And The Truth Shall Set You Free

Since the Confederacy has been so horribly maligned in recent events, what with the wholesale destruction of monuments, the defiling of the Confederate flag and the entrenched belief that the Civil War was about slavery, it seemed an apropos time to review real, actual history.

For our foreign readers, one must keep in mind that most Americans are hopelessly ill- or maleducated.  The government schools only allow carefully controlled information into the classroom and more time is spent on wrapping bananas in condoms than on important subjects like history.

Couple the poor state of US education with the wholesale take-over of schools by Progressive left-wing fanatics and you have a potent weapon against the human intellect.  While we can't hold hapless victims responsible for maleducation, we can fault them for not seeking the truth on their own, and worse, for their parents' lack of interest in what their children's heads are being filled with.

The Civil War had nothing to do with slavery.

Let that sink in a bit.  For many people this statement will seem false, even repulsive.  One's emotional reaction, however, does not affect the truth of it.

In the North, Abraham Lincoln was a confirmed racist, who abhorred the very idea of whites and blacks living together as equals, and especially the thought of the races intermarrying.  He rather lent his support to an effort to ship slaves and free blacks back to Africa, where the country of Liberia was founded for the express purpose of receiving the deported individuals.

Slavery did not end in the North after the Civil War.  In fact, slave markets could still be found in New York City, Baltimore and other cities long after the South was crushed.  The Emancipation Proclamation only applied to the Confederacy, and so the Yankees enjoyed their slaves for some time following the hostilities.

The Civil War was, in fact, caused by the Democratic Party.  Big surprise there, since they seem hell-bent on repeating their great achievement again.  That wonderful party of slavery, income taxes and other horrors gave the country institutional slavery, commonly called Dred Scott.  It took its name from a black slave who sued in US courts (not Confederate) for his freedom, only to have the US Supreme Court deny his freedom.  The Court declared that blacks could never be free citizens of the United States (long before the Confederacy).

It should be noted that the president at that time was Franklin Pierce, a Democrat who strongly against the abolition of slavery.  In fact, Pierce is widely credited for causing the Civil War, since that is what Democrats do best - destroy things.

In any event, the northern states kept raising taxes on agricultural goods, which were the specialty of the southern states.  Since representation in Washington, D.C. is based on population, and blacks only counted as 3/5ths of a man at that time (thanks entirely to Democrat laws), the South was sorely underrepresented and was basically far out-voted in Congress.  Thus, the North was able to do pretty much as they pleased, and it pleased them to put most of the financial burden of the federal government on the South.

Furthermore, northern industrialists lobbied for price controls on agricultural products they needed as raw materials.  This placed a further and egregious economic burden on the South.  This led to fist fights in Congress and a lot of very hard feelings amongst the States, with the South rightly claiming the North was enjoying great economic times at the expense of the South.

Ultimately, the South set up a boycott, refusing to send vital raw materials to the northern Robber Barons.  The northern Democrat Yankees naturally couldn't believe anyone would stand up to them, and decided if the South wouldn't sell, they would take by force.

A group of US Navy ships challenged the blockade at Fort Sumter, South Carolina, in a raid to steal shipments of agricultural goods.  Being attacked by US forces led the southern states to secede from the US and form their own union, called the Confederacy.  This in turn led to three years of horrific war in which half a million men died, the US Army committed mind-numbing atrocities, and an entire culture was laid to waste.

Abraham Lincoln, racists and evil tyrant, signed the Emancipation Proclamation ending slavery - only in the South - not because he thought slavery was bad, but he wanted to undermine the southern economy and make it impossible for them to fight.

To put a finer point on it, it should be noted that not one single slave was brought from Africa to either the US or the Caribbean by the Confederacy.  That was done entirely by British and American vessels, and to a lesser extent by Spanish and Portuguese vessels, as well.  It should also be noted that the genocide of the American Indians was carried out entirely by American troops.  Many of the tribes sided with the Confederacy, believing freedom would benefit their causes against the US, as well.

So, as we survey the death and destruction being caused by the Progressive Left and the Democratic Party today, we should remember that it is nothing new.  These same ideologues have behaved much the same throughout the history of the US.  Hate and violence have been their signature for nearly 200 years.

