To think there was a time

To think there was a time 

when every minute I felt free til at one point- minutes, hours, days or years, no, never years, but time is only one segment of life making us who we are, then, now, or in dreams. Dreams are the future and you must know dreams are not real nor promises nor, well, what’s worse than “not real”?

Hate to blow the bubble but I realize every day that technology can’t outpace me, or anyone actually, but why do we think it can? Can’t because how many times have you tried to explain to someone, dried blood doesn’t often leave a trail, according to fbi and cia secret files. How do I know, because I know, I just don’t know how much I don’t know. None of us do, and some would call it depressing but most would call it a challenge. What’s on the line? Cavemen (and women, of course) or another worn, outdated revolution that addresses all the stops, starts and truths but turns out to be false.

It’s OK, at least we tried, and trying, failing, trying, failing always leads to some king of success, at least that’s what they tell us, and we believe. Walking us down the road to destruction, I say, not necessarily the wisdom of the new god, global capitulation.

Most of my friends I managed to keep are dead now, the others, along with wives, children, went missing along the path of time.

I’ve become cynical. Democracy had its heyday already, kind of like the Apocalypse that roams and settles in someplace, and leaves. Those that live through either of them end up telling their stories like it was a bad dream but can only remember it piecemeal. I’ve seen and sometimes participated in the fits and starts of democracy. I voted, I believed in some of those politicians, some others not so much. I’ve wanted a woman to be president, even knowing that it’s never made any difference (except, at best, temporarily) in the other places. Same for black and other ethnic groups, some bad, some good. And I’m not one of those old white men who automatically reverted to acknowledging the history of men, in general. The only thing I attribute to men is the recognition that they (me included) are responsible for every problem we have today simply because men wrested away and took control of technology. Everything from the gun (and its weapon progenies) to the gasoline engine, to the art of war, and the art of suffering, men have built a generic society based in incremental values of wealth, power, and violence.

Maggie Blackhawk states it in simple terms. “We keep looking at other countries in order to try and understand what's happening

right around us but it’s right here in America where the start of it all is.

For instance, when did the Jews get permission to defend themselves above all other moral codes?

Was it when god said, abraham kill me a son?

When the Messenger of the Lord called to Abraham from heaven a second time and said, “I am taking an oath on my own name, declares the Lord, that because you have done this and have not refused to give me your son, your only son, I will certainly bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and the grains of sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of their enemies’ cities. Through your descendants all the nations of the earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed.

Thus spoke Zarathustra.

.

Sent from my iPad

“If we have nuclear weapons, what’s the sense not using them?”

I think we’ve all forgotten that there are thousands of nuclear weapons and hundreds of nuclear power plants producing high grade plutonium around the world just waiting for the lunatics who run the world to go truly suicidal. Thankfully, thus far, they’re too concerned with their legacy and their money, not necessarily in that order. Someone like Trump, a megalomaniac may someday realize that he has no legacy like Obama but maybe like Hitler, and decide to answer his own question he asked thirty years ago, “If we have nuclear weapons, what’s the sense not using them?”

Sent from my iPad

Allred and the Sheep Worrier

Allred and the Sheep Worrier 

The Sheep Worrier is a lot like Santa clause, the tooth fairy, god. “He knows when you’ve been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake.” The Sheep Worrier only needs fear to keep the flock on its toes. It’s important to the SW to expand the surveillance state cuz the SW does not have the extensive fear oversight of, let’s say, a real god, if there is such a thing. Of course, god always has His minions of priests, rabbis and ayatollahs. 

History of the Left -Wobbly, vote, Nuclear disarmament, SDs, sncc, black power weather underground, civil rights, anti draft, women’s liberation, Arab spring, Wall Street, abortion rights, terrorist jingoism, anti- Arab, immigration, What’s in a name? I think just in my lifetime alone, I’ve seen the culmination of every religious, political, philosophical, cultural tradition prove over and over again one of the basic human fallacies, which is, that we humans don’t have a clue about any of these grand ideas about who we think we are. Basically, we’re either killing machines or fodder for any and all natural and unnatural destructive mechanical, technological truths. It still all depends where on earth you are, when whatever apocalypse is going to make you its victim. It’s not that we’ve entered a new era, it’s that modern technology has exacerbated and accelerated what would have seemed as containment or conclusions for periods of time of widening conflicts. The distance in time between conflicts, pogroms, genocides, has decreased and time is accelerating so that time itself is a monotonous white noise of sameness, called by different names. They say that the only power Coyote has is the naming of everything, and that’s all that’s needed. No drones, no guns, no stupid people running the show. Just donalds, Stephen’s, netanyahoos, Vladimir’s. Doesn’t that say it all? It’s a horrible life in places like Gaza, Cuba, and other named places we don’t know anything about but not everyone can think about it here in America because though we can’t experience it, and neither can our so called representatives, worse for us, we really can’t imagine it, and our politicians, representatives have neither imagination nor empathy. They are shallow empty people, and so we can be as well. Circular firing squad. First the revolution starts with disillusionment, then comes moral outrage, activism, cultural and political conflict, then, commonplace becomes routine, lastly, acceptance of defeat, ordinary, routine. Back to normal.

