merylnass | Here is another wonderfully researched and written look into the long
morbid history of how the powerful repeatedly sterilize the powerless.
Hard to believe, but California was still sterilizing women in prisons
until about 20 years ago, that we know of. The Midwestern Doctor has
produced another tour de force.
“Billionaires Try to Shrink World’s Population”: Secret Gathering Sponsored by Bill Gates, 2009 Meeting of “The Good Club”
Is Worldwide Depopulation Part of the Billionaire's "Great Reset"
For more than ten years, meetings have been held by billionaires described as philanthropists to Reduce the Size of the World’s Population culminating with the 2020-2022 Covid crisis.
Recent
developments suggest that “Depopulation” is an integral part of the
so-called Covid mandates including the lockdown policies and the mRNA
“vaccine”.
Flash back to 2009. According to the Wall Street Journal: “Billionaires Try to Shrink World’s Population”.
In
May 2009, the Billionaire philanthropists met behind closed doors at
the home of the president of The Rockefeller University in Manhattan.
This Secret Gathering was sponsored by Bill Gates. They called themselves “The Good Club”.
Among the participants were the late David Rockefeller, Warren Buffett, George Soros, Michael Bloomberg Ted Turner, Oprah Winfrey and many more.
In May 2009, the WSJ as well as the Sunday Times reported: (John Harlow, Los Angeles) that
“Some
of America’s leading billionaires have met secretly to consider how
their wealth could be used to slow the growth of the world’s population
and speed up improvements in health and education.”
The emphasis was not on population growth (i.e Planned Parenthood) but on “Depopulation”, i.e,. the reduction in the absolute size of the World’s population.
BostonGlobe | On a recent warm and humid summer night, a group of public health colleagues and I were approaching a restaurant for dinner. “Inside or out?” I asked. Not long ago, COVID-19 would have decided — outside. But not that night. We ate inside, where it was cooler.
Like so many others, we are living with COVID. The virus isn’t going anywhere, but how safely we live with it has changed dramatically. Most Americans have resumed the full range of their pre-pandemic activities — concerts, parties, summer camps, and family events. But with the virus still circulating, many who have gone back to pre-pandemic life still worry if they are safe.
It makes sense to be wary. We have lived with these risk assessments and daily decisions for almost four years. And yet we are in a much different, much better place. We can protect ourselves with vaccines,
which remain free and widely available. Treatments like Paxlovid are
more accessible than ever. Innovative research continues, with an updated vaccine expected in the fall that will better target the circulating variant.
Tests are available for those who still want to use testing, and
surveillance, through wastewater and genomic sequencing, is much better
than it used to be. Add in large investments in improving indoor air
quality and the infrastructure to respond more effectively to future
outbreaks and things are much better.
The
truth is that we can now prevent nearly every COVID death. People who
are up to date on their vaccines and get treated when infected rarely
get seriously ill. Even for the vulnerable like my parents, who are in
their 80s, vaccines coupled with treatments provide a very high degree
of protection against serious illness. This is also true for most
immuno-compromised individuals. The fact is, now a few basic steps mean
you can ignore COVID safely — and get back to doing things that matter,
even with COVID still around. Think of these safety measures like the
routine check-ups that keep your car safe to drive.
What
are these measures? The most important is making sure immunity is up to
date. For most of us, this means one COVID booster shot annually. For
high-risk people whose immune systems are less robust (like my parents
and others over 65), two shots per year will help shore up waning
immunity and avoid unnecessary vulnerability. The Biden administration
has made a large investment in building vaccines that will stop
infections and whose benefits will potentially last years. Until those
vaccines arrive, an updated shot annually for most of us and two shots a
year for the most vulnerable will keep most people safe from serious
illness.
I
get it — no one likes to get shots. But vaccines are the single
greatest weapon we have to put the pandemic behind us. Getting a shot
against the flu is already a regular part of the lives of many
Americans, including those of us who work in health care. Vulnerable
Americans will be safer if we all get both flu and COVID shots every
year.
Second,
if you do contract COVID, make use of the highly effective treatments.
There are several available now and more coming soon. These treatments,
like Paxlovid, are remarkable at preventing serious illness,
with some preliminary evidence that they might also help reduce the
risk of long COVID. While treatments are particularly important for
those of us over 50, all adults should immediately explore treatments if
they contract COVID.
reddit |
Our “consciousness” accepts a different permutation of reality, one
that isn’t predictable or cognitively relatable to us as we have laid it
out.
It isn’t inherently
“logical”, nor does it fit in any scientific box that we can categorize
or at any scale that we can scientifically validate.
It
is most certainly real/tangible, but also not at all. It is
color/light/intensity, solid/holographic but at once devoid of light,
matter. Separate from any agreed upon logic, glitchy and off putting at
times, bridging the paranormal and the occult.. directed by intention.
But most definitely real.
How do
you/we think in our minds?, how does one actually “think”? ( pull In
thoughts )… - Pay attention to your imagination/your antenna … what do
you desire/imagine.. collectively what do we all believe?. What shapes/
archetypes have these ufo taken?, what shape did they take in the past
and now in our present time. What are you thinking/forming into reality
now and why?. Have you stopped to think.
“They”
act out, misbehave. Play like children - like make believe - like
imagination, a dream, a random thought/fantasy, a fleeting spark in
one’s mind….
How do we think?, how
do we actually imagine?… how many jittery ufo videos have you seen, how
do your eyes “dart” as you scan your environment or how your thoughts
dart around as you jump to different ideas. How do UFOs skip, jitter and
appear irrationally, almost like a thought pattern. Like consciousness.
You have been conditioned your whole life away from one crucial part of your being..
“Make believe is for children”, imagination isn’t “Real”…
Practically
on the surface, that totally makes sense.. our 3D world has rules to
sustain our 3D bodies so we can extend our lives, propagating evolution,
we need to be grounded to progress, it’s indeed critical.. but it isn’t
all.
We do need our connection to
this reality to survive, no doubt. But other intelligent entities can
access consciousness through other means and aren’t purely tethered to
our 3D space, they can play/navigate on their own terms. Their usage of
“imagination” is unbound.
Hypothetical
Higher beings without a limiting lack of ressources, could navigate in
any permutation of space/time seeing no “good or bad” because why would
they, there is no need.. those emotions stem from our resource
management. Our reality would be a test bed to explore. Because ”It
just is”.
