Fear of Equal Money, Part 1. 03/22/2013

Would the Equal Money System confiscate personal wealth?

If history shows anything, it is that there’s no better way to justify relations founded on violence, to make such relations seem moral, than by reframing them in the language of debt – above all, because it immediately makes it seem that it’s the victim who’s doing something wrong.

-David Graeber

This question appeared on the Quora board and I was asked to answer it.  It was asked by “anon user,” the now – infamous paid internet troll who suffered a massive literary beatdown at the hands of Sunette Spies (see previous post). I wasn’t going to answer it at first, but upon reflection, why the hell not? Others (without an axe to grind or a paycheck to collect) probably ask the same question. So I won’t acknowledge the p.i.t. on Quora, but I will answer it here (and dare anon user to play his game in my back yard).

Pretending that this question comes from genuine curiosity, I will say that I do not know everything that will happen with the installation of an Equal Money System. I do foresee it being installed in successive stages, over a period of many years, maybe decades, I don’t know. The current system would not accept such a shock if EMS were to be delivered all at once. But I want to discuss the overarching concern embedded within the question: “what will happen to my personal wealth?”

 This is part and parcel of the fear of loss attached to a change from the current economic system. A system where the winner takes all, and is perfectly represented in the image below:

Within this equation the question must be asked, what if your personal wealth directly contributed to the suffering of countless others? I won’t even apply any rationality or morality to the question, because it’s been exploited to death. And the cheap trick about morality and rationality is that one can set up a premise based on any foundation along a causal chain of events and attach any moral or rational “cover” or significance that can prove or justify anything, no matter cruel or unjust. “MY personal wealth is to be considered the most important thing in my life because I have given it so much value that it justifies everything I had to do to get it and keep it. I’ve given so much to this that I have identified this value as myself. So the fear of my wealth being “confiscated” is really the existential fear of having my valued personality taken away from me.”

Has our questioner ever considered to what extent the personal wealth of those who have to be stripped of all worth, economic or otherwise, to line the pockets of those in command of the system? [1] I really doubt anyone has. Because if one had even first considered the inner dimensions of such a question, it would have failed to leap from one’s mind. Then again, it could be the rank ignorance of an appalling nature. In America we have wealth “confiscated” by others every day in the form of banking fees, interest and other charges and subsidies commonly known as “corporate welfare.” That last item “confiscated” the wealth of US Citizens to the tune of $100 billion dollars in 2012. [2] The questioner may not be aware of such confiscations of wealth currently at work in Capitalism, but more likely, the question was merely a cynical trap to engage in pointless troll dickholery, which I mean to say, it may be a good question, but considering the source, it is only a question presented with a dubious malice submerged within a veneer of civility.

Critics uniformly draw lazy comparisons between Equal Money  and Communism, and often with a weak command of either subject. Of course, we have already diagramed that fear of Equality will cause one to succumb to unreasonableness – and even hostility – when presented with the notion of economic egalitarianism, and at the same time, fall into silent denial over the fact that the current system has taken so much more than Equality ever could.

Fear of Equal Money is a fear that radiates from a center of unenlightened self-interest, a sense of entitlement and a perverse need to justify the unjustifiable. Remember, it was less than a century and a half ago that human slavery  - the legal, religious and economic confiscation of a colonized people’s treasure of blood, labor and tears was abolished. And it took a bloody civil war and a 150 years of lynchings and disenfranchisement since then to nearly settle the question. Nor does the question even begin to explain,  acknowledge or bemoan the attempted extermination and confiscation of land of the Indigenous Peoples in the United States. Yet, any talk of “reparations” sends these Randian Individualists into paroxysms of rage. They will archly reply that they shouldn’t be held accountable for the sins committed in past centuries, yet they will be slow – or unwilling – to forswear any wealth or advantage gained by those same sins. This is what I meant by the “cheap trick of rationality.”

So, back to the question – I simply do not know the answer, because that chapter in human affairs is still to be written. Whatever happens will be agreed upon democratically, which would be the best method to set up the EMS. There will undoubtedly be a transition phase – and many people will be surprised how relatively easy it all could be done. But any discussion about the redistribution of wealth should not be made within cynical, jaded and lazy comparisons of what has happened in the past, but with due consideration of what is best for all. Which leaves me with a question for the critics of Equal Money: What would be better for everyone than having everyone’s basic needs in the world taken care of?

NOTES

[1]  For some perspective how the US government has colluded with the US banking system in taking public money to give to the banks, please read Ellen Brown’s excellent Internet article for Global Research, “Financial Meltdown: The Greatest Transfer of Wealth in History; How to Reverse the Tide and Democratize the US Monetary System.“

[2] From the Libertarian Cato Institute report, a think tank as neoliberal as they come; Corporate Welfare in the Federal Budget .

