Beating Plowshares Into Swords

DISCLAIMER: The following report is assimilated from "official" media, social media and conversations with various individuals.  I have no idea how much of it is true, because I don't trust ANY media or politicians, and people's opinions are protected by Free Speech.  The reader is cautioned to take this information with a long shot of one's favorite libation.

Apparently, Islam has failed to learn from history.  Militant religious crusades do not turn out well in the long run.  I suppose, though, like everyone in this world, we need to learn from experience.  Failure to control its most radical fringes will only result in marginalization and eventual decline in influence.

On the other side of the argument, Islam is being used by various groups for political ends.  Granted, most of the cannon fodder being thrown around are seriously deluded and uneducated people who are easily steered, but the people pulling their strings and radicalizing those mindless robots are cynical forces trying to effect political upsets using religious zeal as a weapon.

Take, for instance, the Jakarta riots earlier this month, and threatened again for later this week.

Former Jakarta governor and now Indonesian president Joko (Jokowi) Widodo came to Jakarta as a Trump-like populist reformer.  He brought with him long-time ally and deputy governor Basuku Tjahaja (Ahok) Purnama, who became governor of Jakarta when Jokowi was elected president.

Both Jokowi and Ahok have reputations for being tough on corruption and strong on reform.  Their administrations have been known for enforcing laws that were previously passed just to assuage various factions and interests, but which were ignored with a couple of well-placed payments.  This has not made a lot of friends in government circles, since bureaucrats here have made small fortunes from graft and kickbacks over the decades.  Jokowi also beat a figure named Prabowo, who in many ways is similar to Hillary Clinton, in that he has been a background power-broker and political force who thought he, too, deserved the presidency for his years of service.

This potent brew of interests has been seething just outside the spotlight for the past few years, particularly since Ahok is the first Christian and ethnic Chinese to hold such high office in Indonesia.  Powerful offices here have been primarily the domain of Javanese Muslims since the founding of the country.

The icing on the cake is that Jokowi has initiated a number of major infrastructure projects that in times past would have been gold mines of graft, corruption and kickbacks, but which are now being managed by foreign corporations who are focused on completing the projects on-time and on-budget - something unheard of here.  This has upset the so-called "mafia" here, who aren't getting their usual cuts of anything and everything that goes on in Indonesia.

One of the major power-brokers here is former president Susilo Bambang (SBY) Yudhoyono.  SBY is  former general and a mover-shaker type.  He has fingers in a lot of pies and has been accused of running a significant part of the drug trade in Indonesia through his son.  Under the Jokowi administration, SBY's interests have been threatened, as the old ways of "doing business" in Indonesia are slowly eroding in the reformist era.  SBY, of course, supported Probowo for president, as it would have perpetuated the 'business as usual' system.

Starting to sound familiar yet?  Prabowo also refused to accept the election results, since he was quite sure his network of vote fraud assured him the office.  Really starting to sound familiar, right?

At any rate, Ahok is a lynch-pin in Jokowi's power base.  They basically have each other's backs as they both try to reform the two most powerful governments in the country.  Because Ahok is Chinese-Christian, he is an easy target, owing to the fact that the ethnic Chinese are a generally despised group in Indonesia, and because the most powerful offices in government are (by tradition) reserved for Muslims, and specifically for Javanese Muslims.  Ahok is also outspoken and does not mince words.  In many respects, he is the personality of Trump, while Jokowi is the actions of Trump.

So, a while back Ahok made a comment about being attacked by factions that were quoting the Quran out of context.  To further the insult, his words were quoted out of context (according to a police investigation), which opened the door to those who want to undermine Jokowi's administration, and need to get rid of Ahok to do it.

These factions immediately accused Ahok of "blasphemy," a crime in Indonesia, but only enforced against those who speak against Islam.  The other four constitutionally-protected religions are pretty much fair game, as far as the Muslim-dominated government agencies are concerned.

According to most sensible people here, SBY saw the opportunity to impeach Ahok, undermine Jokowi, and set up his son for the presidency in 2020.  Further according to these reports, SBY, Prabowo and their allies put up IDR200 billion rupiah (roughly US$14 million) to stage a mass demonstration against Ahok in early November.  That demonstration, as we reported at the time, devolved into riots by sundown, leading to mobs surrounding Ahok's neighborhood and being turned away with tear gas and water cannons.

