Everyday life can be intoxicating. Events carry us along as though we were riding a giant merry go round in an exhilarating Fun Fair. We spin and spin in the whirlpool of coloured lights and sound. We catch glimpses of people riding other horses and try to connect with a wave and a scream. And occasionally, we catch sight of a loved one stood watching on the side.
Perhaps fish have a similar experience in the wonderful underwater world of spectacular coral reefs. But if you were able to ask them about water, they would deny all knowledge of it.
picture credit: Wilkins Safety Group
The human Fairground shares this same irony. The people of earth, mostly deny there is anything other than matter and the pleasures that, if we are lucky, it facilitates. Surely there can be nothing better than an ice cream and holding hands with a loved one.
Yet we know as we age, that life is not like a fairground at all. We can have upsetting experiences from which we have no defence. We can fall and perhaps never get up. Just as the fish are subject to water temperature, tidal surges, currents and long periods of calm; so humans are at the mercy of unseen forces.
The point is a simple one. That there are many levels of experience. The simplest and the most common is to believe that human life is one of sensual pleasure. Some religious people reverse this and live a life of abstinence, without realising that they must be as attached to going without pleasure as others are to pleasure.
Today both scientists, philosophers, intuitive s, artists and mystics explore the idea that in parallel with ‘normal life’ is ‘spirit’ or ‘energy’. Einstein expressed this in his formula E = mC2 in other words, matter can be exchanged for energy and visa versa. It’s not really anything new. Indigenous people around the world and the ancient civilisations have and continue to connect with worlds of ‘spirit’.
To realise this is equivalent to the fabled fish becoming aware of water.
picture credit: Caring For Pets
Spiritually aware humans travel two paths. In the material world they have to learn to achieve some kind of tranquility, which is hard. In the spiritual world their aim is the same and lessons from the former can be applied to the latter. This is described in the Hermetic Law of Correspondence; ‘As above so below, as below so above.’
This knowledge is not new but perhaps is in sharper focus now than any other time in recent human history, at least in the last thousand years. The rather hollow platitudes of most religions and their exponents are giving way to ideas of ‘spirituality’ and ‘energy’. There is silent revolution taking place. Forces unknown are lifting humanity from it’s experiential squalor through such means as naturally occurring energy in the earth and the heavens.
In this ‘spiritual realm’ are what we might term ‘thoughts, messages, knowing, feelings’ and all the untouchable, invisible intelligences that suffice our daily inner experience.
picture credit: Medium
In the science fiction film The Matrix, there is a character called ‘Smith’. He identifies as an algorithm or programme that can replicate itself in any other programme in the Matrix; depicted as a world of illusion as already lives in computers. This programme is immensely powerful and frightened only of the love and truth contained in the hero character, Neo.
We should ask ourselves how real our lives are and ponder on that which we find. In the modern world we sometimes feel mesmerised by the power play of politics and the cultural, religious and social conditioning that we accept as is ‘normal’. It’s what we learnt in our first seven years of life.
Yet there are very destructive spiritual forces that operate against our best interests and try to take over our ‘normal’ world in the same manner that Smith acts like a malignant programme in a computer. This is revealed today as the organisations made up of the powerful and wealthy elite, whose conscious or unconscious function is to spread chaos and division in the populations of the world.
An example would be the political movement known as ‘Black Lives Matter’. Whilst most reasonable people support any and all communities and social groups subject to unfair and degrading treatment by others, we have to ask who created BLM, and who is funding it? Why were those who self identify by the colour black selected to become an activist organisation and not, for instance Hispanics, Asians, Indigenous Peoples and any other of the racial or social group who are wrongly discriminated against. Surely, common sense says that all lives matter, equally?
Any thought engineering whirlpool becomes meaningless the more it is given rational consideration. ‘We all matter and we all support each other’ would be a sentiment closer to the ideal of universal mutual love that most rational people support.
Beyond the ‘moral high ground’ that is so readily occupied by the ‘politically correct’, we might observe a more sinister motive; to separate ethnic groups so that they fight each other. Hatred and destruction triumphs in the guise of goodness.
Such ‘Smith’ programmes are increasingly prevalent today. The most obvious is the war in the middle east at the moment. Culturally and spiritually, those fighting each other have more in common than they have differences. The ongoing dispute of today must have been clear to the British when they ‘gave’ Palestine to the Jews and Zionists in 1948. The Palestinians did nothing to deserve to be ejected from their homes and land. At the time the gesture was doubtless made on a wave of sympathy for the Holocaust survivors but over decades has revealed itself to be a recipe for disaster. Again, we observe a malignant programme which was readily absorbed like a black suited, self reproducing ‘Smith’.
This process is not just visible in world politics and human discourse. There are many ‘natural’ disturbances and weights seeking to counterbalance and overturn human society. Examples would be astronomical, astrological and environmental changes that are producing enormous stress within human societies; particularly to those without the power to protect themselves from harm.
I believe that these malignant ‘thought forms’ or ‘evil spirits’ can be overcome by the spiritually aware and empowered. Beyond any identification with a particular religion or political persuasion, the power of love in the spiritual dimension is very capable of overcoming hatred.
Kitab Al Buhan – Demons
Like the human body, spirit has and is an immune system. Whilst disease (or unease) may attack repeatedly from many directions, a spiritual person enveloped by love is indomitable. Not only that but as love is universal, it too can replicate and stretch out to every cell in the Universe and protect whatever disturbs celestial harmony. Right now it has an Herculean task, and incumbent upon every human being is to pay attention and respond.
A dictionary definition of the ‘standard of living’ is ‘the degree of wealth and material comfort available to a person or community’. It is not clear from this short description what is included in the concept other than a level of ‘comfort’. We might think that globally people have adequate essentials of life; food, shelter, water, health…but we know wealth is not evenly distributed.
It follows that not everyone on planet Earth will enjoy the same degree of ‘comfort’. There is an extended range from ‘in dire need of comfort’ to ‘having comfort in excess’.
When watching news reports of natural events that have devastated communities in countries with a low standard of, one feels for the victims. But looked at another way, these communities as used to living with little more than the basics. Their frail houses can be rebuilt. If they are lucky, aid tides them over until crops can be harvested again. What I mean is that this is not total devastation. Such people are survivors because they live simply. Inuit hunters, when given quartz watches, threw them away. When asked why, they replied that they were unable to repair them. It’s a wise principle. Round the world sailors know their boats intimately for the same reason.
In contrast, the ‘city dwellers’ of the world are not survivors. If farm land turns into a desert, as happened in the ‘dust bowl’ in 1930’s United States of America, mass hunger and even death within ‘sophisticated’ populations will result. They are, in the words of the Beatles song, “Urban Spacemen”.
picture credit: science.smith.edu
Most people are aware of the global threats to the citizens of planet Earth in the twenty-first century. We have had a ‘pandemic’ and more may follow, we observe the alarming effects of climate change and it’s consequences such as food shortages and habitat destruction, we have localised wars erupting in different parts of the world and mass migration because of all of these things and others.
When Elon Musk talks of moving to other planets, he must be inferring that there is a strategy to sustain the homo sapien sapiens after global catastrophe. Good luck getting a ticket to ride.
We know that humans have survived global catastrophe before. There are meant to have been at least six global disasters wiping out most of life, but not all. The underground cities found in places like northern Turkey are evidence of how a small number of humans survived.
Kaymakli Underground City Turkey
This time though, high tech city dwellers who casually dial up for food on their phones, are not likely to make underground cities. With half of the world’s population living in cities, the question we should be asking ourselves is, ‘how can we prevent disaster?’
We can all make a difference by taking personal responsibility for the likely causes of a catastrophe. One individual can change the world, however rarely you hear this affirmation. There is a story of a child throwing a stranded star fish back into the sea. When questioned what difference the action made the child answered that it made a difference to the starfish.
Every holiday, every sending of goods and foodstuffs around the world, every activity that involves burning carbon based fuels is, however slightly, connected to the tornado or mudslide or nuclear waste release. Governments appear powerless to prevent destructive human behaviour whilst natural disasters will happen with little encouragement.
Have we believed the ‘cornflake family’ myth that television presented as a social aspiration in the 1960’s? The clichéd happy family. Whilst the USA was busy consuming 25% of the world’s resources, the rest of the world was struggling to mimic the same mistake of non sustainable lifestyles.
picture credit: Resilience.org
A Swedish statistician, the late Hans Roslin described a process of increasing global wealth very lucidly in a TED lecture titled ‘Global Population Growth’ using IKEA boxes. He suggested a general rise in the standard of living even if that was merely a transition from flip flops to a bicycle and from bicycles to holidays abroad. Improved birth control and higher wages lead to smaller families, which stalls the global population rise at 9 or 10 billion, and it may then fall.
