Let Woke Dogs Lie

All political power, no matter who or what exercises it, is based on lies.  The most fundamental of those lies is conning people into thinking one person or group has more power than anyone else.  This is the nature of government.

Underlying all power structures is fear, and this is the goal of all lies.  Convince someone to be afraid of something, then convince them you have a way to protect them, and they will transfer their personal power to you (vote) in order to be delivered from the fear.

Essentially, the nature of power is to create a bogyman - a non-existant threat - to initiate fear, then offer a proprietary solution to the fear, but that solution has a price that inevitably creates more fear.  However, since the masses are choosing the proffered solution, those seeking power cannot be blamed, since the masses have chosen.

Unless, of course, they realize that the original boogyman was itself a lie.

I think of this as the Boots and Coots method and governance.  If you are not familiar with Boots and Coots, then you've never worked in the oil patch (don't tell Mom, she thinks I'm a piano player in a whorehouse).

Boots and Coots is famous for their rather contra-intuitive solution to oil well fires.  They place a "chimney" around the burning well, then set off explosives inside that snuff out the fire by consuming all the oxygen within.  Only Texans would think of blowing up fires.

Anyway, the analogy here is that the presumed leaders create a fearful problem that only they have the solution to fix, but the solution turns out to be worse than the initial problem, and it requires even more draconian solutions in a never-ending cycle.  Meanwhile, each iteration ratchets up the fear levels among the masses, who keep transferring more power to buy safety, based solely on the perception that the group with power was able to solve the previous crisis.

It is essential that the masses never realize the group with power were the creators of the bogeyman, or that the proffered solutions are designed to create more fear and never actually solve anything.  To maintain these illusions requires an ever expanding circle of lies to cover up the tracks of the previous deception.

Eventually, the lies get so outrageous that the masses start to wake up from their dream-state and question what the hell is going on around here.  At this point, the governing power mongers must now turn to utter tyranny to force the masses to believe the lies, or face severe sanctions, which in turn causes more of the masses to wake up.

It's a vicious cycle and the outcome is invariably war and collapse - war because the level of force required to force the masses to believe the lies, and collapse because the entire system is founded on a lie.

The ultimate issue is that when the masses awaken, they are angry and vengeful.  Notice here that I use the present participle gerund "awakening," rather than the simple past "woke".  The gerund implies an ongoing process of discovery that leads to understanding.  The simple past aspect implies a one-time event that is complete and needs no further action.  They are wildly different in their incarnations and outcomes, and highlight the importance of language and grammar in critical thinking processes.

In our current situation, one who is awakening is seeking answers and relationships to fully understand what has been done, and what is being done to them.  One who is woke has already decided they know the answer, and in the extant situation, that answer has been provided to them by the very group that seeks to control them.

The woke individual is convinced that the answer is rectifying the treatment of individuals based on their demographic and superficial characteristics.  It goes something like this: the root of all evil is slavery, and only those with dark skin have ever been slaves, therefore elevating those with dark skin to positions of power will solve the problem.

The fallacy here is manifold.  First, slavery has been visited on all races, creeds and cultures at some point or another.  There is no one group who can claim special status in this regard.  The second problem is promoting some group into the existing power structure simply makes them accessory to the lies, rather than solving any problem.  In other words, it only perpetuates the bogeyman lie, while at the same time placing another layer of blame between the perpetrators and the angry, vengeful masses.

The perceptive reader will see where this is going.  By holding up some group as sacrosanct, the power mongers are in fact creating a strawman to hide the bogeyman, and thus deflect blame and retribution, or to use their terms, turning the awakening into the woke.

Some might say this is the Hegelian Dialectic, but that over-simplifies the subtlety and cunning at work here.  The Dialectic is fairly straightforward and easy to discern, when you know what to look for.  The deception we are suffering from is far more insidious and destructive, and invidious.

Invidious because the power mongers want our wrath and retribution for two specific reasons.  One, they can blame the destruction on the masses, offer a solution, and the entire process starts again with a new bogeyman and fresh set of lies (see the January 6th "insurrection").   Two, they have superior fire-power and having a bogeyman creates the predicate to use it as a solution (witness the pillar of lies used to create this bogeyman).  The bogeyman also creates a false target that deflects attacks as surely as any shield.

This in turn creates fear, and fear leads to surrender of power, and surrender leads to more tyranny and lies.

