This is the latest installment in an occasional
series of public service broadcasts.
This is one we should never have had to do, but for whatever reason
here we are, saddled with the single most immoral, evil and corrupt regime in
modern history.
This focuses on the enablers, but it also includes the ramblings of
the degenerate in chief. For that I can only apologise. When you listen to
previous fascist lunatics speaking they sound psychotic. Whether it's Hitler or
Mussolini's impassioned mania, or the cold, clinical sociopaths of the Soviet
Union they come across as intimidating and scary as hell. Trump just sounds
like a two bit con-man trying to sell you a bridge. Which is accurate, because
that's exactly what he is. He doesn't believe what he says, it's all designed
to create confusion and scapegoat soft targets in the population so he can
focus on his real constituents - the Epstein Class.
This isn't about left and
right - it's about the top 1% thinking they can do anything the hell they want
and not be held accountable while the other 99% have to wallow in the dirt they
leave at the bottom of the sty. It's the Orwellian nightmare of Animal Farm and
1984 come to life, 40 years after Orwell thought it would. He may have got the
timing slightly out, but he got the details bang on. The enablers try
to spin you until you don't know what you think you know and you
don't see what you think you see. The only silver lining in all of this is
that, with the exception of Fox, Trump's enablers are all amateurs. If they had
any nous we would be screwed. Instead we get the clown posse.
We claim no ownership of any of the material in this broadcast.
Meta detail for those interested - this is based on a rhythm loop from
Cabaret Voltaire's "Do the Mussolini".
The gap between the top 1% wealthiest people in the world
and the other 99% is about the greatest it has been since the time of the
Egyptian pharaohs. It is so great that the top 1% has started to see itself as
being separate from the rest of the human race. Not bound by the same laws.
Viewing humaity as a disposable commodity, or at worst given the most recent
drop of Epstein files, like livestock that can be farmed.
These people do not have your best interests at heart, and they
aren’t going anywhere. They are young, they will be around for another 30-40
years minimum, getting richer and becoming more power hungry and detached.
What right do these people have to such extortionate wealth?
None. They are just the inheritors of good luck and being in the right place at
the right time. They aren’t the only people who have ever had good ideas, but
with access to the entire globe their reach has grown exponentially in an incredibly
short period. Once you get on the wealth wave it just keeps on growing. Money
breeds money. There is no upper limit for these people.
It wouldn’t be so bad if they just stuck to being the new
Scrooge McDuck, but now they want to get involved in politics – on the fascist
side. Democracy? Annoying. Borders? Meaningless when you own properties all
over the globe (look at Trump’s ridiculous ‘Board of Peace’). Morals? The only
morals they have are the ones that appear when they get caught doing something
dodgy. Any other time they can do what the fuck they want. They have moved on
from being the fabled Illuminati of the 20th Century to the Epstein
Class of today.
So what can be done? Short of a French revolution style
solution, the only thing in your power is the power of boycott. Look what
happened to Tesla when Musk ripped off his mask. It lost hundreds of billions
of dollars in value virtually overnight. Don’t buy products associated with
them. Avoid their media platforms. They only understand money and power, so hit
them in their wallets. There are alternatives like Bluesky instead of Twitter
(or X or whatever) and plenty of online shopping platforms other than Amazon.
Just say no, I don’t want any of your shit.
Oh yeah – and don’t support any politician that is supported
by them. Politicians are just legislative janitors– there to do their dirty
work ad protect them from accountability.
All of this requires vigilance and actually doing some
homework, but the days of putting blind faith into the powers that be are over.
Ignorance will just turn you into a peasant, which is ultimately what they
want.
We are talking about mythical creatures here. Something as
likely as a white pony with a horn on its nose dancing on a rainbow. No, it’s
not a Republican with a spine (actually, no it would be a Republican with a
spine as well), I’m talking about rich folks with a generous soul.
It’s been a popular myth since the 1980s, when Reagan,
Thatcher and sundry others put their poisonous agendas into action, that giving
money to rich people benefits everyone. And how does it benefit everyone? Because
they will be spending up large, dishing out their wealth to worthy causes and
passing on savings to the minions with very little. And how often does that
happen? I’ll let you answer that for yourself.
Trickle down economics is the biggest lie ever dreamt up by
the power-at-any-cost elite. Rich people don’t spend money, they tie it up in
property, shares, bonds and other long term and inaccessible forms that benefit
no one except themselves and their families/cronies/shareholders. Right wing
spin doctors love to point out the few examples of philanthropy that exist as
proof that the system works, but it’s like a sighting of bigfoot. It maintains
the myth while allowing the status quo to continue unquestioned.
The trickle down effect is actually a vacuum up effect.
Because rich folks can afford high prices, the people selling the goods pitch
prices aimed at those who can afford to pay top dollar. That’s why you can’t
afford to buy a house, or stay in a hotel, or buy cheese in the supermarket.
Someone else can, and if you can’t, screw you. That’s how economics actually
works. As long as the rich and powerful will pay it, nothing else matters,
because rich and powerful people are political donors, and policy is for sale.
I don’t know if you saw Trump’s ludicrous promotional video
for his vision for Gaza that he had AI generated, with Elon Musk dancing around
throwing money in the air for children to collect at his feet. That’s what
those people want you to think is happening. That’s how dumb they think you
are. And unfortunately, that’s how dumb some people actually are. They look at
those gazillionaires and think they must be good people because they have got
so much. WRONG. They are gazillionaires because they are soulless bastards
without a conscience that have screwed people over for their whole lives and are
hogged everything for themselves.
The latest pennies from heaven myth are Trump’s tariffs. I
don’t know how many times people need to be reminded – tariffs are a tax, paid
by the importer of goods from overseas. The importer pays money they already have to the government as
an import duty (the tariff). It’s a cost to the importer, paid out of their
pocket. No one in their right mind is going to wear that, so the importer
passes that additional cost on to the wholesaler, who isn’t about to carry it
either, so they pass it on to the retailer, who has no profits to absorb it, so
they pass it on to you, the consumer, who ends up paying it. None of that money
has arrived from overseas. It all existed onshore. It is a re-distribution of domestic
wealth from private individuals to the government.
