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Waking Up is Hard to Do
Waking Up is Hard to Do
By
Cognitive Dissonance
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Do you remember when you first woke up, that point when it all became frighteningly clear to you? I certainly don’t, and if rigorous honesty is employed I doubt you do as well.
I make this statement with a high degree of certainty based not just upon my own personal experience, but from countless conversations over the years. Stated simply, ‘waking up’ is not an on/off switched event, but rather a process of slowly clearing away the fog of self deception and comforting illusion. Just as we do not instantly wake from our overnight slumber fully aware and properly functioning, so too do we fail to shake off decades of deep social conditioning and propaganda in an instant.
Sure, during this awakening process there are lightening strikes of clarity and revelation that stop us dead in our tracks while sickening the stomach and weakening the legs. The most devastating of these bolts from the blue are usually self revelatory and rarely joyful events. In fact I still suffer from these ‘First Light’ events to this day. The only thing worse than being caught naked to the world is to be exposed to our ‘self’ devoid of comforting emotional cover.
It is the height of childish thinking, something I am guilty far too often of, to believe we can wipe away in days, weeks or even months what has been carefully and painstakingly crafted within our psyche (what we think of as our ‘self’) over decades; our entire lifetime in fact. The ego does not easily concede its manipulative techniques nor lift its concealing veils willingly and without a ferocious fight.
That emotional stab in the gut you feel when you reach a recognition point is your ego falsely telling you ‘here be dragons’. The trick, if further progress is sincerely desired, is to stay the course and endure further emotional pain rather than run for the hills and continue to hide from the self.
A common misconception, maybe even self deception, pertaining to our corporate and governmental masters is the idea ‘they’ somehow trick ‘us’ into doing things contrary to our own best interest. I deliberately use the word ‘trick’ in this case since others, myself included, dress it up (lipstick on a pig anyone?) by calling it manipulation, propaganda and implied consent. While those words accurately describe the larger overall picture of what’s going on under the covers, in fact the techniques employed are not speaking directly to ‘us’, but rather to our ego and subconscious ‘self’.
Like the master puppeteer carefully hidden above by darkness, heavy curtains and the prancing distraction below, the ego wants us to ‘believe’ the thoughts, ideas and ‘beliefs’ (aka ‘truth’) we profess as ours are actually ‘ours’. Thus ‘we’ are as vulnerable to circumvention as the Maginot Line was and tragically ignorant of our own defenseless condition. Sadly most, if not all, of us are willfully ignorant of our own vulnerability because to examine that particular line of thought requires we open the entire can of self revelation whoop ass. And as we all know too well by now ‘here be dragons’ so why even try.
Here be Dragons
Essentially our own desire to avoid the inner dragons is expertly used against us by outside forces who present suspect information, often presented as irrefutable ‘fact’, precisely designed to mesh with, while leveraging, our ego’s own efforts to shield us from what the ego perceives as harmful to us. But make no mistake about it, the ego does not arbitrarily decide what is and is not harmful to us. Often it takes the lead from our popular culture, both the intimate one conditioned into us by our immediate family as well as the culture the general population ‘agrees’ upon as the way things should be. More and more these days this agreement is derived through mass media sources, in particular television or ‘social’ media.
For those who wish to dispute this assertion I point towards the huge impact advertising, most assuredly a form of effective mind (ego) control, has upon you and me. Speak to any expert in psychology, also known as someone deeply involved in creating advertisement, and they will quickly list the various methods used to induce (trick?) you to do, which usually means purchase, things you might not normally do. The same applies to the purveyors of propaganda.
While I will quickly admit not all techniques are effective on all people, this simple ‘fact’ allows us the egoic wiggle room needed to convince ourselves advertisement/propaganda, and more specifically the psychological techniques underlying advertisement/propaganda, is not nearly as effective as it truly is. The Maginot Line’s impenetrability is once again confirmed, deftly enabling its circumvention at any time.
Why is it we can often see when others are being lied to while we are often (self) deceived and fail to see what others perceive is clearly obvious? What’s that ‘we’ say? We aren’t fooled anymore now that ‘we’ are ‘awake’? The very fact we believe this tells us and many others we aren’t as awake as we think we are or would like to be. As stated before, our/the/an awakening is a lengthy process and not a short onetime event. Or stated more accurately, the process of awakening is a series of steps taken towards a wider range of awareness.
