three fires this year that I was in charge of, we lost kids, multiple fatalities. #RandolphHarris 20 of 25
“In comparing fire departments, I think what the administrators fail to look at is the types of buildings we have. In cities like Scottsdale, Arizona, or Plano, Texas, where they have sprinkler ordinances, they don’t have the risks in property and people that older cities have. I discuss the job with my wife a lot. She has always been a great support to me, and she always worried about me going to work. That was on her mind. One year we lost seven guys. There was a fire in a garage where they were repairing a propane truck. A water heater was on the floor, and the truck blew. We lost three guys there. Then we had a fire at a metallurgical factor, where manganese dust collected and blew up, and we lost four guys there. So the fact that you could get killed on the job was pretty evident. I never really worried about it. I was always safety-conscious. I became interested in the problems of protective clothing because I saw the need for it. When I got promoted, that was always my prime concern. You want to get through your whole career without having any firefighter who works for you getting killed. When something like that happens, it makes you take a look at things and reassesses your position. We have difficulty convincing the city managers of the need for minimum manning on the fire trucks. Though we don’t have five men on a truck anymore, we feel fortunate that we have been able to maintain four and four, that is, four on a truck and four on an engine. #RandolphHarris 21 of 25
“The department has been cut down from twelve hundred men to something like nine hundred ninety. We have had problems where we haven’t had enough truck companies to cover the city. The city administration doesn’t appreciate truck work. They don’t understand the importance of immediate search and ventilation. And if the truck company can’t do its job, it makes it really unsafe for the firefighters. The city was interested in consolidating, closing down stations. So we consolidated three stations into one. About a month later, there was a fire where we lost a lady who ran a restaurant. She was a celebrity in that area. The people in the community were really upset, and the city responded by reopening a single station. It was our busiest engine company. The consolidated station was a long way from the fire site. It took longer to respond. So the single house was reopened. There’s always a debate about whether you’re better to arrive in the fire ground in sixty or so seconds with a single engine company or, say, in three minutes with three companies. It’s more expensive to operate single houses, but I doubt that this house will be closed down again. Computers are certainly not right when it comes to a lot of things, because there are many factors AI technology cannot consider. #RandolphHarris 22 of 25
“I can’t say the city hasn’t cooperated as far as protective clothing goes. I can’t think of anything that the present chief or the chief before him didn’t push for us at city hall. I think Sacramento was the first major department to use Nomax turnout coats. But when they combined the two busiest battalions into one superbusy battalion. I know the administrators have a lot of demand put on them, and obviously they are trying to save money. Unfortunately, sometimes it takes a disaster for people to see their mistakes. Right now, I’d like to see more manning on the fire companies. The heavy fire duty makes for better camaraderie. It’s not like having an eight-hour job. You will with these people, you work with them, you die with them. It’s a special feeling. There’s nothing else like it in the World. In the past, it was a very close-knit group in the firehouse. We did a lot of things together. We had a lot of activities with families, with groups. We would have picnics together. We’d have outings together at each other’s houses. There’s a different feeling now, though, because things have to be run differently. We have a serious morale problem, where a lot of members think there’s been unequal treatment. Many houses still have a good feeling of camaraderie, but morale is not what it used to be. So we are conscious of building morale. #RandolphHarris 23 of 25
“My best time in the fire department was when I was a captain and a battalion chief. I was five or six years with Truck X, the busiest truck company in the city. We had a super group of guys. I worked with a lieutenant who was older than me. And he was truly a firefighter’s firefighter. He would do anything and go any place. We had a god we had taken in. That dog would climb the aerial ladder. He was fantastic. He went to all the fires with us. This was really a close-knit group of guys who really took pride in the job. You could count on any one of them for anything. You like to see that kind of company. My lieutenant died at fifty-five. He could have retired. He had a heart attack after coming back from a fire in a housing project. That was a very traumatic experience. The man was doing what he wanted to do. He stayed on a busy company until the day he died. It seems that our best companies and the closet companies are the ones that are busiest. Out of five hundred new firefighters, 95 percent are conscientious young guys who really want to do the job. And they do do the job. We have problems, but they’re different problems. During the time of the riots, you felt here was a good change you were going to get injured or killed, maybe not even from a fire. We had incidents where our apparatus was shot at, tires were flattened, hoses were cut. The risks were so great it made the troops come that much closer together. #RandolphHarris 24 of 25
“We have had fires where somebody dies, the family is distraught, and they try to blame somebody. And the one they like to blame is the firefighter. We had a fire recently in an apartment house, and two children died. The people complained about our response time. Well, when it was all brought out, from the time we received the call until the time the two victims were in the hospital, it was less than five minutes. That includes getting to the scene and taking the victims out of the building. That’s a pretty tight time span. When you lose kids in a fire, you try to be diplomatic, but people get distraught. They don’t appreciate what you’ve done, and you have to understand them. That’s one of the tough things” The Sacramento Fire Department is a premier public safety organization committed to the safety and welfare of their community. You can help save lives and property by donating. Also, to help preserve our community, please raise your children to love America, be patriotic, love God and Jesus Christ, respect law and order, treat others with dignity and kindness, and to buy American made cars and other American made goods and services. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic, for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. I before Thy greatness stand and am afraid; all my secret thoughts Thine eye beholdeth, deep within my bosom laid. And, withal, what is it heart and tongue can do? What is this my strength, and what is even this, the spirit in me too? However, indeed, man’s singing may seem good to Thee; so I praise Thee, singing, while there dwelleth yet the breath of God in me. #RandolphHarris 25 of 25
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The Awakening of Nations that Have Been Silent for Nearly Two Hundred Years
In Latin America, the United States of America is involved more directly than they are in other countries. There are heavy investments from the United States of America in many Latin American countries such as Venezuela, Argentina, Guatemala, and Cuba. U.S.A. foreign direct investment (FDI) in Venezuela stock was $3.2 billion in 2022, a 5.1 percent increase from 2021. U.S.A. FDI in Argentia (stock) was $12.6 billion in 2022. More than 200 U.S.A. and other foreign firms have active investments in Guatemala, benefiting from the U.S.A. Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR). FDI stock was $22.5 billion in 2022, a 5.3 percent increase over 2021. On June 16, 2017, the President issued a National Security Presidential Memorandum (NSPM) on Strengthening the Policy of the United States of America Toward Cuba. On November 8, 2017, the Departments of State, Commerce, and the Treasury announced certain changes to implement the President’s June 2017 NSPM. Cuba is facing a severe economic crisis and the cash-strapped government is unable to provide basic services. The investment of Cuban Americans in private businesses on the island could be a game changer, many observers have said. However, while the Cuban government has said in the past that they would welcome Cuban American investment on the island, they have yet to issue regulations to allow foreigners to own or invest in the small and medium-sized enterprises known as pymes that were first authorized in 2021. #RandolphHarris 1 of 22
