The First Corporation

Thousands of years ago people lived in close knit clans and the population of the world was only a tiny fraction of what it is now. People could go an entire life time without ever encountering a stranger. Unfortunately, sometimes strangers purposely encountered them.

One particular day at one particular village a very long time ago, such an encounter took place. It was just after dawn on a foggy morning that the village clan was going about its normal morning routine. Firewood was gathered, fires were lit, and food preparation was underway. Mothers breast fed their babies, children played and elders sat waiting to be fed.

The comforting sounds of fire crackling and children laughing were interrupted by the muffled rumbling of hoof beats and the sharp clatter of scraping metal coming from somewhere beyond the fog. The sounds grew louder and more distinct by the second, and so, sensing danger, the people of the clan quickly gathered together in the center of the camp.

Moments later, emerging from the haze came a terrifying vision: men on horseback draped in animal skins and headpieces with long pointed horns, their faces painted, some wearing masks with menacing non-human expressions. The villagers had never seen anything like this before. Not knowing if these beings were humans, spirits or even monsters their hearts thumped hard in their chests as they stood paralyzed, watching the creatures growing nearer.

As was intended, the strangers had caught the village inhabitants completely by surprise. They rode into the camp then viciously slew every man in the village with razor-sharp flesh-cutting blades. Throats were slashed and skulls were crushed; innocent blood flowed in hot rivers and soaked the ground. Violence like this had never been seen there before.

The women and children were shocked and traumatized, and they tried to run, but they could not escape. They were all rounded up and brought back to the center of the camp, then separated into two groups, women on this side, and children on that side. Some of the horrifying creatures searched through every dwelling and looked up every tree to make certain they'd found every last member of the clan.

When all of the women and children had been found and separated the strangers dismounted their horses and killed every child one by one. Babies, toddlers, everyone under the age of 12 was slain with swift deliberation. They then turned their attention to the women. Any who were old, sick, or pregnant were also killed. The rest would be taken to be their slaves and wives. They took whatever pillage they found desirable from the camp, then pulled the women onto their horses in front of them and began the journey home.

Behind them lay a sickening scene of incomprehensible carnage. Bloody, dismembered dead bodies of children, women and men were the last thing the surviving women saw before being dragged onto the horses and taken away. The innocent dead were the silent remnants of a story that no one would ever hear.

The brutal strangers whipped their horses with leather straps and rode them hard, desiring to get home before nightfall. They made good time and when they arrived they beat the women, raped some of them, humiliated them, and began to break them. Over the following days they forced them to cook and clean for them, sew their garments and make their living spaces comfortable. The women gathered wood, tended the fires, brought water for their households and slowly accepted the imposed routines of their new unasked for lives. They also wept for their murdered children and husbands, and mothers and fathers and other family members, but they did so only when they would not be caught and punished for their tears. Within a year the women began giving birth to the children of their rapist captors.

Things being as they may, some of the women came to accept the men who took them as wives, but others were not so lucky. For the unlucky ones no love was in the man they lived with. No kindness existed in his heart, and no interest existed in him for her. He wanted progeny and he wanted a slave, and he got both through brutality and violence; not because brutality and violence were necessary, but because brutality and violence gave him total control.

These men devoid of love or kindness were single minded and driven by a simple fact: they could exponentially increase their power and wealth through the use of organized mass murder carried out on defenseless people who were taken by surprise.

They perfected the art of this psychopathic behavior over the course of many years and countless attacks on villages and settlements none of which were ever prepared to defend themselves against the slaughter and brutality these men wrought. This became their stock in trade and within two generations an entire ideology developed wherein the practitioners of organized mass murder deified and worshipped themselves and each other, with the greatest respect going to the most brutal, most psychopathic and most murderous among them. These were the first CEO's, commonly referred to as kings. They deified themselves before the people to become the church, and the combination of king and church became the state.

The rest is history. It is also the present for little has changed in the ways of men who to this day continue to profit through the mass slaughtering of innocents and the plundering of their lands. Today it has become more sophisticated only in that they have been able to convince others to go and do the slaughtering for them and bring the plunder back to the CEOs. The weapons have evolved with the development of technology, but in the end they do the same as their earliest counterparts, they kill innocent people as quickly as they can be wielded. They kill more people with increasingly less effort every passing decade.

The expense of creating these modern weapons to stock the armed forces that use them is far beyond need or justification because the CEOs long ago knew how to profit from that too. They own the vast enterprises that build the war camps, and which manufacture and sell the weapons that are used to perpetrate the genocide and theft of resources all over the world. They don't fund a penny of it and they never have to get their own hands dirty. Their own lives are never in danger. It is all done for them, at no cost to them and at no risk to them whatsoever. It is we they convince to do their slaughter for them, pay for it all, and take every risk and loss unto ourselves.

Today's most powerful CEOs aren't much different from their earliest embodiment. They are no less dangerous. Their attire has changed from animal skins and fearsome masks, to tailored suits and silk ties. No longer on horseback they now ride in limousines to boardrooms and back rooms to claim their victories, engaging in brutal tactics that continue to decimate millions of lives in their endless drive for more wealth and more power. Today they are able to walk among us unrecognized for they have mastered the fine arts of subterfuge and psychological manipulation to the point of gaining and maintaining total control over the minds of people everywhere.

Are they to be commended for their achievements? They would contend that their superior ability to kill, deceive and enslave mankind deserves high recognition and that because of their brutality and dishonesty they are the superiors of all men. But today, just like thousands of years ago they would be wrong to make such a claim, and they know that. That is why they dare not speak such things where others could hear them and recognize them for who and what they are. What they are is the greatest evolution of human evil this world has ever known. They embody and inspire every vile potential of mankind.

It takes no talent whatsoever, no thought, higher or otherwise, no particular intellect and no effort to be driven by greed and lusts and to live without compassion for others. Blunt force murder is the failure of mankind, not its apex. The CEOs, the state, are deceiving themselves as much as they are deceiving this world. They are Earth's slow children, retarded in moral development, the most truly disabled among us, for these men have no souls and so they can never be whole. They would be pitiable but the nature of their disease makes them singularly difficult to feel any pity for.

FORCED IDEOLOGY IS TOTAL CONTROL

The propaganda of war mongers has bled deeply into the fabric of our culture and has for hundreds of years been successfully used to bring citizens to their feet and willing to go off to fight their desired wars. The looting and plundering is the primary goal, the theft of the wealth of others. But this is never told to the people they lie into blind cooperation. Other stories are told, often complex and compelling stories that instill fear in the public. Fear is the primary motivating tool behind war, the most effective tool in the propaganda arsenal.

Depictions of foreign strangers as monstrous enemies with inhuman traits and offensive belief systems are the meat of the feast of successful war propaganda, and no substantial evidence to support the claims of imminent doom is asked for or provided. The claims usually defy logic and facts but are crafted with such great expertise, the tellers are able to mix opposing ideas into good sounding excuses for war. The Holy War is an example of this mixing of opposites, and patriotism is a concept used to manipulate the emotions of the masses. Propaganda is profoundly effective and that is why it is the first step to waging any war. Without it, there would be no chance that people anywhere would be moved to kill anyone.

If you doubt that modern wars are fought for the purpose of gaining wealth and power for the few at the expense of the many, then answer these questions. Why is war the most profitable business there is? Why isn't profiting from war held in utter disregard? Why isn't it illegal? If the reasons for war are so very pure and noble then why do the same ranks of individuals always become so incredibly wealthy war after war after war? If there was not a penny to be made in war, would we still go off to fight them?

It is after all you and I who pays for war with our money and our lives. Our hard earned dollars are directly transferred from our pockets to the pockets of wealthy men with our government serving as the enforcing agent. We have no choice but to pay. It is the high level officials who call for war, and who more and more are the very same men who head up the major corporate entities, including the corporate media, that profit so abundantly from war. Take the money away, take the profits away, take the media's relentless war propagandizing away, make war profiteering illegal and reduce profits from war to mere pennies and just see how much war would be waged.

The greed and brutality of a small class of people make up the foundation the rest of society is built on. They are always at the top, and we are always at the bottom. They are always in the position to make and enforce all of the rules, and we are not allowed to break them. They take our money at gunpoint and we are not allowed to refuse to fund their endless capital ventures. We do all of the work, pay for everything, they get rich, and we get a paycheck that is only a bare fraction of our fair share of the wealth we create. They keep it. And they keep taking more, getting stronger, and we keep losing our just share of power, wealth and prosperity.

Unless and until we can see this, it will continue. It will keep getting worse and we will keep suffering as they keep gaining what they so endlessly desire. All of the money, all of the power, all of the control over all of us, that is, those of us they decide to let live.

