Our Spiritual Crisis

In our awareness that something around us has gone terribly wrong, we pull back and find a safe distance to let things settle. Perhaps this approach makes use of something similar to the gastronomical genius that unconsciously determines the source of food poisoning when we have become ill, and maintains a biased, close-minded grudge as a strategy to avoid further harm.

Politicians and theologists lament that the public is largely unable to take Middle Eastern fables seriously and the concepts founded upon them now that government cannot enforce respect for a religious system by fire and sword. Their position is understandable given its historical context, as is the rejection of those myths and ideas.

The origins of Judeo-Christianity as a Middle Eastern, Abrahamic religion are well known. The effort to apply this religion to European populations is less considered, though most are aware of the function served by the religious change. Numerous rulers used the guise of saving souls to force this foreign religion on the European natives. Though the Europeans had their own traditional nature-based religions that had served them well for over 10,000 years, missionaries and violent conversions were used to instruct people in the supernatural thinking of a nutty Jewish cult. The goal was to make the population obedient and subservient, in effect enslaving them to the material goals of its decadent, declining rulers.

Though this conversion served the rulers well, providing profit and a weaker, sickened, more controllable population, it was not in anyone's long-term interests. Undertaking such decisions means that eventually the consequences become exposed and show what happens when selfish interests clash with the healthy order of the world.

To grasp the origins from which our instinctual rejection arises, it is important to understand how greatly Judeo-Christianity departs from our ancestral religions. Even with the substantial addition of European thinking to Judeo-Christian teachings, the religion was only digestible to Europeans in abstract metaphor. We have applied our Spring Equinox celebration of seasonal rebirth as Easter, our Winter Solstice festival for Christmas and incorporated our culture into theirs, but still the foreign aspects of their religion fail to connect to us as spiritually relevant, as they originate in souls that are very different from ours.

A historic reading of Judeo-Christianity makes it clear that their god, the god of the Hebrews, is for their people alone and not other nations or peoples. This lack of relevance and the unwillingness to worship a foreign god led even nominally converted people to continue their traditional religious beliefs despite great threats if caught doing so.

The fixation on "sin" is a uniquely Jewish problem. Europeans lived compatibly with nature and focused on doing what was good and useful instead of avoiding what was bad and harmful. Understandably, they did not exhibit the bad behavior that plagued the Jewish population and necessitated behavioral prohibitions and doctrines. Since the mindset of avoiding "sin" changes behavioral focus from functionality and action to dysfucntion and avoidance of action, and then believes that the consequences of a choice are removed by pleading to a being, it is not hard to see why this is a religion with only a passive relationship to life and at best a strained connection to reality.

In real life there is no "evil" or "sin" -- and the endless search for and opposition to these only results in naming things incorrectly and ascribing properties that don't actually exist. To take the next step and punish people for imaginary "evil" or "sin" is a combination of insanity and an obvious control mechanism.

Even children find Judeo-Christian rituals odd, sensing the fear, compulsion, and inner confusion at their roots. When some part of us senses this, not yet numbed, paralyzed, or asleep, the common reaction is to speak out and turn against all religion as a fraud, poison, and disease. But we have not experienced any real religion -- we have been held hostage by a single fraud. Nor have most Judeo-Christians ever had any connection to the spirituality that nourished their ancestors.

What we are seeing in the erosion of Judeo-Christian control is a removal of a facade that only stood for a thousand years. Underneath is a older, lasting spiritual foundation hidden by the rot, mold, and slime of parasites.

When the controllers see their mechanism of control falling to shambles, we can understand that they panic because they have no other expedient and reliable instruments. When Middle Eastern spirituality is rejected by non-Middle Eastern people, that too is sensible, but the rejection of all spiritual possibility is not. That many have been kept ignorant of legitimate spirituality is terrible, but is no reason to curse what truly belongs to them, though they may have not yet discovered it.

