53

Please Remember Not to Vote

CJ Hopkins

the real face of political choice

So, it’s three weeks before the US midterm elections, and it looks like we have got ourselves a horse race! That’s right, folks, once again, it’s time to start playing with those forecast maps on Real Clear Politics and FiveThirtyEight, and obsessively following the fluctuating poll numbers of congressional candidates you have never heard of competing in districts you couldn’t locate if someone held a gun to your head. You need to start doing this immediately, if not sooner, as the stakes in these midterms could not be higher. Nothing less than the continued existence of “American democracy” hangs in the balance, so the ruling classes need every last one of us to get out there and vote for somebody!

The fact that it only marginally matters who that somebody that you vote for is should not dissuade you from voting for somebody. Voting for somebody is your civic duty, and is no less important than rooting for a sports team, or maintaining a personal favorite color, or celebrity, or brand of hemorrhoid creme. Remember, if you don’t vote for somebody, somebody else is going to win, and we can’t afford to let that happen!

Now, your choices this year are particularly exciting, despite the fact that they are exactly the same as in every other US election since approximately the 1970s. Yes, that’s right, once again, it’s the Transgender Panethnic Communists of Color versus the Old White Cisnormal Capitalist Nazis, and what a spectacle it promises to be! The Old White Cisnormal Capitalist Nazis (hereinafter the “OWCCN”) currently control … well, pretty much everything (i.e., the House, the Senate, and executive branch), and so the Transgender Panethnic Communists of Color (hereinafter the “TPCoC”) are hungry, and are looking for some serious payback after getting their butts kicked in 2016. Rumor has it, the TPCoC are preparing to unleash a “Blue Tsunami” on vulnerable OWCCN incumbents, take control of the House of Representatives, and then not impeach the ass clown President they’ve been telling everyone for the last two years is both a traitorous Russian intelligence asset and the resurrection of Adolf Hitler.

And, if that isn’t exciting enough for you already, they’ve got all kinds of other life-and-death issues to emotionally pressure you into picking a team to fanatically root for on social media, and then getting out and voting for somebody. How blatantly to humiliate illegal immigrants, how affluent you have to be to obtain an abortion, how much interest banks can charge when you pay for your chemo with an Amazon card, and which pronouns law enforcement officers are required to use to refer to people whose homes they barge into and unintentionally murder, are just a few of the many “hot-button” questions requiring your democratic input.

Other questions, like whether to invade or just strategically bomb Iran or Syria, or some other non-ball-playing Middle East country, or pour billions more in military aid into Israel, or sell billions in weapons to Saudi Arabia, or foment a coup in Venezuela, or maintain almost eight hundred military outposts in over seventy foreign countries all around the world, are questions that do not require your input. The global capitalist ruling classes, the corporations they own and operate, their friends in the government and the intelligence agencies, and the corporate media will take care of all that. Same goes for those Wall Street banks, and the next looming global financial crisis, and those mass extinctions, and this wacky weather. The grown-ups with the fancy suits and haircuts are handling all that complicated stuff. You just worry about all those other issues, and get out there and vote for somebody!

Seriously, though, for those unfamiliar with the ins and outs of U.S. politics, our election cycle, and these midterm elections, and thus do not have the slightest idea what I’m even referring to, here’s what’s going on in a nutshell …

On November 6, 2018, Americans will be returning to the polls to exercise their inalienable right to choose between two corporate-financed, ruling class-vetted political stooges competing for the chance to pretend to represent them in the House of Representatives and the Senate, and in various gubernatorial, municipal, and somewhat lesser distinguished chambers. A selection of non-ruling-class-vetted candidates will also appear on a handful of ballots. Americans will be free to vote for such candidates, as long as they realize they are just wasting their time, and possibly damaging the “serious” candidates, which the corporate media will remind them they are doing at every available opportunity.

See, unlike in backward European countries, where some semblance of a parliament still exists, and there are actual campaign finance restrictions and limits on televised campaign advertising, in the United States, where everyone is free, voting for non-ruling-class-vetted candidates, in a midterm or any other election, is about as effective as voting for a sandwich … or for, you know, some narcissistic billionaire ass clown who swears he is going to “drain the swamp,” and build “a beautiful wall,” or whatever. The system is designed to guarantee that no matter which ruling class stooge you vote for, and even if you vote for a character like Trump just to stick it to the establishment for once, it makes no difference … or, OK, very little difference.

The reason for this is not a big mystery. When a seat in the Senate goes for ten million dollars and a seat in the House for over a million, and there are no real restrictions on campaign financing, and the corporate-owned media decide in advance which candidates will be given airtime, and considered “serious” by the mainstream pundits who work for the handful of corporations that own the vast majority of newspapers, television and radio stations, and internet platforms that control the flow of information to the American public … well, it would kind of be a little odd, wouldn’t it, if authentic anti-ruling-class candidates were allowed to enter and compete in that system?

Most Americans understand this, which is why nearly half of them do not vote. It’s humiliating enough to be forced to live, and attempt to support a family, and so on, in a savage, neoliberal marketplace with virtually no social cohesion whatsoever, and in which the only real operative value is money, without also having to debase themselves by participating in the simulation of democracy that the capitalist ruling classes need to maintain in order to pretend that they are not just social parasites with a lot of goons and guns.

Which brings me to the point of this essay. See, normally, I try like hell to avoid telling people what to do in my columns, but, after my last one, a number of readers wrote in asking for advice, so I’m going to make an exception, just this once.

Here’s my advice. You’re not going to like it.

Do not vote. For anyone. At all. Tell all your friends not to vote for anyone. Join the hundreds of millions of Americans who refuse to participate in the simulation of democracy. Take time off from work to vote, and then do not vote. Go see a movie, or have lunch with someone you haven’t seen in a while, or take a nice, long walk in the woods or something. Whatever you do, do not vote. Seriously. Please stop voting for these people. They’re not your friends. They mean you ill. They will shake your hand, kiss your baby, then sell you to the first pharmaceutical lobbyist, or military industrial lobbyist, or Israeli or Saudi Arabian lobbyist, that waltzes into their office with a check, or that threatens to turn their voters against them.

You probably think I’m kidding. I’m not. Do not vote in these midterm elections. Or in any other American elections. Not while the system remains as it is. If you really want to vote, move to Europe, where at least there are still parliamentary structures, and a decent variety of political parties, and some restrictions on campaign financing and advertising. All you’re doing when you vote in America is reifying a simulation of democracy, and so perpetuating the system as it is.

Oh, and while you’re at it, if you happen to work for any of those pharmaceutical companies, or any of those weapons manufacturers, or their suppliers, or for an investment bank, or a hedge fund, or private equity firm, or any other company, corporation, firm, consultancy, or department of government that is central to keeping the American political and economic system going as it is, quit your job and do something else. Seriously, go into the office today (or get up from your desk right now) and quit, and go find something else to do with the gift of your sentient life on this planet. I realize that might be a scary proposition, but that’s what it’s going to take to change things, a lot of people deciding they have had it and are not going to play the game anymore.

