Bending reality is as simple as bending people’s perception of reality.
Throughout history, the mythology of civilizations around the world has been full of tales of men and women who mastered a mysterious, esoteric art which enabled them to use language in a way that bends reality to their will. They’ve been called wizards, witches, magicians, sorcerers, warlocks or enchanters, and the utterances they speak have been known as spells, magic, incantations, conjurations or enchantments, but the theme is always more or less the same: a member of a small elite group with the ability to voice special utterances which shape reality according to their will in a way that transcends the mundane mechanics of this world.
People have long held a general intuition that language holds a power far beyond what ordinary mortals use it for, especially since the advent of the written word which was long mysterious to all but the most elite classes in a given society. This intuition has been spot on, though perhaps not exactly in the way that ancient mythologies have envisioned.
When I say “Bending reality is as simple as bending people’s perception of reality,” I’m not making some sort of mystical or otherworldly claim; I’m just making a factual observation about the influence that narrative control has over events big and small which transpire in our world. Many people whose brains lack a healthy empathy center–i.e. sociopaths, psychopaths and other narcissists–already understand this on some level.
Humans are storytelling creatures; everything about our understanding of the world is made up of narratives that are made of language. “My name’s Alice and I was born in Detroit” is a narrative. “The universe is 13.772 billion years old” is a narrative. “If I drink that bottle of bleach I’ll probably die” is a narrative.
Narratives don’t need to be based on any objective fact at all. “I can fly by flapping my arms” is a narrative. “God says you should mail me ten percent of your income” is a narrative. “You live in a free democracy and everything you read in The New York Times is an accurate representation of reality” is a narrative.
Ordinary people use language and narratives to understand and connect with each other, so they tend to favor narratives that are true. People who lack healthy empathy centers have no interest in understanding or connecting beyond the extent to which it can get them what they want, so they’ll happily use lies, half-truths, distortions and lies by omission to obtain power, control, money, sex, or whatever it is they’re after. They have a completely different relationship with language and narrative than people with healthy empathy centers, and they learn to exploit that difference.
Anyone who has escaped from a relationship with a manipulator will have an experiential understanding of what I’m talking about here. You start off under the mistaken impression that the abusive partner uses language the same way you do, so you keep trying to use it to form an understanding and connection, but it’s like your words just get turned around and twisted and used against you in a way you can’t really keep up with. You are fed narratives about yourself which have no bearing on reality: “You’re crazy”, “You’re not remembering things correctly”, “You’re dishonest”, “I’m not abusing you, you’re abusing me”, etc. You are fed narratives about your abuser which have no bearing on reality: “I’m the only one who’ll ever love you”, “I’m too nice, that’s my problem”, “I’m the real victim here”, etc.
When you escape from such a relationship it’s common to have to spend months or years afterward sorting out fact from fiction, reality from narrative distortion. Depending on the skill of the manipulator and how long you were with them, they may have inserted some very disorienting beliefs deep inside your consciousness in order to control you, and they can take a lot of work to uproot.
Large-scale manipulation of entire populations works more or less the same way small-scale manipulation of individuals does, and unlike abusive partners who have to more or less figure out their infernal art on their own, there’s been a concerted collaborative effort to refine the science of propaganda for well over a century.
Our world is set up in a way that rewards sociopathy with wealth and power, which means adept manipulators tend to rise to the top in business, government, and media. This is no accident: while ordinary healthy people were concerning themselves with learning the truth and forming connections, those in our world with no interest in such things have been engineering power structures to reward a lack of empathy. People who are willing to manipulate narratives toward their advantage without regard for truth or justice rise above those who aren’t in such systems.
We now therefore find ourselves ruled by those who use language not to connect and understand, but to bend reality according to their will. We are ruled, in a sense, by wizards.
Vast troves of treasure are poured into controlling the dominant narratives in our society as they relate to those in power and what they want to achieve. The government is your friend. The news man is trustworthy. You live in a democracy and your countrymen can influence government policy and behavior by voting. That bad guy in that other country needs to be taken out. Those people telling you we’re lying are Russian propaganda and need to be censored.
The spells are cast, and before you know it the bombers are deployed, the sanctions are implemented, the dissident is censored, the journalist is jailed, the political leader has been installed, the consent has been manufactured. Reality has been bent by simply using language to bend people’s perception of reality.
The more powerful the government, the more skillful the wizards. Chomsky once said that “Any dictator would admire the uniformity and obedience of the US media.” Narrative spells are cooked up by wizards in opaque intelligence agencies and uncritically regurgitated in anonymously sourced news reports, and before you know it Saddam has weapons of mass destruction, Russia is attacking American democracy and China cooked up the coronavirus in a Wuhan laboratory, and as always please know that the status quo is normal and is totally working great for everyone.
The good news is that this kind of word magic is not only accessible to esoteric masters reciting incantations from the pages of a dusty grimoire (which interestingly has the same etymological root as the word “grammar”). Anyone who understands malleable nature of narrative is capable of fighting back against the enchantments which pull the wool over the eyes of the rank-and-file public day in and day out, and can advance narratives that are based on facts and reality rather than lies and distortions.
You can be a wizard too. You can use language to influence the world by pushing back against the narratives spouted by the establishment spellcasters.
The better you understand the nature of narrative and its all-pervading role in our consciousness and our society, the better a wizard you can be. Pay attention not just to the large-scale narratives believed by masses of people, but the small-scale narratives believed by yourself as well. Find out what subtle stories you’ve been holding onto even in the darkest recesses of your subconscious mind which have been bending your perception of reality in a way which does not benefit you. If you want to master narrative wizardry, you must first attain mastery over its role in your own operating system.
Put truth first always, in all ways. Set the intention to use your healthy empathy center to connect, to understand, and to be honest: with those to whom you speak, and with yourself.
The more lucid you become in this way, the more potent your linguistic magic will grow. Narrative control is too important to be left to the manipulators, propagandists, liars and sociopaths.
See through the illusion. Shine truth on the lies.
You’re a wizard, Harry.
__________________________________
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84 responses to “We Are Ruled By Wizards”
A bit off topic, but I wanted to let people know about a petition to legalize psilocybin (magic mushroom adjacent) in Oregon. They gathered 128 thousand signatures out of 145 thousand needed (an absurd burden for a state this size) before the lockdown, and are hoping to close the gap by having people download single signature sheets and mail them in one at a time. You have to be registered to vote in Oregon to sign, but it would help to distribute the link far and wide. I’m in Oregon, and I only know about it from reading a Green Party mailing list.
https://yesonip34.org/
Not all wizards are bad.
Speaking of such wizards, particularly the select few business, government and military movers and shakers and of course any qualified (male) members of the National Press Club as well as the usual collection of likewise qualified entertainment luminaries – can we suppose they’ll still conduct the annual Summer camp to worship before the flaming altar of their 30′ tall concrete owl” in Bohemian Grove, this in spite of virus concerns?
Wizards is too generous. Lizards works for me. One tongue flicking narrative after another.
There are good and bad wizards and witches, K-Dog. Caitlin is a White With of sorts. I suggest you read some Franz Bardon, or, if you’ve got a strong moral backbone, Aleister Crowley.
Very true, Wizard implies wisdom, which and oxymoron when the operator employs his faculties of wit to create more evil in the world.
