Viet Vets in Charge: Kerry for War on Syria, Hagel Against...

Unbelievable. According to antiwar.com, ex-Vietnam Vet John Kerry, who threw away his medals, wants US troops to fight and die (both Assad's government troops and inevitably all those Al-Queda rebels running and bombing about).  Viet Vet Chuck Hagel says, woa, not too fast now.  Would be interesting and said if it was a couple old homeless vets debating under and underpass.

But SCARY because it's the Secretary of State for war and the Secretary of Defense against it.  (Would it be worse the other way around?)

There go a few thousand more American lives, a couple trillion more dollars - and probably another 20-30,000 dead Arab/Muslims - down the drain. And more blow back like the absurd and disgusting bombing of the Boston Marathon. And the civil liberties implications as Republicans try to figure out the best and quickest way to deprive an American citizen of his rights to due process so they can prepare the way of the next American dictator to kill American dissidents on sight.

Oh, and did I just notice that the US is giving Israel refueling planes so they can bomb the hell out of Iran and get home to dinner safely and on time?  Another 10 trillion dollars, and 10,000 American and 1 million Iran lives down the drain.

No wonder I drown myself in Wikipedia and springtime yard work in order to avoid confronting the madness.  Dang, what did I say last week about getting my head out of the sand and making the revolution? Maybe I need to make a bunch of signs saying that and tape them all over the house and the lawn mower and the grass seed bag and the hedge trimmers.

Blowback...all over again...

As American waits breathlessly to see WHO the arrested and suspected bomber of the Boston Marathon may be.  To find out WHICH group they can hate and punish for the crimes of one or a few individuals. (Unless its some "troubled" law enforcement agent or agent of a friendly government power in which case the story will quickly wither and die). 

Thoughts come to one about "blowback":

*Did a pissed off "patriot" and gun owner do it? It was the official Patriots Day in Boston, celebrating April 19, 1776 first battles for Independence from the British Imperial Oppressors.  It's also the 20th anniversary of the day FBI tanks started at least one fire that killed 76 Davidians in Waco, Texas as the end of a 51 day siege after ATF's violent and botched serving of a warrant for illegal guns.
*Did a pissed off national of some country the United States has bombed or has threatened to bomb the hell out of do it?
*Did a pissed off Muslim from some other country pissed off at US Imperial Oppression and what they see as the US war on Islam who has become a radical jihadist do it?
*Did a pissed off individual of whatever country pissed off at US Imperial Oppression who got manipulated by the FBI into planting the bombs - and got away from his handlers - do it?
*Did an agent of a foreign government trying to get benefits from the United States government do it? (Think especially North Korea and Israel.)
Well, if I think of any more, I'll add them.  Uploading fast.  More analysis by me to follow - and probably lots of conspiracy theories by others on the World Wacky Internets.

Update 4/20/13: I was right, of course. According to Washington Post (which sometimes gets it right): "Michael Newcity, a Duke University Slavic and Eastern European studies professor...[said that] the Chechen heritage of suspects Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev and Tamerlan Tsarnaev may matter mostly because of their religion and not their birthplace... a more likely motivation was generalized anger over U.S. actions and attitudes towards Islam."  

Not to mention the older brother had been questioned (probably disrespectfully) by the FBI branch of the surveillance state in 2009, couldn't find a job for last year or so because of statist destruction of the economy and was at some point a "house husband", and - of course - he was just a macho guy who had to prove his manhood (by initiating force for his religion, when boxing just didn't do it for him any more). And his dumb little brother went along with it and will spend the rest of his life in prison for a dastardly act that does no one any good except politicians and government contractors out to increase their power and politics.  Don't you get it guys? Doing violence is doing the job of the government. Cut it out!

 

Not to mention, it still may turn out they were encouraged by FBI undercover agents who will never be identified or found...Their MaMa sure thinks so.

Amazing stuff....

A nice counter to the world being in trouble!

The world is in trouble...just a snapshot...

