Populism And The Jabberwock

The word "toke" entered the American drug culture slang in the 1950s.  It is derived from the Spanish word "toque", which means "torch".  Not that this has much to do with anything, except that the original Texas Cowhippie, Willie Nelson, got dizzy and had to cancel a concert.  Now, if Willie feels "dizzy", you know it was good stuff.

We know you stop by from time to time, so here's sending you good vibes, Bubba Willie.  Hope it passes fast.

And now for something completely different:

One of our long-running themes here on the Far Side is that Systems cannot be reformed from the inside.  They must be completely disassembled and replaced.  Just like Sir Ralph Richardson's Supreme Being warns us in the brilliant Time Bandits, "Do be careful! Don't lose any of that stuff. That's concentrated evil. One drop of that could turn you all into hermit crabs."

As is always the case, the people rise up in revolt, send in their champion, who then gets consumed by the dragon while folks back home relax, figuring they got it all worked out.  Little do they suspect that the proverbial Jabberwock has completely consumed their champion and is now more powerful than ever.

Yes, we've all been trained that we can nominate a "representative" to fight our wars for us, and thus, having sent our hero off to battle, we can return to the hearth and clank our mugs of grog in toast of our cleverness.

Meanwhile, the Jabberwock picks its teeth after such a fine meal of human offering with the rib bones of our hopes and dreams.  Because the forces of Good are complacent and don't understand the nature of the beast they fight, the forces of Evil prevail.

In the now traditional 100 days of a new president, we have seen Donald Trump swing virtually 180 degrees from his campaign rhetoric.  This has got to be one of the fastest and most complete reversals on the books.  From continuing the "refugee" imports, to health care "reform" to standing down from empire building to prosecuting the Clintons, not one single promise remains standing.

NAFTA, TTIP and the Paris Accords are now negotiable.  PizzaGate has virtually disappeared off the RADAR.  North Korea has now been added to military adventurism.  Obamacare reform is now a distant memory.  The border wall is a political poker chip.  And the nepotistic sycophants' chorus of "Go Daddy Go!" are the only voices heard in the halls of power.

Trump was pushed by the System to both absorb and deflect the voices of reform, and to drive "reasonable" people into the Hillary camp.  It is safe to say the Establishment had no idea how deep the reformist movement was and were shocked their darling candidate lost, but it has hardly slowed their progress.  The System simply regrouped, applied the necessary pressure to block circulation in the appropriate places, and quickly absorbed the new reality into its own corruption.

Trump supporters are not without blame.  Having first bought the fairy tale that a billionaire New York real estate elitist could EVER be a champion of the little folk, they promptly went back to sleep after the inauguration thinking they had done their job to stop the onslaught of centuries of corruption and deception.

This effect is a combination of a lifetime of indoctrination, and a personal failure to recognize it and overcome it.

Overseas we see the same effect.  Theresa May, selected champion of the Brexit effort, has sold out to the Dark Side, calling snap elections to give the System another shot at reversing the movement, which it will.

In France, Marine Le Pen has moved relentlessly towards the Statist position in order to curry favor from the System.  If elected, she too will wait for low tide before subsuming the Populist Wave into the System.

The problem that no one seems to get, even after glorious revolutions like America, France and both Russian versions, is that there is an underlying assumption that is Evil itself - the heart of the System.  As in Time Bandits, a single piece of Evil keeps getting left behind to continue the domination of Humanity.

The crumb of Evil that is the System is the stubborn assumption that we need a System of any kind.  Despite thousands of years of history and uncountable millions of lives lost, we still refuse to realize that it is the concentration of power that is the problem - government itself.

We are trained from birth to think that anarchy is chaos and that civilization would collapse without "leaders" and "laws".  Do we really need stone tablets to tell us that stealing, lying and killing are wrong?  These things are built into our very cells.  All the law can do is make us accept things we would not normally accept, and back it up with the threat of death and/or incarceration to ensure our compliance.

The basis for government is religion.  The belief that any one person or group can have a hotline to God and get special messages that the rest of us somehow miss means that we are primed to accept domination by someone else.  These "leaders" use special effects and wizardry to make us think they have been granted god-like powers, but they are just toys that any of us could make and deploy.

But we choose to cower and tell ourselves that God has ordained these "leaders" and "authorities" to lord over us poor, degenerate sinners.  We accept the premise that we are immoral and flawed creatures that need to be herded, or all Hell will break loose.  We refuse to see that all Hell IS the System that we allow over us.

Until and unless we can final conquer the Evil that is of our own making, we are doomed to repeat the same error again and again.  We will never cast off the yoke of servitude until we realize both that we are servants and who the Master really is.

We humans continue to think that by hiring our own Masters, we will end slavery.  The nonsensical and unreasonable logic is pounded into our minds from birth.  It is our fear and our laziness that perpetuates our misery.

We cannot modify the System to be benign.  The System is designed to redirect whatever force we throw at it back at us twenty-fold.  The more powerful our fight against it becomes, the more we will be subjugated by it.  It is the Third Law of Motion - every action begets equal and opposite reaction - that is dominating us.  Simply put, it is the denial of Nature that is defeating us.

The proper question is not how we can modify the System to work for us, but why we keep leaving bits of Evil behind when we try to reform it.

All the Putins and Trumps and Mays and Le Pens will never fix the problem, they will always become a part of it.  The only viable solution to our slavery is the utter destruction of centralized power and all its tentacles.

Short of that, the best we can hope for is fur-lined shackles.

What Secrets Lurk

The audience here on the Far Side is split more or less 50-50, Eastern and Western hemispheres, with a slight bias to the West, since I write in English and deal a lot with the USA and how it is screwing up the world.

Because of the split, I get some interesting email in response to my posts.  Westerners (primarily US) challenge my assertions regarding the complete bollocks that the US is making of the world.  The Easterners tend to want me to defend or justify the US' actions, and for that, I am the wrong person to ask.

Here's the problem: Westerners are completely surrounded with a highly scientific, psychology-based propaganda machine that against which every other system in history pales in comparison.  I can say this because I have a degree in mass media and have worked in it most of my adult life.  I not only studied the theory behind it, but actively produced it until I awoke one day realizing what I had done.

On the other hand, we have the rest of the world, who are subject to their own countries' propaganda, but which is far less sophisticated (outside the BBC and ZRD), and for the most part provides a foil to the CNN/NBC/Disney narrative.

What happens is that the Western media (US) tells everyone how justified the US is in bombing the crap out of everyone, and the audience only sees those results they are allowed to see.  The rest of the world sees the truth, or at least a hell of a lot more of it.

Here's a good example:

Recently, the US media played non-stop propaganda concerning Holocaust Day.  Now before you switch off (as you are programmed to do), how come that day didn't acknowledge the Russian, Vietnamese, Chinese, Armenian, Serbian, German (not the Jews), Native American, Native Australian, nor Indian holocausts?  Why is Holocaust Day only for Jews?  Why don't we hear about all the others throughout history?

Muslim forces have slaughtered over 80 million Hindus over the past 500 years.  Stalin killed anywhere from 25 million to 50 million (no one knows for sure) Russians.  The British mowed down millions of aboriginals in Australia, and Spain, Portugal, the US and UK killed millions of American inhabitants across the Americas, in some cases wiping out entire civilizations.  Hundreds or thousands of German civilians died in Allied carpet bombing at the end of WW2 (see Dresden).  God only knows how many Semitic (not Jews) people have been wiped out in the past 1,000 years of Crusades and wars in the Middle East. Mao slaughtered untold millions during the Cultural Revolution - we won't even go into the Mongol hoarde at this time.

The reason you never hear of these is because it doesn't fit the narrative.  For the most part, history is a fairy tale built by the ruling elite to both promote ignorance and to install certain psychological hot buttons that can be pushed from time to time, when wars are needed.  For Americans, this is a particularly egregious problem.

Americans are surrounded on all sides with approved stories.Even when they think they have broken through, such as during the Trump selection, they have in fact only entered a boundary layer that prevents them from seeing the real world.

Americans barely speak English, much less any other languages, and when they travel, they only go to sanitized tourist spots, where they stay in Holiday Inns, eat at McDonald's and watch CNN International.  In other words, the American ideal vacation is moving their living room couch to someplace with a different view.

