Wednesday, January 24, 2007

The Ghosts Of Reality


The universe seems to be impersonal, it has to be. It doesn't play favorites and is unimpressed with things that captivate our weak mortal minds. Still I'm sure it has magic, there is a great deal we don't know, and even more we're not even remotely aware of or can even conceive of. We need to take our arrogant sciences much less seriously, especially the more they appoint themselves masters of reality. They're just a team of goobers who are as clueless as anybody else, only they do it with such arrogance and solidarity you almost half believe them. That's dangerous, which is well borne out by history. When has science and medicine ever not held itself in the highest esteem, paid itself lavishly and demanded obedient worship by law, by force or by command of the King? And many died for it, and worse. Yet they would not listen when someone suggested they needed to wash their hands before surgery and they ridiculed the woman who brought it up. "Invisible little things?" they guffawed. "Nonsense!" they proclaimed. That basic scenario has repeated endlessly, and still does, and it always will. They don't know everything. I know, it's a shocker isn't it.

Which speaks to a concept I want to bring up for a quick scratch and sniff. Proclaming something is true or false by consensus and without checking the facts, does not reality make. Our opinion of any given piece of information is irrelevant regarding it's truth or lack thereof. It simply makes it easier to believe a general consensus when everyone else is being a total dumbass, but it still won't make it true. It will not transform an ugly truth into an ugly lie. It will still be a truth even if nobody wants to believe it.

The first time somebody pointed at me and used the word conspiracy it hurt in a weird way. I never saw it that way, because there is no mystery or guessing involved. When you take the time, and put in the effort to get more information than what they feed you on the primary broadcast portals, you very quickly become educated, and painfully. You find the same characters, seeped in connected darkness, a brotherhood of corruption and criminality, telling the same sorts of lies, pulling the same ugly tricks, looting and pillaging and arranging deaths. It's a good old boys club of deception and wealth mongering, abuse and power, dirty tricks and behind the scenes motivations.

Granted it's a bit overwhelming at first and you don't quite know where to begin, but every seeker of knowledge has found that no matter where you start you'll find the same people, the same components, the same connections, the same tricks, the same tactics, the same lies, the same ignorance, the same evil manipulation of the public. It becomes as recognizable as a set of fingerprints, or as distinct as the taste of lemon. You can't miss it. It's not something you'll mistake for something else, it's just ordinary facts, available in the same accepted broadcast and print media, but always relegated to the back sections in obscurity, and entirely ignored by broadcast media. The truth is there, it's just that the really horrible truth is bypassed because it would tend to put too much focus on the evil ones we so wrongly trust, and it might end up with justice being done. And they hate that.

After partaking of the greater truths, one suffers painful pangs of betrayal. It comes from releasing the false beliefs we've been fed all of our lives and it hurts to let go of pretty things, even if you never really had them. In continuing your research you keep expecting to come to the bottom of the barrel, to find it's ending point, but are soon to discover that it has no end. It is literally bottomless, and there is always much more dirt and filth and lying. The more you dig and the deeper you go, the worse it gets. It's much worse than any of us want to face.

It's infinitely more pleasant to keep locked into the provided fantasy and play the roles we play and pretend there is justice and sanity at the helm. For those who are truly cowards it's the only way to go. But for those who have a deep and abiding respect and need for the truth, you will be punished for it. It hurts. You'll have to face a spectrum of things that hurt at a myriad of levels. You'll keep asking why, and you'll want to know how people could do such terrible things and have no regard whatsoever for the irreversible harm they cause others. You'll struggle with all kinds of theories from them not even being human, to genetic flaws that deprive them of having a conscience, to finally accepting that they're just filthy dirty evil people who are destroying the world with all their might and having the time of their lives doing it. They never get caught, revealed, tried or punished, in fact they make mind boggling bundles of wealth every step of the way. And people die left and right and suffer every kind of abuse imaginable, and even some that aren't within the realm of imagination. It's hard to wrap your brain around, and I doubt you ever really do.

Once you pull back the veil of lies and take in the view, you see things very differently. You see all of the patterns and all of the people and can recognize their tactics, their styles, and their involvement in things you'd never have believed could have been planned and carried out against innocent people. You now understand that evil is real and that the struggles of history replay this reality over and again. You realize that somehow all the accumulated wisdom of thousands of years of truth about humanity and people and life has been squeezed off, silenced and not brought forward for the next generation to partake of. Without it we are doomed to repeat the errors of naive trust in the powerful who ALWAYS end up NOT being anyone's friend. We have forgotten this solid fact and instead have been handed tasty bite sized pieces of crap that we consume and which fill our heads with visions of heroes in government, heroes in war, heroes in capitalism and they are painted in glorious colors which we are taught to esteem and trust and obey unquestioningly. And we do. TV, radio and the press have never made it so easy to make so many people oblivious and stupid and so incredibly easy to lead around by the nose.

Wealth and power is consuming us and it is destroying the world, only now they've taken the gloves off. They've always been at it in the background; we knew about pollution and we knew about nukes and we knew about spewing smoke stacks and dead fish and mercury in tuna. But we didn't think to connect the endless reports of corruption and bribery and conspiracy, which is not a nutty fluffy bit of nonsense at all. It's one of the most regularly convicted crimes there are. Why do so many believe otherwise? In spite of the blatant acts being perpetrated on us before our eyes, few are able to disconnect from the syndrome of trusting those wealthy, powerful liars and see that conspiracy abounds, and is par for the corrupted course. How can it be that something so real and so troubling and so horribly unacceptable is not believed to exist?

Parallel dimensions. That's what I'm beginning to believe. I think that when one wakes up and takes on the parallel dimension of reality, they literally move into another realm. In that realm they can see things that regular people cannot. They are at an advantage of perspective, and can understand what they see without the restraints of social programming, which dear friends is so real that it's not funny. Stepping outside of the bounds of what they want you to see frees you to see what's actually there. It's as obvious as the sky, as obvious as one's own breath. But can you tell the uninitiated about it? Fat chance.

Moving to another dimension allows you to walk side by side with those who are still in the old dimension. You appear to them to be in the same earth plane as they, and they can see you and you can see them and interact with them in limited ways. However they can not hear you unless you speak to them in words and phrases from their own dimension. Attempting to speak from your own dimension causes immediate fear, panic, rage and a whole bevy of crisis. You scare the crap out of them. It must be something along the lines of seeing a ghost. An apparition, something from beyond, something that speaks of an undeniable mysterious truth, and this scares people nearly to death. People are much more comfortable with not knowing, with assuming all is well on the other side of the veil than they are with any facts about it. They don't really want the facts, they just enjoy flirting with the dangerous unknown, it's a rush. It's a scintillation of the senses, it tickles the imagination, but in the end it leaves the world beyond the familiar veil as mysterious and unknowable as always.

