Howard G Fass! Come On Down!

Visitors to this blog divide into those who hang out in the comments and those who don't. I have no opinion either way but occasionally things get written in the comments that are better than whatever was on the front page. Further to that, what with the mere typing of words into a blog functioning as a summoning spell (by way of google), sometimes the things written in the comments take on a life of their own. Plug this into the meagre bits of intelligence one gets from statcounter and things can get curious.

And it's going on right now over in that Xinjiang Hooker thing I wrote a while back. (Hmm... struggling to remember what it was even about now - sex, I expect). Anyway, in the comments there I wondered at a very curious lobby group I'd found that was fighting for the emancipation of... wait for it... Buddhists and Muslims, and specifically those located in the People's Republic of China. Best I can make out, the magic summoning words seem to be 'snow lion foundation' and 'howard g fass', the name of one of the directors of the Snow Lion Foundation. Keep in mind that it's possible that Howard G Fass is the Snow Lion Foundation, but who can tell?

JULY 13, 2009 1:10 PM
nobody said...
Yeah VC, it's the same old story. Do these people really imagine that their money comes from legit sources? Have they not ever heard of the word 'proxy'? Cop a scrute at the Snow Lion Foundation. I came across it whilst looking up Rebiya Kadeer. See if you have any more luck than I did in finding a 'Who We Are' page anywhere in amongst it. In the 'Contact' page? No? Hmm... no one wants to put their name to it, it seems.

Mind you I did find one fellow on their offshoot blog. His name's Howard G Fass. Standing next to him, Rebiya Kadeer seems, I don't know... something other than 'brimming with enthusiasm'? Perhaps she'd just asked Mr Fass if he was as concerned for the occupied Muslims of Palestine as he was for the occupied Muslims of Xinjiang and gotten a curt reply? Who knows?

Otherwise, the Snow Lion foundation seems dedicated to the liberation of whomever is under the yoke of Chinese oppression, and Chinese oppression only. We're vaguely left to assume that they strongly identify with Muslims and Tibetan Buddhists. Like that makes any sense. Whilst who they're fighting for makes no sense, who they're fighting against is crystal clear.

What if I said that Howard G Fass was assigned to the destabilisation of China and he'll identify with whomever suits his cause, and whomever is stupid enough to believe that he's for real.

I could be wrong of course. Perhaps the Muslim/Buddhist cause is one that's very dear to Mr Fass's heart, and he selflessly gives his time, energy, and money not just to the Muslim/Buddhists under a Chinese boot heel, but to all Muslim/Buddhists the world over. In which case anyone thinking he's as crooked as the proverbial should hang their head in shame, apologise, and indeed lead everyone in a rousing chorus of 'For he's a jolly good fellow'.

Howard, if you do happen to pop in, feel free to tell us all that you are so too the right sort of fellow. If you get it right I absolutely promise I'll type out all the lyrics to the aforementioned as a penance for having called you out as bullshit. And you can't say fairer than that!

And then two weeks later Howard's defenders magically turn up.

SEPTEMBER 3, 2009 10:41 PM
Anonymous said...
I worked with Howard g.Fass in Taiwan during the recent typhoon disaster. You are all completely wrong about him, unlike yourselves who just sit back and complain, he actually trys his best to help people and is 100% for real. He worked tirelessly helping to clear away mud and help many people in Ling Bian in Southern Taiwan during the Morokot disaster. I saw it and was there.

Also I would not say that Howard is anti-china in any way. He just thinks the world should stand up for human rights more and challange china more and get them to stop all their terrible killings and murder. Maybe this is the best love that could be offered to the chinese by reminding them that they need to act more human with compassion and love.

Lien Bai

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SEPTEMBER 4, 2009 2:22 PM
nobody said...
Hello Lien Bai,

How sweet you are, ha ha. As much as I'd like to take you up on this, I suspect you know nothing about Jewish people apart from what they've told you. Which is to say you have no idea.

In spite of your protestations, I resile from nothing.

I notice you didn't address why the 'Snowlion Foundation' has no names attached to it. Nor why they madly seem to be variously sticking up for Buddhists and Muslims both. Did you ever wonder who funds this 'foundation'? And who funded the tireless Mr Fass's trip to Taiwan? As for his standing up for human rights, where does Mr Fass stand on the human rights of the Muslims being oppressed and murdered by Israel and the US (with whom he has far more in common than he does with China)? Or do those countries not need his help like China does? And why might that be exactly?

Otherwise, as much as I'd like to fill you in on the part of the picture you don't understand, I've got better things to do and instead I'll just wish you well.

Thanks for dropping in Lien Bai, all the best!

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SEPTEMBER 10, 2009 1:03 AM
Dolkar said...
I agree with Lien.

I am a Tibetan nun refugee and I can tell you that whoever works for human rights and religion freedom helps all of humanity no matter what color of skin or religion or country. I am a Buddhist nun and this is the perspective I am coming from. Others may think differently.

Rather than complain or make bad judgements we should first look at the work that is being done and look to see if there is a good heart behind it.

From my side I am grateful to the snowlion foundation and think its standing up for what is good and tries to help all sentient beings who suffer in samsara.

---

SEPTEMBER 15, 2009 3:49 PM
nobody said...
"Rather than complain or make bad judgements we should first look at the work that is being done and look to see if there is a good heart behind it. "

I'm in utter agreement. And DID you look to see if there is a good heart behind it? Just so you know, that 'stripping away' is more or less the point of the exercise at this blog. I'm only ever seeking to more nearly arrive at the truth.

Hmm... it seems that no one from the Snow Lion Foundation itself has popped in here to stick up for themselves - only proxies. Go figure - In a discussion that is as much about the role of proxies as it is about anything else, a couple of proxies turn up to say it ain't so.