Fear of Equality, Part 7. 03/17/2013

The Value of Inequality

Equality is not truly understood because its significance is caught up within  destructive definitions which renders the definition of Equality incoherent. When people see the word, “Equality” – pictures of being corralled into internment camps, loss of individuality and having their money taken away and given to the homeless arise like hideous black goblins within their minds.

This is a fantastic example how effective of producing a mind-controlling narrative built upon the crippling definition of commonly – held beliefs leads to ignorance, resistance, self-deception and fear.

This is a curious psychological reaction based on the deep dilemmas, conflicts and contradictions that is inherent within what we call the “Human Condition.”

There have been many differing views of what the Human Condition consists of; the worldwide systems of the Social, political, economic, environmental… these are outward and external factors that help shape our identities, while the internal factors are psychological, suffused with emotions, feelings, thoughts about self and the external world – and the values we place upon these things.

When it comes to a subject like Equality, it appears that the principle is undervalued, especially within the paradigm of Capitalism. This is because Equality is seen as antithetical to Capitalism (and its perceived qualities of Liberty, Freedom and Individuality), the value of Capitalism is based on certain assumptions – and since people have become the essence of Capitalism within their minds, they are willing to defend that position no matter what.

These assumptions are based on culturally – transmitted ideas of high – minded principles that look good on paper and appear grandiose in the mind, and we have gone through many of them in this series already. But it must be understood that these ideas are but a front that stands as a buttress against these existential fears of Equality.

Nestled within the mind is the impulse that self-preservation must always come first, whether it is the identity or the body. There exists a psychological resistance to change, to question, to investigate, to excavate or examine the layers of being – and it doesn’t matter if something, like Capitalism, actually compromises the self or doesn’t ultimately makes sense. What is important and valued above everything is validating the point one has become.

So the calculus, the equation is that we have all become the fear of Equality and the value of Capitalism. To exist as Equality then one must become Equality which would cause a partial deletion of one’s accepted identity, which is terrifying to the mind, which we have also become. The fear is that in the best case scenario, Equality will fail, and in the worst case the world (and the self) would effectively cease to exist.

It appears to be a vicious circle, where one is forced to accept what one has always known, until one chooses to step outside the circle, which takes a great amount of self – belief that there exists an identity outside that circle.

A helpful analogy… Take the laptop that I am banging these messages out on. It consists of hardware and software. Used together – very effective means of communication and purpose. But without the software, without the programs – the laptop is just a hunk of metal, circuits, glass and plastic. When I’m using this word processor, I can communicate and become the program – using the computer as an interface to the outside world. But without the hardware, there is nothing to give shape and form to the medium, and I end up in the same position of uselessness.

Point: people become the programs that they have invested in and have been broadcasted to – and do not see any other way of existing. Not only that, we must value what we become, because the key programs we value are self-preservation (hardware) and identity (software). And even if we hate ourselves and wish to destroy ourselves (or others), we still act in a way that values the negation of life, the nihilistic purpose to erase our being (or others) from existence, and the problem with that is we do not (or care) that we are in danger of erasing all life from this planet.

This reveals the pathological nature of the human mind – that it can place so much value, significance and  importance in a world system that is purportedly a means to ensure our survival – but in reality is actively working towards the ends of our destruction. It is like we are sailing and steering our planet into the jaws of a nightmare without any consideration or consciousness of the consequences. Not only that, but be careful if you point out these murderous, suicidal tendencies of human consciousness to others; you will be called “suicidal cult member.” And yet, we are all one collective suicidal cult members of the Church of Conscious Consumer Capitalism that is busily destroying our people, animals, plants, air and water. But if one brings that up, you’ll be labeled a “communist.” We don’t need Equality because we have the Next Big Thing that we value even more; another bright, shiny product that promises to make our lives even better! The media completely understands how to program and brainwash the human mind into accepting a cheap imitation of life while promulgating “liberty,” “lifestyles” and “freedom.”

Of course, the critics of Equality fear Equality and do not give a shit about anything else but what they can get out of their lives, which is money and the things money can buy. Oh, and making sure to defend this murderous, suicidal system against any criticism because they do not want to hear criticism of what they have in fact become. Everybody and everything else can go screw. Multiply that mindset several billion times and you should be able to see why the world is in the state it is today.

To them I say, take a breath and consider what Equal Money  and an Equal Money System offers. A way out of the box.

05/28/2012: The Role of Religion as Existential Security

Unfortunate, ain’t it?

