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crstapor · 4 years ago

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Why I am so Cynical

“I say unto you: one must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.” - Zarathustra

Part 3

Let me stop shouting - sometimes I get carried away. Because it needs be clearly stated that my perspective on the matter at hand is not based solely on 'personal' experience (of course one can never deny the importance such datum possess!) but also 'phenomenological' experience, which is, clearly, a different animal altogether. That this menagerie has informed my thought will surprise no-one who's ever tried it; thinking, I mean. How else, if one is being as honest as possible, can one arrive at any conclusions whatsoever? While the first part of this essay waxed rather subjectively poetic, allow me to offer this third as a sort of empirical respite. Facts, good reader, let me proffer facts to further found my cynicism most severe.

But let me first define the scope these facts will express. The working title for this missive to minds who want to think was 'A Polemic against American Modernity'. Allowing that my interests, here, lie not north to Canada or south of Texas, the parameters of this diatribe should be well understood by all with even meager cartographic skill.

Superficial perhaps I've structured these facts into three distinct phenomena; the surface, the self, and the symbol. I do so not to make any sweeping ontologic distinctions or assertions, rather, to help me think through them. System-building is not my purpose here - system-analysis is. The facets of modern America culture were well in place before I came along, and, unless I'm completely mistaken, I've done little to add to or enhance any of them. Apart from the clear truth of my having lived with and through them the vast majority of my mortal years. This 'truth', my citizenship and biography, allow me credence to present what follows as 'fact'; though of course it's still just one man's opinion!

Knowledge!

The Surface

Politics. Democracy. American Exceptionalism. Yeah right. So, help me out here, we have a great democracy because we vote for other people to get to vote on who actually becomes leader? Unless of course nine robes get that special privilege - based off of their admitted political preferences naturally! - like back in 2000. How the legislature is just a club for the privileged, connected, and the rich (which is almost redundant). How once 'money' became speech only those with 'money' had speech. The Founders are grave-rolling and Mussolini's having a laugh - fascism much? Let's remember Benito's definition of the term; which is when State and corporate interests converge (more or less). And we find that just about everywhere we look up in DC these days. Apparently we have the 'political will' to help banks, big oil, agribusiness, gun manufacturers, and all the other consolidated purveyors of terror, hate or control (sure, tobacco had to be sacrificed - occasionally you must throw the peasants a bone to keep the lie alive) but can't find the time to help out 'we the people': see continuing cuts to social programs; see the limp-dick governmental response to the housing/mortgage crisis of 2008 - ?; see the student loan pyramid scheme; see a 'minimum' wage that consistently fails to keep up with inflation; see a 'healthcare' plan that mandates private citizens purchase a product from non-governmental, for-profit companies - and taxes them if they don't; see how prohibition (here considered against natural, earth-born narcotics) continues to fuel a for-profit prison system and further erodes race relations; see how the gravest existential threat to the species (climate change, for realz) is perpetually laughed off and ignored; see how we lecture others on human rights while keeping Gitmo open and denying homosexuals equal protection under the law; see how NASA's (quite possibly, from a historical perspective, the greatest achievement of our modern society) budget keeps getting gutted while their priorities are schizophrenically re-ordered with each administration; see how children keep slaughtering children with weapons of war and no one can even attempt to do anything about it; see how voter ID laws are passed like Jim Crow; see how the innate sovereignty of the nation has been torn asunder now that private corporations can be 'to big to fail'; see an ever increasingly militarized police force; see the constitutional absurdity of 'free speech zones'; see democratic campaigns where one guy runs but once elected that guy's nowhere to be found and in his place is a carbon copy of the last guy who held the office ... See how our 'political parties' are two sides of the same coin ... But let's stop here and consider that last point in greater depth, as it is so vital to any understanding of 'democracy' in America ... Republicans, Democrats; Jefferson has been famously remembered, quoted, as saying once our (more properly his) democracy devolved into a two party system it would be a democracy no more. And I've certainly been a witness to that in my life. Sure, America isn't a dictatorship, but it sure as hell isn't the country Jefferson helped forge. And the main reason for that, to my eyes, seems to be the consolidation of power in the hands of politicians with more in common with each other than their constituents. R or D you can bet they're there for Wall Street or the military-information-industrial complex. Anyone else? Good luck with that citizen ... And while they're both complicit in gutting the middle class, let's take a moment to reflect, ethically, on that matter ... You can't blame the snake for its venom, but you can sure as hell blame the snake-oil salesman for shilling his bullshit wares. In case that metaphor wasn't clear enough allow me to decode it for you:

R = snake. D = snake-oil salesman.

