GlobalRev And The Pig's Lipstick

Clif High over at HalfPastHuman (link in sidebar) and his amazing webbots have been predicting for some years now that we are seeing a 'global revolution.'

According to the various theorems put forward by Clif and George Ure (UrbanSurvival, also linked in the sidebar), the longer an event is seen in FutureTime, and the more references to body parts, the more profound and widespread will be the actual event. The various ALTA and Shape of Things to Come (SOTTC) reports over the years have predicted a massive shake-up in the way things are. Reading the language takes a little emotional input by the reader. One must not only READ the words, but FEEL them.

With that in mind, my take on GlobalRev is that we ain't seen nothing yet. Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, and the rest are just the PTB/W (what I call THEY so I don't give them any credit for having power) changing kommandants at a few stalags, slapping some paint on the barracks and planting some bushes around the camp office. In effect, THEY are adding blusher and mascara to the pig's lipstick to pacifiy the inmates and release a little tension.

We ain't seen nothin' yet.

When it comes, it will be deeper and bigger than anything we living folks have ever known. It will shake the very foundations of our assumptions. It will change our realities.

I don't see any of that in the headlines. The real revolution is happening far below the radar of MSM and our common reality.

Real revolutions destroy everything. They completely dismantle what came before and replace it with something entirely new. The last time that occured was in the 1700s, with an echo in the early 1900s, with the Bolsheviks, though that was a carefully controlled and orchestrrated event.

The founding of the United States was a major change in world order. It's rrepurcussions were felt all over Europe and led ultimately to the World Wars and the downfall of the various royal houses. It was a change that upset the order of things that had existed for centuries. It changed the world at the deepest levels.

The Founders tried, in their massive wisdom, to institute revolution as an ongoing process. They tried to create an unshakable foundation of Law, over which the walls could be torn down and rebuilt as necessary.

However, creatures like political parties sprung up and slowly started making the walls, and then the roof impervious to change. Today, the process is little more than changing butts in seats, which is then hailed by the lapdog press as being 'profound change.' Yet, the same ol' same ol' just continues day to day, with no real change occuring.

The same process has creeped into global politics. THEY took their success at corralling the US system and rubber stamped it all over the world. Now, leaders at the highest levels of pretty much any government can be swapped out like tires on your car, but THEY are still behind the wheel, driving us all to ruin.

Nay, the REAL GlobalRev, which IS coming, if you know where to look, will be of an order that schoolchildren three hundred years hence will learn about in the same context as 'the shot heard round the world.' It will first challenge, then destroy the current order of things, and when it's done, nothing you know now will be the same.

So, what do I think the GlobalRev will look like?

My feeling is that it's going to destroy all the barriers between people and their governance. It will be a complete re-think of are and want to be governed. There will be no borders, per se, nor visas nor IDs or anything of that nature. Governance will devolve down to the most intimate of levels: the family and the village/neighborhood. Everyone will watch their own and the concept of 'authorities' and 'institutions' will cease to be the ruling paradigm.

The age-old idea of 'a man's home is his castle' will come to full fruition. People will first concern themselves with matters of home and hearth, then their immediate surroundings. After that, there won't be much need for anything larger. The concept of Natural Law and Rights will become universal, and protecting them will be the responsibility of the individual, through 'enlighten self-interest.'

The internet will be our primary source of news and information, and each individual will report and consume the work of others, as they see fit. Having corporate 'middle-men' as 'gate-keepers' on our information will become an antiquated notion. Education will be done at home, or at most, at the community level. No cookie-cutter propaganda assembly lines called schools.

The corporation, as a creature of law, will die. There will be no such thing. Individuals will create and trade as individuals, taking full responsibility for their products and actions. Evey home on every street will be its own business, trading products and serives on the internet, with the free market determining the value.

All trade will be done through barter or electronic gold (e-gold). Yes, it will be digital, but if you need your gold in physical form, you just pop over to the distribution center and withdraw your metal. No reserves, no fractionals, no bullshit.

