The Death Cult Flying Circus!

Man: I don't know - Mr Wentworth just told me to come in here and say that there was trouble at the mill, that's all - I didn't expect a kind of global despotism.

(JARRING CHORD - The door flies open and Cardinal Ximinez-Rothschild of the City of London enters, flanked by two junior cardinals, Cardinal Biggles and Cardinal Fang.)

Ximinez-Rothschild: NOBODY expects a global despotism! Our chief weapon is monetary policy...monetary policy and the bloc-media...the bloc-media and monetary policy.... Our two weapons are the bloc-media and monetary policy...and corruption via satanism and paedophilia.... Our *three* weapons are the bloc-media, monetary policy, and corruption via satanism and paedophilia...and a centuries spanning gradualism.... Our *four*...no... *Amongst* our weapons.... Amongst our weaponry...are such elements as the bloc-media, monetary policy.... I'll come in again. (Exit and exeunt)


Does that make metaphoric sense? Well it does if you're standing on a balcony having a cig and trying to put together a sensible picture of what we're up against in terms of the death cult. Reducing a thing to senselessness ought not to be dismissed out of hand. Honestly, if a thing is senseless to begin with why not treat it that way?

For mine the essence of Python's senselessness was captured in one obscure sketch called 'Climbing the North face of Uxbridge Road' in which mountaineers with pitons, carabiners, and ropes laboriously traversed the footpath next to Uxbridge Road. For some reason this is mad, and yet doing the same thing on the side of a mountain isn't. Perhaps that was the beauty of Python - to make obvious the absurdity of all those things that we're otherwise required to discuss as if they were sensible.

No wonder there's nothing like Monty Python anymore. Now all comedy seems to be Jewish farce. Jewish farce has no point to make apart from the fact that everything can be reduced to smut. We're all Beavis and Butthead now. To hell with actually listening to anything anyone says or what it might mean. Instead we sit there blankly, our mental antennae attuned and waiting for the arrival of a smutty word - 'He said 'Bartok', heh heh heh heh....'


Interestingly, Python is actually undergoing a resurgence at the moment at the hands of Eric Idle (the least and shallowest of all the Pythons) who has reduced The Holy Grail to that most vacuous of art forms, the Broadway musical. Thus Idle becomes feted and wealthy, and the intellectual and philosophical heart of Python, Terry Jones, remains the most obscure of all his fellows. Sure, of course.

Otherwise Monty Python (with Spike Milligan's Goons as my intro) made me the fellow I am today. It taught me that arcane and otherwise intimidating topics could belong to anyone and that one might view them however one wished. There was no topic that couldn't be stripped down, turned inside out, and if necessary smashed over the head with a stout bit of reductio ad absurdum. Or to put it another way, they were the mortal enemies of 'this-is-how-you-must-think'.


When I was at university my best friend joined the army. To cheer him up whilst he was in the nightmarish world of basic training I sent him a letter (remember them?). What with both of us being silly Python fans, on the back of the envelope I put down the sender as 'Nelson Riddle and his Orchestra'. He quickly wrote back asking that I not do that again as the mail was always handed out by a corporal who never missed a trick in saying something shitty about the sender. This in an effort to humiliate and demean the recruits you understand. Have we all seen Full Metal Jacket? Okay, like that. Sure enough 'Nelson Riddle' qualified as a perfect red flag, "Does he blow your horn does he? Do you blow his? Are you a couple of fags?". Happily my friend succeeded where I would have failed and gave the right answer - "No, corporal".

Perhaps that's the military in a nutshell - Python bad, Beavis and Butthead good. God forbid anyone in the military should know the meaning of reductio ad absurdum. How would we ever get a war on if people could think for themselves and come to the conclusion that it was bullshit at its heart? Hmm... thinking about it, the military is essentially a soft form of trauma based mind-control à la Brice Taylor (Susan Ford). Those who've been through military training might want to scoff but only because they haven't read Ford's book. Compared to what she went through, military training is like Club Med.

But the principles remain the same. We are not to think: we are to blink and do. The only variations to the theme are in the intensity. From MKUltra to the military and from there to the civvy world, it all comes under the heading of mind control with the dial merely being turned from hard, to medium, to soft.


Speaking of going off to war, may I take a moment to plant a boot up the date of the Briton of the Century, Winston Churchill? Said Winston, "In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies." The sideways logic here is that it would be poor of a fellow to view them as inveterate liars just because they lie all the time about every goddamn thing. Says they, 'We possess the truth and we only lie out of the necessity of protecting this truth, do you see?'

Ha ha ha, you have to admit it's bloody clever isn't it? But the truth is that the noble war that necessitated these lies was bullshit from the get-go. In 1938, Churchill was in debt up to his eyeballs and was only saved from having to sell the family estate Chartwell by a Jewish South African gold mining millionaire, Sir Henry Skrakosch. What's Yiddish for 'quid pro quo'? And Germany's arch crime at the time of Judea's declaration of war against them in 1933 was to have wrested control of German monetary policy from the hands of the Rothschilds et al. And the yiddish for 'cui bono'?

Churchill's 'finest hour' was bullshit, just like every other bullshit war. The ends justified the means, but only for a tiny handful of liars - weren't nothing in it for the rest of us. Let's tweak another quote: "Never in the field of human conflict was so much paid by so many to so few". Sure.

