Who watches
the Watchmen?
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Monday, March 30, 2009
The Elephant has Died
I can see it in your eyes
Unfocused and half closed
The wrinkle in your smile says
You wouldn't have supposed
That anyone could figure out
Just how wrong it went
You think that you're deceiving us
That we're all off your scent
Clearly in your ragged breath
And lackluster take on life
A sickened song of sorrow tells
A Tale of Wasted Life
Somber self-inflicted self sufficiency
Is slipping through the cracks
You're nodding off in public
And you're more than just relaxed
Taste the guilt, swallow the shame
As it drips into your throat
Before you smother soul to death
Be sure to write a note
To tell us how we all have failed
There's nothing we could do
To say I know you loved me but, well,
Fuck you.
OBAMAS DISAPPOINTING SPEECH-HOW A MAN IS TRANSFORMED BY CONSERVATIVE FORCES
USA's NEW AFGHAN STRATEGY-OBAMA POLICY SPEECH OF 27 MARCH 2009-AN ANALYSIS
IS THIS THE MAN FROM WHOM THE OPRESSED HAD SOME HOPES
AGHA H AMIN
27 MARCH 2009
While tailor made and apparently or at least outwardly speaking neat and logical, President Obamas policy speech on Afghanistanis is vulnerable to many serious criticsms. The first criticism of the whole idea of US presence and success in Afghanistan is as follows:
1-The USA for many years was the mastermind in financing, directing and waging war through proxies in Afghanistan. A war waged against a de facto government of Afghanistan. A brutal and criminal war which left some 14,000 Red Army soldiers, many of whom were Muslims dead, and some 35,000 wounded and maimed for life. A war which destroyed most of the infra structure that had been built in Afghanistan since some 200 years. Now that the USA by a twist of fate is in a similar position in Afghanistan as was the USSR, how on earth does it expect Russia to just sit and watch the USA succeed in the same role which the USSR had embarked upon some 30 years ago. In terms of International law USA's position is far worse as compared to the USSR position. The USA invaded Afghanistan to displace a de facto regime. The USSR entered Afghanistan to save a leftist regime under threat of extinction by US paid mercenaries operating from Pakistan.
2-Another very serious contradiction is the fact that the moral authority of the Pakistani state has been severely eroded since 9/11. The basic reason for this is the fact that 30 years ago the Pakistani military junta was selling the idea that USSR is a non Muslim power which had occupied Afghanistan, so it must be repelled by fighting a holy war or Jihad. Ironically since October 2001 the Pakistani state became a shameless collaborator of a Christian power that occupied Afghanistan in November 2001! The motive being the same as in waging the Jihad of 1979! US Dollars!At least the balancing factor in favour of the Soviets was that they were not Christians!
I am not a religious man at all but my criticism is philosophical rather than religious. Having said that, it remains a hard fact that the above two contradictions are irreconcilable. When Obama says that 700 US soldiers were killed in Afghanistan he proves two facts. One, that the US soldier is hardly fighting a war because 700 soldiers killed in 8 years means a 100 soldiers per year, which proves that the enemy that the USA is facing in Afghanistan is hardly that dangerous an enemy as claimed by USA.
The second and more serious criticism of Obamas lamenting 700 over fed and over protected US lives is that 14,000 Red Army soldiers killed in Afghanistan were sub humans! It is hard to believe that non state forces alleged to have killed 3000 on 9/11 have killed a peanut 700 US soldiers. In any case it amply proves that the threat is almost non existent. Another grave issue, perhaps morally not as relevant is the dangerous precedent that US success in Afghanistan or Iraq would establish. Without sufficient proof that Afghanistan or the Taliban had anything to do with two aircraft ramming the Twin Trade Centres, the US invasion of Afghanistan introduced an element of rash albeit, whitewashed civility in international relations. I say whitewashed because the UN then was headed by one of the most opportunistic secretary generals in its history. Unfortunately one whose mediocrity has been eclipsed by another pathetic successor in the person of Ban ki Moon.
Any US success in Afghanistan or Iraq would vindicate the fact that might is right in a world which follows the law of jungle in which Tarzans like Adolf Bush occupy any Poland they like at whim! Nevertheless whatever international law was followed while attacking Afghanistan, all was violated when the USA without any International sanction occupied Iraq.
The central moral question now is that if the USA succeeds in Iraq and Afghanistan a new and dangerous precedent would be firmly established in intenational law. Hitory will go back to the time of Attilla the Hun and Genghis Khan. Although it would be below the military dignity of Mongols to compare them with the US Army, a far more bulky and clumsy outfit.The dangerous precedent that Adolf Bush's actions would set is that the stronger countries can occupy the weaker at whim and will. After all why were the First and Second World Wars fought? For the sanctity of neutrality and sovereignty of Belgium and Poland!
This third contradiction appears more cosmetic but is the most dangerous aspect of the whole issue. It is a tragedy of US history that mediocrity in decision making has remained the hallmark of US policy since 1945. Obamas Afghan strategy with a peanut 1.5 Billion US Dollars per annum to the Pakistani government printed at leisure and at no cost to USA, would severely divide Pakistan. 1.5 Billion US dollars straight into the gutter. Because these would not achieve any of USA's policy objectives.
Since these are linked to fighting Taliban, Pakistan would be severely weakened with the Pakistani forces crushed under the burden of carrying the US albatross of 1.5 Billion US Dollars, as shameless mercenaries of a Christian power! Russia and China perceive any US success in Afghanistan as a prelude to a US sponsored Phase Two Guerrilla war in Singkiang and later US encroachments into Central Asia as Phase Three.
It is hard to imagine why these two crucial regional players would allow the USA to succeed in Afghanistan. Russia is a key player in Afghanistan thanks to the brilliant intelligence appreciations done by Dr. Najeeb and General Yaqubi in 1980-1992. Any US success in Afghanistan would be a grave strategic failure for Russia. After all, what has the USA done for Russia except creating trouble for Russia by enlarging NATO, deploying missile shields in Poland and subverting Ukraine and Georgia?
Thus there is logic in Russia deciding to re-establish bases in Syria, Libya and Yemen and in deploying strategic bombers in Venezuela and Cuba! US policy makers forget the most important Clausewitzian concept of the indeoendent will of the enemy. How on earth do they expect this independent will not to sabotage the USA in Afghanistan!
Was the USA sending candies and doughnuts for the Red Army in Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989! Afghanistan and Pakistani states are past masters in syphoning foreign aid in private accounts. Once again USA intends playing the same corruption game!
I am inclined to become a fan of Dr Eric Bernes book "Games People Play". The South Vietnamese Army was far better than the Afghan National Army. Yet it failed to defeat the NVA. So the outcome of war in Afghanistan in case of any US withdrawal remains a foregone conclusion. India, Russia, China and Iran, apart from lip service, have been largely ignored in the proposed strategy which means that US strategy lacks strategic vision.
The right thing from the USA should have been to incorporate these three players. The very concept that Al Qaeda needs some tribal areas to train is fallacious and incorrect. The boundaries of Al Qaeda are much wider, although at the same time the Al Qaeda has proved incapable of inflicting any substantial damage to USA in the last 8 years. So the whole theory that the Al Qaeda is a threat to USA's national security is a non seller.
At the same time insisting that Al Qaeda is in the tribal areas is absurd. Obama stated that the tribal areas are a vast expanse whereas these are a small strip of territory approximately 300 miles north to south and average 100 miles east to west.
The US Army has a far greater tail to teeth ratio than Red Army in Afghanistan. Seen in this context 17,000 US troops would be peanuts. I have yet to see any construction solicitation in the US Army Corps of Engineers website proving that 17,000 troops would be actually coming to Afghanistan! It's possible that this increase is more of rhetorical jugglery than anything actual. And in any case what would these 17,000 musketeers achieve. Would the US forces be able to seal Afghanistans 5000 Km plus borders and especially the 2400 Km border with Pakistan!
The most central part of the whole discussion is that the Afghan issue cannot be solved by USA and Pakistan alone. Especially the military and political effectiveness of the Pakistani government in achieving even a fraction of what the USA wants is highly questionable. The Pakistani military establishment has an institutional stake in ensuring that Pakistan remains vulnerable so that the military calls the shots.
They see the Talibans as useful allies and cheap cannonfodder in any war with India. The Saudis see the Taliban as useful allies against Shias. In the final summing up the bottom line is that the Pakistani politicians and generals will juggle with 1.5 Billion US Dollars per annum and deliver little or nothing at all. Even the US assertion that drone attacks have achieved great success is largely rhetorical and political.
Whereas the USA is facing the Taliban, the theory that Al Qaeda from tribal areas are controlling the war on terror is questionable and fallacious! The simple truth is that war in Afghanistan is about the presence of US and other Christian troops and not about Al Qaeda. Hardly 5% of USA's opponents in Afghanistan are Al Qaeda. What to conclude?
All one can say is that Obamas speech was a speech designed to win 2012 elections for Obama rather than the war on terror. Obama made a speech because it was a political requirement and not because any strategy was planned or evolved. Hillary Clinton is more suited as a civil attorney or on the board of Walmart than as a secretary of state!
The USA cannot win in Afghanistan because the equation involves many strong players. All it can do is mark time and ultimately withdraw without achieving much. After hearing the Obama speech one can safely conclude that the USA has no anti Al Qaeda strategy in Afghanistan. It's a case of either supreme strategic incompetence or the first phase of a secret war against Russia and China !
IS THIS THE MAN FROM WHOM THE OPRESSED HAD SOME HOPES
AGHA H AMIN
27 MARCH 2009
While tailor made and apparently or at least outwardly speaking neat and logical, President Obamas policy speech on Afghanistanis is vulnerable to many serious criticsms. The first criticism of the whole idea of US presence and success in Afghanistan is as follows:
1-The USA for many years was the mastermind in financing, directing and waging war through proxies in Afghanistan. A war waged against a de facto government of Afghanistan. A brutal and criminal war which left some 14,000 Red Army soldiers, many of whom were Muslims dead, and some 35,000 wounded and maimed for life. A war which destroyed most of the infra structure that had been built in Afghanistan since some 200 years. Now that the USA by a twist of fate is in a similar position in Afghanistan as was the USSR, how on earth does it expect Russia to just sit and watch the USA succeed in the same role which the USSR had embarked upon some 30 years ago. In terms of International law USA's position is far worse as compared to the USSR position. The USA invaded Afghanistan to displace a de facto regime. The USSR entered Afghanistan to save a leftist regime under threat of extinction by US paid mercenaries operating from Pakistan.
2-Another very serious contradiction is the fact that the moral authority of the Pakistani state has been severely eroded since 9/11. The basic reason for this is the fact that 30 years ago the Pakistani military junta was selling the idea that USSR is a non Muslim power which had occupied Afghanistan, so it must be repelled by fighting a holy war or Jihad. Ironically since October 2001 the Pakistani state became a shameless collaborator of a Christian power that occupied Afghanistan in November 2001! The motive being the same as in waging the Jihad of 1979! US Dollars!At least the balancing factor in favour of the Soviets was that they were not Christians!
I am not a religious man at all but my criticism is philosophical rather than religious. Having said that, it remains a hard fact that the above two contradictions are irreconcilable. When Obama says that 700 US soldiers were killed in Afghanistan he proves two facts. One, that the US soldier is hardly fighting a war because 700 soldiers killed in 8 years means a 100 soldiers per year, which proves that the enemy that the USA is facing in Afghanistan is hardly that dangerous an enemy as claimed by USA.