Oh, sure...this all sounds utopian and pie-in-the-sky. How it will all work out is for all of us to figure out. I'm just trying to make the point that the REAL revolution that's coming will leave the world a much different place than it is now. Changing stalag kommadants is NOT a revolution, it's a shake-up of management. Happens all the time at corporate headquarters.

The REAL revolution will be a mass awakening, a completely new way of looking at things. It could even be a new age, though I hesitiate to use that term, because it's been hi-jakced by corporate interests to funnel people into the proper chutes.

The REAL revolution will take years, decades or even a century to go through. Dismatling EVERYTHING and figuring out new ways of doing things will take some time. And it's not going to be peaches and cream, either.

THEY will fight it tooth and nail. THEY will not give up their cushy puppetmaster position easily. It's been to lucrative for them. THEY will do anything to stop it, divert it, squash it, and defuse it. Egypt is their playbook at work. Watch, listen and learn. The bastards are vicious, and THEY have already proven that life means nothing to them. THEY will destroy anyone and anything that threatens their little operation. After all, THEY've spent centuries building their little empires, plotting, calculating. THEY aren't just going to look dejected and walk away like the kid who didn't get picked for dodge ball.

However, their reaction will only further re-enforce in the popular mind the absolute necessity of ridding the planet of this infection.

Hosni Mubarak did his job dutifully as manager of the Egypt department for 30 years. Here's your pin and a check. So long and thanks for all the mummies. Now THEY are taking resumes to replace the butt in the chair. THEY may hire from within, or bring in some new blood. We'll see.

But, it's NOT a revolution, sorry. Neither was Tunisia, nor any other little skirmish coming along.

When it comes, the GlobalRev will be a metaphorical tidal wave sweeping the Earth clean and literally starting over. It will be a change not only in how we are, but who we are as a phylum.

It's nothing new. It has been going on since the fall of Rome. A nick here, a notch there. Sometimes a whole chunk comes down. But, slowly, the GlobalRev has been occuring for centuries.

In this respect, the webbots aren't predicting the future, only trending history out a few years. Anyone with a library and the will to read and learn can do the same.

What Clif's work does do, and George's horn-blowing, is wake folks up to the inevitable. Most folks slide through life, payday to payday, not looking at the stream in which their life is flowing. Once in a while, a large boulder and some six-foot standing waves can be seen on the horizon, and slowly folks pull their heads up out of the stream and notice.

In this respect, the webbots are the first alarm, and they are causing folks to look ahead and notice the rapids approaching. Many folks will put their beads back down and worry about it when they get there. Others will begin lashing down the provisions and getting the oars in the water.

Some people will stumble through on dumb luck. Others will prepare and be wiped out. That is life. Can't do much about Universe's little jokes. But, odds favor the prepared mind, so better to see the rapids, I figure.

Clif's SOTTC reports are $10 apiece, downloadable in PDF format. George's site features a free daily economics report, Monday thru Friday, with weekend special reports for subscribers, at $40/year. Either one or both certainly help push the odds in favor of the prepared mind.

So, with oars in the water and provisions lashed down, here we go into the Brave New World. If you are one of THEM, sorry bub, but your free rise is coming to an end.

But YOU know that already, don't you?

Student Becomes The Teacher

I call them my kids, but they are young adults with college degrees embarking on their first big job.

This group was all computer whizzes in the field of IT. They've been hired by a major international oil company in the support services, and the company wants them to have above-average skills with the English language. To that end, they are enrolled into an intensive class, one month long, five days a week, eight hours a day. In that time, they do nothing but read, write and speak English.

The part that is important to me is that I develop a relationship with my students. I am able to gain a good insight into their strengths and weaknesses. I am able to adjust the materials to suit their learning styles. Hopefully, I am successful in transferring what I know about the langhuage to them, many of whom have never been taught by a native speaker.

For me, it is one of the most gratifying experiences of my life. To give a key to someone that unlocks new avenues of learning and experience is something beyong ability to express. It can only be experienced.