It's a vicious cycle, one that has repeated for millennia.

An excellent analogy is the unscrupulous mechanic.  You bring your car to him with some problem.  He tinkers and taps his way around the engine, usually while you are in air-conditioned comfort sipping your "free" coffee.  He tells you it will be so much to fix the problem, and you agree, not having taken the time to learn auto mechanics.  A few hours later, you happily drive off, not knowing that the mechanic fixed the easy problem, but created another that will bring you back in a few weeks.  Not only were you fleeced on the initial visit, but you will surely be fleeced again in the near future.

The solution to our current manufactured fear is not diversity, intersectionalism, reparations, or wokeness.  It is taking the time to truly peel away the layers of lies and find the original bogeyman that created the situation - the Primordial Lie, if you will.

The Primordial Lie is never spoken of or acknowledged by the power mongers and their minions.  It is far older than the current laundry list of issues put before us.  It is so ingrained into our social and cultural trappings that most people assume it is tautological.  It is the very energy source on which the matrix operates.  When the awakened individual finds it, they realize both how simple and how devious it is.

Ending the cycle is amazingly easy.  Don't be afraid, or in the immortal words of Douglas Adams, "Don't panic!"

We must realize that the object of our fear, the bogeyman, is manufactured to create fear.  We must also realize that we have been trained (schooled) to hand over our personal power to "authorities" and "experts," who in reality have no more clue how to solve anything than we do, but are adept at creating the conditions that cause us to react in a way that is beneficial to them.  It's a simple dominance game that bypasses our rational faculties and feeds on our instincts.

Basic awareness of the motive is the most powerful weapon we have.  Just knowing what is being done leads to how it's being done.  At that point, the spell is broken and the rest is the hard part.

Once the spell is broken, we must think for ourselves and be responsible for our own safety.  That is the part for which our society is built to subvert.  Games, sports, movies and the rest are nothing more than glittering distractions to prevent us from thinking.

And that is THEIR greatest fear..

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How about tossing a coin in our hat?

..
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And Children Of All Ages!

Folks, I got to tell you, the US Presidential election has taken a turn for the truly hysterical.

Donald Trump has toned down and found a new hair-doo, while Hillary Clinton...well, pick a catastrophe - health, pay-for-play, email, &c and so forth.  Even the more reliable polls show the third-parties (Libertarians, Greens) are outstripping Clinton, while Trump looks to be headed to a landslide.

Some people may dismiss an ABCNews online poll, but look at it this way - all those "official" polls supposedly use landline telephones to reach respondents.  How many people do you know who still have landlines?  Most folks have gone completely to cell phones and those aren't listed in any "phone book" that I know of.  Either this means that they are outright lying (not impossible), or they have a very non-representative sample of likely voters.

And I hand it to the Libertarians - ABCNews asked, "Who are you voting for?"  The Libertarians quickly corrected the grammar to read, "For whom are you voting?"  Snopes was quick to dismiss the poll, but I trust Snopes about as much as I trust a politician.  For the record, I voted for Libertarian Gary Johnson...three times from different devices.

It should be noted that the ABCNews poll has been scrubbed.  Though I have found a number of references, including a link in one of my previous articles, the actual link goes nowhere, and all Google results refer to third-party sites with screen shots of the results.

More to the point, most people have portable numbers now, so a nutcase living in Jakarta for the past nine years could have a Houston, Texas number, watch zero TeeVee and not really care who wins, since we all lose.  So how can the pollsters be sure of any of their metrics, such as location, length of residency and likelihood of voting.

Bottom line is I am more likely to trust an online poll at a MSM website that shows Trump galloping over everyone else, than I am a telephone poll by Zogby any day.  Besides, how many times in your life have you ever been randomly polled by anyone?  Your friends and family?  Their friends and family?  In fact, has anyone you've ever know been randomly polled by any organization for any reason?  Makes you wonder where the results are coming from.

There's also the matter of rally attendance, not to mention holding rallies.

Clinton's schedule looks like someone who either thinks she will win due to good rigging, or has given up due to health/reality.

Hard to know what Trump is doing.  After half an hour proving I'm not a robot, his site only gave me August, so no apple-to-apple here.

If you go by butts in seats, Trump looks to be riding a massive wave of support.  Videos that I have seen of various events slways show close-ups of Clinton and never pull out wide enough to see the crowd, while Trump videos make a point to show the full houses.