So why will you never know?.. truly .. why is there a Fermi paradox? :
Picture
billions of predictable human beings conditioned over all known history
to flow/conform, dance an agreed upon dance, one that crafted over time
leads us on a “safer” path, one that is predictable, one that should
ensure a progression to evolution and one that if all fails can be
redirected with relatively minimal effort.. ( keep in mind humans are
emotional/reactive beings that can disregard logic frequently at a whim,
so we navigate within a set of parameters )
Now
what if we realize that we are in fact tethered to our individual
thoughts as a real tipping point that can mold this reality.. our
emotions/fears/fetishes/disgusts/loves/likes being a real reality
shifting factor…, they now have true weight. They are a directing force
that consciousness can flow through. This, all at once ( or within
weeks/years ) humans realize their mental frequency does in fact
actually shape/form/morph reality into a space/or confine that we must
all live in together, one that can fluctuate on a whim… We can in fact
all shape this world. Quite literally. So I actually get the fear of
what that represents.
This current
system you see is a “child’s lock” on human evolution, possibly rightly
so. It is a way to gate us until we can finally learn and accept this
truth, step out of emotional resource patterns and “see”. As much as I
wish we were ready, we are not even remotely close to accepting this as a
“whole” ( “whole” being the key, you could alone as a reader accept
this 🙏, large populations just won’t be able to take that step at all,
our mind is the Fermi paradox, THIS is the key).
To
“disclose” and finally progress as an intellectual species in this
dimension?... Humanity must deal with the simple facts above.
Rules/guidelines are here because we aren’t able to process the actual
reality, we may want too but logistically cannot. Your neighbor could
influence your whole life path, as could you to them, you could topple
regimes, but also be enslaved just as easily. This power/knowledge will
remain “vaulted” forever, or until we are ready. I likely will not see
that day and I get it.
How do we
“believe” as a unified intelligence. How do we understand, accept these
facts and not kill each other to get there. That I honestly don’t know. I
recognize we probably can’t know, at least not now. “We” as a global
intelligent entity are just not able to process this information and
react to it without immediately going into fear, greed, lust or hatred,
you can disagree but it’s just a clear fact with all known history to
support it.
When/if we can parse this information, we will move forward.
There
is indeed a cover up, it isn’t to fuck with you or suppress you for the
elites benefit or to withhold resources, it is to ensure we continue as
an extension of consciousness into this dimension, it’s that simple,
nothing more. We may believe we are ready, our species is not. It’s that
simple.
greyfalcon | There is another, less appreciated, dimension to UFO secrecy. These objects, we know, have demonstrated amazing manoeuvring capabilities. Some of them, at least, can accelerate instantly in all directions, turn on a dime, stop and hover motionlessly, and remain silent the whole while.
Our military aircraft have been unable to compete. In 1975, UFOs that could hover like silent helicopters and move like silent jets were unmolested by U.S. aircraft. In a well-known incident over Belgium in 1990, a triangular UFO thoroughly outclassed F-16 interceptors. During the summer of 2002, just outside Washington, D.C., a UFO easily outpaced and outmanoeuvred pursuing F-16s.
A common question that arises is, what kind of propulsion system do these objects use. But I wonder, what makes them go?
This question is more than academic. There are legitimate reasons to expect that we are about to experience a petroleum crisis of epic proportions, much sooner than we expect. Once a fringe belief, there are now many oil analysts who believe this.
The problem is basic supply and demand. The supply is finite; the demand shows no signs of limit. In fact, global oil demand is now increasing at the fantastic rate of 4 percent annually, which translates into a doubling rate of every 17 years. I don’t care what your supply is, you cannot double demand of anything indefinitely, and certainly not at the rate the petroleum demand is moving.
Recall the ancient Chinese story about the peasant who performed a good deed for the Emperor. "I will grant you any wish you ask," said the grateful Emperor. The peasant took a chess board and said, "I don’t ask for much. Simply place a grain of rice on the first square, then double the amount for each successive square on the board, and I will be content." "Silly peasant," thought the Emperor. "I would have given him something of value." For much of the board, the amount of rice was small enough. By the last few squares, however, the Emperor went broke. By the final square, the amount of rice would have exceeded all the rice in the world.
Experts argue about when the petroleum crisis will hit, but it is the height of folly to pretend it won’t arrive. Whether it will be 50 years, 20 years, or 5 years, our civilization needs to find a way to replace petroleum. UFO technology very likely holds part of the answer, maybe all of the answer.
Some people agree with this assessment, and believe that the "powers that be" are simply holding out on us until the oil truly runs out, just to maximize their profit. Then it’s free energy time – although we assume someone will find a way to make money from it.
You had better hope that such blind trust turns out to be accurate. I’m less confident that a benevolent elite will bail my ass out at the eleventh hour. For all I know, they may have decided that there are too many of us on this planet, anyway. "Time to clean house. I’ve got my bunker. How about you?"
Freedom and Self-Governance
For a democratically-based political system to function, there must be a reasonable amount of congruence between what people believe and what is actually the case. You elect a member of congress with the idea that he or she will represent your interests within the nation’s primary instrument of political power: the Congress. Except that Congress has been made irrelevant by other centres of power, or been taken over by them.
You get your news from television or your newspaper with the idea that the journalist on the other end is a kind of watchdog, looking out for the public interest. Except that the journalist is working for a corporation which is itself antithetical to the public interest.
Unseen structures of power have evolved over the previous generations, advancing sometimes slowly, sometimes with a dramatic suddenness. But most people lack the conceptual means by which to understand what is happening.
As I have suggested, I believe that a significant part of that power structure involves the possession and exploitation of UFO-related technology. And I certainly believe that the secrecy has gone on for so long that it has become integral to keeping the whole system together.
Once you start lying, how can you un-do the lie? Today, UFO secrecy has been with the U.S. – and by extension the world – for about sixty years. That’s nearly as long as the Soviet Union existed on the basis of its own labyrinthine web of lies.
The comparison is apt. I still recall holding in my hands a commemorative oversized Soviet book celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution of 1917. The book was published in 1937, during the depths of Stalin’s rule. There was a colorized version of a famous photograph showing Lenin at a podium speaking to a crowd, and I noticed that Leon Trotsky – Stalin’s great political enemy – had been airbrushed out of the picture. That’s simply how the Soviet system worked. The government lied constantly, and everyone knew it, and everyone in the country pretended that the government didn’t lie.
Constant lying in the Soviet Union meant that the official powers had to systematically think about how to organize and manipulate public information to keep people in line. I remember trying to read through The Great Soviet Encyclopaedia, an impossibly organized mess of propaganda and fact so that you couldn’t learn anything about anything that truly mattered. That’s just how it was.
Looking back, we can see how it would have been impossible for such a society to continue indefinitely, ruled as it was on the basis of a series of lies. When Gorbachev took power in 1985, he wanted to reform that society. His catchphrases were glasnost and perestroika: openness and restructuring. I was a young student of Soviet history at that time, and remember the excitement well. I also recall the scepticism of some of my professors who continued to believe for some time that this was yet another communist plot.
