Pessimism: About our business we go

About our business we all go, day to day.  The various moving parts of the country running . . . smoothly?  Like a juggler with many objects in the air, hands a-blur, more and more objects being added until the blur of hands can no longer keep up.

But on the system goes with all us snug inside.  Playing our parts – we are all integral, right?  Involved and integrated citizens doing our part.  Voting, for example, lets us have our say.

Then a news item comes out or a book is released, the kinds of stories that surface then sink with suitable rapidity.  Other interests have their say in the way our country is run?  What is that you say?  Groups more powerful than the government, that influence the government: influence the government more than the individual citizens?

How much insult can one take in one’s life?  To live and toil – to fit in but not truly have any input in how things are run: surely we close our ears and our minds when these stories surface.  We dutifully sink these stories, stories incepted in our minds with a hole in the hull, sinking into the depths of our consciousness, down to the depths that we cannot see or remember.  In doing so we again play our part in society, supplying inattentiveness.  Inattentiveness, such a useful thing to have in societies, how essential to the functioning of society.  Inattentiveness fueled by Hollywood, television, alcohol and drugs.  But we still matter and we won’t let ourselves be told otherwise.

Pessimism and Propaganda

Utterly lost, our foreign policy is beholden to popular mandate – the heartstrings must be pulled, uh, ahem, I mean certain heartstrings must be pulled in certain ways.  Propaganda is set to the key of popular sentiment.  So sad that this has always been the story.  Do we need atrocity?  Yes, we need atrocity.  But we, the atrocity-seekers, are blind and we grasp out, needing to feel and to understand but ultimately going about our lives uncomprehending.  42 dead in an American strike on an MSF hospital, sure we will talk about it but, no, don’t concern yourselves with it you blind people.  No, that was not an atrocity and unfortunately (or fortunately?) you can’t say the hindsight of the blind is 20/20, no, their look backwards is the same as their current outlook, besmirched forever by the staining splash of bullshit, lives lived on the edge of the propaganda river with filthy cataracts, confusing eddies.  Lives lived comfortably nevertheless.

This school of Earth

Are you familiar with the New-agey concept that before we incarnate on earth we choose to come here in order to further our (I guess big “L”) Learning?  Earth is a great school, the travails we experience lessons that we might learn from.  But is this just one more apologistic patch put on the matrix, a matrix either blind and evolutionary, or a matrix meant gnostically?

The topic of eternal, of eternal fascination: where did we come from and why are we here?  There are two general answers at odds to one another – no to meaning and yes to meaning: at least with regards to an external force playing a part in the generation of meaning.  Of course people find meaning outside of turning to a god or God or external force.  People find awe in the universe, awe at how “small and insignificant” that we are and, perhaps ironically, on the other hand people present themselves as insignificant specks in front of a god (an awe-inspiring god).

How successful materialism?  Fairly successful, at least in the west.  But what animates everyone, a sort of baseline, is a belief in simply going forward, just keeping moving, an animating force I suppose meant in two ways: not only the force of life that grants us physical motion but also the idea of someone seemingly being alive, being described as animated, the life force finding a billboard to advertise itself on, a common factor more fundamental then stated religious or non-religious beliefs, a belief common to most beyond words, spoken with action.

Yet, the idea that we choose (or not) to be put here in order to learn – are there some lessons that are actually not worth learning?  That we come here to learn operates still on the presupposition that life itself is good simply because it provided the incarnate school to educate oneself.  Which does not preclude that in a higher realm people/spirits may also seek out learning in other venues however they may exist, just not a physical one.

That we make peace with ourselves and explore our shadows is done to be happier and enlightened: these both, happiness and enlightenment, seem to help people come to terms with the world which from the blind evolutionary perspective are correct attitudes in that the species continues to exist.

All that aside, I do find appealing the earth-as-school idea.  Coming to terms with my shit makes me happier.  And, fuck, while I’m here I better learn something about the beyond, sure as heck will not dismiss spiritual stuff with the bullshit wand of science.