The argument is interesting but worryingly fails to take into account the ‘threat’ aspect in a ‘strength, weakness, opportunity, threat’ analysis. What is the point of building a brick house for you family is the sea level rises and floods the land? The threats to an improved global standard of living are so complex in quantity and quality that they can only be left to self adjust in a radical manner…meaning disaster.
China and India and other countries are set on ‘industrialisation’ at any cost and critics in the West are not in a strong moral position to criticise. Something has been attempted to build a cockpit in this out of control vehicle, namely the annual COP talks.
If governments bring about the promises they make at the ‘Conference of the Parties’ (COP) talks – to create a viable future for earth’s future inhabitants – so much the better, but this is by no means certain. The levers and pulleys needed for change on a global scale should have been pulled decades ago and, sadly, were not.
What you will not hear from COP is the conclusion that the economic concept of ever increasing ‘standards of living’ was always a myth because it was unsustainable on a global scale. No single planet can support infinite demand using a finite resources. The COP party conferences are, in my view, overseeing the end of the last supper of consumerism and comfort.
Puck’s line to King Oberon Act 3 Midsummer Nights Dream William Shakespeare
This was going to be an essay titled ‘The Party is Over’ but then the Olympic Games Opening Ceremony 2024 stopped me. It was too extraordinary to ignore and in fact, contained the same messages.I wish the Olympics, the athletes and the people of France and the World come together in love at the conclusion of the Olympic 2024 as was surely the original intention of the games. I express no religious or political views other than universal love. If you do not have ten minutes please slide down to the final conclusion.
The gods on Mount Olympus would have watched the Olympic Games Opening Ceremony 2024 in Paris, with a conflation of amusement and horror.
Personally, I found it pedestrian, disjointed and more than at little weird, and I was not the only one. For a country renowned for its consummate sense of good taste, design, style, and pazzazz; what in Hell happened?
I shall express views here which some will find far fetched, even disturbing. However, this sideways analysis might explain why standards fell so low.
Those who have read Dan Brown’s book or seen the film The de Vinci Code, will appreciate the power of symbols. The main character played by Tom Hanks, is an academic ‘symbolist’. He unravels symbols as a trail of clues that lead to the truth and this is what I believe was happening at this Olympic Ceremony.
So are there ‘clues’ in the ceremony and if so, what truth is being disclosed?
The Olympian gods used to look down on humanity and create situations. If you were a modern organisation, similarly determined to influence the thoughts and feelings of 29 million remote viewers around the world, this ceremony is the perfect vehicle. Being performed in the ‘city of lights’ was surely an invitation the Illuminati could not refuse?
The Illuminati picture credit: National Geographic
I recommend personal research to discover the motives and means of the Illuminati and other cabals, but their aims might be summarised as; ‘to achieve a Global Order through the removal of personal and national freedoms’.
So when you hear on the news that the fibre optic cables serving the high speed trains to the city of Paris have been sabotaged, you wonder why? Curiously, a week or so after the attack, the media are still describing this planned event as ‘vandalism’. No organisation has yet claimed responsibility. You might wonder what reporters are avoiding saying and who has told them not to say it. Was a planned and co-ordinated attack to created fear? Fear of death is the currency of cabals as we witnessed in the recent global pandemic where, again no originator has come forward or been found.
‘Let them hate us as long as they fear us.’ Caligula
Fibre optic cables carry vast quantities of information over long distances. They send light through gross matter. Cutting off this supply in the four cardinal directions was like cutting off light to the City of Lights; the city of the Sun King, Louis 14th. So similarly ‘cut off from the world’ was Louis, when he moved the Royal Court away from the Parisian minions to Versailles, where he could enjoy a privileged hedonistic lifestyle.
The leaders of the secret societies were closely involved with and led the French Revolution. They would have introduced the ‘Phrygian Cap’ as headgear for the revolutionaries; a symbol of Mithras represented by the bull.
Close observers of the Olympic Opening Ceremony would have noticed the golden head of a bull next to the five Olympic rings at the flag raising ceremony. Should we conclude that Mithras and Revolution is alive and well in modern France?
picture credit : Israel 365
The Roman Empire nearly adopted the Mithraic religion as it was popular with it’s soldiers and Mithraic temples can be found under many churches. In myth the bull’s spine sprouts corn and the blood is the wine of animal life. Christianity was chosen as the preferred Roman religion but the similarity of this Mithraic myth to the Eucharist should not be overlooked.
Light is a common symbol of spirituality and Jesus was not the only one who proclaimed to be the ‘light of the world’.
‘How thou art fallen from Heaven, son of the morning’ Isaiah 14:12
There is an old Testament character named Lucifer who the Church Fathers decided to eclipse by conflating Satan and Lucifer and Ahriman as the same beings
But Lucifer, the ‘Light Bearer’, is important today as he represents an ‘imbalance’ of spirituality, a powerful overload of light. We should not consider spirituality as being only goodness, as it can be too weak or too powerful and when either occurs it produces bad things.
Lucifer was responsible for the loss of the ‘third eye’ represented as the ‘brow or Adjna Chakra’ in Yoga and a Cobra in Ancient Egypt. Without this sensibility humans descend into illusion and delusion. The figure of Marie Antoinette in red in the Ceremony, represents how humans have collectively ‘lost their heads’ or rational thought and are fixed in the bright red base chakra of animal and tribal desires.
Balanced spiritual energy is a good thing, but when it becomes imbalanced it is not. Gautama Buddha discovered this after living an indulgent life in royal splendour, then aestheticism. He found little of spiritual value in either. He became enlightened when he followed what he called ‘the middle way’, which is the philosophy of Mahayana Buddhism today.
In the ceremony, Venus was represented by Beyonce as a feminine spirit of light and beauty with an enchanting voice; as with the Sirens in the voyage of Odysseus. But it was a narcissistic delight in self reflection that audiences were presented with and not the Venusian sacred mirror of ‘self reflection’.
The decent from balanced spirituality into base narcissism is present around the world in social politics today, not least in France where the left and right wing extremists, with no thought of a ‘middle way’ compromise, have recently taken over the government of the country.
The political values of the French Revolution, “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity or Death” were chapter headings in the ceremony as it appeared on television.
The above background information, is intended be some explanation of the following analysis of the Olympic Games Opening Ceremony 2024. Many have reacted to the ‘weirdness’ in the ceremony as something they could not relate to. The French people had given away their tax payers money and freedom of choice to those who created the ceremony; in other words they had given away their power.
You might ask who decided not to have an audience in the Olympic Stadium for this ceremony, as is traditionally the case. The loss in revenue from ticket sales was clearly a loss out weighed by whatever gain you must imagine. Instead of a climaxing parade of athletes before a cheering international audience, bookended by icons of national pride as in the Beijing and London Olympic Games opening ceremonies, there was nothing.
The world was given a ceremony mainly for the global television audience. The consequence was to separate people into individuals or small groups, such as those Parisians poised on balconies over looking the river. Bystanders had a partial view of the ‘ceremony’ unless they watched it on their phones. The revenue and energy created by sporting event stadiums was sacrificed on an unknown altar.
Performers were perched on buildings as individuals, groups of dancers, musicians, circus artists, singers and actors. Without the power of a telescopic lens and amplifiers, these figures were diminutive both visually and inaudible; a subtle expression of ‘disempowerment’ of the people; ‘divided we fall’.
Human performers made small by large buildings – foolish or just poor design?
Those who were clearly happy or at least good at pretending were the various circus and street performers along the route. They at least added enchantment to proceedings; especially the hired ‘global celebrities’. However these Venusian / Sirenesque qualities, come at a price to the observer as already described.
Only by being tied to the mast of his ship could Odysseus avoid a spiritual death on an island of enchantment and delusion. Is that our world today?
The ‘Minions’ or non-privilege populace, were depicted by cartoon characters who proceeded to sink their own submarine, much in the way humanity is today destroying it’s own space craft; planet earth; cheerless and disempowering messages for us all.