In Nietzsche’s, The Gay Sciencewe are met with this famous trope:

God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?

Nietzsche’s pronouncement seemed prophetic at the time when belief in European rationalism was at its zenith, but belief in God has isstill very much here with us.  However the fact remains that Religion, despite being the “opiate of the people” as Marx put it, still serves a crucial function: as a protector and a firewall against uncertainty and existential insecurity.

Not surprisingly, studies have found that atheism is more likely to appear within the industrial and post-industrial countries. In impoverished, less educated countries, belief in God predominates.

Religion of course not only provides relief from existential stress by supplying existential security, it also moderates human behavior within the socio-economic insecurity of the times. Religion thus helps keep failed states somewhat stable. It might seem obvious that there are no atheists in foxholes, or in the impoverished cities of India or in sub-Sahara Africa while there are plenty of atheists in post-industrial  countries that feature high education along with strong social safety nets (Yes, Virginia, Socialism indeed breeds atheists!). One country seems to invalidate this formula. The United States is the wealthiest of all industrial nations and yet the most religious – due to extensive income disparity.

This all but guarantees that religious fundamentalism is still going to be around for a very long time (especially in the impoverished Muslim and Asian countries where existential security is nonexistent. And here is where the behavioral moderation properties of religion come into play and will grant a longer life to belief in God. Atheists make a terrible mistake in their belief that the application of applied reason and positivism alone will change the world for the better without any kind of action plan. The stealth religion that is atheism is useless as a force of reason unless those proponents can put their logical prowess into practice and help produce existential security for all. But atheists don’t seem to be interested in doing anything for all of us. The Equal Money system is such a proposal that will give all more security through social and economic programs that will ultimately give everyone that existential security only those privileged few now enjoy. We need all people to buy into economic equality and security or else we will have to endure the consequence of allowing  the grizzled, intolerant specter of religious fundamentalism to destroy what’s left of the world for centuries to come. Such a fate is only as inevitable as our avoidance to the necessity of change.

Notes:

[1] Pippa Norris, Ronald Inglehart, Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide (Cambridge Studies in Social Theory, Religion and Politics), Cambridge University Press, 2004. The authors claim that their research shows that the world’s industrial nations are more secular while the third world remains religious due to economic insecurity. The birth rate in these impoverished countries have grown to numbers where there are far more people who hold religious views than ever before, while the birth rate among secular nations are dropping.  Implication: unless economic equality is installed to remove existential uncertainty, religious fundamentalism may never leave us, threatening to collapse civilization into the Dark Ages 2.0.

2012/03/10 – 2012 and My Search for the Holy Ghost

I have been baptized a total of five times. I don’t know if there is a Guinness Book of World Records regarding the most times a person has undergone baptism, but if there is, I’d like to throw my name up for consideration.

I don’t recall every detail of each baptismal event, but I do recall the similarities and the feelings I experienced undergoing them. The first occurred when I was 6 when I was baptized in a Catholic ceremony in the North Toledo parish of the St. Vincent de Paul church. I would also attend the parish school for the next three years. I recall being very excited and pleased about having the priest make such a solemn fuss over me as he murmured in Latin and gently poured a small dish of water across my forehead. It was a moment that I always compared my subsequent baptisms to, and all comparisons failed to impress.

The reason why I had to require four more baptisms is simple. I am not certain why we stopped attending St. Vincent’s as I have never asked my mother about it, but my father is the son of a minister who led his own church at Zion Church of God in Christ, so there may have been a compelling reason to bring that religious stream into our lives as well. In any case, to be fully recognized as a fully – fledged member of my grandfather’s church, I and my sisters would have to be baptized again. At this I resisted. Why would I have to be re-baptized? Didn’t God recognize my first baptism as valid? But as a child these thoughts were pushed aside and I relented, although a bit offended, and allowed myself to be dipped into the pool of cold water behind my grandfather’s pulpit. Everyone in church was very pleased.

Fast-forward several years. My parents split up. I still want to attend my grandfather’s and I do at various times in my teens, but my mother doesn’t feel comfortable there, so she takes us to other churches in the neighborhood. I had to endure further baptisms to gain admittance in each church, and the ceremony quickly became tiresome and absurd. I became to doubt the efficacy of baptism itself, and certainly became very suspicious of churches in general. The questions kept coming. Did God really care that I had to be baptized into every church I attended to be acceptable in His sight? Or was this some requirement dreamed up by the pastor to fulfill some church quota or something? What did Jesus have to do with all these desperate and worn out black faces that I observed every Sunday who came here worship Him and His Son? Nobody here was alive when all these stories about Jesus were told. What if it was a joke? What if none of it ever happened? These thoughts would produce a nausea in my stomach and I quickly pushed them away, and I tried to get back into the sermon being delivered by the preacher.