The second and more serious criticism of Obamas lamenting 700 over fed and over protected US lives is that 14,000 Red Army soldiers killed in Afghanistan were sub humans! It is hard to believe that non state forces alleged to have killed 3000 on 9/11 have killed a peanut 700 US soldiers. In any case it amply proves that the threat is almost non existent. Another grave issue, perhaps morally not as relevant is the dangerous precedent that US success in Afghanistan or Iraq would establish. Without sufficient proof that Afghanistan or the Taliban had anything to do with two aircraft ramming the Twin Trade Centres, the US invasion of Afghanistan introduced an element of rash albeit, whitewashed civility in international relations. I say whitewashed because the UN then was headed by one of the most opportunistic secretary generals in its history. Unfortunately one whose mediocrity has been eclipsed by another pathetic successor in the person of Ban ki Moon.
Any US success in Afghanistan or Iraq would vindicate the fact that might is right in a world which follows the law of jungle in which Tarzans like Adolf Bush occupy any Poland they like at whim! Nevertheless whatever international law was followed while attacking Afghanistan, all was violated when the USA without any International sanction occupied Iraq.
The central moral question now is that if the USA succeeds in Iraq and Afghanistan a new and dangerous precedent would be firmly established in intenational law. Hitory will go back to the time of Attilla the Hun and Genghis Khan. Although it would be below the military dignity of Mongols to compare them with the US Army, a far more bulky and clumsy outfit.The dangerous precedent that Adolf Bush's actions would set is that the stronger countries can occupy the weaker at whim and will. After all why were the First and Second World Wars fought? For the sanctity of neutrality and sovereignty of Belgium and Poland!
This third contradiction appears more cosmetic but is the most dangerous aspect of the whole issue. It is a tragedy of US history that mediocrity in decision making has remained the hallmark of US policy since 1945. Obamas Afghan strategy with a peanut 1.5 Billion US Dollars per annum to the Pakistani government printed at leisure and at no cost to USA, would severely divide Pakistan. 1.5 Billion US dollars straight into the gutter. Because these would not achieve any of USA's policy objectives.
Since these are linked to fighting Taliban, Pakistan would be severely weakened with the Pakistani forces crushed under the burden of carrying the US albatross of 1.5 Billion US Dollars, as shameless mercenaries of a Christian power! Russia and China perceive any US success in Afghanistan as a prelude to a US sponsored Phase Two Guerrilla war in Singkiang and later US encroachments into Central Asia as Phase Three.
It is hard to imagine why these two crucial regional players would allow the USA to succeed in Afghanistan. Russia is a key player in Afghanistan thanks to the brilliant intelligence appreciations done by Dr. Najeeb and General Yaqubi in 1980-1992. Any US success in Afghanistan would be a grave strategic failure for Russia. After all, what has the USA done for Russia except creating trouble for Russia by enlarging NATO, deploying missile shields in Poland and subverting Ukraine and Georgia?
Thus there is logic in Russia deciding to re-establish bases in Syria, Libya and Yemen and in deploying strategic bombers in Venezuela and Cuba! US policy makers forget the most important Clausewitzian concept of the indeoendent will of the enemy. How on earth do they expect this independent will not to sabotage the USA in Afghanistan!
Was the USA sending candies and doughnuts for the Red Army in Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989! Afghanistan and Pakistani states are past masters in syphoning foreign aid in private accounts. Once again USA intends playing the same corruption game!
I am inclined to become a fan of Dr Eric Bernes book "Games People Play". The South Vietnamese Army was far better than the Afghan National Army. Yet it failed to defeat the NVA. So the outcome of war in Afghanistan in case of any US withdrawal remains a foregone conclusion. India, Russia, China and Iran, apart from lip service, have been largely ignored in the proposed strategy which means that US strategy lacks strategic vision.
The right thing from the USA should have been to incorporate these three players. The very concept that Al Qaeda needs some tribal areas to train is fallacious and incorrect. The boundaries of Al Qaeda are much wider, although at the same time the Al Qaeda has proved incapable of inflicting any substantial damage to USA in the last 8 years. So the whole theory that the Al Qaeda is a threat to USA's national security is a non seller.
At the same time insisting that Al Qaeda is in the tribal areas is absurd. Obama stated that the tribal areas are a vast expanse whereas these are a small strip of territory approximately 300 miles north to south and average 100 miles east to west.
The US Army has a far greater tail to teeth ratio than Red Army in Afghanistan. Seen in this context 17,000 US troops would be peanuts. I have yet to see any construction solicitation in the US Army Corps of Engineers website proving that 17,000 troops would be actually coming to Afghanistan! It's possible that this increase is more of rhetorical jugglery than anything actual. And in any case what would these 17,000 musketeers achieve. Would the US forces be able to seal Afghanistans 5000 Km plus borders and especially the 2400 Km border with Pakistan!
The most central part of the whole discussion is that the Afghan issue cannot be solved by USA and Pakistan alone. Especially the military and political effectiveness of the Pakistani government in achieving even a fraction of what the USA wants is highly questionable. The Pakistani military establishment has an institutional stake in ensuring that Pakistan remains vulnerable so that the military calls the shots.
They see the Talibans as useful allies and cheap cannonfodder in any war with India. The Saudis see the Taliban as useful allies against Shias. In the final summing up the bottom line is that the Pakistani politicians and generals will juggle with 1.5 Billion US Dollars per annum and deliver little or nothing at all. Even the US assertion that drone attacks have achieved great success is largely rhetorical and political.
Whereas the USA is facing the Taliban, the theory that Al Qaeda from tribal areas are controlling the war on terror is questionable and fallacious! The simple truth is that war in Afghanistan is about the presence of US and other Christian troops and not about Al Qaeda. Hardly 5% of USA's opponents in Afghanistan are Al Qaeda. What to conclude?
All one can say is that Obamas speech was a speech designed to win 2012 elections for Obama rather than the war on terror. Obama made a speech because it was a political requirement and not because any strategy was planned or evolved. Hillary Clinton is more suited as a civil attorney or on the board of Walmart than as a secretary of state!
The USA cannot win in Afghanistan because the equation involves many strong players. All it can do is mark time and ultimately withdraw without achieving much. After hearing the Obama speech one can safely conclude that the USA has no anti Al Qaeda strategy in Afghanistan. It's a case of either supreme strategic incompetence or the first phase of a secret war against Russia and China !
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Obscene Truth
The truth......
is kind of like pornography.......
I can't tell you what it is.......
but I know it when I see it.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Look in the mirror
The unexamined life
is not worth living
(Socrates said this at his trial for heresy)
What is Truth anyway??
Believe those who seek the truth; doubt those who find it.
Andre Gide
Above I have uploaded a picture I took of the sunset on Donabate Beach, Co. Dublin, March, 2008.
Put People First
On 28th March thousands will march through London as part of a global campaign to challenge the G20, ahead of their 2nd April summit on the global financial crisis.
Even before the banking collapse, the world suffered poverty, inequality and the threat of climate chaos. The world has followed a financial model that has created an economy fuelled by ever-increasing debt, both financial and environmental.
Our future depends on creating an economy based on fair distribution of wealth, decent jobs for all and a low carbon future.
There can be no going back to business as usual.
People from all over the country will join the march on March 28.
Be one of them.
Even before the banking collapse, the world suffered poverty, inequality and the threat of climate chaos. The world has followed a financial model that has created an economy fuelled by ever-increasing debt, both financial and environmental.
Our future depends on creating an economy based on fair distribution of wealth, decent jobs for all and a low carbon future.
There can be no going back to business as usual.
People from all over the country will join the march on March 28.
Be one of them.
Friday, March 27, 2009
sick of people...
who... psychologicaly captive of the system, using that fucking illusion veil they've bought and... in (an also) self inflicted blindness, keep lying hard to themselves, using to: think A, say B and act C ...thinking, pretending, playing or feeling as... independent, rebel, crazy, cool, special, better, smarter, different... only dumping out from their consciences all the shitness WE are causing to our world by being, at least, indiferent and/or silent to it, even if it's to keep some feeling of sanity or something like that but in fact as simple excuse to take part on their own illusion, not bothering themselves on thinking to much about what is quite clear and evident to everyone who wants to see, to understand, and if a good one, try to really grow a beautiful flower in the mud. to say the less! ...and no matter how this delusion came to their lives, nowadays deluded people just piss me off! as if they were so just because of their own mind lazyness, and this kind of lazyness is becoming, to me, not even possible to forgive. people would better actually be lazy to obey the masters, and get angry about this absolutely wrong system we live in. and make some good use of this beautiful anger! well...
i know how thinking can be painfull, however, it should hurt a lot more when i feel that something is quite wrong and, just to keep in shape my own protection mask (the so called ego) well enough to go thoroughly unharmed throughout this life, to pretend everything is alright... come on, it's all wrong! ...but anyone can know that this system is designed to, somehow, work like this: for every time i use my debit/credit card to buy any stupid thing, at least a hundred childrem is dying by starvation and ameneable diseases. period! and it's simple like that! but we are mind manipulated, controlled and well encouraged to think that it's not our problem, we are not the saviours of our world, we can do nothing to change it ...and, in the end, i'm just one person and i can't go against the system, it's not my business and, no matter how bad it seems, the system is working as it is, and people have their own destiny, it's in the good hands of god, that's the way it is! those are the facts of life, c'est la vie!p.s. well, ...despite my childrem swimming pretty happy in their pool, and all the happiness that my loved ones and i can have and achieve by our own means, ...as human beings we're all already fucked! and there are no heroes coming up to save us, and neither will any mercifull god show up to save the poor deluded souls on earth, and even exactly those who are pissing me off! so... it must be the duty of any good human being, barely or well aware of those facts, to wake any other good one up, at least wake them up, to step out of the box, think about and get aware of what actually MUST BE CHANGED, ...even if (at first) it can brings us to any chaotic situation... but then we will see what we can do! and i'm pretty sure it will be better to everyone, ...and to this beautiful planet we live on as well!
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Anonymous
But still,
it really doesn't matter what may be,
things are as they are,
and they aren't as they should be.
something about freedom
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Get the Balance Right
There's a certain balance for each of us,
and that balance determines who we are,
our personality and behavior,
as well as our survival.
Society has a like balance...
and that balance determines who we are,
our personality and behavior,
as well as our survival.
Society has a like balance...
Friday, March 20, 2009
Plant a vegetable garden
Michelle Obama is planning the first vegetable garden at the White House since Eleanor Roosevelt’s victory garden in World War II.It's about time we resurrect the old fashion notion of a vegetable "victory" garden in every backyard or patio in America.
I think everyone should plant a vegetable garden. It's hours of family fun and exercise, not to mention all the great fresh vegetables you'll be enjoying.
Kiss my ass
On a flight to Cameroon, beginning a weeklong trip through Africa, Pope Benedict XVI said, "you can't resolve [the AIDS epidemic] with the distribution of condoms. On the contrary, it increases the problem."
That the Pope would question the value of condoms in fighting the spread of HIV/AIDS is truly disturbing.
Troubled by the Pope's comments, the French Foreign Ministry said, "We consider that these statements are a threat to public health policies and the imperative to protect human life."
The International AIDS Society on Friday condemned Pope Benedict XVI's denunciation of condoms as outrageous and insulting, warning that his comments could fuel HIV infection in devout Africa.
You've all been wondering
Okay,
you've all been wondering...
so here's the answer...
...God created evolution...
everybody happy now?
Hair, Hairs and Sikhs
I wrote this for my personal blog, sometimes - 2, and then I got to thinking. We as Sikhs are a little known and often misunderstood group. What better place to get to know us a little than on this blog that's all about GlobaLove? This is a rather light-hearted look at our attitude toward hair.
My husband is again annoyed at all the money I spend on my hair. I think this is normal. Women do tend to spend a lot of money on their hair.
I was discussing this with a friend online. What are the things most women do to their hair? Straightening, I mean, relaxing, perming, weaves, cornrows (where did that name come from?), braids, extensions, all kinds of styling and, of course, cuts.
She said that she spends about $100.00 a month at the salon, in addition to home care products, such as shampoo, conditioner, gels, mousse, sprays and a weekly deep conditioner. That can easily add up to another $50.00 per month. Then there are brushes, combs, ties, and ornaments. I am going to disregard them, as I have no way to approximate that.
