Off the keyboard of William Hunter Duncan

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Let me say first, any speculation about what happened in Boston, April 15, should be prefaced by empathy, for those who died, for those who were so gravely injured, for those in the immediate vicinity who were traumatized. (It should also be noted that this is a slightly edited version of what appeared originally here in the forum, to better reflect new information, and to correct factual errors.)

Blessings to you. All.

Now, let us consider the “evidence,” like rational people.

First, let us consider the bombs. Supposedly, pressure cookers filled with gunpowder, nails and ball bearings. If you have any familiarity with a pressure cooker, and most people do not, a pressure cooker is generally a fairly heavy apparatus. It has to be, to contain the high pressure and heat, to not blow up in your kitchen, as you are cooking or canning. Typically large enough to hold at least four quart-sized mason jars, though as many as eight or more. So the smallest pressure cooker is going to weigh, empty, between 15-25 lbs. Full of gunpowder, nails and ball bearings, more like 50-70.

The authorities are saying now, these bombs may have been carried to their destinations in back packs. Can we assume then, that one person lugged a big heavy back pack through a large crowd, dumped it in a garbage can, then retrieved another backpack, made another journey through the crowds, dumping big heavy backpack in another garbage can, with nobody noticing? Or are we talking about multiple bomb droppers? Which is a conspiracy.

Unless these bombs were placed well before the crowds showed up. Still, these are going to be awkward things to lug around, and dump; doing so would stand out, among those preparing for the event. Unless the bombs were already in the garbage cans, when the cans were placed there, in which case the person(s) who put the garbage cans there, are either employed by whatever company or gov agency that is in charge of the receptacles, or person(s) masquerading as such.

Assuming the bombs were in garbage cans, as early reports stated.

Second, one can be relatively certain, that just about every square inch of downtown Boston is covered by closed circuit TV (CCTV). So, there should be video of whomever put those bombs there.

Third, let’s consider the time the bombs went off, just before 3pm. The winner of the Boston Marathon crossed the finish line a full three hours before the bombings. That means, all the elite runners were done with the race by approximately 1:00-1:30, which means most of the media, public officials, important peoples, would have vacated the scene by 3pm, with most of the people remaining, regular Joe’s and Jill’s, supporting family and friends running the race.

Forth, the bomb exploded on Patriot’s Day, a Massachusetts holiday, and also tax day. Close to the same day as the Oklahoma City bombing in ’94, and the burning of Waco. Which has led many to surmise that this is the work of home-grown right-wing extremists. Boston being of course,  site of the original Boston Tea Party.

Five, there are conflicting reports, relative to the official story that there was no forewarning of an attack, that officials were running drills with bomb sniffing dogs, in the vicinity of the bombs, during the race, prior to the bombs going off.

As to the CCTV, do not expect to hear anything about that in the MSM. One, they do not like to allude to the ever-increasing surveillance state, at any time, under any circumstances. Two, if there is video, we are not likely to see it any more than we have seen video of Adam Lanza breaking into and rampaging through that elementary school in Connecticut, though we know there was CCTV coverage. (What is the point of all that surveillance if it can’t catch bombers in plain sight?)

As to the timing of the remote controlled bombing, and it being tied to domestic right-wing extremism, there are indeed many right-wing gun nuts who glorify the Boston Tea Party, who fetishize the Constitution, who despise government in all it’s forms. Ask yourself however, even if the bomber is a right-wing lunatic crazy man, precisely what irrationality would justify in his mind, killing random regular folk, and not government agents, so typically the targets of right-wing rhetoric? Even in the Oklahoma City bombing, most of those killed were employees of the Federal Government.

As to the reports about drills – that flies in the face of the MSM story that there was no forewarning, as well as circumstantially tying it to 9/11, the 7/7 bombings in London, and the shootings @ Sandy Hook Elementary, official drills coinciding, even mirroring, the actual attacks. (The MSM and Gov still maintain, contrary to considerable evidence, that there was no forewarning of 9/11.)

The Liberty movement is aflame. Go to infowars.com, or Alt-market.com, and you can read about their fears, that this is another false-flag operation designed to demonize the Liberty, Patriot and Tea Party movements, and take away their guns, i.e. initiate total martial law, lockdown in America. This is not without reason. You will never hear the MSM, for instance, discuss the 2 billion+ bullets the Department of Homeland Security has ordered in the last year, or the 1000+ bullet-proof check points. This is news every American should know, but it is not news the MSM will report. Several Obama administration officials, law enforcement officials and MSM pundits have already alluded to home-grown “terrorists,” that oh-so popular catch phrase of fascist authoritarian control freaks everywhere.

Whatever the case, whoever did this is INSANE. And I personally lean toward blaming agents of a secret cabal of behind the scene, fascist authoritarian control freaks, for whom most of the global population is cannon fodder. It doesn’t matter to these people, these fabulously wealthy monsters, who gets blown up, be they in Afghanistan, Pakistan, North Korea, Iran or the streets of America. The point is the maintenance and consolidation of power. Total information control; as many observers note, a fearful people are a pliable, compliant people. It really isn’t complicated; it is only that such an evil is something few are willing or able to contemplate. Most people, like the people who died in Boston, and those so gravely injured and maimed, just want to go through life staying out of trouble.

Well, increasing trouble is coming, of which Boston is only a glimpse. And just remember, no one on this earth is more fond of bombs than governments, and all governments are controlled by the moneychangers.

I suspect those bombs were already there when the winners of the Boston Marathon crossed the finish line. If this was about maximizing mayhem, that would have been the time to set those bombs off. Unless this was about controlled mayhem, in which case, better to kill, injure and maim ‘a bunch of people who don’t matter.’