Sources of Conflict

The sources of conflict in the world.  Recent events in American public/political life inexorably bring to bear the United States’ relationship with the Great Bear, Russia.  Woe to the American politicians with the scent of dealing with Russia on them: Trump, Sessions, Tillerson.  Have you talked with Russia before?  Colluded with them?  Have you colluded with Russia to influence the 2016 Presidential election?

First a preface.  Basically it comes down to a state looking out for the best interests of its population and signing up to be a vassal state of the US which equals a reduction of benefits to your population.  Elites do quite well and the mass of people suffer.  Just look at Saudi Arabia and Israel.  One, Saudi Arabia, is a vassal that uses beheading as a form of capital punishment.  In the tradition of American influence abroad, a wealthy few make the deals and reap the rewards while the majority suffers – The Kingdom may provide a slight exception to this with subsidized housing and oil but this is easily countered – from a western p.o.v. – by the sad state of women’s rights in the kingdom.  On the other hand Israel, a state that receives aid and actually drives US foreign policy in the MENA.  Regardless of the different relationships between these two states and the US, we are not at war with either state.

What of Russia?  I’ll let Dave Smith speak here:

“There are interests that make a ton of money off us dominating parts of the world and Russia is a threat to that.  If there is someone in the Middle East who doesn’t want to trade oil in dollars, is there is someone who is not going along with our global hegemony which is brought on by force, Russia will support them.  China will support them.  Russia and China are the only real geopolitical enemies that the US has.  The official story is we like to spread democracy or that there’s human rights violations somewhere.  But you realize pretty quickly who we do business with and who we don’t – it’s really not based on human rights violations. If you do business with us you can be a dictator, you can be a kingdom like Saudi Arabia that is just brutally oppressive.  When you look around you realize it comes down to who plays ball.  And right at the heart of it is the petro-dollar.  And all the countries that we demonize and call terrorist nations, rogue nations are threats to stability.  It has nothing to do with human rights violations.  It has nothing to do with aggression on the part of that state.  It’s the ones who don’t want to participate in this kind of US, NATO, EU run world.  If you don’t want sell you oil in dollars, if you want to move towards gold you’re going to be in a lot of trouble.”

Just some food for thought.  It would be nice to move past the idea that we are ideologically opposed with the rulers of whatever foreign country.  It would be nice, if painful, to acknowledge the source of conflicts among nations and recognize how we do and don’t benefit from such interactions.

The Secret Economy: thoughts on the media, politics and societal control

The idea of heightened complexity in societies before they collapse and the idea that people today mask a helplessness when facing societal fragility by a misplaced concern about politics.

So, yeah, Holly and Jasun entered some interesting waters – the idea that there is a mechanism – inside people’s psychology/psyche/minds – that can be and are exploited: if an actor (like anywhere from a movie actor to a politician, to anybody behaving anywhere, anyway, anytime) acts in a certain way it pushes buttons in said psyche of the audience which elicits known responses.  Simply state, people act in a certain way to manipulate their audience.  But the interesting part of this as it relates to politics is the idea that there are subconscious cues/reactions.

Jasun referenced organizations that studied and subsequently tried to control these cues/reactions.  In order to control the direction society was/is going.  Call it an advanced study of human nature.  Or politicians and various other actors do not consciously push those manipulative buttons but are personally adept at subconsciously recognizing certain reactions by altering their act in whatever way.  As Holly said, a literalization of this adaptive technology already exists where people recognize what they want to recognize in actors and the actors provide a blank enough canvas to allow for people to place their hopes and dreams and wishes upon, the actors becoming that estranged or deceased family member we want to appeal to and receive adulation from.

The Sinclair Paradox

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” – Upton Sinclair

How should we relate to institutions like the American Beverage Institute and the Democratic National Committee?  My going answer right now is to be critical.  Always critique.  The groups from the ABA to the DNC are aligned with the tide: of course while reinforcing the tide and serving as the creators of the tide themselves.  You can consciously accept this tide – the force of history or whatever you want to call it – which invites all the contradictions and schizophrenia that I described in my last post.  Acceptance gets you 1) a fatter pay check, 2) a split psyche, and 3) a certificate honoring your contribution to the advancement of a shitty state of affairs.  (Could this simply be any college diploma? lol.)

