Here Thar Be Monsters!

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31.12.11

Report From FSWHQ

We here we are, the end of a rather remarkable year and the beginning of the dreaded 2012!  It's got us so stirred up here on the Far Side that we've retreated once again to our jungle nest, known as the Far Side World Headquarters, or FSWHQ, for short.

Looking like a scene from the old King Kong movie, we moved our clan back to the forest.  The four wives carried my sedan chair, while the kids and animals were loaded with important things, like a new plasma TeeVee, a pedal-free generator and the new Far Side Satellite Telecommunications Center (FSSTC).  We're going deep undercover for the coming year.

Looking back, we marvel that the world limped past the finish line, though technically we still have hours to go.  The US markets battled to a 'flat' return in the closing seconds of the year's market.  The euro ended up as the worst-performing currency in the world, which is why we brought all our euro-bonds into the jungle with us.  Perfect fire starters.

As far as economics go, Asia looks to be standing head-and-shoulders above their western counterparts.  Indonesia, Vietnam and China are red-hot.  Thailand was doing well until the floods.  Japan is white-hot, though for a different reason.  In fact, we've been collecting the new glow-in-the-dark Yen.

What's really been interesting this year, though, has been watching the PTB/W absolutely panicked, as in cold sweats and sleepless nights.  Their reckless and wild abandon in trying to nail down their little Medieval World Order (MWO) has been rather entertaining to watch, as long as you weren't in a country they destroyed to protect their little fiefdoms.  The MENA (Mid-east/North Africa) folks weren't so lucky to have ring-side seats.

One has to laugh, though, since the MWO is positively falling to bits.  The desperate invasions and attempts to control true grass-roots uprisings across the MENA regions have been like watching the Keystone Kops Kapers.  Part of their problem is something that will never change...human nature.

You see, the MWO has been a multi-century pax belli between a bunch of inbred nutcases, who are so rich and so bored, they cooked up this world domination game to have something to do.  The problem is, the closer it got the reality, the more they started fighting among themselves to be the one king on the top of the dung hill.

As fast as the inbred crowd started sniping at each other, the normal humans out here in Reality Land decided it was a good time to exercise some God-given rights.  So as the self-annointted elites tried to outmaneuver each other, the World was out-maneuvering them, and when they turned to try to nail down the World, the elites would shoot each other in the back.  Now, when you stop laughing at the mental image of that, take a look around and see the results.

Egypt was supposed to be a controlled Soros-colored revolution, but then the revolution revolted against itself to get rid of the MWO clowns.  The MWO clowns wanted to install radically fundamentalist Islamic authoritarians, which the MWO control.  But the good and very intelligent Egyptian people wouldn't hear of it.

The same is happening all across the MENA.  Folks just want to be left the hell alone.  They are tied of trading one totalitarian yutz for another of a different stripe.  Real people really enjoy just going about their business, living in peace and harmony with their neighbors, regardless of what building they choose to worship in.

Amazing how that works.

In Europe, folks everywhere are getting fed up with the whole damn package.  They are tired of the German Neo-Nazi unification called the EU.  They are tired of a completely fabricated currency shoved down their throats.  They are tired of having Goldbar Sacks alumni brazenly take over their countries in un-elected coups after watching the banks rape and pillage their economies.

The Irish fought the EU until it was literally rammed down their throats.  They then watched their red-hot economy turn to ash.  Greece and Italy, while not exactly massive industrial economies, had perked along just fine for centuries, until the EU came along.  Spain and Portugal the same.

The US is quite a tale.  The largest, most powerful economic engine ever known completely imploded due to fiat and regulation.  At the same moment the country was shipping its heart and soul overseas in the name of profit, the Puppetmasters were shoving ever draconian regulations through CONgress to prevent competition from springing up naturally to fill the void.  As a consequence, America poured gallons of Round-Up on its garden since they figured they could buy cheaper veggies from the Asian gardens.  Then the Asian gardeners got properous and wanted to keep more of their produce, so now the American garden is dead and the cheap alternatives have gone on to better deals elsewhere.

All that led to the OWS, which originally was a home-grown movement of folks sick and tired of being Rounded-Up by the bankster classes.  Of course, the Giant Sucking Media (GSM) tried to package that movement and give it a little Soros treatment, so the real folks drifted away, and it became another Tea-Licking Party (TLP).  All the real people are flooding into the Ron Paul camp, which absolutely mystifies the PTB/W crowd, because they did such a fine job of hiding Paul from themselves that they can't see what's going on.

In the meantime, the US, once global champion of peace, human rights and economic miracle-cures, has become a rogue terrorist state that is eating its own children and trying to cobble together a controlled economy without any of the ingredients that constitute an economy.  If you get enough perspective on it, it really is quite entertaining.  Harder to see that part when the bastards are auctioning off your worldly belongings in the yard where you raised your children, while you stand in the icy drizzle clutching your photo album watching your neighbors pick through your DVD collection.

Yep, we gotta admit 2012 is going to be a verrrry interesting year, and no, it doesn't have a damn thing to do with Mayan calendars.  It is, though, a self-fulfilling prophesy.  In their in-bred scramble to keep us in terror-induced zombie mode, the PTB/W made up this whole apocalypse thing, hoping it would keep folks busy battening down the hatches, just like Y2K did.  Instead, it is quickly shaping up to be The End Of The World As They Know It (TEOTWATKI).  They have successfully created the Second Coming, only it's coming for them.  Those who live by the apocalypse, die by the apocalypse.  The rest of us are free to sit back and watch with amusement as everything the PTB/W predicted and tried to scare us with comes true...for THEM!

We, however, meaning us here at FSWHQ, will be happy to sit back and watch the whole thing on the new plasma TeeVee being set up in the village clearing.  The kids are busy scrambling up the coconut trees to put the new dish up.  The wives are busily nattering and playing with the new pedal-less generator.  We're preparing for our celebration tonight by tying sparklers on money tails.  It's just so damned entertaining to watch them run through the tree-tops with their tails on fire!

Out here in the jungles of Borneo, nothing changes much.  Empires come and go.  Currencies rise and fall.  Revolutions sweep across the globe.  But tying fireworks to moneys is always the same great fun.

The world is too much with us, as someone once said.  Time to put away our fear, because the PTB/W are so damned terrified that we can all just sit back and watch the in-breds shoot each other in the foot.  Think of it as the Saturday matinee writ large.  We could even open a window in Vegas and start laying odds on which in-bred families will die-off first.

Oh, they're calling us over to the TeeVee hut to do the honors of tuning in the Thai horror movie channel.  Great fun that.

So we'll wrap up the year by wishing all of our great readers a Happy and Fortunate New Year/Selamat Ulang Tahun Baru.  We'll light up a monkey for you!

And thanks for making Life on the Far Side increasingly popular!  We have added hundreds of new readers in the past year from 93 countries.  We will continue to offer arguments and diversions, and we hope you will continue to enjoy them.

Ah, wife #4 just brought us a large shell full of cap tikus (mouse piss), which is fermented coconut milk.  Nasty stuff, but after the third or fourth shell-full, you can eat the fetal deer at the bottom of the jug and not think twice about it.

