Give us your money or fuck off

Is there any business quite like banking? It is possible to withdraw your custom from every corporation, business, service provider, or shop and continue to function in a relatively normal fashion in Western society. Except for banks. Without a bank account you are cut out of participation with what is nominally 'your' government. Government payments, rebates and tax refunds absolutely require a bank account. No bank account - no payment. 99% of employers require you to have a bank account since they only pay by cheque. It's not impossible to find an employer prepared to pay cash. But it makes no difference. The cash is income and you are required by law to declare it for tax purposes. The tax office doesn't actually mandate that you have a bank account but if you don't they won't deal with you. It's an inescapable fact that merely choosing not to be a bank customer renders a person outside the law or outside society. Or both.

Again, is there any other business, which by law, we must be customers of? Having gone through this entire process it's my considered opinion that our freedoms are nothing more than a choice between the following - bank customer, outlaw or penniless hermit.

helter skelter coming down fast

Are we there yet?

- Adam Pearlman sticks his fat-head up so we might know that American citizens are potential, if not real, terrorists. Kill the president, says he. It's important that we know that when Bush is assassinated, it was Arabs whodunnit. As ever, the credits roll before the action takes place.

- A first! Palestinian vox-pop interviews! I can't recall seeing any before. Anyway they all seem to hate the otherwise universally-beloved idiot son. Assassins in the making! No doubt they're zealous followers of Adam Pearlman.

- The idiot son is aimlessly wandering around the Middle East. Did somebody say 'peace mission'? Ha ha ha ha ha. Who needs those Hollywood writers? Hysterical. (And was I the only person creeped out by Shrub copping a rose and a soft-on from that pre-teen warbler? If Broadway did 'Mossad Honey Trap - The Musical' that's what it would look like. Shrub's mad leer was perfect.)

- As is appropriate for a man on a peace-mission, soft-on or no, the first words out of the dimwit's mouth were to threaten Iran. Iranians are wicked and war-like and must be stopped.

- Iranians, keen to demonstrate the veracity of the idiot son, pointlessly ride about in a bright-blue, flagless, two-man pleasure-craft and utter preposterous threats to US dreadnoughts a million times their tonnage.

- Breaking News! The following was overhead on a blue speedboat - "Oh Moshe, you crack me up!... 'YOU WILL EXPLODE!' Ooooh! Ha ha ha ha ha... Do it again! That voice is hysterical - you sound like such a moron!... Are you allowed to say, 'Death to America!'?... No?... Pity, I love that one... Look at those stupid Americans! They're going nuts! Ha ha ha ha...dickheads! Death to America!"


We're really close now folks. The crash of the economy can't be held back with insane injections of worthless money much longer. That traditional bellwether, gold, is going through the roof. No one wonders at this. CDO's, SIV's, ARM's, MBS's, and other acronyms that sound like they're some kind of military ordinance but aren't, will behave as if they were, and explode this year. The banking disasters so far are due to nothing more than the mere thought of these unstoppable timer-detonated capital letters. Speaking of ordinance - Does anyone think that Iran, Syria, and Lebanon can avoid being turned into parking lots? Israel and their dual-citizen friends have invested far too much time, money and blood (not theirs) in this. Seriously, what - apart from a US military coup - could possibly deter them?

I'm too shy to make a big prediction so I'll just make some small ones. TV viewers will hear the following familiar phrases in entirely new contexts unconnected with third world countries -
'took everyone by surprise...nobody saw it coming'
'postponement of elections...emergency measures'
'scenes of rioting...breakdown of law and order'
'necessary crackdown...troops patrolled the streets'
and
'in brighter news... ring-tail lemurs in a Japanese zoo are enjoying a few creature comforts, all thanks to a heater that keepers installed in their cage'

Holy shit! Seconds after I finished typing that, it was on Fox News! It came after a story that failed to devote even one sentence contemplating Iranian claims that the speed-boat story is a fabrication. I am astounded... at my powers of prediction regarding lemur stories, that is. Any idiot could have predicted that Fox would never follow up on the possibility that the US would lie in order to smash another country on Israel's shit-list.

Hey everyone! Look at the funny lemurs!

The Greatest Alan Smithee Movie Ever Made!