The other reactions are passive acceptance and the critical approach (yeah!).  Boo for passive acceptance which equals ignorance.  No thanks.  The critical approach is the way to go.  There is some nuance to my so-called critical approach.  Just as there is active and passive acceptance of the “official” state of affairs, so too is there active and passive critical approaches to dealing with this state of affairs.

See where I’m going with this?  And this invites discernment.  If there are narratives offered that critique the state of affairs and provide a plan of action – how do you decide if you should follow whichever plan of action?

If you feel the need to combat the actions of the ABA, do you go and picket their board meetings, infiltrate bottling plants in order to set alight the sinister wells that tap into hell, the toxic high fructose slurries meeting their conflagratory ending outside of the human body?  No you don’t.  The correct thing to do is be aware of agendas, be aware of the relationship between the human body and the profit-motive, be aware of alternative – perhaps more traditional – pathways to a healthy diet.  This may mean simply having knowledge of nutrition yourself.  Or it may mean writing about it, sharing what you know (and thing: me, me, me!), even making documentaries.

How you deal with these issues involves sane and healthy choices just as dealing with the substances manufactured by such corporations requires making sane and healthy choices.  And goddamit, if everyone made sane and healthy choices then these corporations and committees would be smaller and wield less power.  This is not our world though.  Not our human nature.  Alas and onward.

Our National Religion: the character of the flock

What is our National Religion?  A cornerstone: what comes first to mind is a dependence on oil that in itself instigates, perpetuates and epitomizes schizophrenia in all of us.  The person that comes to worship in this national religion is a schizophrenic and this characterization is fair for almost all the people in our country.  Our relation to oil exemplifies this for a few simple reasons.

One is our reliance on oil not just for transportation but as a feedstock for omnipresent plastics.  Without it we would not have mega farms, nor would we have suburbs and supermarkets.  Yet, we live our lives unthinking of the miraculousness of this fuel source.  Indeed, we flippantly posit that some renewable alternative is either at hand or will be arriving on our doorsteps tomorrow.  Oil mediates most aspects of modern life yet most discussions of societal status quo and change leave it out.

The other big reason our relation to oil contributes to and exemplifies our schizophrenia is the role this vital substance plays in global affairs.  We may live our lives as though we – individual Americans – are innocent actors on the world stage: you see where this is going don’t you?  I know some people may minimize the effect oil has on our foreign policy but let’s face it, no strategic resources in MENA (the Middle East and North Africa) then no US involvement: probably not even attempts to foster democracy (lol!).  Unawareness of this, at its worst perhaps, yields statements like “They hate us for our freedoms”.  Actually an even more severe utterance wrought by unawareness is “We need to take out ISIS to defend American freedoms”.  Lack of awareness of the concept of blowback is a hallmark of our schizophrenic state, where in one mind we accept or ignore any actions that destroy countries and create refugees, while in another mind we declare the need to accept these refugees into our western countries.  If the creation of refugees was part of the acceptance of refugees narrative then that might make sense, but as it stands it is as though the refugees appear from some apolitical nowhere place, a people to unselfishly embrace who have no connection to any US (or our allies) designs in MENA.

So, a national religion that is all too human.  A national religion subject to the whims and limits of people’s evolved capabilities of awareness.  A national religion that isn’t going away and that will continue to serve as a respectable creed for a people who want to have their cake and eat it too.

The secret economy

Conspicuous consumption exists and has an effect on people.  It has a big effect on people and on the world.  This is the realm of the ego, where our better judgment is tempered by the demands of the subconscious.  This is where the subconscious over-rules the rational, awake mind.  The secret economy of materialism, the hidden, largest part of the iceberg ice that lies below the surface, the elephant in the room.