Europeans are only slightly less provincial, in that they can drive an hour or two and hear another language, but centuries of monarchy has ingrained servitude into their very genes.  The French and the Catalonians appear to be the only ones left with strong emotions about liberty and freedom.  We shall see what the outcomes of Catalonia's independence movement and France's elections will be.

I focus on the West, because that is my native culture, but here in Indonesia, no one ever talks about, much less learns about the East Timor genocide.  The Chinese rarely acknowledge Mao's purges.  There's a movement in Russia to finally bury Lenin, since no one wants to be reminded of that era in their history.

The fact of the matter is the Holocaust Day has been usurped by Israel as a means to install guilt in as many people as possible as a means of control.  Yet, Israel claims the Bible is its title and deed to the land, conveniently glossing over pages and pages of wholesale slaughter in the same book.

Every single (surviving) culture on Earth, except maybe the Icelanders (though they are Norse descendants), is guilty of genocide.  This is a problem endemic to the human race against itself, not of some privileged group who gets to claim sole right to be a victim.

The holocaust of World War 2 is neither the most recent, nor the most savage.  In the scheme of things, it rates probably in the middle somewhere, along side Pol Pot's 3 million victims, or the US' 8 million and counting.

Here's a radical idea: instead of singling out one group of victims from all the others, why don't we use Holocaust Day to look at humanity and what part of ourselves causes such horrors?

It's not so much the Hitlers, Pol Pots and Stalins of the world we need to worry about, nor their victims, but why so many of us follow such people down the path of Darkness.  These people could not have murdered millions without We the People aiding and abetting their crimes.

What is it about the human condition that convinces so many people that mass murder is an acceptable solution to any problem?  Why is it the Social Justice Warriors think attacking and beating people who don't agree is acceptable?  Why do the NeoCons think it is just fine to wipe out entire countries?  And why do these groups find followers to do the dirty work?

The point of Holocaust Day is not the victims.  We are all victims in some way or another of mass murder.  Instead, why did the Milgram experiment show that people so willingly follow authority?  That is what we need to change.

Celebrating victimhood perpetuates victimhood.  Let's use this opportunity to question authority and find within ourselves that part of our psyche that surrenders to immoral leaders.

We, as individuals, are not absolved from guilt because everyone else does it. or because we are ordered to do it.  No victim is more special than another, and no perpetrator is less guilty.

Oh, and Jews don't get a free pass to slaughter Palestinians just because their ancestors suffered.

The Balance Of Error

Most people do not stop to consider that the word "matrix" is derived from the Latin word for "mother" (mater).  Though often not used with its original meaning, we should note that "matrix" means a form used to stamp out identical objects.  Its opposite is the "patrix", which is a form used to create the "matrix".

Much older than that, the matrix and patrix were similar in philosophical concept to the "yin" and "yang" of Eastern philosophy.  They are opposite and complimentary forces that combine in equal parts to create "harmony".

The concepts embed "chaos" in the matrix, and "order" in the patrix.  When out of balance, one gets complete upheaval at the matrix end, and complete tyranny at the patrix end.  In conceptual terms, at the moment of conception, the male implants order into the female chaos, creating harmony as their offspring.  Those things which create order are thus masculine, while those that create chaos are feminine.

No, I'm not making this up to piss off the social Marxists.

In a sense, those who are battling the matrix are trying to create order, while those who are fighting the patrix are trying to create chaos.

When we look at the social Marxists - radical feminists, social justice warriors, etc. - we see in fact that they espouse the matrix philosophy of chaos.  They denounce all things male, like philosophy, logic, law, and art, in favor of life without objective truth and beauty.  This is why their language is so course, their tactics so violent and their goals so poorly defined.  It is just blind rage against...um, whatever.

On the other hand, the patrix seeks order, truth and balance, but without the balance of the matrix, it goes off the deep end and starts locking everyone up until order is restored.  This is what we commonly call totalitarianism.

Neither side is survivable without the other.  In the matrix, there is no civilization, while in the patrix there is no choice.  The matrix loves war and devastation, while the patrix loves fear and discipline.  The balance between the two is diplomacy, where the feminine seeks to avoid tyranny, and the masculine seeks to avoid chaos.

  Thus, fear and terror always work in favor of the State, while anarchy and disarray always work against the State, with the State being the outward expression of the balance, or lack thereof, of these two forces.

When the matrix rejects all rules, definitions and structure, it devolves into a bloody mess.  Riots and gang wars are an expressions of the matrix out of control.  Mindless chanting and marching display a lack of control, and thus creativity.  There can be no originality in the matrix.

On the other hand, dictatorship, riot police and surveillance apparati are expressions of the patrix.  Overbearing laws and regimentation express the uncontrolled masculine.

Unable to deal with multiple issues at once, the patrix seeks to limit problems to an orderly set of tasks.  The matrix is able to react simultaneously to multiple situations at once, and so thrives in a chaotic environment.  In an ideal world, the matrix reserves a generous amount of liberty and freedom for itself, while the patrix supplies just enough order and logic to create a society and economy.

The matrix/patrix metaphor can be carried into all aspects of life.

For instance, illness is the matrix and medicine is the patrix.  Too much of either is death, but the proper application of both is harmonious health.

Another example?  Raw materials are the matrix and products are the patrix.  One cannot exist without the other, but an overabundance of either mean social stagnation or economic collapse respectively.

Societies with an oversupply of the matrix ulitmately collapse because there is no structure upon which to build civilization or an economy.  Those with an overabundance of the patrix become rigid and unable to adapt.  One collapses from too much flexibility, while the other from too little.

This necessary balance was understood by the Enlightenment philosophers.  They envisioned a society with just enough structure that everyone would have the ability to pursue their bliss, while just enough structure to provide a framework of equity and justice.  The result would be a society where individuals had complete freedom within the realm of property, while at the same time having to respect the property of others.

When Social Marxists talk of ending private property, they are talking about destroying liberty.  When Ultraconservatives talk about expanding police powers, they too are destroying liberty.  Both encroach on the right of individuals to live as they please within their private space, either by removing the private space altogether, or by pushing the State's power into that space.  The result is the same, though the process is quite different.

So what does all this have to do with current events?  So glad you asked.

What we see, primarily in the West, but spreading outwards, is a constantly escalating clash between the matrix and patrix.  The matrix wants an end to order, so the patrix increases it, which in turn leads the matrix to fight harder, which leads to the patrix to clamp down harder.

In all cases, the battle is between chaos and order, with both sides having forgotten the Golden Mean - the middle is the right way.  Neither side, however, will back down, and as each escalates to counter the other, the other redoubles its effort.  Neither side will back down and we are left with an endless spiral into oblivion.

Both the matrix and patrix have their good sides.  Liberty, creativity, freedom, and discipline are virtues.  Destruction, fear, collapse, and inflexibility are what we see, though, meaning the balance has been lost nad harmony is gone.  The immigrant crisis is the matrix gone nuts, and the saber-rattling is the patrix gone wild.  Without a willingness to back down, the only possible outcome of all this is mutual destruction, because one cannot exist without the other, and both are determined to utterly destroy the other.  Whichever one wins the battle will only lose the war.

The Hopi have a perfect word for all this: koyaanisqatsi.  Life without balance is meaningless, since there is nothing by which to compare it.  The masculine and feminine are both equally vital and equally valid, in an equitable balance.

The patrix must release its iron grip and the matrix must accept an amount of structure or our species is doomed.

It doesn't matter whether you believe in genders or sexes, they exist as hard fact.  We must assume, since Nature itself deemed it so, that our task in life is to find the balance.  Without the balance, Nature will do what it always does, start again by applying order to chaos until the balance creates new species to take up the challenge.

Both Sides Against The Middle

The insanity continues apace.

Here in Jakarta, it has taken an especially hard twist.  In the recent governor election, incumbent Ahok lost to challenger Anies.    What makes it a highlight of global insanity is that the winner ran on a religious platform, saying that Ahok ( a Christian of Chinese descent) was unfit to govern because the Koran says that Muslims cannot be subordinate to non-Muslims.  He, of course, completely misinterprets the lines in question while at the same time accusing Ahok of blasphemy for a statement that has been categorically shown to be false.  Even the Minister of Religious Affairs said that Ahok's comments were mistranscribed - probably on purpose - to discredit the reformist governor.

