Social psychosis is widespread. In the words of the British psychiatrist, R. D. Laing, “The condition of alienation, of being asleep, of being unconscious, of being out of one’s mind, is the condition of the normal man.”
He was not referring to raving, drooling, hitting-your-head-against-the-wall lunacy but a taken-for-granted acceptance of a world long teetering on the edge of nuclear extinction, to take the most extreme example, but surely only one of many. The insouciant acceptance and support of psychotic rulers who promote first-strike nuclear war is very common. First strike nuclear policy is United States policy.
I recently wrote an article about the dangers of the fourteen U.S. Trident submarines. These subs constantly cruise under the oceans carrying 3,360 nuclear warheads equivalent to 134,400 Hiroshima bombs. All are on first strike triggers. And of course these are supplemented by all the land and air based nukes. My point was not very complicated: now that the United States government has abrogated all nuclear weapons treaties and continues to escalate its war against Russia in Ukraine, we are closer to nuclear annihilation than ever before.
This conclusion is shared by many esteemed thinkers such as the late Daniel Ellsberg who died on June 16, 2023 and whose 2017 book The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner, makes clear that nuclear war, waged intentionally or by mistake or accident, is very possible. In the months before he died, he warned that this is now especially true with the situation in Ukraine and the U.S. provocations against China.
The Grayzone’s Max Blumenthal recently addressed the UN Security Council on the danger of U.S. actions in Ukraine and asked:
Will we see another Douma deception, but this time in Zaporizhzhia?
Why are we doing this? Why are we tempting nuclear annihilation by flooding Ukraine with advanced weapons and sabotaging negotiations at every turn?
Finian Cunningham has just raised the specter of a thermonuclear catastrophe initiated by a U.S./Ukrainian false flag attack on the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant.
So my article was in no way unusual, except for my concentration on the Trident submarines.
When, against my better judgment, I read some commentators’ responses to my piece at a few websites where my article was posted, I was taken aback when I read the following [all emphases are mine]:
- Like many other boomers, Edward J Curtin Jr is caught up in ‘nuclear terror’ … whereas on 4chan you see that a large portion of the young generation has come to accept the massive evidence that Hiroshima & Nagasaki were chemically firebombed like Tokyo, and ‘nuclear weapons’ most likely do not exist at all. The 10 alleged ‘nuclear powers’ have had reasons to hoax together, just like the global collusion on ‘covid’ & ‘vaccines’.
- So, the point is? Subs with nukes have been cruising around the world’s oceans for over 60 years, back to the time when they tried to scare us with the Cuban missile crisis. I was on a fast attack sub during the Vietnam war, friend of mine got boomer duty, which is what they call the ones that carry the missiles. They’re there for show, they aren’t going to use them. Yes, they should be banned internationally, just in case. But as with the Nuremberg trials and principles, that’s not nearly enough. We’re going to need to create our own New World Order
- This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper
I vote for the bang!
- The nuke is exaggerated. Reality is that too many will survive a nuclear WWIII.
There will still be too many useless eaters and psychos left in the underground bunkers no matter how many nukes we drop. Like Chernobyl it will only develop to paradises for animals, natives and homeless on food stamps, while we the exceptionals will suffer from an underground life for 50 years without seeing natural light . A global virus and for double insurance a coupled vaxx, will be a much more effective tool to clean the filth and double shareholders profit.. - Dear Ed the sea monsters about as real as nukes.
- Another one of the “elites” hoaxes.
To hear that there are no nuclear weapons and never were; to learn that some in their embrace of nihilism hope for a nuclear holocaust; to read that nuclear weapons are never going to be used because they only exist for show – well, this at least confirmed my suspicion that many who comment on articles are either bonkers or trolls or both. Some probably have nothing better to do than inform writers how wrong they are. It frightened me. It made me wonder how many of the millions of silent ones think similarly or have come to embrace hopelessness as a way of life – the feeling that they have no power because that has been drilled into them from birth. I have long thought that cultural normality can be understood as the use of one’s freedom to create a prison, a cell in which one can convince oneself that one is safe because the authorities have established a sacred umbrella to protect one from an apocalyptic hard rain that they never think is going to fall.
The Pew Research Center recently surveyed the American public on their sixteen greatest fears. Nuclear war was not one them. It was as if nuclear weapons did not exist, as if they have been buried in the cellar of public awareness. As if Mad Magazine’s Alfred E. Newman’s motto was the national motto: “What? Me worry?” No doubt more Americans are aware of the gross public spectacle of Joey Chestnut stuffing his mouth with sixty-five hot dogs in ten minutes than they are of the Biden administration’s insane escalation toward nuclear war in Ukraine. We live in Guy Debord’s “Society of the Spectacle.”