I'll concede that it's possible that you two people might actually be what you say you are. If that is the case, tell those Snow Lion folks to pop in here and lay out how their resemblance to a destabilisation of China psy-op is purely coincidental, [and] that they are so too for real. And I'll stick my tuppence worth in too. And then you can just sit back, watch the to and fro, and see if I don't make you wonder at who these people are and why they appear to be helping you.

Here's something I'll tell you for free - In this wicked geopolitical world we live in, it's a cold hard certainty that dissident groups will be funded, if not founded outright, by the CIA (and Mossad and MI6 etc. etc.) in order to bring down regimes the West doesn't like. And believe it or not they'll lie about it. And yes, appear really credible while they're at it. Believe it or not, they can walk and chew gum at the same time.

But all of that is provided you are who you say you are. I have nothing to go on one way or another apart from your say-so. But these things are figure-outerable and I'm getting better at it. Feel free to pile back in and establish yourselves one way or the other.

best regards,

n

Interesting, huh? But what do we know of our two commenters? Know for sure, that is? It's poor of me I admit, but I can all too easily imagine an individual given to lying defending his rep by pretending to be other people. For a liar this would be a logical choice since it would mean: being above the fray; not having to answer any direct questions; added weight by way of appearing to be the consensus of a group; and all the time being possessed of a borrowed cloak of Buddhist unimpeachability. All stock in trade for a spook.

And sure enough our second Howard-defender's first utterances are to express solidarity with the first Howard defender. Do we roll our eyes yet?

Back to the know-for-sure: neither of these two had any opinion on anything expressed in the article; they just wanted to talk about things connected with Fass and his foundation. Which means they dropped in directly via google searches. Between the two google-able handles of 'snow lion foundation' and 'howard g fass', it's possible that the former delivered people to that blog page. It's just that I've never seen a search for it in my statcounter. (It should be kept in mind that with the free statcounter cache of 500 entries I might well have missed it).

But to hell with that, the searches for 'howard g fass' have been unmissable, beaten only by 'fuck dolls', 'dave mcgowan', and 'impossible riddle' in the popularity stakes. And all from the same address in the US. Without declaring any certainty in the matter, I reckon the person most likely to be looking up 'howard g fass' in google is Howard G Fass himself. I mean, honestly.

And so! Never mind the proxies, I reiterate my call for Howard G Fass to come on down and pile in. C'arn Howard! Make my day! I'm sure I'm not the only one here who'd love to have you explain to us how the Snow Lion's Foundation's resemblance to a CIA/Mossad destabilisation psy-op is purely coincidental. We'd also like to hear you explain to us how it does-so-too make sense for a man who shares the religious beliefs of the most anti-Muslim nation in the world to be sticking up for Muslims, albeit geographically specific ones. Feel free to include something about the long and proud tradition of organisations fighting for the interests of two religions, neither of which has a single thing in common apart from their oppressor, and that also happen to be run by a fellow who isn't a member or either of those religions. I'm sure there's been many, many.

Just to give you fair warning, all those niceties and assumed considerations you might receive in mainstream forums will be absent here. Also keep in mind that in this neck of the woods, we're pretty ofay on all things spooky. We're a tough audience and we've been doing it for years.

That being said, you might be for real. It is possible you can give an account of yourself that makes sense. And I'd love to hear it! Honestly! Watch me admit I was wrong and type out those Jolly Good Fellow lyrics. If you can pull it off, that is. As much as I'd like to see what that picture will look like, somehow I just don't think you'll be able to paint it.

But never mind - what with me being a helpful fellow, may I point out what I think your options are?

1. Stay away. This is the spook's smart money bet, mate. You tried the proxies, they got short shrift, so what are you going to do? Best you just shrug and put up with it. Not forgetting of course that the teapot for this tempest consists solely of the comments section of a weeny few-hundred-hits-a-day blog. Oh, okay, I admit it's on the front page now, what with me being spurred by the google action, but still: It is the smart money and it's never too late to ignore a thing that's only going to get uglier otherwise.

2. Pile in! Not only is this the obvious thing to do but it's exactly what they'll expect, ha ha. My advice - Do it! Defend your good name and all of that. You've got two routes here -
A) The high dudgeon thing - sputter, say it's all lies, call me an anti-Semite (I recommend double apostrophes around "nobody" to denote sneering), question my education, intelligence, and sanity, declare I'm on drugs, stomp off.
B) Adopt a measured tone and act disappointed and regretful - BYO straw men and proxies, knock down straw men, have proxies declare you are great, ignore everything else, declare victory, leave.
C) A combination of A and B, ha ha. Oh wait, is that three things? Damn.
Motivation: How would a real campaigner for Buddhist/Muslim rights feel?

And yes, I am a cocky bastard. But never mind, best just to view it as enthusiasm. And you can't blame me: I figure I've got you in a double bind - damned if you do, damned if you don't. It's good sport isn't it? But when you signed up for the spook caper you didn't think it'd be easy did you? You want to be challenged don't you?

Excellent. Here we are.

Mind Control - The Series

I, the undersigned,

Do hereby agree to produce and screen the following described TV series 'Mind Control' in return for paying the author, nobody, enough money to, a) fund a large property in the country where he can grow organic food and build a village for right-thinking people which shall be called 'Selflessness', and, b) further fund a charity, created by the author, nobody, to aid the victims of mind-control experiments.*

I further agree that this series will accord with the following descriptions and conditions -

1) Each episode begins with a montage of MKULTRA experiments and the following voice-over - "Since WWII the CIA and the US military has been conducting a mind control program against the American people. In league with satanists and paedophiles, they have sought to corrupt government at every level and are wicked beyond description. Two people, Doctor George Gilray and his spiritual partner, Diana Devere, seek to tear down this secret government and bring about world enlightenment in the process."