One reason why knowing history is so important is the power it gives us to discern who is telling the truth when it comes to events such as Charlottesville.  Given that the GeezerMedia and the violent protesters are supportive of or supported by the Democratic Party, and given the vile history of that party in the past, we can place a greater burden of proof on them to convince us that "white supremacists" and "neo-Nazis" instigated the violence.  After all, it is the political left in the US which has caused so much grief for so many people for so long.

And no, I don't like the Republicans either.

Defining Dizzy

(Hong Kong) – Houston, we have a problem.

Yes, I have discovered the entire problem with America.  It is a matter of geographic confusion. 

See, all you Americans brought your European orientation with you, which has led to tremendous cognitive dissonance and a desire to bomb everything until it makes sense.  Here are just some of the problems:

Americans live on a continent that was publicized by Christopher Columbus, but was named after Amerigo Vespucci.  Big problem!  See?  First of all, Americans are taught that Columbus “discovered” America, but in fact he never set foot on the mainland – at least not according to his logs.  Second, if Chris “discovered” the continent, why is it named after Amerigo?  Third, how can you “discover” something that already has millions of inhabitants, hosted great civilizations and was noted in maps and various writings at least 1,000 years before?  This is a classic case of a break-away civilization having occult knowledge of something and choosing a particular time and place to announce it, once society had been properly conditioned, of course.s

The next major problem is a profound confusion of where the continent of America is located.  See, Americans call Asia and the Arabian peninsula “Far East” and “Middle East”.  The problem here is that from America, it would be more proper to call it “Near West” and “Far West”.  Think how many problems could be solved just by reorienting the geography a bit.  No wonder Americans are consistently ranked among the populations with the lowest geographical knowledge.  Now, the East Indies become the West Indies, and the West Indies become the American Indies, because they are located in the Caribbean.  Duh!

The next major problem with Americans is that they call themselves “Americans,” while calling everyone else in the hemisphere by their country of origin.  Yes, Americans are Americans, but all other North and South Americans are Canadians, or Mexicans, or Columbians (named after Columbus who never went there), etc.  This leads to a form of mass megalomania where the entire population of America thinks it is the only America, and everyone else is an interloper.  If everyone started calling themselves by their State names, such as Texan, or Floridian, or New Yorker, this would clear up so much mass delusion and misunderstanding.

And this leads to another major problem looming on the horizon: magnetic pole reversal.  It’s inevitable and may happen sooner than later, but what are Americans going to do when it happens?  They are already suffering from a serious case of cognitive dissonance.  Throw in the fact that North is now South, and talk about a bunch of people with severe disorientation!  North America will suddenly become South America, and since Americas are so used to thinking of South America as the “Third World,” and at a lower rung on the evolutionary ladder that they will either have to deny that compassed point South now, or they will acquiesce and finally admit that they are not as suave and “developed” as they thought they were.  This is about the only place on Earth that will have to change its continental moniker.  The only other adjustments will be changing the South China Sea to the North China Sea (thereby saving a lot of sabre rattling) and Australia will have to come up with a new name (Borealia?), because “austral” means South.  Of course, the aurorae Borealis will also become the aurorae Australis.  We’ll let Antarctica off the hook.

Of course, when the poles reverse, we can just leave Middle East and Far East alone, since it will now be true.

Naturally, all this confusion did not spontaneously arise.  It had its genesis in Europe, as most deep confusions do.  See, Europeans call their chunk of land a continent.  Now, any preschooler can look at a map and see that Europe and the Near, Middle and Far East are all one big wad of dirt.  Africa can get away with it, because there is just a tiny bit of land in Sinai connecting it to the other chunk.  This is probably why folks have been fighting over this tiny wasteland for so damn long.  It could also be why they dug a trench from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean, just to emphasize the separation.  The Americas and Antarctica have clearer cases, especially since the Panama Canal carved a neat dividing line between the two in the 1920s.  In fact, that was the whole reason for the canal – to reduce American’s cognitive dissonance about not really being separate from South America.  Central America, well – I think we can all see that it is as much part of North America as Baja California or Florida are.  At least we won’t have to change the name when the poles flip.

A final bit of confusion is the whole First, Second and Third World thing.  You notice that no American ever refers to the Second World.  They all want to be part of the First World.  Sorry, Charlie, Europe took that position and relegated the rest of the world to second and third fiddle.  Americans also like to refer to the “developing” world, as if every other country on Earth wants to look and feel just like America, and is in the process of doing just that.  It makes those poor Americans so confused when they go places that don’t have McDonald’s and Holiday Inn.  They feel like they are caught somewhere between the Second and Third Worlds.

