The Wasteland (w/ salute to t.s. eliot)

If you are one of those people who believes your government is a benign and righteous entity out to serve you and your best interests, stop here, because what follows is a thorough trashing of anything remotely resembling a government.

Most militaries are functions of governments.  They are the thugs that enforce the government's will on perceived enemies, both foreign and domestic.  At a local level, the military is usually called "police," at a state level its the "national guard" or "state police," and at a national level its called "army" or some variant thereof depending on medium over which it seeks dominance (the elements of earth, air, water, space, etc.).

Sometimes, the military serves the public interest, be it good, bad or indifferent.  Most of the time it is out of control and either covertly or overtly runs the civilian powers.  In the covert function, we commonly call it the Military Industrial Complex.  Overtly, we call it "junta" or "martial law," or similar epithet.

Most people think the military serves a valuable function.  They have been trained since birth to "support the troops" or "bend the knee," but in any case they bow to force of any kind.  This is because people think of "life" as a limited commodity, thus they will cower behind any entity that promises more of it.

A military runs on strategy.  If you've ever programmed in the archaic FORTRAN language, then you have a deep understanding of how military thinking works.  Everything in the world is an IF>THEN statement or a DOLOOP.  You either respond and advance/retreat, or you get bogged down in a morass.

To game out these situations, militaries create War Colleges.  This is a collection of a nation's best strategists, who pull out a piece of paper, make two columns (OFFENSE and DEFENSE) and proceed to think of every possible scenario and how to respond to it with any given set of resources.

I assure you, the current global situation has been gamed to the Nth degree for decades, down to air pressure and wind direction.  The creation of AI and supercomputers has made it all the more complex, adding dimensions of timing, stellar alignments and (based on your Amazon buying habits) the projected behavior of billions of people at any moment.

What it boils down to, is that we are being gamed by someone.  Our collective response is already known.  The headlines are written to extract the exact reaction from a precise demographic.  Every news outlet knows who is watching and what they want to hear, and the information put out is tuned to their sensitivities.

No matter how smart you think you are, you are susceptible to this Beast.  Even though I know how it works and why, I fight a continuous battle to break out of the programming and think clearly.  When you know precisely how an atomic clock works, it doesn't stop you from being amazed by the unerring vibration of Strontium-50.


In our modern world, everything has been gamed.  Information has been weaponized.  The human condition has been modeled down to being able to predict your behavior by your purchases.  If you have any social or economic habits of any kind, someone can predict how you will behave in any given situation with a fair degree of accuracy.  There are a finite number of personality types, and you are one of them.

We have reached a point in our collective development that most of our deepest thought processes are now algorithms.  I can determine your profile, enter it into a computer, adjust the conditions, and be fairly certain you will do anything I predict with a table of uncertainty built in.

With a big enough computer (think super or quantum), I can load in demographics for any given population, feed in a set of external conditions, and get a table of likely outcomes with their associated percentages of certainty.  And they are pretty damned accurate, with the outcomes plotted on a candlestick graph showing the likely range of reactions.

Add to that the ability to control what the individual knows in any given population, and now I can predict what you know and how you will react.  With sophisticated media, I can even control how any given group will react by sensitizing that group over time with certain views and beliefs.  In other words, by controlling how groups interpret religious beliefs, I can control how they will react to specific inputs based on their programmed worldviews.

Given that most of the world has some type of religious belief system and has been educated in a certain curriculum, I now have the ability to tailor information to get any group of people to behave a certain way.

There is nothing magical here, in the strictest sense.  These techniques have been studied for the better part of two centuries, with religious tool sets stretching back into antiquity.  These tools have been developed and refined for millennia.

With all that said, do you really think a novel virus has to be released into a global population?  How many people reading this can verify information coming out of China or Italy or Spain or New York?  How many of us just accept the infection and death tolls without calling a colleague in another country or hot spot to confirm?  How many of us choose an "authority" and just follow that without question?  Do you reject Trump but like Fauci?  Do you accept the Pope but reject the Dalai Lama?  Do you listen to the CDC but dismiss the WHO?  Does the FED have more weight than the IMF?  The UN over your personal governmental agencies?

Whichever set of "authorities" you choose will determine your outlook on the current situation.  That is predictable.  Whatever viewpoint you adopt based on those "authorities" will color your responses and activities based on the information packet you ingest.  That much is predictable.  At some level, someone can predict at a global, regional, national, and local level just how any group of people will react to any given set of headlines.