There are no pennies from
heaven when tariffs are imposed. It’s just part of Trump’s endless firehose of lies
and gaslighting. If it was true, and tariffs brought in billions of dollars to
the economy from overseas, every country in the world would set tariffs at
1,000% because then it would just be rainin’ cash.
The truth eventually becomes clear when businesses collapse
and people notice their costs going up, but they don’t necessarily join the
dots. There is always someone for politicians and their enablers in mainstream
media to blame.
So here are some truths for you to learn and repeat:
Rich folks don’t give a shit about you
Tariffs are a tax
Billionaire backed corporate media lie to you
24/7
And always remember this: the only good unicorn is a dead
one.
This is a
belated follow up to my previous post about the big G and his usefulness as a
tool for oppression. You can’t talk about the father without mentioning the
son, or his ghost, or whatever it is that folks think he is.
All myths
and legends have some root in fact, and the myth of Jesus is no different. I
use the word myth for a reason. The Oxford Dictionary defines a myth as “a
traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a people or
explaining a natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural
beings or events”. Sound familiar? Man from humble origins upends established
and hypocritical religious system while carrying out multiple miraculous acts
that build up cult like devotion. Walking on water, feeding thousands with next
to nothing and raising the dead. Not your average protester in other words. But
who was this ancient liberal social activist really?
There seems
to be a considerable amount of embellishment in the origin story, or at least basic
misunderstanding of facts that lead to embellishment. His mother was considered
to be a virgin, but there is a lot of debate about the translation of that from
ancient Hebrew. The word in the original Hebrew texts could also mean an
unmarried woman, which makes more sense if we are trying to dissect the myth
from the fact. Then there is the wandering star leading the wise men to the
baby Jesus, which introduces elements of UFO conspiracy to the story. I don’t
have much of an opinion on that, but the wise men aspect sets up the link to
ancient prophecy that caused the ructions in the religious establishment that
would eventually lead to his demise as an accused charlatan/messiah (delete
according to your beliefs). Along the way there are the aforementioned
miracles, the social activism and the development of the cult that would
eventually take over most of the known world, until Mohammed emerged to present
a counter claim.
The first
thing to ask is, did Jesus exist as a person or is it all a legend using an
avatar to deliver a moral lesson? Well, the fact that both the Jews and the
Romans wrote about him indicates that he was a real person. The Romans in
particular had no need to write about a remote messianic figure when they had
their own well-established pantheon of supernatural beings to worship. They
wouldn’t have bothered promoting the story if there was no actual trouble-maker
to focus on. The fact that they didn’t take him seriously actually adds more
legitimacy to it. They didn’t think he was worthy, but he was causing such a
big stir in their conquered territory that they recorded it for posterity in a
“how about the nerve of this guy” kind of way.
And that is
where the myth-making kicks in. Jesus might have gone unnoticed if the system
he was attacking wasn’t under the control of the most powerful civilization on
Earth at the time. If he was a shaman in some remote Mongolian village it would
have fed the local story tellers for generations, but it would have stayed
below the radar everywhere else. The power of mass information was the same
then as it is now. If you want to make an impact you have to hit the headlines.
If it was left to the rabbis, Jesus would never have been spoken of again, but
his cult followers kept the story alive, embellished it a bit to strengthen its
impact, then started spreading it out from the middle east into the heart of
ancient civilisation. It was the Romans who legitimised Christianity by exposing
the underground cult and later adopting it, albeit with a few devotees fed to
the lions along the way. Jesus was ignored in his home territory, where he was
dismissed as a con-man, and later wholly rejected by the emergence of Islam.
The myth
had legs because, let’s face it, it’s a classic everyman, good guy vs bad guy,
sticking it to the man kind of story that everyone loves and which, with a bit
of added supernature, fitted the mold of Roman legends like Romulus and Remus.
By exposing the cult in its early stages the Romans helped it grow, and as
people started to move further around the world others began to latch onto it. As
Douglas Adams wrote in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Jesus ‘got nailed
to a tree for saying wouldn’t it be great if everyone was nice to each other
for a change’. The essential nugget at the heart of it resonated with people.
That’s the
‘how’, so let’s circle back to the ‘who’ and answer some questions. Was Jesus
the physical son of God? Were his reported miracles actually supernatural? Did
he actually die and make a come-back?
The answer
to all of these is no, no and no. Like I say, myths are based on some essential
truth, but they are built up with a few added bells and whistles to make them
worth re-telling. It would be a yawn to say, “yeah I knew Jesus, he was a good
guy, shame he had such a big mouth”. If you think what he said and did was
worth repeating you’ve got to get people on board, and they won’t listen if
there isn’t a wow factor. The ‘son of God’ thing is a metaphor. He was
embodying the teachings of God as written in ancient texts, which can be
described as him being the ‘son of’. You see that pattern continue over time in
a lower political level in figures like Ghandi, Mao and others who upend the
establishment and seem to embody the zeitgeist of the time.
As for the
miracles and the rebirth? Well, there are plenty of stage magicians that can
recreate similar miracles. The English magician Dynamo, in particular, spent a
lot of effort in the early 2000’s walking on water, emptying thousands of fish
from a barrel and levitating in some pretty spectacular stunts. Jesus no doubt
had some similar skills in the illusion department. Don’t ask me how they do
it, but are they genuine miracles? Even the story of Lazarus must have some
medical roots. Raising someone from a coma is a miracle a lot of doctors
perform on a daily basis, but back then it must have seemed like the work of
God. Jesus raising himself? Indian yogis do some wild stuff with their
metabolism – maybe Jesus was able to ‘play dead’, even with a spear in his
side, until he was cut down and was able to slowly recover in the tomb before
emerging ‘reborn’.