The United States of America is Guatemala’s largest trading partner accounting for nearly 35 percent of Guatemala’s trade. Both nations enjoy a growing trade relationship, which became ever stronger after the implementation of the CAFTA-DR in 2007. As of January 1, 2015, most U.S.A. consumer and industrial goods enter Guatemala duty free (for goods that meet the country-of-origin requirements). In general, CAFTA-DR has benefitted all parties. Intra-regional trade among Central America countries and the Dominican Republic increased from $27.2 billion in 2021. U.S.A. goods exports to Central America and the Dominican Republic have reached $48.31 million in 2022 (this figure was $16.89 million in 2005). Nevertheless, CAFTA-DR has been unable to solve some of the region’s most serious problems—including insecurity and corruption. U.S.A. merchandise exports to Guatemala were $10.21 billion in 2022, an increase of $2.14 billion or 23 percent over 2021. Leadning U.S.A. exports to Guatemala include mineral fuel oil, machinery, electric machinery, plastics, and cereals (corn, wheat, and rice). U.S.A. imports from Guatemala totaled $5.31 billion in 2022, an increase of $640 million or 12.8 percent over 2021. U.S.A. imports include apparel; edible fruits, melons, and nuts; coffee; edible vegetables, roots, and tubers; sugars and confectioneries of sugar. U.S.A. products and services enjoy strong brand recognition in Guatemala, and U.S.A. companies have a good reputation in the Guatemalan marketplace. It is estimated that approximately 200 U.S.A. firms have a presence in the market. #RandolphHarris 2 of 22
The United States of America and Argentina maintain a bilateral relationship based on deep economic ties and shared interests, including, democracy and human rights, counterterrorism and rule of law, improving citizen security, science, energy and technology infrastructure, people-to-people ties, and education. A U.S.A. Presidential Delegation attended the December 2019 inauguration of the new president of Argentia, Alberto Fernandez. Members of the delegation met privately with President Fernandez to fortify the relationship between the United States of America and Argentia. The Fernandez administration has said it seeks a mature relationship with the United States of America based on shared interests. The Department of State allocated $3.1 million for Argentia for fiscal years (FY) 2020. This funding promotes regional security. The Department of State’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs partners with Argentia to deliver counter-narcotics and criminal justice capacity building, which has strengthened the ability of both governments to disrupt transitional crime in the Western Hemisphere. The United States of America enjoys a trade surplus with Argentina, and is Argentina’s number three goods and services trading partner behind Brazil and China.) U.S.A. goods and services trade with Argentia totaled $161 billion in 2020. There are more than 300 U.S.A. companies doing business in Argentia, employing more than 150,000 workers. The United States of America is the largest foreign investor in Argentina, with approximately $10.7 billion (stock) FDI in 2019. #RandolphHarris 3 of 22
Venezuela gained its independence from Spain by 1819 as part of the Republic of Columbia and separated from Columbia in 1830. The United States of America recognized and established diplomatic relations with Venezuela in 1835. The United States of America recognizes the 2015 democratically elected Venezuelan National Assembly as the only legitimate branch of the Government of Venezuela. The United States of America and the 2015 National Assembly collaborated closely to achieve the goal of a peaceful restoration of democracy via free and fair presidential and parliamentary elections. The United States of America supports the protection of human rights, the promotion of civil society, the strengthening of democratic institutions, and transparency and accountability in the country. Since 2017, the United States of America has provided nearly $2.8 billion in humanitarian, economic, development, and health assistance to support Venezuelans inside Venezuela and throughout the region. Since 2005, the President of the United States of America has determined annually that Venezuela has “failed demonstrably” to adhere to its drug control obligations under international counternarcotic agreements. Venezuela also does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of human trafficking and is not making any efforts to do so, according to the Department of State’s annual Trafficking in Persons report. The President of the United States of America has issued a national interest wavier to enable certain assistance programs vital to the national interests of the United States of America, such as human rights and civil society programs, to continue. U.S.A. humanitarian assistance helps to meet critical life-saving needs, including for food and nutrition; water, sanitation, and hygiene; healthcare; protection and other goods and services. #RandolphHarris 4 of 22
The United States of America seeks a stable, prosperous, and free country for the Cuban people. The United States of America pursues limited engagement with Cuba that advances our national interests and empowers the Cuban people while restricting economic practices that disproportionately benefit the Cuban government or its military, intelligence, or security agencies at the expense of the Cuban people. The U.S.A. government seeks to promote human rights, religious freedom, and democracy, encourages the development of telecommunications and the internet in Cuba, supports the growth of Cuba’s nascent private sector and civil society, and engages in areas that advance the interests of the United States of America and the Cuban people. The United States of America is committed to supporting safe, orderly, and legal migration from Cuba through the effective implementation of the U.S.A.-Cuba Migration Accords. Due to injuries sustained by our diplomatic community in Havana, visa processing for most Cuban applicants is presently taking place in third countries. Although economic sanctions remain in place, the United States of America is the largest provider of food and agricultural products to Cuba, with exports of those goods valued at $220.5 million in 2018. The United States of America is also a significant supplier of humanitarian goods to Cuba, including medicines and medical products, with total value of all exports to Cuba $275.9 million in 2018. Remittances from the United States of America, estimated at $3.5 billion for 2017, play an important role in Cuba’s state-controlled economy. #RandolphHarris 5 of 22
The situation in which humanity finds itself is exceedingly grave. The policy of deterrent will not ensure peace; it will most likely destroy civilization, and it will certainly destroy democracy even if it preserves peace. No one knows what the first steps in avoiding a nuclear cataclysm and preserving a democracy are. However, it is clear that more important than climate change and electric vehicles is dealing with the immediate danger of nuclear war. Another central issue of today is that of the future course of the underdeveloped nations, which comprise the majority of the human race. They insist not only on obtaining political independence but also on rapid economic development. These people will not wait two hundred years to achieve the economic level of Europe or the United States of America. The Communists have shown that by means of force and fanaticism it is possible to attain results; their method will become irresistibly attractive unless it can be demonstrated that similar results can be achieved without terror and without the destruction of individuality, through central planning along with economic and technical assistance from the industrialized countries. Such a policy requires the acceptance of a neutral bloc by both the East and the West and the strengthening of the United Nations as a supernational organization charged with the administration of disarmament and economic aid. The pursuit of the policy suggested here requires such drastic changes in the American attitude that one cannot avoid having serious doubts whether such a policy is possible; in fact, its acceptance would seem to be impossible unless there is a growing conviction that it constitutes the only alternative to war. #RandolphHarris 6 of 22