Since then little has changed. The wars are smaller but there's more of them and they pretty much approach 'all the time, forever' in their frequency. With never a pause the new world order's noble truth, flanked by its bodyguard of lies, marches on. That 'truth' (world peace is it?) is every bit as false an end as the means used to arrive at it. As if anything good can come from enslavement by fake money, corruption by satanistic paedophilia, and an unrelenting deluge of media black lies? Honestly. The new world order will be exactly as fucked as the old world order with the only difference being the size of the pyramid underneath those who view themselves as the worthy pointy bit at the top. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.


Under that timeless rubric, I don't know that it matters who the boss is exactly. Up until now I've been flailing about in some mad variety of death cult whodunnit. Ha! Dig it - it's Poirot trying to figure out who stabbed the victim on the Orient Express. Gosh, there seems to be evidence pointing at everyone! Sure enough, the saucy Belgian figured out that it was everyone. Hmm... if you think about it, Murder On The Orient Express is a brilliant metaphor for how the death cult works. Its only point of departure from the real world is that the authorities who went on to arrest the assorted culprits on the train would have been in on the act as well.

Back to Python now, I have a sketch in mind. Or is it too unfunny? Perhaps I should do it as one of those 'flash mob' art event thingies? Anyway, imagine a bunch of people, dozens strong, all in suits robbing a bank (perhaps wearing bowler hats, just to add a python-esque touch). Or are they bank robbers? Perhaps they're the bankers themselves? For us as mug punters cowering in fear it's hard to tell the difference. Either way, each of these suits holds a pair of shotguns, one wired to the throat of a confrere and the other waved about at us. Of course each has a shotgun wired to their own throat. They scream demands, variously fearful and angry, "Hand over your money or everyone dies! We don't want to do this but we have no choice! But if everyone does as we say, we'll all be fine!"

Where's our clever Belgian? "I say Poirot, any idea who the culprit is?"

Mind you, I'm not too sure about the aforementioned fear and anger. Maybe it would exist at first, as each participant finds a shotgun at their head, but eventually they'd each become just another exhausted thousand-yard-stare killer like everyone else in the perverse shotgun-wired rat's nest: the whole tangled mass relentlessly moving forward to wherever the fuck it is they're going, and none of them even sure why anymore.


And now for that timeless chestnut - what's to be done? As Aangirfan so sensibly pointed out, really it's always been this way. And who can argue? It's not as if the fear-driven, anti-buddha death cult ruling us are imaginative or original. It's all been done before. Hell we all did it ourselves when we were two, and our sense of ourselves expanded to gargantuan proportions, but happily we grew out of it. Along those lines of all-been-done-before, why don't we view the death cult as dinosaurs? They might have made sense when the means to cast off the old predator-and-prey model didn't exist, but that was then and this is now: with modern mass communications such as they are, and the world an interconnected global village, a new paradigm based on compassion and common sense (ie. selflessness rather than selfishness) is actually possible. Don't scoff - if the insane effort that has gone into enslaving us in this global despotism had instead been spent urging us towards the other end of the continuum (at the top of the page), we'd be there already.

But forget all that, it doesn't make any difference since it's always been this way. And the future may be better or it may be worse, but it doesn't make any difference since it's always been this way. This is the Buddha's 'here and now'. The immutable truth of here and now is that the only option for each of us is (and always has been), to embody the world we wish to live in. There's no point waiting - waiting for some event, or cause, or charismatic saviour. I'm not saying that this thing or person isn't coming, just that it shouldn't-doesn't-won't make any difference. Not if you're being that embodiment, that is. Subsequently, there's no point being fearful, angry, or dismayed (nor in losing one's sense of humour, ha ha) because who wants to live in that world? Not me.

Meanwhile the world is the world and we observe and try to make sense of it. Perhaps we'll never be giants like Darwin or the Buddha, each with their own unified field theory of human behaviour. But that's okay, we merely declare ourselves 'midget' giants. And as such, we reach for the stars, as the giants do, but find our fingers are no closer than anyone else's, were they to try. Never mind, at least we tried and at least we get the gag. Unlike that thick-as-pigshit death cult. They don't get any gag apart from from those that involve a Beavis and Butthead variety of idiot sniggering. Regardless, we whose hearts are true (well, as true as we can make 'em), and whose quills are sharp (licked with the tongue in our cheek), will carry on helpfully pointing out the senselessness of whatever the fuck it is they're on about.

Fear and Deterrence, and the Possibility of Redemption

---

The Small Picture

I was once at a picnic with otherwise right-thinking people when a fellow there started up with an anecdote about him having rung the local radio station to participate in an on-air discussion about that old chestnut of what's-to-be-done-with-wayward-teens. His gleeful contribution was to demand 'More Whipping!' Seriously. He was convinced that if only children were beaten more often and more harshly, society would be the better for it.


Happily he had never had children. The only person there who had, and whose children were famously trouble with a capital T, agreed. She recounted anecdotes of all the trouble she had made as a child, with the punch-line consisting each time of the hell they copped when their father caught them. Somehow this was evidence of the rightness of 'whipping', never mind her own kids. Sure enough, yours truly spoiled the social harmony by declaring that they had everything arse-about.

