The Arms Race to End Democracy

Right now, though most of us have not yet been informed or cottoned-on, we are in an arms race: a battle to save or destroy democracy itself (depending on which side you are on). The opposition (currently fronted by Musk and his minions) see democracy as no longer fit for purpose, and obsolete, and see techno-feudalism as the way forward. Think about that.

We who are pro-democracy are at a distinct disadvantage: we're playing by the rules, while the opposition (Trump, MAGA, Musk, Christian Nationalists, alt-right, techno-feudalist elite) have torn up the rule book. And while it takes an age to formulate a case to take to court against executive orders that ride roughshod over the Constitution and the rule of law, they have their plan worked out using AI in a jiffy, and they're already two or three plans ahead.

And no matter how many thousand followers you have in the social media, you can't post your way out of fascism.

Image from Mike Brock's article, “The Plot Against America”.

Taking a Stand Against Oppression

“We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must – at that moment – become the center of the universe.”

~ Elie Wiesel, The Night Trilogy: Night, Dawn, The Accident.

In my opinion, for what it is worth, at Jimmy Carter's memorial service, and with President Donald Trump in attendance, Right Reverend Mariann Edgar Budde, bishop of Washington DC, gently and fairly, but firmly spoke truth to power; promoting unity in the face of a regime hell bent on fostering division, and promoting compassion, empathy and mercy in the face of a regime hell bent on cruelty. In doing so, she distinguished her more genuine form of Christianity from the deranged brand of Christian Nationalism / worship of Mammon that is behind Project 2025 and Felonious Trump's vile and unholy regime.

A Cranial Throughput of Just Ten bits per second

According to a report in Science Alert, in a recent paper, neurobiologists Jieyu Zheng and Markus Meister from the California Institute of Technology found that “[T]he speed of the human brain's ability to process information has been investigated in a new study, and according to scientists, we're not as mentally quick as we might like to think.”

Read the full report here.

“In fact,” the report goes on, “research suggests our brains process information at a speed of just 10 bits per second. But how is this possible, in comparison to the trillions of operations computers can perform every second?”

Of course, those conversant with information technology will know that input and output to and from peripheral devices in computer systems is far slower, especially if it processes data sequentially rather than in parallel, than the speed of a central processing unit (CPUs); and specialist graphics processing units (GPUs) are lightning fast.

The Divine Emanations

For as long as he could remember, a man had been convinced that he was privy to divine emanations, but he could never quite pin down what they were or where they came from. They just seemed to arise as if from nowhere or arrive on the wind. And so obsessed did this man become, that he left his family and his job and set out one day to find the source of the emanations, travelling far into the mystical East.

He went from one wise man or woman to another and sat in their presence and enjoyed their rich hospitality for countless hours and from time to time he'd sense the divine emanations as they arose and say: “There you are! Did you, such a wise man, not notice that? That's what I was trying to explain to you: the Divine Emanations! That is what I seek.” But time and time again, the wise men and women would merely shrug their shoulders and shake their heads, apologizing that they could not be of assistance to the man in this matter, and he would leave their company to carry on his noble quest.

And then one day, this man came to the door of a Sufi – indeed the door of the Teacher of the Age. And no sooner had he finished the particularly rich and spicy meal that his host offered him and had begun to explain to him his great desire to sit in the presence of the source of the Divine Emanations, than he let out a whoop of joy. “There! That is what I mean! That is what I have dedicated my whole life to seeking. The Source of the Divine Emanations! Surely, you must sense it too? Could it be that after all these years of selfless devotion to my quest I have finally been rewarded by being allowed into the presence of the Source?”

The Teacher of the Age looked the man straight in the eye and shook his head. “Divine Emanations, my friend? Yes, there are indeed divine emanations, emanations so potent that merely spending time in the presence of the elect is sufficient to transform a man or woman.”

“But, listen carefully to me ...”