How do we sway people? How are we swayed? Right now I'm using words. Words are second rate. They're a non-visceral intellectual abstraction. Reading about a tiger and catching sight of one staring at you are not really comparable events. Colour, texture, shape and movement trump text. There's no future in having a bit of a think about a tiger. Fortunately humans, like other creatures, have two brains (kind of). The big brain is for having a bit of a think and the small one is for wigging out and running away. The small brain trumps the big brain. If our brains didn't work this way we would have all been eaten millenia ago. Everything those people in San Diego Zoo had ever read about tigers was instantly forgotten when a too-convincing visual of a tiger lit up their small brain.


The people who wish to sway you understand this utterly. If you really want to influence people you don't muck around with words. When they commissioned Leon Uris to write Exodus, they didn't do it because they thought a book would sway Americans to send Israel absurd sums of money. They knew only a movie could do that. Uris was merely needed to jump start the stalled movie project. Apparently no one wanted to front the dough because in Hollywood-parlance Israel was box-office poison. Who wants to pay to see a film about foreigners in some place nobody gave a shit about? Happily Uris was the right man for the job. His book sold, a groundswell was created and the long-desired movie, starring a suitably martial, blue-eyed Paul Newman, convinced an entire generation of Americans that Israelis were the very best sort of martial, blue-eyed people.


Keep in mind that Exodus was actually a variety of feel-good movie. For US money and support this was sufficient. Blood is something else. If Americans were to shed blood smashing Israel's enemies something far stronger than a feel-good movie would be required. It would be time to target the small brain. Fear, horror and outrage would be the key and the visual experience would need to be so over the top that superlatives would fail. And the working title? 911! Don't laugh. The crowds would eat it up. Film-makers know their audience.


And they know precisely how jaded that audience has become too. What used to comprise a big budget film climax thirty years ago happens before the title sequence now. A twenty-car pile-up - yawn. The climax required for American blood would have to make Die Hard look like a Bruce Willis movie. It would need to knock people on their arse. How about jetliners crashing into the tallest building in the world's most famous city? Double up! Two jetliners into two buildings! Wise heads nod. It'd certainly make for a stunning and singular visual. Planes going in, flames coming out, chaos in the streets. But would it be enough to reduce the nation to a gibbering wreck? Maybe not. A few days later it would be business as usual. TV Camera crews would walk through the burnt-out buildings and reporters would tell the viewers how the disaster could have been much much worse.


Not good enough. It doesn't fill the brief. This had to be the biggest movie ever! The buildings would have to come down. 'Boom, boom, boom, boom, all the way down.' Now that's spectacular! And nothing less would do. This was going to be the most awesome FX set-piece in the history of entertainment. And all of it in-camera! A masterpiece of timing and coordination. Pyrotechnics by the IDF, remote-controlled planes by Dov Zakheim and a cast of thousands featuring the entire population of Lower Manhattan! Gritty realism so gritty and so real that the cheap seats would be crunching concrete and asbestos between their teeth for days.


By way of script there was no need to establish the villains. Brilliantly, this franchise ran backwards and had all the prequels first. The audience was merely waiting for the credits to roll and confirm their guess at whodunnit. Those rotten cinema-Arabs again! Boo! Straight from central casting - no real actors needed - stand-ins would suffice. They didn't even get any screen time - all the cameras failed! What a laugh. Perhaps the second unit ended up shooting them. Either way, no residuals for them. And the heroes? The American people - channelling Dennis Weaver in Duel. But with the truck elsewhere. The audience, confused, empathises with um... itself.


Back on the set - it's a wrap. No need for any clean-up. The production team just walk away. No need to return the props, they all came for free. You gotta love that! And then factor in the insurance payout for destroying the set and the various put-options on the plane suppliers and the producers make out like bandits. And! It's the greatest movie ever made! The reviews were mixed, sure. A lot of nit-pickers, particularly on the net, pointed out the flaws - planes and buildings that defied physics, villains that made no sense, and the guy playing the President fluffed all his lines! - 'Save it for the 'goofs' section of imdb, losers!' - nobody cares. Box-office is king and this box-office leaves Exodus in the dust. In dollar terms the takings are similar - uncountable billions. It's the blood that sets 911 apart. And none of that corn-syrup crap neither. Real human blood.

