Rant 132: Distractions

[Irreverend Hugh, KSC]

Rant 132
Distractions

"Some writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins ... Society is in every state a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one."
-Thomas Paine (Common Sense)

"War is the health of the state."
-Randolph Bourne

"...if the minimum wage had increased at the same rate as corporate CEO pay for the past 15 years, it would now be $23.03 an hour."-QT (Chicago Sun-Times, Thursday Sept. 8, 2005)

While the System, or the Machine, may not seem as pervasive and scary as you might have thought, have you ever thought about why? Perhaps the System of DUMB doesn't need to show force or scare tactics because it is confident that it is in control of all of our lives anyway? Think about it. How do you know that the thoughts you think were not manufactured for you as distractions to keep you on the treadmill of DUMB? How can you be so certain that the very ways in which you think were not inculcated back during some forgotten time of your life? And would any of it matter?

I wouldn't worry about it much if I were you. The fact that  you can even think about these questions gives you some assurance that DUMB has not taken control over you, at least until THEY develop some sort of science fiction type of brain scan devices. Just keep thinking for yourself and you will be able to point out the inconsistencies of the Official Line(tm) of reasoning and the standard media beliefs that are endlessly parroted. It is not hard at all to do so, especially with a recent event such as Hurricane Katrina. Remember that one? Remember how the media belief system broke down in the face of human suffering and images of destruction to the point that the media workers began reaming the government? Remember how for days you were told that help was coming to New Orleans even while you saw reporters wandering the streets asking survivors if they had seen any evidence of help? The survivors usually responded negatively.

The media belief system, being post modern and fickle is something that can be used to express the truth of an event, even if the stories told end up parroting the Official Line(tm) because of the often times appearance of dissonance between the media stories and what your "leaders" are telling you. Does anyone remember how the word "refugee" was hounded out of the discourse because many said it was "racist" or "unfair" to call survivors of Katrina refugees. Many said that Americans can't be refugees. I personally think the argument and those who went after the "refugee" label were trying to appear helpful while doing nothing useful. I don't know about you, but most refugees I have met in my life, at least here in the States, have been from Bosnia, or sometimes from South East Asia. So I don't get how the word could be "racist." I think that some Americans simply hated the use of the word applied to other Americans because they didn't want to admit that the catastrophe was that bad. Americans can be like that. We like to think of ourselves as superior and special over any other national group on this planet.

Katrina also brought out those sad and sorry sorts who always say "stop blaming those who fucked up. We need to simply help." As if not being vigilant, or as if not calling someone on their bullshit will make the relief efforts somehow magically better. How many times in history have fascists used that line of reasoning? "Stop pointing fingers. We all need to work together now." " We're all on the 'same' side after all." Yep. Fall for it and you will truly have fallen.

Reading European news sources made me want to puke. They got much of what happened wrong. But then again, European media and European Official Lines(tm) rarely diverge as much as the American versions do. Some Europeans tried to say that the fumbling of the Katrina relief effort is because "that's how Americans are." Oh, really? To anyone in Europe, tell me this: When are you guys going to pay the USA back for saving your butts from the Nazis? You have gotten a lot of free rides on the backs of the average American worker for over 60 years now. Your prosperity is a figment of America's imagination. And WE remember how you Europeans stood up to fascism: you ran away or fell in line. (Except for the British, who actually fought back.) You can keep pointing at us and laughing, but look at what you Europeans have done and are doing to Africa, so wipe that smug smirk off your faces and realize your shit stinks just as badly as ours. (And in fact it has been stinking for centuries.)

I have also been reading up on my homeland a bit, Northern Ireland (or the "Six Counties" as we like to call it). The IRA recently announced an end to the military struggle and a disarming of all its soldiers (not many of them exist). A democratic political process is forming which is giving the Irish nationalists almost everything they were fighting for. So the IRA decided to take a step into the new era. What do the "protestants" who are anti-Irish do about that? They have riots because the police won't let them march in Irish nationalist areas. Two anti-Irish armed groups are claiming to be instigating the riots which are really destroying nothing but their own futures. The point of this little diversion is to show an example of how a story in the media can diverge from the Official Line(tm) . The official idea is that the IRA are the shit stirrers, along with the nationalist supporters and all those bobdamned Gaelic-speakers living in West Belfast. While the nationalists were trying to say to the world that they were only trying to live in freedom, the world didn't believe them because the standard myth was that the IRA were a bunch of terrorists and no one listens to terrorists or their supporters. Now perhaps, people outside of Northern Ireland can see who the shit stirrers and instigators really are. Now perhaps people will stop blaming all the ills of Northern Ireland on a small volunteer military that never had much more than 400 members.