Nearly all of the most influential teachers in my life have been my English teachers. Joe Zarantonello, Lou Swilley, Pat Schereib, and most importantly, my mother.

My mother was a task-master. I had to read constantly. When I wrote papers, they had to be perfect not only in structure, but also in penmanship, which is nearly a dead art these days. Oh the tears I cried, wathcing my papers get torn up and having to start again. The endless re-writes. The late nights trying to ensure that every letter on two pages of writing was perfectly formed, not to mention the grammar and spelling.

These days, my mother would be considered a monster. The current paradigm is to accept whatever a child does as being 'their personal best,' so that we don't damage their fragile self-esteem. Rubbish. Though the work was formidable, I have gained a skill for life that I have made a good sum of money from using. I have written articles, stories, scripts, manuals, and presentations in my professional career. I have won awards for my wordcraft. And the skill has served me well throughout the world, not the least of which is my exant situation.

I am not a vocational teacher. I have had a full career in media. In the latter half of my life, however, I have settled into teaching both as a means of eating, and as a way of transferring my experience to people who can use it to further their own aspirations. Hopefully, their skill will increase their earning power and open opportunities to them, as well.

I have never taken any 'education' clasees. My certification only means that I have been trained in the various standard techniques for teaching English as a second language. However, I have found most of the 'standard' approaches to be nothing better than jumping off points. They are a place to start, but the individual student determines what will best open the door of learning.

My teachers were as different as night and day. Joe Z was the poet, Swilley the reader of ancient texts, Schereib enjoyed old and middle English epics. But, Stan Norman taught me to interpret the word to the stage, thus bringing it alive. At the base of all that was my mother who gave me the desire to read, the skill to write and a large and useful vocabulary.

I use everything they taught me every day. In my classes, we practice the techniques, we read the literature. We imagine ourselves in real life situations and role-play them in improvisational skits.

And one last teacher who influences me: my father. He was a history teacher, and that gave him a passion for the etimology of words and the precision of language. He ensured that I studied Latin in high school. I hated every minute of it, but it has served me well over the years. Not only has it deeply influenced my writing, but it has opened ancient texts and the impenatrable fortress of 'the law' to my prying mind.

So, I got misty today as we wrapped up our month-long course. I made the students read the daily paper, so they made hats out of folded newspapers. I spent time playing with language, not only English but Indonesian. I told them about the Indonesian word I made up, memberlihat-lihatkanilah. I said that it means, "Been there, done that, got the T-shirt," though in Indonesian it is pretty much unintelligable. Never-the-less, they gave me a T-shirt with my imaginary word on it. They also gave me a photo, a LARGE photo, framed behind glass, of our group together outside on the campus.

I was floored. I wanted depereately to make a quick escape before I let loose too much emotion. They, of course, wouldn't let me go that fast. I was overwhelmed by the gratitude and thoughtfulness of their gifts. I wish that I could extend that moment, but I can only cherish it: the feeling that I did something for a group of people that opened some locks. And that they were so moved as to invest time, effort and money to show their gratitude.

So, as I write this, wearing my T-shirt emblazoned with 'memberlihat-lihatkanilah,' I am in the presence of the ghosts of teachers past. Perhaps I can never tell them personally (though I have already told my mother) how grateful I am for what they gave me, but I can take those tools and pass them on to others. I can use them to open doors and offer some measure of what those tools have done for me to another generation.

With any luck, they will use the tools to make their part of the world a better place. Hopefully, something I did will lead to greater understanding and new insights. But, if nothing else, I hope they will be enriched both financially and spiritually by something they learned in my class.

The key word there is 'hope.' Hope is such a strong motivator and powerful weapon. The greatest gift anyone can give, is hope. And in my case, I was the recipient. It strengthens my spirit and empowers me to hope that the future is better than the past. I teach not just to give hope, but to get it.

By the way, who made the British the arbiters of the English language, anyway? Most of them can barely speak it themselves! Half of English is Latin, which means a Roman would be just as qualified to teach English as a Brit.

I'm just sayin'.