My expenses are somewhat less. In twenty years of marriage, I have been to a salon - not even one time. Wait, I was in a salon once. I'll tell about that later. I have never used or paid for the services of a salon even once. Well, once...I'll tell that story, too..
Given those figures, the average American woman would have spent about $36,000.00 over twenty years.
My expenses are somewhat less. I buy only three products for my hair: shampoo, conditioner and hair oil. Although I refuse to use that hair garbage from the dollar store - it makes my hair, which is very dry, break off and my scalp itch - I do not use the expensive salon items. I buy what is on sale at the local grocery/drug store. Shampoo and conditioner cost about $7.00 each for a bottle. One bottle will last me about a month. Hair oil, even imported from India is not expensive. The kind I usually use costs about $6.00 a bottle and lasts a couple of months. But let's say, I use a bottle a month. That all adds up to to $20.00 per month. Over twenty years, that adds up to a grand total of $4,800.
That means I have saved us about $31,200 over the twenty years of our marriage. I'd say I'm quite a bargain!
About that trip to the salon. A friend asked me to meet her there. With some misgivings, I agreed. I do not think any keshdhari Sikh could possibly feel comfortable in such a place. (For my nonSikh readers, being keshdhari means following the distinctively Sikh practice of leaving the hair unshorn and in its natural state.)
I am keshdhari. Going to a hair salon felt a little like going to a brothel. Interesting, a bit disgusting, quite daring and very uncomfortable. I was very much out of place, rather like a lioness at a dog show.
I first noticed the smell. A hair salon smells a bit like a chemistry lab without fume hoods. Ammonia seemed to predominate, along with some smells I couldn't identify. Someone had lit some incense, I suppose to cover up the noxious odours. It didn't work. Both my nostrils and my eyes were assaulted and I felt vaguely sick to my stomach.
The sights that met my eyes were a bit shocking. I mean, I know what goes on in these places, but to actually witness it! Here were all these women, all seemingly having a good time, mutilating their hair in various ways with these toxic chemicals. I could almost hear their tortured hairs screaming out in agony. And on the floor lay strands and strings of amputated hairs of all sorts of colours, some natural, most dyed. All dead.
My friend was in another room, but the receptionist recognised her name when I asked her. I left a note asking her to meet me at a near-by coffee shop and got out of that chamber of horrors. That was maybe 15 years ago; I have not been in one since.
I will be honest. Many years ago, while married to Mani, I did go to a hair salon for a service. I took it into my head that I wanted to get my hair professionally conditioned. I think mostly I was curious at exactly what went on in there. I found out.
I explained that I just wanted a deep conditioning. As this was in Montreal, of course it was all in French. I'll spare you and write in English. The young woman who was to serve me had bright blonde hair of an improbable shade puffed around her face to make her head look very round. She approached me. saw my neat bun and reached up to take out my kangha. I let out a yelp and fastened it to a sort of string around my neck. Jeanette - I don't remember her name, but that seems appropriate - loosened my hair which fell and fell and fell. She actually let out a little gasp and said she'd never seen such long hair. There was no approval in her voice; in fact her tone was accusatory. She picked up the ends of it and with several hmm, hmm, hmms, examined them closely "Virgin hair," she murmured.. "You have split ends. I'll have to trim them off before it can be properly conditioned."
"You'll do no such thing. Cut a single hair and I'll have your," I caught my breath and choked back the obscenity that had been on my lips, "cosmetology licence."
"Do you belong to some weird religious cult or something that won't let women cut their hair?"
"Or something," I growled. "And men don't cut their hair either."
"Well, you should break free and become your own woman." She picked up her scissors. "Long hair is really not becoming on you with that long neck. You have such a high forehead, you really need some cute bangs. You really need a sexy new hair style. Let me help you get free from all " - she held up my precious kesh - "this."
I admit that I sprang out of the chair and got out of there fast. I suppose she still thinks that I came from some strange cult and had inadvertently wandered into the Twentieth Century.
After that I conditioned my own hair - or rather Mani and I did each other's hair, which was not only safer, but also a lot more pleasant.
I have one more thought about long hair. I once watched on The Oprah Winfrey Show, an episode that greatly disturbed me. A bunch of women - and one man - with very long hair were to get makeovers. The main point was to cut off that awful, old-fashioned, ugly, long hair. Give these people a modern, "sexy" look. I admit they did look very different, but BETTER? Not in my opinion. I had the same reaction I have when someone suggests I'd look better if I wore make-up. I always respond,"Better? No, just different." The man went from a strong, masculine man with a full beard and mustache, and hair as long as - although not as healthy - as a keshdhari Sikh to a somewhat girlish metrosexual. I did not like at all.
At least the shorn hair was donated to Locks of Love, a charity that makes human hair wigs for children who have lost their hair, usually as the result of cancer treatments. A worthy cause.
Now, in case you are thinking that these Sikhs are a bit daft with this whole hair thing, allow me a brief explanation. We believe that our Creator knew what it was doing when it made us and we couldn't be more perfectly made. We have hair for a reason, in fact, several practical reasons which I am not going into right now. Even if we could find no practical reason for hair, the fact is that Akaal Purakh (God) gave us a gift of our hair and it is for us to gratefully accept and cherish this gift. (Of course, there's more to it than that, but I think that'll be enough for a start, eh?)
If we still seem a bit daft to you, that's OK. We don't mind. Most of us anyway.
WHY TRY TO FIT IN? YOU WERE BORN TO STAND OUT!
My husband is again annoyed at all the money I spend on my hair. I think this is normal. Women do tend to spend a lot of money on their hair.
I was discussing this with a friend online. What are the things most women do to their hair? Straightening, I mean, relaxing, perming, weaves, cornrows (where did that name come from?), braids, extensions, all kinds of styling and, of course, cuts.
She said that she spends about $100.00 a month at the salon, in addition to home care products, such as shampoo, conditioner, gels, mousse, sprays and a weekly deep conditioner. That can easily add up to another $50.00 per month. Then there are brushes, combs, ties, and ornaments. I am going to disregard them, as I have no way to approximate that.
My expenses are somewhat less. In twenty years of marriage, I have been to a salon - not even one time. Wait, I was in a salon once. I'll tell about that later. I have never used or paid for the services of a salon even once. Well, once...I'll tell that story, too..
Given those figures, the average American woman would have spent about $36,000.00 over twenty years.
My expenses are somewhat less. I buy only three products for my hair: shampoo, conditioner and hair oil. Although I refuse to use that hair garbage from the dollar store - it makes my hair, which is very dry, break off and my scalp itch - I do not use the expensive salon items. I buy what is on sale at the local grocery/drug store. Shampoo and conditioner cost about $7.00 each for a bottle. One bottle will last me about a month. Hair oil, even imported from India is not expensive. The kind I usually use costs about $6.00 a bottle and lasts a couple of months. But let's say, I use a bottle a month. That all adds up to to $20.00 per month. Over twenty years, that adds up to a grand total of $4,800.
That means I have saved us about $31,200 over the twenty years of our marriage. I'd say I'm quite a bargain!
About that trip to the salon. A friend asked me to meet her there. With some misgivings, I agreed. I do not think any keshdhari Sikh could possibly feel comfortable in such a place. (For my nonSikh readers, being keshdhari means following the distinctively Sikh practice of leaving the hair unshorn and in its natural state.)
I am keshdhari. Going to a hair salon felt a little like going to a brothel. Interesting, a bit disgusting, quite daring and very uncomfortable. I was very much out of place, rather like a lioness at a dog show.
I first noticed the smell. A hair salon smells a bit like a chemistry lab without fume hoods. Ammonia seemed to predominate, along with some smells I couldn't identify. Someone had lit some incense, I suppose to cover up the noxious odours. It didn't work. Both my nostrils and my eyes were assaulted and I felt vaguely sick to my stomach.
The sights that met my eyes were a bit shocking. I mean, I know what goes on in these places, but to actually witness it! Here were all these women, all seemingly having a good time, mutilating their hair in various ways with these toxic chemicals. I could almost hear their tortured hairs screaming out in agony. And on the floor lay strands and strings of amputated hairs of all sorts of colours, some natural, most dyed. All dead.
My friend was in another room, but the receptionist recognised her name when I asked her. I left a note asking her to meet me at a near-by coffee shop and got out of that chamber of horrors. That was maybe 15 years ago; I have not been in one since.
I will be honest. Many years ago, while married to Mani, I did go to a hair salon for a service. I took it into my head that I wanted to get my hair professionally conditioned. I think mostly I was curious at exactly what went on in there. I found out.
I explained that I just wanted a deep conditioning. As this was in Montreal, of course it was all in French. I'll spare you and write in English. The young woman who was to serve me had bright blonde hair of an improbable shade puffed around her face to make her head look very round. She approached me. saw my neat bun and reached up to take out my kangha. I let out a yelp and fastened it to a sort of string around my neck. Jeanette - I don't remember her name, but that seems appropriate - loosened my hair which fell and fell and fell. She actually let out a little gasp and said she'd never seen such long hair. There was no approval in her voice; in fact her tone was accusatory. She picked up the ends of it and with several hmm, hmm, hmms, examined them closely "Virgin hair," she murmured.. "You have split ends. I'll have to trim them off before it can be properly conditioned."
"You'll do no such thing. Cut a single hair and I'll have your," I caught my breath and choked back the obscenity that had been on my lips, "cosmetology licence."
"Do you belong to some weird religious cult or something that won't let women cut their hair?"
"Or something," I growled. "And men don't cut their hair either."
"Well, you should break free and become your own woman." She picked up her scissors. "Long hair is really not becoming on you with that long neck. You have such a high forehead, you really need some cute bangs. You really need a sexy new hair style. Let me help you get free from all " - she held up my precious kesh - "this."
I admit that I sprang out of the chair and got out of there fast. I suppose she still thinks that I came from some strange cult and had inadvertently wandered into the Twentieth Century.
After that I conditioned my own hair - or rather Mani and I did each other's hair, which was not only safer, but also a lot more pleasant.
I have one more thought about long hair. I once watched on The Oprah Winfrey Show, an episode that greatly disturbed me. A bunch of women - and one man - with very long hair were to get makeovers. The main point was to cut off that awful, old-fashioned, ugly, long hair. Give these people a modern, "sexy" look. I admit they did look very different, but BETTER? Not in my opinion. I had the same reaction I have when someone suggests I'd look better if I wore make-up. I always respond,"Better? No, just different." The man went from a strong, masculine man with a full beard and mustache, and hair as long as - although not as healthy - as a keshdhari Sikh to a somewhat girlish metrosexual. I did not like at all.
At least the shorn hair was donated to Locks of Love, a charity that makes human hair wigs for children who have lost their hair, usually as the result of cancer treatments. A worthy cause.
Now, in case you are thinking that these Sikhs are a bit daft with this whole hair thing, allow me a brief explanation. We believe that our Creator knew what it was doing when it made us and we couldn't be more perfectly made. We have hair for a reason, in fact, several practical reasons which I am not going into right now. Even if we could find no practical reason for hair, the fact is that Akaal Purakh (God) gave us a gift of our hair and it is for us to gratefully accept and cherish this gift. (Of course, there's more to it than that, but I think that'll be enough for a start, eh?)
If we still seem a bit daft to you, that's OK. We don't mind. Most of us anyway.
WHY TRY TO FIT IN? YOU WERE BORN TO STAND OUT!