At this point, one can begin to understand why America is wild about Donald Trump.  For one thing, his name sounds like McDonald’s, but primarily, Americans have confused business acumen with statesmanship.  Trump is not Putin.  Putin has studied history and has a solid background in geopolitics and statecraft.  Trump has a solid background in, uh, negotiations and shareholder love.  Those who don’t support Trump have confused every other candidate as a trustworthy individual capable of running a country for any other reason than self-enrichment.

Poor confused Americans.  

Blood Rituals And Other Sports

One of the Big Oil (US flavor) has offices a couple of floors beneath mine.  Because of that, an armed soldier (Indo flavor) is occasionally posted at the entrances to the building when someone feels nervous.  Since the Three Minutes' Hate was this past weekend, maybe someone wanted a hand-holder around.

The folks who work for this Big Oiler are virtual prisoners.  They come over on 6-month and one-year contracts.  They are put up at a plush hotel for the duration.  They may not leave the hotel at any time, except to get into the mini-bus that whisks them off to the office.  If they dare to go it alone in the Big City, they are summarily packed up and shipped home.

For the length of their contracts, they live in a pretty prison.  Sure, they have all the room service and hotel bar they can stand.  Their meal ticket is pretty much bottomless.  The caveat is that the only taste of Indonesia they will get is looking out their windows.

Poor, dumb Americans.  Even their perceptions of Indonesia are skewed.  They only know what they've been told, and when I listen to them, my jaw drops, both in horror and humor.  Everything is a threat, which is news to me, since I've lived here four years and have had zero problems.

Another example:

Guang Xi airport, southern China.  Exit the taxi and no apparent security.  Inside, spot two cops talking to a gaggle of vacationing pentioners.  Go to ticket counter and hand over passport and ticket.  Agent briefly scans the passport for name and processes boarding pass.  Places ticket and pass in the passport and returns them, smiling.  Amble over to immigration.  Agent looks at the name on the ticket and in the passport.  Checks the visa, then stamps.  Never makes eye contact.  Wander through the terminal until boarding time.  Go to the gate, where airline agent checks passport and boarding pass, tears the pass and hands everything back and smiles.  Walk through the waiting area to the door, out onto the tarmac and up the stairs to the plane. 

Not one single metal detector, frisking, X-ray machine, or bomb-sniffing dog in sight.  Quiet and uneventful flight.

How does this compare with your last experience in any US travel hub?  Did you feel like employees of a Big Oil company, or a Chinese citizen?

Building 7

This past weekend, I watched with mouth agape as numerous photos and videos came across the wire of the 'celebrations' in honor of the 10th anniversay of 911.  I couldn't believe it!  The terrorists had won.  What was worse is that the average person looked directly at the terrorists and didn't see them.  In fact, they quietly complied with everything they were told to do by the terrorists.

Ten years ago, the terrorists had long beards, lived in caves, wore robes, and talked of Holy Wars.  Today, they wear uniforms, are clean shaven, bark orders, and everyone calls them 'authorities'.

It was truly amazing.  Cars being searched, people being sexually assaulted.  Concrete barricades everywhere.  Personal liberty and dignity violated at every turn.

There were ceremonies at Ground Zero, where the terrorist leaders made all sorts of high-sounding speeches, but no one mentioned Building 7, Pennsylvania, and only briefly referred to the Pentagon.  None of the terrorists made reference to bombs or missles or missing plane wreckage or miraculous passports or undamaged buildings collapsing.  Just re-enforced the terrorist storyline.

And people were eating it up.  Bone-headed meat sacks with police uniforms were spouting off about how terrorists are everywhere and they're gonna git 'em!  I suppose they hadn't looked in the mirror for those terrorists, yet.

I did notice now that the 'official' definition of a terrorist includes white, middle-class Americans who say words like, "constitution" and "liberty", and we are required to call DHS immediately if they should say something like "Ron Paul".

It was like watching a giant pep rally.  The coaches got up to make a few tearful speeches about how this season, it's gonna be better.  Everyone huddled and said a prayer to some god that supports this kind of activity.  They all gave a big HOO-rah! and suited up and trotted out on the field.  In the stands, the people made signs of 'Support Our Troops' and 'Gig 'em!' while cheering on the slaughter.