Humanity can not complain that it is has not been warned. The Book of Revelation in the New Testament gives warning of the apocalypse and one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse appeared in the Olympic Ceremony riding a metallic White Horse. Wikipedia informs us that;
In John’s revelation the first horseman rides a white horse, carries a bow, and is given a crown as a figure of, conquest perhaps invoking pestilence, or the Antichrist.
picture credit: Hindustan Times
‘Conquest’ we can understand as victory in war and ‘pestilence’ something like the recent pandemic. The arrival of an ‘Antichrist’ is not an anti-Jesus but inverted Christ consciousness; love thyself instead of love others.
Nuclear war has been threatened by politicians and humanity would be the lesser for the intense light of the nuclear explosion – matter into energy. Are we being prepared? Spiritual and or physical death was shown to us repeatedly in the ceremony using various symbols.
A river was chosen as the central location for the ceremony. Rivers are a symbol of the journey from life to death and the Ferryman on the River Styx is perhaps the best known. At the beginning of the ceremony, three children (innocents) follow the light bearer (a football star) underground, the place of Hades or the Underworld denoted by shelves lined with human skulls.
The innocents (you and I) are given the Olympic torch which they pass onto a hooded figure in a rowing boat who takes them back into the world of light or from death into life.
Spectacular laser lights on the bridges and stages announce spectacularly that Lucifer is present above ground.
The use of the bridges that cross the River Seine must have been an enormous disruption to the daily travel of Parisians so there must also have been an overwhelming case for deciding to allow this disruption and disempowerment of ordinary Parisians. What was the benefit?
Were we being invited to remember in the recent history of these bridges that one was the location for the death of Princess Diana? The Pont d’Alma ‘underworld’ road tunnel is capped today with the symbol the Illuminati, a flaming cauldron; which incidentally is a copy of that held aloft over New York by the Statue of Liberty.
The Sacrifice of Diana the Huntress
Another Royal death featured in the ceremony was that of Marie Antoinette. Actors appeared at the windows of the Conciergerie. This is a building which served the French Revolution by confining 2,370 prisoners, including Marie Antoinette, prior to horrific public execution by guillotine. The Ceremony could have chosen to avoid this macabre place in the interests of good taste, but instead chose to celebrate the horror.
If you are not convinced by these symbolic references, the next is so obvious that many Christian religious leaders have taken offence. They feel that the story of the Last Super in The Bible was mocked and their faith was being deliberately undermined. The long table on the bridge and the peculiar array of sexually ambiguous characters seated beside it employed frenzied cat walking and dance. The display, for many, was a celebration of sexual licence and depravity and even included children to whom Satanists are particularly attracted as a source of energy. The hermaphroditic characteristics of the figure on the left of Jesus in Leonardo de Vinci’s last supper is discussed in Dan Brown’s book referred to earlier and perhaps inspired the theme…is it Mary Magdelene?
To fulfil the imaginary prophecy of these orgiastic encounters, a near naked Dionysus appears wrapped in fruit on a plate as if about to be consumed by the depraved celebrants. Dionysian rites in Roman times were indeed not for the faint hearted. Was this parade endorsing such rites as an end to modern times?
Using the theme of ‘romance and love’ there were scenes in library where three sexually ambiguous young people made eyes at each other and then a rapid exit into a private room and purposefully closing the door. Families might wonder if a ‘ménage a trois’ is something to celebrate in an Olympic Opening Ceremony if is so, why?
In events such this ceremony, Satanists include symbolic messages for fellow Satanists around the world, in the way the newspaper advertisements once were used for covert communication. They will have been alerted to each message by a principle subversive technique, which is ‘reversal’ of the ordinary such when South Korean athletes were introduced as North Korea. Diplomatic telephones started to ring. An apology was demanded ‘for the next time you organise an Olympic ceremony’. Agreement was made but was ‘human error’ really involved?
The Universal Sign for Distress at Sea
The most glaring reversal was surely taking the audience out of the stadium for the ceremony. Disguised no doubt as ‘innovative conceptual thinking’ and ‘this is France’ – as President Macron explained- the losses appear to be greater than the overt gains. Why would you prefer funeral paced boats in the rain to the traditional carnival of athletes in previous ceremonies in the dry?
Light into darkness is a theme enjoyed by Satanists and the Olympic Ceremony would not have disappointed them. Whilst in a stadium the encroachment of night is gradually balanced out by artificial lighting, this effect is almost impossible to produce in a city. The clear ‘light of day’ passed into dark obscurity. One conceptual theme was actually called ‘obscurite’ meaning ‘darkness’.
Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil,
Who put darkness for light, and light darkness,
And put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter,
Isaiah 5:20
A few days ago, You Tubers were posting Paris at night with large areas in black out. Electricity had been cut off. The only illuminated building was the Basilique Sacre Coeur in Montmartre. There has also been further ‘vandalism’ to fibre optic communication cables in other parts of the country.
In conclusion, if only half of these interpretations are close to the truth, I believe we are being given a warning of future problems, by those who are about to create them.
The stark warnings are;
People are being misled through their dependence on the internet and media.
Life will become more difficult because humanity is destroying the planet.
Humanity will have to become ‘Christ conscious’ (love thy neighbour) or there will be wars.
There will be a world government to achieve these aims.
You may say I’m a dreamer But I’m not the only one I hope someday you’ll join us And the world will be as one John Lennon ‘Imagine’
There is an awareness of the prospect of a ‘New World Order’ in many modern western societies. It is ‘globalism’ by another name and assumes that for the eight billion or so inhabitants of planet earth, ‘one size can fit all’. We clearly see this in the communist countries such as China, where citizen’s rights are subordinate to the rights of society; ‘the lowest common denominator is best for everyone’ philosophy.
Astronauts in the International Space Station may enjoy a global view over breakfast and be filled with wonder at the planet without political boundaries and cultural differences.
But of course geo-politics is not as simple as the view from space implies. If we were to break down how societies are structured the categories might look like this;
…language, religion and ethics, race, class, cultural background, education, wealth, geographic placement, access to technology and food and so the list goes on. Societies are highly complex when viewed through the lens of a microscope.
There is an indigenous North American saying that, ‘it is easy to be brave from a distance’.
They should know, for their initiation tasks for young ‘braves’ were daunting to the point of life threatening. When poised to jump into a river from a high cliff, suddenly life looks and feels different from ten minutes ago.
This illusion of safety is becoming dominant in many Western societies in the modern times. Citizens go about their daily tasks in relative comfort because of the security that their State promises. Citizens will never be poised on the edge of a metaphorical cliff – so they believe.
We create a ‘safe distance’ around ourselves; living in a tiny bubble of the known and familiar. It is comforting and provides, what in general systems theory is known as ‘homeostatis’, or
‘The aim of systems theories is to create homeostasis, or a favorable person–environment fit, in that the individual interacts and responds to her/his environment where interactions and change are contributing to positive growth and development and social functioning.‘ ScienceDirect.com
The whole approach to reassurance given by crew to passengers on an aircraft is based on this principal. In a short briefing it is explained that the aircraft could crash in which case here’s a whistle, otherwise, drinks are available from the trolley.
Airliines pretend flyiing is safe, but if we think critically they could do more. For instance, why are children not given child seats as is the general law for cars? Why are companion and service animals so difficult to cater for? A disabled passenger will have their expensive wheelchaire thrown into the hold and they have to stagger to their seat; if they are lucky with extra legroom – at an additional cost. How quickly passengers embark and disembark, is mostly about money for airlines.
Life in western societies is rather like this problem that airlines have when people have unique expectations and needs. The tendency then is humans are herded like lost sheep and most of the time, we oblidge.
Fortunately, what stops the world from wobbling off it’s axis is a counter force which we call ‘co-operation’. Humans emerged successfully from the ‘natural selection’ disaster movie of prehistory by co-operating with each other. Instead of becoming the lone predator like tigers, they became pack hunters, like wolves.
So here is the good news. If generalisations and lack of detail are the centrifugal forces that tend to pull society apart, then co-operative forces are the centripetal reaction, keeping us all together.
A list of these co-operative forces would be something like this;
...written laws and national constitutions that describe and give rights to citizens, shared wealth and resources such as public services, pensions and private insurance, shared territory such a public spaces and open borders, shared fauna and fauna in natural ecosystems, shared technology and scientific research, shared buildings such as blocks of apartments and entertainment facilities, shared national infrastructure, shared human resources in education, health, armed services, politicians…the list is longer.