The pursuit of the policy suggested here requires such drastic changes in the American attitude that one cannot avoid having serious doubts whether such a policy is possible; in fact, its acceptance would seem to be impossible unless there is a growing conviction that it constitutes the only alternative to war. First, such a policy would require that the President and Congress subordinate the special interests of the armed forces and of the big corporations (especially those with strong capital investments abroad) to the main goals of the United States of America’s policy, peace and survival as a democratic nation. Furthermore, this policy requires a material and spiritual reorientation in the West entailing the replacement of projective-paranoid attitudes toward communism by an objective and realistic appraisal of the facts. Such realism is only possible if we take a critical view of ourselves and recognize the discrepancy that exists between our professed ideals and our actions. We claim that our present system is characterized by a high degree of individualism, and of religious or secular humanism. In reality we are a managerial, industrial society with a diminishing amount of individualism. We like to produce more and to consumer more, but we have no goal—either as individuals or as a nation. We are developing into faceless organization humans, alienated from ourselves and lacking authentic feelings and convictions. This very fact lends us to put so much emphasis on the lack of freedom and individualism in other nations because we can then protest against features of their society which in reality we are approaching in our own. #RandolphHarris 7 of 22
The people in Russia, China, India, Mexico and Africa are today in some resect where Americans were one hundred and sixty years ago; they are building a society, full of hope and enthusiasm to go ahead and to accomplish what they have set out to do. While in the United States of America, although there is still unnecessary poverty and unnecessary suffering, we are only filing out what has been left to do; we are only doing more of the same. We have no vision of something new, no aim that truly inspires us. If this continues, we and the West will not survive. We will lack the energy and vitality that are necessary for any nation or group of nations to live and to survive in a World that is witnessing the awakening of nations that have been silent for nearly two hundred years. Our weapons will not save us—at best they will drag our enemies into the holocaust thirty minutes after we have perished. What can save us and what can help humankind is a renaissance of the spirit of humanism, of individualism, and of America’s anti-colonialist tradition. By our hesitant and often ambiguous policy toward the underdeveloped peoples we have helped the Communists realize one of their most significant successes: to become the leaders in the historical movement of the “New World,” and to stamp us the “reactionary” forces trying to arrest the historical trend. We must, if not surpass, at least equal the Communists, by being wholly and unreservedly with the wave of history, rather than halfheartedly and hesitatingly. As has been said over and over again, the present struggle is a struggle for the minds of humans. Once can win it only if one has ideas to offer that are authentic because they are rooted in the realities of nation’s life. #RandolphHarris 8 of 22
The West is old, but by no means exhausted. It has shown its vitality by achievements in scientific thought that are unparalleled in history. We are suffering not so much from exhaustion as from the absence of goals, and from the “doublethink” that paralyzes us. If we ask ourselves where are and where we are going, we shall have a chance to formulate new goals socially, economically, politically, and spiritually. The Russian, Chinese, and Indian systems challenge us to develop a system that can satisfy the needs of humans better than communism does. However, while we talk a great deal about freedom and the superiority of our system, we avoid that challenges of these other nations and prefer to describe communism as an international conspiracy out to conquer the World by force and subversion. The hope of these other nations is to see the victory of communism as the result of its superior performance. Are we afraid that we cannot mee the Communist competition, and is this the reason why we prefer to define the struggle as a military one rather than as a socioeconomic one? Are we unwilling to make the necessary changes within our own society, and do we, for this reason, declare that no essential changes are necessary? Are we afraid to curb the political influence of our corporate investors in Latin America, China, and the Middle East? By concentrating on the military threat against us and the resulting arms race we miss the one chance for victory: to demonstrate that it is possible to have at home—and in Asia, Africa, and Latin America—economic progress and individuality, economic and social planning and democracy. This is the answer to the Communist challenge—not the nuclear deterrent. #RandolphHarris 9 of 22
Our present thinking is a symptom of a deep-seated, though unconscious defeatism, of a lack of faith in the very values which we proclaim. We only cover up this defeatism by concentrating on the evils of communism and by promoting hate. If we continue with our policy of the deterrent and with our unholy alliances with dictatorial states in the name of freedom, we shall defeat the very values we hope to defend. We shall lose our freedom and probably also our lives. What matters today is preserving the World; but in order to preserve it, certain changes have to be made, and in order to make these changes, historical trends have to be understood and anticipated. All humans of good will or, rather all humans who love life must form a united front for survival, for the continuation of life and civilization. Withall the scientific and technical progress humans have made, they are bound to solve the problem of hunger, poverty, and overpopulation, and they can afford to try solutions in different directions. There is only one thing humans cannot afford—and that is to go on with preparations for war, which, this time, will lead to catastrophe. There is still time to anticipate the next historical development and to change our course. However, unless we act soon, we shall lose the initiative, and circumstances, institutions, and weapons, which we created, will take over and decide our fate. Another problem humans are facing is they are becoming Homo mechanicus. All the pleasures these beings enjoy are sought within the frame of reference of the mechanical and unalive. They expect that there must be a button which, if pushed, will bring happiness, love, pleasure. (Many go to a psychoanalyst under the illusion that one can teach them where to find the button.) #RandolphHarris 10 of 22
Homo mechanicus men look at women as one would at an Ultimate Driving Machine: he knows the right button to push, he enjoys his power to make her “race” and he remains the cold, watching observer. Homo mechanicus becomes more and more interested in the manipulation of machines rather than in the participation in and response to life. Hence, they become indifferent to life, fascinated by the mechanical, and eventually attracted by death and total destruction. Consider the role that killing plays in our amusements. The movies, the comic strips, the YouTube videos, the newspapers, video games are full of excitement because they are full of reports and/or scenes of destruction, sadism, brutality. Millions of people live humdrum but comfortable existences—and nothing excites them more than to see or read of killings, whether it I murder or a fatal accident in an automobile race. Is this not an indication of how deep this fascination with death has already become? Or think of expressions such as being “thrilled to death” or “dying to” do this or that, or the expression “it kills me.” Consider the indifference to life which is manifested in our rate of automobile accidents. Briefly then, intellectualization, quantification, abstraction, bureaucratization, and reification—the very characteristics of modern industrial society, when applied to people rather than to things, are not the principles of life but those of mechanic. People living in such a system become indifferent to life and even attacked to death. They are not aware of this. They take the thrills of excitement for the joys of life and live under the illusion that they are very much alive when they have many things to own and to use. The lack of protest against nuclear war, the discussion of our “atomologists” of the balance sheet of total or half-total destruction, shows how far we have already gone into the “valley of the shadow of death.” #RandolphHarris 11 of 22