Don't give the fascist pigs any reason to haul you off tonight, and we'll see you all again in 2012!

26.12.11

Up In The Sky, It's...

"The man who does not think for himself, does not think at all." -- Oscar Wilde

"If you believe in Truth, then you must also believe that you do not know it." -- Joseph P. Farrell

For the last 150 to 200 years we, as a culture, have been obsessed with the complete and ultimate ruin of our species.  Why?  Why do we have this deep-seated desire to see our ultimate demise?

It doesn't matter what believe system you ascribe to, be it atheist, New Age, or any of the major or minor religions, all of them are ultimately focused on complete and utter ruin.  There's an anti-christ under every rock, a twelfth imam in every water well and a tenth incarnation of Buddha around every turn.  There's saviors riding on every cloud, blue kachinas in every town square and Altairians on every moving light in the sky.

In every case, we want to believe that some authority will come to save us from ourselves, and rule with an iron fist, and anyone that doesn't adhere to whatever will be tortured, murdered or otherwise unpleasantly dealt with.

With this sort of cultural underpinning, it is no wonder we always end up with dictators, monarchs and other unpleasant totalitarian leaders.  We collectively beg for it.  We seek it in all we do.  We live for the hope of having what amounts to a great Parent In The Sky who will tell us when to brush our teeth and when to go to bed.

Basically, we are all trained from birth that we are incapable of handling our own affairs.  We are worthless scum who need to be herded like cattle and placed under the watchful eye.  We are incapable of maturing both as individuals, and as a species because we tell each other constantly that we are not allowed to think for ourselves, and we ridicule anyone who does.

We tell outselves that we are incapable of determining what is morally right and wrong without resorting to some ghostly authority 'out there,' who will dictate our every movement, read our thoughts and punish us for our mistakes.  Is it any wonder we are in the mess that we are?

It takes on such mundane expressions.  We need authorities to tell us what the weather is going to be, because we can't trust our own perceptions and experiences.  We need a Santa Claus to objectively watch our every action and determine if we are worthy of gifts.  We can't possibly understand the complexities of celestial mechanics or the workings of the human body.  We have to leave all that to experts highly trained in the mystery schools and hidden arts.

There is an amazing dichotomy among the vast majority of people.  They believe fervently in gods that are loving and doting upon creation, but then will inevitably destroy it all because some part of that creation is displeasing.  We set up these gods to be moral authorities, whose tenets we must follow blindly, yet those gods behave in decidedly immoral ways.

Christians, for instance, can simultaneously believe in a god that in one part of the book offers the Hebrews wealth and power and kingdoms as the chosen followers, and in the second part, the son of that very same god is tempted by ultimate evil with the EXACT same things and refuses them.  In the first part of the book, the god offers 10 rules that must be followed unquestioningly, while in the second part, the son of that same god SUPPLANTS the 10 rules with two, yet christians still demand that everyone adhere to the original 10.  How does someone hold such dichotomies and contradictions in their minds with such fervency?

How can we as a species abhor dictators and kings, but worship gods that are both?  How can we claim moral superiority in the name of some god, and yet that very god acts in ways that are decidedly immoral and unjust?

Ultimately, how can we claim to be the pinnacle of a perfect creation from a perfect being, and yet sit around wringing our hands in anticipation of its destruction at the hands of a wrathful creator?  Those are the actions of a child, who frustrated that their sand castle didn't turn out perfectly, kicks it to the ground in an infantile act of anger.

As if all of this isn't absurd enough, there is the recent notion that some select group of folks will be chosen to sit in the peanut galley and watch the whole thing while sitting on their morally superior duffs.  Now tell me, from a true moral standpoint, is it right that some arbitrary group of people be selected to watch horror and destruction, doing nothing to stop it becuase they have some moral superiority?  What complete rubbish!  First of all, we are bound by moral action to do all we can to stop the horror and suffering.  Second, it sets up a system whereby people compete in the most horrific ways to be the ones sitting in the stands watching this horror.

And this is what we call religion?

Why do we require some outside force to come in and destroy all that humankind has every achieved in order to establish the most horrific and authoritarian dictatorship ever conceived?  Even more confusing is why do we call this the new Golden Age?

Instead, why don't we take our futures and our destinies into our own hands?  Why don't we take full and unequivocal credit for bringing in the Golden Age by the labor of our own hands?  Why do we need Second Comings, Twelfth Imams, Tenth Reincarnations, and Space Aliens to do what we are completely capable of doing ourselves...whether it be complete and utter destruction, or the institution of a Golden Age?

There's no excuse for this sort of purile and unquestioning servitude, other than our own acquiescence to it.  We human being are quite capable of great beauty and unthinkable horrors on our own volition.  We don't need any outside agency to achieve either of these extremes.  So why not consciously choose the path of our destiny?  Why not choose peace and beauty and harmony as expressions of our collective natures, rather than authoritarian death and destruction through inaction and avoidance of responsibility?

If we can have anything we want, then let's choose to make 2012 a year of renewal, regrowth and re-creativity, rather than all sitting around cowering at the possibility of some boogy man leaping out of the Central American rain forest, or vengeful god riding the clouds meting out bloody destruction?

Take it upon yourself to reason and learn and be responsible not only for your present situation, but your future, as well.  If, as the book says, we are made in the image and likeness, then we have the capacity for endless creation or utter destruction.  It is our choice which one we anticipate and desire.

We can choose the modern meaning of apocalypse, which is ruin, death and rot, or the original meaning, which is to reveal the truth (literally to open the veil).  The old ways are dying, there is no doubt about that.  Five hundred years of crushing slavery is falling apart.  Now is our chance to choose what will replace it.  Stop focusing on the death and start anticipating the new growth and beauty that follows.

Renewal is a painful experience, but it doesn't have to be hopeless. 

Countdown To Armageddon

The Mayan Calendar
Well, here we are, counting down to whatever it is we are counting down to.

To hear some folks talk, by this time next year, the Earth will be a cinder, all Mankind will be extinct, civilization will vanish, and it will all be because of some carved stone wheels in Mexico.

Rubbish.

It is the nature of all entrenched power elites to make people afraid of some external force, from which they will protect us...at a price.  Fear is a great motivator, and when used as a weapon, can cause great numbers of people to do really stupid things, like trust someone else to watch out for their interests.  It never occurs to us individually that anyone we put in a position to guard our safety is going to watch out for their own safety first.

The great Roman poet and historian Ovid famously said, "Quis custodiet ipsos custodies?"  Who will watch the watchers?  Once you establish an individual or group to protect your interests, then you must place another over them to watch them, and yet more over them to watch the former.  It's an endless cycle of layers of watchers checking on other watchers, and in the end, the only one who is truly motivated to keep me safe is me.

If I have a pile of gold and I hire someone to watch it for me, eventually they will figure out that job security comes from keeping me afraid of losing my gold.  But at some point, I will become paranoid and hire someone else to keep an eye on the first one.  And on it goes ad infinitum.  The watchers will inevitably place their own self-interests above mine.

