Just after 9/11, Vice President Dick Cheney on “Meet the Press,” said the nation would engage its “dark side” to find the attackers. “We’ve got to spend time in the shadows,” Mr. Cheney said. “It’s going to be vital for us to use any means at our disposal, basically, to achieve our objective.”
So just what is this "dark side" that Cheney talked about? I don't know, and if anybody does know about it, they are not talking. What I do know is that over five million people are employed in top secret projects in the USA. In 2008 the "black budget" came to over fifty billion dollars. The money is given with no questions asked. Senators and Congressmen are not in on the secret. They know as much about it as you and I do. The President is in the know, but whether he knows it all is open for discussion. The top secret projects continue no matter who is president.
As such, some thing is obviously going on that they don't want us to know about. It exists in the shadows, and apparently it can use "any means" at its disposal, basically, to achieve its objective.”
We know it's there. But what is its objective?
The principle of Ockams Razor as it is most commonly understood is, “The simplest explanation for a phenomenon is most likely the correct explanation. " So what is the simplest explanation for all the secrecy? Is it simply to keep our enemy from finding out about our new weapons?
The whole thing started with the Manhatten Project. The development of the atomic bomb was kept secret from Congress, and when Senator Harry Truman got angry about the huge expenses he demanded to know what was going on. He was denied any explanation. He only found out what it was all about when he became president. And the meaning for the secrecy was to keep our enemies from finding out about the Atom Bomb.
It continued after the war, and when we found a new enemy in the Soviet Union, the secrecy thing grew even larger. The obvious reason for the secrecy was to ensure that the Soviets didn't find about our new weapons. And the soviets did the same thing.
At the end of the cold war we no longer had an enemy; so we no longer had a valid reason for the secrecy. But it still went on, and it even grew much larger. The simplest explanation for the secrecy is: even though we no longer have an enemy, we are still developing secret weapons because we know that we will, some day, have a new enemy.
However, there's more to it than just protecting the knowledge of secret weapons falling into the hands of potential enemies. It's also about control and manipulation. Secret government organizations in America have been known to manipulate elections, revolutions, and even assasinations in other countries. They can only do this by acting in secret. And they only do it so as to preserve our freedoms, like.
Yes we have a huge secret thing going on, and it costs a lot of money, but we are assured that it's for our own good. Some one has to be top dog, and for us to continue being it, we'd best keep some things secret. Don't even let the right hand know what the left hand is doing.
The problem with the big secrecy thing is that hardly anyone knows what is really going on. And some things look like they come under the heading of control and manipulation, but not of other countries; it looks, to some people, that the control and manipulation is now aimed at our own country. And, of course, it is. It always has been. Even before the big secrecy thing, the government, or entities outside of the government, have succesfully controlled and manipulated the population of any given country. Nowadays, it is suspected that the United States is under the control of big corporations. Eisenhower warned us about the weapons industry, and it's the weapons industry that is gaining most from all the top secret weapons. And to keep getting orders for their weapons we need to have a war now and then. Failing that, we need to at least have a percieved enemy so as to scare people into believing that we need the weapons.
Cheney and Bush were, very much, pro-corporate America. I didn't like them. But free elections were held, and they won twice; then when they left they did the right thing and handed over power to Obama. I believe Obama to be a pro-people president; and he's about as much of a socialist as this country can handle right now.
Bush and Cheney were capitalists, and they did what they believed to be the right thing for the country. But to do it they had to use a lot of mis-information. They lied about a lot of things when it comes to corporate America, and we don't know, and we'll never know, what they did in regards to keeping our country safe from another terrorist attack, but they did spend time in the shadows, and it's most likely that they employed the dark side; and the dark side, as dark sides tend to do, responded with ruthless efficiency.
And that's life at the top folks.
And as for the lies, well, the truth is that lies are a part of life, and they most probably are part of truth tee boot.