The purpose of Pearlman

Azzam al-Amriki, aka Azzam the American, aka Adam Gadahn, aka Adam Pearlman has made a new video. Mr Pearlman is the weirdest Muslim extremist on the planet. He started out Jewish. Indeed his grandfather was on the board of the intensely Jewish Anti-Defamation League. Adam didn't care for his hippy Christian-convert parents. He preferred to live with his Grandfather. Whilst doing so he took himself off to the nearby mosque and remarkably became a mad, bad, dangerous to know Muslim and joined Al Qaeda.

You'd think it was remarkable. But it's not. No one remarks upon it. Not on the TV, not in the press, not even in Al Qaeda, if you can believe that. Al Qaeda has given him their full endorsement. No less than Al Qaeda number two Ayman al-Zawahiri told us we should all listen to him. In spite of being evil geniuses of the internet it never occurred to anyone in Al Qaeda to put Adam Gadahn into google. So unconcerned and trusting is this secretive criminal uber-gang that they made Mr Pearlman their chief spokesman. Meanwhile back in America, no one seems interested in interviewing his parents, friends, or school teachers. Katie Couric, Diane Sawyer, Oprah, all too busy. Mr Pearlman, it seems, is completely and utterly, 100%, D-notices-ain't-in-it, unremarkable.


Unless he's expounding Al Qaeda propaganda, that is. When this happens the media is transfixed and quivers with excitement to relay his important message. It's a funny old media isn't it?

And what is it he's said today that the media wants us to know? Does he urge Death to Zionists? As a Muslim and well aware that Zionists occupy Jerusalem (now beyond holy to him) you'd think he'd have an opinion. Apparently not. He seems to have no opinion on Zionists or Israel. It's a funny old Al Qaeda isn't it?

Okay I'll quit taking the piss. Here's the real world - Pearlman exists because there is no Al Qaeda. Or more specifically Muslims aren't as docile or as stupid as the funny old media would have us all believe. They can be tricked into playing paintball and other penny-ante incriminating things but when it comes to the crunch nobody, dimwits like Richard Reid aside, will be in it. So hard up are the creators of Al Qaeda that they need a Jew to play the part of the Mad Muslim.


He's not in it for a lark. That Pearlman gave up his life and put himself on top of the FBI list is the equivalent of martyrdom. His place in the secret pantheon of Zionist saints is assured. With this in mind, know that he doesn't get wheeled out to jibber-jabber madly on a whim. Everything he says is considered and scripted. It's all to a purpose. Which is what? They love it that we don't know. But here's my guess. Pearlman is setting the stage for Bush's assassination. Since these motherfuckers are the kings of the two-fer, three-fer, four-fer, the assassination could, all things going to plan, serve several purposes -

- If they can tie the assassination to Iran by way of the Palestinians Israel can bomb Iran and crush the Palestinians. Better still, the Americans can do it for them. Why not smash Syria and Egypt while they're at it? It's all good. Oh, and Lebanon will get theirs too.

- Since it was all urged by Adam 'Gadahn', an American 'convert', all manner of pre-arranged domestic shit will be justified and carried out. Martial Law - Sure. HR 1955 kicks into over-drive and Halliburton's concentration camps start to be put to good use. And of course - All Heil President Cheney.

-Ideally the grabbing of control will allow the imposition of the North American Union and the crushing of the cannot-be-allowed-to-live internet. And sure, chaos and suffering like we've never seen before. But only the people on the receiving end will give a shit.

-Since it'll happen in the Mid-East, the uneasy military/industrial American old guard would be somewhat mollified. They can console themselves that The Inevitable didn't take place on American soil. They're villainous greed-heads and sellouts but they're not completely unpatriotic. And they never liked the idiot son anyway.

- Speaking of which, they get rid of Bush, who's now a dead rubber. The longer he hangs around the more useless he becomes. Eventually the drugs will stop working and he'll give the game away.

-Big Bonus! As a trip-wire event it's cheap and effective. You gotta love that! No need for hundreds of mossad agents, co-ordination with the FAA, Pentagon, NORAD, no inquiries with hundreds of witnesses, video footage, evidential debris. And no messy, traceable nukes neither.


But I'm just thinking out loud. It's a game I play. I call it 'What would I do if I was a self-impressed motherfucker who viewed people as beasts?'. Or just 'Hubris' for short.

