At 16:16 30.12.2003, Diana wrote:

>To state that humanity has evolved through races, Tarjei, is racist.

Nominated to Waldorf Critic Quote of the YEAR - of 2003! We have twelve
months to find an equal for 2004.

I rest my case. But the party is not over yet:

> From a nonracist point of view, peoples' racial characteristics are
> irrelevant from any evaluative standpoint, such as spiritual qualities.
> Nothing about a person's skin color, or the racial origin of their
> family, determines their contribution to history, or their personal
> character. The course of history is not determined by racial categories.
> To say that humanity evolves through "epochs" would seem a simple
> tautology, like saying time passes ­ tying the concepts of race and
> progress is where you endorse, simply, racism. (Even if you say this is
> all in the past and the future is one great brotherhood etc. Your theory
> of history is racist.)

I assume that the PLANS theory of evolution involves not a colorful
symphony of diversity, but a gray mass - somthing once dreamed about by
Lenin and Mao. The ideal proletariat. Reminds me of a science fiction movie
I remember to have seen - help me out if you can here, Christine, JoAnn, or
Joel - I think it was the one about that guy whose dreams always became
true, so he was exploited for this reason. Anyway, it was a white guy with
a black girlfriend, and in one of his dreams the authorities had decided to
eliminate racism by obliterating differences of complexion, so the guy
wakes up and sees his girlfriend's body is all gray, and his own body is
all gray, and he looks out the window and sees only gray faces in the
street. Welcome to the ideal world of PLANS.

>Why should we bend over backwards to soothe your feelings?

My feelings don't need your soothing. As a matter of fact, I have some
Luciferic trolls who provide me with a perverse pleasure when I'm fired up.
I picked those trolls up at the WC back in 1999. They jumped out of the
toilet bowl and bit me in the butt and wouldn't let go. Now I've tamed them
so they only bite when I ask them to. If you want them back, you have to
pay me for taming and training them.

>What matters to *me* is that Steiner's racist doctrines seemingly cannot
>be re-examined by anthroposophists,

i.e. you can't get anthroposophists to agree with your definitions of
"racism" and "racist doctrines." Give it up.

>and that leads to the attempts to be secretive, change the subject,
>arrogant attitudes like "You aren't spiritual enough to understand,"
>obfuscating, denying, and extreme hostility, when this material is made
>available to Waldorf parents.

If parents aren't spiritual enough to understand, they should go to a
secular school instead _unless_ they have an instinctive confidence in
Waldorf that defies intellectual understanding. Reminds me of another movie
- are you with me, Christine? A young Shirley McClaine in "Some Came
Running" with Frank Sinatra, who plays an author. It's an exceptionally
moving drama about the true, self-sacrificing love of a uneducated common
girl. When the author (Sinatra) confronts his admirer with her not
undertanding a single word he has written, she says: "I don't understand
you, but I love you!"

When Rudolf Steiner visited the first Waldorf school, he kept asking the
children over and over again: "Do you love your teachers?" And they
answered enthusiastically, "Yes!"

Of course PLANS won't understand any of this. They're too full of venom and
hate inundated by their invisible ahrimanic goblins biting them in their asses.

>That is what is of interest to me. It is not of interest to me whether you
>are a racist. I guess we could go on pondering the question but I have
>other things to do.

I know: Your WC goblins are waiting.

>I'm sorry you have your feelings hurt, but it's really not a big thing to
>me, in the big picture.

You're so cold and cruel, Diana, you're making a masochist out of me :)

>"The record shows that the definition of racism can be stretched beyond
>any limits in the PLANS cult."
>
>That would not be necessary, as a simple statement such as you have made
>above, that humanity advances through races, is enough according to any
>basic definition of racism.

Thank you for embellishing our Waldorf Critic Quote of the Year.

>Excuse me. I would like to say that I am sick and tired of this
>condescending suggestion that other people like myself on the critics list
>somehow follow Dan Dugan or "memorize" what Dan Dugan says.

Then why do you write identical sentences, almost verbatim? Must be mantras
you're chanting during WC rituals with a little flushing in between to keep
the air fresh.

>You must not have been paying attention. I have my own thoughts, plenty of
>them. This is sexist and stupid.

I guess sexism and racism goes hand in hand. Read all about it at
http://www.uncletaz.com/indgenus.html

>It's the first thing Sune Nordwall said to me when I first came on the
>critics list ­ smtg like, "Have you really read Steiner, Diana, or just
>read Dan Dugan's story?" I barely knew who Dan Dugan was at the time.

Your soul brother?

>We had just left the Waldorf school and I had my own story to tell.
>Someone told me to type "Dan Dugan" into the search engine. was still
>kinda fuzzy on who Dan Dugan was or what had happened to his kids. I was
>so confused to be told I was a Dan Dugan groupie.

He's a sound technician. Does he have a band too?

>In the time since then, I've gotten to know Dan pretty well, and while I
>agree with him about a lot of things, we also have significant
>differences.

