When Sheltering Possesions Trumps Sheltering People

With roughly 2.311 billion square feet of rent-able space for things, junk, stuff, possessions, etc., in the United States--a $38 billion industry!--America is a demonstrably materialistic society and becoming more materialistic every single day. It's  to the point where things, junk, stuff, possessions matter more than human beings....far more than people, it seems, considering the increasing number of homeless people across America,  the wealthiest nation on earth! 

“...the United States boasts more than 50,000 facilities and roughly 2.311 billion square feet of rentable space. In other words, the volume of self-storage units in the country could fill the Hoover Dam with old clothing, skis, and keepsakes more than 26 times.”

This "need" for storage doesn't stem from frugal "depression babies" who feel the need to save everything just in case, because  the square footage of American homes has essentially doubled since the children of the Depression era started buying houses. No, the need for storage has increased right along with the  cache in our homes, which implies that, for the most part, things, junk, stuff, possessions have taken on an importance that just isn't there.  Not to say that  there are not legitimate reasons to rent storage for belongings: moving; changing circumstances; incarceration; future business endeavors, and ironically, homelessness ...but, certainly not  $38 billion worth! 

Take Orange County, California, one of the wealthiest counties in the United States.  It is home to four of the industry’s top 20 storage firms, in addition to the California Self Storage Association, the industry trade group, which is based in Irvine. Ironically, with its immense capacity to house junk, its capacity to house people is not so great. The 2017 federally mandated snapshot, taken every two years in Orange County, recorded 4,792 homeless people, more than half living without shelter. That's an 8% increase since 2015 because as one homeless man, Patrick Hogan, in Orange County said after losing his job after the 2008 financial crash ten years ago, "$10 an hour jobs doesn't cut it" in one of the most expensive corners of the nation.

“My experience has taught me one thing, the most discriminated group of people, at least in America, are the poor." -- Patrick Hogan

Today, Orange County is making headlines as it  faces bitter backlash over homeless relocation plans  as it is now under federal pressure to address what homeless advocates in court filings have called a humanitarian crisis.  According to the Los Angeles Times, affluent Orange County "faces special challenges because it has a relatively sparse infrastructure of services and support for homeless people." Of course, Ocean County is not unique. There is a relatively sparse infrastructure of services and support for homeless people all over America.

“A lot of people in America don't realize they might be two checks, three checks, four checks away from being homeless," -- Thomas Butler Jr., who stays in a carefully organized tent near a freeway ramp in downtown Los Angeles.

And you can't trust the official homeless rate in America.  To be sure, the reported rate is far lower than the actuality. The point-in-time (PIT) homeless counts often occur on a single night in January and are thus subject to significant sampling variability.  The accuracy of the count itself depends on   the number of volunteers, the weather, the count methodologies, and countless other variables that contribute to its inaccuracy.    In other words, the homeless population is hugely under-represented.

 For instance, Compass Family Services in San Francisco gathered their own data and discovered more than 35 times the number cited in the city’s report. 

“After a count of people on the streets and in shelters, conducted one night in January, and a follow-up survey, the city report found just nine families, or a total of 26 individuals in families who are homeless. Moreover, 87 percent of them live in some sort of shelter.

But between January and May, Compass recorded 319 homeless families — more than 35 times the number cited in the city’s report. And even that, Keller suggested, might be low.

According to a new study. the number of people living on the streets in San Diego County may be 50 percent higher than thought.

The bottom line is don't count on the PIT for accurate statistics on the homeless population, as it always under-counts, under-represents, and/or underestimates by a significant percentage.  The reason is, of course, obvious: the less homeless they count, the less money and resources they have to fork out.   

Links:

Self-storage: How warehouses for personal junk became a $38 billion industry

Self-storage business owners on alert for people living in units

Living in a Storage Unit: Alexander Ruggie’s Story

Self-storage industry keeps on keeping

Orange County At A Loss Over What To Do With People It Evicted From Homeless Encampment

Protests Push O.C. to Kill Its First Real Plan to Help the Homeless

America's Homeless Population Rises for First Time in Years

Dynamics of Homelessness in Urban America

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Technological Utopianism? Power and Mechanical Efficiency Without Moral Restraint

Certainly technological progress can lead to very positive changes, however, that is only if we understand that technology is supposed to serve humanity, not the other way around.  Yet, today, technology is advancing so rapidly--exponentially--without time for conscious moral intention or consideration. Previous rules, mores, and norms--for better or worse--are discarded without blinking an eye.  So, are we wise enough, moral enough, intelligent enough to control technology? Artificial intelligence?  Apparently not, as you will see,  we have become subservient to the neutral machine/technology, devoid of any moral or spiritual value and/or meaning. . 


For one, we've become more isolated than ever before, substituting electronics for real face-to-face human interaction and outdoor activity.

Two, life, it seems, has become more complex, time consuming, and frustrating, even though technology is supposed to simplify not to mention, increase quality and recreational time. 

Three, despite easy access to information, we're dumber and more dependent (on technology) than ever.  While we have access to lots of information--way too much, in fact--information isn't knowledge if you don't understand it.  I mean, how can one have knowledge or understanding when computers do everything? 

Four, as we grow increasingly ignorant and more reliant on these emerging technologies, those who pull the strings of government and society have been and continue to be very busy translating information superiority into combat power. In other words, post modern warfare or network centric warfare to master the human domain.

The network centric warfare platform takes the individual decision making out of the equation. In other words, the system is making the decisions for you. Left to robots--real terminators--death will be on a massive scale few can imagine because believe it or not, human beings do not naturally kill other human beings. They must be brainwashed, indoctrinated, etc., to kill. Hence, the proliferation of electronic warfare games for children.





Links:

Failed Thermostat: The illusion of Control in an Information Rich Age

How the CIA made Google.

"INSURGE INTELLIGENCE, a new crowd-funded investigative journalism project, breaks the exclusive story of how the United States intelligence community funded, nurtured and incubated Google as part of a drive to dominate the world through control of information. Seed-funded by the NSA and CIA, Google was merely the first among a plethora of private sector start-ups co-opted by US intelligence to retain ‘information superiority.’

The origins of this ingenious strategy trace back to a secret Pentagon-sponsored group, that for the last two decades has functioned as a bridge between the US government and elites across the business, industry, finance, corporate, and media sectors. The group has allowed some of the most powerful special interests in corporate America to systematically circumvent democratic accountability and the rule of law to influence government policies, as well as public opinion in the US and around the world. The results have been catastrophic: NSA mass surveillance, a permanent state of global war, and a new initiative to transform the US military into Skynet.

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2045 and the Global Future Agenda to Counterfeit Humanity.

So, is the end of human civilization as we know it going to be extinct in less than 32 years? Most of us will still be alive, hopefully, in 2045; therefore, this transformation,  known as the Singularity--the moment when technological change becomes so rapid and profound, it represents a rupture in the fabric of human history, a post-human existence, if you will--should concern the general public about what it implies about our human future while we still have brains in our heads.

The idea that you can upload yourself, your brain, into a computer and become digitally immortal sounds a little batshit, right?  But Ray Kurzweil, director of engineering at Google, stated that's what's going to happen during his conference speech at the Global Futures 2045 International Congress recently. He also claims that the biological parts of our body will be replaced with mechanical parts and this could happen as early as 2100. I guess the idea is to kill oneself the moment our brain uploads.  Heaven's Gate, anyone? 

