Chapter 7: The Conservative Way

Neoconservatives are not really conservatives. Neo Cons are not conserving a goddamned thing except bullshit beliefs about capitalism to rationalize keeping what they have. It is hard to stress enough that the problem with politics these days is not the extremism on the right and left, which "both sides share responsibility for," and which superficial television newscasters yap on and on about.

Traditional ignorance versus new and valid information is the real problem. Maintaining belief being more important that dealing with reality in a creative new way is the boring plot of our about to be final story.

The incredibly ignorant behavior of the U.S. government ever since the Korean War is a fine example. Those who called themselves conservatives were just traditionalists afraid to change, defending old bullshit to resist new ideas.

True conservatives are conservationists. We want to conserve the world. I am a conservative and I want to eat neocons for breakfast and feed them to the people they have been ripping off repeatedly for many, many years. Here, let Gary Shepherd tell it like it is. He tells the story clearly. We can see that when observations accumulate enough to contradict traditional modes of thinking their is a big long lag before the truth of these observations is accepted by regular traditionally brainwashed people. It is a fascinating and depressing story.

Long before the advent of the current public arguments about evolution and global warming, the greatest controversy in the history of science was the debate between the geocentric, or earth-centered model of the universe described by the second century Greek astronomer Ptolemy, and the heliocentric, or sun-centered model, advocated by the sixteenth-century Polish astronomer Copernicus.

This battle took most of a century to resolve, and it involved some of the most powerful political and religious leaders of its time. Today, we have forgotten just what a mental revolution Copernicus' theory represented. Although some Greek philosophers had speculated about a heliocentric model, the Ptolemaic model had been almost universally accepted by astronomers for more than a thousand years. In fact, Copernicus knew that his idea was so radical that he didn't even have it published until after he had safely died.

It is easy to see why. The idea that the Earth is at the center of the universe, and that the sun, moon, planets and stars revolve around it matches our everyday experience. After all, the Earth appears immobile beneath our feet—it doesn't seem to move. When we look up at the sky, the heavenly bodies seem to be moving around us. Even today, we speak of the sun rising or setting, as if it were the sun circling around the Earth.

What is more, the geocentric model could be used to explain all the scientific observations that could be made at that time. Because it had been noticed that sometimes the planets seemed to stop and go backwards in their orbits for a while, Ptolemy created smaller circles, called epicycles, within the larger crystalline spheres in which the planets circled around the Earth, so that they were sometimes moving in the opposite direction from the larger circle. Using this model, one could calculate precisely where a planet would be at any particular time—an important consideration at the time, since most astronomers were also astrologers and knowledge of the locations of the planets at the time of a person's birth was vital to casting horoscopes.

But as time went on, and observations became more precise, the ability of the Ptolemaic model to predict planetary locations began to break down. The model was altered by later scientists, making it more and more complex, in an effort to make it correspond to observations of the real universe. In fact, the Ptolemaic model became so complex, that some scientists, in order to calculate planetary movements, used the Copernican model for mathematical purposes, even though they didn't really believe it described the actual universe.

Eventually, partly because of the invention of the telescope, the Copernican model achieved acceptance over its rival, and today one would have difficulty finding an astronomer anywhere who supported the geocentric universe.

What, one is tempted to ask, has any of this to do with the idea of world government?

Well, the parallels are quite striking. The current system of independent nation-states, sometimes called the Westphalian system, has existed for many centuries as the unquestioned model for the way the political world is designed. Like the Ptolemaic model, it makes sense to us. The nations appear to exist, they appear to be eternal, and there doesn't appear to be any logical alternative to it. They match our everyday experience. We speak of the earth, and humanity, as if they were both divided up into nation-states.

Like the Ptolemaic model, as time has passed the nation-state model has had to grow more and more complex to match the real world. Treaties, conventions, and agreements have piled up, one upon the other, to govern the complicated relations between the different nations. For instance, the Danube River runs through numerous different nations on its way to the sea. All of the national governments have a say in governing the preservation of that river, making it very difficult to come to agreement about anything. The current system has become so complex that sometimes, in order to make it function properly, people act as if the world were united, even though they don't really believe it is.

