The headline in Murdoch's Australian was perfectly marvellous - 'Israel slur fear forces boycott'. We thank that sub-editor for a salutary lesson in loaded writing. Shall I translate it? 'Due to our shock and horror at the possible unwarranted denigration of Israel we have no choice but to stay away [from the upcoming UN sponsored anti-racism conference in Geneva]'.
The headline is emphatically not - 'Australia - racism is bad unless it's Israel's' or 'Australia supports world's #1 apartheid state' or 'Israel cracks whip, we jump'. And God forbid - 'Australia sucks Israel's cock', with the sub-head - 'And keeps fingers crossed they leave ten dollars on the dresser on the way out'. Dreadful! What kind of sick freak would write a headline like that?!
I have no idea what this UN backed anti-racism conference is meant to achieve precisely. But I don't really care. For mine, it's a thing worth having just to see who boycotts it. Anyone who signs up for this boycott is declaring that they are a cheap whore who've utterly dispensed with dignity and are happy to take it up the arse, or swallow, or 'anything you like, Israel honey.'
If this country had some pretence at dignity, we'd attend the conference and abstain from whatever vote it is. The whole thing is symbolic after all. But we ain't even going to go through the motions. In whore terms, we've dispensed with wearing regular clothes when we go out in public. Fuck it, we're so hell-bent we'll not only tramp up and down Main Street in lingerie and high-heels, we even have 'WHORE' tattooed on our forehead.
Who's joining the tattooed whore gang? Oh look, the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Italy, and Poland all happy to publicly declare that they're whores and they're proud. Apparently Denmark, the Czech Republic, and Sweden got a tattoo but hid it under their panty lines. Hee hee, a little shy it seems. And where's the UK? Where's France? Surely they're not shy are they? C'mon Gordon Brown-Note! C'mon Nicolas Sukkosily! Declare your whoredom! You're big boys now, just stand up and say it.
---
And where do we go from here? Our flagrancy at kowtowing to Israel is matched only by the flagrancy of their slaughter in Palestine. The most sickening massacre of civilians anyone has seen for decades and we in Oz have no words of condemnation. Instead we defend the indefensible. And the US and Canada is worse. No one is even pretending any more. A slaughter rate of 100 women and children for every Israeli soldier. Not forgetting that half the Israelis were shot by their own troops. Hmm... let's make that 200 to 1. Amongst all this blood we merely channel Debbie from Dallas, 'Ooh Mr Greenfeld, what a big cock you have!'
It seems we're in the run up to an exponential curve here. It's a single curve charting two things. One is of Israel's flagrant racist slaughter-fest and the other is our ever more transparent obsequiousness to that shitty little country. As this dual curve climbs into a near vertical orgasm of blood and degradation, something has to give. There's no future in it.
Certainly no future that makes sense. Unless of course the purpose of the exercise is Israel's own destruction, with the non-pedophocracy majority of the world giving a sotto voce cheer. It will necessarily be muted because, as ever, the reality will be one thing and its depiction in the media and the history books will be another. In this imagined reality, Israel will have been a tiny spark of hope for a hard done by people who valiantly went down fighting against a world of racists that hated them for no reason. Don't think they can't convince us of their innocence and our villainy. Honestly, are there any German nationals that don't view themselves as the greatest mass murderers in the history of the world? Bolsheviks or no? There probably are, but me, I never met one.
Regardless of what we think now, I reckon our lot in the future is to view ourselves with the same self-loathing that the Germans currently have. Honestly, right now, right this minute, we are madly declaring that the most racist people in the world are the greatest victims of racism. But that ain't nothing! The two global religions of this world, Christianity and Islam, somehow imagine that they're not Jewish sects. Ha ha ha, madness! Truthfully, there is no end to our ability to believe what we are told.
But we're getting ahead of ourselves. First comes Israel's inevitable destruction. The country created out of whole cloth by a handful of banking families, (who've curiously chosen not to live there themselves) will be gone. And we'll all sigh in relief. 'Surely this is the beginning of the end to all that shit!' we'll say. As much as I hate to be a party-pooper, I have it pegged as nothing more that the end of the beginning.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Australia sucks Israel's cock
Labels:
australia,
gaza,
germany,
israel,
krudd,
racism,
rothschilds,
what's coming
Thursday, April 16, 2009
North Korea, Fiji, Thailand - The Absentometer™ Goes Berserk
North Korea - Villains! As proof of their murderousness, they have provocatively fired a long range 'missile'. The bloc-media sings a single song of righteous indignation. Three nights running now the TV has hosted a parade of Western leaders, commentators, academics, and think-tank types who have described in detail why we must strengthen and protract North Korea's misery, suffering, and starvation. The North Koreans bring it upon themselves, you see.
And what do the North Koreans have to say about this 'missile'? Not that we're interested of course, but it's some nonsense about 'launching a satellite'. Pah! What a crummy lie! The West laughs at such nonsense. A lie so easy to disprove! What idiots! Cut to President Obama saying that their talk of a satellite is a lie and demonstrably so. Cut to a NASA representative saying how the US tracks thousands of orbiting objects and doesn't miss a thing. Cut to satellite tracking expert sitting at his computer with the screen clearly demonstrating the non-existence of this satellite. Cut back to smarmy newsreader shaking his talking head at the pathetic nature of North Korean lying.
Wait a minute! What's the annoying beeping noise? Oh look, it's my patented Absentometer™ going berserk. Impossibly, it seems that none of the above happened. In a very busy discussion of the whole North Korean 'missile' caper, not a single person did the beyond-obvious thing and declare that there was no satellite. Go figure. For three nights running now, I've been yelling at the television, 'Is there a satellite or not?' and no one wants to answer the question. That it could be answered is beyond certainty. In terms of argument it's a no-brainer. If there was no satellite, they'd say so, loudly and repeatedly.
That the powers in the West have failed to address the single most obvious, lay-down misere argument-winner can mean only one thing - the Koreans did launch a satellite. We may not acknowledge this since being able to launch a satellite is no crime at all. We launch them all the time and no one bats an eyelid. In fact, when Australia launched its first we all celebrated and Australia Post printed a special commemorative stamp.
Bugger satellites and bugger every other reason given why we must hate North Korea. The true reason must not be uttered - North Korea does not have a privately owned money supply. Subsequently, annihilation is to be their lot. And we in the West, the un-ironic, 'freedom-defending' debt-peons of the banking families are to be the agents of their annihilation. Yeah well, three cheers for us.
---
Fiji - Villains! What have they done now? It seems that the Fijian military refused to obey the Fijian Court of Appeal's order that they hand over power. The military are fascists and racists. The military of course is entirely indigenous Melanesian. The Supreme Court is almost entirely Indian and expat whites. The military, as an expression of the Melanesian discontent, seem to have some mad objection to: the government, the judiciary, banking, business, and the media all being in the hands of ethnic Indians and non-Melanesians. Obvious racists! And as we all know, there's only one type of racism - that of the majority who object to a distinct minority who perpetually seems uninterested in inter-marrying, or otherwise having anything to do with the majority apart from taking their money.
And now Commodore Frank Bainimarama, the leader of Fiji's military, has gone one step too far. He's thrown out whomever it was that ran Fiji's Reserve Bank. Good God! He's really done it now hasn't he? The media, sure enough, interviews everyone with a tale to tell. Pay no attention to the fact that they're all non-Melanesian. Look, there's Sean Dorney, long-time (and curiously spotty) foreign correspondent, explaining how the complete absence of anyone protesting, or hitting the streets, or any other thing, is proof of the totality of the military's grip, and also of the climate of fear that they've instilled in the entire population. Of course, had people hit the streets and protested that would have been proof of the unpopularity of the military. Don't flip that coin! Sean Dorney has spoken.
But never mind the expats, what does Bainimarama have to say on the matter? Oh-oh, is that my Absentometer™ going nuts again? God, that's annoying. In amongst all of this, we didn't hear a single word from Bainimarama. Perhaps he has some crazy wooly-bully superstition that a camera will capture his soul? Or maybe he's shy? Or maybe we are? Not us! As if the media would be shy of hosting a discussion of the nature of Reserve Banking. The fact that they've never had one before, not ever, is, I don't know... a fluke or something. Ha ha ha ha, but seriously, I'll bet money that the reason Bainimarama isn't on the telly explaining his actions against the Reserve Bank is because he'd make far too much sense and might even have us wondering about our own Reserve. What do you think? Hmm... best we not go there.
Metaphorically, that is. Physically, we WILL go there. Now that Bainimarama has kicked out the bankers, I'll lay odds that Australian troops will be in Fiji sooner rather than later. I've no idea how this will be brought about, but some means of Bainimarama's forced ejection is a cold, hard certainty. I wonder if we could pull off a Fijian version of Alfredo Reinado? That worked a treat in East Timor. The script rolled out like clockwork with helpful, freedom-loving Australian troops hitting the ground to deliver to the Timorese people peace, love, and a clear understanding that the gas fields just offshore actually belonged to Australia. Australia! International good guys!
---
Thailand - Villains! Or heroes! Ayah, this is so confusing. Who's who, here? Two colour-coded revolutions. The first was clearly a George Soros style effort. It had yellow t-shirts, yellow flags, and free yellow pop concerts. Absurdly, the police and military were happy to let them occupy Bangkok airport. Don't they know there's a War!On!Terror! with airports as the front line? It seems that those nice yellow people broke their hearts (unlike those Burmese refugees whom they towed out to sea to starve to death). Sure enough the yellow people were media darlings.
Like all the other well-organised colour-coded revolutions, this was an expression of the people's will. They were sick and tired of Thaksin Shinawatra's party who wickedly kept winning elections and were otherwise popular with the poor majority of Thailand's population. God knows what was up with this so-called 'majority'. What's that? Universal healthcare? Perhaps they're commies?
And now there's another colour-coded revolution. Red this time! Did somebody say commies, just now? But where's the picnic atmosphere? Where are the pop concerts and free food? And why are they so angry? How keen they are to smash stuff up! Who's leading these people? They're doing a poor job. You'd almost wonder (yes, thank you Aangirfan) if the point of the exercise wasn't now to discredit the opposition and make the current unelected fellow look like a peace-making good guy. But who knows? If only we had some means of finding out what the majority of the people wanted.
Oh, oh, what's that pinging noise? It's that rotten Absentometer™ wondering where the democracy-loving West's calls for a fresh election are. This current leader is unelected. Why are we not insisting he set a timetable for elections? We do this all the time. In Madagascar just lately, when that new fellow (and boy does the West hate him!) declared that elections would be held within whatever timeframe it was we were outraged. Not good enough! It must be sooner! That's us, The West - Champions of Democracy! Except in Thailand. There, we withhold our demands for elections. And quite right too. Since the Thais kept getting it wrong best we just skip it. The only thing you need to remember is that we are the good guys. Huzzah! Huzzah! We are always right!
---
Never mind the Absentometer™ - it's a tricky beast to tune. And arguably you don't need it since it only functions as a means of confirmation anyway. Really, everything you need to know about any given foreign leader's status as villain or hero can be seen by how we in the debt-peon West variously congratulate or condemn them. If our bought-and-sold leaders clap their hands like a line of performing seals, you know that they're applauding a fellow who's every bit as owned as they are. The lackeys all congratulate each other. And whomever our leader/lackeys condemn and warrant as worthy of economic strangulation, old-style starvation, or out-and-out death-from-above destruction, must clearly be someone with more cojones and independence than they'll ever have.
I reckon it's as simple as that.
And what do the North Koreans have to say about this 'missile'? Not that we're interested of course, but it's some nonsense about 'launching a satellite'. Pah! What a crummy lie! The West laughs at such nonsense. A lie so easy to disprove! What idiots! Cut to President Obama saying that their talk of a satellite is a lie and demonstrably so. Cut to a NASA representative saying how the US tracks thousands of orbiting objects and doesn't miss a thing. Cut to satellite tracking expert sitting at his computer with the screen clearly demonstrating the non-existence of this satellite. Cut back to smarmy newsreader shaking his talking head at the pathetic nature of North Korean lying.
Wait a minute! What's the annoying beeping noise? Oh look, it's my patented Absentometer™ going berserk. Impossibly, it seems that none of the above happened. In a very busy discussion of the whole North Korean 'missile' caper, not a single person did the beyond-obvious thing and declare that there was no satellite. Go figure. For three nights running now, I've been yelling at the television, 'Is there a satellite or not?' and no one wants to answer the question. That it could be answered is beyond certainty. In terms of argument it's a no-brainer. If there was no satellite, they'd say so, loudly and repeatedly.
That the powers in the West have failed to address the single most obvious, lay-down misere argument-winner can mean only one thing - the Koreans did launch a satellite. We may not acknowledge this since being able to launch a satellite is no crime at all. We launch them all the time and no one bats an eyelid. In fact, when Australia launched its first we all celebrated and Australia Post printed a special commemorative stamp.
Bugger satellites and bugger every other reason given why we must hate North Korea. The true reason must not be uttered - North Korea does not have a privately owned money supply. Subsequently, annihilation is to be their lot. And we in the West, the un-ironic, 'freedom-defending' debt-peons of the banking families are to be the agents of their annihilation. Yeah well, three cheers for us.
---
Fiji - Villains! What have they done now? It seems that the Fijian military refused to obey the Fijian Court of Appeal's order that they hand over power. The military are fascists and racists. The military of course is entirely indigenous Melanesian. The Supreme Court is almost entirely Indian and expat whites. The military, as an expression of the Melanesian discontent, seem to have some mad objection to: the government, the judiciary, banking, business, and the media all being in the hands of ethnic Indians and non-Melanesians. Obvious racists! And as we all know, there's only one type of racism - that of the majority who object to a distinct minority who perpetually seems uninterested in inter-marrying, or otherwise having anything to do with the majority apart from taking their money.
