Once in a Blue Agave Moon: chapter 38

What is the meaning and value of Money?

With the advent of the repeated pandemics starting in 2020, came an almost crippling downturn of the economy to a point that virtually all working class people were facing bankruptcy, hunger, or worse. 

Long before the Armageddon (computer) Virus took all the virtual money away from the Western Banking System, it became necessary to re-assess the difference between what was of value and what was not.

During the first pandemic, farmers poured out milk, and plowed crops back into the ground as the specter of famine stared  back into their faces in the midst of world-wide shortages elsewhere. Markets closed down; there was no one to transport the goods, and no place to take them.

Meat packing plants had to be shut down because the workers were making each other sick, resulting in animals being destroyed and meat being sent to landfills, because it was too expensive to either feed them or even freeze their carcasses, and no one to do it.

Desperate families seeking some form of relief from food banks often faced shortages and lines several miles long.

For the first time in over one hundred years, “Oil Futures” suddenly went from over one hundred dollars a barrel to being worth less than nothing, as the cost of their storage exceeded their present value when demand plummeted in a world of quarantine and isolation.

In 2008, when the Real Estate and Stock markets tanked, the government bailed out the banks, while the banks foreclosed on their mortgages, leaving entire blocks of homes uninhabited. 

This should have created a renter’s market, but because the banks owned the homes, they let them sit, rot, and develop black mold, eventually rendering them uninhabitable (declaring them as a loss against other profits later to lower their taxes even further), thereby allowing the price of rents to skyrocket.

Because the blatant fallacies of “trickle-down economics” could no longer be perpetrated upon voters, the legislature proposed to infuse the general economy with money paid directly to people who were previously employed, so as to allow them to continue to pay their bills, creating secondary and tertiary effects within the economy as the money changed hands again and again within their own communities.

It just wasn’t enough, because the stimulus packages were just another way for Congress to placate the public, as if to jingle their car-keys to make the baby stop crying while hedge-fund investors sucked up the money supposedly designated for small businesses and the President fired the Inspector General that was supposed to oversee the much larger sums of money allocated to protect industries that needed little, if any protection.

If anything, the Public should have been protected from the major corporations…(as well as the President and his cronies).

It took several more pandemics before those abuses could be identified and eliminated.

No longer would the populace accept believing that whatever fell from the tables of the mega-wealthy was all that they deserved because after all, it was they who performed the labor, marketed and transported, as well as stocked and sold the goods that they in turn paid for yet again to the same system, so as to buy back what they had already produced.

And yet, for every job lost, each new virus created more and more jobs in public health departments, testing laboratories, and manufacturers of anything medically-related.

Anyone who could use a computer to work from home did so.

They were still slaves however, being simply traded from one master to another.

Even small brick and mortar operations found ways to flourish, and servers became delivery personnel, or telephone and internet order takers, or else they suffered the consequences.

For over one hundred years, the culture and economy of the United States was carried on the backs of its workers, not its owners, through numerous World Wars, Police Actions, Interventions, a Great Depression and innumerable recessions.

The American people rose to the challenge, answered the call, performed the duties, made the sacrifices, and all the while the owners reaped the profits.

Eventually, populist politicians managed to convince voters that it was not nearly as important how much the government spent as it was what they spent it on, and how they spent it.

Enough “Trickle Down Economics”. It felt more like “Golden Showers” if you were dependent upon being on the receiving end.

The country had to finally face the fact that it was cheaper to provide the restorative interim money, training and recruitment for its citizens, and let them pay their own bills, so that they didn’t need to fund every major corporation that claimed that it needed life support instead.

Throughout all of that time, the only common thread that ran through all of it was Money.

But what is Money, really? Pieces of paper, denoting the value of some coin of the realm of wherever you happen to be?

Even Atheists believe in Money, despite the fact that the similarities of both belief systems needed Faith to support such a thinly proven existence.

So, if someone works for an employer for X number of hours, the employer agrees to pay them Y amount of money, which is a symbolic representation of what they have chosen for which to sell that particular portion of their Life in the belief that some time in the future, when they need or want to buy something, they can trade some of what they sold their life for to someone who will accept this symbolic representation of value as payment for whatever it is that someone else is trying to sell that they want.

From the earliest times, gold, silver, and precious gems have so hypnotized mankind that they will lie, cheat, forge, fuck, hurt, or even kill to get more of it, or at the very least, some form of symbolic representation of it.

The disassociation created between these symbolic representations of Wealth and Reality is because all the wealth of the entire world is not worth your life, or the time of your days, your desires, and your loves, or ultimately, your consciousness, and the reality that you create within your perceptions.

Now imagine a world where the only real wealth is determined by your ability to manipulate your environment by virtue of your intelligence, your sapience, your strength, determination and perseverance.

A world where you could only keep what you could control and maintain.

No need for money. If you can’t find or make something yourself you can barter or trade something you have or something that you can make or even for your knowledge, in trade for something that you want.

You can’t eat gold; it won’t keep you warm. Silver cannot slake your thirst, even for power, and no one has ever built a house entirely out of precious metals, and the only “shelters” built by them were Tax Shelters.

Same thing for precious gemstones, except that although diamonds are nine times more plentiful than emeralds, their prices were artificially controlled by the De Beers cartel, and the precedents they set have remained for years afterward.

This is the difference between real value and market value.

Of course this is a ridiculously simplistic concept that is baseless within the reality created by Mankind’s infatuation with the Illusion of Value.

But what if one day, you woke up and found out that all of the days of your life that you had traded for virtual Money, suddenly had disappeared into the virtual reality of a now-defunct internet?

And what if the day after that you realized that you had been bamboozled into trading all of your Instincts for Reason when you could have had them both all along?

The perfect atmosphere for Simplicity.

Sometimes it is hard to distinguish Satire or even Facetiousness from Sarcasm.

Sometimes it makes no difference; sometimes there is no difference.

Sometimes all that it needs to do is encourage you to think. 

Namasté

नमस्ते

Chazz Vincent

copyright  ©  March 12th, 2021  

Fish swim with the tides, in and out of the lagoon as it empties itself, receives from, and flows back into the sea.

*ALL REFERENCES TO ANY PERSONS CONFIRMED STILL LIVING IS PURELY CO-INCIDENTAL…AND THE DEAD ARE TOO BUSY LAUGHING AT US TO CARE.

PS: After all, in the midst of the perfection of the Garden of Eden, there was no need for money…(and no need to put a mustache on the Buddha either.)

Once in a Blue Agave Moon: One Nation Verboten

“As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”

(H. L. Mencken, writing for the Baltimore Evening Sun on 26 July 1920)

Although this quote was written many years before, it was not until the election of George W. Bush to the presidency that it seemed that indeed, the “chickens had finally come home to roost”  and Mencken’s prophesy had in fact been fulfilled,

This was followed shortly thereafter by a change in the economy from the first (inherited) budget surplus in almost one hundred years into a seventeen trillion dollar deficit, and the near-collapse of the American, and eventually, World Economies whose bailout was carried on the backs of the working Middle-Class to protect the privileges of those whose short-sighted greed and excess had caused it.

(It would have been far cheaper and more logical after all, to put the bankers and the legislators who abetted them in jail, buy the houses from the banks at cost, rather than at their added ballon-payment interest rates, and let the people pay back the same government that would have saved the bankers, rather than their homes, for instance.)

But of course, the nationalization of that much real estate to do something effective to aid our own people and save the economy without regard to the protection of a corrupt group of privileged insiders would undoubtedly end up being labeled as “Socialist” and we have already been conditioned to hate even a little potential Communism far more than an endless amount of Corruption.

But it wasn’t until the election of 2016 that perhaps the most sinister aspect of that predication, which had somehow gone unnoticed became glaringly apparent, although it is in the first, not the last sentence that our doom was prophesied.

“…As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people…”

It took the mind of an only marginally intelligent or sane home-grown political strategist who had built his fortunes upon treachery, lies, smoke and mirrors, emotional drama, blackmail, dis-information, denial and fraud, being totally without any scruples, and little substance to mange to become a culture-hero able to align and rally paranoid, anti-intellectual religious simpletons, racists, jingoistic xenophobes, misogynists and most businessmen into one unified voting body politic in order to get himself elected to the presidency of a country so full of angry, fearful, superstitious and mean-spirited pricks that his victory was guaranteed long before the first ballot was cast.