Although he was writing years ago, Ronald Laing’s words sound ironically prescient today after so many years of endless propaganda, the destruction of human experience resulting in destructive behavior, and the relentless diminishment of human beings to the status of machines:
At this moment in history, we are all caught in the hell of frenetic passivity. We find ourselves threatened by extermination that will be reciprocal, that no one wishes, that everyone fears, that may just happen to us ‘because’ no one knows how to stop it. There is one possibility of doing so if we can understand the structure of this alienation of ourselves from our experience, our experience from our deeds, our deeds from human authorship. Everyone will be carrying out orders. Where do they come from? Always from elsewhere. Is it still possible to reconstitute our destiny out of the hellish and inhuman fatality?
That is the key question now that more than fifty years have elapsed since Laing penned those words in his now classic book, The Politics of Experience (isbn.nu). He said then, which is exponentially truer today, that “machines are already becoming better at communicating with each other than human beings with each other.” Talking about deep things has become passé for so many.
If we don’t start worrying and unlove the machines, we are doomed sooner or later. Sooner is probable. Nuclear weapons are very real. They are poised and ready to fly. If we continue to live in denial of the madness of those who provoke their use while calmly promoting first-strike policies as the U.S. government does, we are worse than fools. We are suicidal.
As Daniel Ellsberg told us, “Don’t wait ‘till the bombs are actually falling.” That will be too late. There is no doubt that before a nuclear war can happen, we must go insane, normally so.
Let’s make the few protest voices in the wilderness the cries of hundreds of millions:
End nuclear weapons now before they end us.
Stop escalating the war in Ukraine now.
Make peace with Russia and China now.
“There is such a thing as being too late,” Martin Luther King, Jr. told us on April 4, 1967, one year to the day before he was assassinated in a U.S. government plot.
“We still have a choice today: nonviolent coexistence or violent coannihilation.”
One of the hazards of so many purported “conspiracy theories” proving true these days is that, as Gary mentions in his comment, people become willing to believe anything that diverges from the official accepted narrative. Such an attitude is fine as long as it is accompanied by critical thinking in order to sort the wheat from the chaff.
I had heard from at least one source this idea that nukes were not real and the destruction in the two Japanese cities targeted was indistinguishable from the destruction of Dresden, Germany by firebombing. It is an intriguing idea, but it needs one heck of a lot of evidence to convince me it is true. Some say that life in those cities was able to resume as normal in the aftermath. So, I would want to do some serious research to find out if that were true.
It would also be required to determine that all the subsequent examples of nuclear detonation were simulated.
At any rate, even if I thought this was a serious possibility, I would not be telling people that they are wrong about it without presenting some compelling evidence to the contrary. I’m sure it is comforting to think that this existential threat which has overshadowed our entire lives is a lie.
This idea that “boomers” have screwed everything up and know nothing is very dangerous, as it makes it easy to dismiss their ideas, and not all of them are wrong, and there are many sources for theories which disagree with the narrative, and not all of them are benign.
“Stop escalating the war in Ukraine now.
Make peace with Russia and China now.”
Says Ed Curtin. Very good. That would be great (and these days there was a lot of rumours about peace talks in the near future).
Then, Dear Ed, we have to ask ourselves the key question, What do you think will happen after this truce?
Because, after this truce, they will continue to build the future, peacefully, in peaceful cooperation in some areas with the Western world. So, Ed, What are Russia and China doing, and more importantly, what are they planning for the future?
For verry little example.
russian. china. org. cn
COP15, China and Russia join efforts to promote global sustainable development in the field of biodiversity
Kunming, October 15, 2022 — The first stage of the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity /COP15/ was held in Kunming /Southwest China/ from October 11 to 15 this year. During the meeting, the “Kunming Declaration” was adopted, calling on all parties to take measures in response to the call to build a single life community on Earth, contain the loss of biodiversity, improve human well-being and achieve sustainable development.
…
Green development is a long-term strategy for the development of the global economy. The commitment to “green” and low-carbon development and the promotion of harmonious coexistence of man and nature have become an inevitable path for the sustainable development of the world economy. Currently, cooperation between China and Russia in the field of digital economy, green economy, artificial intelligence, 5G technology, big data and other areas is on the rise, providing a constant impetus for the two countries to achieve green development.”
“MOSCOW, January 2, 2023. /TASS/. Tokenization of the sphere of hiring employees in the future may involve the transfer of a person’s career achievements into digital equivalents (tokens), from which a personal rating of the applicant will be compiled for more effective recruitment. This opinion was expressed by Kirill Dorozhkin, an expert of the Competence Center of the National Technology Initiative (NTI) “Center for Distributed Registry Technologies” at St. Petersburg State University.
…
“A diploma of education, certificates, personal achievements and work experience can become a full-fledged digital asset of a person if they are tokenized. to take into account not only “hard”, but also “soft” skills – such as adaptability, creativity and empathy. At the same time, the “digital wallet” of competencies will change throughout a person’s life, replenished with relevant knowledge, Dorozhkin said.
The competence center of the NTI plans to start work on a project that would combine individual solutions in this area into a single system, the expert also told TASS.”
https : // vigilantcitizenforums. com/threads/russia-through-the-hidden-eye.10549/post-539351
–
From “Joint Statement of the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China on Deepening Comprehensive Partnership and Strategic Cooperation, Entering a New Era”
March 21, 2023.
