This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
The Zero Hedge Effect – Crossing the Event Horizon - Part 1 of 2
The Zero Hedge Effect – Crossing the Event Horizon
Chapter One of Two
By
Cognitive Dissonance
[TV commercial script] (During the voice over we see a series of obviously distraught and distressed men and woman huddled in bed, pacing the floor or sitting on the edge of their seat slowly wringing their hands and quietly crying. The backgrounds are darkened and everything is slightly out of focus while the background music is dour and slightly off key.) “Do you have trouble sleeping at night, endlessly tossing and turning until, exhausted, you get up and begin your day? Are you constantly worried about money or your job? Have you been feeling alone and isolated, with your family and friends refusing to discuss those things that deeply concern you? Do you obsessively read financial blogs and web sites, but never find the answers you’re looking for?” (The scene slowly changes to a husband and wife angrily arguing. Then the scene dissolves into a close up of the worried husband hunched over his computer monitor in a darkened room, the glow from the monitor flickering on his face. The scene fades out while simultaneously fading back in to a close up of his right index finger repeatedly clicking the computer mouse.) “If any of these symptoms describes you or a loved one, you might be suffering from an increasingly common and very serious cognitive dissonance. The good news is that now there is real hope with a treatment available that can give you the peace of mind you need and deserve. Stay tuned for more information.” [End script] Of course, as soon as the TV commercial mentions ‘good news’ we quickly see lots of smiling faces and hand holding, along with people walking in fields of flowers or laughing with friends and family. The narrator then informs us of the latest greatest drug to benefit mankind…..immediately followed by a 30 second listing of potential side effects. If I had not given it away by mentioning financial blogs, one might recognize that the above ‘symptoms’ have been experienced by nearly every one of us at one point or another. Well, most of the symptoms anyway. But in this case it’s not a drug that ultimately cures the cognitive dissonance, but rather truth telling via a relatively new phenomenon sweeping the world. It is pretty clear that there is something special about Zero Hedge, along with several dozen other web sites and blogs, financial or otherwise. So let’s explore a bit and find out what is going on along with a warning not to become complacent and assume that we have arrived and can now stop searching. For hundreds of years there have been various sources of information which, when uncovered, enabled the determined searcher to peer through the facade and gaze upon some of the truth hidden by the official keepers of the public myth. But this knowledge was glimpsed only by a limited few who had the time and means to conduct a comprehensive search of original texts and documents, then publish their findings for an extremely small audience. When the Internet began to open up more of the mysteries hidden from the public, the few expanded into a few more that were, for the most part, clustered around so-called ‘fringe’ Internet communities, newsgroups and more recently small web sites and blogs. But even with the expanded modern day access to vast pools of information via the early Internet, most of the research was still limited to political assassinations, false flag attacks, governmental, military and individual skullduggery, wars of opportunity or empire, financial fraud and so on. More importantly, for the vast majority of time the perspective of this research was retrospective in nature, often looking back years, decades, even centuries into the past. Near real time analysis was limited mostly to pure speculation and supposition, often because real time info was extremely limited and required a consensus reality point of view to gain entry. You needed to be part of the group to be given the right to listen in on the group. Zero Hedge specifically, and several other blogs and web sites in general, approached the problem of near real time research and dissemination of contrary information from an entirely new and amazingly vulnerable sector, that of business and investment, an industry that already disseminates massive amounts of (near) real time information in order to give the impression of a level playing field among lesser competitors and a vast worldwide pool of patsy investors. Now more than ever, primarily because the world depends upon just in time Federal Reserve digital money printing and liquidity injections, as well as Congressional emergency bailouts and crony systemic manipulation, a growing understanding of the inner workings of the financial world, as well as widely disseminated global financial information, has begun to expose the secret world of the financially powerful and politically connected to ‘we the people’.
The democratization of financial information has evolved in a manner never considered particularly vulnerable to the powers that be for a variety of reasons. First and foremost, those who could understand (and use) the financial information flow were never seriously considered to be a source of disloyalty since it was always assumed ‘they’ were either using or twisting this information in order to deceive and/or trade off for power or profit rather than use it to help expose and potentially destroy or disrupt the very system they could profit from.
