Peter Joseph And Zeitgeist

i wrote when i began this blog that i would rely heavily on the work of others to articulate and expand upon my own views, as a means of transcending some of my own limitations.

peter joseph is a brilliant independent film maker and author. i thought for sure i'd already posted links to some of his work previously here, but apparently i haven't.

the link below is to a youtube video of him talking about his views, how they developed and how his first documentary film, zeitgeist, came to be. it's 50 minutes long and excellent.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIinwXB1IqI

he made a series of 3 zeitgeist films. these are apparently no longer available for download on youtube. however, fragments of them are. this link is the beginning of the first zeitgeist movie segment that dealt with the topic of dogmatic religion, focusing on christianity and it's origins:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzMqlsAGL14&t=349s

Doctor My Eyes

lately, whenever i hear the jackson browne song doctor my eyes a particular lyric strikes me:

doctor, my eyes... was i unwise to keep them open for so long?

keeping one's eyes open here being a metaphor for perceiving surreality and in my case continually seeking knowledge which is ultimately unwieldy, burdensome, and permanent.

i've become very reclusive perhaps largely due to what i've learned about nature, humanity. become very disillusioned. learned there is no free will or benevolent god. that life can be a curse as well as a blessing. it's generally a mixed bag, perhaps leaning towards cursed. that civilization is ecocidal, a cancer upon the web of life. that in the process of domesticating other species we domesticated ourselves, which has been both a blessing and a curse. part of civilization's curse is increasingly dystopian human societies, societies dominated by a small number of elites who view the masses with disdain, as farmers view livestock. a useful commodity to be controlled and exploited, whose lives have little or no intrinsic value and are thus expendable, and who either don't know or somehow don't care about ecocide or nthe.

i've learned that sheeple have become appallingly dumbed down and indoctrinated, to the point that it's now perfectly normal, accepted, respected, even encouraged to be foolishly dogmatic, to believe ridiculous and repugnant things (as per some dogmas), to not think critically or even very rationally, to be easily misled and grossly misinformed and misopinionated, bigoted, and to embrace cruel puritanical 'morality' such as that promoted by many 'conservative' religious sects, including very popular ones like the roman catholic church.

while some of the best things like sex are demonized and criminalized by governments drunk on power and callously abusive with it, horrible things like war and often the lies which are concocted to justify 'preemptive' war, are glorified and culturally enshrined (i think that america's romance with it's military veterans is a cagey way to influence the masses to be patriotic and to blindly swallow it's propaganda).

besides the sheer stupidity/irrationality of our dystopian society/species, or a part of it, is a lack of healthy curiosity and skepticism of 'authority'. in my experience, sheeple shy away from disillusionment and the knowledge that leads to it. they prefer the blue pill (anxiety obliterating ignorance) over the red pill (unwieldy, burdensome, permanent knowledge).

knowledge which arguably is worthless. i suppose it's only value is one can act appropriately to minimize future shock and suffering. knowing that our fool's paradise is nearing it's entirely predictable and tragic end, one can opt out of reproducing, limit one's consumption and do other things to at least make some small improvement in someone's life besides your own. one may prep in hope of surviving longer than those who will be stunned and unprepared for teotwawki. one may even find some meaning and derive some satisfaction in doing so.

i'm reasonably certain that nothing can or will be done to avoid or significantly soften the blow of teotwawki upon the masses. only then will we learn the bitter truth: that homo sapiens are little if any different from 'lower' species regarding ecological (population) overshoot and subsequent collapse. i've rather blithely accepted this, just as we all must accept mortality.

the hard part is accepting and dealing with the knowledge that sheeple generally are hopelessly irrational or stupid, and worse prone to violence and cruelty, to demonizing and persecuting, torture and murder, much like nazis and fascists the world over, behind facades of 'humanity'.

the hardest part is knowing all this and being impotent to change any of it, at least not substantially, and feeling somewhat justly ashamed for not even trying to 'save the planet' and ourselves, like climate activists, young and old are doing, as in extinction rebellion.

maybe the hardest part is social alienation and isolation.