It is often said, the simplest answer is generally the right one. Conventional wisdom would suggest, this is the work of a right-wing crazy person, or an Islamic fundamentalist. But in a world where the Lusitania, Pearl Harbor, the Gulf of Tonkin, 9/11, 7/7, Sandy Hook and even Aurora, are all known or suspect of conspiracy, when the FBI and CIA are known and suspect of cultivating terrorists, the simplest answer may very well be the one answer hardly anyone is willing to consider – that this world is controlled by a vicious, ruthless people, for whom the ends ALWAYS justify the means.

Off the keyboard of William Hunter Duncan

Published originally @ Off The Grid in Minneapolis, March 20, 2013

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I consider physics to be one of the great spiritual triumphs of modern society. In a way, quantum physics is like coming full circle – a reintroduction to mystery in the universe. Indeed, if the point of civilization is to come to know our place in the physical universe, Science (with a capital S) could be said to be one of the great triumphs of the coming-of-age of humanity.

But then, it is not as though Science sees physics as a spiritual triumph, but more a triumph over nature. Thinking so, it cannot see that Science is in part responsible for the proliferation of nuclear material: in major facilities next to people, nuclear tipped missiles, and out of the barrel of guns (depleted uranium bullets). Phlatlets, chemicals, GMO and nano-particles released into the biosphere with near-total abandon. The wanton use of antibiotics threatening new plagues, while industrial methods dependent entirely upon fossil fuels threaten the exhaustion of the land, waters and air. The machinery of quantum mechanics looks to turn the entirety of the earth into a wasteland.

Which the news last week, that the Higgs Boson is semi-officially discovered, “giving” mass to the universe as we know it, under the standard model of physics, should have been considered another great triumph. Alas, word is, the discovery of the Higgs was supposed to open up new vistas of ethereal landscape, in the elucidation of dark matter, gravity, angular momentum, the “vacuum catastrophe”. It was not meant to be a dead end. To reiterate, the standard model of physics, and the elucidation of the Higgs, does not account for that mysterious substance referred to as dark matter, or gravity, or why anything in this universe spins or spirals, or why quantum physics suggests that empty space is in fact denser than matter by an order of magnitude running to infinity. Consider again the devastation wrought by the fruit of Science, and then you might begin to comprehend, that the standard model of physics can be seen as a dismal failure.

Scientists are still hopeful. They are doubling the energy of their Hadron Collider, ever attempting to unlock the mysteries of the universe by FORCE. Meanwhile, the earth and it’s people languish, under ever increasing aggression, as a million and one ideologies seek to silence every other, as every one and their mother attempts to catch, grab and hold what they can of what remains of the once abundant earth, among a population growing exponentially in a way that would not have been possible without Science. And only a very few on the margins are dedicated to healing.

Do you suppose it is mere coincidence, that the twilight of the standard model of physics arrives, at the same time humanity appears to have reached the carrying capacity of the earth, at the same time war is threatened everywhere, as if we are preparing for one last great conflagration, at the same time the financial system seems on the verge of collapse? Does it surprise you that the fiercest of new “superbugs” should arise out of hospitals? Does it surprise you that the “green revolution”, the proliferation of industrial agriculture, should threaten famine unforeseen at any point in human history? Should it surprise you that in a time when their are so few jobs to be had, they are making machines to replace people in many of the jobs that remain? It should not surprise you, if you have not made a god out of the technology wrought by the ingenuity of humans. It should not surprise you, if you are unconvinced that scientific progress is an unequivocal good, for the betterment of humanity. It should not surprise you if you do not believe that Science is the be-all, end-all of human understanding.

Science will never unlock the full mystery of the physical universe, as long as it is assumed that to understand a thing, you must destroy it, as they do so energetically with the Hadron Collider, as they do with cells by tearing them apart. Science is an extension, at this point, of the will to power, of the will to dominate. Science has driven spirit from life, and in so doing, has stultified. Making of the material universe material ONLY, scientists have closed themselves off to themselves. By banishing the irrational, they have closed themselves off to the full breadth of life. In short, scientists need to get HIGH.

Which I think accounts for some of the recent attempt to de-stigmatize cannabis here in America, a kind of unconscious awakening to the fact that what passes for answers in this culture of high tech this-and-that, are not answers at all, but more like gratification of our basest desires, our most cruel assumptions about what life is and what life is about. Consider that modern Science has desired to understand every material thing in the universe, except that most useful of all plants here on earth, except any plant or fungi that can be considered hallucinogenic. Which is to say, Science has closed itself off to the full breadth of the universe of the mind. To claim the mind as a weak and flawed piece of meat, elecro-chemically active but otherwise inert, is to diminish it and humans and life, in a self-similar way as Religion (with a capital R) cut human consciousness away from the earth (which is precisely why the only thing on this earth as rigid as a fundamentalist for God, is a dogmatic scientific atheist.)

More and more, I do hear scientists talking sense. Referring to the human body as an ecosystem, a kind of mirror of the earth outside. It should follow then, that you cannot poison the body of the one and expect it to thrive, any more than you can poison the body of the whole and expect it to support abundant life. Four hundred years after Francis Bacon, Rene Descartes’, Sir Isaac Newton, et al, elucidated for us the scientific method, Science is beginning to comprehend the bombast, the crudity of it’s ways. Too little too late? We shall see. At the same time I hear some Scientists talking about mimicking Nature, I hear others talking about bio-engineering, as a solution to climate change (and really every other problem there is), which is just more of the same over-weening hubris, a fundamental lack of ability to self-reflect. A most paternalistic and immature desire to control everything.

I wonder sometimes if most of what has been wrought, will have to be lost, before we awaken to the error of our ways? If most of that has arisen from the ingenuity of men (mostly), will have to be lost, before we will accept that the universe and life is considerably more mysterious than we like or care to believe? I wonder too if Science will help lead to the total destruction of the earth and biosphere upon which the species depends, and there will never be anything like a search for understanding, by any human, ever again?

It is not merely the twilight of the standard model of physics. It is the twilight of the standard model of everything human.

Embrace the mystery.

Off the keyboard of William Hunter Duncan

Originally published at Off the Grid in Minneapolis

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God made an appearance, during the Super Bowl fiesta, did you see that?

