This time it is for real

imageI encountered the above photo and quote on Facebook, where else? As I scroll down the entries there, I think man, never an original thought. It is all boilerplate cut and paste. That’s Facebook. We’re not exchanging ideas. We’re reading billboards.

Anyway, I commented on the above

“Pretty cool, especially since Teddy was a JP Morgan man.”

My comment got no likes!!!

Just so you know, Teddy Roosevelt, the “Trust Buster,” was controlled opposition, a man put in place to make sure certain interests advanced while others did not, and for whom historians have reconstructed reality. They have made him a man who acted independently of influence.

As a Morgan man, TR was charged with assuring the election of another Morgan man, and so in 1912 ran a third party campaign as a Progressive, the Bull Moose Party, to assure enough votes taken away from William Howard Taft to elect Woodrow Wilson.

Wilson then gave us the Federal Reserve, the income tax, World War I. The Morgan agenda. All of that was thanks to TR, the Trust Buster, who, incidentally, forgot to bust the Morgan trust.

Politicians are puppets on strings. All of them! Ever was it thus.

imageIn the comment string below the TR image I found this, however: Bernie Sanders.  He is running an independent campaign for president, is is under the influence of no one in particular. He just up and decided to run one day. He is no puppet, there are no strings. This time it is for real.

lucy-footballAnd that has nothing to to, nothing, with this other image that constantly comes to mind as I watch the Bernie campaign suck so many people in.

Honestly, I find it so hard to sit here and watch, as if politics were real, candidates were genuine, and there were no puppet masters.

People please, grow up.

The illusion of an educated mind

“The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance – it is the illusion of knowledge.” (Daniel J. Boorstin)

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My wife and I, like so many people in this land, often watch Jeopardy in the evening. though we are bad Americans and skip over the commercials. (Commercials are often embedded in clues on that show – there is no escape.)  The show has a reputation for being brainy, bringing on smart contestants, and I suppose many of them are. But mostly they are just good at trivia.

I have thought from time to time that I might like to take a shot at getting on the show. To do so requires taking a test, and assuming I could pass that hurdle (I make no such assumption), I would have to begin a long process of study. But what to study? There are no systematic themes running through it, as categories can be anything from literature to geography to pop culture, with more emphasis on the latter. I would have to subject myself to repeated questioning about various topics, memorizing the answers, hoping that the broad knowledge would help me get lucky on the show and face a category or two with which I have some memorized knowledge.*

It is an exercise in rote memorization without ability to connect dots, think intelligently, or challenge authority and assumptions. In short, it would be like studying for the SAT. It is the American education system in microcosm.

I would like to take a sampling of people who have done well on Jeopardy, and test them on their ability to unwind American propaganda. I would quiz them on events like Vietnam, 9/11, Sandy Hook, Boston, San Bernardino, the Snowden, Manson and OJ affairs, the current hoax regarding Zika, and see if they have been able to sift and see through them. My guess would be no, that these winners exemplify the whole point of our education system, a fact-rich non-thinking environment.

Perhaps that’s why the show enjoys continuing popularity. It gives us ignorance in the form of illusion of knowledge.
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*Cliff Claven on Jeopardy(Cliff Claven, a character on the TV show Cheers, was fortunate in that all six categories on the night he appeared were about beer. He ran up a score of $22,000 in and blew it all when the Final Jeopardy question was on another topic.

Also, has anyone but me noticed that Alex Trebek is a disappointment in terms of personal engagement? After decades of exposure to trivia, he seems unable to carry on a conversation, and has at best a hokey-pokey sense of humor. I suppose that makes him perfect host for the show.

Weird scenes in Cibolo Creek Ranch

“There’s something happening here, what it is ain’t exactly clear.”

The above words, from the song For What It’s Worth, purportedly written by Stephen Stills, were taken by most to be a war protest song. In reality, it was about the Sunset Strip riots, and the object of protest was closure of a night club. That kind of confusion is not unusual, as Stills, from a military family, was never one to object to war. He even bragged to others that he was in Special Forces in Vietnam.

The words came to mind as I reviewed the events surrounding the passage of Antonin Scalia.

