Off The Wall, Or Up Against It

We fuck up everything. Relationships. Politics. Sport. Business. Religion. The Environment. Every damn thing we do. We have fucked it up somehow. Because Greed and Jealousy and Intolerance are actively encouraged by very influential people, sometimes by force, other times by trickery, lies & deceit.  We really are despicable creatures. And some of you will spout about Art and Love and Kindness and the Beauty of blah blah blah, but none of that will stop what's going to happen. The sum total of all our marvelous achievements as dominant species will not stop the coming apocalypse, which is our most disastrous achievement: The Destruction of our own habitat, without which we cannot live. The collapse of civilization and the death of billions of people, in mostly unpleasant ways. Look at what we've done. We ought to be ashamed of ourselves. We're such selfish creatures, and spiteful and inconsiderate. Greedy. We can't just live with Nature, we have to 'tame' it...

Think of the planet as a big bus, being driven by the financial and political bosses. Sometimes they fight over who gets to drive, but mainly there are a few who take the wheel while others try to tell them where to go. Trump drove for a while and Putin has been getting lots of time at the wheel lately.  The only people on the bus are the people who can support those who drive in one way or another. Other drivers, or other navigators and the support system that keeps the bus going and the drivers driving. We are not on the bus. Us ordinary people? We're the squashed bugs on the windshield, the roadkill left behind. Messy, but unimportant in this context.

Last night I was reading a novel by Australian Peter Temple, called Identity Theory.  It's the kind of dialogue intensive narrative that can make it feel so immediate. I came upon this passage: "And then came Angola , sad , ravaged Angola , cursed with oil . At least 300,000 people — many of them civilians — have died in the civil war since Holden Roberto of the FNLA first took the CIA’s coin in 1962 . Together , Holden and the agency held a small war and the whole world came : the US , South Africa , China , the Soviet Union , Cuba . South Africa was invited in by the US and it came with alacrity . In August 1981 , given the nod by a Reagan Administration foaming at the mouth over the Cuban presence in the country , it invaded southern Angola . The South African force of 11,000 men , supported by tanks and aircraft , laid waste to Cunene province . Some 80,000 Angolans fled their homes . How many died is unknown . The South African army settled down for a long and murderous s...

And we see what you've done to it. We see what you're doing to us. We know who you are now. You cannot hide. You may think you are safe in your estates, in your mansions, on your private islands, on your gigantic yachts. But you are not safe there anymore. We see how you've twisted the truth. Repackaged lies as fact and sold them like you do your TV's. Your breakfast cereals. Your coffee. Your 'services', which are really all provided by people you would cheat out of their day's wages if you thought you could get away with it. In fact, you have been getting away with it. Getting away with telling us 'trickle down works' and 'there's not enough money for healthcare for all' and 'those poor people over there are the reason you are poor.' No, YOU are the reason we are poor. You are the reason we are sick. You are the reason we are uneducated. You are the reason we're overworked. You are the reason we're underpaid. You are the...

Here's the thing. People are not being silenced when they say something that is considered to be Politically Incorrect.  The news stories about their situation almost always print what it is they said. What they said can be found in forums and news sites all over, even if not on the original platform they said it. It's still out there. They are being punished, perhaps, for what they said, but this is a social thing, social ostracization for their 'wrong' beliefs or politics or speechifying. Whether they should be punished or not is a separate issue, because if you are protesting 'free speech', then no one has taken their right to speak away. The government is not trying to silence them, and that is what free speech is about. Now. If you're arguing that 'monopolistic businesses' shouldn't be limiting speech, I would first question whether the business is truly monopolistic, Facebook, Google, and television producers and cable companies are not (be...

Was thinking about plane travel. Long plane travel, when you're stuck in an airplane full of people, perhaps in a middle seat, for like 20+ hours. For me, this is horrendous. The noise, the crowd, the limited space for movement… it is just this side of physical torture. In order to survive that and not have panic attacks, I have to shut down large parts of my brain. I have to find the least uncomfortable position.  Because there is no comfortable position. None.  All positions are uncomfortable. The entire ordeal from walking into the airport to walking out at the destination is one long uncomfortable position.   So I shut down major portions of my consciousness. Develop tunnel vision. Lock away all feelings that aren't physical, and do my best to dampen those as well. That's the least uncomfortable position, soul-wise. And then I work to find the least uncomfortable physical position as well.   I do not think about how much I want to get out of that plane....

  Why do we have laws?  Because people would do all sorts of bad stuff to each other if we didn't. If people didn't do bad stuff to each other, we wouldn't need laws. Why don't corporations just send out people with guns to hold you up in the streets and take your money? Because there are laws against that. If there were NOT laws against it, corporations would do it. This has been their excuse for every environmental disaster, every financial scandal and every consumer safety scandal since the dawn of business.   I can explain this step by step if necessary. Corporations exist to make a profit for the owners of the corporations. Ergo, the owners of the corporations want to maximize their profits.   The corporations hire people who can help them maximize their profits.   They hire the best people they can, including lawyers and accountants who can look at legal ways to maximize their profits.   The lawyers and accountants do a fantastic...