And “the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last….”

(Even if only by being at best considered by too many who saw him as “the lesser of two evils.”)

Given the choice between even a nominally intellectual or educated usurper of the will of the people, with her own history of fraud, lies and deceptions who at least preached tolerance and understanding, and a clearly unbalanced and emotionally retarded snake-oil salesman:

…Always bet on large groups of stupid people to do the bidding of the sort of cynical crook who will convince them of things he himself does not believe, but thinks they are ignorant enough to accept.

…Always bet on those charlatans to channel the hatred, fear, and resentments of those so enslaved by their own beliefs that they profess to even love their collars and chains; who will do no end of evil at his bidding and surrender the very rights they profess to love, to protect what they are allowed to call their freedom.

…To never underestimate the potential for the tyranny of evil men to prevail.

(After all, many, if not most of the entire animal kingdom will go so far as to kill or even eat each other under the right circumstances allowed by their respective tribe or pack, much like what humans call Justifiable Homicide.)

Animals however, rarely kill anything they don’t eat, (except for the males, whenever mating rights or territory are involved) and they don’t have to hate their dinner in order to kill or eat it.

It should not have surprised the Liberal/Intellectual Left-Behinds that no matter how blatantly false or illogical the pronouncements or actions of this Mussolini-esque harlequin, no matter how loud their protests or indignations (as well as those of the rest of the world), nothing changed amongst his supporters, who managed to keep him in power and seemed as ubiquitous as Christ on the Cross, Mickey Mouse, and Coca-Cola.

…And their anger, hatred and fear was as vast and unlimited as the Pacific.

Then, suddenly, several months before his re-election, in the middle of what promised to be the mother of all last stands of liberal opposition determined to prevent his re-election (which was undoubtedly doomed to yet another crushing failure), within three days time, first the Federal Reserve Banks were destroyed and rendered radioactive by terrorists for almost purely psychological purposes, and then The Armageddon Virus drained the world banking systems of all of their collective assets, and finally rendered the entire Internet, as well as any and all computers using it useless.

Much like Stuxnet, it contained many interlocking Zero-Day vulnerabilities and Doomsday self-destruct sequences targeting not only the computers themselves, but also any equipment connected to or controlled by it.

In a world devoid of either computers, Faith, or Money, the infrastructure of the Western world collapsed in less than a week, with no police or troops to control the riots or looting, and no firemen to put out the flames or paramedics to take anyone to the failed hospital systems.

No public safety, public or private schools, electricity, clean running water, solid waste treatment plants, mass transit, mass media, or grocery stores, but plenty of mass hysteria.

No Social Security. No unemployment compensation or disability checks. No public dole of any kind.

By the time that he became the first president to commit suicide, there was no news media in any form to report it, few interested in reading it, and no one ready to step up to the plate to assume the chain of command of a wrecked nation in flames.

Of course, it was only a matter of time before the natural ascendancy of self-determination, ruthless pragmatism, life-sustaining skill-sets, and as always, blind luck and questionable circumstances would produce the leaders, movers and shakers, producers and reapers of the boundless opportunities created by way of mass economic re-distribution, but it would be an agonizingly long time at best.

And maybe…just maybe for the first time since the beginnings of recorded history, it would not be determined by wealth, position, social status or privilege, inherited aristocracies or fortunes, sex, race, religious, or ethnic affiliation…at least not at first.

(Keep in mind, it’s not so much that human nature was changed all that much, but it would of course, take time to establish who’s gang was the most powerful; even if only for the fleetest blink of a second, that field was leveled long enough to provide a window of opportunity for the truly smartest and the fittest to not only survive, but flourish and thrive….)

This is the type of self-determinism that would have given Heinlein an erection (were he still alive) while he tried to use “the present state of affairs” to explain to the ghost of Ayn Rand the paucities of Objectivism, now that Reverse Evolution had been stopped dead in its tracks.

In the blink of an eye, the perspectives of nearly every living human on the planet changed, although generally in proportion to just how much privilege they had lost.

Americans, the most pampered and spoiled of all, went from whining about pay raises, real or imagined sarcasms, their feelings of low self-esteem, their endless blame-shifting and refusal to accept responsibility for their own present circumstances,  feeling unappreciated or undervalued, or the insensitive remarks of anyone in general, to being genuinely thankful for not being killed, raped, and/or eaten, let alone worrying from where their next meal was to come.

They had taken so much for granted for so long that they forgot:

> how good it is just to not be a part of the food chain, or

what it takes to be a real top predator.

> what it’s like to be totally dependent upon and responsible for their own thoughts and actions to determine the length and quality of their lives.

> that nothing is either forgiven or forgotten, much less guaranteed.

> that you do not require forgiveness for Sins invented and created in someone else’s image.

> that only your family, clan, or tribe will be there to pick you up and help you get back on your feet when you fall…if you are lucky.

> …the rest will only be there to pick your pockets and bones.

> that every day is Judgement Day.

> that no amount of money will replace the memory of your everyday lives as your family grew up and you grew old, or the fact that you learned to value it too late.

> what they gave up when they traded their lives for money, and their Instincts for Reason.

> that they don’t have to ask permission, apologize, or face denial of their rights of freedom and movement to pursue their desires.

Yes, undoubtedly, most people in very poor health would not suffer for very long, with no money to be made by keeping them alive like vegetables on a farm, or by planting them elsewhere for longer periods in smaller, far more expensive patches of real estate with only lawn maintenance to be factored.

Yes, it was also found to be true that many of the diseases and maladies of their artificially increased lifespans were induced by a lack of exercise, bloodless violence, stress, and thankless pursuits of objectives completely removed from their own activities of daily living, perhaps even giving credence to long-debunked myths about how your conscience somehow punished you for your own wrongdoing and its associated, accumulated guilt.

They learned that by eating or drinking too much to try to subvert appetites for other more natural, and life-affirming pursuits, one induces or at least encourages Type II diabetes, congestive heart failure, and hypertension.

…that “Only in America” could a “Couch Potato,”  let alone a six-hundred pound human incapable of feeding itself exist at all.

…or that no medication can cure the depression caused by the paralyzing realization of the falseness, emptiness, and futility of anyone’s life unless they take arms against a sea of tormentors and the slings and arrows of outrageous fortunes bred by false desires, ignorance, addictions, and suffering.

And finally, most, if not almost all of the money they became convinced they needed to buy possessions to fill holes in their spirits as big as Existentialism itself was as unnecessary as the imaginary false Hierarchy of the (New) Needs by which they had been hypnotized or the long-gone understanding or memory of Maslow’s originals.

They soon realized that lofty ideals alone would not protect anyone, because Enlightenment and Compassion can only stay the executioner’s hand when it is under the control of the victor.

First, one has to survive in order to live long enough to savor one’s existence. Sentience, Enlightenment and Compassion are acquired tastes.

A more accurate modern translation of René Descartes’ original hypothesis might have instead been “I think, therefore I desire that which I do not need, thereby I suffer in pain, and fear, and therefore I am.”

“God (sic) protect me from all the Good People…especially your followers.” (unk. origin). The depth of their self-righteous hatred, fear and evil knows no bounds.

So much for “…the inner soul of the people…”

Be careful what you wish for.

Sayonara Y’all…

Namasté

नमस्ते

Chazz Vincent

06/16/2017

(out-of-sequence; chapter tbd later…also please keep in mind that true to my own genre of Enhanced and Fortified Non-Fiction, this piece starts in my somewhat altered reality of the here and now as well as the there and then before launching into the indulgences of my apocryphal visions of what the future may hold.)

Once in a Blue Agave Moon: (unk. chapter, out of sequence, tbd)

Jed Drummond awoke to the smell of coffee and bacon. It had been a long day’s journey to reach their camp; a temporary outpost so far off the beaten path as not to be discovered, it afforded safety in its isolation and a hidden underground larder of fuel and other supplies that would be needed for the last leg of his journey.

It was one of many FBO’s (fixed base of operations) that he used to conduct his business ventures.

By the time he had pitched his tent and set up camp, he was exhausted. Thankfully he slept undisturbed for longer than he could remember. It was so quiet that the dog had not even barked once.