That’s pretty much all the advice I’ve got. Sorry … I told you you weren’t going to like it.

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The War On You (@TheWarOnYou)
The War On You (@TheWarOnYou)
Oct 23, 2018 2:53 PM

Not voting IS voting – for NOTA. Everyone knows there’s an election, everyone votes who thinks the outcome affects them enough. Staying away is not therefore passive, it signals a definite position on the issues and the choices available. That said, this anarchist doesn’t subscribe to the opposite argument either – that it’s the duty of anarchists not to vote. Often I do vote when a particular minor party is identified with a single issue, simply to affect debate, to help keep that particular issue addressed. Voting is fine for propaganda purposes.

Susan Rooney MA GGCP
Susan Rooney MA GGCP
Oct 20, 2018 8:03 AM

Whatever. Your cynicism has no point nor purpose. And if you are equating previous presidents with the thing we have in the White House now you must be high. Or need to be.

Johny Conspiranoid
Johny Conspiranoid
Oct 19, 2018 9:59 AM

I disagree. You should definetly vote but definetly not for either the Democrats or the Republicans. That way you have voted against the duopoly and its agreed agenda. Not voting only signals submission to that agenda.

Mark Crawford
Mark Crawford
Oct 19, 2018 7:48 AM

There is never (ever) any good excuse for not voting!!!- they are all cry baby cop-outs based on the obvious and inescapable fact that all humans and any society is less than perfect. Those on the sidelines should acknowledge that they have forfeited the right to be critical of those who undertake the risks, burdens and consequences of actual involvement and engagement. The extremus version of this argument would condemn and abolish all voting forever in favor of some form of permanent disenfranchisement and dictatorship.

Neil Youngson
Neil Youngson
Oct 20, 2018 5:38 AM
Reply to  Mark Crawford

You are wrong, and here is why. Currently in the US the only choice is Rep or Dem, and both represent a completely corrupt system beholden to Wall Street and Corporations and the Military Indistrial Complex. That is not democracy. The only sane choice in this situation is to not vote at all. Currently the voter turnout is already incredibly low, 50% give or take a few points. If enough people refuse to vote and that figure falls to 35% it will be clear to everyone that the establishment does not have a mandate to govern.

Susan Rooney MA GGCP
Susan Rooney MA GGCP
Oct 20, 2018 8:08 AM
Reply to  Neil Youngson

But govern they will. With an iron fist.

binra
binra
Oct 20, 2018 10:31 AM

When the masking of any true governance can no longer be pretended and pass as real, the iron fist is the raw underbelly of what was always there.
I Invite re-choosing the word we choose and use to extend a true meaning rather than subscribe or vote for the false.

True governance will always be resisted or attempted to be blocked by false or toxic investments deemed too big to fail. Governance of our own mind and affairs may reveal a similar pattern to what we hate writ large in our world. Where else would it come from?

The corrupt will promote and assert ‘anti corruption’ agenda or crusade as a smokescreen and even token sacrifice, but they will not support true accountability or transparency. None the less we are accountable for what is ours, or have taken that does not belong to us. Because blame and punishment works a trickle down economy, in place of awakened responsibility for correction, we have a world made upon the fear of loss, that can never get enough.

Is the iron fist willing to openly attack and kill its own just to cling to a fantasy that others only ‘support’ under threat of penalty, pain and loss?

Mulga Mumblebrain
Mulga Mumblebrain
Oct 20, 2018 11:07 PM
Reply to  Mark Crawford

Voting under ‘Free Market capitalism’, MAKES NO DIFFERENCE. It is an exercise in futility, hypocrisy and self and mass delusion. Under capitalism ONLY the rich owners of society have any influence, and they call ALL the shots.

tutisicecream
tutisicecream
Oct 18, 2018 10:51 AM

Welcome to the turkey shoot. Remember to get out and vote for Christmas! In this unipolar centralist world making Amerikka great again is a cinch. Just think all that debt you are carrying is keeping the engine of capitalism going! Keeping communism at bay. No matter if you’re dead and buried before you can enjoy the dream. Letting you vote is out way of saying thank you to you from the swamp…

Nice one CJ наслаждаться пивом [enjoy the beer]!

Martin Usher
Martin Usher
Oct 18, 2018 4:49 AM

Actually, the really important races are down ticket. That’s where you get the local council screwing up your city by selling it to developers, the School Board imposing censorship on curricula (and hassling teachers) and, most important of all, the Secretary of State for your state that decides how the electoral map should be gerrymandered and how many voters to suppress. The Federal House and Senate are important, sure, but our neglect of those boring races helps to enable the bad stuff; without the tacit support of the States they’d have a lot tougher time imposing their corporatist agendas.

So vote. Its important.

Rhamphotyphlops
Rhamphotyphlops
Oct 17, 2018 11:56 PM

The vast majority of the world is not a democracy. Our governments are called democracies but that is just a rhetorical trick, in reality they are just corrupt concentrations of power. In the original democracy in Athens, the citizens proposed and voted on the laws and also ran the legal system. There was no need for fake “representatives” in a parliament to make decisions and laws on others behalf.

People need to put in the additional work to run their own direct democracy and stop hoping for a political saviour. Any politician that comes along is likely to be corrupt to start with, as it is those whom are most willing to engage with corruption that have the most to gain from being elected to a position of power and therefore logically will strive hardest to obtain that power. Even if they are not corrupt to start with they will often be faced with a bureaucracy and governing structure that is unwilling to change, along with a media that is owned and controlled by the rich who will work to protect their wealth and undermine popular policies.

Therefore, the only way to achieve a lasting change via non-violent means in my opinion is to vote for parties that will implement direct democracy. There are a number of direct democracy initiatives that can start at the smaller local level to help educate the masses about the benefits as well while remaining under the radar of MSM propaganda.

Gwyn
Gwyn
Oct 17, 2018 10:31 PM

”If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal.”

Tom
Tom
Oct 17, 2018 10:07 PM

This is good advice. The charade of elections not only do not make a difference, they actually give the ruling classes more of a mandate to act badly – on the basis that ‘the people voted for us’ and ‘we’re a democracy, unlike xx’. They can even begin to pass off the blame on to the voters for being ‘stupid’ enough to put them in office.
It’s also interesting that some countries that are not full democracies actually do more for their peoples than those that are – some Asian and Middle Eastern countries for example, which have invested heavily in public services.