No mention of the drones that blew two families to pieces as they huddled in the bedroom praying for the nightmare to end.  Meanwhile, the operator of the drone in a cave in Colorado went home to his family and enjoyed a weekend in front of the TeeVee.

It's a sickness.  Watching all these people chant and dance and rally in support of terrorists, who are telling everyone that the real terrorists are poor dirt farmers in a land far away who have no interest whatsoever outside of locusts eating their meager home garden.

The important part is that folks never have a chance to see the real thing.  They are kept in shiny hotels and fed endless amounts of bullshit, while being shuttled around surrounded by armed guards, all the while being tolkd they are free.  The one thing that can't possibly be allowed is for any truth to interrupt our regularly scheduled broadcast.

If folks were allowed to empathize with the people they are blowing to bits in the name of justice, they might wake up and realize what they've done.  And that would be bad for business.

The terrorists require ritual sacrifice for their religion.  They need blood and terror for their majick to work.  The gods can only be appeased by the smell of burning flesh and the blood of innocent lives.  And it seems to work, at least for a time.

The problem is that it always ends badly.  Once a civilization has reached the point of blood sacrifice, it is on the verge of collapse.  The carnage and waste is a dead-end and within a certain amount of time, the civilization implodes from its complete lack of moral or civil rules.

What I witnessed over the weekend was much like the final scenes from Mel Gibson's Apocalypto.  The high priests sniggers while carving the hearts out of their victims and rolling the bodies down the blood-soaked steps of the pyramid, while the people chant and enter a kind of hypnotic frenzy, not noticing that the world around them was about to change forever.

It always end badly.

In order to work, hypnotism requires the subject to voluntarily give himself over.  Therefore, those who support the carnage and believe the terrorists have allowed themselves to be duped.  The only hope is that the subject does have the power to snap themselves out of it.  Whether they have the will is another question.

I remember 911 vividly.  At the end of that long day, I remarked to a colleague that the whole day seemed surreal, like walking in a dream.  Fortunately, I am not prone to being hypnotized, but I could certainly feel the effects of the attempt.

To be effective, the subject must be distracted and the mind put into a state of confusion, not sure where to focus.  Then the hypnotist's suggestions can reach a deeper level of the brain, beyond the normal filters or the temporal lobes.

To wake someone from a trance requires and shock of some kind to refocus the brain.  Questioning and studying the truth of 911 is just such a shock.  Learning that it's all a lie and that you have been in a stupor for ten years will shock you out of it.

What you do after that is the Big Question.

I've seen it over and over again with Americans.  They tend to lock themselves into boxes so they don't have to deal with reality.  America's biggest brand names built global reputations on providing repeatable experiences with no surprises: Holiday Inn, McDonald's, etc.  When Americans travel, they go in groups, stay in American hotels, eat American food [sic] and stay in American-friendly places.  They never touch or taste anything outside their cultural shells.

Just like the Big Oil employees who'll work for a year in Indonesia and return, having only the most cursory experience with another land and people.

Until that mentality is broken down, America will never wake up.

The Family That Prays Together...

American families and friends are joining forces to survive the new depression.

It's about damn time! Having lived in the 'third world' for close to three years now, I for one celebrate this new direction in American cultural dynamics. Frankly, the primary difference between 'advanced' nations and 'developing' countries is the destruction of families. The only major advance that is so-called 'first' and 'second' world offers is the complete ruin of families, and the subsequent reliance on Big Brother for the daily bread and butter. The unintended (or was it intended) consequence of FDR's Social Security and LBJ's Great Society was the undermining of the family unit and the of the father as ultimate authority.

Here in Indonesia, there are low taxes, strong families and a complete reliance on self for survival. The result is a weak government, cheap health care and expanded economic opportunities. In other words, America could stand to learn from the 'developing' world.

In Indonesia, there is no MediCare or MediCaid, no Social Security, no welfare or subsidized housing, no food stamps, and a nearly 100% cash society. As a result, taxes are low, government regulation and control is virtually non-existant and families are strong and cohesive. The father is the ultimate authority and his value to society is judged by the success of his family. The family helps its own, with multiple generations living in a single or group of houses. All members of the family are expected to contribute to the overall needs of the family, and even children who move away to other locations for work send home monthly stipends. The family contributes to educating the children and by pooling resources, can hope to get some or all through collage so that they can improve their income and thus contribute greater amounts to the family wealth.