What about
Jesus the man then? What was he actually like? Born-Again Christians make a big
deal about ‘knowing Jesus’, but do they really? From the stories in the bible
it’s obvious he was a complex character with some serious skills in self-promotion.
Narcissism is a horrible thing, but a narcissist focused on doing good would
fit his profile. ‘I am the son of God’ and all that. Couple that with some exhibitionist
manic-depressive episodes (the whole crucifixion thing) and you are getting
close to his personality. He would have stood out in a simpler time with such a
modern personality profile. There was a Jewish mystic who emerged in Turkey in
1666 called Sabbatai Zevi who was similarly endowed in the manic-depressive
exhibitionist stakes, but he wasn’t the complete package and history has
largely forgotten him. You need to be the real deal for messianic longevity.
Who will history remember in 100 years – Muhammad Ali or Evander Holyfield?
Right, Ali all the way.
Having said
that that, after 2,000 years, people are starting to critique Jesus a bit.
Maybe that’s the use by date for messiahs. American “Christians” in particular
find him a bit too liberal for their tastes. They want their messiah to be a
bit more kick-ass and little less forgiving. For a lot of them, Jesus would be
seen as a socialist trouble-maker/ radical left lunatic if he was around today.
So is it
time to move on? It’s always an individual choice, but here is an interesting
little fact as a final twist: Buddhists recognise Jesus as an incarnation of
Buddha. How meta is that from a phenomenological point of view? Maybe people
should just focus on doing what is right as a human being without resorting to
the cult of personality, because no matter what you believe in, actions ultimately
speak louder than words.
The name
gets thrown around a lot. You know: oh my God, thank God, God knows. But who is
this guy God? For someone who is so all pervasive he sure is conspicuous
by his absence. Sure, he may have created the world, but what’s he done lately?
He talks a good talk but for someone with such a vested interest in humanity he
sure is saving those walking shoes.
Then you
hit the complicating factor of him delegating most of the heavy lifting to his
late son. So who do you go to if you have a complaint? The company God &
Son doesn’t even have a website for God’s sake.
Alright,
enough frivolity in the intro. This is actually a serious topic, because the
phenomenon of Christianity has done more damage to the world than any other
human construct over the last couple of thousand years, and continues to do so
as we speak. The initial rationale behind Christianity was pretty straight
forward, and everyone needs some rules to live by. So don’t kill, don’t steal
and don’t lie. I get that. That makes sense. I think most people can accept
that and go on with their lives.
But then
you start going beyond that into the moral rules and the religious clauses.
That’s when it starts getting dodgy. Especially when you read the potential
punishment for breaking said rules. For someone who professes to love humanity
so much, the punishment for crossing him seems a bit extreme. I mean pardon me,
but being burned for eternity while demons stick pins in your flesh seems a bit
disproportionate for envying your neighbour’s donkey and cussing the big G and
J out. And where is the appeal process and probation option? It strikes me as
being a bit narcissistic – I love you as long as you grovel at my feet, but I
will unleash hell on you if you dare to cross me. Fuck that! That sounds like
the approach of every despot in human history, and they all were, are and will
be, scum. If someone like Putin or Trump thinks I’ll be swallowing their shit, they have many thinks coming. Same goes for Mr God, whoever he is.
I think the
biggest problem with Christianity is the way it has been used as a tool by the
empowered elite as a method of ensuring compliance and control. How many of
them have said they are God’s appointed representative, or that they are
blessed by said representative in the Vatican. The two go hand in hand. The
religion sets the rules with the dagger of divine punishment hanging over
everyone, then the power hungry among us latch onto it and say they are chosen,
so if you don’t follow my regime then you are going against God, so hell awaits
if you go against me. That fear factor is what ensures compliance. Occasionally
that system breaks and you have events like the French Revolution and American
War of Independence where people realised the Emperor was, in fact, naked. But
then the replacement regime finds they need legitimacy so they run back to the
Pope or whoever for some endorsement and off you go again. Power hungry people
love to put themselves up there with the big guy, whether through birth right
or by self appointment. More on this later.
The second
biggest problem with the whole corrupt system is the opening book in the bible,
which states that God made the world for the benefit of mankind. That has
opened the door for absurd exploitation and environmental damage. All the rape
and pillage merchants who dig up the ground, pollute the air and poison the
water justify it through that book. God said it’s a smorgasbord so we can go
for it. Get yours while you can and never mind those that come after. And when
we run out over here we’ll find some other part of the world to exploit. It
isn’t coveting your neighbour when God says it’s okay right? That’s just
grabbing what he said is yours.
Those sharp-eyed
readers will have noticed the glimmering of hypocrisy in there, which is the
third major aspect of Christianity that needs to be called out. Never mind the
abuse of power and the destruction of the planet. That can all be justified by
selective application of the bible. But what about when you cross the line and
start drifting into lying, stealing and killing to get what you want? Well, you
use your get out jail card by saying it’s God’s will. Let’s take it for a spin
to see how it works shall we?
Racism:
those other races don’t believe in our God, therefor they don’t fit into his
plans and can be ostracized, abused and, if they get stroppy, killed. They are
sinners because they have other Gods before ours right? And our God doesn’t
like sinners, especially the type that talk back and don’t grovel for
forgiveness.
Colonialism:
natural progression from racism and a major contributor to how fucked up the
world is under Christian authority. Those uneducated, pagan, barbaric people
need to be “saved”. And if they don’t want to be saved they can be punished as
sinners, which means forfeiting their culture, land and resources to those
enacting God’s will. We warned them. It’s God’s way or the highway.
War:
natural progression from colonliasm when you are dealing with whole countries
that don’t buy your shit. Since God doesn’t like heathens, because they are
sinful and won’t put him first, they need to be shown the error of their ways.
The medieval crusades were all about this, even though their opponents actually
followed the same God. But details, huh? They didn’t believe in his son, so
that had to be straightened out. You name just about any other war involving,
say, America and you will see them pushing the Christian side of things to deal
with “Godless communism”, “criminal juntas” and “Islamic terror”. Napalming
villages is what God would do if he could, right? The US army is just acting as
his right hand.