For the record, I've never had children. But that being said, my youngest brother was born in my last year of high school, and whilst ultimate responsibility didn't lay with me, I didn't miss much either. (And if I might just take a brief moment to brag - in an age before disposal diapers, my nappies were a triumph of dynamic tension and left everyone else's for dead). But never mind me as a crowing rooster cock-a-doodle-doo - in a discussion about discipline I followed my father's lead, which for the purpose of the argument I shall sum up as 'less is more'.

According to my father, we as children copped a whack on the bum precisely twice. In amongst us throwing anti-social, me-uber-alles tantrums we were told that this was unacceptable and that we might choose to stop it, or cop a smack on the bum. It was up to us. After we chose poorly twice, and copped two smacks, in the face of his unambiguous implacability, from then on we just believed him and chose the option that consisted of not getting whacked. I have no recollection of this you understand, merely his say-so. In fact, until he told us how he'd disciplined us, I'd have declared we'd never been whacked at all. And this is how it went for my youngest brother a decade and a half later. He was smacked precisely twice during that two year old period wherein one's sense of what-I-am expands to include the whole world. I don't know if this will surprise people, but I and my brothers were absurdly well behaved. For us, our greatest horror was that people might be disappointed in us.

This is merely me recounting the past you understand and doesn't necessarily represent me in the present. Meanwhile back at the picnic, I declared that 'whipping' will, in and of itself, in no way instil a sense of right and wrong, nor any other useful thing apart from fear. This fear will ensure nothing more than a variety of cunning that pivots on Not Getting Caught. Honestly how many times have we seen parents, of the variety given to copious physical punishment, variously promise a smack and not deliver it in the face of continued appalling behaviour (indeed with the likelihood of offering some reward-like sop to mollify the child), or otherwise delivering a whack from nowhere for behaviour that, never mind the child, had me stumped as to what they'd done wrong. What's a child to glean from this?


This was perfectly summed up for me when I once lived across the hall from a father who'd terrorise his daughters mercilessly - the screaming was nightmarish. He perfectly nailed his own absurdity when I heard him scream at his daughters, "Listen! Even when Dad is wrong, he's right!" God help those kids, there's only one lesson they'll learn from that, and that is: since there is no right and wrong, everything is arbitrary, with the say-so belonging to whoever has power, and thus the only thing that counts is not getting caught.*

The Big Picture

And from the micro to the macro, everything is like this. In this white man's world with its God who favours 'those who help themselves' (think about that), we extol no 'virtues' apart from those of individuals who excel at amassing things for themselves. Sure enough for yours truly, who puts everything on the selflessness/selfishness continuum, these are not virtues but sins. 'Sins' meanwhile, as defined by society, differ from its 'virtues' by the merest of technicalities. If I was to take $4 from a fellow I would be a criminal. But if I was a member of the Gillette/Schick cartel and charged $4.10 for a razor blade that cost 10c, I would be a feted captain of industry, an example to all.


Society deters people from committing its definitions of sins by way of fear - a fear, not of being seen as selfish (since this is a virtue), but rather of getting caught and thus being on the receiving end of further sins, which is to say, deprivation of liberty. This fear is a 'deterrent' - knowing how harshly we will be treated upon being caught we are thus deterred from committing the crime to begin with. Either that or we will do whatever it takes not to get caught.

You don't hear the word 'deterrence' much anymore - certainly not like you used to back in the seventies and eighties. Back then it was everywhere, what with being the reason why we needed to fork out a bazillion dollars for enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world ten times over. Now it's nowhere on account of it being at odds with Israel's desire to reduce Iran back to a parking lot. Frankly the complete absence of the word deterrence in a discussion of Iran's alleged pursuit of nukes is enough to tell any thinking person that the whole thing is bullshit.

Sure enough, deterrence is bullshit. For every person deterred from committing a crime, is another who is only deterred from being caught - to avoid this, he'll corrupt the judiciary, kill the witnesses, heap crime upon crime, whatever it takes. Which is to say, deterrence is as likely to increase crime as to reduce it. Not forgetting the beyond obvious fact that if deterrence worked, there'd be no one in jail.

I do hope no one starts up with that old chestnut about how if we didn't deter people then it'd be worse than it is now. Not unless they want to buy one of my famous tiger amulets, which will guarantee the wearer protection from tiger attacks. I've worn it for forty years and never been attacked once. Except for that time at Taronga Park zoo... but think how much worse it would have been if I hadn't been wearing it!


I don't know if they have tigers in Bhutan, but they certainly have criminals. Well, they do now anyway - ever since Rupert Murdoch's Sky began broadcasting into every home that is. Suddenly their meagre police force no longer has time to assist grannies cross the street because they're too busy chasing all those people who've taken to robbery and murder. Where's that fellow from the Picnic? He could advise the Bhutan government that what's needed here is more 'whipping'. Yeah well, fuck him and fuck his bullshit.

That aside, if anyone ever wanted proof of the rightness of the continuum, the unasked for social experiment taking place in Bhutan is it - a society that overnight replaced a consensus of selflessness with a shiny media model of selfishness and instantly found itself amongst all the ills of the West. Clearly it's high time we in the West wagged our finger and explained how their newly crime-ridden nation should now join the civilised world in instituting a fear-based model of deterrence, and thus may their society be as free of the depredations of criminals as we are. Or would the abysmal hypocrisy be too much? Ha ha ha ha, "Mr. Prime Minister, the delegation from the Wackenhut corporation is here to see you."

