Douchebags vs. Rednecks

One of the longer standing conflicts among human beings is city versus country or douchebags versus rednecks. The country is perhaps, a perpetual reminder of what was lost--the pastoral life of our dreams. People like Richard Proenneke or Henry David Thoreau or the Romantics either returned to that dream time physically or philosophically. It is a symbol of freedom from want and from slavery. In the idealized world, the country is the land of the Sun; all wealth comes from the Sun and in a world of bounty life is freedom. The people of the country are the people of the Sun, the rednecks are marked by the Sun. They're cursed by their city dwelling brethren who bathe in fluorescent light.

The City is the underworld, the world of man, which is necessarily the world of lies and liars and forgetting, and is the realm of false creation. The epithet of douchebag connotes water and women. The artificial light of the City is money, which in the modern world, sprays from Central Banks and follows an artificial cycle in a grim mockery of the seasons.

Ohio's Extirpated Species

River Otter Track

If you're like me, one of the most exciting experiences you can have when hiking in the woods is coming face to face with a fellow animal, whether it's a common animal like a deer, or something relatively rare, like a bear, coyote, a fox, or a turkey. In that moment of first contact all the layers of civilization's conditioning of the human mind are stripped away.

Unfortunately, at least here in Northeast Ohio, a fairly common follow up experience is learning that the species you're meeting is actually managed, that is brought back into the state by the ODNR. Two examples I know off the top of my head are the river otter and the wild turkey. Both animals were extirpated (hunted, trapped, or killed until none were left) from the state in the early 1900's. That initial thrill turns into a sort of troubling disappointment.

The European people who settled in Northeast Ohio were programmed to turn it into a version of New England, but perhaps really were acting out some old genetic program to reform the landscape into the Eurasian Steppe. The early settler's recorded how they did this. They settled, cut down trees, then shot everything on four legs. In only about 100 years they extinguished 10 animal species from the state, including the river otter.

The otter is a fur bearing animal that was probably trapped or hunted for its pelt, which is really a way of saying the animals went to satisfy the appetite of remote clothing or glove markets. The trappers of the day just consumed all the available animals completely carelessly and thoughtlessly. Clearly, nature can't fill a bottomless pit of want.

Now, of course, there's top-down management. Various government agencies regulate hunting and fishing to attempt to balance people's wants with the ability of nature to provide. When that didn't exist, people just killed everything that they could to eat or sell or just for "sport".

It really is a very interesting question why the native Americans didn't do that. (Although maybe they did.)

Tribal Revival?

Several times in this blog, I made the observation that the people of the West have been de-tribed. The Europeans are just one example. By all historical accounts they arrived in Europe as Burgundians, Vandals, Saxons, Angles, etc... but by the Medieval period they were all Christians living in nation states that had little resemblance to their tribal societies. People with African ancestry or Native Americans followed a similar trajectory--the way of life they had was largely erased when they ended up living in western empires.

Currently, many "white" people, that is people of European ancestry, are waking up to the idea that their interests aren't in line with imperial policies. They're on the sharp end of divide and conquer strategies that have been employed around the world as faceless, nameless schemers seek to dominate.

Many turn to the ancient, tribal past as a potential source of pride and purpose. Although, obviously, this is more an exercise in imagination and creation than it is in recovery of what was irrevocably lost. A movement like Asatru or other flavors of neopaganism are an example of that.

I think a re-invention of genetic tribalism is a bad idea. It's an anachronism. While people of the same ethnic origin might have some similar traits, it seems unlikely that people could recreate the sort of giant extended family that tribal societies once were where their genetics were similar owing to living in a common location for a long period of time.

Also, obviously, people of different genetic origin might have much more in common by virtue of a shared occupation or interest, today, recreating the situation from the ancient past where their tribe and genetic similarity were indistinguishable from common political interest.

Masonry as a Meta-Religion

The Christian bible contains a story of three astrological ages (maybe four). Moses is a rams horned law giver who gets angry at his people for worshiping a calf. (Age of Aries supplanting Age of Taurus). Jesus then reforms the laws of Moses in the Age of Pisces The ubiquitous Jesus fish symbol encodes this idea.

Presently, it seems some group or groups of people are attempting to reformat the hard drive of western civilization with the code of the Age of Aquarius. Their interpretation of Aquarius seems to involve promoting concepts like "gender fluidity" and communism. The mantra "what will replace capitalism" is heard over and over. Androgynous figures like Miley Cyrus are promoted in the popular media.

