Wishing one and all a good 2012.

Below is another draft fragment of an unfinished project from last year which is posted here as it may stimulate ideas for others.

“…everything is rich – in other words, everything that is commensurate with the universe. I insist on the fact that, to freedom of mind, the search for a solution is an exuberance, a superfluity; this gives it an incomparable force. To solve political problems becomes difficult for those who allow anxiety alone to pose them. It is necessary for anxiety to pose them. But their solution demands at a certain point the removal of this anxiety.”  -- The Accursed Share, Georges Bataille

There is something wrong with the world. We have apparently reached a point of great technological advancement where we can harness nuclear energy, and use it and all other scientific breakthroughs to innovate various ways to kill life through conflict and daily living; we can travel the air and outer space; we can land on the moon and send probes out into deep space; we can communicate with one another instantly and conduct economic transactions just as fast. We call ourselves modern and claim to be advanced.

   Yet:

• we rely almost entirely on fossil fuels that are limited and pollute the environment
• we cannot eradicate terminal and serious illnesses
• there is world wide poverty and hunger
• we cannot obviate the impact of natural disasters
• we believe what we see on TV and the mainstream media
• we allow ‘experts’, institutions and those in authority to sway our emotions and common sense easily
• we believe with certainty that science is truth and vice versa
• we buy into the claim that money is what life is about (for without it life is apparently impossible in the modern, sophisticated world guided by smart people)
• we admire celebrities and want to be like them (sic)
• we believe in a binary type of logic of either true or false and a restrictive idea of analysis which means you must agree to a form of linear thinking or you are plain unrealistic
• we somehow believe that there are higher truths, emotions and explanations beyond what we tend to believe but somehow prefer to be guided often by materialism
• we can see through the shenanigans of hoodwinkers if we just stay alert and watch our backs but continue in a thinking mode of global and societal indoctrination that continues to allows us to be bamboozled anyway
• we think big banks, big corporations and big government and ideology is somehow a good thing
• we think that living in fear and anxiety is normal (this last one is instrumental in resulting in most of what is listed above)
• we think those who do not live in fear and anxiety are abnormal, and we say things are the way they are and nothing can be done about them

   And the list does go on.

   But everything is energy. Science seems to think that too. Spirituality has been blasting that about for eons. We believe in the exuberance and irrepressible energy of the universe and can see its effects everywhere, but for some reason think that we have to live in limitation. Abundance is the natural state of affairs of everything, but we are stuck in a mindset of lack and grappling for resources.

   The universe is teeming with life. Just look at the earth (and all those microbes from outer space etc). You can have a plot of land untended for awhile and it sprouts weeds. You have some crack in the cement of buildings and you will have some life form crawling out of it. A thimbleful of soil has parallel cosmoses and worlds circulating in it.

   If harnessed properly, you can tap into magnetic energy for vehicle levitation and movement. You can tap into hydro, solar and wind energy. You can place turbines in the sea to use tidal energy. There is incredible energy all around us without which we wouldn’t be able to exist not to mention have a stable environment to sit and read a book without things flying all over or crumbling into dust every few minutes. Something is going on here bigger than we can imagine, but we take for granted and then accept limited ideas and theories in science and economics and views of media pundits as the limiting factors of ‘reality’.

   We confuse what is complicated with what is complex. We think complicated means Truth. But we find it difficult to accept that Truth can be simple yet complex. Complication is what leads to trouble. However, complexity cannot be avoided though actual realities can be quite simple.

Getting down to it

Most of what is here is based on the ideas from the two remarkable volumes by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari (D&G) called Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus: collectively given the subtitle Capitalism and Schizophrenia (quotations are from the University of Minnesota Press translated editions).

   A good way to give an idea of what is in store with D&G is to look at Foucault’s memorable preface to Anti-Oedipus. The man rightly points out that “Anti-Oedipus (may its authors forgive me) is a book of ethics…How does one keep from being fascist…How do we rid our speech and our acts, our hearts and our pleasures, of fascism? How do we ferret out the fascism that is ingrained in our behaviour?...one might say Anti-Oedipus is an Introduction to the Non-Fascist Life.”