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Civilization - We Take it for Granted
Civilization is a state of social existence that we take for granted. We assume that the world that humans have created is a force of nature and that it will be there for us in perpetuity. We assume that every morning we will awaken to the same order, and structure, technology and culture, effort and progress that we regard as being synonymous with civilization. We assume that the complexity and subtleties of the social contract that bind us together will continue and be sustained by continued human effort. We do not see, however, the fragility of this social contract; we fail to comprehend the flaws in its structure and the vulnerability to its dissolution. There is a certain and undeniable proclivity towards anarchy and rebellion within the human makeup. There are destructive impulses that periodically break out of captivity and wreck havoc on the state of civilization. It is convenient to call upon evil to explain the ascendency of someone like Adolph Hitler, for example. No one person can be responsible for a behavior that requires the participation of an entire people to forge a crazed idea from a theoretical conception into reality. The urge to raze what has been made; to undermine the framework of an ordered world, lies within all of us. The past has shown repeatedly that what we assume as a given will ultimately collide with forces that will tend to tear it apart. The power of unforeseen events and the cumulative consequences of all that has gone before is what constitute history at any given moment. We are the benefactors and victims of history often at the same time. To be completely sane, it is essential to take nothing for granted and accept that the shadow of death is always with us.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
True Believers - Part I
In all honesty, who can really proclaim what is the correct way to live? The righteous among us and the True Believers certainly have no problem in declaring what they know to be true. They are not satisfied, however, with simply living according to their own principles; they feel driven to judge everyone through their own myopic lens and feel perfectly justified in coercing others to adhere to their ideals no matter how bizarre and distorted. In their eyes, reality itself can not be trusted and must be dutifully reshaped to fit their own ends – a preposterous and impossible task reminiscent of Sisyphus and his benighted rock. To some practitioners of the truly absurd, the world is only six thousand years old and everything was created in one blinding instance by the Master Builder who had such a fine and uncompromising eye for details. In order to maintain this preposterous notion, evolution must therefore be a grand lie; the proponents of science and the scientific method are nothing more than wily conspirators whose only purpose is to disdain the glorious deeds of the Creator and progressive ideas are the work of the Devil. The Devil, now there is truly magnificent creation of the human imagination. All the bleak, morbid, sadistic and chaotic urges of human nature have been judiciously melded together and poured into the singular conception that is the devil. Humans are therefore not responsible for the evil that humans do; it is the nothing more than the workings of the Devil, who is intent on undermining and besmirching our infinite souls.
Consider all the humans who have killed each other over conflicting religious beliefs; beliefs that are equally ludicrous no matter what side of the argument anyone is on. It is like taking two children, with highly charged imaginations, who have concocted opposing word views and placing them in an arena in which they are encouraged, with their followers watching, to bludgeon each other; until, one is victorious. Whoever wins has the right to declare his view to be the right one, regardless of what the real world may suggest. Within the marvelously fanciful stories of gods and their exploits, of saints and angels and prophets, there lies the incessant hunger of humans for immortality and superhuman capabilities. These stories, regardless of where they originated, are obviously the direct product of the human imagination. To assume otherwise is to essentially believe that the living world and its many manifestations are somehow irrelevant. And yet, billions of individuals not only take these incredible beliefs seriously, but are willing to kill and die for them.
True Believers are in a category that is distinct and uniquely their own. A True Believer holds on to a set of principles so strongly and so convincingly that there is no science or exercise of reasoned judgment that can pry the believer from his conclusions no matter how daft they appear to be. We’ve already had a look at religious belief that encompasses the real existence of an immortal demonic creature, spiritual in origin, who prowls about the human world looking for susceptible souls so that he might convince them to join him in hell, that place of eternal damnation. Tell me that this characterization could not have easily been concocted as a full-blown comic book hero. Hell, that’s a concept that deserves some attention. In this particular world there is no guarantee once an individual comes into this world about what how his life will unfold. There is no guarantee about the quality of his genome, the sanity of his family, the historic context in which he is born, the hardships he will endure, the diseases he will contract. To many humans born on planet earth, the sojourn of living could easily be described as hell. Need I elaborate, but I will, nonetheless: men women and children napalmed in Vietnam, Iraqis exposed to depleted uranium, children maimed by land mines, the agony of starvation, women sold into prostitution and slavery, children orphaned by the scourge of AIDS, the intentional maiming of children so that they might be more productive beggars, the Japanese victims of the nuclear holocaust visited on the unsuspecting cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the unimaginable plight of the Jews under the crazed reign of Adolf Hitler, the countless humans who have suffered from chronic devastating diseases, the real toll of mental illness on those unlucky enough to suffer it and etc.. This is a list produced from what has transpired in the human world during my brief stay. It does not include, of course, all that has transpired during the entire course of human history. And yet, given all of this unavoidable evidence, many humans believe that there is a caring God who looks over them and who has crafted a place of eternal damnation for his unruly charges just in case they have not suffered enough. Under the guise of religion, there are those who are convinced that if they sacrifice themselves for their God and bring others along with them in their fiery and suicidal ride to oblivion those who they perceive as God’s enemies, they will subsequently be rewarded with eternal bliss. Amazing! More about True Believers later.
Consider all the humans who have killed each other over conflicting religious beliefs; beliefs that are equally ludicrous no matter what side of the argument anyone is on. It is like taking two children, with highly charged imaginations, who have concocted opposing word views and placing them in an arena in which they are encouraged, with their followers watching, to bludgeon each other; until, one is victorious. Whoever wins has the right to declare his view to be the right one, regardless of what the real world may suggest. Within the marvelously fanciful stories of gods and their exploits, of saints and angels and prophets, there lies the incessant hunger of humans for immortality and superhuman capabilities. These stories, regardless of where they originated, are obviously the direct product of the human imagination. To assume otherwise is to essentially believe that the living world and its many manifestations are somehow irrelevant. And yet, billions of individuals not only take these incredible beliefs seriously, but are willing to kill and die for them.
True Believers are in a category that is distinct and uniquely their own. A True Believer holds on to a set of principles so strongly and so convincingly that there is no science or exercise of reasoned judgment that can pry the believer from his conclusions no matter how daft they appear to be. We’ve already had a look at religious belief that encompasses the real existence of an immortal demonic creature, spiritual in origin, who prowls about the human world looking for susceptible souls so that he might convince them to join him in hell, that place of eternal damnation. Tell me that this characterization could not have easily been concocted as a full-blown comic book hero. Hell, that’s a concept that deserves some attention. In this particular world there is no guarantee once an individual comes into this world about what how his life will unfold. There is no guarantee about the quality of his genome, the sanity of his family, the historic context in which he is born, the hardships he will endure, the diseases he will contract. To many humans born on planet earth, the sojourn of living could easily be described as hell. Need I elaborate, but I will, nonetheless: men women and children napalmed in Vietnam, Iraqis exposed to depleted uranium, children maimed by land mines, the agony of starvation, women sold into prostitution and slavery, children orphaned by the scourge of AIDS, the intentional maiming of children so that they might be more productive beggars, the Japanese victims of the nuclear holocaust visited on the unsuspecting cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the unimaginable plight of the Jews under the crazed reign of Adolf Hitler, the countless humans who have suffered from chronic devastating diseases, the real toll of mental illness on those unlucky enough to suffer it and etc.. This is a list produced from what has transpired in the human world during my brief stay. It does not include, of course, all that has transpired during the entire course of human history. And yet, given all of this unavoidable evidence, many humans believe that there is a caring God who looks over them and who has crafted a place of eternal damnation for his unruly charges just in case they have not suffered enough. Under the guise of religion, there are those who are convinced that if they sacrifice themselves for their God and bring others along with them in their fiery and suicidal ride to oblivion those who they perceive as God’s enemies, they will subsequently be rewarded with eternal bliss. Amazing! More about True Believers later.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Freewill doesn't exist (aftershock)
You are a product of influence and chance, nothing more, nothing less.
(Debate needed, score a victory, click title)
War and Peace - Love and Hate - Man and Rape
"(They) took me to an area beyond the village where they raped me. Once they had finished they half strangled me but the left. Other girls were also raped. After the rape, we all fled to Goma. We had to walk for two days and nights through the forest."
This is one case of many hundreds of thousands. Women who have been raped by soldiers and not in some distant dark corner of history but now in this 'enlightened century; this the twenty first century.
In peacetime rape is a crime and is punishable as such. Why is it that during wars this detestable horror is being overlooked?
"It is now more dangerous to be a woman than to be a soldier in modern conflict."
This is the age of satellite TV, home computers, qualifications to make Einstein blink. And still men are allowed to rape during war with impunity.
The United Nations have passed a Resolution (1820) that outlaws rape and makes rape a war crime. This is not enough. All governments throughout the world must recognise this law and act upon it now.
"An officer ordered five of his men to take her to a nearby cowshed. Three shots were heard. Villagers found her naked body after the security forces left the village. Bloodstains on her discarded clothes and underwear indicated that she had been raped before she was killed."
This is one case of many hundreds of thousands. Women who have been raped by soldiers and not in some distant dark corner of history but now in this 'enlightened century; this the twenty first century.
In peacetime rape is a crime and is punishable as such. Why is it that during wars this detestable horror is being overlooked?
"It is now more dangerous to be a woman than to be a soldier in modern conflict."
This is the age of satellite TV, home computers, qualifications to make Einstein blink. And still men are allowed to rape during war with impunity.
The United Nations have passed a Resolution (1820) that outlaws rape and makes rape a war crime. This is not enough. All governments throughout the world must recognise this law and act upon it now.
"An officer ordered five of his men to take her to a nearby cowshed. Three shots were heard. Villagers found her naked body after the security forces left the village. Bloodstains on her discarded clothes and underwear indicated that she had been raped before she was killed."
Monday, March 16, 2009
Reality Rag - Excerpt from A Monumental Screed
It’s become an entire universe of vapid communication that can be executed without much effort. Text spawned without regard for the majesty of words. Chatter, twitter, texting all wrapped around a core of banal and titillating gossip. The airways are permeated with topics managed, produced and engineered by complete and utter boneheads. Adolescents, so engrossed with all the myriad details of self, are quite literally impaled upon their mobile devices. That reminds me of the prevalent idea of accomplishing things without effort, of achieving untold wealth without ever having to do anything. This concept, often promoted by parents and educators, is a great disservice to the reality principle that will prevail regardless of the many efforts to undermine its supremacy. The ancillary idea of borrowing one’s way to success is one of the hallmarks of the economic malaise that seems to be gripping the nation.
The universe is not tilting towards us; it barely recognizes our separate existence on a planet encircling a rather ordinary yellow star among billions in a galaxy that is itself one among billions within the vast stretches of the cosmos. The idea that we are somehow especially cared for by some omnipotent creature responsible for all of creation is bizarre by a modest evaluation and downright crazy in relation to the startling and wondrous reality that envelops us. We are a unique species on earth in terms of some aspects of our intellect, and the degree to which we take ourselves so seriously. We are extraordinary in some endearing ways, however, where we particularly excel is in our willingness to obliterate members of our own species and the degree to which we are capable of undermining the biological infrastructure that sustains life on this world. We are capable of great promise, but it is a promise that we have, as yet, failed to fully identify.
Scientists have done everything except hurl their fragile bodies in front of buses or burn themselves alive to warn us of the dangers of polluting our air and water and soil with the excrements of our industrial and technological age. They’ve used charts and graphs; they’ve collaborated on the details in numerous publications; they have implored politicians in order to convince everyone of the gravity of the situation. They’ve given numerous talks, appeared on talk shows, appealed, cajoled and even, in some cases, threatened reluctant listeners with the obvious consequences of crazed human activity. Some have begun to listen and there is even somewhat muted talk of action in an attempt, although feeble, to derail the inevitable. What is all of this in comparison to accruing profit? Isn’t the possibility of making profit the real reason for being? It was something that Jesus Christ and the Buddha somehow overlooked, disgraceful as they may sound. Love and compassion can not replace the euphoria that flows outward from a balance sheet that is massively in the black. An appreciation of human suffering and caring for those who suffer can run counter to material productivity and, therefore, needs to be shunned; unless, it can somehow be turned into profit. One can not allow the maintenance of life’s essentials such as breathable air, drinkable water and a non-toxic world obscure or retard the onward rush of profitable endeavor. Let the future be damned – that is the pillar upon which the much of modern world now rests. It is, alas, a pillar of sand.