A DIFFERENT WORLD

Without these violent greedy war mongers deciding our fates, we could have a completely different world. If it were up to us to determine our own fate, to design our own world and future, would we do it as they have? Would we poison our own air and water and destroy our own environments?

Would we have so much need for money when the fact is that our birthright on this earth includes our entitlement to take whatever we need for our lives from earth's abundant natural resources? We don't have to destroy it to use it. We know perfectly well that destroying our world is suicide.

There is no justifiable reason and no need for a small group of men to lay claim to and hoard the massive natural wealth that belongs to everybody, including future generations. There is no right for those who are obsessed with greed and control to deprive us and coming generations of our birthright, our share of a pristine healthy natural environment that we all need to sustain our lives; or to preempt our ability to prosper and justly participate in the shaping of our society and our own private lives.

The combination of arrogant indifference to others, limitless greed and the use of overpowering violence is the most serious underlying disease of mankind.

Sadly, even today there is no known cure for this cancerous disease of the mind and soul. Other than forcing strict constraints and strong regulations on those infected and watching them like hawks every moment of the day, there is little we can do to prevent their addictive penchant for death and destruction. That is, unless we finally as a whole wake up to the simple reality that we've all been deprived of our rightful lives, our rightful chance to experience our own potential, and to define that potential for ourselves. We are captive and bound by laws that force us to comply with the desires of the greedy and the violent. The propaganda they spew keeps our minds entrapped. Freeing ourselves from their relentless tactics and strategies that seek to frame our thoughts for us is essential. Our thoughts must be our own or we will remain entrapped forever.

A world of peace, prosperity and plenty could exist without the dark, powerful influences and manipulations of greedy, violent men, and that thing we mindlessly refer to as war would never have come into existence without them. They would have us thank them for that as if it were some great gift to the world. It is not a gift, it is the greatest curse that ever was.

The recognition they truly deserve, should it ever come, will not be gratitude. It will take the form of full exposure to the public of their deceit, betrayal, manipulation and unfettered disdain for mankind. It would be their complete undoing.

But that time will never come on its own, nor will it come by force. It can only come about because we the people have changed ourselves, changed the way we see the world, literally changed our old ways and habits that lead us into mindless conformity and unwavering support for people and systems that exist only to undermine us and cheat us, even to kill us. It will come when we individually disconnect ourselves from the raging rivers of propaganda and the many and various glittering cult stars and personalities who talk up thundering storms about freedom while in fact they are working to deprive us of that freedom, and are doing so right before our unseeing eyes. It is we who have to wise up to bring the insanity to an end. We cannot change them and we cannot hope to change the systems that control our lives unless we change ourselves first.

We must regain the ability to see ourselves as worthy and deserving of full equity with the wealthy self-promoting cannibalistic classes that see us as lesser beings. To the extent we accept their judgments of us is the extent that we will continue to live life on our knees and on their selfish terms. We are their equals and they are not above any one of us. They are no wiser, no better, and no more deserving than the least of us. There should not even be a 'least of us'. That we cannot understand that speaks to the depth of our own brainwashing and the acceptance of the value systems that deprive us of what is our rightful fair share of everything life has to offer.

When we hold the clear knowledge that power, greed and the desire to control others is the eternal ongoing battle that always has and continues to define our world, profoundly affecting everything and everyone in it, then we can hope to bring about the changes we need. When we all comprehend that this power struggle will never end, that the desire to bring about systems that give the few all of the wealth and power at the expense of everyone else will never go away, only then can we hope to bring a genuine end to the repeating foundational theme of self-destruction on which everything else is built. The wars, injustice and suffering that keeps our country stuck in self-defeating systems of mass belief, mass consumption and mass indifference to the truth are the product of our refusal to see ourselves and the systems that control us for what they really are.

Since that first attack on horseback to slaughter and control others the world has never been free and it is not free now. We believe we are free, but we are not and never were. Our ignorance of everything real and factual keeps us believing something that simply is not true. We are more tightly controlled than ever and that control is becoming ever more brutal. Our choices are dwindling and the system itself is becoming impenetrable, making itself our eternal master. The system seeks only to protect and perpetuate itself, it is not interested in freedom or justice and if you simply break any of their rules, even the most unjust of them you'll quickly find that out. Freedom will not come until the corporate/state monopoly of control and the artifice of righteous violence in the name of good is understood and finally rejected. That is what is meant by "Knowledge is Power". Our knowledge of the truth is what will reduce the corrupt controllers to irrelevance, powerlessness and shame.

It is a choice. We can choose to know the truth and once we know the truth we must live it and speak it. We must rock the boat in order to break free of the powerful grip of false beliefs that control the majority of our minds. We must be willing to offend and disrupt in order to speak the truth, if that's what it takes. The truth must never be subordinate to disapproving opinions, which in themselves are a potent tool of social control. We must value real peace more than the instant gratification, the false peace that comes from choosing to conform specifically to avoid the necessary confrontations required to bring the truth back into public discourse. We must fearlessly, unapologetically question everything, question authority and demand justice for the least of us until there is no such thing as a least of us.

Our official overriding and controlling philosophy of depraved indifference, vengeful self-superiority and criminality is sheer evil, and the seed of that evil is something inside all of us. That must be recognized and we must consciously choose to reject it. When we teach our children to recognize and to remember what true evil really is and where it really comes from, then and only then, can we hope to make this a country that is honestly committed to making our highest principles a reality. A world of justice, peace and freedom will come about as soon as we start living in it. We can do that anytime. We can even do it now.

Loss

I had a horrible dream last night. It was about my blind kitty Sunny being locked in a big store room filled with stacks of boxes and furniture; he was locked in a little cage that had been thoughtlessly tossed atop a stack as the store room was being filled up while I was apparently in the process of moving. I kept forgetting to take care of him during the course of 4 whole days during which time he had no food or water. Suddenly realizing this in my dream, I ran to dig him out from behind all the boxes and furniture and all kinds of weird things that were thrown in there, and I fully expected to find him dead. I was panicking and felt so sick inside. I could not believe I had done anything so despicable.

I woke up with a shock, horrified that I'd done that to him, imagining the suffering he'd had to endure. I'm still heart sick over it. It was only a dream. It never happened. But my heart doesn't seem to be able to realize that and I am feeling despicable and so sorry.

The reality is that he and I were never apart a single day in 10 straight years. Where ever I went, he came with me, and he was always set up in style and comfort. I went away for a week once in the tenth year I had him, but got a live-in sitter to stay with him. He was a gift to me at the spiritual level, and I adored him. I could never forget him. It's too much to think I could ever neglect him like I did in that dream when he was so special to me.

Sunny died about a year and a half ago. It was a terrible situation that I'm still not over. He required medical care that I could not afford and no one would help him. I had to have him put down. I felt as though I betrayed my dearest friend. But I also felt betrayed and demoralized by a society literally swimming in wealth, that could not be bothered to help this precious creature. People and places that could have saved his life with nothing much more than some of their time were everywhere. But no one cared. It was too much to ask. I was completely unreasonable to think that my little guy just plain deserved to live.

In a value system where money matters more than life itself, that idea is completely unreasonable. But what kind of a value system is that?

I found out that in America no one deserves to be helped, even when help is all around you, if you don't have the money. Only money makes you deserving of being helped, of getting your needs met, of being deserving of life itself. The offense I felt over having to grasp this reality can't be expressed, but believe me when I say I fully understood then the reality and the truth that this is officially how it is in our country. For human beings and for all living things, you can starve to death in the midst of mountains of food, in immeasurable acres of wasted food, but if you don't have money you'll just have to starve. If you are sick or suffering and all you need is some medical care, if you don't have the money, you will remain sick, you will continue to suffer, and when you die no one will feel any guilt. You had no money. You didn't deserve anything. You didn't count. Good riddance. Don't tell me that's not reality because it's too stone cold, I know it's stone cold. But it is reality.

In America money matters more than life. Money matters more than relieving suffering. Money matters above all else. Life is cheap and has no inherent value here.

Money matters. Money is the reason that the whole world gets up in the morning. Money is God. Money is all. Having it, possessing it, this is what gives a human being value. This is what determines the worth of a person. Doubt that? Name any person famous for being ethical. How about a household name famous for their honor? No such thing. Nothing else comes anywhere near the esteem we hold for cold hard cash, nothing else is more sought after or more desired. With enough money your crimes are excused. You are not held accountable for the harm you do to others, others who have no money. There is simply no getting around it. Nothing counts more than money in America. Nothing.