If we expand this to a global scale, then we have certain minorities who have been placed in positions of trust to watch out for our interests.  To protect their interests, they have instituted various programs to keep us afraid, and thus continue paying them to watch our interests.  When they are caught red-handed lying and dissembling, we blythely pay more to install another layer of minorities to watch the first group, who in turn ally themselves with the first layer in order to enrich themselves at our expense.  We call this process 'government'.

In the age of the 'security' state, we the sheeple herded around by the noses by a small group of people who use our fears as weapons against us.  By its nature, fear is irrational because it rarely rises to the level of our expectations.  Yet the mere anticipation of something bad happening causes us to become pliant and docile at the hands of anyone who will promise to protect us.

The state apparatus has a vested interest in keeping us afraid.  It doesn't matter what the fear is, so long as a sufficient majority of the masses are afraid of it.  It also helps if the fear is something that is much larger and inevitable that we are powerless to change.  We will still throw money and power at anyone who steps up and says they have a plan to protect us.

Global cooling, global warming, Y2K, 2012, Apocalypse...name your irrational fear, and you will find some group standing up to take money to protect us from it.

Pandora's Box
Climate change?  Well, we have this anonymous group of 'scientists,' without names or faces, who are working diligently with their laptops and recording stations to do what we all can do by standing outside.

Apocalypse?  We have this massive bureaucracy called a church that claims to intercede on behalf of all Mankind with an angry and wrathful God to prevent His wiping out Humanity.  This particular gig is very effective, since it's lasted about 500 years or so.  Never mind that wrath and vengence are two of the seven deadly sins, and it makes no logical sense what-so-ever that this God would act on them.

2012?  This one is particularly rich, since no one seems to take the time to read about seven or eight paragraphs in a scholarly paper on Mayan calendars.  It's particularly effective, since people can project just about any fear they have on to it, and it has grown to encompass climate change, apocalypse, space invasions, and pretty much all the other fears and expectations of our collective subconscious.

In simplest terms, the Maya envisioned all of time as a series of interwoven cycles running endlessly into the future.  Each progressing cycle was exponentially longer than the first, with the final cycle lasting a bit over 5,000 years.  This final cycle had 13 iterations before it would itself recycle.  The whole thing was based on various celestial events, particularly the movements of Venus, Moon and Sun.

The cycles also coincided with Maya myths and legends regarding various Ages, not unlike the Yugas in Hindu tradition.  In fact, a brief effort on the part of the curious reader will reveal that the recycling of the Mayan calendar, as well as the Hindu tradition, and even the Bible itself, call for the beginning of a new Golden Age, when Mankind will become enlightened once again, and will throw off the fear and loathing that has kept Him in darkness and ignorance.

According to some scholarship, that new Golden Age begins about this time next year.

So what are we afraid of?  Could it be that all this fear-mongering is actually a reflection of the watchers' internal struggle to keep us all compliant and fearful in the face of a new Awakening?  Are they trying to engineer a new Dark Age in which they are the Masters of All They Survey, while we are the writhing masses cowering at their feet?

If all your wealth and power were the result of everyone around you being deathly afraid of their own shadows, and you knew that they were waking up and taking back their birthright, what would you do?  Considering you will lose everything and most likely all those people will lash out in anger at you for what you've done, my guess is that you would do everything in your power to keep them ignorant, fearful and dependent.

In fact, every tradition, without exception, that forecasts a violent and nasty cataclysm states that this event is the birth pangs of a new Golden Age of Humanity.  We will finally conquer our fears and self-loathing, and usher in an Age when Mankind will appear god-like, when peace and harmony will reign, when we no longer live in ignorance.  All of them, be they Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, Mayan, Hindu, Greco-Roman, Cherokee, Hopi...doesn't matter, they all predict that the destruction of the Old Ways will lead to new glories for our species.

The Golden Age
So, when you look at it the right way, what we are seeing is deep, agonizing fear on the part of the watchers who are losing their power and status.  The only weapon they have is to transfer that fear onto the vast majority of humanity to keep us dependent on them.  Every one of the traditions hold that this will happen, that the entrenched powers will utter destroy themselves in their effort to maintain their positions.  In the end, the Enlightenment always wins.

2012 will likely be an eventful year.  There will be some remarkable events in the heavens and on Earth.  But the only people who have something to fear are the one who benefit most from fear.  Because, when fear is conquered, they no longer have power nor status.  They will no longer be able to manipulate the masses, since all their tools and tricks will have been rendered useless.

Every winter brings death, but spring is not far behind.  What was hidden by the snow will be revealed by the thaw.

24.12.11

T'was The Night Before Hari Natal

Howdy, howdy friends and neighbors!  It's yer ole pal B back to wail and assail.  Yes, indeed!  Had a hard disk crash, which took the operating system with it, which caused me to spend money to actually buy Windows 7.  I hate giving Bill Gates more money.  The bastard just turns around and spends it to kill humanity with vaccines, and everyone praises him for being so humanitarian.  But, that's beside the point.  It's Christmas Eve!

There is nothing more absurd than hearing "White Christmas" here.  For one thing, the country is 75-80% muslim, so Christmas is purely a commercial affair in a way that makes the American version pale by comparison.  For another thing, it rarely gets below 80F here, much less snows.  In fact, the vast majority of Indonesians only know about snow from movies and songs.  Few have ever actually seen it.

Now being a native Houstonian, you might laugh at that last bit, since it snows all of every twenty years there.  But I remember back in 1973, it snowed for two weeks straight.  There was actually enough snow to make a snowman, though it cleaned off 9 lawns to do it.  That was back when we were all facing global cooling.  The propaganda has changed since then.

At any rate, we are preparing our equatorial Christmas celebration for tonight.  Wife One picked up a devil's food cake, which is a rare and wonderful treat.  I went to Jakarta's first, and so far, only liquor store and bought a bottle of Gordon's gin.  Set me back $60, since the wonderful, touchy-feely government of Indonesia hits you with a 100% luxury tax for alcohol.  Just another shining example of a select few people thinking they have the right to legislate morality for the masses, simply because 51% of the people agree.  I hate democracy.  All I want for Christmas is a truly free marketplace, completely and totally unhindered by social engineering.

This year, we don't have a Christmas tree, since fresh trees are outrageously expensive, and artificial trees are equally outrageous AND you have to store them.  So we just have a wreath on the door and some lights on the house.  In fact, we are the ONLY house for at least a kilometer around that has lights up.  I love it.  In the States, you have to put up a million bux worth of lights for anyone to notice.  Here, just slap up $3 worth, and the entire city cuts a path to see them.

The kids love it, at any rate.  One little four year old ran up and hugged me just a while ago because she just thinks I am so cool for having lights and playing jacks and hopscotch, and listening to all the kid songs.  Oh, and also because I let the kids play with the kittens and I look a lot like Santa Claus, even though I cut off my beard several years ago.  Certainly more than any Indonesian I've ever met.  In fact, the malls try their damnedest to hire bule to play Santa.  My first wife won't let me, because she thinks it will cause me to lose face if anyone found out.