perhaps i can only relate well now with those who roughly share my d n d views. those who well perceive the current and coming nightmare and who like me have more or less accepted fate and our essential impotence, but also like me can't just let it go and forget about it. those who wish to talk about it and to try to spread awareness, get reluctant sheeple to take and swallow the bitter red pill.

it seems the right, the 'moral' thing to do. better than doing nothing.

being disillusioned severely complicates relationships formed prior to becoming disillusioned, as is the case with long standing relatives and friends. it's a way of radically growing apart. it's happened to me, and i'm struggling with it. part of me wants to end these relationships, while another part can't let go.

perhaps the hardest part is being unable to find or connect with anyone who meets this prerequisite, and is otherwise compatible. if i am to more or less sever old relationships, including close relatives, i must first find at least one other sherson who can sympathize, relate, and be able to provide support and guidance. someone who in the process would effectively compensate somewhat for those losses. someone who could effectively become part of a new family with me.

i've been looking for such a one for many years now, with no success. in this case hope still springs, but the more brutally rational side of me knows it's little warranted. it seems to be my peculiar fate to have to face the present and the future essentially alone.

Doctor, my eyes
Tell me what is wrong
Was I unwise to leave them open for so long?

https://www.google.com/search?q=doctor%2C+my+eyes&rlz=1C1CHKW_enUS486US743&oq=doctor%2C+my+eyes&aqs=chrome..69i57&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

A Transcendent And Emotional Moment

u may have read about singer tony bennett's ordeal with alzheimer's disease in aarp magazine. according to this recently published article, at age 95 the disease is quite advanced and disabling. he's effectively lost his mind. but amazingly, he's still able to sing and perform songs he knows well on stage to an audience. his talent hasn't left him.

i just watched what has been billed as his farewell performance on network tv, cbs, with co-star lady gaga. knowing his story, i became emotional watching them, especially him, and the audience's appreciation and his ability to still appreciate being so appreciated. lady gaga, a prodigious talent herself, lent a lot of class to the show, helping to highlight tony and his still impressive voice and stage persona. it's sad knowing how fleeting life is.

https://www.google.com/search?q=tony+bennett+aarp&rlz=1C1CHKW_enUS486US743&oq=tony+bennett+aarp&aqs=chrome..69i57.4874j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

on a less uplifting note, it's holiday time again. time once more for big media in america, including the highly respected pbs, to promote religious (primarily christian) propaganda, like the 'documentaries' it's FRONTLINE program is airing tonight that attempt to lend creedence to the evidence free idea that jesus christ actually lived, that the christian gospels are at least somewhat historical, rather than completely made up bs.

https://www.atheists.org/activism/resources/did-jesus-exist/

https://www.google.com/search?q=pbs+frontline+jesus+to+christ&rlz=1C1CHKW_enUS486US743&oq=pbs+frontline+jesus&aqs=chrome.0.0j69i57j0l2.10037j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

Pathetic!

president biden has refused to raise taxes on fossil fuels. on top of that, now he's going to temporarily bring down gasoline prices by flooding the market with oil reserves. if i heard correctly, this action is in conjunction with some other nations, including china, whose leaders are concerned about the political implications of higher fuel prices and sluggish economies.

this demonstrates for the umpteenth time that world leaders only pay lip service to addressing the root cause of catastrophic climate change: fossil fuel consumption and it's attendant economic development, including deforestation and industrial agriculture. and that's in the case when they even acknowledge the existence of the problem, as 1/2 of america's corporate political establishment is loathe to do.

whatever happened to the concept of peak oil and peak everything? a couple of decades ago it seems like the problem of our grossly unsustainable consumption culture was talked about more than it is currently. is this progress?! do sheeple in general or world leaders in particular believe that by ignoring them, these problems will simply disappear? it seems so.

i think our species has feces for brains. we're just pathetic! and doomed. dystopian and doomed.