He had slept most of the night in the “dreamless sleep of the dead,” as he called it, and it wasn’t until early morning that he began to dream of earlier, simpler times so easy as to be taken for granted; so much so that they were more conspicuous in their absence than when their luxury was everywhere amidst a sea of humanity drowning in its discontent.

As he slowly awoke, like a fish coming to the surface from the bottom of the sea, he heard soft feminine voices in hushed tones and the occasional clink or clatter one would associate with breakfast’s preparations.

This alone was such a luxury as he had not known for a very long time. He was usually the first to awake, and until recently, more often than not, alone. Although rarely wanting for company, he had chosen to live alone ever since his divorce, more years ago than he cared to remember.

Phrases like “familiarity breeds contempt” or “absence makes the heart grow fonder” had been his guiding principles in times when the ambience of loneliness wafted like a heavy musk amongst the desperate souls trying fill a void that could not be displaced by money, security, or objects.

In the process, he had lost contact with all of his closest friends, mostly women, who grew weary of waiting for him to “seal the deal” despite the fact that he believed that somehow, circumstances even he could not foresee would bring them back together again.

He believed they all needed time and space to mature and learn life lessons they would never experience willingly at each other’s hands within the smothering, stifling influences of either marriage or even monogamy.

More than once, he had begun to doubt those beliefs, but there was no way to turn back the clock, and he already knew that the only thing worse than the pangs of solitude was the suffocating tandem loneliness bereft of privacy or independence that two resentful souls, each a prisoner of the other’s misguided and fearful intentions could inflict upon each other in the name of Love.

He was right that there was no way for him to turn back the hands of time, but the Armageddon Virus had effectively stopped the clock of Western civilization dead in its tracks.

A misguided, digital, binary Jihad launched by opportunists who invoked the name of Allah to distort the teachings of Islam, fed by the endless provocations of those who would use the names of their gods to fuel an endless spiral of hatred and violence on both sides, it had seemed the End of Days was upon them all.

Yet beyond that, it was pure chance that had brought them back together.

As he awoke this morning, finally realizing how much he now cherished this Here and Now moment amongst newly reunited old friends brought together by circumstance and common cause, this gratitude he felt was so overwhelming that he sighed deeply, eyes still unopened as he felt a lump grow in his  throat.

For years, he had not allowed himself the luxury of tears, whether of joy or sorrow. “Men don’t cry.” He had been raised to believe their was something wrong with him, even as a child, when circumstances too sorrowful for words had prompted him to allow his weakness to show, until early in his twenties, when his mother had died and his father, the toughest, yet kindest man he had ever known suddenly wept like a baby in front of him.

It so unnerved him that they never spoke of it again, until his father passed away, leaving him overcome with self-contempt over the most basic of human emotions.

Now, years later, in a world of chaos, loss, death, and despair, it had become the Tears of Joy that had been the hardest to suppress. Ironically, it had taken the collapse of Western civilization to put him in touch with an abiding sense of gratitude that permeated every blossom, or cool breeze, sip of clean water, or kind face he saw wherever he looked.

But old habits are hard to break, and as The Three Winds (as he called them) parted the flaps of his tent, bringing with them coffee, breakfast, and cannabis, he laughed and shook his head, coughing lightly to mask how glad he was just to be alive, right here, right now.

Namasté

नमस्ते

Chazz Vincent

copyright  ©  March 13th, 2021  

Fish swim with the tides, in and out of the lagoon as it empties itself, receives from, and flows back into the sea.

*ALL REFERENCES TO ANY PERSONS CONFIRMED STILL LIVING IS PURELY CO-INCIDENTAL…AND THE DEAD ARE TOO BUSY LAUGHING AT US TO CARE.

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Once in a Blue Agave Moon: A Modest Proposal

Chapter Fourteen Part One

Don’t forget that Elliott was there to witness Jed introduce himself to Chianna. He was also there to watch Jed, just by virtue of being his natural self, not only become completely distracted, but to also find himself speechless in the presence of his wife, who appeared to be equally spellbound by Jed.

There was nothing contrived within it, no way to rehearse for the performance. It was  true, and real, and honest. It would be safe to say that the four people who were there were equally unprepared and surprised.

There was nothing Jed did to provoke what happened, at least consciously, and nothing that could be said in derision of Chiana’s reactions, which were equally honest and without fault.

Most people would be angry, or feel threatened, but Elliott and Chianna were most definitely not most people, and that connection between Jed and Chianna was something that could neither be denied nor ignored.

It just was.

It would take some time to adjust to this most recent development, but in the meantime, jealousy and insecurity would only confuse and confound their abilities to reconcile it.

In the awkward silence that followed, suddenly Leigh-Anne snapped them all out of it In a way that only she seemed to be able to do.

“Soooooo…Jed, was there a question in there, somewhere, or were you about to make a point of some kind about something?”

“…uh…I’m sure there was, but for the life of me, I can’t remember….” Jed grinned sheepishly, but gave no evidence of any feelings of guilt.

Neither he nor Chianna had any reason to feel guilty, and they knew Elliott well enough to know that full disclosure was the only acceptable mode of operation.

“Pleased to meet you, Jed.” Chianna said as she held out her hand to Jed.

“Likewise, Chianna” He said as he politely took her hand as one might do at a formal dinner, and then very ceremoniously bowed at the waist, and lightly kissed her hand. Chianna hoped no one could see the shiver that ran up her arm, across to her spine and down to her most tender parts.

There was no way that any of them could un-remember what they had just  watched take place.

“Well!, What a relief! And to think that I was worried that you two wouldn’t get along…”  Elliott managed to find a way to give them all an opportunity to laugh, albeit somewhat uncomfortably, which effectively de-fused the bomb.

It was also his way of letting everyone know that, in addition to not being blind or stupid, that he possessed the wherewithal to remember that Jed was his best friend, as was his wife Chianna.

When we try to fight or resist the reality of our present circumstances, we not only create, but we also guarantee our own misery.

When we embrace anything less than the plain, unvarnished truth, we invite falsehood, delusion, and self-deception.

The actions we choose, as well as the emotions that give birth to those actions will compel the  outcome of what will follow more than any other single factor.

Sometimes we succeed in the face of what had looked like inevitable failure by way of extraordinary effort, or of sheer dumb luck, and no effort, but whatever happens, the only way we can ever hope to find any peace, as well as the love we deserve is to accept the Here and Now, and then govern our actions accordingly in the present moment.

We have no control over the Past, but even if you believe you can prepare for your future, you have to accept what is, as it is now.

The Heart seeks what the heart wants, despite the rules or conventions our minds try to create so as to deny out of fear what is or what might be.

“Elliott, where ever are our manners? I’m sure our friends must be hungry and thirsty after their ride here…” Chianna was quick to follow Elliott’s lead.

“I don’t want to sound pushy, but I also think we could use a nice hot bath, but if you can tolerate eight hours worth of accumulated sweat and road grime long enough to let us eat and drink first, we would love a meal.” Rebel said as she and Aimée walked up together. “As I remember, Doc is one hell of a good cook.”

“Absolutely! There’s plenty to drink, and I barbecued last night, so you can have your pick of ribs, brisket, chicken, roast pork or gator tail.” Elliott said.

“And we also have sweet tea, ice water, and plenty of fresh fruit  juices, or I can make coffee for anyone who wants it…” Chianna added. “but no more soft drinks…unfortunately, sometimes I get a craving for a Coke, or a ginger ale, but…I guess they were just more corollary damage from the Armageddon Virus…..”

“Plus we have home-brewed beer, a few varieties of wine, and what can pass for any kind of whiskey you like.” Elliott said as he waved his hand toward the buildings that occupied their compound.

“So I hear. Did you know that you have a very elite cult following of admirers of your distilled spirits?” Jed asked.

“Really? I have bartered and traded a few gallons here and there for materials and supplies or parts when we needed something we couldn’t make or do without, but I always do our business off-premises and I don’t even want anybody to know where we are, or what we do here.”

“Trust me, Elliott; it was not easy find you. I have spent the last six months trying to track you down, before I even realized it was you, but let’s talk about all that later after we get out of this hot sun…oh and by the way Chianna, If you want any kind of soft drink…even Yoo Hoo or Squirt, I can probably get it for you .” 

“Really? Weren’t all those bottling plants shut down?” she queried.