But I was never satisfied. The priests and ministers I had to listen to were nowhere as memorable as the Latin Mass at St. Vincent’s or my grandfather Reverend. T.T. Thomas’ dignified orations. In fact, I found subsequent ministers more outlandish and even crazy. But with each church I had to attend I also had to be formally introduced with being dressed in white and plunged into an ice-cold pool of water. With each drenching a payment of new doubts entered my mind.

Have you heard of “salvation?” It’s something that happens to you when you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. You are “saved” from an eternal fate of damnation and separation from God through accepting the story of Jesus’ blood-sacrifice as true. And if that was all that would be required of a Christian, the story would be easier to believe. But one also has to gain the favor of the Holy Spirit as well, according to the Pentecostal doctrine of my grandfather’s church. Of course, the Pentecost refers the to singular event in the book of Acts where the Holy Spirit is said to descend upon the Apostles in the form of tongues of fire that allegedly appeared above their heads, causing them to “speak in tongues,” sometime after the death of Jesus.[1]

Since I had been tormented by the scary stories about the End Times according to the Book of Revelations from childhood, I very much desired to “have” the Holy Ghost. I was led to believe that this was crucial in being saved. I had witnessed various saints, always women, it seemed, “speaking in tongues.” I was told it was the language that the angels spoke, and it sounded like a frightful convulsive string of elongated and abbreviated vowels and stuttering. The people speaking in tongues never knew or remembered what they were saying. Their bodies and faces were contorted in painful ecstasy and a kind of possession. It was weird to witness and marked for me a major difference between the Catholic and Protestant churches I attended. It was also “proof” that the Holy Ghost was indeed valid and real, and thus their Christian faith was valid and real, at least to the believers.

One night while having been forced again to attend another tiresome mid-week church service, I was led to the front of the church during a call for new members who were wanting to accept Jesus into their lives. The music, shouting and clamor were especially raucous this hot summer evening, and somehow I found myself standing before the congregation in tears. Apparently, this made me “saved.” An old black man was overjoyed as there was seven of us standing before them, “one saved soul for each day of the week.” One the ride home I was completely still within the knowing that I had not been changed or transformed in any way. I had fooled them without intending to deceive. They couldn’t tell I was the same as before. It was all a joke.

In any case, I longed to have the Holy Spirit, to cease my curious mind from doubting so much. Often I would pray to receive the Holy Ghost. But nothing ever happened. I was told to receive the Holy Ghost was a life-changing and beautiful experience. When church members would ask me if I was going to be a “preacher like your granddaddy” (whom I strongly resembled in appearance), I often didn’t know what to say, because I didn’t have the Holy Ghost, so until that happened, I couldn’t actually say I would be a preacher. I wanted to be. But I didn’t have it.

One night I witnessed the choir’s organist, who was bad-ass on the organ and piano, being called to come to the altar to repent his sin of homosexuality. He pitifully broke down and repented. But it was obvious to me that he was still going to be gay, just as he was still going to be a bad-ass organist. It was just who he was. I didn’t understand how that kind of separation his sexual identity could occur within salvation. But this caused me to pray to receive the Holy Ghost even more fervently. But I never received it. And I gave up. For some reason, it was never gonna happen for me. I was either unworthy of the Holy Ghost, or it didn’t exist.

My experience as an African-American within the African-American religious tradition that I just recounted here is not unique. Although I did not realize it at the time when I was a teen, similar experiences were reported by other important African-American authors like Langston Hughes, Richard Wright and James Baldwin [2], among others.

At the time I could not understand why the Holy Ghost had seemingly chosen to forsake me. As I further delved into college textbooks and became more aware of the subject of comparative religions, the more I began to lose touch with the religious framework (which seemed to all be based on unverifiable stories first told in the dim past). I realized I had no more at stake in defending the reality of God any more than I had to defend the reality of say, Neptune or Hercules. Yahweh, Neptune and Hercules all share one point: they have all been created and given existence through the consciousness of human beings. And it is through this conscious creation that all manners or evil and cruelty can be committed and justified. It will be a better world when religious ideas are set to the side by a mature civilized world. I don’t know how we will get there, but since nobody fervently insists that Hercules or Neptune be worshiped today, there is a chance we might be able to dispose of all religious superstition if we can make it through this bleak existential gap of insanity and despair.

 

NOTES

[1] 2.1. When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. ² And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. ³ And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. ⁴ And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.