Veterans Day

'war is hell. there ain't 2 ways about it. it takes away your innocence, and u can't get it back.' -a combat veteran

https://www.google.com/search?q=alice+in+chains+rooster&rlz=1C1CHKW_enUS486US743&oq=alice+in+chains+rooster&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.7988j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

A Little Curiosity Leads To A Lot Of Indignation!

pbs documentary about someone going blind from glaucoma mentioned treatments. no mention of using cannabis, smoking it. read robert randall's excellent memoir about the tremendous legal battle he had to engage in to force the u.s. government to concede that he needed to smoke the dreaded reefer madness to avoid going blind. it's a hell of a compelling story, and an infuriating one...

https://www.amazon.com/Marijuana-Rx-Patients-Fight-Medicinal/dp/1560251662

i thought it just a bit curious (but not surprising) that a pbs documentary about glaucoma would ignore the devil weed as a potential treatment, despite ample proof of it's effectiveness, so i decided to do a google search and see what came up. lo and behold, it turns out that all the most prominent 'authorities' and articles and respected medical organizations find reasons to declare that medical cannabis isn't the best choice for glaucoma treatment. somebody's full of shit and i don't wonder who, for long and bitter american experience has taught me that for certain 'controversial' topics, 'authorities' can't be trusted, even today, as the ongoing war on pot is running out of gas, and as more and more sheeple use it and states legalize it.

i quickly perused some of the lead sites that turned up from this google search, then changed it slightly by adding robert randall's name to it. finally, up popped some non-establishment sites that aren't dedicated to bamboozling the public with stale drug war propaganda about the hazards of getting high and various other manufactured 'concerns' over the devil weed's supposed ill effects on health and well being for chronic users (i've been smoking a very moderate one time daily dose of cannabis for over 20 years to treat depression and insomnia with no apparent ill effects)...

which led me to this little snippet of infinitely appalling american (in)'justice' related to race, incarceration, pot prohibition, and a judge from the bowels of hell (or harvard?) hailing from that bastion of conservative american lunacy known as the state of texas:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyrone_Brown

and this somewhat inspiring website seeking to end the insane and often racist 'war on drugs:

https://www.november.org/razorwire/rzold/25/page4.html

lots of goodies to be gathered from the november coalition.

all this took less than an hour, demonstrating that in spite of the establishment's efforts to rig google searches in favor of establishment lies and propaganda, the truth isn't that hard to find. too bad so few americans care to find it, or to even look for it!

which also goes to show that in america, a little curiosity can lead to a boatload of indignation at what one uncovers. i wonder if that's why so many sheeple shy away from truth seeking. could it be that they're allergic to indignation, or truth itself?

Privileged And Miserable

i'm so lucky to not have to worry about shelter or going hungry or other severe physical hardships which afflict billions of sheeple in this perverse world none of us asked to be born into. lucky to be in apparently good health at my age, no complaints there (it would be nice to be physically young again, but it's also nice to have experience and knowledge that may fortunately come with age). lucky in many other ways. privileged like few beings in this dog eat dog world, and grateful for it.

otoh, i'm miserable. alienated, lonely, disillusioned and disgusted by so much of what i see around me and in america and elsewhere. so much cruelty, corruption, deceit, delusion, smug ignorance, bigotry, a dystopian establishment that's worst of all. vast supranational gazillion dollar conspiracies, coup d'etats poorly disguised as lone nut assassinations, 'terrorist' attacks staged to frame public opinion in favor of war and 'homeland security' (governmental usurpation of power to keep us 'safe', yeah right!), stupid cruel puritanical legal prohibitions, police brutality, prosecutorial and judicial criminality or 'misconduct' with zero accountability that persists and persists because too few are curious enough to learn about it or too callous or perverse to care that in america, there's no such thing as justice in the so-called 'halls of justice'... framed innocent sheeple capitally punished by a system with no regard for justice or human life... republicans and other conservatives, ridiculous and repugnant dogma ridden popular lamestream religions...

and on and on. anyone as old as me who can't see how dystopian and doomed we are is blind. perhaps that's the biggest part of this dystopia: how sheeple generally are blind to it!

no one gives a shit about my blog or what i think. can u relate? along with all of the above? can u relate? can anyone? is there anyone out there? hello?

i could surreally use the solace of having a few sheeple in my life who can relate.