The Neocon Declaration of War Against Trump

thesaker |  This does not make this document any less dangerous, however.

First, and this is the really crucial part, there is more than enough here to impeach Trump on numerous grounds both political and legal.  Let me repeat again – this is an attempt at removing Donald Trump from the White House.  This is a political coup d’etat.

Second, this documents smears everybody involved: Trump himself, of course, but also the evil Russians and their ugly Machiavellian techniques.  Trump is thereby “confirmed” as a sexual pervert who likes to hire prostitutes to urinate on him.  As for the Russians, they are basically accused of trying to recruit the President of the United States as an agent of their security services.  That would make Trump a traitor, by the way.

Third, within one short week we went from allegations of “Russian hacking” to “having a traitor sitting in the White House”.  We can only expect a further Tsunami of such allegations to continue and get worse and worse every day.  It is interesting that Buzzfeed has already preempted the accusation of this being a smear and demonization campaign against Trump by writing that “Now BuzzFeed News is publishing the full document so that Americans can make up their own minds about allegations about the president-elect that have circulated at the highest levels of the US government.” as if most Americans had the expertise to immediately detect that this document is a crude forgery!

Fourth, unless all the officials who briefed Trump come out and deny that this fake was part of their briefing with Trump, it will appear that this document has the official imprimatur of the senior US intelligence officials and that would give them a legal, probatory, authority.  This de-facto means that the “experts” have evaluated that document and have certified it as “credible” even before any legal proceedings in court or, worse, in Congress.  I sure hope that Trump had the foresight to audio and video record his meeting with the intelligence chiefs and that he is now able to threaten them with legal action if they now act in a way contradicting their behavior before him. 

Fifth, the fact that CNN got involved in all this is a critical factor.  Some of us, including yours truly, were shocked and disgusted when the WaPo posted a list of 200 websites denounced as “fake news” and “Russian propaganda”, but what CNN did by posting this article is infinitely worse: it is a direct smear and political attack on the President Elect on a worldwide level (the BBC and others are already posting the same crap).  This again confirms to be that the gloves are off and that the Ziomedia is in full state of war against Donald Trump.

All of the above further confirms to me what I have been saying over the past weeks: if Trump ever makes it into the White House (I write ‘if’ because I think that the Neocons are perfectly capable of assassinating him), his first priority should be to ruthlessly crack down as hard as he legally can against those in the US “deep state” (which very much includes the media) who have now declared war on him.  I am sorry to say that, but it will be either him or them – one of the parties here will be crushed.

[Sidebar: to those who wonder what I mean by “crackdown” I will summarize here what I wrote elsewhere: the best way to do that is to nominate a hyper-loyal and determined FBI director and instruct him to go after all the enemies of Trump by investigating them on charge of corruption, abuse of power, conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and all the other types of behavior which have gone on forever in Congress, the intelligence community, the banking world and the media.  Deal with the Neocons like Putin did with the Russian oligarchs or how the USA dealt with Al Capone – get them on tax evasion.  There is no need to open Gulags or shoot people when you can get them all on what is their normal daily behavior :-)]

I sincerely hope that I am wrong, and I admit that I might be, but I don’t have the gut feeling that Trump has what it takes to hit hard enough at those who are using any and every ugly method imaginable to prevent him from ever making it into the White House or to have him impeached if he tries to deliver on his campaign promises.  I cannot blame him for that either: the enemy has infiltrated all the level of power in the US polity and there are strong sign that they are even represented in Trump’s immediate entourage.  Putin could do what he did because he was an iron-willed and highly trained intelligence officer.  Trump is just a businessman whose best “training” to deal with such people would probably be his exposure to the mob in New York.  Will that be enough to allow him to prevail against the Neocons?  I doubt it, but I sure hope so.

Hon.Bro.Preznit Stutters And Stammers Accusations Against Russia

activistpost |  After dropping the ball twice, Obama did the only thing an embarrassed child is capable of doing by launching into a torrent of insults suggesting that Russia is small and weak and that they produce nothing but oil, gas, and arms. Apparently, Obama missed out on the irony of an American President criticizing another nation of not producing anything but oil, gas, and arms.

He then launched into a tirade of how Russia is not capable of “changing us,” seemingly not noticing that this diatribe rendered his previous hysterical propaganda that Russia had indeed “changed us” as either trivial or completely false. We are also unsure as to whether or not Obama is actually aware of which country he is talking about since Russia is, after all, not small by any means.

Obama then launched into a routine reminiscent of Jimmy Carter, scolding the American people for not trusting their intelligence agencies that already lied to get them in to a war with Iraq, law enforcement agencies that lie on a daily basis to amass convictions, and a White House that finds it impossible to utter a sentence if it contains majority truth.

This is one of those situations where, unless the American people genuinely think that the professionals in the CIA, the FBI, our entire intelligence infrastructure, many of whom, by the way, served in previous administrations, and who are Republicans, are less trustworthy than the Russians! Then . . . people should pay attention to what our intelligence agencies say.

It’s quite interesting that Obama would use the fact that many of these “intelligence professionals” worked in the Bush administration as a positive, since it was during Bush’s tenure that the CIA openly discredited itself in the rush to war in Iraq. We need not even discuss the FBI’s treachery on 9/11. But how does stating that the individuals who are telling us the Russians hacked “our elections” worked in an administration that lied its way into a war and a domestic police state do anything other than prove the critics correct?

It is also worth noting that, while the scolding aspect of the speech was vintage Carter, the rest of the speech was vintage Bush. For a second, it seemed as if we were only inches away from Obama stating “Let us never tolerate outrageous conspiracy theories.” Instead, we were treated with Obama’s very own Bushism – i.e. if people believe that our intelligence agencies aren’t trustworthy, they should listen to the intelligence agencies. Classic.

Obama also went on a tirade about how many Republicans have “favorable views” of Vladmir Putin and bemoaned the fact that many Trump supporters want to “stop sanctioning Russia” and “work together” against “common enemies.” In other words, Obama is perplexed at Putin’s support within his own country, which is much greater than Obama’s in the United States, and thus it is cause for a characteristic narcissistic meltdown by Obama. But the outrage over the fact that some people want to stop sanctioning Russia for fighting terrorism and supporting national sovereignty and peace the world over is a very telling display. After all, that “common enemy” Obama seems to think is ridiculous to fight together is al-Qaeda, ISIS, and other jihadist terrorist organizations, the same organizations that Americans have been committing blood, treasure, and virtually all their civil liberties toward defeating for the last sixteen years. The message of this statement was clear, however; the Nobel Peace Prize winner wants a war and certain people are getting in the way of it. Bring on the hissy fits and tears.