⁵ Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. ⁶ And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language. English Standard Version (ESV)

[2] …”being in the pulpit was like being in the theatre; I was behind the scenes and knew how the illusion worked.”… “If the concept of God has any validity or any use,” he wrote, “it can only be to make us larger, freer, and more loving. If God cannot do this, then it is time we got rid of him.” James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time (1963)..

 

2012 R.I.P. God

2012 R.I.P. God. Marlen Vargas Del Razo’s meditations on the Death of God.

2011/12/25 – 2011 Post-Mortems. FLASH!

2011 is almost gone. Do you know where your Light-body is?

Welcome, back. It’s been a while since I’ve made a post here, but I’ve been working on several writing projects and just completed one of them, so that’s good news.

My goal at the beginning of last year was to boost the readership of the blog, and I am happy to report  Mission: Accomplished. Views nearly quadrupled over the previous year, and I attribute that to several reasons, the main one being that I actually posted more blogs than I ever have before.

In looking back at the events of 2011, it seems that the old adage of, “the more things change, the more they stay the same.” The “Arab Spring,” which began almost a year ago when a young Tunisian fruit merchant set himself on fire in protest against the crushing economic climate he was forced to participate within, we wonder how much has changed. Ironically, according to this Al Jazeera, the young man’s family had to leave Sidi Bouzid out of fear.

In Egypt, President-for-life Hosni Mubarak was toppled from power after the military repeatedly fired on its own citizens. With Mubarak gone, guess what the military is up to these days? Firing on its own citizens.

In Libya, the story is far from over. Although Qadhafi has been toppled from power and killed, his prescient comments made in 2008 to his fellow Middle Eastern leaders seem to carry more weight as time goes on.

Syria of course, has resisted the uprisings by brutally repressing its citizens. In reports that can only be termed as “surprising,” former pals Syria’s Assad and Hamas (the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement in Israel) are not on speaking terms.

Osama bin Laden was allegedly assassinated by American Navy Seals. We don’t know for sure because the man’s body was thrown into the ocean. Allegedly.

The EU had been rocked by one financial tsunami after another. Japan was rocked by an actual tsunami and had one of its nuclear reactors melt down.

Steve Jobs, the leader of Apple died. His reported last words: “Oh, wow.“

Excuse me, but didn’t you used to be Occupy Wall Street?

Okay, we’ll be back soon with even more great blogs.

2011/06/13 – A Cult of their Own: The Ironic Fabrications of “0rdo Aurora Templii”

We do not know who is behind the secret minds of the You Tube channel, “0rdo Templii Aurora,” who claim to be a collective that opposes Destonian principles completely. What little evidence we have suggest part of this group are from the British Isles and have also set up “anti-Desteni cult” blogs that spew comically paranoid conspiracy fever dreams. They prefer to run their propaganda hate machine behind the curtain of anonymity while gleefully attacking and smearing known Desteni members in their videos and blogs. As if we care, yet it shows everyone the intrinsic fear of exposure and consequence these haters live with daily, and the voice of the narrator of the 0rdo videos, drips with an affectation of defiance that belies their obsessive fears that Desteni, if unchecked, could take over the world by installing a “spiritual fascism.” Like I said, comical.

The bone of contention that 0rdo has with Desteni contains many facets, but can be traced to one point: they believe that the portal is the “big lie of Desteni.” We will not respond to that, as this is only an opinion that they have formed out of ignorance and disbelief. They have zero-proof to back up their claims that the portal is a fake, as there is no evidenced available to them that they can use to validate their claims. They will not admit this, because out of their self-righteous belief that they have a pure, undimmed understanding of what they think Desteni is about. They have formed, like the rest of the haters, a “cult” of their own.

Let’s give a close reading of their video attack, Desteni Preacher of Hate, Bernard Poolman – Part 1, for example. It contains a laundry list of “crimes against humanity” that the mouthpiece for  0rdo (henceforth known as, “Zero Our Doom,” or just “Zero”) dryly reads in a stiffly detached British monotone.

1. Bernard Poolman’s Desteni is a centralized regime, run as a dictatorship, which advocates strictly regimented economic, industrial, and social controls. 

A: Being described as a “centralized regime” sort of makes me pine for the old Cold War days. That Desteni is “centralized” is a fairy tale scare tactic, and false, as Desteni is a global group that is beginning to replicate all over the world-wide web of the collective unconscious.

That Desteni is a “regime” is only partly correct, as we are not authoritarian as the word is applied here, but we do promote a “regime” as giving a modality or way of doing things that brings equality to the world. What Zero fails to realize is that there are more “social controls” arrayed against human beings under this current system then there would ever be in an Equal Money society. But that doesn’t seem to bother them at all. The Equal Money and the universalism of Desteni isn’t that terribly concerning to them either. They have fears that what Desteni says about the religious and spiritual scam of humanity may be true, and this exercise of character assassination against members of the Desteni Group should be read with that in mind.