And that's how it goes - the Bhutanese are fuzzy-wuzzy jibber-jabberers and we teach them and not vice versa. The Portuguese on the other hand, whilst they are wogs, and do jibber-jabber, at least they're Christians who occasionally use soap, and thus might have something to say worth listening to. They've de-criminalised drugs it seems. Astoundingly the whole place hasn't turned into predicted den of iniquity. What's going on? It seems that the drug-users who were otherwise undeterred by the fear of punishment, actually benefit from calm and sensible discussions about the rightness of the whole caper and actually take up the government's offers of what I'm going to call redemption.

As if this wasn't completely fucking obvious. As if people like breaking into homes to steal laptops to pay for their addiction. Honestly. Portugal's experiment (in the bleeding obvious) is perfect proof that a fear based system of punishment pushes people further into crime. Now that it's been dispensed with, people finally have an opportunity to return to the embrace of society and are doing so wholeheartedly. Both crime and drug use in Portugal is declining.


The only problem with Portugal's experiment is the narrowness of the vision. Redemption is offered to users but not to sellers. Why is this is an either/or proposition? Rather than get bogged down in finicky arguments, why don't we just say that if fear didn't work for one crime, why do we imagine it will work for another? In the face of mountains of evidence to the contrary? Besides, what sort of person is picky in offering redemption? What is the 'line in the sand' that defines who or what deserves redemption, and who or what deserves fear and loathing, apart from a statement of arbitrary personal prejudice?

Little Picture Us Versus Big Picture Motherfuckers

Here we are, regular folks ever more appalled at monstrous sins of those who rule the world. Between a non-denominational satanist paedohile death cult, and a Jewish banking and warfare death cult, it's perfectly unsurprising that we dream of their righteous demise at the hands of a howling mob - string them up from lamp posts, tear them limb from limb, push stakes up their arse until the blood gurgles out their mouths. I get it. In fact I've brought up lamp posts on more that a few occasions myself.


But honestly, there's no future in it. Were this to happen, nothing would have been learnt (amongst the survivors - and there would be survivors, there always are) apart from that old chestnut 'Don't get caught' and the requisite next thought, 'If only we'd been more vicious'.

There's no either/or for redemption. What works for small scale misdemeanors is every bit as applicable for large scale crimes-against-humanity. Honestly if the Emperor Pu'yi (in Bertolucci's Last Emperor) who was inculcated his entire life can find happiness as a gardener, anyone can.


And yeah, I also get it that what I'm suggesting is an idealistic mad dream that's right up there with pig aviation. But I don't give a fuck. Not that I'm making any pretentious claims to whatever, but did the Jesus in the bible give a fuck? Did he temper his positions on account of fear, realpolitik necessities, or any other thing?

The most absurd thing is that a world without fear, a global societal model based not on proscription of innumerable sins but rather redemption and a single aim of selflessness, is possible. We now have mass communications perfectly capable of bringing about a paradigm shift in how humans regard, and subsequently treat, each other. And in Bhutan, all we'd have to do cut their satellite, ha ha.

I haven't a shred of doubt that this is technically do-able. If anyone doubts this, just consider what would result if all the time and energy currently devoted to turning us into self-obsessed gits striving to outdo our neighbour, was instead spent on the rightness and benefits of selflessness. It's inarguable that this could be done if we wished it.

Instead, the social darwinist motherfuckers who rule this world choose, amongst all the models Darwin offers us, to emulate predators. It should be obvious to anyone of the meanest understanding that they've chosen poorly. It may have made sense once, but now (in this age of dioxins and depleted uranium) it no longer does. We are now perfectly capable of infinitely greater things. That these people have so wildly excelled at mimicking such hateful creatures, does not speak of their greatness, but rather of their prosaic lack of imagination and ultimately their stupidity.


To hell with them and their world of fear, I reject all of it and refuse to participate in any aspect of it, regardless of how much I'd like to see them on the receiving end of their own bullshit. In spite of me mentioning it just now, truth is, hell is none of my business. And quite right too given that redemption is always possible. Just to make things crystal clear, this is not a discussion of probability, but of possibility. If a thing is right and if a thing is possible, then that's where I'm at. Fear, whether received, or inflicted, and with no acknowledgement of redemption, is bullshit. The death cult can bring on their armageddon, whatever they've got - the fear and loathing will all be theirs.

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.

Jonathon Livingston Stinkbug

Is there a purpose to life? Hmm... has anyone ever asked that question before? Maybe I'm the first, ha ha. And then there's stinkbugs. I wonder if a stinkbug ever asks this question? I shall call this curious fellow Jonathon Livingstone Stinkbug.


Are we familiar with stinkbugs? For those who groove on the Linnaean system they are family Pentatomidae, order Heteroptera. There's at least 5,000 different species and they're found on every continent on the planet. Their means of surviving environmental depredations, or more specifically predators, is very successful. They nail a predator with a really foul smelling liquid and otherwise taste like shit. Whilst I've never eaten one, I've smelt them and they're nasty. The smart money gives them a wide berth.