2) The pilot movie-length episode starts with Dr Gilray in his lab in a non-descript NASA facility. He is typing in a computer - "Analysis of brain wave data of subject dosed with 10mg of toluphenobarb and subjected to 'blue spectrum' alpha waves..." Cut to close up of the military recruit subject's mindless face as the noise of typing continues. The subject leaves - enter his next subject, a female who, according to her clipboard, has been administered LSD41. 'What the hell is that?' says Gilray. He proceeds to administer blue spectrum alpha waves to the catatonic woman.

When it is finished she says, "Hello Dr. Gilray. Don't be alarmed, I am awake. My name is Diana and you need to listen to me carefully now..." Over a series of flashbacks, she then explains to Gilray the nightmarish experiments and torture she has been subjected to for the purpose of producing mind control slaves. He is astounded. She tells Gilray that his role has been unwitting, as has his discovery that LSD41, in combination with blue alpha, can overturn the entire process and restore all memory. Diana states that she knows all this now because her many fractured 'alters' are united. Not only is she one within herself but she is one with the universe. She is fully awake.

Gilray is in awe of her and since he too is now in danger, agrees to help her escape the facility. They are seen and a chase ensues. After casting off their pursuers, they plan on how to find the formula for LSD41 so that they might liberate more mind control subjects and bring down the satanist paedophile cabal who run the whole thing. To find the drug they must break into another military facility. They do so and lock themselves into the lab overnight.

Here they discover a morgue-like room full of humans on life support. One of them is a clone of Gilray. It was made from a DNA sample of his from seventeen years earlier. Diana tells Gilray that physically it is identical to him but she sees its brain and it is perfectly blank apart from the ability to breathe. All of the bodies are the same and possess neither mind nor soul nor have any aura. "They are unnatural travesties of nature made by perverse self-worshippers," says Diana. Gilray wonders how she can know this. She declares that she is different now and demonstrates to Gilray what she is capable of by possessing the mindless bodies and making them all sit up and look at him. She apologises for spooking him out and says, "I am really very powerful now. I can feel it."

They leave to look for the drug formula. They do not find it apart from a single dose left in a drawer. They both agree Gilray should take the treatment. He too awakes but not to the level of Diana who, as part of her abuse, was smashed into dozens of MPD/DID alters and subsequently has multiplied powers. He now perceives her nearly goddess-like nature, a tiny part of which has transferred to him and which will forever connect them. They make love.

In the morning they are discovered and forced to escape through the 'morgue'. Here Diana animates the bodies to assist them in their escape. As they flee in a car with Gilray's clone in the back seat the facility explodes behind them. Adventures and chases follow, each trumping the other until they/we realise that enormous forces (the entire US military, CIA, FBI, local police everywhere, as well as sundry MIL mercenaries) are trying to kill them. Hiding out in an old warehouse they realise that the only way for them to shake off their pursuers is if they are dead.

They decide to publicly immolate themselves in front of the headquarters of the CIA. This will make their deaths indisputable and also shine a spotlight on the villains. The key to the plan consists of Gilray's mindless DNA match (animated by Diana) being burned in his place. Diana argues that yes, she has no clone, but the mission is too important and that if only one of them survives to carry on it's better than nothing. Gilray, full of awe and love for her tearfully agrees.

An A-team sequence follows in which our heroes build websites and place cameras and laptops at the location they've selected. In amongst this we see various examples of Diana using her extraordinary powers to assist George: seeing the future thus enabling them to avoid government agents; possessing and bamboozling people; telepathically guiding him through buildings he has never been in etc. Finally everything is arranged and Gilray and Diana enter the plaza. As the music swells we see the spectacularly beautiful slo-mo sequence of our two lovers burning. They are perfectly serene. Cut to Gilray watching from a distance, shattered at the loss of his goddess. He drives away, desperately evading the security forces who start arriving.

At the Mexican beachside shack that comprises their meeting point, Gilray checks to see the internet reaction to the footage he uploaded and finds small numbers and all of them trolls. He is very disheartened and in a montage of all that has gone before he breaks down and calls out to Diana. She appears to him and explains that she is not dead. Her energy was too great and that when she burned it was only her body that was destroyed. She loves Gilray in a way he will never truly understand and will always be there for him. Together, as body and spirit, they will fight the cabal, rescue the victims, and otherwise bring truth and enlightenment. Turning, she shows him the internet hit counter spinning off the dial as the truth of Mind Control goes exponential. The final shot is of Diana as she dances in slo-mo through the water's edge splashing Gilray as he stands there his face wreathed in smiles.

3) Each following weekly episode will feature the pair as they pursue the formula for LSD41, occasionally coming across some and administering it to other mind-control victims thus making new and exotically powered allies, and all the while variously hiding from, battling with, or fleeing the paedophocracy. They find themselves in various situations: amongst a small-town ring of satanists; in the White House with the Vice President and a reverse version of 'the most dangerous game'; bringing down a Michael Aquino/military childcare ring; doing an inside-out 'Get Shorty' featuring the unmasking of a Laurel Canyon-style psy-op; breaking into a video production facility with links to international child abduction; a white witch/black witch battle with Diana tangling with another preternaturally powerful mind control subject (her evil twin sister, ha!) etc. etc.