What they fail to appreciate is that it's a choice, not a sealed door. The beyond is knowable, anyone can step across and know it, but few are willing. As much as they love to flirt with the flittering bits and pieces of ugly truth, they staunchly refute that truths exist beyond what they themselves agree to be real and true. It's as if majority consensus is all there is to determining truth and reality. It isn't. It just makes it a majority consensus to hold that belief. And hold it they do, with all of their might and without humor or any semblance of open mindedness.

Speaking the truth around those who don't want to hear it is a supreme waste of time, and fairly dangerous. As if it's not enough to have to endure the personal pain of betrayal and lies you've discovered, you must now also endure the barrage of anger and hatred coming at you from the old dimension, from people who once respected you and now can only think of you as some who's flung a mental Frisbee and gone off after it into lala land. It's never based on their effort to come over and show you you're wrong with proof or anything like that, it's always just a pronouncement. We say you are wrong and vile and creepy for saying these things to us and you are not our friend anymore if you refuse to acknowledge our perfect world and be like we are. Geez, I may love you but I cannot respect that. That's just, obtuse.

I know I'm a ghost in their reality and I get that. It's just such a shame that everything there is to know is rejected outright in favor of staying in a dream, and it's not even that great of a dream. We do love our dreams and we prefer to choose our realities based on what feels good and what's constantly pumped in the mainstream portals, and we prefer to keep everything else at bay. We'll hate it, attack it, vilify it, call it names, accuse it of badness and evil, but God help us, we'll never check it out. We'll never prove it wrong, we'll never get our hands dirty and crawl in and look for evidence to the contrary. We're so arrogant we believe that anything we think is top notch truth and whosoever questions it is shot down like a dog in the streets.

If our society is this heavily addicted to fluffy sweet pink lies and phony security based on literally nothing, then what can a ghost do? How can a ghost say listen to me, when the sound of it's voice terrifies the listener to the point of collapse? We ghosts must come to grips with the frustrating truth that where we have gone is not a place for everyone. It takes a brave soul or at the very least a genuine seeker of truth. There are few of either around these days. It is incredibly difficult not to be able to convince someone to get out of the way of an oncoming train, but you can't physically pick them up and move them and because you're in a different dimension you cannot affect their beliefs. They see the oncoming locomotive as an omen of happiness and joy and candy canes and favorite TV shows forever, not as a guarantee of being squished to death and cut into pieces in seconds. If you rage at them and call them stupid of course they will react from ego and say terrible things back. They cannot hear us. They choose not to see what is there. A taste for sweet lies is addictive and like any addiction is a terrible waste.

Bringers of the truth are reviled by the ones being lied to as well as the ones doing the lying. It's risky business and it wins you few friends. The whole of the truth leagues are accepted to be loony toons and are dismissed, it really does nothing for your career or your relationships to be living in the parallel dimension of becoming self informed. You lose the dream lie, and all of those who exist in it because they want to stay there and resent your growth and your desire to bring them with you. All you can do is keep offering tidbits now and then, hoping to inspire the curiosity it takes for someone to take it upon themselves to begin digging and finally enter the realm of the next dimension.

But they must come of their own accord, and it's almost always when the big fat ugly truth barges into their own personal lives and poops on them. No one believes it happened and soon they are shunned and pushed away, labeled nutty, conspiracy theorist, loony toons. I guess it takes the monster of reality to bite you in the ass before you can no longer deny it's existence, but you will come across alone. I feel your pain. Welcome to reality.

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Vampires

The System Is Not Broken

News feeds filled my inbox today with an onslaught of ugly headlines. It's too much to keep up with it all. War is everywhere, corruption, fraud, fear is running wild. The press sells us buckets of particularly sensational street crime slop, that would make almost anyone feel like there is a threat behind every tree and that no one can be trusted. Who could feel secure while being pumped a steady stream of petty crime and escalating wars that we cannot affect? It's out of our hands, and feels out of control. Speculation is running pedal to the metal over why we are "really" in Iraq, or ready to enter Iran with guns blazing. People are angrily expressing their disgust with the new congress that was supposed to put bush in a pickle jar at the very least, leaving just enough holes in the lid to let him keep breathing until we can get a real president. He's not only not lame, he's hard at it, getting into even more dirty business without missing a beat.

The little drama played out for our 'benefit' with both the Iraq Study Group and then Gates himself was nothing more than standard public choreography. The same old ground sirloin of hope, tossed over the nearest fence and we all went scrambling to get at it. Now we're pulling the splinters out of our collective butts and saying, "Darn it, they did it to us again!" Well honey, when have they ever not done it to us?

We don't support this invasion of Iraq and our collective nonsupport is duly registered at empty recruiting offices nationwide. Why isn't the president getting the message? He is not interested in the message. True to his nature, when the country makes clear they are not in favor of what he wants, he does it anyway, by any possible means, no matter how wrong, how illegal, or how insulting it is to us.

America now recoils in disgust as our unelected president completely disregards the overwhelming will of the public, again, which is for the US to disengage itself from the bloody invasion of Iraq. The president is going right ahead with his war plans, and has already sent thousands more troops back into the violence abroad, many who have been there two and three times already.

We've all been down this exact same street before. Downing Street, "K" Street or Dealey Plaza, it's the same old street.

Americans stopped signing up for this war long ago, and bush ignored it. He's gathered troops by hook or by crook, American or not; sending thousands of non-citizens to go abroad and fight his little war to control Middle Eastern oil (Oh excuse me, I meant terrorism. At least I believe that's the current official excuse). The non-citizens families back home see us as despicable for using them to fight our wars for us. This ugly move the president made as usual hurt everyone involved, but it got him off. There's a word for that.

He has usurped our National Guard, which we need here, and sent them over seas to fight and die in this mess that no one supports. He always steals from us to get what he wants and does it right in our faces without any discussion and without regard to the real impact it has on us. And it has impacted us in a way few will ever forget. To get further around our simple collective "No" to war, he has hired on private mercenary armies, people with no loyalty to us, who don't give a damn who they kill for those mind boggling salaries they get, and that we are paying for.

It needs to be said: this president is a real jerk. And so is his entire cadre' of criminal elitists. By all means, spread the word.

Even the most die hard conservative supporters who once lashed out at anyone voicing the truth and shame of the Iraq debacle are no longer standing by the president. Even they are going rubbery in the knees and are feeling the same surges of nausea that the rest of us have been living with for years.

The president continues to bang the drums of war in a shameless display of intent to attack Iran. A nation unlike Iraq in that it's big enough to defend itself, and it has a legitimate bone to pick over the last time they got reamed by the West. No doubt those memories are still fresh. The fact that there is no justification to attack Iran is irrelevant to the president. It is not even remotely irrelevant to most Americans.

Americans very strongly believe that before we bomb anyone, there must be overwhelming justification, not 'probable cause' to do so. Is bush mixing up domestic law with Foreign Policy? Probable cause isn't sufficient grounds to invade Iran, not even asinine cooked up probable cause. Even with overwhelming justification in hand, before going to war, every other possible route must be exhausted until there is literally no other possibility of defending ourselves against their aggression.