And now back to the military.

In this brave new world, there is no need to bomb, strafe, invade, or even fire a single bullet.  The most advanced war colleges have already gamed this situation.  They know what it would take to start it, what every possible response will be, and have some means to counter it.

You are not reading headlines or listening to reports.  You are being attacked by one group, and covered by another.  It makes no difference who/what you believe.  Whoever wins this war will decide what was right and what was "enemy".

At a certain level, we are all pieces on a game board being advanced and withdrawn in a game we did not sign up to play, but that we support with our undying allegiance to governments and militaries.

All of your possible responses have been modeled and anticipated.  You have been sensitized to follow certain "authorities" since birth.  There really is no way out, because even if you call bullshit on all of it, you are part of a demographic that will carry you along with it willing or not.

There is/isn't a new virus.  It is/isn't infecting/killing people.  Your "authorities" are/aren''t responding appropriately.  Civilization will/won't survive.

It doesn't matter what you or I believe/don't believe.  We are surrounded by billions of preprogrammed automatons and our habits and resources have been duly noted and modeled.

The war began before you or I were even aware of it.  The game is already well under way.  How you and I respond is inconsequential.

With that set of conditions, where do we go from here?

The New Clarity

I believe that one of the most profound and long-lasting effects of this past election in the US is the complete and thorough disgrace of the anachronistic Main Stream Media.  It is plainly obvious now that they are no long the "main stream" and we need to enshrine this event in our daily language.

In fact, this is the exact right moment, while the - let's call a spade a spade here - Corporate Media (CP) is in complete meltdown, We The People have a unique opportunity to take control of the language again.

It is absolutely vital that we take control of the situation before the CP have a chance to regroup.  We must wrest control of the social dialog from their bleeding hands and see to it that their disgrace is forever stamped upon their foreheads.  For too long, they have controlled the public discourse by controlling the terms we use to describe things.  We typically call this Political Correctness.

Political Correctness is a dead horse.  No sense in beating it, it's not going to pull their cart another meter.  We should now label this form of subservience what it is: Slave Talk.  You see, in a truly free society, real diversity means that everyone gets a say and should not be shamed into submission simply because the "majority" don't agree with the message.  By calling it Slave Talk, we clearly label the thing with simple and direct language, so that our thoughts can be clear and direct, as well.  Anyone using that form of language would thereby show their subservience to the control of thought and ideas.

The true champions of this past election are the formerly-labelled Alternative Media.  Anyone with any sense can go on YouTube and look at the hit counts on the CP channels, and the hit counts on the AltMedia channels, and see that people just aren't listening to the former any longer - by huge margins.  Therefore, let's now call this thing the Free Press (FP).  Not only is it simple, clear and direct, but it connotes a long tradition of dissent and unfettered communication that dates back to the pamphleteers of the Enlighrtenment and the American Revolution.  The Free Press won this election for all people, not the favored few.

This brings up the next term we need to attack.  For decades, we have referred to the "elite," the "Powers That Be," and the "Establishment."  These terms are clearly out of date now and need to be changed to reflect the New Reality.  I propose the term "Snakes."  This word has wonderfully apt connotations of "evil," "slimy" and "dangerous."  What's more, those connotations are nearly universal across languages and cultures, thus being appropriate as a global name for the bastards.

Finally, we need to get rid of any term in the public discourse that ends with the suffix -phobic.  This includes xenophobic, Islamophobic, homophobic, et cetera ad nauseum.  The fact of the matter is that these represent opinions, and opinions are like bellybuttons (to be polite), everyone has one.  It is well past time to remove the ability to demonize people for simply expressing their opinions, especially when those opinions go against Slave Talk concepts.  Even when I find someone's opinion reprehensible, I am mindful of their basic human right to hold and express that opinion.

This is not an easy task.  The Snakes have had several generations, using their Corporate Media, to install Slave Talk in the public discourse.  They have, for decades, been successful in controlling how and what We The People can think and say by using Slave Talk to demonize free expression.

We are, at this rare and highly unique moment, empowered to undo more than a century of damage to social and cultural discourse.  There is great power in controlling the names we give things in our daily lives.  Slave Talk places rigid boundaries on the scope of our thinking, and worse, on our ability to express ideas.

The terms I have chosen here are common household words that clear convey concepts.  I do not say anyone but me must use these terms, but I do encourage everyone to select their own terms to replace the now-defunct language of Slave Talk.  The Free Press will, in due course, settle upon terms that will ultimately become part of the common culture, but it is vital that we do so.

