The traditional gulf between science and metaphysics is undergoing a dramatic metamorphosis as the discovery of a ‘quantum entanglement’ between particles previously recognised as being miles apart, is further revealed.
In an experiment observed by scientists, when one of these particles spins around, its sister particle – although a long way off – also spins around. Responding as though never separated.
“Quantum entanglement is the phenomenon that occurs when a duet of particles are generated, interact, or share spatial proximity in such a way that the quantum state of each particle of the group cannot be described independently of the state of the others, including when the particles are separated by a large distance.” (Wikipedia)
The existence of such entanglement is both compelling and comprehensible, and I want to have a go at explaining why.
Let’s start by recognising that the Universe is ‘One’, all elements interconnecting with each other via invisible, energetic pulsating wavelengths.
The separation of particles that have previously been part of one mass, is only ‘separation’ on the classic physical plane, but not on the quantum plane.
Just because they no longer physically connect with each other, does not mean they are separated on the quantum level. They aren’t. They remain unified.
This is what in spiritual terminology is meant by ‘oneness’. This ‘oneness’ is vibrational. Such a state is experienced when one is attuned to essence: that which resonates ‘is-ness’ when undisturbed by external or internal mental intrusion. In this state there is no time, distance or resistance (gravity). No separation.
Although the speed of passage of a thought or energetic psychic exertion is often discussed within this context, it is not strictly relevant; because there is a simultaneity of connection occurring at well over the speed of light. At this level, the essence of the Universe is microscopically repeated in a dew drop and a sub atomic particle; all elements of existence remaining connected, therefore at one with the original manifestation. Mirrors of one originator, one source.
Viewed under a powerful microscope, the minutest of sub atomic particles are at one moment ‘specs’ and at another ‘waves’ according to Niels Bohr’s early quantum experiments. Even transforming again, into what Bohr described as a ‘dance’.
How these minute particles react depends equally upon the perspective and influence of the person engaged with them (the viewer) as with their independent existence as cosmic matter. They are simultaneously both mundane 3D and Universal God sparks.
It seems that once ‘together’ means always together in universal reality. The physical separation factor plays no part in altering this oneness.
At the most elemental levels, energy and matter are inseparable. Matter is congealed energy and takes on increasing levels of density according to its vibratory speed of resonance. The lower the speed the denser matter becomes and the more constricted becomes the movement of pure energy.
The Universe is both matter and ether. Particles or energetic expressions travelling outside of the constrictions of gravitational fields are not subject to resistance – being slowed down. Thus ‘God Speed’ is a powerful blessing for anyone wished it!
Classical science can only describe but not ‘experience’, intuitional higher consciousness which equates with ‘God Speed’. Intuitional consciousness places the experiencer within, not outside the quantum of existence.
Science looks in from ‘the outside’ but can, by intellectual effort and focussed concentration, recognise some of the component parts that make up the workings of cosmic consciousness, of Godliness; but falls short of ‘being’ (experiencing) what it describes.
Thus ‘quantum entanglement’ is not so mysterious. However, exploring it requires dynamic equilibrium between the two hemispheres of the brain, which accordingly reveals this entanglement to be a manifestation of the supreme interconnectivity of God consciousness.
It is the unseen glue, that along with stars, planets and other celestial objects, holds the Universe together. God consciousness resides in the heart and is openly available to all human beings. However, it sleeps within until awakened.
Huge efforts are being made to prevent humanity waking up and realising its power. Such is the paradoxical nature of existence that the struggle to overcome the dark suppressors of human evolution – both internal and external – creates the friction necessary to bring about the self-realisation of our deep spiritual powers that might otherwise remain dormant.
It also equips us with the power to defeat the dark imposters and set a new agenda for the future of life on earth.
Effort is required – nothing positive comes without effort. But the pleasure arising from a growing realisation of our quantum entanglement with our Creator far exceeds the limited and transient pleasures available to us in an unrealised, largely third density (3D) state, divorced from conscious contact with the source of our existence.
Embracing such ‘an entanglement’ will bring about a metamorphosis in human consciousness and an extraordinary new era of life on earth and beyond.
An era in which no distinction can be made between God and Man.
Over the last few decades, many have written about our time as a space where humanity is between worlds. On one hand, we have our current way of life which is incredibly demanding on our minds and bodies, is rather toxic, and filled with conflict and destruction. On the other hand is a vision for a world that’s slower, more connected, more natural, and more loving.
As we navigate what appears to be the dying stages of the old paradigm, the intensity of what it is seems to increase. The qualities of the old system become louder, acting as an evolutionary pressure to push things along.
Many become inspired to explore ways to bring the ‘new world’ to the here and now via their actions.
How do I live without money? How do I exit the toxicity of our current system? How do I not participate anymore?
If we aren’t careful, these questions can create a framing of our current world that can make it very hard to live within.
If we deeply judge the need to work, to make money, to pay taxes etc, all of it can become a heavy thing to carry. We end up waking up every day dreading going to work, and having endless conversations, thoughts and emotions about how the bad guys are ruining life for us and we’re the victims in it all.
While there may be truth to some of the observations about our society, the framing of it in our minds is disempowering many of us, and it’s making our current moment dreadful. Further, it holds us back from living and being able to solve the problem.
So how do we work with this? How do we live in the space between worlds?
What Feels Natural To Us?
Indeed, our current societal design is not supportive of human beings thriving. In that sense, it has been poorly designed. We have such an easy time as a species doing this because our higher-order thinking allows us to override what is good for our biology. Simply put: it’s easy to ignore our needs using our thinking, especially when we become so identified with life cognitively.
I have 7 alpacas. The moment they need to poop, they just do it, no thinking, no “I’ll just finish this paragraph,” they just do it. They listen to their biology. Humans on the other hand don’t always listen. In some cases we don’t because we have social structures, social norms, and brains to hold this all together. But we also don’t because we’ve learned to ignore our body, feelings, and emotions in many ways.