The universe is not tilting towards us; it barely recognizes our separate existence on a planet encircling a rather ordinary yellow star among billions in a galaxy that is itself one among billions within the vast stretches of the cosmos. The idea that we are somehow especially cared for by some omnipotent creature responsible for all of creation is bizarre by a modest evaluation and downright crazy in relation to the startling and wondrous reality that envelops us. We are a unique species on earth in terms of some aspects of our intellect, and the degree to which we take ourselves so seriously. We are extraordinary in some endearing ways, however, where we particularly excel is in our willingness to obliterate members of our own species and the degree to which we are capable of undermining the biological infrastructure that sustains life on this world. We are capable of great promise, but it is a promise that we have, as yet, failed to fully identify.
Scientists have done everything except hurl their fragile bodies in front of buses or burn themselves alive to warn us of the dangers of polluting our air and water and soil with the excrements of our industrial and technological age. They’ve used charts and graphs; they’ve collaborated on the details in numerous publications; they have implored politicians in order to convince everyone of the gravity of the situation. They’ve given numerous talks, appeared on talk shows, appealed, cajoled and even, in some cases, threatened reluctant listeners with the obvious consequences of crazed human activity. Some have begun to listen and there is even somewhat muted talk of action in an attempt, although feeble, to derail the inevitable. What is all of this in comparison to accruing profit? Isn’t the possibility of making profit the real reason for being? It was something that Jesus Christ and the Buddha somehow overlooked, disgraceful as they may sound. Love and compassion can not replace the euphoria that flows outward from a balance sheet that is massively in the black. An appreciation of human suffering and caring for those who suffer can run counter to material productivity and, therefore, needs to be shunned; unless, it can somehow be turned into profit. One can not allow the maintenance of life’s essentials such as breathable air, drinkable water and a non-toxic world obscure or retard the onward rush of profitable endeavor. Let the future be damned – that is the pillar upon which the much of modern world now rests. It is, alas, a pillar of sand.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Education: Influence and Personality
Say you make a sand castle on the beach.
Then you get mad at it for it being too small,
or maybe that it's only too wet or dry.
Well is it the castles fault or is it your fault?
Thursday, March 12, 2009
The Future of Food
90 min. to get deep understanding on how the system is working and about MONSANTO... and why those criminals MUST BE STOPPED!
Deborah Koons Garcia's The Future of Food
by Lily Films
Watch full film here: The Future of Food
Deborah Koons Garcia's The Future of Food
by Lily Films
Watch full film here: The Future of Food
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Peter Kropotkin
"The chasm between the modern millionaire who squanders the produce of human labor in a gorgeous and vain luxury, and the pauper reduced to a miserable and insecure existence, is thus growing wider and wider, so as to break the very unity of society-the harmony of its life-and to endanger the progress of its further development.”
Peter Kropotkin, born to Russian royalty, is arguably one of the most notable Russian anarchists (Contending with Emma Goldman) ever to come out of the Motherland. Born to Prince Alexei Petrovich Kropotkin, who owned huge tracts of land and 1200 serfs, Peter was rarely allowed any interaction with his father and thus he was educated and raised by the nurses and servants. It was this, along with his dwelling in Moscow, that has sparked an interest in the peasantry which, as some may know, has formed the foundation of nearly every revoltution.
Kropotkin read simply on his own accord. He especially possessed a particular interest in French history and gave much attention to French encyclopaedists. It was probably his interest in French history that also contributed to his interest in Anarchism (keeping in mind the French Revolution and the Paris Commune). The years 1857-1861 beheld an affluent growth in the intellectual contingent during which Liberal-revolutionary literature had been purchased in Kropotkin's interest, which he felt sufficiently expressed his aspirations.
His views on Anarchism differ from some of his contemporaries (Then again, Anarchism is an elusive praxis; it's definition being subjective to the views of the subscriber). Whereas most Anarchists and even Anarcho-Syndicalists are opposed to Communist ideologies (That is, the authority that Communism instills, the consistent statism that Anarchists seeks to abolish and the ignorance and dismissal of the peasants and poor), Kropotkin embraced the more Socialistic apects: decentralization of workers, worker organization in the workplace, distribution of wealth, the abolition of the state, society owning means of production and so on.
Kropotkin was also the first to scientifically analyze Anarchism, which he did in his book, Mutual Aid. Kropotkin, also a geographer, was the first to find that mountains grow in the direction opposite of that which all previous scientists have noted. Kropotkin was highly intellectual and was a very notable scientist and political theorist, although that word possibly contradicts his belief concerning theory and action. He believes that, in moments of revolt, people who have not yet fully embraced the revolution are much more willing to follow someone who they have seen act than follow someone who quibbles and theorizes.
Suggested Reading:
Anarchism: A collection of Revolutionary Writings
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Free Tibet
today marks fifty years of struggle and suffering, so i went along today to a gathering in front of the Chinese consulate in Toronto, there was some singing, what follows is not what I heard there, but I hope it brightens your day:
One Love - cover by Playing for Change, and
Stand By Me - cover by Playing for Change.
One Love - cover by Playing for Change, and
Stand By Me - cover by Playing for Change.
Just a Thought
There came a time when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
-Anais Nin
Above a picture of a solitary rose in my front garden.
Monday, March 9, 2009
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Architects of Control
Part one of Michael Tsarion's THE MASS CONTROL & The Future of Mankind
This is another 'MUST SEE' video and it's directly linked to the Clifford Mee & Igor Ledochowski text posted here by Sharon Amber Damnable.
This is another 'MUST SEE' video and it's directly linked to the Clifford Mee & Igor Ledochowski text posted here by Sharon Amber Damnable.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
POLITICAL LEADERS FOR 9/11 TRUTH LAUNCHED TODAY
Global Research, March 5, 2009
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=12565
POLITICAL LEADERS FOR 9/11 TRUTH LAUNCHED TODAY
Political Leaders for 9/11 Truth (pl911truth.com) is today being launched as the latest formal group calling for a new investigation into the events of September 11, 2001. The organization is headed by Councilor (Senator) Yukihisa Fujita of Japan and former Senator Karen Johnson of Arizona.This initiative is formed around a petition asking President Obama "to authorize a new, truly independent, investigation to determine what happened on 9/11."Political Leaders for 9/11 Truth thus joins other concerned citizens’ groups calling for a new investigation, including Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, Firefighters for 9/11 Truth, Lawyers for 9/11 Truth, Medical Professionals for 9/11 Truth, Pilots for 9/11 Truth, Religious Leaders for 9/11 Truth, Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice, and Veterans for 9/11 Truth.Independent researchers from these professions have established beyond any reasonable doubt that the official account of 9/11 is false and that the official investigations have been cover-up operations.Senator Yukihisa Fujita explains the new initiative: "Thus far there has been no response from political leaders in Washington or in other capitals around the world. Political Leaders for 9/11 Truth has been formed to encourage such a response."The organization is being launched with 20 charter members, including a former US governor, a former US senator, former US representatives, and former and present members of the British, German, Japanese, Norwegian, and European parliaments. Charter member Robert Bowman, former head of the "Star Wars" program, explains the continuing relevance of the issue: "The 9/11 Tragedy has been used as the excuse for two deadly wars of aggression, for taking away our rights, and for committing war crimes that have undermined America’s reputation. Only by exposing the truth about 9/11 can we end this madness."Political Leaders for 9/11 Truth invites other people who hold, or have held, a political office---whether elected or appointed, whether municipal, state, provincial, national, or international--- to sign the petition at pl911truth.com.Senator Johnson sums it up: "The organization believes that the truth about 9/11 needs to be exposed now---not in 50 years as a footnote in the history books---so the policies that have been based on the Bush-Cheney administration’s interpretation of the 9/11 attacks can be changed." Please support Global Research Global Research relies on the financial support of its readers.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=12565
POLITICAL LEADERS FOR 9/11 TRUTH LAUNCHED TODAY
Political Leaders for 9/11 Truth (pl911truth.com) is today being launched as the latest formal group calling for a new investigation into the events of September 11, 2001. The organization is headed by Councilor (Senator) Yukihisa Fujita of Japan and former Senator Karen Johnson of Arizona.This initiative is formed around a petition asking President Obama "to authorize a new, truly independent, investigation to determine what happened on 9/11."Political Leaders for 9/11 Truth thus joins other concerned citizens’ groups calling for a new investigation, including Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, Firefighters for 9/11 Truth, Lawyers for 9/11 Truth, Medical Professionals for 9/11 Truth, Pilots for 9/11 Truth, Religious Leaders for 9/11 Truth, Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice, and Veterans for 9/11 Truth.Independent researchers from these professions have established beyond any reasonable doubt that the official account of 9/11 is false and that the official investigations have been cover-up operations.Senator Yukihisa Fujita explains the new initiative: "Thus far there has been no response from political leaders in Washington or in other capitals around the world. Political Leaders for 9/11 Truth has been formed to encourage such a response."The organization is being launched with 20 charter members, including a former US governor, a former US senator, former US representatives, and former and present members of the British, German, Japanese, Norwegian, and European parliaments. Charter member Robert Bowman, former head of the "Star Wars" program, explains the continuing relevance of the issue: "The 9/11 Tragedy has been used as the excuse for two deadly wars of aggression, for taking away our rights, and for committing war crimes that have undermined America’s reputation. Only by exposing the truth about 9/11 can we end this madness."Political Leaders for 9/11 Truth invites other people who hold, or have held, a political office---whether elected or appointed, whether municipal, state, provincial, national, or international--- to sign the petition at pl911truth.com.Senator Johnson sums it up: "The organization believes that the truth about 9/11 needs to be exposed now---not in 50 years as a footnote in the history books---so the policies that have been based on the Bush-Cheney administration’s interpretation of the 9/11 attacks can be changed." Please support Global Research Global Research relies on the financial support of its readers.
Friday, March 6, 2009
Idealism
"Good is my idealism.Life is the ultimate good.My idealism is life.Because life is all we have."(click above)
Break the Spell !
Hypnosis is as old as mankind. At first it was associated with mystical, magical or occult phenomena, but as time passed it became the subject of scientific investigation. At the end of the 19th century the scientific community took a more serious interest in hypnotism and much of the "Hocus Pocus" was eliminated from the equation. When we began to understand how hypnosis works, the art of hypnosis began to flourish.
Here are the fundamentals that you need to know in order to understand how mass covert hypnosis is being used against you virtually every day:
First of all hypnosis is a special, altered state of awareness in which a person becomes more suggestible. The ideas that the hypnotist gives that person bypass normal conscious thinking and influence him/her directly at the unconscious level.
When I speak about the unconscious (sometimes referred to as the "subconscious" or "non-conscious" mind - these are all really different words for the same thing), I mean that part of you that stores your memories, feelings, hopes & dreams and is responsible for automatic behaviors - it regulates everything from your heartbeat to your habits. When you have a craving for chocolate, when you find yourself doing things automatically (like driving on the freeway - can you remember what sights you passed between your entry and your exit?) or when you choose one brand of washing powder over another - even though you have NO IDEA what the difference between them really is, that is your unconscious mind in action.
The conditions for allowing the state of hypnosis to arise are simple:
1. Fixate the attention
2. Somehow bypass or shut down the normal intellect, i.e. "critical" or "rational" thinking
Once the state is induced, a hypnotist can start planting his suggestions inside the mind. Luckily your mind is not without its defenses - we will come to these, and the ways in which some people are trying to break down your defenses every day!
Let’s look a little more closely at the traditional methods people have used for inducing hypnosis.