The Socratic dialogue stipulating the contradiction of terms when an operator tries to achieve happiness in his life by malevolent means is to long to try and extrapolate in a postage stamp sized quote box on a cell phone, but the fool whose foundation is fundamentally flawed enough the revel in the suffering of others he would not wish upon himself is a perversion not wisdom, so not Wizards but Sorcerers; and the amount of true Wizards with the modern inclination to hedonistic selfishness so prolific, the wise would seem to fit in a teaspoon.
Wisdom cannot tolerate the taint of corruption, akin to the antipathy of matter for antimatter they mutually exclusive.
We are in some real trouble when leaders and a race (there are far more Jews involved than you would care to believe Caitlin. I made this mistake too, but Rabbiinic Phariseeism, the Babylonian Talmud and Money system is ingrained in the religion proper now; at the very least complicity by complacent silence when withholding knowledge of advice not to go to work in the Towers today. I have been to Temple and Synagogue and the Rabbi didn’t have to say a word to let me know he hated me.
They have always considered virtue a kind of weakness to exploit with all types of deception especially since the Redemption through unbridled Evil dogmas of Sabbathai Sevi Nathan of Gaza, Jacob Frank and Adam Weishaupt all funded and supported by the houses of Rothschild AND Saxe Coburg Gothe the Queen of England our global drug dealers! and remember one vice contains all sins as implicit! So one is either true or untrue it’s that simple.
We are in huge trouble and when the time for the cease of talking but taking action passed 20 years ago. Waiting for God to fly in on the Clouds and fix things when so many have shunned Him/Her plural that are really our responsibility anyway is not a solution even if it is true.
The COVID is another divide and conquer ploy designed to see other human beings as walking death sentences, but the crooks doing it as saviours.
Whether to try and inhibit procreation or inhibit resistance to and obviously corrupt global regime of what is literally a Coven network containing the “All western politicians, Rock stars, TV presenters. Radio announcers, media and Entertainment of all kinds and Police ( they’ve recruited anyone with the authority to make your life HELL and they have been making mine so ever since I started trying to bring people up to speed; they have ruined my life)
The people are an anathema decent human beings out number so they will try to divide you.
However you’ve all left it so long I’m not sure you can win now. Certainly not by more talking while they mass murder steal make 800,000 children disappear a year and disarming the entire planet so your helpless ! Who thinks along the lines “ All that is true? Right let’s all talk more.?
I’m sorry to say I think victims think like that but I live In hope.
God knows I’m sick of them kicking the crap out of me for speaking the absolute truth.
Our very system is made by children. We create money out of thin air. Well, those who’ve painted themselves as “very important people” have granted themselves that authority. So this most precious “spice”, which can be created ex nihilo, by a system upon which an entire civilization existing on the surface of a planet depends, is up for grabs. It would make brutes of us all and has.
“precious “spice”. Unbelievable.
In a Fiat currency issuing State money is an abstract thing and so only exists in thin air.
Money is just a number that represents past production. It is not a commodity.
You need to get your thoughts a bit more critical. They are back to front.
The ‘planet depends’ on people creating better infrastructure, facilities, sustainable manufacturing etc, NOT MONEY. Hospitals, schools, roads, wind farms are commissioned. If the labour & resources are available then they can be built using private or public companies. A value is agreed subject to the current standard of living in that country. After the work has started,say on a monthly valuation, the first new money is created to ‘pay’ for this new asset. This money is just like a voucher or number score that represents the labour, resources and profit that has been produced. This money is then apportioned to the participants which can be proportionate or disproportionate depending on the existing economic ideology.
These actors / benefactors who are the ‘Users’ of the currency, as opposed to the ‘Issuers’ of the currency, then spend their cut and then over a period of say 10 to 20 direct & secondary transactions, this money is ‘Un-created’ by Tax.
This cycle goes on every day and yet most people like you still believe that human societies (The State) have to have a pile of money ‘before’ they can commission new work.
The fiscal controllers, politicians & central bankers know this but pretend to be ‘Users’ of the currency like you (household budget) so they can get you to swallow their economic ideology.
This is a description of how religions work.
Essentially, we are fighting a war against deception itself. The one, and only, thing that these horrible creatures who are pretending to be human have in common is that they are absolutely shameless liars. That is the common denominator. Accepting and believing in lies is what has allowed all of these horribly evil things to be present in our world, and in our lives. This is why it is so very very important for the truth to be spoken, and for truth to be spoken by the very breath that we live by.
History says slavery has been destroyed.
But that is all the shit of the bull!
It has not been destroyed, it has only moved from the gross to the subtle.
Yes, you don’t have chains on your hands and on your feet anymore, because the chains have become more subtle, they have gone deep into your mind, they have become more inner.
People are living in hypocrisy, in utter hypocrisy.
You are not what you think you are, you are not what others say you are, you are not what you believe you are.
This is the most fundamental strategy of creating a prison.
You are living in a hypocrisy, that is your slavery, and every real thing has been substituted.
The society has substituted mind for consciousness.
And mind is the cause of your unconsciousness.
To become conscious is to get out of your prison.
All that is needed is to become more and more conscious.
More knowledge is not needed, more consciousness is needed.
How can there be equality when you have been taught through mind from the very beginning to be ambitious?
Ambition means that you have to be higher than the other.
Ambition means that you have to prove your superiority that you have to prove everybody else is inferior to you, that you have to succeed.
If success remains the god, if ambition remains your education, how can there be equality?
To talk about equality is utter nonsense.
It did not exist even in communist countries.
It cannot exist anywhere unless ambition disappears.
Humanity is constantly at war, each moment you are living in conflict.
You will be fortunate if you don’t see the very end of life on this earth.
Preparations are on the way to destroy the whole earth.
And the people who are doing it are doing it behind great names, nations, religions, political ideologies, communism.
It seems humanity exists for all these kinds of things, communism, democracy, socialism, fascism.
The reality should be that everything should exist for humanity, and if it goes against humanity it should not exist at all.
The whole past of humanity is full of stupid ideologies for which people have been crusading, killing, murdering, burning living people.
We have to drop all this insanity.
A bird’s eye view is needed to look at the world, all over, as one unit.
Our problems have brought us to a situation where either we will have to commit suicide or we will have to transform humanity, our old traditions, our conditionings.
Those conditionings and those educational systems, those religions that humanity has followed up to now, have contributed to this crisis.
This global suicide is the ultimate outcome of all our cultures, all our philosophies, all our religions.
They all have contributed to it, in strange ways, because nobody ever thought of the whole; everybody was looking at a small piece, not bothering about the whole.
But as far as humanity is concerned, I don’t think there is much chance of converting the masses against their own past.
They are creations of the past, and their past will come to its crescendo in the coming crisis.
The masses will be drowned in that crisis.
I feel sad about it, but the truth has to be said.
Only a few people in the world will be able to survive after this global suicide, and those will be the people who are deeply rooted in consciousness – alert, aware, loving, and ready to disconnect themselves with the past completely and unconditionally, and ready to begin the new humanity with the freshness of a child.
I have been enjoying the fact that there are many people in the world who are capable of going deep into themselves.
Their only hope is a self-realized being.
It is too late to do anything to prevent the immense destruction that is going to happen.
If we can protect only a few genuine human beings, that will be enough, more than enough.
The past of humanity has been absolutely accidental, they have been doing things without knowing their consequences.
Now we are suffering the consequences and there is no way to change those consequences.
The whole ecology around the earth has been destroyed.
Life does not exist as separate islands, not a single individual is an island.
Everything is interwoven.
You have heard these two words, ‘dependence’ and ‘independence’.