An Unholy Vision, from Beyond a Shadow of a Doubt

“Some want to turn the clock back, harkening back to some golden age of nostalgia, when women, children, the lower class, parishioners, and people of other races and creeds knew their place; not back to the 1950s, but further back: to Dickensian times and to (corporate) feudal fiefdom. They want to wind the clock back to a time before the hard-won battles for civil rights, social reforms, and worker representation. A time long, long before the ‘woke virus’, ‘illegal immigrants’, and gender identity, when life was more conservative and white lives mattered; though with a new, fundamentalist, Christian nationalist (or Islamist, or ultra-Zionist, or even atheist) and isolationist twist. And some will go to any lengths – and I do mean any desperate, violent, draconian lengths – to bring this vile and unholy vision about.”

~ H.M. Forester, Preface to Beyond a Shadow of a Doubt.

Story of resistance only, WITHOUT additional study materials.

Availability ...

Bloggers: A pox on Googlebot

Technical stuff

For a while now, GoogleBot, via the Google Search Console, has been crawling and indexing sites "mobile first": that is, they crawl a web page as if they were a smartphone user. Only much later, if at all, do they come back and carry out a "desktop" crawl.

The issue for users of Blogger / Blogspot is that these sites detect the simulated mobile device and redirect GoogleBot, adding "?m=1" onto the end of the URL (web address).

Societal Collapse by Design: MAGA’s Big Plan

Creating distrust, division, confusion, and chaos, leading to massive societal dysfunction and collapse, is not a bug in the MAGA plan due to incompetence in personnel picks and policy: it’s a very deliberate design feature, and it will have dire global consequences.

And for accelerationists, evangelicals, fundamentalists, and Christian nationalists, it’s all a part of the big plan for the End Times.

Tariffs are imposed and tax cuts are extended yet again to the wealthy; markets crash, the dollar plummets; the US defaults on the national debt; the rich make an unhealthy profit on the downward spiral, from bitcoin and from bailouts; the natives become restless, and for “reasons of national security”, the authorities declare martial law. And “before you can say Jack Robinson”, it's fait accompli.

Added to which, we can only hope and pray that things don't escalate into nuclear war with Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran, and peacefully protest any such emerging crises, or we'll really be shafted.

~ H.M. Forester.

If this resonates with you, you may like “An Unholy Vision, from Beyond a Shadow of a Doubt” (a story of Resistance), with links to the eBook.

The Esoteric Meaning of Noah, the Ark, and the Flood: Maurice Nicoll

“There is the literal level of understanding sacred writings and there is also the psychological level of understanding them.” ... “The esoteric or inner—that is, the psychological—meaning is quite different. Esoteric teaching is always about [Humanity's] inner evolution. It is about Man's higher development and his relation to what is higher than he is.” ...

The legend of the stone soup

Once upon a time, not so very long ago, and in a land not a million miles from here, there were two hungry dervishes, who are seekers, people of the 'poor'. 

One evening in their travels, they came across a small village and decided to stay for the night. There was an inn there, just by the side of the village green. But because they had no money, the two dervishes could not afford to stay there. Sometimes the pair would take out their musical instruments and play and entertain the inhabitants with jokes and news, in exchange for a few coppers for food and lodgings. But not tonight, for it had been a long haul up into the foothills of the mountains that day, and they were both too dog-tired to play, or even raise a smile. 

So it was that the two dervishes set their scant belongings down by the side of the village green, right in front of the inn. While one of them set about stacking up the sticks of wood he had scavenged along the way, the other arranged the stones which he'd collected in his travels, into a small circle around the wood. 

Sufis Say “Put Your Hands on Your Head”

It strikes me that there’s a game that Idries Shah used to play, and encourage us to play. It’s called “Sufis say ...” which has been handed down since time immemorial from murshid to murid (master to disciple). A contemporary form still exists in elite circles, where it is called “Shah says ...”

We may know it in a lesser, degenerate form, so we are told, by the name “Simon says ...”, a game now played by small children and fools.