Greed: This
one applies in spades when looking at modern American style evangelism. I could
devote several pages to how ugly and corrupt that is, but let’s look at the
broad strokes. Evangelists believe that God provides to the holy. That the
devout get rewarded. Anything you need, pray for it and God will give it to you,
because you can have a personal relationship with the big guy and he knows what
you want. And what do most people want? Well, money of course. And God rewards
charity too, so once God rewards you with the cash you can give it all to your
local church, which is a tax free charity, and you will be doubly rewarded. See
how that one works. Your private jet having, diamond Rolex wearing, Ferrari
driving mother fucker of a preacher gets you so pious and devout you don’t know
which way is up, then says all you have was given to you by God, so it’s His
money anyway, so why not give it back to Him so you can prove how charitable
you are. But as there’s no return address you can give it to the church, which
represents God, and that will cover it. I, your preacher and God’s chosen
representative (and I know this because I can talk to him and have a better personal
relationship with him than you ever will) will use it to do God’s work; and buy
a couple of mansions and helicopters and gifts for my mistress on the side too,
but that’s okay because I am more devout than you and God wants to reward me (he told me so).
Yes,
piousness is a sweet thing once you know how to use it. Wealth is equal to
Godliness, and since wealth is power, all your political leaders have to do is pretend
to be pious and say they are getting closer to God by following the American
dream (through sucking up to oil barons and billionaires) on their way into
congress. So now you can extrapolate it even further by saying that political
power, enabled by wealth, is God given. Jesus is my saviour and Trump is my
president. Tidy, no? And very effective as we have just seen.
Apologies to
those who can’t deal with speaking truth to power, but these things have to be
said. Allowing corrupt people to run over you is no longer acceptable when the
future of the planet is at stake. People fret about zero oil. How about zero
water? How about apocalyptic genocides in God’s name? How about cataclysmic
shifts in weather patterns destroying food supplies while “Christians” drill,
baby, drill.
If you are
honest, faithful and trusting you have my sympathy, but you need to also need
to realise that you are being played. Don’t lie, don’t steal and don’t kill is
all you need. Everything else is a bunch of bull pucky.
For a bit
of light relief I recommend this channel: Mrs Betty Bowers, America's Best Christian. It will educate and enlighten and
have you doubled over laughing if you let it. Don’t be afraid to say no to evil
manipulation. It’s like exiting a bad relationship. After the initial pain and
confusion has passed you will feel a whole lot better. Just replace that
devotion with an equal commitment to the planet and to respecting the good in
other people. And when other people aren’t good? Don’t give them anything, not
even time, and certainly not money or power. That’s how we got into this mess
in the first place.
I was going to put up an image of a swastika inside a star of David, but that would be cheap, sensationalist and a bit misleading. Symbolism needs to be handled with care. It's better to just put up photos of the effect. Have a look at the above photos and spot the difference. It isn't a trick. There isn't any difference. Both are the result of political bullshit forced on the innocent by narcissistic sociopaths.
There is probably a psychological term for it, but the victim often turns into the bully and acts the same way. That's what Israel has become. No one can deny the suffering of the Jewish people at the hands of the nazis, but IN NO WAY does it justify the Jewish people now committing their own genocide on the Palestinians. IN NO WAY does it justify the blind ego of a political leader who has lost all sense of humanity. Cut through all the political spin and righteous anger and what you are watching is history repeating itself, and the victim has become the oppressor.
When you hear right wing Israelis talking about cutting out the infection it is so close to Hitler's rhetoric it is chilling. When they label all Palestinians as terrorists they might as well give them matching uniforms and a badge. It's all the kind of political lie that allows them to bomb hospitals and refugee camps because they can claim they are all harbouring terrorists. If you believe that Hamas uses their own women and children as human shields you will believe anything. And even if they do, how does that justify killing said women and children to get to them? What is happening in Gaza is genocide, pure and simple - unjustifiable evil perpetrated in the name of God.
Fun fact: Jews, Christians and Muslims all worship THE SAME GOD. The only difference is who has the greatest prophet or not, and whether you believe in some fairly wacked out magic tricks - the likes of which are reproduced in the modern era by stage magicians that can pull off the old walking on water or being buried alive routine for the cameras. The madness of this has been going for a couple of thousand years and it is showing no sign of stopping. And it won't. Netanyahu's fine words that he is trying to unite ancient peoples are absurd. It's the same old shit - killing for peace is like fucking for virginity. All those Palestinian children that have watched their families murdered in front of them aren't going to grow up and think what a great guy he was for showing them the error of their ways. They are going to form the next generation of terrorists looking to settle the score. And so it goes on for eternity or until the rest of the world gets sucked into the vortex and self destructs.
What sucks more than anything in this is that the world is more likely to do that than to act to stop it. And why? Because Israel knows it has the USA at its shoulder. Netanyahu is acting like a crazed school yard bully because he knows his cage fighting big bother will come to his rescue when he whistles. As long as the arms flow the madness won't stop, and arms are big business in the USA. Religion and greed - the two compliment each other like wine and cheese at a billionaire's birthday party.
This post doesn't offer any solution other than restating the need for people to reject organised religion and political charlatans. The only religion is the moral standard we set for ourselves. Something completely abandoned by the religious and political hierarchies of the world.
Just to round it out here is one last photo of the precision removal of terrorists by the IDF. Oh yeah, and the 100 or so woman and children that happened to be in the way. Praise the lord and pass the ammunition.