   In fact, D&G have provided a moral work, and are trying, without much success, to veer it away from the spiritual to the humanist dimension as well.

   Foucault adds (bold and italics mine):

 This art of living counter to forms of fascism, whether already present or impending,carries with it a certain number of essential principles which I would summarize as follows if I were to make this great book into a manual or guide to everyday life:

• Free political action from all unitary and totalizing paranoia.
•  Develop action, thought, and desires by proliferation, juxtaposition, and disjunction, and not by subdivision and pyramidal hierarchization.
•  Withdraw allegiance from the old categories of the Negative (law, limit, castration, lack, lacuna), which Western thought has so long held sacred as a form of power and an access to reality. Prefer what is positive and multiple, difference over uniformity, flows over unities, mobile arrangements over systems. Believe that what is productive is not sedentary but nomadic.
• Do not think that one has to be sad in order to be militant, even though the thing one is fighting is abominable. It is the connection of desire to reality…that possess revolutionary force.
• Do not use thought to ground a political practice in Truth; nor political action to discredit, as mere speculation, a line of thought. Use political practice as an intensifier of thought, and analysis as a multiplier of the forms and domains for the intervention of political action.
• Do not demand of politics that it restore the ‘rights’ of the individual, as philosophy has defined them. The individual is the product of power. What is needed is to ‘de-individualize’ by means of multiplication and displacement, diverse combinations. The group must not be the organic bond uniting hierarchized individuals, but a constant generator of de-individualization.
• Do not become enamored of power.   

…The book often leads one to believe it is all fun and games, when something essential is taking place, something of extreme seriousness: the tracking down of all varieties of fascism, from the enormous ones that surround and crush us to the petty ones that constitute the tyrannical bitterness of our everyday lives.

Uncomplicating the Complex   

Everything is energy. It is remarkable that we believe in most things scientific but fail to grasp that everything, the seen and unseen, the material that we take for real is nothing but energy. We are energy. Our thoughts, words and actions are energy. Emotions are nothing but energy: it can be defined as e-motion or energy-in-motion. Everything we do is energy. The universe and the world operates through the transference, transmission and use of energy.

   What this means is that every aspect of our daily life, real or imagined, spiritual or secular, pleasant or otherwise is just energy. The life force running through all of us is, just that, force=energy. Our society, government and economy are manifestations of energy. The way we work and live is about the circulation of energy. Rather than incorrectly looking at ourselves and our world and way of life as something static, we must see it as flux, energy in action.

   What prevents us from seeing this clearly is the inability to control emotions and the blockage provided by the ego. So rather than see ourselves in the third dimensional linear form of people who grow from children to adults and then die, we have to see ourselves as beings of energy forever in flux, driven by wants and needs. In this sense, it would be suitable to describe life forms or life as we know it (or ourselves) as desiring machines: as D&G would express it.

   The ego is the filter that processes and also blocks the energy momentum. It can do so through misunderstanding itself, the energy flows and the way energy is transferred. Part of our misconstruction of the world as energy is due to the theories and indoctrination of the self that we have undergone. We believe that there is a fixed ego or ‘I’, that it is of primary importance above all else, that it is shaped by its environment, that it is a living entity and can be harmed, and that it is linked to mythical concepts like the Oedipal complex (and many others).

   We have come to see ourselves stuck and driven merely by libidinal drives that must mean a restricted number of things, but all of which seem to lead to energy formations beyond ego. There is no doubt that mishandled human or libidinal energy leads to grief, but does it also lead to good? Must every aspect of the libidinal drive be trapped in negativity, guilt and as some would like to call it, ‘sin’?

   D&G are ambiguous about a lot of things, as it is their manner of expression and also because in some way they imitate Nietzsche’s way of doing philosophy which can seem potentially inconsistent, contradictory and often deliberately set at an offensive angle to the way society is at any given time. This leads to difficulty at times in trying to make out what exactly is meant but as all three would point out, trying to specify meaning is part of the problem we and our world have gotten into.