This limited perspective is a wonderfully penetrating example of the narrow mindedness and naiveté that is displayed by the captured mind of the central sociopaths and their large group of enablers, particularly when they believe they are all powerful. People often expect other people to think, act and say pretty much what they would think, act or say. The (financial) criminal minds, including those of the hard core sociopaths and their first and second tier enablers, are often not very imaginative, particularly if it isn’t required of them on a daily basis for anything more than to rape, rob and steal.
However, in the vast majority of cases the rich and powerful were correct in assuming no one would defect or that those who did would be ineffective, marginalized or quickly squelched. In their minds the equation is simple. Who would possibly give up the enormous wealth and income that flows from intimate business connections and insider information? Better yet, who would want to overcome the cost of entry and the risk of ridicule (or much worse) that comes with becoming a dangerous whistleblower?
Alas, the sociopaths completely underestimated that which they do not possess, the single minded power demonstrated by those with strong moral character, fearless courage and righteous indignation. Combine this with the ability to monetize page views, thus mitigating some of the cost of entry, and a rapidly growing and thoroughly pissed off proletariat, including some morally outraged, burned out and/or jettisoned financial workers, and you have the means, motive and opportunity for economic truth mongers to blossom. The rest, as they say, is history. All of the above is obviously a gross over simplification of the phenomenon, but you get the idea.
I do not wish to diminish the contribution of dozens upon dozens of web sites and blogs that pre-date Zero Hedge (ZH), all of which served to plow the raw and underdeveloped truth speaking land and turn the soil in preparation for the Zero Hedge Effect meme seeding. But the prolific posting of 10 to 15 original articles a day by ZH’s founder(s), who uses the alias Tyler Durden, as well as guest posts and the output of numerous contributors, provides an at times mind bending journey into the alternative reality of truth speaking. As well, Tyler’s in-your-face style serves to embolden those who read his prose, a necessary attraction if one is going to entice reluctant or frightened souls out of their burrows and into what they’ve been told all their lives is blasphemous and heretical territory.
Zero Hedge, and all the other destroyers of the public myths, are so much more than ‘just’ truth telling web sites; they are a singularity, the precursor to a potentially mind expanding metamorphosis, a meme movement of historic proportions that will only be fully recognized and understood with the 20-20 hindsight of historical perspective. This grass roots movement is clearly a force to be reckoned with simply because it has made its presence felt despite mainstream media opposition and outright hostility from those who carry the water for the political, corporate and financial powers that be.
In fact this new and utterly unique form of near real time truth speaking is so revolutionary that I have coined a term for it, “The Zero Hedge Effect”, which I use to describe the overall financial and business truth speaking movement that includes dozens of other web sites and blogs, a sampling of which can be found on the left hand side of every ZH web page. This blossoming has emboldened others to double their efforts and either expand their (non) financial truth speaking web sites or to create all new ones. This is the definition of a popular movement and not a fad. The proof of its power is seen within the escalating efforts by disinformation agents to attack their credibility. One does not fight what one does not fear.
The Zero Hedge Effect describes the overall experience that must have overwhelmed Alice as she explored the rabbit hole and suffered one cognitive dissonance after another in rapid succession. The World of Wonderland must have been extremely distorted and disorientating for Alice, just as the world looks to those who stumble into The Zero Hedge Effect after clicking a stray link or hearing about the Hedge from other web sites. From that moment on they begin a journey into an alternative realty so demonstratively different from what is presented by the mainstream media, the education system and the general consensus belief system that severe vertigo and projectile vomiting are just a few of the early physical symptoms of old meme purging and cognitive disruption.
From that point on nearly all who enter The Hedge, or any of the other non coordinated (but still in the eyes of the PTB, co-conspirator) web sites, experience time and reality dilation and distortion effects similar to what one imagines we would experience if we were to cross the event horizon of a massive black hole, thus the reason I describe the actual transformation process itself as “Crossing the Event Horizon”.
For those who undergo the gut wrenching and emotionally destabilizing process of unlearning nearly everything they thought they knew while simultaneously downloading not only truth, but an entirely new vocabulary of financial and political terms and phrases, they are never the same again. And for this reason alone many quickly turn around and never look back as they scurry towards the warm and seductive embrace of near total truth blackout living.