I saw a perfect demonstration of this when I was out on the balcony talking to my local grey butcherbird. I do all the talking sure enough, but he sings me a song and it's fair deal all round. And there we were when a big fat stinkbug landed less than a metre from the both of us. Both our heads turned and I waited for the coming inevitable violence. Nothing doing. He knew precisely what sort of bug it was and went straight back to the very important question of whether I had a bit of ham for him or not.

I knew not to touch the stinkbug because back when I was six or so, some other six year old said something along the lines of 'Don't touch it! It's a stinkbug!' Humans are clever like that. They can tell each other things. Butcherbirds don't have that facility. The only way any butcherbird learnt not to eat a stinkbug was by eating one and learning the hard way.

To hell with the butcherbird

Forget the butcherbird now, there's something extraordinary going on here. Stinkbugs are spectacular survivors and none of them are within cooee of extinction. But their mechanism of survival is arse-about. They don't ensure their own survival so much as they ensure each other's. The only way a butcherbird learns to leave them alone is because a stinkbug gave his life.

So, for our heteroptera philosopher, Jonathon Livingstone Stinkbug, between the two questions of, 'What is the purpose of life?', and 'What is the purpose of death?', one is a no-brainer (which is just as well since they are bugs of little brain). For our Jonathon, the purpose of death is to ensure life. Not for himself of course, but for every other stinkbug. And weirdly enough, in answering the latter question he goes some way in answering the former.

Obviously I'm drawing parallels here. Parallels with humans, natch. And if we're talking about humans we have to address the question of choice. Stinkbugs don't have a choice. And we do. Sure enough, we make choices all the time. Social Darwinists choose to emulate the predators of the world. As I've discussed before, that says less about Darwin than it does about them being self-serving motherfuckers. But it is what it is, and the human world is full of predators and the predated.

The occasional spook aside, if you're reading this blog it's my melancholy duty to inform you that you belong to the latter group. You are the predated. But happily Darwin says that there is more than one way of dealing with predators. Mostly we choose to emulate those creatures that run with a herd. We let the predators take the weakest whilst muttering, 'There but for the grace of God go I.' Or to put it another way, 'Please God let them eat somebody else, not me.'


Frankly this is piss-weak. It's not so much a thought, as a non-thought, the product of a brain seized by fear. As has been discussed in the comments section here recently, any herd that runs from predators could, if they chose to, stomp the shit out of them. But only if they stopped and thought about it, if they weren't possessed of fear, and crucially, if they acted in concert.

The predators know this of course and have ensured that the possibility of people acting in concert is nigh on impossible. The means of mass communication are subsequently in their hands. No voices of resistance or of organisation will be permitted. And yet here we are on the net, talking freely. But the net is purposely designed to be a cacophony. It's as precisely flooded with crap as the mainstream media is - millions and millions of people on facebook blathering about Paris Hilton and her foo-foo dog. But still, the potential is there and this is enough to warrant its destruction. Right this minute Australia's very own Senator Stephen Conroy is doing his damnedest to shut it down. It's all for our own safety, of course.

To hell with the herd

Let's not obsess on herds and the possibility, or lack thereof, of the herd acting in concert. I have no doubt that such resistance will take place. To a certain extent it already is. Not forgetting of course, that history is replete with such movements being co-opted and led by agents of the predators. The French Revolution, the Bolshevik revolution, Eastern Europe's various colour-coded revolutions, all run by the usual suspects and all designed to ensure that no harm comes to the top predators. As ever, the wolves lead the sheep in throwing down their shepherds. Three cheers - free at last!

Back to the stinkbugs now. They emphatically do not act in concert. Numbers ain't their bag. Their whole strategy functions on the sacrifice of fearless individuals. Certainly, they do not choose to be fearless. Their weeny grain-of-sand brains aren't up to it. But that's not the point. Our brains are up to it. We can choose. And we can be that fearless.

How might this plucky individual embody the strategy of Jonathon Livingstone Stinkbug? How might one, as a singleton, stick in the collective craw of the predators of the world? To be honest, actions such as this are quite common. We need merely look to the suicide bomber.


Suicide bombers sacrifice themselves in order to kill their oppressors. But suicide bombing has the precise opposite effect of that intended. As ever, the depiction of an event trumps its reality. With the bloc-media owning the rights to the meaning of a suicide bombing, they will achieve nothing useful, will enable the sowing of further seeds of fear and hatred, and most importantly will allow the bloc-media to portray the oppressed people (which the suicide bomber was ostensibly trying to help) as murderous madmen who deserve death. Everytime a suicide bomber does that thing, the motherfuckers clap in delight.

To hell with suicide bombing

What's needed is something unimpeachable, something that cannot be portrayed by the silken media voice of the predator as an excuse for more predation. Since it's me talking here, there is only a single thing that cannot be slurred, twisted, or impeached. And that thing, sure enough, is selflessness. If there's nothing in it for the person sacrificing himself, and no harm comes to others, how might that person's actions be misrepresented? Certainly the bloc-media will try but it will be a sure case of shit uphill. People know selflessness when they see it.