Calling All Racists

I read a book called World on Fire by Amy Chua. Not all of it. By the time I got half way through I'd had enough. I got it. The book was ostensibly about economics, racism and populations in turmoil. It specifically addressed the problems faced by wealthy, ethnically distinct minorities in various countries around the world and what to do about the violent racism of the envious majority in which they live. More or less. It was a while ago and I'm recalling.

It dedicated a chapter each to the Chinese in the Philippines, the Syrians in West Africa, the Jewish oligarchs in Yeltsin's Russia and some others which escape me now. It's worth noting that Amy Chua is a descendant of one of these minorities - the Chinese in the Philippines. That a book about the wickedness of peoples objecting to wealthy minorities has been written by a member of one of those wealthy minorities is - I don't know - is it too obvious to be ironic?

I don't know much about Amy Chua. I expect she's not racist. Ask a Chinese person in the Philippines if they're racist and they'll say of course not - they have lots of Filipino friends. They had a Filipino nanny too. And they've got a Filipino maid and gardener and chauffeur. And good ones too. They invite their families over for a little party every Xmas. And they like Filipino music too, not all of it of course. And Filipino TV and drama isn't bad, but not as good as Hong Kong movies and soaps. Mostly they just watch the news and that comedy show. They don't really groove on Filipino food. Sinigang is okay but really it's all too fishy. And It's not very good for you. You have to be careful because it's easy to get sick - they're not very clean, the Filipinos. And sure, they've had Filipino boyfriends but, personally, they wouldn't marry a Filipino. Really they're too different. It's important to marry someone who understands the culture and is closer to them, um... culturally. And their family would kill them if they married a Filipino! Not literally, ha ha, but they'd never hear the end of it. And they don't do too much business with the Filipinos - a little bit - they'd like to do more but you can't trust them. And they're unreliable. And lazy. And it's better to keep it in the family anyway.


Okay, that was just me channelling. But they're not racist. Not really. They're just another wealthy successful minority who own all the businesses and everyone else happens to be poor - the ones who live outside the twelve foot walls with broken bottles cemented to the top. Anyway, it's not the Chinese's fault that the Filipinos are all poor. If they were like the Chinese, they could be successful too. But they're not, they're too lazy. And they're poor and dirty and they smell bad. And don't forget, the Chinese were born there. Those fucking Filipinos hate them because the Chinese are successful and they're not. It's just envy. Really, they're racists.

How perfectly fucking tiresome. Never does Chua direct her the-trouble-lies-here gaze to the wealthy ethnic minorities. All of her questions revolve around how to deal with the problem of the restless natives. It doesn't occur to her to wonder at a people who, generation after generation, remain a perpetually distinct ethnic minority, or why that is, or what it means. Perish the thought! This may not be questioned. Yeah well, fuck that. I'll question it.

Think about marriage for a moment. It's not nothing. Kings and Queens of old didn't marry their sons and daughters off to the daughters and sons of foreigners because they grooved on the sexy accents. They did it because this single act was so significant in its symbolism that it could cement two peoples together. I'm not saying it was bullet-proof. But the intent was the intent and it was done because it worked. But never mind the symbolic, we can see it just next door. By happy coincidence it's diaspora Chinese again.


Ethnic Chinese don't exist merely in the Philippines. They're present in every country in South East Asia (and sure, elsewhere too) but Thailand is particularly interesting. In Thailand, unlike Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines, the Chinese seem happy to marry the locals. Thailand is Buddhist and closer in food and culture to the Chinese. Ever mercantile, the Chinese are still broadly wealthier than the indigenous Thai - but really it's not that clear-cut. The line is blurred on account of intermarriage. Thailand has never had an anti-Chinese pogrom and they never will. Too many people have too many half-quarter-eighth Chinese nieces and nephews. Who's going to object to the superior wealth of their own relatives? The diaspora Chinese aren't completely racist, just selectively so. If they weren't too busy holding their noses and were prepared to marry the local people in Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines one would see the death of anti-Chinese pogroms.