Continue reading “Weird scenes in Cibolo Creek Ranch” →

The importance of being wrong

It was a long process from beginning to end to come to grips with the matter and then stating publicly that I was convinced by writings and a movie that John Lennon’s 1980 shooting was a fake event, that he may in fact still be alive, and was for certain alive in 2008.

That’s not important, although crossing that little bridge from absolute belief to uncertainty would benefit everyone. It would lead to that side of the river where nothing can be taken at face, where everything is held open to question. That’s a good way to live.

But people, for the most part, cannot deal with that. They want certainty. Life offers very little of it.

People are layered beasts, most projecting phony images. Other than our small circle of friends, with whom he can be candid, there’s very little honesty in the world. There is no honesty in politics, and news is almost always fake. Virtually everything that comes to us via the TV screen is a concocted lie in some form, save perhaps weather forecasts. (Ah, but sporting events are genuine!  I have no reason to think that true. There is, after all, large money at stake. That leaves it open to question.)

That makes life both interesting and unpredictable. It leaves us to our own devices to understand things. We have no one we can trust.

Knowing that, it is important to understand that we can be fooled, that we can be wrong. That is not big deal. Once fooled, we can be un-fooled. We are always in a  state of flux. Life is about movement towards truth, not arrival there. When we happen upon a truth, as I did about Lennon and so many other fake events, it’s just a sign we are on the right road, but there still await may choices of turns and dead ends.

That last little paragraph above has helped me understand so much, and will continue to be my guiding light – that I have been wrong, have been fooled, and will be again and again as I move forward. On the day that I stop doubting and start trusting, I will also stop moving forward.

I know many people who never admit error about anything. They are usually wrong about just about everything.

Undamming the damned

Big Swede stopped by recently and left a comment … a long quote from someone else regarding Bernie Sanders. It has to do with Bernie’s public persona as a “socialist” and Swede’s perceptions of a black/white world where the are people like him producing stuff for other people to consume, the whole John Galt meme. It’s craven nonsense, but has driven a whole generation now into supporting fascists at various levels of government. That was probably its purpose, probably the reason why Ayn Rand was promoted , why her economics, which do not for a minute describe the real world, became such high profile reading material in the 50s and 60s.

But I felt bad that Swede took time to cut and paste such a long piece for us, and it simply vaporized before his eyes. I know that feeling, the arrogance of people who lock themselves away from criticism by banning. I didn’t ban Swede because he and I don’t see eye to eye. I can handle criticism from all ranks, from Kralj to Kurtz all the way up to Budge and Crisp and Kemmick. I have taken it from the best, and stand as I am, rattled but sincere. I have self awareness, and know how I am perceived, which must be unsettling for some, as I believe in myself, my own mind and abilities.

So I went into WordPress settings and unbanned Swede and everyone. It’s annoying that cutting and pasting takes the place of thinking and exchanging views, but then again, people who are so insecure as to be unable to handle criticism are annoying too. I don’t think if myself like that, but I did ban four people. I don’t fear them. I just didn’t like the way that comment strings go a predictable route, mindless, wandering like a stray dog, nothing ever changing.

So Swede, Kralj, Kurtz, Moore, try something different. Before commenting, exercise the brains rather than reflexive muscles. Give us what you got, not someone else’s thoughts. You’re welcome here, but please, no cutting and pasting. Please.

Law enforcement versus Apple: Another fake showdown

The fake battle between Apple and law enforcement over the Apple iPhone used by the fake terrorist is hard to understand. What is really at stake?

First, the San Bernardino event was fake. I investigated just one of the supposed victims, “Sierra Clayborn,” a fake person with fake photos and identity and family. Piece of cake. If I can do that anyone can. (What was odd that there was another “Sierra Clayborn” in Chicago, and she was as fake as the California one. Two fake people, same name, different parts of the country. What gives?)

When the spooks stage these events, they have to make up persons, giving them occupations, names, photos, family – because the American news media is state controlled and the public too dumbed down to know better, they don’t have to try too hard, which is why it is so easy to spot the fakery. The Sierra Clayborn photos were so amateurish that they had to be laughing as they put them together.

Secondly, there is nothing “locked” about an Apple phone. The technology came out of DARPA, and was designed to track us. Government has been able to eavesdrop on our cell phones from the get go.