Those enjoying the re-assurance of a Western lifestyle, are aware of other countries where the centrifugal forces are actually pulling societies apart. We know there are wars, famine, plague and natural disasters, criminal and terrorist organisations, happening somewhere else on our shared planet all the time but we chose to do nothing at worst or give to charity at best. We rationalise our choice as ‘someone else’s problem’ because we were lucky enough to have been born in a bubble.
picture credit: Hedgeye
For the few who do take on responsibility for those less ‘fortunate than themselves’ is more they can do. If they have a set of skills applicable to a particular emergency they can join a charity or non-government organisation. Usually and sadly, such as in earthquakes or flooding, help arrives too little too late. Disaster relief warehouses do not exist at every air and sea port in the world. Instead it can take days for supplies to be shipped and taken overland to those as serious risk of harm, instead of hours. Governments and or those who caused the disaster lie about the cause and solutions that are in place such as is happening in Gaza in Palestine at this present time.
In this way disasters can be diverted from public attention; played down because ‘we’ are not the victims. Our lives continue with a good standard of living, fuel in the service stations, government workers in the social services providing education, health and the rest. The shops are open and we go to work.
Or so it appears, because of the illusion with which we are presented and which we choose to believe; we genuinely think we are brave, upright, honest, caring citizens.
That is until our borders are rushed by people without documents who risk their lives to get help, banks close, world shipping halts, a serious pandemic any other disastrous global event such as, well, global warming…
Arizona Border picture credit: APnews
Then the problem in western countries becomes, ‘how do we keep our way of life?’, because we assume, our lives and standard of living will continue unchanged.
The thing about Aladdin is that, for a ‘good for nothing’ youth, he had a very powerful imagination.
‘He ordered the jinnee thus; “I want you to bring me a retinue of four dozen slaves, two dozen to ride before me and two dozen to ride behind me, complete with livery, horses and weapons. Both slaves and horses must be arrayed in the finest and the best. After that bring me a thorough bred steed worthy of an emperor’s stable, with trappings all of gold studded with rich jewels.“‘
from : ‘A Thousand and One Arabian Nights’ : translated by N J Wadood : Penguin Classics
Most people in modern times, have played the lottery. Winning is about as likely as being hit by a piece of space debris, but the dream is real enough to part with money. Lottery organisers face an unexpected problem; helping winners, deal with their sudden wealth. Unlike Aladdin, many have no idea how to spend their millions. One U.K. winner went out and bought a new machine machine.
‘New Washing Machine’s for Old!’
As with much of ‘ordinary life’, we are fenced in by, not only our wallet, but our imagination. Aladdin wanted nothing less than the Sultan’s daughter, slaves, dancing girls and a marble Palace with windows made from precious stones. A new washing machine was not on his list.
This essay is about ‘imagination’ and also about another characteristic of human thought; ‘fantasy’. In common usage, these terms are similar but I would like to draw an important distinction between the two.;
Imagination: the ability to configure something that can be made real.
Fantasy: the ability to configure something that can never be made real.
Between these two is a spectrum of the possibility of ‘making dreams come true’. The lottery is highly unlikely to make you rich while becoming an innovative entrepreneur is moderately achievable.
Let us examine a few examples at the ‘fantasy’ end of this spectrum. Fantasy is a pretend world occupied by children in the early stages of their lives. Anything can become anything. You can be the doctor and I shall be the nurse. The whole game is meaningless except as a faculty of mental maturing in which rehearsals for real life are being run safely.
Children are whisked off to see Cinderella’s Castle in Disneyland or Santa Claus in Finland in harmless but expensive escapade’s by indulgent parents. What anyone gains apart from temporary gratification, is open to debate.
Is all this the archetypal ‘Hero’s Journey’ or just ‘Wham! Bam! Sock! Pow?‘
Teenager’s are sometimes drawn to the concept of a ‘super hero’. It’s a kind of oblique reference to the myths and legends of gods and goddesses of ancient Egypt and Greece that ignores any truth.
The ‘struggle for personal power, haunts many unfulfilled adults even in such mundane matters as their choice of car – a modern day ‘chariot of triumph’. Such self empowment was first expressed in a teenager’s bedroom in posters fantasising about becoming Superman or Wonder Woman or Taylor Swift or Beyonce. Association (borrowing power from another) is expressed but never achieved by mimicry of a ‘super hero’.
Comic heroes in both meanings! picture credit: The Mo Co Show
Whilst the comic hero may enrapture, the bottom line is that they are no stronger than the paper on which they are printed. The fantasy only lasts the time it takes to read the comic, unless you want to dress up!
Cinema certainly has that ability to make us confuse fantasy with reality. The first cinema presentation by the Lumier Brothers in 1896 had audiences running for their lives when they imagined an approaching train in the film was real. Today the opposite has become the case and audiences dissolve their minds with fantasies on the white screen that have no substance.
Marilyn Monroe ; screen godess and girl next door
Whether at home on in collective presentations, Hollywood has led the way. Marilyn Monroe called it Weird Wood because presumably she saw nothing holy in it’s halls. Her off-screen persona – Norma Jean – was as real to her as the on-screen beguiling sex-goddess character and was her anchor that kept her in touch with her true self. Like the fragile letters on the famous hillside, the Hollywood fantasy is always as two dimensional as the silver screen.
The crux of what pure ‘fanatasy’ does to us is that it is a world of ‘pretend’ and gives no objective benefit other than perhaps, passing the time and unsatisying catharsis.
We should study now how the dream states of ‘fantasy’ and ‘imagination’, differ. Imagination introduces the possibility of making thoughts come true. An engineer for instance, might visualise an invention before recording the working processes on paper. Nicola Tesla sometimes invented whilst sleeping. He could turn an scientific device around in his imagination and make any necessary corrections before building it. We have to thank him for AC / DC electricity supply, TV remote controllers, radio and many other inventions in general use today.
Imagination is about making the possible possible and fantasy merely making the impossible, impossible. This is an important distinction because I believe so much human preoccupation today is as useful as smoke. Fantasist s follow, imaginaries lead.
The dreams that float across our minds in childhood may reflect some truth. They may be a memory and anticipation of past and future lives. Fortunate children will know from a very early age what they were in a previous life; a concert pianist or doctor or scientist. Some go on to have a rewarding career in that field. The phenomena of the three year old virtuous violinist fits few other explanations.
There is a channeller on You Tube called Daryl Anka who is worthy of consideration. The principle ‘teaching’ from his channelled entity called Bashar is to;
“Act on your excitement to the best of your ability without any expectation of outcome.”
This trigger of ‘excitement’ is something that is often extinguished by one’s self doubt or unconstructive feedback from others.
In endeavours of an artisitic nature, I would always advise people to explore what they love and are irresistably drawn to. This principle is a spark that contains truth and tremendous possibility of fulfilment in life; not just art. Without love we become like skittles without that array of arms that comes down from above and sets us up straight again, waiting for life’s next ball. We just roll around and fall into the black hole of disappointment.
In contrast, love connects to natural forces in a way that we do not understand and do not need to. It is inherently constructive in the way that imagination is constructive even if we do not know where it’s fractal growing patterns will take us. Nature works in this way and is beautifully described in such books as the Tao Te Ching by Lao Tsu; written 500 BCE and still freshly inspirational.
‘The leaves fall without purpose.’ Zen Photo and poem by the author
Much imagination and inspiration in human cultural and scientific achievement is inspired by nature. Art of great beauty inspires emotional responses in the same way that nature creates delight. Many artificially intelligent robots today, replicate the perfect design of the human body, animals and even humble insects because nature cannot be improved.
The evolution of human imagination using the scientific method, is surely a flowering of human consciousness, in the same way that that classicism inspired the Renaissance. This scientific evolution has brought to life moving holograms and virtual realities which even today are seen as magic. These techniques expand and explore the physical and energetic worlds in a manner that would never have been found without a scientist with imagination. Is this why scientists who are also artists, such as Leonardo da Vinci and Albert Einstein are some of the greatest thinkers?
Human thought that is clearly ‘off the wall’ can be overwhelming and hide a darker force. The world of the ‘impossibly impossible’ was seized and used by religions to control others. When prophets and saints exemplify love, humility and compassion, there message becomes watered down over the centuries and tragically can become toxic, as in the Spanish Inquisition between1478 and 1834. It would fantasise various versions of ‘heresy’ into being and punish those who did not comply.
Power to imagine is ultimately a personal endeavour. No religion, state or institution should ever be allowed to overrule the highest love and excitement of the people, in my view. I believe that we are all capable of ‘parting the Red Sea’ using mind alone. People with terminal cancer have died, come back and been cured the disease in days. Dr. Eben Alexander’s story describes his own experiences when in a medical coma and being treated by his colleagues in his book Proof of Heaven.