As for the upcoming "debates" (the definition of debate in US politics is rather fluid), it will be interesting to see IF they actually take place.  The "health" theorists say that Clinton will find some way out of them.  It will also be fun to see how Trump handles them, after all, it was his antics in the primary "debates" that propelled him to the nomination.

The Big Question is how honest and fair the election will be.  Clinton, right or wrong, has a lingering reputation for fixing votes. Certainly, the ability and likelihood of computer voting terminal hacking has been proven many times, and there is no doubt that digital data can easily be manipulated with no physical, paper-based backup.  If the ABCNews poll has any basis in reality, then any attempt to rig the election will be readily apparent and could lead to some rather nasty backlash.

Regardless of the outcome, the election has at least been entertaining.  Given that the campaigns started over a year ago, and the conventions were held a month early due to the Olympics (that no one watched), people are just burned out.  The world is scratching its collective head wondering if the US has finally gone round the bend with these year-and-a-half circuses for a job that pays $400,000/year.  Sure, it's a lot of money, but how does one justify sending billions of dollars and vast amounts of resources to receive $1,200,000 for a single term.  Both major candidates probably earn that a month through their businesses and (ahem) charitable foundations.

And speaking of charitable foundations, Clinton is catching a world of hurt on that issue.  What no one seems to mention is that these "charitable foundations" are all over the place.  Most US politicians have one, and movie stars too.  They are a means to receive bribes while looking all warm and fuzzy at the same time.  The foundations are basically the way First and Second World politicians hide the corruption that Third World politicians always get caught receiving.

The other means of doing this is for politicians to write books and some big donor step up to buy all the copies.  Same result, but looks oh so squeaky clean and intellectual-like (see Dreams of My Father, which no one seems to ever have read).

The most interesting bit of this three-ring circus is the Trumpster.  Back in the day, we called Ronald Reagan the "teflon" president, since no scandal seemed to stick to him.  With Trump, it's an even more amazing phenomenon.  Whatever scandal is thrown at him, it not only does not stick, but flies back in the face of the one casting it.  Too bad this effect can't be patented and sold to all of us.  Think how much self-esteem could be saved!

As entertaining as this has all been, it's becoming something akin to Nightmare on Elm Street sequels...can we just get this over with?

No matter what the outcome, there will be masses of unhappy people wanting recounts.  In fact, we've probably got another year or so of reviewing the election results to come.  And the worst part of it all is that just as everyone finally gets used to whoever gets elected, the process will start again and old wounds will be opened.  Hell, Obama will finally go away in January, and we are still hearing about the birther mess.  Sorry folks, have to wait for the deathbed confession to put that one to rest...unless the Trumpster is elected.

One thing is quite clear, at this point.  The Clinton campaign, her "foundation" and anyone connected with the Democratic Party should stop sending email of any kind to anyone.  It's starting to look like a hoe-down, what with all the folks shooting themselves in the foot.  Apparently, all those "progressive" types haven't caught up with the 21st century, in terms of cyber security.

Just for kicks, the two biggies should jumble their slogans: Make Her Great Again, and I'm With America.  Oddly fitting, doncha think?

Bild-A-Circus

Bilderberg Hotel - Oosterbeek, NL

Yes, folks!  It's time once again for that annual BS festival called the Bilderbergers.  This year, it's bigger and better and retooled for mass consumption, and coming to you live from the center ring, otherwise known as the US of A for the first time ever!

At this point, a lot of folks (newly awakened) are just discovering the Bilderbergs.  This group of degenerate slime have been meeting since the end of WWII in low profile annual circle-jerks with little or no consequence to the average man on the street.

I can hear a good number of people taking issue with that statement, but in all honesty, the only power they really have over us real people is what we give them by building up all this hype over the past couple of decades.  In fact, they are very easy to ignore, and outside of bankster cabals, have little effect on the everyday lives of us unwashed masses.

Few people take the time to learn who the Bilderbergs are.  If they did, they would realize the shocking truth, and at the same time, that they are virtually powerless if we take it away from them.  They are able to sway some institutions at certain levels, but for the most part they are just a bunch of old farts throwing money around and are not the Masters of the Universe that folks like Alex Jones would have us believe.