Not satisfied with the lack of effect, the same group has now put up IDR500 billion rupiah (~US$36 million) for another mass demonstration on Friday, 2 December.  All this money is used to fly in demonstrators from around the country, most of whom don't even know who Ahok is, feed them and pay them to participate - though after the demonstration they are just abandoned on the streets, their purpose served.  It should be noted that Ahok supplied buses to take the demonstrators home after the earlier protest.

The demonstrations are demanding that Ahok be arrested and jailed, pending trial for "blasphemy."  This is despite the fact that recordings were found by the police investigation showing that Ahok was completely misquoted and that the misquote has been used for nefarious purposes.

What all this boils down to is that religion is being used as a weapon.  Ahok's Christianity is being used to denigrate him, and Islam is being used to falsely accuse a man and destroy him for political purposes.  And the 'religion' of politics is a nasty business that has no place in civil society.

This is not the only example.  In India, immigration laws are being selectively enforced to get rid of Muslims.  In Europe, there is a toxic brew of culture clash caused by unassimilating Muslims.  In the US, just today, a Somali Muslim went on a rampage in Ohio, ostensibly because the university didn't have enough musholla, or prayer rooms.

It is obvious that Islam is being used, not just by outsiders, but by insiders, as a weapon for any number of reasons.  This kind of behavior will not lead to greater acceptance, but rather to a massive and violent backlash.  History is replete with examples of militant religions being squashed, and the results have rarely been pretty.

Most people have no problem with an individual worshipping whomever, whatever and however they desire, but when that religious zeal becomes militant and starts killing people, they will eventually fight back with equal or greater force.  One need only look at the Roman suppression of Judaism or the Catholic Reformation, and in many ways, even the American, French, Bolshevik and Indonesian Revolutions.

History further shows us that the most successful governments have been those that are most tolerant of religious diversity, since oppressed minorities will always rise up when the pain of oppression outweighs the pain of revolution.

No system, regardless of origin, can survive through violence and oppression.  Weaponizing systems will only lead to weaponized resistance because human nature defaults to "leave me the hell alone."  This is further reinforced by the fact that weaponized systems only benefit a tiny cabal of insiders, and do little to nothing for the general population.

Paid demonstrators are only loyal as long as the food lasts, after that, you're on your own.

The Greater Of Two Choices

I love this idea that voting for anything but the two officially sanctioned parties is a "wasted" vote.  The sheer stupidity exhibited by people who subscribe to this theory shows the utter lack of independent thought, and the profundity of indoctrination, apparent in this person spouting this rubbish.

Let's begin with the very simple deduction that, according to the "wasted vote" theory, even if you vote for the 'loser' of the two official parties, you have wasted your vote.  The theory clearly implies that any vote that is not for a winner is wasted, therefore a voter must discern which of the two offcial choices will win, and then vote for that candidate, so as not to waste a vote.  It further implies that any opinion that is not held by the majority is not valid.

The Wasted Vote Theory tells us that opinions can be "winners" or "losers," and of course everyone wants to be a "winner."  Thus opinions, rather than being closely held and logically defensible positions on any given set of ideas, are instead runners in a race in which only one can cross the line first.

This concept is an extension of the Calvinist idea that only people and ideas that are blessed by God can win any given contest.  It was the underlying philosophy of duels, in which God would strike down the lying bastard through the auspices of the morally just dueler through Divine Guidance of the sword or bullet.  In this view, too, winners of wars are seen to be morally superior, even though there are truckloads of examples where this theory falls flat.

In polemics and philosophy, this view is called Moral Equivalency, and can be rather quickly dismissed with any number of actual and hypothetical situations.  This is the common view that justifies any action by the United States since the established "end" of the Cold War, since the US is widely seen to be morally superior to the Soviet Union by virtue of not having collapsed first.

Moral Equivalency is also the ruling paradigm behind most allowable cancer treatments, in that it is assumed that healthy cells are stronger and will last longer in a poisonous environment than "sick" cancer cells.  Therefore, the patient is brought to the brink of death in the hopes that the morally inferior cancer cells will die first.  The insanity of this concept should be readily apparent to anyone with half a thought.

But let's take a simpler example.

Let's assume there is an online poll about Spaghetti:
Do you like spaghetti?

• (a) Yes
• (b) No
• (c) Don't know/Never tried it 

Some percentage will choose (a), (b) or (c), with (c) likely being the smallest subset of people taking the poll.  Let's assume that (a) represents Party A, (b) represents Party B, and (c) represents all the other choices available.