OK, so he's not your soul brother. Sorry.

>It seems to be quite lost on our critics that the "Waldorf critics," over
>the years, have included literally hundreds of people with many divergent
>stories and viewpoints.

Yes, Christian fundamentalists and atheist skeptics and so on. In 1999, I
asked a protestant fundy on the WC if he thought his atheist allies would
land in Hell when they died. He never answered my question. Instead, he
whined for the moderator to intervene.

The marriage of convenience between atheists and fundies at PLANS in their
joint cause against the evils of anthroposophy reminds me of a news story
from Sweden a few years back. You see, some neo-Nazis had been arrested for
Nazi mischief and criminality of some kind, and one of them was a black
Arab. Of course a lot of people were puzzled by the sight of a black
foreigner in the midst of a white supremacy movement. To me, however, the
mystery was a piece of cake. Elementary, my dear Watson. Politics makes
strange bedfellows as they say, and in this case, hatred of the Jews had
probably welded them together. I almost got the feeling of sweetness, like
an air of romance about this spectacle. And that's how it is with PLANS,
where the Protocols of Steiner has replaced the Protocols of Zion.

>"Rudolf Steiner was not a racist. Some of his remarks are racist"
>
>That's an interesting statement. Maybe it is true. It's interesting
>because you can apparently apply this crucial distinction to Rudolf
>Steiner but not to yourself or your fellow anthroposophists?

Does that mean that I have uttered racist remarks that call for a
distinction of this kind?

>"and may be considered trash, _especially_ when quoted out of context with
>explicit malign intent."
>
>Tarjei, whatever intent a person has in quoting something really doesn't
>change the quote.

Oh yes it does. The text introducing the quote and the juxtaposition of
other quotes play a paramount role in creating pictures and images and
notions and associations and opinions in the minds of the readers. A quote
taken out of context can be read in many different ways, depending upon how
it is presented, and for what purpose.

>"by recommending that you read very carefully _all_ of Steiner's
>statements regarding race, gender, nationality, tribe, family, blood ties
>and so on. All of them, including those featured on my website."
>
>It's interesting to me that you think I haven't done that.

If that reading failed to make you realize that Steiner was not a racist, I
dare say that something is seriously lacking in your comprehension of
Spiritual Science.

>I know a great deal about anthroposophy. You wish people like me didn't
>know much about it.

Wrong. I wish people like you were right when making that claim.

>Oh. You meant spiritual sources, not historical sources. Please contact
>the Waldorf association in your area, and ask them to please clarify this
>in brochures for prospective parents.

I am not in the school promo business, not for Waldorf or Montessory or any
other. I have already reminded you that the Anthroposophical Movement is
independent of, but not excluding, anthroposophically inspired institutions
and organizations. This is a topic best suited for private anthroposophical
study groups.

>It is fine with me if you believe this. If you want your movement to grow,
>and improve its spiritual karma, you need to get honest with your clients.

I am honest with our clients about rates and coverage when they purchase
our telephone services, but the bigggest phone company in Norway, Telenor,
is not honest. They get away with illegalities and have 85 per cent of the
market. They're crooks.

I don't have any other kinds of clients, Diana.

>"My personal interest in and involvement with Waldorf schools has always
>been very limited."
>
>That seems odd to me, since your child attends one I believe?

In a different city, living with his mother, who is a Waldorf teacher. I am
not involved. I do occasionally get dragged along to parents' meetings at
my teenage stepson's Waldorf high school. Twice a year on the average.

>But since your interest in Waldorf schools is limited that explains why
>you don't understand, or care to understand, what the critics say about
>them, and are impatient with attempts to actually *connect* Waldorf
>practices to anthroposophy.

Anthroposophy is not taught at the Oslo Waldorf High School (Oslo By
Steinerskole). The boy doesn't even know who Steiner is or what he taught,
although my shelves are filled up. They have a very high quality standard.
I have talked with the teachers of chemistry, literature, physics, and
biology. We got involved in a discussion about Einstein and Bohr and
Heisenberg and their theories and so on. One of the participants was a
Waldorf parent who was also a professor of nuclear physics at the
university. He seeemed very pleased with the standard of science teaching.
Our last prime minister (before the present one) is a Waldorf student. They
are high achievers in this country.

Last spring, we went to a theater in town where my stepson and his fellow
students were giving a musical performance directed by their music teacher.
It knocked me out. They did everything from Mozart to Janis Joplin, from
complete choirs to solo performances, with all kinds of instruments, and
with classical dance and eurythmy in between. The talents these kids came
up with were amazing.

Incidentally, my stepson used to attend a public grammar school, but he
didn't like public school and asked to be switched to Waldorf, where he
loves it. They get fancy trips to Berlin and Paris.

By the way, Diana, my stepson, who is not white but partly Asian, went to
see the death camp Auschwitz when he was younger (attending public school).
Is he one of your targets for Nazi-racist garbage about Waldorf? Do you
have no sense of decency?