Mulga Mumblebrain
Mulga Mumblebrain
Oct 17, 2018 11:41 PM
Reply to  Tom

The so-called ‘liberal democratic’ regimes produce Governments of unmitigated viciousness, stupidity and Evil. The problem begins with the real distribution of power, which in neo-liberal capitalist kakistocracies lies entirely in the hands of the rich, who own the politicians, the media sewer, and the economy. The electorate is comprised of 50% sub-median intelligences, and many who are personally vicious, racist, misogynistic, sectarian, homophobic etc, ie those who vote out of stupidity, ignorance, greed and fear. Moreover, foreign interference is rife, principally from the USA and the other Five Eyes global overlords, and from Israel and its plethora of Fifth Columns spread throughout the West.
‘Elections’ are cavalcades of lies, threats, bribes, character assassination and media bias. Once elected, the regimes rule for the rich, almost exclusively. The ONLY things that matter are those who increase elite wealth and power, and even existential catastrophes like the ecological collapse of the planet’s biospheres is ignored, in favour of elite profitability in Life-destroying ‘businesses’. One could not even imagine a worse and more destructive and Evil system.

binra
binra
Oct 18, 2018 12:10 AM

“One could not even imagine a worse and more destructive and Evil system”

Ah – but I see you are working on it Mulga!

If evil could be undone of its foundation, what would you do with yourself?

The term deceiver is not without usefulness as long as it doesn’t become something set only OUTSIDE the mind.
If you hold that evil really IS the nature of reality then why not just ‘get real’ and stop pretending to be anything else?
BTW – this line of thought may hold for some who feel no way back from terrible acts or omissions.

I hold that you have and are the power to give your life and everything in it, all the meaning it has for you, and that you do not have to let your life be defined and dictated by others, external conditions or past event. This may be a process of awakening over time – but nonetheless whenever you see you give power away, you are in the moment that can make a different choice.

As for judging anyone or everyone else – you do not live their life – but yours!
If you get so busy trying to judge and ‘correct’ or reject everyone else you wont have any time to behold your Life and recognize it is Good! If only in seeming random moments of serendipity or grace.

milosevic
milosevic
Oct 18, 2018 1:46 AM
Reply to  binra

Do you ever get tired of your own drivel, or is that not part of your programming?

binra
binra
Oct 18, 2018 1:21 PM
Reply to  milosevic

I note the intended insult milosevic, but you have mistakenly addressed it to me.
If you desire communication, engage. I am willing to listen to you.
Propaganda is giving false witness by which you condemn yourself.
I don’t condemn you.
If my posts are not for you – why do you open them to your attention?
If you take issue with my posts why not say so in ownership of your feelings – and perhaps why – rather than assigning your hate to my person as if to unload it and smear me by association?

So many like to rant on as if righteously about ‘evil psychopaths’ but show no capacity to identify in or recognise the other as soon as the other triggers their pet hates or activate a sense of defence against threat.

I hold cause and effect is a law beneath all that is, and that no one escapes the consequence of their acts – (but here we humanly are entangled in a temporary illusion ‘set against the inevitable’, and defended against the feared and believed true).

So I am not defending or justifying loveless or hateful thinking that results in loveless and hateful acts and experience. Nor am I fuelling them with a negative energy of ongoing attention.
I hold a vision of Embracing Life on Earth as an extension OF embrace.
If we hate and reject each other what purpose can that serve but the destructive?

I see cause and effect as one here. Hate is destructive, and the attempt to use it as fuel or power for a self-asserted ‘existence’ is to deny one’s true being in subjection to a false sense of possession. (Or mind-capture).

Hate is hurt, and when the hurt is nailed into the heart as ‘victim’, then terror and rage polarise the heart’s denial. How else to undo a world of hate but to choose not to engage with it.

I find it unworthy of you and so I hold you free of it save by your own election.

Please remember your vote is for who you are – or choose to accept true of you.

milosevic
milosevic
Oct 19, 2018 1:56 AM
Reply to  binra

If you desire communication, engage. I am willing to listen to you.

No, I don’t believe any useful purpose can be served by debating Cognitive Infiltrators. Nor is the content of your oeuvre specific enough to actually engage with; it’s simply meaningless gobbledygook, as I said previously.

It’s sufficient to note that this variety of New Age, psychologizing, “everybody’s guilty, so nobody’s guilty” discourse, has long been used to obscure and excuse the crimes of the ruling class. Mulga Mumblebrain provided a concise and specific description of how neoliberal capitalism actually operates, which is the sort of idea that Cognitive Infiltrators are especially concerned to mystify and obfuscate. And immediately thereafter, you show up, and proceed to do exactly that.

Funny how that works.

David Ray Griffin — Cognitive Infiltration

binra
binra
Oct 19, 2018 12:26 PM
Reply to  milosevic

PS: Those who want the short response can always start at the last para. The conventions of the mind are not rigidly set rules. Be free to alight in a vote for freedom from false framed definitions that seem real by reaction but lack substance.

I don’t recognize the charge against me of ‘cognitive infiltration’ but I do recognize that infiltration, funding and subversion of any movement of being renders it a proxy force or captured opposition. Therefore I an vigilant against deceits and write in the willingness to undo them.

I also see this in the reframing of the meanings of others by which to smear and invalidate them from ‘debate’ made famous by Kathy Newman’s; “so you’re saying..so you’re saying..”so you’re saying..” when none of her reframing of what Peterson said were true of what he said but were intent and attempt to trick reaction by which to invalidate him and his critiques of false thinking running a destructive agenda. Such is the pretence of communication for the purpose of framing what can be allowed to be said.

“Everyone’s guilty so no one’s guilty” has no resonance with ‘new age’ but is what I associate with normalising guilt as the human condition rather than active conditioning – (eg: the agenda for a carbon tax economy under ‘Green’ Fascism). Systemic guilt is simply a matter of power struggle as the basis of its distribution, and so you have the bankers & co, redistributing consequence of un-faced and unowned guilted-consequence onto the population at large and of course the living environment in general.

The voting system generally works as a vote AGAINST a perceived evil rather than for a genuine alignment of heart and mind – and as a manipulation of fear. But the perception of evil is also worked as the identity management of those who love to hate the bad guys as a way to believe they are the good guys.
The politics of hate, cynicism and manipulation of guilt are all dependent upon the mindset of unowned and un-faced fear and guilt – projected upon the other as if to kill it with the denial or invalidation of the other.

Paradoxically perhaps, the owning and facing of our own denied self, emotion and thought, meets the experience of waking as freedom from its tyranny. Guilt-lessness or a true Innocence of being, is a sanctity of being that can be ‘covered over’ by engaging in personal conflict or self-attack, but never truly lost. But this is not something that can be manipulated, weaponised, claimed, possessed or marketised – excepting as fake news – because it is the nature of ‘giving to have’ instead of ‘getting to get rid of’. This is the vote for the living or the dead – but who associates giving with anything but loss – unless giving ‘in order to GET’. However, ideas are strengthened by giving and sharing them and so the ideas we give and receive are the determiners of the world we perceive and the meanings we give – and take from it.