Switching gears - though not by much! - let's shift to the state of modern American entertainment. To the uninitiated possibly a trite transition, any who've watched politics lately will surely see the connection. And just as our politics smell rotten, the main complaint with what passes as entertainment these days is how bad it tastes. Yes, it's a question of taste, as it seems most Americans have none. From 'reality TV' (which is surely anything but - though let's not forget Barnum's maxim!), to a pop-music ecosystem that's cannibalized itself to the point of parody, a movie industry that can seemingly fill ten months of releases with one script, the apotheosis of sport, the devolution of literature into a hobby for diarists, the way the performing arts are continually hoarded into smaller and smaller urban green zones, well, it's just hard to swallow most of that without gagging. Or throwing up. Yet a more concerted analysis along these lines is not called for here - we have much too much ground yet to cover.

Speaking of ground and covering it why not mention war? That old playground of glory now some video game where you might win many things; though honor's not among them. The full transition here is yet to occur, but we're definitely in the middle of it. Drones, air strikes, GPS targeting and bombs dropped from orbit (sure, not yet - wait for it!). The complete impersonalization of the other; that total objectification of the enemy (you better believe the pornographers have drone-envy). Let's not equivocate; it's one thing to look someone in the eye and take their life - quite another to push a button sixteen time-zones away and watch an image of indiscriminate carnage. How long will it be before we don't even let a homo sapien sapien push that button? How long before the machines are killing us on their own .?. Nothing to be cynical about here!

And if killing our 'enemies' has/is becoming so much more impersonal healing our 'own' has a fortiori. I'm not even going to start bandying about statistics but it's well known that of the 'first-world', 'post-industrialized' countries we're the only one that still considers healthcare a cash-grab instead of a human-right. And to what wonderful affect! Go ahead and try to ignore all the horror stories of your fellow Americans who lost it all because they couldn't pay their medical bills, or because they did. Pay no attention to record profit margins at insurance companies while the poor forgo all but emergency treatment and the wealth of the middle class is bled out and transferred to HMO executives. Sure, Uncle Tom tried to change all that - by passing a Republican plan even though the Ds had two branches of the federal government! - but when I tried to sign up for 'Obamacare' I still couldn't afford it even though I had $200 in the bank, no assets, and had been unemployed for over two years. If I lived in any other country where English is the primary language I'd be covered without paying a dime. My solution? To use the actual Republican plan - don't get sick!

But that should be easy since we all know of the three pillars of good health (diet, exercise, genetics) eating right is the easiest of all ... Hell. No, sorry, I was about to go all sarcastic and make it seem America knows nothing about sugar overload, HFCS, preservatives, the increasingly and horrifying inability of urbanites to access fresh foods (specifically the poor ones!), pesticides, pink slime, corn or corn or more corn or when will there ever be enough corn already, price gouging on foods that were produced the way they've been produced for centuries (read: organic, grass-fed, free-range), trans-fats, GMO proliferation in our breadbasket without an honest debate on the merits or looking at the science past what some corporation's panel has assured us is true, sodas, the food-gap, throwing away enough food daily to feed the world's hungry cuz it wouldn't make a dime, slaughterhouses like Auschwitz or Dachau ... That Quite Barbarism ... But that would be foolish - America knows all about that ... Why shouldn't it? America invented most of it …