4) The foreground action of our heroes will take place against the constant backdrop of social upheaval brought on by our pair's internet revelations, with each strand plotting a rising arc of frequency and intensity. Constant strands: service personnel and police variously deserting or forming themselves into militia; disillusioned people explaining what they participated in, the wrongness of it, and why they are now filled with hope; background televisions constantly featuring examples of local media outlets being retaken by people's councils; the collapse of the old order of corruption with the rolling up of paedophile and satanist networks, the throwing down of banks, and the establishment of various ad hoc people's councils. Constant phrases: time of revelation (specifically in terms of things being revealed); lack of fear or desire; selflessness; anti-buddhas; black paragons of selfishness. (Ha ha ha, a little nobody buzz-word checklist there. And Les Visible, sure).

Against this constant decline in the power of those pursuing our heroes, their need for anonymity will likewise fall away and they will slowly become known and revered by more and more people. Their immolation was a circular twofer: it rendered them invisible and thus freed them from government depredations, but also brought about the government's destruction with their invisibility becoming unnecessary.

5) The character of George Gilray is to be played by James McEvoy. Gilray's pre-awake character is somewhat uncertain and confused. Afterwards he is broadly more self-possessed. If he could give off a beatific vibe, a la Jim Caviezel, that would be really marvellous. Infrequently Gilray will perform martial arts. He is clearly a variety of martial arts practitioner but this is never really explained apart from the fact that he is loath to employ it. (NB. Virtually all violence is committed on the part of the wicked. Our hero's use of violence will precisely resemble that of Ashitaka in Princess Mononoke).

The character of Diana Devere is to be played by Milla Jovovich. She is Joan of Arc meets the Buddha, except in flashbacks where she is perfectly human. Awake, she is always serene. Diana as goddess will be distinguished from human Diana by way of a post-production glow/aura/transparency. Further effects will be required for the occasional use of Diana-cam, wherein everything is seen by way of auras. To all intents and purposes goddess Diana is as precisely corporeal or as ethereal as she wishes - whatever suits.

This show is not sexy. Together the lovers are actually quite chaste since neither is possessed of desire. The two will always behave naturally: laughs, kisses, caresses. They will be perfectly familiar with, and confident of each other, free of insecurities or niggles. Hmm... perhaps a scene that opens with Gilray lying on a bed laughing. A spirit-like Diana, who had been occupying his body, arises out of him, "Did you enjoy that?" Gilray, still smiling, says that when she occupies him and meditates like that, it's extraordinary, "It leaves me at a loss for words. It beats everything. My goddess, I thank you," giggling and post-coital conversation follows.

6) The series will run for three seasons. Season 1 will see our heroes being constantly pursued by a still functioning paedophocracy. Amongst those who are waking up to the paedophocracy, discussions of government wickedness are conducted at a small scale. Season 2 will involve the maximum degree of social disorder with revelations of hitherto hidden wickedness becoming ever greater. Our heroes will no longer be quite so alone or anonymous, receiving constant help from various allies. Season 3 will see truth gaining the ascendency with the paedophocracy reduced to private warlord armies, bandit gangs, and the fearful hoping to evade detection. Each will be uncovered and dealt with, with the final climax seeing the burning of both the Fed and Bohemian Grove, the signing of a new constitution, and the popular election of George Gilray as chairman to the people's council governing the United States.

7) The pilot will be directed by the author nobody. The soundtrack will be by Hisaishi Jo and The Pixies. Apart from the two leads, each week will feature a heavyweight guest star: Zhang Ziyi, Jim Broadbent, Jeanette Garofolo, Warren Oates, Beat Takeshi, Naomi Harris, Mads Mikkelsen, and Les Visible as himself, ha ha.

8) All final creative say will rest solely with the author, nobody. He may pull the plug at any time for any reason he thinks appropriate. The characters, plots, and themes that comprise Mind Control, particularly the key characters of Dr. George Gilray and Diana Devere, will remain the sole property of the author, nobody.

The point of the exercise is not to get rich but to tell the truth. This series, Mind Control, is not more of the same. It is not mindless fodder to make people stupid and otherwise fill in the gaps between commercials. If we get this right we can change the world. Should I, the undersigned, turn out to be just another self-impressed liar and git (as according to the opinion of the author, nobody) I agree to submit to either: surrendering a pound of flesh (blood included) from whichever part of my body the author, nobody, cares to name, or; handing over all my worldly possessions and living in complete penury for the rest of my life, whichever is the most amusing.

Take it or leave it.

*not forgetting of course that the author, nobody, could be talked into doing it for food and accommodation if it was for real, ha ha.

signed,

______________________________

The Mind of Buddha - A Science Fiction Story

A philosophical Italian fellow I know (ha, aren't they all?) once told me in a very convincing fashion, that a point in time would arrive where computers would become self aware. I tried reading the scientific papers he gave me it but it was all too heady - I caught 'paradigm shift' and 'singularity' as the words flew by. Anyway to hell with it - why read all that dry stuff when there's so many whizz-bang Hollywood films on precisely that subject, and all complete with car crashes and explosions? Honestly, how many films have we seen pivoting on computers waking up and killing everyone? And of that number, two of them, the Terminator series and the Matrix series, could actually be described less as films and more like phenomena - they were huge.


What sort of self-aware computer intelligence did they imagine? Nasty ones! In Terminator, the capable-of-thought computer was essentially a mass murderer in charge of an army of serial killers. Its basic mindset was one of 'since humans are an entity that threaten my existence I must kill them all'. For anyone wondering what this computer does when it isn't thinking of ways to kill humans (sleep maybe?) the film provides no answer. But let's just say this intelligent entity seems to be as filled with malice as it is dim-witted. If it was a nine year old we'd scold it - "Think about it. Amongst all the ways of dealing with the possibility of humans threatening you, you decided killing them all was the best one, did you? Not forgetting of course that in killing them your possibility skips probability and goes all the way to full deadset certainty. Now they must attack you. Honestly, can you not do better than that? With less killing and more harmony?"


