[phoenixvoice]

Mattias Desmet
…is overwhelmed by the notoriety that he is receiving, and it is going to his head. Or, more likely, inflating the truth is something that he has always done. He is not a prophet..but does offer some cogent analysis.
(1) he creates a framework (“hypnosis”) that explains how/why individuals that are in no way connected to the WEF, the WHO, Clinton/Obama/Biden, etc., have “drunk the koolaid” and are behaving in bizarre ways. (Such as: apparently an older gentleman in my former choir has been frequently removing his mask during choir practice. The man next to him is becoming very disgruntled by this, trying to “hold his breath” whenever he notices it. Oh, how these stringent, performative practices fray human connections that are supposedly nurtured by this spiritual community….)
(2) Totalitarian power structures operate according to an ideology that is at odds with the ideologies that we are familiar with. This is why it becomes difficult to predict how leaders in totalitarian structures will behave and what they will do, making it a challenge to counter them.

“Hypnosis” is an altered sense of reality. Equating totalitarian ideology with hypnosis is helpful, because then we can more easily “think outside of the box” of our common ideologies.

Unfortunately, simply believing that the WEFfers are “just like you and me,” with greed as their primary motivation is not going to adequately capture the motivating ideology.

Have any of you seen the Netflix film Don’t Look Up? The film suggests that most humans are so hopelessly mired in mundanities and useless shenanigans that they are incapable of adequately responding to an existential threat and mounting an effective countermeasure. Ultimately, the “good” characters come together for a peaceful communal meal (a “last supper”) as armegeddon destroys them. Not a lot of US based films are tragedies — this one is, full of hubris. The main character is WEFfer darling Leonardo DiCaprio. I suspect that the WEFfers and their ilk have convinced themselves that it is their duty, as the elites, to preserve a small slice of humanity and civilization against an imminent Armageddon. It is their “Noble Lie.” The machinery that will lead to the destruction of humanity is already in motion—they cannot stop it—all they can do is save themselves and several more to serve them. With that sort of framework, “the ends justify the means”—because the ends (massive human death) are already “written in the stars.” (Just like it was fated that the inhabitants of Jericho and the rest of Palestine were to be swept away by the Children of Israel in the Old Testament. The former inhabitants of Palestine were “iniquitous” and the Israelite god had given Joshua and his warriors a mandate (“manifest destiny”) to slaughter them all.)

I’ve been watching the most recent season of Cobra Kai with a couple of my kids. John Silver is the arch-enemy in the current season, and the new Japanese karate master on the scene, Chozen, suggests that to defeat Silver they must “think like the enemy.” While we certainly don’t want to think so much like the enemy that we becomethe enemy (staying grounded in one’s own reality is crucial) it is very difficult to adequately respond to an enemy that cannot be fathomed, whose moves cannot be anticipated.

I remember how dumbfounded I felt the day that I realized that one of the best ways to figure out what my ex was doing was to listen to all of the accusations he made of me. The accusations were completely unfounded, but when I operated from the point of view that the accusations were projections onto me of his own behaviors, desires, and thoughts—it was like I had been given the blueprints for his twisted mind. His behaviors suddenly made sense. When I understood him, it became possible to start extricating myself from the situation.

[phoenixvoice]

Since there was no human trial before the newest “updated to omicron” injections were released, the only data available is anecdotal. Here is a quote from a member of my former choir:
This is off-topic for choir but on Wed morning [husband] and I got our Moderna Omicron Covid booster shots along with our flu shots. We had sore arms but were fine at choir practice that night. Then came Thurs and whoa, the reaction hit – feeling feverish, achy and generally icky. Just a warning, you may have a similar reaction. I hadn’t had such a reaction to any of our previous Covid shots. [Husband] and I are feeling better today, still sore arms and a bit achy but not terrible and of course it’s worth it to be protected.

I had breakfast with my 89-year-old friend yesterday. I don’t know whether or not she has had her omicron shot, but she had 4 other Covid Moderna shots. She is usually energetic. She has been feeling very weak and tired of late, and she suspects that her mind is slipping. (Although, I saw no evidence of such slippage, which I’ve seen in others in the past — I recognize it when I see it.) She blames it on her age. For the first time, she talked of how she now believes that her husband will outlive her (he is a few years younger, but has lost his mind due to pre-Covid strokes and is institutionalized in the same retirement community where she lives.). At her age it is hard to know the cause — but I know enough of these shots to suspect that whatever else may be going on, it is likely exacerbated by the side effects of the Covid “vaccinations.”
We talked a little on politics. She is certain that if Trump becomes president again that the nation will go fully totalitarian, and the Jews will be rounded up and exterminated. (She is Jewish. So is my spouse.). I thought about a finding a way of illustrating for her that the Biden Admin has overt totalitarian characteristics, but she needed to leave shortly, and there wasn’t time to work that in. I think that she has been overly influenced by CNN.
I find it common that fascism is equated with “Jew-hating.” I think that this is used as a mental shorthand, freeing the mind from fully analyzing fascism. Anyone who downplays the anti-Semitic characteristics of fascism can be accused of being an anti-Semite, so I find myself falling back on Hannah Arendt’s analysis…she was Jewish, and while she tracks the curve of anti-semitism in great detail, fascism scapegoats and “others” groups of people as a part of its propaganda and warped ideology — Jews were the largest group initially targeted because of various extant social trajectories and trends. And this “othering” was only one aspect of fascism, and not its raison d’etre. When people equate “fascism” with “anti-semitism” or “racism” (or with “Marxism”) they completely misunderstand what fascism/totalitarianism is, and then they don’t recognize when it rears its head in nascent stages, as has been happening more and more over the past few decades.

Imagine, feeling protected by the talisman of an injection that has only been tested on 8 mice.

On the bright side, my long term client who ended up with myocarditis from Modena vax #2 is finally feeling better after 14 months vax-free, using the regimen suggested by her naturalist doctor.

[phoenixvoice]

I was watching Babylon 5, season 3, episode 8 last night.
It started with an alien ambassador explaining to his assistant how to alter a report about another alien race so that it would become political propaganda that would please the home office. The story continued with the “night watch” being directed by the political office to supplant station security that had been historically tasked to the military — it was a totalitarian style maneuver — and how the (“noble”) station officers outmaneuvered and took back control of station security. It was almost eery to watch a story with so many shadowy parallels to current events, with “night watch” armbands reminiscent of Nazi SS, mass formation at work, etc.

