Crime Think

For those of you who have not read 1984 by George Orwell, there is a type of offense called Crimethink. This is a type of crime where you do not have to do anything wrong, you just have to think it. You will be disciplined. There is also Crime Speak where you use the wrong word or phrase. This is a punishable offence. There is Newspeak where old words are reworked to take the meaning out of them. "Differentlyabled" rather than crippled developmentally delayed rather than retarded, in other words sanitary engineer not garbage man, sex worker and not whore.

In this novel, homes have a television in them with a camera in them and Big Brother is watching them. The home is under surveillance. The public is never alone and even thinking can be a form of crime. I won't tell you how it ends. You gotta get the book.

He also wrote " The Animal Farm" in which the animals get rid of the farmer and his family and take over. They have an egalitarian agreement which assures the animals that they are all equal. Soon the pigs move into the house and begin living like humans. They observe "All animals are created equal but some are more equal than others".

A cursory review of Orwell's life reveals that he was exposed to Fascism (large corporations and the gummint collude) and Communism (Classically the workers own and manage the means of production and there is no gummint.) He saw them both up close and personal in the Spanish Civil War when he lived in Catalonia. He was in the Indian Imperial Police so he had no use for colonialism. This resulted in his novel "Burmese Days."

I think you know where this is going. We are there. Our cell phones tell our location, our calls are logged, our emails are regularly read, our correspondence is logged.  We are urged to trust the gummint. This from the people who assured us that Saddam had WMD, that the Gulf of Tonkin incident occurred and that The Maine was sunk by the Spanish and not a provocateur.

I have reached age 70, Dear Reader and I find I have many more brain cells left than I would have expected given my life style. I know what I know. It is SSDD. (Same Shit Different Day.)  The folks who believe in political parties are chumps. Fools or as H.L. Menken, the Sage of Baltimore called them The Boobery instead of The Citizenry meaning a group of folks who are not very bright. They are Marks.  Mae West and W.C. Fields were in a movie called "Never Give a Sucker an Even Break." They were prescient. Such an apt description of our public life. Guess who plays the sucker. Hmmm...

 "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."  H. D. Thoreau.

NSA lies and lies and lies. Brazenly. Both parties are in favour of extensive surveillance. Government is inherently about the reduction of freedom.



Orwell will soon be banned as a wacko right wing socialist fascist commie nudist along with Thoreau. The good thing about the digital age is that it is hard to erase every pdf file that exists.
God Bless You, George Orwell!

If we become illiterate we have no defense.
Rev. Leviticus Jackson

More to come

State of The Union

It is a mess in terms of government and politics. The land and the people are OK as they have nothing to do with government. They get up and go to work every day. I am about convinced that we do not need them to run our lives.

Television tells us to be afraid on a daily basis. We have a certain portion of the country that is convinced that disaster is around the corner. It is. So what?


I did not watch the address by the President: I knew what he was going to say. It is nonsense. Someone should tell him the level of contempt that a  large portion of the country has for him. Based on reason. Congress is worse and the Supreme Court thinks that corporations can be persons despite the fact that they do not meet the criteria for being a sentient being. When a corporation belches or farts, it can be a person. Until then, no.

The really important thing is that I found a number of beaver lodges on the river that I did not know were there. The San Juan and the Animas will be here long after we are gone. Long after the idiots on TV. Long after Senator Windbag and President Electable. In the words of Carlin:

" The Earth ain't going anywhere, folks, WE ARE. Pack yer shit!!"

Bed Time.
Night.

I started to post some observations on current nonsense when Epictetus came to mined. He was a stoic philosopher in 55 to 135 A.D. He was born a slave and became a freedman. He was crippled. His take was that we cannot control others or the weather or sickness or death or lots of other stuff. He said the only thing that we have influence upon was our own internal processes. Our perspective or as one friend said "It's all in how you look at it and study it." But in a southern drawl which mad it sound profound. Anyway he said it was the impressions that we got from the external world which we then interpreted which determine the emotional content of our lives. ( OK, this is going somewhere, just stick with me for a little while longer.)

So he said that happiness and sadness and fear and all that Dr. Phil kind of crap that the shrinks talk about were generated from how we react to the world. Said it was pointless to get all honked off about stuff that you could not fix. It is upsetting and stops us from doing something about the things we can do. 

Now isn't that just the opposite of what all these political morons want us to do? 
The political message in America right now is this : If those guys would just do what I want them to do, I would be happy and shut up. What a crock of ...well you know what is in that crock. That is a lie we often tell ourselves. It means I am not responsible for my reactions to stuff.  

I have news for one and all. They are not gonna do it. I do not care what it is, they ain't gonna do it. At least not to your satisfaction. Anyone who thinks the world is just waiting for instructions is delusional or on those magic mushrooms again like we had back in the 60's.