No matter. Within six years, there was no more Soviet Union. What happened? Well, one thing that happened, a big thing, was that the process of reform spiralled out of control. You make a big change here, and the next guy wants change over there. It becomes hard to put on the brakes. You start with openness, for example, and you open the books on Stalin’s gulag. You open the books on the particulars of the Bolshevik coup. Or the reconquest of the Ukraine in the 1920s, or the capture of the Baltic States in 1940, and on and on. Before long, entire subject peoples want to bolt, and many openly question the legitimacy of the Party’s rule. Then it is over.
Disclosure Scenarios
It’s no different today in America, and the UFO secret is at the core. Imagine if the President of the United States were to decide to end UFO secrecy. How would he do it?
I can see him now. President George W. Bush steps up to the podium. Beloved Vice President Dick Cheney stands behind him. Trusted lieutenants Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleeza Rice are there, too. The cameras of all the world’s media are upon him.
"Good evening," he begins. "Through a series of meetings with certain senior scientific and defence officials, it has come to my attention that the UFO phenomenon apparently is real, and is of extraterrestrial origin."
Hokey dokey, that’s really all I have to say for now. We’ll provide updates as we get ‘em. I’m going on vacation for a while. Goodnight everyone.
Well, maybe not. Disclosure is a Pandora’s box with a panoply of taboo topics just waiting to spring out. It is, as one friend of mine calls it, "a sloppy tar-baby," a threatening, friendly, frightening, and inseparable bundle of unavoidable eventualities.
So I can imagine a few questions, even from a media as compliant as the American. "Mr. President," one correspondent might say, "what are the intentions of these aliens?" Or, "Mr. President, what does this say about the claims of alien abduction? Are they real, after all?" Or how about, "Mr. President, what about claims of underground alien bases? Or claims of secret possession of alien technology?" These questions might not arise immediately. But they would arise eventually. Once you open that lid, it will be very difficult to control the outcome.
The answers would not be pretty. For this reason, I doubt that disclosure will come from America ’s political establishment. But there are always other countries. There are always the aliens. The truth is already here; it’s simply waiting to land.
After all, what exactly are the secret keepers protecting? Let’s see. Power, wealth, control, their plans for the future, access to information, underground bases already built, the status quo.
But there must be more. How about communication with aliens? Worm hole technology? Access to our genetic code? Or any number of technologies that we have not even begun to discuss openly in our society. Remember the statement of an Area 51 insider to aerospace journalist James Goodall – this was back in the 1980s – "we have things in the Nevada desert that would make George Lucas envious." In other words, Star Wars technology.
Can you imagine the front page of the New York Times following a true disclosure of all this? "MASSIVE COVERUP EXPOSED." The biggest journalistic fiasco in history would finally be acknowledged, wholesale resignations would sweep the intelligence community, a political third party would do a clean sweep of Washington. Congress would promise emergency hearings, Arab oil nations would be in a state of collapse as oil price futures plummet, and the stock market would be in a headlong tailspin.
People would realize that a massive power structure has existed for generations, and has siphoned away trillions of dollars. They would learn that it has played a dominant, though unacknowledged, role in shaping their lives.
Think about NASA and the space shuttle program. There are no shortage of quiet discussions about the antiquated nature of NASA’s shuttle technology. Astronauts have died because better technology was denied to them. And that is merely the tip of the iceberg, for this issue goes far beyond NASA.
No, people wouldn’t be pleased or especially understanding. Heads would roll.
The American system of government, as it has come to exist, and by extension American society, and by extension our current global civilization, is not compatible with true UFO disclosure. Disclosure would rip it all away.
You might argue that this would be a good reason to maintain the secrecy. On the other hand, I would argue it’s the best reason for disclosure.
As bad as things look today, I retain hope for a post-disclosure world. I retain a faith – yes, I guess it’s faith – in the value of truth over all things. A statement by my favorite writer, Leo Tolstoy, hangs before me every day: "the one thing necessary, in life as in art, is to tell the truth." I cannot believe that a society based on a foundational lie can be better than one based on a foundational truth.
iai | The first affirmation of the possibility of a fourth spatial
dimension comes through the Cambridge Platonist Henry More in his book
of 1659, The Immortality of the Soul, where he calls the fourth dimension spissitude.
This rather spiritual apprehension of hyperspace was reflected in the
twentieth century by certain writings [31] of the Welsh, Oxford
philosopher H. H. Price – who, incidentally, was one of the first
philosophers to write on the psychedelic (mescaline) experience. [32] In
his later book of 1671, the Enchiridion Metaphysicum, More
explicitly writes that ‘besides the three dimensions which are filled
with all extended material things, a fourth must be admitted, with which
coincides the spirit’. [33] A century later in 1746, in his very first
publication, Immanuel Kant considers hyperspace as the condition of
other universes:
‘If it is possible
that there are extensions of different dimensions, then it is also very
probable that God has really produced them somewhere. For his works have
all the greatness and diversity that they can possibly contain. Spaces
of this kind could not possibly stand in connection with those of an
entirely different nature; hence such spaces would not belong to our
world at all, but would constitute their own worlds. I showed above
that, in a metaphysical sense, more worlds could exist together, but
here is also the condition that, as it seems to me, is the only
condition under which it might also be probable that many worlds really
exist.’ [34]
In Kant’s later transcendental idealism, space is not
taken as real but rather as a mere human mode of perception through
which we frame the real, noumenal, world. Consequently, one can say, the
three dimensions of space are but a human projection, not of necessity
an actual reality. If space is subjective, then its observed three
dimensions cannot be considered a necessarily objective limitation. One
of the pioneers of Relativity, the great French mathematician and
physicist Henri Poincaré was in agreement:
‘the
characteristic property of space, that of having three dimensions, is
only a property of our table of distribution, an internal property of
the human intelligence … . [We] could conceive, living in our world,
thinking beings whose table of distribution would be four dimensional
and who consequently would think in hyperspace.’ [35]
It was,
arguably, Kant’s conjectures that sparked the later interest in the
fourth dimension, especially in the later nineteenth century. As one of
the most prominent popularizers of hyperspace, the British mathematician
Charles Hinton, expressed it in 1888:
'the exploration of the facts of higher [dimensional] space is the practical execution of the great vision of Kant’. [36]
We
will leave to the side the controversial question as to whether time
can properly be a dimension of space. [37] But looking back in time, we
see that in the shadow of Kant, concepts pertaining to the fourth
dimension were being considered in serious fashion by a series of
first-rate mathematicians. [38] These mathematicians, first and foremost
the German Georg Friedrich Bernhard Riemann, discovered that spaces of
any number of dimensions, n-dimensional space, were not contradictory or paradoxical, but in fact intelligible and systematically congruent.