And we invented the largest consumer-driven transportation system the world has ever seen to move all that food around. Sure, China will catch up with us eventually (if not already), but for the better part of three generations the US led the world in road-building and car-buying. Quite apart from the environmental effects this produced there was a profound psychological positive feed-back loop involved as well: one justifying the pre-dominate narrative of our consumer culture. Choice is sacred; you are special and unique and can reflect that through choice; so choose this product or this other one and express your uniqueness through possessing any one of these infinitely similar products; the choice is yours. Perhaps nowhere else in the market was this ‘story’ sold as diligently and aggressively than in the automobile industry. While it is true the US is, spatially speaking, a very large country, it is not true that every adult American needed or needs their own set of wheels to connect it. There are other options, other technologies that could’ve been employed to bring the masses together with more energy efficiency and communal cohesion. I admit it’s no Copernican Revolution, but the thought that Americans are so stubbornly self-interested and quick to discriminate opposed many of their European or native counterparts can not be divorced from the fact we all love to be in the driver’s seat. That commodified ‘freedom’ we are told awaits us on an open road with our very own internal combustion engine humming along in front of our feet; a freedom trains, buses, or carpooling can never provide. Again, notwithstanding the ecological impact of all this, the psychological dimension is impossible to ignore: even if we all owned Tesla’s that were powered by clean fusion charging stations it would still be me, me, me … which is quite naturally a completely uncynical disposition from which to hold a society together …

American’s fascination with their own value and freedom has of course been a dominate theme in the grand narrative of the country for some time; and while cars and roads were the major technological expression of that for much of the twentieth century, we have turned the corner here, in this regard, finding ourselves lost amid tiny little shiny screens that put the whole world inches from our eyes. With the advent of mobile computing the freedom so many seek isn’t conceived any longer by MPG rather MPBS. The new speed of information, and the promise of perpetual access, have enchanted the newer generations in much the same way vehicles did their antecedents. The technology is different while the story remains the same. It is still a self-centered freedom underlying the need, desire, to own the newest, quickest, coolest gadget. A freedom of information surely, yet one closely connected with the freedom cars brought their older relatives; it is as much economic as it is self-satisfying. The internet changed the game, naturally - and hail and well met etc. etc.! - but a claustrophobic observation remains … for a technology that has brought so many people together - and it has - it sure as hell does an awful good job sundering them as well … for you can’t find a public space anymore where a near-majority of your fellow citizens aren’t more interested in their precious little screens than those flesh and blood humans nearby. Perhaps this is just the necessary evolution of the social fabric - perhaps resistance is futile - though a social contract that has more to do with Facebook’s TOS opposed a Bill of Rights just (and forgive me for being so cynical) doesn’t seem like much of a society worth bothering with to this writer. Certainly not one worth the name.

Speaking of the modern technology we all now can’t live without, it seems to me a funny thing happened on the way to Google’s homepage … we now have access to all the information we can consume, on any topic, just a keystroke away, and look what we’re doing with it … I’m not just talking about social media or pornography, I mean the fundamental epistemological conundrum of an allegedly intelligent species that now has post-scarcity style access to information yet we’ve made of the web one colossal echo-chamber where the tribes huddle together in aggrieved resentment or ignorant bliss of the ‘others’ … look at it like this: in a day and age when the work of science (you know, that thing that made all this ((by which I mean ‘Modernity’ and all its toys)) possible) is more evenly, widely, and objectively disseminated than at any other time in history the public’s grasp and understanding of science and its work is at an all-time low. Basic data are disputed; empirical findings are called into question by anyone with a laptop, forget about a degree in the subject: what used to be considered non-issues, resolved subjects, are now argued over as if the Earth might actually be flat … all of which might just be good for a laugh if there weren’t actual existential threats to the species that only science can solve; yet we can’t even begin that discussion because some car salesman googled Glenn Beck and now we have legislatures that don’t think climate change is real; or they say the data doesn’t support an anthropogenic cause even though they never took a serious science course in their life; or that can’t be right because it doesn’t fit into our time-warp economy and a dollar today is obviously more important than our children’s future; or anyway shut-up idiot scientists just because you actually studied something other than law or business doesn’t mean you know any more than me because I have a high speed internet connection and I bookmarked the Drudge Report … how is it, philosophically speaking, tenable that the more information you have the stupider you become? I don’t know, but if you want a good example of the principle in action take a look at America today. Or just Google it …