Removing yourself from this secondary, secret economy is easier said than done.  This economy is a tax on all our activities – each generation provides a tabula rasa upon which advertisers – the active, knowledgeable group that is consciously manipulating these economies – inscribe the definitions of things, the base, acceptable modes of existence i.e. what material things are required if you want to be an American, what it means to be a man, a woman, a child, any actor of any sort.

This falls within the purview of the discussion recently held between Dr. Nafeez Ahmed and Chris Martenson on the latter’s Peak Prosperity podcast.  Martenson clarified a question he feels people are trying to formulate but are unable to put words to: “Our cultural narrative is broken.  How do we begin going about re-writing it and implementing a new narrative that comports with the realities? (min 23)  We need to be talking about new ways of living.  What is the thread we would need to pull to unravel the current system?

I would like to put forward the pessimistic answer – directed change is prevented because we are human.  Is political change possible?  Is it possible to create a new narrative, as Martenson mentions above?  Yes, I guess it is possible but the biggest barrier people meet on the path to achieving new ways of living is themselves.  And advertisers and politicians know this.  And advertisers and politicians make money because of this.  And therefore I would amend the affirmative answer above with a “No”, no, it is impossible to consciously affect change on our economic system.  Same goes for our political system.

One big necessity is being met all the time.  This is the primary, evolved need to simply stay alive.  Whether you are Republican or Democrat doesn’t matter as long as you are alive.  Whether you believe in God or are an atheist doesn’t matter as long as you are alive.  The primary demand of the species is not how to live but simply to live.  Behind all our actions there is the little voice that keeps saying, “Stay alive”.

Every way of living an answer to the question of ethics: how are we supposed to live?  If people feel that we need to find a new way of living whatever new way is found will simply satisfy the necessary category of “finding something novel which some people need in order to keep living”.  “Right” and “wrong” ways of living are both acceptable as long was people remain alive doing either.  The “right way of living” then in this case is any form of living that perpetuates the human creature.  This may seem redundant or obvious but is an important philosophical understanding.  This idea is put forward so well by Camus in his “The Myth of Sisyphus” – we humans, at a fundamental level, “choose” to keep on keeping on, an unspoken and unconsciously confirmed acceptance of imperative, perhaps built into us by our biology, the history of evolution which is our bodies, our selfs.  If you are alive now you are affirming life constantly by being alive.

That world of un-thought, of needs that form the second, secret economy and the world of unspoken affirmation are overlapping realms within which meaning is found.  And both of these worlds are manipulated by outside forces.

Tell me lies. Tell me sweet little lies.

A little lie, here and there.  Just, ya know, tweak the truth a little bit – for money of course.  If we justify actions by reference to money then those little lies can be ignored, swept under the rug.  No harm, no foul.  Lies become commodities and we take the blame.  Someone in a powerful position lies and that lie becomes a product with its attendant accessories of guilt.  And we buy the lie and we accept the guilt and the person in power is therefore absolved.  In the immortal words of Thom Yorke: “You do it to yourself, you do.  And that's what really hurts”.

All this against the backdrop of a raging sea (don’t forget Robert: “I opened up my eyes/And found myself alone alone/Alone above a raging sea”), fixed landmarks gone, focus kept on small truths that are ready at hand just to maintain some coherence.  Little lies are easily accepted to maintain this coherence, to bolster coherence: we agree with the stitch quality and color of the Emperor’s clothes not from placid, well-kept and well-lit streets but from ships passing in the dark on those turbulent seas, spotlighted for chaotic seconds, agreements made not out of luxury but out of the belief that all will be lost if these dubious concordances are not met and sustained.

These little lies amass and soon we do not see that we accept and/or ignore murderous wars overseas, that we submit to being poisoned by our accepted diet at home, that one Emperor’s cloak of words woven, spun with a silver tongue are acceptable while the latest Emperor’s orange flax façade is (justifiably) unacceptable, a call for action based on aesthetics and not any substance – Trump initiated his rule with murder in Yemen exactly as Obama did.

