Bill Hicks - R.I.P
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Capitalism
Capitalism is based on commodity production (production of goods for profit) and wage labor (labor power itself bought and sold as a commodity). There is less difference between the slave and the "free" worker than appears. Slaves, though they seem to be paid nothing, are provided with the means of their survival and reproduction, for which workers (who become temporary slaves during their hours of labor) are compelled to pay most of their wages. The fact that some jobs are less unpleasant than others, and that individual workers have the nominal right to switch jobs, start their own business, buy stocks or win a lottery, simply disguises the fact that the vast majority of people are collectively enslaved.
Modern society is centered around the production, distribution and consumption of material goods, rather than the happiness and satisfaction of its participants. Thus, modern man thinks of his life in terms of what he has "to show for it," rather than considering the life itself.
Today's average worker is used to thinking about the ends rather than the means. We spend most of our time and energy working at a job that in all likelihood does not fulfill our dreams. We look forward to payday every two weeks, for we count on our paycheck to make sense out of our lives: without it, we would feel like we were wasting our time. If we didn't look at the "consequences" of our actions as a justification for them, life would be unbearable. Insofar as our everyday experience of life is tedious and meaningless, we need to concentrate on the coming weekend, the next vacation, our next purchases, to fend off insanity. And eventually we are bound to generalize that mode of thinking to other parts of our lives: we come to evaluate possible actions according to the rewards they offer, just as we would evaluate a job according to the wage it offers.
Thus, the present has lost almost all significance for us. Instead we spend our lives always planning for the future: we study for a diploma, rather than for the pleasure of learning; we choose a job for social status, wealth, and "security," rather than for joy; we save our money for big purchases and vacation trips, rather than to buy our way out of wage slavery and into full time freedom.
Capitalist civilization has not yet been superseded anywhere, but it continues to produce its own enemies everywhere. The next rise of the revolutionary movement, radicalized by the lessons of past defeats and with a program enriched in proportion to the practical potentials of modern society, will immediately base itself on new everyday practices and on new types of human relationships.
Never in history has there been such a glaring contrast between what could be and what actually exists.
Those who don't face direct physical repression still have to face the mental repressions imposed by an increasingly mean, stressful, ignorant and ugly world. Those who escape economic poverty cannot escape the general impoverishment of life.
Yet this same development has made it possible to abolish the system of hierarchy and exploitation that was previously based on material scarcity and to inaugurate a new, genuinely liberated form of society.
Our use of the word "revolution" has nothing to do with the repugnant stereotypes that are usually evoked by the word (terrorism, revenge, political coups, manipulative leaders preaching self-sacrifice, zombie followers chanting politically correct slogans).
A liberated society can be created only by the active participation of the people as a whole, not by hierarchical organizations supposedly acting on their behalf. The point is not to choose more honest or "responsive" leaders, but to avoid granting independent power to any leaders whatsoever. Individuals or groups may initiate radical actions, but a substantial and rapidly expanding portion of the population must take part if a movement is to lead to a new society and not simply to a coup installing new rulers.
Modern revolution is all or nothing: individual revolts are bound to fail until an international chain reaction is triggered that spreads faster than repression can close in.
Is such a revolution likely? The odds are probably against it. But most revolutions have been preceded by periods when everyone scoffed at the idea that things could ever change.
Modern society is centered around the production, distribution and consumption of material goods, rather than the happiness and satisfaction of its participants. Thus, modern man thinks of his life in terms of what he has "to show for it," rather than considering the life itself.
Today's average worker is used to thinking about the ends rather than the means. We spend most of our time and energy working at a job that in all likelihood does not fulfill our dreams. We look forward to payday every two weeks, for we count on our paycheck to make sense out of our lives: without it, we would feel like we were wasting our time. If we didn't look at the "consequences" of our actions as a justification for them, life would be unbearable. Insofar as our everyday experience of life is tedious and meaningless, we need to concentrate on the coming weekend, the next vacation, our next purchases, to fend off insanity. And eventually we are bound to generalize that mode of thinking to other parts of our lives: we come to evaluate possible actions according to the rewards they offer, just as we would evaluate a job according to the wage it offers.
Thus, the present has lost almost all significance for us. Instead we spend our lives always planning for the future: we study for a diploma, rather than for the pleasure of learning; we choose a job for social status, wealth, and "security," rather than for joy; we save our money for big purchases and vacation trips, rather than to buy our way out of wage slavery and into full time freedom.