[phoenixvoice]

Regarding the dentist…the dentist is not required by law to accept Medicaid. Only children receive full dental coverage in Arizona from Medicaid, so there are plenty of non-insurance covered folks to get the $220 per filling from. (Adults on Medicaid get a $1,000/year emergency dental benefit only — and if you’re not in considerable pain, it isn’t considered emergency.). When a provider signs up to accept Medicaid, they are contractually agreeing to accept the Medicaid reimbursement schedule as payment-in-full, so the provider was in breach of contract.
Additionally, if the dentist didn’t feel like doing the filling that day — because it wasn’t economically feasible on Saturday, etc., then the office should have declined offering the appointment — no one forced them to accept the appointment. Or, the office could have been up front about telling me that they would charge more than was legally allowed, informing me when the appointment was made — I would have been annoyed, but would have looked for a different provider, not wanting to deal with the hassle. Instead, the dentist chose to deceive me, to offer 1/4 of the service and then demand the extra payment.
This was very foolish on the part of the dentist. I have 3 kids in high school. The children’s dental office that they have gone to for about 10 years I recently discovered only does fillings and “procedures” during high school hours. I had decided to find the kids a new dentist. If the dentist office that did the filling hadn’t pulled this shenanigan, asking for extra payment on the filling, I had planned at the completion of the visit to make an appointment for my daughter’s next exam and cleaning, which was due in a week and a half. It is likely that I also would then have made appointments for my sons as well, and the dental office would have had 3 new regular patients. Perhaps the dental office made very little on that particular filling, but they make sufficient income from routine exams and cleanings (under insurance) to stay in business.

One thing that the medical insurance system (or public medicine system) does relatively well is induce people to bother with routine prophylactic medical and dental care as a means of finding problems when they are small, rather than waiting until they are large and more difficult to address. A standard fee-for-service medical/dental system does not do this: the patient doesn’t want to bother paying for care when there is no pain, and the medical provider will usually make more money from price-gouging people who are in pain or in life-threatening situations. In a fee-for-service system, the inducement for a provider to provide prophylactic care is based upon the individual ethic of the provider: is the provider primarily motivated to provide care because of an intrinsic desire to help people and positive feelings emanating from knowing patients are leading healthy lives, or rather motivated primarily from the money derived from the work? With fee-for-service, the patient seeks prophylactic care because of habit or duty or education or fear of what may happen without it — but such care is not compelled. In an insurance system/public medicine, the costs are lower for the insurer/government/public when prophylactic care is received. Now, the provider’s primary motivation is largely irrelevant, as the provider has become a cog in a larger system. For the patient in the insurance/public system, prophylactic care is a “free benefit” and a duty — avoiding prophylactic care is akin to squandering a resource.

I am not trying to analyze which medical system is intrinsically better (fee-for-service or insurance/public), only to illustrate that different systems lead to different outcomes.

If we want people to get prophylactic care, the service needs to be free or almost free and the people require education to understand how this benefits them. If we want to attract medical professionals to medicine that have high ethics and are invested in their patients having good health, then the profession needs to not be one of the best paid professions — I believe that doctors should be well-compensated…but, let’s face it, if young people are selecting a medical specialty based primarily upon a large future earning potential, their medical ethics are compromised before they ever receive their license.

[phoenixvoice]

Still reading Rules for Radicals.
This bit was hilarious — because the WEFfers obviously don’t really study Alinsky, as they are doing so many of their tactics in ways that are obviously not in alignment.
…any consideration of a boycott should carefully avoid essentials such as meat, milk, bread, or basic vegetables….With non-essentials—grapes, bananas…many liberals can make a “sacrifice” and feel noble.

So what does the US and NATO and WEFfers do? Oh, cut back dramatically on the ENERGY that underpins current European civilization. I mean, sure, make the populaces cut back on NON-ESSENTIALS — like sending all of their military supplies to Ukraine, so the Europeans can feel “noble.” That will be tolerated. But, ultimately, depriving the populace of the means to keep warm in the winter? That is NUTS. (Which belies that it comes from a totalitarian meme. Totalitarian memes do not operate according to typical memes, and produce policies and practices that at odds with “common sense” as generally recognized.)

[phoenixvoice]

@ UpstateNYer
Yes, I am very aware of those who fall through the cracks of Medicaid because they earn too much. It is tragic and a travesty. I, too, have been in that situation in the past, and know of others in that situation as well. As an adult I do not get free preventive dental care under Medicaid, and my 6 month exam and cleaning are 4 months overdue because I don’t currently have the funds. There is a family that I knew years ago that was hiding (drug dealing) income to get Medicaid. They had a toddler. (I didn’t realize this at the time…the puzzle pieces came together later.). The mother told me of a recent situation when the father had fallen suddenly ill, had gone to the hospital, the mother had been beside herself with worry. Looking at the angst of the mother’s situation, it was difficult for me to categorically say that this family should be cut off from Medicaid because the father was hiding his illegal income…it would inevitable cause pain and suffering downstream to innocents. If the mother took the child and left she would be legally eligible for Medicaid, but would not be able to easily support herself and the child…she would get subsidized childcare, SNAP, a pittance of TANF for a short while and poverty wages in a tiny apartment that she could barely afford, exhausted by work, and not as emotionally available to her child. There are no easy solutions.

[phoenixvoice]

“There is no attempt, unlike fascism and state socialism, to address the needs of the poor.”
According to Arendt, the Nazis dismantled programs designed to help the poor pretty early into their regime. I think that by “state socialism” Hedges is referencing the other great totalitarian power, the defunct USSR…they started out with programs to aid the poor, but since with Stalin they went full-totalitarian the programs were essentially just a part of the endemic propaganda and indoctrination of the populace. We could say that the Nazi and Communist Party propaganda “attempted” to address poverty…but it was really just puffery.

[phoenixvoice]

Dr D
No. It’s not “Costs” they need. It’s the actual gas.
Yup. In capitalism, when there is scarcity, the price of a needed resource will continue to rise as long as there is money available to follow the price, until the money is gone from those who held it, transferred to those (in industry, in government,) who hold or control access to the resource. Because that *IS* the plan — getting the people of Europe to accept that they “own nothing” and blame Putin rather than the WEFfer yahoos in their own governments.

[phoenixvoice]

I find myself wondering when Chris Hedges is going to figure out that the Covid “vaccine” is killing folks. He is generally brilliant, and has a knack for seeing through corporate and government shenanigans. However, he doesn’t appear to see this one yet. Either that, or he is aware but avoiding the issue since medicine is not his profession and to avoid being canceled. But I don’t think that he is biding his time. He is either oblivious or not yet certain. He may be blinded by his own cognitive dissonance in this area. Still, the perfidy of the US government and megacorporations is something he perpetually looks into…he is going to eventually stumble across the data on the excess deaths.

[phoenixvoice]

I’m reading the Chris Hedges piece right now, passed through the part where he reviews how programs designed to combat poverty were attacked and largely dismantled by Reagan, his peers, and politicos that followed.

I grew up listening to such rhetoric, believing that it was true.
I also grew up listening to the rhetoric of the Mormon church, believing THAT was true…and the Mormon teachings, ill luck, and biology are how I ended up in a bad marriage that had to be ended, with a father for my children that saw child support as an existential threat to his existence…and so designed his life to evade child support as much as possible.
Which brings me to today: on food stamps and Medicaid for 10 years, dependent upon the Earned Income Tax Credit, etc., working, but hampered by the lingering effects of PTSD from my marriage. I’ve had 10 years to reconcile the Reagan rhetoric of “welfare queens” with the realities of my own life.