It's all backwards, I can't see it any other way. What is money for? It's a tool. But it is not used as a tool to build, it is used as a tool to deprive. It is hoarded and not put to good use, it is not used to benefit the world and keep making it a better place for everyone. What a ridiculous notion. Money is the ultimate symbol of selfishness and indifference. It is about having more than you need and more than you can ever use. It's about needing unnatural physical abundance to feel good about yourself and not being at all bothered by those who can't even get what they need to survive because you're preventing it with all of your hoarding and unfair access to ways to get more to hoard. Winner takes all. Cheating is fair, as long as somebody else loses. It's who we are. It's what we've become. We're a nation that misses the point of life completely.

Everything that we think of as life now comes with a price tag attached. Life itself is being manufactured, bought and sold without any recognition of what that means or what it destroys for all time. It's about profits and when it comes to profits nothing else matters.

The trouble is I don't see it that way. I don't think it's at all true and when push comes to shove, that philosophy dies a cold hard death. But as many times as that's been proven, the belief that money is all that matters persists. It's a religion forced on us at gunpoint, it is not a truth. The truth is it doesn't cost anything to live on this planet. The people with all of the money have even prevented those who don't want anything to do with their stupid system from living on the land and from nature as we are entitled by birth right to do. The reality is that they have stolen all our natural wealth, the wealth that is everyone's birthright, in order to turn it into their kind of wealth, using our labor, cheating us every step of the way, and making up all the rules that allow them to be the ones that keep it all for themselves while leaving us all with nothing. It's nothing but a scam. It's a big fat rip off.

So excuse me if I don't see everything in terms of dollar signs and profits. In fact, I don't see anything as valid when money's a part of it, because to folks like you and me, we will always be getting ripped off when money is involved. That's the entire system, and that's why the wealth accumulates at the top. It defies common sense AND gravity. It's about as unnatural as it can get.

I don't think we need money at all, but greed is far more intoxicating than getting seriously human for once, and taking a big step forward on this earth. Crime does pay. All it takes is being willing to brutalize others and bingo, you can have whatever you want. Why leave a stinking profitable slaughterhouse behind when all we could get in exchange is something really worth having?

I'm so tired of it. I dread the future even more than I resent the present.

I had no choice but to have Sunny put to sleep, he was extremely ill. He could not eat, he was in terrible pain, and yet, he would have been content to lay in my lap in safety, surrounded by my devotion and love for him, and die there. I still cannot get over it. It still hurts so much it's stupid.

I may very well be retarded. It's starting to look like it more all the time. The way I see things and the way most other people see things brings back that message every single day. In a way I'm hoping it's true, because then at least I'll have an explanation.

I'm not sure what that dream was about, but it's a recurring theme that is becoming ever more painful. Where is Freud when you really need him?

When I crawled out of bed today, feeling ripped apart inside from that dream still so vividly lingering in my mind, I saw I had several messages on my answering machine. It turns out that my step brother is in the hospital having a critical liver failure. He's drunk himself to death. My two step brothers are my step dad's sons from his first marriage. One is the compassionate intellectual one, who died last year from an inoperable brain tumor. The other is an unnecessarily good looking Southern man, a womanizer, and a serious alcoholic. Now he is dying. There is nothing they can do for him but try to make him comfortable.

Even though he's been in the hospital for 3 weeks, nobody told me. I only found out when one of his boys called me today. He only called because they couldn't get a hold of my dad, their Grandpa, for a few days and were worried about him. If not for that, I'd have had no idea at all.

I don't hear from my dad but once a month maybe, and then only for a brief moment as he gives his commandments over the phone and then hangs up. So I called my dad and found him to be fine, having had his cataract surgery two days ago he is recovering well. He did not mention that he'd actually left the house and went to stay with my cousin to be cared for after his surgery. This is why the boys couldn't reach him.

They'd actually panicked to the extent that they'd called the local police department where my dad lives, and the police even crawled in the upstairs bedroom window to see if he'd fallen or died. He wasn't there though. He was in perfectly good hands being cared for, and just didn't bother to mention it to anyone. He's done that to me before too and doesn't seem to understand that when we can't get hold of him, we really worry. He is well into his eighties and alone, but he does what he likes and he likes to keep us in the dark when he has a medical situation to deal with.

Once I heard that he'd been off at my cousin's place, I finally understood why he'd hung up on me when I'd asked him if he needed my help after his eye surgery. Instead of simply saying no, he abruptly said, "That's all. Good-bye." Then hung up. He didn't want to tell me he prefers his niece to his daughter. I don't know why, he's already told me that point blank, in her presence. It's not a news flash. I took that on the chin a few years back and have since accepted it. It's his choice after all. But, I had to find that part out from his grand son. I had to find everything out from his grand son.

My Dad felt no compulsion to tell me that his son was on his death bed. Even after telling him I'd just heard that my step brother was in the hospital, and I did not know why. All he said was that he knew, and he'd spoken to him about it. That was all.

You'd think the fact that his only other son was dying a horrible, painful slow death might have been mentioned. But it was something I didn't need to know, I am a persona non grata. One who does not matter. One who does not count because, and I swear this is true, unlike true believers in capitalism and the American way to wealth through war, I don't think money is what matters above all else. I think what has real value cannot be bought and has no price tag attached. Therefore I am worthless. I am nobody to him. My feelings aren't worth a cup of coffee, so I didn't need to be informed.

If you're shocked, think again. Think real long and hard about what it is that parents hold against their children. Think about what's at the root of so many arguments and the bigotry, and arrogance and judgmental nature of those considered to be 'good decent upright citizens' and those who don't get that label. This is so deeply saturated into our culture that it comes out in the home first. It's a mirror of how everything around us, including us, is valued, or not valued.

Needless to say, I am devastated by the news about my step brother, and am completely beyond words as to how sad I feel. I am further re-devastated at the normal operational mode of being left out of everything having to do with my family and the clear message to keep out.

I don't quite know how to explain this, but I feel completely lost at the moment. As though there is no ground for me to stand on. I have no idea what to do, or what to say, or who to say it to. I feel so much hurt inside but it is not something I can share with my own family. Frankly, it's overwhelming.

The money situation for me is such that I cannot just get on a plane and fly across the country to be with my dying step brother. I have my own obstacles that prevent me from being able to do a great many things that a lot of people take for granted, and this situation doesn't change that reality. There is no way I can do anything. I just wish that wasn't such a crime in the eyes of my own relatives. I wish it didn't equate to them my inadequacy as a human being. I don't know how it can, or why it does, but it really does.

Things are exponentially more challenging for a great many people than a lot of folks seem able to understand, and I'm basically pushed to my limits as standard operating procedure. People who have never had to live like this seem absolutely incapable of comprehending that it is reality for a whole lot of people. I think it's reality for the majority of the people in this country and the bottom line is, it's not because anyone deserves it. It's because the whole system is set up to serve the most to the fewest and the least to the most. But those who are comfortable insist that all of the access and privilege and means they had to get their nice share is exactly the same as everyone else has. It's an utterly moronic belief, but it's real and expressed on a daily basis out there.

Whenever I hear one of them going on about how he worked his way to wealth and nobody ever gave him a single thing to help him get there, I always have to ask, "And when was that? In the 1940's?" Hard work is the last thing that will get you something these days. If hard work was all it took, we'd all be rich. Things have changed a hell of a lot from the days our "self-made" millionaires caught the train to personal success. The station is closed now and all of the trains have been broken down and used for scrap metal.

There is a very real attitude of open disdain for those who do not have or do not worship the almighty dollar that I think is most insulting and incomprehensible. Yet it is absolutely true that a disdain for those with less is part and parcel of the capitalist mentality that rules our lives. How anyone can actually feel greater entitlement to have and enjoy life because they possess an inanimate object that in and of itself is utterly worthless, is a form of double think that offends me to my core. I wish people would come down out of the clouds and try reality just once. It's really not that bad. But I won't be holding my breath on that one. It will never happen in my life time, and I doubt it will happen in any life time. Not as long as we choose to worship wealth and the wealthy and disdain everyone else. As long as that seems perfectly normal and reasonable we won't see anything change, but we will continue to see vast portions of humanity excluded to death. What a sorry shame it truly is.

Coping with this much heartache on top of everything else is a real challenge. This much heartache, again, so very soon. The people I call family are all but gone except one, and he doesn't seem to think it's anything that could matter to someone like me.

If my mom were still around I'd still be in the loop and I'd even have an advocate. She was aware enough to value money but also understood the value of things without price tags. Unfortunately she died of pancreatic cancer barely six months after being diagnosed, it was so fast it was shocking. I was totally unprepared for it, and totally ignorant of how crappy our health care system had become, even for those who can pay for it. Only after it was too late did I come into the knowledge that might have made a difference, or at least might have made it easier on her.