Skull and Bones Phukkery Fakery FAIL

Let me tell you what the British intelligence told me this morning. [Christopher Steele] was also an FBI asset at one point in time so he has an intelligence background, but he was paid for people that were working for Jeb Bush in order to discredit him. The democrats took over the contract. He kept adding to the dossier and using information given to him by the FSB in Russia, most of it fabricated, the more he put into the dossier, the more he got paid. So e made a sensationalist dossier, as fat as possible just like your lawyer charges you more billable hours in order to get paid more.

What is the Lesson Boys and Girls?

WaPo |  Venezuela’s economy is a catastrophe of Dickensian proportions. And for plenty of readers, that’s hardly a surprise. Every time I write about it, dozens pipe in with some variant on the same comment: “Socialism leading to total ruin — who would’ve thought?!” The temptation to read Venezuela’s collapse as ideological comeuppance seems to be irresistible. My country, people tell me again and again, is just the end of the line on the Road to Serfdom.

There’s just one problem with all this bashing of socialism: Bolivia.

Since 2006, Bolivia has been run by socialists every bit as militant as Venezuela’s. But as economist Omar Zambrano has argued, the country has experienced a spectacular run of economic growth and poverty reduction with no hint of the chaos that has plagued Venezuela. While inflation spirals toward the thousand-percent mark in Venezuela, in Bolivia it runs below 4 percent a year. Shortages of basic consumption goods — rampant in Caracas — are unheard of in La Paz. And extreme poverty — now growing fast in Venezuela — affects just 17 percent of Bolivians now, down from 38 percent before the socialists took over 10 years ago, even as inequality shrinks dramatically. The richest 10 percent in Bolivia used to earn 128 times more than the poorest 10 percent; today, they earn 38 times as much.

How can this be? It’s true that Bolivia has been on the receiving end of a staggering boom in natural resources for much of the past decade, as both the volume of its gas and mining exports and the price they fetch abroad jumped at the same time. Export revenue grew six-fold in the decade after Evo Morales, the charismatic hard-left president, took power, from $2.2 billion just before of his election to $12.9 billion at the peak of the boom.

So yes, that’s a bit like putting the game settings on “easy” when it comes to development. But it can hardly explain why Bolivia thrives while Venezuela spirals: Venezuela enjoyed an even bigger commodities boom, with exports climbing from $23 billion before the oil boom to $153 billion at its peak.

Turns out it’s not the boom itself that matters, it’s what you do with it.

Global Beta Test: Mexico

NYTimes |   Mr. Peña Nieto’s efforts have been handicapped, analysts say, by a seeming disconnect from the public mood.

The government looked unprepared for the violent responses to the price increases, which took effect on New Year’s Day, when most officials were on vacation. Mr. Peña Nieto himself was in the middle of a golfing trip. And as bloody unrest swept across the country, the president kept silent, finally making a public statement on the issue on Wednesday.

Even then, his comments were buried in a news conference focused on cabinet changes that included the return of Luis Videgaray, a close confidant who resigned under pressure as finance minister in September after championing an unpopular visit by Mr. Trump to Mexico.

The administration’s detached response to the upheaval contributed to the impression of a president out of touch with the population, analysts said, and gave a sense of a leadership that is adrift, blindsided by events.

The gas price increases of about 20 percent are part of a broad overhaul that ends the state’s monopoly over the energy industry. The government has long controlled and subsidized gasoline prices, but by the end of the year it will allow gas prices to fluctuate according to the market, a move intended to attract foreign investment to compete with the state oil company, Pemex.

The government has argued that ending fuel subsidies will help the country avoid spending cuts to social programs, and that the subsidies have disproportionately benefited wealthier Mexicans who own cars. But many fear that higher gasoline prices will increase costs for food and public transportation, hitting the pocketbooks of even the poorest Mexicans.

Though Mexico’s opposition parties are now condemning the price increase, most of them voted for it as part of the budget approved in October. But Mexico imports more than half of its gasoline from the United States, and Mr. Trump’s election sent the peso to a historic low, raising the price of imported gasoline in pesos greater than anybody expected.

Analysts said the government could have forestalled the fallout by designing measures that would have softened the blow for poorer Mexicans, or by creating subsidies for truck drivers or owners of older vehicles.

“They didn’t think about it,” said Vidal Romero, a political analyst at the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico. “There is no compensation for citizens.”

Continuing High Strangeness in an Engineered Failed State

Newsweek |  Like many villages in Venezuela, Tocorón is being crushed by a national economic crisis. The government blames the collapse of oil prices and companies allegedly trying to sabotage President Nicolás Maduro. Others, however, blame a dependence on oil and years of socialist-inspired policies by Maduro and his predecessor, Hugo Chávez. Either way, the country is now plagued by chronic shortages, rampant crime and waves of looting.

Yet the villagers of Tocorón are lucky. They have an ally in their desperate daily scramble for food: the local prison. This facility has all the products big cities don’t: sugar and shampoo, diapers and deodorant, toothpaste and toilet paper—all of it for sale in a bizarre black market behind bars, which has citizens—at least those who can afford it—trying to enter prison for food.

“Locals come here to do their shopping,” says Julio, an inmate at Tocorón, who like most inmates Newsweek interviewed asked only to be identified by his first name because of security reasons. “Sometimes we can’t even buy products because visitors always come first.”

Whereas most other prisons in Venezuela are on the verge of collapse, many inmates feel fortunate to have ended up in Tocorón. According to Carlos Nieto, the director of A Window to Liberty, a local nongovernmental organization, Venezuela’s prisons have close to 95,000 inmates—nine times more than the system can hold. The miserable conditions inmates face—poor sanitation, overpopulation and violence—have been exacerbated by the economic crisis. In some cases, inmates have been forced to eat stray dogs to avoid starvation.

Compared with such dire conditions, Tocorón seems like a country club. It has a gym, a pool, a nightclub, restaurants, small convenience stores and even a zoo. Sure, there’s violence, but there’s also plenty of food and no long lines. To pay for these amenities, the prison kingpin charges a monthly tax to every inmate: 1,500 bolivars—roughly 53 cents. 