During a significant and profound ‘awakening’ one ‘truth’ stands out among all others. The more we think we know, either by way of an ongoing ‘discovery’ of the self or (and more likely) a sudden recognition of what was always there but never truly or fully ‘seen’ until now, is the realization we have barely scratched the surface. The more I think I know the more I know I do not know. Many of us, me included, are barely past the first and second steps on our way up a long and winding staircase towards a wider and more encompassing understanding.
I may have had an ‘awakening’ to something general or specific, meaning my awareness is now (more) focused on something it previously was not, which in turn leads me to a new (notice I did not say better) understanding. But to flat out declare the achievement of (now) being ‘awake’, implying there is no further awakening needed, is little more than egoic chest thumping and narcissistic delusions.
I may even have undergone several of these ‘awakenings’ in rapid fire progression, one setting off the next and the next and the next similar to a chain reaction of dominoes falling. But to believe I have arrived and am now fully awake is pure folly and the ultimate in self deception. One does not progress from not knowing to all knowing just like that, even if the process has evolved over weeks or months.
"The Awakening" by J. Seward Johnson, Jr
Contrary to the popular belief ‘we’ are in control of our mind and therefore our awareness, our ego is actually filtering and processing much, if not all, of what we see, read, hear, feel, touch, smell and thereby think. Since it is our brain which actually interprets what enters our five (six?) senses, and our ego constantly monitors everything coming in and going out with the intent of ‘shielding’ us from whatever it is ‘we’ might find disconcerting, disorienting or disruptive, to state categorically we are ‘aware’ is, well, at the very least wildly egotistic and at most the epitome of narcissistic arrogance and hubris.
Consider for a moment the idea that ‘me and my ego’ are not the same ‘person’ and that my ego quite often works at cross purposes to what is truly in my best interest. While one might argue over what exactly is in my/our best interest, and I would join that discussion with dread because it is a circular argument at best, I suspect if ‘We the People’ were individually polled with no fear of recrimination or exposure, many would say what exists today is not in ‘our’ best interest.
That ‘voice’ I ‘hear’ in my head is almost always considered to be me, myself and I. Unless, of course, I am insane as determined by a presumably sane and disinterested party. Meaning as far as most are concerned they are talking to their ‘self’. After all, who else could it be other than ‘the’ self? But what if that voice I hear speaking to me is not ‘me’ in the literal sense when thinking about ‘me’? What if that voice I hear is actually my ego, essentially a foreign entity always lurking in the background skillfully using its disguise as ‘me’ to play ‘me’ to the hilt?
If this were the case, imagine how easily manipulated (tricked?) I would be both by my ‘ego’ as well as by outside forces that recognize the dominant role my ego plays in my everyday life. Those outside forces would most certainly play to my egoic entity in order to control and manipulate ‘me, myself and I’. More importantly, if ‘my’ ego is exposed to the ‘self’ for what it truly is, a severe and debilitating emotional crisis would instantly develop, thereby undermining both the ego and the ‘self’. Essentially ‘we’ would experience an identity crisis. Clearly the ego would see this as a danger and shield ‘us’ from this information, if for no other reason than self survival.
My ego ‘knows’ it is not ‘me’, thus it is under no self delusion as to the danger my discovery of this fact would be both to my emotional stability and, by extension, to the ego’s existence. The egoic parasite most certainly wishes to protect the host (‘me’) from self destruction if at all possible since the egoic entity cannot exist without the ‘self’, both in a physical and intellectual sense. If my ‘self’ is beginning the awakening process and, from the perspective of my ego, this process cannot be stopped, wouldn’t it be in the best interest of the ego (and therefore also for my ‘self’) both to limit my awakening and also to convince my ‘self’ the process is complete and there is no more work left to be done?
