My peril has always been feeling if anything, too secure. I have at times missjudged people and have failed to see the dislike they felt for my privileged lifestyle.
What is more is the fact that it's easy to characterize the rich as idle fat cats that inherit their wealth and do drugs and play polo all day - but many of the rich nowadays are the products of recent decades - of criminal behavior yes - but they worked hard at what they did . That may comfort you a little until you realize that they are not going to give up with out a fight - that's the sad truth. People who have made fortunes do not just roll over.
As it happened it's been made public that the global elite - that class of people sans a nation, now account for more money then the United States and Japan combined
I apologize for grammatical errors in the following - things are running late and I haven had time to correct or edit.
It's a long standing
tradition here at the Tamlinmediaco to kick the session off with some
sort of pragmatic observations – eg that which is grounded in
verifiable reality. Suffice to say since the site is predicated on
the premise that all is illusion this section tends to not go on for
very long,
I get some slight kicks out
of it and for those not of my persuasion I use this opportunity to
gently nudge them closer to the borderlines of the mental terrain
that is my abode. The joke being you think I am crazy and worthless
and out of touch with reality and I think the exact same thing about
you.
The only difference is I am too polite
to mention certain aspects of our lives that would tend to lend
credence to one hypothesis or another.
And Yes, I am a cyberpunk.
The joke is that anyone who claims to be anything can't possibly be
that – but I use the term so you can get in to the ball park and
as well so you realize that weird as I am I am not entirely alone in
my perceptions of what am going down round here.
I don’t mind Goths –
unless they get into the Alistair Crowley thing and start skinning
cats in the backyard. Politically, like most long time net geeks I
tend towards libertarianism but ‘m towards the extreme end of that
– meaning there’s things that have to be done, building roads and
hospitals and someones got to do them and what we call that someone
– be it government or private enterprise ought not make much
difference – but seriously folks – think of the fuck ups that are
drawn to dominate others and maybe government don’t sound too bad.
It’s the least worst evil in other words.
Unlike some people I
don’t find much problem being religious or mystical or into the
sacred. A lot of people see the cultural aspects of dogmas and can’t
separate the spiritual ones or world transcendence. Actually I’ve
been playing piano since four and that has brought a lot of
continuity into my life.
Also It’s worth
stating the obvious which is Tamlin is an old name and the tale is
also old, plus one of the ongoing themes here is the means by which
the Celtics adapted to the coming of Christianity - a happenstance
that anyone could realize meant the ending of their existence as a
certain sort of being. We do this because we feel that the coming
changes, particularly in forms of genetic modification are rapidly
changing the human race into something that will not recognize us as
the same species. We will be to them as apes are to us.
This is something that the
Druid poet Taliesin was well aware of and in response he said, to
paraphrase, “hold on, I have been many places and I have taken many
forms.” In essence don’t judge a book by it’s cover. And as
well he states unequivocally that his poems are not literal alone
and that they can only be understood by those who see them “in
their true form and meaning.”
This is not the time or
place to go into great details but the celtic world was divided into
three and the task of the master, as always, was to transverse these
three at will= this liberates the mind, or soul to appear where it
wants anywhere or when in the universe, much like an electron may
appear where ever around the central nucleus of an atom.
Plus, quite honestly it
is a reality that the associative historical bonds of identity are
everywhere collapsing. Academics speak of the death of myth. As a
white male I am of course accused of every crime every white male
ever committed, for logical reasons. Mea Culpa! But that said
remember that the violence of the white man has been directed against
his own kind as well.
And as Sigmund Freud said
the real war is waged not to kill but to castrate. A eunuch slave
is worth much more then a dead freeman, Strindberg agreed, as did
Nietzsche.. So let us never lose out sense of the sacred if we are
to refrain from the madness of violence.
As to the practical world
I’m a much better speller then when I was a young man – that’s
a joke. I’m not smarter though - I’ve given the following
speech a thousand times – even though it is congruent with the
finest and most recognized minds of academia still I am not asked to
be a columnist for the Television. Boo Hoo. Is it my breath? Should
I have more plastic surgery? Am I talking enough Beta Blockers and
mood enhancers - or is my wig too tight - tune in tomorrow and see.
The basic premise of The
Cyberpunk is simple. The world has moved to a point where the nation
states are no longer feasible guardians of rights or privileges. It’s
not that they don’t want to hand around, just like the old
monarchies liked hanging around, it’s just they are not up to the
task, which is contingent upon increasingly complex decision making.
( See Norman O Brown and Buckminster Fuller)
Primarily to call
yourself a state you need to be able to do two things: collect taxes
and maintain borders. Neither of these requirements is possible in
the modern age and attempts to fulfill these requirements using the
technology of the past are doomed to failure.
In the past, when
money was gold, or even bills there was physical difficulty in moving
it from one place to another. You could sequester it. As national
borders go the advent of the nuclear bomb has made the age old quest
for ever larger empires something of a moot point.