Back to Epictetus or as I call him "Epi".  Domitian the emperor of Rome said that all the philosophers had to shave their beards. They were busy teaching people to think and that made trouble. Anyway he got the order to shave and he didn't. He was told that it had been decreed that he had to shave. He said no. The guy from the department of shave the philosophers said "Don't you know you could be executed?" Epi replied "When did I tell you I expected to live forever?" The guy says "It seems dumb to die over a beard." to which Epi said "But if I let you order me around like that, isn't the real Epictetus dead anyway?" 

He got deported from Rome back to Nicopolis in Greece. It was not like living in Screaming Eagle Shit, Wyoming but it wasn't Rome either. He died in AD 135 or so. He had a guy named Arrian who was a student who wrote down most of his teachings in a book and don't ask me the title. I don't know. Here's a quote which says pretty much how this old bearded cripple viewed the world.

To accuse others for one's own misfortunes is a sign of want of education.
To accuse oneself shows that one's education has begun. 
To accuse neither oneself nor others shows that one's education is complete.

That's where I want to get to. When I can sit back and deal with the stuff that is on my plate instead of telling you how you ought to deal with yours.  Same goes for The Sphincters who are certain that they know what everyone else should be doing and when and where. 

I realize this is only for me. But if anyone reading this thinks that politicians have any personal answers or that they can stop death or a tornado or a hurricane then they are what is called a "Good Citizen". Which is synonymous with "Dorper Sheep".  (That's a particular breed.)

That's all for now. Hope I didn't wreck your day. 
The Rev.   

Gone.

This is not the worst blizzard in the history of NYC. Check 1888. Lots of folks died. A blizzard swept the country. 200 people died in the city. The day time temp averaged nine degrees. Fires caused $25 million in 1888 dollars. The city was paralyzed. So think about that. 

Relief

It is like having a weight lifted off one's shoulders. They will go back to ruining the country. A president re elected based on fear and resentment. The death of print media along with the lack of reading ability among the general public is responsible for this. But like they say, What the Hell.

I am encouraged by the public when it comes to living our lives. So there is something to for which to be grateful.The country is fine. It is the political system and culture that is reeking of stupidity. Most folks think it is a Coke or Pepsi thing in the booth. Not so. Until we stop re electing 98% of congress and the senate, nothing will change. Congress has about a 9% approval rating and is all but certain to be re elected. Explain that. Nobody can.

So it's a typical case of BOHICA. Bend Over Here It Comes AGAIN!  In the words of Lin-chi  the Chinese poet,

In Buddhism there is no place for using effort.
Just be ordinary and nothing special.
Eat your food, move your bowels, pass water,
and when you're tired go and lie down.
The ignorant will laugh at me, but the wise will understand.

Mr. Miller (Barry Goldwater's Campaign manager) left politics and set up a welding shop in New York. When asked why he said taking the millennial view that politics does not matter. It's true. I am a Stoic by temperament so this will sound out of character. It is not.
Peace Out
The Rev.

Orville Gibson's Lament.

Firstly, I am urinated off at the Federal Guvmint due to their raid on the Gibson Guitar company and subsequent shake down for the better part of a million dollars. Not one of those SOB's can produce ANYTHING. Not one of them is a luthier (guitar maker) or an artisan or even a tradesman of any worth. I would be willing to bet that less than one percent of congress would be worth a pile of hyena nuggets when holding a hammer, shovel, wrench, chef's knife or mortar trowel let alone a framing square. In short they have no skills. Never but never trust a man who can't use a shovel. It's like these bastards from Nashville who have never stepped in a pile of manure or shoveled out a stall or been stepped on or been bitten or been chased by a cow protecting her calf wearing a cowboy hat and singing rock. Country music my ass!

All of this is to say that it was nonsense. Also IT SURE GOT THE GUITAR PLAYERS VOTE SEWED UP DIDN'T IT? Well, maybe not so much. I am irritated because this company has had a hard time surviving. Maybe it would be better if they went under, I am not certain about that. Or if they left and moved to Indonesia. Maybe that's the plan.

Next thing. Accusing Mitt of not paying taxes is the same thing as “swift boating” was with John Kerry. It is nonsense. UNLESS IT HELPS BALANCE THE BUDGET, IT DOES NOT MATTER! All of this is nonsense. Not one of them can do math. Not one of them is willing to discuss the government as a percentage of GDP. (Gross Domestic Product if that is too much for anybody.)

I do not care if Mitt paid taxes, I don't care if Obama was born on the damn Moon! If you cannot tell me how that is going to solve the fiscal crisis I am not interested and you are a child or a fan of Hulk Hogan. If anyone thinks this slop is in any way related to solving the country's problems they need a course in logic.

Lyndon Johnson once accused an opponent of having sex with farm animals. One of his aids said, “You know that's not true.” To which Lyndon replied, “I know that. But I want to hear him deny it.” This is funny but it came back to haunt Lyndon when he was hated and reviled. He left office a broken man.