This would be quite easily accomplished since I still believe that voice in my head is ‘me’. The ego only needs to fill my ‘self’ with ‘egotistic’ nonsense about having finally arrived now that I can clearly see what could not be seen before, coupled with self righteous declarations of superiority over the deaf, dumb and blind ‘plebs’, the ranks from which I have now successfully liberated myself. Add in a healthy dose of absolute certainty and closed mindedness to the possibility I might actually be just as blind as before (if not more so since I have now abolished doubt from my mind and vocabulary) and the egoic transformation from unknowing slave to ‘awakened’ slave is complete.
But of course ‘I’ haven’t fallen for that trap, now have I?
Cubicle Slavery
This is precisely how alternative thinking and the contrary organizations that spring up to support and echo alternative thinking is skillfully subverted and derailed by the mainstream and its handlers/controllers. If I am someone or something in a position of power who wishes to remain in power in the face of a rising tide of popular uproar, all I need to do is ‘talk’ to the ego by any means possible (usually the alternative ‘press’) in order to play ‘us’ like a fiddle. I don’t need to defeat the uprising, just deflect it enough so it turns upon itself, destroying it ‘self’ from within in the same manner ‘my’ ego deflects and subverts ‘me’ in order to protect me.
Brilliant! Simply brilliant! And a technique, I might add, which has withstood the test of time, having been successfully used against our ‘selves’ for millennium by both the ego and those outside powers who wish to control ‘us’, principally by leveraging our ego against our ‘selves’. ‘Knowing’ what I have just laid out is even the slightest bit possible, how can anyone reading this declare with any degree of certainty they have now arrived and are ‘awake’?
The greatest trick the devil ego ever pulled was convincing ‘us’ it does not exist, that any questioning of our ‘self’ (in this case the ego), any significant self reflection or introspection, any digging in the emotional grave yard to unearth layer upon layer of self deception, is a sure sign of weakness and must be avoided at all cost. In truly Orwellian doublespeak our ego ‘tells’ us ignorance is strength by hiding our continuing ignorance behind the veil of self righteous certainty in our awakening, of our knowing beyond all doubt. This is aided and abetted by the clear ignorance of many others in the one or two specific subjects we now see more clearly, such as the financial Ponzi or the growing police state.
Any Cognitive Dissonance experienced over this issue is quickly swept away by the induced (egoic) feelings of superiority over nearly all others. I’ve nothing more to learn since I am already (fully) awake. Any minor details missed are just a matter of more research and most certainly not introspection. Thus the function of public fall guys and useful idiots in positions of power is revealed for their true purpose, to give us a reason to stop digging, to confirm our ‘belief’ we now ‘see’ clearly without subterfuge and obstruction. It’s even better if we can ‘see’ a layer or two deeper into the rabbit hole than others, thereby avoiding the need to look even deeper.
Ask any representative of “We the People” if they are ‘aware’ and you will receive nary a negative in response. The ego within would never allow ‘us’ to admit we are unaware or even less than fully aware, particularly in a public setting, for the cultural response would be overwhelmingly embarrassing. Knowing the public ridicule we would receive if our ignorance were ever made public, the ego helpfully ‘suggests’ we refrain from even entertaining the possibility in the ultimate of private settings, when talking to our ‘self’. Remember, here be dragons. Besides, even if this were true before, I’m now ‘awake’ thereby eliminating any possibility of present or future ignorance.
At the present time there are seven billion permutations of this internal con game, this viral madness, with no end ‘in-sight’. It is a spiritual and cultural dis-ease that thoroughly infects the individual, which in turns (re)infects the culture in a positive feedback loop of monstrous proportions.
This is why I endlessly repeat the same mantra again and again and again. To defeat the enemy without we must first look deeply within so we may finally recognize our supporting role in the greatest self con game the world has ever seen. The madness we see in all others clearly resides within.
01-14-2015
Cognitive Dissonance
How awake are we?
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It's not easy, or fun, or healthy. But it can mold a person into someone who wants health, for themselves and others. I feel your stories. Especially now that I'm up here trying to help the 86 yr old adoptive father with NPD and fetal alcohol syndrome with his slide into dementia. It takes a terrible toll, and I apologize to the community if I lose my shit from time to time. It hurts.
Sometimes dementia is an improvement.
Alas, the writer still has a very long way to go and he may not even be on the right road.