We begin life by being lied to, Santa Clause and the tooth fairy, like, and even before we suss those lies we begin to realize that we'd be much better off to lie than tell the truth. It's in our basic human nature, and we have to be taught not to lie. An unfortunate few children never get it, and recent studies reveal that they are brain damaged. But even so, nature plays its role, and the kids that always tell the truth are soon ostracised and ridiculed. The rest of us play the game, and we become highly skilled liars. But we keep it to ourselves, like; we live in our own secret world, and we come to think that we are the only ones doing it.
Nah, we are all doing it. And the ones doing it the best are in charge. We elect the best liars, and we get what we elect.
Sophistication means, according to an on line dictionary:
"To cause to become less natural, especially to make less naive and more worldly.
2. To make impure; adulterate.
3. To make more complex or inclusive; refine."
Ah yis: Less naive. It's a slightly painful journey, but it's well worth the effort. And I think I'm sophisticated enough to know that my life is being manipulated by those even more sophisticated than I am. But with the help of Obama, I could see, a mere chance, like, of a slightly possible chance of a mere glimpse of the truth.
Ah but it's not meant to be, and that's why I'm gutted.
But its okay, I can live with it, because, as luck will have it, and all things arising, like, just a few hours ago, I found out that my doctor has renewed my prescription for Vicodin.
Hope yet!
Your man in America:
Walter
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Going to the potty.
"The BBC documentary 'The Power of Nightmares' examines how politicians have used our fears to increase their power and control over society. It looks at the American neo-conservative movement and its depiction of the threat first from the Soviet Union and then from radical Islamists."
http://news. bbc.co.uk/ 2/hi/programmes/ 4016713.stm
I hope they put it out on DVD because I'd like to see it.
The BBC documentary says Al-Qaeda never existed.
One alternative news source jumped all over the revelation with this comment:
"You have heard before that "Al-Qaeda" roughly translates into "the base," but were you aware that "Ana raicha Al Qaeda" is arabic colloquial for "I'm going to the toilet"?
Would hardened terrorists hell bent on the destruction of the west name their organization after a euphemism for taking a shit?"
http://www.propagan damatrix. com/articles/ october2006/ 061006alqaedacra p.htm
I didn't believe in Al-Qaeda from the git go. It sounded far to much like something dreamed up for a James Bond movie. In fact, I almost cringed in embarrassment for the news reader every time I heard the name mentioned on the telly. If a politician used it, I instantly knew that he was a phony. Either that or he was stupid.
I'm no longer a conspiracy buff. There's a time for every season, and my conspiracy season has passed and gone. It served its purpose. I emerged out of ignorance by false means, but even so, I still managed to emerge out of ignorance, and I became aware of some things that I wouldn't have become aware of if I hadn't searched for the truth behind the so called truth. As such, I take the link above with a grain of salt. And I wouldn't vouch for the fact that "Ana raicha Al Qaeda" is arabic colloquial for "I'm going to the toilet" either.
I'm still quite certain that the name Al-Qaeda was dreamed up, but I'm not at all sure that we are all going to crap.
Politicians have used our fears to increase their powers and to gain control over society since the beginning of recorded time. The left wing do it, and the right wing does it. And the way I see it is that maybe we are not going to crap, but, instead, we could well be, finally, emerging out of it.
Judging by the responce to the Swine flu scare, maybe I'm not the only one that has emerged out of ignorance, and maybe, just maybe, the age of ignorance, as a whole, is coming to an end.
We are in a time of great change. The act of communicating has took a quantum leap, and they can't get away with the same old bullshit any more. Maybe we have grown up a wee bit, and tales of the bogey man no longer scare us. Maybe, metaphorically speaking, we have begun to question the reality of Santa and the tooth fairy.
And it could well be that instead of going to the potty, we are, actually, just getting off it.
Walter
http://news. bbc.co.uk/ 2/hi/programmes/ 4016713.stm
I hope they put it out on DVD because I'd like to see it.
The BBC documentary says Al-Qaeda never existed.