“They were, but they’re still some large caches of all sorts of things in warehouses that can be bartered; I have developed a network of suppliers and buyers for almost anything you can think of, or desire. It is at least part of the reason we came here, but not the most important one, by any means.”

“Perhaps we can discuss it at length when we get inside while we eat.” Chianna gently placed her left hand behind Jed’s right bicep to gently grasp the inside of his arm as she began to walk with him.

“Well then, just follow us and we’ll get y’all fed before we give you the grand tour.” Elliott was smiling faintly at Chianna and Jed as he turned to Aimée, Rebel, and Leigh-Anne. As he walked a few steps backward, he gave them the sign to follow him, palm up hand extended making an arc up toward his face.

“What about my dog?” Rebel asked. “He’s well-trained, and gets along with  people and other animals as long as they behave themselves.”

“No problem” said Elliot. “He’ll fit in fine with our critters, and we have plenty for him to eat too. Did I hear you call him Mordecai?”

“Yeah, that’s right, it’s supposed to mean ‘Warrior’  but once I introduce you to him we’ll all be fine.”

Rebel called Mordecai over and they all did a  ‘good touch’ to introduce themselves before they went into the kitchen/dining area.

Namasté

नमस्ते

Chazz Vincent

copyright  ©  March 13th, 2021  

Fish swim with the tides, in and out of the lagoon as it empties itself, receives from, and flows back into the sea.

*ALL REFERENCES TO ANY PERSONS CONFIRMED STILL LIVING IS PURELY CO-INCIDENTAL…AND THE DEAD ARE TOO BUSY LAUGHING AT US TO CARE.

Once in a Blue Agave Moon: A New Home at the End of the World

Chapter eight, part 2

Imagine if cyber-terrorists had just hit the “reset” button on everything you had ever known or could imagine. Money was now only a theoretical construct and all the infrastructure upon which you had depended so much that you took it for granted no longer existed.

No job.

No employers.

Paper money was suddenly worthless and whatever you thought you had in the bank had evaporated overnight…and gold?…if you can’t eat it, can’t fuck it, and it can’t keep you warm or shelter you…what’s it really worth? Its true value is a sham that has hypnotized Man since nearly  the beginning of time.

No electricity.

No safe drinking water.

No Police or Emergency Services.

Every neighborhood swarming with murderers, robbers, rapists, and cannibals who lacked either the imagination or knowledge for self-sufficiency.

Do you dig in your heels, and barricade yourself in the midst of it all like Omega Man? Or do you gather whatever is now of real value to you and bid adieu to everything else and set out to re-discover sanctuary and re-invent the pursuit of happiness?

For almost all of North America, a job which was your work, or rather your place of work; your place of business, was where you labored for most of your life in order to be paid money by an employer to whom you were dependent, who required you to do something essentially disconnected from your actual activities of daily living in order to be able to pay others to provide you with whatever was considered necessary to live your lives and support your families.

Your jobs often enabled you to create an identity that often determined how you thought, what you felt, and who you thought you were.

Is it any wonder that this disconnection between a job that consumed not only almost all of your energy and time, and the actual work of your life, but also your very image of who you thought you were could create the angst of the great existential void that has plagued Modern Man?

What do you really want? What is essential and non-negotiable? Do you possess the knowledge and can you find or make the materials and supplies to create it out of nothing in the middle of nowhere? Is it sustainable? How would you replenish it if necessary?

After food and clean water to drink, what comes next?

Do you prefer a shelter that is substantial, spacious and sturdy enough to withstand the harshest weather conditions in your newfound home, or is the portability concomitant with a nomadic life better suited to your needs?

Somewhere within that definition, the issue of safety would have to be addressed.

In a dysphoric, dystopian and hostile world, self-defense would be essential to self-determination.

Isolation and enough insular space would preclude unexpected intrusions, but the common interests of people of like mind with whom you would mutually entrust your life and safety would provide some degree of specialization and non-redundant support.

How much personal comfort do you require? Are you capable of maintaining it if you had to provide it for yourself?

What about HVAC and refrigeration? In Florida, heating needs would be minimal, but air conditioning, once considered a luxury would seem as important as heat would be in more Northern climates.

It is exhausting to be either too hot or too cold indoors or outside for any length of time.

Either way, some amount of electricity or fuel for heating and/or air conditioning would be required for this. Would you know how to generate it? Wind and solar power can be very viable and sustainable options, for electric production, especially in Florida, but a thorough knowledge of the technology and maintenance of the equipment (as well as possession of it) would be required.

As long as excessive transmission lines are minimized, DC power and storage batteries would be useful in providing lighting for instance, and solar heating of water would minimize the requirements for alternating current, as well as the need for as much fuel to power AC generating systems.

Man may have lived for thousands of years without refrigeration, but the quality of life has been greatly enhanced since its invention.

Fuel for heating, cooking and transportation, once taken for granted, becomes essential in a world entirely of your own creation. What would you use? How would you get it or produce it, and would it be sustainable?

Aside from potable drinking water, what about washing, laundry and bathing? If you would prefer it to be available, even hot when needed at the simple turn of a faucet, could you design and maintain a safe and hygienic system?

Cisterns and wells require filtration and disinfection. All possible methods and means of preventing contamination of ground water would be essential to good health and a high quality of life.

Along with running water comes the matter of disposal of wastewater (often referred to as “grey water” regarding laundry and bathing) as well as sewage, garbage, and trash. Remember…in your own world of your creation, nothing can be taken for granted.

Composting of garbage and sewage could provide not only fertilizer, but also the the material for the production of methane gas for those with the ambition and knowledge to turn their trash into treasure.

Serious consideration would have to be given to the control of insects, vermin, rodents and predatory animals. A symbiotic relationship with cats, dogs, and even certain varieties of snakes could help establish a mutualistic environment that embraces the cycle of life, rather than death by pesticides and poisons.

Even creatures as benign as ladybugs are far more useful than pesticides for controlling aphids for instance.

There are few electronic security systems more reliable than dogs.

As incredible as it may seem, some factories have been using geese to detect intruders and provide an alert set off by the racket they create.

Somewhere within your new community, hogs, chickens and ducks can provide not only meat and eggs but they also can be fed items normally discarded by humans, and their manure can be used not only as fertilizer, but also be used to produce methane gas.

“Waste not, want not”…n’est pas?.

Although food was an assumed given at the start of this discussion, what would you eat, and how would you get it?

Hunting and fishing would most likely be necessary to provide meat for protein, but the grains and vegetables that provide starches, sugars and carbohydrates require either gathering or cultivation.

Just as the cycle of life had been disrupted almost to the point of collapse on both land and sea due to mankind’s shortsighted and greedy agendas, so must it be maintained and respected once you become as completely self-sufficient as possible in an environment already struggling to survive.

Had The New World Order not become No World Order, it was doubtful that the planet could have survived another two more decades.

If the oceans do not survive, we die; if the honeybees and earthworms do not survive, we die.

It had been as if the shoplifters were minding the store.

The greed and reckless disregard that multi-national corporations have shown for the environment or the quality of life of the general population was about the same as the mining companies had shown for the people of West Virginia a century before.

Ironically, it is not too far-fetched to say that if it were not for the Doomsday Viruses, human life as we knew it would have been doomed.

The vegetables that were being farmed by Big Agriculture had little nutritive value, and the corn used to feed cattle and hogs a few months before slaughter produced an animal so unhealthy that it would not have been able to live another year.

The fact that we were eating them speaks a great deal to the issue of the generally low level of health and high propensity for obesity and heart disease in America along with the preponderance of high-fructose corn sweeteners, for instance.

The intrusions of plastic that had bio-degraded to near microscopic size forming a giant sea of death in the middle of the Pacific, killing and mutating the fish that swam into it was threatening to choke our oceans.

Dangerous levels of microwave communications pollution, prescription medications flushed into the water supply and insecticides killing the birds, bees and worms that are essential to the sustenance of all life were all on the verge of creating a perfect storm that combined with the effects of global warming might well have eliminated the population of most of the planet.

Anyone familiar with Malthusian Theory of populations already knows that again, perhaps all too ironically, the Doomsday Virus resulting in the infrastructure collapse of America and Europe (as well as any significant portions of Asia, Africa, and India that actually relied on infrastructure) also resulted in widespread decimation of the population in a world that was approaching critical mass due to overpopulation.

