B, 6B, 8B, 3H
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
What if a government agency were to stage an alien invasion using aviation technology that has been kept under wraps? Could there be any other better mind control?
A staged "alien invasion" done during a pivotal crisis would gain absolute control. If one considers that all forms of totalitarian-state control utilize the cultural narratives (for instance, Adolf Hitler used the Norse narrative and the moneyed Jew narrative) in order to gain power, this becomes an interesting topic to think on, if only because it begs one to think about the assumptions that one is standing on.
What do I mean by "assumptions that one is standing on"? Well, basically, "you don't know what you don't know". For instance, the issue of GMOs - especially as it pertains to food - only came to be public, discussed publicly, fairly recently. Yet the first genetically modified plant was done in 1983 while you were playing Pac Man on Atari. GMOs were in full development at that point; they only needed to be introduced into foods - or marketed.
Was there anything in the public news, culture, media, about GMOs at the time - or even into the 90's?
So what's going on while you're playing Call of Duty on your desktop with people on the other end of the globe?
What is one narrative today which we have unconsciously imbibed over the decades, to which we are vulnerable? And we are extremely vulnerable to manipulation, more so than any other generation. That's a fact. Just look around you to figure that out. We know that the earth rotates around the sun, yet we are more vulnerable to manipulation than any mule-kicked medieval peasant drooling at the dinner table.
It is scientifically proven that television and computer viewing renders the mind into a passive state. Of course, that in and of itself is neither good nor bad. It could be either good or bad. But, you know, by habit our minds are probably like sieves, or like play-dough.
Why is it that a person can say that he believes in "extra terrestrials", or is open to the possibility, and he is regarded as having an open mind, but if you entertain out loud the speculation that a government - or some higher ups - could stage an alien invasion using secret technology, utilizing the cultural narratives (like "Ancient Aliens"), during a period of crisis, thus gaining great mind control through shock, through trauma, through catharsis, that you would be in most cases immediately written off as a kook?
What are you standing on? Whence came it?
Why am I writing this? Well, because I like thinking about it; not so much for its content, but for shaking up routine rote assumptions.
Also, because I want to see if I "lose" any "followers". Losing those people who just have too much common sense.
Just picture it for a minute, just for its own sake: how would you react (aside from trying not to pee yourself), what would you feel, what would be going through your mind, if after a series of devastating events, or a series of bad events happening very close to each other, you were to see flying discs, speeding through the air, stopping on a dime in mid-air, emitting riot-control sound vibrations, paralyzing people and other such things. You were seeing this with your very own eyes.
How malleable are you at that point?
Anyways, I've had some beers. Anyways, what if people in the not-too-distant past were already devising such schemes as staging an alien invasion? Like the Soviets. Maybe they really did subject human beings to genetic experimentation to make them look like aliens according to Orson Welles' famous broadcast and sent them over to the U.S. to render the public...er, malleable, and the scheme ended up failing because they crashed and were taken to Area 51, and what we know of as the Roswell folk narrative is in a sense kind of true, only that it is the tail end of a fractured and failed narrative that was attempted on the American public.
Anyways, I don't really care. I just find so much "intellectual" talk far more ridiculous than the above talk. Like when people talk about "capitalism vs. socialism". LOL. It's especially funny when they take up these terms at the very outset of a discussion on the economy. LOL.
A staged "alien invasion" done during a pivotal crisis would gain absolute control. If one considers that all forms of totalitarian-state control utilize the cultural narratives (for instance, Adolf Hitler used the Norse narrative and the moneyed Jew narrative) in order to gain power, this becomes an interesting topic to think on, if only because it begs one to think about the assumptions that one is standing on.
What do I mean by "assumptions that one is standing on"? Well, basically, "you don't know what you don't know". For instance, the issue of GMOs - especially as it pertains to food - only came to be public, discussed publicly, fairly recently. Yet the first genetically modified plant was done in 1983 while you were playing Pac Man on Atari. GMOs were in full development at that point; they only needed to be introduced into foods - or marketed.
Was there anything in the public news, culture, media, about GMOs at the time - or even into the 90's?