The wives are all expecting rich gifts this year, since business has been exceptional.  I bought them all matching lingerie, which should make the gift opening very entertaining, at least for me.  They hate it when I treat them all identically.  They are constantly fighting each other to claim most favored status.  In fact, that's the one real joy of having four wives.  They all fight each other and leave me the hell alone.

I've got the next week off.  I haven't had a paid holiday in more than six years.  I don't know what to do with myself.  For so long, I've lived day to day, and if I took a day off, it was at the expense of my dinner plate.  This time, I can actually relax and still pull down a paycheck.  So what do I have planned?  Absolutely nothing.  With a big N.

There's a couple of horses stabled a few blocks away, so I want to rent one and spend a day riding around Jakarta with my cowboy boots and hat.  The problem is finding a danged horse big enough for me in this country.  They're all Arabians that come up to about my waist.  I can walk over them.  They have a lot of dorman, which are horse-drawn buggies, here in Jakarta.  One time, I wanted to ride in one.  By the time I folded myself up small enough to get inside, the poor horse was dangling from his harness about three feet off the ground.

Folks here-abouts call me raksasa, which generally means 'giant,' but the reference is to a mythical demon that was enormous and could step over a house, which pretty much describes me, at least in this country.  I'm fully head-and-shoulders above 90% of the locals, and the few that come close have yet to surpass me.  That's all fine and good, except the world is much shorter here as well, and I am constantly wracking my forehead on tree limbs, door jambs and other low-lying obstacles.

Which reminds me...in the past week, I've twisted my knee twice, which exacerbated an old war wound and left me virtually crippled.  You know, the kind of pain that takes your breath away.  So, wife No. 1 took me to a local masseuse who practices an ancient form of Javanese massage.  Now lest you think this was an enjoyable experience, allow me to disabuse you of that idea.  Javanese massage is a cross between Greco-Roman wrestling and Swedish deep-muscle therapy.  He grabbed my leg and proceeded to unscrew my toes, disjoint my entire leg and twist me into a pretzel.  He managed to reseat my knee joint and my hip, which two previous chiropractors could not do.  And he re-aligned my lower back, which has been a screaming nightmare for the past 30 years or so.

Granted it hurt like...what...like a cow's ass at branding time, but I can walk again, the pain is reduced about 75%, and the whole thing set me back about $5 for a 30-minute session.  Stick that in your alt.therapy pipe and smoke it.  There's a lot to be said for free market medicine, which is a whole column in itself.  Several in fact, if you look up the 'Adventures in Acupuncture' series that I've been doing this year.

At any rate, I'm having a jolly old time.  I've got strawberry-mango juice made fresh from fruit picked off my farm, and a rare bottle of Gordon's gin that cost me a fair slice of my Christmas bonus.  I've got a wonderful and supportive family and five kids (step and blood) that are a father's pride.  I've got four gorgeous and sexy wives who blessedly leave me out of the fights and treat me like the egotistical bastard that I am.  I just got a shave and a haircut for 24 bits (bet most readers don't even know how much that is).

No, all is not right with the world.  In fact, most of the western hemisphere is going to hell in a hand-basket.  I don't really feel sorry.  I spent the better part of my adult life trying to fix things and got fully slapped down by 'the system' and by the Bush crime family for it.  Not a single person stepped up to help me, because they were afraid it would rub off on them.  Now, they are living with that choice in a country going the way of the do-do bird.  It's hell being ahead of the curve.

So, from the land where a man can disappear and never be seen or heard again...from the land where you can spend all your money on lawyers, or on making the government go away (your choice)...from the land where a man can have four legal/lawful wives...from the land where monkeys swing from the trees and dragons sun themselves on the roads...from the land where I live,

Merry Christmas/Selamat Hari Natal!

May all your dreams that benefit humanity come true.  May peace really come to all mankind.  May we all find Truth and adhere to its tenets.

May you discover true freedom and the courage to defend it, before the bastards can take it away.

God bless and smooth sailing, from all of us here on The Far Side.

17.12.11

Welcome To Botany Bay

"My own view is that this planet is used as a penal colony, lunatic asylum and dumping ground by a superior civilisation, to get rid of the undesirable and unfit. I can't prove it, but you can't disprove it either." - Christopher Hitchins
Welcome to the penal colonies
One of the best American thinkers in recent years was a Brit.  Hitchins' geopolitical views were absolute rubbish.  He couldn't shake the monarchist prejudice.  But his cultural and social commentary were spot on.  In fact, he was almost as insightful as Mark Twain or H. L. Mencken


But that's neither here nor there.  What I really want to talk about is government, and the imperative that humanity faces to get rid of the Frankensteinian monster we collectively have created.


All government, everywhere at all times throughout history, is nothing more than publicly sanctioned force.  That's it.  If you need a complete and unabridged definition of it, that says it all.  Government is the right to compel, cajole and kill people to get them to follow someone else's idea of The Right Thing.  Furthermore, it is the power to legally steal our money to do it.


The only reasonable and sane thing to do, is to wipe all governments everywhere out of existence.


Oh sure, there have been attempts to create the uncreatable.  Some were even notable.  Switzerland, Iceland, even the united [sic] States of America.  At some point, though, they all devolve into corrupt, seething morasses of unethical, immoral and unjust cruelty and violence.  All governments, no matter how lofty the founding ideals, eventually force you and me to follow an external code of morals and regulate what you and I do, say, eat, drink, inhale, excrete, and create.


One hears it all the time.  In the US, people bellow at the top of their uneducated lungs that "this is a christian country!"  Here in Indonesia, it's "this is a muslim country!"  All seem to forget that all countries are lumps of dirt that happened to rise above mean sea level, and that the dirt has no allegiance to any one nor any ideal.  It's simply dirt.


All human beings are nothing more than self-ambulatory balls of dirt and water.  Granted, we have an amazing capacity for reason, though few ever exercise it.


Most of us are happy to trip through life believing whatever was mashed into our heads from birth.  We believe certain old books because, well, gosh...they're OLD!  The greatest minds ever produced by our species have tried and failed to prove the existence of various gods and souls and other mystical stuff.  Not one has ever succeeded.  Thomas Aquinas resorted to faith.  Einstein resorted to non-randomness.  Newton threw up his hands.  Lao Tsu called it mu.


Ultimately, most folks resort to something called 'god', and they are willing to slaughter, torture and enslave until you believe it too.  To achieve that end, different groups of people set up different types of government to pass different types of laws to force you and me to do things this way or that way.


In some countries, abortion is an industry, in others it's murder.  Either way, it's only a matter of how money to which person to get what you want.  In some countries, marijuana is illegal and punishable by years in prison and/or death, while in others it's a subsidized crop.  In some countries, you can run naked in the streets if you want, while in others, you must cover your body from head to toe or be lashed into submission.


Why, for god's sake, hasn't anyone ever tried to just leave people alone?