There are grifters in every system. In politics there are many grifters…the Biden family comes to mind. Do some grifters scam the government’s programs to mitigate the ill effects of poverty as was illustrated by Reagan and peers? Yes. I have even met some of them over the years. But the effectiveness of a program is not sufficiently measured by the presence of grifters. How much suffering was/is alleviated by various programs that mitigate poverty? THAT is the purpose of these programs — and is it worth it to hang out to dry all those who benefitted for the small percent that grift? (Now, the Democratic and Republican political parties…those are a couple of systems that are so infused with grifters that the grifters in leadership probably outnumber the non-grifters in leadership positions.)

Medicaid isn’t just a system that provides medical care to impoverished folks, and the grifters in that system are not just those that hide their income in order to receive medical care. I met another type of Medicaid grifter this past Saturday. Friday night my daughter had a filling fall out. I wanted to get it taken care of right away, (didn’t want to wait until Tuesday, after the long weekend,) and I knew that her Medicaid-provided dental insurance would fully cover redoing the filling. I found a dentist on the insurance a couple of miles away that had Saturday morning hours, called and made an appointment to have her seen at 11 am. The dentist and assistant took an X-ray, and had applied the numbing gel in advance of the Novocain shot. The assistant then approached me with a computer printout showing that the filling would cost $220, a handwritten $63 written next to it. The assistant explained that the insurance only covered $63 of the procedure, and I was required to pay the balance. I have enough experience with Medicaid to know that billing a Medicaid recipient — or even asking for payment like this — is contrary to both state and federal law. I told them (the dentist was right there, and my teen daughter was 3 feet away,) that this was a covered procedure, and that they were not allowed to bill me. The assistant explained that usually I was correct, but that they only routinely do oral surgery on Saturday, so there was an extra charge. I knew that this changed nothing according to the law, and it was disingenuous to list Saturday hours on their website and then claim an extra fee on Saturday. I changed tactics, stated that, look, I don’t have the money with me (I didn’t,) don’t have it in the bank (i don’t,) I have no credit card, I didn’t get my tax refund this year and cannot afford the charge. If you are not willing to complete the procedure, I’ll take my daughter now and leave. The dentist decided to go ahead and do the filling.

Attempting to collect payment (other than established tiny copays at time of service — of which there are none for children’s care) from a Medicaid recipient for a covered service is considered fraud on the part of the medical provider. How many other Medicaid recipients has this dental office scammed, demanding extra payment for Medicaid-covered procedures? Medicaid recipients are already impoverished — this is fraud designed specifically to prey upon those already identified by the government as struggling financially — and it was over an emergency dental service provided to a child.

[phoenixvoice]

@ Redneck
Just read your retelling of the conversation with hospital staff before cataract surgery. LMAO.
That has got to be one of the best ways to break a mass formation…truth that is also humorous.

The soaring energy costs in Europe has me worried. What if even a fraction of that happens here? I can’t afford skyrocketing energy costs.

[phoenixvoice]

First paragraph from WSJ’s article about Biden’s weird speech the other day (courtesy of my dad, longtime WSJ subscriber)
It’s been obvious for years that while Democrats claim to fear and loathe Donald Trump, they really can’t live without him. They need him around, they want him around, because they think he’s their ticket to remain in power.

I frequently find fault with WSJ opinion pieces…and, courtesy to my dad, I see more of them than I would prefer! However, with this one I find some agreement — there are huge parts of the US that are turned off by the Biden Admin playbook.

However, the Republican Party, MAGA or otherwise, is not a longtime solution. Ideally, I’d take a tip from Saul Alinsky and what could be helpful would be a popular movement that eschews both parties and instead plays them off of each other. Currently, both parties are playing segments of the US population off of each other. The US population needs to stop being dupes for those in power.

[phoenixvoice]

Red: “Experts” seem to think that the wood smoke will be worse than the hypothermia!

I think that it is a reflection of current “woke” thinking where the focus is more on protected minorities than on the majority. It is an odd lens for viewing the world.

Hypothermia is something that has ill effect on everyone. Air pollution will be specifically devastating to a subset. By focusing on the extra-detrimental effect on the subset, the “woke” are attempting to manipulate the masses’ behavior through guilt — the current fad for “deepest social shame” in woke circles is an act that benefits oneself while being detrimental to another who is weak and helpless.

The deepest irony is that this is a form of projection by the WEFfers — they reveal their own intentions by their projections on others.

[phoenixvoice]

The Covid legacy lives on…
It’s been 2.5 years. I’ve been acquainted with the local children’s hospital since about 2008. All age 3 and older are obligated to participate in the Covid theatre of mask wearing. It is so weird. Everywhere else: I see faces. For 12 years when at this place — I saw faces. There was a time when I went here with my son for several clinic visits throughout the year…and I saw faces.
At least today I remembered to bring the cotton mask which is more comfortable. *sigh* Endoscopy for my son today, so it’s a 4 hour tour.

Is this a taste of what totalitarianism is like? I know that the masks are “performative art.” By now, most people know it, too, but we don them and comply at larger medical facilities.

The blood-red lighting and white-handed marines behind Biden is chilling. It reminds me of the imagery of so many movies about distopic, authoritarian regimes. All the while Biden’s words are one projection after another, projecting the reality of his own regime onto the “MAGA Republicans.” It’s surreal.

[phoenixvoice]

It’s like the frog and the boiling water.

First, the Western population put up with lockdowns. Yeah, they grumbled, but pretty much went along with that and masks and “social distance” for a lot longer than 2 weeks.

Then it was remdesivir and bad press for HCQ, and ivermectin and mass PCR testing, banning of early treatment.

Then it was vaccines. Many even signed themselves up to get jabbed without coercion! For many more, it only took a reward — free ice cream and donuts, or negative social pressure (shaming.). Then came the vax passports and no jab, no job —that ratcheted up the water level a few more degrees. And for that one there was more public pushback. The WEFfers decided to change tactics, release the pandemic screws.

Now they are moving in on us with financial turmoil, threatening our energy and our food. The war in Ukraine is little more than an excuse — it provides the moral framework to see the situation as a moralist tale, seeing how far we will voluntarily deprive ourselves of resources for the benefit of princess Ukraine. We are being shamed into reducing our carbon footprints, “for Ukraine,” “for the planet,” “for the animals.” The stick is the inflation. It will go similarly as it did with compulsory vaccination…seeing how far they can go before too large a segment of the population begins to rebel (probably when too many die from hypothermia), then they will ease up just a bit.

It is the classic relationship between abuser and victim.

Soon, the victim is tolerating situations that previously would have been unthinkable. The water temperature is rising.

Unfortunately, having been the unwitting victim of verbal/emotional abuse for over a decade, I am too familiar with how bad it can get before the victim wakes up and realizes that something is not right.

——

The beauty of electric cars for WEFfers is that with few enough folks using gasoline vehicles, the gas station infrastructure can be abandoned without public outcry. Then, electricity capacity can be reduced, and voila! the movement of the public is curtailed because it can no longer move quickly from one locale to another.

[phoenixvoice]

Dr D:
Just as it’s illegal to collect a glass of water in Colorado and Arizona
It IS illegal to harvest rainwater in Colorado — the waterways are so controlled because the precipitation (snowfall, mostly,) is the source of the Colorado River.