Always willing to listen and learn. Can you spare a road map or maybe directions if you please?
he gave you cheap gas and now you want directions
such an ingrate
Well, you seem to be laboring under the delusion that you can know something. You may someday wake up to the realization that even though many of us like to flatter ourselves by pretending to know things, things that we even suppose are important, in fact, none of us knows anything or indeed, can know anything.
Wat?
Share with us how you know that, "in fact, none of us knows anything or indeed, can know anything."
From a post below: "Do not be certain about uncertainty."
Wednesday humor.
Good night and good luck.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_29yvYpf4w
Okay. Tell me something you "know". Anything.
I don't think you even know what you are, are you a living, breathing, thinking, flesh and blood human being or are you a few random bits of matter swirling through space and held together by energy, whatever that is? Or maybe, even less than that? You don't know? Hmmmm. Don't ask me, I don't know.
So. Tell me something you know.
May I? I know that by asserting that someone else may or may not know something or nothing you've stepped over a line.
Firstly, you cannot know what someone else may or may not know. No one issues those little magic keys that force open the little door into someone else's brain where the "printout" button is.
Secondly, even if you could get a printout, you'd be unable to interpret it as every word would have a meaning that would require an interpretation through a comparative language program that interfaced with your brain - so you could understand what each word meant to THEM in YOUR language.
And besides - when one starts assuming that they know what someone else knows... or doesn't... that's mined territory and at the least, it tends to piss people off. ;-D
In other words, you seem to be saying that there is no such thing as knowledge, there is only personal opinion, which is pretty much what I originally said.
From back in August of last year.
Control the Language and You Control the Mind.
I've been here for five years. You might like to go back through my postings.
Yeah I know, I've read some of them. They tend to be very well written but tedious and self-serving. I usually give up about half way through but I do like the visuals and I sometimes look at your posts just for that.
https://www.dhamma.org
Yeah but chemtrails
Chemtrails - the smoke that comes from an apartment window on a warm summer evening that precursor to silly giggles?
What about 'em? I suppose you believe the "clouds" they are spraying up there above the real clouds are plumes of nutritional suppliments. Or perhaps you are one of the savants signed up as a charter member of the Cloud Appreciation Society http://cloudappreciationsociety.org/ Had to laugh my ass off when a friend showed that one to me. The spooks must be chapping ass as well to learn people actually bite on that.
alot of people I know personally don't want to wake up, willingly chose the blue pill
It is quite annoying isn't it? I find these type of people to be so helpless, its impossible for me to even be friends with them. I've become a very lonely person due to this fact. I wish more people would wake the fuck up. Red pill poppers unite ;-)
No one wants to be awake...only to experience an epiphany that explains why things are and why its not their fault. To accept responsibility, I mean real responsibility, not simply the admission that we have been fooled or lied to but say "yes, its my fault" is hard to do. We see our glorious leader can't do it and neither can most others. What I enjoy about ZH is the absolute certainty so many have here. No doubts about their own intelligence, their own knowledge and no doubts of the evil intent of other towards them. The more certainty I see in others makes me even more certain we know nothing at all.
That's the problem with the other one. You can never go back. Not without falling ten foot or so onto concrete head first.
Chindit 13, who assures us he has 'access', says this is all bullshit; or most of it is, or some of it, or something...
CD: Douglas Coupland, a Canuckian fiction writer, in his first book referred to office cubicles as "veal-fattening pens"
Hey, I know that guy of whom you speak! He’s kind of arrogant, and maybe an a-hole, but he did some time working for a few guys who had the only desk in a room that is slightly off circular, if you know what I mean. And while he repeats himself endlessly, as most here do, it seems altogether fitting and proper to say it again in an article we’ve seen at least fifty times since 2009 from the Chairman of the Department of Prolixity and Redundancy Department.
I gotta tell you, the folks who think they’ve woken up by “researching” on the internet are just somebody’s sheeple, buying into a line pulled straight from someone’s butt. But it feels good, so they embrace it, and then feel themselves “aware”. The truth is too banal. That guy at the desk in the almost circular room turns out to be exactly what he appears to be: in charge, albeit in a kind of cocoon, full of ego, and not too competent. All of the things attributed to him, or to some supposed shadow figures pulling his strings, or to some alphabets supposedly responsible for everything from the weather to random deaths, are just nonsense, well beyond the capabilities even his ego might believe he or anyone near him possesses. There are too many variables in the real world for events to follow a Hollywood B-fare script.