That's right. The director of engineering at Google is planning to put all of our brains into robot avatars and all of his pals--most of the global elite--think that's the best idea since sliced bread.  Of course, they do. Think of all the money they'll save when  corporations can replace human beings with robot avatars (see video below).  What they don't understand--or maybe they do, they just hope that we don't--is they can't transfer our souls into these robots.

We are certainly being conditioned to this Orwellian end. I know I spend far too much time on the Internet, in this virtual world that often displaces the real one.  The illusion of freedom lures me in and makes me feel I can go anywhere I want, explore anything I want.   I'm sorry but, often times, the real world kind of pales in comparison. The sad thing is, I'm aware of this dangerous illusion, yet I still capitulate, whereas children raised in the virtual world--television, video games, iPhones, Internet, etc--since birth will embrace this Orwellian technology without question, and with open arms as adults. They will know nothing else.

So yes, I'm fully aware that I'm using a Google platform to bash Google, that I'm using the technology that's enslaving us to preach about our technological enslavement, that everything I post can be traced back to me. I feel like one of those self-righteous evangelicals who preach on the evils of sex, drugs and rock 'n roll, at the same time they're banging the drugged out rock 'n roller down the hall. However, I justify it by telling myself I'm taking advantage of this technology while I still can, before they either shut if off or make it so the only thing that's accessible is intelligence collecting social network sites. I tell myself that this is where I discovered I was not educated, but indoctrinated, rationalizing that I'd rather use their technology to educate myself and the occasional other who might accidentally land here.  That's what I tell myself.

Back to the Singularity.  It is being sold as this ulta-cool utopia, as part of our inevitable evolutionary path that will one day make gods out of men. What they don't tell you is that this only applies to the technocratic elite. They don't tell you that the world will be divided between the super-human "gods" and the poor pitiful slaves who can't afford to transform themselves into Nietzsche's Übermensch (overman).  They conveniently leave that part out.

Without question, we've been heading in the direction of the soul-killing commoditization of human-beings for a very long time as we've been led to embrace scientism through materialistic reductionism as the only avenue to truth.  It's just now that we have the technology to make this Orwellian agenda real.  Sold as "cool", but in reality, creepy, here are a few tidbits that will no doubt effect our future as human beings: Biometrics at a distance (sense your heartbeat through a wall); algorithms that predict your next move;  brain-link, controlling your brain through the Internet; autonomous humanoid robots, and/or, robots with real brains;  Pentagon's Project Avatar, robotic soldiers; Narrative Networks, high-tech, chemically enhanced propaganda; the embryonic LifeLog program; and electronic tattoos and ingested pills that make you a walking password.

Former DARPA (gave birth to the Internet) head, Regina Dugan, now the leader for special projects for Motorola, a Google subsidiary, came out with her electronic tattoo, an RFID bar code,  that can be used to authenticate oneself, not to mention a pill that can be ingested and then battery-powered by digestive acids to make one's whole body a password.  As she said, “your entire body becomes your authentication token.” Mark of the beast, anyone?

And let's not forget smart dust and/or neural dust. These nano-particles embed themselves in your brain, functioning as an MRI inside your brain. In other words, "tiny implantable sensors could function like an MRI inside the brain, recording data on nearby neurons and transmitting it back out." Tinfoil hats, anyone?

Will we willfully choose such an evolutionary direction? Will self-aware machines evolve before humans become self-aware?  Oh, we are already self-aware?  Sorry, my bad.



Links:

Intelligent neural dust embedded in the brain could be the ultimate brain-computer interface

IARPA (Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity)   , a little-known U.S. government organization, is developing analytic programs for the National Security Agency that could make recent revelations about the NSA’s activities look antiquated by comparison. Rather than reviewing archival data, it may use current data to predict the future.

We'll be uploading our entire MINDS to computers by 2045 and our bodies will be replaced by machines within 90 years, Google expert claims

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Myth of Overpopulation, Demographic Decline and Agenda 21

For years, we have been warned about the looming danger of overpopulation: billions of people scrambling for space on a planet that’s running out of oil, food, land, water, etc. Guess what? It's all a big lie. The staggering truth is that people are having too few children, gradually slowing population growth. That's right. The world’s population will peak at about 9-10 billion in the next 50 years, and then begin shrinking.

John Lennon: "I think it's a bit of a joke the way people have made this overpopulation myth. I don't really believe it, you know, I think whatever happens will balance itself out...I think we've got enough food and money to feed everybody. There is a natural balance. I think there is enough room for us. I don't believe in overpopulation. I think it's kind of a myth that's thrown out to keep your mind off Vietnam and Ireland, and all the important subjects."

Dick Cavett: "I think you're wrong."

John Lennon: "Oh, I don't care."

According to the Economist, since 2007, thanks to the weak economy Americans are having fewer babies than even the French and the British, not enough to maintain the size of the US population without immigration. The US birthrate right now is 1.9 births per woman when 2.1 births per woman is necessary to sustain the population on its own.  It's only because of immigration that the birthrate is still growing.  Furthermore, according to Pew Research, in the 18-34 year old demographic, one in four adults have returned to live with their parents since the economic downturn.

Not too long ago, children were desirable simply because the more you had, the more you had to work the family farm therefore, each child had a positive economic value. Today, each child is financial burden. The cost of raising a child from birth to age 17 is $300,00 according to the Department of Agriculture, $1.1 million to raise a child if you're a middle-class couple.

“In 1970, the global average was 6.5 children per woman. Today it’s 2.5. The replacement rate, that is the average number of children the average woman needs to have in order to keep the population constant, is 2.1. As a result, he said, 97 percent of the world's population is in countries where fertility rates are in the negative numbers, and as a result, a “demographic disaster” is looming." -- Jonathan Last, author of “What To Expect When No One’s Expecting: America’s Coming Demographic Disaster“

As college costs and student loan debt soar--college tuition has increased 1000% since 1965--and unemployment rises, college graduates, crushed by student loan debt, are deciding not to have kids. In recent years, student loan debt has skyrocketed from $100 billion to nearly $1 trillion, creating another potential debt bubble burst for the American economy.

So what is Agenda 21 (Sustainable Development, including: Smart Growth, the Grand Boulevard Initiative, Climate Action Plans, Carbon Taxes, Cap-and-Trade, etc) and what does it have to do with overpopulation and demographics? It is the United Nation's vision for a centrally managed global society under the noble banner of saving the earth. Buried in the pages of this proposal are measures that can be taken to insure a world with less human resource depletion and "sustainable development" of which the key element is population control which basically promotes a culture of death, not only at the beginning of life, but towards the end as well.  What with euthanasia and the push for the legalization of physician-assisted suicide taking place in at least three states: Connecticut, New Jersey and Vermont...hey, it's a great way to take care of the aging population now that the baby boomers are reaching their twilight years.