Washington Behind India's Brutal Ban on Cash

washingtonsblog |  The business interests of the U.S. companies that dominate the global IT business and payment systems are an important reason for the zeal of the U.S. government in its push to reduce cash use worldwide, but it is not the only one and might not be the most important one. Another motive is surveillance power that goes with increased use of digital payment. U.S. intelligence organizations and IT companies together can survey all international payments done through banks and can monitor most of the general stream of digital data.  Financial data tends to be the most important and valuable.

Even more importantly, the status of the dollar as the world’s currency of reference and the dominance of U.S. companies in international finance provide the US government with tremendous power over all participants in the formal non-cash financial system. It can make everybody conform to American law rather than to their local or international rules. German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung has recently run a chilling story describing how that works (German). Employees of a German factoring firm doing completely legal business with Iran were put on a US terror list, which meant that they were shut off most of the financial system and even some logistics companies would not transport their furniture any more. A major German bank was forced to fire several employees upon U.S. request, who had not done anything improper or unlawful.

There are many more such examples. Every internationally active bank can be blackmailed by the U.S. government into following their orders, since revoking their license to do business in the U.S. or in dollar basically amounts to shutting them down. Just think about Deutsche Bank, which had to negotiate with the US Treasury for months whether they would have to pay a fine of 14 billion dollars and most likely go broke, or get away with seven billion and survive. If you have the power to bankrupt the largest banks even of large countries, you have power over their governments, too. This power through dominance over the financial system and the associated data is already there. The less cash there is in use, the more extensive and secure it is, as the use of cash is a major avenue for evading this power.

Do the Neocons Believe They Can Take Russia's Oil by Force?

lewrockwell |  I’ve gotten a couple emails from people who have asked me what I think the “end game” is in regards to Russia. And, indeed, the government is going into extra innings with this whole Russia vilification project. This is worse than someone who has held on to a grudge for years. The government does that, too, but they haven’t done it over ideology (as with Cuba) for quite some time now. What, then, is the motive?

The motive is perfectly clear: Oil. You see, Russia has already eclipsed Saudi Arabia as the world’s biggest oil producer. This means the big Saudi oil fields are drying up. And the government knows that, but they can’t tell us this because it’ll create a panic. One would think this would motivate the United States to get cozier with Russia. However, what the United States government fears is that if we do that, Russia will twig to the motive for it, and realize it has the United States over a barrel. An oil barrel. At which point the price goes up. Not to mention extracting concessions in the global sphere of influence.

Thus, what the United States is playing at here is trying to install a different “regime” in Russia. That being, one that Vladimir Putin does not control or have any influence over. This is easier said than done and the United States knows this. But the stakes are quite a bit higher than controlling the dwindling oil supply in the Middle East. Russia is obviously in control of most of the world’s remaining oil reserves. The United States needs a puppet regime in Russia to have access to that oil without paying the correct market price for it.

At some point, this gambit will fail. Russia is not the Middle East. A war with Russia cannot be won or cease-fired out of. Nor can a United States-backed “regime change” succeed over there. This is not the 1990s Russia of Boris Yeltsin. The United States, however, cannot come clean with the truth to the American people. The reason is because if the American people knew the truth, they’d never sleep nights anymore. The truth is this: Our entire economic system is based on petroleum and low-cost petroleum at that. But the actual nightmare is that our entire agricultural system is based on cheap oil.

The United States diet, especially for average Americans, is based on only three crops: Corn, wheat, and soy. Every processed food you see is based on fractions of those three staples. Meat is fed those three staples, even the farm-raised salmon you see in the store. Without those three crops, the United States would undergo a famine not seen in the United States ever at any point. The United States cannot feed itself without those three crops. What’s more, many large parts of the world depend on those three crops exported from the United States to feed themselves, too. Therefore, without them, the famine would turn into a runaway famine of global proportions.

The CIA is Already Retaliating Against Trump

lewrockwell |  No president since John F. Kennedy has dared to take on the CIA or the rest of the national security establishment or to operate outside the bounds of permissible parameters within the paradigm of the national-security state.

That might have been because post-JFK presidents just happened to find themselves on the same page as the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA.

But another possibility is that the one mentioned by Schumer: They knew that if they opposed the national-security establishment at a fundamental level, they would be subjected to retaliatory measures.

Kennedy had come into office as a standard Cold Warrior and as a supporter of the national-security state system, the totalitarian-like apparatus that was grafted onto America’s federal governmental system after World War II. But after he was set up and betrayed by the CIA with respect to the Bay of Pigs invasion, he was at loggerheads with that agency for the rest of his presidency. After the Bay of Pigs, he vowed to tear the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter them to the winds. He also fired CIA Director Allen Dulles, who, in a rather unusual twist of fate, would later be appointed to the Warren Commission to investigate Kennedy’s murder.

Kennedy’s antipathy toward the CIA gradually extended to what President Eisenhower had termed the military-industrial complex, especially when it proposed Operation Northwoods, which called for fraudulent terrorist attacks to serve as a pretext for invading Cuba, and when it suggested that Kennedy initiate a surprise nuclear attack on the Soviet Union. (The latter suggestion caused Kennedy to indignantly leave the meeting of the Joint Chiefs of Staff when the suggestion was made and remark to an aide, “And we call ourselves the human race.”

Golden Showers Leak Compared to Actual Leaks...,

snopes |  CLAIM: American intelligence has confirmed that President-elect Donald Trump was blackmailed by Russian operatives.

UNPROVEN

ORIGIN:On 10 January 2017, various web sites reported secondhand that United States intelligence officials had "just confirmed" that President-elect Donald Trump had been blackmailed by Russian operatives:

CNN has just reported that last week the heads of eight intelligence agencies presented information to both President Obama and President-elect Donald Trump that show Russian operatives claiming to have “compromising personal and financial information about Mr. Trump.”

This would mean that the Russians have the ability to blackmail Trump into doing whatever they wish. Not only do they have this dirt on Donald Trump, but they were constantly reminding him of it – and telling him what they wanted to see out of him throughout the campaign, since Trump campaign surrogates were in “continuing” contact with Russian government surrogates throughout the entire campaign.

The article is referencing compiled memos containing information given, in part, by a former British intelligence officer. A summary of the memos was presented to President Barack Obama and President-elect Trump in early January 2017. The memos had been leaked to the media as early as 31 October 2016, but were made public in full on 10 January 2017 when they were published by Buzzfeed.

Contrary to the claim that the information contained was "confirmed" by intelligence officers, credible media outlets note that the claims are unverified.

Old Octoroons Looking Sick As Hell About 11th Hour Fakery

reuters |   Classified documents that the heads of four U.S. intelligence agencies presented last week to President-elect Donald Trump included claims that Russian intelligence operatives have compromising information about him, two U.S. officials said Tuesday evening.