The great spiritual crisis of the modern age is not our rejection of Jewish fables, but rather that those vaunted fables have been offered as our only path while better paths were blocked. Those who find Judeo-Christianity hollow and turn away disgusted with religion are still enslaved to the idea that Judeo-Christianity is the only spiritual approach they are permitted to consider. Break free of the blinders instead of choosing to live blind!

The attempts of a thousand years of religious subjugation are coming to an end. Much has been wrecked and great disorganization has been created in the lust for quick profit, but at the core reality remains unchanged. The same seed that gave our ancestors fulfilling lives exists for us also and remains within our grasp.

The flag to which you are pledging allegiance today may not be your children's flag.
[Miami Herald]

Opulence is what allows a civilization to tolerate its own entropic detritus and call it "citizen"
[ANUS]

"I got a job from some American who was incredibly ignorant and miserably inadequate at accounting.

I have no respect for Americans anymore. What was once a great culture built on learning and decency has nothing but a bunch of ignorant immoral morons. Such is your fate."
[VDARE]

According to a story in today's Washington Post, "William L. Smith, chief technology officer for Atlanta-based BellSouth Corp., told reporters and analysts that an Internet service provider such as his firm should be able, for example, to charge Yahoo Inc. for the opportunity to have its search site load faster than that of Google Inc."

Giving ISPs such power would mean the end of the free-wheeling Internet. It wouldn't affect only search engines. Political sites, news sites, blogs, and sites put up by anyone except the big boys who can afford the multimillion-dollar charges would be purposely degraded in speed in a brazen bid to favor the big-money-boys (read: the corporate controlled media).
[BellSouth: Play Ball or We'll Slow Your Site Down]

But more than stressing the political, cultural, religious, and civilizational danger these immigrants pose, Le Pen makes the untimely observation that they don't even serve an economic purpose. The state's own statistics show that legal immigration grew by nearly 3% in 2004 and that only 5% of these new immigrants hold jobs -- which means the remaining 95% are supported by French taxpayers, who have to foot the bill for their housing, unemployment benefits, and medical care. According to the economist Yves-Marie Laulan, every immigrant entering France ends up costing the country 100,000 euros per year. It is of course politically incorrect to note the correlation between these statistics and what happened in the burning suburbs. But these figures (which don't include illegal immigration) cannot but announce even greater troubles.
[France:'Everything Will Change']

"If we have to take away video games, then we have to think about other things."
[Billboard]

Modern society is at war with thinking, so it makes sense to advocate entertainment products to keep people distracted from reality. Why bother with reality if you can sleep through your one chance to live?

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education on Wednesday released its Guide To First-Year Orientation and Thought Reform on Campus, co-authored by Alliance Defense Fund Senior Counsel Jordan Lorence. The guide exposes several ways that colleges and universities deny students and professors their freedom of conscience.

"One of the great things about being an American is having the freedom to believe what you believe," said Lorence. "Not only are university officials censoring speech, they are also repressing dissent and intimidating students to change their basic beliefs. They use so-called 'hate' speech codes, mandatory diversity training, and misuse nondiscrimination policies and mandatory student fees, and other Orwellian tactics of indoctrination. These are all things ADF is litigating against in the courtroom."
[Alliance Defense Fund]

According to the Treasury Department, from 1776-2000, the first 224 years of U.S. history, 42 U.S. presidents borrowed a combined $1.01 trillion from foreign governments and financial institutions, but in the past four years alone, the Bush administration borrowed $1.05 trillion.
...
"No American political leadership has ever willfully and deliberately mortgaged our country to foreign interests in the manner we have witnessed over the past four years," said Tanner. "If this recklessness is not stopped, I truly believe our economic freedom as American citizens is in great jeopardy."
[CNSNews]

I wonder if there are any implications...

"The facts are not partisan, and they're not ideological," said David Walker, the nation's comptroller general. He should know. He's the nation's chief accountant and signs off on the government's balance sheet. America's fiscal future, he said, "is worse than advertised."