The world was long past the point where birth control, even if zero population growth was achieved, would have been enough,

Eventually, human over-population would have become self-limiting, but the Doomsday Virus helped give it a kick-start.

Between the pollution of the land, sea and air as well as the strip-mining of the oceans, it would only been a matter of time before the planet would have become uninhabitable, at least for a very long time in terms of human life.

But them again, when you stop to consider that Dinosaurs ruled the earth for over one hundred and seventy million years, the puny fifty-thousand years that Man has been fucking up the planet isn’t even a sparrow-fart in a hurricane in terms of geological time.

Life and Nature are amazingly resilient compared to the fragile, pampered, and spoiled version of Man that has been devolving for the last two hundred years.

Some form of life might survive, even if it was only cockroaches, Keith Richards, and methicillin resistant staph aureus.

If it took another hundred million years to evolve into some form of sentient bipedals, it may be too optimistic to think that Homo Sapiens, (the beta version) would be any less self-destructive.

And so it was that Elliott Monroe and the other members of the Fourteenth Colony who had originally used this area on the edge of the Everglades as a hunting and fishing retreat, along with other associates and friends of common mind and interests, who possessed the necessary knowledge, talents, and skills found themselves building a new world where the privileges of birth and wealth held absolutely no value whatsoever.

The diversity of backgrounds, education and culture was surprisingly wide, but their values and principles were remarkably similar.

This was to be in no danger of becoming a hippy commune; the difference between symbiotic mutualism of independent, self-reliant, rugged individualists and communism was as dissimilar as carnivores to cannibals.

If this new home on the edge of the world was to survive, they would have to agree and co-operate enough to provide mutual support and assistance for their common interests and needs.

If they were to truly flourish however, they would also have to maintain enough independence, self-reliance and tolerance to allow for each other’s differences.

Namasté

नमस्ते

Chazz Vincent

copyright  ©  March 13th, 2021  

Fish swim with the tides, in and out of the lagoon as it empties itself, receives from, and flows back into the sea.

*ALL REFERENCES TO ANY PERSONS CONFIRMED STILL LIVING IS PURELY CO-INCIDENTAL…AND THE DEAD ARE TOO BUSY LAUGHING AT US TO CARE.

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Once in a Blue Agave Moon: Chapter Eight: Cyber Warfare and the Armageddon Virus

Chapter 8

Stuxnet was not the first shot fired, but it was the most widely publicized and successful viral attack that had geopolitical implications of its day.

It also set the stage for what was to follow.

Stuxnet was a malicious computer worm that was allegedly generated in the early days of the new millennium by the joint efforts of the United States and Israel designed to disrupt and sabotage the weapons-grade Uranium enrichment facilities in Iran, especially the Natanz nuclear facility and the Bushehr nuclear power plant.

What was most especially interesting was that it was the first of its kind to specifically target programmable logic controllers, (PLC’s) which control electromechanical processes such as those related to automation and control of machinery and assembly lines.

It was designed to target Microsoft Windows operating systems that utilized Siemens Step7 software. It was not domain-specific and could be used as a platform for attacking both SACADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) and PLC systems.

Stuxnet was composed of three modules: a worm that executed all routines related to the main payload of the attack; a link file that automatically executed the propagated copies of the worm; and a rootkit component responsible for hiding all malicious files and processes, preventing detection of the presence of Stuxnet.

Once described as “…having attorney’s fingerprints all over it…” , to create the impression of not violating any International Laws as much as possible, it had an alleged end date, and only effected a very small percentage of systems or networks outside of Iran; specifically the gas centrifuges of the Natanz and Bushehr facilities, causing them to either over-run or slow down so as to self-destruct from a variety of possible factors, while sending false (normal) monitoring information to the users.

Because Iran’s targeted PLC’s were not connected to the internet, the virus had to be introduced via an infected USB drive by a mole within Iran’s development facilities. Once installed, it began to propagate within all other computers within the network, scanning for Siemens System 7 on computers that controlled a PLC. If it found nothing it remained dormant and undetected within the computer, at least until such time as the opportunity presented itself.

It exploited four zero-day vulnerabilities and utilized almost half a gigabyte of data, which was previously unprecedented in any other malware virus, and effectively upped the ante as far as both defensive or offensive future strategies for cyber warfare.

Long before the September 11th attacks on the United States, there had been numerous malware developed that attempted to utilize the internet that were financially motivated and did not involve multi-national cooperation to execute.

Stuxnet was a game-changer that dictated the future paradigms of international espionage that also included data-mining of their targets.

In effect, we taught our enemies how to bring down the house of cards that had sheltered our pampered way of life.

Most Americans of that time were complacent and took their privilege and power within the world economy and military for granted, assuming the dream would never end.

Historically, partly due to the vast separation from the continents of Europe and Asia especially, American politics and foreign policy were isolationist until our alliances within Europe prior to World War One contributed to our involvement there…on on their continent. World War Two followed the same paradigm: “Not in my back yard.”

As we became the self-proclaimed World Police, we tasked ourselves as the champions of Freedom, Democracy, and Capitalism and protectors of the weak and downtrodden… especially if there was a buck to be made in the process and it did not take place on our soil.

We created the impression that it motivated our actions in Korea, Viet Nam, and the Mideast.

Unlike the United Kingdom, which used its Army and Navy under government sanction to first conquer, then colonize the rest of the world as they saw fit, America simply encouraged its industries to outsource themselves in foreign lands, frequently wreaking social, economic, and political havoc wherever we went.

Essentially different guises and similar methods to achieve the same results….

Depending upon the era, the French, Spanish, Portuguese and Dutch did their share of Imperialist expansion as well. (The Dutch, who now self-righteously consider themselves to be the model of egalitarian neutrality seemed to suffer from conveniently short memories about their participation in the Slave Trade, once regarding themselves as too good to keep slaves, but not above buying and selling them.)

The seeds of hatred and lust for revenge had been sown in the Mid-East a thousand years before. Any nation associated with the sign of the cross stood to reap the whirlwind of the Karma of the Crusades, especially England, France and the United States, who chose to either colonize the area for themselves, or as proxy for Israel.

Whether it was in Chianna, Japan, Central and South America, the Mideast or Africa, the deeper the boot of our collective military forces were planted in foreign soil, the more the land bled and filled those footsteps with hatred for those whom we had victimized.

It was all just a matter of time.

Compared to Geological Time, the Time of Man is like a bug hitting the windshield of our Cosmos, but given enough time, as in quantum theory, anything that can happen eventually will happen.

In less than one hundred years, America went from an Agrarian, to an Industrial, to a Service-based economy as our opulence and complacency bred envy world-wide.

We were raised to believe that our ever-lasting Ice Cream Cone of eternal happiness and prosperity would never melt.

Meanwhile, our enemies were launching as many as thirty thousand viral cyber attacks every month against the United States, its allies and the World Banking System, as well as any and all computer-controlled infrastructure.

As far as Communist Asia, Islam, and Eastern Europe were concerned “The enemy of my enemy” became not “my friend” as much as a co-conspirator against their common enemy.

Our united enemies were infinitely patient in developing what became known as the Armageddon Virus, which was so complex and far-reaching as to make Stuxnet look like Atari’s Pong compared to Battlefield Four.

Patient enough to take decades to surreptitiously tunnel beneath the Federal Gold Reserve at Fort Knox as well as the other facilities that represented the Federal Reserve Banking System in order to explode thermonuclear devices that would not only render them worthless, but also made the public fearful of any gold or silver in any form as being potentially radioactive.

Patient enough to even develop programs to decode our most secure encryption codes used by the military and intelligence communities, thereby ensuring that not a single missile was launched against the perpetrators, the identities of whom were indistinct and geographically obscure.

But due to the inherently treacherous, suspicious, deceitful, and generally bellicose nature of our enemies, it wasn’t long before they reduced each other’s countries to smoking ruins and glass.

Every culture or semblance of civilization that was left did not possess either the means or sophistication to wage any warfare, except on a very local basis.

It seems ironic now that it took what almost amounted to The End of Days to bring what could have been World Peace were it not for the fact that the violence, riots, looting, and even cannibalism that ensued were local in nature even if they existed world-wide.

It seemed that mankind’s inherent propensity for fear, xenophobia, greed, and violence against each other did not need either a flag or a religion to bring out the worst as well as the best in itself.