But none of that reality would be any fun if accepted. It would be too scary to think that many occurrences are not only beyond anyone’s control, but actually rather random. Random is disquieting. Random means a solitary individual, far from this axis of power, might actually have as much control over his life as those who theoretically lead him, and that means lack of accomplishment might actually be the fault of the individual sheeple. Nobody likes to accept that kind of personal responsibility. It feels much better to blame each and every malady and shortcoming on others, preferably the proverbial THEM. So some call themselves “awake”, no longer fooled by people who really never tried to fool them, and that delusion affords the self-proclaimed “awake” a handy excuse to go along with their bitterness.
The irony is that the more insistent they become that they are “awake”, the more they fall into an even deeper slumber, with dreams that provide solace, but not an ounce of truth. No matter. This site lives off comments from the bitter and disenfranchised, and if folks are suddenly without delusion, the site may well die.
I’m not going to change anyone’s mind, but nobody is going to change mine. I’ve lived in the promised land, and what I took away from it is Patty Page (“Is That All There Is?”); the rest of you are just in the cheap seats, being entertained by the team mascot. That ain’t arrogant; it’s simply fact.
So everybody go back to sleep, so that you can fancy yourselves awake. None of it makes a lick of difference, except for site hits. Click early and often.
So some call themselves “awake”, no longer fooled by people who really never tried to fool them, and that delusion affords the self-proclaimed “awake” a handy excuse to go along with their bitterness.
Awake? Why would anyone want to be "awake"? Far better to be left mostly alone, doing what one wants (agrees?) to do. Whether manipulated into what they decide they want, or are forced is irrelevant - as long as they acceed to the want, and somehow manage to accept that it's what they "want". If one buys into the "wanting" - there would be no internal conflict. Such a person could live a relatively peaceful and self-gratified life.
It is the kicking against the goad that causes unhappiness and discord within. Compliance leads to avoidance of the goad. And the goads of life are always with us, ego or no, awareness or not.
Have you considered that there might be advantage to being "awake enough" rather than fully awake? Being awake enough is when one has an idea that things are not what they are presented to be - but one doesn't CARE?
We arrive on this Earth unaware. We slide through life with varying degrees of resistence, and exit it. Regardless of what happens between the arrival and exit, there is no escape from the exit. There is a relatively fixed time for the exit which, at present, we cannot control.
My principle focus is on what happens after the exit. (The laws of thermodynamics state that you cannot destroy energy - you can only change its form - so there WLL be something after the exit. whether we will be aware or not is another question. I'm betting we will be aware. If I'm wrong - I've lost nothing. In the interval before the exit, I've gained hope. I find no fault in hope.)
And if someone has found a way to avoid the exit, I'd pity them. Living forever on this Earth with the current conditions would be so tedious. What would you do once you'd done everything?
Good grief Chindit, you mix a stiff drink, I'll give you that. But the jist of your wooly spiels is always, "Nothing to see here folks, go back to sleep." So, cui bono?
"I gotta tell you, the folks who think they’ve woken up by “researching” on the internet are just somebody’s sheeple..."
Maybe, though I'm not quite sure how you've missed that "the internet" really, truly and actually has made a whole lot of information available in the past twenty years that could be quite difficult to access before; both bullshit and valid in roughly equal amounts as far as I can tell, but then that hardly changes the fact that anyone can make a conscious choice to verify what they've seen.
What is, is.
IE what really matters is not from where they get their information, but what makes up an individual's criteria for what they consider knowledge. Sure, depending on the state of one's ego (h/t CD), first hand experience generally trumps second hand information, but that doesn't diminish the validity of written, verifiable, facts; whether they were accidentally disclosed in some thousand dollar, 800 page ode to the banqusters by Niall Ferguson, deliberately disseminated by little old me, or even buried deep within some otherwise racist golfing rant sneered out by one of the many heavily conditioned Osch Kosh bro'Gochers that habituate this site. You have to glean.