When the government next reports these numbers Dec. 15, the total is expected to reach $46 trillion to $50 trillion.

How much is $50 trillion? About $166,000 for each of the almost 300 million Americans.
[Seatle Times]

American "wealth" is an illusion based on borrowed funds that will soon be cut off, followed by creditor claims. Are you ready to repay the $166,000 spent on your behalf?

Are we seeing the survival of the fittest? Or could it be the survival of the unfittest? What do you see? The decline of intelligence year after year, accompanied by the radical increase of numbers.
[Boyd Rice]

"It might come as a surprise to many people that in the U.S. patent system human DNA is treated like other natural chemical products," said Fiona Murray, a business and science professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, and a co-author of the study.
[National Geographic]

The real advantage of universal literacy is to tighten the grip of the governing power upon the foolish and conceited millions. That is probably why it is drummed into our heads, from babyhood onwards, that "literacy" is such a boon. Capacity to think for one's self is, however, the real boon. And that always was and always will be the privilege of a minority, once recognised as a natural elite and respected.
[Savitri Devi]

Unfortunately, the idea of treating the brighter or more serious students as a problem to be dealt with by keeping them busy is not uncommon, and is absolutely pervasive in the public schools. One fashionable solution for such "problem" students is to assign them to help the less able or less conscientious students who are having trouble keeping up.

In other words, make them unpaid teacher's aides!

High potential will remain only potential unless it is developed. But the very thought that high potential should be developed more fully never seems to occur to many of our educators -- and some are absolutely hostile to the idea.

It violates their notions of equality or "social justice" and it threatens the "self-esteem" of other students. As a result, too often a student with the potential to become a future scientist, inventor, or a discoverer of a cure for cancer will instead have his time tied up doing busy work for the teacher.
[Thomas Sowell: Smart 'problems']

"Most of the people here think George W. Bush is crazy. People think a U.S. attack is imminent, but have no animosity against the American people just against the government and it's imperialistic mindset," said Assaneh Ostovar, 32, in an extended telephone conversation this week from her home in Tehran.
...
Citing examples of hundreds of nuclear weapons stockpiled in Israel pointing at her country, she feels her country has every right to protect itself as well as use nuclear technology to improve Iran's infrastructure capabilities.
...
"Like I said, I think an attack is imminent but it will different from the ground war in Iraq, which by the way has created a greater instability in the entire region. Most Iranians fear they are next on Bush's list. I happen to think when the attack comes it will be from the air and if everybody else is threatening to use nuclear weapons against us, shouldn't we have the right to defend ourselves with the same type of weaponry?"
[The Arctic Beacon]

If this is just a natural disaster, the response for public officials is obvious: you bring in food, water, and doctors; you send transportation to evacuate refugees to temporary shelters; you send engineers to stop the flooding and rebuild the city's infrastructure. For journalists, natural disasters also have a familiar pattern: the heroism of ordinary people pulling together to survive; the hard work and dedication of doctors, nurses, and rescue workers; the steps being taken to clean up and rebuild.

Public officials did not expect that the first thing they would have to do is to send thousands of armed troops in armored vehicle, as if they are suppressing an enemy insurgency. And journalists--myself included--did not expect that the story would not be about rain, wind, and flooding, but about rape, murder, and looting.

For the past few days, I have found the news from New Orleans to be confusing. People were not behaving as you would expect them to behave in an emergency--indeed, they were not behaving as they have behaved in other emergencies. That is what has shocked so many people: they have been saying that this is not what we expect from America. In fact, it is not even what we expect from a Third World country.

When confronted with a disaster, people usually rise to the occasion. They work together to rescue people in danger, and they spontaneously organize to keep order and solve problems. This is especially true in America. We are an enterprising people, used to relying on our own initiative rather than waiting around for the government to take care of us. I have seen this a hundred times, in small examples (a small town whose main traffic light had gone out, causing ordinary citizens to get out of their cars and serve as impromptu traffic cops, directing cars through the intersection) and large ones (the spontaneous response of New Yorkers to September 11).