The freedom and sovereignty of our own consciousness has been removed via the lies of the war on drugs – states of consciousness have been made illegal.  Are certain thoughts illegal too?  Will the phrase “we are murdering people overseas” land one in jail just as the possession of a joint already does?

Yet we are free to consume soda – actively encouraged to do so by the little lies of advertising.  It is Susan Neely’s job to prevent children from drinking soda while encouraging its consumption among adults – the tasks of the President and CEO of the American Beverage Association.  How to square that circle, but Neely does so mostly unflinchingly – what do you expect form the woman who helped create that little organization called the Department of Homeland Security.  Kudos to her.

And that building bombs should be recognized primarily as a source of jobs – little lies amass and we end up not giving a fuck about the use of those bombs.  Makes one wish that church attendance would correlate to a basic understanding of the concept of murder.  Or that the magnanimity of Jesus’ New Testament lessons wouldn’t have to be put through a logic meat-grinder creating an American moral-meat with too high a content of nitrate-lies.

Let’s all wash death-brats down with the science experiment that is high fructose sodas, an ample feast to consume whilst living our lie-permeated existence.  Salud!

Monetized morals

The use of our budgets – individual budgets, household, city, state and nation (global?) – is varied.  On a basic level we spend money in order to survive – think of good old Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, I guess.  But just as it doesn’t take long for the association of income with happiness to decouple in the upper income brackets, money quickly breaks the gravitational pull of bare survival and becomes an expression of beliefs, a palette with which to express aesthetic choices.

So, topically, how do you feel about spending more on consumer goods typically bought from Mexico in order to put up a wall between that country and the US?  One rebuttal has stated that Americans will end up effectively paying for the wall through increased consumer goods products.  Now, obviously not everyone supports the construction of this (un?)aesthetic perimeter.  Of those that do, how many would up-front agree to paying more for cars, trucks, avocados and beer?  Would this expense be accepted by those in favor of the wall?  I would say yes, some people would find a rallying cry in this expense, especially with (or in anticipation of) their new-found spending power since the wall would (assumedly) limit contests for jobs.

That one would spend more on goods to promote something they want is akin to people going out of their way to purchase organic foods – a positive thing, wrought by one’s values.  But this voting with one’s dollar takes a turn for the pragmatic when you consider the willingness we have to promote violence just to provide jobs – which lets people have money to spend on those avocadoes, organic or otherwise.  That we have military contractors that are big employers is something everyone is familiar with.  And limited our military actions overseas is kind of equivalent to the choice we may make to build a wall. 

Rambling, I know.  But one thing every American should hear, understand and make their peace with is the comments of Wolf Blitzer during an interview with Rand Paul which you can read about here.  The headline reads “Wolf Blitzer Is Worried Defense Contractors Will Lose Jobs if U.S. Stops Arming Saudi Arabia” and that says it all.  Another aesthetic choice.  An aesthetic choice of work to complement the aesthetic choice of how we spend our money.  If the more expensive avocadoes provide food for thought then the choice of mil. contractor jobs perhaps fucking-countries-up-overseas for thought.

Why the NFL is rigged: thoughts on Trump

So we’ve all heard the allegations: the NFL is fixed.  Refs make shitty calls at decisive moments tilting the balance in favor of whichever team Roger Goodell has selected to win.  Why else do the play reviews get routed back to New York and NFL headquarters?  Along with college football nearly $100 million are bet on NFL games – you think outcomes are left to chance?

What?  You haven’t heard of this?  Well I’ll admit it is not an open and shut case – no Bill Hicks’ “case-fucking-closed” on the idea that the winner of each NFL game is predetermined.  I’ll admit that.  Yet, my mind can’t help but jump to such conclusions.  This is based on a few things, like Brian Tuohy’s work and things I’ve seen: those fucked-up calls/no-calls that even the announcers feel the refs and reviewers get wrong.  But my idea that the NFL is rigged is also based on an overall impression; something arrived at by the gestalt of weird calls, built-in vagueness of the rulebook and the disheartening slavish devotion of the fans.  It just feels like something is not right and I find watching games difficult (though I still watch sometimes – it is entertaining, goddamit).