I've talked about the USA a lot in earlier posts: Amerikaemia, Lessons From Easter Island and Turning Points. Why am I so concerned about one country
when there are other places facing threats to democracy or have autocratic
rulers or are religiously bigoted? The reason is that, apart from the USA
potentially ticking all of those boxes, it has inserted itself into the world
as the upholder of certain standards whether the world likes it or not. That
combined with its military power and cultural influence means the question is:
how can you not be concerned about them? Like it or not, they have created the
western power structure that the world lives under. Most of the antagonism in
the world is directly attributable to the attitude of the USA towards economic
systems (communism), religion (Islam) and the division of the world into have
and have nots (first vs third world). If you want to comply with their
standards you are welcome into the club, if not they know where you live.
All of this
could be acceptable if the USA itself wasn’t such a hypocritical cot case.
Consider the war in the Ukraine, and disclaimer before I start I’m not apologising
for Putin – he is an evil narcissistic sociopath that has to be stopped – but
this is to show that hypocrisy at this level needs to be called out whenever it
rears its ugly head. Picture this: specific country has considerable wealth and
is strategically important. Greedy larger country wants unlimited access to specific
country’s wealth but doesn’t want to worry about negotiating terms and
conditions so it invents some disinformation to justify a military invasion so
it can steal said wealth and seize the desirable strategic advantage. Sounds
like Putin with Ukraine right, but I was actually referring to the US invasion
of Iraq in the ‘war against terror’ twenty years earlier. That is all
conveniently forgotten in the current climate. We don’t want no arrest warrants
for war criminality issued to any former US presidents now do we?
All the
buffoonery and toxicity of Trump has brought the role of the US even more into
the spotlight. Assuming it is going to be the world’s sheriff (and who is big
enough to argue), what laws is it going to be upholding and who is going to
make them? If they can’t get their own shit together how can you take them
seriously when they come kicking down your door to put your house in order?
This could
potentially be a massive post, but in the interest of time I’ll try and
summarise the state of America and how it has no right to be talking down to
anyone, anywhere at any time.
The USA has
a polarized political system that splits the population roughly down the middle
so that each time they have an election the winner is determined by a few
thousand votes in a handful of states. How that is democratic is anyone’s guess
because it puts ultimate power in the hands of a few undecided John and Jane
Does that have no mandate or qualification to determine the fate of the world.
The rest of them stick to their guns (literally) with no hope of ever sharing
common ground.
On the left,
in the blue corner, you have the disparate bunch of ‘progressives’ that like to
kid themselves that they are outward thinking and leading the rest of the world
with their staggering foresight and liberty. In their dreams. They at least
walk the talk a little bit when it comes to living up to the American hype, so
you can give them points for trying. On the right, in the red corner, you have
a brainwashed, backward looking, subservient, gullible bunch of flag waving
sheep that will kill to maintain a status quo that doesn’t exist anymore, and
who accept the word of their religious and political leaders unconditionally
because they are brought up from day one to follow instructions and reject
knowledge. Knowledge is for the people they place their faith in. Education is
a tool of the devil. Education leads to questions, which leads to change, which
is unacceptable when you have a bible that tells you how things have to be now
and forever. That’s how Trump can still command about 45% of the vote, even
though polling suggests half of them don’t like him, but they still aren’t concerned
about the implications of voting for him. My granddaddy was a Republican, my
daddy was a Republican, so gosh darn it I’m a Republican no matter what. As one
of their favourite movie characters says: stupid is a stupid does.
Then you
add in the credulousness when it comes to fairy stories like the American Dream, that tells them that life can be perfect and anyone can make it big if they
give it a shot. Living that dream applies to about 0.1% of the population, but
it’s constantly reinforced by Hollywood fantasies that also set them up for the
dark side of this whole blind acceptance – conspiracy theories that suggest
organised dark forces are at work, preying on them and undermining their way of
life. So you get millions of people that believe The Matrix was a documentary
and Q-Anon is the only source of truth. That’s how someone as shallow,
self-centred and dishonest as Trump can be elevated to cult status and be
viewed as some kind of messiah in some corners, because those that buy into it
are accepting the fantasy, not the reality. Reality doesn’t have a shot in a
culture like that. Reality isn’t heroic. It doesn’t have good guys and bad
guys. Reality is dull. Reality is also hard to deal with because it ultimately exposes
the big lies they are living under.
Sounds mad
right, but it doesn’t stop there. The real kicker is the cultural hypocrisy
that allows at least half the population to accept mentally deranged teenagers running
around with military styled assault rifles shooting school kids as a ‘fact of
life’, then at (literally) the same time swallowing and being outraged by a
fake story about Haitian immigrants barbequing cats. Hypocrisy is so ingrained
it doesn’t even register. So you get politicians that commit egregious acts
then project it onto the other side. You get religious leaders that preach
hatred and division. You get absurd wealth paying to influence democracy. You
get criminal wars masquerading as police actions, and you keep races
partitioned off in ingrained poverty in the land of freedom and liberty for all,
and NONE OF THIS is questioned in any meaningful way. And if you are brave
enough to bring it up, then you must be ONE OF THEM GODDAM (fill in derogatory
stereotype of choice from the list: commies, pinkos, fags, muslims, yankees,
democrats, etc etc).
The problem
is the USA is too big and diverse, and has too much to lose to act as a unified
country. It is really 50 different countries all pretending to act as one. Much
as I loath her, Marjorie Taylor Greene will probably get her wish of a
‘national divorce’ by the time she shuffles off into the sunset. The madness is
just unsustainable.
The word
fake gets chucked around a lot. With AI becoming more of a thing, fakes are a
growing industry, especially how it applies to the media. The term ‘fake news’
gets thrown around a lot, usually by the people who are telling the lies and
don’t like them getting exposed. While most accusations of fakeness are hollow
projections, it is fair to say that mainstream media does leave a lot to be
desired in terms of integrity. There is either a desperate attempt to stay
neutral, in which case the stories they produce are toothless and leave too
much to the reader to sort out for themselves, or they are slaves to a
corporate commercial agenda that is more concerned about ratings and traffic
than maintaining journalistic integrity.