Four days after her funeral I woke up to the events of September 11th. It just feels like it keeps on coming.

Hearing about my step brother today took my breath away, leaving a weight inside my body that literally makes it hard to breathe. It's just a matter of time and he will be forever gone. They were both far too young to die. There was already a world of hurt I've been trying to wrestle down to something that I am not being controlled by. Though I can usually manage to surf the waves of emotion and anger and outrage, most of them due to the reality of the present day and the condition of life on this earth, today I am reduced to painful helplessness. All I can do is sit quietly and feel the pain. I don't know how to fix it. I don't think it can be fixed.

This is not the sort of thing you want to keep repeating, but it keeps repeating for me. It's not the kind of thing you can ever take in stride. It never gets easier. It always feels like it's too much pain to take. It always feels wrong. It's always horrible. It's always devastating. Some people win the lottery, some people win again and again in Vegas. But I just keep losing the ones I love. I keep losing the things I need, and the things I believed in. I hate this. The good news is when I finally lose it all, I won't have anything left to lose. This part of it will finally be over. There's something to look forward to, huh?

My dream last night would have been more accurate if it had been me in that cage. That would correspond very well to what I'm feeling. I can't give anything to be there for someone else, and I can't ask for anything to save myself because there is no one there to ask. And I can't get out of the cage either. Sadly, from what I can see, there is no way out.

Interference

I'm looking around me today and seeing people and hearing the great wash of talk. Everyone is talking past each other and not even trying to connect. The country has been shattered and then coalesced back not into one loose knit organism, but into fragmented groups who can't see anything eye to eye. The groups have all staked out their own territory and regardless of the inner message of the group, the outer message is basically some variation of "You're with us or you're against us".

Gee. I wonder where that came from.

Well, I don't really wonder at all, I think we all know where that came from. It was a message that circled the world in a day some few years ago and who'd have ever guessed it would have changed everything? But it sure did change everything. It ruined everything.

It ruined the unity we had, replacing it with disunity, which is of course very unpleasant. Then they told us, "You need your unity back, come let us bomb our way to unity". They just wanted their own kind of unity. They had to destroy the kind we already had first. Those 7 little words did a lot to accomplish that.

"You're with us or you're against us."

That one simple sentence set the precedent and the foundation for the world to enter into endless disunity, an endless disunity only they could fix. It's a message that provoked, that separated, that insulted, and that interfered with freedom on every conceivable level. It's a message that is presumptuous and sounds like nails on a blackboard to many, and like sweet sweet music to a small number of others.

To the die-hard followers of America, it sounded like the ultimate leadership symphony of their unfulfilled dreams had finally been written.

To the hard core self-superior militants of America it sounded like the music of their hearts desire, the march to victory.

The much longed for oh-come-ye symphony of the followers has always been a lot like Atlantis, being that it was a thrilling theory but did not exist in reality. At least not until those words were spoken. The followers found nirvana in those 7 little words, spoken by a leader who to them, emanated everything they'd been aching for since the misdeeds of 1776.

Here was a man who cared not for the thoughts, feelings, opinions or very real needs of others. He was all about himself and he said, "Screw everybody else. I want what I want and I'm taking it". To the followers that meant he had the strength of his convictions and whether or not those convictions were actually comprised of any virtue didn't matter. They wanted someone unwavering to follow and at long last, they found him. They are still intoxicated by his 'strength', long after most who initially embraced the man have rejected him and his contentious, small minded hypocritical brutal style. At least someone is happy around here. What's that old saying? Oh yes. Ignorance is bliss.

And the hard core self-superior militants were thrilled to bursting with those 7 little words, spoken with all of the hubris they so longed to hear. Their hungry dream had come into reality, and who couldn't appreciate the high of having your dream come true? They were on high because they would finally be totally free to approach the world with their one and only tool, an enormous gleaming and sooty hammer. No matter what problem arose on planet earth, the militants could now grab their hammer and yell, "Geronimo!", and descend to places far and wide where they'd appear with smiles, teeth gleaming in the daybreak. "Here I come to save the day!" is their theme song and they assume it's everybody's favorite song. In fact, they insist on it, or rather their leader insists on it.

It isn't everybody's favorite song of course, but it turns out if anyone admits that, they get the hammer. So we've all learned the words and the melody, and even if it chokes us, we'll hum along, or lip sync, at least as long as they're looking. And while we're finding it impossible to endure even one more note of that malodorous refrain, the militants are still swinging their hammer, and swinging their hammer, and swinging their hammer.

Surely, if they were using it properly they'd have built something by now. Surely, we should see a breath taking new city across the ocean, rising high above the din, inspiring awe in all who behold it. Surely there would be such an amazing new thing so beautiful and so filled with truth as to cause all hearts to swell and eyes to moisten around the world for all who see it; instead of endless acres of rubble and smoke and broken things and broken bodies. Surely. Zeus knows we've paid for it. My God have we paid for it.

But the hammer does not build, it only destroys what it touches. I wish they'd consider adding more tools to their tool kit, but they do seem to be absolutely enamored of their hammer. The multitrillion dollar hammer that only destroys.

The biggest chunk of our shared wealth goes to aid the pounding into dust of people and places far away. They aren't singing songs about us. They are not greeting us with flowers. They'd like us to stop pounding them now please, they've been saying so for years. Our reply? "Nonsense! Here we come to save the day and everybody wants their day saved! Carry on! Sally forth! Chin up! There is much yet to accomplish! We shall not leave until the whole place is in ruins!"

It's a bit like burning down the house to get rid of mice, only it's a hell of a lot more expensive. And destructive. And ultimately it's become sickening to the soul of the world, which is bent over puking its guts out.

Sigh.

Whatever happened to listening? Do we not all have ears? I know we do. We are listening. The problem is what we are listening to. The voice. The solo voice that is coming out of the mouths of the only people who have access to the major streams of information broadcasting in the country. They're all the same damn voice. They look different, they have different hair and different genders, but when they open their mouths it's as though they're channeling the same spirit from beyond.

Could it be they're all possessed? Do we need to hold a gigantic national exorcism? We'll be up to our fannies in pea soup if that's the case, because this is one powerful, pervasive spirit. Unfortunately, it seems to have also possessed a major avenue of having it exorcised. The church has also come under its spell. They too are showing all of the signs: the spinning heads, the speaking strange words that defy decency, the dark pleasure of offending onlookers. The arrogance. The depraved indifference to the innocent, the blindness to and dismissal of the truth. They've become the willing partners of the dark force and no longer seem able to notice how much they've changed into something frightening to behold.

We do have a problem on our hands. I have no idea how to exorcise an entire nation of it's demon. It may just be that it has to wear itself out, after a ravenous glut spanning decades, after its blood feast and subsequent defecation, after changing our golden panorama into a barren dung heaped prairie that will take 4 million years to stop being radioactive before we can send in the pooper scoopers. Say, that would be a good job for the militants. They should honestly be charged with some of their own clean up, it's only fair. But all they've got is their hammer. They can't scoop poop with a hammer.

Oh trouble and worry and strife. Frustration and stupidity and zeal. We never run out of those things, they're abundant. Why on earth haven't the hot-rod kings of free money for the rich figured out a way to get those commodities on the markets? Maybe it's because those are the things they leave in their trail of exhaust as they zoom by, leaving our clothing in shreds and our hair tied in impossible knots. Thanks financiers. How can we ever repay you? We'd like to, believe me, we'd really like to.

It seems like this teeming sea of individuals we call America cannot find center and focus, each one, one at a time, and then once more all together again. No one remembers that if we wanted to we could look at one another and say, "I disagree with every single word you just said, but I'd fight to the death for your right to say them". We find the idea of those words revolting. We've totally forgotten what freedom means.

We no longer care about making a welcoming world where everyone can be who they are, and not have to endure relentless attacks based on the inescapable reality that we are not all the same and never can be. It's not a problem, it's just plain old reality. It's the way things must be, the only way they can be. But now the groups are clamoring and contriving up ways to eliminate those of unlike mind.

What we need is some silence. A great shared moment of silence. A few weeks of nothing streaming into our heads from outside of our heads, intruding, always unasked for, always full of content we never pre-approved. A couple of months, or better yet years, to allow our own thoughts to form and take shape again, to guide ourselves again from within, each one, one by one, regaining ownership and control of our own unique being.

