[sigh] more gun-control chatter....

The way i see it, both sides are right, and both sides are wrong.

True, "when guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns."  True, disarming peaceful and law-abiding individuals is no way to ensure public safety.  But isn't it obvious that keeping track of who's buying guns HELPS to keep them out of the hands of those who can't do so, legally?

Hunting weapons are not the issue here.  Why, in the name of all the gods at once, are hunters rallying behind the zealots who want to have their clips holding scores of cartridges and truly automatic weapons?  Such things are not used in hunting -- their only application is anti-personnel.  And until home break-ins are committed by mobs, crying "personal defense" is pure bullshit.

But another thing that the pro-gun faction totally FAILS to consider is, not everyone who wants to buy a gun for "personal safety" is a rational, intelligent individual who will be a responsible owner.  I know a man who is ostensibly intelligent and responsible, but who cracked emotionally one day and threatened to kill himself in an attempt at wife-manipulation.  He could as easily have threatened his family.  NOT ONE of my gun-loving friends would ever suggest that this guy didn't deserve to own a weapon.  Maybe a background check would have picked up his use of properly-prescribed psychoactive pharmaceuticals ... and maybe it wouldn't.

Conversely, arguing that individuals should NOT have the right of keeping arms to defend themselves, because in certain circumstances the weapons have been taken away and used against them, is sophistry beyond appropriate debate.  You can't fix stoopid, but sometimes you can fix evil -- by forever ending ALL actions by those who DO evil.

What the public argument NEEDS is intelligent, unemotional, rational debate ... but that won't happen, not in this land of sensationalist media.  Nor do i think that confiscation would do a damn bit of good even if i were a fan of disarmament.  There are too many undocumented firearms in the US (and Mexico is too handy for smuggling in more), which would immediately be hidden away at the first hint of the possibility.  The ONLY way to make this country more law-abiding is through education, and actually enforcing the laws we already have.

stupid and frightened people

During election season, i reluctantly learn more about politics than i ever want to know -- it's called "being a responsible citizen."  When i see some people continuing the fear-mongering and hate-encouraging on a constant basis, by those who theoretically have "lives" and no professional axe to grind, i begin to wonder about their mental health (and if they need to lower their glucose).

This is the image that got me started this morning:

The funny thing is, the people who really get their panties in a bunch over sharing with those less fortunate SO OFTEN describe themselves as Christian -- you know, the self-described followers of that World Teacher who said that it was virtually impossible for a rich man to enter heaven....

Furthermore, they have a tendency to belong to the struggling working class -- NOT the 1% which is the legitimate target of tax-raising pushes.  Yet, for some inexplicable reason, these people WHO WILL NEVER BE RICH THEMSELVES tend to IDENTIFY WITH THE VERY RICH and their point of view.  What are they thinking with?  Extreme wealth is not associated with work ethic in most cases -- it's inherited, or wheeler-dealered, or ... virtually-stolen on a huge scale.  Even people like Bill Gates, who has created his own fortune, had dirty little business tactics which helped him get there.

As Raymond Chandler, one of my favorite writers of his genre, said in "The Long Goodbye":  "A man doesn't make your kind of money in any way i can understand.  ...  There ain't no clean way to make a hundred million bucks.... Somewhere along the line guys got pushed to the wall, nice little businesses got the ground cut out from under them.... Decent people lost their jobs.... Big money is big power and big power gets used wrong."  THERE'S NO DOUBT ABOUT THIS -- it is FACT.  Those who defend the system of tax-evasion by the very rich, on the nebulous excuse of hard work and entrepreneurial spirit, are either profiting politically/professionally from the racket, or seriously self-deluded and are the first victims of the scam.

Also to be found on FB this morning is this little gem, which i've seen often before and "shared" myself in the past:

...Self-explanatory and highly illuminating -- unless you've drunk the koolaid.