And now Commodore Frank Bainimarama, the leader of Fiji's military, has gone one step too far. He's thrown out whomever it was that ran Fiji's Reserve Bank. Good God! He's really done it now hasn't he? The media, sure enough, interviews everyone with a tale to tell. Pay no attention to the fact that they're all non-Melanesian. Look, there's Sean Dorney, long-time (and curiously spotty) foreign correspondent, explaining how the complete absence of anyone protesting, or hitting the streets, or any other thing, is proof of the totality of the military's grip, and also of the climate of fear that they've instilled in the entire population. Of course, had people hit the streets and protested that would have been proof of the unpopularity of the military. Don't flip that coin! Sean Dorney has spoken.
But never mind the expats, what does Bainimarama have to say on the matter? Oh-oh, is that my Absentometer™ going nuts again? God, that's annoying. In amongst all of this, we didn't hear a single word from Bainimarama. Perhaps he has some crazy wooly-bully superstition that a camera will capture his soul? Or maybe he's shy? Or maybe we are? Not us! As if the media would be shy of hosting a discussion of the nature of Reserve Banking. The fact that they've never had one before, not ever, is, I don't know... a fluke or something. Ha ha ha ha, but seriously, I'll bet money that the reason Bainimarama isn't on the telly explaining his actions against the Reserve Bank is because he'd make far too much sense and might even have us wondering about our own Reserve. What do you think? Hmm... best we not go there.
Metaphorically, that is. Physically, we WILL go there. Now that Bainimarama has kicked out the bankers, I'll lay odds that Australian troops will be in Fiji sooner rather than later. I've no idea how this will be brought about, but some means of Bainimarama's forced ejection is a cold, hard certainty. I wonder if we could pull off a Fijian version of Alfredo Reinado? That worked a treat in East Timor. The script rolled out like clockwork with helpful, freedom-loving Australian troops hitting the ground to deliver to the Timorese people peace, love, and a clear understanding that the gas fields just offshore actually belonged to Australia. Australia! International good guys!
---
Thailand - Villains! Or heroes! Ayah, this is so confusing. Who's who, here? Two colour-coded revolutions. The first was clearly a George Soros style effort. It had yellow t-shirts, yellow flags, and free yellow pop concerts. Absurdly, the police and military were happy to let them occupy Bangkok airport. Don't they know there's a War!On!Terror! with airports as the front line? It seems that those nice yellow people broke their hearts (unlike those Burmese refugees whom they towed out to sea to starve to death). Sure enough the yellow people were media darlings.
Like all the other well-organised colour-coded revolutions, this was an expression of the people's will. They were sick and tired of Thaksin Shinawatra's party who wickedly kept winning elections and were otherwise popular with the poor majority of Thailand's population. God knows what was up with this so-called 'majority'. What's that? Universal healthcare? Perhaps they're commies?
And now there's another colour-coded revolution. Red this time! Did somebody say commies, just now? But where's the picnic atmosphere? Where are the pop concerts and free food? And why are they so angry? How keen they are to smash stuff up! Who's leading these people? They're doing a poor job. You'd almost wonder (yes, thank you Aangirfan) if the point of the exercise wasn't now to discredit the opposition and make the current unelected fellow look like a peace-making good guy. But who knows? If only we had some means of finding out what the majority of the people wanted.
Oh, oh, what's that pinging noise? It's that rotten Absentometer™ wondering where the democracy-loving West's calls for a fresh election are. This current leader is unelected. Why are we not insisting he set a timetable for elections? We do this all the time. In Madagascar just lately, when that new fellow (and boy does the West hate him!) declared that elections would be held within whatever timeframe it was we were outraged. Not good enough! It must be sooner! That's us, The West - Champions of Democracy! Except in Thailand. There, we withhold our demands for elections. And quite right too. Since the Thais kept getting it wrong best we just skip it. The only thing you need to remember is that we are the good guys. Huzzah! Huzzah! We are always right!
---
Never mind the Absentometer™ - it's a tricky beast to tune. And arguably you don't need it since it only functions as a means of confirmation anyway. Really, everything you need to know about any given foreign leader's status as villain or hero can be seen by how we in the debt-peon West variously congratulate or condemn them. If our bought-and-sold leaders clap their hands like a line of performing seals, you know that they're applauding a fellow who's every bit as owned as they are. The lackeys all congratulate each other. And whomever our leader/lackeys condemn and warrant as worthy of economic strangulation, old-style starvation, or out-and-out death-from-above destruction, must clearly be someone with more cojones and independence than they'll ever have.
I reckon it's as simple as that.
Labels:
absentometer,
colour-coded revolutions,
east timor,
fiji,
North korea,
thailand,
villains
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Experiments in Personal Hygiene
Hooly dooly, did I stink! My armpits smelt so bad even I was repulsed. And I couldn't even move away! This was a new thing for me. I'd never had body odour. But for some reason I had bypassed 'strong' and arrived at 'toxic'. I was showering every day (as I'd always done) and regardless of a mad lathering of my armpits it only got worse. I figured it was my diet. I cut out everything I could think of. I didn't quite arrive at plain rice gruel but I was getting there. Unbelievably the problem just got worse and worse. I really couldn't stand myself. Never mind me, friends were dropping hints - subtle things like, 'Jesus Christ You Stink!' It was capitalised and everything.
But then it was all put on hold when I ran over to Shanghai for a couple of weeks for a job. As if by magic I ceased to stink. More confusion! My Shanghai diet included copious quantities of the various things I'd cut out - vinegar, soy, beer, all that fermented stuff. Do my head in! This made no sense. Job over, it's back to Sydney, back to my diet, and back to... my usual soap. A lightbulb goes off! It was the fucking soap! Even then I was non-corporate and the soap I used was Thursday Plantation tea-tree oil soap. Tea tree is a native Australian shrub, the oil of which is famed for its medicinal properties. Anyway, it all stood to reason. The stinkier I got, the more soap I used. The more soap I used, the stinkier I got. Out, damned soap! And it was as simple as that, and the problem was solved. Go figure.
Mind you, I was already hell-bent by this stage so I thought bugger it, why don't I skip the whole damn thing. It's not like I can smell as bad as I did with that bloody soap. And besides, what did humans do before they had soap? Soap has been around for a long time but I'll bet that if all of human existence was a clock face we'd only have been using soap for a minute maybe. And that was the beginning of the experiment. What is the least amount of soap, shampoo, deodorant, and yes even water, that I can use and still be socially acceptable?
NB. I do not work in a coal mine. For me, like the majority of people reading here, hygiene consists of nothing more than dealing with oils, sweat, dead skin, and um, 'bacteria'.
Deodorant
Don't need it! I haven't used it for years and I don't smell. Spooked by my previous experience, for a while I actually asked people, like the osteopath who fixed my neck, if I was on the nose. "I live on my own and have no idea if I smell bad. If you were to quietly say, 'Well you do smell a little strong', I'd appreciate it." No? Nothing? Okay. I now no longer bother asking.
Given my experience I'd wonder if people who do have body odour aren't that way because of soap. Regardless of what may or may not be the cause of the problem, deodorant as the answer is a poor one. It's nothing more than a concoction of industrial chemicals. Anti-perspirant is even nastier. Aluminium zirconium tetrachlorohydrex gly, anyone? If you want to argue that they're not bad for us, you're grasping the wrong end of the stick. We actually have no idea if they're bad for us or not. The only thing we know for sure is that they aren't good for us and that the corporations would lie about it anyway. This is the truth of industrial chemicals.
Colognes and Perfumes
Absolute madness! I spent ten years of my life in workshops foolishly breathing horrific amounts of industrial toxins. My tolerance for these is now trashed. One good lungful of nail polish remover (acetone, one of the worst poisons on the planet) and I've got a splitting headache. Ha ha ha ha, that poor woman at the outdoor cafe in Bondi who thought she'd do it there! She barely knew what hit her - Cyclone Nobby! BTW. these toxins are absorbed through the nail. Women who use them might want to check this out and decide if it's a good idea or not.
Nail polish aside, if you can smell a perfume, you're smelling solvents. The scents per se might not be bad but the vehicle for bringing about their necessary evaporation is by definition a solvent. It's as simple as that. I will admit that there are one or two perfumes I find quite attractive, but anyone wearing a perfume whose scent travels more than a metre is, in my opinion, overstepping the mark. The tiniest amount is plenty. Perfume beyond one's personal space is a variety of rudeness. Cyclone Nobby has spoken. Ha!
Shampoo and Conditioner
Ditched! Utterly! I always had a problem with the concept of stripping out the hair's natural oils with one lot of chemicals and then replacing them with another. Admittedly it's not easy giving shampoo and conditioner the flick. Your hair wigs out and goes greasy (yes, yes, pun). The obvious response is to panic and go back to the chemical routine. I can offer no clear answer for how long hair takes to settle down to a state of equilibrium. It's either a month or a year, I forget. Since my experiment in hygiene involved chopping and changing everything simultaneously, it took my hair ages to settle down. I suspect that if I hadn't spent months and months variously not washing, or washing solely with salt water, it would have been a great deal quicker.
In its current natural equilibrium, what my hair is not, is that variety of splintery-dry that results from shampoo. But you'd only notice by running your fingers through it. To look at, you'd never spot the difference, and people are surprised when I tell them that I don't use shampoo. My routine merely involves doing the same scalp massage that I do with shampoo, running a comb through it, and all under running hot water. I do that every time I shower. And that's it.
It doesn't feel greasy, it combs out fine, and is healthy as hell. The oils that shampoo strip out are meant to be there. They're good for your hair and anyone who tells me that conditioner is better for your hair than the natural oils is nuts. My hair by the way, is long. I cut it to shoulder length once a year at the beginning of Summer on account of it being too hot otherwise when I sleep. That's the sum total of my hair care. I am the hairdresser's despair, ha ha.
Saltwater and No Soap
I live at the beach and have a Pacific Ocean's worth of saltwater just five hundred metres away. The beauty of saltwater is that it more or less renders soap unnecessary. Salt kills bacteria. That's why we put pickles in it. If you wash in saltwater, your body will be as clean bacteriologically as it will ever get in a shower by way of soap. If you're squeamish about what may be left on your hands, no problems, plunge them into the sand under the water a couple of times and they'll be scrubbed, salted, and good to go. Don't fool yourself imagining that soap magically kills all bacteria. It doesn't. And nor would you want to do that anyway. Fact is, there are minute trace amounts of faecal matter on every inch of your skin right now. Yes, YOU, recent shower or no. This is normal. Reducing your skin to a bacteriologically sterile wasteland is actually unnatural, and counter-productive to health. Go figure.
'Bloody nobody! Who the hell lives at the beach?' you say. But that's beside the point. I do live at the beach, and who's experiment is this anyway? And this experiment's sub-question was - what happens when you wash with nothing but saltwater for a couple of months with no freshwater or soap at all? Ha! All sorts of things. Straight up - I did not smell. Which is good. What's bad is that salt as an anti-bacteriological agent has a flip side - it's also a vital ingredient for life. Salt left on your skin for months feeds things - fungally things. I shan't go into it, but it wasn't pretty. I'll admit that my daily consumption of beer, bread, and other yeasty, fermented things that directly feed fungi, probably muddied the results. One day I shall give these things up, but here, in this place, it's impossible. That will be an experiment for a later date.
Regardless of that, there's also the simple fact that saltwater is always cold. Cold water will remove less excess oil and dead skin than hot water. And between 'soft' water and 'hard' water, with soft being preferable for removing this detritus, saltwater is as hard as nails. If you wash with saltwater alone, the skin's muck is not removed and has an unpleasant tendency to build up. In my case, no amount of vigourous rubbing with my hands seemed to deal with this. If I'd taken a cloth into the surf with me that might have helped, but this is a public beach and using a wash cloth in this fashion would be one step too far in terms of yours truly making a public spectacle of himself.
And besides, there's the sheer historical logic of it all. Humans cannot live without fresh water. Sure enough, there has never been a case of human settlement that had access to saltwater but not to freshwater. Obviously humans have always washed in freshwater. Saltwater is not bad, in fact it's particularly brilliant for the sinuses, but it fails when used in exclusion to freshwater. The other obvious aspect of saltwater is the inconvenience of it all - between: crummy weather; frequent three metre dumping surf; and the frothy green foam that results from this beach being situated next to the river mouth (nasty after the frequent heavy rain we get here), whole weeks would go by with me not being able to go for a swim. Not forgetting Winter of course. One way or another you have to use freshwater.
Freshwater and Soap
Is Australia still in drought? Maybe not, what with global warming being renamed on account of global cooling. But regardless, it was only a couple of years ago that the dams were all empty and water consumption was a big deal. And whether the newly dubbed 'climate change' is a con or not, I have no desire to needlessly use a resource anyway. I am sparing in all things. (Except for verbiage, ha!)
But first, soap. If I'm showering with freshwater, I'm using soap. But the point of the exercise is to use as little as possible. Thus I restrict it to the, ahem, underpant region. Everywhere else just gets hot water and a scrub with a wash cloth (yep, armpits included). The logic here is the same as the logic with my hair. The oils in the skin are good for it. They're meant to be there. Hot water and a cloth is all you need to take off the excess (along with sweat, dead skin etc.). Subsequently one bar of soap would probably last me a year.
The next question is, how infrequently can I wash and still keep my hair and skin clean, and not smell? After much experimentation, I decided that twice weekly is plenty. If I skip one every now and then and wash weekly, I can barely tell the difference. And I live in a warm climate don't forget. By the way, I wash my face in cold water morning and night, and I am in inveterate hand washer. My experiments do not involve ditching common sense.