However, there is great danger in thinking that we have now crossed through the event horizon and are safely on the other side, thus fully awake and seeing clearly. This just isn’t correct and to believe so is the act of the self deluded fool. One doesn’t overcome thousands of years of thought meme conditioning and cultural indoctrination by overcoming a few obviously transparent lies and self deceptions. In fact, one of the lies we tell ourselves in order to assimilate all the initial cognitive dissonances is that the tough part is done and the road forward is clear. Who really wants to face digging an endless pit for the rest of their lives? While I most certainly can be accused of beating this mule to death, let’s once again take a look at the group and individual psychology of this issue. One must begin to understand the reason why people and groups do, or don’t do, the things we do if one is to see the bigger picture. Otherwise it’s simply too easy to dismiss explanations such as what follows as silly and illogical or not applicable to us under the false belief that we act for the most part logically and in our own best interest. Or even that we know our self very well, thus we are finally free thinking, the ultimate self delusion. Forget about pointing fingers at others in order to shield ourselves from this potentially stinging rebuke. I’m talking about you and me here and no one else. Take a chance that you and I might not know everything about ourselves, that we might actually continue to lie to ourselves without even realizing it, and open our minds to other possibilities. For decades, the stock markets were supposedly influenced and even regulated under the ‘logic’ of efficient markets. Only now are people finding the courage to look closely at the illogical lunacy of these theories. Isn’t it interesting that these ‘efficient market’ theories, when accepted by the masses and by a large majority of financial advisors and money managers, had the effect of making suckers out of the very same masses it was supposedly designed to help? But I guess that was just a coincidental accident, right? The same applies when thinking about ourselves and how we act privately and publically. Is it such a surprise to discover that we act illogically and often at cross purposes to our own well being? Yet we are told we’re free to choose, that our leaders work for us, that we determine our own destiny, when a careful and unbiased examination tells us exactly the opposite. If we don’t begin to understand why we continuously fall for the same bag of tricks we will remain hopelessly stuck within the false illusion the rich and powerful present to us as our ‘true’ reality. Any book, article or video that discusses political, social and economic policy or even corruption without factoring in individual and group psychology is seriously flawed simply because the entire story isn’t being told. One simply cannot convey a complex and nuanced condition or idea using less than half of the available alphabet or dictionary. The unspoken presumption underlying many (but not all) attempts to expose ‘the truth’ is that if only the author could inform the sleeping masses of the ‘real’ story, of the hidden information, then the slumbering giant would rapidly wake and shake off the tyranny. My apologies to all the sincere and serious authors out there, but this view is hopelessly naive and speaks more to the psychology and conditioning of the author than the reader. In fact, an important component of our social conditioning and an integral part of the Big Lie is the deeply conditioned belief that it’s impolite or even rude to speak to each other about our own tendency to defer to the manipulation and lies promoted by ‘our’ authority figures. It’s almost as if we are acting like children talking about serious flaws in our parents. If we make believe and don’t really talk about it, then it isn’t real. The only social class allowed to discuss this subject (other than our masters, along with the advertising and government intelligence agency classes) is the professional class of social scientists, doctors, psychologists and academics and then only in the most sterile and dispassionate clinical terms. There is this intellectual wall that’s erected around them forbidding anyone other than these ‘experts’ from discussing psychology in public. Only the great Wizards are allowed to discuss the mysteries of the human psyche. After all, they are all experts and we are just uninformed and potentially self destructive children. Any explorations and explanations offered by amateurs such as myself are quickly branded as deluded babbling or children playing with matches. Only the great Merlin and his anointed sorcerers are empowered to conduct such forays into the dark psychological arts. And God forbid if a non ‘professional’ embarrasses the reader by pointing out the obvious. It’s almost as if people believe that to speak about the unspeakable is just rubbing their noses in their own futility. Hush hush sweet Charlotte, civilized people don’t talk about such things. Or maybe it is all just our fragile little egos screaming at us to leave the blanket draped over the dead and rotting corpse. What we don’t see, what we are conditioned not to see, is that this is all part of our conditioning, that only the high priests are allowed to discuss the very subject(s) that can and will help set us free if only we would understand and use them. This is a constant within the illusion. Anything that can empower or free us is removed, restricted or demonized, thus severely limiting our innate and natural ability to heal, grow and flourish. At best we are told we should restrict ourselves to applying band aids and hydrogen peroxide. Anything more than this should be left to the professional mind magicians and the grand keepers of the public myths.