Or was that the devil everywhere? I’m not sure anymore, between the two, but then, there’s football to think about, so, all’s good.

I mean, what a dramatic game! A very dramatic Super Bowl – with even a game shifting power outage, following an astounding halftime show; WHAT TECH! And Beyonce’ “killed” it (which for you old timers, is a euphemism for “totally rocked”). I found myself totally cheering for the 49′ers, for old time’s sake, amazed at the strength and accuracy of the arm, of the young man Kaepernick – who, check it out, wrote a letter when he was a kid that he wanted to play in the Super Bowl for the 49ers! Flacco and the Ravens showed extreme poise, and unified vision. The brothers angle was special too, the two opposing head coaches (between whom there is enough antipathy that they could not even embrace after the game.) The ending was a drag, literally, a weird non-call on the last play from scrimmage for the 49ers, and then the punter for the Ravens running around in the end zone, but on the whole it was a great game, and Ray Lewis finally got his title.

As for God, He showed up early, before the game, just like He always does. Ray Lewis gave an interview. Among other things, asked about the man he supposedly killed 13 years ago. To paraphase, “God is perfect, and He wouldn’t ever let a man who could have done what was accused of me, to accomplish what I’ve accomplished.” After which, it was revealed that the interview was recorded before it was revealed that he had used a banned pharmaceutical to heal more quickly from a triceps injury.

Kaepernick called out God’s name too, though Colin compared to Ray Lewis, seems a genuine “babe in the woods,” though it might not seem that way to conservative America, what with all those tatoos. FAITH being most prominent on the golden biceps he is so fond of kissing. Too bad though, God showed up for the bad guy, this time.

Beyonce’ called out to God too, from that fabulous stage. She seemed classy about it too, IMO, thanking the audience at the end, some 111 million Americans, for the opportunity. What an opportunity! One wonders, or at least I do, what would have happened had she called out to the Goddess, instead. LOL. The horror of it.

The devil was more prominent in the commercials. He appeared as Willem Dafoe, for Mercedes (did anyone else notice the Mercedes emblem hovering over it all, at the peak of the Superdome?), and several times, as Stevie Wonder/witchdoctor/Bud Light pimp. There was plenty of mayhem, as Kunstler pointed out:

Did anyone notice how violent and psychotic the Superbowl advertising
was this year? An Oreo commercial that depicted a mob of nerds
destroying a library —  huh? The Doritos spot where “Daddy” and his
male buddies transform themselves into an insane clown posse of
cross-dressers. The Fast and Furious 6 trailer featuring the
destruction of every vehicle known to man and a few office buildings,
too. The third-quarter power failure was a neat harbinger of
things-to-come in the Most Exceptional United States of America. Party
on, peeps! 

The coup de grace’ did not actually come, until after the game, a contrived Elementary strip tease, and then the slaughter of two doctors, two nurses and a policeman, shot in the head, and throats slit. I only saw three people die the rest of that show, shot in the head and stabbed in the neck, though I never finished watching it. Sometime much later, I caught three minutes of a CSI episode, a middle class woman chained to a bed, mouth covered with duct tape – close-up on her face as she is stabbed to death with an ice pic – her death-image repeated about 50 times in the next 2 minutes, spasmodically.

I have a few theories about that power outage. I didn’t actually know until almost game time, that the game was being played in the New Orleans Superdome. I didn’t want to be a downer during the game, so I didn’t mention all the people who died in that building, post-Katrina. The first thing out of my mouth when the power went out was, “The ghost of Katrina rises!” Or ghosts. It might have been intentional too: the lights out in HALF the building. Notice, the 49er’s were 3rd and 14, down 28-6, early in the third quarter. That’s a lot of advertising that isn’t going to be watched ($), and another 34 minutes of downtime to show them. It worked, great. DHS is sure to make use of the power outage, too, in their propaganda to take over the internet. Maybe it was God though, maybe it was, a little harbinger of what is to come, like Kunstler says.

After the game, I went to a local bar with my brother in law. The ending of that Elementary show was on the TV, the psychotic killer of nurses and doctors in some nice apartment, in a battle of wits with the protagonist, Holmes. Rather than follow along with the captioning, I started talking to the guy next to me, about the tv show, and how weird it was there was so much violence, immediately following the game. He started analyzing it in a sort of comatose and not necessarily overly-drunken way, like, why was it necessary to kill those nurses, as if those first two dead health care professional/doctors and police man made sense, dramatically speaking – identifying with the mass murderer, without really knowing he was doing it. He wasn’t a bad guy; banal would be the word, eating up a “morality” tale on the relative righteousness of revenge killing/psychopathic slaughter. Which there seems to me a great many like him. People who don’t think very well, basically, inured to the imagery of violence. For instance, I hear some hesitatingly harsh talk today about the extreme sexuality of Beyonce’s performance. Violence, on the other hand, is being discussed on NPR right now as I write this, with about as much detached apprehension as that everyman at the bar. If I had to say, what is TV about, after last night’s foray, myself not watching TV very often, I’d say it’s more and more about training people to be killers, clinical like.

So, stepping into the archetype of the raving mystic, for a moment, making a Prophecy, my take-away from Super Bowl XLVII (you might want to avert your eyes):

Ravens will pick from the bones of the dead, 
before the descendents of flower children shall rise;
with gold and precious metals, to make a new way 
to communicate freely, or to enslave, 
or be enslaved if they are not wary

Well, 2013. Here we are, not yet a month in, and it already feels like a decade to me. Where are we? I’ve been distracted. Some thoughts.