Our highly specialized dependence on technology had led us back to the stone age for those who did not possess the knowledge and nature to become self-sufficient, and the good sense to eschew anyone who didn’t.

“That government is best which governs least, because its people discipline themselves.”  Thoreau

Namasté

नमस्ते

Chazz Vincent

copyright  ©  March 13th, 2021  

Fish swim with the tides, in and out of the lagoon as it empties itself, receives from, and flows back into the sea.

*ALL REFERENCES TO ANY PERSONS CONFIRMED STILL LIVING IS PURELY CO-INCIDENTAL…AND THE DEAD ARE TOO BUSY LAUGHING AT US TO CARE.

Once In a Blue Agave Moon

chapter One

Elliott Monroe awoke to the sounds of the generators starting.
As he briefly lay there in bed, he thought about how much the world had changed in the last eighteen months.
Over two years ago, he had read about how cyber-terrorists were launching over thirty thousand attacks against the United States and their allies every month…without success…but…
Much like the theories of quantum mechanics and the origin of the earth, eventually anything can happen, and like the monkeys and the typewriters, eventually they discovered the codes that were capable of deciphering the encryption associated with the operating systems of every computer on the planet; banking, defense, security, even the internet itself.
The consequences were catastrophic and swift.
They had not only managed to withdraw all the virtual monies out of all the North and South American, European, African, Swiss, and Japanese banks in the world, they had also placed a “doomsday” virus into the operating systems that caused them to destroy themselves, and their hardware, as well as all the records of all the accounts.
And when back-up systems and replacement programs were installed, the rest of the internet was so polluted with the Doomsday Virus that they were quickly rendered useless as well.
It took several days for even the best run operations to re-start, only to discover there were no funds in the accounts shortly before they too self-destructed.
Even if you had a printed statement from your bank, they were not being honored because there were no available funds to pay anybody anything.
It was believed that Doomsday was not even a single virus, but rather a series of interlocking programs that spread rapidly through any device that used the internet at all…even if only to use the National Observatory’s atomic clock for time reference standards.
Cars that used Onstar or satellite radio would not even start, or stopped within minutes; some crashed. Planes fell out of the skies all over the world.
Several nuclear power plants melted down. Nuclear missiles went haywire.
Some of the programs had been perfected for years before the comprehensive attack was orchestrated.
It affected the News services so badly that the parties involved had to resort to circulating printed material to even take credit for the attack.
More than ten years earlier, the terrorists had begun a plan that was only waiting for the success of the computer viruses for their initiation. They were in no hurry.
The terrain of the area surrounding the Fort Knox Army base is riddled with underground caverns and streams that permitted tunneling through an area over five miles long from nearby Bardstown to the United States Bullion Depository at Fort Knox with a minimum of true excavation.
By a similarly ingenious plot, the mazes of sewers, communications tunnels and underground passageways in Manhattan (some dating prior to the revolutionary war) allowed near enough access to the Federal Reserve Bank, the only bullion depository larger than the one at Fort Knox.
Both tunnels ran the last five hundred feet deep below the vaults, working slowly and sporadically to better avoid detection.
The morning of the discovery of the cyber-attacks, at least twenty “dirty” or “salted” nuclear bombs detonated by two stolen B-61 Mod 11 nuclear “bunker busters” and a pair of ten-megaton hydrogen bombs of the Teller-Ulam design from former Soviet sources and several other devices of either Korean, Iranian, Chinese, Pakistani or Indian design under the United States Bullion Depository at Fort Knox and the Federal Reserve Bank of Manhattan.
Both locations enabled the surrounding bedrock to amplify the effects of the shock waves from the blast and the combined pressure and heat from the thermonuclear blast not only compromised both vaults, but also severely contaminated them with radioactivity.
The heat and pressure was so intense that the other “dirty” or “salted” devices were combined in a chain-reaction not normally anticipated in any previous counter-terrorism models, that assumed conventional detonation of plutonium and uranium, with no concomitant fission or fusion.
The terrorists had no desire to survive the attacks, so no shielding or protective casings were used to contain the radioactivity of the “dirty” or “salted” bombs. It was a suicide mission, which made it that much easier to accomplish.
“All the gold in Fort Knox” (and the Federal Reserve Bank of Manhattan) was now radioactive. The fact that they had been entirely symbolic ever since they had been stored there really had little bearing on the perception of the people of the world.
(Apparently, the terrorists had seen the Movie “Goldfinger,” although they were not interested in any financial gain; after all, within two days they possessed all the net worth of the all major powers of the world.)
They already had plenty of money, but the real point was to take it away from their enemies.
It is estimated that the gold at the United States Bullion Depository (aka “Ft. Knox’) is worth about 175 billion dollars. This is believed to represent 2.5 percent of all the gold ever refined in all human history. The US GDP is estimated at approximately eighteen trillion dollars, and the United States federal budget is set at approximately 103% of the GDP.
The attack was predominately a way of doing severe damage to the confidence of the American people in the liquidity of their government.
After all, most of the net worth of anyone or any entity is based on a combination of faith in what amounts to “virtual money,” rather than cash and the mutual recognition of what constitutes value.
Between credit margins, and speculation, in a cashless society most people rarely ever touch any “real” money. Paper money is based on faith and a promise, but keep in mind that when the economy went from gold to silver certificates to federal reserve notes they no longer bore the promise “payable on demand”.
And let’s face it, you can’t eat gold or silver if you are hungry. The value of gold or precious metals or gems are based on their scarcity, and almost since the beginning of time we have been hypnotized by our desire for them, rather than in any true intrinsic value per se.
And to the radical Islamics, the result of the end of Western civilization was their precise goal. No more Hollywood (or Bollywood), no more televangelism, no more beer or whiskey commercials, no more live lingerie models, no more TV, no more Western aggression; Zionism as a world power would be crushed; no more internet porn and no more Christmas specials on television. No publicly available electricity in the West.
In just two explosions they had bombed the Western Hemisphere into the stone age.
At least, that was the mythology that had become the accepted explanation. Most of the stories that were passed from one person to another verbally were based on speculation, rumors and whatever prejudice, preoccupation, or agenda of the teller.
A few amateur radio operators kept up their own news nets, but no one knew what to believe and if you were smart, you took it all with a grain of salt; after all, no matter what gossip you heard, most of it had no real bearing on your own current state of affairs.
They were all too often just the idle talk of the frightened and the doomed, who would have nothing else to say once the lives they had known evaporated.
North Korea had very little to lose; their governmental leaders lived lavishly, but the mass of people lived in squalor, in silence, and in the dark. Previous satellite photographs of the island of Korea showed a brightly lit south at night, but above the thirty-eighth parallel only a few scattered lights showed anywhere in North Korea.
India and China were similarly affected, but to a lesser degree. For the desperately impoverished masses who had so little to loose, it was a zero sum game.
And perhaps most importantly, No country seemed to have much need to muck about with the rest of the world, which for the most part had lapsed into complete isolationism.
Or so it seemed, until each of the countries participating in the attack on America and its allies tried to double-cross the other. They quickly rendered each other helpless and crippled with a combination of nuclear and conventional weapons.
First it was Russia and China, then India vs Pakistan, and everybody versus Korea.
The Moslems were not bound by national boundary lines, but religion and culture, and initially they stood together. In fact, it was later estimated that the Moslems had actually instigated the conflicts between the other countries with feigned mutual acts of sabotage.
But eventually even the Moslem-ruled countries turned on each other. The same mind-set that had sabotaged Thomas E. Lawrence (of Arabia)’s effort to unify the mid-east was still in effect.
Malaysia was the first to fall; they were the weakest, and the least unified as far as Islam. Once that chain-reaction started, it would have been very difficult to tell who “won”.
Gandhi had stated that “an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind” but obviously, he was wrong…because…
“…In the land of the blind, the one-eyed is king”…and that last guy with only one eye could easily escape the last blind guy…(but if you are surrounded by radioactive glass everywhere you look with that one good eye, it’s not much consolation).
Perhaps even more fortunately each had sufficient intel about each other as to quickly and almost surgically attack each other so as to limit any counter-attacks by anyone, so other than some very localized fall-out, it had almost no effect on North America.
Perhaps ignorance is bliss…border disputes in Eastern or Western Europe or Asia had no real affect on someone living in Idaho…or the Florida Everglades.
Elliott had heard stories of people who still chose to live in the cities, bloodthirsty cannibals, burglars, rapists and bandits feeding like vultures on a rotting carcass that was already nearly stripped to the bones.
The trick was to find a place where only certain individuals could survive, and even thrive in the midst of world chaos. The desert, the mountains, the deepest woods, the most isolated coastal regions and their islands as well as the few swamps in North America…and the Florida Everglades, which were really more like a flooded savanna, hence the Seminole expression “River of Grass”.
Virtually all of what constituted an economy was now based upon barter, trade…and theft.
One thing that had not changed was that all too often keeping what you already have can be more difficult than getting it in the first place… “the same as it ever was….”
Those who had something of useful purpose as well as those who could do or make because of what they knew faired much better than those highly trained aristocrats whose careers and knowledge or training were so specialized that they had no survival skills at all.
It was a very bad time for lawyers, public officers, (like judges or government officials), CEO’s, any level of vice-president of much of anything, travel agents, airline stewardesses, motivational speakers, fitness trainers, life coaches, investment bankers, stock brokers, event planners, and pretty much anyone dependent upon performing services for someone else.
State governments were fucked, but the rich and privileged swine who had manipulated them all along just by virtue of what they still possessed; as long as they could continue to barter their influence over goods and commodities, at least had a chance.
The police almost immediately took over most of organized crime, and split what they couldn’t steal outright with those whose mutual interests might similarly prosper in deference to outright gang warfare, which nonetheless still flourished on a regular basis.
Our military forces faced mass desertions, but those who remained managed to maintain a small elite group of forces who operated much like Mosby’s Rangers during the Civil War, ‘’requisitioning” food and supplies as they deemed necessary. All the armed services bases that remained open had to become self-sufficient by hunting, plowing, planting and farming almost every inch of their surrounding land near their bases, including the livestock they now tended.
Elliot was fortunate enough to have worked out a deal with a group of similarly minded individuals who owned a large tract of land that bordered on the Florida Everglades; mostly dry and wet savannas with patches of scrubby timber and wooded areas.
They all had hunted wild hog and deer on those lands together at various times throughout the years. They all possessed and represented a wide range of useful skills. Most of them were what had been called “trades people”.
Most people would have derisively referred to them as survivalists.
Although they themselves had no idea what would precipitate what some would come to call The End of Days, they knew that eventually, something would happen.
They were essentially autonomous, and lived relatively well in an otherwise dystopian and dangerous world.
It was as if the tables had been turned.
Most city-dwellers as well as most suburban commuters not only could not survive outside their protected communities, but they would have little desire to live without the conveniences and trappings that had already enslaved them.
If you can’t seem to get what you think you want, learn to love what you have.