There is aggression right? No? So, aggression is optional now too? No aggression is required, and no reason for war is necessary; they just have to be sitting there minding their own business to get us all worked up and ready to die for the insult to our... die for the.... who knows? Ask bush, it's his private Idaho. He keeps ignoring us, it's status quo. Do you see the pattern here yet?

Iran hasn't done anything beyond wanting the same nuclear power ability that we have. Israel is having a big twisted cow with a bizarre fantasy that they are in immediate threat of getting nuked by Iran; who is scheduled to obtain their first nuclear warhead, tentatively, in about a decade. I am waiting for Israel to demand that Iran be forbidden to have a military or defend itself in anyway, and to abolish their right to possess sharp objects. This is just craziness.

WE are the evil aggressors, attacking yet a third country while still embroiled in the filthy invasion of two other countries, who are both reeling on the verge of total collapse from all of our "help". Absolutely none of it is justified. It is beyond obscene, and it makes anyone with a decent bone within them feel physically ill to witness the pornography of posturing and lies and death.

The president has done a great many things that fly directly in the face of the will of the people and all of them have contributed to the overall harm of the nation. He's spent more money than all presidents before him COMBINED and brought us to the edge of total financial collapse. It's for a very good cause, Halliburton and KBR, Exxon and Blackwater. Worth every penny, don't you think?

As we go under bush claims the economy is good, it is growing. He is able to lie about anything without any sign of conscience. He has nibbled away at our constitutional protections with his bogus signing statements, presidential orders that are only for internal administrative purposes, not to handily evade the law, and assertions that his imperial will over rules the two other co-equal branches of government.

It's awfully hard to believe that every single president before him missed these tricks. I'm sure they're smacking their foreheads now, where ever they are. But we all know they didn't miss anything, because it doesn't exist. He has no such "rights". Bush is just making it up as he goes and nobody stops him. He's put loyalists in the judiciary nationwide, and now honest judges are getting their walking papers left and right. They're being told to resign without any reason and bush replaces them with his hand picked cronies who will be permanent there, since the latest law change, or rather subversion of the law. Are we seeing the pattern yet?

Many egregious laws have been forced through Congress, not by unanimous agreement, but by whatever means it took to get it done. We have watched aghast for a long time as he stripped us of rights he neither gave us or has any right to touch with a ten foot pole. Congress stood by and allowed it. No one fought for the people. No one fought for the good of the country.

With the first four amendments gutted and thrown back in our faces, the president informed us that he can do whatever he wants to do whether we like it or not. He has subverted the law hundreds of times making a mockery of the notion that he is bound by the law of the land, and duty bound to uphold the very laws he routinely breaks. The fact is, any laws that get in his way are simply broken.

We are never honestly informed, and no one charged with protecting the law is standing up to arrest this man. His lawyers take our money in generous paychecks, and they spend all of their time trying to find ways to let bush engage in heinous, inexcusable criminal acts. He can kill and maim and torture, steal and punish and cheat and lie and loot the public coffer to his hearts content. He does it while saying it's for our own good, and no one in a position to stop him gives him so much as an, "I beg your pardon". Do you think that's accidental? This is by design. We don't count. They don't care. Period.

We've had five years of shock after shock in the wake of this man's actions. Nothing is left upright and standing in it's original unmolested form. Every law he forces on us is one that diminishes us, diminishes the protections that we have for our environment, for our property ownership rights, our privacy, our ability to speak freely. He says he will now open our mail, he already keeps every digital move we make in ever growing mega databases, which are by all measures completely illegal. There isn't much left for him to destroy. He must be getting a little bored by now. Maybe there's nothing left but the big stuff, and he's more than happy to up the destructive ante.

The fact that the country spoke in a very loud, united voice on November 7 is enough on it's own to warrant appreciable surprise. This is a nation that has been torn apart since this president came on the scene. We can barely tolerate looking at each other, there has been so much hate and filth and ugliness peddled from the Oval Office and it's media sycophants. The situation with illegals pouring in was like adding lighter fluid to a stack of charcoal. I am still amazed that no one lit a match. But it will keep. He will light the match himself and toss it on the coals at precisely that time which he sees as most beneficial to aiding him in reaching his political goals.

He has engaged a top notch crew to keep us distracted, and it's worked very well for a long time. There is much pointless gristle to chew that's time consuming and goes nowhere, even after months or years of bitter jostling, not just in Congress but out on the real streets where real people engage in virulent opposition to political points. They drag out any number of distractions, as many as it takes to fully take our attention away from what he's up to while we aren't looking. And when he reappears on the scene we are always swept over by the shock and revulsion of yet another fully obscene act of defying American logic and will. I've lost count of how many times this has happened.

Act after act of this administration diminishes the people, weakens them, makes them irrelevant, voiceless, and impotent. Will we finally become a burden to his game plan? He may begin to ask if there is any need for us, as we seem to be capable of no more than whining while he holds us down and rapes us. The system is not broken, it is working exactly as intended. It has always worked this way, to some extent, though at times it has swung the power stick out here to the people, it always gets pulled back to their side. They aren't interested in what we want.

They don't care what's fair or legal. They're not concerned with joblessness, the lowest wages on record, the massive loss of benefits, the millions losing access to health care, or housing, or common dignity or decency. Our pain may overwhelm us, but they don't hear it or care about it. We are truly only relevant when they want our money or our lives to use for their own purposes, which will be war, or obtaining expensive weapons of war, or for gigantic gifts of corporate welfare to the richest companies on earth. The people left decimated in the wake of Katrina are literally destroyed and desperate, yet they remain unhelped. They don't care. How much plainer can they make it? If they cared, they'd have done something about it. They haven't and they won't. They - don't - care. The billions we gladly slotted to the Katrina disaster areas were to supposed help every single person who needed it, but it was sidelined to Homeland Security, misused and pocketed. Stories of plunder and profiteering aren't new. It's the same business as usual, right here at home, over seas in Iraq, everywhere there is money to grab, it's the same M.O. Is anyone really surprised by this anymore? Have we really not noticed the unchanging patterns here?

The system is not broken. It is functioning precisely as designed. Without us. Without our input. By subverting inconvenient laws while tightening the ones they apply to us out here, to the point of deadly force for misdemeanor crimes. Why should any American be beaten with clubs and imprisoned for peaceful dissent? The president finds our opinions not to his liking and demands violence be perpetrated against us. But when his opinions offend us and worse, actually harm us and everything we stand for, do we see billy clubs pounding his face to a pulp?

It is never going to be that way, it never has been and it never will be. It is time to face the reality that what is happening now is by design. It is being condoned by the military and the police, by the judiciary, the congress and every alphabet soup department of federal government because he has woven them into a network of subterfuge and appalling protection for high level crime. We can safely deduce this because they are not doing anything to stop this man's administration from holding us in willful disregard and taking every single thing he wants from us, illegal or not. The law is subordinate to him.