"Sometimes you have to wade through a lot of bullshit to extract a single kernel of truth" - Koyla Ivolgin (yuck)
What I find offensive about your posts is that through all their vague assertions they seem to seek to diminish the role, and so the responsibility, of those in power who make incredibly destructive decisions in secret and to the benefit of a small group at the expense of everyone else. Cui bono, hunh?
"But none of that reality (sic) would be any fun if accepted. It would be too scary to think that many occurrences are not only beyond anyone’s control, but actually rather random"
While I too used to think of these actions much the same way as the writer John Perkins, not deliberately cruel but merely convenient to the pocketbook, the farther I delve both online and off (thank you very much) the more the bodies keep piling up. Chalking events up to mere coincidence no longer becomes a serious conclusion, at least not to the standard of what I consider knowledge. Eg. do you honestly expect me to believe that you really believe that the existence of contemporary propaganda, which (it is as plain as the ass on your hat) requires immense planning/testing/colluding/collaboration, is some sort of myth perpetuated by sites like ZH solely to generate mouse clicks? Go on, pull the other one.
"The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent"- Stanley Kubrick
Indeed, as a whole the universe may well be random, but that certainly doesn't mean that all of the decisons made by the more or less sentient parts that have had the dumb luck to be formed by it are. While of course it does happen, not every evil act can be written off as mere incompetence, or simply bad luck, nor does suspecting someone or some organisation of fraud or collusion necessarily derive from the bitterly disenfranchised's fervent desire to blame someone else for their own plight; inductive and/or deductive reasoning often suffice.
What is is, and all of your gaslighting will never change that.
Good to hear from you.
First, there isn't much going on around here any more save for Putiporn, Death Glee, and conspiracy, so what I write, or what anyone else writes, is for entertainment purposes only. One is well advised to not take it too seriously.
Second, I'm trying to come up with a good analogy for what TPTB really are vs. what is attributed to them around here. The best I can come up with is you are heading uptown from Wall Street and you want to turn left at 34th, but end up turning left at 125th and Lennox.
For reasons known only to those who are the vocal majority here, anyone who doesn't turn off at 125th is somehow a paid troll psy-oping Statist Quisling. My argument has always been that everything is right out front on 34th, so it's best to save gas and stop there. What you see---in terms of TPTB---is what you get, and there is plenty to fix in the visible spectrum without drifting into the fantasy world.
TPTB are human. Very human. They are self-serving to be sure, but they eff up. People here give the elite far too much credit for being competent, when daily events give plenty of examples that scream incompetence. People here also assume somebody---either the visible leaders or some nefarious behind-the-scenes power---has a plan.
There is no plan. If the elite was as clever as folks give them credit for, and if existence had so few variables that events could be controlled, then maybe somebody could make a plan. Reality is not so kind, however. They are 7.1 billion people above ground. There are about 210 sovereign nations. There are at least five main faiths, plus the agnostic/atheist element. The planet has a changing and unstable climate, and it has a finite amount of resources.
All of those things get mixed together in ways no human---whether lizard-skinned, 33rd Degree Freemason, "R" Family, alphabet agency, Jooooo, Bilderberger, or with a "322" tattooed on his arm---can conduct for more than a second. There are too many people with equal power but different goals, so there is an ebb and flow between and among different parties, all of whom get additionally impacted by natural forces. I find the widely held (around here) belief that somebody is in charge and in control to be painfully naive, and that is made all the worse when people state with such conviction that they are "awake" and "aware".
Now I cannot disprove a negative, so there is no way to convince people that they are wrong. Apparently I am the arrogant one for stating my beliefs (based on direct personal experience), but those who are equally adamant about what they believe (based on internet research) are for some reason not considered arrogant.
I see a lot of beliefs espoused around here I know to be wrong. I see people lambasting the MSM even when I know, from direct experience of certain events or with certain people, that the MSM is much closer to reality than bloggers writing from an office in their house who were not at an event and know no one else who was. If an explanation is banal or uninteresting, nobody wants to accept it. If it is nasty and nefarious and wildly convoluted, people drink it in as if it is the gospel itself. And when I see some internet "authority" write inaccurately about an event or person I know firsthand, then I cannot help but think that everything that authority writes is equally wrong.