While our higher-order thinking is beautiful in one sense, how do we know when it begins to work against us?
I often use an example with friends and clients of a bear. The bear (a mammal like us) was likely raised by an attached parent. It learned how to ‘bear’ and how to be in its environment from that parent in its natural environment. If that bear’s ecosystem was cut down or destroyed by humans, it wouldn’t stay for too long. It would know that concrete, a lack of forest, and a lack of fresh water aren’t good for it, and it would leave to find a suitable home. The bear is simply following its connection to its biology.
We as humans know we are doing this to animals and call it ‘displacing nature/animals.’ Interestingly, we tend to see ourselves ‘outside’ of nature, conveniently ignoring how we’re ‘displacing’ ourselves.
As mentioned, humans are resilient in that we can survive in different environments. We find ways to adjust, cope, and problem solve within environments that are not natural to us. Here I’m not just talking about physical environments but also emotional ones. We find ways to survive in abusive situations for example. We know we should leave, but sometimes we feel we can’t or don’t have the capacity to.
Further, there are difficult elements to our environments like not having access to clean food, clean water, and shelter without having to work very hard to get them.
Because of our amazing thinking brains, humans can do and create incredible things, but we can also become so cognitively and mentally identified that we override our basic biology so much so that we build systems that aren’t attuned to our own well-being.
Thus, humans are currently surviving, but we are in no way thriving. And we did this to ourselves via a disconnection from ourselves.
To be clear, it’s not that we shouldn’t have roads, technology, and societal systems, it’s that they should be designed with human and natural thrivability in mind. Instead, our world is designed with economic thrivability and elite power structures in mind. All at the expense of human wellness.
The tricky part is, that the more people see and experience this truth, the more we can become angered and upset by it. This is fair. A boundary feels crossed because we living now aren’t necessarily the ones who built it or are choosing it. “Why am I subjected to a system I don’t like nor support, yet feel like I can’t escape it?”
As I stated in my essay If No One Wants This, Why Are We Doing It?our way of life doesn’t feel natural to us deep down and it’s overwhelming the challenge is we can’t change it overnight. So what do we do to live within it without driving ourselves mad?
Exploring The Art of Existing Between Worlds
Over the last 15 years exploring alternative thinking and spiritual spaces, I have discovered that it’s common for people to want to fully “exit” the system. They don’t want to integrate, use money, or do anything within the system as they feel it’s “toxic.”
As mentioned, these feelings are somewhat valid, but how we choose to navigate them is everything. Here are a few key observations.
1. Having unprocessed anger, resentment, victimhood and judgment for the system is a recipe for disaster.
If we go to work each day, pay taxes, or drive on highways with the mindset and emotional drive that we are victims and stuck, we will certainly make our lives feel more challenging. Our mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual framing at that point is that of contraction and stuckness. And it’s often built on a nervous system foundation of survival.
Everything will feel much more difficult in this state. Now, this doesn’t mean we can’t observe the state of the world, understand it, and explore how to change it, all of that can be done without getting stuck in mental and emotional traps. But we have to be careful about the general state of mind and being we are taking into our daily lives. Without being aware of this, we give all of our power away to the system and allow it to dictate how we feel.
I’ve watched people panic and freak out about not eating organic apples, yet their mindset and relationship with themselves and the world is creating more toxicity in themselves than a non-organic apple.
When this mindset goes unchecked, our locus of control for our own well-being is outside of us, not inside. (Key note, I’m not suggesting that the system doesn’t have toxic effects on us, I’m saying that there is a space where we can exist within the system with greater wellness.)
Can we begin to see work, life, and what we currently have going as an opportunity? Can we change the lens through which we see it so it doesn’t add to greater dis-ease? Can we support ourselves, our nervous system, and our emotional well-being through practice that helps us build capacity and resilience?
2. Trying to exit completely is incredibly hard, and most end up just as unhappy.
I have found a lot of people trying everything in their power to avoid working and making money. Here I’m not referring to people who are not well or injured and can’t work, I’m talking about folks who can yet have such a degree of judgment toward the system that they avoid being within it.
Often this path leaves people stuck, uninspired, unable to experience much of the world, and unable to even afford fun projects at home. Life begins to become small, and these people rarely seem truly happy.
That said, intentional communities are an interesting path for some. Although they work and exist within the system in more ways than people think. Sure, a few places are fully off grid, but for the most part money, utilities, land purchases, property tax etc, are all part of the mix.
If you don’t have a lot of money, this path is very tough. People can of course move to countries where things are very cheap and start over, but even that is tough for most people as it’s still expensive and work still needs to be found to live well into the future.
1. Exploring capacity and resilience building to exist in our current world and help solve problems within it seems a fruitful path. This includes doing small things within the system to make life more natural.
To me, this is a path that is accessible to most people and provides a meaningful balance of making a difference and enjoying life. I may also be biased toward this as this is the path I’ve chosen and have taught throughout my work since 2009.
For example, I chose to start a company and embrace the world as it was in 2009. I built my business on a foundation of creating an amazing work environment for employees to work, rest, grow, and contribute to a ‘collective evolution.’ Over time, I was able to give back by hiring 14 people to come into this environment of serving something greater than our personal ambitions, yet those were taken care of too.
We did some amazing projects around the world with excess funds, and we helped establish an internet culture of wellness, consciousness and conscious media. If I had kept the system at a distance, those benefits would not have been shared.
Humans have lived for such a long time in unnatural ways, disconnected from ourselves, and not processing our emotions and traumas, our nervous systems hold that history. It is further being re-inforced by the reality that yes, there is toxicity still in our world. It is badly designed.
But still, regulation and capacity at a deep cellular level need to be restored for most of us. We need to clear out the messy stuff. Otherwise, we will take our pains into any revolutionary systems that pops up outside the system anyway. We see this a lot with intentional communities that collapse.