In terms of brands of soap, I have no preference. I use whatever is there. Since the old man likes Cusson's, I use that. Given my druthers, I'd pick the blandest, most addditive-free, non-corporate thing I could find. One day, I'll make my own soap. Apparently it's not rocket science.
Shaving
I have a heavy beard. In amongst all of the above, I went the whole hog and grew it out. It was really something. My beard juts forward, not down, and I looked like some mad Cossack. Which was fine with me but the beard's inevitable tendency to behave as a soup strainer drove me nuts. And so I shave. When my moustache starts getting in my mouth, it's time. This seems to take a fortnight or so. And surprise, surprise, shaving works brilliantly without any clever products. I merely use the same soap that I wash with, which I lather up with a shaving brush. A fig for shaving cremes and gels.
Oh yeah, I have to use a trimmer first. No problems, it cost $25 and does the job just dandy. On the resulting stubble I use a Gillette G3. The absurd price of the blades drives me nuts. A pox on the Gillette Corporation! God, how I'd love to ditch that fucking razor. It's my intention to lay my hands on a cut-throat razor that one merely re-sharpens. So far I've yet to find one. I figure an antique store is the go, but here in Bullshit Tourist Town there aren't any. And yeah, yeah, I've heard all the horror stories. Hell, I've got my own. But experiments of this nature exact a price and you either pay it, or you succumb to the corporations.
Toothpaste
Is there a single product more obviously under the control of a cartel than toothpaste? Here in Oz, we have 28,000 varieties of toothpaste and they all come from two corporations. My attitude is that if they can't figure out how to make a single toothpaste that adequately does the job, then they're obvious bullshit artists and we're being scammed. And we are being scammed.
Besides that, they don't even clean my teeth very well. I figured this out when I found a brand in China called Bamboo Salt. It's made by LG, a Korean corporation, but I'm prepared to overlook that on account of the astounding difference between it and every other toothpaste I ever used. The tiniest smidge is plenty (about a tenth of the absurd amounts they use in the commercials) and my teeth are squeaky clean. Also I used to be prone to mouth ulcers, but haven't had any for ages. Whether it's due to the toothpaste or some other thing, I really can't say. Regardless, I do like that toothpaste. I'm still running on the supply I brought back from Beijing so I haven't checked to see if it's available in one of the big smoke Chinatowns, but I'd be surprised if it wasn't. Bamboo Salt - as used and recommended by nobody!
As for brushes, I have no opinion. One's as good as another as long as the bristles are soft. I've never used a machine and I never will. Amongst other things, I couldn't be fagged carrying it around when I travel.
My Bathroom Travel Pack
Ha! You should see it. There's nothing in it. Toothpaste, toothbrush, razor, shave-brush, comb, and that's it. All that other shit, that entire aisle at the supermarket? Completely unnecessary! Hey, Colgate-Palmolive and Reckitt Benckiser! Go fuck yourselves! You ain't got nothing I want or need!
But then it was all put on hold when I ran over to Shanghai for a couple of weeks for a job. As if by magic I ceased to stink. More confusion! My Shanghai diet included copious quantities of the various things I'd cut out - vinegar, soy, beer, all that fermented stuff. Do my head in! This made no sense. Job over, it's back to Sydney, back to my diet, and back to... my usual soap. A lightbulb goes off! It was the fucking soap! Even then I was non-corporate and the soap I used was Thursday Plantation tea-tree oil soap. Tea tree is a native Australian shrub, the oil of which is famed for its medicinal properties. Anyway, it all stood to reason. The stinkier I got, the more soap I used. The more soap I used, the stinkier I got. Out, damned soap! And it was as simple as that, and the problem was solved. Go figure.
Mind you, I was already hell-bent by this stage so I thought bugger it, why don't I skip the whole damn thing. It's not like I can smell as bad as I did with that bloody soap. And besides, what did humans do before they had soap? Soap has been around for a long time but I'll bet that if all of human existence was a clock face we'd only have been using soap for a minute maybe. And that was the beginning of the experiment. What is the least amount of soap, shampoo, deodorant, and yes even water, that I can use and still be socially acceptable?
NB. I do not work in a coal mine. For me, like the majority of people reading here, hygiene consists of nothing more than dealing with oils, sweat, dead skin, and um, 'bacteria'.
Deodorant
Don't need it! I haven't used it for years and I don't smell. Spooked by my previous experience, for a while I actually asked people, like the osteopath who fixed my neck, if I was on the nose. "I live on my own and have no idea if I smell bad. If you were to quietly say, 'Well you do smell a little strong', I'd appreciate it." No? Nothing? Okay. I now no longer bother asking.
Given my experience I'd wonder if people who do have body odour aren't that way because of soap. Regardless of what may or may not be the cause of the problem, deodorant as the answer is a poor one. It's nothing more than a concoction of industrial chemicals. Anti-perspirant is even nastier. Aluminium zirconium tetrachlorohydrex gly, anyone? If you want to argue that they're not bad for us, you're grasping the wrong end of the stick. We actually have no idea if they're bad for us or not. The only thing we know for sure is that they aren't good for us and that the corporations would lie about it anyway. This is the truth of industrial chemicals.
Colognes and Perfumes
Absolute madness! I spent ten years of my life in workshops foolishly breathing horrific amounts of industrial toxins. My tolerance for these is now trashed. One good lungful of nail polish remover (acetone, one of the worst poisons on the planet) and I've got a splitting headache. Ha ha ha ha, that poor woman at the outdoor cafe in Bondi who thought she'd do it there! She barely knew what hit her - Cyclone Nobby! BTW. these toxins are absorbed through the nail. Women who use them might want to check this out and decide if it's a good idea or not.
Nail polish aside, if you can smell a perfume, you're smelling solvents. The scents per se might not be bad but the vehicle for bringing about their necessary evaporation is by definition a solvent. It's as simple as that. I will admit that there are one or two perfumes I find quite attractive, but anyone wearing a perfume whose scent travels more than a metre is, in my opinion, overstepping the mark. The tiniest amount is plenty. Perfume beyond one's personal space is a variety of rudeness. Cyclone Nobby has spoken. Ha!
Shampoo and Conditioner
Ditched! Utterly! I always had a problem with the concept of stripping out the hair's natural oils with one lot of chemicals and then replacing them with another. Admittedly it's not easy giving shampoo and conditioner the flick. Your hair wigs out and goes greasy (yes, yes, pun). The obvious response is to panic and go back to the chemical routine. I can offer no clear answer for how long hair takes to settle down to a state of equilibrium. It's either a month or a year, I forget. Since my experiment in hygiene involved chopping and changing everything simultaneously, it took my hair ages to settle down. I suspect that if I hadn't spent months and months variously not washing, or washing solely with salt water, it would have been a great deal quicker.
In its current natural equilibrium, what my hair is not, is that variety of splintery-dry that results from shampoo. But you'd only notice by running your fingers through it. To look at, you'd never spot the difference, and people are surprised when I tell them that I don't use shampoo. My routine merely involves doing the same scalp massage that I do with shampoo, running a comb through it, and all under running hot water. I do that every time I shower. And that's it.
It doesn't feel greasy, it combs out fine, and is healthy as hell. The oils that shampoo strip out are meant to be there. They're good for your hair and anyone who tells me that conditioner is better for your hair than the natural oils is nuts. My hair by the way, is long. I cut it to shoulder length once a year at the beginning of Summer on account of it being too hot otherwise when I sleep. That's the sum total of my hair care. I am the hairdresser's despair, ha ha.
Saltwater and No Soap
I live at the beach and have a Pacific Ocean's worth of saltwater just five hundred metres away. The beauty of saltwater is that it more or less renders soap unnecessary. Salt kills bacteria. That's why we put pickles in it. If you wash in saltwater, your body will be as clean bacteriologically as it will ever get in a shower by way of soap. If you're squeamish about what may be left on your hands, no problems, plunge them into the sand under the water a couple of times and they'll be scrubbed, salted, and good to go. Don't fool yourself imagining that soap magically kills all bacteria. It doesn't. And nor would you want to do that anyway. Fact is, there are minute trace amounts of faecal matter on every inch of your skin right now. Yes, YOU, recent shower or no. This is normal. Reducing your skin to a bacteriologically sterile wasteland is actually unnatural, and counter-productive to health. Go figure.
'Bloody nobody! Who the hell lives at the beach?' you say. But that's beside the point. I do live at the beach, and who's experiment is this anyway? And this experiment's sub-question was - what happens when you wash with nothing but saltwater for a couple of months with no freshwater or soap at all? Ha! All sorts of things. Straight up - I did not smell. Which is good. What's bad is that salt as an anti-bacteriological agent has a flip side - it's also a vital ingredient for life. Salt left on your skin for months feeds things - fungally things. I shan't go into it, but it wasn't pretty. I'll admit that my daily consumption of beer, bread, and other yeasty, fermented things that directly feed fungi, probably muddied the results. One day I shall give these things up, but here, in this place, it's impossible. That will be an experiment for a later date.
Regardless of that, there's also the simple fact that saltwater is always cold. Cold water will remove less excess oil and dead skin than hot water. And between 'soft' water and 'hard' water, with soft being preferable for removing this detritus, saltwater is as hard as nails. If you wash with saltwater alone, the skin's muck is not removed and has an unpleasant tendency to build up. In my case, no amount of vigourous rubbing with my hands seemed to deal with this. If I'd taken a cloth into the surf with me that might have helped, but this is a public beach and using a wash cloth in this fashion would be one step too far in terms of yours truly making a public spectacle of himself.
And besides, there's the sheer historical logic of it all. Humans cannot live without fresh water. Sure enough, there has never been a case of human settlement that had access to saltwater but not to freshwater. Obviously humans have always washed in freshwater. Saltwater is not bad, in fact it's particularly brilliant for the sinuses, but it fails when used in exclusion to freshwater. The other obvious aspect of saltwater is the inconvenience of it all - between: crummy weather; frequent three metre dumping surf; and the frothy green foam that results from this beach being situated next to the river mouth (nasty after the frequent heavy rain we get here), whole weeks would go by with me not being able to go for a swim. Not forgetting Winter of course. One way or another you have to use freshwater.
Freshwater and Soap
Is Australia still in drought? Maybe not, what with global warming being renamed on account of global cooling. But regardless, it was only a couple of years ago that the dams were all empty and water consumption was a big deal. And whether the newly dubbed 'climate change' is a con or not, I have no desire to needlessly use a resource anyway. I am sparing in all things. (Except for verbiage, ha!)
But first, soap. If I'm showering with freshwater, I'm using soap. But the point of the exercise is to use as little as possible. Thus I restrict it to the, ahem, underpant region. Everywhere else just gets hot water and a scrub with a wash cloth (yep, armpits included). The logic here is the same as the logic with my hair. The oils in the skin are good for it. They're meant to be there. Hot water and a cloth is all you need to take off the excess (along with sweat, dead skin etc.). Subsequently one bar of soap would probably last me a year.
The next question is, how infrequently can I wash and still keep my hair and skin clean, and not smell? After much experimentation, I decided that twice weekly is plenty. If I skip one every now and then and wash weekly, I can barely tell the difference. And I live in a warm climate don't forget. By the way, I wash my face in cold water morning and night, and I am in inveterate hand washer. My experiments do not involve ditching common sense.
In terms of brands of soap, I have no preference. I use whatever is there. Since the old man likes Cusson's, I use that. Given my druthers, I'd pick the blandest, most addditive-free, non-corporate thing I could find. One day, I'll make my own soap. Apparently it's not rocket science.
Shaving
I have a heavy beard. In amongst all of the above, I went the whole hog and grew it out. It was really something. My beard juts forward, not down, and I looked like some mad Cossack. Which was fine with me but the beard's inevitable tendency to behave as a soup strainer drove me nuts. And so I shave. When my moustache starts getting in my mouth, it's time. This seems to take a fortnight or so. And surprise, surprise, shaving works brilliantly without any clever products. I merely use the same soap that I wash with, which I lather up with a shaving brush. A fig for shaving cremes and gels.
Oh yeah, I have to use a trimmer first. No problems, it cost $25 and does the job just dandy. On the resulting stubble I use a Gillette G3. The absurd price of the blades drives me nuts. A pox on the Gillette Corporation! God, how I'd love to ditch that fucking razor. It's my intention to lay my hands on a cut-throat razor that one merely re-sharpens. So far I've yet to find one. I figure an antique store is the go, but here in Bullshit Tourist Town there aren't any. And yeah, yeah, I've heard all the horror stories. Hell, I've got my own. But experiments of this nature exact a price and you either pay it, or you succumb to the corporations.
Toothpaste
Is there a single product more obviously under the control of a cartel than toothpaste? Here in Oz, we have 28,000 varieties of toothpaste and they all come from two corporations. My attitude is that if they can't figure out how to make a single toothpaste that adequately does the job, then they're obvious bullshit artists and we're being scammed. And we are being scammed.
Besides that, they don't even clean my teeth very well. I figured this out when I found a brand in China called Bamboo Salt. It's made by LG, a Korean corporation, but I'm prepared to overlook that on account of the astounding difference between it and every other toothpaste I ever used. The tiniest smidge is plenty (about a tenth of the absurd amounts they use in the commercials) and my teeth are squeaky clean. Also I used to be prone to mouth ulcers, but haven't had any for ages. Whether it's due to the toothpaste or some other thing, I really can't say. Regardless, I do like that toothpaste. I'm still running on the supply I brought back from Beijing so I haven't checked to see if it's available in one of the big smoke Chinatowns, but I'd be surprised if it wasn't. Bamboo Salt - as used and recommended by nobody!