Where it gets really fun is that Ahok came into office as Vice Governor to the current president, Jokowi.  When Jokowi won the presidency, Ahok ascended to Governor and subsequently won re-election.  Ahok has been roundly praised for cleaning up Jakarta, clearing out slums, upgrading the mass transit system, and rooting out corruption.  Indeed, though many people grumble about actually having to follow the law now, the city has improved quite a bit in the past five years.

Anies, on the other hand, is allied with Prabowo, a man widely seen as corrupt and desperate to take the presidency for himself (he lost to Jokowi in a hotly contested election two years ago).  In the time honored tradition, the ruling political parties raid the State treasury for funds to drive political campaigns, only Ahok has put a triple lock on the Treasury door, with one of the keys being held by the KPK, or Corruption Eradication Commission.  This means all expenditures must be approved by the use of three separate passwords, whith the governor holding only one.

Anies ran on a religious platform, but many people view him as a return to the bad old days of rampant corruption in the Regional government.  Despite Anies wearing his religion on his sleeve, photos made the rounds of social media of drunken parties following his victory - a scandal.  Anies also used a State helicopter to tour his domain, something that Ahok and Jokowi have both eschewed during their tenure, preferring to endure the same traffic issues everyone else does.

Ahok has gone one further now.  During the campaign, Anies adopted a "me too" echo chamber, saying that he would do anything Ahok promised to clean up the city.  This included shutting own one of the most notorious night spots in the city.

To understand the subtleties of this particular challenge, one must understand that the military is widely viewed as having an iron-fist grip on the country's drug trade, and Prabowo (major supporter of Anies) is a former general in the army.  Thus, the gauntlet that has been thrown is a challenge to Anies' loyalty and honesty in a very interesting and low-key manner.

In other developments, food stalls have been returning to areas previously cleared out by Ahok, who thought sidewalks should be uncluttered for pedestrian comfort and safety - a novel idea in Indonesia, where food vendors take advantage of public spaces for rent-free operations.  Also, public employees, who have been forced to punch a clock and actually perform their duties under Ahok, are starting to show up late or not at all for work.

Naturally, a great number of people, who have enjoyed the modernization and efficiency introduced under Ahok, are just a bit worried about what's to come.

There is no doubt now that Prabowo and his Gerindra party will launch another major offensive during the 2020 presidential campaign.  The governor of Jakarta is generally acknowledged as a major stepping stone to national leadership

In effect, this all appears to be a strong political assault on Indonesia's populist revolt, which began in 2010, and a return to the oligarchical rule of yesteryear.

Though this counter-revolt is dressed in all the finery of religious zealotry, it is actually the front of a major shift in Indonesia's demographic composition.  The country's middle class explosion of the past 20 years has allowed an entire generation of Indonesians to be educated overseas.  Combined with the internet and social media, they have become increasingly enamored of truly open and democratic societies elsewhere.

This new generation is much more lenient on drugs (especially marijuana), less controlled by religion, and are far more affluent than even their parents could have imagined.

In other words, it is a mirror of the 1960s, and even more so of the Millennials among their Western counterparts.  In a country where Islam has dominated the social and political landscape for centuries, this is a direct and existential threat to the Powers That Be.  The old control buttons and levers aren't working and they are trying to clamp down to retain their privileged positions.

The problem is, Indonesians are growing accustomed to having disposable income and being able to travel abroad and shop for prestigious brands and drive their own cars, as only the richest folks could do just a short time ago.

Jokowi and Ahok are the crest of a huge wave of change coming to Indonesia, and Anies and Prabowo are the breakwaters trying desperately to slow the tide.  It is the classic case of the rock and the hard spot, with a large, sparkly diamond of middle class affluence resting tenuously in between.

Though it hasn't risen to the level of prominence that the Trump and Le Pen candidacies have, Indonesia's power struggle is nonetheless significant, as it is the premier economy of Southeast Asia.  It is significantly tied to other economies, like Sourth Korea, Vietnam, Thailand, and the Philippines, all of which are on center stage in the massive tug-of-war between the East and West.  The West would obviously feel more secure with an Indonesia that is socially backward and mired in internal corruption.

If Indonesia were to become a major player in regional politics, as it easily could with its vast natural wealth, it would likely align more tightly with China - a prime trading partner - than with Western interests.

Enter Mike Pence, the US Vice President, who recently visited Indonesia.  Coincident with his visit (ahem), Freeport-Macmoran secured an export license that has been in bureaucratic limbo for years pending the outcome of various major lawsuits.  Freeport operates some of the largest gold mines in Indonesia and it isn't hard to imagine the Veep promising to buy up the exports to keep them out of Chinese hands, not to mention the silver and other strategic raw materials that are a bonus of gold mining.

No matter how you slice the pie, things are getting rather interesting here in the archipelago, not just because of the imminent threat to and by North Korea, but also because of the ideological clash that is shaping up in these parts.  Witness Duterte's rather blatant threats against Islamic terrorists in recent days.

For those tracking the political tides of the world, Indonesia bears a close watch, as the incoming Anies administration in Jakarta will be a bellwether of currents in the entire region.  The major concern to Western interests is keeping a strong relgious influence over this government and preventing Indonesia from joining the Shang Hai Accord countries (BRICS).  Indonesia's wealth would greatly benefit the BRICS, and Indonesia itself would benefit from cheaper loans, better trade deals and infrastructure support from China and Russia.

That giant sucking sound is a helluva lot of people holding their breath.

Ain't Buyin' What They're Sellin'

The entire Western hemisphere has become a chaotic mess and it is destablizing the delicate balance of ideologies that is the Real World.

In South America, we have Venezuela eating itself alive, a situation that has escalated since Chavez vanished from the scene.  Keep in mind that Maduro is the 65th president, so we're not talking about a nascent democracy here.  It gained independence in 1811, and has been relatively stable for most of that time, with a fairly robust economy centered around its oil reserves.

Venezuela's southern neighbor is Brazil, the largest and most powerful of the South American republics.  It too has been reasonably stable for some time with an economy dominated by oil.  It has also undergone a steady decline leading to the impeachment of President Rousseff and the installation of her political polar opposite Temer.

Chile's long-ruling moderate PDC party is in a heated race against a Socialist coalition.  Argentina, which hasn't been stable since the 1980s, continues to ride an economic roller coaster.  Meanwhile, Mexico appears to be on the verge of another revolution, which would likely cause havoc in Central America.

The EU is a mess.  Non-existent immigration controls have led to a boiling social and political situation that could flare at any moment, and that moment could come with the French elections.  Islamic immigrants/invaders are wholly incompatible with the extant culture, yet the leftist blanket laying over the continent prevents any meaningful dialogue on the subject.  Even the Roman Church, which has anchored European culture for millennia has sold out to Socialist Utopian fantasies.

In the US, the scene is even more ridiculous.  The leftists that dominated the past decade have isolated themselves physically and intellectually from the rest of the country.  The began by migrating to self-contained sycophantic enclaves, like New York, Los Angeles, Portland, and Seattle.  They then spent the entire past decade congratulating themselves on how clever they were while dictating their social proclamations to the rest of the country, which was pretty happy being left alone.

The leftists in both the US and EU so completely lost contact with the Real World in their intellectual circle-jerk that they set up an incompatible dichotomy of idealism with more moderate traditionalists hardening their positions against things like immigration, gay marriage and transgender toilets.

The dichotomy was unbalanced, with the vast majority being on the traditionalist side of the equation.  The progressive left, unable to find anyone in their Ivory Towers to say wait a minute pushed the boundaries of propriety until the traditionalists snapped back.

Enter Donald Trump.  As a businessman, he was bold, adventurous and used to getting his way.  His gregarious style worked well in marketing and he, too, built an isolated world around himself, full of people who always jumped when he called.

Trump instinctively knew where the money was.  AS a salesman, he built his empire on reading the market and responding in a way that got sales.  He knew that image and branding was everything, and he used his skills to remarkable effect in the 2016 campaign.

The problem is that government doesn't operate like a business.  He masterfully controlled the sound-byte and the lower-third title crawl, but now that it has come to action, he wants to delegate the responsibility to others.  He is thinking in terms of generating leads and handing them off to the marketing staff to close the deal.  All he wants to know is the result.  How the result is achieved is outside his scope of work.  That's Someone Else's Problem.