Russian-Chinese relations are mature, stable, self-sufficient and strong, have passed the test for the COVID-19 pandemic and the turbulent international situation, are not subject to external influence and demonstrate vitality and positive energy.
…
The parties…
will gradually encourage investment cooperation in various fields, improve the business environment and legal support, introduce innovative forms of interaction, deepen cooperation in the digital economy and sustainable development, including ecology development.
…as well as initiatives that contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, including those related to the use of low-emission and renewable energy sources.
…promote equitable energy transitions and low-carbon development, taking into account the principle of technological neutrality, and will jointly contribute to the long-term, healthy and stable development of the global energy market.
…direct their efforts to conduct joint revolutionary research in advanced fields of science and technology and on global issues of global development, including related to climate change mitigation and adaptation, He will present new models of cooperation in such technological and industrial fields as artificial intelligence, the Internet of things, fifth-generation communication networks, digital and low-carbon economies.
…
will deepen cooperation in the field of healthcare[…]to strengthen relevant work within such multilateral platforms as WHO, BRICS, SCO, G20, APEC.
…support the construction of an open world economy, support the multilateral trading system in which the World Trade Organization plays a central role
The Russian side positively assesses the global development initiative and will continue to participate in the work of the group of friends in support of it. The parties will continue to encourage the international community to focus on development issues and increase its contribution to it, jointly contributing to the success of the UN Summit for Sustainable Development, ensuring early implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Program by 2030.
The parties have established effective cooperation in a bilateral and multilateral format to combat the pandemic of the new coronavirus infection COVID-19, protecting the life and health of the population of both countries and peoples of the world. The parties support deepening the exchange of information on the COVID-19 pandemic and strengthening coordination of interaction on platforms such as WHO. The parties jointly oppose plans and attempts to politicize the issue of the origin of the virus.
The parties attach great importance to the issue of artificial intelligence regulation and are ready to increase exchange and cooperation on this topic.
The Parties take effective measures, develop cooperation and make an important contribution to the prevention and adaptation to climate change, the organization and functioning of carbon asset trading systems, the implementation of voluntary climate projects, the exchange of experience at the national and regional levels to reduce global warming and adapt to it.
The Parties reaffirm their commitment to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, as well as the goals, principles and provisions of the Paris Agreement, in particular the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities, adhere to a genuine multilateral approach, and contribute to the full and effective application of the Paris Agreement.
The Parties assess the results achieved at the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, chaired by the People’s Republic of China, and express the hope that they will make a positive contribution to the progress of the process of global biodiversity management. The parties constantly encourage international cooperation and exchange in the field of biodiversity, actively implement the goals of the Kunming-Montreal Global biodiversity Framework, jointly promote the harmonious development of man and nature and contribute to global sustainable development.
…joint efforts to form a community with a common destiny for humanity.”
https : // vigilantcitizenforums. com/threads/russia-through-the-hidden-eye.10549/post-548371
I hope you like that kind of thing, Ed, because in the peaceful future ahead, there’s a lot of them, that we see coinciding with Western plans. But wait until you see what’s in store for the next phase, in the very near future. Widespread neural interfaces, genetic modification, and such nice, peaceful things. Have you seen, for example, the order for the program for the next 5 years of the most key Russian institution, which also deals with nuclear development and is widely popular with the “peaceful atom”? I saw it: genome editing systems; genetic and biochemical mechanisms to regulate behavior; modeling processes in neural cells and cellular systems to create autonomous bioelectronic systems; software and hardware tools for natural communication with robotic devices based on human-machine interfaces; cellular mechanisms of behavior and movement formation in order to create a biomorphic control system for biorobototechnical systems… etc, etc.
It’s a lot of peace, Edward, and it’s coming soon. I hope it appeals to people who are constantly talking about the noisy, supposedly war that is everywhere in all kinds of media.
Thanks you nwo agent curtin….now I assume nwo represents ‘new world order’ ? Can you condense what you said into perhaps 3 sentences ? And what exactly is nwo? Yes I have read many variations of what commenters state nwo is. I have read about the ‘great reset’ as well as the ‘great resist’. I would like to think wars will end and dysfunctional humans; our elected officials will be contained somehow! But then we have citizens that enjoy being directed so not to have to think; which many are incapable of thinking or Feeling themselves in relationship to any environment. Numb/Catatonic ! Please help me understand the vagueness of it all !
“Stop escalating the war in Ukraine now.
Make peace with Russia and China now.”
Says Ed Curtin. Very good. That would be great (and these days there was a lot of rumours about peace talks in the near future).
Then, Dear Ed, we have to ask ourselves the key question, What do you think will happen after this truce?
Because, after this truce, they will continue to build the future, peacefully, in peaceful cooperation in some areas with the Western world. So, Ed, What are Russia and China doing, and more importantly, what are they planning for the future?