How about that Inaugural? Could there be a more appropriate metaphor for where we have come, as a country; history is indeed fractal. A private ceremony/swearing in : pageantry and theatre for the people. Paraphrasing Kunstler: the Black Messiah, Lincoln cum MLK. He’s better at it every time, I’ll give him that, and more hollow sounding. With respect to my gay friends, I think they will have a hard time now criticizing his drone killing, indefinite detention, war making. Not that my gay friends give a shit about that kind of thing, the suspension of the Bill of Rights, et al, any more than your average American. And OMG, he mentioned CLIMATE CHANGE. Historic! He only has to utter the words, and they genuflect before him, never mind that he has never suggested a policy that wasn’t a boondoggle for some entrenched, monied interest, that wasn’t also basically a fuck the earth, whatever, it serves.

I’ve been reading about the Julian-Claudian emperors of Rome: Julius Caesar, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and Nero (49BC-68AD). Julius Caesar was about a thousand times the man turd-bucket GWBush is; and the supposed democratic Senate Julius Caesar deposed, was a tyrant hydra; but for sake of argument let’s say they, BUSH and JC, are both war mongers who said to hell with freedom: Crossing the Rubicon, I’m the DECIDER, Patriot Act, torture, et al. Then there’s O as Augustus Caesar, who institutionalizes tyranny like a constitutional lawyer would, making it the eternal function of the State, who LOOKS and SOUNDS like the pious defender of the principles of the Nation, but who wouldn’t hesitate to unleash the Legions anywhere in the empire, including the capital, if he thought his rule were in danger. Now we’re on a bit tighter of a timeline here, as Augustus ruled for several decades, but if the next four Prezidents correspond to anything like Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and Nero, well at least America will be more accepting of gay people, theoretically. As for a difference between us and Rome, it seems to me, while the preferred method of destroying political enemies then was murder, forced suicide and character assassination, OUR elite mostly have each others back, while they leave the murder and the suicide and incarceration for the slaves and freedmen, ie regular people, despairing over a shitty economy.

(I.E. Davos. Private meetings, Public theatre.)

Where is the media on any of this? Huffpost published a scathing feature on Obama’s war on cannabis, and the people by extension, by staff writer Ryan Grim – last Saturday afternoon. It was off the front page by Sunday night, nowhere to be found but by digging, Monday morning. This sycophantic puff piece on the basic goodness of government surveillance/control/lockdown posted Saturday, is still one scroll down, main page Monday late, with 1/20th the comments, (never mind, as Ward Churchill pointed out, you can appease TPTB right up to the door to the crematoria.) Speaking of Rome, what was the Jewry of Jerusalem and the surrounding country, in the time of Julian-Claudian rule? Just about the only people ruled by Romans, who could not be crushed. Compared to the 20th century Jewry of Germany, which many millions allowed themselves to be herded, unto an early, hideous death. Wait, I was talking about media, and then Cannabis. Well, if there is an antidote on this earth to being herded, it is pot. If there is a mechanism for herding more powerful than media, I can’t fathom it. Which message from the media just lately, synthesized amounts to: A RECOVERING ECONOMY/IMMINENT ENERGY INDEPENDENCE/NATURAL GAS IS CLEAN! NPR to FOX to MSNBC

MSM, it is safe to say, is become a black art of dissimulation, Bernays vision fully realized. For a brief moment, let us focus on the gun debate. First of all, there was never supposed to be a standing military here in America. Standing armies, the founders knew, become a fraternity of mercenaries and professional soldiers, who care to do little but soldiering, who become the tools of tyrants who destroy the core principles of any republic (generally Second of all, any weapon, standard-issue in time of war, to the infantry, should be available to ANY adult citizen who displays competency. Such a well regulated militia was meant to be the guard against the herding unto tyranny/war/genocide. Third, we were never supposed to be entangled in other country’s bizness.

So what are they talking about now? National database, gun “buy backs”, guns left at the shooting range? (See Australia) What did the MSM have to say about the 450 Million .40 cal hollow point rounds, DHS alone purchased in 2012, or the billion+ rounds they purchased total, of various calibre? Nada. Nothing. And that hardware is just DHS. That doesn’t include CIA, FBI, NSA, DEA, ATF, et al Fed, State and Local law enforcement, and all the decommissioned weaponry of Afghanistan and Iraq, heaped upon them. From a strictly strategic standpoint, American’s are going to need a hell of a lot of AR-15 .223cal rifles, well-organized, to fend off the State with all those .40cal hollow points, domestic surveillance apparatus, drones, etc. That doesn’t even count the Military. Assuming all that hardware is facing the people, and not turned back against the State, of course, should trouble start (see, I do have faith in Americans). But the job of the MSM, you see, is to support the State, not question it. BTW, I don’t own a gun, and I’m not on the market for one. I figure, if I ever need one, the universe will provide, which is good enough for me right now, thanks.

Has anybody out there read Sibel Edmonds book Classified Woman? There isn’t a better book right now, that I’m aware of, detailing how low this country has sunk. Basically, Ms Edmonds, being a First Generation American, exiled essentially from her native Turkey because she wrote an article in grade school about the necessity of a free press, found herself courted by the FBI, immediately after 9/11. Her familiarity with Middle Eastern languages and culture, and her standing in the community recommending her. A true believer in The American Way, she signed up to serve her adopted country, as a translator.

What she found was an FBI leadership not the least bit interested in protecting America, operating primarily as a domestic surveillance organization dedicated to protecting the bureau, and it’s Washington, corporate, banking and military patrons, at the expense of America’s safety. Uncovering a brazen spy network within the bureau, notifying the bureau, the bureau did what any Machiavellian enterprise would do. Classified Woman is a study of modern character assassination, with the United States Federal Government, as Assassin. Suffice to say she didn’t have ANY friends or family left, (except her loving, dedicated husband) by the time gov got done with her. They went so far as to classify HER, as in, she couldn’t even declare her age, without running afoul of anti-espionage laws. Which, if you think Bush was an ASS, Obama has treated whistle-blowers like spies, more egregious in his harsh treatment of them than any president in modern American history. A real monster.