Has anyone heard of Norman Morrison? How about Thích Quảng Đức? No? Their names don't ring a bell? Funny that. In spite of their being two of the most extraordinary men in history they're almost perfectly absent from the media. It's not for no reason that the media ignores them. For mine, when the media ignores a subject it's a clue as to what they fear. The media voice of the predators would no more tell you about these men and what they did, than Achilles would say, 'Hey, did I tell you about my heel?!'


Somehow I doubt that either of these men were inspired by a stinkbug. But regardless, that's effectively what they did. They jammed themselves in the craw of the predator and ruined his fucking day. And yep, they did this by setting themselves on fire and being burnt alive. Are you recoiling in horror? Precisely, that's the whole idea. But over-the-top shock value aside, no one was harmed but themselves. The message was unambiguous and as loud as could be. Certainly they blew the minds of the punters but I expect they also blew the minds of the predators. True full-tilterama selflessness taken to the nth degree in this fashion is a real mindfuck.

To hell - with details

As usual, the devil is in the details. Let's skip the selflessness. This is actually the biggest hurdle but for the sake of the exercise, we're just going to take it as read. Beyond that first biggie, if the message and the means of delivering it aren't considered, all will be for nought. Like I said in a piece, Bloody Sunday, over at the cinema blog - If a monk burns in a plaza and no one sees, will it have done any good? (Actually, may I recommend that people read that piece? Sure it's a film review but it's not really a film review so much as a discussion of non-violent resistance, and the crucial aspect of it that the bloc-media unsurprisingly would prefer went unacknowledged).

Let's tackle our first question - Who are we aiming our action at? Our two heroes above were looking to shame the US military. And hats off to that. But we here are a little bit beyond that. The military is merely a servant. We want the masters. We want the bankers.


Here in Oz, the Reserve Bank of Australia is smack dab in the middle of Martin Place, which is smack dab in the middle of Sydney's CBD. Apart from the wee hours of the morning, Martin Place rarely has less than a hundred people in it. Most of the time there are thousands there, with more handicams and mobile phones than you could poke a police baton at. Perfect.

Okay, so it's filmed, uploaded to youtube, forced into the media with everyone seeing it. And?
'Man! Some guy burned himself alive in Martin Place!'
'Why?'
'Beats Me!'

Worthless. You may as well have slathered yourself with guacamole and sung the Yah Di Buckety song. (Well, if you're going to be meaningless, you may as well be funny). If you don't want to be meaningless, you need a message that makes sense and a place it can be seen. Welcome to the internet. The internet is a big place sure enough but people could be directed by way of a thousand flyers scattered about with a url printed on it. Nothing else, just that. After all, you don't want to give the game away early. And later, after the TV crews arrive and bail up the ashen faced witnesses, they'll stare into the camera and say, 'I don't know man, it seems the answer is on this piece of paper. It says...'

---

Okay I admit it. I've taken huge dapartures from the simple brainless method of the Stinkbug. But the fundamental principle is right there and the aim is unchanged. It's still a simple act of selflessness for the sake of others. And when the politicians get on the telly (with their sad faces on) and say, 'We don't want anyone copying this individual' you'll know they're scared. Something just got stuck in their craw.

Darwin and the Bowerbird

It's easy being a social darwinist. The strong destroy the weak. Confirmation for this is found throughout nature. The most successful creatures are the bloodiest. The kings of the animal world are those at the top of the food chain, which is to say the predators. How we admire them! They are the most perfect examples of the undeniable proof of Darwin's dictum about 'survival of the fittest'. It is only right and proper that we should emulate their behaviour. God forbid we should emulate their victims.

And you won't find a bigger fan of Charles Darwin than yours truly. I am privileged to have him sit on my left shoulder and whisper in my ear. And I always listen. His explanation for human behaviour (amongst other things) is never wrong. But what's that Charles? You never used the phrase 'survival of the fittest'? Apparently it was some other fellow's words. Apparently Darwin put it in the foreword of his second edition of 'Origin of the Species' and regrets it. Had he known that it would come to encapsulate, and misrepresent, his description of the behaviour of species he wouldn't have touched it with a barge pole.

Darwin does not extol particular kinds of behaviour. Certainly he demands that any species (or indeed any entity) that wishes to self perpetuate must ensure the viability of its offspring. Viability here means that its offspring must be able to do what it just did, ie. produce more offspring. Beyond this he ceases to care. If humans, say, have a tendency to go mad after the age of forty or so, and this does not screw with the viability of their offspring (whom one presumes are already adult), well that's fine with him. Alternatively, if humans can better assist their offspring by living to old age, Darwin gives this his blessing too. It's all good, provided each generation is capable of ensuring the viability of those they in turn give birth to. It's as simple as that.

So where does the 'fittest' come in? To be perfectly honest, it doesn't. If creatures can ensure the viability of their offspring and yet somehow fail in the 'fitness' stakes (whatever that is) Darwin doesn't give a shit. Under Darwin they are successful, regardless. A few years back, scientists discovered a mushroom-like fungus that lived underground and occupied an area so large it spanned several countries. Belgium was one I recall (Hey Miraculix, you're probably standing on it mate). The scientists declared that this was, in all probability, the largest living creature in the world, weighing in at thousands of tons. It leaves the blue whale for dead. It is also the oldest living creature, having been there for countless millennia. That this entity has persisted, in spite of ice ages, warm spells, you name it, means that Darwin gives it his blue ribbon for excellence.