And nothing apart from marriage and kids is going to achieve this. Sharing food, holding hands, singing karaoke, shagging, buying and selling, thinking fondly - none of them cut it. None of them will tie a people together. It's the kids that count. It's the real world and simple shit like having kids is a big deal. It destroys racism. Nobody's Rule of Racism - If you're not prepared to have your children marry the locals and have coffee-coloured kids you're a racist and you can fuck off. Or to put it more politely by way of an imagined Department of Immigration question for people intending to immigrate - 'Are you prepared to have your children marry outside your race?' Ha ha ha ha ha. Fat chance we'll ever see that! The screams would be deafening.

Does that make me a racist? You betcha! In a world without irony, between the ethnically distinct minority who have historically refused to marry the locals and the locals who object to them, it's the locals who cop the racism tag. What bullshit. The racists are victims and the victims are racists. If you want to stick up for multi-generation distinct ethnic minorities you're defending their right to be racist. And this goes for all the other similar ethnic minorities who generation after generation refuse to marry the people they live amongst. I'm much given to metaphors. I use them all the time, it's fun. But now it's your turn. You tell me what metaphor you'd use for an entity that lives amongst a host population for hundreds of years, gets rich at their expense and actively resists being subsumed? What is that?


And anyone who wants to tell me, in a righteous and heart-felt fashion, about some great culture that I'm consigning to the dustbin on history - I weep for that culture. Just like I weep for all those other cultures now long gone. Minoans, Carthaginians, Romans, Etruscans, Illyrians - as many cultures as there are stars in the sky - all gone. Not the people of course, their descendants are still right there. Just the culture is gone. Which is what exactly? An intangible something or other. A state of mind. A dream. Fixate on a dream if you want to but it's a fools errand. And to lock it in your head and define yourself by it is something akin to psychopathy.

Here is the truth - The only certainty is change. This goes double for culture. All sorts of people who emigrate hang on to their culture... they hang on... still hanging on... and fifty years later go home and - find their culture gone, unrecognisable, existing only in movies and in their mind. They and their old mates down at the Hellenic Club, or whatever, were the last hold-outs. Bravely they soldiered on, keeping fixed in their head an amorphous idea of who they were. And when the kids grow up, marry locals, have hapa kids and the culture begins its slow death - I weep with them. It's a fucking tragedy. But what are you going to do? Stay racist? Teach your kids to do the same?

I expect so. But really people who define themselves by a delusional image that posits themselves as superior, or better, or 'other' than the people they live amongst, want to wake up. Without wishing to be rude, whatever reasons you have for remaining 'the other' are bullshit. Even if the reason consists of your parents and every single other member of your family piling on the pressure, it's not good enough. It just makes you weak willed, a person who lets others define them.

You're just a racist with an excuse note from your mum.

The wickedness of Harbhajan Singh

The Australian cricket team and by extension the Australian people remain true to form. We are all currently outraged by the wicked Indian spin bowler Harbhajan Singh. He's now cited and must front the ICC board on a charge of racism. It seems he called the Australian batsman Andrew Symonds some variation of racist epithet. That he attempted to apologise is proof of his guilt. That the apology seems to have been rejected is perfectly understandable.


When will these foreigners learn? I suggest that the Australian Cricket Board, in a spirit of helpfulness, start a campaign to educate them on how to sledge correctly. I'll start it off. Anatomical insults are good. Thus you may call people pricks, arseholes, and cunts. Sexual insults also get a big tick. Jokes about fucking someone's wife are perfectly good - unless directed at someone like Australian bowler Glenn McGrath whose wife happened to have breast cancer. The fact that McGrath started it by declaring that he'd fucked the other fellow's wife is irrelevant. The other fellow's wife didn't have breast cancer. Otherwise if you just stick to the broad understanding that your opponents are shit who deserved to be ridiculed, insulted, and otherwise spattered with the verbal equivalent of fecal matter, you can't go wrong. Except for racism! Any term that might be interpreted as racist will be leapt upon and held up like a head on a pike so that all might know what wicked scoundrels racist foreigners are.

Note to ICC - How about instituting a policy of putting actual heads on actual pikes? We could then display them on the roof of the member's stand at the SCG so that foreigners might know that they may not sully the good name of Australian cricket. Just a thought.


But really, foreigners will be best served by simply reminding themselves that they're not our equals. They can't even speak English properly! And if they can't manage that simple task they should just shut up and be educated by us. And Harbhajan Singh? We'll teach him. We have standards here. And never mind whatever crap 'single' standards they have in India. We're one-up on them - we have double standards.

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.