DT: Well,Well... For once I'm actually agreeing with you on something...it feels weird.DADDIO: 99% of everything sucks. The 20 billionaires that control everything are largely responsible for everything sucking as bad as it does and don't want you to know that everything sucks because its bad for the economy and hence threatoning to their priviledged positions.
We've got some serious problems down here and anyone that's not concerned about them is either misinformed, in denial, an enlighted master of time and space, or dumb as a post.
I think many of us on this site concur with this picture to varying degrees, and, to that extent, we are unified. Even Bible thumping Stuart Gort knows that U.S. public education and mainstream media are corrupt institutions, so its no surprise to me (a Bible burner), when Stu and I concur on such issues.
As a group, we start to diverge when we get into causes and solutions - which is great also, because I believe it means we are all holding pieces of the same puzzle and we are trying to fit them together so we can all see the "Big Picture".
DT: Heres the thing...I think a great majority of people recognize this horrible travesty of the human condition and either choose to ignore it or feel too impotent to react.
DADDIO: I generally concur.
DT: I'm curious to hear what you're solution is to the problem.
DADDIO: Which problem? The human condition in general? I believe our problems are spiritual at their core and that ancient literature and knowledge that predates the Bible by thousands of years can explain this spiritual digression.
I beleive we were designed to operate at a level of consciousness that cannot be done justice with words, that we were once established at this level, that we made some bad decisions via the gift of free will that dropped us into a fog, that we have been and continue to be interfered with by forces that would like to keep us veiled in the fog, and that we are now in a window of time where this situation can be rectified for a great many people via several avenues.
Some of these avenues reveal themselves to people and some of these avenues need to be pointed out to people. Anything that assists in the expansion of an individuals general level of awareness of himself and finer levels of reality or that ceases the hinderance of such would pretty much get my endorsement at this point. This could entail meditation, fasting, proper diet, proper rest, certain pharmacuticals such as mushrooms and LSD (if you find good LSD anymore), withdrawal from industrialized living patterns, grass roots psychotherapy (the models that recognize the preciousness of uncomfortable feelings such as anger, despair, fear, rage, etc. and that know what they mean and what they are for), Zen, silent observation, the practice of humility.
On a less esoteric level, I blame the premature birth and the consequent missuse of modern industry and technology. I blame our consequent seperation from the land and our consequent missuse of land. Any society where 99% percent of the people in it don't know the first thing about growing food and the other 1% know only how to MINE the land with herbacides, pesticides, and destabalizing GMOs is in big big trouble. We need to stop the world wide genetic engineering of our food supply, stop all farming practiced that harm the land and water, and let organic and biodynamic family/community farms fill the void.
We need to stop thinking that 300 million people can be made happy by a few hundred people in Washington D.C. Forget it. We need to let go of them and they need to let go of us. Decentralize the living shit out of farming, education, and electricity. Electric power monopolies basically rule the world. Roughly 50% of all the world's capital is tied directly or indirectly to investments in these mononpolies. This situation is exploitive, destructive, murderous, and just generally evil. We need to switch to renewable energy resources yesterday: solar, wind, cold fusion, etc. And if you think this can happen in a centralized manner, you are dreaming.
Elect Harry Brown for president and federal government will be reduced to the only role it is capable of fullfilling at our current level of consciousness - settling legal disputes. Collectivist activity and oraganizations can and should be arranged at a local level. Keep private ownership of guns intact (in fact, beef it up a little) and that will keep anything short of a nuclear bomb or biological warfare from externally fucking with our little experiment.
Abandon all victimless crime legislation at the federal level. If the Christians don't want to be around smokers of the Lord's Herb, they can fucking start there own communities and make it illegal THERE instead pushing laws about shit they don't know anything about down everybody else's throat.
Technology should work for US - but instead, we work for it.
Stop the repression of advanced alternative technologies that could begin to free humanity and get us into space. The best science we have tells us conservatively that there are probably several thousands "advanced" civilizations out there. We are missing out on one hell of a party somewhere.
DT: Personally I think a great cataclysm or some other such devastation followed by revolution or rennesaince (or both) is the only real answer. Nowadays you need kick someone extremely hard in the genitals to get their attention.
DADDIO: Could be, could be. This is the thing. Nature doesn't give a flying fuck whether humans inhabit this planet or not. She will do whatever is required to restore homeostasis to this enviroment, period. We can get in line and solve our own problems or she will solve them for us - permanently.
DT: I'm sorry but I was in a very "trendy" part of minneapolis this weekend and I saw the way the "individuals" and "alternatives" could all be classified and stored away like canned peas and carrots. Conformity is rampant at every level. I very rarely meet someone who hasn't been poisoned completely by the whores of advertising and religion.
DADDIO: Sadly this is pretty much my experience to. However, I am fortunate to live in a small community where there are many people who have either unravled or escaped the cyborg horror you describe. Also, please remember, as I must frequently remind myself, these zombies we speak of are VICTIMS of something much more evil than they could ever be - and that thing, beside our own bad deeds, is our true enemy. It is THE MAN, THE BEAST, and Melrose Place.
DT: I too am guilty. If you saw me on the street you would think there goes another joe average, semi-preppy, work-a-day goon. I choose my clothing for comfort and simple style-I havent the time to try to be outrageous or extreme- But I choose my words and actions from a belief system of objectivism and individual freedom. Once engaged in a conversation people seem to be taken aback. I'm not what they expected. It's kind of cool. I feel like "stealth-shaman" or something delivering great doses of reality and unabashed critical thought to the unexpecting!!!!
Its fun....try it.
DADDIO: It would be more fun if there other shamans to hang out with. I hope you have some shamanistic support like I do.
DT: Btw-I saw you refer to Bill hicks in an earlier post. I've been desperately seeking his material but cannot find it...Any Ideas?
DADDIO: Yeah, I know he's hard to find in stores. Its a testament to how dangerous the guy was to the status quo. I guy that builds a whole act around "all governments are liars and murderers" naturally has a hard time getting stocked in big chain stores. Anyway, did you try the internet? I just did a net search on "Bill Hicks" and got back oodles of web sites. Some of them display his material, some of them are tribute sites, and some them are stores that sell his 4 or 5 CD's which are all fantastic. Enjoy.
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McSpotlight: I've got all of the CDs; I think it's Rykodisc that make them - at least in the UK. Agreed, we won't see the likes of Bill Hicks again in a hurry - more's the pity.
None.