However, this is not the case in Arizona. In AZ the groundwater (wells) are highly regulated in highly populous areas and lightly regulated in low population areas (a simple permit is required — ostensibly so that there is a record of where the well is.). Rainwater can be freely collected in AZ. Which is one of my projects this year.

[phoenixvoice]

I only saw one Palo verde beetle this year, which was quite odd. And it was a few weeks later than usual Usually, I see 10-15. They are 3 inches in length.

[phoenixvoice]

It is fascinating to understand just *how* different another system may be.

Yesterday, Dr D said:
. Yes, Feudalism was what we know, but it ALSO had unbreakable responsibilities from the Lord to the Serf. Two-way. Like, what happened to elderly farm workers? What happened with the village? Yes, that was all the Lord and Manor’s problem. Which they shirked as all men would, but they did and must for fealty or their name would be mud.

Compare to our Progress, our better system: under Capitalism, paycheck, the owner has NO responsibility for you the worker. This also changed slowly, but at this point it is essentially universal. Zero two-way. All one-way.

Under feudalism there was no outside, powerful “authority” to ensure that the feudal chief did his duty by his people. (The only outside, powerful authority was “God.”) The bonds were passed down through story, through mythology. We forget how powerful myth can be because we live in a world where we respect the authority of law that is backed up by a monopoly of force. (The Catholic Church was powerful back then because it had a monopoly on mythology.). I have been reminded of this the past few years as I’ve read Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander book series. One of her main characters was raised to be a feudal chief, and he can’t help but live according to his upbringing in the changing times of the 18th century.

Mythology can improve/change capitalism. I worked one year as a part time legal assistant in a small family-run law office. I was shocked when I found out that they provided me with paid holidays. Later, I worked for a laboratory owned by the Utah Board of Regents, with a CEO from Sweden. I could donate blood or visit the on-site clinic “on the clock.” The on-site clinic was free to me and my immediate family members. The health insurance was robust and the premiums low — they advertised to new hires that you could have a baby for only the copay of $5. Smoking indoors was not permitted, and quitting was encouraged, but they built a glass room just outside where smoking employees could enjoy their smokes away from the snow and icy wind. When I left they were building an on-site cafeteria and day care center for employees.

This influenced me. I had an employee for 3 years. I saw it as a “sacred responsibility.” I paid her before I paid myself. Sometimes that meant that I didn’t get paid. We developed a strong friendship, and when my ex was binge drinking and I was running late to get home because I’d been helping a client, I knew the kids would be okay because my employee who was doing bookkeeping out of my home office would also greet the children after school, letting them know mom would be home shortly.

We rely on laws to control others, to dictate what the government will or will not do, and, in turn, laws are crafted to control us and we chafe. I do not propose that one system is better or preferable to another, but only that there are fundamental differences to each system, we cannot understand other systems until we grasp the fundamental differences. If we do not like our current system, it is wise to study other human systems as it will help us understand what can be changed, how, and that there will always be unpredicted outcomes to change.

[phoenixvoice]

US mercenaries captured by Russia face either death or another two are facing up to eight years behind bars for the same reason

Some perspective:
AZ WNBA star Brittany Griner was sentenced to 9 years in Russian prison for drug possession.

[phoenixvoice]

Widely canceling student loan debt is regressive. It takes money from the broader tax base, mostly made up of workers who did not go to college, to subsidize the education debt of people with valuable degrees. Mr. Biden’s student loan decision will not do enough to help the most vulnerable Americans. It will, however, provide a windfall for those who don’t need it — with American taxpayers footing the bill.”
So…money to military industrialists for weapons to Ukraine — ok for taxpayers to foot the bill.
Money to mostly people who make more than $125k to encourage them to purchase electric vehicles with recently inflated prices — ok for taxpayers to foot the bill.
But…forgive portions of student loan debt — NOT OK for taxpayers to foot the bill.
Now, I get the part where student loan forgiveness isn’t fair to the folks who struggled to get by without student loans, or who worked their asses off for scholarships, or who already paid of their student loans. I have no sympathy for former college students who happened to have access to wealth to pay for their educations — that was another type of luck, simply appreciate it.
But, as a taxpayer, I’d rather my taxes go towards “deadbeat” folks’ student loan debt than towards weapons for Ukraine or well-off folks’ fancy electric cars! I respect efforts towards self-education.

[phoenixvoice]

@ John Day
Thank you for the Marx refresher yesterday! It’s been many years since I directly read anything by Marx…and I never got all that far. But I remember that he made salient, relevant points that help the reader to understand the problems of economies.

Cherán, Mexico

John Day’s post reminded me of the experiment going on in Cheran, Mexico since 2011.
The people of the village rose up, kicking out the government, police, and criminals, and have established functional self-government. The people also happen to be of one tribal heritage and interlocking family groups — so they have strong social bonds working in their favor — and the criminal cartels are an on-going threat, so they have a common enemy.

Aspnaz:
The only reason people need government assistance with medical care is because the government has deliberately made medical care a “protected” profession, one in which the government controlled medical practitioners have to belong to the government controlled medical union in order to be able to practice.
Yes, and no. Advances in medicine have also led to complicated procedures involving many people and fancy equipment. One son has eosinophilia esophagitis…he has periodic endoscopies, done under general anesthesia to measure whether the condition has improved or worsened. Without some sort of system to pay for this care…well, *I* can’t pay for it. His dad has more money than I, but refuses to pay for the contact lens exam and contact lenses for our daughter…she is still using the trial lenses from last November because I didn’t have the money to buy a box of lenses. (I was planning to buy them with the tax refund money, which never materialized.). Before medical insurance, or public medicine, wherever there was poverty, there were people who did not have the money to pay for medically necessary or recommended procedures.

[phoenixvoice]

@ Willem
I think that it is valuable not to hate on government just because it is government, and rather to analyze structure and behavior.

For example, in the industry of charity, of helping “the poor,” figuring out who is really needy and who is bluffing for a free lunch can be a prohibitively costly experience. The SNAP/TANF and Medicaid systems have standardized, periodic, relatively invasive procedure backed up by law and the potential for criminal proceedings for intentional fraud to determine need. Once a household is eligible for SNAP/TANF and or Medicaid many related government and NGO/charitable benefits hinge on that determination. These include (but are not limited to): Lifeline (“Obamaphone,”) free school lunch, sliding scale dental fees at county dental clinics, individual hospital programs to help the poor coping with medical bills not covered by Medicaid/Medicare, “Connect2Compete” (discounts through NGO for high speed internet for households on SNAP with at least one school age child — currently I get 100 Mb download for $10/month,) discount program where many non-profit museums/zoos offer discounted entry for limited number on specific days for individuals with SNAP card, utility discounts, and likely many more that I am unaware of.

My views of SNAP/Medicaid are love/hate and all in between. However, the short-hand method of using SNAP/Medicaid eligibility as eligibility for other programs is an interesting feature of the current system, with its own set of pros/cons.

[phoenixvoice]

Dr. D
As Socialists, they require the government to be all-powerful and all-controlling.
Sounds to me more like “totalitarianism” than “socialism.”
Lots of governments and political parties use the word “socialism, -ist,” in their naming conventions. Sometimes it is used because of a real commitment to historical principles that go back about 200 years. Sometimes it is used because the word is positively associated for many around the globe and the government or party is hoping that positive view will rub off onto the government or party.