They told Reuters the claims, which one called "still unsubstantiated," were contained in a two-page memo appended to a report on Russian interference in the 2016 election that U.S. intelligence officials presented to Trump and President Barack Obama last week.

Trump responded on Tuesday evening in a tweet calling the reports: "FAKE NEWS - A TOTAL POLITICAL WITCH HUNT!" The Trump transition team did not immediately respond to a request for comment. One of the officials, both of whom requested anonymity to discuss classified matters, said the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other U.S. agencies are continuing to investigate the credibility and accuracy of the claims.

They are included in opposition research reports made available last year to Democrats and U.S. officials by a former British intelligence official, most of whose past work U.S. officials consider credible.

The official said investigators so far have been unable to confirm the material about Trump financial and personal entanglements with Russian businessmen and others whom U.S. intelligence analysts have concluded are Russian intelligence officers or working on behalf of Russian intelligence. Some material in the reports produced by the former British intelligence officer has proved to be erroneous, the official said.

The FBI declined comment.

Washington Invented Hacking and Interfering in Elections

unz |  The United States has directly interfered in Russia, using proxies, IMF loans and a media controlled by the oligarchs to run the utterly incompetent Boris Yeltsin’s successful campaign in 1996 and then continuing with more aggressive “democracy promotion” projects until Putin expelled many of the NGOs responsible in 2015. More recently there have been the pastel revolutions in Eastern Europe and the upheaval in Ukraine, which came about in part due to a $5 billion investment by the United States government in “democracy building” supplemented by regular visits from John McCain and the State Department’s activist Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland.

And then there are Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq and Syria as well as endorsement of the ongoing carnage in Yemen. The Congress meanwhile continues to call for regime change in Iran. So it leads to the question “Who is actually doing what to whom?”

One can well understand the anger at Russian actions but much of the sentiment is being fueled by a hostile press and deliberate U.S. government fear mongering orchestrated by the Obama Administration as its parting gift to the American people. A new Cold War would be good for no one. Stepping back a bit, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that anything Russia did or is suspected of doing in 2016 pales in comparison to what the United States has been doing for much longer and on a much wider scale. The Defense Department runs a cyber warfare command with a budget of $7 billion and the White House has ordered military interventions to bring about regime change in four Muslim majority countries while also interfering in a number of others since 9/11. The Obama response to an alleged Russian conspiracy that has yet to be demonstrated has been to send more soldiers to the Baltics while ordering a massive politically motivated retaliation that included the persona non grata expulsion of 35 Russian officials and their families. Moscow did not retaliate and instead invited U.S. diplomatic families to a Christmas celebration at the Kremlin. Sure, it was political theater to a certain extent but it has to make one wonder who was actually the adult in the room whenever Obama and Putin would meet.

Deep State Just Blinked - BIG TIME

WaPo  |  Let’s be clear: Hillary Clinton did not lose the 2016 election because of Russian meddling or WikiLeaks. And here is the proof: WikiLeaks began publishing its trove of Democratic National Committee emails on July 22, 2016, three days before the Democratic National Convention. By then, Hillary Clinton was already in a deep hole with American voters.

Long before WikiLeaks, Americans had concluded that Clinton was a congenital liar. A CNN poll taken July 13-16 found that 65 percent of voters said Clinton was neither honest nor trustworthy and that 57 percent would not be proud to have her as president. A July 16 CBS News poll showed similar results — 67 percent of voters said Clinton was not honest or trustworthy. And little wonder. By then, Clinton had lied so often, for so many years, about so many things — her emails, the Clinton Foundation, Benghazi, arriving in Bosnia under sniper fire, Whitewater, the firing of White House travel aides, the Madison S&L — that most Americans no longer believed a word she said.

It’s no surprise, then, that long before WikiLeaks, her approval rating was underwater. The same pre-WikiLeaks CNN poll found that 55 percent of Americans viewed Clinton unfavorably, while just 41 percent viewed her favorably — the lowest favorable rating she had scored in CNN polling in 24 years, going all the way back to April 1992. Gallup had similar results in its poll taken July 16-23. “As the Democratic National Convention gets underway in Philadelphia,” Gallup reported at the time, “Hillary Clinton’s image is at its lowest point in the 24 years of her national career, with 38% of Americans viewing her favorably and 57% unfavorably.”

In other words, the WikiLeaks stories simply confirmed what Americans already knew: that Clinton was dishonest and corrupt.

Meat the Presstitutes: Santelli Eviscerates Putrid Partisan Trollops

CNBC’s Rick Santelli called out Chuck Todd and Andrea Mitchell for their pro-Hillary bias in the most direct and embarrassing way possible on yesterday's Meet the Press. Mitchell, Chuck Todd, Donna Edwards, and David Brooks all got taken to the woodshed. After much narrative pearl-clutching and vapor-catching - host Chuck Todd ended the one-sided thrashing and changed the subject to outgoing SecDef Ashton Carter. 

realclearpolitics |   I think that what's going on here is really so politically driven. It doesn't matter who did what when. Working with Russia, we worked with Iran. Are they our friends? You have to take each situation uniquely. Listen, the president-elect has a boatload of issues. I agree with the pull of his ego. But I think that the media in general is just being quite unfair here.

CHUCK TODD: Wait, why is the media an issue?

RICK SANTELLI: Why is the media an issue?

CHUCK TODD: This is the intelligence community.

RICK SANTELLI: Okay, it's intelligence. Where was all of this when the D.N.C. was hacked in June? See, this wasn't made an issue. Because it would have put the emails and Hillary's server right in the middle in the thick of it. That's why this went under the radar screen. This is all tied together.

Other Minds

If we think the rest of the universe is without awareness we have to invent a disembodied "God" to replace what is missing. And then we treat the planet as if it were a mindless object - resources to strip (as if that caused no harm or pain) .... and a place to dump our toxic chemicals and trash.

Imagine what our thought would be like, Dogen says, if we had no separate words for "mind" and "nature."

WaPo |  “The two of you look at each other. This one is small, about the size of a tennis ball. You reach forward a hand and stretch out one finger, and one octopus arm slowly uncoils and comes out to touch you. The suckers grab your skin, and the hold is disconcertingly tight. Having attached the suckers, it tugs your finger, pulling you gently in. . . . Behind the arm, large round eyes watch you the whole time.”

