In Praise of the American Spirit
(list of videos will be found below)

contents:
I've been writing on American Politics for several decades.   The below is a bit like an
archaeological dig, with the newer stuff tending to be on the top and the older stuff on the bottom




basic theme expressed in a poem

America Sings
(also http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNfKPWswe-w)


some beautiful songs by a young American, Jonathan Yusuf Ali
"Empire's Soldiers"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xblNKVO1MBc&feature=plcp
"America"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3Qc_GNDWgw&feature=plcp


basic theme as expressed in a short story:

Counting Coup
books

- the links below are to free reading that can be found on my website,
Shapes in the Fire,

if you want a physical book to hold in your hand,
those can be purchased at my bookstore
Joel Wendt's Theory of Everything Emporium

NEW: Economic and Social Rebellion - a money debt owed bankers is only a number ... while what lives in the hearts of a People is a spiritual currency of infinitely greater value.

Uncommon Sense: the Degeneration and the Redemption of Political Life in America {concerns the failure of both parties to protect the Republic, and how through Citizen Governance We the People can move our public life forward by considering a 2nd Declaration of Independence and the creation of a new Constitution }

On the Nature of Public Life is a collection of older essays on politics and social existence (except for a couple original to the book) that also can be found elsewhere on this website.  Some thoughts on the Nature of Public Life: older essays - some of which are include in this book, while many others are not.

Hermit's Weblog: everything your mother never told you about how the world really works.  The link here is to the blog.

Counter-Moves: Finding victory in the war the rich are making upon the poor (also contained in the appendix to Uncommon Sense).

The America Quartet: four poems on the Spiritual America

Shapes in the Fire (my new blog)

older materials
A Forgotten Resource: the American Spirit
    part one: The American Will: to Sacrifice for an Ideal
    part two: Economic Tyranny and the American Spirit
    part three: The Word, the Idea of Property, and the Creation of a True American Culture


 Celebration and Theater: A People's Art of Statecraft  (link to web-essay)



links to other essays:

Basic Conceptions: fundamentals of a new social view
Civil Society: its potential and its mystery  

Beyond Columbine: appreciating the patterns of social meaning hidden in the Columbine tragedy

The Future

The Coming Collapse - civilization at the brink




even older materials:

Greenville Millenium Gazette: http://ipwebdev.com/hermit/gmgmp.html

Essays and Comments on Current Affairs; http://ipwebdev.com/hermit/essayscurrent.html

Some Thoughts on the Nature of Public Life, and an offer of Service: http://ipwebdev.com/campaign/




additional background materials:

see also for general research on the micro-social (as against the macro-social) The Social-Spiritual Organism of a Waldorf School Community http://ipwebdev.com/hermit/ssows.html et seq; and, Threshold Problems in Thinking the Threefold Social Order http://ipwebdev.com/hermit/thpts.html

Important material on money, from Richard Kotlarz Follow this link (for essays on the reality money - getting past the lies and the religion of economics)

 Elizabeth Ancrum MacKenzie: Elizabeth is a Scottish visionary thinker, very interested in social life, such as politics and economics, who at the same time is a serious esoteric Christian.  Here is an outstanding, though small, book of her's  Aesthetics of Economics and The Scottish Masonic Tradition  and, the link to her main website: http://www.christianesotericist.talktalk.net/

 a small meditation on the spiritual path  pioneered by Ralph Waldo Emerson, including a report of some practical applications - this was an address given on the occasion of the 200th aniversary of Emerson's birth, at the Concord School of Philosophy - May 25th, 2003, under the auspices of the Center for America Studies at Concord MA.




even more ancient stuff ...

Pragmatic Populist Politics or, It's Not Easy Being Green: I've recently spent some time with Green political folks, and its prettly clear that, while they have a holistic agenda, they don't yet realize that the practice of politics itself needs to be holistic as well. Here is a brief introduction to those ideas.

the Shadow Warrior Society: direct political action by the most marginalized in our society (the homeless) will only come about, and be effective, if, at its root, this action grounds itself in a fundamental cultural change of meaning. The SWS essay is an imagination of these possiblities and psycho-cultural realites (see Strange Fire: the Death, and the Resurrection, of Modern Civilization, for the fundamental reasons for this).

Letters to the Alliance for Democracy: I have been slowly coming more deeply acquainted with the Alliance for Democracy, a new political impulse which arose in America following the publication in the magazine, The Nation, of an article by Ronnie Dugger: A Call to Citizens: Real Populists Please Stand Up!. As part of being associated with this work, I have become a member of various on-line chapters of the AfD. As a support of this impulse, and its quite needed work in America, I have begun writing long letters to be posted on-line with the various on-line chapters and list serves. These letters, as they are written, will also be placed on this part of my cyber-home.
link to older YouTube material on this subject:
Welcome to the Second American Revolution

link to beginning of Youtube playlist on this theme:

In Praise of the American Spirit

http://www.youtube.com/user/joel232001#p/c/502796B282CEA9F1/0/Ye0o5FMavjk



list of single videos on this theme
#1 the gift of unemployment (part one): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ye0o5FMavjk
#2 the gift of unemployment (part two): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jMPBxszLjo
#3 the gift of unemployment (part three): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7cI7_fEgOo
#4 the gift of unemployment (part four): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gfDJzyvM_w

#5 foreclosures - and the changing tide of consent (part one) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2WAyIz13YY
#6 foreclosures - and the changing tide of consent (part two) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjN4h_Fh7ec
#7 foreclosures - and the changing tide of consent (part three) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAXFPZWNJ9k
#8 foreclosures - and the changing tide of consent (part four) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbTuROM6leY

#9 We have met the enemy and he is us (one part only) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgfSCK9zT90

#10 the extraordinary ordinary (part one) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MDWcCbDxZQ
#11 the extraordinary ordinary (part two) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsAPo5uvRRU
#12 the extraordinary ordinary (part three) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4thuClNkSdA
#13 the extraordinary ordinary (part four) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EScdHeJBUL4
#14 the extraordinary ordinary (part five) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUqTZl1-BC0
#15 the extraordinary ordinary (part six) http:///www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFJWPcNfwPo

#16 America Sings (a poem) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNfKPWswe-w

#17 a Rant on Iran and the Bomb: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrEQKFRoDVU

#18 How the American government is supposed to work: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hX-UuOwzsLE&list=PL502796B282CEA9F1&index=18&feature=plpp_video

#19 Obama Care and social context http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFxu27AybKg&list=UUfYnGru-j1NFDOPQbcI4bBQ&index=1&feature=plpp_video

#20 American Fascism http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXn9Wsfac_0&list=UUfYnGru-j1NFDOPQbcI4bBQ&index=1&feature=plpp_video

#21 On Obesity Hysteria http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmS0DgDCH-Q&list=UUfYnGru-j1NFDOPQbcI4bBQ&index=1&feature=plpp_video

#22 Real Politics: Same sex marriages http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBBvh8_MZqM&list=UUfYnGru-j1NFDOPQbcI4bBQ&index=1&feature=plpp_video

#23 Occupy Wallstreet Needs Leaders http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8TElSY0EF8&list=UUfYnGru-j1NFDOPQbcI4bBQ&index=1&feature=plpp_video

#24 taming the future: part one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWQ82wkydzM&list=UUfYnGru-j1NFDOPQbcI4bBQ&index=1&feature=plpp_video   text of taming the future: part one here (includes texts of taming the future parts two and three (never recorded)