Riemann was the student of the equally great mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss.
In
the words of the prominent logical empiricist Hans Reichenbach, ‘[in]
analogy to [Gauss'] auxiliary concept of the curvature of a surface …
Riemann introduced the auxiliary concept of curvature of space’.
[39] That is, the curvature of three-dimensional space itself into a
fourth dimension, analogous to the curvature of a two-dimensional sheet
into a third dimension. Riemann’s ultimate end was to simplify the laws
of nature through his complexification of the laws of geometry – for
instance by reducing “force” to curvature.
But the physics of
Riemann’s age was behind the mathematics, and so his endeavour to
explain natural law through geometry was unfulfilled. But his geometry
did enable the new physics to come: the theories of Relativity. As
physicist and a co-founder of string theory Michio Kaku puts it,
‘Einstein fulfilled the program initiated by Riemann 60 years earlier,
to use higher dimensions to simplify the laws of nature.’ [40] The
well-known instance of this is the reduction of the “force” of gravity
to spacetime curvature. As Bertrand Russell puts it:
‘the
sun exerts no force on the planets whatever. Just as geometry has
become physics, so, in a sense, physics has become geometry. The law of
gravitation has become the geometrical law that every body pursues the
easiest course from place to place, but this course is affected by the
hills and valleys that are encountered on the road.’ [41]
The notion that imperceptible spatial curvature is perceived through forced feeling rather than vision
is one that was brought out through the English translator of Riemann’s
aforementioned paper, the great mathematician and philosopher William
Kingdon Clifford. [42] In the 1870s Clifford wrote of a hypothetical
one-dimensional worm (AB) that lived in a thin oval tube, endlessly
circling it clockwise, without any degree of freedom to go
counter-clockwise let alone escape “up” or “down” (which would be
useless concepts or intuitions to the worm). The worm itself would not
even see the second dimension, that is, the oval-like shape in
which it lives its life. However it would perceive differences in
extra-dimensional curvature (i.e. two-dimensional curvature) as bodily feelings, because its body would curve more at points of acute curvature (viz. H, E, F, and G in Figure 2). [43]
Figure 2: Clifford’s one-dimensional worm
Clifford writes that:
‘a
being existing in these [<3] dimensions would most probably
attribute the effects of curvature to changes in its own physical
constitution in nowise connected with the geometrical character of its
space. … [If we consider ourselves,] changes in shape may be either
imperceptible … or if they do take place we may attribute them to
“physical causes” – to heat, light, or magnetism – which may be mere
names for variations in the curvature of our space. … [We may be]
treating merely as physical variations effects which are really due to
changes in the curvature of our space; … some or all of those causes
which we term physical may … be due to the geometrical construction of
our space … variation in the curvature of our space…’ [44]
Following
Einstein’s revelations [45] we see how advanced Clifford was, at least
with regard to the feeling of gravity. Yet there are perhaps further
developments to be made in this field relating extra-dimensional
curvature to qualia [46] – thereby correlating not just force to
geometry but qualia too. That is to say that a relation of
(n-dimensional) space and sentience is here suggested.
Mathematicians
and physicists, then, have given feasibility to the idea of
n-dimensional space. [47] We have seen how Clifford relates such space
to sentience, let us augment this relation by looking at the ideas of
John R. Smythies (1922 – 2019), a neurophilosopher and associate of
psychedelic cognoscenti Aldous Huxley and Humphrey Osmond. Smythies
provides two sub-theories through which we can understand the relation
of space to sentience:
Theory I: ‘Sense-data[48] ... are
spatial entities distinct from physical objects and bear temporal and
causal relations but no spatial relations to physical objects.’[49] –
i.e. an exclusive theory.
Theory II: ‘Sense data … are
spatial entities distinct from physical objects and bear both temporal
and causal relations and higher-dimensional spatial relations to
physical objects.’ [50] – i.e. an inclusive theory.
Theory I is taken by certain figures such as H. H. Price[51] and Bertrand Russell, [52] but Smythies considers Theory II preferable as it is more parsimonious and offers a contiguous spatial connection
between mind and matter; mind-matter spatial relations that would be
lacking in Theory I (which would then only have temporal (i.e.
successive) and causal (i.e. transordinal) relations between physical
space (PS) and visual space (VS).
Theory I advances that
all the three-dimensional spaces of all beings’ sense data, and the one
three-dimensional space of physicality are a multiplicity of separate spaces.
In emergentism, each VS would ‘emerge’ from sections (such as those
within brains) of the singular PS. We have already hinted at the
inadequacy of this mysterious transordinal upward transition. Theory I
would require causal rather than spatial relations between all myriad
spaces, and thus would be an emergentism, and thus the mystery of
transordinal nomology emerges once more. Thus we reject Theory I.
Theory II then advances the actuality of a unified space of multiple dimensions (= n-dimensional
space) in which all of VS and PS are cross-sections. Moreover, Smythies
agrees with psychiatrist Paul Schilder that the perception of
PS is VS. He quotes Schilder thus: ‘The space in which objects are
perceived and the space in which they are imaged, are one and the same.’
[53] This in turn implies, Smythies writes, that ‘[in] this n-dimensional space Scientific Space [PS] and a visual field [VS] would not be two different kinds of section but would merely be two different sections.’ [54]
This is not to say that PS is not real but rather to say that our access to it is through VS (plus other senses) which is prosaically
three-dimensional. Thus the reality of physical space as more than
three-dimensional is not falsified by our common perception of it as
three-dimensional. I write ‘prosaically’ because it may be possible to
visualize objects of more than three spatial dimensions – Smythies does
suggest that ‘[t]here is no a priori reason why we should not develop the ability to appreciate directly an n-dimensional spatial system’, and there are reports of such vision. [55] Indirectly,
we can easily conceptualize and work with[56] more than three
dimensions of space through algebraic topology using the Cartesian
coördinate system where points, areas and volumes, etc., can be located
by numeric variables of each dimension’s axis, e.g. point h: (x1, y2, z3). To locate a point in a four-dimensional space, one simply adds an axis and its variable, e.g. point h: (x1, y2, z3, w4). Ad infinitum. Alternatively, one can visually represent (though not prosaically present) [57] four-dimensional space through for instance a four-dimensional cube, or tesseract (hypercube) – see Figure 2.