To fixate attention means to absorb it, to concentrate, to narrow your awareness down to a single point of attention (like tunnel vision or a single idea). This can be done in many ways. Traditionally focus points have been the "ordinary" like a light or the hypnotists finger, through to the exotic, like the rhythmic chanting ofeastern mystics, the repetition of a word or phrase (like a "mantra") or focusing on the light of a candle.
To bypass rational thinking there are many methods. The simplest one is engaging in repetitive "non-intellectual" activities. Rhythmic drumming or whirling in circles, a mind-numbingly boring lecturer or the rhythmic chanting of "mantras" or other prayers can have this effect. Over time more sophisticated techniques evolved.
So this is the first crucial thing to remember: to induce a hypnotic trance (and open the mind to suggestion) the basic conditions are get attention and turn off the intellect.
The next thing that needs to happen is that the unconscious mind is influenced. But the unconscious mind has got defenses - for example hypnosis alone cannot be used to force someone to break their own moral code. No one can hypnotize you and make you murder someone else (unless you really don't mind killing them anyway). But they can make you see things in a way that makes killing OK - for example this is something that army indoctrination programs do. This last is an example of what are called hypnotic realities.
A hypnotic reality changes the way we think the world is, which then allows us to make "rational" choices that can be predicted. For example, if you are convinced that a certain washing powder has a special ingredient that cleans clothes better, it is rational to choose to buy it. Whether or not that magic ingredient actually exists or even works is irrelevant. The fact is that once your mind accepts that as a reality, your natural choices will take you down a predetermined path.
The same is true in politics: you will naturally withdraw your support from a politician that is corrupt - so smear campaigns started to evolve. It is natural to give your support to a politician who seems to have a clear solution in a time of crisis - which is why the outbreak of a war or a natural disaster has "saved" many flagging careers.
There are many devices for creating and installing these hypnotic realities: hypnotic stories, loaded hypnotic language, repetition, the voice of authority, trance logic. We will investigate these in order to familiarize you with the tricks being used on you until you can spot it happening and choose to stop it.
For now the stage is set for mass covert hypnosis. All you need to start a campaign of mass covert hypnosis is:
1. Reach enough people (there is an element of group dynamics that can be helpful to the hypnotist),
2. Rivet their attention for a period of time,
3. Switch off their intellect,
4. Hypnotically install a reality in which a normal, ethical person can only act in the way you want them to.
Mass Covert Hypnosis And The Media
It there are many different environments that will allow someone to create the 4 conditions for mass covert hypnosis to occur.
A cult may invite you to a meeting, talk or special seminar.
A lobby group may stage a mass rally with long speeches, the chanting of repetitive slogans and tiring marches.
A rock concert can be used to support a political message.
These activities may not be bad in themselves, but they have the potential to alter your state of consciousness enough to open your mind to mass suggestion. Whether this is done deliberately or accidentally is a mere historical footnote. The fact is your choice was taken away from you, the only individual entitled to determine the course of your life.
Luckily most of the example activities I have just mentioned are improperly stage managed so that the hypnotic effect is haphazard: whilst it is more likely that you will be influenced than not, it would still be difficult to tell the outcome in advance.
If you want to know the effectiveness of true covert mass hypnosis techniques in action when they are used with a purpose and properly stage managed, just look at Hitler's rallies in the 1930s and the 1940s.
Hitler's rallies were carefully crafted using every trick in the book (as they knew it then) to take a nation of decent people and make them either blind to the evil consequences of his regime (known as a negative hallucination) or embrace his twisted ideas one carefully managed step at a time.
Hitler used many people to help him in his campaign to corrupt a nation, including a drama teacher to help him deliver powerful and emotional speeches. But his most irresistible medium ever was film. Film allowed Hitler to take his message to an entire nation. If you think about it, film was ideal for a campaign of deliberate cover mass hypnosis because by its very nature it:
1. Reached millions of people at the same time
2. Forced them to sit still and pay attention for a period of time
3. Encouraged people to "Switch Off And Enjoy The Show" and
4. Bombarded them with the same (hypnotic) messages in many different ways.
The four conditions for mass covert hypnosis were satisfied. This s as true today as it was in Hitler's day. Only now we have television as well as cinemas to contend. We have seen what Hitler's messages bombarding a movie going nation once a week could do. Now think about how much more power a TV set has. It fulfils the 4 conditions just as well as film: its in your home (so your defenses are down) and you watch it every day!
In fact many children spend more time watching TV then they do going to school. Who do you think controls what they will be thinking when they grow up?
Still doubtful?
Well here are two studies that may shock you.
The first is by a researcher called Herbert Krugman. In his tests he found that the part of the brain responsible for the normal intellect, like rational thought, gets tuned down and other parts of the brain get stimulates into hyper activity. It literally numbs your ability to think rationally.
The second study is just a worrying. Thomas Mullholland put a bunch of children in front of a television set. The TV was wired so that it would automatically switch off when the children's brain state switched from a normal everyday state to a more receptive state almost comatose in nature - like hypnosis.
They tried this a bunch of ways. The children were warned to keep alert. But no matter what the children did, within 30 seconds of the TV being turned on, those children entered a trance state and the television sets automatically clicked off.
30 seconds.
That's all it takes for your mind to be switched into a hypnotically receptive mode - just 30 seconds.
How long do you watch TV?
How many messages have you let into your mind without realizing how they have shaped your thinking?
If you are feeling unsettled right now, your fears are not unfounded. Watching TV meets all the conditions for delivering a campaign of covert mass hypnosis: the studies have shown that TV focuses your attention and switches off (or at least "dumbs down") your intellect to the point where your mind becomes easy to influence with hypnotic messages.
Now that we have discovered the basic "hypnotic" medium that is being used to make your mind vulnerable, lets have a look at the techniques that advertisers, politicians and political activists use plant Hypnotic Realities inside you so that you cannot help but do what they want you to do.
Covert Mass Hypnosis Strategies
The enemy of covert mass hypnosis is rational thinking. If you could reason logically whilst the messages are being implanted in your mind, you could deliberately block the process quite easily. It is more difficult to go in and root out a Hypnotic Reality that has already grown into full bloom inside your mind. It can be done, but prevention is a much better remedy than a cure!
So of course on of the primary strategies that a gifted covert hypnotist will use is to systematically break down your ability to reason. And there are many ways to do this.
Stir Up Primitive Drives
You may have thought that you have only one brain. Well it turns out that you have at least three, and each one does a different job. These brains are divided into 3 "shells" that grow around each other.
At the centre we have what is called the "R-complex". The R-complex is made up of the brain stem and the cerebellum. Now the closest thing that resembles this brain in nature is the brains of reptiles. Both a reptile’s brain and the R-complex have the same function: survival instincts. The basics are eat, sleep, mate, fight and run away.
The next "brain" is a layer called the limbic system. Sometimes its referred to as the "mammalian brain" because it looks and acts a lot like the kinds of brains we find in lower mammals (like cats and dogs.) It basically regulates your emotions, some aspects of your personal identity and some aspects of your memory.
The topmost layer is the most complex. It is called the "neo-cortex" or sometimes the "cerebral cortex". We share this structure with our primate cousins, though our version of it is ridiculously large in comparison. This is where our "higher" functions come from. We can socialize, reason, plan and speak thanks to this part of our brain.
Now normally the three brains work in balance. But as soon as the basic function of one of the lower brains is threatened, it short circuits the functions of the higher ones. So the first thing to go in stressful situations is our reason, our ability to speak coherently and plan ahead.
When your safety is threatened, the R-complex kicks in and makes you run on autopilot to keep you safe (by running away or fighting). When your emotions are stimulated to a high degree (e.g. when you're in love or when you're angry) again you loose the ability to reason or plan ahead properly.
Enter the mass manipulators. Did you ever hear a politician paint you a grim picture about rising crime rates (lack of safety) or rising unemployment (lack of food and shelter)? If their words hit home, then chances are pretty good that your ability to reason afterwards was impaired. All you know is that you want the problem to go away. You stop thinking the issues through clearly and the politician gets away with making bold claims without any real logic behind them.
This is a trick that Hitler had perfected. As a mass manipulator, he was lucky to live at a time when unemployment and food shortages swept through Germany. People where desperate and reason was in short supply. Hitler's speeches hit the R-complex square in its needs, and the rest (as they say) is history.
The same is true of political activists. Look at the scare surrounding the climate change problem. How many of the messages you are being pumped full of are actual reasoned arguments? How much of it is designed to just make you feel afraid?
Whilst their cause might be a decent one, to keep our planet from harm, their methods are at times as sinister as Hitler or Stalin's propaganda machine.
The news and politicians tend to thrive on the attention that they get from stimulating the R-complex. War, death, disaster, disease, corruption, evil, atrocities... these things sell papers or make you tune in to CNN. We think that the world is a terrible and evil place because that is the message that is being pumped at us - either to get us to look (e.g. the news) or to make us desperate for a political change.
Of course the general sense of unease that we are left with (in some cases it develops into a full blown paranoia) is the price we pay for their successful campaign to dominate our thinking.
Advertisers are also no strangers to manipulating our R-complex. We all know that sex sells.
Why do we see a sexually alluring woman draping herself across the bonnet (hood for our American friends) of a car?
Because men are aroused by the sight at some level. The R-complex kicks in and wants to mate. Whilst we may mask the desire from ourselves or under a social veneer, we still buy the message: car means sex. Buy car have sex.
The logic of the idea is atrocious. But we're not thinking logically any more. Advertisers may (for the most part) be using more pleasant images, but they are still controlling your impulses to limit your choices down to one: do as we say!
The price we pay for this kind of associational logic that we have been exposed pretty much since birth is that we have a pretty warped sense of what we want from the world.
There was a time when our basic needs (eat, sleep, procreate) could be satisfied by living on a small farm in the middle of nowhere. It could be satisfied living in a city or town. There were more ways to find happiness because our choices where not narrowed down.
Ironically with the birth of industry we have more choice than ever in terms of what products we can use. The problem is that as our choice of things increase, our choices of lifestyles decrease. Men desire women with movie star looks and women need cosmetic surgery to feel desirable.
There must be something wrong with this?
The problem is whilst our thinking is restricted to the R-complex, so cleverly stimulated by the media industry as a whole, we don't have a chance to think for ourselves.
The Mood Manipulators
There is another consequence of the Triune Brain model we just discussed. Apart from using fear to cripple our ability to think for ourselves, we can be swayed by any strong emotional response.
Again we turn to advertising. You're watching TV (good boy, keep watching the hypnosis box), you're receptive, an advert comes up with alluring images (R-complex starts overriding things) cue music and emotionally laden images.
Just as stimulating the need for sex, food or safety, so developing a strong emotional response in someone will short circuit their ability to think straight.
Cue nostalgic music. A handsome grandfather plays with his adorable granddaughter. They have a fun day, the little girl shows an expression of pure love for grandfather. He gives her a little treat, sweets from an old candy jar. Impossibly the little girls expression lights up even more. We are filled with happiness and delight with the privilege of witnessing this scene. Cue the cheap plastic bag of candy you can get for 99 cents in any drug store.
We unconsciously accept the message: to feel loved eat this candy.
Or: buy the pure love of children, bribe them with these sweets.
Consciously it doesn't make sense. But when do you find yourself in the drugstore searching out the brand of "happy candy"?
When you've had a bad day and need some love and affection.
Ask any therapist and you will hear that the most common underlying problem driving obesity is unhappiness. A feeling of loneliness, or that you are not loveable. When we are down and out we grasp at the magic pill to make us happy again. Logically we know it won't make us happy - just fat. But who is capable of logic anymore?
The hypnotic principle being employed here is "to change someone's mind change their mood."
Next time you watch TV just notice how much of what you are seeing and hearing is designed to manipulate your mood so that your unconscious makes similar mistakes in their favour!
Hypnotic Language Patterns
Consider this little item that could come from any political rally:
"We deserve to live happily, we have the right to be free from fear, we need to ensure that our children are safe in our homes and on our streets and we will do whatever it takes to make sure that happens"
Rousing stuff? Maybe.