Chazz Vincent

March 19th. 2016

 

Every Hungry Woman Dreams of the Whipping Post; Every Slave Craves their Collar: THFWS &TTM’s

 

Ash was more “fired up” than usual when he wrote his next sermon, and even the ArchAngels were somewhat taken aback by not only the title and theme of that Friday’s rehearsal, but the sheer fervency with which he delivered it was unparalleled for a mere run-through.

He had even written a new song that had all the earmarks of becoming a standard theme for the band, and he told them it would be done as a gospel-style sing-along like they almost always did with “I Must be the Luckiest Man (or Woman, or Child…) in the World.”

This was to be the theme of the sermon:

When I say “Every Hungry Woman Dreams of the Whipping Post; Every Slave Craves their Collar” most people envision BDSM, dungeons and other manifestations of the Kink/Fet community, but I am talking about a completely different form of bondage or slavery that is taking place every day in this country.

Most of us are victims of it ourselves in one way or another, and as I have told you so often before, I cannot tell you exactly what you need to do about it…that has got to be your choice. I am here to council you and to encourage you to find answers for yourselves.

Today, my primary goal is to open your eyes and your minds.

Those who lack involvement, commitment, validation, recognition or a sense of belonging will embrace almost anything that will distract them from their loneliness and isolation…the Great Existential Void…the same loneliness that makes a woman think she cannot escape an abusive relationship…or that keeps someone from kicking an addiction like drugs or alcohol…people who invent unsolvable problems or refuse to face the consequences of the solutions or accept the dogma and doctrine of anyone else, rather than search for meaning or purpose themselves.

This is evidenced by the rising popularity of gang membership among impoverished inner-city youths alienated by generations of ignorance and desperation as well as the affluent suburban middle-class bored by the banality and shallow crass materialism of their self-absorbed parents.

Since the dawn of Man, there have been monarchs and there have been serfs to do their bidding.

Recall the scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey when the first primate grabs a thigh bone and crushes the skull of his opponent. Necessity may be the mother of invention of tools, but adversity is the mother of invention of weapons.

Witness the first ruler of his tribe. As adversity is confronted by imagination, ingenuity and courage, a King is spawned.

On the one hand, leadership is thrust upon (s)he who chooses to take his or her rightful place at the head of the table, but on the other hand, the crown may become a yoke, or a monster may be borne of this ascension to power.

Time passes, as feudal lords preside over serfs and fiefdoms. “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation…” to support the grandeur that can only exist within the divine right of kings.

Meanwhile, in another part of the village, a sorcerer, a medicine man, a witch, or other practitioner of the cunning ways of knowledge conjures and brews up another way to ascend to a position of power either within or outside of the community.

We have a king, and a priest(ess), but the circle is far from complete without the advisors, attorneys,  generals, gangsters, tax collectors, treasurers, medicine men, legislators, law enforcement,  judges and bankers that await their entrance to the stage, all of whom are looking for their own opportunity to grab whatever portion they can acquire of the general wealth that exists within the community.

To assume wealth is the only power would be naïve, but in one way or another, either wealth follows power, or power follows wealth.

Their stock in trade is built upon the fear and paranoia that they disseminate in the self-fulfilling prophesies that they mutually create and support.

Eons and millennia have passed, and as history records it, the grand stories borne of the lives of great men and women have become the legends of our heritages, yet little has changed in the dynamic between the Haves and the Have-nots.

An iconic leader requires a court and necessary support and infrastructure to be provided by those who are either born or bound to serve.

After the Dark Ages, came the birth of the Middle Class, merchants, artisans, craftsmen and scientists who managed to rise above mere servitude to a lord. The Middle Class grew with the passage of time, and so did their wealth, but it has never rivaled the wealth of those whose riches are increased by what they own rather than by what they do, make or perform.

Wherever there is wealth, there will be those who will try to separate those who have it from their wealth. Charlatans, con artists, burglars, armed robbers, pickpockets, prostitutes, lightening rod salesmen and rainmakers come to mind easily, but the real threat to the general population is more insidious in the way that wide sweeping economic redistribution has attempted to enslave the modern public until they are mere indentured servants who only think they are free.

There was a long dark period in the world’s history when entire races or populations of a particular tribe or region were held as captives forced to perform every manner of service to some other ruling tribe.

This is a travesty of inestimable sorrow and injustice that has run throughout the history of the world. The very concept that one privileged society could rationalize enslaving another to be treated, bought, sold and owned like chattel property seems barbaric, cruel and unjustifiable today despite the fact that the same effect has been created within our own society in such a way as to mesmerize today’s unfortunates into embracing and defending the very system that enslaves them.

Governments do it with taxes, unnatural forms of control of commerce to benefit the privileged and wars that serve no purpose other than to stifle rational discourse, circumvent civil rights and liberties, and make multinational corporations even more wealthy and powerful.

A little perceived prosperity is good, but the glut of wealth of the Great American Dream of the fifties and early sixties that allowed parents to send so many of their children to real colleges and universities in search of knowledge and enlightenment led to the discontent and social unrest of the late sixties that empowered a new generation that stopped an unjustifiable war and challenged the paradigms of social norms everywhere.

The government knows better than to ever let that happen again anytime soon.

A nation of smart people is a good thing, but a nation of enlightened citizens is a liability to the truly corrupt. They require a certain level of threat from some boogeyman like Communism or Al-Qaeda to distract the public sufficiently to keep them from questioning too much of anything.

Churches do it with endless tithing, donations and pleas for more money to do “good works” that mostly involve making the Church wealthier while the poor starve in slums, all the while decreeing that it is a mortal sin to attempt to limit procreation amongst people too poor to feed themselves already and stifling a woman’s right to maintain control over her own body.