So what's going on while you're playing Call of Duty on your desktop with people on the other end of the globe?
What is one narrative today which we have unconsciously imbibed over the decades, to which we are vulnerable? And we are extremely vulnerable to manipulation, more so than any other generation. That's a fact. Just look around you to figure that out. We know that the earth rotates around the sun, yet we are more vulnerable to manipulation than any mule-kicked medieval peasant drooling at the dinner table.
It is scientifically proven that television and computer viewing renders the mind into a passive state. Of course, that in and of itself is neither good nor bad. It could be either good or bad. But, you know, by habit our minds are probably like sieves, or like play-dough.
Why is it that a person can say that he believes in "extra terrestrials", or is open to the possibility, and he is regarded as having an open mind, but if you entertain out loud the speculation that a government - or some higher ups - could stage an alien invasion using secret technology, utilizing the cultural narratives (like "Ancient Aliens"), during a period of crisis, thus gaining great mind control through shock, through trauma, through catharsis, that you would be in most cases immediately written off as a kook?
What are you standing on? Whence came it?
Why am I writing this? Well, because I like thinking about it; not so much for its content, but for shaking up routine rote assumptions.
Also, because I want to see if I "lose" any "followers". Losing those people who just have too much common sense.
Just picture it for a minute, just for its own sake: how would you react (aside from trying not to pee yourself), what would you feel, what would be going through your mind, if after a series of devastating events, or a series of bad events happening very close to each other, you were to see flying discs, speeding through the air, stopping on a dime in mid-air, emitting riot-control sound vibrations, paralyzing people and other such things. You were seeing this with your very own eyes.
How malleable are you at that point?
Anyways, I've had some beers. Anyways, what if people in the not-too-distant past were already devising such schemes as staging an alien invasion? Like the Soviets. Maybe they really did subject human beings to genetic experimentation to make them look like aliens according to Orson Welles' famous broadcast and sent them over to the U.S. to render the public...er, malleable, and the scheme ended up failing because they crashed and were taken to Area 51, and what we know of as the Roswell folk narrative is in a sense kind of true, only that it is the tail end of a fractured and failed narrative that was attempted on the American public.
Anyways, I don't really care. I just find so much "intellectual" talk far more ridiculous than the above talk. Like when people talk about "capitalism vs. socialism". LOL. It's especially funny when they take up these terms at the very outset of a discussion on the economy. LOL.
Saturday, October 5, 2013
A comment I wrote
in response to a post by Joseph Pearce at St. Austin Review (The Ink Desk):
Somewhat unrelated: while I believe we need economists, absolutely need economists, I do not believe that seeing the problems and solutions of the global economy requires one to be an economist. In fact, the notion of having to refer to experts on the economy when talking about the problems and solutions of the economy is a very, very, very recent aberration. The debt slavery of today is so vastly woven that schools exist to convince us that the root cause of the problem is so absolute, so real, so untouchable, so the opposite of a lie, that we need to make ourselves as complex - and ever more complex - as the webs that have been spun.
As long as a government borrows its country's money into existence as an interest-bearing debt, that government is not answerable to its people but only to those from whom it borrows.
Government is too big, yes - but government is also not exercising the sovereign power that is proper to it. That's the paradox of why government is too big.
The power and constitutional right of government to issue its own money, debt free, to the good produced, for the common good, and transparently controlling its quantity, is a power that makes a government vulnerable (and answerable) to its people.
But the government only answers to its financiers - the banks from whom it borrows at compounding interest.
As long as a government is allowed to borrow, it will be as big and ruthless as those that finance it.
You want smaller government, then let's start talking about outlawing government from borrowing and outlawing fractional reserve lending (which is really only counterfeiting); and let's talk about having the government issue its own currency, debt free, to the good produced, for the common good.
Somewhat unrelated: while I believe we need economists, absolutely need economists, I do not believe that seeing the problems and solutions of the global economy requires one to be an economist. In fact, the notion of having to refer to experts on the economy when talking about the problems and solutions of the economy is a very, very, very recent aberration. The debt slavery of today is so vastly woven that schools exist to convince us that the root cause of the problem is so absolute, so real, so untouchable, so the opposite of a lie, that we need to make ourselves as complex - and ever more complex - as the webs that have been spun.