“Socialism” is generally recognized as policies that promote general social well-being, such as subsidized preschool, various flavors of public medicine, public pensions, etc. Totalitarianism, on the other hand, involves consolidating control over a society into a small-ish coterie, often arranged in a jumbled system of competing layers that vie for recognition from the top individual (or small group.). Totalitarianism uses fear and propaganda to get the masses to fall into line and cede power. As power is consolidated into the top in totalitarianism, it will intensify its terror on its own people.

The word “socialism” does not adequately convey what is going on — it has too many meanings for different people, and has been used broadly for a couple of centuries. “Totalitarianism” has existed, by contrast, as a word only for about a century and has a much more specific definition and universal understanding. “Socialism” has been turned into “a hiss and a byword” because it potentially threatens the economic and political power of certain wealthy segments of the population. “Totalitarianism” has to do with governance, not with the underlying economic structure, and is not related to a class-based understanding of society.

[phoenixvoice]

August on Verge of Being Tropical-Storm-Free for only Third Time in 60 Years
Ah—so THAT is where Arizona has been getting its wettest monsoon season in more than 2 decades. 😀
My watermelons are growing fat. I love it.

[phoenixvoice]

(*sigh* system thinks this is a duplicate, but original disappeared into the nether)

EU winter of great suffering
Of course, we are all familiar with the fairy tale of sleeping beauty. It isn’t usually seen as a moralist story, but a couple decades back I realized that it contained a moralist element. The princess is “cursed.” (Analogous to a severe allergy or illness where something common needs to be avoided.). The adults all know this, and so the people of the kingdom/village/castle all agree to forego spindles. Spindles are used to spin thread, which is then woven into cloth — which means they all don’t get new cloth…for about 16 years until the princess encounters one anyhow, falling asleep till wakened by the prince.
The fairy tale explains a situation whereby a group of people all generously decide to voluntarily forego a resource for the benefit of one (or a few.). Many tellings of this story talk about how this was done “out of love for the princess” — not by governmental decree, or emphasize that although the king decreed it, the people agreed and voluntarily complied.
The WEFfers have missed parts of the moral of this story — the voluntary compliance part, the part where those complying each had a personal relationship with the person on whose behalf they were sacrificing, and that what was being sacrificed (new cloth) was more of a luxury than an absolute necessity: they could mend their clothes instead of replacing with new. When compliance is not voluntary, when the person doing the sacrifice lacks a personal relationship with who is being “saved,” when the sacrifice ends up threatening the life of the person doing the sacrifice…it can’t work for long.

[phoenixvoice]

Willem, yesterday:
But why should any private provider price its goods/services at a price lower than the government has indicated it is willing to pay?
There is one industry I can think of that does something like: auto glass replacement places. They compete by finding ways to cut their margins and offer spiffs to customers, like gift cards and cash. I also see dental offices that advertise “no copay” dental exams and cleanings.

[phoenixvoice]

I think that the “red thing” is a hat on a head, a red beret.

[phoenixvoice]

Dr D:
But unlike other nations, the U.S. is supposed to be this way. Where the Feds only run the Navy and the Post Office. All laws, jails, enforcement, taxes, are run by the states.
And in this, Dr D, you and I are complete agreement. Even in the areas where the feds are sourcing programs that tackle real-life problems that need addressing: I.e. Medicaid, SNAP, etc., in most cases the programs are already being administered by the states, and if the tax money were going to the states rather than the feds the programs could also be funded by the states. And the states would also likely restructure the programs, which is also okay. The feds should be there as a resource to turn to when a state violates the Constitution and Bill of Rights. (Which will happen.)

[phoenixvoice]

I’m reading Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals right now. My spouse has a copy from college and gave it to me to read years ago; more recently Dr D here slammed the book and author…which served to pique my curiosity, lol. I’m in chapter 4, Education of a Radical under the “an organized personality” heading. Alinsky is going on about how the people in a given locale are all going to have their pet issues that are the biggest deal for their own lives, and how the individuals need to realize that if they support each other in these disparate issues, then they stand a chance to get what they each want. I was reminded of a few years ago when spouse and I attended a couple of meetings of the nascent Arizona People’s Party. We realized that the formers were essentially Bernie Sander’s supporters disillusioned by Bernie losing the nomination – twice. There was at that time no formal platform. The originators of the AZ PP wanted to adopt Bernie’s presidential platform once they realized that the national PP was at that time in disarray and had no adoptable platform. Spouse and I were disgusted. We pointed out that if this is the “People’s Party” why not create a task force to interface one on one with people, find out what was motivating individuals to join the meeting, create a proposed list of platform contents, and then put it up for a vote? Originators thought this type of project “too difficult” and preferred to put pressure on the Biden administration to accomplish facets of his campaign platform in the first 100 days. They were amenable to an online poll of possible platform items — but that meant that the items would be limited by the imaginations of the person putting together the survey. Both of these efforts appeared absolutely pointless to spouse and myself — at that point we lost faith in the AZ PP and didn’t bother with further meetings.

I suppose that I could call them “lip-service liberals” — espousing a slim variety of liberal-ish ideas, but unwilling to do the legwork required to actually have democratic input. I understand the challenge of demanding consensus…but if groups cannot even be bothered to have conversations and learn from those conversations, let alone risk voting when others might not vote for their pet issues…then we are not worthy of democracy, direct or the Republican form.

[phoenixvoice]

“Profit” on an item can be justified when it is just compensation for the time, effort, and cost of procuring said item.
Case in point:
I run a small IT company. A few times a year I run into a client in need of a computer. I can search for an appropriate one, but I happen to see it as a boring chore. My spouse absolutely loves shopping online for computer systems. He gets excited by doing the research to find the most suitable processor at the best price and then scours eBay, Amazon, Newegg, etc., for the best price, taking into consideration parameters such as how quickly the client needs the computer. This can take him anywhere from one to 3 hours, or more. Sometimes, his first offering is rejected and he must restart the process. So…he does the research, I send the quote, increasing my purchase price by $100 “profit.” If the client doesn’t purchase, he is not compensated. If the client purchases the system, I pay my spouse the $100, and I install and set up the computer, charging for my labor. This has been working well for five years now. I don’t believe anyone is being “exploited.” Everyone is happy with the results. My clients never would have found comparable systems on their own at that price. Labor deserves to be compensated.

[phoenixvoice]

This is a rant.

It is driving me nuts seeing all of the people throwing around the name “Karl Marx” and “Marxism” all the while having nary a clue of how this terminology muddies the waters. Never realizing how using this name and term in this way serves the globalist agenda deliciously.

Five years ago, a college student posed a question to Nancy Pelosi. (https://nyulocal.com/nancy-pelosi-to-leftist-nyu-student-were-capitalists-deal-with-it-abf1e8e04e46)
Here is a synopsis:
NYU Sophomore Trevor Hill provoked a telling insight into the Democratic Party’s future from House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) CNN Town Hall hosted by Jake Tapper last night. …Hill presented Pelosi with a Harvard University poll showing millennials’ distaste for capitalism. Hill, who supported Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary and voted for Jill Stein in November, then asked the former Speaker of the House whether she saw an opportunity for the Democratic Party to move left. …

“I have to say, we’re capitalists, that’s just the way it is,” Pelosi responded with a chuckle.