The fact is that in addition to preaching doctrines of hatred of pleasure that would deny so many the simple pursuit of happiness or the ways of power and majik or any form of rational discourse or intellectual freedom by labeling it as heresy, they also would pit one superstition against the other to distract them even further from finding or pursuing true enlightenment.

Religion is no longer the “opiate of the people”…it is more like the syringe… and television is the heroin.

Engineered economic depressions have occurred twice in slightly less than one hundred years due to the insatiable greed of the privileged ruling and/or ownership classes of the world for the purpose of accomplishing widespread economic redistribution. Both times it backfired on many who helped participate in it, but the real owners and rulers managed to stay intact and eventually prosper from it.

But by far, the most insidious of all of the schemes to enslave the world now comes from a collusion of lawmakers, attorneys, doctors, insurance companies, pharmaceutical manufacturers and distributors, and the so-called “management companies” and “program administrators” who manipulate the entire system despite obvious conflicts of interest and ethics that go unaddressed by either the legislative or judicial branches of this country who are allegedly charged with the protection of its citizens.

“Participating Networks” and “Retail Refill Allowances” dictated by “program administrators” who directly profit from these conflicts of interest (including ownership of their own pharmacies) and the monopolizations that they create not only stifle free market economic competition, but also ensure that they do it with impunity.

Most people take far too much medication. This is because their doctors fail to address the fact that each medication has additional “Side effects”, and “untoward reactions” and it is far easier (and more profitable) to prescribe additional medications to control the undesirable effects rather than to find better palliative measures.

That’s right… “palliative measures”…something to mask or alleviate the signs and symptoms temporarily…there are virtually only a handful of drugs that can claim to actually “cure” anything, and in far too many cases there is at best only scant evidence to support the premise that they really improve the overall quality of life of those who take them, given the side effects inherent in all of them.

We have been brainwashed by the AMA to believe that we must fight disease with drugs, rather than to promote wellness in the first place, and the healthcare insurance industry insures that this misconception remains unchallenged.

That is why we are more likely to refer to healthcare professionals as medical professionals…because our mental preoccupation with drugs eclipses our understanding of health.

After a certain point, instead of Life Extension, we simply prolong Death…for a huge profit.

From the “Gomer Gardens” of intensive care units to the nursing homes and restorative centers that farm the elderly and chronically ill like vegetables, the healthcare industry is effectively strip-mining the aged and infirm for every dollar that can be sucked from the country’s social welfare programs, paid for by the working middle class in taxes.

If a fraction of the cost of pharmaceutical research was spent for determining the true causes and prevention of disease instead of marketing even more medically questionable medications, the health of the world might actually improve.

Our obsession with cholesterol for instance, flies in the face of well-documented research that concludes that cholesterol levels are independent of the prevention of heart attack in the absence of other inflammatory processes.

In the last few years, even the television advertisements have been forced to disclaim any proven relationship between lower cholesterol levels and decreased cardiac risk, but you have to know where to look for it in the ads or you will miss it entirely.

Not to mention that non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medications (NSAID’s) themselves can trigger asthma or liver disease and kidney failure, or that steroidal drugs can cause a resurgence of varicella virus (as either Shingles, or Herpes) thereby requiring treatment with anti-viral agents or that glucocorticosteroids are also implicated in the degeneration of bone and cartilage, skin integrity, and heart disease.

Anti-depressants are now as irresponsibly and indiscriminately prescribed as antibiotics were in the fifties and sixties. The indiscriminant and irresponsible prescribing of antibiotics created MRSA and other “super” bacteria that have become so antibiotic resistant that the only cure is almost as dangerous as the disease.

Depression and anxiety are frequently the dysfunctional sibling offspring of modern society, and the drugs that are used to treat either of them can trigger the onset of the other, although this is rarely ever definitively addressed by psychological healthcare professionals.

If you stop to think for a moment, it makes perfect sense…anxiety springs from the conflict created within the mind to attempt to find meaning or purpose in what appears to be a senseless existence and depression is the natural outcome of the overwhelming hopelessness of the “poison thought” of recognition of the sorrow of the human condition.

Anti-depressants (especially the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) have a marked propensity for causing anxiety reactions, and anxiolytic medications are notorious for inducing depression.

And there has yet to be discovered a drug that can treat inadequate parenting. Granted, there is much evidence to indicate that many of the food additives to which the young are subjected may be implicated in the geometric and disproportional rise in hyperactivity and attention deficit disorders diagnosed in this country, but you only have to look around you to see lazy, self-absorbed, selfish parents everywhere who lack the compassion or understanding to recognize or acknowledge the commitment and effort required to responsibly raise their children and who seek a quick fix instead.

Most psychiatrists merely write prescriptions and no longer council patients, preferring to push the responsibility off on less trained individuals who all too frequently work in an independent vacuum, rather than in conjunction with each other. Less time spent with more patients resulting in higher profits is the prime motivation.

The net sum result is that because all of the involved parties are free to overcharge each other for everything only to pass it onto the patient/victims of their unbridled greed, it is only possible due to the ability to have it paid for by insurance.

The insurance industry is rivaled only by pharmaceutical manufacturers, the oil industry and defense industry contractors for sheer wealth, and in fact, insurance companies own a large portion of many of the other companies and industries in America.

The Affordable Healthcare Reform Act is now responsible for promoting insurance that routinely costs as much as one thousand dollars per month per family with a five to ten thousand dollar deductible.

That means twelve to seventeen thousand dollars up front just to be eligible for the so-called “benefits” despite widespread denials of many medications that had been routinely covered for many years prior, even denying coverage for certain brands of insulin or test strips.

Generic medications that cost less than twenty dollars retail out-of-pocket last year now often cost eighty dollars or more as of January 1^st, 2014.

Worst of all, the private insurance companies offering commercial insurance are following the lead set by the HRA policies, using the Affordable Healthcare Reform Act as an excuse to further increase their return on investment with widespread profiteering not justified by their actual cost.

When it comes to abridging your rights and liberties, as well as the quality of your life, everything is incremental, insidious and unrelenting. The Patriot Act and the formation of the NSA are the new bastions of the Fourth Reich.

What makes you think healthcare is going to be any different?

This is why all truly great gangsters and criminals aspire to “go legitimate”…it not only involves less risk, but they are generally free to utilize the same unbridled and ruthless practices of their past in the pursuit of wealth and power as long as they hire enough attorneys and buy off enough legislators to sufficiently disguise their corrupt methods.

I used to joke about my fear that the government was trying to take over the country, but got tired of having to explain what I meant to people who did not understand the definition of a republic…but in truth, my real fear is of those who pull the strings of the marionette that we have allowed them to make of our government.

As long as people would prefer to take a pill than to take responsibility for their diet, nutrition, exercise, emotional health, stress, and parenting skills, insurance and pharmaceutical companies will enslave them.

Everywhere you look, people work too hard for too little for someone else under tremendous soul-killing stress, grateful for the “privilege” of being allowed to work overtime to afford designer clothing, jewelry, and electronic gadgets, talking on smartphones that are more intelligent than they are while they drive overpriced, almost disposable cars stuck in gridlocked traffic aspiring to live in pretentious neighborhoods in lavish but shabbily constructed homes they can’t really afford all the while consuming more and more, obsessed with owning everything they are taught to covet by the ridiculous and vapid television shows that program them to believe that “reality” shows are their only reality.

When you look back on your life and ask yourself “Is that all I did?” will you be satisfied?

Most of us are born naked and screaming in ignorance and will die alone in despair, but everything in between is your own choice if you dare to exercise your options and look for different paradigms, or better still think outside all the other paradigms entirely.

If you let yourself be brainwashed into believing that there are no other alternatives to the lives your parents lived, or what your neighbors covet you will never know. It may have “all been done before”, but not by you….

One (wo)man’s meat is another (wo)man’s poison.

One (wo)man’s ceiling is another (wo)man’s floor.

One (wo)man’s mate is another (wo)man’s person.

One (wo)man’s princess is another (wo)man’s whore.

One (wo)man’s home is another (wo)man’s prison.

One (wo)man’s excitement is another (wo)man’s bore.

One (wo)man’s trash is another (wo)man’s treasure.

One (wo)man’s possessions

may become their own obsession

that eventually possess them

and enslave them evermore.