Both are unreal; the reality is interdependence.
We are all so interdependent on each other, not only individuals on other individuals, not only nations on other nations, but trees and people, animals and trees, birds and the sun, the moon and the oceans.
Everything is interwoven.
And the past humanity has never thought about it, that it is a cosmos.
They went on thinking in terms of taking everything separately.
It was impossible for people in the past to think that people and trees are connected, that they are interdependent.
My emphasis is that our problems are international but our solutions are national.
No nation is able to solve them.
I take it as a great challenge and as a great opportunity.
Nations should be collapsed into one world government.
It was tried by the League of Nations before the second world war, but it could not succeed.
It simply remained a debating club.
The second world war destroyed the very credibility of the League of Nations.
But the necessity was still there, therefore they had to create the United Nations organization, the U.N.
But the U.N. is as much a failure as the League of Nations was.
Again, it is still a debating club because it has no power.
It cannot implement anything, it is just a formal club, full of criminal politicians.
We have to create a world government, made up of all the genius’s, and the creative people from across the earth.
All nations should surrender their armies, their arms to the world government.
Certainly if there is a world government, neither armies are needed, nor arms.
With whom are you going to have a war?
Nations have become out of date, but they go on existing, and they are the greatest problem.
If nations disappear, the second great disease is religions, because they have been fighting, they have been killing, and for reasons in which nobody is really interested.
Who is interested in God except the priests?
Because that is their business, and they want their business to spread.
First the nations should go, if the world is to survive.
One humanity is enough.
Second, the religions should go.
One religiousness is enough: meditation, truth, love, authenticity, sincerity, which do not need any name.
Just one religiousness, a quality, not something organized.
The moment organization comes in there is going to be violence, because there will be other organizations in conflict.
We need a world of individuals without any organizations.
Yes, people who have similar feelings, similar joys, rejoicings, can have gatherings.
But there should not be any organizations, hierarchies, bureaucracies.
First nations, second religions, and third, a science completely devoted to better life, to more life, to better intelligence, to more creativity, not to create more war, not to be destructive.
If these three things are possible, the whole humanity can be saved from being destroyed by its own leaders, religious, political, social.
We need, with these three fundamental changes, a great respect for creative people of any dimension.
And we should learn how to transform our energies so that they are not repressed, so they are expressed in your love, in your laughter, in your joy.
This earth is more than a paradise, you don’t have to go anywhere else.
Paradise is not something that has to be achieved, it is something that has to be created.
Herenow.
It depends on us.
Looking at the world, just like a bird looks at it, a strange feeling arises.
We have everything, just we need one humanity.
Take this whole earth away from the hands of the politicians and the priests and you will have saved the world, and you will have changed the world into a totally new phenomenon, with a new human consciousness.
And it has to be done now, because the time is very short.
https://whenwardisappears.wordpress.com/
It did come from a Chinese lab. Less well known is that our NIH helped fund the research. You need to discover two more things to solve the crime. 1) how did it escape the lab (stolen?) and 2) who helped get it around the world so quickly?see epoch times reporting for details at link below. my guess would be it is the usual suspects ic, msm, and dnc (deep state globalists). The early dickering indicated DNC, tipped off) was onto it before Trump was. Goals: Weaken USA
Oust Trump
Manufacture consent for additional spending (trillions so far)
Curtail protest (limit group size) and even normal discussion
Get the public used to “emergency” martial law and following outrageous government orders in general.
Suspension of due process and rule of law.
Chips in vaccines as permanent locators, and perhaps termination devices
pharma profits and release from liability
New World Order, world control
Reduce social security, medicare and medicaid liabilities
More power and money to Washington, as usual.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4Aps2NPe54&t=3m33s&fbclid=IwAR1CjfNx4_bmzXa6GDqCPrgrQe-JMw336fz2uzWiwsmcYCGKqdkCV0RQYrM
https://www.theepochtimes.com/who-created-the-ccp-virus-documentary-exposes-pandemic-origins_3305798.html
This idea that narratives can be manipulated to bend or, better yet, define what counts as reality itself is actually admitted by one high-level American Regime official who was interviewed by Ron Suskind in 2004.
This official, reputed to be Karl Rove (though Rove denies it), is quoted in Suskind’s article “Faith, Certainty and the Presidency of George W. Bush” as brazenly declaring:
The aide said that guys like me were “in what we call the reality-based community,” which he defined as people who “believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.” … “That’s not the way the world really works anymore,” he continued. “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors … and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”
Mainstream bourgeois media people are so happy to talk strictly about the virus.
They do not have to talk anymore about socio-economic inequalities, about people protesting for a decent life etc…
Do not forget the Chinese regime is a great friend of the Western bourgeoisie and they are ready to help…
Keeping my Rosary on hand!
Everything is connected. Sometimes, we get little hints as to the truth of this.
Because modern Hollywood sucks, I’ve been passing time watching old episodes of Columbo. It has the advantage of eleven seasons of the stuff, and prodigious volume is useful in an age where Hollywood rarely produces anything even vaguely watchable.
Just Yesterday, likely while Tim and Caitlin were composing and typing this piece, I was was watching Season 7, Episode 4, where the evil, this time jealous, murderer happened to be a 1970’s style self-improvement guru. He was rich from getting people to pay for his seminars, books, tapes, etc. His spiel was about the Power of Words. His lectures were to teach about the power of words, and the ability of that power to control you.
So, just yesterday I was watching some old TV about the power of words. It wasn’t broadcast. Its not like the days of 4 networks when people would be watching the same thing and both then thinking about the same thoughts. Nope, this was completely disconnected from our favorite authors in Australia.
Except, everything is connected. We are all connected.
——
Everything is connected.
—–
Oh, and the in the TV show, the guru had a special trick that he taught the people who paid for his seminars. He taught them that each of them had to choose a special magic word of their own. To convince themselves that their own secret magic word was more powerful than any other word. This meant that nobody else could control them with other words, because now they always had the power to break free.
—–
Hope that little trick helps someone, somewhere. Since it apparently came to me by some power outside the bounds of normal perception, from somewhere in the Twilight Zone, I thought I ought to share it, as perhaps it might be important.
Sounds like est.
Today’s comment by Delores has been replaced by this timely interview with Senator Big Mac Centrist.
Talking Head: “Hello, Senator. Perhaps, for the new viewers who have not heard you many times before on this network, you could tell us a just a bit about the politics of Big Mac Centrist?”
Big Mac Centrist: “Hello Talking Head, its a pleasure to be here today. And of course, I always love to talk about myself.”
Big Mac Centrist: “Well, you’ve all heard of Big Mac. He owns everything in town. He owns the factory which employs many in the town. Big Mac owns the bars and liquor stores that sell the alcohol that makes everyone forget that their job sucks and doesn’t pay well, and that Big Mac is going to evict them in the morning. Big Mac owns the newspapers, and of course this TV station. Big Mac owns everything. And I am proud to support such a pillar of the community in every way possible. Especially since he paid for me to become a Senator. Big Mac is a great guy, and whatever is best for Big Mac is certainly best for the community. That’s why I officially changed my name to Big Mac Centrist, so I can proudly appear on the ballot as a vote for Big Mac Centrist”
Talking Head: “Yes, of course, Big Mac signs my paycheck too, so I think he’s a wonderful cool dude. Excuse me, your answer explains the Big Mac part, but what about calling yourself Centrist?”