As for brushes, I have no opinion. One's as good as another as long as the bristles are soft. I've never used a machine and I never will. Amongst other things, I couldn't be fagged carrying it around when I travel.
My Bathroom Travel Pack
Ha! You should see it. There's nothing in it. Toothpaste, toothbrush, razor, shave-brush, comb, and that's it. All that other shit, that entire aisle at the supermarket? Completely unnecessary! Hey, Colgate-Palmolive and Reckitt Benckiser! Go fuck yourselves! You ain't got nothing I want or need!
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Pedophocracy Disinfo 101 - Stevieb shows how it's done!
The following is me piling into the comments on Xymphora's posting 'Why all the American traitors?' In it, he wonders at why the American old guard has so utterly sold out to Jewish interests. His conclusion? 'I think it is just power.' Which is to say powerful people want more power and thus they hitch their wagon to those even more powerful, the Jews (ie. it's a voluntary gig and they've only themselves to blame). I have a different view sure enough.
But that's not the point of the exercise. The point is, that in a discussion of the second most powerful structure in the world, the pedophocracy, a disinfo merchant showed up and gave us all a salutary lesson in how it's done. It's word perfect. You start with an expression of open-minded empathy and then go from there...
nobody
04/01/2009 10:46 PM
You think it's just power? No way known. Go google 'mcgowan pedophocracy'. Read chapter six about 'The Finders' and tell me that this isn't the secondary enforcement structure. And McGowan only scratches the surface. Keep digging. Go deep into Dutroux. Check out the Casa Pia scandal in Portugal. Look into the isle of Jersey and how it plugs into Bournemouth, North Wales, Belfast. The links (always reaching right to the top) spread everywhere - Italy, Russia, France, Holland. Nowhere is untouched. And each scandal connects to every other one.
The structure undoubtably exists and explains things brilliantly. 'Um, I think it's power' really isn't up to your usual high standards X. And yeah I get it that the subject is so mind-bogglingly ugly that the response is to dismiss it and turn away, but that's the idea.
But if you ain't prepared to go there, you'll merely spend the rest of your life scratching your head.
I doubt anyone could be fagged but here were my thoughts on the matter - here and here
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stevieb
04/02/2009 11:39 AM
For Nobody: I was doing some reading into the allegations of child porn rings and ritual abuse and murder - repulsive in the extreme, but fascinating nonetheless.
But as far as the McMartin pre-school story - was that thoroughly debunked? As I remember none of the children had any physical signs of abuse and the stories were planted in the children's head by some overzealous child-abuse experts.
Adding that to the other more credible stories tends to weaken the whole pedophocracy allegation - for me, at least
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nobody
04/02/2009 09:22 PM
Hey StevieB,
Should've clicked the first link mate. It was precisely about McMartin. But never mind, here's a quick summary -
The stories of parents as deluded victims of an hysterical, out of control, mob of social workers were false, and demonstrably so. The so-called 'False Memory Syndrome Foundation' is funded by the CIA and staffed by 'ex'-CIA and 'ex'-paedophiles. Martin T Orne, Louis Jolyon West, Ralph Underwager, and Peter and Pamela Freyd. There is no scientific basis to 'False Memory Syndrome'. Not a lick. They've been thrown out of court over and over.
The woman who started it all, famously 'drunk' and 'schizophrenic', was neither until she began getting death threats and came under a relentless media attack. She didn't imagine the assault on her son, she just wanted to know why blood was running from his anus. This is NEVER mentioned. All we hear was that she was nuts. And besides, a dozen of the kids had chlamydia. Do the math on that. Which is to say, you don't catch chlamydia from toilet seats.
The McMartin case eventually pivoted on the existence of tunnels running from the pre-school to various properties. The line was that since the tunnels didn't exist the whole thing was a mad invention. Astoundingly (not really) the media was utterly uninterested in the fact that an uber-famous, well-qualified archeologist E. Gary Stickel found the tunnels precisely as described. The logic is bullet-proof. The kids described tunnels, the tunnels were found as described, the kids weren't lying.
Tunnels are not the work of one enthusiastic guy and his buddy. It takes teams to dig tunnels. Plug this into the utter disinterest of the police and the media; 'ex'-FBI plants 'assisting' the parents; the enormity of a well funded organisation like the 'False Memory Syndrome Foundation'; a complete lack of convictions in the face of overwhelming evidence; and the replication of this story in the Presidio/West Point scandal, the 'Finders' scandal in Florida and Washington, the Franklin scandal, etc etc ad nauseam, with the same names continually popping up, and you're in amongst something fucking huge. Really Fucking Huge.
No need to take my word for it. Just get googling. I've given you plenty of names here. Time to open your eyes. You get your head around this and the only question left is 'Whose pedophocracy is it?'
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stevieb
04/03/2009 12:15 PM
There's more to it than that, Nobody. I have a book - not by any of the authors in the lengthy expose (and I did find some of accusations - after source checking - credible)- that gives a detailed account of the trial, the children involved and the teachers involved.
And that was very credible.
I'll have to look for it - i have thousands of books - but I think it was called "Satan's children" or something like that.
But anyway - as I say the rest is very interesting and there is no doubt about the Marc Dutroux affair, so there is definitely alot of important people that need to be behind bars at the very least.
Flogged and quartered is more like it...
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stevieb
04/03/2009 12:19 PM
There's YouTube footage from Belgium showing the dungeons in the bastard's house that will make you feel sick...
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stevieb
04/03/2009 12:29 PM
OK , Nobody - I see what you mean. I read the first link - I'll get back to you later.
There were tunnels under the McMartin pre-school?
Well, that IS interesting....
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nobody
04/03/2009 11:13 PM
Hey StevieB,
Well that's the thing you see. Yes there are books, articles, and documentaries, all explaining how it was the fault of the parents and social workers. Just like there were books, articles, and documentaries, all explaining how there were WMD's in Iraq. Same-same 911. Same-same the USS Liberty. Same-same you-name-it.
The scale of the disinfo for the Pedophocracy alone speaks volumes as the size of this thing. Honestly, that there's a bullshit 'foundation', a bullshit 'syndrome', a bullshit sing-from-the-same-songbook media campaign, with books, movies, and documentaries is proof enough of the enormity of what we're in amongst.
As a power-base, a means for corruption and control, the pedophocracy is unrivalled. None may stand against it. The trail of bodies the pedophocracy has in its wake makes the Kennedy assassination look second rate. Seriously.
But first things first. The primer for this is Dave McGowan's 'Pedophocracy'. He's a terrific writer with a marvellous breezy style. Here it is - http://mindcontrolforums.com/pedo1.htm
It's all good, but chapter six, will blow your mind. It details the 'Finders' bust and has in full the customs agent's report detailing what he found at their 'headquarters'. Paedophiles with 'headquarters' - who knew? And wait until you find out what happened to his report and who made it happen. I'd say it was unbelieveable, but read it and disbelief won't be an option.
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stevieb
04/04/2009 02:12 AM
Err - my research has shown there were no tunnels under McMartin pre-school. Thats horsecrap.
And so is the rest. I shoulda known betta.
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nobody
04/04/2009 02:36 AM
Did E Gary Stickel come up in your research?
http://www.whale.to/b/stickel.html
Did you look into 'False Memory Syndrome'? Did you check out Dave McGowan? Did you read about the 'Finders' bust? How about the Presidio/West Point child-minding scandals? I'm thinking 'not'.
What was your research Stevie? Between E Gary Stickel, his Phd, and an experienced dig team, and your 'research' which obviously came up against some disinfo, I'll stick with Stickel mate.
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nobody
04/04/2009 03:36 AM
Actually now that I think about it, that was really beautiful. A perfect example of how it's done.
"I looked into it. It's crap. And so is the rest. I should've known betta." - Case closed, nothing to see here.
Any curious waverers out there? Don't worry, Stevie, who was like you and initially curious, has done some research and since he's determined that it's crap, you may too. No need to look into it for yourselves or otherwise do all that arduous googling. It was crap after all.
Whew! Everyone go back to whatever it was you were talking about before. There is no pedophocracy, the False Memory Syndrome foundation isn't staffed by spooks and paedophiles, the parents at McMartin imagined it all, and you probably can catch chlamydia from a toilet seat. Honestly, what was I thinking of?
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stevieb
04/04/2009 11:10 AM
Look Nobody - why not look a little closer yourself instead of throwing around straw men. As I said before - alot of what is posted about the pedophocracy was quite credible (and had very little to do with Satanism it seems. I should have been more specific when I said 'the rest is crap'.)
But including the McMartin pre school in there is just going to get you laughed at, unfortunately. The tunnels are a hoax perpetrated by some more overzealous idiots.
BTW are you saying that it isn't possible to plant ideas into the heads of small children?
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stevieb
04/04/2009 11:16 AM
Google "McMartin tunnel hoax". You'd have to believe the entire Los Angeles justice system was compromised to believe that those tunnels are anything but fiction.
Why would you waste your time with this when there are bigger fish to fry and some credible evidence in other areas I don't understand...
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nobody
04/04/2009 08:30 PM
The entire Los Angeles legal system? What, like that's a lay-down misere? Read chapter six of McGowan's pedophocracy and see the size of the system that refused to touch the 'finders'. How big is the system that refuses to acknowledge that anyone except for 19 Muslims brought down three high rise buildings in their own footprints?
And why stop at 'McMartin Tunnel Hoax'. Go type in 'JFK hoax'. Apparently it was a lone gunman after all. Of course the tunnels are dismissed as a hoax. Everything is. Those who would conspire wouldn't be much chop if they didn't expend energy declaring that the people who've sussed them out are nothing more than hoaxers, bullshit artists, and froot-loops. It's called disinfo mate. You can be that dupe if you want, no skin off my nose. That's just me being charitable you understand. Others would be less charitable to those pushing disinfo.
But let's just pretend you're a dupe and I'm not wasting my breath talking to you - Between E Gary Stickel, an archeological heavy with no stake in the whole affair and giving his honest professional opinion; and him as deluded, or keen to delude ('overzealous idiot' was it?), all the while in the teeth of a huge smear campaign with only his professional reputation at stake, you're going to run with the latter are you? Like that makes a lick of sense.
But fuck it. Who cares? No one here, that's for sure. Xymph ponders at the US establishment kowtowing to tiny ethnic minority and comes to a soft-as-shite conclusion - the most powerful people in the most powerful country in the world just aren't quite powerful enough. Meanwhile, I proffer a working model of corruption and control that exists as a cold hard certainty with bullet-proof trails leading into the FBI, CIA, the military, and the government, and everyone blinks and goes back to their previous conversation, or otherwise airily waves their hand in dismissal. Anyway, no need to fear, there'll be new post soon enough and you can all go back to thinking of reasons why the entire US establishment is in thrall to the Jews that don't involve organised blackmail by way of paedophilia.
Hell, I'll help you out: they were caught sleeping with someone who was not their wife; they're closet gays; they accepted gifts and didn't declare them; they lied to congress; they did it for the money. The fact that none of these would make me, nor any of you, sell out your country is neither here nor there. You should all think nothing of it. Or just scratch your heads saying, 'Gee I don't know, it's all too difficult'. I'm good either way. Besides, as if the kind of people who'd stage false-flag mass terror events in order to start a war would stoop to paedophilia to get what they want! The very idea is preposterous.
I'll leave you all to it. Enjoy.
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manfromatlan (as well-meaning bystander)
04/04/2009 11:08 PM
It isn't that Xymphora or others around here don't follow the link between pedophilic rings, blackmail, and ritual sex abuse or treat it lightly, nobody. Looking at the many references provided on the internet it looks like abuse did take place at the McMartin Day Care. We have so many hushed up pedophile ring cases in Canada and the UK, of course people care. But people aren't going to get bogged down in the minute details. Me, what got me was the children's videotaped testimony about the abuse and the hospital nurse's report (which got shot down by the lawyers)
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nobody
04/05/2009 02:37 AM
Bugger the details. Arguments about details are a technique to shoot down a discussion of the bigger picture (and I fell for it, sure). But my initial on-topic point was precisely about the big picture. These disparate events in Canada etc etc aren't disparate. It is a single structure. Like I keep saying, read McGowan's pedophocracy, particularly chapter six. Anyone who wants to tell me that the report written by Special Agent Ramon J. Martinez, United States Customs Service, was bullshit is on a hiding to nothing as pedophocracy disinfo spook.
And if anyone thinks I'm being paranoid, think of the effort that went into the CIA's Mockingbird op. Well a tuppence for that. The pedophocracy is above the CIA. Don't laugh, just go read the report. It's at the link above. I absolutely guarantee you won't be laughing then. More effort goes into shutting down, obscuring, or otherwise disappearing discussions about the pedophocracy than any other thing - JFK, 911, the London bombings, you name it, none of these things compares. The threat of exposure as a paedophile is the ultimate don't-argue. When someone has a photo of you en flagrante dilecto with a kid, you do ANYTHING they say. Exposure is the end of the world. Can we dig it?
And some guy turned up and said he looked into it and it's bullshit... well shit, eh?
On topic again - If you're looking for a mechanism whereby the American elite (hell, any elite, I don't care how 'powerful' it is) can be forced to sell out their own interests, here it is. Pedophocracy uber alles.
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stevieb
04/05/2009 09:44 AM
Nobody - relax. FIrst off this 'heavy' of an archealogist used two parents of supposed victims to perform the dig - and the evidence consists of couple of children's toys that could have easily been planted. Whic, regardless is not evidence of tunnels.
If there were tunnels under McMartin pre-school there would be lots of evidence. There isn't.
Now explain to me why this is disinfo?