As for me being a government agent of disinformation. I have the same sense of mulga – for how better to serve the ‘zionasti’ agenda of domination by guilting-deceit’, than to rant and rail as he does? But whether he does this for pay, as a volunteer, or a ‘useful idiot’, he is still a fellow being and not the role.

Private mythologies personify the forces and relations of invested idea in the world. It is like a ‘soap drama’ in which people identify and engage in even into sickness, war and death. But it isn’t a true appreciation of what is truly here and so I do not join with ‘evil’ agendas excepting to use them as an illumination of the ideas, definitions, beliefs and self convicting fears that underlie them.

I am an agency of governance in that as I elect to accept a true governance in place of tyranny, be that tyranny overt or covert, I live and give witness into the whole as a living vote cast. There is a way of listening within, that uncovers a peace of being in which and from which we are guided truly instead of misguided by the carrot and stick of lack and fear. There is also an integrative nature to the living that shares qualities that a quantitative manipulation cannot see or know. Truly conscious being is not a mind-capture and no matter how many are aligned in a disintegrity, it does not become true by consensus or by official edict.

Communication by invitation is different than assertions of framing deceits. The deceit must ALWAYS appeal to a sense of self-lack and division, guilt and fear. In true discernment there is no call or need to investigate every branch of an argument down to its roots to know it is without true foundation. And yet this is NOT a personal demonisation or invalidation of the fool or the fooled but the capacity to illuminate the nature of the folly to the recognition of wisdom in a true founded appreciation.

That humankind is collectively engaged and entangled in destructive folly is fuelled and locked in by the personal drive of ‘self-vindicating’ vengeance. I understand that you feel enraged, but I suggest that Law of a just outcome is not served by giving power to the grievance, any more than by giving power to the perpetration of lawless intent. But it is served by giving a true hearing to all concerned. At this time, our human laws are often subverted or corrupted to serve the power-cartels of those who take power by making powerless and so the law has to be held in the hearts of the people and lived from the ground up as a re-alignment in the desire for true – rather than the persistence of a destructive insanity.

The deceiver will suggest that the enemy of your feared outcome is your friend – but you might guess you are being gamed. However the onus or responsibility is not on those who seek to find reinforcement for their lack of substance, but on you for being un-watchful of your mind to be so phished.

The worship of evil under the reaction of an opposition to it, is the power to assert and believe anything at all – and enact it upon yourself, your sister, brother and world in a righteousness… that attempts to expunge an inner fear on an outer realm of relation.

Evil is another facet of guilt and sin – that is protected from exposure and undoing, by assigning to special hates of attack, and further protected by joining in special ‘loves’ of conditional bubble identities of relationship by which to mask over, hide and deny the ugliness of special hate.
Nothing is ever truly brought to light by blame. Nothing is ever truly healed by shame and nothing is ever truly corrected by pain. But of course we have to grow light within what is currently running in order to see from a willingness FOR light – instead of a fear of exposure to guilt, pain and loss in such a light.

I vote for an alternative to a mind-control – under penalty of such disincentives, by accepting and joining a true movement of love – by bringing willingness for love’s awareness, instead of blind emotionally driven reaction. Unified purpose is no split mind – but unity is of free will and not of struggle to coerce, dominate and rule the mind (that then rules you).

The arguments against ‘debate or dialogue’ are always assertions of invalidating judgement.
So all one has to do to ‘defend against’ the unwanted or inconvenient truth is assert and accuse sin in another – as the first claim in giving the ‘word’ or setting the narrative.

Gwyn
Gwyn
Oct 18, 2018 10:02 AM
Reply to  binra

To binra – are you judging and correcting someone for judging and correcting others?

binra
binra
Oct 18, 2018 11:53 AM
Reply to  Gwyn

No I am reflecting that judgement is an act or use of mind that has consequences to the capacity to evaluate its choice with a true awareness of consequence.

If we cannot even speak of something but be attacked for ‘hate crime’ we know that hate rules the mind that speaks thus and there is no one listening.

The mind in defence of its ‘right to attack’ is quick to use anything said that it feels threatened by as ammunition against the one who says it. Not least as the assertion that IT is the victim. But that is not a communication or relationship. That is the intent to block or distort communication and withhold relationship under the guise of communication.

My sense of ‘hate speech’ as in-valid communication is where an unchecked incitement to hate works the undermining OF communication and relationship. I hold integrity to be a quality of communication and relationship and not a personal possession of a private property needing defence.

And so my sense inviting correction is not any claim or presumption of a ‘right to be offended’ and thereby righteously vilify and penalise another – but simply that I do not support it, join with it or hold it to have integrity – and therefore give witness for communication and relationship by speaking to the truth as I see it – which is also the truth and integrity of all involved.

Correction as I see it, is where we recognize something out of true in OUR self or OUR perception and release investment in it. The aligning to true occurs naturally. The attempt to correct another is always coercive and involving the unresolved or unhealed hates or fears in the ‘unhealed healer’.

—- Further reflections in the theme…………..

The ‘psychopathic’ argument uses an apparently scientific diagnosis to mask the meaning of ‘evil’, as witch or heretic or any of the other terms of dehumanisation that then ‘justify’ or ‘sanctify’ the most inhuman denial of any right to humanity – where torture and genocide becomes a sport or a duty undertaken for the ‘greater Good’.

We thus dehumanise ourself by participation.

Hate hides in self accusations WANTED true IN the other.
We feel it a hateful – intolerable – experience to be exposed to hatred in our own heart. The mind of the need to get rid of it runs as a sense of psychic-emotional survival – and it does this by assigning and associating hate away from self – onto a world of others. It lashes out”

I live in willingness for another way than vengeance running down through the generations unto even the destruction of Life on Earth. But that willingness has to abide the unthinkable or intolerable long enough to open relationship or curiosity in place of a tyrannous mind.

It is the reconnection with our core curiosity that moves the asking – AND answer as ‘the Emperor has no clothes!’. For it is without any emotional charge of accusation. The false is no longer passing off as true and we are thus free to alight and align truly.

The ‘Last judgement’ is the undoing or fulfilment of all judgement – being the acceptance and recognition of wholeness. A core function identifying in hate is its capacity to protect us from love’s awareness. Hate has no function in wholeness recognized.

Is it not easier in this world to say “I hate” rather than “I love”?

But is this a result of millennia of conditioned ‘learning’ to override the nature of our being as a requirement of adaptation to survive and prevail an ‘evil world’?

Everyone finds coercion hateful.
But how much is really as we perceive it?

How many identify with the naked emperor?
Everything comes home, because we cannot in truth ‘get rid’ of any part of our self excepting by a dissociation under denial – as a narrative mind given power.