The only slippery nature of this slope is when we fantasise about things that just will never come true.
Our yellow brick road leads us to the Wizard of Oz who turns out to be just like us. Are we being force fed the fantasy of this illusory path and if so by whom?
Have we become slaves to those who promise a journey to nowhere?
Here is a long bamboo and here is a short one Ts’ui-wei Zen Master
Many western thinkers find it difficult to understand that war and peace are the same. This is because in dualistic thinking there are only two ‘opposite’ words to describe a broader thing for which there is no single word. This dualism and is a clear example of how words determine thoughts, in the same way that roads define journeys.
Consider this koan; when there is no war and no peace, what is there?
In order to construct a bridge that combines the extremes of ‘war ‘ and ‘peace’, one needs to use a phrase which is a paradox; a statement that contradicts itself. The concept of ‘soft war’ for instance, opens a whole new spectrum of possibilities around the ideas of ‘non-violence’. War has historically been the option used by humans to solve disagreements between ‘tribes’. At a higher level of consciousness however, it is possible to achieve the same ends without firing a single arrow. So let us look more closely at this paradox.
I propose a definition of soft war as, ‘the acquisition of state assets and benefits by peaceful means.’ Because surely, state violence as a means to an end should be far behind us in this twenty first century. Nobody has ever really won a war, when you study world history.
Presently, various state players are heading off to the moon. The initial batch of astronauts will need to be real estate agents, taking photographs and writing up a hot and cold, air-less deserted blob, as enticingly as they can for prospective nation clients.
Donald Trump pronounced publicly the creation of the United States Space Force as a department of the Air Force when he was President. Apart from the odd logic of the Air Force fighting in places with no air, one intention is clearly to use violence to acquire lunar assets and benefits for the United States of America. At least this time round there will be no natives and Buffalo to slaughter; assuming they are not hiding on the far side of the moon.
Will a World Space Peace Treaty be conceived before star wars break out?
There is some optomism in the idea that many people no longer believe in using violence to solve problems. An example of this common sense are the students presently demonstrating on the lawns of Columbia University in New York, in sympathy with the oppressed Palestinian people. The compelling argument for such a new vision is that when war became ‘industrial’, it became toxic; nuclear, radiological, biological and chemical.
Loving life and hating killing machines does not imply hating any particular racial or religious group as some oponents argue.
In the sixteenth century soldiers used to dress up in smart uniforms, line up in ranks or ships and shoot each other. Nasty but consensual. Since the ‘industrial’ methods of war emerged in the twentieth century, the victims of war largely became non-consensual civilians. Whole cities were flattened without recourse to any apparent ethical imperative and since it’s use in the second World War, this tactic has been repeated in countries like Vietnam, Lybia, Georgia, Iraq, Syria, Ukraine and now Gaza. Industrial War uses attrition of the civilian population as a means to an end. I will suggest somewhat optimistically, that these examples are the last batch of evil against humanity by humanity. Because there is an alternative and it is called ‘soft war’.
Peace does not mean peace. In ‘peacetime’ some level of pan national aggression is taking place but in secret. Most States use this means in ‘peacetime’ to subvert other States. After the second World War this was called a ‘Cold War’. In the USSR long term strategies were initiated to acquire more States. This I describe in my blog called ‘The World is Spinning Out of Control’ published on 14th December 2022. To save you looking back,
I list the Soviet’s four stages of this process from ‘demoralisation’ to ‘destabilisation’ to ‘crisis’ to ‘normalisation’. In the 2020’s we are well into the ‘crisis’ era. Putin’s Russia in my view is just the USSR Lite.
For those who think the recent Covid 19 Sars 2 pandemic was a spontaneous health crisis, hopefully they have modified their view based on the hindsight of the evidence since then. I strongly believe the pandemic was a dress rehearsal in which future governments control populations against their will. China displayed this more blatantly than most other countries because that is what communism is good at. If you wonder why free thinking democracies used ‘lock down’ and ‘tracking’ contrary to their sacred principle personal freedom, we need to think beyond the official simplified narrative.
Control by governments of their citizens historically, used to be by the threat of force (Iran and other autocracies excepted) but there are more subtle althernatives. Money has always ‘made the world go round’ and soft war uses money as a primary tool. The application of sanctions by one nation over another is a slow process that puts pressure on populations long before governments are persuaded to change an offending policy. Presently all eyes are on digital currencies. As they transfer the power of purchase from governments to individuals, many state leaders are preparing national digital currencies. Once governments acquire control of their own population’s money, they are all powerful. No money, no dinner.
There are many other ways to bring populations to ‘crisis’ and it is happening now in ever increasing degrees. China is producing chemicals that make artificial opioids and flooding America with fentanyl; something the CCCP deny. Vast numbers of America citizens are now addicted to fentanyl. This drug is so harmful that President Biden has just signed off a law called the ‘Fend Off Fentanyl Act’.
‘Drugs and Alcohol’ because alcohol is not a drug – really?
Covertly undermining the health-hospitals-production-tax revenue, of nations using viruses and addictive harmful drugs is a clear example of ‘soft war’. In a liberal society, public safety measures and permitting populations the freedom to experience pleasure from drugs (legalising cannabis for instance), might be welcomed but the reality is frightening.
Even prescribed drugs can have a similar effect if delivered in large enough quantities, such as in a pandemic. ‘Excess deaths’ in the nations who licenced untested mRNA vaccines, have been inexplicably and worryingly high since 2020. Governments are not looking too deeply into why this has happened which raises a natural suspicion of what was really going on and why.
These are both perfect examples of ‘soft war’. In psychological terms they are ‘passive aggressive’ techniques producing a collective irrational fear of a problem such as disease. Humans are easy to ‘destabilise’ from their preferred condition of ‘tranquillity’ because we are not good at thinking. If we were, why would we ever put on a uniform and go off the commit a genocidal war, as thousands of Israeli’s are doing at this time? They who were the ‘prisoners’ in Nazi Germany are now the ‘guards’ in what they have left of Palestine. And if you do not understand this reference have a look at the ‘Stanford Prison Experiment’ on Wikipedia. Humans are easy to manipulate so that they think they are doing good when the opposite is the case. Not only the victims are manipulated but the oppressors too. The snake chases it’s tail.
The growing phenomenon of mass movements of refugees and economic migrants by legal and illegal means, is impossible to control. Mass movement of people over open borders into populations that are not welcoming, is both the product of complex factors such as climate change and, one must suspect, deliberate crisis creation to subvert sovereign states. The sight of governments arguing vehemently over migration such as within the European Union, brings much satisfaction to those who desire to covertly divide and conquer.
Who could be doing this? Well, The World Economic Forum for instance are notorious for stating ‘you will own nothing and you will be happy’. The clue is in their title…’World’. The World Health Organisation has likewise produced a plan that takes away a sovereign states right to decide how to protect the health of their own populations in a pandemic. The WHO will make the decisions for them;
“Member States of the World Health Organization have agreed to a global process to draft and negotiate a convention, agreement or other international instrument under the Constitution of the World Health Organization to strengthen pandemic prevention, preparedness and response.” source: WHO website posting 23 June 2023
These and other soft war players do indeed have the world in their sights. Events such as climate change and the destruction of eco-systems worldwide will enable gaining assets and benefits of self serving ‘entities’, by non-violent means. Clearly, blaming the apparently uncontrollable ( such as ‘nature’ ) is a convincing way of cloaking covert methods of destabilising nation states. Despite well meaning conservation projects, humans have never intended to protect nature and it’s processes that support life on earth. If they had, action would have been taking place to stop it decades ago, in the same way that tobacco companies would have stopped selling cigarettes decades ago, if they had wanted to.
At the centre of all this complexity is the individual human. How can they be expected to understand the deep state and hidden cabals. Most humans are well behind the future curve of our species preferring life as it is. The ‘activist’ minority are also prey to covert manipulation. Instead of raising the roof to stop being cynically manipulated, activist groups, for instance, protest against the slavery of the nineteenth century, whilst ignoring modern slavery. There are those who complain against the loss of ‘black lives’ in the USA, whilst ignoring the supply of American made weapons and the killing of thousands in Haiti, on America’s doorstep. In fact there are racially predudicially discriminationing inspired genocides and pogroms all around the world in present time. But our anger against these is re-directed towards historical injustice and horrors, like the holocaust. History is as an oppurtunity to learn and forgive if we wish to keep our sanity. I cannot be responsible for the sins of my father, only my own.