Indeed, every creature that copes with environmental depredations and ensures the viability of its offspring gets this blue ribbon. Darwin has no favourites. He is no more interested in the 'food chain' than he is in my motorcycle's drive chain. If Darwin was the judge of a beauty contest he would declare that any of the contestants who can get laid is the winner. Can you dig it? Darwin has no favourites. He does not say that this is better than that. Thus if lions can avoid having their jaw broken by the flashing heels of a springbok, and go on to catch one and ensure the viability of their offspring, Darwin pops a champagne cork. And likewise, if springboks have the ability to break a lion's jaw and bring about its death then the lion's depredations will be kept to a wary minimum. Thus, the springbok's continuance is assured, and Darwin jams a cigar in its mouth (not that the springbok would care for it, but you get the idea). The lion and the springbok are equal in the eyes of Darwin. They both get the blue ribbon and 'fittest' ain't nowhere to be seen.

And then there's the bowerbird. Ha! You thought I'd forgotten. The bowerbird is really singular. He's so called because he builds a 'bower' - an elaborate structure of twigs, variously decorated with flowers, leaves, berries, rocks, shells, and, lately, bits of modern plastic detritus (blue straws and bottle tops being particularly popular). The bower serves no purpose beyond appealing to the female. It is not a nest - the female builds the nest separately and lays eggs there. Nor does the bower provide shelter. It is merely, believe it or not, the male's expression of artistic intent, for no purpose other than impressing the female. It is literally a work of art. Astoundingly no two bowers are the same. Each is a unique expression of the male's sense of the sublime (I avoid the word 'unique' like the plague, but here it is true). The female likewise will choose the male by means of her own artistic taste. And Darwin? He claps his hands and laughs with delight.


Where's the 'survival of the fittest' here? What sort of 'fittest' consists of being the greatest artist? The truth is that 'fittest' is bullshit. Social darwinists are dimwits who utterly fail to understand Darwin. Predators, such as lions and tigers, represent the tiniest fraction of the uncountable number of creatures every single one of which receives Darwin's unconditional blessing.

We humans differ from the rest of creation insofar as we are able to choose how we behave. We may choose the means by which we obey the truth of Darwin. Neither lions, nor springboks, nor any other creature can do this. Nor can they influence others to wonder at themselves and how they might fulfil Darwin's imperatives and make the world a better place while they're at it. Only we can have a discussion as to how this might be done. It's what sets us apart and makes us singular. To those social darwinists too dim to appreciate the spectacular array of possibilities the world presents us, I say - be that stupid four-legged beast red in tooth and claw. Just leave Darwin out of it. Darwin does not think you're special. He has no more time for you than he does for a happy, little, art-mad bowerbird.

Buddha v Darwin

I don't have much time for philosophy as such. Between the arcane vocabulary and various dialectics and epistemologies (did I mention the vocab?) it does my head in. I gave it a burl and came away none the wiser. I suspect if I was to spend my life pursuing philosophers and philosophy I'd end up knowing less than when I started. That says as much about me as it does about them.

I decided there were only two men I had any time for. They are Charles Darwin and the Buddha. There have actually been many buddhas but this particular one was named Siddhartha Gautama. When you hear of Buddha or Buddhism he's the one they're talking about. Darwin, of course invented evolution, which is to say he defined it for Westerners. What he defined had always been there but had always previously been explained in as many ways as exist in the human imagination and in none of them usefully.

But I had a problem with these two. I knew both of them were true. When I talk of them, Darwin and Buddha, I conflate their names with their 'philosophy'. This suits me. Just go with it. Anyway, they seemed at odds with each other. They couldn't both be right. One described a system without thought and one with. One seemed to embrace cruelty and one emphatically rejected it. They fought battles in my head and it wasn't until a particularly lucid and thoughtful joint that I reconciled them. But I'm leaping ahead.


There's a lot of shit written about these two and now it's my turn, ha ha. When I talk of them I'm really describing a distillation of my own making. This is necessary. Darwin first. Darwin, apparently extolled the concept of 'survival of the fittest'. Thus we should admire lions, tigers and other predators. They are the 'fittest' and therefore the best. Unfortunately this is a load of shite. Some other guy came up with the 'fittest' phrase and other people, whom I generically call motherfuckers, use it to justify war, eugenics, time-and-motion and every other fucked up thing they could think of. This is called 'social darwinism' and has nothing to do with Darwin.

In essence, under Darwin, things that self-replicate will deal with environmental changes or they won't. If you're eyesight is great it is precisely as great as is required to catch prey and not become it. If you're eyesight goes to hell when you're forty, that's cool. Once you're forty your offspring, to whom you've hopefully passed on your great eyesight, are either viable or not. If they're viable Darwin says you may become prey. He's ceased caring.