Gay Marriage is between two people not the state. I will say that again. Gay Marriage is between two people and not the state. If we let the federal government decide ANYTHING about marriage they will find a way to set up guide lines for it and eventually decide who does dishes and who takes out the garbage. Jocelyn Elders (former Surgeon General) wanted to teach teen age boys to masturbate. I was against this because sooner or later it would require a license and there would be regulations. I don't care who marries who.

The idea of a bunch of old farts pontificating on birth control for women is INSANE. One look at them an you could see they all needed some action to restore their humanity. None of them would know what to do with a naked woman without consulting an OSHA handbook.

How do you force business men to run successful businesses? How do you force lenders to be responsible in their lending? How do you force them to lend?

The government knows how to pass laws but it cannot sell. It cannot convince. It has no access to the human heart.

The political action committees should have to put the pictures, names and addresses of the board on television. Along with cell numbers. Then they could experience the terror of a possible lynching like the peasants storming the castle of Dr. Frankenstein. It would be fun to see mobs on their front lawn with pitchforks and torches, a hangman's noose in the back ground. It could go on pay per view. They are gutless sunsabitches like cyber bullies.

About the nonsense in Iraq and Afghanistan: nobody sacrificed with the exception of the military. Let me say that again. NOBODY SACRIFICED ANYTHING EXCEPT THE MILITARY. It is a fraud. We should ALL have been taxed to pay for the entire action. Every Dime. Pay as we go. Cash. Today. Also rationing where we had to limit our use of meat, tires, gasoline, and the like.

Instead it is part of the national debt. It contributes to the problem. Too late now, my friend, too late now. We cannot go back and change it.

A big piece of the problem is that the media wants to talk about the past. If anyone reading this thinks he can have a better past, he is a child, not a grown up. This is Big Boy time. Time to put on your Adult Pants and face up to the fact that it is impossible to change the past. We have to fix it. That means we have to make the folks who want to appeal to our emotions aware that it won't work. They do not care what they do to the country. They want power.

I want to see a list of spending cuts from the Democratic National Committee. I also want to see a list of tax increases from the Republican National Committee. I also want to see an Orca tap dancing. Not likely. None of them will even attempt to give real answers because it could result in the end of the world as they know it: not getting reelected. If there is no principle worth getting voted out of office for, why be there?

It is an Oligarchy, friends, and we are not part of it. We are just the great unwashed masses who believe the gruel we are fed. Barack and Mitt are the same guy. Neither one of them has a degree in physics, chemistry, math, language, engineering or any of the hard sciences. I don't think either one has taken a course in rhetoric which is the basis of logic and argument. Yes, I am being a snob here. The truth is neither one of them is fit to carry the book bag of a real scholar. Neither of them could Identify Epictetus, Menelaus or Aeschylus .

This is the best we have to offer? Which one will tell us the real truth? Neither will. Because to do so is to risk certain defeat. Neither will tell us that it is not possible for the president to fix what is wrong. It is congress that bears most of the responsibility for what has gone wrong: they have the power to declare war and they have the power to tax. They have run and hid like frightened children. I sometimes think they want the president to save them too. Congress reflects the electorate. Rep. Steve Latourette said it well when he announced he will not run for office. The parties want your wallet and your conscience.

Harry Truman would not be welcome in today's Democratic Party. Dwight Eisenhower would not be considered by the Republican Party. It is insane.

The time is coming when the markets will say “Enough. The United States of America is a bad bet.” When the Chinese domestic market gets as big as ours they will no longer need us. Then our debt will be less attractive. It cannot continue. We currently have monopoly money. Read Boomerang by Michael Smith. It is about Ireland and empty housing developments. They will never be used. We have become materialists of the first order. We think money is wealth. We think it solves everything. We have “role models”. We refuse to believe the facts that our senses bring us. It is not about congress or the president or the supreme court. It is about what I do. It is about what you do. We elected these folks. No bitching, no complaining. We are responsible for what we leave behind and right now it looks pathetic. Don't blame liberals and conservatives. We are only responsible for what we do. If I listen to sound bites on tv and refuse to read trenchant analysis, whose fault is it if I am taken in? Mine. Not yours, mine.

I am glad I live three hours from the nearest Interstate. I am kind of isolated here in the Four Corners. The folks are nice and the sun shines. The winters are cold and the summer is hot. I know cowboys, truck drivers, college professors, PhD candidates and painters, sculptors, Spanish folks whose families were here in the 1500's Mormons, a Navajo hair dresser, roughnecks homeless guys and millionaires. I really love New Mexico with all its problems and extreme weather, corrupt politicians, good guys and wackos. I seem to fit right in.

T

I am having trouble doing this at home. More later.
The Rev.