Taking the power away from the Snakes and the Corporate Media to control the public discourse is mandated by the outcome of the US election.  Replacing Slave Talk with clear and direct language once again is imperative to the long-term success of the revolution that is occurring before our eyes.

We must also realize that this is not a US phenomenon, it is global in the true sense of the word, in that it is an organic movement arising from the mass of humanity, and not something being shoved down upon us.  This wave will continue, and to be sure that the old regime is completely dismantled, we must change our terms and re-arrange our concepts.

The Gay Divorcee

The high-level game of one-upmanship is progressing apace.  You've got the Russians shutting down AEGIS-class destroyers and the Americans blowing up Proton-M rockets with the latest communications satellite on-board.  The Crimean banks just switched to the new Russian financial clearing system and the Americans leaving scorched earth in Ukraine.

You've got China quietly sitting in the background.  These guys are shrewd.  Their rhetoric is clearly aligned with Moscow, but they haven't taken a direct action towards either camp.  They are playing their own game of watching and learning, while toodling around on the Moon with their little buggy learning all the stuff that has been so carefully hidden from the world for 50 years.

The EU is looking rather silly and confused.  On the one hand, they want to stay aligned with the US masters, but on the other, they see the US leadership has completely lost touch with reality.  They are teetering precariously on the fence trying to decide which side has the most king's horses and king's men to put it back together again.

Australia, historically a staunch US ally, is starting to waver.  They see the US playing a dangerous game of destabilization in the Pacific, which is soiling the Ozzie back yard.  They may have cultural and historical ties to the US,  but they also know which side of the toast is buttered when it come to trade and playing well with neighbors.

The US has obviously lost a lot of points in South America.  Brazil, a long-time ally and hot economy, is finding much greener pastures elsewhere.  Columbia and Venezuela, having been invaded by the US decades ago under something called the "War on Drugs," struggling to get out of the US tent and breathe a little fresh air.  Even quiet little Ecuador is tired of being ridden by economic hitment and want to get a little taste of their own resources.

Argentina hasn't had much luck the past few decades getting their economic cow pies together, but they are quite sure that playing in the US sandbox (and by extension the UK box-read Faulklands) is not in their best interests.

Underneath all of these macro currents, the number of secessionist movements globally has jumped dramatically in the past few years - Scotland and Venice being notable examples.  On this point, I am definitely torn.  Having worked many years in the Texas independence movement, I know the impulse and drive that makes a people want to throw off oppressive slavery and make a few decisions for one's self, for a change.

The problem with this is that you run smack into the old "devil you know" situation rather quickly.

Anyone who has ever been divorced knows that weird feeling of suddenly missing what was making you miserable.  You'll fall for anyone almost instantly just to replace that comfort of the familiar as fast as possible.  In a different situation, it's called the Stockholm Syndrome.

Once you have gone through all the court proceedings, and your friends have long since tired of hearing your litany of reasons for wanting out of the marriage, you find yourself in a position of being solely responsible for your well-being and the choices you make.  Even worse...in those moments when you just want someone to lean on, even a barb-wire covered post is better than nothing.

Furthermore, you no longer have anyone to back you up, regardless of the cost to your dignity and self-respect.  It's like the escaped slave running through the bramble, stepping on sharp stones with bare feet, and tripping over unseen obstacles - evenutally he will have the thought that at least he had three squares and knew where all the hazards were back when he was in captivity.

Finally, the main problem with independence is that one tends to cast wildly for new friends to work with, and this is where nefarious types step in to take advantage of one's weakness.  This is the classic divide-and-conquer scenario.  Break a member of the herd off alone and they are quickly very vulnerable to your evil machinations.

Herein lies the rub...people want independence and freedom, which is a good and, some would say, holy desire.  But there are wolves at the gates waiting to rip the flesh from bone as soon as those people are free of their protective shell - whether by stealth (sheep's clothing) or the direct take-down.

The PTB have acted in concern as a single, if not factionalized, entity for centuries.  They are above nations and without loyalty to anything but themselves.  Though they may disagree on the methods and tactics, they are united in their desire to rip us apart.

Smaller and smaller political units means the PTB have an easier and easier time of conquering.  That is why you see such effort to tear apart the Ukraine, or slice Scotland off the top of the island, or divide the various political forces within Iran, or keep the 'Stans ancient rivalries and hatreds stoked.  The larger the group, the harder it is to attack.  Exploiting weakness is a sure-fire way to win.