Of course there is one thread that ties all these elements of ‘the surface’ together and that thread is consumerism as expressed by our current form of capitalism. The ascendancy of the dollar over all else (sorry God!). The desire to possess, acquire, consume. We are material creatures, we humans, and thus must consume to survive; fine: but do we have to do so in the manner we seem set on here and now? No, not at all, even suggesting that our’s is the only system, the only way to satiate the human hunger is absurd on its face as well as betraying an amnesiac’s conception of history. No, there are other paths, yet we have chosen this one, this ‘capitalism’ that mimics the terrors and rigors of the jungle at every turn. In the act of deifying money (more on that later) we have dehumanized ourselves. For the most part we are simple cogs in a vast machine that cares little or nothing for us; and so we care only for ourselves. The inherent egoism of the modern American psyche is spectacular to behold, certainly, in its primal vanity; at the same time giving the lie to any ethical system we still tenuously cling to as reminder of simpler days (sorry Christianity!). So we are, as a culture, no better than spoiled children grasping for another slice of pie. And while that’s certainly comical, it is also tragic, since such a system is not sustainable whatsoever (there is never enough pie). Neither history or science can provide any examples of such a system expanding into perpetuity (literature has given us a few but they are either satire or utopias ((same thing really))), and yet a sincere, concerted discussion on this issue has yet to percolate through the public sphere, or if so, only in the usual places and thus not given the sort of urgency it requires. But to have this conversation we all have to be ready to listen; it is not enough for the cynics and naysayers to keep shouting into the wild or the web: there has to be an audience, a receptive ear. Which brings us to our next section.

The Self

The problems elucidated in ‘The Surface’ are, to a great extent, symptoms of our sense of self, or, as is more often (if paradoxically) the case, our lack of one. While I am specifically referring to the modern American ‘self’, I’m going to be doing so with large brushstrokes; forming great swathes of colored splotches closer in kind to a rorscharch test than a pointilistic canvass. You may not see a reflection here so much as a sense of remembrance, or deja vu. That’s fine. I can’t be alone in thinking our lifespeeds have altered, and it’s just that alteration I want to discuss.

Lifespeed. Right. Let’s define that quickly so we can move on. By lifespeed I mean that facile quality of Being that tethers us to the ‘now’. Perceptually, our lives happen at a specific point in time, and I’ve conceived the word lifespeed to represent this point, as well as our conscious reaction to it. It’s just a word. Other than this meager definition it means nothing; has no other value. Right.

We were talking about choice earlier and there’s a clear connection between the act of choosing and the extant phenomena adjoining it. Just the relationship that lifespeed is meant to express. On its face, choice is neutral. Neither positive or negative, good or bad. The ‘designed’ choice of our consumer-driven society I find abhorrent, though not from some reactionary impulse, but a genuine longing for what it’s replaced. By making choices we define ourselves and I fear many of us are accepting a story that tells us we can only make this or that choice opposed to this that or the other. That we are told certain stories so many times we think we have no choice how they end; or wether to listen to them at all. In this way our lifespeeds have been damaged; like a bonsai pruned too severely.

Perhaps many are content defining themselves through ‘designed’ choice, or who ‘designed’ it anyway? Yes … there will always be sheep and lemmings in human form, and if that’s your angle you have my pity but nothing else. On the other hand, if you genuinely desire a leveling-up on the self-awareness front but have found this difficult to achieve thus far, you must realize two hard truths; the first that it is your business alone, none others - and the second, that it will be incredibly difficult to achieve because our society was not constructed to assist in this goal - quite the contrary! - it was designed to prevent it, at almost every turn. Here we return to the ‘designed’ component of American choice. Since the beginning the tiny tribes watching the throne have conspired to affect a marked class distinction in the land of the ‘free’. From the original agricultural workers of the new world, to the industrial workers who built a modern nation, to the current service sector workers slipping into poverty those with the firmest grip on the levers of power have continually strived to erect massive obstacles between those that labor for a living and those that live off that labor. Nor are these obstacles simply economic or aspirational in nature, no, due their pervasiveness through the generations they have percolated down into the most subterranean reaches of the mass conscious; into the very stories we use to define ourselves. Egads! a polite-hyper-modern-liberal-minded-triangulator might reply, don’t you know everyone has a TV! A refrigerator! Cheapest food ever! Why yes of course, there is an exception to every rule. While, for about thirty years in the middle of the last century, it seemed America was finally delivering on its promise, just look how long it took for us to devolve into another gilded age (the apparent default position of American society). It is foolish to define a thing based off aberrations, opposed its consistencies. In this way we clearly see the US for what it is … the second most successful marketing scheme in human history (naturally one must award Christianity top honors on that mark) … in the same way tobacco used to be good for you, that sodas were harmless, or how fast food is every bit nutritious as home-made, America cries ‘freedom’ when in so many ways the reverse is clearly the case. From ‘power’s’ perspective it’s nihilistically brilliant sure - give the people a semblance of freedom (in our case economic choice) and they’ll extrapolate that into a veritable cosmos of self-authorized-self-actualization - and you bet the monarchists, dictators, or petty politburos are jealous as hell at the level of control the political classes of America have been able to sustain generation after generation. A state of affairs that continues for no other reason than that an over-whelming majority of Americans keep believing the lies. We are forced to ask: why do they?