Encountering an octopus in the wild, as Peter Godfrey-Smith argues in his fascinating book, “Other Minds,” is as close as we will get to meeting an intelligent alien. The octopus and its near relatives — squid, cuttlefish and nautilus — belong to a vast and eclectic group of creatures that lack backbones, the invertebrates. Collectively known as cephalopods (head-footed), they are related to snails and clams, sharing with them the unfortunate characteristic of tasting wonderful. Don’t read this book, though, if you want to continue eating calamari with an untroubled conscience, for living cephalopods are smart, beautiful and possessed with extraordinary personalities.

Esteban Santiago Ruiz - Yet Another Targeted Individual?

Curious - yet another shooter - this time seeking help from the FBI - believing himself to be a targeted individual.

distract101 |  The media has declared Santiago to be a loose cannon, suffering from mental health issues, with a potentially violent history.

This sort of picture conveniently discredits the most important part of this entire story. Estaban Santiago seemed to have been asking for help – as he voluntarily went to the FBI to report that he was being targeted by the CIA, and forced to “join ISIS.”

Of course, an admission or records of the CIA’s involvement in their nefarious, top-secret programs is nearly impossible. Thanks to plausible deniability and a narrative carried by the media that says anyone who speaks about a conspiracy involving government must be crazy, the truth may never be known.

Examining recent history of potentially mind-controlled “shooters.” 

When an informed person hears the term, mind control, their first thought is typically the MK Ultra program. MK Ultra, was a CIA mind control program using a variety of tactics, and likely still exists today(although under a different code name).

One of the main goals of the MK Ultra program, was to create the infamous “Manchurian Candidate,” which is the ultimate weapon in a cold war or spy game. Whether abroad, or at home, nefarious groups operating clandestinely could use such an individual to target politicians, diplomats, high-valued targets, and as unlikely as it may seemed – even the public.

In recent times, names like Aaron Alexis and James Boulware may come to mind.

In 2013, Aaron Alexis walked into a Washington D.C. Navy yard equipped with a rifle. On the stock of the rifle, Aaron Alexis had carved, “my ELF weapon.” Was this a message?

The document below was released by the Newport Police Department, and clearly shows Aaron Alexis made a desperate call for help, as he seemed certain he was being followed and targeted.

Open Thread IQ Test - What Are Your Thoughts On This?

Fist tap Dale

The "Intelligence" Community's Evidence-Free Report About RT and the Election

U.S. "intelligence" report accusing Putin

Life Changing Adjustment..., (REDUX Originally Posted 1/21/16)

BAMB |  People with proper body control do, in fact, carry themselves in such a way that no preliminary adjustment or movement is necessary to pass from standing to walking or from walking to running. They can also reverse any undertaken movement at any time more easily than other people. All directions are acces!ible to their inspection while in locomotion without an intermediate preliminary adjustment. 

These requirements for proper carriage are justified by the anatomy and mechanics of the body and they are valid for translation as well as rotation of the body.

The terms and form of our analysis may be novel; not so the substance. The culture of the hip joints and posture of the pelvis have always been the central point of all esoteric teachings concerned with increasing potency, sexual and otherwise.

In all oriental languages, reduction of the exaggerated lumbar. hyperextension is synonymous with manhood. "Gird up your loins" is the Biblical expression for "get ready for a manly effort." "Sprung from one's loins" denotes fatherhood. The Yogi, the Japanese wrestler, and in fact all Orientals have always ascribed power and potency to the lumbar·sacral region.

The dependence of proper breathing on the correct holding of the pelvis was also recognised by the Yogi long ago. Many of the prescriptions for correct Asanas, when stripped of the cloud of vague and mystic symbolism surrounding them, are basically sounder than many modern schools of physical education, misusing relaxation, tonus and posture. Even keener understanding ofthe functions of the body is shown by Judo experts in teaching the Jigotai or defensive states and the Shizentai or the balanced upright state, synonymous with mental and physical potency.

Unfortunately, only the example of the masters can convey the proper instruction, for their theory is based on and shrouded in a cloud of mystic symbolism as is all the knowledge of the Orient.

The Shizentai is essentially the potent state we have described. The graceful, precise and efficient movements executed effortlessly and without delay in any position and at any instant are made possible by maintaining the centre of gravity at the highest potential energy level possible.

The higher exponents of Judo show such great skill and perfection in the control of the head and especially the hips and lower abdomen (Saika- Tanden) that their performances seem to defy all laws of gravity.

Unless the pelvis and the head are carried properly, no athletic perfection can be achieved with ease, and some performances are quite impossible without these two requisites; a fact well known to all specialists and yet generally little appreciated.

All people with well matured mind and body functions carry themselves in the potent state. Marked deviations are found together with marked immaturity of other functions. The all-round matured individual is recognisable by his outstanding capacity for recovery from unexpected shocks or disturbances, mental, emotional or mechanical. Faulty recovery is never found on one of these planes of activity alone. This is a very important point to which we will return.

Outwardly, the potent state is observable by certain features common to all acts performed by the person. They are simple and direct. No effort is apparent no matter how difficult the exertion, nor how great the work may be. All the faculties and previous experience are smoothly co-ordinated to bear on the present circumstance, no matter how unexpected and violent the demand may be. When the emergency is over, deliberate reflection only corroborates the adequacy of the spontaneous response. The musculature shows no useless contraction in any part of the body.

All the articulations participate in every act. None is held rigidly in any particular configuration not dictated by the immediate task being performed. In motion, none of the articulations retains any useless, habitually preferred configuration. In short, the whole system is integrated on the present circumstance with perfection and poise, preparing the body and mind for future acts. The instances where the frame is carried on by inertia are as short as possible and any performance can be reversed, or stopped, if the circumstance demands. Such an ideal behaviour is within the capacity of every frame in which all functions have full maturity, an extremely rare circumstance.

Perfect maturity of the antigravity function is recognisable by the narrowness of gait. The traces left by the feet when advancing fit between two parallel lines, about two-thirds of the width of both feet, apart. The two heels never touch the ground simultaneously.

Prints of the bare feet on the ground would be so spaced that following points would be on one straight line the middle of each heel and the edge of the second toe facing the big toe. The legs move simply, i.e., they do not do anything else but the movement strictly necessary for the purpose. So does the whole body. The trajectories described by each part in motion are therefore smooth curves. There are no jerky, angular movements whatsoever, except in sharp accidental righting.