This means focusing on deeply restoring physiological safety, wellbeing, emotional fluidity and regulation is foundational to living well, and it can be done even in the existing system. Even though our system is tough, this path gives us much more energy, resilience and capacity to exist within the system and make as big a difference as possible while enjoying life.
This path is work. It acknowledged that it isn’t easy to feel great in our world due to the poor design, but that it’s still within our capacity if we focus on it.
This doesn’t mean we ignore the need to change or adjust our system. But this path gives us the greatest ability to do so as we will have built the capacity and deep empowerment to actually do it, vs. being feeling stuck, tired and victimized resisting the system so heavily.
Existing in a space between worlds means building individual and collective wellbeing, and creating change along the way. The more resilient we are, the more we can make money and use it as a tool to find ways to make our lives better, less reliant on the system, and healthier.
In that space of wellness, we can have meaningful conversations and learn to hold visions of a future world that isn’t built on hating and resenting the old. If I’m honest, almost all of the successful changes and projects I’ve seen out there have come from this space of being.
In summary, taking stock of whether our observations of the world have become deep disempowering judgements is a worthwhile reflection. Being ‘awake to corruption’ doesn’t have to come with lifelong resentment toward the system, where we comment online about ‘the bad guys’ ruining things for everyone. Or that somehow Biden, Trump, Trudeau etc. are the root of the problems. I hate to say it but, this gets us nowhere.
Questioning whether we are truly living our lives in a way that promotes emotional, physical, and spiritual well-being and expansiveness is important. Without this, our foundation is weak.
The path forward I’m suggesting is one of building enough strength, well-being, and energy to live with wellness in our current system, so we have energy left over to see clearly and act upon changing what is not natural to us. Good sensemaking of our current events goes alongside this, but as you’ll note from my previous work, good sensemaking is built on a healthy nervous system.
To be an American today is to collect a basket full of sadness. We have been at war forever for the profits of the military/security complex, for the hegemonic ideology of the neoconservatives, for Cold War hysteria, and for Israel. Huge sums of money have been wasted for no benefit to the American people. Just yesterday I was listening to a deputy sheriff tell me how frustrating it was that he cannot reach the criminal American elite and bring them home to their crimes, but has, instead, to focus on the minor crimes of their lower class victims.
I asked him why it is the lower class that most waves the flag, and he said that patriotism is all that they have that gives them meaning. I responded that this means that they cannot escape their victimhood, and he said “that is what is sad about it.”
Parents have not come home from Washington’s wars to their spouses, children, family, and friends. They died for the military/security complex’s profits, for Israel, or for some dumbshit ideology. They did not die for America, but for their deaths to have meaning, their families have to insist that they did. With the American people trapped in this way, Washington can pile up the deaths, thanking the dead not for defending the military/security complex’s profits, but for “defending America.” In this way Washington can continue its endless wars. Dying for America is a way the lower class can find meaning in their lives.
Now that Russia has shown that there is to be no American victory in Ukraine, Washington has renewed its war adventures in the Middle East, aligning solidly with Israel’s massacre of the Palestinians and against the Arab and Muslim countries that oppose what is an Israeli genocide of the Palestinians. Palestinian women, children, hospitals, schools, social infrastructure are being blown to tiny pieces with the American bombs and missiles that Biden is handing to Israel’s Nazi leader, Netanyahu, who is under indictment both in Israel and now in effect by the International Court of Justice. But this means nothing to Washington, which sees itself as the exceptional, indispensable country unaccountable to any law, domestic or international.
The alleged “moral democracies,” the US, UK, EU, Japan, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Iceland, thumbed their noses at the International Court of Justice’s verdict against Israel by suspending their funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the major source of aid to the Palestinians in Gaza.
What does this tell us about the morality of the Western World. It tells us that it is worse than in Sodom and Gomorrah.
How can we be Proud Americans when the suspension of funding by Washington will impact life-saving assistance for over two million civilians, over half of whom are children, who rely on UNRWA aid in Gaza? The population faces starvation and an outbreak of disease under Israel’s bombardment and blockade of aid.
This is the way that Zionist Israel, together with its Biden Regime Democrat ally, intends to accomplish its genocidal elimination of the Palestinian people.
Israel has blockaded all water, food, electricity, and medical supplies to Gaza for the last 120 days. As a result, a half million Palestinians face starvation.
The massive and ongoing bombing of Gaza, courtesy of the continuous shipment of US munitions to Israel, has killed and wounded at least 90,000 Palestinians, 70% of them women and children. More than 1000 children have had to undergo amputations without anesthesia. There is no medicine, no blood for transfusions, no clean water to wash wounds. And no food. Only more bombs falling from the sky each day, thanks to America.
Chris Hedges reports that the West’s alleged humanitarian and medical institutions refuse to denounce Israel’s decimation of human life in Gaza. We are faced with the stark fact that even Western medical and humanitarian institutions are in the pocket of Israeli Zionists. Morality cannot be found on the scene.
How is it that a tiny county, the existence of which depends entirely on American support, can force the world to accept genocide at the risk of the war widening into Nuclear Armageddon?
In our current technocratic society, it’s incredibly rare to meet someone who is genuinely free. The erosion of the Consent Decrees of 1948—which allowed media conglomerates to own and control movie theaters—drastically altered the landscape of film and video production, further destabilizing an already unlevel playing field between corporate interests, content creators, and consumers. The trickle-down economics Reagan touted in his 1981 tax act proved only to favor the affluent, further alienating independent creators who were frozen out of a livelihood through economic blacklisting, a perpetual attack that continues to this day. Bill Clinton’s elimination of the fin-syn rules that required television networks to source 35% of their content from independent producers only helped to continue this trend into the new millennium, and soon the mainstream movie and TV-consuming public was offered a slate of hegemonic programming supplied by a monopoly rule.