According to certain esoteric sources, the money- and power-protecting crescendo we're seeing these days is a last-stand of desperation from those cosmic forces which are resisting being dragged into a more evolved era.  They'll use any tool they can to delude and trick the altruistically-undeveloped among us to make things more difficult, causing them to go against their own best interests -- and this is what fascinates me in a horrified sort of way.  MOST of the victims i'm referring to are NOT stupid.  How are they able to so easily fall prey to those who want to exploit their fears?

It's not your slice of 'umble pie that is being targeted by the cosmic forces of generosity -- it's part of the pie of the nursery-rhyme king ... who certainly isn't going to go hungry without it.

take that, Scott Walker

'twas the night after the election, and all through the house...

...the teabaggers on facebook are strangely quiet.  It's about bloody time.

:-D

thoughts on the eve of the election

This election season has been a nasty one.  The "party of Lincoln" has been hijacked by right-wing extremists who are fond of calling themselves "conservative" but who are actually nothing of the kind.  A more accurate descriptor would be "devolutionist."

The goals of the republican party are to the benefit of only the monied.  I can only conclude that the working-class supporters of these power-seekers are as deluded as were the working-class supporters of the confederacy during the American civil war -- sold a bill of goods by the only people who had anything to gain from the continuation of the "peculiar institution" called slavery.  The lower and middle classes BELIEVED they were fighting for "states' rights" ... but what did that in actual EXPERIENCE mean to THEM?  Absolutely nothing beyond sounding words.  We must keep "outsiders" from telling us what to do!  ...Is it really better to have INSIDERS dictating to you?  'Cause that's the only choice there is.  It's not as though the latter give a shit about YOU, any more than the other guy does.  The difference is, the "other guy" isn't able to PROFIT from your cooperation, the way the mega-corporation down the road does.

The current situation is absolutely analogous.  Ignorant Bubbas and Bubbettes are being sweet-talked by candidates pretending to share their values.  Their fears and inferiority complexes are being USED to seduce their support for a coup that will, in the long run, burden them and their children in ways they cannot fathom.  They think they're promoting the good ol' days of 1950, whereas they're a thousand years off.  Serfdom, anyone?

Frankly, if this election turns out badly, it isn't going to hurt ME.  I'm middle-aged and comfortable.  It's the young and the old who have the potential to get their feet knocked out from under them.  If they vote in a way that will injure themselves in the long term, they will have earned the hard knocks they end up receiving -- but i'll still feel some compassion for them.  The ones i'd really feel bad for are the ones who saw the light, but had it cut off by all those stupid, selfish OTHERS.

willingness to be blind

This is a shamelessly politico-esoteric posting, so rabid tea-partiers should read no further.  And since this is MY blog, don't expect me to argue with a single individual who takes umbrage with what i say; this is THE TRUTH ... as i see it.  ;-)  I MAY discuss, but will definitely not argue with the contumelious.

***

The world is changing, and the old guard doesn't like it.  Back in the day, a whole village full of people who didn't go along with what the local warlord wanted could be slaughtered, and not only did no one care but for the most part no one ever found out (except the next village over, to whom it was advertised to convince them that THEY had better truckle, or face the same fate).  Nowadays, the information always gets leaked -- no wonder the powers-that-be want to censor the internet.

To chip away at the power that has been lost by the Juggernaut, its paramilitary is attempting to undermine the hard-won rights of those it considers weakest ... and stupidest.  Therefore, women and the blue-collar class are the first targets.  And not only are their rights under siege, but their minds are undergoing a barrage of misinformation that is certain to do some damage to the weakest and most inexperienced.  While at my daughter's house, i saw and heard more commercials than i usually do;  it's easy to see where the Koch brothers' political contributions are being spent.

Why is it so hard for the laboring class to realize that if teachers' unions are busted, THEIR working lives are going to be adversely affected too?  Why do foetal-life enthusiasts not understand that a flood of unwanted children into an already overpopulated world is not a good idea?  How do people this stupid manage to fill out their tax forms every year???