The following chapters deal with the reasons of failure to achieve the perfection which should, ideally, be the average normal for all anatomically intact persons. Means whereby reeducation of faulty response may be efficiently achieved are also suggested. To understand the reason and judge the soundness of these suggestions it is necessary to inquire into the relation of the vestibular apparatus and spatial representation and particularly into an antigravity attitude and its connection with anxiety.

The Indispensable Moving Meditation

tomikiaikido |  Walking Kata Points

This was taken from a Tai Chi website. I think it applies to the Tomiki Lineage Unsoku and Tegatana practice of the Walking Kata. Besides this applying to the walk, it of course applies to technique and application of principle. Remember no martial art has a monopoly on truth. Efficient motion is the goal!

1.Straightening the head.
Stand straight, relax your neck and suspend the head naturally erect from the crown point without strain or tension. The image to model is "hanging by a string from the top of one's head" such that the head and neck align by the force of gravity alone.

2. Correct position of chest and back.
The chest is kept slightly depressed inward which helps enables one's breath to sink to the lower belly. The upper back is slightly bowed outward while the pelvis is tucked under.

3. Remain relaxed with no tension.
Relax and loosen all the joints, particularly the shoulders and elbows, and sink them so that they are flexible, connected and are able to integrate into proper structure. Relaxed does not mean limp. Proper structure is held with a minimum of muscular exertion with gravity providing the downward stacking, providing power from the root into the ground. Tai Chi transfers energy in the form of a vibration much like a whip which has no tension. When the musculature and joints are relaxed, aligned, and connected the wave or pulse of the movement is conducted through them with no retained tension.

4. All movement comes from the center.
The waist is the "ruler." All movement comes from the waist, whether it is a hand movement or a step. Make the waist cause each movement . The waist as the "ruler" must be relaxed, initiating, controlling, guiding and distributing the direction and amount of energy transmitted.

5. Harmonize the upper and lower parts of the body.
The vibration of any Tai Chi movement roots at the feet, releases from the legs, is controlled by the waist, moving eventually through the back and arms and finally is expressed by the fingers. To achieve this coordinated path first requires that the feet are at all times firmly attached to the ground like big roots of a tree. The knees must remain slightly flexed. Finally, the upper and lower body must move harmoniously so that all parts of the body are strung together without the slightest break.

6. The entire body moves as a single unit.
The entire body should move as one complete unit, not just a hand, leg or arm. Once one part of your body moves, every other part of your body should also be in motion; when you are still, everything should be in stillness. "Be still as a mountain...move like a great river."

7. All movements are performed in a smooth manner, with no unevenness, and continuous, allowing no interruptions.
All Tai Chi movements are performed smoothly and evenly. This means that the movements in training never speed up and then slow down. There is never a detectable start and finish from one form to the next. A common image used is that of reeling silk thread from a cocoon. Reeling too fast or suddenly will break the silk while reeling too slow or in the wrong direction may tangle it.

8. Maintain the clear distinction between substantial and insubstantial.
Agility is the result of non-double weighting. This means that one's weight is never maintained equally over both legs. One leg is always heavy and one leg is light. By only maintaining one point of substantial contact with the ground you gain the ability to move quickly, much like a ball which moves easily across the ground because it only has one point of contact with it.

9. Breath deeply from your lower belly and in harmony with the movements.
The breath is deep and full, filling oneself from Tan tien (2-3 inches below your navel.) Each movement is linked precisely with the breath, so that as one expands the body, there is an exhale, and when one contracts the body, there is a inhale. Since the breath is linked to very slow movements, your breathing will also be very slow.

10. The mind leads the body.
In Tai Chi, one focuses the attention on the mind, instead of on force. Therefore, use your mind to direct your movements, and let the body follow. Keep the mind fully conscious, aware, and with intent along each and every tiny point along the path of the movement and each point of the body. The mind and breath are king and queen and the bones and muscles are the court

Shizentai - Correct Carriage of the Pelvis and Head

kendo-guide |   Shizentai means "natural posture". However, it is not your ordinary posture.

You must learn the natural posture in order to stand naturally. Yes. Very complicated but you will get used to the posture.

The key point are;

to straighten the back of your neck, to pull your chin in, to tighten the butt cheeks.

It does not sound like a natural posture. Very uncomfortable for the first time you try.

Probably you know there is a difference between being relaxing and being lazy.

We do not want to be lazy. We need an effort to keep your posture but you can be relax.

That is what we want. Ok, this is how we create this natural posture.

Threaten the U.S. President-elect with the CIA - How Liberal

libertyblitzkrieg |  New Senate Minority leader, and Wall Street mega-defender, Chuck Schumer just went on Rachel Maddow’s MSNBC show and warned Donald Trump that U.S. intelligence agencies could retaliate against him for disagreeing with their claims (based on no public evidence thus far) that Russia hacked the DNC/John Podesta and released it to Wikileaks with the intent of helping Trump win the election.

Here’s what he said courtesy of The Washington Examiner:

The new leader of Democrats in the Senate says Donald Trump is being “really dumb” for picking a fight with intelligence officials, suggesting they have ways to strike back, after the president-elect speculated Tuesday that his “so-called” briefing about Russian cyberattacks had been delayed in order to build a case.

“Let me tell you: You take on the intelligence community — they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer Tuesday evening on MSNBC after host Rachel Maddow informed him that intelligence sources told NBC news that the briefing had not been delayed.

Now watch the clip for yourself. I’m certain the near permanent grin on his face will not be lost upon you either.

You Have to Move Forward Out of Where You Are

swans |  I recall a Buddhist parable involving a stick that appears from a distance to be a snake, causing fear to rise in the perceiver. As the perception shifts upon closer examination, the fear subsides and the relieved hiker continues down the path. Understanding and awareness have a lot to do with how we feel and how we act. As hosts to the dominant cultural mindset (our collective understanding of who we are in the universe), our minds play a critical part in both perpetuating our dominant way of life and also in shifting away from it. And so it's just possible that I have performed no greater service in my three decades of activism than to simply challenge myself and others to consider the possibility that the social systems that support us and we sustain are inherently incapable of meeting basic human needs and that we must make a fresh start, in a sense, if we are to survive this century and prosper thereafter. 

These systems are the largely invisible, cyclical patterns of interaction among and within society's individuals, institutions, and principalities. They include small town school systems all the way out to our globalized economic system and to the mother of them all, our globalized monoculture. You need to perceive the stick as a stick before you can confidently move on, and this consideration is a critical step in transforming the way we live. When an alcoholic decides to sober up, he needs to understand, as AA puts it, that he is powerless to the substance. This understanding is a necessary condition for recovery. Likewise, about 6 billion humans living on our planet are powerless to make our global systems support equitable, sustainable, enjoyable living. Further, we are powerless to use the tools of these systems to prevent our world from crashing down on itself. 