For verry little example.
russian. china. org. cn
COP15, China and Russia join efforts to promote global sustainable development in the field of biodiversity
Kunming, October 15, 2022 — The first stage of the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity /COP15/ was held in Kunming /Southwest China/ from October 11 to 15 this year. During the meeting, the “Kunming Declaration” was adopted, calling on all parties to take measures in response to the call to build a single life community on Earth, contain the loss of biodiversity, improve human well-being and achieve sustainable development.
…
Green development is a long-term strategy for the development of the global economy. The commitment to “green” and low-carbon development and the promotion of harmonious coexistence of man and nature have become an inevitable path for the sustainable development of the world economy. Currently, cooperation between China and Russia in the field of digital economy, green economy, artificial intelligence, 5G technology, big data and other areas is on the rise, providing a constant impetus for the two countries to achieve green development.”
“MOSCOW, January 2, 2023. /TASS/. Tokenization of the sphere of hiring employees in the future may involve the transfer of a person’s career achievements into digital equivalents (tokens), from which a personal rating of the applicant will be compiled for more effective recruitment. This opinion was expressed by Kirill Dorozhkin, an expert of the Competence Center of the National Technology Initiative (NTI) “Center for Distributed Registry Technologies” at St. Petersburg State University.
…
“A diploma of education, certificates, personal achievements and work experience can become a full-fledged digital asset of a person if they are tokenized. to take into account not only “hard”, but also “soft” skills – such as adaptability, creativity and empathy. At the same time, the “digital wallet” of competencies will change throughout a person’s life, replenished with relevant knowledge, Dorozhkin said.
The competence center of the NTI plans to start work on a project that would combine individual solutions in this area into a single system, the expert also told TASS.”
https : // vigilantcitizenforums. com/threads/russia-through-the-hidden-eye.10549/post-539351
–
From “Joint Statement of the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China on Deepening Comprehensive Partnership and Strategic Cooperation, Entering a New Era”
March 21, 2023.
Russian-Chinese relations are mature, stable, self-sufficient and strong, have passed the test for the COVID-19 pandemic and the turbulent international situation, are not subject to external influence and demonstrate vitality and positive energy.
…
The parties…
will gradually encourage investment cooperation in various fields, improve the business environment and legal support, introduce innovative forms of interaction, deepen cooperation in the digital economy and sustainable development, including ecology development.
…as well as initiatives that contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, including those related to the use of low-emission and renewable energy sources.
…promote equitable energy transitions and low-carbon development, taking into account the principle of technological neutrality, and will jointly contribute to the long-term, healthy and stable development of the global energy market.
…direct their efforts to conduct joint revolutionary research in advanced fields of science and technology and on global issues of global development, including related to climate change mitigation and adaptation, He will present new models of cooperation in such technological and industrial fields as artificial intelligence, the Internet of things, fifth-generation communication networks, digital and low-carbon economies.
…
will deepen cooperation in the field of healthcare[…]to strengthen relevant work within such multilateral platforms as WHO, BRICS, SCO, G20, APEC.
…support the construction of an open world economy, support the multilateral trading system in which the World Trade Organization plays a central role
The Russian side positively assesses the global development initiative and will continue to participate in the work of the group of friends in support of it. The parties will continue to encourage the international community to focus on development issues and increase its contribution to it, jointly contributing to the success of the UN Summit for Sustainable Development, ensuring early implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Program by 2030.
The parties have established effective cooperation in a bilateral and multilateral format to combat the pandemic of the new coronavirus infection COVID-19, protecting the life and health of the population of both countries and peoples of the world. The parties support deepening the exchange of information on the COVID-19 pandemic and strengthening coordination of interaction on platforms such as WHO. The parties jointly oppose plans and attempts to politicize the issue of the origin of the virus.
The parties attach great importance to the issue of artificial intelligence regulation and are ready to increase exchange and cooperation on this topic.
The Parties take effective measures, develop cooperation and make an important contribution to the prevention and adaptation to climate change, the organization and functioning of carbon asset trading systems, the implementation of voluntary climate projects, the exchange of experience at the national and regional levels to reduce global warming and adapt to it.
The Parties reaffirm their commitment to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, as well as the goals, principles and provisions of the Paris Agreement, in particular the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities, adhere to a genuine multilateral approach, and contribute to the full and effective application of the Paris Agreement.
The Parties assess the results achieved at the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, chaired by the People’s Republic of China, and express the hope that they will make a positive contribution to the progress of the process of global biodiversity management. The parties constantly encourage international cooperation and exchange in the field of biodiversity, actively implement the goals of the Kunming-Montreal Global biodiversity Framework, jointly promote the harmonious development of man and nature and contribute to global sustainable development.