One alternative news source jumped all over the revelation with this comment:
"You have heard before that "Al-Qaeda" roughly translates into "the base," but were you aware that "Ana raicha Al Qaeda" is arabic colloquial for "I'm going to the toilet"?
Would hardened terrorists hell bent on the destruction of the west name their organization after a euphemism for taking a shit?"
http://www.propagan damatrix. com/articles/ october2006/ 061006alqaedacra p.htm
I didn't believe in Al-Qaeda from the git go. It sounded far to much like something dreamed up for a James Bond movie. In fact, I almost cringed in embarrassment for the news reader every time I heard the name mentioned on the telly. If a politician used it, I instantly knew that he was a phony. Either that or he was stupid.
I'm no longer a conspiracy buff. There's a time for every season, and my conspiracy season has passed and gone. It served its purpose. I emerged out of ignorance by false means, but even so, I still managed to emerge out of ignorance, and I became aware of some things that I wouldn't have become aware of if I hadn't searched for the truth behind the so called truth. As such, I take the link above with a grain of salt. And I wouldn't vouch for the fact that "Ana raicha Al Qaeda" is arabic colloquial for "I'm going to the toilet" either.
I'm still quite certain that the name Al-Qaeda was dreamed up, but I'm not at all sure that we are all going to crap.
Politicians have used our fears to increase their powers and to gain control over society since the beginning of recorded time. The left wing do it, and the right wing does it. And the way I see it is that maybe we are not going to crap, but, instead, we could well be, finally, emerging out of it.
Judging by the responce to the Swine flu scare, maybe I'm not the only one that has emerged out of ignorance, and maybe, just maybe, the age of ignorance, as a whole, is coming to an end.
We are in a time of great change. The act of communicating has took a quantum leap, and they can't get away with the same old bullshit any more. Maybe we have grown up a wee bit, and tales of the bogey man no longer scare us. Maybe, metaphorically speaking, we have begun to question the reality of Santa and the tooth fairy.
And it could well be that instead of going to the potty, we are, actually, just getting off it.
Walter
The recent pandemic scare is made even more scary due to fact that most intelligent people do not believe a word of it.
A very strange part of it all was when Vice President Joe Biden said that he would not recommend taking any commercial flight or riding in a subway car “at this point” because swine flu virus can spread “in confined places.” A little more than one hour later, Biden rushed out a statement backing off.
Joe Biden was giving good advice and talking common sense, but apparently he had made a huge mistake. He had to back off from his statement. Then to show his sincerity and his change of mind he took a well publicized train trip his home outside of Washington DC.
I tell yer, these are strange times. And lies are in huge abundance.
I decided to do a wee bit of research on it all. I found these two sites about lies, and it is obvious that one site has plagiarized the other site. Check them out:
http://www.corporatenarc.com/FamousLies.php
http://www.healthdiaries.com/famous-liars.htm
If plagiarism is a lie, and I think it is because one is pretending to be the writer of some one Else's work; then one of these sites is actually lying while telling about lies!
The truth is very hard to come by, as such conspiracy theories are abundant, and is it any wonder that most of the world still think 9/11 was an inside job? Check out this recent article from, what I assume to be, an Indian newspaper:
http://rense.com/general85/osamm.htm
What we want is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help us God.
However: "The truth is often a terrible weapon of aggression. It is possible to lie, and even to murder, with the truth." Alfred Alder
A few hours ago I watched the movie: "Mountains of the Moon". It's about Richard Burton and John Speke's adventures while trying to find the source of the Nile.
A publisher had Jack Speke on contract, and when Speke arrived home before Burton he told Speke a lie about how Burton had lied about Speke in a report. Speke believed the lie, and he then betrayed the agreement that Burton and he had made about speaking together at the National Geographical Society. As such Speke got all the glory, and the publisher sold the books.
Years later, just before a debate between Speke and Burton, the truth was revealed. Speke found out that it was the publisher that had lied, and Burton had stuck to the truth.
Just before the debate, Speke met the publisher on the way into the auditorium where the debate was to be held.