Thirdly, there was no “terrorist” doing any shooting, so whoever supposedly did the fake deed is either a fake name or a spook or Green Beret or Seal or private terrorist from Blackwater or its successors. All is known about that person already.

So what is up with wanting to know the fake information on the fake phone? My guess: Legal precedent, one less constitutional protection. We had no privacy to begin with, but now they apparently want to formalize our subservience to the surveillance state.

Vulgar nation

imageWe are in Bozeman for one more day before returning to Colorado tomorrow. Yesterday we skied West Yellowstone, a taxing day leaving us exhausted. We don’t have many opportunities for Nordic skiing where we live, that is, when it snows you have to hit it right away, as within a few days the snow will be iced up.

West Yellowstone is primarily a snowmobiling town, and it is a spectacle to behold. The machines have gotten bigger and more powerful over time, and so too has the equipment needed to haul them. They need big trailers and powerful pickup trucks. The apparel is reminiscent of Matt Damon’s Mars experience, expensive clothing, gloves, helmets that hide all body parts from the cutting wind.

It is like being outdoors without experiencing the outdoors.

imageAs I witnessed the (usually) overweight bearded specimens riding the machines, I thought how vulgarized the American outdoor experience has become, snow machines in winter, ATV’s in summer, jet boats and motor boats and massive campers and trailers with satellites so that the occupants don’t miss any TV. We are in decline, surely. I can only hope that succeeding generations recover the experience of wind in the face, tired limbs and sore feet, vistas that take physical effort to behold, simple food and perhaps a rock to sit on and a book to read.

That, to me, is the outdoor experience.

Blessed are they who do not see, and yet believe

I still suspect that Antonin Scalia is really dead, and am happy about that. Given the level of corruption in our society, it is hard to point at just him and lay blame for the record of the Supreme Court in years past. He had a lot of help.

Never mind the notion that these justices, appointed for life, hold final say over too much, have too much power. They are essentially unaccountable. Even an obviously flawed decision like Citizens United, which they solicited, stands unchallenged. The whole system, never intended that way by the framers, needs to be chucked. The Supreme Court under Marshall essentially usurped its power, becoming the eqivalent of the British House of Lords.

But let’s take a closer look: death certificate issued by person who did not see body; cause of death unknown; no examination of the death scene; no autopsy or even examination of corpse; closed casket vigil; closed casket funeral. I do hope he is dead, and we will proceed as if he is. But we have nothing in the way if evidence that he is really dead. No body, no proof.

If you are a person of faith, you don’t have a problem. Some of us need to be convinced.

Again, I suspect he is dead. But without actual evidence, all we have is hope.

The Montana experience

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I took this photo late yesterday afternoon – it is such a nice change to be in a place where you hear the wind blow, and nothing else. Four of us were stranded at Lewis and Clark Caverns near No Place Close,  Montana with a dead battery. I knew someone would come along eventually, so waited at the entrance and took in all the nothingness that is Montana.

Colorado does not have this. Every place there is populated and busy to some degree. There are no empty highways where you can just stand and listen to the wind.

A guy from Butte named Brian eventually stopped and got us going. At the same time, a guy who was biking high up on the hillside looked down and saw our hood up and made a special trip back to his car to come down and help.

I do miss this place.

Our fake republic

imageIt occurred to me last night as we discussed American politics … once in office whoever wins has no real power. The parade is already in motion, its destination determined by other, more powerful forces. Politicians are nothing but baton twirlers. (Think of the scene in the movie Animal House where the lead baton twirler in the parade is bumped aside and replaced. That is a nice metaphor for our presidential elections.)

If the Democrats need a sheepdog to keep them in the game, this year Bernie Sanders, then why not the Republicans too? The slate of candidates is comprised of dull, witless automatons, one of whom will take on the role of leader. None inspire enthusiasm or confidence, but they are all we get.

Sanders and Trump inspire crowds, keep people in the game. They are both sheepdogs.

Why could I not see this before? I think I suffered from the illusion that the Republican base, even though like Democrats dumb as a kettle of fish, did not need revving up to stay in the game. But of course they do!

Election outcomes do not matter, but the fact that we have elections does. That is the key – so long as we believe we have democratic rule the state of the union is solid. Our fake republic stands.