>Tarjei, could you believe me on one little point? Waldorf comes from
>anthroposophy.

That's why the students are doing so well. Steiner was a very smart guy.

>We saw what teachers did with this stuff *to* our children.

Torture? Sleep deprivation? Random beatings? Sexual abuse?

>I actually thought, for a moment, when you wrote above that "they" are
>dragging what you regard as holy into the gutter, etc., that "they" meant
>Waldorf teachers, because it would have made more sense to me.

The Waldorf teachers you describe sound like Waldorf critics in disguise.

>Are you really saying that with the racial material removed, anthroposophy
>isn't anthroposophy?

With your eccentric definition of racial and racist, including all
theosophical-anthroposophical pre-history and cosmo-genesis, that's what it
looks like. And if the genius of anthroposophical insight that informs
Waldorf education, the Christian Community, biodynamic agriculture, and
anthroposophically extended medicine should be removed from its products,
PLANS will have succeeded in destroying - or "busting" if you like - the
Anthroposophical culture. That is why anthroposophists must have the
integrity of putting their foot down and say to people like you, take it or
leave it.

>May I quote you? (Just a joke. Being as it's a public list, I will quote
>you anyway.)

We've been thinking about archiving all our posts on a suitable
anthroposophical website, like DD is doing. But we won't publish the email
addresses like he does, making them vulnerable to spammers' robots, and
we'll be sensitive to requests to have names removed or changed and
messages deleted. How sensitive and courteous are the custodians of the WC
archives?

>Yes, Tarjei, I do know that. I argued this on the critics list just last
>week. If the racial material is removed, Steiner might not even be a seer,
>or else he was a seer who made some pretty big mistakes. So everything
>else is cast into doubt as well. I agree it's a big problem.

I didn't say it was a big problem, Diana. It's no problem at all. You're
trying to make a problem out of it.

>This Cult of Peter stuff irks me almost as much as the cult of Dan Dugan
>stuff.

What's the difference? It's the same cult.

>I guess it offends my own ego that people like myself who have also had a
>great deal to say, and sometimes disagreeing with Peter or Dan, are seen
>as followers.

You may be their leader, what do I know about what's happening backstage?

>It's really stupid, and it's sexist (how come there's no Cult of Debra
>Snell or Cult of Lisa Ercolano for instance? How come I'm not accused of
>"memorizing" Lisa Ercolano's story?).

Change the name if you like.

>Oh please. As I keep saying, just explain your Christ-Michael Streams to
>parents first,

How many times do I have to tell you that I hardly ever speak to Waldorf
parents? But I'll keep it in mind next time I see that nuclear physics
professor - in a few months perhaps...

>and let them decide before hand, not years afterward, what movement
>exactly they are getting involved with.

I'm not in a position to let or make anyone decide anything what schools
are concerned.

>I find it ethically indefensible for you to claim some part of your
>movement is "independent of external manifestations." How convenient.

Yes, it's convenient to be independent. I'm not a mamber of any
organization or political party. I'm not interested in running a PR
campaign for anybody. If what I speak or write rubs people the wrong way, I
say what the hell. I'm not interested in making friends and influencing people.

>You are only indignant that your "right-handed magic" was attacked ­

On the contrary, Diana. Your confusing right- and left-handed occultism
with right- and left-handedness was a source of entertainment, not
indignation :)


>the actual applications of such, the
>way ancient superstitions about the left and right hands, play out
>in real-life classrooms *today*, for children sitting in desks lined
>up in rows in the morning, isn't interesting to you. You prefer to
>play games. You stated publicly that Michaela Glockler had changed
>her mind on this, and you have no evidence, and you think it's just
>funny to play games with me about where to find your supposed
>evidence. It's a game to you, taunt and bait Waldorf critics. You
>think we like this game too?
>What we don't like is hearing from parents who are baffled to have been
>told their left-handed child needs evaluation and possibly "therapy"
>(i.e., eurythmy) to change it. The child comes home crying. Does this
>mean anything to you?

Of course it does. But the question that arises in my nasty Adolf Ashcroft
head

http://www.uncletaz.com/ashcroft/adolf-ashcroft.jpg

is as follows: Why does the child cry? Who scared the shit out of him or
her? Kids are tough and brave, even when they need painful operations at
the hospital, if grown-ups know how to treat them - a knowledge that comes
from the heart, not the head. Seeing the mentality and the dysfunctional
pathologies among Waldorf critics, especially after they dared attack my
son en masse who was only 11 years old at the time with hysterical frenzy,
I shudder when I think about what their kids must be going through _at_ home_.



Tarjei Straume
http://www.uncletaz.com/anthrocritics.html

"The worst readers are those who proceed like plundering soldiers:
they pick up a few things they use, soil and confuse the rest,
and blaspheme the whole." - Friedrich Nietzsche, Mixed Opinions and Maxims