Archive for January, 2024

#Politics is Theater for the Oligarchy

Posted: January 14, 2024 in Anarchy Journal Constitutional
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I am regularly around people not from America. I enjoy it. I enjoy different perspectives and experiences and perceptions and opinions.

One of my favorite things about regularly being around foreigners is their reactions when they see American political advertising aka campaign commercials. Which is common because election season in America never ends now, since it’s a set it and forget it emotional trigger and decisiveness tool for the unwashed masses.

After they see one or two…dozen…political ads in an hour, they’ll inevitably start asking the people around them what they think of politics, what they think of democracy, what they are thinking about the upcoming election, etc.

If/when they ask me, my answer is a sloppy version of the following; American politics is theater for the capitalist oligarchy and the military industrial complex to give the masses the illusion of choice, control and influence.

If I’m talking to a European, they quickly understand what I’m talking about. If it’s an Australian or South American, there is usually an explanation of what an oligarchy is and that the MIC is and how they are the shadow authoritarian government and have been for a minimum of half a century.

Any doubt or skepticism towards that can be directed towards the 2008 bank bailouts, 2020 TARP bailouts, the volume of assassinations of anti-war organizers in the 1960s, and of course the never ending wars we have never ending money for while homelessness and wealth inequality reach all time highs in the richest country in the history of the planet.

I remember in the 90’s when Jessie Ventura became governor of Minnesota as an independent. When asked why he was an independent he said that the only difference between a democrat and a republican is the speed at which their knees hit the ground when their donors walk into the room.

Those who would say that America is a democracy and isn’t a corporate captured, authoritarian state; would also openly admit how corrupt Washington is. They would call me a conspiracy theorist, and then complain about how nothing ever seems to get done in Washington. Drain the swamp! But we live in a direct democracy. What does duopoly mean anyways?!

As long as we’re blaming the rank and file voters of the opposite party, obsessing over pronouns, or thinking an ex billionaire game show host is to blame for all of our problems, then we certainly won’t have the mental capacity to comprehend the people who control the currency, the land, the bombs and the resources are the ones controlling the government and that the combination of the two controls our lives.

Because then we would have to admit that we aren’t free, we own nothing, we have no rights. And I know from repeated experience, that ignorance…is…bliss.

There’s #Value in Going Through the Motions

Posted: January 12, 2024 in Stimulus Space Response
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Habits are not dependent on enthusiasm.

Forming and cementing habits is about repetition.

Just do it, over and over and over and over and over again.

Does it have to be great every time? NO

Does it have to be good every time? no

Do you still need to do it even when you don’t want to? Yes

That is where the mental disconnect is for myself and the majority of people when it comes to establishing and sticking to new habits. When starting something new, it’s rarely if ever going to be good at first.

The not wanting to do something different is baked into the human condition. If starting and sticking to new, hard things was easy we would be living in a utopia.

What I have found in my experience is the lack of motivation gets its fuel from the thought of not wanting to be bad, look bad, come across as bad, etc.

Bad meaning inferior, mediocre, amateur, inadequate.

People don’t like looking foolish. That’s human nature. One can notice this in the ratio of creators to critics.

One of the things that has helped me is taking enthusiasm and expectation of quality out of the equation. I have so many journal entries that have the line “I’m just going through the motions” written, then list what I did that day, what I ate that day, my current mood, etc. With the end goal being habitual daily journal writing.

Not quality journal writing. Habitual journal writing.

Not quality published essays/articles/blogs (at first). Habitually published essays/articles/blogs.

It’s so natural and so common and so normal to resist doing something because we’ll be bad at it at first. I stopped playing video games because my friends all got way better than me and I didn’t want to keep losing to them and didn’t want to invest the time into getting better.

On the other end of the importance spectrum; after finally following my life’s dream of becoming a professional wrestler, I resisted practicing and taking low level indy bookings because I didn’t want to look foolish or embarrass myself.

Every bar and nightclub in the history of the world has been filled with men and women who don’t talk to each other because they’re scared of sounding foolish on approach and/or looking foolish if rejected.

So consider taking positive expectations, excitement, and enthusiasm out of the equation and just go through the motions. Literally saying to yourself internally or out load that’s what you’re doing in the process. Or writing it down. Or texting it to yourself. As long as the thing you want to do gets done, today.

Then the next day. Then the next day. Then next week. Then the week after that. Then next month. Then the month after that. Until it’s just something you do. Until the thing you want to do is something that you start to do on autopilot. Until you know you are going to do it that day as your default setting when you wake up (and have your morning coffee).

It’s when we reach the point of doing it by default, that we can shift our focus to proficiency, quality, excellence, and hopefully one day…mastery.

There’s value in just going through the motions.

Capital #Climate Warming

Posted: January 11, 2024 in Frackishima
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When one has little to no life experience in the “real” world, that of the world outside of high school and home life; climate change seems like a no brainer issue. We know what’s wrong. We know what’s causing it. So let’s fix it. Or at least do something of substance about it.