BREAKING NEWS.
The globalists that we all love-to-hate are self-avowed CAPITALISTS. They are not communists (big or little c.) They are not socialists (big or little s.) They are not Marxists (big or little m.)

Karl Marx was a philosopher who thought about economics – NOT GOVERNANCE. If “Marxism” is a thing, it is an economic philosophy, not a political philosophy. Socialism & communism can be seen as both political and economic philosophies, as they have been specifically applied in both worlds – and there are political parties utilizing the words “socialist” and “communist.”

Despite the word “socialism” in the full Nazi party name, it was not a “socialist” regime – just consider, for a few moments, how many other political parties across the globe that incorporate the word “socialism” in their titles that have never been “totalitarian.” When Hannah Arendt wrote about totalitarianism she examined Nazi Germany and Communist USSR. She probably didn’t have enough data on Chinese Communism yet to analyze it – but it also would qualify as totalitarian. She didn’t really touch on Mussolini, but I’ve always understood it to be totalitarian as well. Arendt wrote her book prior to the Cambodian totalitarian mess. There are probably a few other smaller instances that are not occurring to me right now.

Major totalitarian states and what happened:
Nazi Germany (Mussolini Italy) – made war on neighbors, rest of the world violently put them down.
USSR – didn’t make war on neighbors (although didn’t fully release territory that it gained control over in WWII), did get involved in Cold War proxy wars. Fell apart from internal strife. Survived about 75 years.
Communist China – didn’t make war on neighbors, (did get involved in some local proxy wars,) used state-control strategies to lure western businesses and super-charge its economic development. Has not fallen apart (so far) due to internal conflicts. Loosened many of initial totalitarian policies and strategies, but seemingly has the capability to ramp them back up at a moment’s notice. Is currently saber-rattling, although it is veritably being pressured by the West. Has been around nearly 75 years.
Cambodia – mostly just made war on its own people, especially the educated. Was conquered from without (including by expats), but was also faltering internally.

Marx was a 19th century philosopher who focused on economics, specifically, the problems of capitalism. The current globalists are self-proclaimed capitalists. Why the insistence of calling them Marxists, when they barely know who Karl Marx is or what he wrote? (Especially the globalists educated in the USA – the European ones may have actually studied a little bit of Marx’s writings.) Lumping Karl Marx and “Marxism” in with the globalists serves the interest of the globalists – because Marx critiqued the capitalism that has given the globalists their power. As long as the masses fear and hate the writings of Karl Marx they won’t read what he wrote and they have no access to capitalism’s most cogent critic. (I suspect that the fear and hate of the masses towards Karl Marx is actually a projection from the globalists onto the masses.)

The globalists are capitalist on the economic front and totalitarian on the political front. (Just like the Nazis.)

And, yes, yes, yes, I understand that I am plumbing the depths of a philosophical fissure here: what I’m really exploring is “what is the definition of capitalism?” Too often, I find that capitalism is overly broadly defined as “free markets.” However, how can “free markets” be a singular, defining aspect of capitalism when so many, many economic systems employ markets, free or in some way controlled by government? Mercantilism had free or partly controlled markets. Slavery had free or partly controlled markets. Feudalism had free or partly controlled markets. Even tribal economies that met up now and again and bartered among themselves had free or partly controlled markets! Just so with capitalism. We lift the rallying cry of “free markets!” – yet, whenever we have truly free markets, then folks shake their heads at what gets vomited up: slave markets in the Libyan failed state, “caveat emptor” with no recourse, Dickensian poverty paired with astronomical wealth. (Remember, Dickensian poverty within the capitalist system was what prompted Marx to turn his philosophical training towards capitalism in the first place.) If we recognize that “free markets” (of some degree or another) are important, but are not a defining feature of capitalism, setting it apart from other economic systems, then what are capitalism’s defining features? What makes capitalism different from mercantilism, from feudalism, from slavery, etc.? Until we can agree on what capitalism IS, and what it IS NOT, it will be very difficult to chart any economic course at all.

I’m not championing Marx, and suggesting that we bow down to his writings and follow them slavishly. Marx never fully developed what an improved “socialist” economic system would look like. Mostly he just examined capitalism’s problems. I think that most of us, today, can recognize that “really existing capitalism” (not the utopic, idealized capitalism of our dreams) has some big problems. Really existing capitalism has spat us up the powerful globalists, the WEFfers. Really existing capitalism created a hyped pandemic and a toxic cure. Really existing capitalism off-shored US production to China. (That was foolish.) Really existing capitalism creates near-slavery conditions in third world countries, busy making things for first world countries. Really existing capitalism is exploiting the world’s resources and dumping wastes throughout the globe on a scale that reminds me of when my 3 kids, 18 months apart in age, as preschoolers found the box full of packing peanuts that I foolishly left on the floor of the living room for a few minutes longer than I should have. (The living room looked like a snowstorm had hit it.)

If we are going to improve on our current messed up economic system, then we need to understand our current messed up economic system. That means defining it and being critical of it. That means that we shoot ourselves in the foot when we ignore the 19th century’s largest critic of capitalism. Obviously, there have been some changes in capitalism over the past couple hundred years. Some of Marx’s criticisms may have become obsolete or no longer fully applicable. We have communication technology now that probably dwarfs anything Marx ever thought of – and this technology can be used to promote and/or demote the globalist agenda. There are likely new criticisms of capitalism that we can come up with because we have so much more time and experience with capitalism – and with how governments (whether republican democratic structures, totalitarianism, or any others) intersect with the economic system – much more experience than Marx ever had.

Call a spade a spade. If it is totalitarian, name it as totalitarian. Political systems are not “Marxist” – that is absurd, Marx is about economics. Yes, I understand that Lenin was trying to use government to establish socialism (the economic system) a la Karl Marx. Lenin utterly, spectacularly failed at his attempt. Stalin took Lenin’s failure, called it a “communist success story” and proceeded with totalitarian governance that saw the economy as subordinate to his totalitarian schemes.

I’m not interested in establishing socialist economic system a la Karl Marx. I would like to have a “really existing economic system” that respects the earth’s systems, trying to integrate with them. I would like to have a “really existing economic system” that puts individuals and localities in the driver’s seat of the economy, so that choices “for the greater good” are arrived at by sovereign individuals who act in concert by their own free will. (And not with choices made by a small coterie “for the greater good” who are actually serving only their own good and the good of the large economic players who put them in that position.) To move towards a better system we need to understand the problems with our current system. Marx is one piece of that puzzle, and a good jumping off point that helps us understand the historical foundations of our current problematic economic system. Feeling cognitive dissonance, hate, and fear whenever we hear or see the name/word “marx” does not move us towards the goal of reaching a really existing economic system that serves humanity better than the current economic mess we’re mired in.

End rant.

[phoenixvoice]

Peptide cancer cure
With all the cancer from vaxxed folks with compromised immune systems, there might actually be enough impetus to get this doctor’s cures to go mainstream.