Just as it was the advance of technology and science led to more precise measurements that doomed the Ptolemaic model to extinction, advanced technology is leading toward measurements that are threatening the viability of the nation-state system. We have peered down at the earth's surface from our orbital satellites and have seen that there are no borders drawn on the real earth. We have peered into the intricacies of the human genome, and we have found no genes for nationality.

Copernicus offered a model that was truer to the real world, and thus eventually supplanted the older, more inaccurate model. So too must we offer a model of society that is truer to the real world, which is more accurate, more sustainable, and simply works better, so that it can replace the outdated one. One day, the idea of separate nation-states will come to seem as quaint and antiquated as the perfect crystalline spheres that were a feature of the Ptolemaic system." (end of quote)

In the historical battles between progress and regress there have always been "conservatives" who resisted new ideas. They were always wrong.

It took progressives a long time to replace the habitual ignorance that preceded the new, more accurate information, not only in the case of Copernicus but in pretty much all instances of scientific, political, and economic progress. The United States of America is going down. It's okay. Let it go. Nation-states need to be replaced with a more accurate model. Most of what was believed about us in the U.S. was bullshit anyway.

What items of evidence point to this conclusions? Here is the evidence confirming our progress toward oblivion and rebirth— or maybe just oblivion.

By DaveJ (Campaign for America's Future, "Blog for Our Future," reposted on DailyKos.com, June 16, 2010)2

It seems that you can look at a chart of almost anything and right around 1981 or soon after you'll see the chart make a sharp change in direction, and probably not in a good way. And I really do mean almost anything, from economics to trade to infrastructure to … well almost anything. I spent some time looking for charts of things, and here are just a few examples. In each of the charts below, look for the year 1981, when Reagan took office.

Conservative policies transformed the United States from the largest creditor nation to the largest debtor nation in just a few years, and it has only gotten worse since then:

Working people's share of the benefits from increased productivity took a sudden turn down:

Which forced working people to go into debt: (total household debt as percentage of GDP)

None of which has helped economic growth much: (12-quarter rolling average nominal GDP growth.)

Sometimes it can be so obvious where a problem comes from, but very hard to change it. The anti-government, pro-corporate-rule Reagan Revolution screwed a lot of things up for regular people and for the country. Some of this disaster we saw happening at the time and some of it has taken thirty years to become clear. But for all the damage done these "conservative" policies greatly enriched a few entrenched interests, who use their wealth and power to keep things the way they are. And the rest of us, hit so hard by the changes, don't have the resources to fight the wealth and power.

Look at the influence of these entrenched interests on our current deficits, for example. Obviously conservative policies of tax cuts and military spending increases caused the massive deficits. But entrenched interests use their wealth and power to keep us from making needed changes. The facts are here, plain as the noses on our faces. The ability to fight it eludes us. Will we step up and do something to reverse the disaster caused by the Reagan Revolution or not?"

Actually, It's Too Late

Time is not on the side of the U.S. It is on the side of humanity. The U.S. Corporatocracy is doomed. Here is further evidence. Let this soak in.

50 Statistics about the U.S. Economy That Are Almost Too Crazy to Believe3(From EndoftheAmericanDream.com)

Most Americans know that the U.S. economy is in bad shape, but what most Americans don't know is how truly desperate the financial situation of the United States really is. The truth is that what we are experiencing is not simply a "downturn" or a "recession". What we are witnessing is the beginning of the end for the greatest economic machine that the world has ever seen. Our greed and our debt are literally eating our economy alive.

Total government, corporate, and personal debt has now reached 360 percent of GDP, which is far higher than it ever reached during the Great Depression era. We have nearly totally dismantled our once colossal manufacturing base, we have shipped millions upon millions of middle class jobs overseas, we have lived far beyond our means for decades and we have created the biggest debt bubble in the history of the world. A great day of financial reckoning is fast approaching, and the vast majority of Americans are totally oblivious.