Wednesday, October 2, 2013
Pope Francis like Gandalf
Last night I read that latest interview of Pope Francis, which is really more like a dialogue. Before reading this interview/dialogue I always had a mild aversion to the word "dialogue". Not anymore.
Pope Francis is like Gandalf - Gandalf the Grey. I found myself inclining my ear to his words, just listening, and listening, and listening. Inclining the ear. And I thought: how many of us actually listen? For I realized how little I myself actually listen.
It's like people are completely occupied with the echoes reverberating in their own echo chambers.
He is like Gandalf:
Like Gandalf, Pope Francis sees the approaching far horizon, sees the vistas, working to bring their denouement in the present - working as one who knows his task and who lives so well on the ground running, on his feet, initiating historical processes.
Like Gandalf, he speaks with a forthrightness and plainness that is met with the fuzzy thinking of other people who respond only to reveal the fact that they did not really listen.
And, like Gandalf, in response to someone's quizzical questioning of his wisdom, he surprises you with a keen insistence on the subtlety of what he said, showing his absolute faith in the reality of that which he speaks of. Which can come across to various ears as both alternately jarring and foolish, which is of course people only seeing themselves and the shallowness and fickleness of their faith and belief. Which they then project onto him.
Like Gandalf, he finds himself in this position: "Sometimes discernment instead urges us to do precisely what you had at first thought you would do later. And that is what has happened to me in recent months."
Like Gandalf, he is derided and slandered for being foolishly occupied with the little people, the Hobbits, for being an opportunist, for being an ambitious usurper, for being a deserter, for going behind people's backs, for being a storm-bringer, for his weather-stained homely grey raiment (by the superior and condemning Saruman, who dresses with far greater decorum, who also mocks and derides Radagast - somewhat of a "Francis" figure amongst the Istari).
He is like Gandalf.
Faramir is, as far as Men go, the epitome of discernment. Pope Francis is like Faramir.
Pope Francis is like Gandalf - Gandalf the Grey. I found myself inclining my ear to his words, just listening, and listening, and listening. Inclining the ear. And I thought: how many of us actually listen? For I realized how little I myself actually listen.
It's like people are completely occupied with the echoes reverberating in their own echo chambers.
He is like Gandalf:
"I was always struck by a saying that describes the vision of Ignatius: non coerceri a maximo, sed contineri a minimo divinum est (“not to be limited by the greatest and yet to be contained in the tiniest—this is the divine”). I thought a lot about this phrase in connection with the issue of different roles in the government of the church, about becoming the superior of somebody else: it is important not to be restricted by a larger space, and it is important to be able to stay in restricted spaces. This virtue of the large and small is magnanimity. Thanks to magnanimity, we can always look at the horizon from the position where we are. That means being able to do the little things of every day with a big heart open to God and to others. That means being able to appreciate the small things inside large horizons, those of the kingdom of God."
"Only in narrative form do you discern, not in a philosophical or theological explanation, which allows you rather to discuss."
"The mystical dimension of discernment never defines its edges and does not complete the thought. The Jesuit must be a person whose thought is incomplete, in the sense of open-ended thinking."
“No, the Jesuit always thinks, again and again, looking at the horizon toward which he must go, with Christ at the center. This is his real strength. And that pushes the Society to be searching, creative and generous."
“God manifests himself in historical revelation, in history. Time initiates processes, and space crystallizes them. God is in history, in the processes."
“We must not focus on occupying the spaces where power is exercised, but rather on starting long-run historical processes. We must initiate processes rather than occupy spaces. God manifests himself in time and is present in the processes of history. This gives priority to actions that give birth to new historical dynamics. And it requires patience, waiting."
"You cannot bring home the frontier, but you have to live on the border and be audacious."
--Lines taken from Pope Francis' interview in America Magazine
Like Gandalf, Pope Francis sees the approaching far horizon, sees the vistas, working to bring their denouement in the present - working as one who knows his task and who lives so well on the ground running, on his feet, initiating historical processes.