Do we see this yet, America? Am I wrong about any of it? If so please tell me where. I can only look at what is right there. It doesn't matter what the reasons we're given are for all of these transgressions against us. What we have to live with, are the results of those actions. Whatever goodness in life there was before he came on board, is weakened, frail, or already dead. And when he sucks all of the life blood out of us, he will continue sucking it from others. He will feed. He will always feed. As long as he is not stopped, which is becoming more legally impossible every day as he passes laws to enable him to rape and pillage and subvert justice, he will feed. He and his small cancerous clump of evil men, who have massive black holes where the rest of us have hearts and decency and compassion, they are feeding on the smorgasbord of their dreams. They have wanted this for decades and have worked relentlessly to bring it into their hands.

The world is a soft pink neck, and they are the vampire who will suck it literally to death. The blood is running down their chins, and their collars are soaked and red. They simply take turns feeding and sucking, feeding and sucking, and celebrating. They have surrounded themselves with all of the power of private mercenary armies, who are perfectly happy to kill everyone who dares break up this feeding circle. They are bound and determined to suck the world dry, suck the life out of it, and keep sucking until it's nothing but a brittle hollow shell, which they will then crush and discard, and forget all about it.

Our country is not to them what it is to us. They don't see it as a home, or a place filled with 300,000,000 people and all of their hopes and dreams and sorrows and joys. They see it as open season for vampires and when they're done here, they'll just be moving on to greener pastures. Maybe the ones in South America, it seems to be a very well visited place for elite criminals to peacefully retire, and live out their lives undisturbed in the cozy arms of enormous, stolen wealth. Just because it's inconceivable to us that anyone could be that evil only means it's inconceivable to us, but has nothing to do with possibilities. It's certainly possible. We are witnessing it before our very eyes.

If anyone wants to assert that these are men of noble intent who are doing what they believe is best for our country I will only direct you to the rubble of our lives. That is the result of their noble intent. Can you argue with that?


Thursday, January 11, 2007

Animal House, The Government, and Your Brain



Over the years government has evolved to reflect the realities of the people. Until now. The current embodiment of government is so energetically backward and wholly committed to flawed and narrow-minded thinking, that every day it operates it succeeds in devolving the nation further into a brutal imperialism which few support. With it's own stylized version of the truth it goes backward in a way that reminds me of the infamous food fight in the movie Animal House.

The togas have been replaced by suits and ties, the students by lobbyists and politicians, and the alcohol by narrow minded, 100 proof selfish greed. Lies and sophistry are hurled across the room and outrageous acts like cutting the legs off the ethics committee, refusing to participate in fair or honest debate, ignoring the will of the people, and having the clear intent to make a complete mind boggling mess out of everything are as obvious as getting a pie in the face. Only a seriously demented team spirit could make the conscious choice to destroy a perfectly good constitution and celebrate every step in the process. And only a seriously broken down group conscience could engage in multiple acts of self betterment at the expense of millions of others who will be directly harmed as a result.

Certain themes in Animal House bear mentioning for their similarity in practice to the operations of government. In the movie, people jostled, contrived and competed for acceptance into fraternity houses, with the goal of gaining entry into houses with the highest status. These offered highly desirable connections to wealth, power and future prosperity and it was clear that the more status a house had, the more benefit there was to gain. However the number of openings were limited, so the competition was fierce for those few open slots and people were willing to do an amazing assortment of very dubious things to up their chances of being invited into the fold.

Also note there were certain traits in the people who had the power to decide who would be welcomed in and who wouldn't. Many had subjective agendas that were hard to get behind and in the over all, few were anything close to the sober, scholastic places of common belief. Take for instance the group of clean cut, high status men who by all outside appearances were decent, respectable boys slated for lives of guaranteed success, privilege and wealth. Behind closed doors their behavior was nothing less than disturbing. They had a taste for the perverse and enjoyed demoralizing contenders with twisted demands that had no justification. They enjoyed the suffering they inflicted on others. That's an important concept which I encourage you to ponder on because there is abundant evidence that a taste for perversion in powerful people is not an invention of Hollywood creativity. Hollywood tends to reflect reality in it's films more often than it invents things out of thin air.

Which leads me to the subject of seeing and believing.

There is often a big difference between what we think we know and what reality actually is, and that is something as important as it is generally overlooked. In the classic Rumsfeld style, there are things we know, and things we don't know, and things we don't know we don't know. Just what do we know and how do we know it resembles reality?
Operating on assumption or belief in lieu of employing discernment often ends up causing us harm. It is guaranteed we don't know anything when we look no further than the surface to decide what we believe. Yet we rely almost exclusively on surface appearances to get information and in the end are not informed at all.

Take television commercials for example. Many people see a man in a white coat on a television commercial and when he tells them that Brand X pills will stop their headaches, they believe him. He looks like an authority figure who has a grasp on the subject, so if he says the pill works they will believe him. While the vast majority of people watching the commercial consciously know the man is not a doctor but an actor in a white coat pretending to be a doctor for the sole purpose of getting paid to help a company push their product, they will still receive the message as truth and believe it to be valid information.

This is an insidious quality of television advertising that is the main reason for it's success, and the very reason I stopped watching it. It is mass brainwashing of the most powerful order. Market research has shown time and again that what we see affects us more deeply than what we think about it. It's in the design of the human brain. The brain receives input from the eyes and ears and has no mechanism to detour nonsense back out the other ear. It's job is to take everything in and store it. Literally everything you see and hear goes into your brain and stays there for the rest of your life. It's left to you to use your conscious discernment and intellect when that data is served back up at the appropriate time, and this is the step that we are failing so miserably to remember.

The brain has evolved to work this way for good reason. We need to understand the world around us to be able to navigate it successfully and the brain's amazing ability to take in and file everything we see and hear is critically important. Historically human beings never had a situation of seeing something that wasn't real. If they saw or heard something, it was always real. But the invention of film, sound recording and photography have created a whole new kind of input that is not remotely real, and a lot of unreal messages come along with it. Our intellect may tell us that what we see isn't real in any way, and that it does not deserve to be given the time of day, but the brain receives the input and stores it exactly the same as valid information. Even when commercials are so stupid and unbelievable that they annoy us, the brain receives it all and stores it without regard to our opinion of it. Whether we think it's nonsense or reality makes no difference in the process, it all goes in for storage.

Marketers have found that intellect or belief does not have the ability to override incoming audio or visual data or block it. Your brain will write every commercial to your mental hard drive and archive it. When you do get a headache and go to the store looking for a pill, your hard drive automatically scans the database for all pertinent data on the subject and brings up anything it has that is relevant to the situation. Just the fact that your first response to a headache is to think about a pill shows how deeply our beliefs are rooted in the messages we get from ads. The pill response is so deeply believed in that you'll have trouble extricating yourself from the notion of it being "the" thing to do. There are other responses to getting a headache, and one of them could honestly be a much better way to go than knee-jerking a pill into your mouth. But it's a simple fact that the more heavily marketed anything is, the more it sells, and the more times you receive those commercials into your head, the more times they get written to your own hard drive; then the more you'll believe those messages to be truths and the harder you'll find it to make other choices for yourself. It's hardly mysterious that people then reach for a major brand pill at higher cost time and again and never have a thought about it being a rational decision in the first place. It's become an unshakable belief.