But the truth is that you cannot defy the financial laws of the universe forever. What goes up must come down. The borrower is the servant of the lender. Cutting corners always catches up with you in the end.

Sometimes it takes cold, hard numbers for many of us to fully realize the situation that we are facing.

So, the following are fifty very revealing statistics about the U.S. economy that are almost too crazy to believe.

50. In 2010, the U.S. government is projected to issue almost as much new debt as the rest of the governments of the world combined.

49. It is being projected that the U.S. government will have a budget deficit of approximately 1.6 trillion dollars in 2010.

48. If you went out and spent one dollar every single second, it would take you more than 31,000 years to spend a trillion dollars.

47. In fact, if you spent one million dollars every single day since the birth of Christ, you still would not have spent one trillion dollars by now.

46. Total U.S. government debt is now up to 90 percent of gross domestic product.

45. Total credit market debt in the United States, including government, corporate and personal debt, has reached 360 percent of GDP.

44. U.S. corporate income tax receipts were down 55 percent (to $138 billion) for the year ending September 30, 2009.

43. There are now eight counties in the state of California that have unemployment rates of over 20 percent.

42. In the area around Sacramento, California there is one closed business for every six that are still open.

In February, there were 5.5 unemployed Americans for every job opening.

40. According to a Pew Research Center study, approximately 37 percent of all Americans between the ages of eighteen and twenty-nine have either been unemployed or underemployed at some point during the recession.

39. More than 40 percent of those employed in the United States are now working in low-wage service jobs.

38. According to one new survey, 24 percent of American workers say that they have postponed their planned retirement age in the past year.

37. Over 1.4 million Americans filed for personal bankruptcy in 2009, which represented a 32 percent increase over 2008. Not only that, more Americans filed for bankruptcy in March 2010 than during any month since U.S. bankruptcy law was tightened in October 2005.

36. Mortgage purchase applications in the United States are down nearly 40 percent from a month ago to their lowest level since April of 1997.

35. RealtyTrac has announced that foreclosure filings in the U.S. established an all-time record for the second consecutive year in 2009.

34. According to RealtyTrac, foreclosure filings were reported on 367,056 properties in March 2010, an increase of nearly 19 percent from February, an increase of nearly 8 percent from March 2009 and the highest monthly total since RealtyTrac began issuing its report in January 2005.

33. In Pinellas and Pasco counties, which include St. Petersburg, Florida, and the suburbs to the north, there are 34,000 open foreclosure cases. Ten years ago, there were only about 4,000.

32. In California's Central Valley, one out of every sixteen homes is in some phase of foreclosure.

31. The Mortgage Bankers Association recently announced that more than 10 percent of all U.S. homeowners with a mortgage had missed at least one payment during the January to March time period. That was a record high and up from 9.1 percent a year ago.

30. U.S. banks repossessed nearly 258,000 homes nationwide in the first quarter of 2010, a 35 percent jump from the first quarter of 2009.

29. For the first time in U.S. history, banks own a greater share of residential housing net worth in the United States than all individual Americans put together.

28. More than 24 percent of all homes with mortgages in the United States were underwater as of the end of 2009.

27. U.S. commercial property values are down approximately 40 percent since 2007 and currently 18 percent of all office space in the United States is sitting vacant.

26. Defaults on apartment building mortgages held by U.S. banks climbed to a record 4.6 percent in the first quarter of 2010. That was almost twice the level of a year earlier.

In 2009, U.S. banks posted their sharpest decline in private lending since 1942.

24. New York State has delayed paying bills totaling $2.5 billion as a short-term way of staying solvent but officials are warning that its cash crunch could soon get even worse.

23. To make up for a projected 2010 budget shortfall of $280 million, Detroit issued $250 million of twenty-year municipal notes in March. The bond issuance followed on the heels of a warning from Detroit officials that if its financial state didn't improve, it could be forced to declare bankruptcy.

22. The National League of Cities says that municipal governments will probably come up between $56 billion and $83 billion short between now and 2012.