If I was Frank Zappa, the
satirical composer, I’d claim that stupidity played a role in all
this. The US is the wealthiest nation on eath but it’s people are
measurably among the more stupid, number sixteen or so, because as
successful monarchies long realized one of the keys to the retention
of power is the continuance of ignorance.
But I’m not Frank
and what is more, Frank for all his whining was like left wing and
right wing political ranters who make millions on their discontent.
He wasn’t hypercritical per se, but he lived in an era when things
still functions – unlike today when the basics are collapsing.
The Cyberpunk hypothesis
was established by Bill Gibson in Neuromancer. Interestingly that
one book threw down the doors of deception. If you want safety and
food and shelter you can only find it in the arms of the
multinationals and the equity lords. Interestingly enough the
literary movement that cyberpunk spawned did not last. I suggest it’s
because ,ost computer hobbiests do not read scifi novels.
The thing is I
grew up in politics, actually Long Island was republican, Mom was the
secretary to the local receiver of Taxes and my first regular job
after graduating Hofstra University was as a research
analyst/Admininstrator in the Country Criminal Justice Council. I’d
always been reasonably good in math and it was there I got a taste
of how changing economic conditions change behavior in real life. A
series of recessions had swept through the country in the 70’s and
each one, like clockwork, would change the crime patterns
accordingly.
By the time started it
was the middle eighties and that meant the disaster for us that was
Ronald Reagan. It’s important to realize that when we attack
people for saying, as Swift says, “those things that are not the
truth.” We’re really only commenting on the skill sets. Both
sides lied and the speed with which the democrats rolled over and
played dead presaged the willingness of Clinton ten years later to
betray his base.
In the 1820’s an
English commentator, at the dawn of a period where only money counted
and where the criminal court system was noted for it’s insane
brutality said, “The two parties are like two coaches rushing along
a muddy road, occasionally splashing mud on one another but
nevertheless leaving from the same place and bound for the same
destination.” That describes any system where the money is
beginning to run low.
In any case my attitude
is that neither party was correct in calling the other liers but
rather suffered under an all encompassing delusion – a delusion
that for them to forego was more then they could stand emotionally.
It was the idea that, so to speak, a government could serve two
masters.
You can’t serve the
public and big business at the same time. But since business was
paying the bills it could not be denied it’s will. We see this in
microcosm in the entertainment industry. It is not a matter of more
regulations, or a different management styles – it is a trust, a
monopoly and there fore has to be rebuild from the ground up. It
cannot be allowed to continue to exist in it’s present form and
those presently in power, at least, understand what I say quite well
and thus we must expect them to fight back using every power at
their command and using every resource they have – because they
know that this battle, once lost, will leave them with nothing.
I speak from the
vantage of one who grew up summering in the Hamptons. They live well
and are not bad people in any moral sense. They are probably, in most
cases no worse off as humans then those who seek to replace them –
and they see no reason why someone elses family should get the
goodies. I feel for them deeper then they know. This is why I am in
no hurry to facilitate change
Sometimes you think
“Better the devil we know then some new devil” Sometimes we
think as well, “This oppression while harsh is yet bearable”
Actually, like Edmund Burke, I find it hard to remove from my mind
the image of the youthful princess in her paradise.. ,, but then a
voice arises in my head saying “This must not be” and what is
more, if allowed to continue, it will not continue long and the
collapse will be far more painful, deadly even.
After a car crash that
was covered up by the corrupt DA at the behest of Nelson Doubleday I
began to realize that my understanding of events and opportunities
was not shared by my neighbors. The adage about revolution is that it
is not promoted by peasants, but rather by the upper middle class,
who want a share of the power and are locked. That was certainly my
case and I won’t deny it. I wanted a job in a Senators office and
when, as so often the Senator proved himself not up to the task, my
political career ended.
Fortunately after the car
crash my father decided that my living was more important then my
being thought a hard worker and he allowed me to live at his house
for the next few years, a period during which I reverted to my usual
habits of study. It then, about 1990, that I came up a book about
“The Virtual State” and it opened my eyes to the notion that the
cyberpunk scenario was already in place.
Recall we had all
read 1984 and were fearful of such a state, but we missed the primary
thesis, which was the people were unaware they were slaves. It
reminds one of the constant cry of the german survivors of WWII
concerning the camps – “We did not know what was happening”
Reagan threw five hundred thousand people off of social security and
no one noticed?
“The Virtual State”
provided me with a glimpse into the idea that the next incarnation of
government would, of necessity, concern itself only with those it
required to exist – the rest would exist in forms of slavery. The
stain on Americas history has always been slavery, but now it is to
be replaced, by those who cannot compete. Who will have pity on the
fat boy, on the lazy, on the stupid?
Science often seems to
have a cold and unfriendly face, especially when compared with the
loving warmth of myth. But myth can get you killed. A few years back
people were repulsed by the book “The Bell Curve” for daring to
suggest there were actual differences in races. I was one of them
appalled. We’ve heard that story too often and seen it disproved
too often.