Humans have an instinct to 'circle the wagons' when under attack.  Obviously, the bigger the circle, the harder it will be to attack, and the opposing force risks a great deal in doing so.  Ideally, you want to get each wagon alone, so that there are no protected sides, no layered defenses and far more vulnerabilities.

The one major weakness of independence movements is that they rarely have long-term plans for when they succeed.  Cast loose, nations are like new divorcees, they will bed down with anyone who shows the least interest in them in order to feel the old comfort again, and that's where the PTB usually win.

Independence movements should first put their efforts and momentum into reforming what they have.  Failing that, they should corral their best and brightest to come up with a long-term strategy for survival once independence is gained.  This includes listing one's assets and deficits, and carefully forging relationships that include parsing the other sides' agendas.

One thing is certain, most independence movements fails right at the point where they succeed.  Since most do not have long-term plans, the general populace reacts with rebound syndrome and will run back to the devil they know rather than face an uncertain future.

Long-term plans must, perforce, include cultural, legal, diplomatic, educational, and economic solutions to the future.  It is easier to change an existing plan, than to plow forward in the dark with no clue.

One thing is sure - those outsiders who will support an independence movement from the start often have hidden agendas.  It is only after a successful divorce that worthy potential suitors will step forward.  It is key to remember that 'divide and conquer' always serves the divisor and never the divided.

The first step to independence is to act like you are already independent and start making clear-headed and long-reaching decisions for yourself, and especially taking full responsibility for the outcome of those decisions - good or bad.

Oftentimes one finds that by thinking and acting independent, one becomes independent.  Revolution by arms is never so efficient and clean as revolution by mind.  Stop thinking like a slave and the rest follows.

My Mouth's Watering!

Holy Cow

We frequently hear folks say, “You have to have an open mind.”

There’s a lot of talk about open minds and opening your mind, but few people seem to want or try to explain just what an open mind is.  Perhaps it is because they don’t really understand it themselves.  It is not easy to have an open mind.  It is the very nature of our upbringing that closes our minds, and we must make a conscious effort to pry open the boundaries that have been artificially placed on our thinking.

It begins with the most basic sensory input.  You are hungry, so you eat.  Certain feelings, sounds, smells, and sights become associated with specific automatic responses.  When it’s dark, you automatically think you can’t see, so you are not open to the possibility that you may be able to see with other means.  People who become blind late in life describe how their other senses take over and become enhanced.  That’s not strictly true.  They’ve always been there, we just haven’t paid attention to them.

If you are raised to believe that the sky is green, then you will resist, possibly violently, anyone who tells you differently.  You are quite sure the sky is green because it has been green all your life.  Now this other guy is telling you, “No, it’s blue.  Everyone knows its blue.”  Your mind automatically shuts out the new information and you actively try to distance yourself from anyone who tells you the sky is blue.

These automatic responses are not necessarily bad.  Certainly, when you are hungry, your mind begins to envision foods that would satisfy the craving.  What foods you imagine are strictly cultural, of course.  

A Texan might picture a thick T-bone steak, medium rare, flame grilled and served with a baked potato all the way.  A Texan can hardly imagine a decent meal that doesn’t include a healthy serving of beef.  

An Hindu Indian will starve to death surrounded by cattle, and never have a single thought that they are looking at food.  An Indonesian, on the other hand, will immediately picture rice.  Whatever else goes with it is not nearly as important as the rice itself.  In fact, Indonesians have a difficult time imagining how anyone can be satisfied by a meal that doesn’t include a good-sized portion of rice.

It’s all in our conditioning and training.  We associate good feelings and experiences with certain sensory input, and when we receive that input, our minds and bodies respond accordingly.  

To me, the smell of cooking bacon is the very essence of a hearty breakfast, but I daresay my Muslim friends here would be appalled.  Training and conditioning.

As I said, these responses are not intrinsically bad, but there are two key problems with them.  One is that they close our minds to new possibilities, experiences and learning.  The other is that they can be turned against us, and used to control us by external means.

Not long after I arrived in Indonesia, I was treated to a completely new experience.  Some friends next door had prepared a special meal that was a cultural favorite.  It happened to be dog.  Of course, I ate it, but it was interesting that I had to battle my body’s automatic revulsion, which was based solely on my cultural programming.  In fact, the food was very good and quite spicy, which I love.  But my mind kept rejecting the experience because I was trained that dogs are pets, not food.  I was finally able to uninstall the automatic response by examining it and controlling my unconscious reaction.  It took an effort, but was not impossible.