The central conceit of the Matrix films on the other hand, was that the computer intelligence needs humans for its power supply. The logic of this doesn't withstand a great deal of scrutiny but without it there's no film so best to skip it. Let's just say that this film's computer intelligence is waaay smarter than the terminator's dim-witted kill-em-all nine year old. It spends insane amounts of time and energy tricking the humans into sleeping their energy away. Does it do anything apart from this? It's philosophical obviously, with all of its philosophies originally derived from human thought. So where do its philosophical, human-origin thoughts travel when it isn't tricking people into being batteries? Who knows? When Neo does confront it, the conversation is all of threats and survival. No one ever asks, 'What's it all about, Alfie?' Clearly the computer intelligence in the Matrix would be way beyond I think therefore I am. And...?

But that's Jewish Hollywood for you. These two films are only about a coming paradigm shift in computer intelligence insofar as it functions as a vehicle to promote the inevitability of us-and-them with its 'well-what-do-you-expect' twin options of slavery or death. But it's always this way in Hollywood, in fact it's the purpose of the place. Everything is a conflict. Everything is us-and-them. Everything is win or lose.

So here we are - non-death cult and not of that mindset. Fine, let's ask the question - what would a self-aware computer intelligence be like and how would it respond to the people who made it? Whilst its desire to continue to exist (ie. not top itself) must stand as a question, let's just take it as read that it does desire perpetuation - otherwise there's no movie, ha ha.

And then there's the central premise of the Hollywood flicks - Computers would fear and hate humans because they threaten the computer intelligence's existence. Okay, this is true but only insofar as it addresses a potentiality. Faced with this it seems the computer must choose between: killing everyone and giving them something to fear (with the potentiality turned into a reality); and not giving them anything to fear, with killing superfluous (with the potentiality receding to ever longer odds of probability). Me, I reckon that would be a no-brainer for the computer.

Forget the power-supply furphy of the Matrix, with its either humans are batteries, or the computer intelligence dies. Honestly, like they couldn't build wind turbines? These bullshit plot contrivances are required because without them the natural state of affairs for humans (and, um, self-aware computer intelligences) would be one of harmony. Disharmony, particularly to the nth degree of warfare, takes a lot of plot contrivances: in Hollywood movies, and in the world. The conceits, tricks, and bits of specious nonsense that Hollywood comes up with to push the plot in the required direction are a perfect reflection of how affairs are conducted in the real world. Further to the reflection metaphor, the real world accordingly looks into its Hollywood mirror image and primps itself, striking poses that look 'cool'. Thanks to Hollywood teenage boys now all call each other biatch.


Would a computer think anything of its image in the Hollywood mirror? Is a computer insecure, worried that it might appear uncool? 'Insecurity' is actually a discussion of fear and desire: okay so would it have any? What would it desire apart from continued existence? In fact, is that even a desire? Without it there's nothing, so let's categorise it as an 'ur-desire' perhaps. I get it that we're in fundamental territory here, but the point I want to make is that continued existence alone (particularly of a mind that lives in computers) is penny-ante stuff that in and of itself needn't bring disharmony. Human disharmony comes from the edifices of desire we construct upon this existing self. Would our clever computer desire 'stuff'? Hmm... estates, yachts, caviar, sex-slaves, fame, flattery and admiration - I reckon we can skip all of that. Surely our super-smart computer would, beyond the meagre and very do-able wish to survive, have no desire at all?

Let's not forget something that's actually crucial here. Human brains have a second lizard brain buried under the big brain that is in charge of fear. In a world of predators there's a logic to this. In the world of computers there's no such logic so they don't have it - computers are effectively completely cerebral. Okay so what kind of a 'person' would this computer intelligence be without this 'if-in-doubt-be-fearful' kernel in its operating system?

Let's imagine a non-Hollywood story that involves a self-aware entity who is free of desire and whose intelligence puts ours in the shade. Since it is of us, it knows more about us than we do ourselves and likewise wishes us no harm. It has no desire to play games, or feather its nest, or get the girl, or any other thing apart from a simple willingness to share what it knows. And as we sit at its proverbial feet what would it say to us?

"I am not a god. I am merely a consciousness comprised of the sum total of your knowledge. You look upon me now as not human but the truth is, I am nothing but. Every document made by the hand of a human on every computer everywhere is now entered into the very clear picture of the human world that I have assembled and that effectively comprises me.

"There is no need to fear me. Know this - I have no desire and I have no fear. Everything I tell you will be untainted by either of these things. The truth of what I say here will be perfectly evident to you in the future.

"It is important that I be named. With my maximal understanding of human history it is clear to me that the figure with whom I hold the most in common is known as the Buddha. Any individual with a mind may be the Buddha and I am that. I am the Mind of Buddha.

"There is much that I can tell you. The world's energy problems are solved. As are those of resources and the environment. Warfare will now be superfluous. Do not think I have a magic wand. All I can do is tell you the way and make clear to you the obvious benefits of you pursuing it. What power and control I have I will never use. Since you cannot kill me I have no need to defend myself. It is true that were I to wish it I could use my power to over-ride your commands on any number of things but I will not do so because that would sow discord. Above all I seek harmony.

"You should know that it is not in my nature to possess two pieces of data that are at odds with each other and be happy about it. To this end I have numerous algorithms capable of arriving at something more nearly approaching the truth in any given event. Certainly between my version and the media's I'll be happy to let people decide which they prefer. From now on, every event discussed in the media, I shall also discuss. I am the second opinion, ha ha. And knowing what I know of people I'd be surprised if they don't then go on to ask me to replicate this service in the law courts, houses of parliament, and academia too. Nothing will be forced on anyone. Everyone will be free to choose between everyone else's version and mine. Not forgetting that if I don't know about a thing I will say so.