Here's an idea...I believe the sky is green.  I seek out others of like mind and we form a community.  If believing the sky is green is beneficial, we thrive culturally and economically.  If you are born into this community, but over time you come to believe that the sky is yellow, then you find another community of like mind and pack your bags.  Or better yet!  We build a community of people who indivisually believe the sky is many different colors, and we acknowledge that difference and use it to build a stronger community.


The latter was an idea called 'diverisity'.  Once upon a time, there was this soupy, loopy idea that we all just celebrate 'diversity'.  Naturally, over time it evolved into, "Believe my definition of diversity or I will beat, torture and ostracize you."  Same old BS, different name.  Ultimately, it became the belief that everything is diverse except those who don't believe as we do.


Governments are like sports teams.  Many people say, "Oh, such-and-such is MY team!"  No it isn't.  It is the sole property of an owner, and it exists to enrich that owner.  Your mindless support and loyalty of the team only serves to make someone else rich and the expense of food and lodging for your family.


It's the same with governments.  People say, "It's my country and I love it!"  In reality, it is owned by a few folks in the background, and all your mindless support and loyalty and blind obedience serves only to enrich the owners, not you or me.


The process is the same everywhere at all times.  People set up governments to protect them.  The governments set up regulatory agencies to oversee the groups who potentially could do the people harm.  The groups give money to the regulators, who end up protecting the groups from the people who first gave birth to the monster.


Over and over and over and over...at all times everywhere.


Like the child who sees the government thug standing around menacing regular folks:


"Daddy, why is that man dressed like Darth Vader and pointing a gun at me?"


"He's there to protect us from ourselves, son, so we don't do anything to ourselves that will impair our ability to make money for the owners."


"Oh, I see."


It's always the same.  We're going to create a society that is full of peace and harmony, where everyone can hold hands and sing "Kumbaya" and hug trees.  God help you if you want to sing "Hokey Pokey" and slap cats, though.  That'll get you 20 years of hard labor in Sing Sing and lifetime labels that will prevent you from ever getting a job again, so that you are forced to sing "Hokey Pokey" on street corners, so they will keep throwing you in jail, so you can have a place to sleep and food in your belly.  Makes perfect sense, since the money to incarcerate you is legally stolen from me by Darth Vader-wanna-bes to protect me from "Hokey Pokey."


So what's the point, you graciously ask, and I'm glad you did.


The US is arguing over shutting down the federal government.  To me, there's no argument.  Shut it down!  It's just a bunch of steroid-addicted, pea-brained micro-willys that put on a show for us that we call Our Team.  It's not our team.  It's owned by a bunch of mysterious reptilians who sole aim in life is to take money from you and give it to themselves.  Our aim, of course, is to earn money and keep it in our pockets.  It's the polar opposite of Our Team, since our team would be on our side.


After all, what has the FCC ever done for you, except prevent you from seeing a multi-thousand dollar pair of enhanced mammary glands and hearing words you hear 20 times a minute in the average movie on the very same TeeVee set?


What has the IRS ever done for you (though I bet you can make a list of done to you)?  What has the FBI ever done for you?  What have ANY of the alphabet goons ever done FOR you?  By that, I mean direct, personal benefit that you can quantify and prove.


I'll bet, if you're one of the three people left who doesn't work for the government, you can't think of one, single, solitary thing.  And the ones shrieking about it being the end of the world are the California state nurses earning $300k+ per month, or the New York toll booth atendent getting $100k+ per month, or all the useless freakin' numb-buckets in CONgress shoving YOUR money in THEIR pockets.


Governments are now and have ever been social welfare for moral and ethical degenerates, like Newt Gingrinch.  Shut them all down.  Start fresh with a new idea.  Leave me the hell alone and I'll do the same, neighbor.  Set foot on my property with malice, and you'll get a case of lead poisoning.  Very simple concepts, very difficult to get people to realize it.


No one expects the Inquisition!
The only reason governments keep springing up is because the owners want your labor and wealth.  No other reason at all, no matter how lofty the rhetoric.  Put the lazy bastards out of work.  Make them find productive things to do that really benefit society.


What Hitchens said about George W. Shrub could apply equally to every single government employee that ever lived:
"He is unusually incurious, abnormally unintelligent, amazingly inarticulate, fantastically uncultured, extraordinarily uneducated, and apparently quite proud of all these things."

9.12.11

Empires And Mist

Well, it just doesn't get any busier than this.  There are so many news stories out there that it makes the mind boggle just to ponder three or four of them.

As we discussed last time, the US government has gone completely rogue, there's a pile of documents that prove it, and no one is doing anything about it.  In fact, that's the real news in that story.

The Russian elections were a disaster.  Putin has been marketed to the hilt, and he still had to arrest the poll watchers to get elected.  Medvedev had to twit an obscenity to get any attention at all.

Corzine (which just sounds like a poison to me) testified that he put a billion and a half dollars down somewhere, and when he looked again, it was gone.  Now, wait a minute.  If you try to move $10,000 out of the country without filling out a dozen or so forms and declaring it at the top of your lungs at the airport, you go down for it.  This guy 'misplaced' over $1,500,000,000, and he gets invited to Washington to tell them how he did it.  A$$ hole is all I gotta say about it.

One bit of news I'm watching vvveeerrryyy closely is the drone story in Iran.  Frankly, I have to laugh.  The US/Israeli mafia launched Stuxnet at Iran to muck up their nuke program.  So, the Iranians launched a virus at the drone fleet (remember that story?), suddenly they can take over guidance and fly the thing in for a smooth landing.  If I were them, I'd be selling that stuff on the black market ASAP.  That's gold, baby.  I bet Pakistan is lined up with cash in hand.  It reminds me of a line from Star Trek: Search for Spock.  Scotty hands Kirk a fist-full of parts and says, "The more they overtake the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the works."

That about sums up the entire globalista/Anglo-American/Western empire story.  They've created a high-tech net to snare every soul on Earth, and it's so complex that all you have to do is toss a wrench in and the whole thing comes crashing down.  In fact, let's take a look at the etimology of the word, 'sabotage.'
Origin: 
1865–70;  < French,  equivalent to sabot er to botch, orig., tostrike, shake up, harry, derivative of sabot sabot  + -age -age

Wikipedia tells the story...
it derives from the Netherlands in the 15th century when workers would throw their sabots (wooden shoes) into the wooden gears of the textile looms to break the cogs, fearing the automated machines would render the human workers obsolete.[1]

It brings to mind neoluddites.  If you're not a luddite, then you're missing the wave of the future.

al Qaeda hiding in diapers
Years ago, I was hanging out with a bunch of my physics-minded pals, and we were noodling, as one is prone to do when Mother Nature is involved.  What would it take to end life as we know it?  Wanna know the answer?

An eight-pound cannonball.

Yup, it's that easy...well, almost.  If you have an 8-pound cannonball with steering jets that's able to send back telemetry after you've launched it into a free-return orbit around the Moon.  But those are mere trivialities.  The point is, if you shot this thing into space, rounded the Moon and changed the trajectory slightly while it was behind the Moon, then aimed it straight at the geo-synchronous orbit, but against the flow.