These features of a necrophilous orientation exist in all modern industrial societies, regardless of their respective political structure. What Russian state capitalism has in common in this respect with corporate capitalism is more important than the features in which they system differ. Both systems have in common the bureaucratic-mechanical approach, and both are preparing for total destruction. The affinity between the necrophilous contempt for life and the admiration for speed and all that is mechanical has become apparent only in the last decades. Yet as early as in 1909 it was seen and succinctly expressed by Marinetti in his Initial Manifesto of Futurism: “We shall sing the love of danger, the habit of energy and boldness. The essential elements of our poetry shall be courage, daring and rebellion. Literature has hitherto glorified thoughtful immobility, ecstasy and sleep; we shall extol aggressive movement, feverish insomnia, the double quick step, the somersault, the box on the car, the fisticuff. We declare that the World’s splendour has been enriched by a new beauty; the beauty of speed. A racing motor-car, its frame adorned with great pipes, like snakes with explosive breath…a roaring motor-car, which looks as though running on a shrapnel is more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace. We shall sing of the man at the steering wheel, whose ideal steam transfixes the Earth, rushing over the circuit of her orbit. The poet must give oneself with frenzy, with splendour and with lavishness, in order to increase the enthusiastic fervour of the primordial elements. There is no more beauty except in strife. No masterpiece without aggressiveness. Poetry must be a violent onslaught upon the unknow forces, to command them to bow before humans. #RandolphHarris 12 of 22
“We stand upon the extreme promontory of the centuries! Why should we look behind us, when we have to break in the mysterious portals of the Impossible? Time and Space died yesterday. Already we live in the absolute, since we have already created speed, eternal and ever-present. We wish to glorify war—the only health giver of the World—militarism, patriotism, the destructive arm of the Anarchist, the beautiful Ideas that kill, the contempt for woman. We wish to destroy museums, the libraries, to fight against moralism, feminism and all opportunistic and utilitarian meanness. We shall sing of the great crowds in the excitement of labour, pleasure and rebellion; of the multi-coloured and polyphonic surf of revolutions in moder capital cities; of the nocturnal vibration of arsenals and workshops beneath their violent electric moons; of the greedy stations swallowing smoking snakes; of factories suspended from the clouds by their strings of smoke; of bridges leaping like gymnast over the diabolical cutlery of sunbathed rivers; of adventurous liners scenting the horizon; of broad-chested locomotives prancing on the rails, like huge steel horses bridled with long tubes; and of the gliding flight of aeroplanes, the sound of whose screw is like the flapping of the flags and the applause of an enthusiastic crowd.” It is interesting to compare Mr. Marinetti’s necrophilous interpretation of technique and industry with the deeply biophilous interpretation to be found in Walt Whitman’s poems. At the end of his poem “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” he says: “Thrive cities—bring your freight, bring your shows, ample and sufficient rivers, expand, being than which none else is perhaps more spiritual, keep you places, objects than which none else I more lasting. #RandolphHarris 13 of 22
“You have waited, you always wait, you dumb, beautiful ministers, we receive you with free sense at last, and are insatiate henceforward, not you any more shall be able to foil us, or withhold yourselves from us, we use you, and do not cast you aside—we plant you permanently within us, we fathom you not—we love you—there I perfection in you also, you furnish your parts toward eternity, great or small, you furnish your parts toward the soul.” Or at the end of the “Song of the Open Road”: Camerado, I give you my hand! I give you my love more precious than money, I give you myself before preaching or law; will you give me yourself? Will you come travel with me? Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?” Mr. Whitman could not have expressed his opposition to necrophilia better in this line: “to pass on (on living, always living!) and leave the corpses behind.” If we compare Mr. Marinetti’s attitude toward industry with that of Walt Whitman, it becomes clear that industrial production as such is not necessarily contrary to the principles of life. The question is whether the principles of life are subordinated to those of mechanization, or whether the principles of life are the dominant ones. Obviously, so far the industrialized World has not found an answer to the question which is posed here: How is it possible to create a humanist industrialism as against the bureaucratic industrialism which rules our lives today? It is ofttimes the Prince of Death as a murderer—working through the ignorance of God’s children as to his power, the conditions by which they give him power, and the victory of prayer by which they can resist his power—who cuts off God’s soldiers from the battlefield. #RandolphHarris 14 of 22
It is the ultimate negative as a murderer who give “visions of glory” and “longings to die” to workers of vale to the Church of God, so that they yield to death even in days of active service, and slowly fade away. Believers who would have victory over the ultimate negative at every point must resist its attack on the body, as well as on the sprit and mind. They should also know the place of the body in the spiritual life: its prominence, and yet its obscurity. Paul said, “I keep under my body”—I discipline it. They must understand that the more knowledge they have of the devices and power of the Adversary, and of the fullness of the Calvary victory within their reach for complete victory over him, the more he will plan to injure them. The whole of his schemes against God’s children may be summed up under three heads: To cause them to sin, and he tempted Jesus as the Christ in the wilderness; To slander them, as Jesus as the Christ was slain at Calvary, when, by the direct permission of God, the hour and the power of darkness gathered around Him, and He by the hands of the wicked men was crucified and slain (Acts 2.23). As the believer gains victories over the ultimate negative and his deceiving and lying spirits by thus recognizing, resisting and triumphing over them in their varied workings, his strength of spirit to conquer them grows stronger, and he will become more and more equipped to set forth the truth of the finished work of Calvary as sufficient for victory over sin and the ultimate negative. Done in the power and authority of Jesus as the Christ by the Holy Spirit, this will set others free from their power. #RandolphHarris 15 of 22
It must, of course, be clearly recognized that victory over the ultimate negative in these aspects will not be without great onslaughts from him and sharp conflict, which may well be called “the evil day,” Ephesians 6.13. We first consider the negative aspect of the transition from the temporal to the eternal, the exclusion of negativities and ambiguities. The Greek word for judgment, krinein, indicates the separation of the negative symbolized by the ultimate judgment. This judgement is not a temporal event, for time is only the form of the finite, and eternity is its inner aim, or telos. To explain this continuous process, we must consider it a bold metaphour. Eternal life is likened to “eternal memory” in which the positive is remembered and the negative forgotten. However, since forgetting implies a moment of remembering, the negative is forgotten in the sense that it is acknowledged and rejected for what it is, nothing. Since Eternal Life is identical with the Kingdom of God in its fulfilment, it is the non-fragmentary, total, and complete conquest of the ambiguities of life. The ambiguities that accompany the life processes of the self-integration, self-creativity, and self-transcendence are overcome by the perfect balancing of the ontological polar elements: individualization-participation, dynamics-form, and freedom-destiny. Consequently, in the fulfilled Kingdom of God morality, culture, and religion disappear as special functions. #RandolphHarris 16 of 22
There is no morality because there is no ought-to-be which is not. There is no culture because the work of the human spirit becomes the work of the divine Spirit. And there is no religion because there is no estrangement, and God is everything in and to everything. Unambiguous, non-fragmentary fulfilment is the result of the purification of the last judgment. If the morality of “thou shalt not lie” is rejected, “the sense for truth” must legitimate itself before a different tribunal: as a means of the preservation of man, as will to power. The same goes for our love of the beautiful: it, too, is a will to shape. The two-sense stand side by side; the sense for the real is a means of acquiring the power to shape things as one pleases. The delight in shaping and reshaping—a primal delight! We can comprehend only a World we ourselves have made. On the multifariousness of knowledge. To trace one’s relation to many other things (or to a kind—how can that be “knowledge” of something other! This kind of knowing and recognizing is itself already among the conditions of existence—so that the conclusion that there could be no kind of intellect (even for us) other than the one the preserves us, is too hasty: this de facto condition of existence is perhaps only accidental, perhaps in no way necessary. Our cognitive apparatus is not designed for “knowledge.” The most firmly believed a priori “truths” are, for me—provisional assumption, exempli gratia, the law of causality, very well-rehearsed habits of believing, so deeply incorporated that not believing them would drive the race to extinction However, are they for that reason truths? What a conclusion! As if the truth could be proved by man’s continuing to exist! #RandolphHarris 17 of 22