In the same way, we must first make ourselves aware of our automated responses to input.  That involves not only knowing when it happens, but exploring when and why that response was programmed.  At that point, we can begin to uninstall the reaction and start to learn and grow.

The second problem is the use of our automated responses against us.  

All our lives, we are shown flags and logos and symbols of power, and those items are carefully associated with natural responses to protect and defend our homes.

By carefully manipulating how and where those symbols are shown, we are trained with Pavlovian responses to have certain reactions to certain stimuli.  

For instance, the World Trade Center was a symbol of American power and wealth.  It was used in media all the time, in certain contexts, to install particular subconscious responses of pride and nationalism.  After they were destroyed, there was a famous photo that made the rounds of firefighterz standing on a pile of rubble with the US flag amidst the destruction.  

Gut Reaction

There is not one American who didn’t have some visceral reaction.  The majority were angered and dismayed.  They wanted revenge, even though the symbols being used had nothing to do with their daily lives, and in fact most Americans were not the least bit personally affected by the event.  After all, the targets were the banksters and the military/industrial complex, both anathema to true American values.

As a consequence of the emotional manipulation, people are completely close-minded to any information that challenges their pre-installed reactions, and thus their beliefs.  They find it impossible to even entertain over-whelming evidence that the money in their pockets and the nationalistic emotions installed since their youth could possibly be used as weapons against them.

Most will react angrily, even violently, to any suggestion that the official story is anything less than the unvarnished truth.  Their mental conditioning actively filters any information that contradicts the programming they have received.  These folks will not analyze their feelings and reactions, instead they will fight anything that goes against them.

Just watch commercials.  Those are the easiest codes to see.

Look at the woman who comes in the door with a bag that have a loaf of bread and celery leaves sticking out of the top.  Where has she been?  What lifestyle does she have, based on the setting of her house?  Is she wearing a wedding ring?

Look at the ones with a man and women discussing a topic.  Are they wearing wedding rings?  What are the settings and implied social status of the people in the scene?  What is the color and quality of the lighting?  Is it made to look natural or artificial?  Carefully look at all the objects in the background.  They are all placed there on purpose to tell you something, whether you are aware of it or not.  

Nothing in TeeVee commercials is accidental.  You are being subtly programmed and manipulated.

One very popular technique is called the ‘opinion leader.’  This is when the advertisement uses symbols to tell us that one of the people in the scene is superior and more knowledgeable: a white frock and stethoscope…an older person and a younger one…framing that puts one person above (superior) to the other.  Through the subtle use of camera angles, lighting, costumes, and other cues, we subconsciously respond to those people as ‘opinion leaders,’ so whatever they tell us gets past certain blocks and filters in our minds.  

The relationship of a parent and child, a very strong stimulus-response in every human being, is used to control our thinking.  When we are small, we must look up to adults, so by placing the camera below eye-level of the character, we subconsciously respond as if we are children.

The way people are conditioned and respond to stimuli are well understood.  It has been intensely studied for several centuries.  Psychology, behavioral sciences and sociology have categorized and classified the way most of us respond to a given set of stimuli.

There are dozens of famous experiments, and many more classified ones, that have reduced the process of programming himans down to 'point and click' simplicity.

Madison Ave. has made an art out it.  Why, people didn't have body odor until after WWII, when advertisers convinced us that we smell.  In fact, think about how many products you use in your daily life that are really worthless.  They serve no real purpose except to separate us from our money by manipulating our desires.

Pavlov's Dog

The one experiment that is so famous, it has become an adjective, is Pavlov's dog.  Pavlov put a tube in a dog's mouth and quantified how much saliva the dog released when exposed to certain stimuli.  Then he trained the dogs that food was available when they hear a certain bell.  After a short time, the dogs would salivate just from hearing the bell, with no food anywhere near them, or even within smell range.

How often are your fears and insecurities preyed upon by corporations and government to elicit certain feelings nad reactions from you, without you even knowing it's being done?  How many Amber Alerts and 'terrorist attacks' and 'bin Ladens' will it take before you open your mind.

See...that's the thing.  An open mind doesn't mean you are suseptible to suggestion.  Just the opposite.  It means you have turned off the automated part of your psyche and freed yourself from the manipulation of those who would own you.