Speke said: "You lied to me about Burton".
The publisher tried to laugh it off and said: "I always lie on my way to the truth."
The debate thing was supposed to last about three days, with Burton putting forward his thoughts on the first day. Instead of sticking around to listen to Burton's rendition, Speke decided to go hunting instead. While hunting, he died from what is well accepted as a self inflicted gun shot wound. The official record, however, says it was an accident while hunting.
Was it the lie that caused his death? Or was it the truth?
Also, only a small matter, tee be sure, but the movie portrays Richard Burton as being Irish, and he has a broad Irish accent. But he was actually born in Torquay, Devon. His father was Anglo Irish. His mother was full Irish and came from a very well off family. As such, Richard Burton was of Irish descent, but it is very doubtful that he would have had an Irish accent. And as far as I can gather, the man never even set foot in the place
Ah but, then again, there is such a thing as poetic license, and I'm all for it. A good story, or a good lie, sometimes, does, indeed, lead the way to a hidden truth.
And it is well known that one thing cannot exhist without the other.
Lies lead to truth, and truth leads to lies.
Reality is mix of both.
And if we actually find the whole truth, then the whole game will be over.
A very strange part of it all was when Vice President Joe Biden said that he would not recommend taking any commercial flight or riding in a subway car “at this point” because swine flu virus can spread “in confined places.” A little more than one hour later, Biden rushed out a statement backing off.
Joe Biden was giving good advice and talking common sense, but apparently he had made a huge mistake. He had to back off from his statement. Then to show his sincerity and his change of mind he took a well publicized train trip his home outside of Washington DC.
I tell yer, these are strange times. And lies are in huge abundance.
I decided to do a wee bit of research on it all. I found these two sites about lies, and it is obvious that one site has plagiarized the other site. Check them out:
http://www.corporatenarc.com/FamousLies.php
http://www.healthdiaries.com/famous-liars.htm
If plagiarism is a lie, and I think it is because one is pretending to be the writer of some one Else's work; then one of these sites is actually lying while telling about lies!
The truth is very hard to come by, as such conspiracy theories are abundant, and is it any wonder that most of the world still think 9/11 was an inside job? Check out this recent article from, what I assume to be, an Indian newspaper:
http://rense.com/general85/osamm.htm
What we want is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help us God.
However: "The truth is often a terrible weapon of aggression. It is possible to lie, and even to murder, with the truth." Alfred Alder
A few hours ago I watched the movie: "Mountains of the Moon". It's about Richard Burton and John Speke's adventures while trying to find the source of the Nile.
A publisher had Jack Speke on contract, and when Speke arrived home before Burton he told Speke a lie about how Burton had lied about Speke in a report. Speke believed the lie, and he then betrayed the agreement that Burton and he had made about speaking together at the National Geographical Society. As such Speke got all the glory, and the publisher sold the books.
Years later, just before a debate between Speke and Burton, the truth was revealed. Speke found out that it was the publisher that had lied, and Burton had stuck to the truth.
Just before the debate, Speke met the publisher on the way into the auditorium where the debate was to be held.
Speke said: "You lied to me about Burton".
The publisher tried to laugh it off and said: "I always lie on my way to the truth."
The debate thing was supposed to last about three days, with Burton putting forward his thoughts on the first day. Instead of sticking around to listen to Burton's rendition, Speke decided to go hunting instead. While hunting, he died from what is well accepted as a self inflicted gun shot wound. The official record, however, says it was an accident while hunting.
Was it the lie that caused his death? Or was it the truth?
Also, only a small matter, tee be sure, but the movie portrays Richard Burton as being Irish, and he has a broad Irish accent. But he was actually born in Torquay, Devon. His father was Anglo Irish. His mother was full Irish and came from a very well off family. As such, Richard Burton was of Irish descent, but it is very doubtful that he would have had an Irish accent. And as far as I can gather, the man never even set foot in the place
Ah but, then again, there is such a thing as poetic license, and I'm all for it. A good story, or a good lie, sometimes, does, indeed, lead the way to a hidden truth.