But it's too noisy to concentrate. It's too busy to find a peaceful place to sit down and sink into the mossy bank of a sweet smelling freshwater stream, to inhale the musky smell of nature and exhale the cares of the silly ass world. I think we need to do that, and I think we'd be a lot more likely to do it if it weren't for all that damned interference. Those outer signals demanding our full attention. Absorbing our entire mental output. Forcing us along whether we want to go along or not.

It's unnatural you know. Our thoughts are supposed to be self-generated. That's why we each have our own head. We are not the Borg. Let me restate that, we are not supposed to be the Borg. The idea of mass conformity should repel us in no uncertain terms. We're supposed to question authority, question everything, and refuse to comply with stupidity for the simple reason we don't have to. We're supposed to laugh at foolish men not reward them with our loyalty. We're supposed to have enough sense to know right from wrong and care about the difference. It's not like we need to be told what they are, we know. At least we should know. But the voice, the interference, that nonstop droning on that is quickly redefining the country, that is turning it inside out and upside down, that is sucking the life out of us, draining us of prosperity and good will, that voice will not shut up. All day. Every single day. Every moment of every day of our lives, that voice drones on and on. Demanding. Lying. Hating. Undermining. Interfering. It's stealing America, one mind at a time.

Like a great floating invisible spider it injects it's numbing poison under the skin, paralyzing the brain so that it can no longer feel or generate a response. Then it feeds. It sucks the brains out and gulps them down then fills the cavity with that voice. It says, "This is up!" and then presses the down button and nobody notices.

A few do notice. And they are quickly branded dissident, loony, crazy. Yes I'm crazy. I can see with my own two eyes and hear with my own two ears, and think with my own personal brain which is not hooked into the central core computer. It rejects the voice, physically. The voice makes me ill, literally. I know that voice is the voice of death. If they stopped calling me names I'd know something was wrong, the last thing I want is their doting admiration. I want to offend them, they deserve it. I want to shock them back into reality. I want them to find their own center and disconnect from the hive core, to stop taking its orders, to start breathing again, to start seeing again, to start loving the world and everyone and everything in it again.

I don't want much, do I? I just want to live in a world where people recognize there's nothing that hard about being decent to one another. There's enough to go around. There's no need to tear anyone to shreds. We can handle the differences, they really aren't all that different. We will always have so much more in common than not, but all we can see anymore are those differences, those things that add the spice and variety that makes it all so worthwhile. Now we see those differences as a threat. They are a threat, to the hive. To the drive for conformity. To the desire to create a bland sea of all-the-same nodes, being compliant and obedient to the voice, bowing and curtseying on cue, until the steps are deeply memorized and no one ever disagrees. How that can be anybody's idea of perfection eludes me. How a nation who believes in freedom can embrace that does not make sense. But there it is anyway.

Damned interference. If we could only pull the plug. If we could pull the plug and experience the sudden end of the electronic signals, that amazing moment when all of the tension leaves the body and we're suddenly aware of how noisy it's all been. When the silence is immediately calming and delicious and we want to turn around and hug somebody and kiss them on the forehead and say, "What on earth got into me? Let's take a walk, shall we? It's a lovely day".

I want to pull the plug on all of that interference, but I can't do it for anyone but myself. Everyone will have to unplug themselves to grab their freedom back. I do believe it's the only way we'll ever get out of this nightmare. But is it too late? Do all of these people actually want to be plugged in to the Borg core interface? Is 24 hour interference the new reality? Is interference the new normal? It truly frightens me to the bone. It just may be.

And I may be the last of a small dying breed, a group without a name, without a core, without a membership. The next endangered species that nobody much cares about anyway. The good news is when I'm gone, when all of those like me are gone, no one will grieve. No one will notice. No one will care. No one will even understand what I was or what I was talking about. They'd laugh and say, "My goodness what an odd malformation of the hive. It happens. There's no comprehending it, it's better that they're all gone. Silly creatures with their nonsensical babble. They sounded so foolish. Too stupid to recognize how ridiculous they were. It's best they're gone."

Indeed. The age of the hive is upon us. All hail interference. Either that or go get yourself some earplugs.

Hoorah

"We don't negotiate with terrorists" they say. And once they say it the subject is closed to further discussion. There is an implicit obligation for the public to accept it, and quite often it is accepted. But considering the rather hair raising implications of refusing to talk to any supposed enemy for any reason and not on any terms, it's disappointing to me that there is a general, unquestioning acceptance of this policy.

It's all in the delivery. This is one of those slogans that falls into the hoorah category. Other hoorah category messages that have the ability to evoke a hoorah response are things like, Never say Die! We're number one! All for one and one for all! You're with us or you're against us!

The response to slogans like these are always, well, hoorah. Yay! Woohoo! But what the hell are they talking about? Nobody seems to care, and nobody ever raises a hand to ask; they're too busy cheering.

"We don't negotiate with terrorists!" Our leaders say it with such self-righteous insistence. They state it as if it were perfectly reasonable and justified. It's a no-brainer obvious fact that you'd have to be stupid not to agree with. It's a slogan whose message is missed which is really a shame because it's a very contentious, disturbing perspective.

It's one thing to have a value system and stick to it, really live it, but this isn't a value. This isn't a moral vision, it's a political strategy. That takes it off the shelf in terms of being held up to scrutiny. It's not an expression of right vs. wrong or good vs. evil, it's a political viewpoint, an opinion, and opinions are not facts. That means it's up for debate.

We've all heard the standard argument whenever somebody questions this political strategy of refusing to engage in dialogue with terrorists. The argument is, if we bow down to terrorists and give them what they want then we'll have terrorists running wild all over the place jerking us around. Negotiating would only encourage them.

That response seems to do the trick in terms of getting people to shut up on the spot, but it's one of those things that sounds reasonable but is not a fact. If it was a fact they could show us the evidence that terrorists are invariably encouraged by successfully carried out negotiations, but evidence is never offered along with that claim. Because of the policy itself we have little evidence to gather about what really happens when genuine attempts to negotiate are made.

I found some facts that support just the opposite. Genuine negotiations carried out in a respectful, courteous way can completely disengage further violence and procure the total release of dozens of hostages, all unharmed. That sounds like success to me. Where's the problem then?

There is a type of personality that equates negotiating with weakness. They would see any form of cooperation as being submissive and allowing the bad guys to win. But if no one is harmed and the crisis is ended with diplomatic negotiations, everyone wins. It seems to me this policy is more about an institutionalized ego that needs to dominate others than a desire for a good outcome.

Negotiating doesn't mean we're bowing down to anyone. Using that phrase suggests there's something deeper and a bit messed up at play in their perspective. Apparently to them, negotiating and working out a compromise, even if the compromise is really quite fair and no real problem to us, means we are 'bowing down'.

That's strange because it doesn't have anything to do with bowing down to anyone. Just the opposite, it means standing face to face. It means very bravely getting eye to eye with an opponent, shaking hands, sitting down, and having a nice long chat. There's nothing submissive about that. It takes serious courage and it takes brains. If being brave and incredibly smart makes you a lesser person in their eyes, then I don't think I can cuddle up to their value system. It's messed up.

To me, being weak is when you're too weak to talk about anything and can only make demands backed up by brute force. That's weak to me. It says you're too afraid to meet them halfway. It says you're desperate and unwilling to find out they might be right about something and you might be wrong. It also says you don't care about anyone but yourself. I don't see what's truly strong about any of those things.

It's more complicated than that obviously. There are times when putting a genuine effort into working things out backfires because the people you're dealing with are too stagnant in their own ways and never had any intention of working to find acceptable solutions. Sometimes all they want is a blood bath. I never said there's no risk involved. But I am saying that applying the same policy to every situation doesn't make sense. It's not always an impossible situation and it doesn't always have to end in a blood bath.

The point is that there definitely are more ways to see things than just theirs. Our officials take on things is not a given. Theirs is only one perspective out of many.

Maybe our leaders think it's an open and shut case, but if this is a democracy then it's not up to them alone. There are obvious questions we'd probably be asking if we could get a word in edgewise, what with all that yahooing and cheering drowning out the thinkers among us.

Look, I've got no problem with cheering, but I'll cheer when I feel like it, not on cue. I'll cheer after I think about it and decide that it's something to cheer about. I may not think it is. That's my call to make. It's my job. In this case I would not cheer. I'd have some questions about why they take that position.

Why do we not negotiate with terrorists? What if negotiation would lead to the best possible results? What is lost by engaging in talks with an opposing interest? What can be gained by talking and what can be lost by talking?

If the terrorists are expressing an interest in holding discussions, if they are open to not doing any more terror and will talk instead, then why wouldn't we be interested in getting those talks going? If this is a way to immediately stop terror, then why wouldn't we want that? That is after all the entire reason we're here, we want terror to stop. Here's a way to stop it. Why wouldn't we take it?