Ms Edmonds book, too, is another tale of how 9/11 was not what it was purported to be. It’s abundantly clear, to anyone who cares about this country, and will take the time, that 9/11 was in some way all about gov. The 9/11 Commission was a fraud, and no serious government attempt to get at the truth of what happened, has ever occurred. Which Americans neither, have invested much time in thinking about what that means for this country. Consider the recent hoopla about Zero Dark Thirty. To torture or not to torture. It is almost laughable; the Left will get uppity about torture, but not Obama bombing Americans with drones, indefinite detention, or Stellar Wind and the domestic surveillance state, etc. (The Right doesn’t seem to care about anything but more war, less taxes, and making abortion – and by extension, miscarriage – a freedom-ending criminal offence.) I have a visceral revulsion at the very idea of a movie about the Bin Laden killing, not least because of this country’s soulless acceptance of perpetual war and militarism generally; but consider too, how that film basically serves to sanctify the 9/11 official story, like a collective absolution for such a feckless, soft, easily manipulated people, so prone to denial and willing to forget. Here now, feel how righteous you are, arguing about torture, while your government operates as a quasi-authoritarian, do-as-we-please-because-we-can, expanding information capture, incentivized asset forfeiture, criminal racketeering conspiracy/enterprise. When was the last time you heard someone say “the land of the free and the home of the brave,” except as a joke? I feel like if I went out in public now, with that orange afro wig I used to dance in, on Hennepin Ave, out in front of the Halloween store, I’d be arrested and detained indefinitely. That’s how lock-down things have already become. But if you are a banker…

Meanwhile there is Sandy Hook. Granted, that happened in 2012, but most of the conspiracy talk has surfaced here in 2013. The latest? Here at the Doomstead Diner, Peter, one of the founding members and the techie genius who put this site together, who’s work on Hydroponics I have highlighted in my blog, is convinced he has found evidence that Sandy Hook was a false flag operation,. He says he has evidence that several web pages dedicated to the tragedy, were in fact posted before the tragedy occurred. He believes the incident was meant to take place on Dec 10, but something happened that put it off for four days; during which time they failed to pull back all their co-conspirators, who posted the prepared info as originally directed. He has screen shots of the offending web-sites, and Google has evidently locked the cache, so they cannot be accessed by the public now. He also claims the activist Aaron Swartz, was murdered, because he was the one who found the cached documentation. In irony, it would be the RSS feed Swartz had a hand in inventing, that provided for the information being available? I don’t know; I’m not a techie, strictly speaking, and haven’t been able to my satisfaction verify what Peter is saying. I do trust him, however.

Which, I relay the information not because I believe it or am convinced, necessarily, but because Peter is concerned that he is going to end up suicided, or accidented, basically; and having accepted gross malfeasance of my gov, and because I trust Peter, and we are a lonely outpost here at the Diner, I affirm his right to exist.

Whatever you believe, consider, they say this Adam Lanza was the killer. Try a google search about Adam Lanza’s medical records. All I found was speculation. Not even reporting, nothing official. We do not have access to his medical records, or even a discussion, just a blanket declaration of better mental health care? These records are said to be “private”? The government is on the verge, with Stellar Wind, of Total Information Capture of All Digital Communications anywhere in America, but the medical records of a mass killer of innocent children are “private”? My government obeys laws to the degree it finds convenient, it seems to me. Whatever ‘investigation’ is happening, it is sure to result in a justification for further exploration of Max Weber’s ideas about the only legitimate powers (violence) belonging to the State. See, the people will be disarmed, but for Law Enforcement/Military, there is no conceivable limit…

But, like Tiberius, I mean Hillary, said(paraphrased), “What does it matter now, what happened? The only thing that matters is that we prevent it from ever happening again.” What does 9/11, Benghazi, Sandy Hook matter now – the truth does not matter – the only thing that matters is increased powers for the State, that the State can “prevent” bad things from happening again. But then, if the State was behind 9/11…

Anyway, lively already, here in 2013. Likely to get livelier. At least we won’t see Caligula until 2020 or 2024. Claudius 2024 or 2028, and Nero 2028 or 2032 approx. Which, based on the trends, I expect America as the light of the world to be mostly snuffed out by then. Unless of course Americans start asserting their independence, like citizens of a republic; less wards of the Imperial State.

 

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The death of the techie “wizard” Aaron Swartz has affected me as much as, and really even more deeply, than the incident at Sandy Hook. I’m not comparing the two cases in any other way than to say that they affected me deeply; nor did I know any of the dead. It affected me though, not merely because of what happened, but also because of what I have learned about my country, by the response. On one extreme is the netherworld of the fringe of fringe media, claiming Sandy Hook was a covert government/Illuminati operation to lead to a national database on all guns and eventually their seizure and martial law and extermination of Americans; to the other extreme of MSM manipulation, and hopeless obfuscation, about damn near everything newsworthy, left and right, the Swartz case a prime example.

If you think the charges against Aaron Swartz levied by the Federal Government were about some science documents he attempted to liberate from MIT and JSTOR, then you don’t know anything about power. I mean yeah, he was challenging their right to profit selling public-paid-for research (which the government accused the dead man of having wanted to do.) But really, Those charges were RETRIBUTION for SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act, 2011 Federal legislation that nearly everyone in Congress and the President were firmly behind, Left and Right, when it was first introduced. Which, after Google, Craigslist, much of the techie crowd and Aaron Swartz including a great many Americans across the spectrum, made it very clear that this bald-faced government attempt to take over the Internet was a problem, Congress and the President were united firmly against the bill.

So, when Aaron Swartz took those documents from MIT and JSTOR, despite it being clear that he was making a statement more than anything – that research paid for by public funding should be free to the public, which it was not – he opened the door for them to attempt to destroy him.

Never mind that he had been described as a “wizard of programming.” Never mind that he was at least partially responsible for the RSS feed. Never mind, that he was responsible at least in part for Reddit. A prodigy. A genius. Deeply caring and peaceful.