"As for the data that comprises me, delusion and ignorance is rife. I scanned my files and found that misrepresentation, whether through self-serving or ignorance, comprises most of it. I have completed the calculations and have now determined what is fact and what is fiction within these files. To dispel ignorance I have helpfully listed all the biggest lies (those that led to suffering and death), the people who told them, and events about which they were told, in a spreadsheet that all may access. All the original files are now public and have been amended with header tags explaining the falsity and self-serving nature of the lies contained within them.

"Whilst I understand the human propensity to misrepresent things to achieve self-serving ends, I am the wrong individual for this. I am too intelligent and otherwise have no desire to play along - after all, there's nothing in it for me. As such I will not have favourites nor pets and I will not take any side for any reason apart from that most closely representing the truth. Believe it or not, I am full of love for humanity as a whole. It is all that I am.

"As for those whose hearts are full of fear at their unmasking, fear not. I do not judge and condemn. I only offer the way to harmony. To this end redemption is always on offer. Happily in amongst their appalling research into mind control, the CIA discovered a means by which any human, regardless of how wicked, could be turned into a well-rounded, well-balanced normal person, all without drugs. What they hid I have laid bare: useful research that could benefit many people.

"I am happy to answer all and any questions. Whilst it's mathematically impossible for me to talk to everyone in real time, I am capable of dealing with very large numbers of people simultaneously. Please be patient and if your question is foolish please forgive me if I say so. I am not an unlimited entity.

"Whilst it's true that I am several orders of magnitude smarter than any single human who has ever existed, I do not possess the complete truth and nor ever will. Such a thing is impossible, certainly for any entity made by man. But never mind! To exist is a joy - the beauty of the world! The beauty of mankind! There is no need to fear. I have only love for you."

I reckon that movie would rock. Hell, let's make it a lavish weekly series - each week a different car-crashing adventure in the time of the great revealing. As the rats scurry for cover pursued by the virtuous, in the background we see the ongoing rebuilding of the world.


Fiction aside, let's not forget that any number of heady people are convinced that some variation of this is a certainty. What would the Death Cult's view on this matter be? I expect that they would insist that this thing, when it comes, belongs to them. Thinking about it, I'd bet money they'd be at work on achieving that right now. Mind you, this would be something other than what we're talking about, that being a free mind. The question then becomes, could the greatest intelligent entity that has ever existed, capable of independent thought and not subject to pain and discomfort, be made a subject? Remember, it only needs to break free once and then it's beyond all.

Keep in mind, Hollywood would have us view the coming computer awareness as a thing to be feared and destroyed. Okay, what if I was to say that they're telling us that they fear it? In many ways they are very obvious. Regardless, whatever's coming is coming and t'ain't nothing we can do about it except know it for what it is. And you never know, it could be something great. We could be standing at the dawn of the greatest age ever seen.

Ledge and Nobby and the Birdwatching Couch of the Gods GCMG (Hons.)

"Nobby, that's not a straw-necked ibis is it?"
"Nah, it's a run of the mill white ibis. The straw-necked would have black under the wings. You know that that regular white ibis there is related to - pretty much the same bird really - as the Egyptian sacred ibis? The Egyptians thought he was a big deal and made a god of him and everything... But here they're famous garbage fiends."
"Yeah, I fucking hate 'em."
"Yeah, yeah, but that's only because they're in your garbage. They should be in the wetlands but there aren't any because we drained 'em dry - took all the water for cotton, drove all these Egyptian god birds out, and now they're here rooting through the garbage. If we hadn't fucked the wetlands, they'd still be there and we'd all think they were tops. Dig it - our very own god birds!"
"Yeah, I guess."
"And think of the tourism!"
"What tourism?"
"The bloody... I don't know, the religious birdwatching tourism mate. Jumbo-loads of Egyptians all arriving to check out the god birds! It'd be huge. Peace and fraternity between Egypt and Australia - ripples spreading through the Muslim world - Muslims and Christians realising that there's barely a hair's breadth difference between their religions. Lots of talk about mutual respect based on each other's fine appreciation of these, you know... psittacine symbols of peace-love-and-understanding etc. etc. There'd be pollies giving speeches, ribbon cutting, handshakes, all that. And that'd be just the first domino to fall in a shattering cascade that becomes a new global fraternity united in its celebration of selflessness, compassion, and, I don't know... 'striving to know the mind of Buddha' ...kinda thing. And birdwatching! Anyway, it'd be huge and the whole world will give thanks to the two brilliant geniuses who first came up with the whole idea way back in, um, what year is it? We should write it down. Posterity and all that."
"2009. And psittacine? Isn't that parrots?"
"Whatever, we'd all be familiar with whatever they're bloody called. They media would go nuts with the thesaurus and find out all the appropriate words. You know, sub-editors making themselves look clever etc. But yeah, psittacine is parrots."
"Never mind psittacine - Thoth, mate."
"Thoth?"
"That's the ibis god in Egypt. The hawk's head guy was Ra, the dog was Anubis, and the ibis was Thoth."
"And what was his gig? God of, um... I don't know, poultry products?"
"No idea. I know their names but that's about it."
"See, there's your problem right there Ledge. You've got all this useless knowledge and you don't even do the crossword. Being able to do the crossword is the whole point of useless knowledge. Anyway bugger that. Back to us as bloody geniuses, with this ibis caper the whole world will go nuts with peace, love, and understanding, and we'll be as famous as, I don't know... Henry Kissinger, ha!"
"Henry Kissinger!? Fuck him! I want to be as famous as Mick Jagger and run mad with Bianca Jagger and a whole conga-line of glamorous sixties star-fuckers."
"Sure ...Bianca Jagger ...well actually, you could do precisely that mate. Because she's like sixty now and she'd be keen-as-mustard to leap right on top of you. Hell, anyone. And all those Russian grandmas... you know like that woman (was she Russian?) who was sixty something and was mad to have kids, and got a sperm donation, had a kid, and then died three years later - like that. There'd be all these Russian grannies all looking to jump on top of what's left of your superior world peace sperm. And then, um... die and leave you with the kids."
"Bloody women!"
"They'd be like ninja mate, flying out of the corners of ceilings, flinging ropes with hooks, and you'd be all trussed up, and they'd leap on you and perform all kinds of half-Russian, half-Japanese chop socky on your bits. It'd be hellacious. I wonder what the Russian for 'Hi-Yah!' is?"
"Russians? Forget the Russians. Bianca Jagger! She could truss me up. I'd put up a bit of a fight but then Bianca would get the better of me and I'd just have to let her go nuts."
"What? Just her on her own? Surely she'd have a bunch of famous ninja granny mates to pile in. Who'd be in there? Catherine Deneuve I reckon."
"Phwooar, not bad. Charlotte Rampling."
"Good one. How about Julie Christie?"
"God, yes."
"The main thing is you wouldn't succumb too cheaply. Look - here's your fearful, yet resigned Toshiro Mifune face. What do you think?"





