Pathodicy

I celebrate this 4th of July with an upside-down flag.  Instead of celebrating the lies that I've been told to believe, I've found it's healthier for me to mourn the ideals I once thought were central in the functioning of my government. I mourn the men and women who have used their agency to support their government under the guise of humane purpose, only to be betrayed unto death by expediency.  Americans don't live in a democracy. We don't even live in a representative republic. We live in an oligarchy, our government, our choices are determined by those with the money to afford lobbying and superpacs. Candidates are only affordable to those that can afford to buy them. A popular vote is meaningless when the choices are rigged. The nominating conventions are just as corrupt as loyalty is secured with promises of x, y, and z for state/district/constituency. Our political process is merely a contest to see who can outspend the other. Independent analysis is ...

There are at least five power bases at work, funding and enabling those willing to take on their goals. Al Qaeda, Isis, the United States, the Afghan national government, and the Pakistani National government. The infrastructural projects which Afghanistan will be paying off for the next few millennia, all require construction personnel and advisors, who need security. Enter private security contractors, with their spotless past. This is not an exhaustive or well researched list, just what came to me in a stoney haze. Finally, there’s all the other incredibly shady, underground activity like drug and sex trafficking, blood feuds ended via anonymously tipped bombs, the murder of women for the smallest infraction, and finally child rape. The last accusation was repeated by multiple soldiers, and alleged through the translation of an off the cuff admission by an Afghan commander. I doubt he knew was being recorded. I'm paraphrasing, but basically, he stated that he’d rather g...

Now, I'm a white guy, but I'm thinking 3.88 minutes for each year of slavery, genocide, and propping up corrupt dictators ain't gonna do it. It's hard to think he has a clue. When he starts risking profits by shutting down stores in cities that won't tear down tokens of a culture economically addicted to blind and murderous hate, we'll see.

German study shows fake news appetite with far-right blog - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-40788032

  It’s hard to see through current capacity to different reality where we don’t end up with further calamities, or more fatalities.   Dudes looking like me have committed the most heinous crimes against humanity in both quantity and quality that we know of... ever. (my ancestors are Scottish and German, guess what having an ancestral home far from the intensity of the equator does to skin color? Do you know what living near the equator does to skin color? Right. So does that mean the Sun is racist? Not really. Attributing racism to the sun is as stupid as attributing inferiority to people who aren’t white. It’s as stupid as attributing value to land and drawing lines on a map and then killing people over it, instead of creating new ways to share it. I inherited the shit that White people have been taking all over the world and I accept that as I'm able. Frankly, I think monetary reparations or some other reparation effort would be a good step. Back in the early 200...

What if, instead of coming at a situation from above ‘in understanding’, or from below through shame, I came at a person, a circumstance, an experience, a moment… as what..? my imagination crumbles, retracts like an unstretched tendon. Here I have to go back to ‘my training’ with Stephen. I guess the only approach is one that seeks the progression of life’s most important structures, human contentment, and personal awareness. This last is most difficult, but the first two aren’t possible apart from it. Apart from self awareness, the most that one can produce is a lesser version of a lesser perception. Awareness is the environment in which the most creative and beneficial solutions have been found. It is the space in which law was made for humanity and not the other way around. It is the space in which red lights at 4am have little meaning, or function. It facilitates individuals using their most important faculties, to think for themselves, t...