Let’s speculate wildly! Is it possible there exists some globe-spanning underground tributary of Lethe that constantly replenishes all the aquifers in the land? Or perhaps when we, on average a truly vain people, look into a mirror our historical consciousness is reset to zero? Or maybe we’ve all become so addicted to the stories we repeat about American Exceptionalism even the most destitute are content to sacrifice any chance they might have of another, better life, so as the stories can keep being told .?. the gyre is constricting at every turn, just like water flowing down the drain we’re becoming closer and closer to ourselves and ours; we’re losing a visceral sense of community and common cause through the ‘designed’ choices of a consumerist economy and specifically the newer technologies of self-absorption. So many of us don’t seem able to see past our own reflections, our problems, that even beginning to consider the larger problems facing our country seems as pointless as sending a manned mission to Mars.

The latent greed of the species is given free reign in America and this greed is destroying us. Making us sick. Stunted, withered, cloying little souls blighted with giga-myopia and eterno-amnesia. Greed. Most cultures have oft thought it a base emotion, one needing constant oversight - not the good ’ole US of A! We saw right through that ethical clap-trap - we saw that by harnessing the simmering greed of a people and putting them to work fulfilling that greed great things could happen … just absolutely amazing things … and we have accomplished quite a bit worth being proud over, and we sure have shown all those historical moralists just how wrong they were about the most solipsistic emotion … but this is a strange greed, our American one, one many may not even be aware of, so deep do its roots dive; a conniving greed that wraps in upon itself like a fresh burrito from Chipotle or those roller coasters you remember from Disneyland or Six-Flags … a greed that we have to learn to turn off, ignore, or quit seeing as so basic and benign in all our lives that there’s nothing you can do about it anyway - because it isn’t benign, it reacts to us and the environment as surely as we do it, and lately it’s been acting badly … yes, there are historical elements to this greed, there is also the question of personal responsibility, mutual complicity, systems of control and power as well - so many factors … I guess I’m nostalgic for another type of human being, one not fueled by avarice or beholden to the choices of others … qualities most seem to have lost somewhere on the way to Walmart … a human being that might never have existed except in a dream …

The Symbol

Human beings have long used symbols to represent value. Symbols are convenient, easy, and incredibly mutable. They can be transferred or translated almost infinitely. With a symbol ideas that might take an incredible amount of energy to explain or describe can be conveyed almost instantaneously. Logic and mathematics could likely not exist without them, nor, indeed, any language. And like any good thing, as is so often the case with any wonderfully useful thing, we humans have become dependent on them. Created for ourselves a world where we can not live without them. We are, in many ways, addicted to their utility. On its face there is nothing ethically challenging about this. Language and math are boons to humanity, practically describing our modern conception of ourselves. Symbols are naturally value neutral, like any high-level epistemological building block. And yet, we modern Americans have found ourselves in a tricky spot. We have crafted a society where one symbol is supreme. Where one symbol, and one symbol alone, holds all the power. A symbol that, if you find yourself without it, without access to it, without a stock-pile of it hiding somewhere, essentially makes you a non-entity. No longer part of the culture, the game. For it is certainly true that the only game in modern America is money. That collecting dollars has superseded all other activities; has supplanted any other endeavor as the only one with value. This state of affairs is the genesis of our cultural decline; of the death of the ideals that the Founders (who themselves were already playing the only game) attempted to instill in the New World: will in the end be understood by future historians as the single greatest crime of our time.