For this
post I thought I would promote lower scale media channels that focus on
bringing honesty to political reporting. This is particularly important in the
run up to the US elections which are only a few weeks away. Those are the most
consequential elections of the century so far, for all the wrong reasons. The
world is at an inflection point, where unpopular right wing politicians are
realising that their approach is heading for the tar pits of history and they
need to find away to avoid that annoying democratic process that they are tied
to. This US election is not so much about which party wins as about a vote for
democracy itself. Now democracy isn’t perfect, but it is still preferable to having
some demented narcissistic sociopath imposing his will on the most powerful
country in the world whether they like it or not. The podcasters I am about to
highlight understand the threat to democracy, understand the bullshit approach
of mainstream media and aim to present that rare thing: reality. Even though
it’s an old fashioned word I’m gong to describe them as genuine media. As in
not fake. As in honest. As in reliable.
Probably
the most well known and comprehensive, the Meidas Touch Network has grown from
its initial living room podcast to having more than 3 million subscribers and
being name checked on 60 Minutes. Ben Meiselas is the lead podcaster but there
is also the offshoot Legal AF with Michael Pocock for amateur legal geeks to
dive into. Highlighting political hypocrisy and the negligence of commercial
media when it comes to exposing misinformation and deceit, these guys are both
brutally honest and hilarious. Fact checking is their strong point and they are
able to source up some stories that few others would go near, like just how
close were Trump and Jeffrey Epstein? With a growing reach they are the right
wing’s worst nightmare.
Meidas
Touch are the right wing’s worst nightmare with one possible exception: Bryan
Tyler Cohen. Brian is my favourite political commentator. Not just brutally,
but savagely honest his sarcasm is a more deadly weapon than any AR15. If you
are looking for razor sharp humour look no further. But Brian isn’t just a
joker – although he knows that nothing hurts a puffed up, pretentious
politician more than being laughed at – but he is also searingly honest when it
comes to reporting the facts behind the spin. Piers Morgan foolishly invited
him on as a panelist recently and instantly regretted it. As a bonus value add,
Brian also hosts spin off podcasts The Legal Breakdown with Glen Kirschner and
Democracy Watch with Marc Elias. Both are a lot more serious, but they hit the
honesty button hard and you won’t find anything that cuts through the BS
harder.
Moving away
from the more aggressive approach of Brian and Ben, David Packman has carved a
niche as a commentator that likes to present a fair assessment of political
crud. In other words David tries to be more balanced, while still exposing the
constant hypocrisy and misinformation that runs rampant through US politics.
Sometimes his desire to be fair can be a little bit irritating when you know he
is dealing with obvious bullshit, but on the whole he treats his topics with
integrity and you have to admire him for that. The fact that he gets so much
hate mail proves that he is hitting nerves with the right wingers in his
audience, but it also proves that they are watching him, which is important
when it comes to breaking down silos. His real time fact checking and the way
he laughs when Trump speaks is reason enough to watch him.
Taking
David Packman’s balanced approach a step further, but turning it on its head so
they hold no one sacred are TYT. Very experienced, with more than ten years under their belt, they are a lot more politically aggressive, to
the extent that host Cenk Uygur stood as a Democrat presidential candidate in
the primaries. He obviously got nowhere but he proved he means business.
Another one of Piers Morgan’s panelists that he must have later regretted, Cenk
has a booming voice and a bear-like sense of humour. His co-hosts on the
network support the overall approach to find the nastiest political crap they
can and expose it. Possibly dealing more in outrage than I’m comfortable with,
they are still one million times less strident than political propagandists like
Fox etc. Equally at home exposing the madness of Q-Anon as they are looking
under the hood of the GOP and Democrats they are challenging and great if you
are in the mood to kick some shit.
Jessiah
Eberlan is the host here. Bit more of a slow burn than the previous podcasters, it took me longer to get into his more low key approach, but once you get to
know his style he is the equal of Packman when it comes to keeping emotion out
of his analysis and zooming in on the nitty gritty.
Also a bit
more low key, but more prone to letting emotion out in his presentation, Luke
is notable for actually getting out into the field and interviewing political
nutters, fascists and conspiracy theorists to see what makes them tick. This is an especially brave thing to do in the current powder keg of US politics. How he
hasn’t been assaulted yet is beyond me, especially when he seems to embody
everything these people hate.
Another
network operating like Meidas Touch with guest presenters and side slots. Their
Garbage People of the Week is always a laugh and shines the light on some
lesser know political freaks. Operating in a space between Meidas Touch and
Brian Tyler Cohen they are well worth the clicks.
Jesse
Dollemore is a former marine with a big laugh and an open approach that
encourages contact with his audience. This is a risky practice as he has been
on the receiving end of some horrific abuse, but he keeps laughing at the
haters and exposing their stupidity. The fact that he is an ex-serviceman gives
him the credibility to get away with commentary that others can’t, and it seems
to pull in more right wingers to his audience, for better or worse. His recent
coverage of Trump’s Arlington Cemetery stunt is a must see.
Honourable
mention also goes to Adam Mockler, Farron Balanced and Keith Edwards for their podcasts that
cover similar ground to the Meidas Touch but without the numbers, although all of them are growing. More power to them – the world needs as many clear voices as it
can get at the moment. It’s fair to say that none of these media channels would
be anywhere near as popular if it wasn’t for Trump and the right wing in
general, but that’s the natural process of restoring balance. The world has to
wake up to the existential threat posed by the retrogressive, corrupt,
hypocritical and downright retarded right wing view of the world and its
enabler, organised religion. And that’s where we are going next.
Dear reader
– you don’t know what you’re talking about. And I mean that in the nicest
possible way. We are all victims of a media environment that favours
sensationalism and opinion ahead of facts and analysis. Why? Because
sensationalism sells and facts are boring. The commercial reality of running a
publication means you need paying subscribers to cover your costs and return a
dividend. Being relevant and interesting isn’t enough. You need to dive into
psychology to get the real returns.