2. It suppresses free speech and forcibly attempts to censor criticism and opposition. 

This is hypocritical nonsense from “Zero,” as they have also blocked comments on their channel, depriving people of their “right” to freely speak. That’s because 0rdo doesn’t really give a damn about “free speech.” We are not afraid of opposition. We are not afraid of criticism. We are not afraid of “free speech.” Desteni members will not tolerate abusive comments from haters, and that is a totally different thing than what Zero would have you believe. What Zero wants to do is be allowed to spew their dishonest, spiteful smears on our turf. They are not interested in an honest discussion, for they have already made up their minds about Desteni: it’s a cult led by a madman. Fuck them. Haters can converse among themselves, as they are free to exercise their “free speech right” to converse among themselves within the Anti-Desteni echo chamber of their own making. Have at it.

3. Its extensive use of propaganda utilizes democratic procedures for an anti-democratic cause. 

Again, what Zero fails to appreciate is that what they despair against is currently happening in this world. I am not going to go into it here, as there are many blogs by Desteni members that take this one, but it is clear to all with any kind of functioning brain power that Democratic principals today are used to push undemocratic agendas that benefit the elites of this world at the cost of everyone else. But Zero doesn’t find that sexy enough to complain about. Desteni must seem like such an easy target, but we see right through them.

4. Destonians condemn non-Destonians as less-than-inferior beings.

This is a lie. We condemn no one. We DO disregard the spiteful, opinionated ignorance of haters. Who wants to listen to someone talking shit all the time?

5. Bernard Poolman’s comments on Jewish people suggest he is anti-Semitic.

People who believe or think that Bernard Poolman is “anti-Semitic” is projecting their own prejudices onto him. File under: hate smear.

6. Desteni is a fascist organization. 

See: #5

7. Its devotees say Desteni is all about equality and like nothing that has ever existed before. But Desteni uses the same exploitative methods of mind control found in mystical, religious, or quasi-religious thought-reform cults, and is a hierarchal organization, not a collective of equals. 

Ah, the “mind-control” bomb. I was wondering when we would get to this. A favorite smear used by the haters who have read too much into Margaret Singer’s book, “Cults In Our Midst.” Singer’s theories of “thought-reform” has been seized upon haters and critics as “proof” that Bernard Poolman has “hypnotized” and “brainwashed” thousands of Desteni members scattered around the world.

And yet, there appears to be no inclination from the haters and critics of Desteni to be concerned with the hypnotism and brainwashing performed by families, religions, politics, education and the media centers that dominate the mental environment of the human being. Apparently, the thoughts engineered by these centers need no attenuation or revision. We should never, ever question what has been told to us or consider that what we have previously believed is wrong. Beliefs should never be challenged. Especially those held by faceless, anonymous critics. If you do, you will be labeled a “cult.” It is a narrative based on  the claims of one scientist. Therefore, according to the narrative, it MUST be true.

8. It has more in common with religion than any equal rights group. 

What does Zero mean by this? What commonalities to “religion” do they see Desteni favorably compared to? Which “religion?” Is that a “bad thing?” Loaded language. Beware the Forked Tongue.

9. Mystical notions of enlightenment or ascension are scoffed at by Desteni.

I suppose 0rdo has direct, irrefutable evidence that such phenomena exists? Is that an axe I hear grinding?

10. They regard Bernard Poolman as the only authority to be trusted on mysticism, the new age, religion, occultism, and spirituality. The Desteni philosophy is based entirely on those influences. 

I can speak for myself as having studied all these things intensely in vain for decades. It was only because that all those paths led to the same dead-end that I could take what Desteni said seriously. It was all about the “dead-end.” None of those things have ever changed anything meaningful for the human race. Instead of experiencing expansion, these things diminished us with Holy Wars that have gone on for centuries. Now 0rdo may feel that these things are still beneficial, although I would love to see them “prove it.” Desteni is a total and complete rejection with all things “metaphysical,” precisely because it doesn’t work!

Somehow, in their haste to slander and smear, 0rdo missed that.

11. Poolman puts his own spin on it all and employs a less traditional phraseology, which his acolytes slavishly copy and repeat.

Bernard only relates what he’s found through difficult years of study and application. He doesn’t make anything up. He doesn’t lie. He is the one person that I have ever seen in my life who lives his words. I lived with him in his house for two years and the things that went on were both incredibly normal and extraordinary, and I listened to what Bernard and Andrea and Sunette said, interviewed them all. There is a ton we don’t share.