Big Mac Centrist: “Oh, that’s because being a Centrist is great. Being a Centrist polls extremely well. Everyone likes a Centrist. We tested various other labels, and they all had the problems of large numbers of people disliking them. So, we tested Big Mac Liberal, but many people hate Liberals. The same with Big Mac Conservative. But, everyone loves a Centrist. Well, maybe love isn’t the right word. Most people don’t have any idea what it means. Heck, I don’t know what it means. But nobody hates a Centrist, and that more than makes up for the fact that nobody really loves a Centrist either. The important thing is that I’m for Big Mac 24/7.”
Talking Head: “Now. of course, what everyone wants to know today is what they can do to help Big Mac come through this Chinese Virus Crisis?”
Big Mac Centrist: “Well, the first thing they can do is to get back to work.”
Big Mac Centrist: “The most important thing is that every Big Mac Enterprise makes money. Even though Big Mac is getting billions from the Great Donald Trump and the help of loyal supporters like myself in Congress, it is still vitally important that every Big Mac Enterprise is profitable. And I mean get back to work tomorrow folks. The latest projections have shown that Big Mac may not be able to afford his new yacht if this Crisis continues even one day longer. And the good employees at Big Mac Luxury Boatyards need that order or else they get ground beneath the wheels of the Mighty Profits Chariot. So, Big Mac needs his new yacht, or else its your fault those children starve to death.”
Talking Head: “But isn’t it important to stop the spread of this Chinese Virus?”
Big Mac Centrist: “That’s all a big hoax. The Chinese are lying when they say how dangerous this virus is. Its all an evil Chinese plot to destroy the capitalism that made America Great! This Chinese Virus is just another form of the flu. And we all know that every employee is expected to come to work and infect all of their co-workers as long as they can still stand up. We are kind bosses, so its ok if the employee has to run for the bathroom every 30 minutes. We’ll let them take that time from their lunch break. And after those 10 minutes are used up, we lt them compensate the company by having double the missed time deducted from their pay. But we all know how important it is to keep working. We all know that we have to be tough. We all know that we have to be Big Mac Strong and not let a little flu keep us from making Big Mac his profits. No, we are tough Americans and we make Big Mac profits every day and twice on Sundays, after we go to church of course and join the preacher in praying for Big Mac’s health and even greater profits.”
Talking Head: “But there are reports that there are mass graves being dug in the cities? We are hearing that 10% who get this Chinese Virus die? Isn’t it dangerous to go back to work?”
Big Mac Centrist: “This is just like the flu. Tens of thousands of people die from the flu every year. And we don’t stop working for the flu, do we? Some people with some underlying conditions may die from this. Yes, that is true. But not if you are healthy, right. And everyone is healthy right? Of course they are. They had to swear an oath that they were healthy before being hired by Big Mac Enterprises. No sick people allowed at Big Mac Enterprises! So, nobody lied on that form, did they? You know what we do to dirty, rotten liars! Nope. Everyone is healthy, and this doesn’t really effect healthy people. Not that much. Maybe a week in the hospital. But don’t worry, we’ll toss you out of there long before your cured. The important thing is that everyone must get back to work. Its ok if the weak die. They are only the weak. And who cares about prisoners, detainees, or old people? Right! We are all better off if they all die anyways. So, if getting back to work helps spread this Chinese Virus, then that’s helping make America Great!”
Talking Head: “Well, lets talk about foreign policy. The world doesn’t stop just because some people have a little cold. Recently the Evil Chinese have been tearing down America by saying that their system handled the Chinese Virus Crisis better than Great American Capitalism? Isn’t that a terrible thing for the Evil Chinese to be doing?
Big Mac Centrist: “Of course it is. That’s what you expect from the Evil Chinese. The Evil Chinese are lying, of course. In reality, their system collapsed in the crisis and hundreds of millions died. But they are covering it up. The Evil Chinese are lying, just like they always do. That’s why I’ve proposed an immediate $1 Trillion dollars to our Great Defense Dept, so we can counter the Evil Chinese threat and their constant lies that tear down America.”
Talking Head: “Thank you Big Mac Centrist! That’s all we have time for tonight. Now, an advertisement on a special Chloraquine Chinese Virus Cure that you can order for only $3000. Operators are standing by. And after that, we have a story on how the lies about mass graves in New York City are just an Evil Liberal Plot to hurt Big Mac. Good Night America!”
Thank You, Delores; I really enjoyed that.
That was great. In the style of Caitlin but with one little give away line to let us know it wasn’t her. One the subject of Chloraquine, If we can believe Rudi’s doctor friend the best thing we can say is that it actually does no harm when used in moderation. 300 patients and no one died. (Yes it is lethal if over used) So if we take into account the placebo effect (A proven medical fact which is why double blind testing is so important) then giving people Chloraquine in small doses and insisting that it works is actually a good thing ! But yes, a sugar pill may well be just as good. Your welcome. (!)
ABRA-CADAVER!
(With a Hat-Tip to Guys Bunny)
The rich really want people to believe they deserve their riches, so they try to convince us they are better, smarter, harder working, or possess special knowledge from their superior education. In order to do that, they have to convince people that the poor are lazy or stupid. Religions invested in the normalized horror of the status quo like to convince people their faith will be rewarded with riches, so you can assume the poor are being punished by god for insufficient devotion.
About an hour ago I was listening to Chris Arnade, author of “Dignity,” being interviewed and taking questions on C-SPAN2. I think it was the interviewer who said he had a brother who majored in philosophy and dropped out of college, typically a recipe for unemployment, but he obtained a high paying job anyway. That brother had gone to Yale, where the classroom teaching is no different than any other college, but he networked with the upper class, and learned to speak the magic words correctly (“It’s levi-OH-sah, not levio-SAH”). He learned to fit in, learned the behavior codes, such as not getting a neck tattoo. And when he needed a job, he just called one of his Yale buddies, and he was in. It’s like magic, if you don’t know what the trick is.
By the way, someone asked Arnade about going to college, and I got the impression he was not into it, but his advice was, if you go to college, don’t go into debt for it. Go to community college, or get a Pell grant, or scholarship.
“We now therefore find ourselves ruled by those who use language not to connect and understand, but to bend reality according to their will. We are ruled, in a sense, by wizards.”
A wizard has no power whatsoever unless there are people who believe he/she is a wizard. A wizard is totally impotent on their own. No special pill or words or ceremony is going to restore virility to this colossal fraudster. The power is totally and always within the listener, the life force outside and apart from the so-called wizard. Wizards hate that reality and do everything in their power to convince everyone that the power is within The Wizard Only. If someone is foolish enough to believe that fundamental falsehood, their ruin is assured.
Look at the words of mythology within the creation story in Genesis 1. Repeatedly you find the words, “God said…” And what He/She spoke in words became manifest. That points to a power and authority to Words (Story, Narrative) in that words precede and manifest a reality (true or otherwise). Therefore, those who (mis)use words for their own purposes to mislead and enslave humanity are positioning themselves as a god (and must be rejected). The one who “misuses” words can either be the Wizard OR the listener who misuses Words by believing them wrongly.
Anyone who foolishly forfeits their God-given personal necessity to reject all false wizards and masters cannot find a positive outcome. This does not mean one has to buy into a particular characterization of Universe that a religion might promote. But it does mean that you cannot and must not hand over your personal power to any politician, leader, educator, scientist, guru, fact-checker, social media website, self-proclaimed authority, educator, lover, or ANY OTHER PERSON OR THING.
