Wednesday, March 30, 2022

Israel

This is the logic of the state of Israel:

  • we were here once before, then we scattered
  • we've been persecuted throughout history (but so have many other peoples)
  • Nazi Germany committed genocide upon us (but they also committed a genocide upon Romanis, communists, gays, artists, the disabled, etc; also, many other oppressive regimes committed genocides against other peoples, such as the Europeans against the American First Nations Peoples)
  • a literalist reading of some old religious texts is interpreted by some in the dominant positions of power to mean Israel must become a state in order to fulfill some sort of divine plan (these powerful people use the same texts to justify oppression, exploitation, and ecological destruction).
Israel is stolen land. There must be a one-state solution: Palestine.

I am not anti-Semitic. Anti-Zionism is not the same as anti-Semitism. I love Jewish people as much as any other people, for we are all one family. However, governments are not the same as the people. Wrongful actions by powerful people and government actions are not shielded from criticism by threats of being falsely accused of anti-Semitism.


Speaking of which, the post-colonial borders of the world should be redrawn according to ethnic, linguistic, and geographic boundaries. (And Korea and India-Pakistan should be reunited). These lands were intentionally divided in ways that would cause the most chaos and violence. The post-colonial powers simply sought to dominate through capitalism, and they needed to ensure vulnerabilities and dependencies. Too often, religions and welfare do the same thing, offering only enough assistance to create dependents, but not enough to liberate.


Wise leaders will redraw their borders for the sake of the people, putting egos aside. Rise up!

The transnational corporation overlords, oligarchs, and authoritarians must be destroyed, along with their mass surveillance program. 

Tuesday, March 29, 2022

Cultural Baselines

These lists will be updated.

Best of the Best:


Worst of the Worst:

Reference:










Monday, March 28, 2022

Empire is a Beast

Empire is a figment of imaginations, like money or god. Empire is a mass delusion that has power because people contribute their belief and effort to it. Empire exists only because people submit to it, willingly or not. Empire would rather people flock to it out of admiration, awe, or devotion. Empire will settle for manipulation or oppression.


Empire takes on a life of its own. Empire must grow. Empire demands to be fed.


Empires devour the landscape upon which they depend. Empires are willfully ignorant or this foolishness on the one hand, and on the other hand concoct fanciful stories about how they alone are exceptional.

Empire uses fear to enforce conformity. Empire can more easily manipulate and control a singularity. Therefore, Empire does not tolerate deviance or dissent, or will only tolerate them as much as Empire must for the moment before tightening the vice grip.

Empire uses deception to fool the individuals and masses. Empires tells them what Empire believes they want to hear, so that they more readily believe and follow Empire. If necessary, Empire will offer two choices, but the differences are a facade, as both options are essentially the same: exactly what Empire wants. Empire will never willingly allow its subordinates freedom. Empire will never willingly give up power. Empire will only seek greater and greater power.

Empires will use whatever means, for only ends matter. The only thing is that matter is that Empire grows, dominates, and controls all.

Empire will use religion, particularly if the religion demands submission to blind faith. Empire will use economy if it enslaves workers by chain or paycheck.

Empire demands obedience to authority of parent, elder family member, school teacher, religious teachings, and workplace bosses. Empire does not care if authority is abused downward if it maintains order and submission to Empire. Empire only cares when abuse is directed upward, or when abuse is so bad that there is revolt.

Empire is lurking everywhere. You can kill Empire in Christianity, but then it rebirths in Islam. You can kill Empire in fascist capitalism (United States of America and Russia), but then it rebirths in totalitarian statism (USSR and People's Republic of China).




You can never let your guard down against Empire. It is like an invasive species.


Everyone must fight to Empire with whatever means, skills, and resources they have. The only way to defeat Empire is by many different people attacking Empire from many different approaches. Empire must be undermined, sabotaged, subverted, and assaulted. There is no one right way to live or defend--that is how Empire thinks--but heart and judgment guide.

Friday, March 25, 2022

Abrahamic Religions & Empire

There are many reasons to reject the Bible.


For me, one of the most compelling comes from a quote by Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion:

The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.