If we have a non-negotiable policy that we will never talk to terrorists but will only shoot them, does that make us better? Does it mean that we are right? Are we always right? Are we perfect? If this is our irrevocable policy does it still allow us to lay out all of our options and choose the best one? Doesn't taking this off the table mean only one thing? Violence? And if we think violence is the answer, then what are we criticizing them for? They think violence is the answer too, what's the difference?

And who decides who is a terrorist? What are the criteria required to categorize someone or some organization as 'terrorist'? And what about this simple reality: It all depends on which end you're looking at things from?

Our entire position on this is clear. We're better than they are because we say so. That they would disagree doesn't matter. That they may have a legitimate gripe doesn't matter either I guess, and I'm not proud of our generally self-superior way of seeing things. I really feel better acting on reason and justice, but maybe that's the real problem. Maybe what we want isn't reasonable or just and maybe we just don't care. In order to negotiate you have to have something real to bring to the table, and that means it can stand on it's own. It's fact, it's opinion, it's reality. Maybe we don't have that and know it.

Our American attitude of superiority is well known all over the world. Believe it or not, there are a lot of people in this world who don't recognize us as superior to them or to anybody else for that matter. In fact it's seen as American arrogance pretty much everywhere and it's also seen as things much less flattering than that, like ignorance, brashness, rudeness and hypocrisy. We're in love with the idea that we're number one, (hooray!), but if you stop to think about it, does that actually mean something? What does it mean?

I think it means "We're better than you are", which is the same message in "We don't negotiate with terrorists". The assertion is that we are just right and they are just wrong so we are better than they are. Isn't this the same juvenile sentiment behind saying "My dad's better than your dad"?

Did that ever happen to you when you were a kid? Some neighborhood kid comes up to you and says, "My dad is better than your dad!" Strangely, it may not seem like it at first glance but there's a connection here that's quite pertinent to the subject. I'll tell you a quick and true story from my own life.

I went through a "My dad is better than your dad" thing with some little twink down the street who spotted me playing outside one day and approached me. He started bragging about how great he had it, and he told me some real whoppers. In spite of myself, the challenge immediately got to me and I took him on, telling some whoppers of my own. The whopper exchange escalated and I was totally winning when he finally got frustrated and called me on one of them, saying, "Oh yeah? Prove it!"

He marched me back to my house in order to locate my dad, who much to my chagrin, was home and working hard by the side of the house, hard enough to be sweating profusely, and he was obviously very busy. This was not a good time for childish games and it suddenly became the worst moment of my life. In the heat of the argument I'd convinced myself that my dad would stand up to this mini thug too, but now that I faced him I knew beyond all doubt that he'd never do it anyway, much less now.

My defeat was imminent and it would be brutal. Total humiliation. They'd both be laughing at me. Because what I had to ask my dad in front of my little twink pal and get my dad to back me up on was whether or not we really had a baby elephant in the back yard.

I felt demoralized and doomed as I stood behind my dad and said, "We have a baby elephant in the back yard, huh dad?"

My dad straightened up and slowly turned around. He looked at me and then he looked at the boy and then he looked back at me. "Yup", he said. "We sure do have a baby elephant in the back yard. Raised it from a baby bottle and it eats hay. A lot of hay." Then he turned and in a very dignified way, walked away. I'm not sure who was more surprised, me or that kid. But I can tell you I thought my dad was the coolest thing on earth right at that moment. I didn't feel good about winning with a lie but I did feel good about my dad helping me save face. He never did anything like that again and I'll never know why he didn't just let me eat dirt and die, it was all I had coming.

But it begs the question, what is this desire to aggressively challenge others and then escalate things to ridiculous heights and then to win no matter what it takes? Honestly, I don't see the big political twinks playing their games at a much different level than any other childish games that people play. The stakes are higher and lives will be lost, but how much legitimacy is there, really, behind the power plays and provocative insults our leaders tend to hurl at other leaders for no other seeming reason than to get them involved in a fight? That was after all the only reason that kid approached me. And he was older than me too, and bigger, and poised to win. Why bother me? Who's dad is better is a stupid question anyway because it's all relative. His dad couldn't be better than mine because he'll never be my dad to prove it. So what's the point? Is this an inherent need for aggression? Do we simply desire a fight for no reason?

I don't think so. I think there's more to it than that. Normal people don't want to fight. Something isn't right about forcing someone into a fight that doesn't need to be fought. Something else is going on.

And therein lies the nugget of truth I'm trying to dig out as I ponder these things. The way our leadership goes about these things leaves no other alternative than waging war against whoever it is they're calling names and making vague accusations about. Simply asserting that some other country is evil is pretty weak at best. Why can't they be more specific? Why do we never hear what the other guy has to say, in his own words, in a fair way? Why are we never given both sides of any story once the "evil" word is being flung around? Why is there no interest and no possibility of using diplomacy first, assuming there really is a problem and we really want to solve it and avoid war?

If the way they handle perceived problems leaves no other alternative than war, then they're not trying to avoid war. They're ensuring that there will be war.

Maybe we don't want to avoid war at all. Maybe this is all a clever game with slogans to make us say, "Hoorah!" and get us to go fight wars for them because lets face it, there are some people getting filthy, dirty rich today from all of this war. It's honestly obscene.

I know it's not your overriding drive to obtain hundreds of billions of dollars in personal wealth so it might be hard to relate to anyone wanting that. But there very definitely are people who want that. They want it above all else. It's the only thing they care about. And they are raking in millions hand over fist today, and they've been raking it in since before we even started shooting.

The ones making the hundreds of billions from war profiteering are also the ones with tremendous power and influence over our government. They have far more power than we do because they have direct access to lawmakers and they have a lot of money to throw around. You and I don't have those things.

They're also the ones who own and control the media and the ones who build the weapons and the tanks and the guns and the airplanes and who supply the troops with everything from food to night vision goggles. The enormous large scale construction companies really rake it in both before and after hostilities when they first build the military bases and structures and roads etc., needed to wage the war and then again afterwards when rebuilding what we knocked down comes due. And let's not forget the army of private mercenaries that are not bound by any laws, here or there, and their staggeringly high pay rate and the no bid contracts that keep them growing.

There is a hell of a lot of borrowed money being spent that's going on our bill for payback at breath taking interest rates and it looks like it will surpass two trillion dollars. Some estimates say it will go as high as five trillion. And for what exactly? Two trillion dollars that will never come back to us. Two trillion dollars that will line the pockets of a few rich men who don't ever have to risk their own lives at any point in the process. Two trillion dollars is a lot of money that some men wouldn't think twice about fucking us over to get their hands on.

It's a very ugly idea but that doesn't prevent it from being true. It's not a new idea either. It's about as old as war itself and war has always been about plunder and power, about destroying the competition and dominating as much of the world as possible. If you've never read "War is a racket" by General Smedley Butler you really should. You can find a pertinent excerpt of it here.

Who does it really serve when our leaders say they will not negotiate with terrorists?
Who does it really serve when those they accuse time and again try to start talks but are ignored outright?
Who does it really serve when we cannot hear both sides of every story?
Who does it really serve when we have nothing to go on but what we are told by our leaders? When we are being manipulated with hoorah slogans and hoorah mass media?
Who does it really serve when we make no effort to avoid war and will consider no other strategy for dealing with problems than waging a violent, expensive war?

Who is better off now after five years of war and who is not better off?
Who is paying and who is benefiting?
Are we better off as a nation?
No way.
Are corporations better off?
Beyond their wildest dreams.

Hoorah.

Non-Reality Theories

I think it's safe to say that most rational beings agree that facts and beliefs are not the same thing. Facts are statements of verified information, truths that are proven. Belief is choosing to decide that something is true in the absence of proof. Beliefs are not facts.

No matter how strongly or widely beliefs are held, a non fact will not become a fact. Intensity of belief also has no effect on facts. Nor does it matter that a majority holds those beliefs, and even holds them with great intensity. Consensus, majority agreement, even intense agreement does not make reality, it just makes agreement.

If we are in agreement on those facts, then let's dive into the reality of non-reality theories.

GROUP THINK

I've noticed that there is often a direct relationship between the number of people who share a belief and their aggregate inability to perceive the difference between fact and non fact. The higher the number or more powerful the group is, the less likely they are to remember or care that there is a difference. For these it seems a 'majority rules' mindset is in place, resulting in the attitude that because they outnumber you or have more power than you, their non-facts are elevated to facts. That's not possible of course. Their non-facts will remain non-facts because they are non-facts, regardless of taking a vote. It's called reality and it may be inconvenient, but there it is anyway. As simple a fact as that is to grasp, as obvious and clear as it may be, it's astonishing how regularly it is ignored.