And it is well known that one thing cannot exhist without the other.
Lies lead to truth, and truth leads to lies.
Reality is mix of both.
And if we actually find the whole truth, then the whole game will be over.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Stupidity
The Guardian had an article about a man that made millions from hedge funds. I don't know how he did it, but basically he bet against the sub-prime mortgages and made a fortune. Then he said “goodbye suckers” and sailed off into the sunset. He had some interesting things to say:
"The low-hanging fruit, ie idiots whose parents paid for prep school, Yale and then the Harvard MBA, was there for the taking," he wrote. "These people who were (often) truly not worthy of the education they received (or supposedly received) rose to the top of companies such as AIG, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers and all levels of our government," he said.
"All of this behaviour supporting the aristocracy only ended up making it easier for me to find people stupid enough to take the other side of my trades. God bless America." To read the whole article go here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/oct/18/banking-useconomy
So that's it then. Or it is according to this guy that says we are in this financial mess due to stupidity.
But if you think about it; nearly every mess that the world has got itself into involves a lot of stupidity. And most of the stupidity comes from the belief that other people know what is best for them. It comes from stupid things like faith, trust, and obedience. And, as a rule, the reason why we are so faithful and obedient to our so called leaders is because we are stupid. And when it all comes down to dust it is only ourselves that we have to blame. If we retrace every cause and effect – aside from blind luck, or damn bad luck – almost everything eventually comes down to personal responsibility. And there's a very interesting thing that happens when one truly accepts personal responsibility: the angry, emotional, side of the pain goes way. As such there's no one to crucify but ourself, and most of us begin to see reason before we decide to do such a radical thing as that! The only thing to do is to admit to stupidity, and to make a mental vow to try not to do such a thing again.
But our leaders are still at it, and rather than admit that they were wrong they prop up a corpse and then tell us that it's still alive. Yer right. And I've got some swamp land in Florida that is about to be drained; the crocodiles have agreed to a treaty, and I'm assured that they will move to a new place very soon.
Stupidity is part and parcel of life. And if it's true that all opposites are part of the same thing, then one cannot act intelligently until one admits to ones inner tendency to act stupidly. And so let's admit it. Our leaders are stupid, and we are stupid, and the only way out of this mess is to admit it.
Yer right.
"The low-hanging fruit, ie idiots whose parents paid for prep school, Yale and then the Harvard MBA, was there for the taking," he wrote. "These people who were (often) truly not worthy of the education they received (or supposedly received) rose to the top of companies such as AIG, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers and all levels of our government," he said.
"All of this behaviour supporting the aristocracy only ended up making it easier for me to find people stupid enough to take the other side of my trades. God bless America." To read the whole article go here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/oct/18/banking-useconomy
So that's it then. Or it is according to this guy that says we are in this financial mess due to stupidity.
But if you think about it; nearly every mess that the world has got itself into involves a lot of stupidity. And most of the stupidity comes from the belief that other people know what is best for them. It comes from stupid things like faith, trust, and obedience. And, as a rule, the reason why we are so faithful and obedient to our so called leaders is because we are stupid. And when it all comes down to dust it is only ourselves that we have to blame. If we retrace every cause and effect – aside from blind luck, or damn bad luck – almost everything eventually comes down to personal responsibility. And there's a very interesting thing that happens when one truly accepts personal responsibility: the angry, emotional, side of the pain goes way. As such there's no one to crucify but ourself, and most of us begin to see reason before we decide to do such a radical thing as that! The only thing to do is to admit to stupidity, and to make a mental vow to try not to do such a thing again.
But our leaders are still at it, and rather than admit that they were wrong they prop up a corpse and then tell us that it's still alive. Yer right. And I've got some swamp land in Florida that is about to be drained; the crocodiles have agreed to a treaty, and I'm assured that they will move to a new place very soon.