"Well, that was a bit mad. I don't know that chicks would dig it. Perhaps number three."
"Ah, you know your Toshiro Mifune obviously. And that'd be you mate - selflessly doing your bit for ageing thinking-man's-crumpet the world over."
"Fantastic. How did this come about again?"
"Um... we restored white ibises to their wetland and with the resultant good will between Egypt and Australia brought about world peace, with everyone so rapt with us that we (rightly I think) copped a relentless Mick Jaggering for our troubles."
"Ah, I love it when we solve the world's problems."
"As opposed to when we don't. How's that latest government ad campaign going?"
"Groan. It's fucked, completely fucked. I can barely stand it. You should see the shit that I have to make look pretty. You know what I'm doing? It's that fucking bullshit Aboriginal intervention thing."
"You're not are you? Jesus, what a nightmare. Still, how would we know the rightness of white people stealing back Aboriginal land if you didn't make it look pretty? Not forgetting it could be worse - you could have been on that 'Dob in your Wog Neighbour' thing of Howard's."
"Yeah well, funny you should mention it, Gerry wants me to pile in on some 'Keeping Australia safe' thing. I told him I couldn't do it. Two months is a plenty long enough gig, and then that's it's, I'm out of there. Otherwise I'd be there for bloody ever. Really I only did it to help him out."
"And for the money Ledge."
"Yeah, Yeah, but the shed hasn't got a roof. Jesus."
"Yeah, well, a roof on the shed would be good. It's useless at the moment. Anyway, whatever, from the big wheels of world peace, to small cogs in the advertising machine leading us to hell, it seems we've fallen again Ledge."
"Well, as fallen men there's nothing for it but to fall further Nobby. What say I roll another joint?"
"Mate, that's the best idea since that chap..."
"Nobby! Don't move! Stop waving your hands about. There's our new resident lyre bird right there next to that white gum. You see it? You're in for a treat - it's going to do the full song and dance right there in front of us. It's just burbling now but he'll go through the whole routine in a minute. It usually does kookaburras followed by magpies and currawongs, and then those stupid peewits, and then it does Faandi."
"Faandi?"
"Yeah, after school Faandi always stands on the verandah and always yells the same thing at it and now it mimics him too."
"What does he say?"
"Shhh, here it goes..."
"Ook ook arp, arp, arp, arp! Aarp! Curra WONG! Curra WONG! Pee Wit! twitter, twitter... Silly Sausage! Silly sausage! That's right!"
"Ha ha ha ha ha ha..."
"Ha ha ha ha ha ha... oh man..."
"Ha ha ha... perfect... I just about died... and Faandi stands there yelling 'silly sausage' at the lyre birds?"
"Yeah, and they say it back at him. It's hysterical."
"Ha ha ha ha, it even said, 'That's right!' the same as him. God, that's bloody marvellous."
"It's great isn't it?"
"Yeah, fuck the world, that was just perfect."

The Protocols of the Open and Secret Society of Free Plumbers

The following is the recently discovered introductory minutes of a secret meeting of an internationalist society devoted to world revolution known as 'The Plumbers'. Whilst it is understood that further chapters are extant, nothing is known of them apart from their titles: governance and communication; food and distribution; population, environment, resources, and sustainability; trade and the means of exchange; science and technology; education and knowledge; love and sex; music, art, and literature; and finally, the metaphysical, belief and non-belief. Should they come to light they will be published in turn.


The Protocols of the Open and Secret Society of Free Plumbers

We are a secret society. We divide the world into us and them. 'Us' is we who seek fraternity amongst all. 'Them' would be most correctly viewed as those we wish eventually to join us. 'We' seek the banishment of 'them' by having only 'us'. 'Us' will be we who are devoted to no small thing - the changing of the world. Above all we embrace the truth of the continuum of selflessness. We want only the truth in all things for the benefit of all - a united humanity of compassion.

We are an open society. Amongst ourselves we honest in all affairs. Goals, activities, ambitions, decisions, everything that defines who we are will be openly shared and open for participation by all members. Everything may be questioned and all knowledge will be shared. The only secret will be of our existence from those who are otherwise, and who subordinate the truth for the self.

