Will the real Jesus please stand up?

 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.

Who is this God guy anyway?

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.

You’re welcome.

Death Notice

 

Genocide by any other name

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.

Dumber than a sack full of hammers

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.

Genuine: The Opposite of Fake

 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.

Meidas Touch Network

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.

Bryan Tyler Cohen

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.

David Pakman

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.

The Young Turks

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.

Pondering Politics

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.

Luke Beasley

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.

The Damage Report

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.

The Dollemore Daily

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.

Gimme OUTRAGE!

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-20^th 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 6^th 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.