“Effective execution of Agenda 21 will require a profound reorientation of all human society, unlike anything the world has ever experienced a major shift in the priorities of both governments and individuals and an unprecedented redeployment of human and financial resources. This shift will demand that a concern for the environmental consequences of every human action be integrated into individual and collective decision-making at every level."
- excerpt, UN Agenda 21

Under the guise of protecting the environment, "sustainable development" has become the rage in land use planning, zoning, and in virtually every other facet of daily life. The scary part is that it's taking hold in local communities all across America in the form of "stakeholder" councils to advance Agenda 21 to transform cities and towns into "sustainable communities." The primary tool used to spread this agenda is the "consensus process," which is used to gain the appearance of public support. This process is designed to take the public policy-making function away from elected officials and replace it with councils of non-elected officials, while giving the appearance of broad public input into the decision-making process.

Codex Alimentarius (Latin for "food code")--now enforceable through the World Trade Organization (WTO)--is inextricably linked to Agenda 21. It is a set of regulations that aim to outlaw health information and supplements, limiting access to natural therapies on a worldwide scale--basically anything that doesn't profit Big Pharma. Behind the Codex Alimentarius Commission is the United Nations and the World Health Organization working in conjunction with the multinational pharmaceutical cartel and international banks.

“The Codex Alimentarius Commission was established under heavy influence of the pharmaceutical industry in 1963 following resolutions passed at the Eleventh Session of the Conference of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in 1961, and at the Sixteenth World Health Assembly in 1963. (More on the history of codex here) From its very beginning CAC's clear intention was to protect corporate interests in the global pharmaceutical and food markets.

The bottom line is that despite the doomsday predictions of Malthus and his Malthusian theory being proven a colossal failure, his ideas are still being taken seriously and still being hyped and promoted by the elite multinational powerbrokers, financiers and billionaires who run our country behind the scenes, and who benefit from the idea that there are too many useless eaters using up the world’s resources.  In other words, the clear message   is "the real enemy then is humanity itself."

“Malthus indicates another kind of apologetic use for the population principle. If an existing social order, an elite group of some sort, is under threat and is fighting to preserve its dominant position in society, then the overpopulation and shortage of resources arguments can be used as powerful ideological levers to persuade people into acceptance of the status quo and of authoritarian measures to maintain it. The English landed interest used Malthus’ arguments thus in the early nineteenth century.

And this kind of argument is, of course, even more effective if the elite group is in a position to create a scarcity to demonstrate the point.

Links:
Demographic Intelligence

Last Word on Overpopulation

The Negro Project: Margaret Sanger's Eugenic Plan for Black Americans

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Is The Island of Dr. Moreau a Reality?

In 1896, H. G. Wells wrote the novel, The Island of Dr. Moreau about a shipwrecked man rescued by a passing boat who is left on the island home of Doctor Moreau, who creates sentient beings from animals via vivisection. 100 years later it was made into a movie. 10 years later, it's become a reality.  This man obviously possessed an amazing sense of things to come, because almost 120 years later, it is certain that the island in Wells imagination, if it doesn't exist already, will exist in the near future.

In 2009, reuters asked the following questions in an article entitled, Scientists want debate on animals with human genes.

"A mouse that can speak? A monkey with Down's Syndrome? Dogs with human hands or feet? British scientists want to know if such experiments are acceptable, or if they go too far in the name of medical research.

Two years later, The Academy of Medical Sciences is calling for an international regulatory commission to oversee the creations they call Animals Containing Human Material (ACHM). Included within the ACHM classification are non-human primates (NHP). In other words, human-hybrids.

This report claims that "such approaches are long established" and that "thousands of different ACHM been used in biomedical research."  Furthermore, they claim, ACHM are used to study human biological functions or disease that cannot be accurately modeled; where experiments using humans are considered infeasible or considered unethical; and where modification of an animal's body makes it more closely represent that of a human."  The report concludes that the majority of ACHM research does not pose ethical or regulatory difficulties, but identifies 3 areas that will need careful oversight in future:

• Modification of an animal’s brain which might lead to human-like cognition;
• Changing an animal so it has human appearance or characteristics (e.g. skin, facial or limb features, speech); and the
• Development of human-derived sperm or eggs in an animal (especially if fertilization may occur).

The day after this study was published,  the Daily Mail reported on two of the tens of thousands of laboratories around the world conducting these types of experiments in secret.

"Scientists in British labs have created over 150 human-animal hybrid embryos in the past three years, which has caused concern that led to a call for major oversight from the Academy of Medical Sciences over animals containing human materials (ACHM).

Justifying these experiments with "cures for everything" is at the very least, disingenuous, when not only hasn't there been cures for anything in the last century, the rate of disease has increased 4000%. More than likely, the reason has much more to do with engineering the super soldier.

DARPA has millions of dollars allocated toward editing the DNA of our soldiers on the battlefield. From Darpa’s Lab-Grown Blood to turning humans into batteries to bullet-proof skin created using "goat's milk packed with spider-silk proteins, according to news reports. Their hope is that they can eventually replace the keratin in human skin -- which makes it tough -- with the spider-silk proteins."  Well, it just so happens that scientists are discovering a plausible explanation for the clinical and microscopic findings in Morgellons disease is connected to the hyper production of keratin.  Could it be that Morgellons is the result of the pentagon's endeavor to make human skin bullet-proof? Can you imagine what will happen should they re-engineer human skin  using genes from goats and spiders?  Why not? In 2010, DARPA invested over $6 million in order to create “synthetic organisms” that can live forever — or can be killed with the flick of a molecular switch.

From Timenolonger:

Julian Huxley, brother of Aldous who authored Brave New World, first used this word: Transhumanism. Huxley was a member of the British Eugenics Society, eugenics being the foundation of Transhumanism.

Eugenics is a science dedicated to a Darwinist philosophy applied to humanity, that the strong should thrive and evolve, while the weak are culled and eradicated.

Eugenics rests on a necessity of there being superior and inferior genetic pools in the human population. It might be very socially unacceptable to speak publicly of there being some races, ethnic or cultural groups who are inferior to the rest, yet in secrecy this is exactly what elite Eugenicists believe.

The public is guided to love the idea of Transhumanism by being persuaded that it is not a goal attached to race or ethnicity, but simply a means of bettering all of humanity. This is quite untrue.

Elite Transhumanists have no desire to “evolve” all humankind, their goal is one which seeks to advance only their own bloodlines and to leave the rest in disadvantage to them so that these unfortunate ones have no choice but to become their slaves, their lab animals and their labor force.

“The lowest strata are reproducing too fast. Therefore… they must not have too easy access to relief or hospital treatment lest the removal of the last check on natural selection should make it too easy for children to be produced or to survive; long unemployment should be a ground for sterilisation.” - Julian Huxley

The elite, as they are wrongly called, are blood relations of one another, descending from the hybrid tyrants who ruled in result of this same Transhumanist philosophy pre-flood.

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Did You Know a Hunger Strike Can Label You a Terrorist in the USA?

Brian Willson tries too late to get out of the way of oncoming train.

1n 1986, the FBI declared Vietnam Veteran (Air Force Captain) turned activist, and attorney, Brian Willson a domestic terrorist. Why? Because, after witnessing the carnage, resulting from Reagan’s policies of destruction and wonton murder in Nicaragua and El Salvador, he and Vietnam veterans, George Mizo, founder of the Vietnam Friendship Village Project near Hanoi (and in US) for Vietnamese victims of the US War against Vietnam, mostly Agent Orange victims, including the birth-deformed offspring of chemically effected parents, Charlie Liteky, a Catholic chaplain who won the Congressional Medal of Honor for saving the lives of over 20 of his comrades who had come under heavy fire, and World War II veteran Duncan Murphy participated in a “water-only” hunger strike on the steps of the Capitol building for 47 days protesting Reagan's illegal aid to fund Contra paramilitary activities seeking to overthrow the sovereign Sandinista government in Nicaragua.