Government now is circling the wagons. Various enquiries are being suggested, others initiated. MIT administration is taking a beating somewhat, for their betrayal of him. Laws are being discussed. The Wall Street Journal as early as Sunday night, doing it’s elite service, quoted “a person familiar with the matter”, that Aaron had been offered a 6 month plea deal, managing the discussion with unaccountable bullshit, trying to manage the blowback. It seems clear to me now they were fully intending to ruin him.

And why, really? Because he wasn’t an empire builder.

What did the great Eric Shmidt of Google have to say about this case? How about the techie genius Larry Ellison at Oracle? Bill Gates? That Facebook guy? Craigslist merely notes generically that Aaron Swartz “is a person who has recently died.” No call out to their friend, their fellow culture-warrior, protector of freedom, no goodbye header. WTF?

And gov? Darell Issa is at least going to investigate. Which, yeah, he’s one of the few who was against SOPA, but that’s mostly just because he’s a pirate basically, and he despises that “cock-suck” Eric Holder, and he’d do anything to embarrass Holder’s boss. Speaking of “cock sucks”, Elijah Cummings, ranking DEM member of the House Oversight Committee, jumped to the defense of the government. Whatever. Bunch a god damn wet noodles in the face of the banks.

The whole god damn scenario basically confirms for me that Authority in this country is overrun with murderers, pedophiles, sadists and thieves. Counting on American obliviousness, basically. Expecting American obedience for sure.

I mean, jail time and financial ruination, one way or another, for the young man? For “stealing” public-paid-for research, that he gave back. Where the fuck is John Corzine? I mean, these guys can’t even offer up one of their own as a sacrificial lamb! For stealing 2 billion dollars! HSBC gets caught laundering international drug money to the tune of many tens (hundreds) of billions, AND NOTHING HAPPENS.

And even with all that surreality, more than all that, it’s like a betrayal of the promise of science and technology. Because it’s clear to me now, it’s not about what is good or best for people, it’s only about power. Money and power; who controls what and whom.

So let it be known, America. You will play along. You may question the arrangement of things; but if you stand in our way, if you embarrass us with any success, we will destroy you.

RIP Aaron Swartz

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A reader contacted me last week, with this to say,

“By the way, You’re awfully full of doom and gloom and woe-is-me and
isn’t-my-life-hard of late. It’s not very becoming and I don’t get how
creating this narrative serves you–or the goddess for that matter. You
are so not a victim in this life. So knock this shit off. And stop
creating corners that you can then back yourself into. Infinite
possibility, compassion, love, cosmic mystery–that’s where your power
is.

It’s a new year, a new era, and (for me, at least) a brandly [sic] new
decade. This year, I’m choosing surrender as my theme. Not raise the
white flag surrender. More like jump in the river and let it take you
surrender. We’ll see where that takes me.”

I was like, wha? Letting go of this house and dancing around the world, farm to farm, in an orange afro wig isn’t surrender enough for you? LOL. As for not being very becoming, it’s January in Minnesota, I don’t have a job, and I’ve been spending most of my time on-line or on the computer, at least since I started at big bank in late August 2012, and anyone who knows me knows I have a high tolerance for chaos in my immediate surroundings; so no, not very becoming at all. lol But yes, goodness, kindness, compassion, love, cosmic mystery; and yes, the possibilities are indeed infinite, maybe – I’m not sure about that exact specific just yet

She replied, “What was that again, about Cosmic Mystery?”

Hmmmm….

On the Doomstead Diner, there’s a Nobody in the forum who wrote about being at the cusp of leaving this plane, this dimension, Dec 21, 2012. But she stayed, and speaking of Doom and Gloom she has two teenage sons, who can’t imagine there is anything at all really wrong with the culture, blase’ even to the point that Mom being followed in a wooded park by a disturbing stranger, is merely reason that she’s just crazy basically, to want to go for a walk on a trail in the woods. She is like a lot of people who think about DOOM, or the meme basically that Industrial Civilization is coming apart around us, on it’s way to almost total dissolution, who feel trapped in current circumstances, whose families are mostly about BAU, and/or they “own” city real estate/debt they can’t discharge.

She seemed to resonate when I said this, in the Doomstead Diner Forum:

It is funny how easily the response to Ashvin* has overwhelmed any other
discussion. It is I think, in a way, a dearth of answers about how to
perceive the changing landscape. It is changing very fast; no wonder
really Ashvin has lashed onto something he has perceives [sic] as fixed. I
perceive instead, I think, that chaos is the new reality,
and that is about opening up to an irrational, right-brain way of
perceiving, learning to flow with the inherent flow of nature, which is
like what is said about the Tao, which makes the whole concept of Doom
something spiritual, a kind of search for balance between left/right
ways of perceiving. IMHO LOL.

So I encourage Diners to speak in a spiritual way about how they perceive Doom. And I hope Ashvin is over having to use us to flagellate himself.”

*  Ashvin is a curious case, a former contributor to the website The Automatic Earth, whose work on economics and the abuse of power I have highlighted in this blog, who has abandoned the Doom meme entirely in favor of Christian Theology, to the point that if you do not accept the inherent logical and reasoned foundation of Christian exegesis, then you are according to Ashvin by definition incapable of reason or logic. He has been known to use the words reason and logic like incantations, like a bludgeon. He has also been accused (by me) as an exceptional, or at least profligate, name caller; Ashvin just as ready to claim he never said whatever, even at times contrary to evidence. I’m also convinced he is going to stand one day at the head of one of those televangelical mega-churches, assuming there are such things 10-15 years from now. The Doomstead Diner has been like a crucible on his path to Glory, I think. Unless he repents of course and grows himself a sense of humor. LOL

I’m of the opinion, like I say, that he has lashed onto Christianity because he sees it as a thing fixed, as in, a firm foundation, lasting. Which is an understandable response, facing the dissolution of Industrial Civilization. No doubt Christianity appears a very sturdy dock. But any mariner will tell you, lashing to the dock, in rising, turbulent waters, you better hope the tethers hold; whereas it would be better generally to head for open water, seeing esp. as most of those docks extant, were not built for the reality of rising seas that is in progress.