Wizards and Words by themselves are pitiful nothings. The power now and always is solely within YOU.
“Power is a curious thing. Who lives. Who dies. Power resides where men believe it resides. It’s a trick. A shadow on the wall.”
The notion that providing a characterization of the universe was the province of religion became obsolete when people finally noticed that the whole universe didn’t revolve around the earth.
One habit to adopt is to never let anyone lie to you twice. Once is sometimes unavoidable. But twice is unforgivable.
(((Wizards)))
No doubt it is a lost cause when people are still believing those who told us on 9/11 that there were airplanes wreckages in the Pentagone and in a field in Pennsylvania while there were no wreckage at all to be seen on your tv screen.
Too much to lose still for too many people (social status, money, assets…) to admit we are lied to.
Truly, we live in the return of the days of Noah just before the return of Jesus. As it was in those days, most people are of bad faith and I pray the Rosary to hasten the return of Jesus because I have seen enough bs.
According to legend, Noah was the only person to have ever achieved mass, multiple, simultaneous genocides. Well, okay, his cover story is that he saved two of each. But we only have his records to support his claim. And we are left with a lot of dead people and animals to explain. And don’t most people who commit even just one genocide claim that they talk to God? Yeah, buddy, we’ve heard that one before.
I can tell you are among those on 9/11 who have seen airplanes wreckages in the Pentagone and in a field in Pennsylvania while there were no wreckage at all to be seen on your tv screen.
Fed up with people of bad faith…
Keeping my Rosary on hand!
Another ” Wizard History ” lesson!
The Donald Trump administration, which is fast becoming a regime, has dusted off some old tracts of the anti-Communist John Birch Society to reignite the far-rights war against the United Nations, including the World Health Organization (WHO). To paraphrase the old United States Civil War song about slavery abolitionist John Brown – whose body was rejoiced as “a mouldering in the grave” – the body of John Birch, for whom the John Birch Society was named, should also be left “a mouldering in the grave.” Please read this relevant article here:
John Birchs Body Should Still Be a Mouldering in the Grave
by Wayne Madsen!
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2020/04/17/john-birchs-body-should-still-be-a-mouldering-grave/
Been wondering for some time why you sugar coat your description of the billionaire monsters who rule us as sociopaths. What you describe is psychopathy, and they are psychopaths. From what I’ve read (particularly by Dr Robert Hare) people born without a conscience or empathy are termed psychopaths, and it is a mental aberration neither curable nor treatable.
One of the psychopath’s main characteristics is his insatiable need for control, power and wealth and he will do whatever it takes to acquire these. He’s attracted particularly to the following professions: law, military, police, church, politics.
We are governed, in most segments of society, by psychopaths, and imo, why most of us live under fascism.
If you want more insight into psychopathy and its influence in our lives, look at the website theauthoritarians.com.
Robert Anthony “Bob” Altemeyer is a retired Professor of Psychology at the University of Manitoba. He produced the test and scale for “RWA” or right-wing authoritarianism.. He did extensive research on authoritarianism, identifying the psychological makeup of authoritarian followers and authoritarian leaders. His research is depressing, but should be better known. Maybe we can protect ourselves as a society from right wing psychopathic authoritarians, and maybe we can’t, but we should know what science tells us about them. Bob has a free downloadable book to read which details his findings.
Sociopath and psychopath are words describing the same human psychological type. Psychopath was perfectly adequate until Hollywood redefined the word in the public mind to mean “serial killer” (see Hitchcock’s 1960 movie “Psycho”). They did this to ensure that the public would not understand what a psychopath really was. While all serial killers are indeed psychopaths, the vast majority of psychopaths are not serial killers. Please note that psychopaths control Hollywood, as it helps to explain why the meaning of psychopath was corrupted in this way. Because nearly everyone hears “serial killer” when the word psychopath is used, the word “sociopath” was created to indicate we mean psychopaths who aren’t serial killers in the Hollywood sense. Those would be our political leaders, like Clinton, Bush, Obama, and Trump. But be aware that our political leaders are just puppets that serve our real controllers, who stay in the shadows so they cannot be held responsible for the indirect mass serial killing that they do routinely because of their immoral agendas.
whatever you read, or see or here, if it seems obvious, it’s probably a lie. Always question – and question doubly hard the things that you believe in. Even if they were true when you formed that belief, the greatest underlying principle of our human existence is that change is a constant. What was true for you ten years ago, is no longer so.
I can see on TV replays of game shows from 40 years ago, that winning an advanced Smith Corona typewriter was a cause for excitement. Not so much these days, I’m sure. does anyone even use them any longer?
The problem is that there are too much people for whom it is in their self-interest to believe the lie.
They know it is a lie as well as anybody else but if the lie is to protect their social status, money and assets in the long run they will endorse it.
Truly the return of the days of Noah just before the Second Coming of Jesus and I pray the Rosary to hasten His return because the bs is unbearable.
Ralph Nader still uses a typewriter. I can imagine it would be helpful to distance yourself from the tornado of distractions online. Also doesn’t need batteries. I know people who write by hand for similar reasons, but they have staff to type it into the computer for them.
What this article is talking about is Matrika Shakti, the power of words. This was expounded upon in Vasugupta’s Shiva Sutras (9th century CE), an important text of the philosophy of Kashmir Shaivism: https://www.matrika.co/en/matrika-shakti/
Sorry, Cait. I do not want to have one gang of ‘wizards’ ruling over me, replaced by another gang of wizards. As I keep repeating; narrative/story -telling is for children.
I want adults in charge, meaning, people who have learned to think in a scientific way. Often that is confused with ‘logic’, which is a complicated way of fooling yourself.
I mean observe, theorize, test theory, revise theory, build schemata; models of reality. Use them to analyze and predict what is going on in the world about you.
For example, in the case of the covid19 pandemic and the right response to it. Infantilized adults will grab onto one of the narratives out there, according to their own personalities, ranging form conformist to anti-authoritarian.
Adults will identify the actors in play and study what they do. Which state actors have been the most effective at controlling the outbreak? What are the common elements among them?
Conversely, which states have failed to bring the virus under control, in particular without resorting to drastic means? What are the common elements?
Concurrently, look at which media actors are advocating or questioning different approaches to dealing with the pandemic. What methods of argument do they use? What are their assumptions? What are their real affiliations? What are the common elements in these?
From this, you start to build up a model, a schema, which tells you not just which actors to trust. You learn to analyze who to trust about what, and how far.
You learn what do do to protect yourself from a real hazard. Also, what not to do, even when recommended by authority.
You can also learn how and why the state you live in got into the situation where such drastic measures became necessary. You can begin to learn what needs to be done to insure such a situation does not recur.
See how it works? The trouble is, it takes an awful lot of time and brain work. People generally do not have the time to work through problems like this. What we can do is make sure adults are in charge.
Tim thank you for your thoughtful comments. You remind us the process of critical analysis and thinking is both time and energy consuming, not for the faint of heart or mind. It takes immense focus and persistence to accomplish the activities you describe and well worth it in my view. Good nutrition and wellness practice and physical activity are essential to being best able to undertake this kind of endeavor. Trees and nature also help with the balance needed. Thanks.