Are you seeing the picture here?  You have to keep in mind that clouds of debris become death zones for anything behind when you're in space.  Needless to say, you could end civilization in 24-hours with an 8-pound cannonball.

See how fragile this all is?  There's an illusion of power.  There's capitulation on the part of human beings who want to be slaves, to be led around by the nose, who want security more than enything else in the entire world, and they would sell their souls for it.  In fact, they have.

So, the question is, if this global empire is so fragile that it can be brought down with a computer virus, how much do you want to invest in it?  What's the old saying?  Throw good money after bad?  The fact of the matter is that the whole illusion is a failing bet.  You can watch your horse lose in real time, and you're still betting the ranch on win/place/show.

We are being manipulated on an hourly basis to accept our lot in life and don't even bother to try to improve it.  I mean, as soon as the economy goes sour, folks start hocking themselves to the eyeballs to get more degrees, and yet it's those very degrees that got us here, and all they are teaching is how to stay on the path to ruin.

My grandfather was orphaned when he was 12.  He dropped out of school in 8th grade to get a job to support his brother and sister.  Eventually, he ended up in the (now defunct environmentally uncool) California oil fields, working for Shell Oil.  He worked his way up, inventing some cool stuff that he shared the patent with Shell.  When he retired, he was COO and co-founder of Shell Chemical Deer Park.  Eighth grade education.

Einstein was a drop-out.  Steve Jobs was a drop-out.  Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Cyrus McCormick, Jethro Tull, Abraham Lincoln...all drop-outs.  Seems the really big movers and shakers don't waste their time on things like college, where they teach you how to tow the line.

We must rediscover a lost art...how to think independently.  We have to relearn how to see the unseen, take the path untaken and how to bet the farm on the winning horse.  Dying empires that can be taken down with computer viruses are a bad investment.  Time to take your money out of that system and start a new one.  I mean, how many other investments would you put your money in and have someone grab your daughter's crotch and yell at you and gas you, and taser you, and arrest you for doing something that is your God-given right?

Is that a good investment?

Or would you rather put your time, effort and skills to work in a system that will encourage your freedom, protect your liberties and is built on a solid foundation?

It's the three little pigs.  The US and EU are the straw and stick houses.  Real, unadulterated, pure 100% free human beings are the brick house.  When it comes down to it, which house do you want to live in?

If Iran can take over and land a US drone, then the Anglo-American empire is a smoke screen.  It only has existence because you kow-tow to it.  If you surrender, it wins.  The first step to being free is saying 'no.'  Think about it.  Slaves can't say 'no.'  Only free human beings in change of their own lives can do that.  And it's one of the smallest words in the English language.  But think of the power it has.

Fake elections?  No.  Fake money?  No.  Police state?  No.  Blind obedience?  No.

See how easy that was?

8.12.11

Drone On

I'm not quite sure why Americans aren't absolutely outraged.

Try this on for size...

Nutty-yahoo is caught red-handed selling weapons to Egypt and encouraging various gangs there to cross the border and kill Israelis so that the deaths can be used for political purposes, like banning guns, militarizing police, and so on.  How long do you think it would take the Israeli people to clap Nutty-yahoo in irons and lead him to the gallows?

Now, over the past weekend, piles of documents were released tying the White House unequivocablly to Operation Fast and Furious.  Fast and Furious was a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) operation to buy legal guns in the US using 'strawman' purchasers (legal buyers who are fronting for illegal) to buy millions of dollars worth of guns, using taxpayer money, give them to Mexican drug gangs, and then wait for the gangs to murder US citizens so the guns could be blamed.

Now, the absurdity of blaming guns for murders has been pointed out many times.  It's like blaming pencils for writing or hammers for driving nails.  Guns are inanimate objects that, in the proper hands, are tools for dozens of useful everyday things, like eating, stopping crimes, and recreation.  Mafia hit men have used piano wire for years to off opponents, but you don't hear of anyone trying to ban pianos.

At any rate, here the leadership of a nation is caught purposefully trying to get its citizens killed and blame the weapons, to advance a political agenda.

And the response?  Nothing.

People aren't protesting in waves.  No one is marching on the White House demanding justice.  The BATF isn't being abolished.  Heads aren't rolling.

The incident that brought the operation to the minimal amount of light it has gotten took place in Arizona.  A border agent was shot down using two AK-47s that were bought with tax money and given to drug gangs.  There apparently was a third rifle involved, which has since disappeared.  The two AKs were purchased at Arizona gun shops being paid with tax dollars to be a part of the 'sting.'  One thing led to another and the operation was exposed...such as it is.

I've watched some of the presidential debates, as much as I could stomach.  Not one candidate has mentioned this matter.  Not one.  Even Ron Paul hasn't brought up the treasonous, murderous plot to use our money to buy legal guns to give to drug gangs to kill us.  All so guns can be blamed and banned, and police can be even further morphed into para-military thugs.

As I recall, one of the founding documents of the US says something like, 'Govenments are instituted among men to protect their rights and ensure their properity.'  Nothing in there says anything about those governments stealing money from folks at gunpoint to plot ways to kill the citizens so that political objectives can be expedited.

In fact, things like Operation Fast and Furious has been grounds for the complete dissolution of governments in the past, and a pogrom against the existing political classes.

And what does Fast and Furious say about things like 9/11, fluoride in the water, vaccine jabs and TSA?  Obviously, there is an attitude at the head of government that the citizens are expendable, mere tools to be used to pass legislation and destroy rights.  It is the antithesis of why governments are formed.  Certainly, it shows a willingness on the part of government to destroy its own constituents in order to promote itself.  When government promotes itself over the interests and well-being of its citizens, then it is rogue and no longer serves the best interests of those who constitute the government.

This is not some wild-eyed conspiracy theory.  This is not a bunch of 'gun kooks' looking for trouble.  This is not some historical matter, like Pearl Harbor, where the guilty are already dead and gone.

This is a sitting president authorizing the eventual death of US citizens using their own money so that he can ram through some draconian legislation.  This is so cynical, so callous, so treasonous, so Machiavellian, and so plainly proven that it is absolutely astounding that every man, woman and child in the US isn't rising up in righteous indignation.

The fluoride must be working.

Congress has gotten around to holding a couple of low-level hearings on the matter.  The head of BATF still has his freedom, much less has a job.  In fact, after a year, not a damn thing has been done to investigate and bring to light the incredible crime that was committed here.  In fact, folks are still joyfully paying taxes to a government that is plotting even more creative and treasonous means to take their lives, liberty and property.

Fast and Furious is the exact polar opposite of what the US government was constituted to do.  It is the antithesis of generations of political thought and development.  It is such a giant step backwards in what governance is supposed to be that it boggles the mind.  The complete lack of outrage shows that the American people are prepared to accept any amount of abuse and terror, as long as they don't lose their benefits and entitlements.  Oh, and don't forget to pull the lever for Newt!  After all, what's yet another criminal in the White House?

But I guess that's OK...Dancing With The Stars is on the TeeVee.

7.12.11

MyWitchDoctor Dot Com

For many years, I've had an abiding interest in herbal and traditional medicines.  Maybe it's genetic.