…joint efforts to form a community with a common destiny for humanity.”
https : // vigilantcitizenforums. com/threads/russia-through-the-hidden-eye.10549/post-548371
I hope you like that kind of thing, Ed, because in the peaceful future ahead, there’s a lot of them, that we see coinciding with Western plans. But wait until you see what’s in store for the next phase, in the very near future. Widespread neural interfaces, genetic modification, and such nice, peaceful things. Have you seen, for example, the order for the program for the next 5 years of the most key Russian institution, which also deals with nuclear development and is widely popular with the “peaceful atom”? I saw it: genome editing systems; genetic and biochemical mechanisms to regulate behavior; modeling processes in neural cells and cellular systems to create autonomous bioelectronic systems; software and hardware tools for natural communication with robotic devices based on human-machine interfaces; cellular mechanisms of behavior and movement formation in order to create a biomorphic control system for biorobototechnical systems… etc, etc.
It’s a lot of peace, Edward, and it’s coming soon. I hope it appeals to people who are constantly talking about the noisy, supposedly war that is everywhere in all kinds of media.
Hello peaceful atom. Is there anything smaller than an atom that we should know about? Particles, vibrations in space, the musical universe, what’s between intervals? Please help me understand the vagueness of it all ! Three sentences !
“…We are closer to nuclear annihilation than ever before.”
This is true. As the pattern of history shows, every empire eventually faces the war it is trying to avoid: but it does not see it coming. Unless the nuclear powers see what fate awaits Armageddon will not be averted. I have been silenced on a number of platforms for saying this. But the truth cannot be changed by denial; paradoxically, only by acceptance.
https://patternofhistory.wordpress.com/
Thank you Peter. You said we are closer to nuclear annihilation than ever before. Now…what might we do? Continue to read about this possibility ? Are we already being slowly eliminated by some other means that is not so obvious ? Should I be concerned about these ‘chemtrails’ left behind by flying jet aircraft…which in my opinion are one of the dumbest inventions ever! We should have stopped with bicycles. That’s fast enough if we’re too lazy to walk ! We could write more books on the danger of nukes. There are already thousands of books on the subject yet we are still stupid! Stop, observe, feel. That’s all that is required to know everything is insane, especially how we live. So, how can we live more sanely. I think that is what our focus can be. Then we can share what we experience during this silent observation with other humans. Maybe we could study more about Indigenous cultures? Maybe while we’re chewing our food we could observe ourselves; what is it we are doing.
Maybe we could contemplate how we use our brain, while we’re chewing our food? War after war after war. I’m 76 years old. Always war; between countries, people, family members. While chewing your food, perhaps you can ask yourself, why am I afraid to express my deepest feelings? If that is not relevant, ask why am I afraid? War doesn’t frighten me as much as the people in town, the administration of the local college, of the school district whose only responsibility is to maintain a lie and a football program. They are who scares me !
Ahh, so acceptable use of hydrogen bombs, that good old Democrat Truman bringing on the bombs bursting in air. That moment, Ed, is the moment to end all future moments.
It’s part of the collective sickness of shifting baseline/perspective disorder. It is a very pernicious disorder, a Capitalist and Empire driven system of acceptance of the good, bad and the ugly of our times, which hits all generations, all people especially in a consumer society, one that is called the throw-away society.
I’ll get to the nukes in a sec.
Acccepting a world/culture where the corporations make junk that breaks in a year or 90 days, and thusly, toss it out and buy a new one. The good old days? Well, do we insist on durable goods, on true discussion about what makes for life-cycle analysis which would put fire to the feet of the Fortune 5000 companies and beyond to make things that, err, last, are repairable, err, don’t cause hazards to life, limb and ecosystem?
It’s all in how the sausage is made, no? Fracking? And, then, there goes the water? These are hard times of what’s acceptable to corporations and their lobbies and their pimps and whores called politicians, until we are so beat down, well, we just accept it, pack up and leave like grapes of wrath.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/02072023/methane-coal-mines-west-virginia/
Deadly weapons indeed: Take a look at these:
https://historydaily.org/25-most-destructive-and-powerful-weapons-in-history
So, cluster bombs, and, depleted uranium shells, and poisoning water wells, and, hell, bombing sewage treatment plants, water systems, electrical grids. Try living in Iraq with no fridge and no fan and no lights and no, well, you get the message.
Ahh, shifting baseline means, say, as a diver, scuba, I have been in some incredicle places. Starting in 1972. When I go back to say parts of the Sea of Cortez now, with PhD marine biology students, they come up loving what they saw in 60 minutes. Then I show them the 1972 underwater shots, on my slide projector (now it’s a Power Point). They literally begin to tear up.
“My” reef in 1972 was so so abundant, and species galore, and unimaginable numbers of dolphins, moray eels, sharks, plethora of reef fish, so so many turtles. Now? Well, a shell of its previous existence. And if the 26 year old PhD student is working to “save” that place in Mexico, 2023, based on the baseline he or she is experiencig in 2023, then there you have that ugly shifting baseline that has no relationship to ecological reality.
Then, add to my urban planning university pursuits, and when I got my graduate degree in urban and regional planning, hell, I was called the communist because I worked hard at assessing just how urban and rural spaces might work with a growing population and growing “number of cars cars cars.”
Accepting clean, vibrant, public transporation, for the people and by the people, well, again, shifting baseline: today, few bus lines, no trolly lines, few metros, and we living in a world of automobiles. Getting cities to do anything on a grand scale, impossible with the US Chamber of Commerce soldiers hard at controlling the narrative and the $.