If you go to the cinema and find the entrancement meaningful or enjoyable – you take the ‘journey’. But if it operates propaganda for a loveless intent – why take the bait?

“What reaches the heart without going through the mind is likely to bounce back and put the mind out of business. Propaganda taken in that way is like a drug you do not know you are swallowing. The effect is mysterious; you do not know afterwards why you feel or think the way you do.” – Mortimer J. Adler

The mind of a true discernment is lost to a mind set in reaction.
I differentiate the heart’s knowing from emotional reactivity – which is a blocking substitution for feeling-awareness, or the knowing of being. Our culture associates love with weakness so as to impose a ‘mind’ upon a divided self. But only a love of truth has the strength of unified purpose.

Neil Youngson
Neil Youngson
Oct 20, 2018 5:22 AM
Reply to  binra

I don’t disagree with many of your ideas but if you can’t put forward, in two or three paragraphs, a cogent argument as to why you disagree with the premise of this article, then you should go elsewhere to express your opinions.

This issue put forward here is clear – if you vote you support a corrupt system, if enought people don’t vote, the system will be exposed for the sham it is.

binra
binra
Oct 20, 2018 9:03 AM
Reply to  Neil Youngson

Dear Neil, why ‘must’ comments be framed by the assertion of the article – as if that is the only way of thinking or seeing the idea of ‘vote, choice or voice’.
A false framed choice is NO choice but presents AS IF making a difference while ensuring nothing really changes.

I have repeatedly indicated in many comments that we live and vote FROM a premise that is our true freedom once uncovered AS a recognition OF freedom. But ‘this kingdom’ is not IN the world of invested power struggle, being a sovereign will.

The phishing of identity theft is the false flag of reaction – perhaps in seeking a self inflation – to be made ‘great’ again, but more often against evils that must be checked or denied.

With regard to the apparent dilemma of such a world I refer to Jesus’ differentiation of God and Caesar. I know ‘God’ is not lingua franca in such an enlightened age (sic) but to give what is due unto God and all that is true is to disinvest according and assigning it to Caesar – in ‘Rome’ or in the reactions of a like kind in our own heart.

Engaging with a lie and the father of it is not witnessing to truth so much as trying to bring truth into the ‘war’. Rather than bringing the ‘war’ to true account.

Why you do what you do is the purpose or desire that is given permission and joined with, and strengthened by ‘teaching and learning’ it. To vote first for a true awareness is only possible in the recognition of a mind of deceit. So withdrawing from the FRAME of a false thinking is the opening of receptivity to the movement of the true within you. This is is opposite to everything we have learned – in the world – of the intent to determine truth or make true what we think we want – or fear not to align in.

Freedom is not in ruling the forms that actions and outcomes take, but in recognising and aligning true, for the freedom to be you is the basis of all else. ‘Steal a kingdom and they call you king’ applies to the mind-capture even more than a coup d’etat.

Waking up to deceit is not at first completely dis – illusioned because the mind is the ingenuity by which to persist in a ‘new’ version of the same old lie.

By all means do or do not vote in any moment of thought word and deed that is yours to be, but do not accord yourself ‘power’ or ‘powerlessness’ thereby or you will believe it and suffer it as real.

I invite aligning in what speaks and moves you truly – to your willingness and desire for truth. Identity set against a corrupt and corrupting system of thought is still framed in terms of an evil. A true identification is not an attempt to self-validate the self-lacking, but a shared sense of true worth.

In a guilty world there seems nothing worthy EXCEPT to fight against the greater evil. But guilt is a personal conviction that drives the attempt to put it out on someone else.

Please notice you are always joining with truth or with illusion as the self from which you give, live and act in your relationships. I do not have to specify the choice you will make when you are awake to the true nature of what you are choosing between. No one chooses meaninglessness that is revealed AS meaningless – and yes we can and do give our perception of the world all the meaning it has for us.

Those who see the futility already see it, and those who yet cling to hope such a conflict can have a ‘victory’ persist in it. You do not need to ‘tell’ everyone what they already know or refuse yet to accept – and yet of course you can share and strengthen a witness for freedom from false framed futility – without giving power to the deceit.

The extension of any loving act is never wasted. But if it has strings attached, conditions to be met or hidden agenda in mind, then it is not love but coercion. Can those whose presentation is a deceit of their own convictions be extended love for who they ARE – and not reinforcement for what they are not and can never be?

Love is the capacity to recognize what is Real in any and every circumstance. I have learned or acquired the conditioning to a very different self and world. But I no longer invest it with R Reality.

In the UK an MP is also a representative to their constituents and some are clearly more active in taking up the cause of those who seek their help than others. Some issues may stand out as worthy of adding my voice to – irrespective of the Big Picture. Particularly where there is a willingness to ‘speak truth to power’.

The unfolding ‘script’ of the World Drama is firstly the perspective from which to see it. The mind-in-reaction, framed in guilt and fear, sees nothing true. The manipulation of the mind is a choice. Learn to notice when we align in such a choice or are about to – and vote for freedom by giving as we would in truth receive.

vexarb
vexarb
Oct 18, 2018 6:06 PM
Reply to  binra

Binra, it depends on one’s temperament. The Buddha maintained his equanimity but Jesus wept and became angry; though both men dedicated their lives to the relief of suffering. In first year Philosophy we were taught the political difference between Aristotle and Plato: the former recommending a purely theoretical approach because Arystotle could not imagine God doing anything beside contemplating His own perfection; while Plato regarded practical politics as the duty of an enlightened citizen, even at the risk of embarrassment, expense, mental slog and bodily risk.

binra
binra
Oct 18, 2018 9:35 PM
Reply to  vexarb

Yes, many facets of One, vexarb.
Though of course not a one alone, nor a one to which an other can be.
To be awake in any aspect of being is to know rather than perceive.
To be asleep in any of them is to see conflict rather than unity – because they are all valid perspectives and the attempt to assert one over another is like pitting joy against freedom.

I don’t recognize or align with a weeping or angry Jesus. But I do recognize that any revelation of truth is misinterpreted and subverted by the ‘world’ to reinforce an identity in fear, struggle and sacrifice rather than serve a direct transcendence special to none.

Sweeping out the Temple is interpreted as political anger by the angry who seek a kingdom in the world as ‘power struggle’, but I see it as a teaching for transmuting the energy of anger to ‘sweep out’ our OWN misplaced devotions – or indeed our own ‘template’ level of self definitions that compels or frames us to seek love or power outside ourself in possession or dominion.

Thus the opening to awareness of dis-integrity of the suffering of treachery and betrayal of this ‘world’ of misidentified attachment triggers the energy by which to be forcefully and fearlessly opened at deeper honesty of being. This is to see through rather than be directed or framed BY a ‘mind’ of personal reaction – in the sense of mind being a transparency to recognition rather than invested in as a ‘separate self sense. The movement of being is not absent while the mind engages in mind-conflict – but is hidden by the running of such a narrative upon it. Thus the exploiting of Life for what one ‘gets’ from it, that results in limitation, scarcity, and adversity, rather than the unfolding recognition of an already fulfilment of being.