Sometimes facts are too contrary to our existing beliefs for us to be able to accept them. They may be facts we just don't like, but unfortunately, even if we hate them it won't make them go away. Opinions, feelings and beliefs have no effect on facts. Reality is just not optional, even when large numbers of people choose to believe that it is.

Situations like that can quickly become scary and destructive because the fact is, you've got a whole group of people being dishonest with themselves who dislike the truth almost as much as those who speak it. The last thing they will tolerate hearing is any pesky evidence against their unprovable beliefs.

People swept away in self-deception have disconnected from the rules of fair and basic moral conduct. They will resist attempts to correct their disconnect and no amount of facts or hard evidence will bring on correction. I think it's true to say that they have lost touch with reality because very often they truly believe their disconnection from reality is the definition of reality.

When this situation exists in a large or powerful group it will lead to harm. That is a given. When people stop acting based on facts and reality they will not achieve their desired outcomes, not ethically and not without extraordinary force, it's impossible. In order to achieve a desired outcome we all have to work with the specific facts of the situation and stay in reality to get there.

It's a lot like baking a cake or building a motor. You need the correct ingredients or parts combined and constructed in the required order or you won't get a cake or a running motor. There's really no way around this and for those who insist there is, a long string of clashes, failures, and harm is all that will ever come of their effort. What's amazing is that they'll never concede that their failure to work with facts and reality is what's keeping them from getting what they want so badly.

INTELLIGENCE IS NOT A FACTOR

When, for whatever reason individuals or groups take the leap out of known facts and reality, they embrace an alternate theory either of their own design or of pre-constructed design by others and then simply assert that their theory will work. These can be highly intelligent people and still fall victim to believing all kinds of unrealistic theories and I think this is largely due to two things. One is that theories that are not reality based can assert things as facts that are not facts, and do so in a manner that seems to be reasonable. But reasonable is not factual, if they were the same thing we wouldn't have two different words for them in the dictionary. Something may seem reasonable but that doesn't make it factual. Not being able to tell what sounds good from what is real is an excellent way to screw yourself up.

The other thing at play boils down to fear. It's about wanting something that you can't get in reality, and often that's because what you want doesn't exist. But as much as we don't like to admit it, we humans are driven by our emotions and desires and when we desire something badly enough, we are often willing to do almost anything to get it. That includes lying, cheating, stealing, killing and buying into non-reality theories and pretending they are better than reality. And the more we desire something, the less willing we are to release whatever theory it is that we perceive to be our only route to getting what we desire.

EXPERTS

Our desire to believe is very strong, especially if what we are being given to believe speaks to our fears and promises to relieve them. We hate being uncertain and insecure, sometimes to the point of hysterics. I'm not sure why folks don't understand that life is very uncertain and insecure and there's really only so much we can do about that. If we take common sense precautions and don't do stupid things we'll be as safe as you can possibly make yourself. But that fact is so unpleasant for many people that they want more than that, so they flock to the experts for advice. They've rarely if ever considered certain realities about experts that are rather obvious and very important.

Experts are the single most demonstrated group throughout history to be consistently proven dead wrong.

Experts are wrong about almost everything if you think about it. All it takes is for a little time to pass and the things popular experts were absolutely certain about 10 years ago or a hundred years ago are not what they're saying today. The expert advice from yesterday never lives very long and is always, always changed to something else and forgotten about a little way down the road. Do you believe that in fifty years from now experts will be saying the same things they are saying today about medicine or science or any other field that has experts? It just won't happen. In fifty years from now they'll be talking about things we've never even heard of today.

In the first half of the 20th century medical experts got on television and told Americans that smoking cigarettes was good for you. In the last half of the century they were going on television saying that smoking cigarettes is bad for you. Around the time of the Civil War experts scoffed at the idea that surgeons should clean their instruments or even wash their hands between patients. They found it ridiculous to think there were tiny little invisible things crawling around on their knives and fingers. The fact that some 90% of patients survived surgery but then went downhill and died within a few days was a mystery they could not explain, but they were experts and they said it was nonsense that cleaning anything had a thing to do with it.

Experts and officials told us after dropping the bomb on Japan that there was no radiation and it was safe. Today experts are telling us that eating chemicals in our food is safe, and that vaccines are safe, and that GMO's are safe and they aren't even providing data to back those things up. But people are so conditioned and so convinced that experts know everything, that many are suffering the consequences all around us and nobody can put two and two together. It's just not that hard to do if you step back and look at the facts. It is very hard to do if you simply choose to believe.

No matter what experts say they can tell you about test results and data and charts and graphs and it may sound very compelling and believable but that doesn't make it true.

Experts are not necessarily people who know the truth. They are people who absorb and accept mass quantities of the current prevailing opinions and beliefs and mix them in with truths. Since opinions and beliefs are not facts, and consensus on beliefs does not make them facts, then frankly, anyone who goes to experts to make their decisions for them risks making themselves into guinea pigs. They will become the basis for the data on the next new thing that experts believe in and present their data for.

Experts can also be liars. For the right amount of money or to achieve a little fame and prestige, you might really be surprised to find out how many times experts have looked you right in the eye and lied their asses off. And that's not a theory, that's a fact.

Statistics are definitely not facts and if you've ever done the slightest bit of data gathering and crunching you'll quickly see that results of any kind can be achieved by using whatever numbers you want to use. Unless you're willing to ask for the data used for any given statistics and then analyze them yourself you have no idea what you're being given. It is virtually guaranteed if an unrelated group were to gather statistics on the very same data that the results would be different, sometimes profoundly different.

Being quick to believe non facts in the real world is how we become victims time and again.

HARMING OTHERS IS BAD

There is a time when allowing people with non-reality theories to proceed as desired is absolutely the wrong thing to do, and that is when the harm being caused is being done to others who want nothing to do with these people or their theories. When that's happening I think it prevails on all of us to speak up, even when we're outnumbered by non-reality theorists, and it's important that as many of us speak up as possible. Because at times like these there is often no stopping these folks from perpetrating great harm on a great many people unless we can surround them and outnumber them ourselves, and force them to cease and desist. Hopefully peacefully.

Once major non-reality theories are underway, the folks behind it will have theorized every step they will take and every outcome of every action, and to whatever extent they have ignored facts and reality in any of those steps, they will fail. That failure will always surprise them too, but it will rarely illuminate them. They will simply dig in harder with even more non-reality based theories until they are literally winging it and making it up as they go, often leaving a trail of destruction and serious harm in their wake.

These are people operating on belief, not on facts, and to say they are dangerous at this point would be an understatement.

I don't know why groups who share non-reality theories do this so very often, but they do. They do it in science, in medicine, in religious organizations, in law, pop culture, media, love and politics and they hurt people every single time. Then to add insult to those they've injured, they blame their victims and indeed are often unwilling to admit that victims exist because victims are proof that their theories are wrong.

I guess when you're not dealing in facts then you can make up the rules as you go, and you can even believe them. It's absolutely amazing how intricate these theories can become, and this is inevitable over time because for every failure or unexpected bad result they must use more reasonable sounding non-reality theory to explain away those failures. They will seem to have a fast answer for everything, a quick dismissal of every presented fact, and an absolute disinterest in hearing anything that overwhelmingly proves that they are wrong.

Again, this will not replace reality by even a single atom. This is true even when the stated goals are noble, or beautiful or they have their hearts in the right places. That is all irrelevant. It is also irrelevant that they believe strongly, even with all of their being that they can get what they so badly want through a non-reality theory. They will not be able to achieve it. It's so simple it's almost confusing.

Something else I've noticed as I've watched these sorts of things play out on the world stage, is that the more unreal the theories get the more dangerous these people tend to become. They often don't recognize that they are endangering others, and when others are hurt by their direct actions, they will deny it. When it can no longer be denied that others are being harmed by their actions they will simply say outright that others being hurt is a price that must be paid in the glorious work they are doing for their good cause. This is the single most blatant evidence that they are working through non-reality theories. It's really up to those others getting hurt whether or not they are willing to sacrifice themselves in the name of any cause and generally speaking, they aren't.

Instant self-excusing of any heinous or callous act is an inevitable part of this non-reality process and at that point not taking a stand against it is helping them to perpetrate destruction and harm on others. Remember the harm is all for nothing because they cannot get where they want to go. It's all for nothing. They will wreak such profound damage and suffering on others that the carnage is beyond comprehension. Their disconnection from reality allows them to see that incomprehensible carnage as acceptable and justified in order to get what they want. If that's not the definition of insanity then give me a better one.