The book ‘Political Ponerology’ (meaning the scientific study of political evil) was written by the last survivor of an underground group of psychologists and psychiatrists in the former Soviet Union and describes how psychopaths can rise to power and create totalitarian states. The USA is at the ‘spellbinder’ stage, where it’s governed by a charismatic individual pouring out twisted logic, twisted morality and Big Lies. Totalitaria is not inevitable after the spellbinder, but is a possibility. ‘Spellbinders’ are always pathological. Trump has been described by professionals as either a narcissist, a malignant narcissist, a narcissistic psychopath or a psychopath (they can all have very similar outward behaviors) – I’ve listed the names of some of those professionals below.
Anyhow, the author of this book makes it very clear that individual abuse can be scaled up to become national abuse. He also makes it very clear that those who’ve suffered abuse as children (but I’m pretty sure it extends to those who’ve suffered abuse as adults as well) can see very clearly what’s going on in such circumstances.
A couple of quotes from the book:
‘The ponerogenesis (growth of evil) of macrosocial phenomena – large-scale evil – which constitutes the most important object of this book, appears to be subject to the same laws of nature that operate within human questions on an individual or small-group level.
*
(Adults who were abused as children) have a normal nature but experienced an unfortunate childhood, being subjected very early to the domination of individuals with various psychological deviations, including pathological egotism and methods of terrorizing others. The new rulership system strikes such people as a large scale societal multiplication of what they knew from personal experience. From the very outset, such individuals saw this reality much more prosaically, immediately treating the ideology in accordance with the paralogistic stories well known to them, whose purpose was to cloak the bitter reality of their youthful experiences. They soon reach the truth, since the genesis and nature of evil are analogous irrespective of the social scale in which it appears.’
*
*
Trump has been described by professionals as either a narcissist (psychologists Howard Gardner, Ben Michaelis, George Simon), a malignant narcissist (psychiatrist Lance Dodes and psychologist John Gartner), a malignant narcissist or a narcissistic psychopath (Elizabeth Mika, therapist, and psychiatrist Fred Burkle, writing together e.g. ‘An Authoritarian or a madman?’) or as a psychopath (Steve Becker, licensed clinical social worker specialising in NPD)
Is Trump, who continued many policies put in place by his predecessors and has so far (I stress that qualifier) not started a new shooting war, as opposed to prolonging and intensifying murderous sanctions and coming recklessly close to another war by assassinating an Iranian hero, really any more psychopathic or otherwise evil than all the others in America’s recent string of presidents? Cruder, coarser, less eloquent, less likable, less competent, more impulsive, more childishly self-absorbed, etc.? Yes, certainly. But qualitatively different in character and motivation than most other post-JFK presidents? Sorry, I just don’t see it. I couldn’t vote for him, but neither could I vote for Hillary, madly in love with regime-change war and Wall Street. I will likely be in a similar quandary, along with many other Americans, when it comes to the Hobson’s choice of Trump or Biden.
Many people feel as you do. You are not alone — far from it.
>> Trump, who continued many policies put in place by his predecessors and has so far (I stress that qualifier) not started a new shooting war,
Dead Palestinians, Yemenis, Iraqis, Iranians, Venezuelans, and more on Trump’s watch. Plus provocations against Russia and China, setting up future wars.
Not sure why you only mention “new”. Trump is a mass murderer, like his predecessors and successors.
Sorry, I’m guilty of not reading your full comment before opening my mouth.
Agree with you.
Very well put.
well i would include jfk, ramped up vietnam, beat nixon by running to his right and emphasizing america needed to overcome the strategic advantage of the soviet union nuclear force (a lie), brought the world to the brink of a nuclear war in cuba for no very clear reason, and in general coddled warmongers like joe mccarthy and contributed to the cold war hysteria. i know, i know, like second term obama he was gonna change everything.
Felt sort of like you do before plunging into some detailed histories of JFK, written by both insiders and outsiders, which convinced me that he was changing course and threatening to destroy the deep state and rogue intelligence agencies that he instinctively bucked by refusing to send massive air support for the Bay of Pigs invasion. Have come to the conclusions that this is what got him killed, this sudden, unexpected move TOWARD greatness, that Chomsky got him wrong, and that the deep state takeover of American government (and its MSM mouthpieces) began in earnest on November 22, 1963.
http://edwardcurtin.com/unspeakable-memories-the-day-john-kennedy-died/
About the current health crisis:
“The celebrities in particular are such over-the-top cheerleaders that is nauseating to watch them; smiling vacuously as they host their shows or deliver state-approved messages from the comfort of their palatial estates.”
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/04/donald-jeffries/the-locked-down-world/
Again, it seems that the upper class, feeling or knowing that this crisis will “save” the “System”, are the most enthousiast fans of the measures taken by the government.
Keeping my Rosary on hand!
Spot on! Money + narrative = control. It is the power to say 2 + 2 = 5 as in Orwell’s 1984, make everyone repeat it, and even love Big Brother while doing so. Thank you for reminding us of the magic freedom of 2 + 2 = 4. Now get ready for the two minutes of hate coming your way. I for one will just say thank you for remaining a truth teller Caitlin Johnstone – a rare gem in the current moment. The analogy with domestic abuse is also spot on. The motive is the same – power and control. We must work our own magic to undo this corporate spell. https://mbrigade.com
The problem with this narrative is that it assumes that the psychopaths, sociopaths, gaslighters, manipulators, etc, create and maintain the capitalist system in their own image; and that changing from their dominant narrative to an empathic, humane one consequently would change capitalism into a system that somehow isn’t exploitative but is more reflective of the humane, respectful values of the new dominant, non-psychopathic ‘narrative’.
Except the real world doesn’t work that way. Capital works according to its own inexorable laws, and the main one is: confronted by competing capitals and the overarching tendency for the rate of profit to fall, the capital held by the individual capitalist must accumulate, reproduce and expand, or the enterprise goes under. The only way open for the company to stay afloat is to use every opportunity to increase its market share and continually jack up the rate of exploitation of its workforce.
The human agents best suited to this activity have to be psychopaths, sociopaths, liars, cheats, and all the rest. Capitalism positively rewards psychopaths, sociopaths, cheats, swindlers, and liars. These types, like scum, rise to the top because they have no compunction in winning the capitalist arms race in the ceaseless dog-eat-dog ‘struggle of all against all’. But these types live in capitalism’s depths too: the jails and prisons are repositories of the unsuccessful psychopaths and sociopaths, and it’s no coincidence that the criminal classes are the firmest believers in private enterprise. Capitalism creates these types in its own image.
Such is the irrational economic system that history has bequeathed us, which dominates the vast majority of individuals on this planet, exploiters and exploited alike. Until such a system of exploitation, anarchy, chaos and crises is destroyed and replaced by a rationally planned economy that serves human needs, the psychopaths, sociopaths and their ‘narratives’ will continue to dominate. And until the consciousness of the working class — who alone has the social power to stop capitalism in its tracks and take it down in a revolutionary overturn — is qualitatively transformed to realise and use this power as a class to liberate humanity, then it doesn’t matter a jot whether atomised individuals, even the majority, are divining truth or not.
As Marx and Engels asserted, “The ideas of the ruling class are, in any age, the ruling ideas….The dominant ideology is the ideology of the dominant class”. New ideas, or ‘narratives’ won’t really come to dominate society until a new ruling class does — the working class.