God vs. Consciousness

I was trying to think of an image to illustrate a comment on the film "The Life of Pi". The one where the man says his story will help a writer find GOD. He tells his story of being a ship wreck survivor on a lifeboat with a tiger (who kills the hyena who ate the zebra and orangutan) as his companion - except an alternate story he tells investigators is that he was the tiger who killed the hyena (still sexy Gerard Depardieu as the fat greedy cook) who ate the sailor and killed his objecting mother. At the end he makes it clear that one can choose the preferred version of the story, as did the writer and the investigators (both preferred the tiger story). And he says “and so it goes with God.” Meaning you can choose your God - or create your own reality - or something. 

Director Ang Lee said in a 2012 interview: "I wanted to use water because the film is talking about faith, and it contains fish, life and every emotion for Pi. And air is God, heaven and something spiritual and death. That's how I see it. I believe the thing we call faith or God is our emotional attachment to the unknown. I'm Chinese; I believe in the Taoist Buddha. We don't talk about a deity, which is very much like this book; we're not talking about religion but God in the abstract sense, something to overpower you."

I hate to be an old fuddy duddy Student of Consciousness but: GOD (or even 1000 Gods) is/are JUST A WALL between you and UNIVERSAL CONSCIOUSNESS - or spirit or creative force or life force or whichever word you think best explains the organizing principle of memory-imagination-will that through trial and error experimentation spins time-space-energy-matter into into existence, creates stars and planets, and self-evolves living, ever more conscious beings who populate the planets. And does so until their star explodes or an asteroid hits the planet or, if the beings' consciousness does not evolve fast enough, they die off from destroying their habitat and/or themselves.

Now I don't want to make CONSCIOUSNESS a new "God" - a means by which power-monger apparatchiks co-opt the natural spiritual impulses of humans to connect with the universal consciousness of which we are manifestations. I don't want to CREATE a GOD who GIVES ORDERS we must FOLLOW - like pretty much all the existing ones. 

I just want people to TEAR DOWN THAT WALL... Tear down the APARTHEID SEPARATION BARRIER between life and joy and hope (and survival) and our own still sadly wandering souls, trying to figure out what the heck that movie "Life of Pi" was all about and what it had to do with that brick wall - I mean "God".  

Just to be clear: God is a Tyrannical Brick Wall of Fear/Ignorance/Superstition/Manipulation Separating Humans from Searching for the Truth of the Nature and Purpose of Reality. 

Or a concrete wall or a stone wall, but a wall you cannot see through or see over. 

Even the Gandhi man who emphasized that because we all search for truth and see various aspects and visions of truth we should not use violence in conflicts over truth - even the Gandhi man bandied around the word God so much it muddied his message. John Lennon, also a Libra, had it a bit more right when he sung: "god is a concept by which we measure our pain."  If we keep hitting our heads against the brick wall of god, yes we will have lots of pain to measure!!

The cinematography was fantastic and deserved the Academy Award - but as with the rest of human reality on March 28, 2013, the technology was more advanced than the spirituality.

Dang, I wish Universal Consciousness would ZAP me so I'd focus on getting that message out instead of correcting every stupid "pov" edit that annoys me on a certain wiki that shall remain nameless.  But then CHOICE was the more obvious message of the movie.  To keep my head hidden in the trillions of  errant edits of sand of a certain web site or jump the wiki-god wall and get on with the spiritual (and thus nonviolent decentralist political) revolution.  Decisions, decisions.

Rand Paul filibuster - last gasp of civil liberties?!?

It's been 60 odd hours since quasi-libertarian Senator Rand Paul ended his filibuster in the United States to protest Obama's refusal to say "No I Won't Use Drones to Kill Americans on US Soil Without Due Process." Obama's Attorney General did finally write back and say "No, we won't use drones against Americans on US soil." (The heck with all them thousands of foreigners we have and will continue to murder via drone.) DO WE HAVE LIBERTY YET? Ha. Ha. 

One could drive a caterpillar bulldozer through the "caveat": as long as they aren't about to do imminent attacks on... anyone... (i.e., if they are alleged to have a gun on the premises at the time, one that could so easily be planted by police or feds, well that drone strike was hunky dory). 

Among the few Republican Senators (and one Democrat) supporting Paul was Ted Cruz, who I have identified as possibly our Future Fuhrer. In one of my rare tweets after he spoke I wrote: "Ted Cruz insulted Chuck Hagel like a Hawk warmonger; would Cruz defend our rights if a GOP warmonger was Prez?"