At this point, the traditionalists are placated by the unwinding of the progressive agenda.  On the other side, the leftists are so busy consoling themselves that whatever remained of contact with the Real World is now gone.  As a consequence, no one is minding the store and Trump is discounting everything to fire sale prices.  In other words, Trump has taken the position that any sale is a good sale, without regard to costs of doing business.

The rest of the world is catching on to Trump's weakness - a short-sighted and obsessive focus on near-term results without thoroughly thinking through the consequences.  During the campaign, he said anything that got him wild applause.  Now his applause is coming from a much smaller and more self-interested inner circle.

With everyone in the Western world either hysterically happy or hysterically upset and myopically focused on immediate results one way or the other, there is little room to worry about global stability and long-term developments.

Slowly, cautiously, the Eastern hemisphere is reading the zeitgeist.  They see two shopkeepers embroiled in an argument over unfair competition, and like opportunistic thieves, they are making off with the goods.  Put another way, two ad executives are so focused on fonts and kerning that the copywriters are slipping all kinds of content past them.

China is buying up the West at break-neck speed.  Russia has completely recovered from the West's economic sanctions.  The only part of the East that the West has ever really held any sway over - the Middle East - is collapsing and/or bitterly opposed to further alignment with the West.

The only Western stronghold in the Eastern hemisphere is Australia, and they are currently arguing over which side of the toast the butter is on.  Their closest trading partners are China, India and Indonesia, but the US and EU are demanding fealty without offering solid social and financial solutions.  If/when push comes to shove, they may well choose their own survival against cultural ties.

Trump is quickly showing that he is the wrong man at the wrong time.  In a world that requires finesse and subtlety, he is a bull in a china shop.  Russia and China are no longer weak and backward economies; they are now sleek and nimble, able to capitalize on mistakes quickly and quietly.

The problem is that the traditionalists have unleashed blustery showboating, while the leftists could only offer social engineering that the rest of the world neither wants nor cares about.  The result is that the West is ideologically bankrupt and economically unbalanced.  With nothing to offer, the rest of the world is ignoring the Western powers and going about their own business.

If Trump continues to poke the military in matters that no longer concern the US, he will only coalesce the resistance.  With North and South America and Europe in chaos, and with nothing of interest to sell the rest of the world, the shutters will soon close on the American century.

Perhaps in hindsight folks will come to their senses, but I'm not counting on it.

Carnies And Rubes, Part 4

The reader is encouraged to view Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 for the complete argument.

Understand that by the nature of the medium, this series is necessarily cut short.  The Protocols is a rather long and detailed document with a multi-spectrum approach to global domination.  I will reiterate that despite the use of terms like "Jew" and "Goyim", the writer is not Jewish, and is most likely coming from some off-shoot of Roman Catholicism, which would perforce include the Knights Templar and the Western banking system.

Before concluding this analysis, it is necessary to look at one final passage, called Protocol No. 16.  This one deals with education and the take-over of universities to re-educate (stupefy) the masses.  The key paragraphs are:

"1. In order to effect the destruction of all collective forces except ours we shall emasculate the first stage of collectivism - the UNIVERSITIES, by re-educating them in a new direction. THEIR OFFICIALS AND PROFESSORS WILL BE PREPARED FOR THEIR BUSINESS BY DETAILED SECRET PROGRAMS OF ACTION FROM WHICH THEY WILL NOT WITH IMMUNITY DIVERGE, NOT BY ONE IOTA. THEY WILL BE APPOINTED WITH ESPECIAL PRECAUTION, AND WILL BE SO PLACED AS TO BE WHOLLY DEPENDENT UPON THE GOVERNMENT.

"8. In a word, knowing by the experience of many centuries that people live and are guided by ideas, that these ideas are imbibed by people only by the aid of education provided with equal success for all ages of growth, but of course by varying methods, we shall swallow up and confiscate to our own use the last scintilla of independence of thought, which we have for long past been directing towards subjects and ideas useful for us. The system of bridling thought is already at work in the so-called system of teaching by OBJECT LESSONS, the purpose of which is to turn the GOYIM into unthinking submissive brutes waiting for things to be presented before their eyes in order to form an idea of them .... In France, one of our best agents, Bourgeois, has already made public a new program of teaching by object lessons."

 It is as if the writer is describing events at Western universities, especially in the US, in the past decade from a vantage point 120 years ago.  The degradation of the Humanities and Sciences, the "safe spaces" and violent attacks on unsanctioned speech, the mindless repetition on mantras (misogynist, racist, sexist, etc.), and the demonisation of "white patriarchal" history all fall neatly into these two paragraphs.

It is incredible to believe that a document that accurately predicts the events and trends of the last century is a forgery, as is often claimed.  Even the very abridged sample of the text given in this analysis shows that is far too prescient to be dismissed lightly, and a thorough reading brings up many more such parallels.

It is my contention that this document was purposely planted in the public domain for several reasons.

First, we know from experience that conspirators relish placing their plans in people's faces as a means of toying with the aware individuals.  This is true both of mass murderers (the recent "Facebook killer" for one) and global cabals.  This kinds of behavior grants the perpetrator a feeling of power and superiority, in that their plan is publicly known, yet they cannot be caught.

Second,  the liberal use of terms like "Jews", "Zion" and "Goyim" conveniently deflects blame onto a target group, while allowing the perpetrators to openly demonize and discredit the document, thus hiding in plain sight.  Because of the target, one can easily envision elements of the Roman Church, notorious for its hatred of Jews over centuries, planting this document both to publicize its agenda, as well as place blame on a despised ethnic group.  This would also explain the Church's support of the Nazis, whose philosophy was based in part on The Protocols.  Not only did the Third Reich match much of the agenda put forth in the document, but its persecution of the Jews was equally desirable.  Furthermore, the location of discovery on a park bench in Odessa, the Ukraine, provided another layer of deflection, if needed, by implicating elements of the Orthodox Church.

Third, The Protocols' overwhelming focus on gold, economics and control of the money supply would implicate some group deeply involved in banking.  In the West, this points directly at the Knights Templar, the Knights Hospitaller and the Knights of Malta, all three historically linked to the formation and promotion of the Western banking system.  Certainly, the Roman Church feared the Templars enough to launch a pogrom on the group in the 1300s, and research has shown strong evidence that they went underground and continued to influence financial systems in the West, perhaps even into the present day.

Fourth, even a superficial reading of The Protocols leaves one with the strong impression that the history of the past century and even current events are indeed being directed by some entity that prefers to remain hidden, except that its agenda can be clearly discerned running like a thread through so many influential events.

After reading The Protocols, it is also instructive to study the history of the demise of European monarchies and rise of fascism/socialism in the 20th century, as well as to re-examine authors such as Henry Ford, Aldous Huxley, George Orwell, and T. S. Eliot.  The many parallels and similarities are inescapable.

In conclusion, it should be clear now that The Protocols have been purposely maligned in order to both hide their agenda in plain sight, as well as provide sufficient distractions for those seeking the responsible party.  It is important for the reader to carefully guard against being misled, as that is a primary purpose of this document.

It is my purpose in writing this series to destigmatize research in this area.  By not allowing oneself to be distracted with the need to blame any one group, the document provides both predictive power to see the direction of current events, and a means to fight back against this massive fraud and attempt to enslave humanity.  It is also possible to detect the reasons why so many thinkers and researchers perceive panic on the part of the elite, as they struggle to maintain humanity on the path they have set for us.

In the realm of free thought and speech, there is no voice so offensive that we cannot learn something from it.  The fact that The Protocols appear to be manifesting themselves on the nightly propaganda broadcasts makes it all the more important that the aware mind investigate any avenue that provides understanding and defense against the onslaught.  It also makes us more sympathetic to those who have been ensnared in this agenda unwittingly.  The Progressive movement is not entirely responsible their plight, though we cannot hold them blameless for failure to educate themselves.

In the spirit of free inquiry, I implore the reader to place The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion on his reading list.  If nothing else, it provides historical perspective on many key events in the past 100 years.  At best, it provides a way forward in fighting a pernicious evil that has usurped humanity's growth for far too long.  It also provides tests for identifying the works of this evil in current events, and like a kitchen light, causes the cockroaches to scatter.

It is an old axiom that naming one's fears takes away their power.  By clearly identifying what haunts us, we are empowered to defeat it.  Demystifying our global predicament is a major step in correcting it.  It is my contention that The Protocols hold a major key to doing just that.