I do like your Kubrick quote, and I happen to be in agreement with it. Perkins I don't care for so much, though he did find a niche and exploited it. He reminds me of one of those "investigative reporter TV shows" with a heavy musical score and night vision camera work, making something seem much more sinister and much larger in import than it actually is, and embellishing here and there for effect.
TPTB do a lot of things which a democratic society should stop. Little, however, is hidden. Everybody knows K Street, everybody witnessed a 3-page memo morphing into TARP, and everybody knows that the average retired 4-star ends up at one of the defense contractors. At the same time, almost all "flags" are real. al Qaeda and ISIS are real. Radical Islam---and by that I mean something driven by faith and not by bad US policy---is real. (I do not call those who are merely against bad policy, and who fight back, "radicals".) Crazy people do crazy things, as do radical Islamists (Sandy Hook, Boston, Paris). Anyone who takes exception to that statement can go tell the people of Paris, Boston, or Newtown about "stage actors" and how nobody really died. Good luck.
As I said in another post, nobody is going to change anyone's mind. People believe what makes them happy. Personally, I am not going to dismiss what I learned via my own experience---eyes and ears---simply because somebody publishes a blog on the internet in the hope of attracting eyeballs. And I guess I am a bit of a pedant in that when I see something silly, I chime in.
I'l end with this: if you think you know something because you read it on the internet, then leave open the possibility that you don't really know anything. The good news is the world isn't as bad as most think. The bad news is that much of what happens is random and out of everyone's control. You can't stop random and you can't make a deal with it.
"There are about 210 sovereign nations."
You see that right there? "sovereign" In my direct, first-hand experience, no nation is 'sovereign' that carries a national debt. Period. Regardless of all the posturing and jingoistic rhetoric, their gov'ts are not free to write their own domestic laws, nor are they free to determine their own foreign policy; two privileges crucial to preserving a nation's sovereignty. I'm trying to think of a good analogy that describes this reality vs. the illusion... I've got money on my flank that says everyone here knows exactly who ultimately pumps the cheese in the creditor/debtor relationship. So that narrows the field down a bit from 210... and what follows.
"At the same time, almost all "flags" are real. al Qaeda and ISIS are real. Radical Islam---and by that I mean something driven by faith and not by bad US policy---is real."
Well that's just Chicken-Egg-Chicken garbage. We could go 'round the Mulberry bush for days on that one with no sign of the weasel showing up. After all, just as sur-really destructive is radically insane cross worshipping, along with all the other assorted Bertie Bott's Every Flavoured Beans of Flying Spaghetti Monster extremists
In additon to malevolent interpretations of wondrous beautiful magical writings from bygone/contemporary eras, and contrary to your implied assertion, many, many horrible things are driven directly by the bad foreign policy of <wherever>-statement/lol! - The first two rules of Droned Club is that no one gets to live to talk about Droned Club.
<shrugs> "As far as I can tell" Perkins is a bonafide insider outlining actual modus operandi, hardcopy with his name to it; a litany of verifiable facts and historical record to corroborate his story. I will definitely keep at least one piece of your sage advice in mind, specifically:
"...if you think you know something because you read it on the internet, then leave open the possibility that you don't really know anything. "
'sif
"As I said in another post, nobody is going to change anyone's mind. People believe what makes them happy."
People change their minds all the time; the ability to quickly adapt to new circumstances is one of the reasons humans have been so successful; and since when?
"You can't stop random and you can't make a deal with it."
One word: Insurance ')
"Good things take time, great things happen all at once."-Rat Race
Crazy CIA people do crazy things, as do radical Zio-NAZIS (Sandy Hook, Boston, Paris, Oklohoma, Waco, Ruby Ridge, and most important of all, 9/11).
...almost all "flags" are real theather. al Qaeda and ISIS are real MIC/CIA ceatures.
For Christ's sake chinshit13 get a grip on reality.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6O4LE0eTYc
Fuck You very much!
chindit, still here? damn you can write paragraphs and in the end still be totally insane..statist trash.