I wish i could convince these "it-can't-happen-to-me"-thinking people that the law of karma WILL catch up with them.  They have an unfounded belief that they can succeed on an unlevel playing field, simply by identifying emotionally with the Overlords -- which is exactly what the latter want them to think.  Do they not realize the degree to which they benefit from the "socialist" system the US has had from its very inception?  I have to assume they don't....  But if a subconscious desire to subjugate those "inferior" women and minority-group individuals (who earn more with their brains than Bubba can with his muscles) causes him to promote a social system deleterious to them, he too will come to suffer the more.  The ones who are seduced by the rhetoric of "the good old days" are, for the most part, sufficiently unevolved that they already have a boatload of karma to work off;  they're already suffering, but inevitably blame the wrong cause for it.

Tell ya the truth -- it's been really hard for me to fight off the temptation to HATE these people with a passion, but i know that hate is a self-poisoning emotion.  They already have power and riches:  the only reason they can need more is to create a class of people more miserable than they are, to try to disguise the fact that they are unhappy, unfulfilled losers, in the truest sense of the term.  They take joy from placing themselves above the mass of people in the world -- it gives them a sense of superiority that their natural gifts can't afford them.  They are like slave-owners of old, who considered their "possessions" less than human BECAUSE THEY HAD BEEN DENIED THE OPPORTUNITIES TO ACQUIRE THOSE QUALITIES, BY THE POWER OF THOSE WHO SET THEMSELVES ABOVE.  Do i need to say, self-fulfilling prophecy?  The set of right-wing candidates this century have been largely the out-of-touch, privileged sort -- they look on us middle-class folks as plodding masses, and on the struggling poor as scarcely human.  NONE of us is more to them than a potential customer for their lousy-quality manufactured goods, or cannon-fodder for their wars of acquisition.

But as i said above -- the world IS changing.  Centuries ago (and today, in parts of the world where consciousness is still medieval), nobody thought there was anything wrong with torturing heretics, but most people consider it wrong today.  Beating one's children as a matter of course has been replaced by other methods of teaching.  The problem with the hippies' Age of Aquarius in the 1960s was that they were premature -- in the words of the song, it WAS just the "dawning of the age."  Its first rays were perceived in 1908, and its zenith has been predicted in the year 3574.  A long time to wait for perfection, but we CAN do our best to practice and promote the Golden Rule.

plant rant ;-)

I tend to smirk when i hear of recommendations that our diets be of "mostly plants."  WHY?  Because this is a sop to nutritional powers-that-be, a sort of middle ground we can all agree on?  (Tra-la-la....)  A gesture that shows how reasonable and moderate we are?  A tipping of the hat to agriculturalists and the vegetarian agenda?  Screw dat.

I just began to read "Experiments and Observations on the Gastric Juice, and the Physiology of Digestion" by Dr. Beaumont in 1839.  I'm already amused, just from perusing the table of contents.  Then there's this:  "The facility of digestion of different articles of diet, and the quantity of nutrient principles which they contain, have been subjects of some discrepance of opinion among physiologists.  They have settled down, however, into a belief, probably as near the truth as practicable, that animal food is more readily assimilated, and affords more nutrition in a given quantity, than vegetable or farinaceous food."  IF WE KNEW THIS SHIT BY 1839, WHY ARE PEOPLE STILL ARGUING ABOUT IT?

Because convincing us that peasant food is good for us, keeps us peasants.  Weak, dumb, sick, docile ... and pouring more and more money into the pockets of people who sell us the cheap carbohydrate foods, who are in bed with the doctors and medical researchers, who are in bed with the pharmaceutical companies, who are in bed with politicians on every level and in every field.

How i and a growing number of others in the VLC community eat is a slap in the face to the "health-" and junkfood-promoting portions of our societies. We refuse to play.  We won't dance.  We WILL NOT participate in their weakening, pathology-producing rituals of mutual acceptance and social bonding over CIAB.  We're renegades.

Our WOE gives us power, and societies HATE individuals with power.  We can do without the "kool-aid" so where can they come at us, to subjugate us again?  I'm sure they'll try to think up something.