I’ve been told a number of times by ‘professionals’ including financial, medical, scientific, even philosophical (which just goes to show how deeply all professionals are indoctrinated to stay within the lines including myself) that I shouldn’t stray where I don’t belong. Sometimes I’m even scolded as one would an errant child who has just been warned to stay away from the sharp scissors. We are conditioned to believe that just about any emotional discomfort is considered an illness that must be treated with Makita skull saws and surgical mind grips when what our emotional pain should be seen as is a warning sign that something is seriously wrong with our present day reality and not necessarily with us. When waking up to a world gone mad the prescription that is needed is not additional heavy medication, more mindless TV indoctrination and desperate consumerism. Have you ever wondered why the ‘healing arts’ magicians claim they ‘practice’ their profession, that they own a ‘practice’? This is not a play on words; they use this term very specifically to describe an inexact process. As much as we wish to believe, as much as we are told to believe, that it is a complex science and well above our pay grade, much of it, particularly psychology, is simply theory and consensus belief systems that are applied under ‘sterile’ or controlled conditions. I’ve often wondered how many emotionally distraught individuals who are finally waking to their insanity are re-infected with mad human disease while prone upon the psychologist’s brown leather sofa. And do we not see the sublime irony in the fact that some of the nastiest and deadliest infections are ‘caught’ during a hospital stay? There is a world of difference between setting a broken bone, undergoing transplant surgery or treating psychological trauma caused by the sudden loss of a loved one, which I’m not talking about here, and understanding what makes us psychologically tick and how we are manipulated, how our own imagined and conditioned fears and phobias are used against us. We are confidently told that psychologists know what they are doing, but a careful reading of ‘accepted practice’ suggests to me that they are simply intensively and often narrowly trained practitioners rather than holistic healers. To a great degree this also applies to the medical field as well. We are all conditioned to be the passive and cooperative patient and are told to let the ‘health professionals’ control our health and well being, also known as the illusion. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard family and friends tell me that their doctor doesn’t listen to them. More often than not they don’t listen, at least not beyond the initial description of the primary symptom(s). About two years ago my extended family all agreed we would accompany each other to doctor appointments as each other’s advocate. While it is a huge hassle for all, it is remarkable the difference we have seen in the responsiveness of our doctors and nurses. Our passivity and isolation in the hands of the ‘healing’ professionals is our implied acceptance of their projected illusion. We cannot see outside of the illusion when we fully accept the illusion as the only ‘real’ reality. This is not to say that some people are not gravely mentally or physically ill and would do great harm to themselves and to others if they were not ‘treated’. And of course medical doctors perform a vital service in treating serious disease and injury. This is not what I’m talking about. But how much of today’s treatment, particularly psychological, is simply designed to get the wage slave back onto his or her feet and once again profitably producing on the economic chain gang. I owe, I owe, so off to work I go. Instead of treating the daily cumulative emotional distress so many of us experience as an issue with us personally, maybe we should begin to see that our emotional pain is an obvious and clear warning sign that something is terribly wrong with our world and that it is not ‘we the people’ who should be fixed, but rather that the sociopaths and all their enablers should be run to ground and destroyed while we debt slaves free ourselves. By not discussing the real chains that bind us to the illusion and by not willingly accepting personal responsibility for our own understanding and well being, we perpetuate the basic victim mentality that chains us to our own impotence and unhealthy practices, regardless of whether our bindings are physical or mental. The one constant among nearly all religions (including the Gods of money and consumerism) is the demand that we must willingly accept the proffered illusion if we are to be saved, born again, reach nirvana, live happily ever after, makes lots of money, comfortably retire etc. Instead of 70 plus virgins, I’m promised consumer nirvana if only I reject nearly all healthy physical and mental practices and blindly dive into the shallow end of the consumer pool. Consumer bliss is just another McFat burger away.