But have a look at what is actually being said. Do you have any idea what this politician is on about?
The truth is if you ask 10 different people, you'll get 10 different answers. The politician in question has made a statement that is a piece of hypnotic genius: we find our own meanings in it. Because we find our own meanings, we think that he's speaking to us about our own needs
This is the power of hypnotic language. Hypnotic language can turn off your reasoning process, it can make you identify with the speakers message as though it were your own and accept his conclusions despite the lack of evidence (or even evidence to the contrary).
You're watching a political broadcast. The guest speaker starts with a grim piece of news:
"Yesterday Mary X was walking with her children in the park. A gang of thugs raped and killed her whilst the children watched and cried..."
My apologies for this grim piece of language. If you are feeling disturbed just reading this, then you have just felt your R-complex being activated. The politician telling this grim story has just switched off your ability to reason. If he is good, he can convince you of anything now - the death penalty, more taxes (for a bigger police force or more prisons), even changes in the law that end up infringing your own civil liberties.
He doesn't have to prove a thing. He has caught your mind so firmly with his hypnotic language that he can make you believe almost anything now. All he has to do is follow the hypnotic principles one step at a time and you'll be caught - unless you can see what he's doing and refuse to let him lead you around by the nose!
Now the topic of hypnotic language is vast. These examples were just the tip of a very large iceberg. And politicians and other cult leaders are particularly good at using it to subtly control what you think and don't even consider.
The Law Of Repetition
This one is a hypnosis classic. The more often you say something the more you'll believe it. The more a message is repeated to you, the more real it seems to become. This is partly because your memory finds more examples of it, and partly because of the way that your mind tries to reconstruct reality.
Repeat a message often enough and in different guises, and it is accepted as truth. At one stage in our history we all believed that the world was flat. Then came Galileo and was almost burned at the stake for suggesting it was round.
Now we all know it is round.
Or do we?
Ask yourself this: how do you KNOW that the world is round?
Now I am not from the Flat Earth Society. I have no wish to convince you that the world is flat. I just want you to think for a moment: how do you know what you know?
Chances are that unless you are a doctor of mathematics, an astrophysicist or an actual astronaut you have never worked this fact out for yourself through personal observation or mathematical measurements.
You believed other people. Enough people told you it was so and you believed them.
Imagine what would happen if all the papers tomorrow said "Scientific Scam - The World Is Not Round" and told you that rebel scientists have decided to break the great secret on pain of death. At first you wouldn't be sure whether to believe the story. But it gets run again on the news. They interview some of these rebel scientists. They show photos that demonstrate how the curvature of the earth is an optical illusion. The evidence seems to pile up. How long would you hold out before you started to doubt what you now consider to be a cast-iron fact?
Politicians know this. They know that they can insinuate an idea in your mind. Come back to it time and time again. Build you up until you're ready to accept it as the truth just on their say so - with absolutely no reasonable evidence to back it up.
Just think of the "Weapons of mass destruction" debacle that both the UK Prime Minister and the US President found themselves in. We believed them without a shred of evidence.
Why did we do it?
Because they kept telling us the same thing, over and over again, on TV when our mental defenses were down.
Did we really have a chance?
Specialist Techniques
There are many more techniques from the field of hypnosis and covert hypnosis that are being used more and more each day to influence you. Hypnotic stories (yes they exist!), shock & confusion, core drives and needs...
Sadly I do not have the time or the space to break each one of these specialist techniques down for you here. However there is one technique that is so subtle, so undetectable and so powerful that I feel obliged to make sure you know about it.
It is known as the "interspersal technique" or more commonly as "embedded commands"
Here are the fundamentals that you need to know in order to understand how mass covert hypnosis is being used against you virtually every day:
First of all hypnosis is a special, altered state of awareness in which a person becomes more suggestible. The ideas that the hypnotist gives that person bypass normal conscious thinking and influence him/her directly at the unconscious level.
When I speak about the unconscious (sometimes referred to as the "subconscious" or "non-conscious" mind - these are all really different words for the same thing), I mean that part of you that stores your memories, feelings, hopes & dreams and is responsible for automatic behaviors - it regulates everything from your heartbeat to your habits. When you have a craving for chocolate, when you find yourself doing things automatically (like driving on the freeway - can you remember what sights you passed between your entry and your exit?) or when you choose one brand of washing powder over another - even though you have NO IDEA what the difference between them really is, that is your unconscious mind in action.
The conditions for allowing the state of hypnosis to arise are simple:
1. Fixate the attention
2. Somehow bypass or shut down the normal intellect, i.e. "critical" or "rational" thinking
Once the state is induced, a hypnotist can start planting his suggestions inside the mind. Luckily your mind is not without its defenses - we will come to these, and the ways in which some people are trying to break down your defenses every day!
Let’s look a little more closely at the traditional methods people have used for inducing hypnosis.
To fixate attention means to absorb it, to concentrate, to narrow your awareness down to a single point of attention (like tunnel vision or a single idea). This can be done in many ways. Traditionally focus points have been the "ordinary" like a light or the hypnotists finger, through to the exotic, like the rhythmic chanting ofeastern mystics, the repetition of a word or phrase (like a "mantra") or focusing on the light of a candle.
To bypass rational thinking there are many methods. The simplest one is engaging in repetitive "non-intellectual" activities. Rhythmic drumming or whirling in circles, a mind-numbingly boring lecturer or the rhythmic chanting of "mantras" or other prayers can have this effect. Over time more sophisticated techniques evolved.
So this is the first crucial thing to remember: to induce a hypnotic trance (and open the mind to suggestion) the basic conditions are get attention and turn off the intellect.
The next thing that needs to happen is that the unconscious mind is influenced. But the unconscious mind has got defenses - for example hypnosis alone cannot be used to force someone to break their own moral code. No one can hypnotize you and make you murder someone else (unless you really don't mind killing them anyway). But they can make you see things in a way that makes killing OK - for example this is something that army indoctrination programs do. This last is an example of what are called hypnotic realities.
A hypnotic reality changes the way we think the world is, which then allows us to make "rational" choices that can be predicted. For example, if you are convinced that a certain washing powder has a special ingredient that cleans clothes better, it is rational to choose to buy it. Whether or not that magic ingredient actually exists or even works is irrelevant. The fact is that once your mind accepts that as a reality, your natural choices will take you down a predetermined path.
The same is true in politics: you will naturally withdraw your support from a politician that is corrupt - so smear campaigns started to evolve. It is natural to give your support to a politician who seems to have a clear solution in a time of crisis - which is why the outbreak of a war or a natural disaster has "saved" many flagging careers.
There are many devices for creating and installing these hypnotic realities: hypnotic stories, loaded hypnotic language, repetition, the voice of authority, trance logic. We will investigate these in order to familiarize you with the tricks being used on you until you can spot it happening and choose to stop it.
For now the stage is set for mass covert hypnosis. All you need to start a campaign of mass covert hypnosis is:
1. Reach enough people (there is an element of group dynamics that can be helpful to the hypnotist),
2. Rivet their attention for a period of time,
3. Switch off their intellect,
4. Hypnotically install a reality in which a normal, ethical person can only act in the way you want them to.
Mass Covert Hypnosis And The Media
It there are many different environments that will allow someone to create the 4 conditions for mass covert hypnosis to occur.
A cult may invite you to a meeting, talk or special seminar.
A lobby group may stage a mass rally with long speeches, the chanting of repetitive slogans and tiring marches.
A rock concert can be used to support a political message.
These activities may not be bad in themselves, but they have the potential to alter your state of consciousness enough to open your mind to mass suggestion. Whether this is done deliberately or accidentally is a mere historical footnote. The fact is your choice was taken away from you, the only individual entitled to determine the course of your life.
Luckily most of the example activities I have just mentioned are improperly stage managed so that the hypnotic effect is haphazard: whilst it is more likely that you will be influenced than not, it would still be difficult to tell the outcome in advance.
If you want to know the effectiveness of true covert mass hypnosis techniques in action when they are used with a purpose and properly stage managed, just look at Hitler's rallies in the 1930s and the 1940s.
Hitler's rallies were carefully crafted using every trick in the book (as they knew it then) to take a nation of decent people and make them either blind to the evil consequences of his regime (known as a negative hallucination) or embrace his twisted ideas one carefully managed step at a time.
Hitler used many people to help him in his campaign to corrupt a nation, including a drama teacher to help him deliver powerful and emotional speeches. But his most irresistible medium ever was film. Film allowed Hitler to take his message to an entire nation. If you think about it, film was ideal for a campaign of deliberate cover mass hypnosis because by its very nature it:
1. Reached millions of people at the same time
2. Forced them to sit still and pay attention for a period of time
3. Encouraged people to "Switch Off And Enjoy The Show" and
4. Bombarded them with the same (hypnotic) messages in many different ways.
The four conditions for mass covert hypnosis were satisfied. This s as true today as it was in Hitler's day. Only now we have television as well as cinemas to contend. We have seen what Hitler's messages bombarding a movie going nation once a week could do. Now think about how much more power a TV set has. It fulfils the 4 conditions just as well as film: its in your home (so your defenses are down) and you watch it every day!
In fact many children spend more time watching TV then they do going to school. Who do you think controls what they will be thinking when they grow up?
Still doubtful?
Well here are two studies that may shock you.
The first is by a researcher called Herbert Krugman. In his tests he found that the part of the brain responsible for the normal intellect, like rational thought, gets tuned down and other parts of the brain get stimulates into hyper activity. It literally numbs your ability to think rationally.
The second study is just a worrying. Thomas Mullholland put a bunch of children in front of a television set. The TV was wired so that it would automatically switch off when the children's brain state switched from a normal everyday state to a more receptive state almost comatose in nature - like hypnosis.
They tried this a bunch of ways. The children were warned to keep alert. But no matter what the children did, within 30 seconds of the TV being turned on, those children entered a trance state and the television sets automatically clicked off.
30 seconds.
That's all it takes for your mind to be switched into a hypnotically receptive mode - just 30 seconds.
How long do you watch TV?
How many messages have you let into your mind without realizing how they have shaped your thinking?
If you are feeling unsettled right now, your fears are not unfounded. Watching TV meets all the conditions for delivering a campaign of covert mass hypnosis: the studies have shown that TV focuses your attention and switches off (or at least "dumbs down") your intellect to the point where your mind becomes easy to influence with hypnotic messages.
Now that we have discovered the basic "hypnotic" medium that is being used to make your mind vulnerable, lets have a look at the techniques that advertisers, politicians and political activists use plant Hypnotic Realities inside you so that you cannot help but do what they want you to do.
Covert Mass Hypnosis Strategies
The enemy of covert mass hypnosis is rational thinking. If you could reason logically whilst the messages are being implanted in your mind, you could deliberately block the process quite easily. It is more difficult to go in and root out a Hypnotic Reality that has already grown into full bloom inside your mind. It can be done, but prevention is a much better remedy than a cure!
So of course on of the primary strategies that a gifted covert hypnotist will use is to systematically break down your ability to reason. And there are many ways to do this.
Stir Up Primitive Drives
You may have thought that you have only one brain. Well it turns out that you have at least three, and each one does a different job. These brains are divided into 3 "shells" that grow around each other.
At the centre we have what is called the "R-complex". The R-complex is made up of the brain stem and the cerebellum. Now the closest thing that resembles this brain in nature is the brains of reptiles. Both a reptile’s brain and the R-complex have the same function: survival instincts. The basics are eat, sleep, mate, fight and run away.
The next "brain" is a layer called the limbic system. Sometimes its referred to as the "mammalian brain" because it looks and acts a lot like the kinds of brains we find in lower mammals (like cats and dogs.) It basically regulates your emotions, some aspects of your personal identity and some aspects of your memory.