With traditional avenues of information exchange becoming more restricted, pockets of transgressive media resistance—inspired by the countercultural film and video collectives of the ‘60s and ‘70s—gained 501(c)(3) non-profit status in 1980s America. These artist-run community organizations championed alternative educational perspectives on media literacy and performance, such as Artists’ Television Access in the Mission District of San Francisco, California. Operating under the umbrella of this community space exists a cinematic collective with a subversive trajectory: a film screening series and analog archive curated from the margins of mainstream media and acceptable art practice. Under the stewardship of underground filmmaker and curator Craig Baldwin, Other Cinema stands as the vanguard of Baldwin’s personal artistic conviction—what he calls “cinema povera,” an anti-capitalist filmmaking creed where artists only use the materials at their disposal to create art. Combine this practice with an ethos of media archeology and mixed-media collage that predates our current remix culture activities and what’s generated is an exhibition calendar of the modern avant-garde—a thirty-six week screening schedule projecting experimental film and video to the masses. Every Saturday night, cartoons, B movies, and commercials hold equal ground with industrial, educational, documentary, personal essay, and public domain/orphan films, bringing together numerous artists and filmmakers from around the world under one cinematic ceiling for close to 40 years.
Specific details surrounding the origins of Other Cinema are hard to quantify, partially due to the vastly prolific yet oddly cryptic career of founder Craig Baldwin. Born into a self-admitted 1950s middle-class existence in the Sacramento suburb of Carmichael, California, Baldwin spent his teenage years nurturing a ravenous curiosity for subversive cultures and media. During high school, he was often at the local Towne Theater enjoying the latest midnight show of underground programming, absorbing the cinematic combustion of the ‘60s experimental scene led by filmmakers like George Kuchar and Bruce Conner, who as a teacher would later kick Baldwin out of his film class while attending San Francisco State University. In college Baldwin also indulged in subterranean films such as Peter Watkins’s 1966 pseudo-doc The War Game and exploitation flicks like Paul Bartel’s 1975 sci-fi dystopian romp Death Race 2000. Forming a fascination with film exhibition, Baldwin worked as a projectionist at several movie houses throughout the city, navigating the film worlds through an eclecticism of arthouse, exploitation, pornography, and political activism—including contributing programming and film services to El Salvador Film and Video Projects for the Salvadoran solidarity movement of northern California. His early activism with the artistic political action collective the Urban Rats saw him and his cohorts reclaim San Francisco’s urban landscape through adverse possession or “squatter’s rights,” which allowed Baldwin to experiment with expanded cinema performance, such as projecting film in abandoned buildings and other derelict dwellings.
This direct approach towards genre and social action speaks to Baldwin’s personal opposition towards the status quo, an attitude that not only informs Other Cinema’s motion picture programming but also Baldwin’s own filmmaking forays. His early experiments with Super 8 film—such as the prototypical culture jam/situationist prank Stolen Movie—bled into his 16mm attacks on advertising, consumerism, and colonialism in Wild Gunmanand RocketKitKongoKit before gaining maximum velocity with his Dexedrine-driven, countermyth conspiracy report Tribulation 99. Making up the pure found footage/collage aesthetic of his filmography until introducing live-action performance into the mix with his films !O No Coronado!, Spectres of the Spectrum, and Mock Up on Mu, these early works draw heavily from Baldwin’s now massive archive of analog film. Housed beneath the Artists’ Television Access property, this subterranean scroll of marginalized media is continuously rescued from the bowels of civilization’s ever evolving technological burden and given new purpose. The shift from film in the 1970s to magnetic tape in the 1980s saw major institutions overhaul their audio/visual collections in favor of more economical video formats, sending reels of celluloid to the dumpsters and landfills. Much like the Dadaists of the early 20th century avant-garde, whose use of appropriation and photomontage expressed anti-bourgeois protest through their art, Baldwin and company salvaged these bastardized works from material obscurity and celebrated their ephemeral nature through collage and remix. These hybrid works of the late 20th century serve as precursor to many of our current 21st century new media innovations, resulting in the continued radicalization of modern artistic folklore, such as the mashups and supercuts of Everything Is Terrible! and the radical anti-authoritarian statements of the sister collective Soda Jerk.
Baldwin and Other Cinema’s defense of the diminished and discarded extends not only to the physical media he interacts with but to the audience he exhibits for. Maintaining a dialectical attitude, Baldwin expresses both respect and disrespect towards film genre and classification by spinning one off the other and forming new categories. Each screening is meant to give equal weight to diverse voices and provoke participation amongst attendees—an ethos Baldwin codified with his underground screening series The RAD, The MAD & The BAD while programming film events for Artists’ Television Access during the organization’s formative years. A protean yet practical film genre grouping system sorted through three major categories stripped of pretense and soaked in punk rock colloquialism, each selection was designated its own time slot on Wednesdays and Saturdays with those represented creating a continuity across each section:
The RAD: showcasing political and social action films
The MAD: mad genius or auteur cinema
The BAD: psychotronic themes of horror/sci-fi/exploitation
Defying the unspoken restraint behind many traditional classification systems that favor a false high-brow aesthetic to an honest low-brow sensibility, The RAD, The MAD & The BAD crossed the cultural demarcation line with an egalitarian stance towards genre representation, allowing for serious discussion about what constitutes a film’s importance and its commodification within society. More importantly, it displayed through example that poor production doesn’t always mean poor quality, and films created on the margins of capital contain a certain cultural influence and accessibility that corporate-backed productions can only hope to afford or inspire.
The authentic response audiences gave towards the weekly film schedule at Artists’ Television Access saw the prestigious San Francisco Cinematheque approach Baldwin to bring his street sensibility to their precocious crowd with Sub-Cinema, a RAD, MAD & BAD-inspired program that ran over the course of 1985. The creation of other pop-up programs like Anti-Films and Eyes of Hell inspired Baldwin to consolidate his film selections under his own programming umbrella, and soon the ethos that fueled The RAD, The MAD & The BAD manifested itself into the physical embodiment of Baldwin’s own psyche and practice with the foundation of Other Cinema.