Can you think of any other stories you may have heard about that do not match the official lines, or the standard socially acceptable ways of thinking? Linguists are forever pointing out that even in "free" societies, the level of indoctrination and propagandizing is high, but because here in the USA it is the chain stores and car companies doing it with distracting commercials you feel you are freer than say, some shoemaker in Indonesia? Some stories you may want to check up on include the story of Hugo Chavez, the President of Venezuela. That will lead you into all sorts of dissonance between the official standard socially acceptable way of thinking about him and the what some reporters have actually discovered about the man. (He is called a totalitarian dictator here in the USA, despite the fact that he won two popular elections. People I knew from Venezuela seem to like him.) You may also wish to check out any stories about Argentina, which has been undergoing attempts at social revolution. (What? Did that surprise you? You didn't think all of those workers who expropriated their factories were all a bunch of lawless thieves, did you? Some of them battled the police for their rights, and then some of them even took their cases to national courts and won.)

What does any of this have to do with Discordianism? Think about it. If you want to practice guerrilla ontology, you may wish to exploit some of the growing gaps between the official truths and the way things may actually be. The average person is not blind or stupid. The average person is just distracted and many times just trying to get a handle on life. In an era when ADD and ADHD is becoming more and more prevalent, this should be a loud wake up call. We may not yet be at the point where those in control or who want to be in control can shape your minds, but they may have found a better way than any propagandizing or indoctrination: distraction. Coming soon to a theater near you.

September 16th, 2005

-Irreverend Hugh, KSC

[Eldora, Oracle of Alchemy]

The Orange marching through a Catholic neighborhood would be like the KKK marching down MLK Blvd in any American town that has one.  

My distractions remind me of and bring to the front the distractions that they(tm) are trying to use to distract me from the things that are already distracting me from myself.  I am easily distracted, but not usually by propaganda.

[Cain]

Dont forget the Greeks too Hugh.  I know its anal, but they also withstood the first fascist invasion.  I often use that to piss off smarmy history students, plus get free rounds at the right bars.

[LHX]

you may wish to exploit some of the growing gaps between the official truths and the way things may actually be. The average person is not blind or stupid. The average person is just distracted and many times just trying to get a handle on life. In an era when ADD and ADHD is becoming more and more prevalent, this should be a loud wake up call. We may not yet be at the point where those in control or who want to be in control can shape your minds, but they may have found a better way than any propagandizing or indoctrination: distraction.

i am feelin this fo sho

nice

[fluffy]

yeah!

[East Coast Hustle]

rah!

[ataraxia]

Nice one. It seems to show some solidarity with LHX's in some way. Today was a good day for rants

[The Good Reverend Roger]

The average person is not blind or stupid.

You had me right up until that.

[Verthaine]

It was 6 days after Katrina before a someone in the media had the guts to come down my block(and I live in a nice neighborhood),and it was the british and german reporters.The germans filmed me removing debris from my block.They filmed me sweeping and cutting up branches.Does anyone care to guess the proprtion of looter stories versus rebuilding stories during the first week period.
What about the cops that looted.What about the politicians who ran to baton rogue,leaving this city with no leadershipHow about all the tv and radiostions(except WWL) that turned tail and ran,leaving us figuratively in the dark(most of us lost power3 hours before the hurrican hit the southern coast of la.Entergy left us literally in the dark).
What about the owners of that nursing home who abandoned their tenents.
Do you think they were the only ones.I didn't see a priest giving out food during the time I stayed(but I saw a few fundies handing out those stupid pamphlets.

Katrina should have been a wake up call,but I suspect most of the country just hit the snooze button.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Katrina should have been a wake up call,but I suspect most of the country just hit the snooze button.