Capitalist civilization has not yet been superseded anywhere, but it continues to produce its own enemies everywhere. The next rise of the revolutionary movement, radicalized by the lessons of past defeats and with a program enriched in proportion to the practical potentials of modern society, will immediately base itself on new everyday practices and on new types of human relationships.
Never in history has there been such a glaring contrast between what could be and what actually exists.
Those who don't face direct physical repression still have to face the mental repressions imposed by an increasingly mean, stressful, ignorant and ugly world. Those who escape economic poverty cannot escape the general impoverishment of life.
Yet this same development has made it possible to abolish the system of hierarchy and exploitation that was previously based on material scarcity and to inaugurate a new, genuinely liberated form of society.
Our use of the word "revolution" has nothing to do with the repugnant stereotypes that are usually evoked by the word (terrorism, revenge, political coups, manipulative leaders preaching self-sacrifice, zombie followers chanting politically correct slogans).
A liberated society can be created only by the active participation of the people as a whole, not by hierarchical organizations supposedly acting on their behalf. The point is not to choose more honest or "responsive" leaders, but to avoid granting independent power to any leaders whatsoever. Individuals or groups may initiate radical actions, but a substantial and rapidly expanding portion of the population must take part if a movement is to lead to a new society and not simply to a coup installing new rulers.
Modern revolution is all or nothing: individual revolts are bound to fail until an international chain reaction is triggered that spreads faster than repression can close in.
Is such a revolution likely? The odds are probably against it. But most revolutions have been preceded by periods when everyone scoffed at the idea that things could ever change.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Fear or Faith
Society is the 'framework' on which we hang political systems. The engine that drives society is very ancient and can be 'made up' to resemble any political system currently in fashion.
There is only one weapon that will prevail against this system of society, if that is your wish ( ?? despite the talk to the contrary, I would tend to think that most people would not understand what it even means to become 'un-domesticated' or 'un-mired' in society) and the weapon is faith.
Faith is the belief of the people in the system. You have the ability to shun what you wish. I worked at a very large electronics firm in the Bay Area Ca, USA and they never fired anyone, they shunned them, no one lasted longer than a month when they were sunned. When the people believed you irrelevant you BECAME that.
Look to the teaching of your teachers, Jesus, Ghandi, etc. They teach you faith, but you mistake it for religion. Wake UP!!
Faith is you bringing (birthing) the reality you wish into the world. It is God's gift to you to use as you please, it is free will, it is the beginning of all things. Faith is currently sidelined by fear, you can not have faith and fear at the same time.
People, use your faith to make this world better in whatever way you choose it to be! This is not mumbo jumbo, if you take a second to examine carefully 'faith' as a concept you will see that you already are completely pulled into existence through your own set of 'faiths'. Faith in money, faith in honesty, faith in truth.
The betrayal of these faiths is a system designed to weaken you and disable your faith generating power, and the power that you have to effect change.
If you loose your faith now, you and the generations that all come after you will be slaves to the NWO. The only people who will still have faith will be those on 'top' of the NWO and because they will hold the key to creation and the birth of reality, they will create you as slaves forever.
Decide!!...fear or faith. Hope means NOTHING. Fear or faith. Decide, my world...
(unknown author)
There is only one weapon that will prevail against this system of society, if that is your wish ( ?? despite the talk to the contrary, I would tend to think that most people would not understand what it even means to become 'un-domesticated' or 'un-mired' in society) and the weapon is faith.
Faith is the belief of the people in the system. You have the ability to shun what you wish. I worked at a very large electronics firm in the Bay Area Ca, USA and they never fired anyone, they shunned them, no one lasted longer than a month when they were sunned. When the people believed you irrelevant you BECAME that.
Look to the teaching of your teachers, Jesus, Ghandi, etc. They teach you faith, but you mistake it for religion. Wake UP!!
Faith is you bringing (birthing) the reality you wish into the world. It is God's gift to you to use as you please, it is free will, it is the beginning of all things. Faith is currently sidelined by fear, you can not have faith and fear at the same time.
People, use your faith to make this world better in whatever way you choose it to be! This is not mumbo jumbo, if you take a second to examine carefully 'faith' as a concept you will see that you already are completely pulled into existence through your own set of 'faiths'. Faith in money, faith in honesty, faith in truth.