The Bible is not a work of literature to take literally, as fundamentalists do, nor is it in any way an example of good moral behavior of individuals or societies. Another gem from The God Delusion:
God ordered Abraham to make a burnt offering of his longed-for son. Abraham built an altar, put firewood upon it, and trussed Isaac up on top of the wood. His murdering knife was already in his hand when an angel dramatically intervened with the news of a last-minute change of plan: God was only joking after all, 'tempting' Abraham, and testing his faith.
A modern moralist cannot help but wonder how a child could ever recover from such a psychological trauma. By the standards of modern morality, this disgraceful story is an example simultaneously of child abuse, bullying in two asymmetrical power relationships, and the first recorded use of the Nuremberg defence: 'I was only obeying orders.' Yet the legend is one of the great foundational myths of all three monotheistic religions.   
Once again, modern theologians will protest that the story of Abraham sacrificing Isaac should not be taken as literal fact. And, once again, the appropriate response is twofold. First, many many people, even to this day, do take the whole of their scripture to be literal fact, and they have a great deal of political power over the rest of us, especially in the United States and in the Islamic world. Second, if not as literal fact, how should we take the story? As an allegory? Then an allegory for what? Surely nothing praiseworthy.  {243}  As a moral lesson? But what kind of morals could one derive from this appalling story? Remember, all I am trying to establish for the moment is that we do not, as a matter of fact, derive our morals from scripture. Or, if we do, we pick and choose among the scriptures for the nice bits and reject the nasty. But then we must have some independent criterion for deciding which are the moral bits: a criterion which, wherever it comes from, cannot come from scripture itself and is presumably available to all of us whether we are religious or not.
 

There is nothing special or unique about the Bible or the Abrahamic religions, except for the fact that Empire so easily adapts itself to them for conquering, subjugating, dominating, controlling, and exploiting through missionaries, colonization, and genocides. Maybe it's the other way around; the Abrahamic religions are so uniquely imperial.


First of all, the person Jesus of the Bible probably did not even exist, but was a mythological pagan representation for the sun diety as man, like many other representations prior. The Roman Empire merely capitalized on the growing cult for their political advantage, and boy did they ever!

The Christian Empire and it's schisms (including Islam) are stronger than they could have ever imagined, thanks to capitalism, a global economy, and mass surveillance. (China is the antithesis of a theocracy, only as a false choice option. It is the cult-of-personality totalitarian-statism capitalism that disguises itself as communism, yet resembles communism hardly at all anymore. One way or another, Empire will seek to dominate and control the masses; the means matter less than the ends.)


The character was invented and historicized by the Roman Empire by plagiarizing the Gnostic mystery cult. They did this so that they could bring their subjects under a single belief system where they could be controlled and manipulated through centralized dogma and doctrine.


There is nothing new or unique about the Bible. In fact, the Bible is an outright plagiarism of many other mythologies predating it.



Again, this is nothing new. Mithraism and Sol Invictus were very similar and already dominant within Empire. Christianity was merely a way of synthesizing and institutionalizing many myths so that people could be controlled and manipulated by a central authority.


It was smart of Empire, though tragic for the freedom of people everywhere, to incorporate pagan beliefs as well.


Jesus is merely the Roman's politically developed and historicized solar deity of the Gnostic mystic sect. Similar hero mythological archetypes are abundant throughout history.





SPOILER ALERT:  You are your own hero. You are someone else's hero. Someone else is your hero secret hero. Your community is made of interdependent heroes. When we take religion literally and too seriously, we miss the point entirely and kill the message.


The Roman Empire was merely being shrewd when they decided to stop torturing and killing these radical anti-authoritarian Jews (mythological Gnostic cult followers), and instead adopt this belief as the Empire's officially sanctioned belief under Constantine "the Great" and then Theodosius I. They fully institutionalized this state religion with the Nicene Creed.


The institutionalized religion was then divorced from the disparate mysticisms from which it was birthed. Dogma and doctrine always kills the message of spiritual truths from various esoteric traditions.


And thus began the Church's 1700-year war to dominate, subjugate, and exploit the minds and resources of their own people and foreigners alike.