The most statistically likely outcome is that one of the three choices will have at least one more vote that the other two, so a dead tie is unlikely.  Most people taking the poll will likely have an opinion, and will thus choose (a) or (b).  Some number of people who would choose (c) will not want to "waste" their vote, so they change it to one of the first two, depending on which they perceive to be the "winner."  We can also assume that some subset of (a) or (b) voters will do the same, since psychologically they want to feel part of the "winning" group.

Since spaghetti is a widely available food enjoyed by a great number of people, there is an increased likelihood that it will "win" the poll.  We can further assume   We can further assume that a number of people who chose (a) will have done so because they have a need to feel included in the "herd," and to have their "choice" validated by the greatest number of people.  Thus, even though they hate spaghetti, or have never tried it, they still feel included in the YES group because they selected based on their need to be a part of the majority.

There is no way, then, to have a true and fair poll, especially in a system where there are only two dominant choices.  I have only explored a couple of the many complex reasons why people make selections in polls, but it is plain to see that at least some part of those being polled are not making selections based on their real opinions, but rather on perceptions and desires with regard to feeling included and justified for their selections, regardless of how much or little they actually believe what they have expressed.

In the end, we can safely assume that some number of people casting a vote are doing so, not because they believe in the opinion they are expressing, but because they are gambling on which choice will give them the greatest sense of being on the side of the majority/winner, and thus morally justified, even though they don't actually believe in the "winning" opinion.

The person who chooses not to vote at all is therefore not "wasting" a vote.  They are, in fact, showing the integrity of their opinion in that they do not believe that any of the choices are correct and will not select one just because they want to feel included in some group or another.  It is often not a popular choice, since most people are of the opinion that having a right to vote means that it must be exercised only in the voting booth, and is meaningless if a check mark is not recorded in one column or another.

The prevailing attitude that one must select the lesser of two evils, when one is presented with two bad choices presents a moral hazard.  Since both choices are evil and will lead to bad outcomes, one becomes personally and morally responsible for those outcomes no matter which choice is taken, since one participated in the process in any way.

The person who refuses to vote, therefore, has expressed the opinion that all of the choices are wrong and he or she does not want the moral and ethical responsibility of choosing one side or another, or even participating in the process in the first place.

Clearly, if the vast majority refused to vote, none of the choices could claim victory and the outcome would be just as decisive and victorious as if they had actually placed a tick mark on the ballot.  Therefore, the Null Choice is just as valid and equally expressive of an opinion as any other.

The combined effect of expediency, lack of integrity and moral equivalency is precisely what has led the world to the point of self-annihilation and mass stupidity.  Choosing the lesser of two evils is still choosing evil and the only moral alternative is to make no choice at all.

People like Adolf Hitler have risen to great power because of the principles of Lesser of Two Evils and Moral Equivalency.  When confronted with nothing but bad choices, one is bound by morality and integrity not to make a choice at all.

In other words, don't vote, it just encourages the bastards.

Far Afield And Back Again

Of late, I have been absorbing the thoughts and work of several esteemed researchers, among them Joseph P. Farrell, Peter Lavenda and the great Texan, Jim Marrs.  The thread these three men have in common are that the Nazi diaspora at the close of WWII and the assassination of JFK were seminal events in the current course of history.

I have to say that their arguments are compelling, their documentation unimpeachable and their speaking erudite and informative.  You can find extensive interviews with all three with a quick search of YouTube.  I won't link it all here as the volume is quite extensive, and the voyage of exploration is best steered by the individual.

I do, however, want to express some insights that I have had in listening, reading and pondering the work of these gentlemen.  Certainly, they echo things I have thought about since at least my university days, but they have refined and documented what I understood by intuition.

One of the main points that seems to resurface in the work of all three researchers is the fact that the Nazi ideology was not hatched in Germany.  Many of the things we generally revile were in fact originally American, and were only implemented openly and forcefully in the Nazi regime.

Concepts like racial purity were hatched out of Darwinism and had their first expressions in the US as the eugenics movement through people like Margaret Sanger.  Institutions like Planned Parenthood and Child Protective Services are the modern day descendants of the original.  Arianism was simply one branch on the evolutionary tree whose roots were in the Anglo-American sphere.