At the end of WWII, the Nazis had amassed vast amounts of cash and gold and priceless art/trinkets from around the world.  Most of it has never been reclaimed and officially is lost to history.  As researchers like Peter Lavenda and Joseph Farrell have painstakingly documented, most of the top Nazis escaped Germany, and justice, using the 'rat lines' to places like Argentina.  They took their loot and their toys with them and set up vast settlements in South America, and quite likely other places.

Prince Bernhardt - Nazi Big Wig

Lavenda's latest book, "Rat Line," carefully documents the entire process through safe-houses in Italy, Spain and Argentina.  Farrell picks up the trail and traces the evacuation of technology and the establishment of covert networks spanning the US, USSR and South America.  Both men show how the vast Nazi loot funded and hid this whole operation.

And that's where the Bilderbergs come in.

All that loot was laundered through US and UK banks, who were all too eager to have the huge infusion of cash and gold to use for their own nefarious purposes.  A group was established, under the direction of Prince Bernhardt of the Netherlands, to oversee the administration of the loot and direct its deployment.  This group first met at a small, unassuming hotel in a Dutch backwater town.  The name of the hotel was the Bilderberg.

This group met annually, not to decide the fate of the world, but to discuss their investments and where they would place their financial focus for the year to come.  For decades, it was a fairly quiet affair.  They would meet in swank hotels for several days of wine, fine dining and whoring.  They would invite people of interest to them to present investment options, as well as interview politicians to see which they would fund, based on whether Bilderberg interests and political agendas matched.

This is little different from any corporate retreat for the upper echelons.  Its the standard blow-out in Vegas where a little business gets done around a central bacchanal of gross proportions.  The Bilderbergs are little different in this regard to dozens of similar groups all over the globe who meet annually to plan strategy, investments and assert influence that favors their goals and ambitions.

The part that is scandalous, and the part that NO ONE ever talks about, is who these people are.  No one mentions that they are Nazis, or at least their heirs, and that they represent billions (if not trillions at this point) of dollar in ill-gotten loot that has been used for decades to further the ways and means of the Nazi Party.

It has been the unspoken secret of the survival of the Nazi Party that is the true problem with these people.  Those who have known about this have been silenced by greed.  They line up annually to beg for scraps of Nazi loot to push their own agendas, and most likely even those folks are ignorant of who and what they are playing with.

At the end of WWII, the US and USSR were so desperate to get shares of Nazi technology and brain-power that they became willing dupes in the cover-up of Nazi Party survival past the collapse of the Third Reich.  The US received enriched uranium and triggers for A-bombs, along with a high-level group of rocket schientists, engineers and research materials.

At the same time, Prince Bernhardt and his gang bought off the corporate and bankster boards by moving great piles of cash into US vaults.  Along with the blessing of the Vatican Bank, this effectively shut up anyone who might have an idea to blow open the doors on this secret.  It assured that everyone's hands were dirty, so no one would rat out anyone else.  Honor amount thieves, you might say.

This wad of Nazi loot went on to fund the rat lines, build up safe havens, launched the economic post-war boom in the US, and funded an Anglo-American empire.

Trouble is, like all bills, the time to pay up always comes.  A strong case can be made that the current economic mess is Nazi chits being called in.  As Farrell has pointed out, the US bank bailouts were very mysterious, in that there was so much haste and closed door congressional meetings, and the Federal Reserve insisted that a trillion dollars be handed over without question, oversight or audit.  Farrell speculates that this could have been the Nazis making a sizable withdrawl to do whatever it is that Nazis do with that kind of money.

Certainly, after three generations, a lot of the Nazi technology could very well be ready for mass deployment, including things like off-planet colonization, next-level development and any number of other things, for which a trillion or so dollars would come in handy.  And certainly, if those folks wanted to pull that much money out, all they would have to do is threaten to expose all the dirty laundry and that would put the fear of God in any bankster/politician, and even send a chill down the halls of the Vatican.  And notice all three of those groups have been embroiled in scandal, leaks and financial shenanigans for the past five years, since this all began.  Could that be Nazis rocking the boats to keep them in line?

So now the Bildergergs have gone mainstream.  It used to be they met quietly in sleepy Alpine retreats, but in recent years the media spotlight has been forced on them.  My bet is that the circus in Virginia is little more than a diversion, while the real business is being done somewhere in the Swiss mountains.  I laugh when I see all the speculation about the number of unknown faces seen going in and out of the Virginia circus.  Hell, they are nothing more than footmen dressed in Armani suits with sunglasses being paid to be seen.  Nothing more, nothing less.