On June 27, 1986, the International Court of Justice formally ruled that the United States had intervened by "training, equipping, financing and supplying the contra forces or otherwise encouraging, supporting and aiding military and paramilitary activities in and against" the Republic of Nicaragua, and had used "force" by "certain attacks on Nicaraguan territory," violating "sovereignty" by "authorizing overflights of Nicaraguan territory" while interrupting "peaceful maritime commerce." The Court declared that the US was "under a duty immediately to cease and refrain from all such acts" and "to make reparation to the Republic of Nicaragua for all injury caused to Nicaragua by the breaches of obligations under customary international law enumerated" herein. (Nicaragua v. United States of America), Merits, Judgment 27 June 1986 (I.C.J. Reports 1986, p. 14).

Brian Willson,  committed to non-violent struggle, non-violent tactics, and a non-violent way of life had no idea that the FBI had labeled him a terrorist. A year after the hunger strike, in the summer of 1987, two veterans and Wilson decided to go to Concord Naval Base in California to protest, once again, Reagan's policies of destruction. The men started a 40-day hunger strike on the three mile span of tracks where a 5-mile an hour train transports loaded munitions from the bunkers to the ships, in Reagan’s attempt to overthrow a revolutionary government in Nicaragua and stop protests in El Salvador.

The three men knew, or thought they knew, the protocol - $5,000 fine and one year in jail – for dealing with protesters who block the munitions. After all, the naval base had a history of hosting protesters, without casualties, dating back to the 1960s.

So, on September 1, 1987, never expecting the train to exceed the 5 mph speed limit, three times over, to 17 mph, Wilson was sitting on the tracks as the train approached. He tried to escape the oncoming train, with two train-spotters looking straight at him. He failed. Four days later he awoke to find himself with no legs, one ear missing, 19 broken bones, a fractured skull, and a case of retrograde amnesia, leaving him with no memory of the event. The other two men barely escaped as they were standing at the time of the oncoming train. 40 people, five photographers and one videographer, documenting the hunger strike, witnessed the incident, capturing it on camera. Despite the abundant evidence, the military claimed it did not know the men were on the tracks.

The amazing thing about Brian Willson is that this horrendous attempt to take his life made him even more determined to "stand up" to the all powerful military industrial complex, strengthening his identity with millions of unnamed victims of U.S. policy around the world.

Rejected by 33 publishers, Mr. Wilson finally found a publisher for his book, “Blood on the Tracks: The Life & Times of S. Brian Willson”.

"We are not worth more, they are not worth less." This is the mantra of S. Brian Willson and the theme that runs throughout his compelling psycho-historical memoir. Willson's story begins in small-town, rural America, where he grew up as a "Commie-hating, baseball-loving Baptist," moves through life-changing experiences in Viet Nam, Nicaragua and elsewhere, and culminates with his commitment to a localized, sustainable lifestyle.

Decorated Vietnam veteran George Mizo (lower left),
sits on the east steps of U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.,

An Important Lesson - by George Mizo

You, my parents, taught me that it was wrong to kill . . . except in war.

You, my church, taught me that it was wrong to kill . . . except in war.

You, my teachers, taught me that it was wrong to kill . . . except in war.

You, my government, taught me that it was wrong to kill . . . except in war.

Then you sent me to war

And when I had no choice . . . except to kill,

Then you told me I was wrong!

And now I will tell you . . . my parents.

. . . my church.

. . . my teachers.

. . . my government.

It is not wrong to kill . . . except in war.

It is wrong to kill period!

And this you have to learn . . .

Just as I had to!

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Lessons of the Eastland Lost:: When Technology and Profit Trumps Humanity:

Early, one sunny Saturday morning, July 24, 1915, 7,000 eager and excited men, women and children, dressed in their summer Sunday best, prepared to board chartered lake steamers that would carry them across Lake Michigan, from the Chicago River piers to the picnic site in Michigan City, Indiana for Western Electric's 5th annual company picnic. The festive mood was thoroughly contagious.  Laughter and shouts filled the air as a mandolin-and fiddle orchestra belted out upbeat ragtime tunes, making the tens of thousands of people gathered at the dock, looking out at the "sea of white shirts, white duck trousers, and fluttering white handkerchiefs" waving from on deck of the large steamship, [1] totally immune to thoughts of potential tragedy.

Of all the chartered steamers, it was the SS Eastland that was the star. Bold and breathtaking, with her sleek lines, twin funnels from which rose tall plumes of smoke, at 265 feet long, 38 feet wide, weighing 1,963 tons, she was built for speed; her reputation, the fastest boat on the lakes. Despite, the Titanic tragedy, just three years prior, "newspaper ads heralded her as: 'the Twin-Screw steel ship, Eastland, Largest, Finest, and Fastest Excursion Steamship...' The ads neglected to mention that the Eastland had a history of being an unstable ship." [2]

It wasn't long before hints of impending disaster became obvious to anyone paying attention; however, the jovial atmosphere, and the encouragement of uniformed officials, and crew blinded all, but the most observantly realistic to what was to become one of the greatest and heartbreaking maritime tragedies in recent history. Oh, people noticed the tilt of the massive ship, especially upon embarking, but, apparently, thought nothing of it, given the celebratory festivity, and, even more importantly, the emboldening promotions of authority. 

Yes, the star of the show, the Eastland, was listing at an angle of at least thirty degrees! That's before the massive ship even departed. People were herded like cattle, pressed cheek to jowl, on the upper deck, waving their handkerchiefs in the air as the captain gave the order for the tug to pull her down the river, out into Lake Michigan

“When boarding the boat we all remarked jestingly: ‘The boat is listing!’ Reaching the big dancing hall on the lower deck where many hundreds of excursionists were enjoying the music, we noticed that the floor was strongly tilted. Then a man cried: ‘All hurry to the other side, lest the boat tip!’ Even now we enjoyed rushing up the sharply inclined dance floor, when suddenly the mighty boat rolled to the opposite side, and all occupants were hurled into a helpless heap. In the dance hall the furniture, the tables and chairs, the heavy piano, the large icebox and counter of the tavern, crashed upon the poor victims, so that many were killed outright. Those who had been on deck were trapped deep down in the river, under twenty-three feet of water.”

“I was one of the few who came out of the water although I was imprisoned inside the dance hall. I could swim well and tried to rescue a little girl, but a man took hold of my arm and pleaded, ‘Lady, please save me!’ I screamed: ‘Let me go! I have all I can do to save myself and this child!’ Then the fellow pulled me and the child down to the bottom. I fought him off, and in the scuffle I lost hold of the poor child. Only five other girls and men were swimming within the dance hall. Luckily they found a ledge to which they now clung, and they called me to come and hold on. For half an hour we took this rest, but the suspense became unbearable. We screamed for help. Finally we were noticed and strong arms drew us through a porthole.” - an anonymous passenger gave her account to a news reporter after she was rescued

While still moored to the dock, all aboard suddenly noticed that the ship was tipping over into the river.  After a moment of surreal silence, the horrified screaming began. "Men, women and children slid from her like ants brushed from a plank. ... The entire surface of the river was black with writhing, drowning humanity." [3] Out of the 2,500 on board, 812 met their death in all of six terrifying minutes. The death toll later reached up to as many as 1080, wiping out 22 entire families.