But the point I was reflecting to mulga is that his very language becomes a replica of the thing he purposes to be set against. We cannot see the sins of others but through our own. The forms that they take may differ but the principle is of enacting private fantasy gratification upon the image and form of others by sacrifice of the true to feed the fantasy at cost of true. Also known as judgement and the presumption to power over life.

The power of Life is given the ‘just and the unjust’ and the fruit, result or reward of our alignment within it is an extending of the Gift or the fighting over a stolen inheritance. It’s your vote that counts for who you accept yourself and reality to be – but as you see yourself so will you see and relate to others – and to God or Life Itself. The three are one.
These things are ‘hidden’ only because the mind in guilt hides from love and seeks to ‘become’ worthy or atone or vindicate its ‘self’ No one need do anything for Reality to be Itself – but no one in the world of form but must act – and so the basis for action can be from a sense of self-becoming or from an already movement of true desire.

The nature of true desire is ‘know thyself’ and the loss of awareness of such wholeness is in the intent to know our self special, apart and set in judgement over – or in short to usurp the functions of Spirit under a sense of manual control and to assign its Gift to our own abilities. Such an ignorance and arrogance can only result in ‘evils’. Garbage in; garbage out. Any aspect of self-knowledge serves a reintegrative function. But a self-assertive blindness can seem to be righteous when actually covering deeper fears that distort our perception such as to seek for evils against which to expunge genuine doubts, feared and hidden or kept from a direct awareness. This can be seen in the ‘need for an enemy’ in a world that fears peace would render them redundant – and old habits wont learn new tricks.

Yonatan
Yonatan
Oct 17, 2018 9:18 PM

The only prediction I can make is, that whatever the outcome, it will ‘prove’ Russia has interferred in the election. If the Deep State candidates lose, it will be evidence of Russian interference. If they win, then they would have gained more votes if not for Russian interference.

binra
binra
Oct 17, 2018 5:43 PM

There is a facade or directed perception of the idea of a (voting) choice and there is a genuine choice.
The facade’s function is to engage and divert you from a genuine choice by framing you into terms in which no real choice is available – but which plays off one against another. As long as we are framed in the mind of Caesar we will give unto Caesar even if we think to be free in defiance.
The world’s thinking is backwards. Living FROM the true of you is the basis from which to attract and create a more truly aligned world-experience. In this sense the thought system of Ideas of self-definition that you live from and make real by acting as if true of you, is always a vote. Much of the world’s voting is self cancelling because the attempt to serve two Masters of mutually excluding goals and direction merely renders a volatile instability of division and uncertainty. And then the fear of fear reactively ‘votes’ for the ‘protection racket’ which of course is giving power to cover stories by which to escape a ‘greater evil’ or a greater fear believed true.

The basis for choice is an awareness of the nature of what is being chosen and why or for what purpose. No one can ‘choose’ when information relevant to the choice is withheld of distorted or designated taboo.

Our habit or conditioned thinking is a filtering distortion that limits perspective, and the choice to defend and reinforce an established habit-addiction engenders the manipulative attempt to block or deny information or distort communication so as to persist in the belief one is ‘freely’ choosing to exercise some sort of power when in truth one is hollowed out and made powerless under a tyrannous will that then works through you – under whatever patterns of self-illusion can be kept up behind increasingly isolating defences against self-honesty to one’s predicament.

So do not look out there for true Authority – but insofar as you recognize anything true – honour it.
Living from a true Authority is from the recognition that we do not create our self – even if we do in a sense create cover stories in attempt to protect a sense of self-lack and fear of pain and loss.

So then uncover what is true in you by no longer voting for the false – in any moment that you notice falsity. And this frees you to align in the true which in a sense is already given you but waits on recognition and acceptance.

Owning what is ours and releasing what is not brings us present and through the recognition of presence our word and witness become a vote for wholeness that cannot be denied though it can be refused.

So do or don’t do whatever it is your decide on the basis of your willingness to listen within as a genuine receptivity of self-honesty rather than a searching of your conditioned thinking, but do it as an extension of the presence of you.

The fragmentation into division and conflict is the method and the madness of the power to enforce a presentation over Life and make it true – while escaping the consequences onto others. We meet this as a personality entanglement that operates as an automaton until we wake from the mask and extend a genuine relation through whatever it is that we are being the unfolding experience of. No one is really what they seem, or who we image them to be. Releasing from judgement is waking to release at a level we have in the main, forgotten.

A most fundamental change is underway and our experience of it will be according to what we are choosing to invest our energy and attention and identification in. Fear changes when brought into awareness. Until then hidden fear runs beneath the cover story of a mind that thinks to push ‘out of mind’ is to get rid of. What we do is what we are done by – and the mind that is pushed out of its true inheritance by its own ‘denials’ is unaware of its predicament or the nature of the choices by which it does this unto itself.

Yes, in the cover story are deeply invested beliefs and it is suffered lived and died in as if the only reality. Compassion does not condemn or reinforce another in their current level of ignorances or capacity to recognize choices beyond it current convictions – and so joins with what is true – which is the innate capacity for learning, communication and choice by which another can of their own freedom recognize that they have it – even if at first this is a small step or a spark or small voice amidst a storm of dissonance.

Neil Youngson
Neil Youngson
Oct 20, 2018 5:28 AM
Reply to  binra

if you want to get your ideas across, learn how to express them succinctly. Currently you are deflecting from the important idea of this discussion with a lot of waffle.

milosevic
milosevic
Oct 20, 2018 7:17 AM
Reply to  Neil Youngson

Deflecting attention from important ideas is the entire purpose of Cognitive Infiltration, whether the means employed are waffles, pancakes, hot air, or cowpies.

David Ray Griffin — Cognitive Infiltration

binra
binra
Oct 20, 2018 10:13 AM
Reply to  milosevic

Deflecting attention from the open consideration of the true nature of ideas (as the undoing of false framing assertions or dictate), can only resort to smears because it HAS no substance – but links to a source by which to claim ‘authority’ of insight, and yet mis-applies the insight in seeking to use it as a weapon of personal agenda in exactly the way the critique was intended to expose!

Now if vengeance is the purpose to which all your ideas must serve, and thus become ‘IMPORTANT’ then anyone not supporting your purpose becomes your enemy or obstruction.

I see in that last sentence a critique of the ‘anti-Life’ mentality that wreaks destruction in our thought, word and deed.