Accepting those death machines over trains that actually take people and goods from here to there?
Now, that nuclear war can be won according the the Blinken-Nuland-Yellen Administration, we have another more powerful shifting baseline. If we can build it, then we must build it . . . and deploy it, use it, what have you.
That entire group of eggheads to we call the Manhattan Project, come on, they knew, they knew a bomb they helped make would be used. Where in history have we created military machines and weapons where they were not used. Think of all the times bombs of thermo-nuclear beauty (sic) were tested around the world. Acceptable? Wonderful? Shifting baseline, after years and years of k12 and mass media propaganda, patriotism in our mush, and the reality that USA is a nation of war. We accept because each generation gets a new baseline of accepting the ugliest of scenarios and realities.
Shift those baselines, until someone like Elliot Abrams is back in Biden Boy’s Dementia Circus? War criminals get the microphone, the digital copy, and that is acceptable, again, it is with shifting baseline disorder we somehow allow this show to go on. Kissinger just got his hour of fame saying how Putin will go, how his Kissinger’s god-like mind sees how Ukraine will be back again, full of fun Blackrock and Monsanto and Mircosoft fun fun fun. Shift those baselines of acceptance until an old criminal is now an old wise sage.
Yikes. DARPA and Fort Detrick and Plum Island and hundreds of bio-weapons labs here and there and everywhere, on campuses, in the woods, everywhere, and, that’s acceptable?
We know the game plan: Today, an entire city can be reduced into ashes by just a push of a button. But the most horrifying and unconventionally brutal way to slowly destroy an entire population is by using chimera viruses.
No, a frog in cool water warming up slowly DOES not stay in the water until it boils. Another Disney thing, just like the lemmings jumping off cliffs to die lies. Aesop was so much better at fairy tales. But homo consumopethicus, homo bellum, homo narcissismus will do all it can to live and work in a lie.
Snake oil, smoke and mirrors, suckers born every nanosecond? That’s the idea behind a strategic nuclear war won by USA. And we allow the thought to even cross our minds. Shifting baseline disorder to the max.
Well…., I am reminded, constantly, every single day of this thought; ‘There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.’ Henry David Thoreau receives credit for this quote very frequently. That’s not important. We should be able to ‘SEE’ by now ! SEE…meaning to understand !
I don’t know what pingback means ! When I went to link, I realized I was traveling in circles…or is it marching in place in quick sand…which is what we are ‘taught’ to do. We do this very well. Check out Operation Popeye, which there is version happening currently. Look UP….don’t pingback !
Ed—grateful for your commentary as always. I, too, read your book “Seeking Truth in a Country of Lies” some time ago—fine writing.
Given everything we now see and read these days, I thought I was pretty much ‘immunized’ against idiocy and craziness. But I found myself still amazed, even astounded, at the comments you reproduced in your article (which you collected from re-posts of your previous article). And it appears that we are not talking about just one or two fringe characters or trolls, either.
Even with so many demonstrable frauds being reported, it’s a sorry thing that so many are now apparently convinced that an all-out nuclear war would not be an extinction event. And it’s a HARD thing to believe that significant numbers don’t even believe nuclear weapons exist!
I served for several years on a US Navy nuclear submarine back in the 1970s, and afterwards spent an entire career in the commercial nuclear power industry. I can assure any doubters that radioactivity and the nuclear chain reaction are very real things. How else to explain the gigawatts of power pumped out by nuclear generating stations every year? Is there a secret widget inside each of those domes that tens of thousands of workers have managed to keep a state secret for the last 60 years?
And even if a nuclear explosion could not be made to happen, radioactive material can be used to build a “dirty bomb” (a conventional bomb containing radioactive waste), and the result of its use would be almost as nasty.
Laughably, the scenario offered by that one commenter about faking a nuclear blast with fire bombing was the exact scenario in a fictional book I read years ago, “The Jesus Factor” by Edwin Corley, written back in 1970. How does that go: “Art imitates life”? Or do I have it backwards?
I was young and ignorant back then, but I still remember wondering to myself once or twice—if “the balloon went up”, would I stick around for the finale? Because even back then in my ignorance, it didn’t take me long to figure out how that scenario would play out.
Shifting baseline disorder. It is a very pernicious system of acceptance which hits all generations, all people in a consumer society, one that is called the throw-away society.
Acccepting a society where the corporations make junk that breaks in a year or 90 days, and thusly, toss it out and buy a new one. The good old days? Well, do we insist on durable goods, on true discussion about what makes for life-cycle analysis which would put fire to the feet of the Fortune 5000 companies and beyond to make things that, err, last, are repairable, err, don’t cause hazards to life, limb and ecosystem?
It’s all in how the sausage is made, no? Fracking? And, then, there goes the water?