Let me now translate this to the negative views many people have of Trump.  As my views of the NFL may seem irrational so too – to me and others – do the reactions people have to Trump.

Let me be straightforward with two things.  One, I pay a lot of attention to foreign policy and foreign relations.  And secondly, I have a penchant for world-changing, dare I say, cataclysmic events.  So my hands-off Trump policy, which was decided on mostly subconsciously, has keyed on things Trump has said about foreign policy to a great extent.  And he gets passing marks, in this regard.  My approval springs from the hope that the pain and suffering being inflicted by the US on other parts of the world right now may perhaps be brought to an end.  You still with me?  Let’s let other countries defend themselves and Jesus Christ let me turn a blind eye to the fact that the reason we are over wherever is not simply to intervene in a squabble amongst other nations but because we have financial and strategic interests in those countries.

So maybe you can see, for the above two reasons, why I’m not super freaked out by Trump.  On those issues.  (Hillary destroyed Libya and bragged about it – case fucking closed and that is why it would have been unconscionable for me to even consider voting for her.)  You probably can’t, though, and that is what is fascinating to me: for some folks Trump is the devil incarnate. 

What is this dog whistle?  That is the crux.  For some folks there is something that is just not right with Donny Tinyhands.  On paper I get it but I do not have the visceral reaction so many seem to have.  Perhaps to belittle all involved, this is analogous to my NFL feelings, that something is just not right.  I know he said some shitty things in the run up to the election – I think this is what a lot of people are reacting to.  And those controversial statements didn’t bother me at all.  Our reactions are crafted in our hearts and not in our minds.  To be honest I get that “something is just not right” feeling about our whole country at times.

Why Donald Trump is already a more liberal President than Obama

Congratulations America, we did it!  Same thing could be said after any Presidents’ election.  Left, right, center, fascist, libertarian, liberal, we are all in it together.  “It is what it is” as they say, a phrase I’ve been hearing more and more people say these recent years.

And I’m not condoning anyone.  I’m not excoriating anyone that was in contention for election or that did get elected.  If there is a problem it lies in what we, as a population do.  Or the problems lies in what don’t do.

Who was the last liberal president?  Well, many would perhaps say Obama.  On the right this perceived liberalness is a source of ire.  On the left Obama’s liberalism is a source of pride.  But let me report the observation of a few political observers that Richard Nixon was our last liberal president. Yes, Richard Milhous Nixon, Prez No. 37.  Our last liberal president.

First we have good old Noam describing Nixon as the last liberal president.  Talking about the current minimum wage debates Chomsky stated, “It’s a shame that it’s taken so long to even be a discussion.  As for support, we may recall the last major program for helping families at the level of survival was under Richard Nixon. In many respects Nixon was the last liberal president”.  Nixon signed an amendment to the Fair Labor Standards Act which raised wages more than 40%.

Then we have Chris Hedges.  “Who was the last liberal president we had?  It was Richard Nixon.  Not because he was a liberal, but because he was frightened of movements.”  Hedges recounts a scene from Kissinger’s memoir where Nixon had parked buses end to end to block protesters’ access to the White House.  “They’re going to break through the barricades and get us,” Kissinger recalls Dick saying to him.  And for Hedges, that is right we want to have the powerful.  Does it feel that way today?

And now Donny Tiny Hands is in office.  I can’t truthfully say yet that he will be a liberal president in this contrarian sense but the movements have started.  We will see what we get.  The last eight years had Occupy and that was a big deal.  But for the most part people kind of chilled out with Barack in the White House.  And there was reason to be critical.  I’ll let Hedges conclude:

We will begin to build forces that will pressure power to respond.  And I think that’s what we’ve forgotten.  We have to begin to make the power elite terrified of us.  And occupy did that by the way.  They were terrified of Occupy . . . and they had to destroy it.  And let’s remember who destroyed it: Barack Obama destroyed it in a coordinated federal campaign.  Because the people most frightened of Occupy were the Democrats which is why they tried to co-op the language.