Fascism, as I have described elsewhere, is not the brainchild of Hitler or Mussolini.  In fact, fascism began in Imperial Rome, as was reborn in the American federal system.  The marriage of business and government, one of the defining aspects of fascism, can be seen in the 1800s American system, with philosophical roots in the federalism papers and even the Constitution.

Where most Americans go astray is that they believe six impossible things before breakfast.  They believe that they are champions of democracy throughout the world, yet they live in an elitist republic whose founders reviled democracy.

The novelty of the American system was that it allowed people to choose their elite, rather than have them imposed from the top down.  By its very nature, a representative government is an elitist organization.  The primary difference between that and what had come before was that the people were allowed to vote on who they wanted to be ruled by, rather than having it imposed on them by heredity or force.

Every aspect of the American system is designed to dilute the vox populi.  Electing an elite called Congress, with two chambers, one a more general populist assembly, and the other more elitist.  Even the Electoral College was put in place in order to prevent the direct selection of the president.  Rather it kept that task for land owners and insiders.

That Americans think they live in a democracy, and impose democracy at the point of a gun throughout the world, is one of the most amazing forms of mass delusion I have ever encountered.  The American people live, breathe and eat an elitist lifestyle, while at the same time thinking they have power and can rightfully impose that power on other people.  In fact, democracy has not existed for centuries, even millennia.

Stranger still is that democracy and communism are ideological cousins, yet I daresay the average redreck would bow up at the suggestion that his beloved military is bombing the world into communism through the use of fascism.  Yet, that is exactly what is happening.

Where people have gotten so befuddled is that they are not precise in their thinking or use of language.  It is not entirely their fault, as elites use the confusion to their advantage, but it behooves every individual to take responsibility for their own education and research.

The basic problem is that we tend to blend the lines between economic and political systems.  Economics concerns itself with how commerce is conducted, and politics focuses on how power is exercised.  They are two completely different concepts, though they are often wedded, in the same way that a man and a women are very different creatures, yet they join to create a single household.

Within the concepts of economics and politics, there are various ways of implementing them.  In economics, there is capitalism, communism and a great variety of other systems.  Within politics, there are ideas such as democracy, socialism and fascism.  The subgroups within each are only means by which we institute commerce and exercise power.

Interestingly, democracy hardly exists in the world, yet people are being bombed into oblivion on a daily basis in order to institute it.  On the other hand, communism exits nearly everywhere, and people are trying to eradicate it, thinking it is a natural enemy of democracy.  That no one seems able to separate these ideas is the cause of so much cognitive dissonance today.

Economic and political systems are not mutually exclusive.  They can be mixed and matched quite easily, as the system are only the way in which we do things.  That economics and politics go hand-in-hand is obvious.  No one can deny that wealth is power, but we gain wealth through economics, and exercise the power through politics.

Democracy no more implies capitalism, than communism excludes it.  In fact, anyone who has read Marx and Engels would know that his ideal political system is a natural outgrowth of the evolution of economic systems, and that inevitably, all economic systems are evolving towards communism.  However, communism on a mass scale has not yet existed on the face of the Earth.  The USSR and China are NOT communist states.  They are socialist states, which is a form of politics.  Socialist states can implement communism, or they can choose capitalism or fascism or any of a myriad of other economic systems.

In the same way, democracies can be capitalist or communist or use any of dozens of other economic systems.  In fact, at their root, democracy and communism would seem to be ideal partners.  Democracy spreads the exercise of power over an entire population, and communism espouses the concept of each person giving and receiving as they are able.

It is entirely possible for one village to be a communist democracy within itself, but conduct its outside affairs (commerce) on a capitalist basis.  None of this would cause the Universe to spin out of control.  It is simply the means by which certain ideas and activities are arranged and conducted.

It gets much more complex as these systems are hybridized over time and location.  An example of pure communism is monasteries of any stripe.  In any given monastery, the members contribute to the overall good according to their stregnths, and receive from the community according to their needs.  But, the monastery usually produces some product, which it trades with the outside world through some form of capitalism.  The difference being that profit from trade is distributed acorss the community as the need arises, rather than enriching certain individuals.

On an international scale, we see the US is a constitutional republic, which conducts its economic affairs as capitalists, while China is a socialist state that also conducts its economic affairs through capitalism.  The difference is how the wealth, and thus the power, is distributed and exercised within the confines of their communities.  Neither is purely one or the other, and both are evolving as they go along.  The US is becoming a fascist state with socialist tendencies, while China is becoming more democratic while espousing a communist ideal.