And again - I'm questioning the McMartin satanic cult accusations only. So your consistently referring to this as denying the pedophocracy is wrong.
And I've seen absolutely nothing to suggest Sickel is a 'heavy'. And how do you know he has absolutely nothing at stake in the affair? What do you know aboutGary Sickel?(not STickel)
Inevitably I'm thinking I will be called a plant - but you should know that I am not and that your going to have to do better than suggestin g I've something at a stake in calling into question your thesis.
But I'll read chapter six and see if that brings some stronger facts to the table....
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stevieb
04/05/2009 09:46 AM
It is Stickel -lol.
Sorry....
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stevieb
04/05/2009 09:56 AM
In one of your links, the blogger in question repeatedly said that tunnels had been found under McMartin pre-school.
No tunnels were ever found.
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stevieb
04/05/2009 09:58 AM
And a discussion of details is not intended to shoot down the entire thesis. It is to confirm or deny it based on evidence.
Do you have any formal schooling, Nobody?
I know this may sound condescending - and for that I apologize - but it may explain your aversion to relying on facts and credible sources...
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stevieb
Yesterday 10:13 AM
yes and no, penny.
Yes it can be, sure. But it also gives you the tools to think for yourself if you allow it to.
Perhaps 'formal' schooling was the wrong word.
I'm thinking some level of post high school education where you wouldn't be throwing around claims without properly researching them or sourcing them(not that I haven't been known to do that very thing myself in the past, even with some post hs education).
It isn't of course absolutely necessary, but it helps.
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nobody Today 10:25 PM
Okay Sevieb, sorry, Stevieb (lol), given that the absolute best I can say for you is that you're a clueless self-impressed git who somehow just happens to come up with a word-perfect 'how-to' template for pedophocracy disinfo spooks, I'm just going to call it anyway. You are a pedophocracy disinfo spook. Which is to say, you're a paedophile. No need to get cross mate! If you got the game, you may as well have the name. Ha, you turn that saying on its head and it makes more sense than it does the right way round!
And here's the game, (as a Disinfo 101 single-page powerpoint presentation).
- pay no attention to the big picture, nor to myriad examples pointing to it
- stick to a single scandal of your own choosing, and perpetually return to it
- focus on a single aspect of the single scandal and declare that false
- use the alleged falsity of this sliver of a sliver of the big picture to dismiss the whole
E voila! And extra brownie points for blaming the guy arguing the case for the big picture, for the paucity of the case for the small picture. It's the cherry on the sundae that is your genius.
Otherwise folks, I recommend you follow Stevieb's sole suggestion as to google inputs, and actually do a search for 'mcmartin tunnel hoax'. You will be precisely delivered to either: bullshit 'may-as-well-be-mockingbird' journo Debbie Nathan, famous defender of all things paedophilic; or better yet, the 'Institute of Psychological Therapies' run by no less than Ralph Underwager, who, if anyone can remember back that far, I precisely named as a famous paedophile spook. The 'False Memory Syndrome Foundation' and the IPT are the same people, all funded by the CIA and existing for no other reason than to promote paedophilia and defend paedophiles. Thank you Stevieb.
And Stevie, as for you wondering at me having formal schooling - stick to the kiddy raping mate, because you really suck at ad hominem. I'd laugh if it weren't so sickening. If you're going to get ad hominem on someone there's no point fucking around. Thus -
Go fuck yourself you sick piece of shit.
PS. For anyone who's interested, this conversation didn't cease at this point and carried on for some time and can be viewed at the link provided in the first para. Gratifyingly (from an argumentative point of view), Stevieb stayed absolutely true to form the entire time, never swerving from a pedophocracy disinfo line. Indeed his pathetic attempts to dismiss the entire issue as a hoax grew ever more desperate with him repeatedly, and absurdly, linking to the already discredited FMSF and IPT. All up, it was a truly abysmal display and for mine proof positive of the one-trick-pony weakness of the pedophocracy disinfo playbook.
But that's not the point of the exercise. The point is, that in a discussion of the second most powerful structure in the world, the pedophocracy, a disinfo merchant showed up and gave us all a salutary lesson in how it's done. It's word perfect. You start with an expression of open-minded empathy and then go from there...
nobody
04/01/2009 10:46 PM
You think it's just power? No way known. Go google 'mcgowan pedophocracy'. Read chapter six about 'The Finders' and tell me that this isn't the secondary enforcement structure. And McGowan only scratches the surface. Keep digging. Go deep into Dutroux. Check out the Casa Pia scandal in Portugal. Look into the isle of Jersey and how it plugs into Bournemouth, North Wales, Belfast. The links (always reaching right to the top) spread everywhere - Italy, Russia, France, Holland. Nowhere is untouched. And each scandal connects to every other one.
The structure undoubtably exists and explains things brilliantly. 'Um, I think it's power' really isn't up to your usual high standards X. And yeah I get it that the subject is so mind-bogglingly ugly that the response is to dismiss it and turn away, but that's the idea.
But if you ain't prepared to go there, you'll merely spend the rest of your life scratching your head.
I doubt anyone could be fagged but here were my thoughts on the matter - here and here
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stevieb
04/02/2009 11:39 AM
For Nobody: I was doing some reading into the allegations of child porn rings and ritual abuse and murder - repulsive in the extreme, but fascinating nonetheless.
But as far as the McMartin pre-school story - was that thoroughly debunked? As I remember none of the children had any physical signs of abuse and the stories were planted in the children's head by some overzealous child-abuse experts.
Adding that to the other more credible stories tends to weaken the whole pedophocracy allegation - for me, at least
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nobody
04/02/2009 09:22 PM
Hey StevieB,
Should've clicked the first link mate. It was precisely about McMartin. But never mind, here's a quick summary -
The stories of parents as deluded victims of an hysterical, out of control, mob of social workers were false, and demonstrably so. The so-called 'False Memory Syndrome Foundation' is funded by the CIA and staffed by 'ex'-CIA and 'ex'-paedophiles. Martin T Orne, Louis Jolyon West, Ralph Underwager, and Peter and Pamela Freyd. There is no scientific basis to 'False Memory Syndrome'. Not a lick. They've been thrown out of court over and over.
The woman who started it all, famously 'drunk' and 'schizophrenic', was neither until she began getting death threats and came under a relentless media attack. She didn't imagine the assault on her son, she just wanted to know why blood was running from his anus. This is NEVER mentioned. All we hear was that she was nuts. And besides, a dozen of the kids had chlamydia. Do the math on that. Which is to say, you don't catch chlamydia from toilet seats.
The McMartin case eventually pivoted on the existence of tunnels running from the pre-school to various properties. The line was that since the tunnels didn't exist the whole thing was a mad invention. Astoundingly (not really) the media was utterly uninterested in the fact that an uber-famous, well-qualified archeologist E. Gary Stickel found the tunnels precisely as described. The logic is bullet-proof. The kids described tunnels, the tunnels were found as described, the kids weren't lying.
Tunnels are not the work of one enthusiastic guy and his buddy. It takes teams to dig tunnels. Plug this into the utter disinterest of the police and the media; 'ex'-FBI plants 'assisting' the parents; the enormity of a well funded organisation like the 'False Memory Syndrome Foundation'; a complete lack of convictions in the face of overwhelming evidence; and the replication of this story in the Presidio/West Point scandal, the 'Finders' scandal in Florida and Washington, the Franklin scandal, etc etc ad nauseam, with the same names continually popping up, and you're in amongst something fucking huge. Really Fucking Huge.
No need to take my word for it. Just get googling. I've given you plenty of names here. Time to open your eyes. You get your head around this and the only question left is 'Whose pedophocracy is it?'
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stevieb
04/03/2009 12:15 PM
There's more to it than that, Nobody. I have a book - not by any of the authors in the lengthy expose (and I did find some of accusations - after source checking - credible)- that gives a detailed account of the trial, the children involved and the teachers involved.
And that was very credible.
I'll have to look for it - i have thousands of books - but I think it was called "Satan's children" or something like that.
But anyway - as I say the rest is very interesting and there is no doubt about the Marc Dutroux affair, so there is definitely alot of important people that need to be behind bars at the very least.
Flogged and quartered is more like it...
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stevieb
04/03/2009 12:19 PM
There's YouTube footage from Belgium showing the dungeons in the bastard's house that will make you feel sick...
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stevieb
04/03/2009 12:29 PM
OK , Nobody - I see what you mean. I read the first link - I'll get back to you later.
There were tunnels under the McMartin pre-school?
Well, that IS interesting....
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nobody
04/03/2009 11:13 PM
Hey StevieB,
Well that's the thing you see. Yes there are books, articles, and documentaries, all explaining how it was the fault of the parents and social workers. Just like there were books, articles, and documentaries, all explaining how there were WMD's in Iraq. Same-same 911. Same-same the USS Liberty. Same-same you-name-it.
The scale of the disinfo for the Pedophocracy alone speaks volumes as the size of this thing. Honestly, that there's a bullshit 'foundation', a bullshit 'syndrome', a bullshit sing-from-the-same-songbook media campaign, with books, movies, and documentaries is proof enough of the enormity of what we're in amongst.
As a power-base, a means for corruption and control, the pedophocracy is unrivalled. None may stand against it. The trail of bodies the pedophocracy has in its wake makes the Kennedy assassination look second rate. Seriously.
But first things first. The primer for this is Dave McGowan's 'Pedophocracy'. He's a terrific writer with a marvellous breezy style. Here it is - http://mindcontrolforums.com/pedo1.htm
It's all good, but chapter six, will blow your mind. It details the 'Finders' bust and has in full the customs agent's report detailing what he found at their 'headquarters'. Paedophiles with 'headquarters' - who knew? And wait until you find out what happened to his report and who made it happen. I'd say it was unbelieveable, but read it and disbelief won't be an option.
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stevieb
04/04/2009 02:12 AM
Err - my research has shown there were no tunnels under McMartin pre-school. Thats horsecrap.
And so is the rest. I shoulda known betta.
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nobody
04/04/2009 02:36 AM
Did E Gary Stickel come up in your research?
http://www.whale.to/b/stickel.html
Did you look into 'False Memory Syndrome'? Did you check out Dave McGowan? Did you read about the 'Finders' bust? How about the Presidio/West Point child-minding scandals? I'm thinking 'not'.
What was your research Stevie? Between E Gary Stickel, his Phd, and an experienced dig team, and your 'research' which obviously came up against some disinfo, I'll stick with Stickel mate.
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nobody
04/04/2009 03:36 AM
Actually now that I think about it, that was really beautiful. A perfect example of how it's done.
"I looked into it. It's crap. And so is the rest. I should've known betta." - Case closed, nothing to see here.
Any curious waverers out there? Don't worry, Stevie, who was like you and initially curious, has done some research and since he's determined that it's crap, you may too. No need to look into it for yourselves or otherwise do all that arduous googling. It was crap after all.
Whew! Everyone go back to whatever it was you were talking about before. There is no pedophocracy, the False Memory Syndrome foundation isn't staffed by spooks and paedophiles, the parents at McMartin imagined it all, and you probably can catch chlamydia from a toilet seat. Honestly, what was I thinking of?
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stevieb
04/04/2009 11:10 AM
Look Nobody - why not look a little closer yourself instead of throwing around straw men. As I said before - alot of what is posted about the pedophocracy was quite credible (and had very little to do with Satanism it seems. I should have been more specific when I said 'the rest is crap'.)
But including the McMartin pre school in there is just going to get you laughed at, unfortunately. The tunnels are a hoax perpetrated by some more overzealous idiots.
BTW are you saying that it isn't possible to plant ideas into the heads of small children?
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stevieb
04/04/2009 11:16 AM
Google "McMartin tunnel hoax". You'd have to believe the entire Los Angeles justice system was compromised to believe that those tunnels are anything but fiction.
Why would you waste your time with this when there are bigger fish to fry and some credible evidence in other areas I don't understand...
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nobody
04/04/2009 08:30 PM
The entire Los Angeles legal system? What, like that's a lay-down misere? Read chapter six of McGowan's pedophocracy and see the size of the system that refused to touch the 'finders'. How big is the system that refuses to acknowledge that anyone except for 19 Muslims brought down three high rise buildings in their own footprints?
And why stop at 'McMartin Tunnel Hoax'. Go type in 'JFK hoax'. Apparently it was a lone gunman after all. Of course the tunnels are dismissed as a hoax. Everything is. Those who would conspire wouldn't be much chop if they didn't expend energy declaring that the people who've sussed them out are nothing more than hoaxers, bullshit artists, and froot-loops. It's called disinfo mate. You can be that dupe if you want, no skin off my nose. That's just me being charitable you understand. Others would be less charitable to those pushing disinfo.
But let's just pretend you're a dupe and I'm not wasting my breath talking to you - Between E Gary Stickel, an archeological heavy with no stake in the whole affair and giving his honest professional opinion; and him as deluded, or keen to delude ('overzealous idiot' was it?), all the while in the teeth of a huge smear campaign with only his professional reputation at stake, you're going to run with the latter are you? Like that makes a lick of sense.
But fuck it. Who cares? No one here, that's for sure. Xymph ponders at the US establishment kowtowing to tiny ethnic minority and comes to a soft-as-shite conclusion - the most powerful people in the most powerful country in the world just aren't quite powerful enough. Meanwhile, I proffer a working model of corruption and control that exists as a cold hard certainty with bullet-proof trails leading into the FBI, CIA, the military, and the government, and everyone blinks and goes back to their previous conversation, or otherwise airily waves their hand in dismissal. Anyway, no need to fear, there'll be new post soon enough and you can all go back to thinking of reasons why the entire US establishment is in thrall to the Jews that don't involve organised blackmail by way of paedophilia.