I finally figured out who you are. You are the guy they based the gay butler character in Wolf of Wall Street on. You know, all that "access" you had. LOL.
Everyone, it seems, ego and all, are looking for someone to blame, for a good excuse as to why we are not more than we really are. We are all a font of unappreciated intelligence and insight, and here on ZH we can explain it all.
I know I feel better.....all that counts.
feed the ego
end competition or any other measure which might highlight our shortcomings. Money...no better measure invented by ego to compare.
Take a tab maaaaaaaan. I feel sorry for you.
"I’m not going to change anyone’s mind, but nobody is going to change mine."
It must be extremely difficult being chindit13. I mean really, the agony of it all.
Why do you endlessly suffer such unmitigated fools as we Zero Hedge idiots? I cannot imagine the pain and suffering you experience on a daily basis. My teeth hurt just thinking about it.
My thoughts are with you as you slog through another day of your miserable existence next to the unwashed scrum. You might consider a chill pill before logging in to ZH next time. Just a suggestion.
I know the precise moment I 'woke up'. The vote to bail out the banks.
That was a bucket of ice water on my back mid-slumber.
I spent two years going back over all the history and current events to get myself up to speed. Getting pissed everyday with everything I learned...eventually I started lurking on Zero Hedge and eventually signed on.
All I know is that I know jack shit. But I no longer have any trust in our war criminal government, no trust in our financial institutions, and am losing faith in our cops and military.
As one that followed his parents into the military immediately after the draft ended because I considered it a duty, and as one who still 'votes' because of that military history (even knowing that it's not the vote that matters), this has been an on-going battle with pain.
As a DI once lectured: "Do you know why that Marine kept hitting himself in the head with that hammer? Because it felt so good when he stopped."
As an American with one eye open, I can see that the piles of lies and manipulations that our institutions created are going to lead to collapse and global war (not necessarily in that order). Since my thirties I've had a vision of my dried up corpse on the side of a desert dirt road...over the last six years, each day, that vision seems more likely.
Usury is unpayable, mathematically. A child can nderstand that.
mom always said he was the best masochist in the class
Nice piece CD
chinshit13:
HEY!
You still a 9/11MORON?
9/11: A Conspiracy Theory"I’ve lived in the promised land"
I thought that's all any of us are living in now....
The more we think we know the more we know we do not know.
Many are barely past the first or second steps on the way up a long, winding and very dangerous staircase towards a wider and more all encompassing understanding of real politics.
JFK to 911 Everything Is A Rich Man's Trick
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1Qt6a-vaNMA primer... the rich families, royal lineages and their treasonous actions that made the 20th century hell on earth.
How we are duped by the rich into swallowing a most toxic brew of reality and history.
How awake are you?
"JFK to 911 Everything Is A Rich Man's Trick"
The tricks started WAY before JFK bruh..
And in EVERY single case it was a GOVERNMENT they used as cover.
I watched the entire 3+ hours of this over the past couple of days. VERY interesting with some views I had never even considered.
Yet another excellent viewpoint of events as I go further down in the rabbit-hole....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XR8LFNUr3vw
Hi DavidPierre.
Please indicte when you are changing what I wrote in your 'inferred' quote.
"The more I think I know the more I know I do not know. Many of us, me included, are barely past the first and second steps on our way up a long and winding staircase towards a wider and more encompassing understanding."
indicte = vocative masculine singular of indictus
indictus = indicate
How awake are you?
Completely asleep it seems. Or just a really poor speeler.....er.....speller. :-)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKwjYR_76n4
When people wake up, they will not let their children grow up to be Soldiers, Cops, Public School Teachers, work at Banks, etc. that will be the day.
"When people wake up, they will not let their children grow up to be Soldiers, Cops, Public School Teachers, work at Banks, etc. that will be the day." -----Self-enslavement
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlIEoKg8ZQg
Wow! First cowboys, now soldiers, cops, teachers, bankers etc. What's left, plumbers?
Help!
I'm falling backwards... back into the 1960's ... at universtity...
When music was real!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ec0XKhAHR5I
< "The greatest trick the ego ever pulled was convincing ‘us’ it does not exist." Some guy.
< "The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist." Verbal Kint, The Usual Suspects.