In a few critical ways, our global monoculture dates back to the Mesopotamian settlements our history texts associate with the Agricultural Revolution. Over the millennia, this rapidly expanding cultural system, under the guise of various imperial masks, has come to produce predictable results, terrible and also quite marvelous. The terrible includes unrelieved poverty for the majority of the world's population, widespread unhappiness and spiritual alienation, even (especially?) among the wealthy 10 percent of the world's population, and the unsustainable use of natural resources. This last result seals our present day ultimatum -- our culture and our survival as a species have become incompatible. As if possessing a will and mind of its own, the culture has a voracious appetite for assimilating all cultures into itself and then separating every thing under its umbrella from every other thing into the smallest possible units, mainly to compete with each other. Its compulsion is to consume and waste, grow and expand, dominate, control and compete at a speed and intensity that is destroying the societies we assume it has evolved to serve.

The Octave is a Repetition of an Already Experienced Quality on a New Level

Transforming Food - First being Food

So, my boy, this totality of cosmic substances named 'exioëhary,' resulting from the evolution of the first being-food in these beings-apparatuses, corresponds in its vibrations to the last stopinder of the being-Heptaparaparshinokh and, according to the particularity of this stopinder, it enters the 'higher intentionally actualizing mdnel-in' of the law of Heptaparaparshinokh. And in order to complete its transformation into new higher substances and acquire vibrations corresponding to the next higher degree of vivifyingness, that is, corresponding to the fifth stopinder of the fundamental process of the sacred Heptaparaparshinokh, it indispensably requires just that outside help which can be obtained in the presence of three-brained beings only through those factors mentioned by me more than once, and which are manifested in 'being-partkdolgduty', in other words, those factors which our Common Father Creator Endlessness consented to designate as the means by which certain tetartocosmoses — as a final result of their service to the purposes of the common-cosmic Iraniranumange— could become helpers in the administration of the enlarging world. And as for these factors, which are the sole possible means for the assimilation of the cosmic substances required for the coating and perfecting of the higher being-bodies, today we call them 'conscious labor' and 'intentional suffering'. (15)

Transforming Air - Second Being Food

Gurdjieff was very circumspect about breathing exercises which altered the natural rhythm of breathing. Some of the Movements naturally demand certain altered patterns of breathing. Beyond that, Gurdjieff encouraged the simple practice of conscious attention to the breath. "This signified that the passengers of the ship Karnak were summoned to the "Djamdjampal," that is, that "refectory" of the ship in which all the passengers together periodically fed on the second and first being-foods." 

"After the process of taking in the second being-food, Beelzebub did not immediately return from the "Djameechoonatra"" (14) "This whole attention of mine, I now intentionally divide into two equal parts. The first half I consciously direct to the uninterrupted constatation and continuous sensing of the process proceeding in me of my breathing."

Transforming Impressions - Third Being Food

In the book GURDJIEFF: ESSAYS AND REFLECTIONS ON THE MAN AND HIS TEACHING, there was a chapter on Questions and Responses, which contains transcripts from meetings from the 1940s in which Gurdjieff replies to a question by a pupil (p274-275) : 

Dr. B.: I would like to ask a question about the relationship between work and fatigue. It seems to me there is a difference between work efforts and automatic efforts. Outer work takes energy. Inner work is the opposite— it should accumulate energy. It should even be restful if it is done correctly. But for me it is the opposite. At the moment of making an effort something believes that the gates through which energy escapes will close autornatically. But it’s the opposite. I become very tired. I lose my energy.

GURDJIEFF: On the other hand, you keep it. Consciously. we eat the electricity that is in the body and transform it. This establishes in us a force. . . . In ordinary life you automatically lose this. But here it’s not the same thing; it’s not the same kind of fatigue. This other fatigue has a future. It’s tiring but it brings you a substantial result. It refills your accumulators. If you continue, a certain substance will refill your accumulator. Today the more you tire yourself, the more your organism will produce this substance.

DR. B.: Is fatigue favorable or unfavorable to the effort of concentration?

GURDJIEFF: If it’s ordinary fatigue, it’s not worth trying to make the effort; with that you can’t even do the ordinary things of life. You lose the last of your strength. Work depends on another accumulator. There is a law for this other kind of fatigue: the more you give, the more you receive.

***********************************************************************************

The energy which triggers a sensory nerve never actually gets into the brain, it simply trips a switch, so to speak, which releases pre-existing energy in the nerve to initiate an ionic chain reaction and its accompanying electromagnetic field and transmit an 'electrical impulse' to the brain. The higher brain centers are receiving 'information' about a change of state of our internal electromagnetic environment, not any new energy from the outside world, like the food and air octaves. 

The information is represented by different shapes and sizes of electrical impulses. The interesting thing about information is that it can be represented by almost any kind of medium. For example, these words appear on your computer screen by illuminated phosphors, they may then be printed on a piece of paper with ink. They have been transmitted to you with binary digits of 0 and 1's represented by pulses of electromagnetic energy. I could scratch these words in the sand with a stick or spell them out with stones. In other words, information exists on a different level of reality than the matter/energy used to represent it.

We 'eat' the information from impressions by moving electrical impulses that represent the information around the brain to certain places where that information is stored in another form of medium, possibly various combinations of proteins. Memory is a mental accumulator of information. The more attention we pay to our incoming information, the more of it gets stored in our accumulator.

Deep State Openly Threatening the President-Elect

WaPo |  Trump, if he keeps this up, is heading for a collision with both sides of the aisle in Congress and constant political fencing with the intelligence agencies. If Cabinet nominees support Trump’s pro-Russian stance, they run the risk of getting blocked. And worse, if and when a national security crisis hits, the intelligence community will have every reason to let it be known that the president was out to lunch.

Trump seems determined to prove his critics right — he is not temperamentally or intellectually up to the job. His family and closest advisers had better tell him to get a grip, or his presidency will have a rocky start and may never fully recover.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) will begin a hearing on Thursday looking into the Russian attacks on democratic elections. Witnesses will include James R. Clapper Jr., director of national intelligence; Marcel J. Lettre II, undersecretary of defense for intelligence; and Admiral Michael S. Rogers, commander of the U.S. Cyber Command and director of the National Security Agency. When sober, experienced officials begin laying out the case against Russia, the public may fully appreciate just how absurd Trump is being. His reflexive defense of Russia will rightly be seen as anything but “America First.” 