Stupidity is part and parcel of life. And if it's true that all opposites are part of the same thing, then one cannot act intelligently until one admits to ones inner tendency to act stupidly. And so let's admit it. Our leaders are stupid, and we are stupid, and the only way out of this mess is to admit it.
Yer right.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Contrivence
So the Dow went down today by 733 points after climbing by over 900 points on Monday. But don't worry, the Plunge Protection Team will soon be back in action; and it's fair to say that if not for the intervention of the government the stock market would have crashed by now. It's also fair to say that Anglo/American capitalism would also have crashed by now. And why would the financial system have collapsed? At the risk of sounding like the Church Lady: I say it would have collapsed because of lies. The whole thing was based on faith and trust, and they blew it by lying. The “Free Market” is now being openly manipulated by the government, and as such it is being saved by a contrived scheme that goes against it's basic concept of let it be. The concept of a free market was always an illusion anyway.
The truth is that might is always right, and the truth is that the vast majority of us have the free market stuck right up our arses; and while it sets a very small minority free to enjoy the good things in life, it enslaves the majority of us to a life of silent desperation. While prices go up our wages remain the same or even go down. Good paying jobs are exported to communist China where the peasants are better controlled and work for a pittance. As a result the only way we can afford to buy the goods is to get good credit, and big brother is watching our every move. The credit score is an invasion of privacy that totally contradicts the boast that we live in a free society.
And how can a financial system hope to survive if the cost of goods far surpasses the real income of the people? The only way we can buy things, and still provide a home and put food in the mouths of our children, is to employ credit. Credit has it's costs, and our real wages decline even more. The whole system depends entirely on credit. And I'm very sure that Adam Smith did not have this kind of capitalism in mind. His version of capitalism was that a need would find a provider, and we should let it be. A fair price would be set, and the deal would be done. The provider would make a fair profit, the needer would have his goods, and everyone would be happy. He lived in a time when people only bought what they could afford. As such the price was set accordingly. Can you imagine how much a house or a car would cost these days if there was no such a thing as credit?
As the old song goes: “Sixteen tons and what do you get, another day older and deeper in debt, Saint Peter don't you call me because I can't go – I owe my soul to the company store.”
Lies, lies, and more lies. It's an illusion backed up by more illusion. The canny investor that bets that the market will drop is confounded by the Plunge Protection Team; and like W.B Yeates predicted in The Second Coming: "Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world", and now that the falconer is losing control of the falcon, I say good bloody riddance!
Here's some background on the Plunge Protection Team. Watch the American Stock Market; take into account the fear, and judge for yourself why a big drop suddenly turns into a small gain. And as for a 900 point rise in these uncertain times...no way.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_12631
The truth is that might is always right, and the truth is that the vast majority of us have the free market stuck right up our arses; and while it sets a very small minority free to enjoy the good things in life, it enslaves the majority of us to a life of silent desperation. While prices go up our wages remain the same or even go down. Good paying jobs are exported to communist China where the peasants are better controlled and work for a pittance. As a result the only way we can afford to buy the goods is to get good credit, and big brother is watching our every move. The credit score is an invasion of privacy that totally contradicts the boast that we live in a free society.
And how can a financial system hope to survive if the cost of goods far surpasses the real income of the people? The only way we can buy things, and still provide a home and put food in the mouths of our children, is to employ credit. Credit has it's costs, and our real wages decline even more. The whole system depends entirely on credit. And I'm very sure that Adam Smith did not have this kind of capitalism in mind. His version of capitalism was that a need would find a provider, and we should let it be. A fair price would be set, and the deal would be done. The provider would make a fair profit, the needer would have his goods, and everyone would be happy. He lived in a time when people only bought what they could afford. As such the price was set accordingly. Can you imagine how much a house or a car would cost these days if there was no such a thing as credit?
As the old song goes: “Sixteen tons and what do you get, another day older and deeper in debt, Saint Peter don't you call me because I can't go – I owe my soul to the company store.”