21. Half a dozen cash-poor U.S. states have announced that they are delaying their tax refund checks.

20. Two university professors recently calculated that the combined unfunded pension liability for all fifty U.S. states is 3.2 trillion dollars.

19. According to EconomicPolicyJournal.com, thirty-two U.S. states have already run out of funds to make unemployment benefit payments and so the federal government has been supplying these states with funds so that they can make their payments to the unemployed.

18. This most recent recession has erased eight million private sector jobs in the United States.

17. Paychecks from private business shrank to their smallest share of personal income in U.S. history during the first quarter of 2010.

16. U.S. government-provided benefits (including Social Security, unemployment insurance, food stamps, and other programs) rose to a record high during the first three months of 2010.

15. 39.68 million Americans are now on food stamps, which represents a new all-time record. But things look like they are going to get even worse. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is forecasting that enrollment in the food stamp program will exceed forty-three million Americans in 2011.

14. Phoenix, Arizona features an astounding annual car theft rate of 57,000 vehicles and has become the new "Car Theft Capital of the World."

13. U.S. law enforcement authorities claim that there are now over one million members of criminal gangs inside the country. These one million gang members are responsible for up to 80 percent of the crimes committed in the United States each year.

12. The U.S. health care system was already facing a shortage of approximately 150,000 doctors in the next decade or so, but, thanks to the health care "reform" bill passed by Congress, that number could swell by several hundred thousand more.

11. According to an analysis by the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation the health care "reform" bill will generate $409.2 billion in additional taxes on the American people by 2019.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average just experienced the worst May it has seen since 1940.

9. In 1950, the ratio of the average executive's paycheck to the average worker's paycheck was about thirty to one. Since the year 2000, that ratio has exploded to between 300 to 500 to one.

8. Approximately 40 percent of all retail spending currently comes from the 20 percent of American households that have the highest incomes.

7. According to economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez, two-thirds of income increases in the U.S. between 2002 and 2007 went to the wealthiest 1 percent of all Americans.

6. The bottom 40 percent of income earners in the United States now collectively own less than 1 percent of the nation's wealth.

5. If you only make the minimum payment each and every time, a $6,000 credit card bill can end up costing you over $30,000 (depending on the interest rate).

4. According to a new report based on U.S. Census Bureau data, only 26 percent of American teens between the ages of sixteen and nineteen had jobs in late 2009 which represents a record low since statistics began to be kept back in 1948.

3. According to a National Foundation for Credit Counseling survey, only 58 percent of those in "Generation Y" pay their monthly bills on time.

2. During the first quarter of 2010, the total number of loans that are at least three months past due in the United States increased for the sixteenth consecutive quarter.

1. According to the Tax Foundation's Microsimulation Model, to erase the 2010 U.S. budget deficit, the U.S. Congress would have to multiply each tax rate by 2.4. Thus, the 10 percent rate would be 24 percent, the 15 percent rate would be 36 percent, and the 35 percent rate would have to be 85 percent."

What in the Hell Can We Do??

As our nation states fail all hell is going to break loose and a lot of people are going to die, if we make the transition at all. Obviously something drastic needs to be done to reverse the trend toward human decimation and ruination of the earth. But does this mean restoring the economy that is crashing? I think it is easier and smarter to simply start over and make something that works. This is why I seriously propose killing robber barons and eating them and taking back what they have stolen and then giving it back to the rest of us, so we can make a new beginning. It is such a simple and beautiful solution that can enlighten humanity in so many ways…

But before we get further into that, one more bit of cheery news…It's basically that even if we make the transition to one world we are probably doomed anyway. The following is a headline and story from The Australian newspaper in early 2010.

We Humans Are about to Be Wiped Out in a Few Decades. The Grandchildren of Many of Us Will Not Live to Old Age By Bob Metcalfe

Hear it from Frank Fenner, emeritus professor of microbiology at the Australian National University and the man who helped eradicate smallpox. "Homo sapiens will become extinct, perhaps within 100 years," he told The Australian. "It's an irreversible situation." Blame global warming.

Four years ago another warmist, Professor James Lovelock, creator of the influential Gaia theory of an interconnected Earth, was every bit as apocalyptic as Fenner.