   D&G would say: ‘Why do we always have to insist that everything must actually mean something which then begs the issue as to what interpretation itself means and which form of interpretation should seek precedence over another (why on earth should there be precedence on interpretation anyway?).’ This would imply some form of hierarchical control being put in place to make people think and accept things one way rather than look and, more importantly, live life in as humanly a manner as possible – these are the incipient fascisms we must veer away from which we have failed to do time after time.

   The triangular and pyramidal patriarchal structure of interpretation of the world as represented by the Oedipal complex, among many others, pushes us to an unnecessarily and silly restrictive way of living. It is more a convenient mode of trying to limit entropy (which humans think they can do being primarily ego driven that is the basis for all control mania), and it is perpetuated by society and its elements of control (basically society as we know it abetted diligently by the mass media).

   Being driven to get what we want and need relentlessly is what makes us desiring machines. This is not to preclude any free will but that we are part of the flow of desire which we have invested in and used to shape a libidinal world, society and economy. But the fact that we get mired in fascist tendencies, incessant work, economic exploitation and political manipulation is not merely because it is imposed on us, but that we actually desire what comes to us.

   This is important: we may be desiring machines but we are not automatons devoid of choice. We do ask for what usually comes our way; we get what we rightly deserve. This again does not mean that there are no other desiring forces at work making things difficult for us, but that we often combine our libidinal energy with those forces and so create the world we are trapped/live in.   

   The term libidinal economy (LE) is used in such a variety of ways that is not easy to determine what it means at any one time. But it could be used to refer to an organic desire that is underwritten by our drives, wants, needs and attachments that can be seen as a system applied to various aspects of our life such as the economy or society; and in this sense it is a desiring machine.

   A desiring machine (DM) as used by D&G is an abstract machine and is imprecise in usage. One suspects that precision is not always what the two aim at for it may imply binding yourself down to something that must be defended at all costs through the ages: the kind of ideologies and strictures that the two are fighting against.

   So a DM would refer to a person (as an inchoate form, rather than ‘individual’) or object or system that is an agglomeration of desires/wants/needs or place holder for libidinal drives. It gives some form to that which is an energy flux. When we individualize this flux we call it ‘I’, ‘he’ or ‘she’ thereby investing it with an ego and the separateness that this entails. This is the start of wanting to assert control over things and being made into a unit that is subject to control.

Moving beyond Ego

When we take the energy of desiring machines into form of a human being we coalesce the basis of the human personality, or body without organs (BwO). Upon this form of human energy we have the transcription of codes of other energy forms that shape and influence us. This social energy field of ourselves is the socius. The latter has encodings from other energy flows and influences which are described as deterritorialized codings which are now encoded on the socius that in turn impinge upon us as BwOs.

   We are thus driven by wants and needs that develop and shape us into different forms or fields of energy depending on how various codes are activated. The societal energy codings and social transcriptions that are activated in us are like genetic codes and make us what we are as people and a society. Take a look at how D&G discuss things and try to unravel its essence (p33, Anti-Oedipus):

Capitalism does not confront the situation from the outside, since it experiences it as the very fabric of its existence, as both its primary determinant and its fundamental raw material, its form and its function, and deliberately perpetuates it, in all its violence, with all the powers at its command. Its sovereign production and repression can be achieved in no other way. Capitalism is in fact born of the encounter of two sorts of flows: the decoded flows of production in the form of money-capital, and the decoded flows of labour in the form of the ‘free worker’. Hence, unlike previous social machines, the capitalist machine is incapable of providing a code that will apply to the whole of the social field. By substituting money for the very notion of a code, it has created an axiomatic of abstract quantities that keeps moving further and further in the direction of the deterritorialization of the socius. Capitalism tends toward a threshold of decoding that will destroy the socius in order to make it a body without organs and unleash the flows of desire on this body as a deterritorialized field. Is it correct to say that in this sense schizophrenia is the product of the capitalist machine, as manic-depression and paranoia are the product of the despotic machine, and hysteria the product of the territorial machine?

   There is a lot going on here. For starters, codings which release a certain energy push people in a certain direction. For instance, a society that activates its circuitry via money-capital is one that has its ethos shaped by money creation, its perceived value and its exchange function. That entire society and most of its people will think and live according to the dictates and issues surrounding the use of money. Everything will be shaped by it.