 Are we the world’s most invasive species to date? 13 rabbits were brought to Australia from Europe for sport and now there are hundreds of millions, ravaging the Australian countryside. I’m sure there’s a good analogy in there somewhere. Sent from my iPad

I saw on u tube a video called “What if the self isn’t something to find.”

I saw on u tube a video called “What if the self isn’t something to find.” So I watched it. It turned out that it was a discussion about how we in the western world are embedded in the great and not so great ideas of western philosophers, such as Marx, Freud, Jefferson et al, and are more or less trapped ( my interpretation) in whatever good or evil has been nurtured in that culture AND not only that but when we look at when those western philosophers looked at non western culture, such as china, they ( and eventually us) didn’t get institutionalized. W

 we can not see the true nature of philosophers and ideas that come out of china or non western cultures because western thoughts are different than non western thought. All in all, it was good food for thought. I thoughtfully expanded this basic principle to include African, Asian, Native, and Gender ideas, since western thought ( Age of Reason) included such a magnitude of contradiction, such as “all men are created equal” contradicting slavery and so many other oppressive institutions in which there was little or no equality at all. Perhaps the center of the discussion was the difference in search for self. Western thought seems to revolve around the idea that somewhere inside everyone is the self that is pure from the mess of what the culture entangles everyone with and accepting that mess ( as long as it isn’t dangerous to anyone) as defining not only who but what you are. This inner search is both a selfish and self loathing process. Finding oneself becomes a full time job, weighing in on one’s personal relationships. Some things are better left undiscovered, as somethings are better left unsaid. But let’s face it, in America, there’s little we want to ignore and little science wants to leave under the rocks of curiousity. What if upon the discovery of the self, we find there’s about seven billion different versions and they’re all dangerous. Let’s say many want guns, want to be kings, want to be porn masters, want to be multi-billionaires, or, simply, just want to commit crimes with impunity. In other words, the self is as corruptible as the devil believes it is. Sent from my iPad

Cuba, the Little Nation that Could Not

 As we americans slip in and out of consciousness or are being hypnotized by a  trumpian livestream of national, personal, and international dissolution and disintegration, i still occasionally ask myself why we are where we are. We all may differ about where we are as a world, nation or local city-state. I suppose it's necessary for me as a human to wonder why what i see isn't shared by everyone else. I think I'm a commonsense creature of bad and good habits like everyone else, yet i wonder why we all don't recognize murder, war, violence as being detrimental to the overall scheme of things.

I've been to cuba a few times, not on any special mission of mercy or anything like that, so i wasn't looking at signs of oppression because signs of oppression are always hard to find, or easy, dependent on what you're looking for or assume to be true, which as an american i can vouch for that. America is the most carceral nation in the world, Yes, more than China, Russia, and even little Cuba. The only difference between America and anywhere else is americas imprisoned deserve it, according to its politicians. Not political, just deserving of being locked up because criminals break laws. Other nations have terrorists, america has criminals, although america is becoming more and more a terrorist blame nation as it progresses to mid fascist status.

Cuba's held out the longest of all the modern-day open-air prisons in my lifetime. Maybe N. Korea, but they aren't in the same category. Or Palestine. Maybe even Puerto Rico, With all Marco Rubio has been seeing throughout the world in his recent stint as Secretary of State, he still is fanatical enough to think Cuba is a dominant threat to his dream, whatever that is. I don't know, but Cuba is being punished, maybe because Lucky Luciano lost part of his precious empire. Or because one of the many assassination attempt exchanges between early revolutionary cuba and post-World War two America and cold war CIA sponsored war against every nation even looking like it might be wanting to be free from the pre-world war colonial mindset. Cuba set out to help african and western hemisphere nations to gain freedom from the strangulation of colonial empires. While the cold war raged between the Union of Soviet Socialist Russia and the United States of America, in the little world beneath the canopy of imminent nuclear threats were all the post 19th century nations who merely coveted freedom rather than atomic bombs.

But Money, profit, and a form of international carceral mentality won the day as all powerful countries now turn toward the capture of resources throughout the world. Along with that comes economic strangulation, thus people suffer. Punishment is the name of the game these days. The lambs and Ewes, and even the Rams are feeling their confinement. Yes, people do resist for as long as they can, but money buys alot of patience for the powerful. Money buys patience but also power. Just think that since 1959, nearly every president and american has maintained the myth of Cuban, as well as Iranian, Russian, and Palestinian revolution and struggles being worthy of generational nationcide or suicide.

It takes alot of power and fear to be able to starve nations and peoples, murder many innocent people for the so-called sins of their fathers or leaders. One big sadistic, vengeful revenge party we're all suckered into. 

Dont forget what you ignore out of fear or contempt will come back to bite you in the ass.

Asleep at the Wheel

He went into Dallas, Texas or was it Memphis, Tennessee, it doesn’t matter, he was shot there by some mysterious stranger, a man who wasn’t on any radar as the most dangerous man of the year, or was it, he was killing the most important man of the time and those who are supposed to protect such people, fell asleep at the wheel. 