We'd passed the point of no return, he groaned. The world was heating catastrophically. "Before this century is over, billions of us will die, and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable."

All that was left to do was to prepare "a guidebook for global warming survivors … on durable paper with long-lasting print."

…Meanwhile, life goes on. We laugh. We plan. We invent. We build. We adapt. And we talk of other things than the end of the world, and luckily so, because we'll be around a lot longer yet, if we keep our heads— and our hope."

Now read this from a follow up article in the Herald Sun:

"Our own extinction is forecast, but he's going by dead reckoning," By Andrew Bolt (Herald Sun, June 18, 2010)

Yeah, you read the title right. Mr. Frank Fenner, says that homo sapiens will be extinct within 100 years. I'd call him nuts, but the man helped eradicate small pox… which most would consider a fairly credible activity to add to one's resume.

I read Andrew Bolt's article in The Herald Sun, an Australian newspaper, that says he brought it up in a conversation, and that the subject was quickly changed to other "more impressive" things he's done. It's pretty weird.

So why is this in the weather blog? He chalks it up to global warming. He says it's become an "irreversible situation." Here's a quote from the article:

"Before this century is over, billions of us will die, and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable."

Hmm. Food for thought I guess."

Food for Thought for Damned Sure!

If this is true, even if this is likely, doesn't it make cannibalism seem like less of a worry? I mean what if we really are going to die, whether or not we do something about it? What if it is just true that the odds are we are really going to die off in such great proportions as to be practically extinguished from the earth, which will be generally a no longer hospitable place for us? And what if that really may happen in less than a hundred years? What if the start of it is in less than ten years?

What if the only way to have a chance to reverse this is to quickly barbeque and repossess the wealth of people and corporations, say within the next ten years?

Now, do you think any differently about cannibalism? Please start talking about it among your friends! And get a few guns and knives. The right wingers are already armed. If it becomes imperative that we must kill to keep all of humanity from dying, and we are going to die anyway, what the hell? We may be our only chance.

The Traditional Rituals Underlying Corporate Capitalism that

Maintain the Illusion

These issues of valuing property, of possessing the earth, of private ownership are deeply imbedded in the rituals, history, and holy books of the Judeo/Christian/Muslim tradition. Way back before the written word there were rituals to make people remember what was important. In family rights and family fights, particularly with regard to ownership of property and place, meaningful emotional rituals marked the transfer of property. When a father passed his land to his son, they placed their hands on the inside of each other's thigh, right next to each other's balls, looked each other in the eye and the father would speak "I grant thee the back forty, from this time forward." The vulnerability they granted to each other in that way acknowledged the trust and importance of the agreement they were making.

In many cultures, when children or members of the community were driven out (or "disowned"), there were rituals of turning of their backs to the people being cast out, not to mention the rituals in which people were literally cast out from the borders of the village.

It is hard to tell how far back in evolutionary history we developed rituals to demarcate and symbolize what we held as important. Rituals have been embedded in all the services of the churches and synagogues and mosques of the world to perpetuate beliefs and attachment to beliefs about property and its importance.

Communion

One of the notable rituals in the Christian tradition is the ritual called communion, in which wafers and wine, symbolizing flesh and blood, are used in the ritual consumption of the body and blood of Christ. This is performed to reaffirm membership in the community of Christ, known as "the body of Christ."

A Ritual for a New Communion

This is a ritual to appreciate and take responsibility for the way we are today and to help face our new circumstances. In this ritual the facing of what is real, and done in the name of affirming our humanity, here's what the priest would say:

"There are a lot of words that communicate the meaning of taking care of our collective selves: commune, communing, communication, community, commitment, the common good, commonwealth and our common humanity. Our new commitment now, is to save the world from and for humanity and to preserve life on earth as we know it and need it to be.

"Our new commitment and new communion is to a consciousness beyond good and evil—passing right through good and evil and going beyond good and evil. We human beings are both good and evil. And we are at our best when we transcend good and evil and take ownership of, and responsibility for using our power to create in alliance with life itself, whether it is "good" or "evil" to do so.