If the RAD, MAD & BAD helped bring acceptance to the concept of marginalization in film selection and exhibition during the 1980s, the programming behind Other Cinema built upon this provocation by introducing new alternative voices from the microcinema scene of the 1990s. One of the forefronts of this new cinematic experience, Other Cinema became a home for a subculture of film using and reusing old and new technologies to create future underground works, with filmmakers and exhibitors from across the country like Sam Green, Martha Colburn, Greta Snider, Bill Daniel, Orgone Cinema, 3Ton Cinema, and “others” coalescing to this space like the children of Hamelin to the Pied Piper’s whimsical flute. Many of these groups and individuals appear in Baldwin’s upcoming career monograph Avant to Live!, a 500-page treatise detailing his cinematic trajectory in the media arts.
The decline of physical media coupled with our perpetual progression towards a digital state continues to divide us, with some championing the virtual realm and its democratization of new technologies and others questioning its effect on the human experience and how we interact with each other. The popularity of streaming services continues to challenge the economic longevity of physical media, forcing film formats into a wave of obsolescence. Despite this, Craig Baldwin and Other Cinema rise against the tide with an analog assault of expanded cinema every Saturday night. Filmmakers on the fringe and maverick media archeologists with an overwhelming responsibility to film history, yet hamstrung by a lack of resources, congregate at Other Cinema to embrace the struggle in an ever evolving motion picture renaissance. It’s a form of masochism one needs to make it on this side of the art world—the “masochism of the margins,” as Baldwin often says. It takes pain and sacrifice to live here, yet the psychic rewards far outweigh the material loss.
Andy Prisbylla is an underground filmmaker and exhibitor from the rust belt apocalypse of Steel City, PA. His screening series SUBCINEMA showcases subterranean movies and art through digital programming and live pop-up events. Find out more through Letterboxd and Mastodon.
There is no difference between psychopaths and politicians.
Nor is there much of a difference between the havoc wreaked on innocent lives by uncaring, unfeeling, selfish, irresponsible, parasitic criminals and elected officials who lie to their constituents, trade political favors for campaign contributions, turn a blind eye to the wishes of the electorate, cheat taxpayers out of hard-earned dollars, favor the corporate elite, entrench the military industrial complex, and spare little thought for the impact their thoughtless actions and hastily passed legislation might have on defenseless citizens.
Charismatic politicians, like criminal psychopaths, exhibit a failure to accept responsibility for their actions, have a high sense of self-worth, are chronically unstable, have socially deviant lifestyles, need constant stimulation, have parasitic lifestyles and possess unrealistic goals.
It doesn’t matter whether you’re talking about Democrats or Republicans.
Political psychopaths are all largely cut from the same pathological cloth, brimming with seemingly easy charm and boasting calculating minds. Such leaders eventually create pathocracies: totalitarian societies bent on power, control, and destruction of both freedom in general and those who exercise their freedoms.
Once psychopaths gain power, the result is usually some form of totalitarian government or a pathocracy. “At that point, the government operates against the interests of its own people except for favoring certain groups,” author James G. Long notes. “We are currently witnessing deliberate polarizations of American citizens, illegal actions, and massive and needless acquisition of debt. This is typical of psychopathic systems, and very similar things happened in the Soviet Union as it overextended and collapsed.”
In other words, electing a psychopath to public office is tantamount to national hara-kiri, the ritualized act of self-annihilation, self-destruction and suicide. It signals the demise of democratic government and lays the groundwork for a totalitarian regime that is legalistic, militaristic, inflexible, intolerant and inhuman.
Incredibly, despite clear evidence of the damage that has already been inflicted on our nation and its citizens by a psychopathic government, voters continue to elect psychopaths to positions of power and influence.
According to investigative journalist Zack Beauchamp, “In 2012, a group of psychologists evaluated every President from Washington to Bush II using ‘psychopathy trait estimates derived from personality data completed by historical experts on each president.’ They found that presidents tended to have the psychopath’s characteristic fearlessness and low anxiety levels — traits that appear to help Presidents, but also might cause them to make reckless decisions that hurt other people’s lives.”
The willingness to prioritize power above all else, including the welfare of their fellow human beings, ruthlessness, callousness and an utter lack of conscience are among the defining traits of the sociopath.
When our own government no longer sees us as human beings with dignity and worth but as things to be manipulated, maneuvered, mined for data, manhandled by police, conned into believing it has our best interests at heart, mistreated, jailed if we dare step out of line, and then punished unjustly without remorse—all the while refusing to own up to its failings—we are no longer operating under a constitutional republic.
Worse, psychopathology is not confined to those in high positions of government. It can spread like a virus among the populace. As an academic study into pathocracy concluded, “[T]yranny does not flourish because perpetuators are helpless and ignorant of their actions. It flourishes because they actively identify with those who promote vicious acts as virtuous.”
People don’t simply line up and salute. It is through one’s own personal identification with a given leader, party or social order that they become agents of good or evil.
Much depends on how leaders “cultivate a sense of identification with their followers,” says Professor Alex Haslam. “I mean one pretty obvious thing is that leaders talk about ‘we’ rather than ‘I,’ and actually what leadership is about is cultivating this sense of shared identity about ‘we-ness’ and then getting people to want to act in terms of that ‘we-ness,’ to promote our collective interests. . . . [We] is the single word that has increased in the inaugural addresses over the last century . . . and the other one is ‘America.’”
The goal of the modern corporate state is obvious: to promote, cultivate, and embed a sense of shared identification among its citizens. To this end, “we the people” have become “we the police state.”
We are fast becoming slaves in thrall to a faceless, nameless, bureaucratic totalitarian government machine that relentlessly erodes our freedoms through countless laws, statutes, and prohibitions.