One only needs to spend a minimal amount of time working in first world, developed nations to understand why little to anything gets done about climate change that isn’t performative at best.

The foundation of all developed countries is that of waste and pollution. Capitalism in the late stage form we’re currently living in, demands infinite growth with finite resources. Throw out your old thing and buy this new thing, for every thing, for every one, ever, forever.

There is so much pollution that even the most ardent activists can’t comprehend and would prefer to not think about, for the sake of being able to sleep or have relationships.

That is the scale of the problem. Not that it’s inconceivable, but it is so vast that a human being with emotions and a soul can’t handle taking in a full account of the negatives vs the positives.

How many cargo ships sink, spill, or lose their cargo in the ocean every year? How many of those ships are moving across the ocean every day? Even the ones that don’t spill anything, which is beyond commonplace, how much oil is polluting the ocean just in day to day business?

Now include airplanes. Now include cars. Now buses. Now boats. Now cargo trucks. Now private jets. We haven’t even gotten to non recyclable plastic or styrofoam yet.

We can change all of this. But not you and me. Sorry, too much wealth inequality. This change has to come at the top. Capitalism is the cancer killing the planet. To deny that is to deny the law of gravity. We at the bottom certainly can’t give up, we know that in our bones. But what we also need to know, admit aloud, and talk about publicly is that the narrative of personal responsibility in combating climate change only need apply to those who pull the levers of capitalism. Not our neighbors driving an SUV or using plastic bags at the grocery store.

#Create One Thing at a Time

Posted: January 10, 2024 in Stimulus Space Response
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Many of my journal entries over the past year or two have ended with me writing the words; one thing at a time.

Getting started can be so, so hard. The internal resistance to putting forth external effort and action if measurable, would go off the charts and break the instruments.

When one is able to at least temporarily squeeze through or push past perfectionism and create something, regardless of quality, the inner pressure release and sense of relief would be the equivalent of sky diving, while holding and anvil.

One thing at a time

One action at a time

One choice at a time

What is quality? What is good and bad? The gatekeepers have been out to lunch for decades at this point. Just do it.

Spotlight effect often holds people back. I know it held me back. With a little (or a lot) of Imposter Syndrome mixed in.

One thing I realized, after a very, very long time of thinking about it, journaling about it, meditating about it, drinking about it…was that if I really did think what I wanted to create was so bad then I wouldn’t be negatively judging other’s so frequently and/or so harshly.

But that’s not what we’re doing when we’re negatively judging other acts of creation. We’re projecting self hatred. I know I was. It got to the point where I was getting into verbal conflicts with people I hardly knew at bars over…nothing. I think back to what started those verbal tiffs and after I cringe, I slap myself in the forehead and stay there because they never actually said or did anything. I was just projecting my self hatred onto others because I wasn’t doing what I wanted to do which was creating.

A creator that doesn’t create, otherwise known as a writer or artist sans the word professional prefixed.

Just publishing blogs, articles, essays, and thoughts has changed my mental and emotional state immeasurably. Is my content good? Is it important? Is it impactful? Well all metrics of external success would say no, then to pat me on my head and say at least you tried.

But it’s good for me. It’s working for me. It’s helping me. And you can’t help others unless you help yourself first. You can’t feed others from an empty bowl. You can’t put on someone else’s oxygen mask if you are suffocating to death yourself.

One thing at a time

One action at a time

One choice at a time

The Defense #Budget is Morally Offensive

Posted: January 10, 2024 in Excess and Algorithms
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“They got money for war, but can’t feed the poor” Tupac Shakur

Anytime I mention the >$845 billion annual budget for the Military Industrial Complex I am always greeted by either confusion, deflection or anger.

Anger is the one that gives me that kind of self mutilating joy. Such sadness and disappointment at my fellow human that they feel the need to take up verbal defense of an entity that literally has more money than any other entity on Earth…for “defense”

What’s worse than an exploited worker in false class solidarity with billionaires? Military Industrial Complex bootlickers.

It’s not their fault. America is the most propagandized country in the history of the world and it’s not even close. Germany? North Korea? Wake up.

Have you looked at a screen ever? What is advertising? What are commercials? Who owns the news? Who owns the media? And why? Exactly.

It’s in our nature to think we’re the good guys. We’ll already justify our own actions to ourselves regardless of their external effects unless we suffer immediate negative repercussions.

You take that part of our nature and subject us to a literal non stop, inescapable propaganda machine in every home, public space, purse, and pocket and how can the masses in America not have the consciousness be corporate captured?

We know in our hearts poverty shouldn’t exist in the world with so much wealth. But what our eyes see and our ears hear, our mind believes. And those two senses are under a never ending attack of seduction by entities that want us to live like donkeys chasing the carrot to avoid the stick.

And if we’re too buys mentally, verbally, and physically fighting each other or buying things or working ourselves to the bone to avoid poverty, then we certainly can’t unite for the greater good of the 99%.

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