Later, it was disclosed that the SS Eastland was known as "the crank ship of the Lakes." This was not the first time the ship started to tip. Several times before, passengers had been ordered to shift from side to side until she stabilized. However, on this perilous day, the passengers couldn't have shifted if they wanted, they were so tightly packed together. In fact, reports of the Eastland's instability had become so widespread that in 1910 her owners, the Port Huron firm,  had run an ad in the newspaper offering $5,000 to professionals who would claim her seaworthiness.

People lined up outside the temporary morgue at the Second Regiment Armory to identify victims of
the Eastland disaster

All of the evidence pointed to the fact that the only goal of the shipbuilders was "a ship fast enough to make the 170-mile round trip between Chicago and Grand Haven Michigan, twice, in 24 hours", safety, be damned. Lawsuits were brought into the courts, by survivors courts as late as 1935.  Despite overwhelming evidence of neglect and conspiracy to cover up life threatening flaws, no one one was indicted for contributing to the disaster.

The entire Sinclair family- all eight members -perished on the Eastland

Fireman holds dead child after the Eastland tipped over.

Moreover, in a tragic twist of fate, the mandated - by the 1915 federal Seaman's Act passed because of the  Titanic disaster - complete set of lifeboats, absent on the Titanic, made the already top heavy Eastland, more so.  Although the lifeboats required by this act were said to have the potential to cause many Great Lakes boats to capsize, it was signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson, anyway. Never mind that the SS Eastland was already so top-heavy that it had special restrictions concerning the number of passengers that could be carried. The additional weight of the new lifeboats made the ship even more unstable than before.

The interior of the Eastland changed suddenly, as if by the dark magic of a fun house mirror. Floors became walls, port holes became skylights, and the gigantic influx of water turned the mahogany trimmed rooms into sealed chambers worthy of Harry Houdini’s worst nightmares. - Jay Bonansinga wrote in his book, The Sinking of the Eastland: America's Forgotten Tragedy

One has to wonder why this tragic event was brushed under the rug while the memory of the sinking of the Titanic in 1912, is as fresh as if it happened last year. Could it be that the Eastland's passengers were not as worthy of the attention, due to their "working class" status? Possibly. But more than likely, it has to do with the lessons that could have been learned from this atrocity that could've been easily prevented. What lessons? The danger of blindly trusting "officials" or so-called "authorities", while ignoring the proverbial elephant in the room. The danger of valuing profit and technology over human life. In other words, diminishing the value of humanity to a technological, profit-above-all-else society is not only dangerous to mankind, left unchecked, this type of society can wipe out mankind, or, at least, those of us who aren't in "the club".

Reference:

[1] Griggs, John. "Excursion to Death" American Heritage. February 1965: 32-35, 111.

[2] ibid.

[3] ibid.

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The Dystopian Future is Upon Us.

It's undeniable. The question is which "dystopia"? George Orwell’s “1984”? Or, Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World”? It appears both visions were right. On the one hand, the repressive surveillance and security state grows larger everyday, and on the other hand, captivated by technology, we're addicted to mindless entertainment and consumption. Meanwhile, as Jacques Ellul once said, “Technique has taken over the whole of civilization. Death, procreation, birth all submit to technical efficiency and systematization.” "We the People" are on the path to becoming mere numbers, each one of us indistinguishable from another, easily exchanged, and easily erased should we fail to conform.

From Raytheon: crowd control will be as easy as suffocating people with sound now that they've come out with the LRAD Sound Cannon. That is, low frequency sound waves that disrupt the respiratory tract and hinders breathing.

From IBM:  Mind Reading Computers  within five years.  That's right.  Beware, the "thought police" are no longer fictional characters. They're here.

And from the Brookings Institute, retroactive surveillance, or surveillance time machines. That is, digital storage that enables "shadowing people’s movements and communications that took place before the individuals became suspects, according to John Villaseno, author of “Recording Everything: Digital Storage as an Enabler of Authoritarian Government,” and a senior fellow at Brookings and a professor of electrical engineering at UCLA.

“For example, if an anti-regime demonstrator previously unknown to security services is arrested, it will be possible to go back in time to scrutinize the demonstrator’s phone conversations, automobile travels, and the people he or she met in the months and even years leading up to the arrest.”

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Does Technological Advancement Lead to Advancement of Human Civilization?

It's really no wonder that we consider ourselves evolved. What with the amazing technological advancements and the unprecedented material progress of Western civilization; how could one think otherwise?

But before the modern era, technological advancement was slow and new discoveries were rare. Cultures changed so slowly that it was barely noticeable. Without having witnessed any significant change or even being able to imagine how change might happen, people formed the impression that the world would remain more or less the same.

Rarely, when change did occur, especially if that change included advances in comfort, knowledge, beauty, or involved profit, people began to think civilization was was evolving. But is it really?

Take the use of radioactive materials in cosmetics that dates back to the 1920-30s.  It is a good example of the what can go wrong when any industry jumps on the bandwagon of a scientific advance too soon. Despite this, and other technological "advances" that proved detrimental to life, the role of science in industry exponentially increased. 

Zapped with radioactive dust that was supposed to have been 100% safe.



Moreover, during this same time period - the twentieth century - we murdered more human beings than during the nineteen centuries that led up to this age.  Could it be the more technologically advanced we become, the more deadly we become?

"We are close to dead. There are faces and bodies like gorged maggots on the dance floor, on the highway, in the city, in the stadium; they are a host of chemical machines who swallow the product of chemical factories, aspirin, preservatives, stimulant, relaxant, and breathe out their chemical wastes into a polluted air. The sense of a long last night over civilization is back again".- Norman Mailer

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The Death of Humility: Becoming God.

Is there an esoteric agenda that we, the mostly complacent white people (marginalized minorities - especially poor blacks - are already well aware of the diabolical nature of those in charge as they have been their targets for centuries), are helping to forward in absolute ignorance? Could it be that "transhumanism" - a term coined by Julian Huxley, a prominent eugenicist - upon closer inspection, is really a repackaged form of eugenics? After all, both transhumanism and eugenics seek to breed better human beings, and desire to perfect humanity through science.

“Initially, however, the greatest advantages will go to those who have the resources, the skills, and the willingness to learn to use new tools. One can speculate that some technologies may cause social inequalities to widen. For example, if some form of intelligence amplification becomes available, it may at first be so expensive that only the wealthiest can afford it. The same could happen when we learn how to genetically enhance our children. Those who are already well off would become smarter and make even more money. This phenomenon is not new. Rich parents send their kids to better schools and provide them with resources such as personal connections and information technology that may not be available to the less privileged. Such advantages lead to greater earnings later in life and serve to increase social inequalities.”

Scientism, the religion of the future, is the practice of science as religion, and is currently the religion of the elites, whether they admit to it or not. Achieving "godhood" is their ultimate goal and if history has anything to say about it,  this envisioned “technotopia” will be off-limits to the masses.

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BP Genocide?