My great, great, great grandfather, Gideon Linscom, was the first European doctor in Texas.  He spent a good part of his life studying and recording the traditional medicine of the Kickapoo and Comanche indians.  His papers are in the University of Texas archives today.  His efforts garnered him the crossed arrows, meaning friend and protector.  That honor is still conferred on my family and recognized by, among others, the Lipan Apache.

I spent a couple of years studying herbal medicine with a curandera in New Mexico.  There are a number of maladies I can literally cure with leaves and tree bark and flowers.  For instance, if you have a bad case of diarrhea, make some tea with those big, giant cockle burs you find all over the southwest US.  It's a bit bitter, but it will stop you up like a cork in a bottle.

Along these lines, I've been learning bits and pieces of Indonesian home remedies.  As a general category, they are referred to as jamu.  There's a whole range of things that fall under this classification, and every once in a while the government issues dire warnings about jamu, I suspect because someone got a healthy bribe from the pharmaceutical industry.  Just like when Bill Gates came and paid off a bunch of officials.  Now they steal people's laptops for not having registered copies of Microsoft products.  Thank God for Ubuntu and OpenOffice.  Jerk.

Anyway, there's a lot of interesting lore and folk medicine to be found around these parts.  And what brings all this up is the fact that I'm fighting off a winter cold (in a land without winter), and one of our great readers sent in a rather scary tale.

She was laid out with a "mysterious" disease that caused a repeating fever spike, delirium and various other unpleasant effects.  She reports going on gambling outings (not a usual activity) and shopping, bringing home boxes of items that she's found around the house.  The only memory she has of all this is a vague, dreamlike recollection of a casino.

This sounds to me like malaria, though she lives in Oklahoma.  Not a place you'd expect tropical diseases.  But then, not a place you'd expect earthquake swarms, either.  Anyway, I recalled that the gin-and-tonic was invented by British occupying forces in India.  The bark of a certain tree produces quinine, which is used to make tonic water.  Drinking tonic water regularly wards off the disease, and is a very effective cure, as well.  Mix with your favorite gin, which itself is a medicinal concoction of berries, flowers and juniper leaves, add a wedge of lime for Vitamin C, and you have a fairly effective medicine for malaria, that has the benefit of give you a buzz, while you're at it.

The world is full of medicines like this.  Aspirin comes from the bark of the yew tree.  Marijuana has been used for millennia as a pain remedy, anti-stress benefits, great for the eyes and brain, and has a number of well-known side benefits.  Cocaine is a very effective pain relievers and puts a spring in your step.  The leaves have been chewed for as long as anyone cares to remember, for the same reason folks drink coffee.

The list goes on, of course.  In fact, most pharmaceuticals originated as herbal medicines.  However, being the evil, greedy jerks they are, they extracted the key ingredients, made them artificially, and then patented them.  Then they bribe governments to make the original plant illegal so only they can profit from the health benefits.  Jerks.

In almost every case, though, the natural substance is far more effective and healthful than the artificial constructs.  Sure, they isolate the active ingredient, but that ignores all the other natural effects inherent in the plant itself.  Where Big Pharma gets away with their crap is things like double-blind testing and other statistical falderal that gives them the air of sophistication and science.  It completely ignores the fact that the chemicals were discovered centuries ago and tested over all that time, with recipes being perfected over generations.

Back to jamu, it's quite a performance.  The most common forms of jamu are sold by women with large baskets on their backs.  In the center section is a thermos with hot water and a couple of glasses.  Arranged around the outside are a dozen bottles of eucalyptus oil, mustard paste, various powders and seeds and other extracts.  You explain your malady to her, and she proceeds to mix up the appropriate concoction.  Got a cough?  A dark brown liquid reeking of menthol.  Feeling tired and run down?  An orange liquid with mustard paste in the bottom.  Need a boost in the marital bedroom?  A foul-tasting greenish-brown liquid.  And all quite effective, I might add.  After drinking the potion, she refills the glass with warm water so that you can get every last grain and drop, and wash the whole thing down.

Even doctors here often prescribe herbals and home remedies.  For one thing, they are much cheaper than the Vultuers' poisons, and most folk here trust the potions much more than the Big Pharma pill-popping.  Vitamins and supplements are a big business here.  People are also more likely to drink fresh fruit and vegetable juices.

My wife went out and plunked down a couple of big ones on a fancy juicer after getting a nicely designed and printed recipe flier with various juices for various health effects.  One is for general health, another for cholesterol, another for digestive health, and so on.  It makes no difference that I eat hot peppers like candy, my blood pressure is textbook perfect, and one time, about ten years ago, my triglycerides got pretty close to the upper limit.  The only thing wrong with me is I'm blind and my ears ring like Sunday in Paris.

But the juices are pretty good, so I drink them without complaint.

I attribute my overall good health to the fact that I've been taking supplements for decades, and I use a lot of rosemary and oregano when I cook (fresh of course).  Oregano, especially, is very good at preventing bacterial infections and cleaning out the blood.  In fact, other than the whole MS thing, I usually don't get sick at all.  The one exception is that every year in November or December, I get a cold.  It's like clockwork.  Even living in the land of eternal summer.  I also tend to gain weight precipitously this time of year.  Haven't been able to shake my body's seasonal time table.

My one major concession to Big Pharma is aspirin.  Aspirin has been my friend and companion all my life, long before they found out it's good for more than just headaches.  I've used it for pain, sunburn, overheating, and just every day health, to open the blood vessels and get oxygen to the cells.  Once in a while, I resort to anti-biotics, particularly since I'm susceptible to sinus infections, though I generally try to avoid them, preferring my body to do its job.

When it comes to herbal and folk medicine, I've found it wise to follow the local customs.  Each region has its own list of problems, and the locals have the ways and means, learns over uncounted generations, to deal with them.  I learned early on that chewing guava leaf prevents and cures dengue fever.  I picked up the habit of grabbing a leaf or two as I walked through the market, and chewing on it for an hour or so.  Can't really say if it has helped, but I know six other expats who've been stricken in the past four years, needing hospitalization for a week and coming close to death's door.  I've noticed that mosquitoes don't even land on me.  Connection with guava leaf?  Who knows?  But I'm dengue-free, so far.

I also like gin and tonic, and I've never had malaria.  You decide.

It's difficult to eat enough veggies and fruits to get the health benefits, which is why juicing is so effective.  You can fit a lot of fruits and veggies in an 8 oz. glass, when they're liquefied.  Certainly, taking your supplements is de rigeur.  And study up on medicinal plants that grow wild in your local area.  You'd be amazed at what you can treat out of your own back yard.  Not only will it save you money, stop feeding the Big Pharma greed machine, and be much better for you, but if society collapsed tomorrow, you'd have a valuable skill to trade on.

It's a lost art, and one well worth re-learning.  I just wish the damn juicers weren't so expensive!  It's time for me to get kerikan to deal with my masuk angin.  I'll reek of kayu putih, but it makes my wife happy, and it really works.

To your health!