So are the Bilderbergers the Masters of the Universe?  No.  They are just one of several equally powerful groups, all with piles of dirty laundry and global agendas.  All of them have one thing in common, their power is only over governments and corporations, not us real folks.  We are made to feel powerless in the face of these mafias, but really we are far more powerful than we give ourselves credit for.  All we have to do is quit playing their games and they will wither and die in months, if not weeks.

P. T. Barnum - 'A sucker born every minute'

Stop buying things from mega-corps.  Stop voting.  Stop putting your money in banks.  Stop paying taxes.  It's all a charade and none of it has real force on real people.  The only reason we think it does is because we buy into it.  Furthermore, we think this system can be repaired.  Well, guess what...?  It ain't broken.

In fact, the system runs exactly as it is supposed to, transferring your wealth and labor into the pockets of fat, decrepit old geezers with no souls and no consciences.  The system works (for them) because we real people buy into it every day, living beyond our means, using their credit, using their gee-gaws, hoping one day a savior will come to fix everything, when in fact we ARE the saviors.

So, when you hear about Bilderbergers, or the Club of Rome, or the Illuminati, et al, ad nauseum, just remember that their power is all illusion.  They appear glitzy and swank because they are dressed in sequinned leotards and have spotlights cast upon them.  It is nothing more than show business, making purses out of pigs' ears (or PIIGS?).  If you pull the curtain back just a crack, the illusion is gone.  If you change your perspective just an inch, the magician's underwear starts showing.

The only reason they keep winning is we keep buying tickets.  If you put on a show and no one comes, guess what?  You go bust.

Stop buying tickets!

In The Blink Of A Pixel

Be sure to check in this weekend for what should be an interesting update on acupuncture as treatment for multiple sclerosis.


I can think of many reasons to avoid TeeVee like the plague.

Not only does it destroy the lives and minds of those who sit in front of it, it positively consumes the souls of those behind it.  Fame is a powerful drug and people will do anything for it.  The result is hollow people.  They are literally devoid of identity, empty shells filled only with the attention and adulation of others.

I have spent my life in mass media, first as a child model and political prop, later in the theatrical arts both on and off stage, and finally working in film and TeeVee.  I have seen how it eats people, and there, but for the grace of God, go I.

I spent some time working in Hollywood, watching people literally selling their souls for fame.  I was drawn down into a life of cocaine for breakfast and barbs to sleep.  When i wasn't working, I was partying, because that's what people do there.  I have met some of the glitteratti, and the experience scared me.  I woke up one day wondering what the hell I was doing, and the next morning I was hitch-hiking back to Houston.

During that time, I worked on about 27 films, including two of my own.  Yes, you've heard of them, kind of.  The concepts were stolen outright by major networks and I never received a dime.

I was working in evening news for a major network affiliate.  I was an editor and cameraman.  I would often receive assignments where I was told what angle the management wanted on the story, even before I got there to start shooting it.

I was sent to South Africa one time by a National network as a stringer (freelance cameraman).  I was supposed to gather footage of race riots.  In ten days, I never heard of one, much less saw one.  We did get a call one afternoon because some folks were yelling and throwing rocks at each other..  When we arrived, it turned out to be two black families fighting over a chicken, throwing sticks and rocks at each other across the street.  I rolled on it anyway.  Two days later, my footage was shown on National TeeVee as scenes of racial unrest in Transvaal.  I quit and never looked back.

I've done corporate and industrial media, toured with rock bands and even did a short stint with the circus.  Most of the memories are quite sad, really.  I met a lot of empty people making empty product for empty minds.  I created very effective marketing pieces for things I didn't believe in, and in some cases, actually was repulsed by.  I did my job, none-the-less.  I created hours of content for nationally syndicated shows, most of it utter bullshit.

Many of the people behind your TeeVee are really vacuous, vacant meat bags.  They have no ideas or sense of reality.  Everything they know is fake and fleeting.  They live for one thing, your attention.  And they are perfect tools for those who would eat your soul.

The people who control them, and us, are never seen or heard.  They are invisible decision-makers who know exactly what they are doing to us.  They are fully conscious and aware of the power they wield, and they know what they want from us: complete and total dependence.