Hell, I'll help you out: they were caught sleeping with someone who was not their wife; they're closet gays; they accepted gifts and didn't declare them; they lied to congress; they did it for the money. The fact that none of these would make me, nor any of you, sell out your country is neither here nor there. You should all think nothing of it. Or just scratch your heads saying, 'Gee I don't know, it's all too difficult'. I'm good either way. Besides, as if the kind of people who'd stage false-flag mass terror events in order to start a war would stoop to paedophilia to get what they want! The very idea is preposterous.
I'll leave you all to it. Enjoy.
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manfromatlan (as well-meaning bystander)
04/04/2009 11:08 PM
It isn't that Xymphora or others around here don't follow the link between pedophilic rings, blackmail, and ritual sex abuse or treat it lightly, nobody. Looking at the many references provided on the internet it looks like abuse did take place at the McMartin Day Care. We have so many hushed up pedophile ring cases in Canada and the UK, of course people care. But people aren't going to get bogged down in the minute details. Me, what got me was the children's videotaped testimony about the abuse and the hospital nurse's report (which got shot down by the lawyers)
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nobody
04/05/2009 02:37 AM
Bugger the details. Arguments about details are a technique to shoot down a discussion of the bigger picture (and I fell for it, sure). But my initial on-topic point was precisely about the big picture. These disparate events in Canada etc etc aren't disparate. It is a single structure. Like I keep saying, read McGowan's pedophocracy, particularly chapter six. Anyone who wants to tell me that the report written by Special Agent Ramon J. Martinez, United States Customs Service, was bullshit is on a hiding to nothing as pedophocracy disinfo spook.
And if anyone thinks I'm being paranoid, think of the effort that went into the CIA's Mockingbird op. Well a tuppence for that. The pedophocracy is above the CIA. Don't laugh, just go read the report. It's at the link above. I absolutely guarantee you won't be laughing then. More effort goes into shutting down, obscuring, or otherwise disappearing discussions about the pedophocracy than any other thing - JFK, 911, the London bombings, you name it, none of these things compares. The threat of exposure as a paedophile is the ultimate don't-argue. When someone has a photo of you en flagrante dilecto with a kid, you do ANYTHING they say. Exposure is the end of the world. Can we dig it?
And some guy turned up and said he looked into it and it's bullshit... well shit, eh?
On topic again - If you're looking for a mechanism whereby the American elite (hell, any elite, I don't care how 'powerful' it is) can be forced to sell out their own interests, here it is. Pedophocracy uber alles.
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stevieb
04/05/2009 09:44 AM
Nobody - relax. FIrst off this 'heavy' of an archealogist used two parents of supposed victims to perform the dig - and the evidence consists of couple of children's toys that could have easily been planted. Whic, regardless is not evidence of tunnels.
If there were tunnels under McMartin pre-school there would be lots of evidence. There isn't.
Now explain to me why this is disinfo?
And again - I'm questioning the McMartin satanic cult accusations only. So your consistently referring to this as denying the pedophocracy is wrong.
And I've seen absolutely nothing to suggest Sickel is a 'heavy'. And how do you know he has absolutely nothing at stake in the affair? What do you know aboutGary Sickel?(not STickel)
Inevitably I'm thinking I will be called a plant - but you should know that I am not and that your going to have to do better than suggestin g I've something at a stake in calling into question your thesis.
But I'll read chapter six and see if that brings some stronger facts to the table....
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stevieb
04/05/2009 09:46 AM
It is Stickel -lol.
Sorry....
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stevieb
04/05/2009 09:56 AM
In one of your links, the blogger in question repeatedly said that tunnels had been found under McMartin pre-school.
No tunnels were ever found.
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stevieb
04/05/2009 09:58 AM
And a discussion of details is not intended to shoot down the entire thesis. It is to confirm or deny it based on evidence.
Do you have any formal schooling, Nobody?
I know this may sound condescending - and for that I apologize - but it may explain your aversion to relying on facts and credible sources...
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stevieb
Yesterday 10:13 AM
yes and no, penny.
Yes it can be, sure. But it also gives you the tools to think for yourself if you allow it to.
Perhaps 'formal' schooling was the wrong word.
I'm thinking some level of post high school education where you wouldn't be throwing around claims without properly researching them or sourcing them(not that I haven't been known to do that very thing myself in the past, even with some post hs education).
It isn't of course absolutely necessary, but it helps.
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nobody Today 10:25 PM
Okay Sevieb, sorry, Stevieb (lol), given that the absolute best I can say for you is that you're a clueless self-impressed git who somehow just happens to come up with a word-perfect 'how-to' template for pedophocracy disinfo spooks, I'm just going to call it anyway. You are a pedophocracy disinfo spook. Which is to say, you're a paedophile. No need to get cross mate! If you got the game, you may as well have the name. Ha, you turn that saying on its head and it makes more sense than it does the right way round!
And here's the game, (as a Disinfo 101 single-page powerpoint presentation).
- pay no attention to the big picture, nor to myriad examples pointing to it
- stick to a single scandal of your own choosing, and perpetually return to it
- focus on a single aspect of the single scandal and declare that false
- use the alleged falsity of this sliver of a sliver of the big picture to dismiss the whole
E voila! And extra brownie points for blaming the guy arguing the case for the big picture, for the paucity of the case for the small picture. It's the cherry on the sundae that is your genius.
Otherwise folks, I recommend you follow Stevieb's sole suggestion as to google inputs, and actually do a search for 'mcmartin tunnel hoax'. You will be precisely delivered to either: bullshit 'may-as-well-be-mockingbird' journo Debbie Nathan, famous defender of all things paedophilic; or better yet, the 'Institute of Psychological Therapies' run by no less than Ralph Underwager, who, if anyone can remember back that far, I precisely named as a famous paedophile spook. The 'False Memory Syndrome Foundation' and the IPT are the same people, all funded by the CIA and existing for no other reason than to promote paedophilia and defend paedophiles. Thank you Stevieb.
And Stevie, as for you wondering at me having formal schooling - stick to the kiddy raping mate, because you really suck at ad hominem. I'd laugh if it weren't so sickening. If you're going to get ad hominem on someone there's no point fucking around. Thus -
Go fuck yourself you sick piece of shit.
PS. For anyone who's interested, this conversation didn't cease at this point and carried on for some time and can be viewed at the link provided in the first para. Gratifyingly (from an argumentative point of view), Stevieb stayed absolutely true to form the entire time, never swerving from a pedophocracy disinfo line. Indeed his pathetic attempts to dismiss the entire issue as a hoax grew ever more desperate with him repeatedly, and absurdly, linking to the already discredited FMSF and IPT. All up, it was a truly abysmal display and for mine proof positive of the one-trick-pony weakness of the pedophocracy disinfo playbook.
Monday, April 6, 2009
You're insatiable! Me too!
It was only just recently that I became familiar with Jacques Fresco. And yes, I know that Les Visible pointed us all at him way back when, but what with me using an internet cafe wherein heavy downloads are a frowned upon no-no, I was unable to view the movie links he provided. But a lovely fellow who sits out the back of the cafe with me, gave me Zeitgeist Addendum straight from his hard drive. Finally I catch up.
And there it all was. The beauty of technology as a means of freeing us of want. With limitless energy providing limitless food, shelter, clothing, and transport, whole fields of unproductive un-endeavour would disappear. Without want, we'd see the end of crime and it's concomitant allopathic responses by way of the police, judiciary, and prisons. We'd have no need of the military. With money being unnecessary so would the industries dealing with it - banking, insurance, the stock market, all gone. Advertising too! Hurray! I'll bring the beers.
Sure enough, I'm down with all of the above. But as is my wont, I just had to pick at this thing. It occurred to me that it was less a case of, 'Here are the problems and now what is the answer?' than it was, 'Here is the answer and what problems may we solve with it?' The answer is technology sure enough. And clearly technology can solve many, many problems. And in doing so will, more or less, address the big picture. But it looks to me that the big picture view we have here has been assembled from lots of little pictures. Dig it, it's like a David Hockney photo montage.
But like a Hockney snapshot, what with the gaps in the pictures, the smooth flow of my mental eye stuttered. For mine, what Fresco's picture lacked was a coherency, a unifying overall philosophy. It seemed not to have anything to tie it together. I wondered about Fresco's world. If something were to pop up, some blemish on the perfection of it all, I had the impression that the response would be, 'What technology is there to throw at this?'
Hmm... maybe that'll work. Or maybe not. I'm thinking 'not'.
---
There are only two 'philosophers' (not the right word, but never mind) that I consider to be bullet-proof in their entirety. They are Charles Darwin and the Buddha. Me putting words in Darwin's mouth - food and protection from the elements are not the fundamental human drive. They are merely responses to what is the fundamental drive - the need to pass on one's genes. Or to put this more simply, any entity that exists must (wittingly or unwittingly, it really doesn't matter) seek to continue its existence. This is ipso-facto territory. Any entity that lacks this drive will cease to be an entity. Any entity that exists will have it. That's all there is to it.
The simple truth of existentialism - 'why am I here?' - is that there isn't one. Not beyond, 'a thing is'. The flipside of this is, 'a thing that isn't isn't'. Bloody genius, me. I've just done away with the whole field of existentialism. A fig for Descartes!
But forget such abstractions. Let's just view them as a basis for understanding the far more visceral phrase 'the sex drive'. Believe it or not, this 'drive' is existential in nature, not that that ever occurs to us. What does occur is something like 'Phwooar, look at that arse! You could bounce twenty cent coins off that!' Or is that just me? Anyway, every thirty seconds folks - you, me, the lot of us - a thought like this jolts our brain.
Believe it or not, such thoughts (by way of what drives them) are more fundamental in terms of the human condition than the basic needs of food and shelter. Sure, we need food and shelter to survive but we need to survive because of our 'without-it-we-wouldn't-be-here-to-begin-with' sex drive.
Back to Darwin now. Darwin says that there are various means of dealing with how to get it on with members of the opposite sex. Nature presents more variations on this theme than there are stars in the sky. Mates are chosen because they are: fat and sleek; good at fighting; have shiny feathers; sing well; dance well; build a better home; have superior artistic taste; on and on. Funny how humans barely differ from animals, birds, and fish isn't it? That's one of the beauties of Darwin. He says that anyone who thinks they're special is fooling themselves.
But that's only half the picture. All of the above responses are appeals by those hoping to be selected to those who'll be selecting. Those who select are after quality. For those being selected, quality is neither here nor there. They're after quantity. There's no point condemning this. Like any creature with a sex drive is going to stop with one partner. Honestly. Any creature that gets laid might be shagged out momentarily, but the sex drive doesn't take long to reassert. It only has one message and it says, 'Get Rooting!' Nor should any women out there feel smug. Nature is replete with examples of species which appear to be monogamous but are actually no such thing. Philandering abounds, females included.
So what was my point exactly? The point is that food and shelter cannot be divorced from our fundamental Darwinian sex drive. Even with all things provided for us we will still seek to find better partners and more of them. And we will do this by differentiating ourselves from our neighbours. Whoever has the biggest house, the best clothes, the shiniest car will get laid more often. Getting circular now - this need to one-up our neighbours must exist because we exist. And whatever Jacques Fresco promises us, it won't put a dent in it.
---
What a load of crap! We all know perfectly well that people who have nothing but generosity of spirit can get laid too. What about that huh?
I thank that imagined individual for segueing me into the Buddha. The Buddha acknowledges all that Darwin says, with his dictum 'life is suffering'. And suffering of course is desire. Of course, the Buddha doesn't dwell solely on the desire to get laid like Darwin does. He goes beyond Darwin to view things in terms of the 'self'. So what's the difference?
Hopefully I've done enough fleshing out above to save us yet more circuitousness and thus allow me to declare that there isn't one. Darwin's addressing of the necessity of 'being' and Buddha's view of the self as desire, are (if you cock your head and squint) the same thing. Our existence predicates the furthering of our existence and this necessarily places the self front-and-centre, first-and-foremost, the thing without which we are nothing.
The Buddha goes very very far in these thoughts. Too far for this discussion. Let's just stick to the Buddha as an answer to Darwin's imperatives. The Buddha has no beef with Darwin. He acknowledges the self but says that to view it as a thing separate to that-which-is-not-the-self is a mistake. Selflessness is not so much a rejection of yourself, ahem, but rather a means of viewing yourself in context.
Side note - Anyone who imagines a selfless person as being some idiot giving all their food to others and starving to death as a result, is being silly. Not only would this break Darwin's dictum but would also be a statement of separation of the self against that-not-the-self which is contrary to everything Buddha is on about. And yes, I can imagine a situation where such things would occur and still be described as 'right', but we shouldn't confuse extreme anomalies with the truth of the whole. In statistics, such extremities on the bell curve are discarded (2.1 standard deviations, blah blah, blah) and quite right too. Anomalies do not speak of a system but of its tolerances, a whole separate subject.
Anyway, with this selflessness as a lens, or a mindset, or a guiding principle perhaps, all of Darwin's dictums can be fulfilled. The world will function just fine. We'll all be fed, clothed, and sheltered and yes, even laid. Whilst it's no perfect 'Just one quick spray and it's gone!' antidote to Darwin's inevitable need to get laid more often, nor is it about anything else.
---
So hopefully you should have that mess of pottage above sitting in your head as a coherent perfect thought. Yes? Excellent. Now you understand the hole in Jacques Fresco's model of providing all that we need. He's got the cart before the horse. I don't know if anyone has ever actually tried to do this but I expect that with enough fiddling, it could be made to work. But not very well and not for very long. Likewise, Fresco's wish to sate our desires is one way of quenching the fires but not a very good one. The truth is desires cannot be sated. Like the TV show said - the nature of monkey is irrepressible. Subsequently any resemblance between Fresco's envisioned world and selflessness is merely a well-meaning coincidence.