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/02072023/methane-coal-mines-west-virginia/
Deadly weapons indeed: https://historydaily.org/25-most-destructive-and-powerful-weapons-in-history
So, cluster bombs, and, hell, poisoning water wells, and, hell, bombing sewage treatment plants, water systems, electrical grids. Try living in Iraq with no fridge and no fan and no lights and no, well, you get the message.
Ahh, shifting baseline means, say, as a diver, scuba, I have been in some incredicle places. Starting in 1972. When I go back to say parts of the Sea of Cortez now, with PhD students, they come up loving what they saw in 60 minutes. Then I show them the 1972 underwater shots, on my slide projector (now it’s a Power Point). They literally begin to tear up.
“My” reef in 1972 was so so abundant, and species galore, and unimaginable numbers of dolphins, moray eels, sharks, plethora of reef fish, so so many turtles. Now? Well, a shell of its previous existence. And if the 26 year old PhD student is working to “save” that place in Mexico, 2023, based on the baseline he or she is experiencig in 2023, then there you have that ugly baseline that has no relationship to ecological reality.
Then, add to my urban planning university pursuits, and when I got my graduate degree in urban and regional planning, hell, I was called the communist because I worked hard at assessing just how urban and rural spaces might work with a growing population and growing “number of cars cars cars.”
Accepting clean, vibrant, public transporation, for the people and by the people, well, again, shifting baseline: today, few bus lines, no trolly lines, few metros, and we living in a world of automobiles.
Accepting those death machines over trains that actually take people and goods from here to there?
Now, that nuclear war can be won shiftin baseline. If we can build it, then we must build it. That entire group of eggheads to we call the Manhattan Project, come on, they knew, the knew a bomb they helped make would be used. Where in history have we created military machines and weapons where they were not used. Think of all the times bombs of thermo-nuclear beauty (sic) were tested around the world. Acceptable? Wonderful? Shifting baseline, after years and years of k12 and mass media propaganda, patriotism in our mush, and the reality that USA is a nation of war.
Shift those baselines, until someone like Elliot Abrams is back in Biden Boy’s Dementia Circus? War criminals get the microphone, the digital copy, and that is acceptable, again, it is with shifting baseline disorder. Kissinger just got his hour of fame saying how Putin will go, how his Kissinger’s god-like mind sees how Ukraine will be back again, full of fun Blackrock and Monsanto and Mircosoft fun fun fun.
Ykies. DARPA and Fort Detrick and Plum Island and hundreds of bio-weapons labs here and there and everywhere, on campuses, in the woods, everywhere, and, that’s acceptable?
We know the game plan: Today, an entire city can be reduced into ashes by just a push of a button. But the most horrifying and unconventionally brutal way to slowly destroy an entire population is by using chimera viruses.
No, a frog in cool water warming up slowly DOES not stay in the water until it boils. Another Disney thing, just like the lemmings lies. Aesop was so much better at fairy tales. But homo consumopethicus, homo bellum, homo narcissismus will do all it can to live and work in a lie.
Snake oil, smoke and mirrors, suckers born every nanosecond? That’s the idea behind a strategic nuclear war won by USA.
Since politics is downstream from culture….and the main culture former – which is the Christian church – was corrupted and became Churchianity, thus joining the forces which now control this whole keg of worms.
I have posted this link before – https://crushlimbraw.blogspot.com/2022/09/the-gap-in-understanding-world-affairs.html?m=0 – it leads to a whole thread of writings by various authors which are linked together on the subject of demonic activity affecting our society’s well-being and its predictable problems……and which are the fundamental cause of the effects we try to solve without understanding the overall processes which evil incorporates into its destructive results.
We have literally become blinded by a system which deliberately and systematically was designed over the last several hundred years to numb our consciences and dumb down our brains to the point we can no longer discern between good and evil……and that started in the church. The rest is easy peasy!
But God always has a remnant to rebuild after the WILLFUL ignorance has destroyed our society – this ain’t His first rodeo!
I also admit that this study is not for the casual reader……but I know that those with serious intellectual curiosity are using my library…..I even occasionally hear from some.
Every human should watch the first 25 min. video: helencaldicott.com
The ‘light of a thousand suns’ will do more than brighten your day.
It could be those living in throes of great dislocation, disarticulation cannot very well see what’s going on — at best — .. .. .. see any better, at best: by analogy, than trying to drive automobile during mother of all lashing rain storm and reach some destination.
And sundering occur when [or because] chief messenger obviates reality? [be that tribal chief, emperor, feudal lord, Pope, President, Parent . . . what ever form, the legitimate power, the authority. . . “sinks to” obviating reality as new normal.]
When this happens in nuclear families, the state takes custody of the kids; when this happens on the world’s largest stage, the state does not always take custody of themselves, and can continue to go to more and more absurd levels of obviating reality.
This absurdity, so great circa 2016, Trump Phenomena and he was elected.
RFKjr Phenomena directly related to this absurdity; now: much much more extreme than its very very extreme 2016 variant.
PS
As an undergrad I was sometimes reminded that despite cancelling and suppression of Marx in capitalist west, contradictions of this system cannot and shan’t go away however hidden the Big Boys/Oligarchs may try. . . and thus predatory and more and more gangster and disaster capitalism came to be.