Gulf of Mexico dead zone

The impact of the BP Oil spill, made much worse by the toxic dispersal agent Corexit 9500 -  originally developed by Exxon and now manufactured by the Nalco Holding Company, which is 11 times more toxic than oil - is continuing to destroy lives, at a greater rate than before, yet, we hear almost nothing about it from the mainstream media.

According to four university studies, 79% of the oil is still there; however, as much of a problem as that poses, it's the toxic chemical dispersant  that is destroying the physical health of countless Gulf residents, not to mention, non Gulf residents.

People are sick...very, very sick.  Some have even died.  Eyewitness and personal accounts of scabs, lesions, skin rashes, and internal bleeding from every orifice including coughing up blood, nose bleeds, and rectal bleeding are reported all throughout the Gulf region. Because Corexit literally destroys red blood cells. The surfactants, which are the primary ingredient in Corexit destroy cell membranes.

"Oil rain"

Evaporation proceeds more quickly at higher temperatures. So, unlike the frigid water temperatures that the Exxon Valdez tanker dumped 11 million gallons of crude, the much warmer Gulf of Mexico waters will allow the “phase transition” of liquid to a gaseous state where it is then absorbed into clouds, and then released as “toxic rain”, potentially upon all of Eastern North America.

NASA conducted studies of the atmosphere and found a millimeter of oil over the Gulf, something they had never seen before. Robert Naman, president of Act Laboratory Inc in Mobile, AL, is one of the many people testing swimming pools and finding Corexit 957. Swimmers are developing rashes, vomiting, diarrea, low-grade fevers, and other flu-like symptoms as Corexit goes right through skin.

Barbara Schebler of Homosassa, Florida, just one hour north of Tampa, received word that test results on the water from her family’s swimming pool showed 50.3 ppm of 2-butoxyethanol, a marker for the dispersant Corexit 9527A used to break up and sink BP’s oil in the Gulf of Mexico.

From a scientist at the center of the spill:

The dispersant works as follows: The oil mixes with the dispersant and forms into tiny microdroplets of oil. These microdroplets have the same specific gravity as the water, so they just kind of hang suspended in the water. On the surface, this helps to break up the oil.

But in the deep sea, this prevents the oil from rising to the surface as quickly. The oil just hangs suspended in the depths, and is moved by the deep-sea currents.

In the history of oil spills before this one, dispersants had only been used on the surface. So this is the first time ever that dispersants have been used subsurface.
You also have to consider that in the deep sea there are hundreds of pounds of pressure per square inch; and it’s very cold, maybe one or two degrees Celsius; and there’s no sunlight to break down the dispersants—there is no sunlight below about 1,000 meters. All of those factors mean even more that the oil down there, when mixed with dispersant, will not rise to the surface for a long time.

Unfortunately we can’t measure the true impact of the spill if most of the oil is below the surface.

Are you saying that if the dispersants had not been applied at the well-head, then most or all of the oil would rise to the surface and these underwater plumes would basically not exist?

For the most part, yes. Or at least, the underwater plumes would be far shorter-lived since they would be rising to the surface.

If we had avoided the deep sea use of dispersants, and had simply let all of the oil rise to the surface or just below the surface, the situation would be much less catastrophic: We know how to deal with oil at the surface. We have precedent for that: We can skim it, we can burn it.

On the other hand, we cannot treat oil in the depths of the sea. There is no precedent. We don’t know how to do it. And as of now there is no plan to even try.

The trade-off was made between two fragile habitats: the marsh/freshwater habitat, and the deep-sea habitat of the Gulf of Mexico.

The marsh/freshwater habitat on the coast is very visible to the public, and of course a disaster there is also a PR disaster for the company that caused it.

The deep-sea habitat is largely unknown and certainly unseen. So in a sense, it is out of sight, out of mind. BP attempted to save the marsh/freshwater habitat at the expense of the deep-sea habitat.

But even with use of dispersants at the well-head, still a lot of oil is rising to the surface and is now making its way into the marsh/freshwater habitat—hence all the oil-covered fish, birds, and other creatures that are making the news.

So, instead of one habitat being saved at the expense of the other, effectively both habitats have been ruined.

Links:

Changing the end game

Gulf Chemist: BP Contractors Are Now Applying Toxic Dispersant - at Night and In an Uncontrolled Manner - Which BP Says It No Longer Uses

Statement from Gulf Oil Disaster Recovery Attorney Stuart Smith


Gulf oil spill harming children's health

Gulf Coast Barefoot Doctors

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The Ultimate Transhumanism Manifesto

Believe it or not, a very large percentage of the ruling elite imagine an ideal society that will one day resemble a human beehive.  What does that mean?  Basically a scientifically designed slave race that will never rebel. Not coincidentally, the transhumanists coined a popular term, "hive mind", which refers to the giant collective intelligence which will be created when people the world over link their brains together with technology.

"Biometry, for example; Their one aim is to create the new man, the man adapted to technical functions. The creation of the ideal man will soon be a simple technical operation." -- Jaques Ellul, The Technological Society, 1954

Sir Charles Galton Darwin, former president of the British Eugenics Society and author of The Next Million Years, describes five great revolutions throughout human history, the fifth of which had not yet happened. The fifth revolution involved using science to alter human nature itself, possibly creating a race of supermen (post human). He goes on to say that eugenics operations will become a necessity in order to control population growth. He applauds China for its long history of civil services and holds it up as the model civilization for a world that will ultimately be unified through technology. Humans should resemble workers on an ant hill.

"There might be a drug which without other harmful side effects removed the urgency of sexual desire, and so reproduced in humanity, the status of workers in a beehive." -- Sir Charles Galton Darwin

Below, the documentary The Age of Transitions - a phrase coined by Newt Gingrich in 2001 - is about converging technology, transhumanism, artificial intelligence, life extension, brain implants, social science, propaganda, nanotechnology, eugenics, geopolitics, world revolution, much more.

"Those countries that ignore these patterns of change will fall further behind and find themselves weaker, poorer, and more vulnerable than their wiser, more change-oriented neighbors." -- Newt Gingrich

While most of us were reinforcing our own, and other's patriotism, on December 3, 2001,  the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Department of Commerce (DOC) organized a workshop on December 3-4, 2001. (A pre-publication online version of the report incorporating the views expressed at the workshop by leading experts from government, academia, and the private sector)

The title of the report: "Converging Technologies for Improving Human Performance - Nanotechnology, Biotechnology, Information Technology and Cognitive Science".

The integration and synergy of the four technologies (nano-bio-info-cogno) originate from the nanoscale, where the building blocks of matter are established. This picture symbolizes the confluence of technologies that now offers the promise of improving human lives in many ways, and the realignment of traditional disciplinary boundaries that will be needed to realize this potential. New and more direct pathways towards human goals are envisioned in working habits, in economic activity, and in the humanities.

In the early decades of the twenty-first century, concentrated efforts can unify science based on unity in nature, thereby advancing the combination of nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology, and new humane technologies based in cognitive science. With proper attention to ethical issues and societal needs, converging technologies could determine a tremendous improvement in human abilities, societal outcomes, the nations productivity, and the quality of life. This is a broad, cross-cutting, emerging and timely opportunity of interest to individuals, society and humanity in the long term.

The phrase convergent technologies refers to the synergistic combination of four major NBIC (Nano-Bio-Info-Cogno) provinces of science and technology, each of which is currently progressing at a rapid rate: (a) nanoscience and nanotechnology; (b) biotechnology and biomedicine, including genetic engineering; (c) information technology, including advanced computing and communications; (d) cognitive science, including cognitive neuroscience.