Carnies and Rubes, Part 3

The reader is encouraged to see Parts 1 and 2 to follow the argument presented here.

The Protocols is an extensive document comprised of 29 theses that culminated in global domination.  What has kept my attention for more than 20 years is the fact that this document is a virtual blueprint for the events of the 20th century, and into the 21st.  It is inconceivable to me that a "fake" document dating to at least the late 1800s could have so accurately predicted world events 120 years into the future, unless it is an actual plan that has indeed been enacted by whomever is responsible.

Due to limitations and the fact that a full analysis of The Protocols could absorb volumes of books, I will focus superficially on a handful of the theses given, and hope that the reader will be intrigued enough to read the rest for himself and make his own conclusions.

We start with Protocol No. 7:

"5. We must compel the governments of the GOYIM to take action in the direction favored by our widely conceived plan, already approaching the desired consummation, by what we shall represent as public opinion, secretly promoted by us through the means of that so-called "Great Power" - THE PRESS, WHICH, WITH A FEW EXCEPTIONS THAT MAY BE DISREGARDED, IS ALREADY ENTIRELY IN OUR HANDS.

"6. In a word, to sum up our system of keeping the governments of the goyim in Europe in check, we shall show our strength to one of them by terrorist attempts and to all, if we allow the possibility of a general rising against us, we shall respond with the guns of America or China or Japan."

Again, I remind the reader that this document dates to at latest the 1890s.  These two paragraphs come under the heading "UNIVERSAL WAR".Notice that the writer says "they" will use terror in Europe to keep the nations there in line, and control the narrative through the media - which "they" state is already completely in their control.

In the second paragraph, the writer states clearly that the militaries of the US, China and/or Japan will be used if terror attacks fail to keep the nations in line.  Here, it is instructive to note World Wars 1 and 2, where the US was tricked into joining both times, and whose outcomes led first to the League of Nations, then to the UNnied Nations.

I don't think I need to rehearse the facts concerning media control, as everything from Project Mockingbird to the 2016 election clearly shows that the assertion of media control is quite true.

In Protocol No. 9, we find the following:

"10. WE HAVE FOOLED, BEMUSED AND CORRUPTED THE YOUTH OF THE "GOYIM" BY REARING THEM IN PRINCIPLES AND THEORIES WHICH ARE KNOWN TO US TO BE FALSE ALTHOUGH IT IS THAT THEY HAVE BEEN INCULCATED.

"13. You may say that the GOYIM will rise upon us, arms in hand, if they guess what is going on before the time comes; but in the West we have against this a manoeuvre of such appalling terror that the very stoutest hearts quail - the undergrounds, metropolitans, those subterranean corridors which, before the time comes, will be driven under all the capitals and from whence those capitals will be blown into the air with all their organizations and archives."

The first paragraph clearly indicates the use of education as a weapon.  By completely befuddling schoolchildren and teaching outright lies and facts, they will be incapable of thinking clearly or independently.  I daresay this is precisely the case in the US, if not the Western world.

The second paragraph seems to imply the use of massive terror attacks on the order of 9/11, 7/7 and so forth, as a means to control and manipulate the masses and the laws.  It also mentions the construction of underground bases from which to launch the complete destruction of capital cities, along with the full infrastructure of government and all historical records.  One envisions Dick Cheney sitting in his war bunker on September 11th, as the records of the IRS, NSA, FBI, and more are destroyed.

I will leave the reader with a selection from Protocol No. 13, which should need no commentary on my part for the aware mind.  Remeber: 1890s:

 "3. In order to distract people who may be too troublesome from discussions of questions of the political we are now putting forward what we allege to be new questions of the political, namely, questions of industry. In this sphere let them discuss themselves silly! The masses are agreed to remain inactive, to take a rest from what they suppose to be political (which we trained them to in order to use them as a means of combating the GOY governments) only on condition of being found new employments, in which we are prescribing them something that looks like the same political object. In order that the masses themselves may not guess what they are about WE FURTHER DISTRACT THEM WITH AMUSEMENTS, GAMES, PASTIMES, PASSIONS, PEOPLE'S PALACES .... SOON WE SHALL BEGIN THROUGH THE PRESS TO PROPOSE COMPETITIONS IN ART, IN SPORT IN ALL KINDS: these interests will finally distract their minds from questions in which we should find ourselves compelled to oppose them. Growing more and more unaccustomed to reflect and form any opinions of their own, people will begin to talk in the same tone as we because we alone shall be offering them new directions for thought ... of course through such persons as will not be suspected of solidarity with us.

"4. The part played by the liberals, utopian dreamers, will be finally played out when our government is acknowledged. Till such time they will continue to do us good service. Therefore we shall continue to direct their minds to all sorts of vain conceptions of fantastic theories, new and apparently progressive: for have we not with complete success turned the brainless heads of the GOYIM with progress, till there is not among the GOYIM one mind able to perceive that under this word lies a departure from truth in all cases where it is not a question of material inventions, for truth is one, and in it there is no place for progress. Progress, like a fallacious idea, serves to obscure truth so that none may know it except us, the Chosen of God, its guardians."

More to come...

Carnies And Rubes, Part 2

For Preamble and Thesis, please see Part 1)

As I stated at the end of Part 1, I prefer to substitute the terms Carny and Rube for Elders and Goyim.  I suspect, for a variety of reasons I hope to clarify, that The Protocols  were not written by International Jews (as Henry Ford called them), but as descendants of the Knights Templar, who in their Crusades and other activities not only invented the modern financial system, but came across some kind of information that made them feel superior to the rest of humanity.

My thesis is simple: The Protocols represent an actual and detailed plan to control the world, and that the proof lies in the amazing prescience with which they predict the unfolding of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century.  The predictions are so precise and correct that they belie a concerted effort on the part of a hidden group to steer the development of modern civilization.

For the sake of brevity, I will not argue all points, but select a few key elements that support my contentions.  I leave it to the reader to approach the material with an open mind and make their own conclusions.

The Protocols begin by stating their assumption that all men (other than themselves) are animalistic brutes and can only be governed by force and terror.  I don't need to reiterate the observation that the 20th century and into the 21st have been dominated by just these two concepts.

They see freedom and (classic) liberalism as a weakness, or slackened reins, which can be taken up by stronger hands to take over control of society.  Basically, the position is that humans are too stupid to handle freedom, and prefer the iron fist of control.  Any attempt to relax control only opens the door for new and stricter leaders, not real and abiding freedom.

For the most part, the introduction to the document posits that humans are brutes, might makes right, and money is the tool for subjugation.  Spoken like true predatory banksters, if you ask me.  To whit:

"10. Is it possible for any sound logical mind to hope with any success to guide crowds by the aid of reasonable counsels and arguments, when any objection or contradiction, senseless though it may be, can be made and when such objection may find more favor with the people, whose powers of reasoning are superficial? Men in masses and the men of the masses, being guided solely by petty passions, paltry beliefs, traditions and sentimental theorems, fall a prey to party dissension, which hinders any kind of agreement even on the basis of a perfectly reasonable argument. Every resolution of a crowd depends upon a chance or packed majority, which, in its ignorance of political secrets, puts forth some ridiculous resolution that lays in the administration a seed of anarchy."

Clearly, the writer believes in the basic tenets of Socialism as an antidote to both Capitalism and Democracy. He depends on the dumbing-down process to ensure the masses cannot reason clearly, and assumes, like Social Darwinists, that humans do not have an innate moral barometer.  Thus, without firm guidance from the outside, society will descend into chaos ("anarchy").  He promotes the idea of using Capitalism and Democracy as tools to ensure the decay of society and set up the climate for easy take-over.

I would argue that the writer substitutes the term "capital" for "mercantilism", a concept perfected by the Venetian Republic and exported to other parts of Europe.  Mercantilism involves control of money by a bankster class, who uses the power of government to create a regulatory environment favoring themselves...much like we see today.

The writer continues:

"14. In any State in which there is a bad organization of authority, an impersonality of laws and of the rulers who have lost their personality amid the flood of rights ever multiplying out of liberalism, I find a new right - to attack by the right of the strong, and to scatter to the winds all existing forces of order and regulation, to reconstruct all institutions and to become the sovereign lord of those who have left to us the rights of their power by laying them down voluntarily in their liberalism."