Back in the
mid-20th Century, B.F. Skinner ran a series of experiments involving
rats and pigeons that would probably fail today’s ethical standards, but which
are landmarks in behavioural psychology. He found the link between mental
stimulation and physical reward is the most important driver of behaviour. His
lab animals responded to flashing lights and sounds when they performed certain
behaviors like pecking coloured dots or pushing buttons. The action was
rewarded by a treat or even direct stimulation of the pleasure centres in their
brains.
Humans work
the same, but what Skinner couldn’t see was the link between hormones and the
physical action. In humans the buzz we get from adrenaline and other hormones
is a powerful motivating force. Think sex, sport, music, sky diving – whatever
turns you on basically. The same with stress – it produces a similar buzz as
your body reacts by readying you for fight or flight. That’s the one that media
operatives have homed in on to drive the copy sales and clicks.
What is
your reaction when you read a page of text outlining a series of facts and
scholarly analysis of a specific issue? Boredom at best, right? You want to
skip to the click bait with the half naked people or jump to the sports
section. Most of us don’t even get past the headline.
In the
1970s Rupert Murdoch and others were cynical enough to start deliberately
manipulating their readers by running headlines that not only jumped out at you
to grab your attention, but covered topics that people were most likely to get
off on. Mostly sex, but also political scandals, celebrity gossip and all the
rest we are now surrounded by every minute of the day. They got people hooked,
and those publishers made a gazillion out of it.
It would be
innocent enough if they had just stuck with the titillation, but the problem
was that a lot of these publishers were running a strict political agenda as
well. Almost always right wing and focused on exploiting people’s fears of all
the various isms, xenophobia, big brother, conspiracies and all the other juicy
stuff you can’t see but love to think is real. It has now developed to the
point where people can be manipulated in close to real time. You don’t even
need words now – just a bunch of angry emojis in the comments is enough to rile
people up.
It's all
down to the buzz people get from outrage. Outrage gets people going like
nothing else. That feeling that you have the righteous justification to take
action and crush the forces of evil. You are your own superhero. The problem is
that you actually become the force of evil when there is no reality behind it.
You are promoting the lie, building the conspiracy, breathing life into the
zombie apocalypse.
Despite the
obvious danger, right wing media like Fox, Newsmax etc are now competing with
each other to see who can pump out the most outrageous shit to their adrenaline
junkie audiences. They can hear the howl every time they open the juicy
headline and the watch the angry cable presenters personifying OUTRAGE! Then it
is picked up by their competitors and amplified so that the howl becomes a ROAR
and people start getting motivated to DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT! Whatever it is. Look
at January 6th 2021 for a direct link between the hysteria in social
media and an attempted coup based on … absolutely nothing other than feelings, conspiracies
and outright lies.
Who cares
about the facts – facts are for geeks and wimps and they are probably made up by
the ‘enemy’ anyway, right? All those lefty academics that want to destroy our
way of life with their science and global thinking. The audience are the true believers,
they are getting the skinny on the scams, they are the militia, the forces for
good, the real patriots.
Yes folks,
it is a cluster fuck of hatred for profit, but we haven’t even got to the
kicker yet. The kicker is that the right wing media companies fueling the
outrage machine don’t even believe the stuff they are pumping out. They see
their viewers as easy marks to drive their profits and run with the anger that
will build into the next round of action and reaction. When Fox was sued by
Dominion Software the texts that were exposed during discovery exposed what
their beloved presenters REALLY thought about their audience. Something about
their audience being like domestic terrorists that fuck their mothers or
something along those lines. Look it up – it's online. Most of
those cable presenters are more like actors, putting on the faux outrage for
the bucks it pulls in. Someone like Tucker Carlson has a background of
privilege and education. His pose as the voice of the grass roots real America is
as fake as his devotion to the right wing cause. Sure he’s a Republican, but he
can’t stand Trump. They just have a symbiotic relationship that satisfies their
desire for wealth and power through maintaining the hysteria of OUTRAGE!
For a
couple of glaring example of this whole phenomenon, look no further than these.
Firstly, the assassination attempt on Trump. When that happened everyone was
expecting the shooter to be a deranged left wing vigilante taking out the
criminal candidate, like Spiderman with a sniper rifle. I was expecting it to
spark a right wing feeding frenzy with riots and militia reprisals across the
states snowballing into the much drooled over (in right wing media) civil war.
But no. Turns out the kid at the centre of it came from a hardcore Trump
loving, gun toting family and himself was noted for his conservatism by his
classmates. On top of that, he had a hit list of potential targets that
included the Democratic National Convention and any foreign visitor that came
within range. Trump just happened to be first and closest. Once that came out
officially, the story faded away like gun smoke in a fairground. There wasn’t
sufficient OUTRAGE to continue it, so once the fake ear bandages at the
Republican National Convention came off, so did the story. But you can bet it
will be in the back pocket for future disinformation support. It’s too good an
opportunity to let die completely.
Second
example comes from Britain – the home of tabloid OUTRAGE and manipulation. When
another deranged kid went on a stabbing spree at a pre-school dance class,
disinformation that the attacker was an illegal immigrant was picked up in
social media and amplified by various ‘news’ websites leading to riots in the
streets and a fiery attack on an accommodation centre housing refugees. Turns
out the kid was from Wales, but by then the damage had been done and the hydra
was out of its cage, living on OUTRAGE and fueled by lies that weirdly
originated in Pakistan!
Unfortunately,
gentle reader, there is nothing that can be done about this. The shit is so
many layers deep that it will take generations to undo, even if there is a will
to do it. This is how civilizations die. You can choose whether to help or
hinder. This post isn’t going to give any easy way out – that is up to you, but
as a starter I’d suggest taking a deep breath before you open any juicy
headlines and to keep that breathing up when you feel the outrage start to
flow. Altogether now – deep into your lungs, calm and even. That’s it. Now start
thinking instead. As P-Funk say: it ain’t illegal yet.