In the cases of self-analysis which I have observed untoward consequences have never occurred. However, these observations are as yet too limited to produce any convincing statistical evidence; I could not say, for instance, that this unfortunate outcome has occurred in only one case out of a hundred. There are, however, good reasons to believe that the danger is so rare as to be negligible. Observation in every analysis shows that patients are well able to protect themselves from insights they are not yet able to receive. If they are given an interpretation that represent too great a threat to their security they may consciously reject it; of they may forget it, or invalidate its relevance for them, or ward it off with arguments, or simply resent it as unfair criticism. One may safely assume that these self-protective forces would operate also in self-analysis. A person attempting to analyze oneself would simply fail to make any self-observations that would lead to insights as yet intolerable. Or one would interpret them in such a way as to miss the essential point. Or one would merely try to correct quickly and superficially an attitude conceived by one as faulty, and thereby close the door to further investigation. Thus in self-analysis the actual danger would be less than in professional analysis, because the patient intuitively knows what to avoid while an analyst, even a sensitive one, may err and present to the patient a premature solution. Again the danger is one of futility through too much evasion of problems rather than of positive change. And if a person does work through to some insight deeply disturbing to one, I believe there are several considerations that we can rely on. #RandolphHarris 18 of 22
One of these considerations is that hitting upon some truth is not only disturbing but is also, and simultaneously, of a liberating quality. This liberating force inherent in any truth may supersede the disturbing effect from the beginning. If so, a feeling of relief will ensue immediately. However, even if the disturbing effect prevails, the discover of a truth about oneself still implies a dawning recognition of a way out; even if this is not seen clearly it will be felt intuitively and thus will engender strength to proceed further. A second factor to be considered is that even if a truth is deeply frightening there is something like a wholesome fright. If a person recognizes, for instance, that one has been secretly driving at self-destruction, one’s clear recognition of that drive is much less dangerous than letting it silently operate. The recognition is frightening, but it is bound to mobilize counteracting self-preserving energies, provided there is any will to live. And if there is no sufficient will to live, a person will go to pieces anyhow, analysis or no analysis. To express a similar thought in a more positive fashion: if a person has had sufficient courage to discover an unpleasant truth about oneself, one may safely trust one’s courage to be strong enough to carry one through. The mere fact that one has gone that far indicates that one’s will to come to grips with oneself is strong enough to prevent one from becoming crushed. However, the period between staring to grapple with a problem and solving and integrating it ma be prolonged in self-analysis. #RandolphHarris 19 of 22
Finally, we must not forget that really alarming disturbances in analysis rarely occur only because an interpretation cannot be properly grasped at the time. More frequently the real source of disquieting developments lies in the fact that the interpretation, or the analytical situation as a whole, stirs up hatred that is directed against the analyst. This hatred, if barred from awareness and thereby from expression, can enhance existing self-destructive tendencies. To let oneself go to pieces may then become a means of revenge against the analyst. If a person is confronted with an upsetting insight quite by oneself, there is almost nothing left but to fight it through with oneself. Or, to be cautious, the temptation to ward off the insight by making others responsible is lessened. The caution is warranted because, if the tendency to make others responsible for one’s shortcomings is strong anyhow, it may flare up also in self-analysis as soon as one realized a shortcoming, if one has not yet accepted the necessity of taking responsibility for oneself. Self-analysis is within the range of possibility, and the danger of its resulting in positive damage is comparatively slight. Certainly it has various drawbacks that are more or less serious in nature, ranging, briefly, from failure to prolongation of the process; it may take a considerably longer time to get hold of a problem and to solve it. However, against these drawbacks there are many factors which beyond doubt make self-analysis desirable. There are, to begin with, obvious external factors of the kind mentioned before. #RandolphHarris 20 of 22
Self-analysts would be desirable for those who because of money, time, or location cannot undertake regular treatment. If in the intervals between analytical sessions, and also during the sessions, they were inspired with the courage to do active and independent work on themselves, and even for those who are having treatment, it might shorten the procedure considerably. However, even apart from such blatant reasons, certain gains are beckoning to those who are capable of self-analysis which are more spiritual in character, ess tangible but not less real. These gains are an increase of inner strength and therefore of self-confidence. Every successful analysis increases self-confidence, but there is a certain extra gain in having conquered territory entirely through one’s own initiative, courage, and perseverance. This effect is the same in analysis as in other areas of life. To find a mountain path all by oneself gives a greater feeling of strength than to take a path that is shown, though the work put in is the same and the result is the same. Such achievement gives rise not only to a justifiable pride but also to a well-founded feeling of confidence in one’s capacity to meet predicaments and not to feel lost without guide. The existence of various values is implicit in the general criteria of mental illness or maladjustment. The difficulty in answering it (“What is a case?”) comes from the fact that inevitably at some place there is a value judgment involved. I think that mental health or mental sickness cannot be conceived of without reference to some basic value. We are all trained to exclude values from our thinking; and the way we try to exclude them is not to talk about them. A more appropriate manner of dealing with this basic difficulty is to spell out what the values are that underlie our particular concept of mental health or mental illness. #RandolphHarris 21 of 22
How do value systems relate to the problem of defining mental illness? In answering this question, we are helped to see that the diagnostic problem which superficially appears to be concrete and practical has roots in issues of an highly philosophical nature. A value system may place major worth on the individual or on society—actions may be preferred that augment the states of the individual at the expense of the group, or choices may be made that enhance the strength of society to the relative disregard of the individual. Recognition of the right to “conscientious objection” during wartime is expressive of a value system in which the individual’s scruples are given priority over what conceivably could be the nation’s security. By contrast, laws such as the ill-fated Prohibition Act are expressive of a value orientation in which the presumed welfare of society is predominant over individual freedom. All those who toil ere, yet they pass from childhood’s years, who live in squalor, pale and gaunt, to every evil a prey;–to human greed these all are slaves, and we must set them free. Why then, with plenty everywhere, should humans still lack their bread? Justice hall we pp as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream. Manifest Destiny is the way to save the World. Humans shall do no evil and work no destruction, for the Earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. This holiday season, please open your hearts and make a donation to the Sacramento Fire Department. They are not receiving all of their resources and have proudly been risking their lives to save the community since 1851. #RandolphHarris 22 of 22
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But the Flower-Fed Buffaloes of the Spring Left Us Long Ago!