One of the best films of all time, not just for its artistry and innovation, is Orson Welles' "Citizen Kane."  There is a lot of truth in it.  Though Welles swore up and down that it wasn't about Bill Hearst, it quite plainly is, as well as being autobiographical about its creator.  It is deeply critical of media, while at the same time being one of the masterpieces of it.  The decent of the main character into cynicism and pure contempt for the people who consumed the product, is not only a performance by a genius of the medium, but one of the most honest portrayals of the people behind the glitz.

The people behind the scenes despise us.  They see us as rubes to be taken for all we have.  They loathe us because they can dangle any amount of rubbish in front of us, and we make them filthy rich buying it up.  We just can't get enough.

They literally can make us do anything they want.

I have tried in various ways for years to make mass media a required subject in school.  There is nothing that affects more than media, and nothing we understand less.  Of course, with the state of education any more, we are lucky to know anything at all.

The average person really has no idea what they unleash into their homes and their minds when they turn on the TeeVee.  It is an art and a science, but it is also the highest form of magick.  It is literally true that we fall under a spell the minute we push the button.  I guarantee the one thing that would change the world is to turn off the TeeVee.

I also guarantee that turning off the TeeVee is probably the least likely thing that will happen in our lifetimes.

Admit it...we're hooked.
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In one of those weird little Universe jokes, Peter Fonda tells his grandkids to roll up their sleeves against Obama (we all know that's what 'bear arms' means, right?), and Dr. Paul Craig Robers comes out and says revolution is the only way out.  Now, Fonda's dad, the inestimable Henry Fonda starred in a great WWII flick called, "Mr. Roberts."  Coincidence?  We report.  You decide...

The Game's A Foot

With all that is happening in the world at this moment, The Jakarta Post has covered its entire front page with reports on Indonesia's loss in the Suzuki Cup finals. Get this, Inodnesia wan the game 2-1 against Malaysia, but lost the trphy because the score wasn't high enough. Go figure. Of course, there is a deep rivalry between Malaysia and Indonesia that occasionally simmers over into outright blows, but I hardly see where a game rates full front page coverage.

Our Korean neighbors are threatening to blow each other up. Pakistan, Afganistan and Iraq are embroiled in war. Israel continues to terrorize it neighbors. Europe and America teeter on the verge of economic collapse. China and Russia are snuggling up to end dollar hegimony. And the only thing that rates as news today is a game.

Sorry, but I just don't get it.

I have tried my whole life to understand this whole pro-sports thing. What I inevitably come to believe is that the whole damn thing is a colossal waste of time, money and resources: massive stadia, black holes of electricity, huge salaries for non-productive people, transportaion to ship teams and their staff all over the globe, even specialties in sports medicine. And all of this why? To draw your eyeballs to some advertising.

It's obscene, really.

Now, I will admit a certain affinity for horse and car racing. There are multiple variables pitting man against himself and against his steed/machine, as well as against other teams. I like the sheer complexity of it. The odds against any one competitor winning are pretty exciting.

But the idea of two teams of more or less equal footing going head-to-head just doesn't rise to the level of real sport, to my mind (all previous soccer puns intended). It's just like American politics. It doesn't matter who wins the game, everyone loses.

Yesterday, Jakarta, a city of roughly 12 million people, came to a halt. In Senayan, traffic was in gridlock as 80,000 people tried to get into the stadium. In my neighborhood, kids went around doing a lion dance and collecting money to pay for a large screen projector in the park across from my house so the entire neighborhood could gather for the game. By start time, the streets were dead and the play-by-play could be heard echoing all across the area interspersed with cheers and groans. Normally, it takes a natual disaster to achieve the same result.

All across the city, people gathered at the warung (small shops and restaurants) to watch the event. As my lady and I trundled to a local hotel by bajaj to meet some friends, I hardly missed a word of the call, as TVs blared out every five meters. The streets were dead in a city that has legendary traffic problems, day and night. The driver could hardly wait to drop us and return to the game. The hotel where we met was apparently full with well-heeled Indonesians who has come in to attend the event. There was even talk of riots should Indonesia win the Cup.

In short, nearly every man, woman and child has their self-image, national pride and hopes tied up in -- a game. A the really absurd part is that Indonesia won the game, but lost the Cup because of some occult, alchemical formula that uses advanced linear physics and quaternion geometry to determine the winner.