Any resistance to such regimes depends on the strength of opinions in the minds of those who choose to fight back. What this means is that we the citizenry must be very careful that we are not manipulated into marching in lockstep with an oppressive regime.
But what does this really mean in practical terms?
It means holding politicians accountable for their actions and the actions of their staff using every available means at our disposal: through investigative journalism (what used to be referred to as the Fourth Estate) that enlightens and informs, through whistleblower complaints that expose corruption, through lawsuits that challenge misconduct, and through protests and mass political action that remind the powers-that-be that “we the people” are the ones that call the shots.
Remember, education precedes action. Citizens need to the do the hard work of educating themselves about what the government is doing and how to hold it accountable. Don’t allow yourselves to exist exclusively in an echo chamber that is restricted to views with which you agree. Expose yourself to multiple media sources, independent and mainstream, and think for yourself.
For that matter, no matter what your political leanings might be, don’t allow your partisan bias to trump the principles that serve as the basis for our constitutional republic. As Beauchamp notes, “A system that actually holds people accountable to the broader conscience of society may be one of the best ways to keep conscienceless people in check.”
That said, if we allow the ballot box to become our only means of pushing back against the police state, the battle is already lost.
Resistance will require a citizenry willing to be active at the local level.
Yet if you wait to act until the SWAT team is crashing through your door, until your name is placed on a terror watch list, until you are reported for such outlawed activities as collecting rainwater or letting your children play outside unsupervised, then it will be too late.
We are human beings, and for the moment, we have the opportunity to remain free—that is, if we tirelessly advocate for our rights and resist at every turn attempts by the government to place us in chains.
The Founders understood that our freedoms do not flow from the government. They were not given to us only to be taken away by the will of the State. They are inherently ours. In the same way, the government’s appointed purpose is not to threaten or undermine our freedoms, but to safeguard them.
Until we can get back to this way of thinking, until we can remind our fellow Americans what it really means to be free, and until we can stand firm in the face of threats to our freedoms, we will continue to be treated like slaves in thrall to a bureaucratic police state run by political psychopaths.
There are always, ALWAYS lies, obfuscations and manipulations involved in marketing a new war to the public, or in hiding its involvement in foreign wars from public attention.
If you’re among those who have only just begun paying attention to US foreign policy and western media bias in light of Israel’s destruction of Gaza and Biden’s act of war against Yemen, it’s important to understand that none of the depravity you’re seeing is new. The lies. The insane double standards. The murderousness. The western political/media class always does this.
Every war the US involves itself in is always facilitated by lies promulgated in one voice by the official government in Washington and by the “independent” “free” press (actually propaganda services) of the western world. They deceived the world about Ukraine. They deceived the world about Yemen. They deceived the world about Syria, Libya and Iraq. There are always, always lies, obfuscations and manipulations involved in marketing a new war to the public, or in hiding its involvement in foreign wars from public attention.
All of this manipulation and deceit is necessary to hide the fact that the US-centralized empire is the most tyrannical power structure on this planet. And make no mistake, it is an empire. Washington serves as the hub of an undeclared empire comprised of alliances, partnerships, assets, public deals and secret agreements which knit a large number of nations together into what functions as a single power structure with regard to international affairs.
Most of the beneficiaries of this power structure reside in the west, or global north, while the most exploited and abused victims of this power structure tend to reside in the east, or global south. There are all sorts of rules and regulations and narratives and justifications for why this all happens the way it happens, but if you mentally “mute” the soundtrack on the verbal overlay and just look at what’s actually happening, what you will see is the lion’s share of the world’s wealth and resources moving northward and westward from populations of a darker average skin tone toward populations of a paler average skin tone. Wherever that movement is hindered, diverted, threatened or inconvenienced, you will see western war machinery moving southward and eastward to get it back on the desired track.
Most major international conflicts can be understood as either direct or indirect efforts by the US empire to shore up planetary domination, which are often met with resistance by populations who wish to retain their sovereignty. Much of this conflict happens in the middle east because that’s where the world gets a lot of its oil from, with US-aligned nations like Israel and Saudi Arabia frequently serving as the frontline for hostilities with non-US-aligned nations like Iran and Syria as well as non-US-aligned forces like Hezbollah, Ansarallah and Hamas.
This struggle for US planetary hegemony is disguised by the western political/media class as something other than what it is, because you can’t allow the public in a democratic nation to understand clearly that their government is on the side of evil. They’ll frame it as a US-led international coalition to liberate a nation from a tyrannical dictator. As a humanitarian intervention to protect human rights. As support for Israel’s right to defend itself. As protection of freedom of navigation in the Red Sea. But what’s actually happening is the world’s most powerful and murderous power structure killing human beings in western Asia in order to secure control over a crucial resource.
You see this all over the world against nations which refuse to allow themselves to be absorbed into the US-centralized power structure like North Korea, Venezuela and Cuba, with China being by far the strongest of these and Russia a distant second. And you will notice that you have heard every nation I just mentioned cast in a very negative light by the western press over the years. This is not a coincidence.
You don’t need to believe anything I’m saying on faith. If you just keep in mind what I said and start watching the patterns for yourself while seeking out the truth day by day, you will see it for yourself. You will see the same patterns emerging over and over again, year after year. Over and over again you will see the US and the states that are aligned with it acting with extreme aggression toward non-US-aligned powers in ways that benefit the US-centralized power structure, and you will see the western press deceiving the world about what’s happening. The next Official Bad Guy you see dominating western press coverage on international affairs will be a non-US-aligned power, and if you apply diligent research and critical thinking you will find that they are not presenting an accurate picture of what’s happening.
Just keep learning and studying the patterns with open curiosity and self-honesty, and the picture will inevitably become clear to you. And then you will clearly see who’s really driving the bulk of the violence and disorder in our world.