?

A wake up call for WHAT?

[Eldora, Oracle of Alchemy]

Or the people at Charity Hospital.  All manner of people were rescued, people that were not in poor health, while nurses bagged those people by hand because they ran out of power and the people on ventilators would have died without the nurses doing that.  Someone had to pump air into their lungs, by hand, 24 hours a day, for like, what, 3 or 4 days before they got rescued.  Some of them died.  The only person who mentioned it on air that I know of was Aaron Brown on CNN and he was pissed.  My mom was glued to CNN for most of it.  She said she was really surprised by his reaction,  that reporters don't usually get that passionate about subjects, that he kept digging at the person he was interviewing, until the person told him what kind of hospital it was.  You can probably guess that Charity Hospital was for the indigent.  In other words, there were poor people there.

[Verthaine]

Katrina should have been a wake up call,but I suspect most of the country just hit the snooze button.

?

A wake up call for WHAT?

By not holding our politians accountable will only cause things like that to happen again and again.
911 didn;t have to happen if the various heads of our major law enforcement agencies didn't act like feudal lords protecting thier domains  and shared info on suspected terrorists trying to learn how to fly planes but not how to land them.
If they didn't wait for so long to admit that there may be a thing to this "global warming'business.
if they spent on protecting our wetlands rather then or corporate ceo's.

We as a nation still think that nothing bad can happen to us,no matter how much we exploit the planet,or the rest of the world.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

By not holding our politians accountable will only cause things like that to happen again and again.

Read what you just wrote, Verthaine.

Seriously, d00d.  Asking a politician to be "accountable" is like asking a scorpion to not be poisonous.

Politicians are so crooked, these days, that it takes 3 secret service men to screw their pants on in the morning.

And the federal government?  Har de har har...tehy're too busy with their bogus war to pay attention to a bunch of dead poor people.  

Verthaine, you've been spending too much time in Asgard these days.  You're totally out of touch (And you never take ME).

Life in this dimension, in this Year Of Our Jebus 2005, isn't all Womp rat blasting and prairie squid.   It's a fucking mess, and the funniest part is, The People voted this shithead and his pals back into office.  So, in the finest traditions of Fat City, YOU must pay for THEIR stupidity.

If there were any justice in the world, Nagin and Bush would be forced to bunk next to each other, while you had babes peeling you grapes in the White House hot tub.

But  there isn't.  So people like YOU get to rot, and people like HIM get to jabber about the war on terror ON THE 3D DAY OF THE DISASTER.

Mankind is a failure.  Someone turn the fucking universe off.

Or kill me.

[Verthaine]

But can't we as a people hold them accountable.I know I am probably being naive.On Urth,if a politition doesn't produce the results he/she promised,we shave his/her fur and shove 12 ft.xillian intestinal worms up their butts.If he still doesn't produce we tend to drop them into the nearest black hole
Other worlds do even worse to their politians.On Vargas 5 they have to issue an APB on the newly elected president and had to drag him kicking and screaming to the inuaguration.

Oh,and next time I go to Asgarsd,I'll be sure to invite you along.
(latest bit of gossip.ever since Loki convinced Thor to dress in drag to save Freya from the frost giants,he's kind of taken a liking to it.NOT a pretty picture,I can tell you.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

But can't we as a people hold them accountable.

How?  Voting won't help, because the Cletii really ARE that stupid.  Revolution?  Great.  How many divisions do YOU have?

I know I am probably being naive.On Urth,if a politition doesn't produce the results he/she promised,we shave his/her fur and shove 12 ft.xillian intestinal worms up their butts.If he still doesn't produce we tend to drop them into the nearest black hole.

Here, we call them "Visionary Leaders" and re-elect them.

Other worlds do even worse to their politians.On Vargas 5 they have to issue an APB on the newly elected president and had to drag him kicking and screaming to the inuaguration.

The natives there didn't descend from primates, did they?  Just a guess.

Oh,and next time I go to Asgarsd,I'll be sure to invite you along.
(latest bit of gossip.ever since Loki convinced Thor to dress in drag to save Freya from the frost giants,he's kind of taken a liking to it.NOT a pretty picture,I can tell you.

I'd hit it.