I don’t pretend that we do not all at time or oft times feel the desire for vengeance – but I do not accept it as the ‘god’ to which all my thought must serve or align in. And so I seek justice in Law and accept Law in place of a lawless insanity (that corrupts the mind and the laws of man).
So milosevic – apart from barking behind your ‘master’s’ authority’ – and making attack on my person, what is the substance of basis for your negative assertions to my intent?

Look at the Environmental movement as a top-down infiltrated subversion of a true desire that then diverts from most every kind of ACTUAL toxicity into a demonisation of humanity and CO2! (But not the toxic intent and expression which persists unchecked).
No that might not be popular. You might be ‘outnumbered’. Why not attack your brother instead – especially when he is clearly not aggressive, nor popular, and safe to bark at.

Cognitive infiltration into any critical awareness of power by deceit will work the language of hate in self-righteousness into the narrative as the ‘identity’ to join in as an expression of a wish for ‘power’ against ‘evils’ It is important that emotional reaction take the place of conscious thought.

Of course there are a whole range of tactics for interjecting division and disinformation but the ability to do so is in the blindness of emotional reactive identities. Who first calls or accuses ‘troll’ may not themselves be that role, but their reaction serves the same function.

Once suspiciousness is cast for and gains support, viciousness soon follows.
If I were trolling OG – I would work a team that can ‘astroturf a movement’.
However, a lack of substance remains a lack of substance when identified as such.

The manipulative ‘intelligence’ relies on a fallen human nature to reliably do the work that they merely set into motion. The taking of offence as personal insult works the greed for payback in a mind that has no awareness of true worthiness in self or others. Set such a ‘neediness’ to work under some noble lie.
Rinse lather and repeat.

milosevic
milosevic
Oct 20, 2018 8:39 PM
Reply to  binra

making attack on my person

I would never make an attack on your person, because I don’t believe that “you” actually are a person, to any significant extent. Your output has all the signs of algorithmically-produced nonsense verbiage, based on the vocabulary and text patterns of New-Age psycho-babble.

A nonsense-generator based on Post-Modern literary criticism has been in operation for over two decades; if it were reprogrammed with your characteristic vocabulary, its output would be indistinguishable from yours. After a few individualized modifications by deep-state Cognitive Infiltrators working from some military base, it could be sent out into the world to disorient, disinform, disrupt, and derail opposition to the neoliberal program.

And so here we are.

Postmodernism Generator

https://www.rt.com/usa/415609-us-army-ai-language-bot/
comment image

binra
binra
Oct 21, 2018 10:26 AM
Reply to  milosevic

milosevic:

Would it be the benefit of a doubt to consider that you are so superficially motivated as to act and speak without any real sense of what you are saying, and its consequences, or do I accept my postings are given tribute by your attempt to invalidate and smear without in any way engaging in any point or issue in them?

To claim ‘there is no attack on a person’ just because YOU SAY say to me; ‘you are not a real person’ and then smear by association with paid disinformation agents or A.I bots, is a signature OF just such a disinformation, divide and degrade intent as you accuse.

You are thus ‘outing’ you own intentions, not mine.

‘Not-real’ persons – under any kind of invalidating assertions, can be lied to, cheated, or treated inhumanely – even to mark out for torture and killing – without involving any sense of moral responsibility or culpability in the perpetrator because of course, to the mind OF an asserted self-superiority, they are not real.

Are you not making your own example of the ‘evil psychopath’ that you profess to be set against?

Now shall I hold such a ‘mind’ as the true of you? …. Or as a ruse you think to use, that abuses you?

I didn’t say I felt attacked – but that ad hominem operates the insinuation and smear of an attack upon the possibility of communication.

In post truth society, communication itself becomes a thought disorder.

binra
binra
Oct 20, 2018 9:28 AM
Reply to  Neil Youngson

Oh come down from ‘on High’ and accept that there are more ways to see than as your thinking currently dictates. If all you want is a campaign for non voting then of course anyone who doesn’t join it will seem to weaken it. But you set it up that way and I am not ‘intending to undermine you or your campaign’.

Also in any page commenting there are conversations that arise that may well be strictly off topic to whatever the main gist of an article – but partake of the general and repeated themes of which your article is a slice – namely of a corrupted system running on deceit.

The ‘post truth politics’ rules out participation in anything but a sideshow for anyone but insider insiders – in regard to the unfolding of their new world order. But IDEAS are not hidden or fenced off excepting by the mind of possession, denial and defence. This compartmentalised mind is no less an idea – given reality.
Well, then don’t give your reality to it.

‘Put down the Ring Frodo!’

BigB
BigB
Oct 17, 2018 5:33 PM

In America, don’t the Diebold voting machines vote for you? Or was that just for Hitlerry? 😀

milosevic
milosevic
Oct 19, 2018 2:48 AM
Reply to  BigB

In Russian dictatorship, you vote for One Party State.

In Amerikan democracy, One Party State votes for you.

mog
mog
Oct 17, 2018 5:15 PM

Sage advice.

Gary Weglarz
Gary Weglarz
Oct 17, 2018 4:51 PM

Meanwhile back here in the good old oh so – “exceptional” – U.S.A. – as reported from the WSW:

(“An extraordinary number of former intelligence and military operatives from the CIA, Pentagon, National Security Council and State Department are seeking nomination as Democratic candidates for Congress in the 2018 midterm elections. The potential influx of military-intelligence personnel into the legislature has no precedent in US political history. . . . Of the 102 primary elections to choose the Democratic nominees in these competitive districts, 44 involve candidates with a military-intelligence or State Department background,”)

no doubt MSM like the New York Times and Washington Post will recast this sordid and frightening state of affairs as some sort of bonanza for democracy, as in – “look at all the pre-approved choices one has! One can vote for ex-CIA, ex-Pentagon, ex-National Security Council or ex-State Department!” Amazingly this cast of characters constitutes the “resistance” – the only alternative allowed to Trump and the Republicans.

The notion that either set of choices constitutes a “lessor of two evils” is rendered rather absurd when BOTH versions of our carefully pre-approved political choices here in the U.S. can be categorized as absolutely life threatening to the entire planet!

Kavy
Kavy
Oct 17, 2018 4:47 PM

It’s better to be born rich than gifted

The least-gifted children of high-income parents graduate from college at higher rates than the most-gifted children of low-income parents.

Washington Post, By Andrew Van Dam

https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/business/2018/10/09/its-better-be-born-rich-than-talented/?noredirect=on&noredirect=on&utm_term=.b4c2bb0566b2&__twitter_impression=true

timfrom
timfrom
Oct 17, 2018 4:47 PM

The following quote may not be as famous, but it underlines the script’s prescience…

Arthur Jensen: You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won’t have it! Is that clear? You think you’ve merely stopped a business deal. That is not the case! The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back! It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity! It is ecological balance! You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, reichmarks, rins, rubles, pounds, and shekels. It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today! And YOU have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and YOU… WILL… ATONE! Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale? You get up on your little twenty-one inch screen and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT, and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today. What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state, Karl Marx? They get out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories, minimax solutions, and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments, just like we do. We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime. And our children will live, Mr. Beale, to see that… perfect world… in which there’s no war or famine, oppression or brutality. One vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock. All necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused. And I have chosen you, Mr. Beale, to preach this evangel.