Politicians and corporate managers have an enviable record of self-enrichment but very little to show in terms of putting the long-term interests of the citizenry above their own short-term gains.
This week’s focus is on self-reliance, a topic of increasing relevance than is more complex that it may seem.
Sociologists differentiate between high-trust and low-trust societies: in high-trust social orders, citizens tend to trust institutions and each other to conform to social norms, enabling strangers to trust a vast circle of transactions and socio-economic ties. Low-trust societies are plagued with distrust of authority and institutions and fear of getting taken advantage of by strangers, so the circles of trust are small, inhibiting social mobility and economic growth.
Economies and political systems can also be understood as high-trust or low-trust. If the political system excels at rewarding insiders and incumbents while leaving critical problems unsolved, citizens have little reason to trust the system.
The same is true of economies that greatly enrich insiders and incumbents at the expense of the citizenry via monopoly/cartel price-gouging, shrinkflation, degrading the quality of goods and services and the immiseration of standard services, forcing customers to “upgrade” from wretched to merely dismal.
Conventional pundits and economists are constantly whining that Americans “just don’t get it”: they tout our soaring per capita wealth, i.e. we’re getting richer, so everyone should be delighted, yet only 20% of the public are “satisfied with the way things are going.”
What the well-compensated pundits and economists are ignoring (or are paid to ignore) is the decay of the U.S. from a high-trust-functional to a low-trust-dysfunctional society and economy: Americans will still go out of their way to aid strangers, but their trust in institutions has plummeted to lows, as has their trust in the political-corporate elites’ leadership: politicians and corporate managers have an enviable record of self-enrichment but very little to show in terms of putting the long-term interests of the citizenry above their own short-term gains.
People understand the name of the game now is to spout all the expected optimistic PR of “innovation” and “serving the public” while maximizing their private gain at the expense of the nation. Offshoring America’s essential industrial supply chains wasn’t done to serve the nation; it was done to maximize profits, 90% of which flow to the top 10%. Pushing us into debt servitude is highly profitable, but it isn’t benefiting us or the nation.
Americans were told to trust long, hyper-globalized single-source supply chains as “efficient” (i.e. profitable) and trustworthy, yet they’ve discovered these supply chains are vulnerable and fragile. Americans were told that corporate monopolies were selling them “innovations” when in fact they were being sold highly addictive (and therefore highly profitable) goods and services.
Americans were told that their financial security was increasing even as the U.S. economy became increasingly dependent on hyper-financialized asset bubbles and central bank bailouts, the precise opposite of stability. Rather than producing more financial security for the bottom 80%, these “innovations” greatly expanded the gulf between the wealthy and the increasingly precarious bottom 80%.
Americans were told to trust that the hyper-centralization of political and financial power would benefit them, when the evidence is piling up that this hyper-centralization has increased the dysfunction of core institutions and the fragility of essential systems.
Doesn’t it ring hollow to glorify our soaring wealth while households declare bankruptcy due to medical bills, college students sign up for a lifetime of debt servitude to pay tuition and inflation has destroyed 20% of every wage earner’s paycheck just since January 2020? All that “soaring wealth” is asymmetrically distributed, but let’s not talk about that, let’s talk about statistics that mask that asymmetry.
What the well-compensated pundits and economists are paid to ignore is the concentration of the vast majority of all this new wealth and income in the top 10%. Soaring wealth only widens wealth inequality; it doesn’t benefit the nation, it weakens its foundations by accelerating the decay of trust in core institutions and systems.
What happens when high-trust decays to low-trust is the circle of reliable, trustworthy sources and people shrinks to the local, decentralized level. Rather than trust Big Ag, Big Fast-Food and supply chains of highly processed glop to feed us, we start turning to local sources of real food.
In the same way, we rediscover the value of thinking for ourselves rather than accepting self-serving memes-of-the-day. We rediscover the value of what Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote about in his 1841 essay Self-Reliance (free text, Project Gutenberg).
Emerson counsels us to “be our best selves,” and not to count property wealth above all else. (“They measure their esteem of each other by what each has, and not by what each is.”)
Emerson understood that the values of a society are the foundation of its economic order. A system lacking any principles and values other than greed and self-enrichment is a rotten structure doomed to collapse. It is not just the larger socio-economic order that needs a rock-solid value system; each individual must ground their choices and actions in a value system they have embraced on their own. (“Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.”)
What Emerson is espousing is self-reliance, in thought, in values, and in economic and financial matters. In today’s world of crumbling hyper-globalization, self-reliance extends to the practical world of where our essential goods and services are coming from.
We discuss how the American economy has changed over the past 40 years, to the detriment of the nation’s values and the security of its citizenry, and what self-reliance means today– the topic of my book Self-Reliance in the 21st Century. (Read the first chapter for free.)
How can we best navigate our low-trust, increasingly dysfunctional society and economy? By strengthening our own self-reliance.
From 2004 – 2016, I felt like I was a part of something special. I was participating in an “awakening.” The world was changing. Consciousness was shifting. The hidden hand was being exposed and all secrets were being revealed!
Right?
Or maybe it was wishful thinking.
9/11 happened. And for the next decade and a half, people all over the world began to question the events of that day. Then, major events in general. It was the beginning of an uprising. A revolution!
Right…?
Something else emerged during that time. Social media.
Social media has its upsides and downsides. Mostly upsides. But the downsides have serious ramifications. Specifically on communication.
Social media brings us together and tears us apart.
2001: A Truth Odyssey
By 2001, almost everyone was online and connected to the internet. But it was still in its infancy.
The iPhone didn’t exist. There was no YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. Even MySpace wasn’t around yet.
We had access to the internet, but we had no idea what we were in store for.
As the internet expanded, so did our ability to share information.
Alternative perspectives, counter-narratives, and “conspiracy theories” became more accessible. For the first time (possibly) in history, “official stories” were being challenged in real time. With evidence to support claims.