Oh -- when we end up in the concentration camp being fed "their" diet, remember what we learned from the Kitavans:  eat your carbs in one big meal in the evening, so when the glucose/insulin levels go down you can burn fat for the other 22 hours of the day.  ;-)

the exhaustion factor

There's something i notice, reading "the latest" on some days:  the more bad political news there is, the less easy it is to eat rationally.  Or rather, the easier it is to go get a glass of wine and something to nibble with it.  If i choose to ignore the temptation, i continue my day with an increased sense of weariness.

Lesson:  hopelessness is a poison.

Strangely enough, one of the presentations i look forward to hearing from the AHS2 is that of Richard Nikoley.  I disagree with him on a number of issues, but agree on a few.  He's speaking on how our modern sociopolitical situation is out of step with the systems with which our species evolved (my paraphrase).  In this limited concept, i agree heartily; i just wonder if he has any ideas on how to remedy the problem besides the old hippie dropping-out thing.

What DOES one do, when one's world is fubar?  I haven't got a clue.  I haven't got the ambition or the gifts to enter politics and "change things from the inside" [snort:  we all know how well THAT works].  I haven't got the energy and passion to march and chant and carry a placard.  I haven't even got the stubbornness to debate things in writing, though that's more my metier.  I can only marvel at the stupid behavior and (lack of) reasoning in people i could have sworn were smarter than that.

So i block the most obnoxious on FB and resist blocking those who are more of a benefit than liability despite their occasional disconnect from reality, and refuse to follow up on their idiocies.  (I also sometimes satisfy myself with a little fantasy, picturing them in the world they would consider ideal, and their subsequent illumination....)  I do a little chakra balancing and take a deep breath, and try to clear the psychic air around me.

But, DAMN!!!  It's no wonder so many people feel the need to medicate.

first step accomplished

Down 0.8# from yesterday.  And i WAS perfect -- as far as food and drink were concerned.  :-)

I got into a head-butting contest with a facebook friend, though.  I actually have my account set up so that i don't have to see the inane posts he puts on his own wall, but when he chooses to post on mine, i can count on my blood-pressure rising....  The conflict is always political. 

It has occurred to me that the opposite of Progressive is REGRESSIVE.

This hasn't been a digression from the purpose of my newborn blog.  Younger people, both male and female, won't relate unless they know a bit about the byways of history.  Older women will, and a lot of older men won't care.  Do you realize that women in this country have another dozen years to go before they can celebrate the centennial of being able to vote?  My daughter surely takes it for granted, but were my grandmother still around, she could tell of her 21st birthday coming around, with no promise that she'd ever have a word in who represented her interests in government.

Talk about "taxation without representation".... 

...Leading back to the point!  Considering how many of us there are, and how much monetary power we command, middle-aged-and-older women frequently get short shrift in the political world.  We need to empower ourselves, because heaven knows, nobody will do it for us. 

Part of this is taking charge of our health and well-being.  We have been thoroughly let down by the medical profession.  Our bodies are poisoned daily by things in the air and water which we can't avoid, and a doctor's first response to our concern is to write a prescription for an antidepressant.  Depressing, indeed.

We'll be told that fluoride is good for us (did you know, the Nazis contemplated putting it in the water supply to make their people more docile?);  told that certain foodstuffs, which are demonstrably deleterious, are the height of good nutrition; that pharmaceuticals which have a list of side-effects as long as your arm, are a good choice to take to stifle some minor symptom.  It's all WRONG.

I know a lot of people who get their nutritional advice from television commercials and articles in cheesy magazines.  PLEASE, for the love of all the gods at once, don't be one of them!

I don't expect busy modern people to spend as much time reading up on SOUND nutritional information as i can, and i don't expect anyone to take my word for it.  Check out some of the links on the right side of this page -- these people actually read the whole "study," not just the press release.  (i recommend starting with PerfectHealthDiet.com)