Here the writer seems to foretell the rise of Political Correctness and the Social Justice Warriors.  By corrupting the concept of "rights" from moral Natural Law to increasing demands to have any form of behavior accepted as a right is how he envisions societies eating themselves alive with further and further divisions until the entire system collapses.  Keep in mind at this point that the document is at least 120 years old, and that at best only Women's Suffrage was an ongoing political "rights" movement.

The writer further states that the political and the moral cannot coexist.  Any leader who is moral and honest will be utterly destroyed, he says, because political power is inconsistent with Truth and Knowledge.  On this score, I can agree with his assertions, since he seems to be echoing Lord Acton's famous axiom that "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely."  Lord Acton further seems to have read this document when he warns,  “Liberty has not only enemies which it conquers, but perfidious friends, who rob the fruits of its victories: Absolute democracy, socialism.”

I will not endeavor to analyze the text line by line, as that is better left to the reader.  Suffice it to say that the introduction to The Protocols seems to clearly foreshadow current events, and indeed the entire history of the 20th century.  I have also mentioned how one contemporary of the document, Lord Acton, seems to be reacting to the tenets of this document in his many quotes on liberty and politics.

I will now move on to specific plans on the part of the writer to effect global domination, and their curious parallels to modern civilization.

(Stay tuned...)

Carnies And Rubes, Part 1

WARNING: The following will most likely trigger a lot of folks.  I am about to discuss The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion.  If that scares you, please turn away now.

If it doesn't scare you, then you should be very aware that I do not consider Zionists to be Jews of any stripe.  The Jewish cover is designed to deflect anger and blame as a ruse to protect the guilty.

Who the guilty are is a matter of heated debate, though I personally believe that they are a delusional branch of the Bavarian Illuminati, a movement originally based on Enlightenment philosophy, but bent far out of shape by those who would rule the Earth and make it in their own image.

I will further warn the reader that I had a most profound and disturbing revelation when I first read The Protocols in the early 1990s, such that my father offered to call a priest, which I recoiled from since it was obvious to me that the Church was the problem, not the solution.  My reasoning should become clear(er) forthwith.

I will begin by justifying why I think the Protocols represent the actual agenda of a real group of people.

I implore readers to overcome their pre-programmed response to this topic and read the Protocols (linked above) dispassionately for what they are: a plan for world domination that is eerily predictive.  Do not let the language and jargon fool you, this is not a Jewish plot, but has been used to achieve certain goals right under our noses, while at the same time demonizing anyone who sees it with a number of trigger terms, such as "anti-Semite".  This has NOTHING to do with Semitic peoples nor Jews specifically.  It is, in fact, a Roman Catholic conspiracy.

The Protocols were reportedly found sitting on a park bench in Odessa, The Ukraine, in the 1890s.  In any case, they were first published in Russia in 1903, and later translated into multiple languages.  I further believe that the name "Elders of Zion" and the liberal use of the word "goyim" in the document were chosen specifically as a smoke screen should (as is the case) these plans ever be brought to light.  It may also be that the "Elders" were Christian fanatics trying to create the Biblical conditions for the Second Coming, and thought of themselves as actual heirs to the Jewish prophesies of the Old Testament.

Whatever the truth may be, my goal is to examine the claims within the document regardless of any other concerns.  I will state emphatically that I do not believe this document represents any religious or ethnical group, but is in fact the political agenda of some secret society based on warped interpretations of Enlightenment philosophy.

All that being said, it is vital that we remember this document is the product of the late 19th century, long before mass media, the internet, pop culture, and the like.    In other words, it is highly unlikely that a 19th century document could be so prescient with regards to modern society unless it was influential enough to bring about the conditions stated.

The only group able to influence society at such profound levels in so many diverse locations was and is the often-referred to "banksters".  If we accept that as a premise, then the most logical group to hold accountable are the Knights Templar, or whatever they became after the persecution in France in the 1300s.  I hold the modern banking system up as Exhibit A in this regard, along with the SWIFT clearing system and the financial markets.

In this case, we also can no longer lay the blame at any Jewish group, and the Templar's connections to the Holy Land and the Crusades would further support the idea of usurping Old Testament language and names as a cover to deflect blame.

Anyone who has studied historical conspiracies for any amount of time knows that a key factor is the publication of the conspiracy in the open, especially in such a way as to be able to deny and/or ridicule it.  Even a cursory study of Mother Goose's Nursery Rhymes or L. Frank Baum's Wizard of Oz, or Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland knows that it is quite easy to publish satire as children's stories or allegories, and then laugh off any attempt to charge conspiracy.

The genius of "the Elders of Zion" is that they specifically chose terminology that would cast the eye of suspicion in the wrong direction.  What's more, they were even able to set up a system of "anti-Semitism" that would punish anyone from seriously considering the contents of The Protocols.  I have to admit it is quite an ingenious camouflage.

If the reader is still with me, and I admit this topic may scare many people away, then we are ready to analyze the astoundingly predictive assertions that are contained within The Protocols.  If it makes it easier, the reader is encouraged to substitute the word "Zion" with "Carnies," and the word "goyin" with "rubes".  The meaning and intent will be the same.

(to be continued)

That Dog Don't Hunt

Hate to say it, folks, but I think it's time to admit we've all been had.

Yes, I'm talking about Donald Trump.  In previous outings, I've expressed my reservations about him, and said I would reserve judgement at least until the obligatory 100 days had passed.  Well, I made it to 90 days, but that's about all I can handle.

Trump is nothing but a shill.  As I said nearly a year ago, I thought it was a bit of a stretch to believe that a multi-billionaire could be an outsider, since he basically could not have achieved his wealth and status without being on some insider's Good Boy List.

Oh sure, there have been moments of intense excitement, like when gobs of Americans banded together to defeat the evil Clinton crime family despite all the lying, vote rigging and Russian blaming.  There were some hopeful moments, when populist heroes like Steve Bannon got picked for the administration.  Folks even got their hackles up when lousy federal judges kept blocking temporary travel bans.

But then came the wave of realizations that world had been given a ringer.

First, it was the healthcare reform, then delay of tax reform, then wrangling over the iconic wall promise, and then the good guys started getting booted out of the administration in favor of more bankers and NeoCons.  Finally, the bombings and saber rattling started.  There was the immediate non-prosecution of the Clintons.  The PizzaGate story got buried.  Oh, and Trump's inner-inner-circle got filled up with Daddy's Boys and Girls, including a Soros-loving slime like Jared Kushner.

Now, I've heard plenty of folks defending Trump.  Just wait, they say.  Hang in there, they say.  Don't worry, they say.  But it all sounds more like they are trying to convince themselves than anyone else.  No one likes to admit they've been taken.  That's why grifters like Trump get away with it so much.  It's like being raped, everyone's too embarrassed to report it.

Trump started losing me the moment he declined to prosecute Hillary Clinton, despite there being an open-and-shut case against her.  In fact, Trump even kept James Comey at the FBI just to make sure all the evidence was properly obfuscated and the case definitively shut down.

Once Trump started turning on Russia and using NATO instead of dismantling it, I knew we'd been had.  One of the major issues that got the man into the job was his long-standing promise to stop nation-building and start focusing on domestic issues - of which there are more than enough.

Many apologists say Trump is surrounded with bad advice, but that advice is coming from people that he deliberately installed around him.  Some folks say he's been compromised, but what, praytell, could compromise him that Clinton couldn't find and exploit during the election?  Then there are those who say, just wait he's lining up his chips for the Big Nego.  To this I say, human lives and world peace are not negotiating chips.

Which brings up the so-called sarin gas attack.  For the sake of argument, I will grant that it was an actual attack (which it wasn't), and that women and children were killed (which they weren't) and that Bashir Assad did it (which he didn't), what Trump did by unleashing his toys was in every way illegal, unwarranted and unsolicited.  No Americans were killed, nor even threatened, and the event (whatever it was) did not threaten American territory, and the US was not sanctioned by the UN or Syria to conduct military operations within Syrian borders.

In other words, this was an unprovoked attack on a sovereign country without any due process of law - much less an investigation.  Image some radical nutjob unleashes sarin gas in Detroit (not out of the question anymore), does Russia or any other country then have the right to launch cruise missiles on random targets within the US to clean up the sarin gas depots?

I didn't think so.  In fact, I'm willing to bet most Americans would bristle at such a move, even with UN blessings and a group of other nations backing up the Russians.