The word tesseract
was coined by the aforementioned mathematician and author Charles
Howard Hinton, [58] whose work on the fourth dimension can be used to
our ends. In his essay of 1880, ‘What is the fourth dimension?’ –
published four years prior to the related book Flatland by Edwin A. Abbott–
Hinton employs analogy to lower dimensional worlds to elucidate a
speculated four-dimensional world. I shall briefly explain it, then
connect this four dimensional world to the n-dimensional world
of Broad and Smythies, so to entertain a theory of the relation between
space and sentience. Note that by four dimensions, we are speaking of
four spatial dimensions, not a fourth temporal dimension in addition to three spatial dimensions. [59]
Let us imagine a two-dimensional world, a plane, or a Flatland
as Abbott calls it, like a sheet of paper. Any beings therein would
only be aware of two dimensions, and would only be aware of borders
describable with two axes (x,y). Thus they would be unaware of the
existence (as we perceive it from our three-dimensional perspective) of
the top and bottom faces of their plane that is also contiguous, that
borders, their two-dimensional world. Now, we three-dimensional
observers could see a multiplicity of such planes, sheets, each floating
one above the other. Although each entity of the flatland could not
perceive the other flatlands (just as in our world we cannot perceive other entities’ experienced three-dimensional spaces), as they were not contiguous at the x and y axes, wecould
perceive the multitude of flatlands, or worlds, from our
higher-dimensional space – and we could perceive the spatial contiguity
(i.e. fundamental unity) of two-dimensional worlds in a
three-dimensional space. Thus though each such two-dimensional world
would not be contiguous with another two-dimensional world, [60] each
two-dimensional world would be contiguous with, i.e. within the same space as, all the other two-dimensional worlds via the intervening three-dimensional space. Thus the relationship between such flatlands would be spatial rather than merely causal,
under the perspective of a world with a higher dimensionality than that
of each two-dimensional world. The nomology would be of one order
rather than transordinal, because the levels would be unified here. Rather than one world emerging from another (as in emergentism), they would each be equally fundamental and unified. Now, let me allow Hinton, 1880, to shift the argument up a dimension:
‘Take
now the case of four dimensions. Instead of bringing before the mind a
sheet of paper conceive a solid of three dimensions. If this solid were
to become infinite it would fill up the whole of three-dimensional
space. But it would not fill up the whole of four-dimensional space. It
would be to four-dimensional space what an infinite plane is to
three-dimensional space. There could be in four-dimensional space an
infinite number of such solids, just as in three-dimensional space there
could be an infinite number of infinite planes.
Thus,
lying alongside our space, there can be conceived a space also infinite
in all three directions. To pass from one to the other a movement has
to be made in the fourth dimension, just as to pass from one infinite
plane to another a motion has to be made in the third dimension.’ [61]
Thus we place Smythies’ n-dimensional
spaces (i.e. PS with a multitude of beings’ VSs) within the Hintonian
four-dimensional space so to render intelligible the Theory II relation between VS and PS.
So: through this approach, we exhibit the possibility that though visual spaces and physical space are not strictly identical, refuting the Psycho-neural Identity Theory, they neither need be strictly distinct, as in Substance Dualism. Neither need one (VS) emerge
from the other (PS). Through a four-dimensional perspective, we can see
that the mental (all of which for James is necessarily spatial) [62]
and the physical can be both fundamental and unified, i.e. a mind-matter
monism. The imagined triangle and the physical correlates thereof are
both part of one n-dimensional space rather than members of distinct
categories. This is all to say that the More-Broad-Smythies Theory (Theory II) is one, albeit radical, way to respond to the mind-matter mystery. It is a radical monism of space and sentience.
Whether
we can call such a monism an identity theory is merely a matter of
definition. Spinoza’s system, for instance, is certainly a monism and
has certainly been classified as an identity theory.[63] In this regard,
it is interesting to note that Hinton, in the above-quoted 1880 essay,
also writes that:
‘In the
[four-dimensional manifold] which we have traced out, much that
philosophers have written finds adequate representation. Much of
Spinoza’s Ethics, for example, could be symbolized from the preceding pages.’ [64]
It
is also interesting to note here that Hinton corresponded with William
James on the subject of four-dimensional consciousness.[65] Both Spinoza
and James were, in the end, panpsychists, and the full extent of the
relationship between higher-dimensionality and panpsychism – or more
broadly, between n-dimensional space and sentience – is a woefully
underexplored world, [66] a world where one may find idios kosmos within koinos kosmos, thought within extension.
bloomberg | Elon Musk called the media racist after a cartoonist he regularly
engages with on Twitter faced blowback for encouraging White Americans
to avoid Black people.
While discussing a Rasmussen Reports poll
in which almost half of Black respondents disagreed or were unsure
about the statement that it’s OK to be White, Scott Adams, creator of
the long-running Dilbert comic strip, said during his YouTube show last
week that his best advice for White Americans “is to get the hell away
from Black people.”
Newspaper publishers, including Gannett Co.’s USA Today Network, denounced the comments and said they’ll no longer publish Adams’ cartoons, which satirize office culture.
Musk waded into the controversy, first by responding to Adams, who quote-tweeted
a Washington Post columnist encouraged by the newspaper dropping
Dilbert. “What exactly are they complaining about?” Musk asked in a post
he later deleted.
When another account on the social network Musk owns spoke out against coverage of Adams, Musk replied: “The media is racist.”
“For a *very* long time, US media was racist against
non-white people, now they’re racist against whites & Asians,” Musk
said in another post. “Same thing happened with elite colleges & high schools in America. Maybe they can try not being racist.”
Musk unsettled many Black users of Twitter Inc. last
year by repeatedly saying past management had gone too far in
moderating content on the platform, and had infringed on free speech as a
result. Shortly after taking over the company, he made fun
of #StayWoke t-shirts he found at Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters
that dated back to the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement.
Tesla Inc. is facing a lawsuit
by the California Civil Rights Department that accuses the company of
engaging in a pattern of racial harassment and bias at its
electric-vehicle factory. Tesla published a blog post responding to the allegations before the agency filed suit in February 2022.
In June, the US Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission issued a cause finding against Tesla that closely parallels
California’s allegations, according to the company. Tesla said last month that it was in the process of setting up a mandatory mediation with the federal agency.
kremlin |President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Good
afternoon,
Members of the Federation Assembly – senators, State Duma deputies,
Citizens of Russia,
This
Presidential Address comes, as we all know, at a difficult, watershed
period for our country. This is a time of radical, irreversible change
in the entire world, of crucial historical events that will determine
the future of our country and our people, a time when every one of us
bears a colossal
responsibility.
One
year ago, to protect the people in our historical lands, to ensure
the security of our country and to eliminate the threat coming from
the neo-Nazi regime that had taken hold in Ukraine after the 2014 coup,
it was
decided to begin the special military operation. Step by step, carefully
and consistently
we will deal with the tasks we have at hand.
Since
2014, Donbass has been fighting for the right to live in their
land and to speak their native tongue. It fought and never gave up amid
the blockade, constant shelling and the Kiev regime’s overt hatred. It
hoped and waited that Russia would come to help.