The betrayal of these faiths is a system designed to weaken you and disable your faith generating power, and the power that you have to effect change.
If you loose your faith now, you and the generations that all come after you will be slaves to the NWO. The only people who will still have faith will be those on 'top' of the NWO and because they will hold the key to creation and the birth of reality, they will create you as slaves forever.
Decide!!...fear or faith. Hope means NOTHING. Fear or faith. Decide, my world...
(unknown author)
Religion and Money
To reflect on the relationship of religion to money, there is no better starting-point than “to go beyond time.” In returning to the origin of the question, we may find a grain of truth and thus turn towards the remedy for an otherwise intractable problem. Countless volumes have appeared about the Church’s attitude to war and sex but very little has been written about money.
William Desmonde shows that in some ancient cultures money was used as a symbol to replace food in sacrificial communion rituals. Participation in the meal implied a bond of loyalty with other members of the group and signified also entering into a covenant with the deity. Each communicant received a particular portion of the sacrificial flesh corresponding to his standing in the community.
When money of different denominations began to be used in place of the portions of food, the establishment of a contractual relationship between two individuals at first retained traces of the original bond of religious loyalty among participants in the same communion, with impersonal bargaining replacing the patriarchal redistribution of foods among the brotherhood.
In any case, there is good reason to suppose that money was originally a sacred device created by religious authority to facilitate the exchange of necessities in an expanding society. MORE
William Desmonde shows that in some ancient cultures money was used as a symbol to replace food in sacrificial communion rituals. Participation in the meal implied a bond of loyalty with other members of the group and signified also entering into a covenant with the deity. Each communicant received a particular portion of the sacrificial flesh corresponding to his standing in the community.
When money of different denominations began to be used in place of the portions of food, the establishment of a contractual relationship between two individuals at first retained traces of the original bond of religious loyalty among participants in the same communion, with impersonal bargaining replacing the patriarchal redistribution of foods among the brotherhood.
In any case, there is good reason to suppose that money was originally a sacred device created by religious authority to facilitate the exchange of necessities in an expanding society. MORE
The War Against Nature
The most violent and widespread war in human history has been taking place for more than 5,000 years. It has been waged in more places than any other war, yet the majority of its atrocities goes unreported. Some deny the war even exists. Sadly, the international peace and justice movement gives it little attention, perhaps because everyone has grown used to it. Our lifestyles contribute to this war in various degrees and it may be that our complicity creates a measure of denial. This war is, of course, against the Earth; against Nature. As humans, many of us indoctrinated in Western materialistic culture and values, we participate on some level. MORE
The words that make you free
What if I told you that every danger you might worry about – poverty, drugs, crime, war, terror, the Devil himself – is possibly fake? MORE
From Wikipedia
Leap of Faith - a leap of faith, in its most commonly used meaning, is the act of believing in or accepting something intangible or unprovable, or without empirical evidence. It is an act commonly associated with religious belief as many religions consider faith to be an essential element of piety.
The phrase is commonly attributed to Søren Kierkegaard; however, he himself never used the term, as he referred to a leap as a leap to faith. A leap of faith according to Kierkegaard involves circularity insofar as a leap is made by faith.
In his book The Concept of Anxiety, he describes the core part of the leap of faith, the leap. He does this using the famous story of Adam and Eve, particularly Adam's qualitative leap into sin. Adam's leap signifies a change from one quality to another, mainly the quality of possessing no sin to the quality of possessing sin.
Kierkegaard maintains that the transition from one quality to another can take place only by a "leap" (Thomte 232). When the transition happens, one moves directly from one state to the other, never possessing both qualities.
The phrase is commonly attributed to Søren Kierkegaard; however, he himself never used the term, as he referred to a leap as a leap to faith. A leap of faith according to Kierkegaard involves circularity insofar as a leap is made by faith.
In his book The Concept of Anxiety, he describes the core part of the leap of faith, the leap. He does this using the famous story of Adam and Eve, particularly Adam's qualitative leap into sin. Adam's leap signifies a change from one quality to another, mainly the quality of possessing no sin to the quality of possessing sin.
Kierkegaard maintains that the transition from one quality to another can take place only by a "leap" (Thomte 232). When the transition happens, one moves directly from one state to the other, never possessing both qualities.
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