Go figure.

I son't suppose anyone thought about how many people could be clothed, housed and fed for what was spent on the Suzuki Cup, or the Super Bowl for that matter, or the World Series, or Formula One, or any other major sporting event you care to pick. The important thing is that absolutely nothing was created from all this effort and expense. It was literally a complete waste of time and effort. It achieved nothing. It produced nothing. It changed nothing.

Yet, the banner headline in The Jakarta Post reads, "Malaysia Win Makes History." Oh really? So absolutely nothing changed the direction of global human history?

The original Olympics I can understand. Here men demonstrated their prowess at skills that were vital in warfare: jumping, running, throwing spears and rocks. But I fail to see the relevance of those things today, since modern warfare simply involves dropping massive amounts of incendiary devices on non-combatant populations. Ostensibly, the modern Olympics were to foster world peace and understanding, but if that's the case, they have failed miserably. Surely, there must be some value to dressing teen-age girls in skimpy outfits, covering them with talc and making them contort themselves on global TV.

I can see the value of high school athletics. The boys are dripping with hormones and need some sort of outlet that at least purports to have some benefit to health and diverts them from more nefarious pursuits. However, by college age, they should have learned some amount of self-control and be able to pursue more productive, if not intellectual causes.

Most of what I have seen is that sports are simply a vehicle for overweight, beer-guzzling, middle-aged losers to invest their low self-images in their avatars so that they can derive some amount of self-importance by doing nothing more than vegetating on the couch.

Certainly, Nero knew the value of 'bread and circuses.' By keeping the citizenry distracted with meaningless eye-candy, they wouldn't interfere with the affairs of state, which were to rob and plunder every individual that could be physically located somewhere. In the same way a baby can be entertained for hours by a mobile or twinkling lights, most adults can be derailed by spectacle and pagentry. It's the most valuable tool of the magician, to distract an audience in one direction, while the deception occurs in the other. As any deceiver will tell you, it's not what you see, but what you think you see that matters.

Pro sports are nothing more than magic tricks. If entire popuations can be made to look in one direction at one time, then the opportunities are endless for what can be done in other directions. If you find it hard to imagine how this works, there is a simple game you can do with a couple of friends on a lazy afternoon.

Go to some public area with a large number of people. You and your friends take up a position that is fairly visible and start staring up at some random point. It helps if you all talk excitedly about some imaginary thing happening 'up there.' Within minutes, you will have a substantial crowd around, all looking up at the same spot and trying to figure out what is so interesting. You can even walk away after a few minutes and just sit and watch the fun. I've actually been able to get fairly large, self-sustaining crowds together for as long as an hour with this trick.

If I were a pick-pocket, I'd be pretty rich by now.

Even if nothing is happening 'up there,' people will wait just for the hope of seeing something happen. It's why so many people watch auto racing. Maybe there'll be a horrific crash. It's why horror movies are so popular. it's why magic works and tight-rope walkers get crowds, and lion tamers are so fascinating. Someone MIGHT get mangled!

It's why we use words like 'trounce,' 'annihilate,' 'vanquish,' and related hyperbole to describe the outcome of pro-sport contests. We are really wanting someone to get seriously hurt, even if only in a mental way. It's the whole purpose of the 'bread and circuses,' to watch the christians get eaten, the gladiators to get hacked to pieces and the slaves to be trampled.

Meanwhile, in the other direction, someone is robbing you blind.

The Way Things Work

You probably read the headlines: Obama's trip costs US$200 million a day, 6 aircraft, 34 warships, taking over entire hotels, army of Secret Service guarding.

You probably think that's all for Obama, that the whole thing is a show of regality for the President.

You'd be wrong.

See, here's how it works: Obama, or really any face in the Oval Chair, is just a shill. Think of him as the top sales person for corporate and banking interests. The individual is nothing more than the marketing guy for a small consortium of business and banking interests. The shill's job is to both draw and divert attention.

Obama is the curtain behind which stands the Wizard of Oz.

Take, for instance, the 6 aircraft. OK, all six land in Mumbai. One carries the Presidential Entourage, one carries press and lackies, two are carrying the Captains of Industry (aka the Wizard of Oz), and two are carrying an army of lawyers, bankers and paper-pushers. When they took over Mumbai, they rented an entire hotel, ground to roof. In each room was a representative of this group or that company. Indians with money were shuffled in and hard-sold down in the hotel bar. Once they were ready to negotiate, they were hustled upstairs to the appropriate room, where the sale took place. The contracts were signed and deals consumated.