Such shingle issue civil rights campaigners may not be fully aware of who has started and funded their organisations and what the true motives of their benefactors are. ‘Destabilisation’ and ‘crisis’ are easily achieved by creating well meaning protest movements that actual don’t make sense when the right questions are asked. Investigative journalists used to cover these stories but today their editors pull their punches and a good question is ‘why’?
It is apparently all to easy to get into the heads and their hearts of people and this is the most subtle and worrying aspect of soft war. As Artificial Intelligence looms menacingly, waiting to take over from heart centred humans, humans need to keep strict intellectual, rule based, control. War is increasingly being delivered by anonymous robots such as drones and unpiloted aircraft, in order that no service personnel are hurt and responsibility can be denied.
In a non-ethical, world ‘robot wars’ could be seen as the summit of success by those who believe violence within a species justifies the end.
And yet, ‘ethical concerns’ can ironically also become a cloak to disguise the overpowering of other states by non-violent means. China has displayed a mastery of this over the recent decades. It has used it’s massive wealth to enter foreign countries in Africa and around the world, offering to construct major infrastructure and lending poor nations the money to do it. When the port or whatever is completed, after a while, the other country finds it cannot repay the interest on the loan. China then offers to purchase the port or other project and completes it’s own agenda of using the port for commercial and military dominance.
This process has the same effect of acquiring the assets and benefits of another country in an apparently benign way. Indeed, it might be ethical if China did not ultimately intend to use these assets for military purposes. Looking at the size and sophistication of the Chinese Air, Land, Sea and Space Forces, it becomes obvious that such force will one day be used in offence.
Chinese Expansion picture credit: Research Gate
Russia is expanding (against ‘genocide in Georgia’ and ‘Nazis’ in Ukraine so all ‘legal’) in the same way. Their sights are also on the last great continent to be developed, Africa. By implanting mercenaries and aid into African countries to stabilised them. They are welcomed as many such as have become disillusioned with help from other states such as in French ex-colonies, like Niger.
War has not yet been perceived as moribund. In the same way that Chinese Shaolin monks learn martial arts that are completely ineffective against any firearm, so modern states display out of date weapons in their annual parades. Even the mighty aircraft carriers require a fleet to defend them from innovative methods of attack such as supersonic cruise missiles. The loss of a carrier to any nation would be catastrophe and their production and use, certainly under an ‘America First’ government, is a paper dragon. It is not likely to frighten those who know all about dragons.
Can we conclude that neither open violence nor passive aggression are acceptable in an peaceful world? The alternative was conceived by such historical world leaders as Mahatma Gandhi; to simply use the protest power of the people to alter harmful government policies.
In my view what is needed to stabilise human society before it spins out of control, is an axis of ethical commitment that is so strong it will prevent the world from wobbling. What that will be, we await to see but I expect it will involve, people centred leadership and a universal, spiritually inspired set of values.
Once upon a time the world was covered in forests. People lived in these forests happily until one dreadful day a war started.
The people in one particular forest were badly persecuted by their enemy. Most of their trees were cut down and the people died in great numbers as they could not survive without the bounty of nature. By the end of the war only one man survived, called The Hunter.
The Hunter
The kind people from all over the world felt sorry for the Hunter. They decided to send him to the very best forest in the world known as the Holy Forest. It was for him to look after and live in peace with the forest animals for the rest of his life.
The Hunter was very pleased and quickly set to work building himself a timber house in a clearing. The forest animals watched from their hiding places and wondered how the Hunter had been allowed to live in their Holy Forest. One day the Hunter walked out with his axe and started to chop down trees. He chopped and he chopped all day long until the clearing was very much bigger. The forest animals who lived in those trees ran away to their friends and family and hid in fear.
As the months and years went by, the Hunter carried on chopping down trees until there was only a tiny part of The Holy Forest left. The animals were hiding anywhere they could find but could not avoid the bullets from the hunter’s gun.
They could not understand why he hated them, so they sent the largest of the bears to warn him to stop – and fight him if he refused. The Hunter did not want to talk with the bear so the bear scratched his face very badly and blood poured out. The man grabbed his gun in a rage and shot the bear dead.
Now the forest animals were very frightened and hid in their burrows and up in the trees. In a rage The Hunter shouted that he was going to kill every living creature and that was all their fault for sending the bear. He took out his axe and cut down the remaining trees, shooting the forest animals one by one for they had nowhere to run.
The kind people of the world had been watching the Hunter all this time. Although they protested at what he was doing, they never stopped him. When they saw that the Holy Forest was gone and the ground was littered with the bones of the forest animals, they were shocked.
They could not understand how someone who lost his own people’s forest could destroy another one gifted to him in peace, especially one so holy. When they asked him he flew into a rage and accused them of being friends of the bear who cut his face and he pointed to his scars. His sense of self righteousness knew no limits and his eyes flashed anger and hatred at them.
So they walked away, and it started to rain on the once Holy land and the Hunter had no animals to hunt, no kind friends to look after him and only a wasteland in his memory.
He realised then that he had done exactly the bad things that had been done to his people without knowing what he was doing. ‘Bad things happen to make us wise,’ he thought, ‘when all the time I blamed others. Now I understand my actions were filled with fear and hatred but it is too late’. And the Hunter laid down his gun and collapsed. He had broken the sacred law to only do as you would be done by, and to break this law in a holy place was an end of honour for his fallen people and himself.
Surely, your leaders and politicians must excel in one thing above all others; problem solving. I suggest this because all aspects of life are eventually about solving problems. It does not matter if you are trying to look after a home or a country, the principles of good management using skilled problem solving, are the same.
Astoundingly, the study of ‘problem solving’ is not freely available. In the academic world it is assumed that the skills learnt in schools and places of higher education are transferable to the ‘real world’. Well in my experience, I can say that most of those skills are not transferable, which is a problem in itself. Theory and practice should be salt and pepper, but they are not.
To solve a practical problem takes a special kind of thought process. Most importantly there must be a consistent intention aimed at a fruitful result. Technicians and those who learn practical ‘trades’ such as building walls with bricks or carpentry, become great problem solvers very quickly. If they make a mistake, it is plainly on view and has to be taken down and attempted again. Generally, the selection process for soldiers will involve problem solving. Recruits become part of a small team arranging logs and ropes and other props to overcome an obstacle. Real work in real time.
It is said rather cynically that ‘doctors bury their mistakes’; but it is true. It is unfortunately also true of many of today’s politicians and leaders who are entrusted with the welfare of the State and it’s citizens. If they make a wrong policy decision or invent a plan for some new project or public works that goes wrong, the failure is forgotten. Money is wasted on projects that any ordinary person would say is a waste of time and money (just read my earlier blogs on the UK High Speed train project predicting failure). Why, you might ask, does India have a Space Programme when there are thousands of villages in India without proper sanitation? I am only using India as an example. Avoiding and/or mismanagement of real and urgent problems happens in every country run by politicians with their own agendas, not the people’s
If a race of intelligent beings came down from the Planet Problemsolving, they would certainly be appalled at the ignorance of humans in a skill the PP inhabitants are taught from birth.
If humans cannot learn from present times, we can learn from history. In the Biblical era, when Herod heard there was a child to be born who would one day be King, his solution was simple and brutal. To kill all male babes under the age of two years. The solution to his problem was immoral, self centred, and ineffective. Have we improved?
Giovani: The Slaughter of the Innocents
Today, the State of Israel is being led by a person with Herod like, problem solving hypothesis. Because there are fighters who are against the State of Israel (as a consequence of decades of ill treatment towards Palestinians) Israel is using genocide to prevent further problems, just like Herod. And just as Herod assumed a massacre would get every child, so it is assumed that the Israeli government actions will eliminate every fighter who is against the Israeli State. But history tells us that using starvation, disease, killing and maiming, stopping fuel supplies in winter and stopping safe escape routes, will be condemned by world organisations like the United Nations. South Africa has emerged from apartheid in the last century and has been the loudest voice of condemnation. They have learnt from their history.
Hitler is perhaps one of the greatest despots in modern times, who used similar problem solving techniques indiscriminately. He constructed concentration camps with impregnable exterior defences, then filled them with people of direct and indirect Jewish blood. We know the rest. Indeed, the people who know this best are living in the State of Israel today.