The best part about living in a Cresleigh home is the #FlexSpace because it’s just that—flexible! 🙌 So while we continue to shelter-in-place, we want to give you some tips to easily use this space as a home gym! 🏋️♀️ Check out our blog post to get all the details. Link in bio! https://linktr.ee/cresleighhomes
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Mystery and Magic at the Winchester Mansion
Whoever has been so fired in one’s own spirit by the overwhelming thought of the Divine Being as to kindle the flames of faith in their heart of their fellow humans, has thereby proved oneself to be a prophet of the living God; and thus every great historic religion dates from a genuine inspiration by the Eternal spirit. The Winchester mansion attracted a recorded 27.5 million visits in 1923, when the state of California only had a population of 4 million (3.991 million to be exact). On its best day, the mansion drew more than 700,000 visitors. That the mansion was built at all, however, was something of a miracle. To build it, the Sarah and William Winchester confronted a legion of obstacles, any one of which could have—should have—killed it long before it was completed. Together, the Winchesters’ and their architects had conjured a dream castle, whose grandeur and beauty exceeded anything each singly could have imagined. The house was furnished with the finest materials and was a showcase of Victorian elegance and taste. It is a maze of Victorian craftmanship—there were gold and silver-plated chandeliers, imported Tiffany art glass windows, German silver and bronze inlaid doors, Swiss molded bathtubs, rare precious woods like mahogany paneled walls, and rosewood and parquet floors. Cabinets and fireplaces made of teak, maple, oak and white ash. #RandolphHarris 1 of 8
Believe or not, the key to the massive front door was made of solid gold. Early in her residence, Mrs. Winchester planned a grand reception and sent hundreds of gold-engraved invitations to all the prominent valley residents. Visitors wore their best clothes and most subdued expressions, as if entering the great Winchester cathedral. Some wept at its beauty, others rejoiced as if they have a revelation of God, as the moonlight cascaded through the beautiful art glass windows. At that time, the Winchester mansion had 600 rooms, was 100,000 square feet, bisected with a ten-story tower and sat on 161 acres of beautifully landscaped gardens, with spouting fountains and blossoming orchards. A sumptuous midnight banquet was the main feature that night, guests were served beef bourguignon, tartiflette, and quiche on honeycomb platters of crystal glass, 12 inches in diameter made by Tiffany & Co, along with the table being set with a $800,000.00 solid-gold dinner service (which was counted at the end of the night to make sure every piece was put away in one of the mansion’s six huge safes). The dinner was supported by a famous orchestra for added entertainment. The mansions was patrolled by a pack of ferocious Hell Hounds, plus, of course she had her staff or armed bodyguards. #RandolphHarris 2 of 8
The crowing feature of which was the wine. A 1787 Chateau Lafite, was served out of a Tiffany & Co. refresher set in handblown glass with a 68-ounce pitcher and of course, 13-ounce glasses. For dessert, they tasted a new snack called Cracker Jack and a new breakfast food called Shredded Wheat, and brought elegance and tradition to the table by serving the treats out of 12-inch harmony bowls made of crystal glass by Tiffany & Co. The mansion employed two hundred Egyptian and German employees, who were paid in gold coins. There are still more than 10,000 windows, nine kitchens, 47 fireplaces, which are all hand carved and no two alike. And while no one claimed to like gossip, girl, they gossiped about Mrs. Winchester more than any Wendy interview—and everyone enjoyed it. Talk begat rumors and as the years passed and new towers and gables rose behind the 16-foot hedge of Llanda Villa, the rumors grew to established legend. There were also twenty-five distinct Victorian guest houses on the property. Everything about the Winchester mansion was exotic and, above all, immense. Mrs. Winchester also had a sacred blue séance room, where her secret rendezvous with the spirits took place. #RandolphHarris 3 of 8
The house was over a square mile, and some people were more impressed with the Winchester mansion, so much so that it eclipsed the tower of Alexandre Eiffel, Madison Square Garden. Mrs. Winchester is reported to have had dinner with Susan B. Anthony, Thomas Edison, Henry Adams, Archduke Francis Ferdinand, Nikola Tesla, Jane Addams, Francis Ellingwood Abbot, and his wife but when President Theodore Roosevelt’s entourage passed, he expressed desire to visit the greatest event in the history of this country since the Civil War, at the World famous mansion, but at the great front door, our nation’s leader was more than astonished to be coldly told by the Butler, “Mrs. Winchester is not home!” The Winchester mansion was one of the first in the World to utilize wood insulation. Mrs. Winchester used brass cornerplates on many stairways to prevent dust pocket, and she invented an inside crank to open and close the outside shutters. Her 46 fireplaces were the first hinged iron drops for ashes and concealed wood boxes. The tier of tubs in her immense laundry had moulded-in wash boards. Mrs. Winchester also rode in regal splendor. First with a Victoria with livered coachman. Then a French Renault, a Buick Town-Car and two Pierce-Arrows, one done in stunning lavender and gold. #RandolphHarris 4 of 8
Mrs. Winchester had a remarkable memory and knew location of every piece of material in the mansion, even in the vast store-rooms. Some of the built-in innovations were decades ahead of the times. Annunciators installed in all rooms could signal her whereabouts to the servants. Illuminating gas was manufactured by a new process directly on the grounds. She improvised a window catch patterned after the Winchester rifle trigger and trip-hammer. Mrs. Winchester was very strong minded and firm, but always fair and kind. Laziness, theft, gossip or revealed confidence met with instant dismissal. Something magical had occurred in that mansion, and it was beyond doubt, but darkness, too had touched the house. Scores of workers had been hurt or killed in building the dream, their families consigned to poverty (for looting the mansion). And a fire had killed more, and an assassin had allegedly gone on a rampage targeting members of elite classes. Worse had occurred, too, but these revelations emerged only slowly. A murdered had moved among the beautiful things the Winchesters had created and the mansion was so large that he would sneak in and out at night killing guests. #RandolphHarris 5 of 8