"We now do this in a way that makes an impression on all of us and will be remembered and repeated for generations in the community. We now affirm our knowledge of who we are and declare our creation of a way to be that way and not have it kill us all.

"We are all human beings. We are all empathic and greedy, willing to help and willing to kill. We are hungry and hungry for love. We care and are careless. We are able to indulge and likely to overindulge.

"This person whose flesh we eat this day is one of us. This person has given his/her life, possessions and body that we may live. And in this ritual act of communion we affirm taking their life and their goods for the benefit of those of all those who have suffered from, and might have had to suffer from, this greed. In consciousness and gratitude for that we pledge to serve others just as we have been served.

"Take. Eat. This is from the body of one of us. This is from our body in common. This flesh you are receiving a bite of, may be barbequed or roasted or grilled or boiled or raw, but we take a bite and chew and eat and swallow this taste of ourselves in consciousness of being. We partake literally and symbolically in our common human capacity for love and hate. In the eating of this flesh we eat of the flesh of our brother or sister, our savior, our family, our species, our earthbound community of life and of ourselves.

"Repeat after me: 'I take into myself the taker. I affirm and remind myself deeply that I, too, am a taker. I take back what this taker has taken from our family of living beings and I acknowledge that I am a taker even as I also will be taken, (and earlier than expected if and when I take too much.')

"May we all know, admit and share this knowledge of our common guilt and responsibility. With the eating of this flesh may we all voluntarily nourish with consciousness and care the possibility of overruling our greed"

"Our government has been deceptive. We are our government. The wealthy have lied to such an extent that our economy is dependent on a structure of lies. We are the wealthy. We have built the structure of lies. We benefit from the fabric of the network of lies called our economy. We are all liars. Let this flesh and this wine from the body and coffers of one of our rich brethren or sisters remind us deeply of who we are, both good and evil, and to go beyond good and evil in our affirmative and transcendent choice of life over death."

Seriously

This is what I propose that we all take "to heart" as a fundamental ritual for the deepening of human consciousness. This is not merely symbolic. It is deeply and emotionally disturbing and at the same time helps us take responsibility for who and how we are.

Somewhere before, during or after this ritual comes a time of individual confession. Mine would be something like this: "I deeply apologize for not assassinating Ronald Reagan when he first ran against and defeated Jimmy Carter. It was a lack of consciousness and responsibility on my part." This is how we can make up for my mistake. This is the best I can come up with to make up for our world-class tragic mistake of not killing and eating Ronald Reagan when he first ran for president of the United States.

"I'm sorry. I was smoking dope, playing golf, raising a family, being a psychotherapist, starting to write books on enlightenment, and concerned for my own survival and that of my family in a selfish way, in the poisonous context of the United States of Ignorance of my time. I apologize for making a mistake that threatens to extinguish humankind. I fucked up. What can I say?"

Now, cannibalism for cannibals is the only viable solution. We need a law with some teeth in it. We can't "beat back" corporate influence, but we could possibly "eat back" successfully. Even then, we could still lose.

Therefore I propose to compose more than prose to disclose the primary pose:

If You Can't Beat 'Em, Eat 'Em!

Corporate leaders are the devil.

They won't play fair and on the level.

We can't constrict 'em or convict 'em,

Can't even accurately depict 'em!

They own the paper and the station,

and TV shows across the nation,

Commercials, newsfolks, things judicial,

controlled, contrived, and superficial.

They, make the law and pick the judges,

that settle all our losing grudges.

By their rules we can't defeat 'em,

Even cheat 'em or deplete 'em!

But their corpus can be eaten

(with A1 sauce we'll sometimes sweeten)

Fine Filet of Corporate Cretin

on the menu for the meetin'!

De-feet them first and then deface them!

Fire them up and then replace them!

Grind them up and then encase them!

Cook them good and we'll erase them!

Then at the reunion of our union,

we can have a fine communion.

Eat flesh, drink wine—in celebration,

with Filet of Soul of Corporation!