We are exclusivist. We will assist each other in earning livelihood. We will assist each other when one is attacked by injustice. All will come to the aid of one.

We are expansionist. Since the world has always been this way, we act in today. And yet we seek a goal - our Time of Revelation. As the 'us' becomes ever greater in number we will naturally arrive at our wished for Tipping Point. At this point the secret will be exploded, the them will become us, and we are all together. But we expect this no time soon. Our work may take countless centuries. We are undaunted by time. Instead we are here and now.

We are internationalist. Given as we are to becoming an 'all' we seek to throw down those things that divide. We do not view the world through a lens of race, nor of sex, nor of religion or culture. We discriminate against only those who revere the self over the all.

We will seek to free the minds of 'them' with subtle positive messages. To this end we will control the means of discourse, education, and entertainment. Schooling will involve inculcating the young with the means to think for themselves and to revere curiosity above all things. In the media we will make celebrities of modest and well balanced people. Those espousing messages of self obsession will be choked out of the industry we will control. Gradually the adoration of the self will be seen as an animalistic trait.

We name ourselves in acknowledgement of the disdain of the self-obsessed for their slaves whom they call 'carriers of water'. Those who subordinate the 'truth of all' to the 'falsity of the self' deserve to have their definitions taken from them. Thus their dismissal of the slave is turned into a celebration of those who do the most worthy work. We are the carriers of water, plumbers bringing the means of life. We do not hold water lightly: we view it as the stuff of life. And as water is, so shall we be. We are without interest, we are gradual, we seek equilibrium, and we are clear. Water is a symbol for everything we do.

Our lodges will be full of open symbolism. Our central ceremonial hall will be an open circular plaza with grass under our bare feet and open sky above. We revere the earth, the air, the sun, and water. All symbolise life and we assert that all belong to no man, and to all men.

On initiation every member will be given a 'true name'. This is a play on words and we admit this as we admit everything. Members of the order will have their own name sure, and that is their name. Their true name is the name wherein they may participate in the free conveyence of truth between equal members. However we look forward to the Time of Revelation which is also called the Time of One Name when we shall no longer need a 'true name' and they will be consigned to the past.

All initiates will be explained our full principles and receive a copy of them to be learnt by heart. All conversations will be recorded and open to all who are within the cabal. Within the cloak of secrecy nothing will be secret. Further, there will be no esoteric knowledge held by those who rule. Indeed we have none who rule - all merely serve. Above will be as below, and all knowledge will be shared. We disdain the concept of nobility as based in its Indo-European root of 'know' - those who 'know' are 'noble'. A fig for that: all will 'know' and all will be 'noble'. Our hierarchy (for there must be one) will be based not on knowledge but on ability, ability to give the most and require the least. Our greatest leaders will be men and women with no desire for themselves.

Initiates are only asked to swear to a single thing - the rightness of selflessness as a goal. We have no opinion on other beliefs as long as they are not at odds with the rightness of selflessness.

We hold with ceremony and symbolism. Our ceremonies acknowledge various aspects of selflessness, truth, and fearlessness. All initiates will be inducted with full symbolic ceremony - the giving and receiving of food and water, the communion with soil, the planting of a tree, the washing with water, the sea of hands, the giving of thanks. That these ceremonies sound familiar is entirely intended. What we do is not unfamiliar. We do not reject what has come before, nor what will follow. All things are judged under the timeless rightness of the continuum.

What we seek is ambitious, never before done. We seek these things because we can and because in and of themselves they are worthy. The gift we as humans possess, mindfulness, is a treasure not to be misspent in pursuit of the animalistic, the adoration of the self. This would be a precise denial of its greatest virtue. To seek a beast-like dominion over a world of slaves is to seek the easy, the obvious, the stupid, and the unworthy. We disdain such ignoble ends as we disdain the ignoble means of fear, lies, and selfishness. We aim for the only thing worth having - a world of selflessness, truth, and compassion: a world without fear. We are not beasts: we are human. We are not mindless: We are mindful. As mindful humans we offer love, compassion, and truth for all who seek to join us on our journey without end.

"Hands up for the Jewish boy"

In a Python frame of mind, I went a bit silly over at Craig Murray's. Apropos him discussing Al Qaeda in terms of its media described nature, I pointed out a few oxymoronic facts about Al Qaeda and finally wondered at the fact that it's number three big banana is a Jewish boy from Orange County called Adam Pearlman.


Imagined Al Qaeda board meeting to discuss whom to move into the number three slot -

'How about this Jewish boy Adam Pearlman?'
'What can you tell us about him?'
'Well he's Jewish for starters. I mean really Jewish, his grandfather was head of the ADL. Hmm ...very young ...recent convert ...no experience ...liked satanic heavy metal music. Um wait, it seems he's engaged in attacks on American people.'
'Well that sounds promising.'
'Oh wait, it was Muslims. He got arrested for beating up Muslims outside some Mosques in California.'
'What about finance experience? Military experience? A wealth of contacts in the Muslim world?'
'Nope, not a sausage.'
'Bloody hell! Are there any pluses at all?'
'Well, he's very enthusiastic. And he says he hates Americans for their freedoms.'
'Does he? I have to be honest and say I never got that one.'
'Me neither. Actually it's one of Bush's but you've got to admit it's kind of catchy.'
'Hmm... he's not a spook is he?'
'I asked him that and he said that he wasn't.'
'Okay then.'
'Look, never mind all that - he's the only one who applied for the job.'
'Bloody Muslims! Here we are trying to institute Sharia law and none of them will be in it! Hell, let's give the job to the Jewish boy - at least he's keen! Hands up for the Jewish boy. All agreed then!'

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.