This is where we fail ourselves so often and why those giant corporations keep pounding us senseless with ever more advertising. They know that most people don't think about assertions in advertising at all anymore and in fact have become completely conditioned to take commercials as reality. They buy those products hand over fist and make corporations very rich, literally rewarding them for the brainwashing. Few people ask the obvious questions or doubt the veracity of those psychologically crafted messages at any level. They simply accept that it's so. The endless bombardment of ads achieves that, and the repetition takes up ever larger portions of our hard drives. They're literally taking possession of your head by filling it with things that they fully understand will make it impossible to resist their influence.

When we go to stores to fulfill a need we can often spend much more than we planned because of the tidal waves of feedback coming back up from inside our own minds. We fail to engage the very intellect that knew those commercials were completely contrived sales pitches that have no relation to fact or truth at the time we first saw them. It takes tremendous effort to disregard those deeply held implanted suggestions that something will make you happy, or sexier, or softer or whatever it is they used to implant themselves and hook in emotionally. Watching little kids having fits after being told they can't have some product or another is a visual version of what your adult mind is struggling with from the inside. Children haven't got the means to hide those outward expressions like adults do, but adults are feeling the same basic compulsions in exactly the same way.

When our database brings up whatever it has on anything, marketers know that we are infinitely more likely to believe it just because it's inside our own head, and then just go with it, almost helplessly depending on the person. Even when we get the feeling that a different choice might be better we default to what we "know"; or think we know. False information is very hard to over ride, even when we consciously doubt it. In fact it's almost impossible. That's why they're so rich. Advertising works.

This speaks to why it's important to be careful about what you let inside your head and take charge over what you'll allow to take up permanent space in there. Before I finally quit watching commercial TV altogether I was muting commercials for a long time. I refused to hear them and still do. Even if I am in another room when they come on I stop whatever I'm doing and hightail it over to the tube or the radio and hit the mute button. I will not allow any of it to penetrate my personal brain. I became staunchly opposed to giving marketers so much as one more brain cell after realizing how much of my brain they'd already permeated, and the amount of time and money it stole from my life. Broadcast advertising should be illegal, because it does control our minds, that's it's goal, and it affects our entire society down to the individual level. It changes lives in ways that only benefit corporations at incalculable cost and damage to our lives, and that's just unacceptable. The fact that we can't refuse to accept advertising along with our broadcasts is wrong. That is another subject for another time, but as long as it comes against my will I will block it no matter what I have to do. I'm the boss of my own brain and that's just the way it's going to be.

I have largely freed myself of further mental interference by outsiders via broadcasting, but only after becoming truly aware of the massive assault being waged on our minds and the danger in the nature of the beast. It required conscious effort to do whatever it takes to block them from having access to my mind, and influence over me. It takes constant and dedicated effort, but it has definitely paid off. Not taking the effort means choosing to let other people take control of your thoughts, and their goals have nothing to do with seeing to your best interests. Quite the contrary. Your best interests are the last thing they want you thinking about.

Knowing about the way the brain works is important if we care at all about being in charge of our own thoughts and beliefs; and being who we really are. If it matters to us to base our opinions on real facts instead of appearances, sales pitches or the urgings of people selling political agendas then getting our own information is the only reliable way to get to the truth about anything. That's the only way to make sure we're getting the whole picture, not some professionally crafted snapshot designed to influence our thoughts and behavior to the point of taking over our thoughts.

When we watch the government engaging in things that are wrong, very wrong and we know it, do we let them use their appearance of authority and the credibility attached to their positions to quiet our thoughts? Are we able to separate the man from the official sounding title and all of the directed propaganda that goes with it? Are we crediting him for the goodwill his predecessors earned? Is he cruising on the wake of other men's good work or his own? Does our need to continue supporting him and believe him come from a place in our brain that is there from broadcast messages, or there because we put it there ourselves? If our data is all one sided then it's obvious our information is being piped in. If we can't at least come up with some valid questions and have some doubts then it points to the serious possibility that our thoughts are not our own. No one is perfect, certainly not the high profile people in government, and we should always have questions about what they do. Even our friends, family and ourselves all have certain aspects we don't like or always agree with. If a politician strikes us as perfect, there's little doubt we're misinformed.

While listening to the president's state of the union address tonight I was overwhelmed by the laborious, unspontaneous canned feel of it. It was so heavily worked that every single word was obviously very carefully chosen to manipulate opinions, but not to inform. The speech writers were tasked with selling his hugely unpopular agenda and it did this with carefully constructed sentences that encouraged people to blame the media for the gore of war, not the war itself. It suggested that congress is stifling the president's ability to move but did not mention the fact that the public wants him stifled, or that his popularity, credibility, and agenda have gone down the bunny hole in a very big way. The address sounded more like a pathetic attempt to gain support in spite of the lack of any reason to do so. He didn't leave me feeling like I know the official view on the state of the union, but only disgusted by the repetition of the same rejected reasons to keep doing what he's doing. He only stated his refusal to be reigned in or prevented from staying his offensive and pointless course. The reason the speech was so hard to write is self evident, his positions are impossible to support. They're not justifiable, and as usual that won't stop him.

If ever there was a time to contact elected officials and give our own reiteration of last November 7th, this is it. This phony war must end, and he is leaving us little choice but to demand that he is stopped from making it worse than it already is.

For those who are torn between his plea for continued support, and their own nagging feeling that he's wrong, it is time to put your own take in first place. Don't allow manipulations of your mind to continue. Do not feel the slightest guilt over any doubt you feel. Any suggestion that it's wrong to feel doubt in government officials is unreasonable. They're as human as the rest of us and have the ability to do serious damage because of the power their positions give them. It's more than possible that any mere mortal can abuse that power for personal reasons, and the fact is it happens much more often than we know.

The media won't draw attention to government or corporate dirt anymore because they are media's bread and butter, and source for desired legislation. It is up to you to dig for the dirt and find out what's really going on. It's our job to think for ourselves and to scrutinize everything they do. There is nothing wrong about it. The wrong only comes in simply believing what we're told and never engaging our own brains. That's a guarantee you'll be manipulated and the simple proof is available in all of the expensive effort being taken to broadcast single minded versions of events, and to cover up anything that's contrary to them.

If we don't get self informed we are likely to observe the actions of government engaged in dubious behavior and not have the ability to see what is right in front of our own eyes. It will be overridden by the layers of consciously designed, incomplete, often dishonest, one sided data streams that have taken residence inside our heads, and that is feeding back out in a way that makes us doubt our own common sense, and perhaps drown it out completely. Then we are truly lost, quite literally, and are reduced to acting out a belief script that has been written for us. When it gets to the point we believe it without question we are not acting in our own best interest, but in the interest of those who write the script.

The only way to maintain authority over your own mind and life is to engage your discernment and put your trust in your own ability to interpret the facts, regardless of where they lead. It takes effort but it's effort worth taking. It's the only chance we have of reverting the Animal House back into a White House and make sure it is not controlling us, but that we are controlling it.