Like Gandalf, he speaks with a forthrightness and plainness that is met with the fuzzy thinking of other people who respond only to reveal the fact that they did not really listen.
And, like Gandalf, in response to someone's quizzical questioning of his wisdom, he surprises you with a keen insistence on the subtlety of what he said, showing his absolute faith in the reality of that which he speaks of. Which can come across to various ears as both alternately jarring and foolish, which is of course people only seeing themselves and the shallowness and fickleness of their faith and belief. Which they then project onto him.
Like Gandalf, he finds himself in this position: "Sometimes discernment instead urges us to do precisely what you had at first thought you would do later. And that is what has happened to me in recent months."
Like Gandalf, he is derided and slandered for being foolishly occupied with the little people, the Hobbits, for being an opportunist, for being an ambitious usurper, for being a deserter, for going behind people's backs, for being a storm-bringer, for his weather-stained homely grey raiment (by the superior and condemning Saruman, who dresses with far greater decorum, who also mocks and derides Radagast - somewhat of a "Francis" figure amongst the Istari).
He is like Gandalf.
 |
| But this is a picture of Denethor looking into the palantir |
"You have an air too, sir, that reminds me of, of—well, Gandalf, of wizards." —Sam to Faramir
Faramir is, as far as Men go, the epitome of discernment. Pope Francis is like Faramir.
"Maybe Sam sensed the same character traits like pity, understanding, and wisdom of heart in both Gandalf and Faramir." --One going by the moniker "Thorin Oakenshield" in a Tolkien forum
Tuesday, October 1, 2013
Quote
"HEAR YE! I'm tired of orthodox Catholics bitchin' about Pope Francis. I'm sure the Devil loves hearing the self-righteous wailing of Catholics who think that they know the faith better than the Vicar of Christ.
Francis isn't interested in America's culture war. . .he has an international Church to run. The Church in the US is NOT the center of the Catholic universe.
BOTTOM-LINE: He's the Pope, or he isn't. Choose."
--Fr. Philip Powell at Domine, da mihi hanc aquam!
(Emphasis mine)
Monday, September 30, 2013
Max Monday
I came across this painting by Max Beckmann some time ago online,
and there was no title with it. I assumed it was Christ expelling the demons from Mary Magdalene.
I came across the title recently on a site. It is Christ in Limbo.
Funny how an image can do that - receive multiple interpretations. Though really, it better explains the crown of thorns that Christ is wearing.
Anyways, you know what I like to think about?
I like to think about how this painting,
is conducive to a church setting, or to a sacred space, and more conducive to a sacred space than this painting:
Decadent mannerism. Bronzino's Christ in Limbo in a sacred setting (in any setting for that matter) would be spiritually erosive, but not Beckmann's.
Because Bronzino's is absolutely vacuous it is detrimental to any sort of contemplation on the subject depicted, and thus a kind of blockage, a kind of lie, is set up nice and fashionable-like. Well, fashionable for its time, which is precisely the problem. That's all the painting is. Fashionable for its time, and thus even for its time it was erosive and vacuous.
Beckmann's is crackling with intensity - a coarse intensity, yes - but, to put it shortly, it reveals an invisible reality. He is not doing a "take" on the subject; rather the subject as a painted image has become a channel for the real. As such, the subject becomes real on a visceral level.
Oh and if you're thinking I'm saying this because of the nude on the right side of Bronzino's image, you don't get what I'm saying.
But it is good to think about, isn't it? The truth that this painting by Max Beckmann,
is very much conducive to a sacred space, to a church, and far more conducive than this painting:
and there was no title with it. I assumed it was Christ expelling the demons from Mary Magdalene.
I came across the title recently on a site. It is Christ in Limbo.
Funny how an image can do that - receive multiple interpretations. Though really, it better explains the crown of thorns that Christ is wearing.
Anyways, you know what I like to think about?
I like to think about how this painting,
is conducive to a church setting, or to a sacred space, and more conducive to a sacred space than this painting:
Decadent mannerism. Bronzino's Christ in Limbo in a sacred setting (in any setting for that matter) would be spiritually erosive, but not Beckmann's.