In the meantime, as you know well, we were doing everything in our power
to solve this problem by peaceful means, and patiently conducted talks on a peaceful solution to this devastating conflict.
This appalling method of deception has been tried and tested many times
before. They behaved just as shamelessly and duplicitously when destroying
Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, and Syria. They will never be able to wash off this
shame. The concepts of honour, trust, and decency are not for them.
Over the long centuries of colonialism, diktat and hegemony, they got
used to being allowed everything, got used to spitting on the whole world. It
turned out that they treat people living in their own countries with the same
disdain, like a master. After all, they cynically deceived them too, tricked
them with tall stories about the search for peace, about adherence to the UN
Security Council resolutions on Donbass. Indeed, the Western elites have become
a symbol of total, unprincipled lies.
We firmly defend our interests as well as our belief that in today’s
world there should be no division into so-called civilised countries and all
the rest and that there is a need for an honest partnership that rejects any
exclusivity, especially an aggressive one.
We
were open and sincerely ready for a constructive dialogue with
the West; we said and insisted that both Europe and the whole world
needed an indivisible security system equal for all countries,
and for many years we
suggested that our partners discuss this idea together and work on its
implementation. But in response, we received either an indistinct
or hypocritical
reaction, as far as words were concerned. But there were also actions:
NATO’s expansion
to our borders, the creation of new deployment areas for missile defence
in Europe and Asia – they decided to take cover from us under
an ‘umbrella’ –
deployment of military contingents, and not just near Russia’s borders.
I would
like to stress –in fact, this is well-known – that no other country
has so many military bases abroad as the United States. There are
hundreds of them – I want to emphasise this – hundreds of bases all over
the world; the planet is covered with them, and one look at the map is
enough to see this.
The whole
world witnessed how they withdrew from fundamental agreements
on weapons, including the treaty on intermediate and shorter-range
missiles,
unilaterally tearing up the fundamental agreements that maintain world
peace.
For some reason, they did it. They do not do anything without a reason,
as we
know.
Finally,
in December 2021, we officially submitted draft agreements on security
guarantees to the USA and NATO. In essence, all key, fundamental points
were rejected.
After that it finally became clear that the go-ahead
for the implementation of aggressive plans had been given and they were
not going to stop.
The threat was growing by the day.
Judging by the information we received, there was no doubt that everything
would be in place by February 2022 for launching yet another bloody punitive
operation in Donbass. Let me remind you that back in 2014, the Kiev regime sent
its artillery, tanks and warplanes to fight in Donbass.
Whitehouse | THE PRESIDENT: Hello, Poland! (Applause.) One of our great
allies. President Duda, Prime Minister — Mr. Prime Minister, Mr. Mayor,
and to all the former ministers and presidents, as well as mayors and
Polish political leaders from all across the country: Thank you for
welcoming me back to Poland.
You know, it was nearly one year ago
— (applause) — nearly one year ago I spoke at the Royal Castle here in
Warsaw, just weeks after Vladimir Putin had unleashed his murderous
assault on Ukraine. The largest land war in Europe since World War Two
had begun. And the principles that had been the cornerstone of peace,
prosperity, and stability on this planet for more than 75 years were at
risk of being shattered.
One year ago, the world was bracing for
the fall of Kyiv. Well, I have just come from a visit to Kyiv, and I
can report: Kyiv stands strong! (Applause.) Kyiv stands proud. It
stands tall. And most important, it stands free. (Applause.)
When Russia invaded, it wasn’t just Ukraine being tested. The whole world faced a test for the ages.
Europe
was being tested. America was being tested. NATO was being tested.
All democracies were being tested. And the questions we faced were as
simple as they were profound.
Would we respond or would we look
the other way? Would we be strong or would we be weak? Would be — we
would — would we be — all of our allies — would be united or divided?
One year later, we know the answer.
We did respond. We would be strong. We would be united. And the world would not look the other way. (Applause.)
We
also faced fundamental questions about the commitment to the most basic
of principles. Would we stand up for the sovereignty of nations?
Would we stand up for the right of people to live free from naked
aggression? Would we stand up for democracy?
Dale made me aware of a video in which Gonzalo Lira outgasses nonsense from his pie hole in sufficient volume and density so as to subvert the credibility of everything else he has here-to-date said about Ukraine. In this instance, he's so completely out of his depth and out of his mind talm'bout major riots coming to major American cities this spring in response to police violence. NOPE! Nyet! No way, no how! Nah Gah Happen....,
Ever since the Occupy Movement got b-slapped out of existence by a coordinated Federal clampdown, the Michael Brown uprisings, followed by the George Floyd uprisings, (A BLM/DNC Warren Buffet production) and finally the mass incarceration of every redneck peckerwood and his cousin who got caught up in January 6th Stop the Steal shenanigans - it has become conspicuously obvious to the casual observer that THE MAN is not fucking around and has not been for quite some time.
Everything else is - as they say - merely conversation.....,
TheIntercept | The recent wave of arrests are part and parcel of a “green scare,”
which began in the 1990s and has seen numerous environmental and animal
rights activists labeled and charged
as terrorists on a federal level consistently for no more than minor
property destruction. Yet the Atlanta cases mark the first use of a
state domestic terrorism statute against either an environmental or
anti-racist movement.
The 19 protesters are being charged under a Georgia law passed in 2017, which, according
to the Republican state senator who introduced the bill, was intended
to combat cases like the Boston Marathon bombing, Dylann Roof’s massacre
of nine Black churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina, and the
Orlando Pulse nightclub shooting.
“During legislative debate over this law, the concern was raised that
as written, the law was so broad that it could be used to prosecute
Black Lives Matter activists blocking the highway as terrorists. The
response was simply that prosecutors wouldn’t do that,” Kautz told me.
“There are similar laws passed in many other states, and we believe that
the existence of these laws on the books is a threat to democracy and
the right to protest.”
The Georgia law is exceedingly broad. Domestic terrorism under the
statute includes the destruction or disabling of ill-defined “critical
infrastructure,” which can be publicly or privately owned, or “a state
or government facility” with the intention to “alter, change, or coerce
the policy of the government” or “affect the conduct of the government”
by use of “destructive devices.” What counts as critical infrastructure
here? A bank branch window? A police vehicle? Bulldozers deployed to
raze the forest? What is a destructive device? A rock? A firework? And
is not a huge swathe of activism the attempt to coerce a government to
change policies?
Police affidavits
on the arrest warrants of forest defenders facing domestic terror
charges include the following as alleged examples of terrorist activity:
“criminally trespassing on posted land,” “sleeping in the forest,”
“sleeping in a hammock with another defendant,” being “known members” of
“a prison abolitionist movement,” and aligning themselves with Defend
the Atlanta Forest by “occupying a tree house while wearing a gas mask
and camouflage clothing.”