Thursday, January 04, 2007

Struggle Vs Solution


Watching people react to politics over the last couple of years has shown me time and again that if thrown a bone of contention and a packet of facts, people will jump at the bone of contention every time. Facts are always rejected outright. They are unusual and as such, the familiar realm of emotional and uninformed opinion remains the ineffective norm in our political system.

I don't think this is an example of 9-11 Truth being undermined by outsiders. It seems to be nothing more than normal stupid human behavior that prefers a juicy argument, some dirty laundry and some rapid mud flinging (which goes nowhere and accomplishes nothing), over solid data that would bring all that mad activity to a screeching halt. It explains why political pundits never seem to get to the real issues and are happily engaged in endlessly arguing positions of values and opinions instead of the actual point at the base of such things. They argue the symptoms instead of pinpointing the problem and demanding solutions to them. It ensures the circus will go on indefinitely and anyone who wants to join will find room.

Stem cell research is an example of missing the point. The real point is why should the American people fund this research when we get nothing back for that investment? What happened to all that privatization all of a sudden? It appears that when it comes to cutting checks to major corporations, george is hot to trot. But when it comes to big science footing their own bill for research that will bring in billions in profits down the road, all of a sudden george plays the "values" game and pretends to "give in" by allowing us to fund it. Let them fund their own research. We have never profited from the endless research and development we've paid for. It's always turned over to private business after we pay for the development of whatever it is, technology, science or medicine, you name it. We should all be millionaires getting money back on those investments, just like the big players do. But that's the game that big money plays. Step one is always getting someone else to pay for it.

With real investors, at least dividends get paid back. But with stupid taxpayers it's a free ride to profit land. That's the issue they don't want us to realize. "Right or Wrong" is not a concern of this government or science or industry or business. These are people who spend trillions on making war, polluting the earth, and letting Katrina victims suffer without help. Trust me, "right or wrong" aren't on their daily to do lists. They just want our money again. Stem cell research will happen without any public discourse, it is proceeding and right or wrong has nothing to do with it from their perspective. Religious beliefs or otherwise, our input is restricted to footing the research bill for big business. Wake up and let private business pay their own way for a change. If you really want to stop this, try coming at it with demands that all this genetic tampering needs to be suboordinated to the people's desires on the subject. We'll see how far that legitimate demand gets you. At least you'd get millions on board with you.

The "values" people are a curse on this country. They are without a doubt the most perfected missers-of-the-point that could exist. Always obsessed with symptoms over substance, they cry out for things framed in ways and on terms that are impossible to legislate. Values and morality are not up to the government. The government has no interest in or involvement with values or value systems and it never will, it can't. That's not what it's there for. Government is about shoveling as much of our money away from us as they can get away with. Are these folks confusing Congress with one of those great big mega-churches in the south? Values are not a legal issue. Values are individual ideas that ostensibly are lived by those who believe them; they are not legislated and never will be as long as the supreme law of the land has any connection to the constitution. Can you values folks please snap into reality?

It's a waste of time, to say nothing of being flat stupid, if the candidates folks vote for are people campaigning on moral issues or values platforms. They can't do anything for you on those things, and they know that. That's what your church is for. Try to get that simple but really important point. Try voting for people who engage in straight talk about the problems that affect all of us for a change.

It never occurs to millions of people that the government is not in the business of legislating "values". And heaven knows, the government is the last place anyone should go looking for examples of high virtue. Good grief. But the feelings of self righteous indignation that flutter through our simple hearts and minds are so intoxicating on those so called wedge issues, they become irresistible. If we ever refused to fall for that nonsense and addressed the core issues underlying all those symptoms of a greater problem, these pointless nonsense debates would end tomorrow and all the fun would be over. It leads me to wonder why there is greater satisfaction in the struggle than in a solution.

It could be that leaders of emotionally based political movements know very well that their cash cows and political power would end if these things were addressed with reason and with the goal of seeking solutions. They have little motivation to clarify the issues or remove the emotional debris that keeps the basic issue from being clearly visible and comprehended. And the opposition is utterly delighted to engage in the same emotion based displays of position holding and dissent. They rarely, if ever, proceed on a sober platform that sweeps nonsense aside and comes to the real point at hand. They also enjoy the activity and uproar in doing battle with their matched opposites. Both are easily motivated by panic and fear and both present emotion based arguments to legislators who can't do anything about turning belief systems into laws.

And "Values" people, whether you believe it or not, the big boys of religion who brunch with heads of state, take money to manipulate their trusting flocks into desired political positions. It's a fact, do your homework. It's the truth no matter how ugly it is. You need to check your leaders out, both political and religious and not expect them to be what they say they are. What big fat lying crook is going to come out and admit he's a slime wad? They tend not to do that until they're caught red handed, or get busted by the police in acts of perversion, drug use, pedophelia, and all manner of corruption. Then come the tearful confessions that put it right in your faces. They're liars, hypocrites and worse. If you'd stop forgiving them immediately and stop denying reality, stop claiming they were framed or it just isn't true, maybe we could get rid of these dirty politicians and phony baloney preachers before they did damage for a change. What exactly would it take to get you into your critical thinking capacity enough to see what's right in front of your faces?

It is not hard to understand why there is so much disdain inside upper level government for the intellect of the general public, nor is it a stretch to understand why elected officials have turned their positions to profit mongering and routes to access bigger and better inroads for their personal careers. Even in the aftermath of the orgies of republican corruption and the democrats pouting agreement with all of it, the public is not sufficiently aroused to be able to rise up the couple of required notches to gain actual perspective and get a bead on the REAL problems. They are still thinking only in terms of immediate wins for their "side", which is a clear statement of a team mentality. It's become two opposing sides going for the gold. The trouble is we're all on the same team.

Maybe it's this penchant for selfish, short sighted back biting that allows the government to continue it's centuries long track record of failure to address, much less fix, what's really ailing this nation, at enormous cost to us. They're like burglars who toss hamburger meat to guard dogs to distract them while they break in and get the cash. They spike it with sleeping powder too to ensure they can get out safely and the dogs are none the wiser. It's really that easy to provoke the American people into distraction with proven non-issues that create foaming spittle faced enraged, divided masses, too busy arguing over who's right, to notice they're getting soaked and spun, again.

It certainly is lucrative for the elected officials and there is little fear of the public "catching on". If we haven't caught on by now, I doubt we ever will. It does make me wonder what they're doing and spending all their time and our money on, if they aren't taking care of what we think is important. When have they ever devoted so much as a single year to focusing on the condition the country is in, and the quality of our lives? When have they ever said, "We can be so much more than we are, let's go for it"? I'm not aware of any such time.