Some of the participants:

White House, Department of Defense, DARPA, National Science Foundation, Department of Commerce, Newt Gingrich, NASA, National Institutes of Health, Hewlet Packard, IBM, Raytheon, Lucent, Stanford University, Sandia National Labs, MIT, Tissue Informatics, University of Pennsylvania, NYU Medical School, University of Calgary, Duke, University of Texas, UCSB, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Carnegie Melon University, University of Virginia, University of Maryland, Institute of Nanotechnology, The EPA…

The idea behind this workshop was to set an agenda for the future; the key goal, "enhancing human performance" (merging human biology with technology) that would lead to "a more efficient societal structure". In other words, making plans to alter human nature itself.

From this elitist gathering, Memetics, was born. Founded on the principles of universal Darwinism, memetics is the study of memes, which is any idea which passes from one person to others eventually becoming a norm throughout society. Memetics would allow a deeper understanding of the collective cognitive processes throughout societies. Applications are oriented toward social Darwinism.

The 2001 report also provides solutions for the war on terror.

Socio-tech can help us win the war on terrorism. It can help us understand the motivations of the terrorists, and so eliminate them. - 2001 report

Since 9/11 a mountain of legislation has been passed including The Patriot Act, The Military Commissions Act, The John Warner Defense Act, and countless others, all which have rendered the term, terrorist, so ambiguous that anyone could be designed a terrorist.

At this point, you could be taken to a prison without charges, without habeus corpus, and with no rights whatsoever. These laws were not written on a whim. They were specifically designed to give the government carte blanch authority over the people during the chaos and confusion of the Age of Transitions.

The Huxley Brothers:

Julian Huxley, grandson of Thomas Henry Huxley (president of the Royal Society and one of the biggest advocates of Darwinism) came up with the term, transhumanism to replace the term, eugenics, after WWII for obvious reasons. Eugenics means good genes and encouraging the best and brightest to breed. Of course, it's the elite who are considered the best and the brightest. Per Francis Galton, it was because, in the struggle for life, they made it to the top of society, hence, the best humanity had to offer.

"The lowest strata are reproducing too fast. Therefore... they must not have too easy access to relief or hospital treatment lest the removal of the last check on natural selection should make it too easy for children to be produced or to survive; long unemployment should be a ground for sterilisation." -- Julian Huxley

On March 20, 1962, Aldous Huxley, author of Brave New World, gave a lecture at UC Berkeley, in which he clearly laid out the vision of this planned future society. He said,

"In the ultimate revolution, where man can act directly on the mind body of his fellows. The nature of the ultimate revolution is precisely this: we're now in the process of developing a whole series of techniques, which will enable the controlling oligarchy, who have always existed and and probably always will, to get people to actually love their servitude. First of all, to standardize the population; to iron out an inconvenient human difference, create mass produced models of human beings arranged in some kind of scientific caste system..."

Links:

Converging Technologies for Improving Human Performance NANOTECHNOLOGY, BIOTECHNOLOGY, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND COGNITIVE SCIENCE

The Physics of Collective Consciousness

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Human Resources: Social Engineering in the 20th Century

Human Resources explores the rise of mechanistic philosophy and the exploitation of human beings under modern hierarchical systems.

Topics covered include behaviorism, scientific management, work-place democracy, schooling, frustration-aggression hypothesis and human experimentation.

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Two Races.

Viktor Frankl, after his captivity and abuse at the hands of the Nazis divided humanity into two distinct "races", decent men and indecent men. Frankl noted even amongst the Nazis, despite the rarity, decent men existed.

In particular, the SS commander of his camp, who took pity on the prisoners, and purchased, out of his own pocket, medicines from the nearest market town. At the same time, the senior camp warden, a prisoner himself, beat the other prisoners at every opportunity. Frankl goes on to say that, this SS commander was rewarded for his humanity. After the war, three young Hungarian Jews hid the commander in the Bavarian woods, then went to the commandant of the American forces, who were very eager to catch this SS commander, and stated that they would only disclose his location if it was promised no harm would come to this man. Not only did this commander escape harm, in a sense, he was restored to his position. The American forces put him in charge of distributing the clothing collected from neighboring towns to the former prisoners who had nothing but the now tattered clothes inherited from those immediately sent to the gas chambers upon arrival.

"...that there are two races of men in this world, but only these two -- the "race" of the decent man and the "race" of the indecent man. Both are found everywhere; they penetrate into all groups of society. No group consists entirely of decent or indecent people. In this sense, no group is of "pure race"..." -- Viktor E. Frankl "Man's Search For Meaning" p. 137

From Frankl's distinctions, all of the intrusive and/or presumptuous classifications -- red, white, yellow and black...gay, straight, bisexual and asexual...Catholic, Protestant, Muslim and Hindu...tall, short, fat and skinny -- used to catalogue man can be markedly minimized. Because all humans, despite the various groups to which they have been assigned, invariably will fall on one side or the other of this fundamental divide of decent and indecent.

A civilized man and a savage diverge not by their style of dress, type of dwelling, choice of food, nor number of possessions; rather a civilized man and a savage diverge in the way they treat another human being, despite the group, that human being has been assigned.

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Actor: Job Description: Responsible to Humanity?

Actors get a bad rap, as many people tend to confuse actors with movie stars and celebrity. While it is true many great actors, such as Robert De Niro, Sean Penn, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Al Pacino, Marlon Brando, Johnny Depp etc. are celebrities, it is not because they sought out the spotlight, praise, and public approval; instead, celebrity hunted them down because of their great talent and ability.

Entertaining and acting, by nature, are oxymoronic. An entertainer's goal is to please the people, whereas, a good actor must strip himself of his desire to please in order to make the character he is creating, authentic. It requires hard work, the kind most of us, are not willing to do.

We, as non-actors can choose to skim the surface of life, distracting ourselves from what we do not want to confront, and that is ourselves...our real selves, not the selves we've masked in order to avoid the pain and suffering that the process of unmasking would unleash. Good actors, not entertainers, on the other hand, must explore, reflect upon, and expose the most vulnerable parts of himself and that of humanity, continuously, in order to get to the "truth" of the "human being" they try to bring to life.

Recently, Tavis Smiley honored Sean Penn for his embrace of humanity and asked him where his willingness "to stand in [his] truth, to raise these issues, to not bite [his] tongue, to embrace humanity" came from.

Penn gave most of the credit to acting.

"I think that it relates to acting, in a way. And I appreciate you saying it, but to the degree it's true with me. I think that the demand inside, if there's a final demand, it's to feel your own life while you're living it, and that's the demand of what you have to be searching for in a character also, when you're playing a character. And so it's all one thing to me because it all was based on that, and so when you're not involved in the world, you're not involved in the movie. When you're not involved -- I get very bored guarding myself from feeling the world around me, and so I do find myself drawn to participate."

The actor's primary job description can be summed up as "responsible to humanity", according to Herbert Berghoff. Actors must create a "human being" from scratch and communicate the truth of that "human being" or character to the world. A good actor does not sell out to box office, celebrity or what his fans expect of him, rather he must be committed to the character he is creating. Through the process of searching out the truth of this "individual", the actor has agreed to portray, he literally brings him to life.