Religion vs. lack thereof
I consider myself fortunate for this: I grew up in a home with a great set of parents who were morally upright, we had enough material things (but not much excess), and household members were supportive, loving, etc.
I am the first of four children, the oldest two have left the religion of the family while the remainder remain devout. I recognize that for those who stayed, the religion is central to their lives and their core social outlet, playing a net-positive role for them.
However, one thing that I have realized that they do not see is that the stability of their lives does not proceed from the religion, but rather from their core values and the way that they live their lives, with a nice dollop of good luck on top. The core values may align with many of the teachings and tenets of the religion, but they rather derive from each individual’s parents and related upbringing plus individual effort.
I see it this way because there are so many who are “raised Mormon” whose core values differ quite radically from my own. The organized religion (and the LDS faith is very organized) doesn’t produce a uniform moral code in its congregants.
That is why “losing my religion” did not shatter my value system — it came from my parents plus my own experience, not from the religion.
(Of course…there is a great deal of variety out there. And some kids who come from less than ideal homes may find an organized religion — or people associated with an organized religion — and incorporate the morals of the religion because they intuitively realize that what they are getting from their parents is problematic.)
Religion has a role to play. Sometimes that role is beneficent, sometimes it is deficient.
I do sometimes wish that my devout family members would attribute their stability to their own behavior or to god directly rather than to the religion.

[phoenixvoice]

A *grin* 😀 to afewknowthetruth. (A challenge to write those words without the spaces!)

When in high school I took honors classes. I found that I enjoyed these classes — primarily because of formal and informal discussions that dealt with “meaty” issues — issues of philosophy and morality and politics and religion and ethics — that would pop-up with frequency among the students. (Not teacher-led.)

A hat-tip to RIM — so much appreciation for a space for such discussion to occur, and the headlines & article excerpts are food for minds that are seeking knowledge and truth and understanding. It is invigorating to have intellectual discussion and respectful disagreement.

In my book, you are all “honors students.”

[phoenixvoice]

Also…I did not turn my back on the morality of my upbringing, I rejected the organized religion that was supposedly at its core…subsequently realizing the religion was actually a window-dressing. What many don’t see is that the moral code didn’t come from the religion, it came from the parents and/or other strong, quasi-parental influences. Organized religion claims to be a moral bastion, but so often it is parasitical. At the same time, organized religion can be place for strong community bonds to flourish despite increasing human atomization amidst large concentrations of human population.

[phoenixvoice]

The moral code develops from a child’s interactions with the world, ESPECIALLY interactions with parents. So, so many times I’ve observed my children checking their developing moral codes with me, expressing an opinion aloud, and then looking to me or asking, “That’s right, mom?” (One son, in particular, age 16, says this frequently. His twin is more vehement, doing things or saying things and half-daring me to challenge him. If/When I disagree I levelly tell him so.). They are always checking to see how I view something. They have done this since they were old enough to speak (they did it earlier through behavior.)

My ex was also raised in a devout Mormon home, but his moral code degenerated to something I don’t recognize as morality. He selected his current employment based on ease of hiding his income for the purpose of avoiding child support. (He told me this shortly after he got the job.) He chafes at all moral impositions that originate from outside himself. He expressed desires to become a CIA agent, licensed to kill. His general mode of operating is to tell others “what they want to hear” so that they behave in the way he prefers. (Which worked in 2014 with his psychiatrist, but backfired in 2019 to the psychologist performing the custody evaluation.)

Yes, moral codes are very important. Organized religions play a part — but in our current world there is a lot more than religion filling that role in society. We have: youtube, Disney, TikTok, video games, social media, movies, professional sports, schools, etc. We can’t easily escape all of these influencing our children, so it is my view that home and family and parental behavior is the best place to teach and model morality.

I sometimes worry about my children’s moral codes *because* they have lived with their father and his histrionic, Halloween-loving (forever a) fiancée half of the time for 5 years now. One Christmas my daughter was given a can of “unicorn meat” from that household — inside were plush unicorn pieces with red to show the “guts” where they had been cut apart. After the kids started spending significant time in that household I noticed that they became more prone to torture insects (this has fortunately died down.). One son’s use of profanity dramatically increased, and he became increasingly resistant to my directions — it took a couple of years for me to get a handle on the shifts in his behavior. Over there the children were given full, unsupervised access to rated R films starting at age 11 for the boys, and violent video games. (In my home movies are watched together, there are few rated r films, and when there are I am usually there to provide moral context.).

Two of the children have largely discarded the violence-worship from their father’s home. The third has not. Last week, one son made a morbid comment aloud in history class about ripping the head off of a zebra which offended classmates and earned him a visit to the school’s social worker. That son has a poor grasp of social rules in general (he has several psych diagnoses)…and does not understand that what is viewed as “funny” in his father’s home is not welcome in other social circles.

I counter the influence of their father with a weekly “family time” that involves me, the kids, my spouse, and my parents. Nearly every week I read a story from US history — this builds in them an understanding of “where they come from” and builds the mythos of this country. (The US was founded on lofty goals…the empire of the last century or so is a moral quagmire, so it helps to remember what the country can be, could be.). Currently, I am also reading creation myths from cultures around the world, and after that I’ll continue with acquainting them with biblical stories — they need familiarity so that they understand cultural references that they encounter.

While I value much of the Judeochristan moral code, I also understand that organized religions have a nasty habit of perpetuating themselves whether or not their perpetuation truly benefits their adherents. Nietzse was not incorrect to say that religion is the opiate of the masses — although I’d counter that religion plays many roles, not just that one, and that in our current society that there are a multitude of institutions that serve as “opiates of the masses” and I’m not so sure that religion is even the largest or most predominant.

[phoenixvoice]

Regarding moral codes:
I was raised Mormon. At about age 31 I realized that Joseph Smith, the founder of the LDS faith, was basically just a charismatic guy that created a religion so that he could sleep around with other men’s wives and young women. I came from a devout LDS family and had been devout all my life. Needless to say, this shook me profoundly.

Morally, something interesting happened. I had, up until that point, lived according to a moral code that many would find a bit extreme — no alcohol, no tobacco, no caffeine, no shopping on Sundays (except in true emergencies,) attend church service EVERY Sunday (unless sick or traveling,) 10% gross earnings donated to the Church, wear fancy, long-ish underwear under my clothes, no sleeveless, low-cut blouses, nor “short-shorts,” no two-piece bathing suits, no sex out of marriage. I immediately found myself dropping this moral code. (I love wearing tank tops! Yeah!) And then I found out something curious.

All of those years that I had grown up Mormon, interacting with the people and culture of the rest of the world, I had developed a deeper, more fundamental moral code than the one imposed by the religion. When I was a practicing Mormon, I had a double-standard — the moral code that I applied to myself and other “active” Mormons, and the moral code by which I judged the rest of the world, that had developed jointly from my upbringing and my life experience. When I ceased to believe in the LDS faith that second moral code —applied to “non-Mormons” — I discovered WAS my intrinsic moral code. I have used it ever since. Within six months I was, essentially, an atheist — I do not believe in any sort of humanoid, parental, god-creature. But that moral code has remained and is my compass.