To give you an idea of the magnitude of what is going on, here is a description from a Washington Times story:

"Storm victims are raped and beaten; fights erupt with flying fists, knives and guns; fires are breaking out; corpses litter the streets; and police and rescue helicopters are repeatedly fired on.

"The plea from Mayor C. Ray Nagin came even as National Guardsmen poured in to restore order and stop the looting, carjackings and gunfire....

"Last night, Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco said 300 Iraq-hardened Arkansas National Guard members were inside New Orleans with shoot-to-kill orders.

" 'These troops are...under my orders to restore order in the streets,' she said. 'They have M-16s, and they are locked and loaded. These troops know how to shoot and kill and they are more than willing to do so if necessary and I expect they will.' "
[The Intellectual Activist]

"I'm sure by now the media's painted a suitable picture of me. It's predictable propaganda machine, it's natural they try and point a spin on things to suit the Government and to scare the masses into conformity to their power and wealth obsessed agendas, and our words have no impact upon you, therefore I'm going to talk to you in a language that you understand. Our words are dead until we give them life with our blood.

I and thousands like me have forsaken everything for what we believe. Our driving motivation doesn't come from tangible commodities that this world has to offer...Your democratically elected governments continuously perpetuate atrocities against my people all over the world and your support of them makes you directly responsible, just as I am directly responsible for protecting and avenging my Muslim brothers and sisters.

Until we feel secure, you will be our targets, and until you stop the bombing, gassing, imprisonment and torture of my people, we will not stop this fight. We are at war, and I am a soldier. Now, you too will taste the reality of this situation."
-Mohammed Siddique Khan

What an impressive disaster! And what a great gift to be able to steal a quick peek into the future of progress.

[H]urricane victims should avoid discount centers such as Wal-Mart and focus their looting on higher-end stores in order to get good quality products.

Fears of an international energy crisis mounted on Wednesday as the scale of human and economic devastation caused in the southern US by Hurricane Katrina became fully apparent.
[FT.com]

No, idiot. The international energy crisis is neither new nor caused by a storm.

Another "unplanned event", such as additional retaliation for supporting Israeli genocide of Arabs should drive gallon prices into double digits in short order. Senseless foreign policy leads to devastating results at home.

If the game is equality, it seems the policy of death should show nearly equal numbers for people at war, or at least equality should serve as a goal and motivator for a side that is taking disproportionate losses.

In the 21st century job growth in the US economy has consistently reflected that of a Third World country -- low productivity domestic services jobs. This goes on month after month and no one catches on -- least of all the economists and the policymakers.
[Paul Craig Roberts]

The terrorist attacks against the U.S., Great Britain and Spain are motivated exclusively by Western policies toward the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the presence of Western military forces in Islamic countries. Al-Qaeda, the ideological source of these attacks, has always been crystal-clear and specific about its reasons for declaring war against the United States.

You can't win a war unless you know who your enemy is, know why he is your enemy and know what his objectives are. Only then can you properly direct your military and political forces to combat him successfully.
...
You can't have a war against terrorism because, as many people have pointed out, terrorism is a tactic employed by people who have no real military power. It is not an entity. There is no worldwide terrorist organization.

Terrorist tactics work because we live in a wired world. Ten or 12 people can set off a few bombs in London, and the world turns its electronic eyes on the story and chats, discusses and shows video clips until some other event distracts it. The media attention and the inflated rhetoric of politicians magnify the terrorist act far beyond its actual import.
...
Because of the power of the Israeli lobby to skew our policy to benefit Israel, our Middle East policies are riddled with double and triple standards and reek of hypocrisy. Because of that, we are the best recruiter Osama bin Laden has.

But in the meantime, remember that terrorist attacks are primarily media events. You still have more to fear from the flu or accidents than you do from terrorists.
[Nobody Attacks Civilization]