A couple of folks have argued that the Russians are conducting military operations in Syria, so the US is perfectly justified, as well.  Wrong.  Syria is a sovereign nation with a duly elected government that invited the Russians to help out.  None of that is true for the US forces, and regardless of what anyone thinks about Assad, he was elected in a democratic process and represents the will of Syrian nationals.

Lord knows Trump has plenty of detractors, but he was duly elected.  Just because he may end up a dictator does not give other nations the right to perform a little regime change.  That's not to say that bombing other countries or directly threatening them (as in North Korea) doesn't give those countries the right under international law to attack the US.

The thing is that Trump is behaving quite contrary to the will of the people who elected him.  They are turning on him, and rightfully so.  He was elected to clean up Washington, stop all the nation-building non-sense, and reform and resolve domestic issues like the economy, illegal immigration, absurd tax laws, and protectionist regulations that only benefit the select insider corporations.

He has failed dramatically on all fronts, and he has done so deliberately while at the same time trying to justify his actions, implying forethought.  If he ever intended to keep his campaign promises, it didn't take long for him to completely reverse himself and join the other side.

As I have stated many times in multiple fora, the System cannot be changed from the inside.  It must be completely dismantled and replaced.  Whether you still support Trump, are getting worried about him living up to his hype, or have completely been disillusioned, the lesson is quite clear - no one can be trusted to fix such a massive global System.  It can't be done.

Whether Trump is a shill (which I find credible) or has been turned to the Dark Side, he is proof positive that the System will take all necessary actions to protect itself.

It Ain't Art Till It Hurts

In my career, I have been a writer, producer, director, actor, designer, sculptor, painter, poet, musician, composer, cinematographer, videographer, photographer, critic, and reviewer.  I have studied art, art history, theater, film, and language.  I have been a patron and collector.  And in every case, I have assiduously avoided glorifying the profane and shocking my audience.

I love art.  I am an artist.  I create provocative things that are pleasant and edify.

I hate contemporary art.

I detest Mark Rothko and Roy Lichtenstein.  I would kindle my hearth with Jackson Pollock if I could afford the price of admission.  I find Andy Warhol detestable and pedestrian.  I think much of Edward Albee is disposable.  I find much of Philip Glass' later work to be a parody of his earlier genius.  And pretty much anything produced in any art form since the late 70s is vile and corrupt.

That's the short answer.

At some point in the history of art, beginning around the turn of the 20th century, art took a dark and foreboding turn into the nihilistic and desperate.  With the decay of the education system across the board, artists were forced to do anything to get attention, though once gotten, they had no idea what to do with it.  So they pissed on crucifixes, shat on canvasses, shot spastic out-of-focus rubbish, and pounded their tail ends on keyboards like children unable to express themselves with good diction.

The critics, unable to utter coherent phrases, oohed and ahhed over these sophomoric tantrums as if they were timeless masterpieces.  They convinced the well-heeled to drop obscene amounts of money on these trash heaps, which they did because they, too, were uneducated and slovenly.

Across the aesthetic spectrum, crass practitioners reinforced each other's errors.  The idiots created rubbish, which the critics hailed as genius, which the nouveau riche bought in a craven attempt to look chic.

All the while, the uncultured cretins pressed the concept that art was not objective, that art was "expression", and that art was nearly anything removed from context and well lit with a glass of wine and a few slices of over-ripe cheese.

The fact is, art is a language that has grammar and vocabulary developed over centuries of human experience.  It can be spell-checked and graded just like any high school essay.  Most especially, once you are trained in the language, you recognize slang and poor usage immediately.

When schools (at any level) are stressed financially, without fail the first thing to be jettisoned is the art department.  Not that it matters much, since most art teachers are clueless about the fundamentals, nor how to relate them to the world at large.

Most people anymore are unaware that art has its own grammar, vocabulary and tropes, like any language.  It should be taught as a language and used as a language.  It has genres and traditions, like any literary system, and it has a profound effect on society because it transcends boundaries like no other language can.

The grammar of art includes balance, harmony, rhythm, variety, emphasis, gradation, movement, pattern, and proportion.  These create the syntax of art - the composition of the visual sentence into which meaning is poured.

The vocabulary of art is space, line, shape, form, color, texture, and value.  These are the words that carry meaning and emotion.  They create depth, breadth, heighth, weight, and significance.

On top of these are the tropes, such as myth, legend, history, religion, humanity, and dozens of other tales and emotions.

At best, contemporary art is a jumble of vocabulary without structure or meaning.  In the case of Jackson Pollock and many others, it is literally letters and words completely out of context, highlighting form without function, and entirely devoid of meaning.

By the time the art world had devolved to Andy Warhol, art had become glorification of common objects far beyond any true significance.  At this point, the mundane and profane had triumphed over the aesthetic and beautiful.  It was akin to speaking jibberish interlaced with profanities.  In other words, it was not only meaningless, it was offensive.

The purpose of this devolution of art is horrific in its simplicity.  It is a concerted effort to reduce the human mind to its most base level and remove any possibility of rising above it.  Beethoven has become Snoop Dogg.  Michaelangelo has reduced to Millie Brown.  William Shakespeare has rotted out to Hamilton.

Make no mistake, this has been a planned train wreck.  If humans are unable to understand the great works of the past, much less approach or exceed their artistry, then they will be entirely too stupid to challenge the ruling class.  How gratifying it must be for the Master Class to profit from the swine wallowing in the slime, literally immersing cultural icons in feces and urine and celebrating it as transcendent.

Soon, if now already, humanity will be cut off from its heritage, unable to grasp the basics, much less interpret the message.  It does not matter the medium - whether words or paint, stone or music.  Once divorced of history and culture, the masses become nothing more than malleable objects and playthings of the self-appointed gods.

If you have children or grandchildren, it is vital that they receive proper education in the arts - all arts.  They must be taught the grammar and vocabulary of art, no matter what medium.  They should not be allowed to graduate without having written a story, acted in a play, recited a poem, thrown and fired a pot, painted a canvas, and sung a song.  They should know not only the structure of the language, but at least have spoken a few paragraphs of the great masters.

In fact, when was the last time you went to the museum, enjoyed a play, or attended the symphony?  The best teacher is example.

Cui Bono?

If we've said it once, we've said it 100 times: never trust anyone holding public office.  Related to that is our other axiom: the System cannot be reformed from within; it must be dismantled and neutralized.

Since Franklin Roosevelt's first (of four) term, it has been a tradition to give new presidents 100 days to get their act together.  Out of curiosity and tradition, I was willing to give Donald Trump 100 days to show his true colors.  It only took less than 90.

I think it is time to resign to the fact that Trump is just another Neocon warmonger.  Had Hillary been elected, we might have actually had the country up in arms against any military intervention on the scale and premises of the Trump attack on Syria.  Instead, all those folks who fell for his marketing are unwilling to bail on him, since they literally shed sweat, blood and tears to get him elected as a reformer.

Took the man all of a few weeks to dump a steaming pile of cruise missiles on their hopes and dreams.  I don't care how you argue this, killing four people for geopolitical advantage is no better than any other tin-pot dictator on the planet.

So, the entire world has polarized over this event, with the usual suspects lining up in praise of Trump's "decisiveness" on one side (to include Merkel, Abe, Gentiloni, etc.), and the folks who elected Trump to change things on the other.

But of course, the folks who stop by the Far Side want to know our take on things, which is always just a bit different from the usual choices that we are all supposed to make under the Hegelian Dialectic.  I hope I won't disappoint.

The official Far Side take is that the entire thing, from top to bottom, is Political Theater, likely coordinated at the lowest levels (I refuse to acknowledge the slime are higher than the rest of us), and professionally staged to achieve a number of goals, the most important (to them) is selling Trump as a global leader.

First off, the "Chemical Weapons" attack.

All the video I've seen from the site of the "attack" looks and feels, at least to me as a professional film and video guy, like a staged event.  When I saw the video of the "victims" lying in the street, I was immediately reminded of the scene of a New Mexico town in The Andromeda Strain.  The lighting was just too good.   The depth of focus was just too right.  The "bodies" were just a little too arranged.  The bodie

When watching video, I always imagine the camera crew.  Who is taking the pictures and where are they in the scheme of things?  Sarin gas is a highly toxic substance, with just the tiniest amount being enough to kill or severely maim a human being.  Was the camera crew in full environmental suits with respirators?  If so, did they have special camera and sound gear that allowed them to record the scene wearing thick gloves?  And did they have to destroy all their equipment (or at least abandon it on-site) after they had recorded their pictures?