While I deeply respect and even admire the tremendous amount of time, effort and dedication that goes into becoming a doctor, psychologist or anyone else in the ‘healing arts’ field for that matter, at some point we must ask ourselves what it is we think they are doing to and for us. I have no doubt that the vast majority of them sincerely believe they are doing ‘good’ and would never intentionally harm their patients. That’s not the question here and it never really was. But that doesn’t mean they do not do harm, just that they do not intend to do harm. In my book, malpractice is far more than negligence, be it gross, intentional, misguided or otherwise. “God forgive them for they know not what they do” sounds like it might apply here. They practice in a field that is a business first and their business is to get the patient back up on the hamster wheel and plugged into the illusion, either physically or mentally. Doesn’t this make them at a minimum conflicted or possibly misguided? Just because everyone else is doing the same thing doesn’t make it right nor does that absolve the practitioner. In so many ways the ‘healing arts’ are just another form of consensus group think run rampant, controlled by Big Pharma, Big Health Insurance and Big Government. The men and women of the health professions are without a doubt subjected to the same propaganda you and I are, including cultural and social indoctrination. And it is the rare individual who can see beyond their social and professional conditioning when it pays them not only to fit in but to excel. That sounds like a serious conflict of interest to me and while I’m sure I will hear screams from the comment section that these professionals put their own self interest last, isn’t that what we all tell ourselves. I would argue that they are even more intensively indoctrinated considering all their years of training. Yet rarely do we view them as a critical part of the control system. Instead we are conditioned to believe they are trained to be impartial and thus impervious to the same influences we recognize affects us. They are showered with drug company information, including ‘incentives’ to prescribe various drugs to fix or repair our mental and physical ills. Or as I like to say in all seriousness, they are given incentives (even if it is simply personal motivation to help) to cast their magician’s spell(s) to keep us within (or to reenter) the illusion. These professionals, and in fact all intensively trained professionals (of which I am one) are the epitome of group think to the nth degree. Only in this case it’s OK because we want to help rather than harm. Show me one professional who willingly admits he or she wishes to harm. We all want to believe our intentions are good and benevolent. And yet harm does and will continue to occur because of our professional actions. Why doesn’t this worry us? Under conditions such as this why do we still willingly surrender our will and our bodies to their dictates without serious questioning? Why don’t we inform ourselves? It might be in our best interest to look just as closely at what they tell us about our mental and physical health as we do regarding our financial health. I suspect that most of us would avoid professional financial advisors who are still completely plugged into the Ponzi and who continue to spout ‘efficient markets’ and ‘endless growth’ nonsense. If so, why are we still playing by the rules when it comes to our mental and physical health? Why don’t we question our doctor or therapist as closely as we might our financial advisor? Might it be that we are still under the influence of the magician’s spell, but our ego won’t let us admit it? The Big Lie is so much deeper than ‘just’ the financial Ponzi. I’ve talked about this in great detail in other articles so I won’t go any further (thank God some are saying). But the reader should consider that their professional doctor and psychologist are just as caught up in the illusion as we are. Their job, whether they are fully conscious of it or not, is to keep you and I peddling away on our hamster wheel and thus fully immersed within the illusion. If you’re reading this article it seems to me you wish to do the opposite. So maybe it is time to reexamine everything including your most basic assumptions. In Chapter Two we will explore our individual and group self deception and how it keeps us trapped within the event horizon. Cognitive Dissonance 07-12-2011
- advertisements -
true dat, but here's the question that we're all now stumbling around cog : those who realize this, what do we do in response?
1) nothing, just observe, as Ari's I ching reading suggested.
2) use fear to motivate folks like Janus suggested. (i think his comment is dead on, then again, last thing i want to do is spend time to devise ingenious ways to manipulate others through fear, so personally, i'd choose #1.)
3) run around in the dead of night committing acts of "poetic terrorism" like Hakim Bey suggested and risk getting incarcerated and/or sued like delacroix. personally, i don't give a shit about getting sued cuz i ain't got nothing really of "value", but to have a bunch of emotionally maladjusted correction officers dictating one's life is definitely not fun. ask Martin Armstrong.
4) sit around & bitch about it with like-minded folks on ZH and elsewhere. yes, that definitely dissipates the anger & frustration, but it doesn't change anything. in fact, i'm willing to suggest that it more firmly entrenches the problem by providing an escape valve without having to take any meaningful action to resolve it.
obviously, the common sense approach does not work (your & delacroix's stories are cases in point). so what do we do? not asking for answers from anyone, just wish to consider the question.
(I trend towards # 1 as well)
That my friend is the question. I will continue to try to probe for answers it as I waste more electrons here on ZH.
Thanks for your always thoughtful and informed comments.
They did you a good turn Delacroix. I wanted to do the same as you and discovered i could be liable in the event of an accident on that part of the road.
Thanks for the reply, CD. It helped clarify to me who you are.
This is a tough period to be living through, with the most powerful people making the most idiotic decisions.
The majority of people (especially the young) are oblivious. I recently had to make a complaint to the city about a ditch in the road-not in front of my house, but 2 miles away! This is a big city, with a huge population. What the hell is wrong with the people who lived nearby?!