Then, forr aircraft left for Jakarta. Two identical Air Force One's landed at the air force port on the east side of Jakarta, where all the cameras and world attention was focused. The other two landed at Soekarno-Hatta on the west side, and looked to anyone watching like standard public carriers. Those had the Wizard of Oz.

Meanwhile, the other two planes stayed in Mumbai. They were carrying all the lawyers and paper-pushers. Their job was to wrap up the business and make sure all the knots were tied.

Back in Jakarta, Obama was put up as an eye-catcher. He has no power and doesn't lead anything. He's like the appendage on an angler fish: just waved around to attract prey. His speeches were vacuous and contained little substance. But, he drew attention, and that could be capitalized on. Anyone who had passed a pre-screening that included a look at their bank accounts, and who expressed an interest in doing some business, was hustled into the appropriate hotel room, where they were hard-sold and contracts signed.

Obama's trip was a whirl-wind, 24 hour, misty-eyed affair that conveniently kept the world focused away from the Wizard of Oz. We were all watching the show and nodding at the simple Indonesian phrases, smiling at the lame jokes, and waiting for something of substance. Meanwhile, in the hotel rooms across town, the real reason for the show was occuring away from the lights and the dignitaries and the meat puppets.

Then everyone left town, and the world's gaze followed, while those two additional planes (remember those?) quietly left Mumbai and slid into Jakarta completely unnoticed. A small army of lawyers and paper-pushers descended on Jakarta to wrap up the business. If there were any sticking points that needed clarifying, or financing that needed to be completed, or additional wining and dining to complete the deal, they were here to finish up.

Yesterday, those two planes quiety slipped out of Jakarta, on to the next stop, following the Wizard of Oz and sopping up the money left behind.

To be sure, the Obama circus is grand theater. He has a good voice and can masterfully read TelePromTrs. He's handsome and charismatic, and was chosen for the job precisely because cameras tend to point at him and not at the Wizard of Oz. In the global media, there are stories upon stories about diplomacy, and human interest tales of baby-kissing, and chuckles about the one or two gaffes, but the real story is on the four aircraft that are part of the road crew, the people behind the scenes controlling your perception and doing the real business of the show in front.

Think of the whole thing like a circus. The MC, in the center ring and with a flashy suit and spotlight, with his melodious voice, keeps you entranced and focused on the dog and pony show. Meanwhile, in the dark and away from the direct attention of the crowd, the stagehands are preparing the ringing, positioning props, laying out costumes, and cleaning up elephant dung. Out front, the box office folks are counting the money, filling out the ledger, getting a head-count on the audience, and wrapping up the business. The performers are concentrating on their upcoming roles, checking costumes and make-up, making sure everything they need to perform is in place, and focusing their minds on the job at hand.

What you see seems effortless and spontaneous. The acts go off with nary a hitch. The music is timed perfectly. The MC speaks his hypnotic lines with perfection. But if you turn you gaze just slightly to the side and peer into the darkness in the next ring, you'll see dark-suited figures scurrying around setting up for the next act. If you do this enough, you can start to anticipate not only where but what the next act will be. If you squint into the vomitorium, you can see the upcoming performers getting into position. If you glance up to the orchestra, you can see the page-turners preparing the music sheets for the next piece. If you look up, you can see rigging and props flying in and out getting into position for the next piece.

You'll see it, but the rest of the crowd will only see an MC, and a dog and pony show.

The Wizard of Oz is the real show. He's in the background counting the box office. That's what the whole show is about. Oh sure, you get a smile. Your kids are thrilled and entertained. The wife is happy to be out of the house. But, the whole reason for this spectacle is to separate you from some cash. All the acts and cotton candy and clowns are there to tickly you into opening your pocket book just wide enough to spill some bills.

Try my trick. While everyone else is watching the center ring, turn your eyes just slightly to the side. You'll be amazed at all the action behind the scenes. I personally think it's more interesting than the show.

Oh, and remember those 34 warships following the circus? No, they aren't guarding the precious President. No, they aren't there to intimidate the world into submission (although there is some bonus effect). They are there to guard the cash box all the way to the bank. After all, that's the whole reason for the show.