Behold the Man

So here we are - caught up in a maelstrom of economic and political discontents - so many untethered from that which gave their lives structure and purpose. Accelerating changes in the planetary ecology, coupled with even faster changes in hive-ape technology - have imperiled millions who lack the knowledge, skill, ability, or drive - to keep up - or even survive. 

The ordinary man is-as-he-is - because of his failure to actualize Effort - Intentional Suffering

- Self-Observation - Conscious Labor. Even if he wishes and chooses to do - it may not be possible for him to do. The ordinary man is like a man lying on the ground with a broken leg. We call him ordinary in exactly the same way we might say the man on the ground is suffering a "failure to walk". 

 

Without help, is it possible for him to simply stand up and be on his way?

 

 

What To Do, What To Do....?

Effort: Awakening results from consistent, prolonged effort. Such efforts can be made as an act of will after one is already exhausted.

Intentional suffering:  The act of struggling against automatism such as daydreaming, idle pleasure, food (eating for reasons other than real hunger), etc... "the greatest 'intentional suffering' can be obtained by compelling ourselves to endure the displeasing manifestations of others toward ourselves" 

Self-Observation: This is to strive to observe in oneself behavior and habits usually only observed in others.  Observe thoughts, feelings, movements, and sensations without judging or analyzing what is observed.

Conscious Labor: is an action where the person who is performing the act is present to what he is doing; not absentminded. At the same time he is striving to perform the act more efficiently. 

Application of the above principles is the indispensable prerequisite for possible human development.

Everything else is merely conversation....,

The War on Stupid People

theatlantic |  Rather than looking for ways to give the less intelligent a break, the successful and influential seem more determined than ever to freeze them out. The employment Web site Monster captures current hiring wisdom in its advice to managers, suggesting they look for candidates who, of course, “work hard” and are “ambitious” and “nice”—but who, first and foremost, are “smart.” To make sure they end up with such people, more and more companies are testing applicants on a range of skills, judgment, and knowledge. CEB, one of the world’s largest providers of hiring assessments, evaluates more than 40 million job applicants each year. The number of new hires who report having been tested nearly doubled from 2008 to 2013, says CEB. To be sure, many of these tests scrutinize personality and skills, rather than intelligence. But intelligence and cognitive-skills tests are popular and growing more so. In addition, many employers now ask applicants for SAT scores (whose correlation with IQ is well established); some companies screen out those whose scores don’t fall in the top 5 percent. Even the NFL gives potential draftees a test, the Wonderlic.

 Yes, some careers do require smarts. But even as high intelligence is increasingly treated as a job prerequisite, evidence suggests that it is not the unalloyed advantage it’s assumed to be. The late Harvard Business School professor Chris Argyris argued that smart people can make the worst employees, in part because they’re not used to dealing with failure or criticism. Multiple studies have concluded that interpersonal skills, self-awareness, and other “emotional” qualities can be better predictors of strong job performance than conventional intelligence, and the College Board itself points out that it has never claimed SAT scores are helpful hiring filters. (As for the NFL, some of its most successful quarterbacks have been strikingly low scorers on the Wonderlic, including Hall of Famers Terry Bradshaw, Dan Marino, and Jim Kelly.) Moreover, many jobs that have come to require college degrees, ranging from retail manager to administrative assistant, haven’t generally gotten harder for the less educated to perform.

At the same time, those positions that can still be acquired without a college degree are disappearing. The list of manufacturing and low-level service jobs that have been taken over, or nearly so, by robots, online services, apps, kiosks, and other forms of automation grows longer daily. Among the many types of workers for whom the bell may soon toll: anyone who drives people or things around for a living, thanks to the driverless cars in the works at (for example) Google and the delivery drones undergoing testing at (for example) Amazon, as well as driverless trucks now being tested on the roads; and most people who work in restaurants, thanks to increasingly affordable and people-friendly robots made by companies like Momentum Machines, and to a growing number of apps that let you arrange for a table, place an order, and pay—all without help from a human being. These two examples together comprise jobs held by an estimated 15 million Americans.

Meanwhile, our fetishization of IQ now extends far beyond the workplace. Intelligence and academic achievement have steadily been moving up on rankings of traits desired in a mate; researchers at the University of Iowa report that intelligence now rates above domestic skills, financial success, looks, sociability, and health.

Ecce Homo

wikipedia |   Ecce Homo: How One Becomes What One Is (German: Ecce homo: Wie man wird, was man ist) is the last original book written by philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche before his final years of insanity that lasted until his death in 1900. It was written in 1888 and was not published until 1908.

According to one of Nietzsche's most prominent English translators, Walter Kaufmann, the book offers "Nietzsche's own interpretation of his development, his works, and his significance."^[1] The book contains several chapters with ironic self-laudatory titles, such as "Why I Am So Wise", "Why I Am So Clever", "Why I Write Such Good Books" and "Why I Am a Destiny". Walter Kaufmann, in his biography Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist noticed the internal parallels, in form and language, to Plato's Apology which documented the Trial of Socrates. In effect, Nietzsche was putting himself on trial with this work, and his sardonic judgments and chapter headings are mordant, mocking, self-deprecating, sly, and they turn this trial against his future accusers, distorters, and superficial judges

Within this work, Nietzsche is self-consciously striving to present a new image of the philosopher and of himself, for example, a philosopher "who is not an Alexandrian academic nor an Apollonian sage, but Dionysian."[2] On these grounds, Kaufmann considers Ecce Homo a literary work comparable in its artistry to Vincent van Gogh's paintings. Just as Socrates was presented in Plato's Apology as the wisest of men precisely because he freely admitted to his own ignorance, Nietzsche argues that he himself is a great philosopher because of his withering assessment of the pious fraud of the entirety of Philosophy which he considered as a retreat from honesty when most necessary, and a cowardly failure to pursue its stated aim to its reasonable end. Nietzsche insists that his suffering is not noble but the expected result of hard inquiry into the deepest recesses of human self-deception, and that by overcoming one's agonies a person achieves more than any relaxation or accommodation to intellectual difficulties or literal threats. He proclaims the ultimate value of everything that has happened to him (including his father's early death and his near-blindness – an example of love of Fate or amor fati). In this regard, the wording of his title was not meant to draw parallels with Jesus, but suggest a contrast, that Nietzsche truly is "a man." Nietzsche's point is that to be "a man" alone is to be more than "a Christ".

Post 10,001