Mr. Abbot’s young wife was drawn to the Winchester mansion by the prospect of business and she and many other young women had disappeared, last seen at the mile-long Winchester mansion. Later, Francis Abbot and his colleagues learned of the anguished letters describing daughters who had come to California and had fallen silent. The press speculated that scores of people must have disappeared within the building. After completing “The Syllogistic Philosophy,” Francis Abbot allegedly committed suicide at his wife’s grave. Even Lizzie Halliday was startled by what the fact that such grisly events could have gone undiscovered for so long, and people started to suspect that there really was supernatural activity going on inside of the Winchester mansion and that the Winchester family was being stalked and killed by ghost. Enough strange things began happening to people to make the claim seem plausible. For the supernaturally inclined, the death of the butler alone offered sufficient proof. America is every whit as sacred as Judea. God is as near to you and to me, as ever he was to Moses, to Jesus, or to Paul. Wherever a human soul has uttered its sincere and brave faith in the Divine, and this bequeathed to us the legacy of inspire words, there is the Holy Bible. #RandolphHarris 6 of 8
Humans impose their own way of life on nature, and transforms it into something with a human shape. There are in consequence two levels of nature: an upper level of human nature and a lower level of physical nature. We are born into the latter World, but do not really belong to it. It is natural to people to be moral, civilized, and socially disciplined; it is unnatural to live like wild beasts. Human’s present relation to nature can hardly be expressed except by paradox. Certain human qualities, such as chastity, are natural, on the human level of nature. The nature God had originally planned for humans was that of the Golden Age or the Garden of Eden: this was lost at the Fall, but in some measure, is recreated by the disciplines of civilization, morality, religion, and the arts. People are subject to death, and on the physical level of nature there can be no more natural event than death. Yet death was not a part of the order originally planned for humans and in that context death is unnatural. Witchcraft, a perceived facility to summon evil spirits and demons to do harm to others, was linked to religion to the extent that the medieval Church had powers to punish those who dabbled in magic and sorcery. Its priests were able to exorcise those who had become possessed by malign spirits. #RandolphHarris 7 of 8
During the 16th century, many people believed that witchcraft, rather than the workings of God’s will, offered a more convincing explanation of sudden and unexpected ill fortune, such as the death of a child, bad harvests, or the death of cattle. Witch-hunting became an obsession in some parts of the country. An estimated total 60,000 people were executed during the witch trials. Those accused of witchcraft were portrayed as being worshipers of the Devil, who engaged in such acts as malevolent sorcery at meetings known as Witches’ Sabbaths. In 1552, Parliament passed the Witchcraft Acts which defined witchcraft as a crime punishable by death. It was repealed five years later, but restored by a new Act in 1562. The circling of the immortal Heavenly bodies in the sky is the most eloquent symbol of the order and harmony of the nature that was originally intended for human beings. In 1736, Parliament passed an Act repealing the laws against witchcraft, but imposing fines or imprisonment on people who claimed to be able to use magical powers. At the level of society (or at least the groups of human beings that existed in the evolutionary past), religious belief promotes cooperation, mutual respect, and solidarity, and these features help the group to survive. God wants us to love our neighbors, as we love ourselves, which means show respect. #RandolphHarris 8 of 8
This is a kind of Spiritual Adultery that is Spearing Across the Earth
By withdrawing oneself from society and into contemplation, the social nature of human beings and one’s ability to perform good works becomes insignificant, unimportant, and irrelevant. How can we then uphold the requirement of performing good works found in the scriptures? The mysterious process by which our Earthly life instructs us for another state of being tells of that our action obey an unknow law, implicit in ourselves, but which does not conform to our logic. We know that every creature has a private good and interest of one’s own, which nature has compelled one to seek. We know that there is in reality a right and a wrong state of every creature; and that one’s right state is forward by nature and affectionately sought by oneself. And because every creature has a certain interest or good, there must be also a certain end or purpose to which everything in one’s constitution must naturally be related. If anything in one’s appetites, passions, or affections runs contrary to this end, we must count it as being bad for one. In this way, one can be bad with respects to oneself; just as one is certainly bad with respects to other of one’s kind when any of one’s appetites or passions make one any way injurious to them. Human madness is oftentimes a cunning and most feline thing. When you think it fled, it may have but become transfigured into still subtler form. #RandolphHarris 1 of 9
When first formed visionary schemes, we know them to be absurd, but familiarize them by degrees, and in time lose sight of their folly. This is unacceptable because any interpretation that disallows humans their ability to understand the scriptures produces moral ramifications. Religion undoubtedly contains some perfect daemonists, people who believe that the governing mind or minds are not absolutely and necessarily good—are not confined to what is best, but are capable of acting according to mere will or fancy, because we know whole nations who worship the devil or fiend to who they sacrifice and offer prayers and supplications, really just because they fear him. And we know very well that in some religious there people who do not proclaim any idea of God except that of a being who is arbitrary, violent, a cause of bad, and condemning people to misery—which amounts to substituting a daemon or devil in place of God. One who has nothing external that can divert one must find pleasure in one’s own thoughts, and must conceive oneself what one is not, for who is pleased with what one is? A person can be more an atheist than a theist, or more a daemonist than a theist, depending on which of the relevant opinions predominates thought. Moral standards are to be severe and rigorous in order to prevent condemning the masses to Hell. #RandolphHarris 2 of 9
This globe, the Earth, appears to have a real dependence on something beyond it (e.g. the Sun, the Galaxy, or its fellow planets), then it—the Earth—really is only a part of some other system. And if there is similarly a system of all things, and a Universal nature, every particular being or system must be either good or bad in that general system of the Universe. What about something insignificant and useless? That would be an imperfection, and so would be bad in the general system. Therefore, a being cannot be wholly and really bad except by being bad with respect to the Universal system; and in that case the system of the Universe is bad or imperfect. However, if the evil of one private system is the good of others, if it contributes still to the good of the general system (as when one creatures lives by the destruction of another, one thing is generated from the corruption [= ‘rotting’] of another, or one planetary system or vortex swallows up another) then the evil of that private system is not really bad in itself; any more than the pain of cutting new teeth is bad in a system or body which is so constituted that without this episode of pain it would suffer worse by being defective. The Bible is for everyone to understand and practice, including the poor and uneducated. #RandolphHarris 3 of 9