Why are there so few people who at least attempt to speak up?
@cd
you answered everything right there... or, more specifically, here "The road will need to wash out completely before they physically get involved..."
Nothing is ever going to change until that "Hundreth Monkey" moment arrives... As we speak, we're probably only on monkey #12...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundredth-monkey_effect
---
I dare say... your efforts here (in hindsight), may end up being viewed as more of a poet, than 'revolutionary' (though the poet himself may see himself as a revolutionary)...
Great work though... Worth the effort (as all 'true' efforts are)...
---
Remember too that the 'other side' of an EVENT HORIZON... is... a BLACK HOLE...
Sorry there are no black holes and therefore no event horizons - these are just hallucinatory concepts that are needed to save from ridicule the cosmological equations of the intellectual God of the early 20th Century. Probably not a good move entitling this fine essay with such patently bullshit terminology. Sorry to nit pic CD...cuz I am grateful for the many things learned in your essays.
Everyone instantly understands what I am saying without explanation. That makes for an effective title. Everyone understands the analogy. That makes for clarity within the body of the text. That's effective writing.
Win win.
It's heroic to keep plugging away like that, but ultimately people are in love with their servitude. They are bound to it and it is their lives. I see ZH more about offering info so those who wish to can make it to the lifeboats that are available, of which I am grateful. Love ZH and what it does, but the system cannot be changed without pain. Nature is not kind, and will not be kind to those that are not prepared for what is coming down the pipe.
As you said the road will need to be washed out. The system must utterly collapse, bringing ruin to many before they will stir in their slumber. Perhaps when the pop culture junkies are freezing in the winter, roasting in the summer, when hunger hits their bellies, and the sounds of their crying children ring in their ears maybe then they will be willing to act...but then again maybe not. This has been the state of man for recorded history, why should we expect them to change now? Data aside, as you well know people will fight to stay in their shackles and even when the master beats them they will cry out to the master for salvation.
Suppose in some ways this can be expected. After all in countless generations the tall poppies have been cut down? Like it or not genetics plays a part, all other mammals can be bred for traits. Kill the rebels generation after generation and those with predisposition to rebel are reduced.
Best described by world renowned writer:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/6391064/Fyodor-Dostoevsky-The-Grand-Inquisitor
I don't think that is what it is. I think it is an artifact of normalcy bias. iow, these people think that they dealt with the situation by speaking with cd.... and that was the end of it. What is coming will be very hard on these people.
Taco,
Very direct, concise, and correct,imho.
you have said almost everything in only a few words------thanks
paraphrase:
ZH is a source of Truth.
The Rich and Powerful control information.
Proles are brainwashed by MSM.
The Health Care Industry is fucked up.
To many proles, the truth contradicts their perception of reality resulting in Cognative Dissonance.
Thank-you, I look forward to part deux.
Ah so, CD: confucious say man without proper propaganda filter has shit for brains; Obama as his deity, and Big Sis as the warden.
"let them eat their peas"
"our borders have never been more secure (how else can we guarantee the drug shipments)".
Awesome... thanks for the laugh...
Oh... it hurts...
And the guns going the other way.
Damn son!
I like to think I can rant, but that was fucking poetry.
Well done Cap'n.
(In my best late night infomercial voice)
But wait, there's more. If you call now you also get Chapter Two tomorrow.
I haven't let go of a good rant in a while. And the neat thing is that I have two more all teed up and waiting for clearance from Space Control (my inner muse) to release the docking clamps and engage warp drive.
Don't forget the Absinthe and the magic mushrooms during the precise edit phase:)
Your "Dispatch from Occupied Territory - The Awakening" came so close to the solution for dealing with the insanity that surrounds us (and yes, lives within us) that I offer your following quotes back to you:
"This means you must take personal responsibility for your own life from this moment forward ... You are no longer dependent upon others for your emotional, spiritual and intellectual freedom."
Crossing the Event Horizon is a very personal, lonely frightening experience. A human being does not have the power to do it just like one cannot lift themselves by their own bootstraps. Lack of power, that is our dilemma.
A wise old man saved me from stark insanity by telling me, "The doctors can't fix you, you can't fix yourself and I can't fix you. God will help you or you are a goner. If I was you, I'd talk to him". He wasn't a religious man by any stretch of the imagination.