The list of wikipedia articles could go on and on. At this point, you are either aware of the religious-capitalist Empire all around us or you are willfully ignorant; and you are either against Empire or you are complicit in its guilt.

To be clear, this is not an indictment on most people of the Abrahamic faiths. For the most part, most people are indoctrinated into their parents' belief system without question, or at least with considerable cultural coercion. I hope this practice changes.

I am against: blind faith, dogma, doctrine, patriarchy, authoritarianism*, and the ideologies of Empire.

* which differs from voluntarily choosing, supporting, and following authority



I am against: evangelicals and others who embraced QAnon, the Alt-Right, and Trumpism.


It seems to me, given the course of history, that the Tanakh, the Bible, and the Koran tend to encourage these things above which I am against. It is probably the submission to religious authority which is so easily corrupted and exploited. Therefore, I cannot support the Abrahamic religions.

However, I am also against: anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and other religious discrimination.

I am forAnti-Defamation League**, Arab Leaguefreedom of religion, Reform Judaism, Christian left, liberal and progressive Islam, other faiths based on tolerance and love, interfaith dialogue, secularization, atheism, the interplay of science and mysticism, and the myriad of ways to build healthy, free, thriving communities with purpose and meaning.

** only ADL's anti-Semitism and anti-hate work, but not their support for Zionism, Israeli war crimes, human rights in Israel, and Mossad operations including assassinations.

It is ideological systems of domination and control that I oppose, especially those ideological systems of domination and control that spread by violent conquest (physical, emotional, sexual, spiritual, wars, genocide, or coercive threats thereof), insidious memes (such as institutional religion, cults like QAnon, and political movements like Moral Majority, Alt-Right, and Trumpism), or economic oppression (such as chattel slavery and capitalism--wage slavery, sweat shops, child labor, monopolies, cartels, transnational corporations, environmental destruction, etc), otherwise known as Empire.

It is domination and control that I oppose--excepting democratic policing, as local as possible, and negotiated BDSM as consensual play for those who desire (all relationships are play of various degrees of elaboration and structure)--and in particular as domination and control spreads as Empire. It just seems to me, in examining the evidence of the present and history, that the Abrahamic religions, just like capitalism, are highly correlated to Empire; whether they are particularly well adapted to imperialism or whether Empire happens to find these ideologies well suited to its thirst for evermore concentrated power matters not to me. It may be that Abrahamic religions and capitalism are more easily corrupted by those who seek to dominate and control.

The same has been demonstrated of Marxism in many of the few examples where states have experimented with it. However, a few points. First, capitalist countries, especially the United States of America, have sought since the beginning to ensure that Marxism not succeed by economic and diplomatic pressure, military threat, and often illegal regime changes. It is somewhat understandable why the first examples of this new economic system would react under such conditions toward totalitarianism and oligarchy, as unfortunate as that is. I wonder how well they would succeed without the wars against Marxism, or better yet, with support for.

Second, Marxism is, in the scope of human history, a rather new invention. Therefore, early failures are understandable. Two institutions, married to Marxism, would likely greatly improve upon Marxism and guard against totalitarianism and oligarchy. They are workers cooperatives and democracy.

The state is not nimble enough to manage all resources efficiently at the local level. Conversely, capitalism is not fair in the management of resources, exploiting the poor up and siphoning wealth up to the rich. But workers cooperatives would put ownership and control of enterprises at the local level. For larger enterprises and public works, unions of nationalized corporations might be more appropriate.

Socialism functions as a continuum, just as capitalism does. Nordic countries are Social Democracies, regulating their capitalism for the common good. Democratic Socialism, on the other hand, is even less capitalistic, and is more of a confluence of libertarianism and socialism. I think Democratic Socialism (and related, most Green Parties) is probably the best political-economic system. Libertarianism ensures decentralized access to power and resources; socialism ensures fair access to power and resources. Together they balance each other well. Libertarianism critiques the state while supporting democracy, and socialism critiques unfairness while supporting equality.