I was dubious about 9/11 as it was happening. Not because of the internet. Not because I was a conspiracy theorist. But because I hated George Bush. As a born and raised Democrat, I didn’t trust him. I was staunchly anti-war (and still am), and I knew America’s response to the attacks was going to be insane.
A few years later, someone shared a documentary with me called Loose Change. A film deconstructing the 9/11 narrative. My mind was blown, and it was off to the races.
Down, Down, Down The Rabbit Hole.
YouTube hit the scene in 2005. I used it strictly for conspiracy-related research.
Conspiracy content blew up online. A truth movement had begun. The masses were on the verge of waking up, well, en masse.
Right?!?!
Divide & Conquer
Fast forward to 2024. I have good news and bad news.
The good news is that more people are questioning things than ever. Distrust in anything mainstream is at an all time high.
The bad news:
Societal division is worse than it’s ever been. In my lifetime anyway. It’s hard to even call it division because division implies splitting into two halves.
This is a direct result of thumb-typed communication. (Generation Text.)
These days, most people prefer texting, emailing, or commenting over direct engagement. We yearn for human connection, but we’ve patterned ourselves to avoid it as much as possible. (I’m speaking generally, of course.)
Confronting someone is uncomfortable. But confrontation is a necessary part of human interaction. It’s a key component in solving conflict or avoiding it altogether. But since it can be terrifying, people today have the easy-out of typing instead of speaking.
Typed communication lacks empathy. It’s indirect. Impersonal. It’s both a barrier and a shield.
So people say things to each other online that they would never say out loud. They rip each other apart over the slightest differences of opinion. Many (especially YouTube commenters) hide behind avatars and pseudonyms to say whatever they want with no accountability.
Basically, everyone has free rein to be an asshole with zero repercussions.
Worst of all, no one is listening to each other anymore.
We haven’t just been divided; we’ve been fractalized into smithereens.
Awake Vs. Woke
The “awake” crowd is as insufferable as the “woke” one. Change my mind.
Mean-spirited mudslinging and public shaming are the online norm.
Checking the timeline on Facebook, for instance, is a disheartening experience.
It’s a daily mélange of proselytizing, bickering, and judging others. The sentiment is “my way or the highway.”
“I’m right, and you’re wrong. And not only are you wrong, you’re also a stupid idiot.”
Many on the alternative or “conspiracy” side of things have fallen into the same trap as the “sheep” they condemn.
Arrogant allegiance to ideas, beliefs, and opinions.
Critical Thinking
At the height of the truth movement in the 2010s, there was an emphasis on critical thinking. The Trivium was making a comeback.
Grammar, logic, and rhetoric
In that order.
More often than not, online communication is rhetoric without grammar and logic to back it up.
Sweeping generalizations abound.
Accusations
Declarations
Proclamations
& Polarizing opinions disguised as facts
But opinions are not facts. (And you are not your opinions.)
“A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.” – William James
Social media algorithms are designed to keep you in a feedback loop.
A lot of people use their (typed) voice online to “speak the truth.” But they’re preaching to the choir in an echo chamber.
There’s camaraderie to be found in this. Which is good. But the likelihood of their rantings reaching those who (they feel) need to hear them is small.
The aggression that comes through many posts is ugly and derogatory.
Anger
Anger is a powerful emotion. But it’s like fire. It can warm your house or burn it down.
“Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot that it do singe yourself.” – William Shakespeare
Many people lean on anger to convey their conviction about a topic. They use it to stress the importance of something. But more often than not, it’s ineffective.
Anger is best utilized when it’s the seed preceding something more interesting.
In other words, anger alone is a weak emotion for personal expression.
When anger sparks an idea, and that idea is built upon with clarity and care, the expression of that idea has the power to shift someone’s perspective.
Many of my poems and JoyCamp videos came from an angry place. But anger is nowhere to be found in the final product.
Some think I’m too soft in my approach. Well, they’re welcome to think whatever they want. I’ve learned through trial and error that bluntly and angrily stating “the truth” is a fool’s errand. People don’t want to hear it, no matter how right or passionate you are.
Use anger like clay and sculpt it.
I tried anger in my 20s, and it got me nowhere. If anything, it only made situations worse. Speaking loudly and angrily puts more distance between your conversation partner and the point you want them to understand.
I’m committed to the truth and helping others discover it for themselves. Over the course of 15 years, I developed a nuanced approach to communication that actually works. One that I’ve taught to hundreds of people in my Parrhesia program (now called Free Your Speech).
If you didn’t pull the trigger on Parrhesia when I was offering it live, you can still purchase the course itself.
I’ve dropped the price to $149. It’s an election year. It’s probably worth your while.
Logic
It’s agonizing to witness your friends, family, and society at large fall into what you perceive as traps.
What’s painfully obvious to you is beyond absurd or ridiculous to them. And no matter how much you try to convince them otherwise, they double down on their commitment to the trap.
People are not logical. They’re emotional and motivated by fear, comfort, and ego.
“No one can possibly behave above his own level of understanding. Don’t expect people to do any better than they are compelled to do at their present level. Your problem is assuming that they should and could behave better. Understand this and annoyance disappears. As you gradually awaken you will feel the urge to share your discovery with others. Because you will find others in various stages of receptivity, remember this: Never give more than others can understand and appreciate in the moment. This is cosmic law. To try and give what others cannot receive is like tossing a ball against a brick wall—it bounces back to strike you. Jesus explained this law by saying that we should not cast our pearls before swine; that is, before those whose comprehension of truth makes them indifferent or hostile about it.” – François Fénelon
This is the cornerstone of my communication philosophy and approach.
The Real Awakening
There is no truth movement. There never was. There is only your journey to discovering what the truth is.
Pick your lane and choose your battles wisely.
Worry less about the world and other people’s opinions.
Concern yourself with what you’re capable of. Challenge your comfort zone. And focus your efforts on how you can help.
After the Crash 