Cordially,
TwoHoot
I've met that old man. thx for that, lol... he was right.
I used to date a girl who was into the docking clamps. Those were good days.
I remember probably twenty years ago watching some strange cable channel late one night and there was this round table group with an odd mix of computer geeks, sociologists, psychologists and I think one historian. They were talking about this relatively new thing called the internet and its possible effects. One theme they kept coming back to was the decentralization of information and how that may relate to power - political, economic, psychological.
Since then, most of their musings have played out. The internet is the wild card in everything. It is the most dangerous tool for every player but probably the biggest poison for power. Too many entry and exit points for information. Too many demonstrations of political harmony for an angry and abused group. And like the abused child behind the witness screen, the anonymity can breed courage to speak the truth
If you think you are anonymous on the internet you are sadly mistaken. Think of it rather as publishing your thoughts.
I know that's why I use the witness screen analogy. The bad guy still knows who's testifying but somehow the block gives them courage to speak and speech moves others into action
Indeed. However, in the 1 billion messages posted everyday in the US on 'the tubes', I think my comments are safely covered by the mile high hay bale of comments. They have to pick YOU out of all of it to bother paying attention to and using their time to bother with YOU. They can raise the debt limit all they want and still not afford to be able to pay someone to care about what any of us write and pick on any particular one
If you think that anonymity is impossible you make a mistake. Although they are cumbersome, there are tools that make anonymity possible, doable by average users, and common.
Do not fall prey to the establishment mindfuck that they know who we all are all the time. It just isn't true.
Be the change brother. Fuck them. Join the fight.
I wrote a response, but it was all ego-ie
Here's my response:
I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain
I'd change the last line to; 'Only love will remain.'
It's a quote- the Bene Gesserit litany against fear from the novel Dune. Changing the last line would be kind of like editing the Lord's Prayer- you can do it, but it doesn't jack into the same juice. That's the most oft-quoted bit from the book, and it calls up the whole set of principles in one shot.
If you haven't read the novel, it's highly recommended.
+1
Da. Well said.
lulz.
wise choice on the edit ;~)
But can that courage translate into action? Will the anonymous courage morph into faces marching in the streets? So far the result is inconclusive. The Middle East uprisings may have been organised to some extent online (not sure if texting should be considered "on-line" if Internet phone calls aren't) but were they nurtured and grown? I don't know. I haven't seen any in-depth articles yet talking about exactly what happened as well as how.
CD: What can I say that hasn't been said? You are a serious talent.
I can tell you this: Anonymous provided secure c&c resources for Tahrir outside main channels, as well as comprehensive support within primary channels. There is hope for internet smashroots. Keep the faith, brother.
Wow deep thoughts. Plugged into the hamster wheel, is it.
Well written but waaaaay to long. You're a wordsmith for sure - just edit this sucker a bit!
How can it be well written......but too long?
Well written means that it has proper technique, style, length, clarity, sentence structure etc.
I think they want it twitterized, Cog.
Maybe what is meant that it is longer than our attention span...oh look a dog.
Please ignore my puddle and the stinky stuff and just love me.
It's just puppy love.
Interesting. I certainly don't grok all of it, but the gist is clear.
cxl double post - sorry....
Jeez. How can I not agree, damn it?!
But you and I and all the others across the globe - why is it that we can't join and organize the Uprising of the Just?
Is it maybe because, individually, we are just intelligent enough to believe that our own individual intellect will suffice to allow *me* to make it through?....
That is hoth the irony and the tragedy of it all.
We're intelligent enough to clearly perceive the Great Illusion, The Truman Show, Il Teatro dei Pupi, yet this same intelligence prevents us from building a meaningful form of Revolt.
Ok - back to the beer keg now. I need to be able to work lucidly tomorrow....
No uprising required. Just a removal of your support.
As: "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose"...
Awareness makes paradigm "support removal" easy !
Just walk away from the illusion.
+ 1000 oz Au to css1971
Uprising of the just?
Per Michael Pinder"
"Revolution never won, it's just another form of gun,
to do again what they have done."
I like the term "dawning realization".
CD, this is a keeper. Thanks again
CD
For some reason, when I read your rants I am reminded of Carlos Castaneda's books on his (supposed) experiences with Don Juan the Yaqui sorcerror.
Perception management has been around for a long, long time.
Can't avoid it - it's the only game in town.