It's become somewhat of a tried and true system of fleecing the people for the benefit of major corporations and private institutions of all kinds. It gets them endless cash for funding wars and war contractors, cash for intelligence entities and secret twisted military RandD, and cash for pulling off very underhanded, questionable political mafia style foreign policy schemes. They've been at it for decades and we can still be depended on to never look the truth in the face and ask them what the hell they think they're doing. We still insist that they are good and that they must have a reason and gee we should just trust them. They invade Granada or Columbia, kill civilians in a blood bath, and come back home to tell us they've just hand delivered democracy and freedom, and we all cheer hoorah for the good guys. It's so bad that now anyone who asks the most basic questions or calls it for what it is gets pounced on by rabid hate mongerers that accuse them of everything from being mentally ill, to being morally corrupt, to being liars trying to use political trickery to make their guy look bad. If this isn't the definition of national self-deluded slow suicide I don't know what is.

The bottom line is, we are way worse off than we were fifty years ago, the coffers are empty and we are in two wars with a third on the horizon; and with a military that is threadbare, exhausted and insultingly sold out to private contractors who are doing everything our military used to do for itself, better and cheaper. We are paying war profiteers the highest imaginable prices for the worst quality and ethics in history while acting like our military can't do it all better at no extra cost beyond parts. Is that progress or are we morons? We're bankrupt, getting our asses kicked, being soaked for more cash, and can't even get our veterans health care or feed them properly. Why on earth are we paying contractors to scrub army toilets when recruits have been doing that with toothbrushes for decades? At no extra cost. Recruits have peeled millions of potatoes and army cooks used to lay out a hearty, healthy spread with personal pride. Now contractors are sloughing off nasty food and contaminated water to soldiers who must wait hours in long lines in active war zones to be fed. How is that better for our country?

And what about all these private armies george is hiring? Foreigners, people with no loyalty to the country, who are taking money to kill whoever they're hired to kill. What part of that seems like a good idea? Paid mercenaries on our streets are hardly reassuring and if you don't smell tyranny, then you need some serious nasal spray. We are being taken down.

Why is asking these questions seen as a threat to anyone who isn't responsible for these things? Wouldn't the most reasonable response be to want answers instead of making excuses while our children die?
Apparently not.

Perhaps we can only see it as a game anymore. It's always been a game in our lifetimes and we're deeply conditioned to see it all as a battle of opposing teams and philosophies instead of what it's supposed to be. A nation of individuals with common interests, investing in a government who is supposed to work those common interests into the best possible results. Everyone is supposed to win. You wouldn't even guess that to be the point of all this today if you just showed up and observed the process. Nobody wants to get real and those who attempt it are severely punished. We beat each other to death so that some may win and everyone else loses. Are you so sure that's freedom and democracy or are you enabling psychopaths? You should decide while there's still time.

The abortion issue is another red herring but have we figured that out yet? No. It's too substantial and real and therefore won't be broached. Is this about the states right to determine our reproductive rights or is it about making Jesus frown? If it's politics, Jesus isn't here. But the "Values" crowd keep trying to drag him in, by the hair. They are determined to make Congress into a cathedral that determines our morality. It seems all too obvious a distraction to me. One of those "Do not look at the man behind the curtain!" things. We just can't seem to look beyond the given framework they hand us. If they say it's about morality, then that's the boundary. Even when so many lives are at stake we seldom seek anything "off the menu" in political terms and continue to seek solutions only by addressing symptoms as given us by them. If they say they aren't criminally insane psychopaths and it's rude to say so, then we take their word for it, apologize and walk over the bodies, relieved.

Our country is deeply conditioned to be helpless and leave the thinking and problem solving to "officials" whom many deem should be trusted, don't ask me why. If you ask people why they think it makes sense to trust the government they don't know. The fact that the government doesn't know them personally, doesn't even know "they" exist, never hears from them and certainly isn't involving itself in matters that affect their personal lives in a positive way, all seems to be irrelevant. We need only to ignore the ever growing reams of historical and current evidence and facts to the contrary of this emotionally biased idealism to maintain this position, and we do a damned fine job of it.

As profoundly bizarre as it is to me that there is such a thing as a pro-war movement, it is even stranger to be arrogantly lectured by one of these intellectual pinheads. They've used terms like "peace freaks", suggesting that desiring peace is in some way a symptom of mental illness. How strange. What is wrong with peace? And when questioning the official "story" of 9-11 I've often been on the receiving end of rants that go something like this. "If you believe that 9-11 is an inside job then you're crazy. It's impossible! Do you really think the government would hurt it's own people?" Well Sparky, yes I do think that. Not because it's an emotional need, but because it's a fact that can easily be verified, if you ever learned how to read.

The standard response is of course, "Conspiracy Theorist!" We need to settle this once and for all. The fact is there is so much conspiracy based crime on record that not knowing about it means you're just not paying attention.

You do not have an informed opinion if the thought of conspiracy seems like nonsense to you. Conspiracy is real. It happens every day. It's on trial today in courtrooms all over the country. Government conspiracy. Judges, policemen, officials, bankers, high ranking elected representatives. They get a game plan and they do terrible things to people. It's not even slightly farfetched. It's what's been going on for decades. It's been published in the mainstream papers year in and year out in steady streams of disgusting, criminal behavior, exposed, indicted and proven. Admitted. Repeatedly. Frankly, the same sleazy individuals that pulled off scams like Watergate and Iran/Contra are still doing it. Because even though they're caught time and time again, and even though they get let off by rigged conspiratorial hearings, you can't navigate the reality part of all this into your brain where it would be most helpful.

The same crony men and their families have long standing criminal records and are getting richer by the day, by lying, cheating and stealing from decent ordinary people who can't defend themselves against these powermeisters, and they are making a mockery of justice, freedom and democracy while destroying lives left and right. Many are household names and have been for thirty or more years, with felony convictions and a trail of unbelievable pardons by discredited presidents, and they're still connected to or are flat out in the government today. If you don't know about any of it, that doesn't make me crazy, it makes you ignorant. Conspiracy is real. It requires effort to get informed, but few are willing to go that route. It is much easier after all to attack anyone who does get informed than it is to face your own lazy ignorance. Even if it does mean watching the country swirl the bowl.

I'm sorry folks, but we cannot be patient with these people anymore. Too much is at stake.
I resent their arrogant refusal to get themselves informed; especially now in the face of the most serious threats to our country that I ever dreamed I'd see. Those who cling to staying uninformed as if getting the facts and studying them for themselves were somehow a defeat for their side, are people I neither understand or respect. Theirs is a losing position by any measure. We must stop engaging their mindless twaddle and insults and work in spite of them. They are bringing nothing of value or substance to the table, which means they aren't helping. They're not even interested in doing the real work of fighting for everyone's freedom and sustaining a real democracy. In fact they are undermining the democratic process completely. They WANT to be controlled. I don't and I never will.

These people may see themselves as die hard patriots but they are not. Be it hypocrisy, self satisfying team based attack, or just plain ignorance, they do not have the power or the right to expect our process to come to a crashing halt in order to avoid upsetting their tender sensibilities. They can take their small minded nonsense and shove it. With them or without them, those who know the truth and can find the real target must be the ones to push for justice and make the government subordinate to the people. Whether they like it or not or ever appreciate it, we're charged with looking out for their own good as they're obviously incapable of doing it for themselves. That's what got us into this mess in the first place. Giving consideration to twits with a "Values" agenda is a distraction that we cannot afford.