Who is this group?

My current guess is it's the Masons or some Mason-like group, that is, a meta-religion, or maybe a religion factory. That is, their religion is astrology and the interpretation of the stars. Or possibly, they see the stars and star myths as a cypher they use to decode the collective unconscious.

I think the SyFy series Childhood's End is possibly a fictional depiction of what they think they are doing.

Let's Be Switzerland

The United States was not directly involved in Europe's great game bullshit for several decades after its founding. The Monroe Doctrine was a formal statement of the anti-Europe stance. However, the US got sucked into great game nonsense through the 19th century, then took a seat at the game table in the hellish 20th century.

In a lot of ways, the contemporary United States looks like a scheme to fund the cabal of people who play at the games of international intrigue and war. The popular "culture" of the United States seems to be engineered to obscure its structure and to keep people in the heartland of the nation believing the wars and schemes their blood and treasure support are in their own interest. Professional sports businesses receive millions in taxpayer funding to cheerlead for wars.

Even now, as people witness entire cities collapsing for want of funds oceans of money flow to dark, idiotic imperial schemes in dusty, poor corners of the world, the people can't quite conceptualize the problem. They know something's wrong, and have an emotional reaction as they look to men like Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders to solve their problems rather than asserting their own interests.

An example for the United States to follow is provided by modern Switzerland. The US would not get involved in foreign entanglements and the people would zealously guard their freedoms and their interests. They would reject the groups and people who attempt to drag them into old world politics. This concept is derived directly from the nation's intellectual history: it's the idea of Jeffersonian Democracy.

Neocon Brand Nihilism

One of the most amazing aspects of the mainstream media is that the neocons who stridently pushed for War in Iraq and the Global War on Terror are still on TV every single day. These people's recommendation cost the US trillions of dollars, thousands of lives, and they cheered on the slaughter of millions of innocent people and the destruction of countless lives.

They pushed and cheered on torture as a federal government policy. They continue pushing for war and violence everywhere in the world, even as all their previous plans fail spectacularly. They seem to be front men for some mafia that's sucking the United States dry.

Many analysts have traced the intellectual roots of the neocons to Leo Strauss who was a commentator on political philosophy that specialized in the esoteric mode of writing that was extensively used by classical and "in the know" authors for centuries. I don't think this analysis of the neocons reveals much and is just a type of an appeal to authority or labeling. I think what's meant by this analysis is the dense, cryptic writings of Strauss hold some unholy of unholies that's only understood by his acolytes: the neocon creep squad.

For me, I don't think Strauss has much to do with the neocons. The neocons are just parasite shysters who have perfected a confidence game. Their big philosophical revelation is nihilism. They're a species of nihilist that believes in nothing but the grift. The grift is all they have and all they are. They worship the grift. As grifters they hold the subject of their con in particular contempt, but like every other grifter and con man or woman, or every tapeworm, without their mark they'll die or be forced to do something productive.

What is Indignation?

The basic concepts in Jaak Panksepp's Affective Neuroscience: The Foundations of Human and Animal Emotions (Series in Affective Science) 1st Edition provide a good network of ideas one can use to break emotions down into more fundamental units.

The emotion of "indignation" is at the core of much of the alternative media. Indignation is really the emotion that's associated with injustice. It's the idea that what is shouldn't be, or what shouldn't be is. SHOULD is the key word here. Indignation is perhaps a reaction to "shoulds" being violated.

In Panksepp's scheme, indignation is possibly a species of rage. Rage is about being physically trapped and unable to move. Rage is the reaction that fuels escape or fight. Indignation is sort of a midget version of rage.

Another component of indignation seems to be a wish for time to halt. The indignant feels the game needs to stop and the rules updated or strictly adhered to. It's a desire for intervention by an invisible third party referee.

Empire: A Family Business or an Egregore?

Joseph Atwill and Freeman had an interesting conversation about Freemasonry and the structures of control used by what Atwill terms "the oligarchy". Most of the conversation revolved around the concept of "lifetime actors", that is operatives who work toward the oligarch's goals who embody a media persona. Examples are Hillary Clinton, Ken Kesey, the Grateful Dead, and Donald Trump. I have a similar take on Trump and Clinton. These are people who portray archetypal characters and in a very real sense, have no independent existence of their own. What a sad, shallow, gross life!