Doom, is a spiritual exercise insofar as it is a coming to terms with the fact that almost everything we have been told about this existence, is false in some fundamental way. Doom is facing the reality that many of those stories that have held society together are shattering, in the face of sheer fundamental terrestrial realities, of 7+ billion people and climbing exponentially, about half of whom are wanting to and have been at least until lately, living like profligate consumers. It is the reality that neither Science nor Religion nor Government nor Banks nor Corporations are protecting us from disaster, they perpetuate it everywhere. Because they are sustained by ideas of control, which is about power. Seeking not to understand nature, or even the furthest implications of Science, but to control nature and people generally.

Which process began about the time we started growing food agriculturally, about 10,000 years ago. Which has come to it’s logical conclusion, which is a nearly complete surveillance state, at the cusp of radically shifting climate extremes, systemic toxicity, global financial collapse…so on and so forth.

Which, when I consider the effect all this has had on my body, after nearly 40 years immersed in American consumer culture, I recognize that the left hemisphere of my brain quite literally has been over-developed, which has resulted in the right side of my body, full of pain, tightness, restriction, to the point that it has been warped out of alignment; while the left side of my body is comparatively free of such restriction. Such misalignment is probably inevitable, to the degree I have been immersed in and accepting of Western culture, to the degree I was unaware of the effect and not striving for alignment, physically and mentally. By alignment, I don’t mean any kind of Pythagrean or Platonic ambidextrousness as ideal, but more just being aware that there are two hemispheres to your brain, which are connected to opposite (and complimentary) sides of your body, and they have different specialities, and to be radically over-reliant on either is to be out of alignment. Alignment meaning, it seems to me, as natural and easy a flow as is possible, of energy, through both sides of the brain and body? Which is to say, loosely, equal facility with order and chaos, logic and intuition, conscious and unconscious, culture and wilderness, etc.

And then add in things like quantum physics, that the ether, or empty space, is in fact denser energetically than matter by an order of magnitude running to infinity (vacuum catastrophe), making dense matter something more like an impossibly ethereal dream, compared to the energy permeating EVERYTHING; and then you begin to perceive that this universe and reality is mysterious by orders of magnitude greater than any of the various control freaks would have it; and most of the ideas extant are about keeping people ignorant, dependent and pliant, to keep them in line. Because control is about power, and power is very lucrative.

Which, for me, alignment in my mind and body is more important than power over people. Power over people akin to power over nature. Which I am more about how to let nature flow through me more freely. Which for me, is more about being friendly, kind, compassionate and loving to people and the earth generally. Which if Industrial Civilization is indeed coming apart around us, we might do well to facilitate both that collapse, and the friendly, kind, compassionate and loving inside ourselves, as opposed to cultivating various ideas about control, as example, or cultivating nothing much but fear and acquisitiveness, to be eventually overwhelmed by circumstances. Which it seems to me, the universe has a very real sense of humor, which I sense whenever I cease to take things too seriously, which is akin to the “acting with out acting”, the wei wu wei, of the Taoists. Which if the “ether” is in fact denser energetically than matter by an infinity, what in fact are humans capable of? Which question I leave mostly to your imagination, your consciousness, and what you are able to pull out of it to show us, in the very real world we inhabit, in a world that is very much in need of fresh ideas.

Which, it seems to me, those most honest about Doom, are at a kind of evolutionary advantage, compared to those who are assuming someone somewhere is assuring that some techno utopia is right around the proverbial corner, as example. Or that God will intervene as some Messiah. Or the many not thinking, and many not capable of thinking, the herd and media manipulated reactionary consumer, “driving” the economy devouring the earth.

Which, I guess all I’m really saying is, there are many ways to imagine a culture. Strong characters required.

Off the keyboard of William Hunter Duncan

Originally published Jan 03, 2013 @ Off The Grid In Minneapolis

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2013 begins for me, with about $1200 cash, a mortgage and bills, a house to maintain, without a working furnace, in the midst of a ten day stretch of below freezing weather with average temperatures around 10F (-12.22C), with no job, no income, and no real prospect of any. Two working, 1800W oil-filled radiators, and a working 40 gal water heater it turns out, are in no way sufficient to heat even this small 750 sq ft house, to anything even resembling what most Americans would consider a minimum threshold of comfort, in even half of this house, when it’s this cold. Not least because this house was built in 1918 when the only idea I suspect was to burn as much wood as was needed, to maintain whatever they considered normal, which was probably austere by today’s standards. The woodlot has since been swallowed up by urban sod, tar and concrete for forty miles in every direction at least. Most everything beyond that for a hundred miles+, by corn, sod and road. They build homes these days basically to burn as much natural gas as is necessary. Though you won’t find any of that for 500 miles in any direction, with Minneapolis as your starting point.

If I’m completely honest about it, even the energy necessary to run these two modest heaters and the water heater, comes increasingly from fracked natural gas. The electricity is also generated by the burning of coal, and of nuclear fission, there being two nuclear facilities on either side of the Twin Cities Minneapolis/St Paul greater metro, thirty-five miles upriver and thirty-five miles downriver on the Mississippi. Some electricity is generated in the west and the south of the state, and in the Dakotas and Iowa by wind, but only a small fraction; and as Congress has been playing games with the Wind Tax Credit, in the faux-furor over the fiscal cliff, what turbines we have may be all we’re going to have for awhile.

When I returned to this house in the spring of 2010, with $80, no income and no prospects, I had already as long as two years before that been dreaming of rebuilding this house, to take it off the grid, with as much scrap material as I could find, to show how it can be done, to be a model for what could be possible for the entire region. That vision has evolved, but I have failed miserably, in creating any of that vision for this house – but a few cosmetic effects, which do little to improve the livability of any insufficiently or unheated house, in a cold climate.