Health care is cheap and there are multiple alternatives. One can get therapeutic massage, two hours for less than $5. One can choose traditional hearbalists, acupuncture, western-style pill-popping, and any of a number of other options, for low cost and easy access. Doctors build up their practices because they are effective, not because they have a staff good at milking the government teat, and they compete with the traditional herbalists and reflexologists. A doctor visit runs about $18, and that is not a co-pay, that is the out-of-pocket cash price. If the individual requires surgery or long-term care, the family shares the burden, not the society. All decisions regarding a member's care are kept within the family and not delegated to some anonymous review board or (God forbid) a government agency.

Due to a virtual lack of government regulation and no army of tax-paid nincompoops with guns running around enforcing laws willy-nilly, the family can freely pursue many avenues to generate income. If the house has a large forecourt and there is a good cook in the family, they can open a small restaurant in front. No licenses, permits or jack-booted thugs demanding a cut. The only regulation is the market. If the food is good, the portions fair and the price reasonable, the customers come. If it gets a reputation for making people sick, they stop coming. Very simple and effective and uses no tax money whatsoever. Grandma can take in laundry. Mom can open a small store. Dad can operate a motorcycle repair. If you are good at something, you open your own business; no DBA, no permits, no bullshit. Dad is expected to have the job outside to bring in the paycheck, but Mom can operate any number of businesses out of the house while watching the kids and there's no need to day-care.

For those who go off in search of work, there are rooms for rent, called kost, that run about $40 a month, and a bowl of meatball soup costs around 50 cents. If you are fairly successful, you can rent a house for less than $2,000 per year, your monthly electric bill for high usage runs about $30, and you can eat pretty darned good for far less than $100 per month. If things are going really well, you can buy a house in many areas for around $25,000 for three bedrooms, and you can run businesses out of the house to make it pay for itself without burdensome government interference. You can buy a motorcycle, no frills, for $1,000,and you can help pay for it by charging folks for short rides (called ojek), or you can use the public transportation (most of which is privately owned) for less than a dollar a day to go pretty much anywhere in the city. You can completely gut the house and remodel it without a single permit or license, if you want.

The long-term result is that people rely on themselves for their own well-being. Taxes are low because there are no services from government, no regulations to enforce and people generally never consider looking to government for help of any kind. In fact, there is no equivalent expression in Indonesian for, "There oughta be a law." Government agents don't carry guns and most people simply ignore them. What a great system!

What's the downside? You are responsible for your own mistakes. Success or failure is entirely your own. The well-being of the family requires strong leadership from the father and he is given more-or-less free rein to operate. The family is self-regulating. If there is an abusive member, the family deals with it. Problems are addressed inside the family and the government leaches are not allowed into the circle.

The whole point here, is that once a society turns to some 'authority' to police itself and to provide 'security' for it, then the natural result is rising taxes, lower efficiency, intrusive regulation, and destruction of the social and cultural core: the family. Once the family is destroyed, civil society breaks down, gangs roam freely and the moral and ethical fabric unravels. When that happens, then corporations become predatory, greed becomes the norm and government becomes authoritarian, if not outright totalitarian. One need look no further than America at this moment to see the results. Beginning with FDR and culminating with Obama, the country has unwound itself, with the concomitant destruction of society and economy. Once public servants became 'authorities,' then people stopped thinking for themselves. Once government became the provider of 'social welfare,' society stopped caring for itself. Once society looked to 'law' for moral direction, it stopped worrying about right or wrong. To support the outcome, it was necessary to tax the individual into poverty and borrow against posterity in order to maintain the facade, while the interior living space degraded into unlivable conditions.

How can America call itself advanced when it has legislated and mandated that every individual remain a child for life? Unable to mature into adults, enforced by the threat of death, the country has devolved into chaos and poverty, not just for its current inhabitants, but for generations to come. What would be if America had chosen to build a Great Society without the help of government? What if it had chosen to strengthen families and clear the path for individual success? What if?

Indonesia is by no means perfect, but if it stays on its current path and rejects an increased role for government in the daily life of the family, it may become a greater society than even America ever dreamed. It will certainly be mentally and spiritually healthier than the rotted out soul that is America today.

There are many lessons to be learned from the 'third world.'