FORCE AND HEAD GAMES

Another tier of this non-reality theory system is that it will evolve into a situation where the believers begin to encounter so much dissent and disgust that the only way they can ensure they are able to continue doing things their unrealistic way, is to use force. They must bludgeon their way forward after a certain point, and ironically when this point comes they will begin to cry foul. They will begin to assert their 'right' to have their unreality theory and will assert their 'right' to harm as many others as they see fit in order to keep trying to alchemize non-reality into reality.

They have become so immersed in their belief system that to them reality is literally their enemy. Approaching them with facts and proof and evidence enrages them and they will say that they are being persecuted for their beliefs, or that they are being unfairly denied their right to live their lives as they see fit. They will also completely miss the obvious fact that those they are harming also have rights. Usually, to them others do not have rights, only they do, and that's 100% wrong. Everybody has the same human rights at all times and saying others don't is a hypocritical lie.

In official structures of this kind authorities will arrogantly assert as fact the obvious non fact that because they are self-proclaimed experts or authorities they are right. As illogical as that is, they use it every day and it works on the vast majority of people. In essence they are demanding that entire subjects belong to them and only they may offer opinions on it and outside opinions by definition can be rejected out of hand.

Outside opinions and disagreement from within or without are perceived as a form of attack that hurls them into vindictive self-defensive arrogance, and anything remotely resembling a fact or reality will be long out of the picture. Regardless of the group or individual, they will claim a great many things that will accuse everyone else of working against them and seeking to destroy them.

They would be right about that in a way. If they've managed to enrage and offend enough outsiders to their group, it may very well be that those outsiders want to take revenge. But by and large that's not the goal. The goal is only to force them to stop because what they're doing is invalid and causing irreversible and serious damage to innocent people or property or the environment or to society.

At this stage specific non-reality mind games ramp up, and the poison of determined non-reality believers is nothing if not sticky. When they've realized that they no longer have support from outside they will understand that their theory is under threat, and when that's apparent they will use it as an excuse to defend themselves.

This is a critical moment that we have to understand exists and we must be prepared for it. If we're unaware of this mind flip, this turning inside out of reality, we can easily be sucked into unreality and suddenly find ourselves unable to stand up to these people. What happens here is subtle but monstrous, it's clever but it's a false argument that goes like this.

We say: "Your beliefs are not reality and your actions are hurting people. You may not continue doing those things. You must stop now."

They respond: "You are being disrespectful of our beliefs. You hate us. You want to kill us. We have the right to exist. We will not stop working toward our desired outcome. You are evil for attacking us."

Or: "We are experts (or officials or authorities) who know everything and you are ignorant and know nothing. We have consensus and that makes us right and you wrong. We can force you to accept our assertions and your refusal to comply makes you an enemy (or a threat, or an incompetent, etc.).

They are turning non-facts around and doing what got them there in the first place, which is to use reasonable sounding assertions to justify their refusal to stop harming others. They are trying to turn attention back to us and put us on the defensive by asserting lies as facts and making some very serious but very false accusations. Next they will claim they are forced to harm others in order to do the right thing, and if we try to stop them it will prove them right.

It's easy to get hung up here because it twists reason into a balloon animal that floats away before you can get a hold of it.

If we get trapped by reasonable sounding assertions instead of staying firmly in facts, then they will prevail. As many people are quite reasonable, this trap is possibly one of the most dangerous and most difficult to expose. Worse, once people are trapped they will also find it difficult to turn back. We need to recognize the ploy and call it for what it is.

In the above argument we stated facts and told them they are not justified to continue pursuing their goals in the present manner because they are hurting innocent people. Their responses completely ignore the facts we just stated. They took off in completely unrelated directions that are of no interest to us, have no bearing on the situation, or no basis in fact. They're attempting to turn blame away from themselves and onto us hoping to escape responsibility for their actions. They've sidestepped the subject, and we should have expected that. After all it's the very reason we're all here in the first place. They are not functioning in reality and it's hurting people.

We need to respond with facts. Whether or not we respect anyone's beliefs is irrelevant. Our private feelings for others are also irrelevant. Accusations that we want to kill anyone had best be made with solid proof to back them up and proof should be immediately demanded. If they cannot supply it now then they cannot make unsupported accusations now, and we must force that point to the top of the argument. Of course proof never exists because they are lying and we can then say we recognize the ploy and insist that they face the charges and evidence against them. And last but not least, opinions are not facts.

Our response to their statements of non-reality should be: "What we are saying has nothing to do with your beliefs or anyone's feelings. What we are saying is that regardless of intent or beliefs or feelings, and regardless of your authority status, your actions are hurting others and they must stop now."

"Your actions are hurting others and they must stop now". That is what must be repeated and all of their assertions that do not directly and factually respond to that statement MUST BE IGNORED. This is the only field we came to play on, and we can't allow ourselves to be dragged off of it.

An example of asserting non facts as if they were a given is in the infamous question, "So, how long have you been beating your wife Mr. Jones?" The question asserts as fact that Mr. Jones beats his wife. The thing is Mr. Jones does not beat his wife and never has. But once this false assertion is made, it's a form of attack so underhanded and damaging that it can literally ruin Mr. Jones' life.

The nature of the accusation even though it's completely unfounded, stated as fact without any supporting evidence, is specifically intended to arouse strong emotions from anyone listening; which will result in people not caring about supporting facts or evidence. They will simply hate Mr. Jones.

This is the same strategy used by major media to strongly sway public opinion away from a true guilty party like a huge corporation or even the government and actually turn the victims into something so scary sounding and ugly that people emotionally react with fear and loathing. No one offers or asks for evidence to support assertions that the accused really are in a cult, or really is a child molester, or is a terrorist mastermind, or any other ugly accusation. It works too. It works every time.

It's truly that easy to get people sucked into non-reality theories by the millions. It happens every single day and very few people are aware that the game even exists. We usually have no idea to what extent we're operating on a set of completely false beliefs and we would deny that to be the case. Of course we will deny it without checking any facts because we've fully bought in to the knee jerk emotional reaction, so you can see how insidious and difficult to solve this problem can be.

I can't help but wonder about the fact that most of us know very little about the most common types of lies and deceptions. Why don't we? Could it be that those in powerful places use lies so often and to such great advantage that the subject of lies is purposely never brought up in public discourse? If we were all quick to recognize typical kinds of big fat lies, it would be very difficult for others to manipulate us into beliefs that are absolutely wrong yet quickly become unshakable. It would be a great advantage to those who understand the game, but for those who do not even know the game exists, there would be little to keep them from being driven to the desired responses like sheep.

These and many other similar scenarios are based on the same thing, non-reality theories that are perpetrated due to the fact that as a society we have the unfortunate habit of allowing groups with harmful beliefs to act in unreasonable ways. Unfortunately, once any non-reality theory becomes systemic, it is incredibly difficult to clean it up. It can take a century of dedicated effort by many people who don't even know each other who are willing to go against the status quo and keep repeating the facts which can be a very dangerous thing to do.

Many who have done so throughout history and today ended up deprived of justice, freedom, life or limb because non-reality theorists usually become quite brutal in the face of dissent.

Recognizing the many kinds of non-reality theories around us today is a good skill to develop, if we are at all interested in knowing the truth about our world and our lives and if the idea of being manipulated by unknown others bothers us. We can't hope to know the score if we don't even realize there's a game going on. And there always is a game going on.

I believe that everyone deserves to be treated respectfully unless they prove otherwise, so learning to be diplomatic and allowing others to have their take on things, even if they are clearly non-reality based is something we are obligated to do for one another. After all, to them, reality is non-reality and we don't want to be incendiary, hopefully. If their non-reality theory does not involve us or affect us then there is no basis in claiming it's any of our business what they believe. Using humor is also a good tool, and if push comes to shove and you are over ruled and outnumbered, I personally couldn't blame you for saying whatever they want to hear if it means getting out of that situation in one piece. That's not dishonesty, it's playing by the same rules they are. When in Rome, you know what I mean?

We have our work cut out for us along these lines today, I'm afraid, because non-reality theory has taken hold of the steering wheel on all of the biggest buses. We're being driven to the edge by people who think they're gracing us with their disconnection from the truth, and that's about as dangerous as it gets. I don't know what can be done to change it, usually all we can change is ourselves. Surviving it may be the best we can hope for as this growing storm continues to darken the skies above us.

There are some times we cannot do anything but take cover, and that's a survival skill also worth having. Just gaining the ability to recognize the difference between facts and beliefs will be of very good use in any case and will help us decide how to best handle the serious challenges we're facing now and will continue to face, no doubt for the rest of our days. And that's a fact.