If you had a clue how economies work, you would realize that all economies are capitalist, the only difference being who controls the capital. There are two types of economy that are controlled at all, which means controlled by the state. There is little difference between them. Socialism, in which the state controls the capital for the benefit of the Sociopaths In Charge which are those direct members of the state. Oligarchy, in which the state controls the capital for the benefit of the extremely wealthy Sociopaths In Charge in the financial system who the members of the state are beholden to. Whatever control is implemented by the state insures that sociopaths, psychopaths, etc. will be the ones who rise to the top in the state, or in the oligarchy. The only real difference is who controls the capital, those who created it, which does not involve the state, or those who stole it, which would include any control involving the state. The one and only thing governments have proven themselves to be good at is killing people. To suspect they can be good for any moral purpose is delusional. Anarchy would be an improvement, but would last only until some gang of sociopaths or psychopaths succeeded in taking control at gunpoint and re instituted government. Unless we prevented them from doing so, at gunpoint.
A clear and cogent explanation of precisely the mindset we must NOT have if the human species is to evolve in a positive direction…as it now must or die. Utter pessimism, cynicism, and futility–accepting “dog-eat-dog” as reality’s fundamental principle–is the means by which neoliberalism seeps inside us–into ALL of us to some extent–while outside it continues to control, exploit, and strangle us and all other living things.
Bravo!
You’re that Anarcho-CAPITALIST, aren’t you? Are you having fun yet?
Most importantly, I neglected to mention that the capitalist system turns perfectly nice, empathic people into psychopaths and sociopaths. While capitalism certainly attracts to its summits people with such traits well developed already, those without them and who don’t develop them quickly enough won’t last long at all when thrust into such positions. And capitalism’s abuse of its victims will also harm in similar ways. Capitalism creates and nurtures the psychopaths and sociopaths in its own image: cold, calculating, ruthless.
Stephen, just like clockwork, you produce another in a long line of great comments. Congratulations!
Do you think that the internet (with Youtube, video conferencing, etc.) negates the necessity of a formal “government” comprised of millions upon millions of people?
For example, to have an internet and its benefits, people need a means of connecting and interacting in that internet, and that means computers of some kind must continue to be produced, which means factories to produce them and, to at least some extent, humans have to produce and operate the machines that make the computers, monitors, etc.
The big problem is that in the present world/reality someone or some investors “own” all of the menas of production and maintenance of that capital. I try to avoid these “owners” and cut to the chase as follows.
I will describe one possible Golden-Rule-based alternative to the present economic system and I’ll once again resort to imagination to do that. I want to take a mind trip. I want to compare two worlds – the earth on which we live and another planet that is identical to ours, except that in that planet’s solar system there has been a brief solar event whose radiation has not only instantaneously killed all of the people on that planet, but, amazingly, also slowed down the physical deterioration of any of the things that the planet’s deceased inhabitants created.
Hearing about the calamity on the twin planet, millions of people from our planet, who just happen to be unemployed ex-technicians from various professions (yes, a very competent bunch), jump into spacecraft and fly to that other planet. But, before they leave, they agree that all of what is on the other planet will be “owned” equally among them and used for the good of all. (Yes, you’re right, that is exactly where I’m going.)
Just like there is on this planet, there is an internet on the other planet, so the immigrants instantly realize that a so-called representative government will not be necessary …………. on the other planet. In that place there shall be direct democracy. People will hammer out important decisions amongst themselves using the internet as a means of virtually instantaneous, mass communication. (Ah yes, “human nature” will certainly be tempted in this new Garden of Eden.) There will be only one “nation” on one new world. There will be only one set of rules for every person. There will be no other nation to export to. There will be no nation to import from. Human beings will either sink or swim together.
After the new immigrants arrive on their new planet, using existing transportation systems, they disperse all over their planet so that they can get their new (old) machines up and running; fields plowed and planted; hospitals operating, etc. (Yes, it wasn’t easy. But with the common good in mind, people were successful. Just accept it for the moment.)
The immigrants soon realize that it takes very few people (far fewer than immigrated) to keep the machines running, food on the table, etc., and, with some more design engineering, even fewer people will be required as time goes on. Not only that, but the products of these machines can be made to a much better quality then they apparently were previously, so these products will last far longer. As a result, it is realized that perhaps some of the huge machines can be operated far less frequently than they used to be. For example, automobiles soon come to be made much simpler, easier to fix and more reliable. They have a far greater useful lifespan than they once had.
The people enjoy leisure time, developing their artistic abilities, playing games and other non-productive activities.
Rather than unfairly have the same small number of people constantly toiling on the machines, the people decide to divide up, or “distribute”, the labor that is necessary to operate the machines, plow the fields, construct buildings, roads, etc. That is, everyone has to work on the machines, etc., but for only a short period of time each year. And as the machines get improved and further automated, even less labor is required and, therefore, even more of each individual’s time is “free”.
The newly-designed machines in this new world come to do almost all of the things that must be done, and the “profit” from the machines – leisure time and the products of the machines–is equally divided amongst all people.
Some of the leisure time is used for training all people in the variety of tasks they will be undertaking – everything from brain surgery to sewage treatment. Apprenticeship and training via video (just like Youtube on planet earth!) are found to be the ideal ways of training people. It is soon discovered that most medical and dental procedures can be either performed by robots or learned in a fraction of the time once thought to be absolutely necessary.
Through apprenticeship and video “schooling”, the population becomes very knowledgeable, so they soon realize that by reducing their own population by slow attrition – by having only one or two children – the remaining population has even less to do (less water treatment, housing, electricity, food, everything), so their descendants have even more free time to themselves.
These people’s new-found religion is two-faceted — the Golden Rule and the continually-evolving simplicity, ease-of-use, and, most importantly, high-quality-construction and, therefore, long usable life, of the products they create. Unlike they did back on planet Earth, they now strive to manufacture things only once — things that with simple, inexpensive maintenance, last essentially forever.
Transportation systems move people to and from the machines and other places where labor is needed, as well as moving people about the planet for other less practical reasons.
Life is great in the new world.
My point is that there are possible alternative ways of living (economic systems), but the only thing we are allowed to hear in our prefect Matrix of education and 24/7 propaganda is that there are no alternatives available, other than the experimental ones that are at this very moment being literally dreamed up by the present entrenched powers-that-be in order to serve only themselves.
You might be interested in a similar vision circa 1888/1897:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/11/19/on-earth-as-in-heaven-the-utopianism-of-edward-bellamy/
Hi Ishka…
Great post and thanks. It is, in my view, only through a pure and kind heart and a well nourished imagination (such as the one used to create your exciting scenario) I agree we have the opportunity to create forms which will simultaneously repair our culture and heal the planet and, yield more time, space and opportunity for the unique creativity and celebratory activities our species was designed to enjoy. Really enjoyed your post. Imagination is our way out.
Yes, frequently I’ve propounded a similar thought experiment that you do here. I framed it as more an ‘open letter’ to Elon Musk and his followers, (or similar) starting with this question: If the human race had to establish a colony on Mars ASAP and we had the means to take say 50,000 to start it, how many stock brokers, real estate agents, lawyers, cops, prison screws, businessmen, and all the other accoutrements of private property would we take? None. We’d take scientists, doctors, nurses, teachers, engineers, pilots, tradesmen, inventors, labourers, computer programmers, artists, and all the other categories of producers of the material world. Our existence in the hostile Martian environment would require the most careful planning and execution, and its only our historical baggage, not just the thinking but the very mechanisms of rule, that prevents us viewing Earth similarly to Mars, in need of ‘re-colonisation’ on a rational and international/global basis.