But a scientist will tell
you the earth is round, smoking causes cancer and poverty goes hand
in hand with crime. This last assertion I can testify to. People
don’t always steal because of character flaws – they steal
because they are hungry. It’s not rocket science. “The Bell
Curve” described accurately where we are headed in social terms eg
small enclaves of well protected gated communities accessed by
automobile and , at a distance, “Zones of poverty” where the
services needed to keep the underclass alive can all be found within
walking distance.
The rat infested housing,
the drug rehab centers, the food banks, the social service centers,
the second hand clothing stores will all be localized and thus the
peasant population will be incentivized to stay put. There need be
no walls around these conclaves because there will be effectively no
where else to go where they could survive. Should they mount an
attack on the wealthy communities they will be met with high walls,
barbed wire and gunfire.
If you doubt me, look
around, this is the way that banana republics operate. In the third
world it is not the exception but the norm. We could prevent that,
but only if we want to and there is a large and well funded
contingent of forces telling us that is just what we want.
Racial discrimination
has been replaced by economic discrimination. I answer those who
claim this is correct by saying we must judge a scoety not by how it
treats it best, but how it treats its worst off. Old habits die
hard. Still I retain some impulse to “fix” things, but I’ve had
a life time of having doors shut in my face because the social graces
that open all doors ( read family connections) were not mine.
When I lived in a
high value Zip code I’d get phone calls, cold calls from young
chaps eager to sell me investments. I would not trust them as far as
I could throw a piano. One guy asked me if I’d ever heard of
Oppenheimer.
“Sure, I replied,
first nuclear bomb?”
And , of course one
would get the faux gold print on the letter from JP Morgan and Co –
telling me that “Character is what counts” – as if for one
moment they’d consider extending credit to someone on “Character”.
My own feelings was and remains that any company that spends a
fortune telling me how rich they are can’t be that rich and
certainly don’t know the value of a dollar.
The fact is we
been told to do it on our own for a while now. Actually I can make a
case for decent behavior – it’s called human capitol – which
suggests that health and education are good things to promote and
those things which are not the truth are not. But why bother?
You turn your back on me
– I turn my back on you.
The sticking point is
this. It is a devils bargain. We in the non noble class understand
that we cannot as of yet win. It is not a matter of the electoral
process bringing us Tweedle dee and Tweedle Dum. So we agree to
keep moderately quite about things – there’s no sense paying a
heavy cost for nothing – and large scale street demonstrations
would entail such costs.
On the other
hand the empowered few understand that if the dam breaks the flood
will sweep all before it. They hated FDR with a passion so imagine
the antipathy they’d feel towards anyone trying to correct four
decades of mismanagement.
So we wait and hope
things will get better – each side painfully aware that in an era
of limited resources each side can only gain at the others expense.
There is great irony
here. I will digress and tell a story.
There was once a republican
speech writer named Peggy Noonan. How she fell in to the service of
the tyrant we don’t know. Perhaps she sought a long lost father,
maybe it was the money, or may that strange sort of Irish Fascism
that crops up here and there. But anyway she wrote many effective
speeches for the Irish all are known for their gift of the blarney
which stands them good in politics.
Ms Noonan and myself were
roughly contemporary in age, though I’d not wish to ask her hers.
Let’s put it this way = people who
are well read can recognize others of the same breed. It is knowing
the exceptional rare thing that differentiates the smart from the
brilliant. Very often to an average person a brilliant person is
unrecognizable as such – because they don’t catch the
references.
J.R.Rowling is
brilliant because she knows about Gilles de Rais, the man who
allegedly kept the corpses of hundred of murdered infants in his
Paris basement in the middle ages. Most people don’t care to know
about such things, but historians, like cops, develop immunities to
horrors.
So there was a book with
the simple title of “Ancient Greece”. It’s a good bet that it
was in many schools across America, because it covered a wide variety
of material from the culture to the arts and politics. In it was made
reference to “A thousand points of light” that would shine forth
from the Greek democracy. There were other cases of similar phrases
cribbed which found their way into republican speeches over the
years.
The power of the word is
difficult to deny. :”I am the state” said the Sun King. Ich bin
Deutschland said Adolf Hitler. Ich bin ein Berliner” said JFK
(Actually Jack Kennedys grammar was
wrong. It was like saying “The Del Fuegos” where Del is the
Spanish world for “the”. Kennedy applied English grammar. What
is even more amusing is a Berliner is a crème filled pastry. So
more then a few heard the famous words, which he worked on a long
time to learn to pronounce as “I am a crème puff!”
The “Ancient Greece”
textbook was that rare historical with the grace of poetry in it.
The point of course being that the same phrases could have been used
in the service of exactly the opposite cause. It’s like deciding
justice by combat, who one discovers is not truth, but who’s the
better fighter.
So too does a rising
tide lift all boats. Sometimes though in some places criminals would
be chained in the sea and the rising tide drowned them. Let us not
forget then the many who died over the years at the service of a few
seemingly logical words.
And actually God is no fool. Maybe
I don’t have character in terms of good looks or money, but now
that the flood has come and gone I find the highways open an clear
of obstructions.
Tamlin
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