Let us examine a less emotionally charged problem being played out over the English Channel at the moment. The problem always requires a definition and for voters in the 2016 referendum it was identified as ‘immigration’. The ‘Vote Leave’ champagne and UKIP party championed the idea that ‘immigrants are a problem to the country’, in the run up to the referendum. Whilst most economists would disagree with this concept ( the USA is a prime historical example of immigration creating prosperity ) the problem was described in emotional terms. We know that rational debate stops when emotions are stirred, if we have lived life at all! Emotional beliefs do not use constructive thinking patterns based on analysis of facts and figures. ‘Solutions’ were expressed as three word slogans such as ‘Take Back Control’, ‘Brexit means Brexit’ ‘Get Brexit Done’.
Broadcaster James O’Brien on LBC said: “I’m looking for a chronology of the meaningless slogans Brexiters used to give people an excuse not to actually look at any detail, evidence or do any thinking.”
As the supposed ‘problem’ of immigration, moved from fringe to mainstream politics, the ‘final solution’ became leaving the European Union. The principle of ‘understanding the problem’ by using statistics for instance, was ignored since only one third of UK immigrants actually came from the European Union. Many of those who did were short term immigrants, such as students and migrant workers. As the fish and chip shop owner said to me on the day of the Brexit vote in June 2016, ‘Who is going to pick my potato’s?’
But the emotions of hatred and fear were exploited using false facts by those in power (just as did the leaders of Nazi Germany) and the UK left the European Union in 2020. Since then, the ‘problem’ of immigrants has not gone away. For no obvious reason the ‘problem’ has be re-defined to be the three per cent of immigrants who enter the country without proper documentation.
Under international law these fall into three basic camps; asylum seekers escaping persecution, economic migrants and the criminal underworld. These categories however require time consuming investigation on a case by case basis.
You Can Use Old Slogans
Far simpler for the government to stir public emotions using a three word slogan which is ‘stop the boats’. Chillingly, the ‘solution’ is steered away from creating safe routes and tackling criminal gangs to being one of ‘deterrent’ or fear. By ‘fear of being sent to Rwanda’ the UK government intends to stop people from risking their lives crossing the English Channel.
The horror of this solution and all ‘final solutions’ is not characteristic of any country that wishes to hold it’s head high in the European Courts of Human Rights and the United Nations. Similarly, the government of Israel is prepared to ignore the Article 2 of the Genocide Convention. The false logic of ‘the end justifies the means’ convinces only the emotions.
The complexity of statistical analysis and testing and proof finding and ethics and morality and compassion and common sense and lessons learnt from history and comparing alternatives and cost benefit analysis, should be the bread and butter for problem solving by those who lead nations.
But complexity is ignored because it does not invite the answer, ‘yes’ or ‘no’. These two words are fundamental to what is the basis of the referendum method of problem solving.
Shall I kill all the male children under two years of age? Yes or no?
Shall I get rid of the Jews? Yes or no?
Shall I destroy Palestine and it’s people as a method to destroy their militant leaders? Yes or no?
Shall we leave the European Union? Yes or no?
Shall we ‘stop the boats’ by making it illegal to do so? Yes or no?
Each time the question assumes a problem with which the man on the proverbial omnibus, may not agree is a reasonable question to be asked. The question is too simple to answer for the complex mind, but easy for the simple mind.
The so called ‘wisdom of the crowd’ is not something that history proves. Wisdom is unfortunately a rare commodity – whether two thousand years ago or the present day. We only have to listen to Socrates (470-399 BC) opinion about the ‘common man’…
Socrates wisely points out that voting itself is a skill. Knowing what kinds of issues are being raised, and how best to deal with them is a real skill required to know how to best govern people. If people are not properly educated, then what ends up happening is demagoguery, which is when people exploit others’ emotions, seducing them with easy answers, so that they could be elected.
There is a deadly game of chess being played before the whole world at the moment. Like all chess matches, the out come depends on the ability of both players to see the intentions of the other.
To the casual observer, Hamas control Palestine but it should be remembered that they do not represent the people of Palestine. Their stated aim is to eliminate Israel, but they lack the means to do this. They only have rockets and assault rifles. By any definition, they are a guerrilla army only capable of performing hit and run operations. They have no chance of winning against the larger and better equipped Israeli Defense Force.
But perhaps there is a clue in this ‘David and Goliath’ situation, as to the strategy of Hamas which few commentators have expressed. Most see only a heinous attack on innocent Israelis attending a music festival close to the border with Palestine.
A second clue is that some of those injured, killed and taken hostage by Hamas are from other countries than Israel. Why were multi-national civilians targeted…could it be to call other nations to arms? Will the USA come to collect it’s own, as it always does?
Why have Hamas behaved so provocatively? Taking on Israel’s extreme right wing government is surely madness.
Or is it?
Israel’s principle justification for retaliation is that ‘we have a right to defend ourselves’. Certainly there are those of the Hebrew faith who justify violence, but only in self defense. That part is not in doubt, but then the issue becomes ‘by what means may one defend a country?’ At present it appears that the ‘the end justifies the means’ thinking model (which I covered in a previous blog as a deeply flawed argument), is being used by Israel to react militarily without respect for Palestinian civilians. Why would you take down an entire residential block in order to take out a Hamas cell?
In criminal law, self defense is generally defined as using equal force in response to the attacker but no more; in other words proportionate. It also allows the defender to strike first. Is Hamas defending Palestine or the IDF defending Israel, or both? When did this war begin?
Despite Israel starting from what can only be described as an intelligence failure of Biblical proportions, Israel say they know precisely where Hamas fighters operate from. No doubt Israeli agents, human intelligence sources and proxy parties in Gaza, report daily on which buildings are used for what purpose.
For the last few decades it has been permissible and proportionate for Israeli troops to enter Gaza and the West Bank, and search these places from which Hamas operate. Tactically, they could go in using high quality intelligence, superior numbers and firepower and the element of surprise. They then might work there way floor by floor, room by room engaging in a firefights when taking fire. These are basic anti-terrorist tactics as practiced by Special Forces all over the world. Has this been done by the IDF? Or has Israel developed a conscript army capable only of walking up and down beside fences, sniping at kids throwing stones and controlling road blocks? Partly true perhaps, but it has a professional officer corps who must now lead their troops into the Gaza Strip against a cornered and dug-in militant force on it’s own territory. The IDF need to show the world it can win.
But the use of artillery and missiles to flatten civilian areas of Gaza and medieval siege tactics, indicates that Israel lacks the ability to use proportionate and intelligence led forceto ‘defend itself’.
There is a bigger and more nuanced picture here. Hamas may be extremists using tactics of terror against Israeli civilians, but they know they will never destroy Israel on their own. The ten thousand or so Hamas fighters are not an army capable of open warfare. Instead, in my view, their operations are designed to shock and disgust the whole world. They know precisely how historically Israel will react to hostage taking and murder of their civilian population. In my view, this is what should have made Israel pause and think ‘are we being played here?’
Have Hamas lured Israel into a trap, knowing exactly how to make their enemy go into a rage of self righteousness? Hamas want Israel to respond without regard for civilian life, hospitals and schools in what is often described as an ‘open prison camp’. Hamas are scarily prepared to set up a situation in which innocent Palestinian women and children will be slaughtered without mercy by Israel because, in my view, it intends to shout out a ‘call to arms ‘across the Sunni Muslim and Shia Persian (Iran) countries of the region.
It is obvious that mice do not attack bears unless they have a trick up their sleeve and one trick is that the mice do not care how many non-combatant mice the bear will slaughter. The more the better because the mice know some friendly bears who need to be so outraged that they will join in with the fight.
Presently Hamas sit safe from harm in their tunnels and basements with, I suspect, hidden glee, because the Israeli bear is about to walk into the Bear Pit. Hamas are evil but not stupid. They know that they have friendly armies nearby who are watching closely. Egyptians, for instance, may explode with self righteousness as the pile of Palestinian bodies grows. These are fellow Muslims; brothers and sisters. No more ‘peace be with you’ and ‘Shalom’. This is Old Testament stuff and Joshua will come up to the walls of Jericho once more with his horns and Arc of the Covenant, but this time, to try to destroy Israel.
Hezbollah in Lebanon may join in along with Iran. Egypt might not but who knows? Russia and Syria might. The Muslim countries could make a formidable army of a size not seen since the second world war. This, I believe, is the real aim and strategy of Hamas and to date, everything is going according to plan. Proof of which is gathering of the opposition such as the US Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group (and others) and Amphibious Task Forces positioning currently themselves in the Eastern Mediterranean. Israel can still summon it’s US and Western allies, especially with a U.S. presidential election looming.