Great actors provide us with a window into the complex internal life that exists in everyone of us that we are often times loathe to observe in ourselves and the ones we love. Even more importantly, actors can help us to understand and empathize with those who we feel we have nothing in common and who we may have judged harshly because they do not look as we look, or worship as we worship, or are attracted to the wrong gender, etc...

What about the "evil" characters actors take on? What's the actor's responsibility to humanity in this situation? After all, "evil" characters are monsters, barely human, right? Wrong, and a very dangerous assumption. Taking on this kind of role may be the actor's greatest challenge and greatest responsibility to humanity. It's far too easy to separate ourselves from those who society has condemned as evil. An actor who digs deep enough and finds the humanity in a character like this destroys the artificial divide we've created between them and us that enables us to "separate the wheat from the chaff".

Persona + Need + Tragic flaw = Truth of Character, is the formula Oscar coach and acting guru Susan Batson, author of Truth: Personas, Needs and Flaws in the Art of Building Actors and Creating Characters creating for the actors she has trained. An actor’s consideration of a character begins with tension between the persona and the character and the need that lies behind that persona. Everyone has an underlying core need, from childhood and deeply planted by about 5-years old...a need to be fathered, mothered, to please, be respected, be loved etc. HOWEVER, we can’t walk around naked and vulnerable, exposing that "need" to the public, so we build a persona to cover that need, hence, the mask is created.

When the persona, out front, and the core need deep inside, collide and can’t work together, the flow is disrupted, and the tragic flaw emerges. The persona(s) we create are normally in stark contrast to our innermost need...so unless one learns to integrate the two somehow, the tragic flaw is almost unavoidable.

Here are some examples Ms. Batson gave:

The Aviator. The need is to be mothered. The public persona is no limitations, the opposite of a Mama’s boy. The tragic flaw that emerges is he goes crazy.

Monster’s Ball. Halle Berry. The need to be loved. The persona is to push everyone away, be the porcupine. The tragic flaw is to be a victim.

Lost in Translation. Bill Murray. The need to be pure and honorable. The persona is to become a hustler. The tragic flaw that emerges is to hate himself.

When the actor is aware of this split screen, it gives the dimensionality and depth in the performance and provides a universal connection.

"There are lots of personalities out there but few great actors. Great actors are interested in the art form and work very hard at what they do. The powerful component that all great actors have is empathy. An actor must also possess an ease inside his own skin and have the life of his body available to him in a sensory way. The sexuality of the actor that must be present and available to him. He must be in touch with his physicality, in addition to possessing intelligence, emotion, imagination etc. Actors must, at the very least, have the ability to tell truth and refuse to gloss it and be righteously striving to understand themselves and humanity."

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Measure of a Society: How Will America be Judged?

Jimmy Carter once said, "The measure of a society is found in how they treat their weakest and most helpless citizens. As Americans, we are blessed with circumstances that protect our human rights and our religious freedom, but for many people around the world, deprivation and persecution have become a way of life."

People around the world? How about people right here in our own country? We have a system in place that rewards and advocates for big business at the expense of the American people. For-profit business interests is our society's number one concern, even when human lives are at stake, or the quality of those lives.

Just ask the woman with breast cancer, who was denied insurance the day before her scheduled double mastectomy.

Just ask Wendell Potter, the whistle-blower against the insurance industry and former chief spokesman for Cigna Healthcare, who when testifying before congress said,

"I saw how they confuse their customers and dump the sick—all so they can satisfy their Wall Street investors. [...]"The thing they fear most is a single-payer plan. They fear even the public insurance option being proposed; they'll pull out all the stops they can to defeat that to try to scare people into thinking that embracing a public health insurance option would lead down the slippery slope toward socialism ... Putting a government bureaucrat between you and your doctor. They've used those talking points for years, and they've always worked."

And what about our incarceration rate - 2.3 million behind bars, as of 2008 - that makes the US, "prisonhouse of nations", a phrase coined by Mumia Abu-Jamal(not advocating for case, but I believe his phrase to be accurate), as well as our top ranking execution rate, following only China, Iran, and Saudi Arabia in the number of executions in 2008. Is jailing non-threatening, non violent citizens by the boatload, simply another way to line the pockets of industry?

Just ask the millions of people arrested and jailed for possessing marijuana, a plant, far less toxic than alcohol and most prescription drugs, not to mention, its many medicinal properties. Would the legalization of this easily home-grown plant cause the pharmaceutical industry to lose the unconscionable profits they rake in year after year?

Just ask Sally Harpold, grandmother of triplets. She bought one box of Zyrtec-D cold medicine for her husband at one pharmacy. Less than seven days later, she bought a box of Mucinex-D cold medicine for her adult daughter at and other pharmacy, thereby purchasing 3.6 grams total of pseudoephedrine in a week’s time. Four months later, she ended up in handcuffs, arrested for her two purchases.

What about the death penalty?

Just ask the poor and the powerless, as nine times out of ten they are the ones executed.

Or, more specifically, ask Texas, which has accounted for 69% of all executions in the southern states since 1976 and 39% of all executions in the nation during the same period. The spike in executions in Texas occurred during the reign of George W. Bush who signed the death warrants of 151 men and 1 woman during his term.

Rick Perry broke the record of his predecessor when he presided over his 200th execution in June of 2009. Not only that, Perry just fired three from the board ready to probe the execution of Cameron Todd Willingham, the one he denied a reprieve even after a detailed report by an arson expert said the evidence that Mr. Willingham had set the fire was flimsy and inconclusive. On September 18, 2009 Perry was quoted as saying that there was "clear and compelling, overwhelming evidence that he was in fact the murderer of his children"

Another measure of society is the way the culture disposes of their dead. If that's true, what will future historians say about us?

Just ask Detroit, too broke to bury their dead.. The number of unclaimed corpses at the Wayne County morgue in Detroit is at a record high, having tripled since 2000. 2000? You mean since George W. Bush took office? What a coincidence. Anyway, people just don't have the money to bury their dead and as unemployment in the area is approaching 28%, and many people, can't afford last rites; the other problem is that the county's $21,000 annual budget to bury unclaimed bodies ran out.

Jimmy Carter was not the only one who said the worth of society can be measured by the manner in which it treats its weakest member.

It was once said that the moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life-the sick, the needy and the handicapped." ~Hubert Humphrey

"The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering the prisons"
~Fyodor Dostoyevsky

"A nation's greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members." - Mahatma Ghandi

"Any society, any nation, is judged on the basis of how it treats its weakest members -- the last, the least, the littlest." ~Cardinal Roger Mahony,

The greatness of America is in how it treats its weakest members: the elderly, the infirm, the handicapped, the underprivileged, the unborn.
~Bill Federer

"A society will be judged on the basis of how it treats its weakest members and among the most vulnerable are surely the unborn and the dying,"
~Pope John Paul II

If one believes that the worth and dignity of a civilization is judged by the way its weakest members are treated, we cannot help but look back in shame at our past. However, although we can do nothing to change the past, we can make up for it by setting a new course for our future. Currently, as a nation, we value money more than life. People serve money...an entity that does not exist in and of itself, as it is nothing without people and the infrastructure to support it.

Before we change anything we must reclaim our humanity. Once we do that, the rest will fall into place.

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