Because Bronzino's is absolutely vacuous it is detrimental to any sort of contemplation on the subject depicted, and thus a kind of blockage, a kind of lie, is set up nice and fashionable-like. Well, fashionable for its time, which is precisely the problem. That's all the painting is. Fashionable for its time, and thus even for its time it was erosive and vacuous.
Beckmann's is crackling with intensity - a coarse intensity, yes - but, to put it shortly, it reveals an invisible reality. He is not doing a "take" on the subject; rather the subject as a painted image has become a channel for the real. As such, the subject becomes real on a visceral level.
Oh and if you're thinking I'm saying this because of the nude on the right side of Bronzino's image, you don't get what I'm saying.
But it is good to think about, isn't it? The truth that this painting by Max Beckmann,
is very much conducive to a sacred space, to a church, and far more conducive than this painting:
Saturday, September 28, 2013
When autumn appears, I get a subtle yet almost overwhelming desire to read The Lord of the Rings.
Every Fall without fail. I'm certain it has to do with Frodo leaving the Shire at the same time. Also, coinciding with that is a particular Fall feeling I've often had, as when considering a tree with a quarter area of its foliage going deep yellow while the rest is yet green; and then later while all the leaves have turned deep yellow that quarter area from before is gapingly bereft, showing sky: a feeling of urgency. It is a feeling in contradistinction to the one of "mellow fruitfulness" that one normally associates with autumn. The animals who store food feel this urgency much more than modern man.
I've read the book enough times to have stopped counting the times. And once I read the entire "trilogy" out loud.
Yet here is Fall and the desire comes upon me again.
Every Fall without fail. I'm certain it has to do with Frodo leaving the Shire at the same time. Also, coinciding with that is a particular Fall feeling I've often had, as when considering a tree with a quarter area of its foliage going deep yellow while the rest is yet green; and then later while all the leaves have turned deep yellow that quarter area from before is gapingly bereft, showing sky: a feeling of urgency. It is a feeling in contradistinction to the one of "mellow fruitfulness" that one normally associates with autumn. The animals who store food feel this urgency much more than modern man.
I've read the book enough times to have stopped counting the times. And once I read the entire "trilogy" out loud.
Yet here is Fall and the desire comes upon me again.
Friday, September 27, 2013
Jesus is bigger and deeper than our knowledge of the Church.
Knowledge of the Church flows from Him. To have knowledge of the Church is to share in Jesus' knowledge of His Church.
In other words, the founder Christ knowing His Church is from where our knowledge of the Church springs.
Our knowing comes from His knowing. As such, it is an immense gift, a part of His loving us.
In other words, our knowledge of the Church is not static, not "the transmission of a disjointed multitude of doctrines to be imposed insistently", because it shares in the eternal and relational knowing that Christ has of His own bride.
If none of this is so, well then, hey, good luck with your new-found gnosticism.
Jesus is smaller than our exaggerated projections on man.
Jesus is the weakest and the most vulnerable, bypassing and escaping every single one of our hindrances as Charity itself.
As such, man is a wondrous being - never a quantifiable product to be imbedded in a doctrinal institution we call the Church.
The power of the Church is shown in that the Church can go out of herself and make the proposal of Christ to man. Man comes into the Church as one coming into his real family, his Mother.
Knowledge of the Church flows from Him. To have knowledge of the Church is to share in Jesus' knowledge of His Church.
In other words, the founder Christ knowing His Church is from where our knowledge of the Church springs.
Our knowing comes from His knowing. As such, it is an immense gift, a part of His loving us.
In other words, our knowledge of the Church is not static, not "the transmission of a disjointed multitude of doctrines to be imposed insistently", because it shares in the eternal and relational knowing that Christ has of His own bride.
If none of this is so, well then, hey, good luck with your new-found gnosticism.
Jesus is smaller than our exaggerated projections on man.
Jesus is the weakest and the most vulnerable, bypassing and escaping every single one of our hindrances as Charity itself.
As such, man is a wondrous being - never a quantifiable product to be imbedded in a doctrinal institution we call the Church.
The power of the Church is shown in that the Church can go out of herself and make the proposal of Christ to man. Man comes into the Church as one coming into his real family, his Mother.
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