Even viewed in solely practical terms the whole thing will be doomed to fail. In spite us of having all things in abundance, if the nature of the self is left unaddressed, those of a monstrous ego (pyschopaths if you prefer) will inevitably sacrifice all on the altar of their own regard. And frankly there seems to be nothing in Fresco's model to stop them.
In the big dreamy picture that is Jacques Fresco's brave new world, something big is lacking. There seems to be no coherent sense of 'This is who we are'. Or in negative terms, there is no 'When all else fails see rule 1'. Me, I reckon a continuum of selflessness provides a sense of 'who we are', a 'rule 1'. It does so as a stripped-down go-cart, a bare-bones lean-machine, a wonder tool good for any eventuality. It cannot be slurred or impeached since it favours none. It's as right as a thing can be.
Even if Fresco's plans were fully realised, it would eventually fail and we'd be back to where we started. On the other hand, if we could explode some kind of gigantic world-affecting Buddha-bomb and fill everyone's head with the truth of selflessness, the world that would result would pretty much resemble Fresco's vision anyway. And have a basis to it that made sense.
Brilliant! This and a thousand other mad dreams of a Buddhist dictator. What are the odds on Fresco's dreams seeing reality? Given that it threatens to replace insanely powerful and greedy institutions, who would rather fight to the death than let it live, it would have to be the bookie's dream. A buck will get you a million. Selflessness on the other hand is a personal trip. You can do it all on your own, and no maglev trains required.
And there it all was. The beauty of technology as a means of freeing us of want. With limitless energy providing limitless food, shelter, clothing, and transport, whole fields of unproductive un-endeavour would disappear. Without want, we'd see the end of crime and it's concomitant allopathic responses by way of the police, judiciary, and prisons. We'd have no need of the military. With money being unnecessary so would the industries dealing with it - banking, insurance, the stock market, all gone. Advertising too! Hurray! I'll bring the beers.
Sure enough, I'm down with all of the above. But as is my wont, I just had to pick at this thing. It occurred to me that it was less a case of, 'Here are the problems and now what is the answer?' than it was, 'Here is the answer and what problems may we solve with it?' The answer is technology sure enough. And clearly technology can solve many, many problems. And in doing so will, more or less, address the big picture. But it looks to me that the big picture view we have here has been assembled from lots of little pictures. Dig it, it's like a David Hockney photo montage.
But like a Hockney snapshot, what with the gaps in the pictures, the smooth flow of my mental eye stuttered. For mine, what Fresco's picture lacked was a coherency, a unifying overall philosophy. It seemed not to have anything to tie it together. I wondered about Fresco's world. If something were to pop up, some blemish on the perfection of it all, I had the impression that the response would be, 'What technology is there to throw at this?'
Hmm... maybe that'll work. Or maybe not. I'm thinking 'not'.
---
There are only two 'philosophers' (not the right word, but never mind) that I consider to be bullet-proof in their entirety. They are Charles Darwin and the Buddha. Me putting words in Darwin's mouth - food and protection from the elements are not the fundamental human drive. They are merely responses to what is the fundamental drive - the need to pass on one's genes. Or to put this more simply, any entity that exists must (wittingly or unwittingly, it really doesn't matter) seek to continue its existence. This is ipso-facto territory. Any entity that lacks this drive will cease to be an entity. Any entity that exists will have it. That's all there is to it.
The simple truth of existentialism - 'why am I here?' - is that there isn't one. Not beyond, 'a thing is'. The flipside of this is, 'a thing that isn't isn't'. Bloody genius, me. I've just done away with the whole field of existentialism. A fig for Descartes!
But forget such abstractions. Let's just view them as a basis for understanding the far more visceral phrase 'the sex drive'. Believe it or not, this 'drive' is existential in nature, not that that ever occurs to us. What does occur is something like 'Phwooar, look at that arse! You could bounce twenty cent coins off that!' Or is that just me? Anyway, every thirty seconds folks - you, me, the lot of us - a thought like this jolts our brain.
Believe it or not, such thoughts (by way of what drives them) are more fundamental in terms of the human condition than the basic needs of food and shelter. Sure, we need food and shelter to survive but we need to survive because of our 'without-it-we-wouldn't-be-here-to-begin-with' sex drive.
Back to Darwin now. Darwin says that there are various means of dealing with how to get it on with members of the opposite sex. Nature presents more variations on this theme than there are stars in the sky. Mates are chosen because they are: fat and sleek; good at fighting; have shiny feathers; sing well; dance well; build a better home; have superior artistic taste; on and on. Funny how humans barely differ from animals, birds, and fish isn't it? That's one of the beauties of Darwin. He says that anyone who thinks they're special is fooling themselves.
But that's only half the picture. All of the above responses are appeals by those hoping to be selected to those who'll be selecting. Those who select are after quality. For those being selected, quality is neither here nor there. They're after quantity. There's no point condemning this. Like any creature with a sex drive is going to stop with one partner. Honestly. Any creature that gets laid might be shagged out momentarily, but the sex drive doesn't take long to reassert. It only has one message and it says, 'Get Rooting!' Nor should any women out there feel smug. Nature is replete with examples of species which appear to be monogamous but are actually no such thing. Philandering abounds, females included.
So what was my point exactly? The point is that food and shelter cannot be divorced from our fundamental Darwinian sex drive. Even with all things provided for us we will still seek to find better partners and more of them. And we will do this by differentiating ourselves from our neighbours. Whoever has the biggest house, the best clothes, the shiniest car will get laid more often. Getting circular now - this need to one-up our neighbours must exist because we exist. And whatever Jacques Fresco promises us, it won't put a dent in it.
---
What a load of crap! We all know perfectly well that people who have nothing but generosity of spirit can get laid too. What about that huh?
I thank that imagined individual for segueing me into the Buddha. The Buddha acknowledges all that Darwin says, with his dictum 'life is suffering'. And suffering of course is desire. Of course, the Buddha doesn't dwell solely on the desire to get laid like Darwin does. He goes beyond Darwin to view things in terms of the 'self'. So what's the difference?
Hopefully I've done enough fleshing out above to save us yet more circuitousness and thus allow me to declare that there isn't one. Darwin's addressing of the necessity of 'being' and Buddha's view of the self as desire, are (if you cock your head and squint) the same thing. Our existence predicates the furthering of our existence and this necessarily places the self front-and-centre, first-and-foremost, the thing without which we are nothing.
The Buddha goes very very far in these thoughts. Too far for this discussion. Let's just stick to the Buddha as an answer to Darwin's imperatives. The Buddha has no beef with Darwin. He acknowledges the self but says that to view it as a thing separate to that-which-is-not-the-self is a mistake. Selflessness is not so much a rejection of yourself, ahem, but rather a means of viewing yourself in context.
Side note - Anyone who imagines a selfless person as being some idiot giving all their food to others and starving to death as a result, is being silly. Not only would this break Darwin's dictum but would also be a statement of separation of the self against that-not-the-self which is contrary to everything Buddha is on about. And yes, I can imagine a situation where such things would occur and still be described as 'right', but we shouldn't confuse extreme anomalies with the truth of the whole. In statistics, such extremities on the bell curve are discarded (2.1 standard deviations, blah blah, blah) and quite right too. Anomalies do not speak of a system but of its tolerances, a whole separate subject.
Anyway, with this selflessness as a lens, or a mindset, or a guiding principle perhaps, all of Darwin's dictums can be fulfilled. The world will function just fine. We'll all be fed, clothed, and sheltered and yes, even laid. Whilst it's no perfect 'Just one quick spray and it's gone!' antidote to Darwin's inevitable need to get laid more often, nor is it about anything else.
---
So hopefully you should have that mess of pottage above sitting in your head as a coherent perfect thought. Yes? Excellent. Now you understand the hole in Jacques Fresco's model of providing all that we need. He's got the cart before the horse. I don't know if anyone has ever actually tried to do this but I expect that with enough fiddling, it could be made to work. But not very well and not for very long. Likewise, Fresco's wish to sate our desires is one way of quenching the fires but not a very good one. The truth is desires cannot be sated. Like the TV show said - the nature of monkey is irrepressible. Subsequently any resemblance between Fresco's envisioned world and selflessness is merely a well-meaning coincidence.
Even viewed in solely practical terms the whole thing will be doomed to fail. In spite us of having all things in abundance, if the nature of the self is left unaddressed, those of a monstrous ego (pyschopaths if you prefer) will inevitably sacrifice all on the altar of their own regard. And frankly there seems to be nothing in Fresco's model to stop them.
In the big dreamy picture that is Jacques Fresco's brave new world, something big is lacking. There seems to be no coherent sense of 'This is who we are'. Or in negative terms, there is no 'When all else fails see rule 1'. Me, I reckon a continuum of selflessness provides a sense of 'who we are', a 'rule 1'. It does so as a stripped-down go-cart, a bare-bones lean-machine, a wonder tool good for any eventuality. It cannot be slurred or impeached since it favours none. It's as right as a thing can be.
Even if Fresco's plans were fully realised, it would eventually fail and we'd be back to where we started. On the other hand, if we could explode some kind of gigantic world-affecting Buddha-bomb and fill everyone's head with the truth of selflessness, the world that would result would pretty much resemble Fresco's vision anyway. And have a basis to it that made sense.
Brilliant! This and a thousand other mad dreams of a Buddhist dictator. What are the odds on Fresco's dreams seeing reality? Given that it threatens to replace insanely powerful and greedy institutions, who would rather fight to the death than let it live, it would have to be the bookie's dream. A buck will get you a million. Selflessness on the other hand is a personal trip. You can do it all on your own, and no maglev trains required.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Love
Following on from the last self-indulgent piece with me venting my spleen about my father, Susana said the most extraordinary thing in the comments. She put me and the word 'love' in the same sentence. When I read it, my eyebrows went up and I froze in disbelief. But only for a second. Then I tilted my head back and laughed.
Truth be known, I have no idea what love means. You don't need to take my word for it. You need merely search this site for the word 'love'. Whilst I couldn't be fagged doing it myself, I'm prepared to bet that it will only appear in the phrase 'peace, love, and understanding' which I use not so much as a banner to rally around, but rather as a cudgel to beat things with.
The word, in and of itself, as a stand-alone description, I, um... 'dismiss'. Which is to say, I dismiss it from my vocabulary. Honestly, what the hell does it mean?
Never mind love, here I'm far more interested in lies and lying. Actually the word 'lie' is just as fraught as 'love' and I tend to avoid it as well. Let's just say that I ponder the nature of misrepresentation. But regardless, if we were to take every lie ever uttered and analysed them to see which one predominated, I'd bet money that the phrase 'I love you' would win hands down.
And go figure that more than a few women have made it clear to me that, but for the want of me saying it, they'd have slept with me. I'm a strange cove, sure, but women who do this always fall in my estimation.
---
A while back in Shanghai, there was a woman I fancied. I was directing and she was my producer. She was smart, funny, and sexy. And she told me of her travails with her laowai boyfriend who came to Shanghai every couple of months for business. In between times he lived in Belgium with his wife and kids (Urgh! No one here I hope!). And once or twice a day he would send her an SMS saying some variation of 'I love you'. This made her all gooey. Me, I shook my head. Between words and actions, words are cheap. Hell! He sent these words by SMS, the cheapest means there is.
Me to her - "If I said you were just something to occupy his time when he's here in China and all it cost him was an SMS every day, would I be wrong? Forget his words, what does he do? What is there to say that this guy isn't just some bullshit artist? Men lie you know. Forget his words. What are his actions?"
Anyway, she threw him over. For me, ha ha! Well that was the theory anyway. What with assorted cultural confusions and a plot straight out of a bedroom farce, we didn't sleep with each other. But that was cool, she was going to come to Sydney for Chinese New Year and stay with me. After that I was going to go back to Shanghai and become an in-house director. Sounded good to me. But! - it all went to hell. For reasons that weren't clear she didn't come to Sydney and when I flew back to start up with the directing gig, it was if we were complete strangers.
I had failed apparently. Specifically I had failed to send her an SMS every day telling her that I loved her. God help me! What with her last boyfriend using this precise process to lie his way into her bed, here she was angry with me for not having done the same thing. I shook my head and wondered if she and her Belgian didn't deserve each other. But truth be known, my part in a mad farce aside, I was pleased. If she was that undiscerning, that incapable of distinguishing between words and actions, then she wasn't the chick for me. I never saw her again and packed in the directing caper shortly thereafter. And a good thing too.
---
The above was but a single 'I love you' anecdote from dozens. And I don't doubt that you'd all have your own. Truthfully, there are more stories of lies and lying with 'I love you' at the centre of them than there are stars wheeling in the sky. For mine, the phrase is so utterly devalued that it's worthless. There's a lot to be said for saying nothing.
Like the Japanese! The Japanese are their own variety of laconic. They are not a gushy people. Whilst the younger generation, deeply steeped in Hollywood, are changing now, the older generation do not prate on with heartfelt drivel. If you want to see a perfect example of what I'm talking about, go see 'Hana-Bi' by Beat Takeshi. He's a legendary director and Hana-Bi is arguably his masterpiece. And sure it's dotted with action and violence, but mostly it's a 'love' story. Everything that takes place in the film is an act of devotion by our hero for his dying wife. Astoundingly almost nothing is said. No speeches, no declarations. Actions are all. And the actions are unambiguous. The truth lays in what is done, not in what is said.