Lies, lies, and more lies. It's an illusion backed up by more illusion. The canny investor that bets that the market will drop is confounded by the Plunge Protection Team; and like W.B Yeates predicted in The Second Coming: "Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world", and now that the falconer is losing control of the falcon, I say good bloody riddance!
Here's some background on the Plunge Protection Team. Watch the American Stock Market; take into account the fear, and judge for yourself why a big drop suddenly turns into a small gain. And as for a 900 point rise in these uncertain times...no way.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_12631
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Life is all about procreation, competition, survival, and lying. We lie to win. We lie to survive. And when we are young we often lie to convince a woman that we are a good prospect for sex and procreation.
Mostly; life is about lies. We cling to three illusions that we live our lives by - as if they were realities. There's the secret reality in our own minds where we more often than not lie to our selves so as to reinforce our fragile sense of self worth. Then there's the social reality where the lies we tell ourselves don't seem to jibe with societies lies; so we put on a mask and pretend. And then there's the physical reality where everything looks to be rock solid: but nowadays we know that it's mostly empty space.
Maybe life is really all about filling in empty spaces. Life abhors an empty space. Pick up a rock, crawl into the darkest hole, or pick up a handfull of sand in the most arid of deserts, and if you look hard enough you will find life. The Earth is teeming with all sorts of life, and each and every one of them lives in its own version of reality. But who in his right mind gives a hoot about a barnacle's sense of reality as it attaches itself to the bottom side of a ship? But the barnacles reality is just as valid as ours. We see the world our way, and the barnacle see's it his way. We are both trying to survive in a very hostile world, and we will do whatever it takes. And in our case, seeing as we have the gift of language, we will lie our heads off so as to survive, and if we find ourselves on top of the heap we will lie like hell to stay there. And anyone that thinks different has the mind set of a barnacle.
Mostly; life is about lies. We cling to three illusions that we live our lives by - as if they were realities. There's the secret reality in our own minds where we more often than not lie to our selves so as to reinforce our fragile sense of self worth. Then there's the social reality where the lies we tell ourselves don't seem to jibe with societies lies; so we put on a mask and pretend. And then there's the physical reality where everything looks to be rock solid: but nowadays we know that it's mostly empty space.
Maybe life is really all about filling in empty spaces. Life abhors an empty space. Pick up a rock, crawl into the darkest hole, or pick up a handfull of sand in the most arid of deserts, and if you look hard enough you will find life. The Earth is teeming with all sorts of life, and each and every one of them lives in its own version of reality. But who in his right mind gives a hoot about a barnacle's sense of reality as it attaches itself to the bottom side of a ship? But the barnacles reality is just as valid as ours. We see the world our way, and the barnacle see's it his way. We are both trying to survive in a very hostile world, and we will do whatever it takes. And in our case, seeing as we have the gift of language, we will lie our heads off so as to survive, and if we find ourselves on top of the heap we will lie like hell to stay there. And anyone that thinks different has the mind set of a barnacle.
Strange Times
The Dow lost another five hundred points today, and it dipped below 9,500, which was, or so an expert on CNBC said, the point of resistance. In the last two days the Dow has lost nearly 900 points. Over two trillion dollars have been wiped out of retirement accounts. And John McCain says it's time to turn the page on the economy and start talking about something else.
McCain wants to talk about Obama's connections to a sixties radical that liked to explode bombs. But Obama is having none of it and refers to the Keating Five where McCain got caught up in corruption. Joe Biden is off the scene for awhile so to mourn his mother in laws death, and Sarah Palin has assumed the role of a pit bull with lipstick. She is busy making a fool of herself by winking at the camera and trying to talk folksie so as to attract the vote of the white trash and Joe sixpack. The thought of McCain winning the election is very scary. It's not that he's all that bad, it's just that he might die, and then we would have Sarah Palin as President.