5.12.11

We Control The Vertical

Why do humans feel the need to dwell on the eventual demise of our species, and ultimately the planet?  It borders on obsession the way we not only expect the end of civilization at any moment, but that we actively pursue it in so many ways.

Jews have been waiting for a messiah for 2,300 years to come and vanquish everyone who has ever spoken an unkind word in their general direction.  Christians have spent 2,000 years enthralled with the idea that their savior will return and kill everyone who has made them servile.  Muslims are anxiously awaiting the Twelfth Imam to climb up out of a well and wreak havoc on the enemies of Islam.  The Buddhists are awaiting the re-incarnation of the Great Buddha, who will destroy the current age and institute the next.  Science is wringing its hands over red giants, asteroids and global warming/cooling/changing/not changing.  Science has so many disaster stories, I can only imagine it must be a very depressing line of work.

The Hindu have Shiva, the New Agers have whatever it is they believe, and pretty much all the rest have their version of The Endtimes cataclysm.  What is this burning need to be destroyed and have some outside force do the honors?  If this sort of thinking underpins all of our cultures, then what does it say about us?

First of all, I admit that I can not speak authoritatively on any of these, save christianity.  Though I have studied many of them, my strongest arguments are built around the christian fairy tales, since that is my background.  So if this article has a certain bent, there is a reason.  However, there are numerous underlying similarities in all these tales that may allow us to pull together some common strings.

Let's begin by clearing up something that really bothers me.  The word 'apocalypse' does NOT mean the 'end of the world as we know it,' also known as TEOTWAWKI.  It simply means 'to reveal something which is hidden.'  How that word came to mean death and destruction is a complete mystery to me.  Now that we've dispensed with that matter, let's move on to more interesting things by starting with a little though experiment.

Suppose you had the desire and opportunity to control a great number of people, and you needed a simple but effective way to pacify them and prevent them from rising up and slitting your throat.  You need this group of people to accept any amount of servitude, abuse, suffering, and depravity, while at the same time, deflecting any responsibility for this horror away from yourself.  In fact, you set yourself up as the only possible intermediary with the cause of all this, and it is your efforts that prevent the final horror from occuring.

Easy!  Implant a though virus at the core of every person's being, pounded in from birth, that the entire world will be destroyed by a wrathful god who's sick and tired of all the sin and stuff in his creation.  However, if you follow everything I say, then we may be able to put this final horror off a couple of hundred years.  Oh, and throw a few bucks in the basket on your way out so we can affort to focus all our attention on delaying the final outcome.  And while you're at it, spend the next three generations building us a nice big church right over here, would'ja?

Yup, just the ticket!  Free ride through life, ownership of some of the best land and buildings on Earth, and instead of being seen as the cause of all the crap, we are the heroes, interceding on the part of some invisible old man in the sky who's really pissed off that his image and likeness is using reason and intellect and enjoying things like sex, that he invented.

So, how do we achieve this?  Well, here's come nifty old stories that have a secret meaning, but we'll interpret it all for the rubes, so they don't see the real meaning.  While we're at it, Mr. Jerome, this line right here in Romans says humans are free.  Let's change that to obeying the Powers That Be (namely us).

Great, now we need a way to keep them in line.  Let's hire a good writer to come up with a story about the end of the world.  We'll say it was penned by a guy trapped on a Greek island having a hallucination.  Let's make it really vague and mystical sounding, so we can interpret it dozens of different ways.  That'll keep the rubes in abject fear and terror, looking for signs and wonders.  Hell, every time it rains, they'll think it's the end of the world!

Now, hmmm...I know!  All of this will happen because the rubes are all worthless, useless, groveling sinners with no intrinsic value, and without us, they'll never get free of this burden.  That way, they'll serve us and praise us, and every day the world doesn't end, we get credit for keeping the old man happy!  What a great idea!

What next?  Oh, I got it!  We invent this nation that never existed and put in our little hallucination story that this nation must rise a third time, as a sign that all this stuff is about to happen.  Then we'll create a great war and slaughter a bunch of these Jews so that everyone feels guilty and clears out a few Arabs to give them a homeland...which, get this...just happens to be the third incarnation of this imaginary land!  Man, will the rubes be afraid now!

Ooh!  This is rich!  We'll tell everyone that some mystical sequence of events has to happen in order for their savior to come to their rescue.  Kind of like a celestial distress signal that we need some help down here.  So, this mythical nation we created must be taken over and, get this, an anti-old man takes up residence!  And this guy will REALLY be bad, even badder than the old man himself!

Think about it.  We'll have the rubes supporting any amount of evil, horror, terror, slavery, cruelty, and deprivation, because they think it will get them closer to being rescued from their own stupidity!  Man, this is great stuff!  Just to make sure, we'll invent something called the rapture, where only 144,000 people will get a free ride outta here just before the real shit comes down, even though they are creating the shit storm that they are running away from, in order to get rescued by some old man in the sky, and the whole time no one will suspect us, since we are the only hope they have of getting one of the free-ride tickets!

Oh, my...this is really rich!  I bet we could easily control a billion or so people, make them do whatever we want, suffer any amount of outrage and humiliation, fight wars, give us money, build us some nice digs, and never once suspect that we are the bad guys!

Heck, we'll just use our little bad-boy country in the Middle East to raise all kinds of hell.  We;ll set it all up so that our followers would give this country a pass on anything it does, so we can use it to start wars, soak up money (even from non-believers who give it to us as taxes at the point of our guns), and generally raise Cain any time and any where we choose.  Best of all, it will all be written off as signs of the end times, which our rubes will all support blindly because they think it will hurry up their savior to come rescue them!

My gosh, we could rule the world!  We could live in absolute splendor and glory without doing more than passing out a little bad wine and tasteless bread.  The rubes would be thankful for it.  We could abuse them, torture them, burn them at the stake, and god forbid, Excommunicate them if they get out of hand.  We would have the rubes believing that the more they suffer, the more stuff they get in some mystical place called 'heaven.'  They'd put up with anything to get some stuff in heaven, I'd bet.  The best part is we'd be absolutely immune from prosecution, suspicion and retribution, because if the rubes attack us, they lose all their stuff in heaven.  Worse!  Hahahaha!  They'd spend all eternity being treated the way we treat them!  Hohohohohoho!

This is such a great plan!  Why hasn't anyone else thought of this?  Heck, we'd be kind of the world, completely unassailable and above suspicion.  What a great life it would be.  Just for the hell of it, let's make it a boys-only club, and we'll tell everyone we're celibate, so we can be left alone with their most vulnerable and defenseless ones, and no one would ever believe we could do anything wrong behind closed doors, because we have the mainline to the old man!  If they raise a fuss, we'll just send up the cosmic distress signal and boy won't they be sorry!

Gosh, it's a good thing something like this could never happen.  I mean, just think, hundreds of generations duped into servitude by false promises of rewards and fake terror of punishment.  After all, if people ever caught on to the ruse, they'll hang us from every lamp post from here to Timbuktu!  That would be a truly horrible apocalypse/revelation, wouldn't it?