And if anyone does watch this film on my say-so and wonders, "What sort of a crummy 'love story' was that? No one even kissed anyone!", you'll actually be making my point for me. Your dissatisfaction will say far more about you as a Westerner than it will about the Japanese.
---
And then there's the Maori and the Hawaiian people. Culturally, since they're both Polynesian, their cultures are as close as could be. Curiously they seem not to know very much about each other. In conversations I've had with Maori about Hawaiians, and vice versa, no one seemed to know anything. But whatever, they have many many things in common. As a complete dilettante I'm pretty sure I won't get in trouble for saying that the concept of 'breath as life' is central to their shared culture. In Hawaii, this breath/life is the 'ha' in 'aloha'. (It's also the 'ha' in 'haole', their word for white person. There's a fabulous story in that, but I'll sling it in the comments.)
The Maori likewise acknowledge the importance of breath in their custom of touching noses. This functions for Maori like the handshake does for white people. The handshake is an expression of 'peace' insofar as it's a demonstration that one isn't carrying a weapon. Three cheers for white people. Compare that to the Maori, who touch noses so that they might exchange the breath of life. But here's the crucial thing - the breath is always from the nose, not from the mouth. This is not because the nose is special but because the mouth is considered 'corrupt', or perhaps more correctly 'corrupting'. The stink of food is part of this but that's actually the least of it. Breath from the mouth is spurned because what comes from a person's mouth, words sure enough, cannot be trusted. In words lay falsity.
---
And then there's that Brazilian chick. This is a looong story, but there I was in her marvellous ramshackle house smack dab in the middle of a picturesqe but down-at-the-heels town two hours from Sao Paolo. She was a Rudolph Steiner devotee and was in the arduous process of setting up a Rudolph Steiner school cum arts-and-craft co-op. And I was going to join her. My head was there. But that too came a cropper. Story of my life. If anyone out there is familiar with the Tora San movies (uber-famous in Japan), that's me. I never get the girl.
Whilst the whole thing was complicated with family and a boyfriend etc. a key moment came in a discussion about 'love'. She looked me in the eye, grasped my hand and told me of the most important thing there is. That being love, sure enough. She even quoted the Beatles to me. And hats off to the Beatles, but between them and my continuum (at the top of this page) with selflessness as the only thing counting, I was, ahem, dismissive. I tried to explain the distinction but got nowhere. It didn't help of course that I didn't speak Portuguese, her English left a lot to be desired, and the Japanese which we both spoke (she being sansei Japanese) was ill-suited to philosophy. But the language didn't matter. She said love and I shook my head. "No, you don't understand," I said. Yeah yeah nobody, just face it - you blew it. Time to do that Tora San thing and smile, wave, and hit the road.
---
Bloody Hell! Do I have a point or am I just blathering? Both, ha ha! The point is that for me, words are worthless, with 'love' at the top of the list. And yep, I just used a thousand words to say that. The irony runs rampant.
Never mind me as cleverpants wordsmith - a blog, an audience, and a huge pile of words being put in some kind of order. Bully for that. But back at the house of geriatric indulgence, with me and the old man, it's positively Japanese. Every day is like a scene from Hana-Bi.
Perhaps I brought it with me from the temple - "shiraberi wa dame" - chit-chat is bad. And there, there was a lot to talk about. Here at home there is nothing to talk about beyond Fox Sports and doctors. And I haven't much time for either beyond needing to know what channel to change to and when the appointments are.
Here there is no love. Or certainly no declarations of it. The only thing that counts is 'doing'. For me (or perhaps for an ideal me) all my actions should be an embodiment of selflessness. And I ain't in that picture. And nor are such messy things as emotions. Like 'love' etc. If I was to start in on that, the whole thing would fall in a screaming heap. It would turn the picture into one that was about me. And if it was about me, it wouldn't be about me because I'd be gone.
But here's a picture of me. Or me as played by Vincent Cassel in the movie of my life, that is. Nothing in his head. Nothing in his heart. No thoughts, no love, no nothing - just emptiness. Dig it, it's like Camus' Stranger albeit with a happy disposition and no Arab monkey business. And when Cassel wants to know what his motivation is, he'll be told he hasn't one. "Just go through the motions. Attempt to embody selflessness. Don't ask us what that would look like since no one bloody knows. Just do your best." Says our Vincent - "But why am I happy?". Sorry Vince, no answer to that one neither. You just are.
Truth is, living with my father has been a brilliant experience. The only way anyone could cope with the old man's utter self-obsession is to let go of one's own desires. I'll admit that there's a certain 'reactionary' aspect to this. And I know that no one likes that word - to say, 'I am not that' is full of negative connotation, a thing to be avoided. But if one is seeking selflessness it's no such thing. Everything I wish to shed is here precisely depicted in the closest genetic template imaginable. It is what I am leaving behind.
And Susana, apologies for using you as a prop, ha ha. It's not you, it's just my brain turning a word around. And what a word! A word so fraught, so plugged into insecurities and self-worth, replete with uncountable meanings, stories, variations, and use and misuse, I reckon we're better off without it.
Do or don't do. Actions over words. That's where the truth lays.
Truth be known, I have no idea what love means. You don't need to take my word for it. You need merely search this site for the word 'love'. Whilst I couldn't be fagged doing it myself, I'm prepared to bet that it will only appear in the phrase 'peace, love, and understanding' which I use not so much as a banner to rally around, but rather as a cudgel to beat things with.
The word, in and of itself, as a stand-alone description, I, um... 'dismiss'. Which is to say, I dismiss it from my vocabulary. Honestly, what the hell does it mean?
Never mind love, here I'm far more interested in lies and lying. Actually the word 'lie' is just as fraught as 'love' and I tend to avoid it as well. Let's just say that I ponder the nature of misrepresentation. But regardless, if we were to take every lie ever uttered and analysed them to see which one predominated, I'd bet money that the phrase 'I love you' would win hands down.
And go figure that more than a few women have made it clear to me that, but for the want of me saying it, they'd have slept with me. I'm a strange cove, sure, but women who do this always fall in my estimation.
---
A while back in Shanghai, there was a woman I fancied. I was directing and she was my producer. She was smart, funny, and sexy. And she told me of her travails with her laowai boyfriend who came to Shanghai every couple of months for business. In between times he lived in Belgium with his wife and kids (Urgh! No one here I hope!). And once or twice a day he would send her an SMS saying some variation of 'I love you'. This made her all gooey. Me, I shook my head. Between words and actions, words are cheap. Hell! He sent these words by SMS, the cheapest means there is.
Me to her - "If I said you were just something to occupy his time when he's here in China and all it cost him was an SMS every day, would I be wrong? Forget his words, what does he do? What is there to say that this guy isn't just some bullshit artist? Men lie you know. Forget his words. What are his actions?"
Anyway, she threw him over. For me, ha ha! Well that was the theory anyway. What with assorted cultural confusions and a plot straight out of a bedroom farce, we didn't sleep with each other. But that was cool, she was going to come to Sydney for Chinese New Year and stay with me. After that I was going to go back to Shanghai and become an in-house director. Sounded good to me. But! - it all went to hell. For reasons that weren't clear she didn't come to Sydney and when I flew back to start up with the directing gig, it was if we were complete strangers.
I had failed apparently. Specifically I had failed to send her an SMS every day telling her that I loved her. God help me! What with her last boyfriend using this precise process to lie his way into her bed, here she was angry with me for not having done the same thing. I shook my head and wondered if she and her Belgian didn't deserve each other. But truth be known, my part in a mad farce aside, I was pleased. If she was that undiscerning, that incapable of distinguishing between words and actions, then she wasn't the chick for me. I never saw her again and packed in the directing caper shortly thereafter. And a good thing too.
---
The above was but a single 'I love you' anecdote from dozens. And I don't doubt that you'd all have your own. Truthfully, there are more stories of lies and lying with 'I love you' at the centre of them than there are stars wheeling in the sky. For mine, the phrase is so utterly devalued that it's worthless. There's a lot to be said for saying nothing.
Like the Japanese! The Japanese are their own variety of laconic. They are not a gushy people. Whilst the younger generation, deeply steeped in Hollywood, are changing now, the older generation do not prate on with heartfelt drivel. If you want to see a perfect example of what I'm talking about, go see 'Hana-Bi' by Beat Takeshi. He's a legendary director and Hana-Bi is arguably his masterpiece. And sure it's dotted with action and violence, but mostly it's a 'love' story. Everything that takes place in the film is an act of devotion by our hero for his dying wife. Astoundingly almost nothing is said. No speeches, no declarations. Actions are all. And the actions are unambiguous. The truth lays in what is done, not in what is said.
And if anyone does watch this film on my say-so and wonders, "What sort of a crummy 'love story' was that? No one even kissed anyone!", you'll actually be making my point for me. Your dissatisfaction will say far more about you as a Westerner than it will about the Japanese.
---
And then there's the Maori and the Hawaiian people. Culturally, since they're both Polynesian, their cultures are as close as could be. Curiously they seem not to know very much about each other. In conversations I've had with Maori about Hawaiians, and vice versa, no one seemed to know anything. But whatever, they have many many things in common. As a complete dilettante I'm pretty sure I won't get in trouble for saying that the concept of 'breath as life' is central to their shared culture. In Hawaii, this breath/life is the 'ha' in 'aloha'. (It's also the 'ha' in 'haole', their word for white person. There's a fabulous story in that, but I'll sling it in the comments.)
The Maori likewise acknowledge the importance of breath in their custom of touching noses. This functions for Maori like the handshake does for white people. The handshake is an expression of 'peace' insofar as it's a demonstration that one isn't carrying a weapon. Three cheers for white people. Compare that to the Maori, who touch noses so that they might exchange the breath of life. But here's the crucial thing - the breath is always from the nose, not from the mouth. This is not because the nose is special but because the mouth is considered 'corrupt', or perhaps more correctly 'corrupting'. The stink of food is part of this but that's actually the least of it. Breath from the mouth is spurned because what comes from a person's mouth, words sure enough, cannot be trusted. In words lay falsity.
---
And then there's that Brazilian chick. This is a looong story, but there I was in her marvellous ramshackle house smack dab in the middle of a picturesqe but down-at-the-heels town two hours from Sao Paolo. She was a Rudolph Steiner devotee and was in the arduous process of setting up a Rudolph Steiner school cum arts-and-craft co-op. And I was going to join her. My head was there. But that too came a cropper. Story of my life. If anyone out there is familiar with the Tora San movies (uber-famous in Japan), that's me. I never get the girl.
Whilst the whole thing was complicated with family and a boyfriend etc. a key moment came in a discussion about 'love'. She looked me in the eye, grasped my hand and told me of the most important thing there is. That being love, sure enough. She even quoted the Beatles to me. And hats off to the Beatles, but between them and my continuum (at the top of this page) with selflessness as the only thing counting, I was, ahem, dismissive. I tried to explain the distinction but got nowhere. It didn't help of course that I didn't speak Portuguese, her English left a lot to be desired, and the Japanese which we both spoke (she being sansei Japanese) was ill-suited to philosophy. But the language didn't matter. She said love and I shook my head. "No, you don't understand," I said. Yeah yeah nobody, just face it - you blew it. Time to do that Tora San thing and smile, wave, and hit the road.
---
Bloody Hell! Do I have a point or am I just blathering? Both, ha ha! The point is that for me, words are worthless, with 'love' at the top of the list. And yep, I just used a thousand words to say that. The irony runs rampant.
Never mind me as cleverpants wordsmith - a blog, an audience, and a huge pile of words being put in some kind of order. Bully for that. But back at the house of geriatric indulgence, with me and the old man, it's positively Japanese. Every day is like a scene from Hana-Bi.
Perhaps I brought it with me from the temple - "shiraberi wa dame" - chit-chat is bad. And there, there was a lot to talk about. Here at home there is nothing to talk about beyond Fox Sports and doctors. And I haven't much time for either beyond needing to know what channel to change to and when the appointments are.
Here there is no love. Or certainly no declarations of it. The only thing that counts is 'doing'. For me (or perhaps for an ideal me) all my actions should be an embodiment of selflessness. And I ain't in that picture. And nor are such messy things as emotions. Like 'love' etc. If I was to start in on that, the whole thing would fall in a screaming heap. It would turn the picture into one that was about me. And if it was about me, it wouldn't be about me because I'd be gone.
But here's a picture of me. Or me as played by Vincent Cassel in the movie of my life, that is. Nothing in his head. Nothing in his heart. No thoughts, no love, no nothing - just emptiness. Dig it, it's like Camus' Stranger albeit with a happy disposition and no Arab monkey business. And when Cassel wants to know what his motivation is, he'll be told he hasn't one. "Just go through the motions. Attempt to embody selflessness. Don't ask us what that would look like since no one bloody knows. Just do your best." Says our Vincent - "But why am I happy?". Sorry Vince, no answer to that one neither. You just are.
Truth is, living with my father has been a brilliant experience. The only way anyone could cope with the old man's utter self-obsession is to let go of one's own desires. I'll admit that there's a certain 'reactionary' aspect to this. And I know that no one likes that word - to say, 'I am not that' is full of negative connotation, a thing to be avoided. But if one is seeking selflessness it's no such thing. Everything I wish to shed is here precisely depicted in the closest genetic template imaginable. It is what I am leaving behind.
And Susana, apologies for using you as a prop, ha ha. It's not you, it's just my brain turning a word around. And what a word! A word so fraught, so plugged into insecurities and self-worth, replete with uncountable meanings, stories, variations, and use and misuse, I reckon we're better off without it.
Do or don't do. Actions over words. That's where the truth lays.
Labels:
brazil,
china,
continuum,
hawaii,
japan,
love,
misrepresentation,
selfishness/selflessness,
truth,
vincent cassel
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