Another instance was Election Day, 2024, when everyone was asleep, the sheep worrier came to power in the land of lambs and ewes, mutton all around the table for all the wolves was his game, tell a lie, boast about it, and it all came true. For the man in Dallas and the man in Memphis, they were good shots but nowadays anyone can get a gun but there’s nowhere to practice the city longshot. Some people say it’s the power of prayer, add a little corruption that’s already there, in case god lost the recipe for success. Isn’t it so true that the more anyone group is a victim, the press and public opinion figure you’re either guilty or deserve whatever punishment you’re getting? I don’t know if that’s an American value alone or universal. Probably universal. Just imagine that with all the punishment to indigenous people, slaves, genocides it seems to take hundreds of years for people to either get over it or find some other people to kick around. Americans finally did accept Italians (probably because the Mafia could really kick ass), poles (because no one else would work the steel mills), Germans (probably because of Hof Brau’s and beer). Yet, women, black, Mexican, communists, socialists, Cubans (actually from Cuba), anarchism, free thinker Gazans never get a pass no matter how much they do or how much they become innocent victims of the greedy sons of bitches who add a little corruption and lots of lies to the power of prayer. Homeless wasn’t a derogatory term until the heartless politicians and greedy contractors and social engineers discovered they couldn’t fix the problem by profit alone. 

In sacramento ever since the gold rush there’s been people sleeping on the streets, in encampments, by the river, in the doorways. They’ve been called drifters, vagabonds, migrant, lumpen proletariat, hobos, bums, ne’er do wells. There was a time when they looked for work but there were always ones who were destroyed by economic disasters brought on by capitalist adventures, such as wars, collapses, crisis, layoffs, capital moving overseas, out of state, going bankrupt and once that happens, pulling yourself up by your bootstraps is nearly impossible. Once down like that, you aren’t getting back up even after the count of ten. Monetary debt, credit cards, high interest, war wounded, no health plan, high insurance, lose your car, has anyone ever tried to look for work without a car and by just using public transportation? So, it’s always been there, the mostly men, who drifted away or were pushed further from the fringes, from the mainstream dreams into crime or begging or drugs and alcohol, just to survive among those who haven’t ever hit bottom or who haven't just yet. Sent from my iPad

It's Now or Never

With the iran vs us-israel world war crawling along on shoestring budgets, rope a dope strategy and miscalculation on everyone's part and ukraine and russia in full blown exchanges of modern gunfire, the earth burning in heatwaves and real flames, we stupidly go on, don't we? There's a lot of myths being blown up around the world along with tit for tat warfare, isn't there? Does anyone still believe ground troop invasion anywhere in the world is a real strategy, especially when nations are just too big to fail by colonization? No emperor to be wants to bloody their hands that much, putin, the us, and israel, exceptions noted. I guess as long as you keep your own nations death count secret, just keep it locked up in your closeted consciousness. Drones are the weapon of choice these days, technology coming to the rescue again. Threats are big but after a while people lose interest: us, iran, take note. Colonial rule from afar, such as by sanction, hostility, military intervention, all have a certain amount of prowess, but starving people to death, killing innocents (by that, we can define "innocents" as those who are not fighting back). The claim of self-defense has been completely misappropriated by the victors rather than the victims, such as in a nuclear state obviously willing to commit genocide, ethnic cleansing, murder, sanction by any means necessary. No folks, Israel and the US are not valiant versions of the Black Panthers, the Thirteen colonies, or any other citizens/movement's attempt to be free from any dictator or imperial president, such as in everywhere. I think thats taken for granted among all peoples, whether citizens or those just held in contempt by the nation state. 

It's a law of equilibrium, not an international humanitarian law established by the very oppressor states which either rule or want to rule by decree and not by necessity.

There has always been a weird transactional philosophy that emerged from the last two centuries in america. From colonies to democratic dictatorship is not an unfamiliar transition. It happens all the time, from liberation to self-defense. The state has no exclusive right to domestic self-defense and in today's example, just because Israel never wanted to accept any responsibility for its Palestinian "caretaker" status, as outlined in the very charter which allowed them to form the state of Israel, does not mean they have any right to claim self-defense against a segment of their population that rebels because the state oppresses them. 

No matter whether you believe in climate change or not or think capital (money) interests should be managing the world resources or not, it's ridiculous for anyone to deny there is a problem. Or many problems. Civilization is at a reckoning point. I doubt technology is going to save us from itself. I doubt we're going to save us from each other's flags, allegiances, guns, and the thrill of chaos we create for ourselves. No superheroes, billionaires, nation, philosophy, nor gods will be stepping in to save our necks.

Where does that leave us? Bluntly, up shit creek without a paddle, as they say somewhere in the alligator swamps of america. It's not within the purview of this blog or the sometimes belief of this writer that i know best but from my best guess, there is not one best all-encompassing solution but many small, healthy possibilities, we all need to start shopping around and take a side and then live it, protect it (yes, exercise your own right to self defense) and protect your allies while you're at it.