[phoenixvoice]

@ dr d
Matthias Desmet very specifically does not call the Covid madness “mass formation psychosis” — the studied scholar calls the phenomenon “mass formation” and applies the term to negatively, neutrally, and positively charged events.

I believe it was Dr. Robert Malone who appended “psychosis” to the term. I hold Dr. Malone in very high regard, however, psychology is not his area of expertise. The term “mass formation psychosis” — while an apt description of the Covid lunacy — is a type of “pop psychology” shorthand. It sticks because, by itself, the term “mass formation” is not descriptive enough for lay people to grasp what is being described. We understand a “psychosis” to be a mental break with reality.

However, in my post yesterday, it was appropriate to use the term “mass formation” as a description of one way that an idea can quickly permeate a human society, changing minds and behaviors without coercion, without infringing on personal liberty. It could even be said that the current Western paradigm of considering the earth something that humankind should exploit and tame is actually a psychosis — humanity’s delusion of grandeur — because, in actuality, we are beings still dependent upon earth’s biosphere for oxygen, gravity, water, etc., and cannot healthily sustain ourselves for long periods of time without these provisions from our planet. If the idea that we are dependent upon the earth — or, at the very least, existing interdependently with the earth — were to permeate the minds of humanity, this could be seen as a lifting of the current psychosis, the belief that we are independent from the natural world.

[phoenixvoice]

Climate crisis
I decided several years back that it was useless to argue over whether or not there is a climate emergency when the climate concerns are merely part of a larger problem. Namely, current human practices on the planet are at odds with the natural systems and cycles of the planet. We are pouring CO2 into the atmosphere, acidifying the oceans, and we do not know exactly what long-term effect that may have. We have unleashed a toxic plastic tsunami on the planet. We poison pure aquifers and deplete other aquifers without consideration of the short- and long-term consequences. We raze forests, pollute waterways causing algae blooms and oceanic zones nearly devoid of oxygen. We play with nuclear forces, sometimes having accidents with them, and lack the tools and technology to properly clean up our nuclear messes. We fiddle around with viral DNA and then either release or leak our Frankenstein creations. We are behaving like toddlers on this planet.

I believe that humanity needs to “grow up” a bit, in order to avoid destroying ourselves. However, this is not going to be effectively accomplished by totalitarian means, not for the benefit of a small, wealthy coterie while the rest of humanity is enslaved. The change needs to come about through an “awakening” or “enlightenment” that is driven by new myths (or by rediscovery of appropriate old myths.). Mythologies can create organic movements that sweep through societies, changing minds and hearts without coercion, without threat of force, simply because “it is the right thing to do.”

Examples (taken from my life, of course, because that is how I roll, lol.):

More than 15 years ago I never would have imagined having a flock of chickens. It would have seen bizarre. Now, many people have chickens. Roosters are banned by the city in my neighborhood, yet there are 2 on neighboring streets that
I hear. My neighbor to the north has talked about getting hens for years, I’ve had hens more than 8 years, and my neighbor to the south had a couple chickens for a few months. Nobody told us to get chickens. No one threatened us. And yet…the stories that people tell about themselves have shifted so that chickens in cities has, once again, become a normal “thing.”

About 15 years ago I began taking reusable bags when shopping. When I asked checkers not to use store provided bags I was given funny looks, and when they forget and put my groceries in plastic anyways and I reminded them not to, the request was met with near hostility. Now…although Phoenix has no laws in place about disposable bags, it has become a part of the normal fabric of society that a sizable subset of the population uses reusable bags.

Yesterday I called a client’s software vendor because they needed access to some log files in the client’s server. I had to wait with a reception type person until a tech was ready. I happened to mention something about vegetable gardening. The receptionist expressed how she wanted to garden, but had “a black thumb.” I pointed out that plants tend to grow more easily in
Maryland than Phoenix. She agreed, but moaned about deer and insects eating holes in her vegetable plants when she tried. I suggested a fence to keep away the deer and inter-planting garlic and marigolds with the vegetables in her next attempt, as many insects dislike both garlic and marigolds, and it may help with the insect problem. I have been fascinated with gardening since I was a small child…however, it seems that more and more people that I encounter are beginning to desire to garden as well.

Matthias Desmet pointed out that “mass formations” are not always detrimental to a society. They can also be pro-social and beneficial. The Covid madness, vaccine insanity, WEFfer war on food, censorship, etc., are attempts by the elite to harness the natural process of “mass formation” for nefarious purposes. The Renaissance, Enlightenment, and Reformation were mass formations. We need something similar that will restructure humanity’s relationship to be in more in harmony with the planet’s systems and that returns us to many of the ideals of the Enlightenment, when humanity enshrined rights and freedoms.

[phoenixvoice]

Interest free loans for food…
Now THAT’s an old playbook. Pharaoh of ancient Egypt and his seer, Joseph, Son of Jacob…food gathered in the “years of plenty,” sold back to the people during the “years of famine”…leading to the people being enslaved…”own nothing and be happy.”

High energy bills…
Sobering. Leading to more indebtedness of the people.
Although…
Energy bills that high make homeowner solar panels economically viable.

the former president wasn’t planning to divulge that he had possession of some of his own documents and that he did not intend to return them
Um…one “returns” a book to the library, because the book is borrowed, and belongs to the library. But documents that belong to Trump are HIS, and could be “turned over” or “turned in”…but using the word “return” is inaccurate.

[phoenixvoice]

Electric car prices raised by the amount of tax credits…
(Obviously, it serves as a “giveaway” to the electric auto industry. They probably lobbied for it. Or wrote that part of the bill.)
It just goes to show that these cars are only designed for the segment of the population that actually BENEFITS from such tax credits. More than a decade ago, when the annual “family income” of myself and my ex was around $70k/year, 3 dependents, I realized that we paid very little in income tax — it was all washed away with exemptions, child tax credit, etc. Due to this, tax credits to purchase a home solar system were useless — since we didn’t pay that much in income taxes, we couldn’t take the credit. (Oh, sure, you can roll it forward for several years, but the kids were toddlers, so that would be banking on large income increases in the next few years — which didn’t happen.
These electric car tax credits are designed for individuals making more than $70k/year, or families with children making more than $125k /year. More giveaways to those who already have much. (That was always a flaw that I saw in the parable of the talents. It’s all well and good if it is a metaphor for talents as skills and abilities…but the guy who buried his gold coin didn’t waste it in riotous living — why take it from him? And the guy who received only 2 and doubled them — why was he seen as deficient to the guy given 5 who doubled his? Why be prejudiced against the guy given only two — why not give him the one taken from the guy who buried it? It starts reminding me of Cain and Abel — why did Cain the farmer have to buy an animal from Abel, who did animal husbandry, in order to make a pleasing offering to God? What was wrong with Cain making an offering of the fruits of the field? Sounds like the Hebrew God was a bad parent, arbitrarily preferring one child over the other, rather than letting his children develop along their own predilections. Cain murdering Abel was unconscionable, and he was an adult responsible for his own choices, however, it all starts sounding a bit like a daytime soap opera family drama!)

[Author]

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