I say crime and I mean it. Don’t use the word for shock or awe. Nor do I want to dwell on this particular subject (not being the place for an extended analysis of this issue I will allow such a discussion its own essay, its own space, a place where it can be a bit more academic and dry, not so emotive or cynical) though we do have to mention a few more things before moving on. Crime. Yes. What was this crime? In short order here we go … it used to be the case that money was a symbol that referred to labor, actual work performed by one human that held value for another. So far as that is all money is, there is nothing ethically suspect about it. Then, at some point in the past, a few cunning paradigm-shifters saw an opportunity and changed the rules regarding what money was; they removed the labor as referent of value, replacing it with rare objects (typically gold) that few among any populace would ever see in their lives. Well, since the promise of alchemy was a lie, and the philosopher’s stone was never discovered, at least this money still referred to something real, something that couldn’t just be made up on the spot. Ah ha! the sons of the sneaky paradigm-shifters thought, that would just be the icing on the cake! Let’s remove the rare objects as value referent as well - let’s go all in on a communal mass delusion and see if anyone believes it … let’s just have money valued at whatever we say it’s valued at. Let’s create a massive shell game that only a very few will ever truly know the rules to, though the outcome, the results, will effect everyone … yes … let’s create the only game worth playing, and let’s give every live birth a turn … which leaves us with a system that, no matter how hard you work, no matter how industrious you are, if you don’t know the rules of the game (in modern America we can think of the Federal Reserve, Wall Street bankers, old money, select members of the Treasury Department etc. as the holders of the rule book) you will not win at it. You will play and play and play and keep losing and losing and losing all the while the rule keepers keep winning and winning and winning because for most players in this game the tokens of victory they collect (dollars) are bought at the hard price of actual labor, as if they never heard about how money grew up - no, they slave and slave for pennies without any chance of leveling up in this game and getting to that haughty echelon where money is no longer about work but having money make money off of someone else’s work … this little narrative I just outlined is a crime because there are clear stealers and victims (of course there are exceptions to every rule, but for every Bill Gates or Steve Jobs, there are a hundred and fifty million working at Walmart for a slave-wage). You see, the architects of the monetary symbol’s paradigm shift knew that by removing any referent to an actual act (labor) or object (gold) they were essentially hollowing out the natural relationship between the symbol and the symbolized, and in that empty space they would find their own El Dorado; their own little universe where they called the shots and none other. They essentially re-wrote the rules of symbolism, and clearly in their favor. And while symbols shift meaning all the time, especially in religious or political environments, these shifts are fundamentally harmless as neither religion or political discourse ever directly affects the physical well being of a human being as does their ability to acquire food, or energy, or health care, or shelter (I understand that by including ‘politics’ in this sense I might seem to be advocating a ‘post-history’ perspective; one where capitalistic-liberalism has won over all other political narratives, and while I hope that isn’t so, at the moment, and especially as an American author, one would be hard pressed to argue the point otherwise). To be clear, I’m not suggesting there was some shadowy cabal that gathered and planned out this great hollowing out of the monetary symbol; as is often the case it happened by fits and starts, here and there, as history would have it, propelled by the innate greed of the least amongst us. And yet they have scored a grand victory, these acolytes of avarice. Have pulled the proverbial wool over so many eyes - and in the process redefined a country that promised freedom into a vassal state completely enthralled to an ugly little strip of green denim that truly means nothing at all …

Of course this transformation did not just occur on American soil. But we sure as hell took the ball and ran it home. More than any other modern nation we are more readily defined by the empty symbology of the dollar than any others. This is not just an American problem; but we must be the first to address it …

America’s enslavement to the dollar is the singular cause of all the problems I put forth in ‘The Surface’, and, in many ways, ‘The Self’. We are a nation of suckers, rats, blind idealists, idiot sensualists, blatant thieves and the occasional dreamer … and knowing that, seeing my country in this way does nothing to alleviate my pathological cynicism … but allow me a query - do you still ask me why I am so cynical .?.

#Essay #Philosophy #c. r. stapor #cynicism #nietszche #modernity #philosophers on tumblr #writers on tumblr