Has it really been two years? My little guys thought it was
a week. Well, it was for them but with the relativity of time and gravity and all it
soon added up back on Earth. You see they were very concerned about the way
things were going on their favourite planet, so they took time out for a
planning retreat. You know - the sort of thing big corporates and government
departments do to concentrate on the big issues. Luxury, out of the way
location, lots of nice catering, team building, design sprints and focus
groups. Yada yada. For my little guys it was a seven day road trip around a
couple of constellations and back, toting a slightly different approach on
return.
We’ve said this before, but playing a song isn’t going to
change the world. And at this point in time, the world is changing in ways that
are well beyond the scope of music to effect. Taylor Swift aside, (but with her
I suspect it’s more the football and the social media influencing than the
music) socio-political ra-ra set to a beat is going to achieve jack. It’s like
it was 50+ years ago when the kids thought that wearing flowers in their hair
was going to stop LBJ shipping them off to die in the jungle. When you are
facing impossible odds you need to beat it back to the barracks and get back to
basics.
Not to put too fine a point on it, the human race is fucked.
Covid gave everyone the sign that we were heading up Shit Creek and no one
could agree on the design for the paddle, much less agree on how to use it. In
the face of a common threat everyone started acting more selfishly than ever,
especially those with the power to make the big decisions. Then you get past
the microbe threat and you dive into the ego threat from the same narcissistic
politicians, one after the other – first Trump, then Putin, then Netanyahu, then
whatever is next down the pipe. Couple that with the ongoing climate threat and
it is enough to make one feel a little insignificant and powerless. Hence the
need for a massive reset.
Music is never going to be far away because it helps to keep
you sane, but this blog is going to focus on some bigger picture stuff for a
while. The big stuff is where the roots to the problems lie, and a lot of the
big stuff is maintained by total blind acceptance. That’s where we come in as
individuals. It’s time to channel our inner three year old and start asking,
WHY? That’s something your average corporate retreat does, but they limit it to
five whys then you should know where to go. If only it was that simple. We are
not going to limit it. You keep asking why until the people who are trying to
keep you brainwashed and submissive run out of the easy answers, and if they
resort to the frustrated parent’s response of “because I say so” then you know
you are winning. You can’t have much of a coup / war / fascist repression if no
one shows up.
Stick with us. We will still be linking it back to music,
but the time has come to turn it off and turn it back on again.
Released 31 August 2022. Hey, at least it’s not September
this time! From the global trip of our last album Mundivagrants we have
selected some targets and let fly. This is a bunch of short punches, most of
which you can dance to. And why not. Muhammed Ali was a great mover on the
canvas so boxing/dancing? It’s all the same. To prove the point the cover shows
me, with a couple of my little guys, getting down with it.
Are we where yet? If the 2020s have taught us anything so
far it is the need to rename our species from Homo Sapiens to Homo Stupiens.
Our main skill seems to be in ignoring warning signs while devising new and
more imaginative ways of destroying ourselves. We are the only creature that
routinely craps in its own nest.
Shiny metal disco
Music may be one of the only things that can save us. It
just depends on how it’s used. Get on board.
Soft red needles
Pohutukawa are native New Zealand trees that grow around the
northern coast in rocks and old lava. In summer they are covered in scarlet
flowers that drop a carpet of red petals on the ground. They are a rare and
beautiful thing. This song is the flip side of Serf City.
Nun squirters
William Burroughs has a lot to answer for when it comes to
spawning pretentious artists and writers, but his cut up technique is still fun
to play with at times. In this case we grabbed a bunch of progressive rock band
names and threw them up in the air. Cheap, pointless and frivolous – like a lot
of things.
Point of no return
You have basically reached the point of no return the moment
you are born. What you do after that is up to you. If you have had the
experience of growing up in a small town, then had the misfortune of going back
there later in life, this song is for you.
It’s a trap!
Pretty self-explanatory. ‘Freedom’ is ultimately another
illusion.
Holiday porn
Do you get sick of motorway billboards taunting you with flawless
images of glamorous holiday spots? I sure do. How many of us have ever
gone surfing as the sun goes down in some ideal tropical hot spot? Thought not.
Having spent time in the tropics, what they don’t show you on those billboards
is the crust of plastic waste along the high tide line.
They say
They say you should do this. They say you should do that.
They say a lot of things.
Qbgone (Cold blooded mix)
This is the vocal version of Qbgone.
Global warming is a conspiracy to keep the reptilians alive. They say that too,
right kids?
What could possibly be more important?
Apologies here for some lyrical similarities to “Know your
enemy” on Hit the # Key, but they cover similar territory. This one slams it
home a bit more though. Narcissism is a mental illness. It isn’t a key
performance indicator for a world leader.
White swan on the Black Sea
This is what narcissism in a world leader leads to.
Here be monsters
There is no chart of the world wide web. Krakens, tritons
and sirens await.
Recycled heart
It’s amazing what you can do with recycled materials these
days. What doesn’t kill you makes you dance harder.
Rubber time
The Voyager probes have just managed to creak their way out
of the solar system. Humanity has entered galactic space for the first time.
Hope the aliens they encounter have a decent turntable. In a million years we
might see you ‘round.
It seems like an eternity already and Putin’s political ego
trip still shows no signs of ending. Instead the world is held to ransom while
we wait for grinding WWI style trench warfare to reach its inevitable tragic
end. Words aren’t enough to say how dangerously evil this all is, but at the
same time you know getting up on a soapbox labeled U2 isn’t going to help
either. About the most pretentious thing you can do as a musician is to think
that writing a song is going to change the world, so we haven’t. This is a
simple snap shot from a war zone to try and keep the ugliness in people’s minds
before they start getting numb to it. The biggest danger is to give up and turn
your back. You have to mentally speak truth to power, especially when that
power is a lie.
This is the first of a new batch of material due to go up later this year. Hopefully the war will be over by the time the rest of the songs are released.
Take a seat though the roof has gone
The stage is strewn with broken pawns
It’s a ballet of carnage going on and on
The only thing dancing is a dying swan
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