Reject Authority, Trust Yourself - Terence Mckenna

I couldn't have promoted anarchy better myself, so i'll have Terence McKenna speak for me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WXroiXWfcI

unprecedented chaos and collapse

population and resource use must be cut back. Fossil fuels, metals, potable water, arable land, ocean fish, are all at or near their limits compared to the demands being placed on them. If we fail to scale back, he warns, “this new century will not grow very old before we enter an age of chaos and collapse that will dwarf all the dark ages in our past.”

the above quote was taken from this nearly 13 year old post:

https://boryanabooks.com/humanity-caught-in-a-progress-trap-again/

which i came across at the collapse of industrial civilization blog while reading the following entry:

https://collapseofindustrialcivilization.com/2026/03/22/the-war-that-sinks-the-lifeboats/

this blog is written by xray mike. here's his brief self description from there:

I’m a social critic, political/cultural commentator and artist. The modern industrial world is sleepwalking towards the cliff of economic and ecological ruin. Most are oblivious to the paradigm shift that is occurring, but some are starting to awaken to the false stories our culture has told itself. My objective is to highlight important news stories and essays to find the hidden truth behind what Joe Bageant called the American Hologram. www.collapseofindustrialcivilization.com

what the flock is wrong with sheeple?

more thought on the false flag 9/11 terrorist attack: there couldn't be a more glaring, strong smoking gun evidence that it was an inside job than the obvious controlled demolition of WTC-7, so why is it that only a handful of relatively obscure individuals and small powerless organizations like AE911 have done so much as bat an eyelash at it in the u.s.??? and what about 'enemy' nations which have come under attack since under the very broad rubric of 'the war on terror'? why haven't their leaders been trying to make a great international stink over it? exactly what the flock is wrong with sheeple???

empires

first a couple of observations re. the video linked below. as noted at the opening, it's of a speech given back in may 2007, 19 years ago when george w. bush was president and the u.s. was at war in iraq and afghanistan, so it's a little dated. for example, the speaker michael parenti (who died earlier this year age 92) observed indignantly that the u.s. had 380 military bases overseas (now it's over 800) and that the bloated defense budget was over 400 billion (now it's about 1 trillion (1,000 billion) and if trump gets his way it will be 1.5 trillion very soon). but besides that, the observations he made then are just as relevant today: that empires are rather admired and respected by the american establishment, and the fact that they're built upon imperialist aggression, war and intimidation, and that they enrich oligarchs and are harmful to most everyone else, including the lower classes residing in the empire (in this case, the u.s.), is largely ignored or obfuscated by our mainstream corporate media. in short, this is the sort of in depth, intelligent, and well informed analysis that is anathema to our mainstream corporate media, which seems designed to provide just the opposite sort of analysis, shallow, poorly informed, and frankly often misleading, making it seem as though the imperialists are the good guys and their victims (the 'terrorists') the bad guys.

i can't vouch that every claim made here is true, but i'm pretty sure the gist of the argument is. to have developed this view one must have previously done independent reading and research far off the beaten path of mainstream discourse, read books like Manufacturing Consent and learned that it's supported by facts.

about 20 minutes in he draws comparisons between iraq and iran and how both of these countries resisted american-israeli regional dominance and imperialism, and thus had to be crushed. perceptive and prescient.

although this talk was given 19 years ago, this video wasn't posted to youtube until 14 years ago, according to the info. provided. interestingly, the vast majority of the comments to it have been posted in the past 10 days, suggesting that it's viewing was suppressed until quite recently when it hasn't been, for some peculiar reason.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXoHTEkCgBs

more on american empire from the incomparable abby martin ("the mask is completely ripped off"):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBA8EfQ-wYA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSZGeDkynOI

a couple of great memoirs from robert mason dealing with his experiences in the vietnam war as a helicopter pilot, CHICKENHAWK, and how the severe PTSD he suffered afterwards affected him for decades afterwards, CHICKENHAWK: BACK IN THE WORLD

beyond the choir?

i have a friend who i think is basically a very good person, very opposed to Trump and his administration. but we couldn't be further apart in how we view mainstream media and the Democratic Party. They don't believe that 'liberal' corporate media like CNN and MS-now are propaganda and they think that Biden was 'an excellent president'.Oth I have long viewed these entities with a very jaundiced eye, seeing the media as CIA controlled propaganda (manufacturing consent for American imperialism and militarism, as Noam Chomsky pointed out in his magnum opus), and the leadership of the democratic party as utterly corrupt, beholden to the same capitalist zionist agenda as their opposition.

i'm not sending this to them, mostly because i don't want to strain our relationship to the breaking point, but also because  i see that they have a very happy and fulfilling social life, engaged with others who mostly share their worldview, and i don't want to upset and ravage that. this is something i've been cognizant of for a long time now: radical change can't be achieved without major upheaval, disruption of individual lives, families, communities, and so on up the chain of social arrangements. what do u think?

but i do feel somewhat secure in preaching to the choir as it were, sharing this radical assessment of the state of America with u, This video from the Real News Network, which includes analysis and outrage from Abby Martin, the independent journalist behind the production of Earth's Greatest Enemy, the documentary film we have tentatively planned on viewing at our next meeting in April. I hope u enjoy it.

(5) Abby Martin: Western Media's Complicity in US-Israeli War on Iran - YouTube

this is also very good from Breakthrough News:

‘Iranians Want to Be Bombed’? Inside the Propaganda Campaign for War

damned

there's an old saying: 'damned if u do, and damned if u don't'. i think this applies to living currently in the usa, which along with it's zionist partner israel is the world's leading source of state sponsored terrorism and genocide, for those of us vehemently opposed to it. a little over 2 years ago aaron bushnell courageously or insanely set himself on fire outside the israeli embassy in washington d.c. to protest the ongoing genocide of palestinians by israel which was fully funded and supported by the usa. it created a sensation in the media that lasted a few days and then was quietly memory holed. nothing changed. the slow going oppression and genocide of palestine continues, and now the zionist alliance has once again attacked iran, the leading opponent of zionism in the region.

i feel like crap about being an american under such circumstances, but i feel justified in keeping my feelings mostly to myself since protest, no matter how vehement, changes nothing in this sordid world.

Self-immolation of Aaron Bushnell - Wikipedia

and to be perfectly honest, i'm not very inclined to put my ass on the line with fellow 'progressives' on this and other progressive issues considering most progressives if they knew of my 'perverted' empathy for 'pedophiles', would not hesitate to condemn and isolate me. as long as they insist on adhering to their brainwashed notions of 'morality' regarding sex between 'minors' and 'adults' (as if this is abnormal and something which hasn't been commonplace throughout our species existence, and well supported by sound logic, i.e. the biological urge to have sex regardless of current 'moral' standards), this will be my 'moral' stance.