Anyway, the filibuster briefly got the attention of a lot of sleeping Americans, and that's the good news. But after that it's back to watching network cop/counter-terrorism shows or Spartacus on Starz. Both types of shows give you the message that whether you are a cop/fed or a rebel, bloddy and thoughtless killing is the only modus operandi for achieving you ends. 

I've been seriously considering PRAYING - (no, not to the Pope) - if that's what it takes to get me out of my own obese and lazy funk in order to help lead the NONVIOLENT decentralist revolution. 

Or I can just repeat this mantra a couple dozen times a day: "Oh, universal consciousness, let me connect with your evolution to enlightenment and drop all the barbed wire barriers to my physical, emotional and intellectual enlightenment so I can experience and express pure love and creativity and create a world based on the highest chakra principles and the golden rule..." 

Hmmm, no wonder they just chant "OOOOOOOMMMMM".

Did feminists kidnap Jesus' body??

Second of two parts on spiritual reflections on patriarchal religion versus the reality of conscious as the nature and meaning of reality...

Last night watched part of a history channel show about Jesus' 40 days on earth after he rose from the dead. (Geez, forgot all about that part.)  Saw the images of the women going to Jesus tomb and finding his body gone. Heard various speculations about what happened. Brief mentions of the Magdalene Gospels found in the 1800s revived fleeting memories of her possibly being his chosen successor. Mention of Jesus first appearing to Mary Magdalene and then to others who didn't recognize him, blah blah blah... Got bored and changed the channel to watch an NCIS repeat out of the corner of my eye while I edited a certain favorite wiki.

Today, watching CNN glorify all things Catholic Christian, hearing talk about "when will women be allowed to be priests" - wondering When Will There Be A Woman Pope!! - the mind wandered into a thought:

What if Mary Magdalene and Mother Mary and the other women stole Jesus' body to start the rumor of his rising from the dead, with Mary Magdalene being the first witness??  Maybe no one else recognized him because he was a hired actor? Maybe it was all a feminist plot to make the more feminist teachings of Jesus, influenced by that arch-feminist Mary M., the ruling and reforming movement of Patriarchal Judaism?  (Obviously, the plot failed and the patriarch's coopted the movement.)

When I get time I'll research who else has uncovered the plot. It's so obvious, I can't be the first! Will report at some point... Wee, thanks Mr. Pope for inspiring that great insight!!

Pope Retires to Smoke Dope??

I confess, when I heard the Pope was retiring I WAS SHOCKED!!!  Even though it has been almost 49 years since I stopped being a Catholic at the age of 16 in 1964. (Read details here.) And then today I couldn't turn the channel and just let CNN keep showing the Pope retiring, speechifying, walking down the hall, getting into the chopper, etc.

I hope he does smoke some good dope for whatever ails him - and even better dope to experience a dissassociation from the foolish emotions and thoughts of this world so he can experience some Pure Consciousness!!

How can one not think of the priest in a pretty robe speaking a pretty foreign language in a sing songy voice without smiling a bit.  (Especially when one forgets how bored out of ones gourd one was during mass.) Not having gone to Catholic school and barely remembering the horrors of Sunday school (or was it Thursday Catechism study with the nuns at the Catholic school?), I'm not as damaged by the self-denying self-destructiveness of the religion, especially for females. Except as it was the common code of the female when I was growing up in the 1950s and early 1960s, reinforced to some extent by a not very observant family. 

Two of my father's sisters were nuns and there were expectations that smarty pants Carol would follow in their footsteps, but I disappointed. Thank Mary Magdalene! One of the nuns left the order in the 70s and married a run-away priest!

My father was a firm atheist all his life until senility set in in his late 70s.  After that it was back to the church and the blessings of Popery, followed by a fine Priestified burial of the ashes. I admit, I was worried about my own Senility by my reaction to the pope's retirement.  I better get some good MJ or something - or meditate - to make sure my senile urges towards universal consciousness don't get hijacked by some patriarchal religion. YUUUKY!!!!