The US welfare system is a communist concept, while China's emerging middle class is a sure sign of capitalism.

None of these things is inherently evil.  Communism as an ideal makes perfect sense.  I am an expert in leather craft, so I contribute shoes and belts to the community.  My child is sick, so I consume extra health care from the community as my family needs it.

Capitalism allows me to enrich myself and my family on the quality of my leathercraft, to the exclusion of others.  If I want more or better health care for my child, I buy it because my personal wealth allows me to, to the exclusion of others.  However, I am free to choose to contribute part of my wealth to distribute better health care to those who can not afford it.

In either case, the basic impulse is neither good nor bad.  It is only how it is exercised, and by what means we propagate our ideal in the world that becomes good or evil.  If democracy and capitalism are so good, as many Americans believe, then why do they feel the need to force it on others at the point of a gun?  Why not let others see the benefits of our system and choose freely to implement it, in whole or in part, as they see fit?

Because organic systems are constantly in a state of flux, with new ideas coming into vogue, and old ones being modified to fit new circumstances, it is easy to see how people can become confused.  However, Americans must wake up to the fact that they are being manipulated to believe one thing, while violently supporting another.  Furthermore, they are being duped into seeing enemies where none exist, in order to provoke them into supporting inherently evil agendas.

At the basis of all political and economic systems is the mandate that the individual educate themselves.  If they can not think and act in clear and concise ways, then they are at the mercy of those who do.  Thus, they become tools for elites who use them for ends which are anathema to the individual's goals and beliefs.  The ubiquitous use of TeeVee to manipulate mass audiences through the use of symbols is causing so much suffering and misunderstanding in the world.  It is incumbent on every human being to learn what is being done to their minds, so that they can put a stop to elitist agendas that are abhorrent to those things we consider good and desirable and moral and ethical.

Fortunately, the Universe provides balances for all things.  The problem is that Universe does not chose and direct, it simply is.  Thus, we can choose our fate and how we treat our fellow human beings, or we can have it chosen for us by a Universe that always rights itself, but without regard to the constituent pieces of the whole.

Yes, western elitists have been pursuing a program of global domination for centuries.  North America and South America are prime examples.  Yes, they are trying to create a New World Order that will impose the will of the elites on the global populace.  However, they are finding a foil to their plans created by the Chinese and the eastern world.  While we are all using the same economic and political tools, our fundamental goals and means are quite different.

In Universe, for all yin there is a yang.

The Vultures Are Circling

Reader Note: Over the next couple of weeks, we will be traveling quite a bit, so please forgive us if the updates get a little spotty.  We will, however, be bringing you reports on various cities around Indonesia, including Medan (Sumatra) and Denpasar (Bali).  Thanks for your understanding.

Indonesia is one hot property right now.  There is a huge interest in investing here.  The economy is red-hot and foreign capital is pouring in.  In fact, there is so much coming in, that the foreign investors are putting heavy pressure on the Bank Indonesia (central bank) to adjust its policies to make them happy.

There are a number of reasons for this.  Indonesia is next door to China, which, unless you've been under a rock for the last 10 years, has become at least the second largest, if not the largest economy in the world.  China, because of its own meteoric growth, has been sucking up resources globally like a black hole eats stars.

Indonesia has a vast natural wealth that the world has been happy to exploit for centuries.  Not only does the land support a rich agricultural sector, but the country is rich in gold, coal, oil, nickel, iron, silver, sulphur, rare earths, and dozens of other commodities.  The massive rain forests here used to provide tons of lumber from mahogany and teak, though so much was stripped out in the 1950s that they are desperately trying to protect the fraction of old-growth forests, and the vast number of rare species of beasts that live here.

One of the primary resources making money right now is coal.  Used both for energy and for things like coke for concrete, nearly every Asian country is competing to lock up a 20 or 30 year supply.  Additionally, the recent floods and disasters in Australia have put Indonesia's nearest competitor out of business, at least for the time being.  Thus, demand and prices have shot up.

Another hot interest here is Indonesia's own growth.  Because the country is making so much money, and because the wealth, at least ostensibly, is filtering down to the common folks (finally), there is big demand for power, roads, shipping infrastructure, and all the related building that goes with it.  In Jakarta, the boom has brought with it a massive influx of people to the capital.  This has strained the existing infrastructure to the breaking point.  Even in the three years I've been here, I have witnessed the traffic go from bad to nighmare.