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clubofinfo · 7 years ago

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Expert: Apparently there are seven things that piss off the Christian God more than anything else. And, not surprisingly, those seven things are all common traits in both those who worship Him and in those of us who doubt or deny His existence. Real or imaginary, you’ve gotta give the man upstairs credit for His sense of humor. Too funny…incorporate faults and flaws into our DNA, and then punish us for them. Even threats of Hellfire and damnation don’t seem to carry much weight in deterring good Christians from lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, or pride. One would strongly suspect that a vast majority are CHRINOs (CHRistians In Name Only), smarter than they appear, and only in it for the sense of community, political correctness, and/or lucrative business contacts. Some combination of those seven deadly sins plays a part in most forms of human bad behavior. And in most instances, only extreme punishment (imminent death or lengthy incarceration) will deter any of us from being the nasty little lustful, gluttonous, greedy, slothful, wrathful, envious, and prideful monkeys we are. Lust The fake news consortium is awash with sordid tales of lustful, mostly powerful old men, who use their wealth and stature to justify sexual trespasses against mostly the young and vulnerable. Lecherous, horny bastards from high levels of entertainment, politics, pro sports, and big business are taking the fall for letting the bad judgment of their genetilia guide their actions. Sacrificial lambs in the Circus of Empire. Charlie Rose was way overripe and due for replacement anyway. It was no accident that lust is first on the list of sins. It seems that there’s just no means of control over the basest of human activities. Although it ended abruptly about thirty years ago, I too fell victim to the advances of various sexual predators during my youth. Ah yes, back before smooth skin, six-pack abs, a white smile, and a bushy head of hair gave way to blotchiness, wrinkles, flab, yellow teeth, and ears full of hair…I fell prey to quite a number of randy women, and a few men. I simply rejected all the men, and even a few of the women. Near as I can tell, I was not psychologically injured by any of these advances. Being wanted and desired is complimentary. Of course, old people preying on youngsters is deplorable, but the dance of life must go on. Flirtations between adults should be expected and accepted by all. Nobody really knows whether advances will be unwanted or not until contact is initiated. At the tender age of 22, I fell victim to one particularly insistent woman. She forced herself upon me with great vigor, but it is impossible to rape a willing body, so I never complained. In fact, she was 17 at the time, and in succumbing to her charms, I became the (statutory) rapist. I did six years for my crime, as her husband and father to our daughter. There’s a lot of gray area when it comes to lust, and the fake news loves anything that even smells racy. Get over it! Unless there is a small child, a corpse, a household pet, and/or violence involved, there’s nothing to get in a tizzy over. It happens a billion times a day. I’m ashamed to have wasted three paragraphs on the subject. Gluttony Back in the days when I was a young, careless glutton, I ate cows, pigs, fish, turkeys, and chickens with barely a thought to those billions of sentient creatures in brutal captivity. I consumed the milk of cows, even as their young were denied the nourishment, and were being slaughtered for veal. I deprived chickens of their progeny by devouring their eggs, while mixing their genetic material with flesh ripped from pigs, over a piping hot burner. At a gut level, I knew I was being a thoughtless, brutal asshole. But what’s a poor human to do, when all the best information is telling us that we NEED the protein. We NEED the dead flesh of the designated sacrificial beings. After all, who in his right mind would consider giving up In and Out Hamburgers? Selfishness may be the only reason most humans ever exhibit decent behavior. In my case, I only gave up animal protein in favor of a plant-based diet because I became convinced that the gluttonous consumption of dead animals is the major cause of cardiovascular disease, obesity, diabetes, Parkinson’s, and many cancers. I did it for my own good. I did it out of selfishness. The decision had little to do with empathy or kindness. Like all humans, I’m still an asshole, but now I’m an asshole who can look into a cow’s big brown eyes without guilt. I can forget the sins of my past, and the cows will never be the wiser. Gluttony is second only to lust on Ye Shitlist o’ The Lord, and looking around, it appears that humans have not only overpopulated the earth with their lustful antics, they’ve filled it to overflowing with gluttonous, flabby, morbidly obese, thoughtless, brutal assholes. Gotta blame much of this mess on God, Himself for telling His clueless minions that they should “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” One of the best examples of The Lord’s dark sense of humor; with His blessings, the planet is overpopulated to bursting by gluttonous, fat-assed killers. Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy, and Pride My country ’tis of thee, sweet land of greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride. The other five deadly sins are the perfect ingredients for a country and its people, hooked on wars for profit. Wall Street, the politicians it owns, and the military/intelligence divisions it controls are infinitely greedy for the resources of other lands. Too slothful to find wealth by less violent means, their wrath is unleashed upon every country in possession of assets they envy. And being the Exceptional Nation, the U.S.A. has no problem with stirring up a noxious soup of national pride, waving flags, and public support for its endless procession of wars. Of thee I sing. Fifty years ago, I had a choice: 1. Stay in college and keep the 2S Deferment, which would keep me out of The Vietnam Fiasco for a while. 2. Drop out of college and head for safety in Canada. 3. Drop out of college and take my chances with the draft board. or 4. Drop out of college and join the U.S. Navy, in order to avoid being drafted into the U.S. Army, and possibly becoming fertilizer for rice paddies in Vietnam. I hated college, so choice #1 was out. Number 4 was a possibility for a while, but the more I learned about military matters, the more I became convinced that I just wouldn’t fit into any of their uniforms. So when it came down to a choice between possible prison time, and maybe never again seeing friends and family, I chose to stand my ground on U.S. soil. My number came up, and I refused induction into the freaking Army. Twice. Of course, I knew that war was wrong in every conceivable way. Even as a young child, I wondered what made the mass-murder of warfare okay, when murder on a personal basis was illegal. I’d sure like to be able to say that my anti-war stance was firmly rooted in empathy and compassion for all mankind, and to a great extent it was. But to an even greater extent, I did it out of selfishness. I did it to save my own ass from a kill or be killed scenario. After doing time for my crime, I found out that in virtually every war waged by my country of birth, the blood of young men was shed for the benefit of the already wealthy profiteers at the top of the economic ladder. I learned that the U.S.A. grew out of the deaths of millions of Native Americans, and that the sweat of enslaved Africans greased the wheels of capitalism. I found out about Manifest Destiny, the theft of the northern half of Mexico, the overthrow of the Hawaiian Monarchy, and a string of sordid wars across the globe, spanning two centuries. It was a surprise to discover that the U.S.A. was behind Hitler’s rise to power, and largely responsible for 80 million deaths in World War II, and an even bigger surprise to find out about the Pentagon’s post-war plan to drop 204 atomic bombs on 66 Russian cities, and “Wipe The Soviet Union off the map.” What a disappointment it must have been for our fighting forces when the world’s greatest fireworks show was not approved. Since it is military policy to avoid counting the dead bodies, it is impossible to know the extent of American mayhem since WWII. But according to James A. Lucas, my country is responsible for at least 20 million deaths in 37 countries since the end of the second war to end all wars. Just as summer must succumb to autumn, and autumn to dead, cold winter, all things must pass. Cradles to graves, empires to dust. I’ve never even fired a gun, and know nothing about weapons systems. But fortunately The Saker does, and if he’s right, the bloody dance of the American Empire may be coming to an end. It appears that while required reading at The Pentagon has been “The Power of Positive Thinking”, the Russian Military has been absorbed in “The Art of War”. And while bloviating American politicians have been blathering about their country’s greatness, exceptionalism, and invulnerability, their Russian counterparts have been quietly building earth’s most formidable military arsenal. Without going into detail (link to The Saker’s article), it now appears that The U.S. Empire is no longer militarily superior, nor invulnerable. If this is correct, the long-standing nuclear standoff has tilted in extreme favor of the Russkies, and the United States now finds itself wielding a knife at a gunfight. Fortunately for those of us who live under the Stars and Stripes, who value and enjoy our allotted time to breathe, eat, procreate, and recreate, Vladimir Putin’s Russia represents a threat to no other country. President Putin is apparently a wise man. He understands human nature. He knows that, as I stated above, selfishness may be the only reason most humans ever exhibit decent behavior. He knows that capitalism has inadvertently castrated the U.S. Military Machine, and that The Pentagon must be aware that it is now in possession of simply second rate hardware. Yes, America…the profits of Boeing, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon are, and have always been, more important than the quality of their products. Russian jets, missiles, and bombs cost much less, but pack unparalleled punch. Thou art no longer exceptional, America. Thou art second rate when it comes to weaponry, and had better start considering standing down. Reconsider thy threatening stance, and understand that thy choice now involves simply life or death. Maintain thy stance, and prepare to meet thy Maker, or do what is right and take thy place righteously in the world community. If there happens to be a just God or, much more likely, if we’re just lucky, The U.S. Empire will follow my fine example from the Vietnam era, and decide strongly against participation in World War III. Whether righteous or selfish: A sound decision is a sound decision. Worst case scenario: He’s watching from the clouds, pulling all the strings, waiting for the final fireworks show, and preparing for the biggest and best laugh He ever had. http://clubof.info/

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