It is for good reason that leftists, myself included, have
challenged the expansion of anti-terror laws in the wake of the January 6
Capitol riots or other
white supremacist attacks. Terrorism laws operate to name the state and
capital’s ideological enemies; they will be reliably used against
anti-capitalists, leftists, and Black liberationists more readily than
white supremacist extremists with deep ties to law enforcement and the
Republican right.
Since its passage in 2017, the Georgia domestic terrorism law has not
resulted in a single conviction. As such, there has been no occasion to
challenge the law’s questionable constitutionality. Chris Bruce, policy
director at the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia, told
the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that “the statute establishes overly
broad, far-reaching limitations that restrict public dissent of the
government and criminalizes violators with severe and excessive
penalties.” He said of the forest defender terror charges that they are
“wholly inapposite at worst and flimsy at best.”
“The state is attempting to innovate new repressive prosecution, and I
think ultimately that will fail for them,” Sara, a 32-year-old service
worker who lives by the imperiled forest and has been part of Stop Cop
City since the movement began, told me.
BAR | One of the most positive things to emerge from the Collective West's
war in Ukraine is that it helped to expose elements of the U.S. left
that have always had a soft, sentimental spot for the West. The
arrogance of these Westerners who signed on to this call for more war
(see below) is reflected in the fact that they don't even feel compelled
to explain how their morally superior commitment to Ukrainian
self-determination against "Putin's" war is reconciled with the various
statements from former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, former French
President Francois Hollande and before them, former Ukrainian president
Petro Poroshenko revealing that the Minsk agreement was just a delaying
tactic to prepare for war.
We ask the Network as we have been asking Zelensky and Biden, the
co-coordinators of the White Lives Matter More Movement, how this phase
of the conflict that started in 2014 became Putin’s war? Do we just
dismiss as Kremlin propaganda that the Russian Federation felt
threatened by what appeared to be the de-facto incorporation of Ukraine
into NATO as the Ukrainian army was built into the most formidable
fighting force in Europe outside of Russia?
Did the Russians not have any legitimate security concerns with NATO
missiles facing them from Romania and Poland, a mere six minutes away
from Moscow, and that Ukraine was also making a pitch for “defensive”
missiles in Ukraine? And how does the Network characterize the conflict
in Eastern Ukraine that started in 2014 and produced over 14,000 deaths
when the Ukrainian coup government attacked its own citizens, if the
current conflict started in February 2022? What happened to the fascist
issue in Ukraine that was written about for years but with even more
urgency after the coup in 2014? Did the Kremlin plant those stories in
the Western press?
We understand that these are questions that the organizers of the
Ukrainian Network will never answer because they do not have to. As
Westerners they can just postulate an assertion and it is accepted. The
Network and the Western bourgeoisie declare that the war in Ukraine is
Putin’s war and it becomes objective truth - because that is what the
West can do and can get away with. It’s called power – white power
perhaps?
The Ukrainian Solidarity Network is the ultimate expression of social
imperialism that has become so normalized in the U.S. and Western
Europe that it is no longer even recognized. An example from the
statement makes the argument that Ukraine has the “right to determine
the means and objectives of its own struggle.” That is a recognized left
position. But the social imperialists of the West do not extend that
principle and right to nations in the global South. In fact, we ask the
signers of this call to explain when the coup government of Ukraine
became the representatives of the Ukrainian nation and recognized the
sovereign will of the people?
Therefore, it is not a mere coincidence that the main signatories of
this Network statement pledging undying support to Ukraine and its
project, are also some of the same “left” forces in the forefront of
giving left legitimacy to the charge leveled by Western imperialism that
the struggling socialist oriented national liberationist states like
Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia are nothing more than “authoritarian”
states more interested in power than socialist construction. Some of
those forces also cheered on the NATO attack against Libya, passionately
defended Western intervention in Syria and have been silent on Western
plans to violently invade Haiti.
For the contemporary neocons in the leadership of the Ukrainian
network, their commitment to abstract principles, and certainty that
they know more than everyone else, objectively place them in the same
ideological camp with Obama, Biden, NATO strategists, the Zelensky
clown, and Boris Johnson. But they will argue that their positions are
different, since they represent something they call the left.
For a number of individuals who signed on to this pro-Western,
pro-war letter, they are in a familiar place. However, I suspect a few
of the individuals on that list were probably confused or not paying
attention, not thinking about who they would be affiliated with when
they signed on.
That of course, is not the case for some of the key supporters of
this initiative. Individuals like the Green Party’s Howie Hawkins, Eric
Draitser of Counterpunch, and Bill Fletcher who normally I would not
name specifically but because these individuals and the tendency they
represent embody the worst of the arrogant, Western left that in so many
cases (not all) objectively provides ideological cover ( rightism with
left phraseology) for the imperialist program of Western capital - they
should not be allowed continued left respectability without challenge.
These individuals certainly have not hesitated in offering criticisms
of those of us who never wavered from our strategic priority to defeat
our primary enemy - the Western white supremacist colonial/capitalist
patriarchy. For us everything else represents secondary contradictions
at this specific historical moment. And is why we reject the arguments
these forces advance about fighting dual imperialisms as
anti-dialectical nonsense and a political cover.
whitehouse | THE PRESIDENT: Mr. President, Mr. Secretary-General, my fellow
delegates, to all those who dedicate themselves to this noble mission of
this institution: It’s my honor to speak to you for the first time as
President of the United States.
We meet this year in a moment of — intermingled with great pain and
extraordinary possibility. We’ve lost so much to this devastating —
this devastating pandemic that continues to claim lives around the world
and impact so much on our existence.
We’re mourning more than 4.5 million people — people of every nation
from every background. Each death is an individual heartbreak. But our
shared grief is a poignant reminder that our collective future will
hinge on our ability to recognize our common humanity and to act
together.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is the clear and urgent choice that we
face here at the dawning of what must be a decisive decade for our world
— a decade that will quite literally determine our futures.
As a global community, we’re challenged by urgent and looming crises
wherein lie enormous opportunities if — if — we can summon the will and
resolve to seize these opportunities.
Will we work together to save lives, defeat COVID-19 everywhere, and
take the necessary steps to prepare ourselves for the next pandemic?
For there will be another one. Or will we fail to harness the tools at
our disposal as the more virulent and dangerous variants take hold?
Will we meet the threat of challenging climate — the challenging
climate we’re all feeling already ravaging every part of our world with
extreme weather? Or will we suffer the merciless march of
ever-worsening droughts and floods, more intense fires and hurricanes,
longer heatwaves and rising seas?