But if Israel attracts too much condemnation from U.N. security Council members and other world leaders, it could find it’s status and raison d’etre seriously challenged…as may be prayed for by Hamas. The watching world leaders do not have to side with Hamas when condemning Israel, but they will seek to protect Palestinian civilians, for whom there is has been decades of sympathy worldwide.
The, as yet, unrealised but possible turn of events of this toxic and inflammable political mixture, is the effect of the emergence of a charismatic Islamic leader. These figures pop up at important crossroads in history and this likelihood is no doubt, somewhere in the CIA playlist. Alexander the Great, Napoleon, Hitler…These figure heads gather their military power and come down on their enemies in a whirlwind of destruction. The Muslims are expecting the Iman Mahdi, real or impersonated, and this could be a potent factor in forthcoming events.
A Muslim army with a new leader would leave organisations like Hamas and Hezbollah on the sidelines of a global conflagration, such as has not been seen for decades. Remember that those who conducted the second World War and knew the importance of avoiding a third at all cost, have now passed on. With that loss, so has much of the resolve of politicians to avoid another world war at all costs. That is dangerous.
Another unspoken factor is that the Middle East has a completely different culture to the West and ‘democracy’. Failed foreign interventions, as happened in living memory in Afghanistan and Iraq, show that fighting in a foreign land against religious or political fighters using guerrilla tactics and dictators, distanced from your own country with stretch military supply lines, does not work. Vietnam was the same.
Israel depends largely on the USA for it’s existence and Palestinians on foreign aide.
A ‘two State solution’ depends on peace, fair distribution of land, resources and mutual tolerance. How far we are away from that is subject to debate but it deserves a chance.
Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance. When it is hijacked by extremists who use fake moral virtues to hide their real intentions and justify immoral acts, these actions are neither peaceful nor tolerant. Love and tolerance is at the heart of Christian and Jewish religious ethics making reconciliation an achievable objective for the right leadership; which is not present at the moment.
In my view the way forward for Israel is to punish Hamas using international law rather than the ‘eye for an eye’ spiral of violence that we are witnessing. There is virtue in seeking peace with honour for all sides, but who will make this happen?
We live at a time when volcanoes of information are filling the sky with an uncertain grey dust and obscuring our horizons.
The internet may have enabled ‘nation to speak unto nation’ but instead of bringing understanding and concordance, the effect appears to be the opposite. People with little knowledge consider themselves expert.
I am often confused when at the end of a presentation the speaker asks the virtual or real audience, what they think. ‘Put your thoughts in the comments below’. Really? Who is the expert here? The speaker or the listener?
So how do we make decisions? What is real and true? What is fake?
With this ‘information age’ came a whole generation of young people who were given high expectations in life. ‘You too could one day be Prime Minister’. Statistically true but probably as likely as falling off a cliff.
Being an ‘expert’ has become raised in esteem at the same time as reducing it’s social value. Numerous professions are being disgraced by the media, such as the police, social workers, school teachers, health workers on the evidence of shocking but isolated incidents. It’s a compelling use of emotional persuasion rather that logical reasoning. Those who struggled to reach beyond a life of manual work, are being rewarded with low wages and flagging public confidence.
How has this happened? How do we decide things, really? Are our opinions being made for us?
There is a book that appeared in a permissive 1971 called ‘The Dice Man’ by George Cockcroft which I thoroughly recommend to adventurous readers. The theme of the book is a psychiatrist who starts to make every personal decision with a die. It’s as simple as that. The ‘moral’ values of this character’s life are eliminated and his behaviour become socially ‘exploratory’.
What the theme of the book shows us is that we make decisions and yet those decisions might as well be random for all the understanding we have about how they came about. One might also question where one is going in life.
To get to the rub here; humans decide using their heads, their hearts, their intuition or just randomly; including omission. Most of the time it’s a combination of all of these in unequal proportion of strength of influence.
If that sounds complicated, it is. And when two humans decide something together it gets a whole load more complicated. When a man meets a woman in a bar and they are both looking for a life long partner and wondering if ‘this is it?’, there is a lot of thinking, feeling, intuition and ‘do I feel lucky?’.
When a married couple are shown a house by an estate agent (or realtor), usually the husband is measuring the garage while the wife is in tears over the beautiful kitchen and views of the garden. Or they may both see nothing about the house that they like. Perhaps the agents description pressed the wrong buttons and they thought they were going to look at something else.
What about political decisions? If you live in a democracy you get a vote, now and again. How do you decide? Those whose tendency is to use their mind to make decisions, may read a party manifesto or listen to the speeches of candidates to form a decision based on information.
The problem with this is that the information is almost always biased. Candidates may have only selected facts that support their policies. This may unknowingly contain information that was generated by a hostile state and fed into the minds of politicians and voters alike. Then the bias is from randomly elsewhere and yet intelligent people base their decisions on it.
People are constantly mislead even by their own governments in the same way. For instance, a government might present as fact something that is not true. This has become prevalent in much of modern politics whether in the USA or the UK. The disgraced ex-prime minister Boris Johnson was known as a compulsive fibber even in his school reports and is still present in his ‘I don’t care’ decision making.
To give another example of biased decision making, only those scientists were quoted during the Sars 2 – Covid 19 pandemic whose ideas supported the policies of governments. For instance, if they were specialists in virology and immunology who thought untested RNA vaccines were the best solution to the problem of hospitals becoming overwhelmed, then they were selected to advise ministers and front with the public in interviews.
The decision making process before during and after the pandemic highlights the many strands to justifying decisions that affected people’s lives and livelihoods. The poor decisions displayed little understanding of how decisions should be made. Perhaps the problem was never hospital capacity but keeping people fit to continue to go to work and for children to study; all by using socially reassuring and cost benefited methods.
Much of the justification of actions by governments during the pandemic was accepted by the general public because persuasion was targetted at the emotions rather than the mind and good old ‘common sense’. Instead the emotion targetted at populations was fear. If governments can persuade their populations that they have to do x,y and z otherwise they will die or cause the deaths of others, then they gain a dominating position.
Proffesor Mark Woolhouse wrote in The Guardian newspaper
And nothing could be further from the truth, argues Professor Woolhouse, an expert on infectious diseases at Edinburgh University. “I am afraid Gove’s statement was simply not true,” he says. “In fact, this is a very discriminatory virus. Some people are much more at risk from it than others. People over 75 are an astonishing 10,000 times more at risk than those who are under 15.”
The argument ‘get vaccinated or you will be passing a fatal illness on to others’ has also since been proved to be factually incorrect! The drug companies had thought about this but only conducted research using eight (or was it ten) rabbits. As to harms associated with the vaccine, these were strongly denied and anyone suggesting they may cause myocardial disease was discounted as a ‘conspiracy theorist’. This expression has evolved into an emotional criticism rather than showing a basic understanding of the difference between a ‘theory’ and a fact.
Again there has since been found a high percentage of excess deaths in those vaccinated, either causal or temporally correlated; a situation that has not been publicised, explained or apologised for by either drug companies or governments.
The whole ‘pandemic’ situation can be seen with hindsight by the rational mind as a ‘storm in a tea cup’ stirred up initially by a despotic government to whom few other nations openly respect in most other matters, namely the China’s Communist Party.
Pandemic Politics picture credit: The Economist
Was ‘lock down’ ever a better alternative to ‘go to bed’? How did ‘lock down’ ever become acceptable to freedom loving democracies?
Emotionally, many were traumatised by events when they really didn’t need to be, especially by constant fear inducing reporting by the media. The only solution offered to the fear of death, was to be vaccinated.
There were some who didn’t understand the science and didn’t feel the fear but made a decision about whether to be vaccinated based on intuition. These are the people with who are hardest for governments to deal with. Novak Djokovich knew his own mind on the subject of vaccinations and spent time in detention in Australia for his principles.
In summary, most life decisions are far more complex than we have to tools to make. Victorian education was based on fear induced fact learning. Today unrealistically optimistic self belief is taught in schools. Perhaps in the future children and young people will be taught how to gain a rigorous understanding of their psychological, emotional, intuitive and ‘I just feel lucky’ characteristics. Ultimately, understanding oneself with any clarity takes a lifetime to achieve, if at all. Trial and error decision making is really not a good tool for life in my opinion but it happens to an alarmingly high degree not least in those who lead us.
Governments and citizens have become like rabbits caught in the headlights of change. They look left and right for a safe direction to run but like unfortunate lapins, our future depends on making swift, informed, ethical, unbiased, emotionally intelligent, compassionate and inspired decisions for ourselves, our loved ones and those who come after us.
You have one sixteenth of a second to decide. Your time starts now.
Matters Blog 