And what about the "doctor" who was supposedly recording from a hospital hallway, offering to sell interviews to the highest bidder rather than caring for patients?  In the background, "white helmets" were hauling "bodies" around without a single piece of protective gear - including gloves.

Nope, I'm not buying the whole "attack" thing.  It reminds me too much of gamed scenarios were locals are hired as extras to play victims for training purposes.  One need only to watch Wag The Dog to see how these things are done.  And don't forget the recent ad in German newspapers seeking folks to play townies for military training games.  In fact, going back a bit further, what about all those "training exercises" under Obama where hundreds of extras were hired to stage protects and civil unrest for "training purposes".  This scenario is well within the range of plausible.

Next up, the "air raid".

By all accounts, Trump unleashed 59 aging Tomahawk cruise missiles in a "surgical" strike on an air base well within sovereign territory for which the US Congress had not issued a declaration of war in retaliation for an "attack" (see above) that did not affect the US nor any of its citizens.  In other words, an unprovoked act of aggression on a sovereign nation.

Of the 59 Tomahawks, less than 40% hit the target, destroying (according to Major General Igor Konashenkov) six broken-down MiG-23s and causing so little damage to the airport that it was up and running hours later supporting anti-ISIS raids.  The Major General speculated that the 59 Tomahawks were part of aging inventory that needed to be blown off so Trump could throw a bone to the Military-Industrial Complex in the form of an order for some fresh toys.

Thus, from the Far Side perspective, the sarin attack was a professionally staged event to provide justification for an air strike that not only blew off some aging inventory, but was nothing more than theater to demonstrate Trump's "leadership and resolve" in international affairs.  He is now being hailed as the true leader of the free world, which apparently is defined as those powers willing to violate international law with unprovoked acts of war against non-aggressor nations.

I would be completely unsurprised if President P. T. Barnum...er, Trump, set the whole thing up to buy himself credibility.  After all, the Russians were warned an hour in advance and had time to clear the air strip of vital personnel and materiel, so there seems to have been some collusion between Trump and Putin on this.

Regardless, the raid supposedly puts the entire question of Russian influence to rest and establishes Trump as the firm, decisive Grand Poobah on the international stage.

Folks can choose either of the two options allowed by the elites: 1) Trump is a great leader, or 2) Trump violated his campaign promises and alienated his support base.

I prefer to see the whole thing, and with good reason, as a professionally staged media event to achieve a number of public relations goals, as well as upgrade some military hardware, while at the same time send the message that the US is back and it ain't taking shit off nobody.

No matter what side you choose, though, the event proves our case that all governments are evil and no system can be reformed from within.  Even if my scenario is correct and no one was hurt and the whole thing was theater, it is the perception of what happened and the crass attempt to manipulate that perception on the part of politicians and media that makes the entire thing evil and rotten to the core.

No one and nothing can be trusted on the geopolitical stage.  It is all perception management, and in the worst case scenario, buying leadership credits with human lives.  Bashir Assad stood to gain nothing from a chemical attack, especially since he was clearly winning against al-Qaeda/ISIS/CIA assets.  The only entities that stood to gain anything here were Trump and the Military-Industrial Complex, making Trump an obvious stooge of the latter and an utter disappointment to anyone who supported him as a change agent.

"All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant, Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms."

- As You Like It, Act !!, Scene VII

Hate The Hate - Illogic 101

Your honor, respected members of the jury, I intend to prove that the defendant committed an illegal act called assault on my client.  I further intend to prove that because the defendant hates plaid Bernuda shorts, he committed a MORE illegal act - what we call a hate crime.

Among the most absurd and idiotic concepts to roll out of Western culture in the past few decades is the concept of "hate crime".  What the West has devolved into is a war of adjectives, where such incompatible ideas as "free speech" and "hate speech" can be held in one's mind simultaneously.

The concept of "hate crime" has two components: feelings and greater wrong.  Think of "hate crime" as similar the to Catholic Church's concepts of venial and mortal sins, some sins are greater than others.

Let's just examine the crime of murder for a moment.  All murders involve the means, motive and opportunity to commit the crime.  These are the three things investigators try to prove in an investigation.

Murder is further divided into degrees (first, second and third) and manslaughter, or crime of passion.  First degree murder requires the existence of mens rea, or the guilty mind.  In other words, a murderer is aware he is committing a crime.  It also requires malice aforethought.  Malice.  Hatred, Anger.

Long established Western law already assumes that a murderer has malice aforethought.  They are committing a crime out of hate or anger, and taking the time to think about it in advance.

So how in the hell can someone commit a hate crime if hate is already part of the equation?  If a murderer kills a black man because he hates blacks, that is a motive.  The hate part is already included in the definition of the crime.

Furthermore, if the punishment for murder is life in prison or death, then how can convicting someone of a hate crime make the punishment even worse?  The whole concept from top to bottom is contradictory, and is nothing more than a social hot-button used to try and convict someone in the media before they receive a trial.

In the case of hate speech, we have even more contradictions.  In this case, it is not unusual to hear someone rail in support of free speech, but then condemn hate speech.  How does a human hold these contradictions in a single brain without exploding?  Either speech is free, or it is not.  There can be NO exceptions for speech which one doesn't like.

Hate speech is also a completely arbitrary thing.  What you consider hateful could be music to my ears.  There is no established criteria for "hate", any more than there are solid legal definitions for "love".  Emotions cannot be defined or categorized.  They are irrational and as such apply differently to different people at different times.

If I allude to William Shakespeare by saying we should kill all the lawyers, have I committed a crime?  I have taken no action and caused no one harm.  I've only expressed an opinion, at the most extreme, and quoted a literary passage at the most benign.  And even if we assume that I could commit a crime through speech, is it worse because I have singled out one group, rather than insulting everyone everywhere?

Perhaps the vast majority of society agrees with me that we should kill all the lawyers.  Have I committed hate speech if the majority agree?  Or is hate speech only reserved for a select few or privileged minorities?

In the extreme case, I could be charged with hate speech against hate crimes for what I've written here.  It sounds absurd now, but the definition is completely arbitrary and is subject to the whims of society.

Here in the Muslim-dominated world, there is something similar.  It is called blasphemy.  It is an arbitrary designation for speech that assumes the accuser can speak for God.  The accuser pretends to know that God is offended by another's speech and can convict and even kill the accused based on this conceit without ever having to place God in the witness stand to find out if he was offended.

The West is far more secular and blasphemy laws went out quite some time ago because they were so absurd and arbitrary.  However, hate crime has taken its place and, like blasphemy laws, is used to persecute people that are hated by the establishment.

And here we come to the crux of the problem.  Hate crimes are not actually crimes, but rather a means of persecution against individuals or parties that are out of favor with the establishment.  Any CONTENT of speech that the establishment fears can be shut down by simply labeling it "hate".  There is no formal definition of criteria, just the emotional appeal to the masses.

Since the masses, on the whole, are quite stupid, they are easy to stir up with trigger phrases like hate crime or hate speech, and the establishment can rest assured that no one will think critically about what is actually being done.

Throughout time, governments and rulers have always come up with some term to punish rivals and thinkers.  Whether it's blasphemy, hate crime, sedition, or any of a number of other terms, most people only pay lip service to free speech and never internalize it enough to see when freedom is being attacked.

Hate crime is indeed a crime, but not in the sense of describing a murder or speech, but in the sense of how it is used to silence criticism in ostensibly free societies.  The definitions are vague for a purpose, so that the finger of accusation can be turned on whatever group or ideas are out of favor with the ruling class.

It is time to recognize hate crime for what it is, a crime of hate against the disfavored members of society.  The entire concept should be eradicated, or at the very least turned back upon the ruling elites, for it is they who are actually committing crimes of hate.

As I've said before, a revolution does not occur from within a system.  That is reform.  A revolution occurs when those outside the system see the criminal behavior of those within and tear down the entire system in favor of something more amenable to actual freedom.

If nothing else, hate crime is only a means to create favored victim classes in society to provide entertainment for the elites - and safety by redirecting and venting unrest.