If that sounds cold, it isn't. There are churches in every town and city across America, millions of them. They're everywhere. These folks have their own special buildings just to get together and do all of this 'Values" business. That's where it belongs. Their ludicrous shrieks about their religion being undermined by the state are a contrivance to terrify their followers and turn them into a force for political aims. The fact of the matter is that no one can take your beliefs away. Even if it became illegal to believe in religion, who could stop it? It's a totally asinine argument and shouldn't be given the time of day.

There is a big difference between personal things and public things, and never the twain should meet. Especially not in government which is there for everyone to do business that affects all of us in the public realm. We all use roads but we don't all go to church. We all pay for bridges and army tanks, but we don't all give a crap about the Ten Commandments. If you think abortion is wrong, then don't get one. But choke yourself before spouting off about me getting one. One body one choice. It's none of your business what my choice is. That's how this works, everyone gets their needs met. And you don't NEED to concern yourself with MY decisions on this or any other personal subject. Why is that so hard for these people?

It is better to be respected than liked and those who do earn respect are fair people who are respectful of others yet not inclined to suffer nonsense from anyone. We cannot allow ourselves to be taken over by childishness on any grounds. It serves no one. The current adversarial climate in politics reveals many people who are incapable of being respectful of others and frankly some even seem determined to obliterate everyone of unlike mind. This is unacceptable and must not be tolerated. If you want to talk about feeling offended, this offends me.

Recognize nonsense when typical arguments essentially boil down to, "If you don't see things exactly like I do, you're not American." Theirs is a peculiar interpretation of the first amendment. It's bait that generally seeks to inflame and detract the genuine political involvement of the people, and keep them from gaining ground and power. Try to resist the urge to get in and wallow, it only amuses them and effectively stops you from doing what you really need to be doing. They have not changed their minds after thousands of hours of exposure to reason and evidence. You'll be wasting your time.

Unless we begin to push back hard at unacceptable, childish people trying to fuse politics and religion, I'm afraid we are eons away from something as simple as living in harmony on the same continent and agreeing to disagree without needing to kill everyone who is not your ideological clone. And we really need to get there. The "Values" crowd are not special, and religion has no place in government, period. They know that and count on us to allow them to take precious time and energy away from the real business we need to be paying attention to. It will happen faster by setting the example of not tolerating idiocy or it's tactics and sticking to business. Roll your eyes and walk away and all the power walks away with you. This is the fastest way to disarm these folks, don't give them the time of day if they don't deserve it. If they want to come to the table with something legitimate, they are more than welcome. But "Values" ain't it. Determining what's best for our country is.

Personally, after years of raging resentment, I'm finally so weary of these single brain-celled amoebas, that I just cannot waste my time trying to assist them any longer. At least I don't have to fight the urge to slap them upside the head anymore. They just honestly bore me. It's not possible to have a debate with a hysterical twit who can't utilize simple facts, show common respect or exchange ideas with the aim of coming to reasonable solutions, and then go out to lunch. Anyone who wants to send an equally taxpaying citizen abroad because they don't like what they think is as far from American principles as it gets. The real irony is, we really all want the same things.

I suppose chasing off the opposition with whatever means one can get away with is about the only way that emotion based warriors can feel they have an unobstructed chance at getting virtuous laws passed. The opposition must feel pretty pesky to them, when it comes at them with facts and figures and all they can operate in is the realm of repeating state and religious dogma in a roiling cacophony of emotion, ignorance and arrogance. But the rest of us are not going away and frankly I'm sick of hearing them suggest it as a solution. It doesn't get much more offensive than that. To some there is no such thing as having a different opinion from them, only a wrong one. This would be due to their erroneous belief that they are imbued with perfection and I would have no problem with that, if they could just prove it.

The existence of religiosity in government is something many are tired of. These vocal warriors of twithood need to be put back in their padded cages. They can see Poseidon and Athena as mythological characters, but their own mythological characters are absolutely real. Belief is not enough though as those icons must be forcibly imposed on everyone on earth by armies of true believers. One would expect that having such strong determination to have their beliefs respected would make them more respectful of other people's rights to their own beliefs. But no. Their reactions to other belief systems verges on hysteria, or perhaps it jumps right into it. Brave souls like Wiccans who desire to open public business with a witch's prayer instead of a Christian one risk their lives and are immediately black listed as demonic beings. And for those who don't subscribe to believing in any cloud beings, being forced to watch any of this is truly scary. It would be laughable if the religious fascists weren't so dead serious about it. That aside, anyone who's pushing the development of a factional army of God to fight the rest of us is working in direct opposition to the constitution and everything it stands for. It's a flaming neon sign. It doesn't deserve to be tolerated.

I have to say I really resent the government and any institution that bows to the heat and pressure of true believers. But I know from first hand experience that these people cannot grasp that they are not the end all and be all of righteousness or that in fact, no one is obligated to follow their religious ideas. Everyone on the opposite side of their religious fence is blacklisted and literally feared. Gentle non-believers are attacked and vilified, and considered soulless. It's quite ridiculous. Imagine if the human spirit were not an inherent part of humanity and indeed could only become a part of a person after hearing a speech or reading a book. That's just down right wacky.

I would also like to point out that the vast majority of violent criminals in this country are Christian, as are 100% of the child molesting, lying, embezzling criminals in government. Instead of seeing this glaring reality as a valid point, they quickly forgive their Christian dirt bags, and still point to non-believers as the root of all evil. What can you do when they are so determined to exercise their right to remain childish and obtuse?

They have every right to live their beliefs, but will you please join me in helping to remind them that it doesn't include a right to get in my underwear and tell me how to live my life? That would be my job. If they could just grasp that one little principle there would be hope. In lieu of that, there's no other choice than to just be rude and tell them to shut up and go away. Maybe if they hear it often enough, they will.

In the meantime our heads of state and the entire elected body plays the same game, poking emotion based arguments that cannot be agreed on with sharp sticks and then watching the fallout. Citizens rally and take political swings at each other and are hell bent to emerge victorious on the non issues and wrong issues of American politics. We're as addicted to evading reality and solving real problems as we are to the junk food that's killing us. Until we can switch our preferences to truth over games, our political health will continue to fail. It can't go on forever.

To stave off the death of this nation requires taking in ALL incoming data and using discernment to filter out the nonsense and emotional tripe. It requires having a genuine respect and desire for truth. It requires acknowledging that truth is more important than clinging to personal beliefs, no matter how strongly we feel them. And above all it requires working together to reach common goals and understanding that what we don't hold in common is very likely NOT a political issue. It's not too tricky for any of us, but in this current atmosphere of self adoration and internal war it's not very likely either. That's bad for everyone no matter what position they think is so important that some must win and others must lose. The goal must be that everyone wins or we're not pursuing the great American ideals we claim to be, and no one will win in the end.