   Similarly, the idea of the ‘worker as a free agent’ or the basic component of labour will be seen as a decoded flow on society (or a code that has been activated) and will shape lives according to that pattern. These are essentially individual thought and societal thought patterns that make a society what it is. So a society will be living along the lines of a work cycle and schedule around which daily existence operates and is influenced deeply by. 

   So according to D&G this is how capitalism plays itself out within this context. Capitalism in itself has no codings but is a synthesis in a way of both the money-capital and labour/‘free worker’ codings which it in turn unleashes on the socius the money-capital energy with a vengeance as the idea of labour is intrinsically tied to that of money-capital (production). This process of unleashing the money code further leads to a decoding/deterritorial activity that denudes the socius into the basic form of the human energy template or BwO (body without organs). The socius that is acting as the BwO is not the actual BwO and the person gets confusing signals that the worn out/denuded or deterritorialized socius is who they are in essence.

   In this sense, capitalism produces a form of schizophrenia. The person is split between realizing themselves as capitalist being and social form and as a human energy or essence. This tension and strain between an authentic self (BwO) and what is projected and falsified as ourselves (our capitalist/money circuited social beings) is in a way the source of so much of our mental, emotional and spiritual anxiety and imbalance that also manifests itself as physical ailments and all that is unhealthy in our lives and our world.

   What does this mean in concrete terms? Take an ordinary guy, Joe, who is middle class and takes on a part-time job as well to help make ends meet. His wife also works part-time when she can managing their two kids at the same time. His whole life and how he relates to his family and work is relegated to operating within the capitalist codes prefigured by money circuitry.

   So other than romance, his motivations to marry (or not) and have a family would include:

a.       cost of marriage and having a family

b.      cost of owning a home and paying off mortgage

c.       basic cost of having child/children (food and clothing)

d.      medical for kids when required

e.       schooling costs for kids

f.       entertainment costs for family

g.      in-laws and extended family related costs

h.      income taxes and hidden taxes that weaken income earned (e.g. inflation)

i.        cost of hi-tech gizmos which kids yearn for these days/miscellaneous stuff    

This money circuitry determines how people relate to each other, as it is also factored in some cases for pre-nuptials and divorces and all the costs those entail. The social cycle of a human being is hardly that of a ‘free agent’ but a labour unit conditioned from birth to death by money circuitry. When you die there are still taxes and other costs that may have to be settled. You are not a free person as such, but a type of ‘flexed out digit’ within the money circuit.

   This in turn inscribes on the socius or social form of Joe his ‘reality’ as he lives it. This so completely overwhelms him and his life that he comes to believe that all there is to himself and his world is the socius or his socially money circuited form. When his entire work life, daily grind decisions and tattered conscience becomes the substitute for his human energy essence, he lives his life as if his socius is his BwO.

   It is the tension between his human essence as BwO and his socius that produces so much of the suffering and dysfunctional nature of his life. The capitalist circuitry creates his schizophrenia in this sense. He has to choose between buying a toy his child really wants, and his budget; a school his child should go to and his budget; the medical attention his family needs and his budget; an outing with his friends and his budget. Every thing the normal person does is influenced largely by his budgetary constraints.

   This in turn impinges on the essence of who he truly is which tends to resonate with spiritual aspects of himself. Here D&G are schizoid themselves for they reach for a solution beyond three dimensions yet are quick to keep them within materialist limitations: they want to have their cake, eat it and insist that they did not try to eat it.

Dear Friends

Have set up a site for ideas from thinkers, philosophers and activists on a post-capitalist world.

It is at: Philosophers for change

Peace be with you

 

“This book, being about work, is, by its very nature, about violence – to the spirit as well as to the body…It is, above all (or beneath all), about daily humiliation. To survive the day is triumph enough for the walking wounded among the great many of us.” -- Working, Studs Terkel

 

For the small group of readers of this blog, in case you may've been wondering, this has been a year of personal tragedy. Notwithstanding, I am grateful for the difficult but important spiritual lessons arising from this. This has also stopped in its tracks a project begun sometime last year which was meant to culminate in a book of sorts.