And imagine this: when those who produce are in charge rather than those who appropriate the surplus, is it hard to imagine that psychopathy and sociopathy wouldn’t swiftly be stomped on? Human ‘nature’ would change forever and for the better.
Finally, humans do need things to do other than pure leisure, but once the drudgery of producing the necessaries of life is automated and remaining necessary labour minimised and shared around, then the spare time can be devoted to all manner of activities where the line between ‘work’ and ‘leisure’ is permanently blurred, where the individual will be free to pursue their full potential in whatever direction they so desire. Now that’s real freedom.
Great comment, Stephen! Thanks.
the Wizard of Oz ! Toto had it sussed, just look behind the curtains .
There’s plenty of snake oil for everyone if you care to drink from the chalice
In the modern West, this wizardry started after the end of WW2 with the Holocaust narrative and the evil, racist Hitler as the Great Satan. But there were no gas chambers, and there was no systematic Nazi program of mass extermination. This changes everything, but just try saying it in polite society 80 years later….
No, you can’t say that in polite society because there actually was, you nazi. I don’t know what planet you’re from but I was born and raised in Amsterdam. Both my parents lived through WWII and German occupation here, and came out quite knackered. The whole city came out of it quite knackered, frankly. My mother lived in the Catholic block opposite the Jewish block and she saw those people being led away. My dad came out from under the Arbeitseinsatz by his street kid wits alone. And I’ve met and talked with a few old survivors over the years, ho also came out of it quite knackered. It happened all right. So, fuck you.
Ah, another clash of stupidities. Listen, “joseph”; Yes the gas chamber story is nonsense, yes the nazis did not exactly plan any mass extermination, but it doesn’t really matter. The stuff they really did is bad enough to condemn them forever in history.
Erronius; debating about who did the worst atrocities does not get us to any useful place. How about we try to stop the ‘knackerings’ of civilian populations which are going on right now? tr
This is not about which atrocity is worst. The Dutch had their own genocide before the 40s were over, in now Indonesia, fordogssake. This one just happens to deeply affect my own lived history. You deny it even happened, I punch your face.
Hmmm
First you scream 4 letter words. Now you are resorting to threats of physical violence. The irony of course is that yours is exactly the kind of behavior that is unacceptable in American society not your intended victim.
As a matter of fact, I do believe your threat of physical violence could constitute a crime. Caitlin why haven’t you banned this person? Surely you do understand that by allowing this individual and his posts to remain you are condoning violence…….
Ddearborn
Get
away
with
your
bully
tactics
and
fake
outrage.
Hmmm
Just so we are all clear here Corkie; you are in fact supporting verbal abuse and threats of physical violence. And in no small irony you are doing so by trying to bully me.
Depending on the state, a criminal threat can be charged as either a misdemeanor or felony offense. There are also civil remedies readily available in most Jurisdictions. erronius should be banned from this forum and his offensive posts taken down. I am saddened but hardly surprised given the underlying topic that Caitlin has refused to take the threatening post down, let alone ban the offender. It’s not just your slip showing this time Caitlin, you are butt naked for all to see.
In my day I seen more than one argument ended by violence But, I have never seen violence win an argument. It should be painfully obvious to all that using threats of physical violence to silence differing views and opinions is literally the antithesis of everything America stands for. As are the actions of those that aid and abet such violence. The silence on this forum in the face of these threats is deafening.
For the record Caitlin, at this point your continued inaction here is as much of an indictment as erronius’s threats of physical violence against Joseph. I cannot not and will not condone threats of violence nor those that tolerate them.
Hmmm
Caitlin using editing to make my post unreadible in this manner is a blatant and cowardly form of censorship
Is your last name Goebbels?
This is a magical piece of writing – THANK YOU. What I wouldn’t give to make sure every human laid eyes on it.
I have some thoughts on the future on my blog twoviruses.com . It’s an allegory about the Neoliberalism virus and the Coronavirus.
Caitlin: You have the knack of seeing the way in which bull-shittery narratives can be made to sound legitimate – a kind gas-lighting – from “mainstream” corporate-owned media – and out of the mouths of political leaders – puppets to other vested interests. I love reading your work – every day that you write. I recognise lots truth – its search for truth – for the reasons behind whatever the matter is being fore-grounded. Banzai! Banzai! Banzai! (May you live ten thousand years! Shouted three times for strong emphasis – of course!)
I recognise its truth (not lots truth – auto-correct gremlin strikes again) – its search for truth…
I just love the way you combine the healing of the personal with the healing of the global political.
Caitlin you are wonderful and I thank you for the help you give me in my own personal struggles with my own unhealthy inner narratives. You serve me well with such a richness and depth of feminine passion and wisdom. I would love to meet you sometime – Here is an absolutely wonderful narrative that I adore – The coming of the discovered Holy Grail – a master narrative of liberation. But to approach the grail one must clean oneself of negative inner narrative. I see you as serving the coming of the Grail
A grateful Kiwi living in USA
Your takes on current affairs are brilliant, but your understanding of history is abysmal.
“especially since the advent of the written word which was long mysterious to all but the most elite classes in a given society”
No, no, no, and NO.
The written word was developed independently in 3 places: China, Sumer, and Central America. The Spanish conveniently destroyed all the records, so we have zero idea how writing developed in Central America.
In Sumer, it developed pictorially to record debts and transactions and was easily understood by EVERYONE. Later, as it became more complex, it was actually women who were more involved as scribes than men (see Enheduanna for more). Only post Sargon did it start to slowly evolve into a restricted class of elite men.
In China, it developed as a way to mark bones that were used to predict the future (a precursor of the I Ching). Only a thousand years later when Confucianism arrived did it become an activity of elite men. That being said, Confucianism also introduced the idea of “civil servants exams” which allowed ANY man (but no women), not just an elite man, to rise up in the ranks.
Clearly, you’re basing your history on a superficial memory of medieval Europe when only the clergy were literate. Also, nice of you to elide right over the Baal Shem Tov and The Wizard of Earthsea series 😉
That’s a shouty little bit of teaching there, Sam.
Relax, Sam. I think you missed Cailtin’s point – given the context. In all societies where there was writing, most people were uneducated and semi/fully illiterate. Simple mathematical symbols are not the same as written language, any more than marking bones. The point is that the ability to use language to manipulate has up until recently only been in the hands of a few.
The United States Government Is Your Friend And Mr. Putin Wants You Dead!! That Ms Johnstone says it all in a nutshell. The ” owners and the masters ” keep on pounding that into our heads day and night; therefor the truth must be the opposite of that. Mr. Putin is your friend and the United States government wants you dead.
You’re right. Often it is the exact opposite of what they want you to believe. I always use the opposite narrative as a starting point, and then do a reality check on that.
This ” Virus ” has this country headed for disaster; I am not the only one that thinks that way!
This age of battling narratives tends to conceal the broken consensus behind it. What’s gone is a broad social agreement that there are certain fundamental realities, and then codes of conduct that follow from them. When anything goes, don’t expect people to do the right thing, or even know what it is.
Please read this timety article here:
Flight Path by JHK
https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/flight-path/
I think there’s one more thing that happens- language can be used to make things and ideas seem fuzzy, unclear. That makes it easier for us to doubt ourselves and our observations. It makes us a little more susceptible to the speeches of clever manipulators, giving them the benefit of the doubt when they don’t deserve it.
A friend and I were just discussing the way words and images are used to influence people. A timely article and as usual spot on. Thanks.
Words Fail Me…
Cheech Wizard
http://www.johndayblog.com