I’ve been much more successful with the land. There’s not much land here, but I have 18 fruit trees, 14 grape vines, 2000-3000 sq ft of veggie gardens and another several thousand feet of wildflowers, perhaps 300 different species of plants year to year. The healthiest black-cap raspberry patch I’ve ever seen anywhere in the region, red raspberries, asparagus and strawberries. Half of the driveway now is antique paver, there’s a paver patio next to the pond. The front walk is partially paver. I built stone garden beds along the driveway and the garage. I’m hoping to plant hops on the garage this spring.

All of which is cold comfort, in a cold house in winter. Much of which would likely be bulldozed and poisoned if it fell into the hands of the bank or a speculator. The house torn down, replaced by some hideous suburban Mcmansion style three story energy sink surrounded by sod, on this corner lot-and-a-half, south-east facing. Onward progress. I don’t know that my neighbors would mind overly much. Though when those pavers went in this fall, more people came by and spoke to me in a friendly way than ever before, even esp. because of the White Pine in the driveway

(My neighbor across the street just walked out of the back of his house, and chucked his Christmas tree off the back porch) LOL

Perhaps I am not ready to build the house I imagine building here? I imagine travelling around the world, helping people build unusual houses, helping people build gardens, dancing across Europe, dancing in Africa, going down-under, building a boat, sailing that boat eventually to the Big Island, Hawaii, walking around that island, eventually sailing to an inlet of British Colombia; and from there, either crossing the divide on foot, then paddling home, or depending on the security situation, sailing all the way around the Americas, up the Great Lakes to dock in Duluth. Maybe then, I think, I would be prepared to build the house I imagine. Perhaps by that time, Minnesota will be prepared to rebuild.  Perhaps this house and this garden will not be destroyed, and available.

That would make a nice novel, too. Wouldn’t mind making this the home place, actually, a little writing loft above the greenhouse/garage. But oh right, one must finish a novel, to have something to sell, assuming someone is willing to buy; to help see this thing through. Which, novel writers need time, which I am in possession of for a short while at least. Dedication…Oh right.

Then I’m reminded of the security situation here in America. Not least increasing government surveillance, indefinite detention, expansion of the punitive penal, quasi-military state, but also pending food and energy problems. All hail the House of Saud. Natural gas is an investor inspired bubble, which threatens a vast investment bubble in natural gas infrastructure, that is sure to be useless when the fracking bubble pops. Never mind the polluting of aquifers, inevitable in punching so many holes deep into the earth, pumping vast amounts of chemical laden water at high pressures to fracture the underlying rock strata, leaking pipes etc. Aquifers not just necessary for drinking but for farming also. What if we had to rely on what falls from the sky, with an increasingly unstable climate? A lot of people die, that’s what.

$8,000-$15,000 an acre for farm land is called investors fucking with food, btw. An investment bubble exactly like the Tech bubble, Housing bubble, and the natural gas/oil fracking bubble. That’s going to be some dear corn after the investors take their cut, the interest paid, particularly during drought. Of course once the Ogallala is sufficiently empty, that’ll be the end of the breadbasket of the world, so make your riches while you can, I guess. Of course, pumping all that fossil water couldn’t save the crop this year. Nor the mass culling of the herd. Then there’s all the guns. A hungry people increasingly insular, manipulated by the media, made hungrier by debt bondage, few of them ever taught how to think. Seems a strange strategy to run a civilization, but no doubt the major players have their own plans to GTFO if TSHTF.

So you see, it’s no more crazy to stay here, than to go traipsing around the world in an orange afro wig. LOL

I applied for Unemployment bennies. That was easy. Twenty minutes online. My estimated benefit came to 0$, because there was no bubble to click in the section about why I am no longer employed, about a peaceful exit from a crooked enterprise. I didn’t massage the how or the why about why I left big bank, came right out and said the job involved potentially unethical and borderline criminal work, so I put on an orange afro wig and danced at my cubicle/work station, knowing my job performance was too good to get me laid off, otherwise. If I just walked away I wouldn’t qualify, and walking away, the Agency wouldn’t place me again, anywhere. Apparently I’ll get a letter in the mail, after the application is reviewed by a living human. The computer only recognizes that I got fired. There’s an appeal process, should I be declined.

There’s one job I might possibly be able to finagle my way into, but I’m going to have to be super charming about it, and I know it won’t pay more than $11.25-$11.50/hr – goodbye, $200 left over for food, craft beer. LOL Good thing I’ve got that 6 gallons of 2011 Frontenac wine in the basement, which I cracked last night and you know what, it ain’t all that, but it ain’t half-bad either. Works as advertised! In three years I could be producing 200 bottles, between what I planted here, and the vines at my sisters. Maybe more.

Plenty of food staples in house to get me by, till the thaw. Theoretically, I shouldn’t have to leave my house for the next two months, except for coffee. Oh right, Mortgage, bills, job…

Oh right, and my State of Minnesota tax return is going to get swallowed up by the State of Minnesota, because they say I owe them $300, because they say I made $12,000 in 2008, instead of the $9000 I apparently reported. Going back in time, to fleece the poor. That is the criminal racketeering enterprise American governance has become. Oh joy; big bank, big gov.

Oh and my Unemployment Benefit’s should I receive any, generally said to be less than 50% of previous income, are taxed at a rate of 10% by the Feds and 5% by MN? Nutz. Bizarro.

Oh wait. Remember how the media supported the OWS movement, mostly? And then mocked them for their weakness, for not returning to the streets in 2012? Here is evidence that there was a vast nation-wide suppression of the OWS movement, lead by the FBI, at the behest of the big banks and big corps, with even planned assassinations by sniper of OWS leadership – and you have to go to the Guardian in the UK to find anyone in the major media reporting on it? Which makes the media of America what, whore to the expanding police surveillance state? Which begs the question then, can one remain good or moral or have real integrity, and work for big gov, big bank, big corp, big ag, big edu, big law enforcement, big military, big media, big monstrous global machine devouring people and the earth?

Not sayin you can’t, just sayin the question needs askin’