We create our own community and belonging, purpose and meaning, whatever culture we find ourselves in. Do not be fooled or misled by anyone.



For further reading:

Christ Myth

Palestine

Concentric Rainbows

I made this art project based upon a vision. It is three independently-moving, concentric circles. Each circle is divided into 8 equal sectors. The 8 sectors are the same for each of the three concentric circles. The sectors are each a different color, each color having its own symbolic meaning:
  • Red, Marxists: socialists, communists, Marxists, Leninists, Maoists, democratic socialists, anti-capitalists, unionists, syndicalists
  • Orange, Social Justice Warriors: dissenters, activists, hacktivists, whistleblowers, leakers, independent investigative journalists, protestors, demonstrators, resisters, revolutionaries, participatory democracy, Black Lives Matter, Women's March, Wikileaks, Anonymous
  • Yellow, Sensualists: epicureans, hedonists, kinksters, ethically non-monogamists, LGBTQAI+ and straight allies, romantics, travelers, explorers, adventurers, foodies, artists, free spirits, fitness gurus, athletes
  • Green, Environmentalists: sustainability, permaculture, green building, New Urbanism, cohousing, biomimicry, systems thinking, regeneration, renewable energy, green economy, voluntary simplicity, restorative justice, non-violent communication, democratic education, deep ecology, indigenous people's rights, animal rights
  • Blue, Scientists: natural science, social science, technologists, scholars, futurists, inventors, humanists, rationalists, skeptics, secularists, atheists, agnostics, pantheists, industry disrupters, innovators, and early adopters
  • Indigo, Mystics: Tantra, Sufi, Gnosticism, Kabbalah, Neo-Platonism, Hermeticism, Rosicrucianism, shamanism, transcendentalism, theosophy, quantum mysticism, New Age, Hinduism, Buddhism, Daoism, heathens, heretics
  • Purple, Intersectional Feminism: anti-discrimination and anti-discrimination and anti-privilege based on gender, caste, sex, race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, religion, disability, weight, physical appearance, and height, etc. #MeToo
  • Black, Anarchists: free association organizations, collectives, cooperatives, makerspaces, hackerspaces, toolshares, mutual aid, intentional communities, freegans, radicals, punks, anti-authoritarianism, anti-fascism (Antifa), left-libertarians
White is only represented by the round reinforcing label in the center. It is as though a prism refracts most of the white light into a kaleidoscope of dancing colors. Only near the center do they begin to consolidate into a sort of singularity of ideas.

The above descriptions are only examples of what each color represents and is not exhaustive.

Since the concentric circles move independently, by making a 3-sector turn in the same direction at each layer, you can maximize the integration of the various color components, like so:





I switched Indigo and Purple from the original so that Indigo is now Mystics and Purple is now Intersectional Feminists.

Some other interesting observations:
  • The colors and the ideals they represent support each other for synergies and, perhaps more importantly, act as balancers to prevent any one ideology from becoming too dominant. They are intended to mix and blend and cross-pollinate, so-to-speack. Think of specks of paint of each color overlaid on the base of one another.
  • Black and Red compose Society, or what we often think of as government and economy. Together they might be called libertarian socialism.
  • Purple and Orange compose Fairness, or what we often think of as the justice system. They form the bounds around Red and Black. Purple is the reflective branch and Orange is the action branch.
  • Yellow and Green compose Health and Wellness, what is essential to quality of life. This is lacking in the global industrial patriarchal-capitalist imperialist society.
  • Green is the center of the 7 rainbow colors. Green and Black is green anarchy; Green and Red is eco-socialism or eco-communism; Green and Orange is grassroots movements; Green and Yellow is well-being; Green and Blue is green technology and green economy; Green and Indigo is ecosophy; Green and Purple is eco-feminism.
  • Blue and Indigo compose Knowledge; Blue concretely, Indigo abstractly. Indigo avoids the dominant control of religion that Empire so often employs. On the other hand, Unitarian Universalism is an inclusive interfaith organization that meshes well with both Blue and Indigo.