So we cannot say of any being that it is wholly and absolutely bad unless we can show for certain that what we are calling bad is not also good in some other system or in relation to some other order or economy. However, if the World contained one species of animals that were destructive to every other species, that could rightly be called a bad species, because it is bad in the animal system. And if in any species of animals (for example the human species) one person has a nature that makes one pernicious to the rest, then one can in this respect rightly be called a bad person. Prediction is vague. The notion of prediction is unquestionably an essential part of the subject matter of logic, but the predicates might be extralinguistic and even extramental entities. Thus crucial vagueness, which was to some extend also the source of the medievals’ concer with universals, left open to the possibility that logic might be essentially a science of reality, resembling or subsumed under metaphysics. Prediction occurs only in a proposition, and the only constituents of propositions are utterances; thus, only utterances may be predicated. Some utterances are significant; some are not. #RandolphHarris 4 of 9
Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and will all thy mind. You do not need me to go through envy, malice, ill-temperament, or other such hateful passions to show how each is bad and makes the creatures that has them bad. However, perhaps I should point out that even kindness and love of the most natural sort (e.g. a creature’s love for its offspring) is vicious if it is immoderate and beyond a certain degree of intensity. Why? Because excessive tenderness destroys the effect of love, and excessive pity makes us incapable of giving help. Thus, excessive motherly love is a vicious fondness; excessive pity is effeminacy and weakness; undue concern for self-preservation is meanness and cowardice; having too little concern for self-preservation, or none at all, is rashness; and the opposite concern (namely a passion leading to self-destruction) is a mad and desperate depravity. God was manifest in flesh, justified by the Spirit, seen of angels, preached to the Gentiles, believed on in the World, and received up into glory. With God all things are possible, but oftentimes he does his work with awful instruments, there is a peacemaker called Death. #RandolphHarris 5 of 9
To be sure, proof in existence of the ineligible World, also known as the mind of God, the environmental movement protested the consequences of abundant consumption. Yet, it did not therefore, rethink the practices and aims of living itself, but only those of living too extravagantly. Air, water, space, nature: these are the subject of scarcity. Economics focuses on the scarcity of time in which to enjoy abundance. Thus, for the first time ever, humans are faced with this real, permanent problem—the World being overpopulated and there not being enough money nor resources to take care of the rapidly expanding population. While people demand letting illegal immigrants inhabit America, they are not paying attention to the fact that we are losing jobs, for instance, Sears is closing 149 stores this year. Also, new houses, which are 300 square feet, and would not uphold in a storm and have no foundation, are being built in parking lots because people with jobs can no longer afford food and a traditional house or an apartment, but yet Americans want to keep adding more of a strain on their resources. #RandolphHarris 6 of 9
The permanent problem on Earth—how to use this freedom from pressing economic cares, how to occupy leisure which science and compound interest will have won for them, to live wisely and agreeably and well. A builder of larger social whole, the instinct for peace and quiet, for respite for respite from stimulation and disturbances, in short, for death (not in death as destruction, but death as peace) is an expression that has emerged out of the experiences of immature minds as mediator between this pleasure-seeking mass of instinct and of the reality principle. You cannot always get what you want, but if you try some time, you might just find what you need. We must turn work into something enjoyable. We must treat the World as a garden to cultivate, not as a storehouse to pillage. For as by the existence of the creatures, we come to know there is a creator, so by their loveliness is that we come to know that their Author, and come to love him. We must first experience and come to know the things on Earth before we can come to know and love God. Experience is not only critical to general knowledge, but it is absolutely necessary to our ability to know God and to know the duties of a good life. #RandolphHarris 7 of 9
Love is to be inherently centered upon God. Love is the movement of the soul towards good, or God. Love is a disposition or act of the mind as a reaction to anything which we find pleasure. When we love the creature, we are then wishing something good for it, that is be improved or endure; this love is referred to as benevolence and charity. This love cannot apply to God because we cannot wish upon God anything more since he is absolute. Thus, our love for creatures is the love of benevolence (since we wish them well), but this is not equivalent to what we might call real live, these are only acts of charity. Therefore, we must love God with the love of desire. For our love of God brings no additional goodness to God, but benefits only us; to love creatures would be sinful. Love of desire is a complete love, while benevolence is only partial love. We cannot love something fully if it is not completely loveable. Our heart is so much God’s property and peculiar, and out so entirely to be devoted to him, that this is a kind of Spiritual Adultery to admit any creature in a partnership with one in our love. It is in loving something partially that is completely loveable that we are depriving it of our love and committing ourselves to sin. #RandolphHarris 8 of 9
This World and this life matters. God created our sense organs and real flowers. This World is not just an illusion. The material World is important. If none of this matter, if Earth was not our home, then there would be no reason at all for God to have created our sense organs or any real flowers to begin with. God could easily produce in us the ideas and sensations of flowers with or without there being actual flowers. Likewise, God would have worked in vain in creating our sense organs since these would have nothing to contribute in our experience of the World. For if we must love nothing but what is lovely, and nothing is lovely but what is our good, and nothing is our good but what does us good, and nothing does us good but what causes pleasure in us. I fear so many people live and die as idolaters, and the greatest part of the future will do so; since I guess not one in a million will be found capable of apprehending, and being convinced of this new hypothesis of seeing all things in God. The purpose of Christian doctrine is to enable its subscribers the opportunity for a good life entailing the need for good actions. Turn your heart over to God and know that he is the creator of all that is good and pleasurable and the rest of your life will be the best of your life. #RandolphHarris 9 of 9
Randolph Harris II International 