Don't be confused by things that have nothing to do with surviving and having kids. You can use those same eyes for star-gazing, admiring Matisse or looking at porn. Darwin doesn't care. Not everything has to be about the viability of offspring - it's just that it can't be against it. I briefly wondered about homosexuality under Darwin. I'm being clinical here you understand. How can he tolerate behaviour so contrary to offspring, never mind their viability? Clearly he does tolerate it. People who prefer members of their own sex have always existed and always will. But there will never be a population that is 100% gay. The percentage of gay people in a population must be less than 100%, a lot less, more like a few percent. Probably 2.1 standard deviations from the norm, ha ha. This is fine with Darwin. The population will carry on and our Charles won't bat an eyelid. Distractions don't matter.


You can see the cruelty in Darwin though. The shit that social darwinists prize is all there. I've seen adolescent bell magpies peck the weakest sibling to death. For an otherwise admirable bird it's shocking. But magpies will spend their entire adult life fighting for turf. There's only so many bugs and worms to go around. With inter-species negotiation impossible, tough guys only need apply. But apart from the aforementioned adolescent viciousness they're like every other bird and avoid a fight at all costs. They're not wantonly cruel. They're precisely as cruel as they need to be. Darwin doesn't advocate this - he just has no opinion.

And what was Buddha on about? A ton of things. It depends on who you listen to. If you've read this far you're listening to me. But don't worry, my opinion of Buddha is pretty unobjectionable. Buddha said there is no self. He knew this because he achieved selflessness. 'Selflessness - As used and recommended by the Buddha!' And the opposition brand is selfishness - as used and recommended by motherfuckers. Never mind the crap copywriting, this dichotomy, or continuum, can be as profound as any ever invented. It's got rules beat. Rules equal loopholes. And loopholes equal 'lying'. The rules about lying and the lying to justify it are, for fans of hypocrisy, exquisite. The four words 'Thou shalt not lie' has magically created an entire ornate edifice of nitpicking bullshit - "I didn't tell you because you didn't ask..." - "I never said that. My precise words were..." - "You asked me if I 'slept' with her. We never slept..." blah, blah, blah, ad infinitum. Under the 'rules' none of these people actually 'lied'. Bully for them and their sense of rightness. But what they inescapably did do is misrepresent reality for selfish purposes. And what of that old chestnut 'the white lie'? That's against the rules isn't it? Or not? Would a saintly rule-obeyer be compelled to tell someone they have a fat arse? To hell with it - forget the rules - forget the words 'lie' and 'lying'. They're worthless. Any discussion involving them inevitably disappears up its own oh-so-clever arse, fat or otherwise. Keep it simple. Did the person behave selfishly or selflessly? A continuum that has selfishness at one end and selflessness at the other is a knife that cuts through bullshit.


And if you ask me, I will tell you Buddha was not a god. He simply achieved complete selflessness. A person who does this becomes one with the universe. Even people a fraction of the way there are spooky. They are possessed of whatever it is that Shinto reveres. I won't describe it, but visit a Shinto shrine, be quiet and understand why the shrine is there. That's what I reckon anyway. But how about you and me - we aspirers to Buddha-dom? Relax. There's no need to leap in the deep end. Satori are possible but unlikely. Best to start small. Small acts of selflessness will do wonders for you and everyone around you. It's absurdly easy and yet it's absurdly difficult. In this world nobody wants you to be selfless. Everybody wants you to be selfish. The entire purpose of corporate media is to encourage you to be so - Buy that thing! You deserve it! Pamper yourself! Whatever you desire! - It's difficult to keep selflessness in mind when everything and everyone urges you to be the opposite. It comprises the air that breathe. In trying to become selfless a sense of dislocation is almost inevitable. But this is good. Go with it. It's the only way you'll know who you are. And if you do it right you become Buddha - but I wouldn't hold my breath. What's far more likely, in fact almost a certainty, is that you become a better person, make the world a better place, and find happiness. Don't look to me. I suck at it. I'm lazy, self-impressed and love to interrupt. Read carefully, it's obvious in every word I write. This 'easiest thing ever' requires perpetual mindfulness. It's hard.

But forget the bombast. This is Darwin v Buddha. A Battle to the Death! Darwinian cruelty versus Buddhist selflessness. One trumps the other. Aaargh! Stop! Forget social darwinism. It's bullshit, which is to say it's a self-serving misrepresentation of the truth. It's nonsense designed by wicked, selfish people to excuse their wicked, selfish behaviour. It conflates Darwin's failure to judge with an endorsement. Darwin Endorses Nothing. Forget the lions and tigers and magpies. Darwin equally addresses earthworms, peach trees and butterflies. A complete absence of cruelty and yet each of these species, and millions like them, persist successfully. Hats off, says Darwin. Whatever works is fine by him. On the subject of human selflessness as a method of dealing with the vagaries of survival he's neither for nor against. Darwin is not a social darwinist, ha ha. If a people can be selfless and have children that live to carry on in like fashion then that's fine with him. Darwin smiles serenely - if it works, it works.

And Buddha? Buddha is uninterested in magpies, worms or any other creature of little brain. These are animals of instinct not thought. None are capable of mindfulness nor can they achieve oneness with the universe. Only we can achieve, or even attempt this, and Buddha addresses us. That we can be cruel is beyond obvious. We can emulate thoughtless creatures if we choose to. Buddha stands shoulder to shoulder with Darwin in acknowledging this. But he goes one step further. He knows that humans can wake from mindlessness. Darwin, immutable avatar of life and death has no opinion. Buddha smiles serenely - selflessness is possible.