Two abortive attempts to build a monorail have left pylons standing unused around certain parts of the city.  The bus system is pushing overcapacity, with some routes almost unusuable due to waiting times and crowding.  There's a plan to install an MRT with the first line scheduled to open in 2014, but by then the city may be completely impassable, assuming that graft and corruption don't kill the project like the monorail.

Because the country refuses to automate anything, good for labor bad for mobility, the tolls roads that lace Jakarta and surrounding areas, are at virtual stand-stills during rush hour, which for intents and purposes, is daylight hours.  Combined with Indonesian's disdain for traffic laws, the whole system teeters on collapse.

For all these reasons, the vulture captialists are circling the country, waiting to pick off unsuspecting prey.  If you are not familiar with vulture capitalism, then you really need to read John Perkin's book, "Confessions of an Economic Hitman."

The basic modus operendi is to swoop in to developing countries in desperate need of infrastructure, offer massive loans to build power plants and industries that really do nothing to put folks to work, but seem like good deals at the time.  Later, as the country's economy begins to cool off, folks find that a few corrupt individuals have made off with all the dough and left the country with a crushing debt.

At that point, everyone is convinced by a few talking heads that the debt must be restructured, which really just increases the burden, thus making everyone a slave to their jobs and houses just to survive.

The only way out is the same one that home-owners in America haven't yet figured out en masse, if they can't produce a contract, you don't owe the debt.  The people are carefully groomed so that it never occurs to them that they never incurred the debt, or the original contract holder no longer holds the paper, having sold it off four or five times over.  So, in fact, there is no debt.  But no one ever figures that out.

That's part of the reason the democracy movement is so important.  See, if the people think they elect representatives, who then incur a massive national debt, then the people think they actually owe it because the voted for the scumbags.  In steps George Soros, et al., to push democracy, which is a huge scam of perportions so vast that no one thinks it can be a scam because of the sheer size of it.

In fact, it is the root of all this crowing about 'democratic' revolutions.  See, it there is a king, a dictator or a select few oligarchs, then the people can overthrow them and repudiate any debt as being the sole responsiblity of the few or one who are thrown out.  But, if the leaders are 'democratically' elected, then the banksters can claim that the debt is owed by the entire population, thus we must all cling to our jobs in order to survive, or the banksters will reclaim everything we owe.  Keeps us little people in line, right?

The Middle East is one of the few remaining strongholds of monachs and dictators.  South America has already been tamed, though Equador is a fine example of the people telling the banksters to go jump off a cliff and taking control of their country.  At any rate, the Middle East is being cleansed of autocratic rulers so that they can be effectively enslaved by the banksters, who hate sovereign individuals, sound money and especially sharia banking (interest free).  It is the compounding interest that eventually enslaves the populations under a crushing debt that can't be paid.

Bottom line, I hope that Indonesia doesn't cave to these blood-sucking bastards.  I hope that it continues it long tradition of 'just deal with it,' and so doesn't slide down the road of borrowing to build that has captured the people of so many nations, including my own.  With so many billions of dollars flowing into this country, and the constant temptation and barrage of marketing, it's hard to say who will win.  If I had my way, I would pass out copies of Perkin's book and show people what to watch out for.

We shall see.

Every day, I battle amazing hordes of cars and motorcycles, trying to get from one end of the city to other on time.  In moments of weakness, I actually wish that something could be done, but then I remember that the cost is more than most will bear, if they know it up-front.

So, for now, I suffer.  And Indonesians, who are notorious for just tolerating the uncomfortable because the effort to change it is even more repulsive.  With the ingenuity and creativity evident in this country, there is no doubt that home-grown solutions can be found that don't involve vulture capitalists.  Let's just hope the impulse for the simple short-term solution doesn't overcome the current devil-may-care attitude.

There's something to be said for controlled anarchy.

The Death of a Thousand Cuts

“Democracy destroys itself because it abuses its right to freedom and equality. Because it teaches its citizens to consider audacity as a right, lawlessness as a freedom, abrasive speech as equality, and anarchy as progress.” -Isocrates, c.300 B.C.

Throughout history, intellectuals have followed democracy to its logical conclusions and warned us of the impending demise that it brings. As the joke goes, democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner, but I would add that we are purposely kept ignorant of the wolves' where-abouts or agendas. The wolves become masters of deception, leading the sheep to the sheering while making them think they are on the road to Salvation.