Monday, March 7, 2022

Unwelcome Visitors

Another one of the many "stranger things" that have caused confusion, frustration, panic, terror, or sometimes extreme psychological and physical pain the past 9 years in whatever horrific scientific experiment or cheap thrill reality TV prank gameshow or suicide bet simulated reality haunted house bubble I'm trapped in.

Twice last Thursday and then once Friday someone banged loudly on my door and rang my doorbell. The first time was in the afternoon, immediately followed by a phone call and voicemail by Shama G. Nathan (202-494-3021), a recruiter for Addison Group about a job application. I have not been on the market for about two years and I have never been in touch with Addison Group. Addison Group has government clients. I once, long ago applied for the CI, when I was still naive and had not yet realized what a right-wing authoritarian terrorist organization they were. Coincidence? Probably...


The second time was 10pm Thursday night, just as loud and obnoxious. This time it was followed up with a bright flashlight shining through my window, then a phone call and no voicemail. After some research I discovered this phone (443-547-1290) is registered to a Chris C----. It is currently registered in Westminster, MD, but was originally registered in Grimesland, NC. There is nothing in Grimesland, NC. Nothing at all except a Voice of America broadcasting station. Oh, and the government trains Foreign Service Officers (CIA field agents) there for 6 months before deployment. Oops, your cover is blown, Chris C----.



They returned at 11am the next morning, but no call. Nothing since then.

Update: the phone number that was originally registered to Chris C----- from Grimesland, NC (443-547-1290) and then transferred to Westminster, MD is now apparently associated with a Nicholas T. Gauge, a Carroll County sheriff's deputy who left his fake business card at my door. I say fake because I just so happen to have a real Carrol County sheriff's office business card from when I filed a report about suspicious activity around my property (report 20-3197), and the two do not compare; the motto, office numbers, design, and so forth. If you're gonna plagiarize, do it right.

He was ringing my doorbell and knocking on my door obnoxiously about once a day, sometimes as many as three times a day. I taped a photocopy of a Foreign Service Officer test study guide book on my door, with "NO SOLICITING" taped over it. He hasn't been back since.

Update: the fake sheriff's deputy, likely CIA agent for some unknown and terrifying reason, showed up to my house around midnight on May 26. I noticed a light shining into my house through the large entryway window above the main door. When I looked down the street, there was a car with its high beam headlights on, angled just rightly to shine into my house from 100 yards away or so.

After noticing, the high beams turned off and the car raced to my driveway, along with a partner car that had been standing next it. The did the usual banging on doors, ringing my doorbell, and shining spotlights through my windows.

This happened once again on June 13 around 4pm. No spotlights, of course, because it was daylight. They walked around my home.

Friday, March 4, 2022

Wikipedia Articles of Study

The subjects below are worth studying to learn about problems, learn about solutions, or learn about passions and interests.

If there is any doubt whatsoever, I oppose all forms of tyranny. I consider capitalism to be tyranny of the wealthy against the poor and the biosphere; conservatism to be tyranny of the few elite against the masses; patriarchy to be the tyranny of privileged men against women and non-privileged men; and fundamentalist ideology, particularly the Church--and especially American white evangelical Christian nationalism--against all other viewpoints.

It is this tyranny that I oppose. It is found in black and white thinking, without shades of gray or hue or shape or dimension or sound. It is found in the insistence of "one and only true way," and the conversion to that way, whether by coercive persuasion, manipulation, deception, force, or annihilation. I am opposed to tyranny such as this. Some of the articles below are merely to study tyranny as it is presented so that I may better understand how to subvert and undermine tyranny, not my endorsement of the articles.











I tried to keep these in alphabetical order, but it's quite possible that some are accidentally out of order. I might also add some more to the list later.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/15-minute_city
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1964_Brazilian_coup_d%27état
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1988_IMF/World_Bank_protests
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_protests_in_Brazil
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Brazilian_protests
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Blueprint_for_Survival
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agroforestry

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BRICS
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_active_separatist_movements_recognized_by_intergovernmental_organizations
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_health_expenditure_per_capita









Which Shall Not Be Named

If I was a major stakeholder in such powerful industries as media, finance, and government, I would first try to make this fact oblivious to...