In other words, I was sometimes reminded: unless “we get beyond Marx” this crisis will persist and get worse.
Thus deciphering what it meant to get beyond Marx was the riddle.
Besides Capital, some say his more important works are German Ideology; and “The Poverty of Philosophy: Answer to the Philosophy of Poverty by M. Proudhon” can help answer the riddle.
What ever else Poverty is, it is a page by page dismantling of lie after lie after lie, that is, answers to all the lies. The lies on which capital ism is legitimized, [via all manner of lies, concrete and otherwise].
Simply put, getting beyond Marx means operating on basis of facts and truths viz. capitalism in particular. We are not there yet. . . .
Potential Nuclear Armageddon, symptom of this failure to get beyond Marx. Armageddon Boys Run amok in our nation’s capital. It may be Modern Europe [and excess of Europe, USA], founded on savagery and more savagery, by comparison to the East, may self destruct. We’re heading there irrespective of Nuclear Armageddon?
Lastly, recent injunction by federal judge barring Biden government agents to some degree from contacting big tech media firms — since government caught red handed urging censorship as means to further Biden agenda — this injunction is important from the AI perspective. What’s happened is AI tools and machinery deployed by government [and we paid for this] in industrial scale censorship. [And take note how big media [[robots]] frame this injunction: as court interfering with government attempts to fight disinformation! Yes, we have long way to go to get beyond Marx.]
Be that as it may, it is within this context any evaluations involving “Social psychosis” [and various and sundry other terms of similar meaning], in the current crisis, can be evaluated and explicated.
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https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1946/08/31/hiroshima
Thank you for this article.
I try to provide this link to the book HIROSHIMA whenever I can.
Everyone should read it.
Everyone must read it.
I own and have read SEEKING TRUTH IN A COUNTRY OF LIES—excellent book.
Following is a paraphrase of an observation from Laing that has always stayed with me through the many decades. Laing observed that – “it isn’t the delusional schizophrenic person who thinks he has a bomb ticking inside of his body that is the great danger to society – it is instead the “normal” “well adjusted,” well trained bomber pilot who will dutifully follow orders, get in his plane, and fly away to go obliterate a million people simply because he was told to do so.” To be “normal” in modern Western society is to be ready to be a mass murder “on-call” and ready to act on a moment’s notice. We must remember, as Ms. Albright enlightened us, that a half-a-million dead Iraqi children are in the end – “worth it” – to those who rule.
It feels very much like there is a sort of “controlled demolition” of rationality, of logic, and of the concept of material reality itself going on at this point – and that it is being pushed from the top down upon the rest of us. A sort of new hysterical, virtue signaling, narcissistic obsession with the tenants of Postmodern inspired nihilism. It posits that there is no objective material “reality” – rather there is simply “discourse,” with language able to create it’s own new “reality” – a reality that is as individual, and as subjective, and as detached from actual “material reality” as one wishes. It “feels” to me as if we have moved from being a society held captive (as we have been through most of my 71 year lifetime) to endless propaganda operations – now instead to a society now in the thrall of a collective madness.
Perhaps being lied to non-stop about literally everything of any real importance ends with just such an outcome – a populace that is incapable of the most basic rational – logical thought processes – but is instead ever more narcissistically obsessed with it’s own various “micro-identities” and it’s personal ever expanding collection of “micro-grievances.”
65 here
I look around at people on the street, on vacation, with their families.. young AND older…they are on their phones, heads down, lost in the machine ..while in Hawaii oblivious to their unbelievably beautiful surroundings.
They also all lined up for the shots too without curiosity for what was behind the fear campaign.
Ed’s article is true but I too feel a sense that we are indeed doomed and that the great horror is upon us. In time this planet will renew itself and start again. It has happened before. A thousand years is nothing. ‘Time wounds all heels’ as JL said and ‘the planet ain’t going anywhere , we are’…GC
Enjoy everyday to the fullest and love while you can where ever you can.
It is hard to love what we have become but love we must. This is a spiritual war for what comes next in this existence. Truth is very painful for most people. Thy will attack you if you dare spoil their normality.
I agree with much of this, especially where you wrote that “there is a sort of ‘controlled demolition’ of rationality, of logic, and of the concept of material reality itself going on.” And I’m pretty certain it is coming “from the top down” for a reason–people are much easier to persuade with emotion than with logic. The trick is pushing people into that mindset and then continually coming up with things that keep them there–don’t give them too much time to think.
Off and on over the years I’ve thought about that response Madeline Albright gave to the question about it being “worth it.” I finally realized that it was a great question, since from Albright’s perspective, there can be is no “good” answer. To say that “no, it wasn’t worth it” would be to admit that she (and by extension, the government) was wrong, which would throw fatal shade on everything they knew would be following. These people dare not admit that they are fallible and sometimes make the wrong call, even when they know it.
And it says much that she thought answering “yes, it was worth it” was the “less bad” of the two choices.