We are, ostensibly, reaching the end of an age. It seems that the entire underpinnings of culture, both in the West and globally, is reaching it natural limits. All that we know is not enough and we are faced with the choice to grow or die. Now we will find out if humans truly are adaptable, or if we've just had a lucky streak.

A few years back, there was an excellent and underrated film called, "No Way Out," with Kevin Costner and Gene Hackman. The premise was that a Russian spy had been planted in the US as a child and had been groomed to rise meteorically through the ranks to subvert the nation from the inside out. Even more poignant was Peter Sellers' "Being There," whose Chauncy Gardner was haunting in his ability to attract the projections of others' desires. Democracy has brought us both characters in a single package.

Increasingly, the gold is supplanted with paper, the rhetoric with slogan and the the mass mind with group-think. Having been hollowed out, a democracy's leadership becomes vacuous and ephemeral while maintaining the illusion of substance, because the sheep no longer look at the contents, but are satisfied to traipse after symbols.

Ultimately, the sheep arrive at the sheering, happily jostling for the front row, ready to throw themselves at the sheers because they now think they have chosen this path for themselves. As Alexander Fraser Tytler noted,

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy."

Americans, thoroughly deluded by the empty promises of democratic Nirvana, have exported their folly to the world, and set up for themselves phantom leaders who are completely manufactured out of whole cloth. We know more about leaders who lived a thousand years ago than we know about Barrack Obama, yet how many blissfully followed him, basking in the light of "hope" and "change?" Simple sloganeering deluded millions who failed to look beyond the icons and into the meanings.

The result has been a gutted economy, raging deathtraps (with the promise of more), and a moral decay of every public institution. An American can not point to a single public trusthold that isn't rife with corruption and fascism. There is not a single movement or group that they can turn to that isn't co-opted by agents of wolves.

Without wholesale replacement of the entire system from top to bottom, there is no way out. Yet, there is no way to do that because, in an Orwellian twist, the language itself has been modified to the point that even one's thoughts are suspect. The money is debased, ethics are but shadows and even discourse has been stolen by those who define the words.

As an English teacher, I often deal with the fact that most people hear and respond to what they expect and not what is actually said. Formulaic responses to formulaic constructs are the vast majority of language. This fact is further exacerbated by a lifestyle that is so hectic that we don't have time to respond to deeper implications, but only to the superficial appearances of things.

As anyone who has ever raced cars knows, the faster you go, the less you can focus on anything but what is directly ahead and moving at the same relative speed. All the little details flying by at break-neck speed are insignificant and out of focus. Until one of those details torpedoes you from out of nowhere. As life, by design, rushes past us at furious speeds, we no longer focus on the minutae, but have only time to notice the things coming directly in our path.

We not only fail to stop and smell the flowers, we don't even see the bushes on which they are growing.

The ancient Chinese devised a truly horrific torture called The Death of a Thousand Cuts. The victim received hundreds of superficial cuts, that bled profusely, and salt was rubbed into them. As the victim slowly bled to death over weeks, they were in agonizing pain from a non-consuming fire.

Look into your neighbor's eyes. Do they look truly happy? Do those windows reveal inner contentment? Now look at your leaders. What do you really know about them as human beings? Outside of a few well-chosen slogans, what ideas do they actually offer? More to the point, how much of your life is taken from the public treasury, and how much did you actually generate?

To use another iconographic image, have you robbed Peter to pay Paul lately?

One last question: What have you done to really fix things?

I don't mean what you have delegated by vote. I don't mean, letting the pit crew service the car on the road of Life. I mean, what have you personally done to change the world? Not just lately, but ever? And how often have you stopped to consider those questions? If the world is our victim, how many cuts have you applied?

Are you a Magritte?

Jesus is famously quoted as saying, "Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's." The thing I have never heard a preacher address is, if you have nothing of Caesar's, you owe him nothing.

In other words, are you a democrat or are you free?

Think about it...

Far Side Waxing

Dengue Fever in Florida
Lazy-ass Do-Nothing CONgress
Fiddling While Rome Burns
More Fiddling About While Pompeii Burns Too
A Trillion Here, A Trillion There...
What's A Little Extinction Among Friends?
Creating the Self-Fulfilling Prophesy
Americans Quittin' n Buggin' Out
The Great and Powerful Oz



The first thing you should notice about the above links is that they are not wild-eyed bloggers (like me), conspiracy nutjobs or 'fringe elements.' These are 'mainstream' media outlets talking about America's long dark tea-time of the soul (sorry Douglas Adams).

