George Orwell - from  Notes on Nationalism

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If we want to get rid of the so-called "terrorists", stop stealing their stuff.  Who would like to be called a "terrorist" for defending their homeland?   How do supporters of such practices feel about the debts we are all incurring to support this as well as the downward economic spiral that is exacerbated further, over and over again?  I'm sure supporters have also taken a moral inventory of the needless loss of life resulting from these ongoing, "no end in sight,"  "theater of wars" bombing campaigns.  I'm sure they think the fact that we cannot even make the interest payments on our national debt is of no concern, nor is the fact that borderless, neoliberal elites (conservatives and liberals equally ...) are spearheading their global looting using our military and intelligence agencies at their whim.   I'm sure a few even think it's not their place to judge, and that one's civic duty may be fulfilled simply by voting. But those still clinging to the lie of the international good guy, will increasingly break their silence as they continue getting bashed where it hurts most - in their pocketbooks.

Bread and Circuses  

At the time, IT was looked upon by the counterculture as a way of promoting their egalitarian worldview and power to the people.  Today, with the convenience of hindsight, we can corroborate the veracity of that reckoning, at least to a certain degree, but the downside of the technology has also come more clearly into focus, especially in recent years.  It is also very interesting to note that, in addition to its aforementioned role, LSD also played a prominent role in the advent of IT, as we shall see.

However, a few things are certain; there can be no doubt that IT takes the efficacy of bread and circuses to a whole new level, and in a myriad of ways.


The Geopolitics of Righteousness
              

Knowing that I was born into the Mormon Church, someone once asked me if I knew anything about the Church's possible connections to Freemasonry or secret societies. While I was aware that the Church borrowed some of its ritualistic and symbolic elements from Masonry, I was less aware of specific details, as I was never invited into the temple to see them and because my own friends and family members who were invited wouldn't tell me much about it.  Since that time, many excommunicated and otherwise disillusioned Mormons have come forward, revealing many of these details.  Moreover, a number of scholars have also expounded upon the influence of Freemasonry, occultism, cosmology and folk magic on the Church, regarding things like temple architecture and endowment ceremony. While this is all interesting, it is but a part of something bigger and more telling; the Church's connections to wealth and power in general.                                  
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

Climate Change

<>The commodification of carbon and the mentality of pollution, quid pro quo, will dovetail quite nicely with the current financial milieu of hucksterism, bailouts, derivatives, and the Kyoto Accord.  The latter of these puts a “green” veneer on cutting indigenous people off of their ancestral lands, so rich in natural resources, to make way for things like "clean development mechanisms" (eg; hydroelectric dams) and "carbon sinks,”  presumably to generate “offsets” so we can save the planet.   What it really does is sanctify the excesses of the big polluters, wipe out their competition, and displace people with some of the smallest carbon footprints in the world to make way for corporations with some of the largest, a sort of organic label for all global industry.  In the end, it’s ok to pollute.  But only if you can afford it.

Performance Rights Organizations

Shouldn't we be looking a lot less at royalty streams and so-called "intellectual property," especially for something like music?  Shouldn't we be looking a lot less at the authorship of music, which is a logistical train wreck anyway, and a lot more at the authorship of our legal apparatus?  While we probably cannot change the fact that industry elites control the legislative process and are steering society ever deeper into oppressive tyranny and oligarchy, we can however change how we choose to respond to such obscene laws.  No matter what you think should be done, I hope we can all at least agree that any sane response has to begin with acknowledging the true motives behind our laws.  At least then our response, no matter what it might be, is based in reality and not in story lines that smack of pep rallies and fairy tales.

Pom-Pom Waving

How many great ideas, creative adaptations and innovative responses were never realized because we were distracted by some prefabricated ideal, and one that had a strong tendency to alienate us from our natural allies?   What sort of values would characterize our society if we knew nothing of the "progressive" or "conservative" orthodoxies trumpeted incessantly in the mainstream media?  Toeing party lines gives us a false sense of hope and achievement, which masks the reality of division and alienation.   Can't we be true to our innate sensibilities without falling into dogmatic slumber?   Isn't this just more fuel to the already raging fire that is systematically working to weaken family and community?   Are we simply destined to regurgitate prefabricated scripts like wind-up toys?


Jekyll Island, 2010 

No, last week's Jekyll Island meeting was not so secretive as the 1910 meeting.  In fact, it even made the news.  The deeply entrenched (too big to fail???) institution we call the FED even made the gesture of publicizing their presumable agenda, flaunting fancy terms like "quantitative easing".  But this is all voluntary PR.  The fact remains that they are a secretive organization.  The FED still, to this day, enjoys an utter lack of transparency.  Its officials are unelected and unaccountable.  "Audits" of the FED have always been either nonexistent or toothless window dressing that did nothing, right down to the current administration, which proclaims (suddenly) to support a FED audit.

The Attacks of September 11, 2001