And I can say that I did not believe in the existence of demons until after Andrea told me of her story about Jack many years before she knew anything about Bernard Poolman, a story that is worthy of a movie. There is just too much that people do not know about this world for anyone to claim they “know it all,’ as critics say of Bernard. But let me tell you, unless you have walked in Bernard’s shoes, you have no business in pretending that you know anything about the man. Bernard is the last person who needs to defend himself.

12. Everything he says or does, they regard as beyond question because it surpasses the mind, which is the same mystical power ascribed to leaders of other religious cults. 

I repeat, Bernard Poolman does not need to defend himself. He knows what he’s doing and haters can only guess. It’s amazing to read the shit they say about, as if they ever met him or know him through any other means than the smear campaign they all copy each other from.

These people are so insignificant and petty, honing their hate against us as if they have a real target. They are only hating themselves. How neat is that?

13. The Desteni group say Poolman and Sunette Spies possess abilities to function in both the interdimensional and the physical realms. They say Poolman is somehow not an individual or a personality. He is said to exist Here, bringing together Heaven and Earth in the physical, as if he were the incarnation of the Hermetic maxim, ‘as above, so below’. 

Correction: Bernard Poolman does not “see interdimensionally” and has never claimed to do so. We would like 0rdo to produce the text when Bernard claims interdimensional sight because we need it for our records.

As for Sunette, I can attest to anyone interested that she is as she appears. There is not one goddamned person in the world who can prove otherwise, and if it were in my power I would send limousines to pick these f**kers up at the airport to make sure they get on a plane to South Africa so they could for see for themselves the truth of the matter. As it is, we will not offer any more “proof” than what we already have. So the haters like 0rdo can continue to “make statements” and entertain their wrong and mistaken “opinions” “about” the Portal. Why? Because their self-dishonesty will not allow for anything else. We understand that for them the truth that they must deal with is that haters can never know for sure if their claims are correct, which is extremely funny to me.

14. Just like any other new religious movement, sect, or cult, Desteni redefine and reinterpret conventional religious or spiritual ideas and beliefs, using their own peculiar invented jargon. 

Desteni does not “redefine” religious convention: we completely render it unusable and a waste of time. Desteni is not a “new religious movement,” which is a term coined by Methodist pastor and religious scholar, J. GordonMelton. Anything that Melton investigates must take his religious beliefs into consideration. Desteni is not an  ‘anti-religious religion.” Desteni is not defined by hater-speech. Desteni defines itself as a group of people who are working the only work acceptable: the establishment of universal equality. Without the need of calling on “God.” The group that’s behind 0rdo Templii Aurora is a joke. Their opinions are worthless. Their lies are outlandish. Their bravery nonexistent. Desteni is giving them more than they deserve and more than they expect, and we thank them for showing us how much they care for life and for others. They have a very big problem on their hands, however. They don’t know what they are doing.

2011/04/19 – China’s Ghost Towns

There’s not many videos out there that make my jaw drop, but this one did me in. Apparently, China’s government is obsessed with continued GDP growth, resulting in 10 new cities being erected every year. However, the reporter says these cities are largely ghosts towns, being far too expensive for the average citizen. He also claims that it’s estimated that 64 million apartments built by the Chinese are empty.

How would an Equal Money system be applied within all this? Well, for starters, those 64 million empty apartments would be given to the people. Please watch this video. It’s an amazing indictment on the irrationality of our leaders and the economies they serve.

2011/04/02 – A Fiction, but a “Beautiful” Fiction

“Life’s tallest order is to keep the feelings up, to make two dollars’ worth of euphoria go the distance. And life can’t do that. So fiction does.” – Stanley Elkin

I suppose I was a much more idealistic person in my youth than I am now, although back then, I had little indication or evidence that such a stance was meaningful, applicable to the world I was living in or even relevant within what I saw transpiring around the world. I simply believed in the “power of Good.” And over everything else, I was a “Good Guy.” It was a badge I proudly wore. I was also, as other have related to me, possessed of an optimistic, sunny nature, which belied the awful and at times, traumatic childhood I endured seemingly alone. Maybe I was just flushed with optimism because my “innocence” survived fairly intact. I felt free, free of my childhood, free of Toledo, free from my family and when I arrived at Bowling Green, Ohio in that late summer of 1986, I freed myself from an oppressive marriage and job, and I felt free to be myself, or invent another self that would be more fun.