The topmost layer is the most complex. It is called the "neo-cortex" or sometimes the "cerebral cortex". We share this structure with our primate cousins, though our version of it is ridiculously large in comparison. This is where our "higher" functions come from. We can socialize, reason, plan and speak thanks to this part of our brain.
Now normally the three brains work in balance. But as soon as the basic function of one of the lower brains is threatened, it short circuits the functions of the higher ones. So the first thing to go in stressful situations is our reason, our ability to speak coherently and plan ahead.
When your safety is threatened, the R-complex kicks in and makes you run on autopilot to keep you safe (by running away or fighting). When your emotions are stimulated to a high degree (e.g. when you're in love or when you're angry) again you loose the ability to reason or plan ahead properly.
Enter the mass manipulators. Did you ever hear a politician paint you a grim picture about rising crime rates (lack of safety) or rising unemployment (lack of food and shelter)? If their words hit home, then chances are pretty good that your ability to reason afterwards was impaired. All you know is that you want the problem to go away. You stop thinking the issues through clearly and the politician gets away with making bold claims without any real logic behind them.
This is a trick that Hitler had perfected. As a mass manipulator, he was lucky to live at a time when unemployment and food shortages swept through Germany. People where desperate and reason was in short supply. Hitler's speeches hit the R-complex square in its needs, and the rest (as they say) is history.
The same is true of political activists. Look at the scare surrounding the climate change problem. How many of the messages you are being pumped full of are actual reasoned arguments? How much of it is designed to just make you feel afraid?
Whilst their cause might be a decent one, to keep our planet from harm, their methods are at times as sinister as Hitler or Stalin's propaganda machine.
The news and politicians tend to thrive on the attention that they get from stimulating the R-complex. War, death, disaster, disease, corruption, evil, atrocities... these things sell papers or make you tune in to CNN. We think that the world is a terrible and evil place because that is the message that is being pumped at us - either to get us to look (e.g. the news) or to make us desperate for a political change.
Of course the general sense of unease that we are left with (in some cases it develops into a full blown paranoia) is the price we pay for their successful campaign to dominate our thinking.
Advertisers are also no strangers to manipulating our R-complex. We all know that sex sells.
Why do we see a sexually alluring woman draping herself across the bonnet (hood for our American friends) of a car?
Because men are aroused by the sight at some level. The R-complex kicks in and wants to mate. Whilst we may mask the desire from ourselves or under a social veneer, we still buy the message: car means sex. Buy car have sex.
The logic of the idea is atrocious. But we're not thinking logically any more. Advertisers may (for the most part) be using more pleasant images, but they are still controlling your impulses to limit your choices down to one: do as we say!
The price we pay for this kind of associational logic that we have been exposed pretty much since birth is that we have a pretty warped sense of what we want from the world.
There was a time when our basic needs (eat, sleep, procreate) could be satisfied by living on a small farm in the middle of nowhere. It could be satisfied living in a city or town. There were more ways to find happiness because our choices where not narrowed down.
Ironically with the birth of industry we have more choice than ever in terms of what products we can use. The problem is that as our choice of things increase, our choices of lifestyles decrease. Men desire women with movie star looks and women need cosmetic surgery to feel desirable.
There must be something wrong with this?
The problem is whilst our thinking is restricted to the R-complex, so cleverly stimulated by the media industry as a whole, we don't have a chance to think for ourselves.
The Mood Manipulators
There is another consequence of the Triune Brain model we just discussed. Apart from using fear to cripple our ability to think for ourselves, we can be swayed by any strong emotional response.
Again we turn to advertising. You're watching TV (good boy, keep watching the hypnosis box), you're receptive, an advert comes up with alluring images (R-complex starts overriding things) cue music and emotionally laden images.
Just as stimulating the need for sex, food or safety, so developing a strong emotional response in someone will short circuit their ability to think straight.
Cue nostalgic music. A handsome grandfather plays with his adorable granddaughter. They have a fun day, the little girl shows an expression of pure love for grandfather. He gives her a little treat, sweets from an old candy jar. Impossibly the little girls expression lights up even more. We are filled with happiness and delight with the privilege of witnessing this scene. Cue the cheap plastic bag of candy you can get for 99 cents in any drug store.
We unconsciously accept the message: to feel loved eat this candy.
Or: buy the pure love of children, bribe them with these sweets.
Consciously it doesn't make sense. But when do you find yourself in the drugstore searching out the brand of "happy candy"?
When you've had a bad day and need some love and affection.
Ask any therapist and you will hear that the most common underlying problem driving obesity is unhappiness. A feeling of loneliness, or that you are not loveable. When we are down and out we grasp at the magic pill to make us happy again. Logically we know it won't make us happy - just fat. But who is capable of logic anymore?
The hypnotic principle being employed here is "to change someone's mind change their mood."
Next time you watch TV just notice how much of what you are seeing and hearing is designed to manipulate your mood so that your unconscious makes similar mistakes in their favour!
Hypnotic Language Patterns
Consider this little item that could come from any political rally:
"We deserve to live happily, we have the right to be free from fear, we need to ensure that our children are safe in our homes and on our streets and we will do whatever it takes to make sure that happens"
Rousing stuff? Maybe.
But have a look at what is actually being said. Do you have any idea what this politician is on about?
The truth is if you ask 10 different people, you'll get 10 different answers. The politician in question has made a statement that is a piece of hypnotic genius: we find our own meanings in it. Because we find our own meanings, we think that he's speaking to us about our own needs
This is the power of hypnotic language. Hypnotic language can turn off your reasoning process, it can make you identify with the speakers message as though it were your own and accept his conclusions despite the lack of evidence (or even evidence to the contrary).
You're watching a political broadcast. The guest speaker starts with a grim piece of news:
"Yesterday Mary X was walking with her children in the park. A gang of thugs raped and killed her whilst the children watched and cried..."
My apologies for this grim piece of language. If you are feeling disturbed just reading this, then you have just felt your R-complex being activated. The politician telling this grim story has just switched off your ability to reason. If he is good, he can convince you of anything now - the death penalty, more taxes (for a bigger police force or more prisons), even changes in the law that end up infringing your own civil liberties.
He doesn't have to prove a thing. He has caught your mind so firmly with his hypnotic language that he can make you believe almost anything now. All he has to do is follow the hypnotic principles one step at a time and you'll be caught - unless you can see what he's doing and refuse to let him lead you around by the nose!
Now the topic of hypnotic language is vast. These examples were just the tip of a very large iceberg. And politicians and other cult leaders are particularly good at using it to subtly control what you think and don't even consider.
The Law Of Repetition
This one is a hypnosis classic. The more often you say something the more you'll believe it. The more a message is repeated to you, the more real it seems to become. This is partly because your memory finds more examples of it, and partly because of the way that your mind tries to reconstruct reality.
Repeat a message often enough and in different guises, and it is accepted as truth. At one stage in our history we all believed that the world was flat. Then came Galileo and was almost burned at the stake for suggesting it was round.
Now we all know it is round.
Or do we?
Ask yourself this: how do you KNOW that the world is round?
Now I am not from the Flat Earth Society. I have no wish to convince you that the world is flat. I just want you to think for a moment: how do you know what you know?
Chances are that unless you are a doctor of mathematics, an astrophysicist or an actual astronaut you have never worked this fact out for yourself through personal observation or mathematical measurements.
You believed other people. Enough people told you it was so and you believed them.
Imagine what would happen if all the papers tomorrow said "Scientific Scam - The World Is Not Round" and told you that rebel scientists have decided to break the great secret on pain of death. At first you wouldn't be sure whether to believe the story. But it gets run again on the news. They interview some of these rebel scientists. They show photos that demonstrate how the curvature of the earth is an optical illusion. The evidence seems to pile up. How long would you hold out before you started to doubt what you now consider to be a cast-iron fact?
Politicians know this. They know that they can insinuate an idea in your mind. Come back to it time and time again. Build you up until you're ready to accept it as the truth just on their say so - with absolutely no reasonable evidence to back it up.
Just think of the "Weapons of mass destruction" debacle that both the UK Prime Minister and the US President found themselves in. We believed them without a shred of evidence.
Why did we do it?
Because they kept telling us the same thing, over and over again, on TV when our mental defenses were down.
Did we really have a chance?
Specialist Techniques
There are many more techniques from the field of hypnosis and covert hypnosis that are being used more and more each day to influence you. Hypnotic stories (yes they exist!), shock & confusion, core drives and needs...
Sadly I do not have the time or the space to break each one of these specialist techniques down for you here. However there is one technique that is so subtle, so undetectable and so powerful that I feel obliged to make sure you know about it.
It is known as the "interspersal technique" or more commonly as "embedded commands"
An embedded command is a hypnotic command hidden inside of a normal, innocent sounding comment. Consider this:
"I need to tell you that ACME Product has just hit the shelves. By now you'll have heard that there was a small delay to get it in shops, but we're pleased to announce that we can get it there NOW without any problems. We feel proud to have done so at last."
This sounds like an innocent announcement you could hear on the radio or in a TV slot somewhere right?
Now take another look at the statement with the message I have italicized for you:
"I need to tell you that ACME Product has just hit the shelves. By [buy] now you'll have heard that there was a small delay to get it in shops, but we're pleased to announce that we can get it there NOW without any problems. We feel proud to have done so at last."
This gives you the following set of instructions:
"Need ACME Product , [buy] now, get it in shops, get it there NOW , feel proud to have done so at last."
An embedded command allows you to use a special gesture, change of tone or other hypnotic trick to alert the unconscious mind to the secret message hidden inside the ordinary comment. Consciously we hear the normal comment and don't think too much of it. Unconsciously we here the true message, and if the conditions were set up correctly, we get the "spontaneous" feeling that we really need another ACME product.
This is a powerful hypnotic technique that politicians and advertisement executives are learning all over the world now. It is almost impossible to spot, unless you know what to look for. And it is devastatingly effective.
Break The Trance
I hope that I have given you a solid foundation for understanding how covert mass hypnosis is being used against you. With all the conflicting hypnotic messages we are bombarded with every day, it is no wonder that more and more people are confused about what they want out of life.
We are being manipulated into believing things, wanting things and feeling bad about things that we otherwise would not care about in the least. When we leave our minds open to anyone, we cannot be surprised if we end up getting something that isn't really any good for us.
We have a responsibility to choose our own way. We can take all these messages and examine them with our full reasoning abilities. Some of them will actually be worthwhile. You can the chose to let these in. Others will be unmasked for the destructive and manipulative things that they are. We can chose to expel those.
To prevent a negative suggestion taking hold in your mind is easy. As you hear it, consider what it really means. When the politician tells you that crime is out of control, what are his sources? Are things really any worse in your neighbourhood? Have things, in your own experience, been getting better over the years?
If the politician's or the adverts message doesn't match your experience then they had better have a damned good argument - with real facts to back it up. Not some emotional jujitsu, and not some random statistic thrown in without any explanation of how it was arrived at. Remember 80% of statistics are made up - including that one :-)
Be careful what you watch on TV. If you watch the news, then take at least an equal measure of time to think about all the things that are NOT going wrong in the world.
My personal preference is to simply avoid the news altogether (actually I don't watch any TV at all - apart from having a clearer sense of what my life is about, I have so many more hours to enjoy it in!) If anything really important happens - like the outbreak of war or the change in oil prices - I am sure to find that out from other people. In the last 7 years I have not missed one major event. But I have saved myself countless hours of needless anxiety.
And my mind is my own!
Published by Clifford Mee & Igor Ledochowski
I suggest...
...a suggestion is like a hyperlink
with adaptive access properties
(for response abilities..)
BUT a COMMAND limits function.
with adaptive access properties
(for response abilities..)
BUT a COMMAND limits function.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Sunday, March 1, 2009
more or less?
People take the point
to set themselves apart, but
yearn to give their part
to compounding points...
for unity?
to set themselves apart, but
yearn to give their part
to compounding points...
for unity?
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