Howard Beale: Why me?

Arthur Jensen: Because you’re on television, dummy. Sixty million people watch you every night of the week, Monday through Friday.

Howard Beale: I have seen the face of God.

Arthur Jensen: You just might be right, Mr. Beale.

timfrom
timfrom
Oct 17, 2018 4:59 PM
Reply to  timfrom

Er, scratch that one.

First time I tried posting it (see below), it didn’t appear, so I re-posted. Then I saw the “Your comment will appear eventually” bit in the comment instructions.

D’oh!

vexarb
vexarb
Oct 17, 2018 6:12 PM
Reply to  timfrom

Thanks for the quotation, Tim, I never heard of that 1970s film, Network, but it sounds even more relevant today.

Francis Lee
Francis Lee
Oct 17, 2018 10:02 PM
Reply to  vexarb

There were truly some tremendous films coming out of Hollywood in the 70s. Network, Apocalypse Now, and my favourite, Taxi Driver.

jazthings656986293
jazthings656986293
Oct 19, 2018 8:53 PM
Reply to  timfrom

great film!

geoffreyskoll
geoffreyskoll
Oct 17, 2018 4:37 PM

I vote for national offices as follows: Eleanor Roosevelt for president, Karl Marx for US Senate, the rest of the Marx family (Chico, Groucho, Gummo, Harpo, and Zeppo) for other national and major offices. I always vote for real candidates for local offices.

vexarb
vexarb
Oct 17, 2018 3:43 PM

CJ Hopkins is a writer. Nice! It would be even nicer if a thinker would turn up to suggest a less passive remedy for people afflicted with Democracy, “the best form of bad government”.

Willem
Willem
Oct 17, 2018 3:29 PM

Or vote blank. That is what I do after I read the following book.

http://www.50ayear.com/2013/02/18/4-seeing-by-jose-saramago/

I do believe in the voting system, but since there is no choice, I vote blank.

Mac
Mac
Oct 19, 2018 1:26 AM
Reply to  Willem

The voting illusion is why there is a system and the ‘system’ always serves itself. There’s a page on
limited government at freeblr.org best I’ve seen. It looks like have to dwnld a big pdf to save so I just
typed best sentences and also printed to paper. I think another problem is some still look to ‘media’
which also serves itself. We forget how to be our own media. Since long coversations are difficult
because of ‘smart’ fones I figured out to put info and few web links etc on notes with copy pass on
at bottom to hand people, mailboxes etc, better then explaining and others have something to do.
We are always fed false solutions ‘boycott’, ‘prepare’ etc don’t do anything, and don’t vote is similar
though the article is important as some still ‘vote’ though they know it’s delusion. Actual change takes
doing something instead of fake smile fake life. The last line of article that truth isn’t easy, people
have taken the bogus ‘easy’ over centuries, now look at the situation. There’s no magic wand to
bring back earth that feeds us. Where is that two acres of farm you need for one person, four acres
for two, under your own control. How do you grow food on pavement controlled by others. The
problems are where we live, ‘wa dc’ is distraction. Noted some good points in other posts, if something
resonates maybe jot it down, I do that myself. Expecting ‘others’ to stop things for us isn’t real life.

~

davemass
davemass
Oct 17, 2018 2:26 PM

Like the guy in ‘Network’ saying he can’t take it anymore!!

Donald Duck
Donald Duck
Oct 17, 2018 4:04 PM
Reply to  davemass

Howard Beale, ”I want you to go to your windows, open them up and shout, ‘I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore.’ Network. a classic and prescient film.

timfrom
timfrom
Oct 17, 2018 4:44 PM
Reply to  Donald Duck

The following quote from Network isn’t as famous, but it encapsulates, 42 years later, the script’s prescience…

Arthur Jensen: You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won’t have it! Is that clear? You think you’ve merely stopped a business deal. That is not the case! The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back! It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity! It is ecological balance! You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, reichmarks, rins, rubles, pounds, and shekels. It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today! And YOU have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and YOU… WILL… ATONE! Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale? You get up on your little twenty-one inch screen and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT, and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today. What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state, Karl Marx? They get out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories, minimax solutions, and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments, just like we do. We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime. And our children will live, Mr. Beale, to see that… perfect world… in which there’s no war or famine, oppression or brutality. One vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock. All necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused. And I have chosen you, Mr. Beale, to preach this evangel.

Howard Beale: Why me?

Arthur Jensen: Because you’re on television, dummy. Sixty million people watch you every night of the week, Monday through Friday.

Howard Beale: I have seen the face of God.

Arthur Jensen: You just might be right, Mr. Beale.

Lupulco
Lupulco
Oct 17, 2018 2:21 PM

The late George Carlin summed it up many years ago. Not a lot changed since

https://youtu.be/qxsQ7jJJcEA

Doctor J
Doctor J
Oct 17, 2018 2:16 PM

Imagine if they held a humiliating farce and nobody came…

binra
binra
Oct 17, 2018 11:27 PM
Reply to  Doctor J

Is imagining something ‘voting’ for it?
So I wonder CAN we imagine something and hold it in our heart without then invalidating it in thought?

One such is the ‘no point voting for a minority candidate because its a wasted vote’, or effectively allowing the WORST CANDIDATE! to get in.

Can we hold our own course because it is true of us or do we abandon our true because we are easily persuaded it is futile or lowering of defence against great evils?

Is there a power in standing in who we are because we are instead of standing somewhere else in order to escape feared outcomes? or manipulate apparently positive outcomes?

Is the journey of finding out who we are by acting from it, more of what our true function is than trying to change others and becoming identified in polarised identity conflict – in which who we DON’T vote for says more about us than who we do – including not voting for anyone? That is do we reinforce an identity in defiance or opposition INSTEAD of aligning in the true of who we truly are and what we positively want.

How much vision is there for a positive future that isn’t really a version of ‘overcoming the past’ in the future?
Perhaps not a lot – and so we now have the ‘realism’ of human society as ‘sickness management’.
This cant be accepted in open communication and so is a progressive conditioning by guile and deceit.

Vote for the worthiness of Life even if your current perceptions are ‘distortions’ of yet to be healed conditioning.
And then you give yourself the possibility of receiving it or extending it in ways that your mindset would otherwise have blocked.

So what about all the hate and terror symbols and all those who fail our sense of what Life out to be?
Perhaps the casting of roles is not an objective science and none of us in more than fragments of perspective in which we are conditioned and adapted to operate because we know nothing else – or dare not let other perspective in…