So I invented myself as a Reggae Musician. It was a complete transformation. I didn’t know it then, but it wasn’t real, for it ended when I ended my involvement with the band by quitting over something probably frivolous. But that’s another story for another time. I want to talk to you about something else. So listen:

It’s true, I was more possessed by the spirit of wonder and joy in those days. I could afford to be, living in that idyllic bubble in that small college town in the middle of a flatlands nowhere, surrounded by adoring fans of music I didn’t even know I had within me. Women, for the first time in my life, to quote the old Rogers and Hammerstein’s song, saw me as “Something Wonderful.” Surprisingly, they even wanted to fuck me!  Almost everything I attempted, worked.

Maybe this is how it is for the those who swear by the power of Positive Thinking. It was for me a time of easy living and no cares, because, as I have said, everything worked. When it all inevitably fell apart and I lost everything I worked so hard for, the world still carried on, was still fucked up, was still in deep shit. But I hadn’t noticed that when I was carried aloft in the flow of fortune. Being given what I wanted somehow cast an impenetrable curtain before my eyes that blinded me to the disgusting, horrible shit that was going down in the world all around me. As the reversal of fortune swept me away in the other direction, I was able to the others who were being swept away along that same black tide, far, far worse off than me. The curtain that was so effective in allowing me to expect to live a happy, fulfilling life without regards to others, was beginning to come down.

Now I know what you’re thinking, I did make a stand here and there. I engaged in protests. I wrote songs about hearing ‘the ghettos cry at night,” and that “there was no life in Guatemala.” I sang songs of hope and rebellion, but they were just songs sung to a few thousand people at the most. Made no visible impact at all. Just sayin.’

So if it seems that I’ve been “blue” or not feeling it, that’s not true. Emotionalism never solved anything. I may have lost the “wonder” and “joy” in life because I can’t stand what’s going on here.  I can’t “appreciate” anything “ truly beautiful and miraculous,” after reading stories like the one below, where  14-year-old girl after being raped by an older cousin, beaten by cousin’s wife and then lashed to death by demoniacal religious zealots:

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/29/bangladesh.lashing.death/index.html?on.cnn=1

It’s a Fiction that there are beautiful moments or miracles that exist in this world alongside the sinister nature of human beings. There are no angels, only demons in every way, possessing us and directing us into the most evil acts imaginable. To be continuously shocked at the depths humanity has descended into leaves me with no hope, no warm fuzzies, no beautiful sunset to ride off into. They were all fictions to hide behind, to shield us from the awful truth of ourselves. They are unreal, as only man’s evil seems to have the immense and sickening weight of reality. So I have to deal with these things that are real, and not go and escape into the dreamscapes of hopeful, future expectations. The most courageous way is to take off the rose-colored glasses. Release the hopes that “Something bigger than myself will Move things into a more desirable state. Let go of seeking out that pretty picture to still the terror in your heart. We all have to wake up and wake each other up to what is happening to us, not to wallow in sorrow and misery, but to wake up from our self-satisfied slumber. And that’s part of what I am doing.

2011/03/27 – Prelude to Failure?

Ever felt exasperated? You know, when an immense tidal wave of intense annoyance sweeps you away and you’re left wondering what the hell happened?

It’s times like this when I usually try to analyze the event to understand it better. But this time I don’t want to understand it. I am trying to forget it, but writing about it doesn’t seem to be helping with that now.

In these moments, which always seems to pop up around me, there eventually comes a sense of resignation and acceptance of reversal of fortunes and fear of the future. But it’s not so much “fear of the future” as this current moment that leaves a warm, nauseous bowling ball in my stomach. Ugh.

Let’s face it – everything we do is a prelude to failure. And that is a problem when people expect or want you to be something, like a glorified, ideal of manhood or womanhood, and not accepting who you are. Then you are free to fail all the more. And yet, we  all are a work-in-progress… er, I mean, “process,” aren’t we? Even the people we find exasperating.We all are sliding down a precipitous slope of Failure into our death, no doubt pulling everyone we can down into that empty, unknown hole with us, because we’re really that mean. That’s why we set up this system the way it is to punish the losers and reward the winners and make sure nobody gets out of the box because they are too busy surviving and maintaining relationships. And we created all of that because we believed we deserved to be  punished. And we do deserve it, simply because nobody has ever thought to change it! That’s the fucked-up part! We just allow this fuck-up to keep rolling,it going: this system, sinister and pathological. a slapstick, murderous and suicidal shadowbox of misery and the money that so successfully creates it. We just sit back and watch the wheels grind up the hapless many who can’t get out of the way. As long as the wheels don’t grind you into a pulp, who the hell cares?

Now I know you’re probably not going to listen to this, but I’ll say it anyway… Equal Money is the only possible answer to what ails this world, and I believe that it will… IF we can let go of our deviant, selfish attributes that wants to destroy everything in sight.