Will we affirm and uphold the human dignity and human rights under
which nations in common cause, more than seven decades ago, formed this
institution?
Will we apply and strengthen the core tenets of inter- — of the
international system, including the U.N. Charter and the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, as we seek to shape the emergence of new
technologies and deter new threats? Or will we allow these universal —
those universal principles to be trampled and twisted in the pursuit of
naked political power?
In my view, how we answer these questions in this moment — whether we
choose to fight for our shared future or not — will reverberate for
generations yet to come.
Simply put: We stand, in my view, at an inflection point in history.
And I’m here today to share with you how the United States intends to
work with partners and allies to answer these questions and the
commitment of my new administration to help lead the world toward a more
peaceful, prosperous future for all people.
It was funded by industrialists. They’ve been
acting profitably on this information since they got it. The inherent
short term interest of capitalism has always made it a death cult and
everyone who sees capitalism as an organizing principal
for an economy is buying into this cult. The death cult has recently
become a totalitarian one in the West as the US attempts to make its
surveillance capitalism a universal system.
Capitalism may have a place in a sustainable
future, but only as a carefully controlled, constrained system for
fostering technological competition contained within pro-social,
pro-ecological governing structures. We’ve probably moved beyond
that possibility already.
I think part of it is that ruling elites have a
very difficult time imagining how a society can hold together without
the hamster game of work, debt and consumption. One of the things
constricting their imagination is the fact that a different
system, one less reliant on the radical individualism that seeks to
justify outrageous levels of inequality, would eliminate much of their
power and privilege.
By now - it should be obvious to even the most
psychopathic and parasitic of our elites - that as they make the hamster
game harder and harder, that radical individualism twists itself into
Free-Dumb to such an extent that society becomes
ungovernable.
When you look at the actions of the Western
colonial nations you can see that their intent is to keep the poor
countries poor so that they won’t be able to have the high consumption
lifestyles of the West. The elites know that there isn’t
enough to go around, and they are hoarding what is available. Drilling
down a bit one sees that in individual nations in the West the wealthy
keep the poor poor so that they too won’t be able to compete for what
the wealthy have. It is truly dog eat dog at
every level of society. Propaganda is used to make the poor (and
increasingly the middle class) think that they too can live the high
life if only they get the right credentials and work hard enough.
Because it is a zero sum game the wealthy won’t actually
allow the poor and middle class to impinge on their lifestyles, but
they certainly try to convince them that it is in reach provided…
Pierre Trudeau and the global jet-set are being
hoisted on their own petards. No business can
build and operate an ocean terminal in Canada to ship Liquid Natural Gas
(LNG) to Europe in the next six months. They have turned the world into a free trade
scheme whose organizing theory relies exclusively on markets - and - whose sole purpose is to increase
corporate profits. Russia, China and Iran are trying
to break free of this new world order.
The only response in the West to the shortages and workers missing due to the Ukrainian proxy world-war - and - ongoing
unmitigated coronavirus and monkeypox pandemics - is to raise prices. The
globalist bubble is so impervious that it is
of no matter that the rising energy prices for most will be
unaffordable and many expendable proles will face an unheated winter. No one is thinking
of the consequences.
The 2021 Texas Freeze power outages only lasted for one week . These market-driven outages led to:
Widespread damage to homes and businesses
Foregone economic
activity
Contaminated water supplies
The loss of at least 111
lives
Early estimates indicate that the freeze and
outage may cost the Texas economy $80–$130 billion in direct
and indirect economic loss” (for example, frozen pipes and water damage
to homes and apartments).
If this happens next Winter in Europe, it will
collapse the EU and Western Europe. Yet, there
is no talk of an armistice or opening NORD Steam 2 gas pipeline from
Russia. The West is at war but with no working sovereign and representational governments.
All the West can do is to send money and armaments to Ukraine – ignoring
the looming disasters that await.
trysterotapes |Bacon begins with this highly relevant, relatable point: “when
discords, and quarrels, and factions are carried openly and audaciously,
it is a sign the reverence of government is lost.”3 This briefly touches on a point made over at John Ganz’s Unpopular Front,
namely the liberal fear of “going too far,” trepidation around the
optics of “looking political” that has become associated with Barack
Obama on Russia and Comey on “her emails.” If we follow Bacon’s logic
here, then the liberal tolerance for these kinds
of abuses carries its own dangers, not only of demoralization (when we
witness powerful people committing the worst kinds of crimes openly,
especially in contrast with the Reality Winners of the world), but of a
loss of respect or “reverence of government.” There’s no question that
we live in the kind of world that Bacon describes: various forms of
revolt are at least discussed openly, and until
recently with very little fear of reprisal at least on the MAGA right.
And yet, conditions are not ripe for widespread revolt, for the material
reasons that Bacon discusses next:
Concerning
the materials of seditions. It is a thing well to be considered; for
the surest way to prevent seditions (if the times do bear it) is to take
away the matter of them. For if there be fuel prepared, it is hard to
tell, whence the spark shall come, that shall set it on fire. The matter of seditions is of two kinds: much poverty, and much discontentment.4
No
question: the current conjuncture positively requires Baconian
“discontentment,” and as I have argued elsewhere, the widespread,
systemic sense of disillusionment with the neoliberal experiment
happened first on the “nationalist” MAGA right. But what Bacon says next
clinches the point I want to make
(I)f this poverty and broken estate in the better
sort, be joined with a want and necessity in the mean people, the danger
is imminent and great. For the rebellions of the belly are the worst.5
Translated
into contemporary language, Bacon here is making the (Machiavellian)
point that if leaders of state are concerned with sedition and revolt,
they need to watch out for interclass alliances between those “in the
better sort” and those whose lives are ruined by scarcity and precarity,
the truly marginal and damned. In the end, in other words, we always
come back to the politics of thumos,
belly-politics, the visceral, gut-level reaction to material deprivation
as a primal “danger” to sovereign control over territory and order.6
Bacon’s point that “(r)ebellions of the belly are the worst” is a
warning to those in power, but it should also remind us that the MAGA
phenomenon remains one of relatively comfortable, white, middle-class
men and women. MAGA is an ideology which breaks from neoliberal
globalism, in order to prioritize the values of a heartland petit bourgeoisie.
Rejuvenation Pills
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No one likes getting old. Everyone would like to be immorbid. Let's be
careful here. Immortal doesnt include youth or return to youth. Immorbid
means you s...
Death of the Author — at the Hands of Cthulhu
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9/29 again
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Covid-19 Preys Upon The Elderly And The Obese
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sciencemag | This spring, after days of flulike symptoms and fever, a man
arrived at the emergency room at the University of Vermont Medical Center.
He ...