One of the memes of the alt-media, especially conspiracy researchers like Atwill or Freeman is that there is a central will that directs the conspiracy. I think Atwill's take on it is thoughtful and sensible, in short, that there's a family, a large extended family or mafia type structure that's at the core of the so called "New World Order".

My interpretation is a little bit different. I think there's basically a mother concept, Empire, that calls her children to her cold, cold titty with her shrieking, weird-ass song. It's quite possible that genetics brings these human starlings to the centers of power around the world time and time again as empires rise and fall. However, I don't think Empire is a family business. It's a thing that arises from others, a third thing, a thoughtform or an egregore.

Certain families might occupy positions of power in any given era, however, if they fall, or die out, another family will take their place.

Meta-Politics

For a couple of years, I've been mulling over ways to better map and describe the "power centers", that is the actual political structure of society, rather than its public face: the kabuki theater we see in partisan politics and elections around the country.

If you read The Federalist Papers you'll see a the US government wasn't designed to function efficiently, rather, it is a damper or an energy absorber. It's a mechanism that's meant to drain energy or to transform political energy into heat waste--like brakes on a car turn kinetic energy into heat. The authors of the Federalist were focused on the problem of faction, that is, how to keep a society from breaking down from internal strife. Hence, by its design, the seats of real power in the US are outside the government bureaucracy and its legal mechanisms, but most of the time their conflicts are settled by bureaucrats and lawyers rather than naked violence. This design is meant to keep the people free, that is, unmolested by the quarrels of the powerful.

My belief is this design broke down some time ago. The US has transformed into yet another corrupt empire with centers of power geographically based in NYC and DC. The interest of the imperial centers and the rest of the people are wildly divergent and consequently the people, that is, the great mass of people are disenfranchised in every way. Really, war has been waged on them on every front for generations and they barely know it. While the system generally protects people from physical violation and predation, it now exposes them to a type of parasite that takes advantage of the government's structure.

No political candidate is going to save the nation from this thing. Certainly no hyper-corrupt political party is going to save you or even mildly improve your life. To make a fresh start requires a return to the wellspring of creativity. This has happened time and again in the western world. Somehow poetry, and metaphysics finds an expression in meta-politics and that in turn reshapes the modes and orders people live by.

In the past, this happened as new ideas dripped into groups of thinkers who were associated with the wealthy and the powerful, for example, the Medici in Florence in the Renaissance, or the Tudors in England. In many ways, our society represents the triumph of those groups and their benefactors. It's quite possible that the money and power centers that influence the world today are merely iterations on those core, centuries old factions.

This time calls for decentralization and the triumph of the local and particular over the universal and global. This time calls for the personal rather than the institutional. I'll meditate on that until the next post.

The Vikings Aslaug Introductory Scene Decoded

For several months, I've been mulling over the scenes in the TV show Vikings where Ragnar's second wife Aslaug is introduced. Aslaug is met by two men who spy her emerging from the water. This obviously parallels the mythology of Aphrodite emerging from the foam in the Greek mythology.

From the "water" has a specific meaning in the parlance of celestial mythology. (See this post for more info.) The water, I believe, means the emergence of a constellation above the horizon, that is, the rising of the constellation before sunrise.

Additional clues are provided by Aslaug's accouterments when she meets Ragnar for the first time wearing a costume that answers his riddle. She wears a net, carries an apple, and has a dog companion.

The apple represents the sun, which, around the autumn equinox, rises in the hand of the constellation Virgo. The dog is the dog star Sirius, which heralds the arrival of Virgo in the morning darkness on the eastern horizon. Virgo is often frequently depicted in her various representations as being led by or riding a lion, that is, the constellation Leo. However, in this case, since the dog is on a lead, I think the allusion is to Sirius.

Stellarium Screenshot of Virgo Led by Sirius in October

The net is the Pleiades. and refers to the conjunction of Mars and Venus (the planetary doppelganger of Virgo characters) in the cluster of stars. (Nice write up: here)

Additionally, Aslaug is Ragnar's second wife, that is, his Autumn Equinox wife where Lagertha is his first, that is, his Spring Equinox wife, which of course means Ragnar is the Sun. This pairing of the two women follows an ancient celestial metaphor of Isis and Nephthys. In fact, when Ragnar meets Aslaug for the first time, there are numerous jokes about eating salted fish, which is probably a reference to the constellation Pisces.