In fact, America has been in decline for a long time. I was aware of it somewhere around the Reagan Administration. At that time, I pointed out to my father the old wisdom that the hunter must become the hunted. By extension, America must become like Soviet Russia and vice versa. It would seem that my observation was somewhat precient.

The above articles document Americans changing nationalities (defecting), living conditions devolving to 'third world' standards and a growing revolutionary fever. Does this sound like the richest, most powerful nation on Earth? Or a tin-pot poseur with a microphone and amplifier?

Outbreaks of dengue fever and epidemics of bedbugs sure sound like the kind of conditions we used to point at 'lesser' countries and snigger at how backward they were. We were so proud of our progressive welfare state that turned an entire nation into a bunch of teat-suckers. We had all the latest toys and geegaws, while those 'lesser' nations were still mucking around in the jungle. Hell, just watch any version of King Kong, which all begin with the capture of the beast on Borneo (Indonesia). Notice how the natives are depicted. Now take a clear and serious look at American cutlture and lifestyles. From over here on the Far Side, I don't see much difference. Even has the sacrificial female re: Congresscritter Waters.

When the Financial Times headlines that Americans are bailing out, then you can smell a trend. We're not just talking ex-pat status, but throwing out the citizenship baby with the burdensome-taxes bathwater. Remember all the stories and movies about Russian defectors? Remember how we would point to that as proof that we were better than 'them?' Remember when being anti-government was simply unthinkable? We couldn't imagine someone not liking America or wanting to be an American. The whole world wanted to be American! They all wanted dollars and McDonald's. Well, you'd be hard-pressed to find someone who wants dollars now, and gosh, McDonald's is about as healthy as eating raw plastic, except the plastic doesn't come with artery-damming fat. In fact, America's veil of bullsh*t has grown so thin that even the Mexicans are running the other way across the river. The image of rats from a sinking ship comes to mind.

When all you have left is jingoism, then the game is up. Insecure and inwardly weak, the bully boasts loudly and protects his piece of turf against all enemies, both foreign and imagined. The dying power resorts to slogans and invading ill-prepared countries in order to display the tail feathers of past glory. Sadly, America has completely lost sight of what made it great. It wasn't the ability to reduce other nations to rubble. it wasn't the nanny-state welfare system that encouraged sloth. It wasn't even its industrial might. It was one very simple act. So simple, in fact, that it has become almost invisible, yet the implications of this one act are so profound as to be Earth-shaking. The original idea that made America great was that government stepped aside and let people build themselves up. But once regulations and laws and fees and taxes and agencies and authorities (when did they go from servants to authorities?), all was lost. It was only a matter of time before the bloated, rotting carcass would collapse on itself and belch forth streams of maggots.

I am reminded of a famous quote. Who was it? De Tocqueville or Tyler? "A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy."

It would seem that dictatorship has decended upon America.

Things don't look good for America from here on the Far Side. We have about the best perspective one can have, whether physically, culturally and psychologically, that can be achieved on the surface of Earth. What we see here doesn't look good for America's future. Oh, sure...you can argue semantics or say that it ain't so bad "'cause ah live here an' things is jes fine." Hard to see the forest through those darned trees.

My father had a sign on his desk when he was in the Texas Legislature. It read, "When you're up to your ass in alligators, it's hard to remember that your first thought was to drain the swamp." When Clinton was in office, people looked fondly back at Bush the First. When Bush the Second was installed, people actually thought Billy wasn't so bad. Now we have Bammy and folks wish that we could have Bush the Second back in there. The line of outrage always moves forward, and the trailing line of nostalgia is in lock-step behind it. Remember Nixon? People beat their breasts and lamented the end of the Republic. Now the Watergate break-in seems insignificant to the level of crap flowing from the Beltway.

Two and a half years ago, I announced to my circle of friends and family that I was moving to The Far Side. The most common response: "Indonesia...is that in Bali?" Most others thought I was just plain crazy moving to the Third World from good ol' Merica. Now, many of those same people want to know how they can move here too. Such is life. A visionary is always considered crazy until he is proven right.

A little perspective goes a long way.

And such is Life on the Far Side.