I watched live coverage of her today as she spoke to the choir. She said the right buzz words and the crowd responded as expected. Right on cue they would jeer, and right on cue they would cheer as if it was the first time they'd heard such wisdom. Do they pay those idiots to respond on cue? Do they take the television audience to be fools! Probably so. But the reality is that it is an attempt to fool the televison audience into believing that this is what America really thinks. Both sides are as bad. And both sides are trying to create the truth.
The age old notion about the concept of truth being the reality of all realities is dead and gone. W.B. Yeates saw it coming at the beginning of the 20th century. Then later on C.S. Lewis and George Orwell gave their own dire warnings. Orwell was an insider, and even though he knew he was dying he secluded himself in a remote house in Scotland so as to write 1984. He died soon after finishing it. That an intellgent and sane man chose to spend his final days writing a book knowing that he might not even live to see it published says a lot. And, if my memory of facts is correct, he didn't live to see it published. His book, 1984, might well have been the last gasp, the last warning, about the loss of freedom.
In a way, it was the old concept of truth that held our leaders in check and inspired the greater good, but it was a religion that held it all together. The slow death of Christianity that began in the 19th century slowly let loose what W.B. Yeates called "The Second Coming", and in the 20th century all of hell seemed to break out. But it wasn't Satan behind it, it was the elite of mankind embracing their new found freedom to do as they wish. The old concept of truth died with Christianity. It was replaced with the knowledge that there is no such thing as truth, and there is really no such thing as anything - that we do not make up with our imagination. We are nothing but an accident, there is no God watching over us, and we are simply making things up as we go along. The truth is nothing more that a product of the strange ability of language. And it is language that enables us to lie. And if we are only making thngs up as we go along, then...we get Sarah Palin as the leader of the free world. Surely, I have slipped into an alternative universe.
McCain wants to talk about Obama's connections to a sixties radical that liked to explode bombs. But Obama is having none of it and refers to the Keating Five where McCain got caught up in corruption. Joe Biden is off the scene for awhile so to mourn his mother in laws death, and Sarah Palin has assumed the role of a pit bull with lipstick. She is busy making a fool of herself by winking at the camera and trying to talk folksie so as to attract the vote of the white trash and Joe sixpack. The thought of McCain winning the election is very scary. It's not that he's all that bad, it's just that he might die, and then we would have Sarah Palin as President.
I watched live coverage of her today as she spoke to the choir. She said the right buzz words and the crowd responded as expected. Right on cue they would jeer, and right on cue they would cheer as if it was the first time they'd heard such wisdom. Do they pay those idiots to respond on cue? Do they take the television audience to be fools! Probably so. But the reality is that it is an attempt to fool the televison audience into believing that this is what America really thinks. Both sides are as bad. And both sides are trying to create the truth.
The age old notion about the concept of truth being the reality of all realities is dead and gone. W.B. Yeates saw it coming at the beginning of the 20th century. Then later on C.S. Lewis and George Orwell gave their own dire warnings. Orwell was an insider, and even though he knew he was dying he secluded himself in a remote house in Scotland so as to write 1984. He died soon after finishing it. That an intellgent and sane man chose to spend his final days writing a book knowing that he might not even live to see it published says a lot. And, if my memory of facts is correct, he didn't live to see it published. His book, 1984, might well have been the last gasp, the last warning, about the loss of freedom.
In a way, it was the old concept of truth that held our leaders in check and inspired the greater good, but it was a religion that held it all together. The slow death of Christianity that began in the 19th century slowly let loose what W.B. Yeates called "The Second Coming", and in the 20th century all of hell seemed to break out. But it wasn't Satan behind it, it was the elite of mankind embracing their new found freedom to do as they wish. The old concept of truth died with Christianity. It was replaced with the knowledge that there is no such thing as truth, and there is really no such thing as anything - that we do not make up with our imagination. We are nothing but an accident, there is no God watching over us, and we are simply making things up as we go along. The truth is nothing more that a product of the strange ability of language. And it is language that enables us to lie. And if we are only making thngs up as we go along, then...we get Sarah Palin as the leader of the free world. Surely, I have slipped into an alternative universe.
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