Rather than confine into obscurity some of the interviews that came about for this project, I've decided to put them here. This is an unfinished and perhaps never ending project. But I thank all those who gave me their time and shared their views: and to you all I do apologise that your effort is not being given a larger audience.

The people interviewed are at least a year or so older now.

Below is the draft preface I had in mind of which an extract is posted.

The preface that never was

A few years ago when visiting and staying with friends in Vancouver, Canada, I underwent an epiphany. I remember looking at the lovely view of English Bay, the mountains and downtown Vancouver all in one sweep from a penthouse view of a friend. As I was planning my day and the walk I would take across Granville Bridge to the downtown area and further on to visit some second hand bookshops, I recalled that if I were to traverse even further down I would be at the East End.

Part of the East End, which is next to Tinseltown cinema multiplex and Chinatown, was a very different side of the city. There not only will you find poverty but drug addicts shooting up openly in alleys in daylight. I remember once even seeing inert bodies lying in the middle of unclean streets which would over qualify for an archetypical movie setting for seediness. Police cars would drive by oblivious of the junkies and those peddling their addictive wares. The cops would not even stop to take a closer look at the bodies lying still in some streets to see if they had any life left in them.

I asked my friends what they thought of the remarkable contrast of the wonderful city and beautiful country they lived in with the inexplicable mess in the East Side -- this included mentioning to them the drug related violence in other parts of the city.

Most of the time my friends would give the answer that the reasons why this deplorable state existed was due to poverty in some instances and ‘wrong choices’ as the obverse side of ‘freedom’ in their land. Corruption among officials was also quoted as a perennial problem which also haunts so many other societies.

But let me give some more context to all this.

In 2006, I had dropped out of the System in the sense that I was not fully employed and had to live on a tight budget. This was not my first experience of such living but I did not realize that the economic hardship the world is facing was going to see so many others placed not only involuntarily in my position, but living on an even tighter budget.

In 2006 and 2007 I was on an extended meditation retreat at a Buddhist monastery in British Columbia, Canada. After the retreats I continued my stay there with friends before returning home to Singapore. The retreats were in a forested area where we lived off the grid but comfortable enough for most lay people to be able to adjust to. You did have to be sensitive to not frightening the lovely deers around the area and be cautious about running into bears, grizzlies too. I remember running into a couple of large grizzlies and standing perfectly still while recalling all the spiritual teachings I knew to stay calm as I was all alone on an afternoon walk in the woods. But on seeing a human, it was the grizzlies who turned tail and ran (they can really run, don't be fooled by the size).

Minutes later, I found empty bullet shells along the pathway I was on: some hunters must have been busy doing great PR work for humanity.

Later in 2007, I visited Sri Lanka when Colombo was in a near state of emergency with the then ongoing ethnic violence holding the island in its grip. With all the soldiers and armaments around in a quasi siege like atmosphere, I understood clearly why much of Nature has suffered at the hands of mankind. At that time I was also staying at a Buddhist monastery but was not on a retreat as such. I was taken to view a meditation centre that was being built in a beautiful hilly tea growing area and which I was supposed to live at as a coordinator of retreats in the near future.

This unfortunately did not work out in part due to funding problems for the meditation centre that delayed its construction and other issues that cropped up of a more bureaucratic nature that proved to be one obstacle too many. It is still being constructed.

Then in late 2008, I was on my third extended retreat this time in England. After the retreat I stayed with some family members who were residing in the suburbs of London. During the period of 2008 and 2009, due to certain experiences and some books that fell into my hands, I was propelled towards  many things including the project that has now led me to write these words.

...Some of the books that launched me towards my current project included Karl Marx’s Das Capital, Friedrich Engel’s The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844, Henry Mayhew’s London Labour and the London Poor, Jack London’s The People of the Abyss, George Orwell’s The Road to Wigan Pier and Down and Out in Paris and London, The Jungle (the unexpurgated version) by Upton Sinclair, Ernesto “Che” Guevara’s The Motorcycle Diaries (and his other major works), James Agee’s Let Us Now Praise Famous Men: The American Classic, in Words and Photographs, of Three Tenant Families in the Deep South, and William T. Vollmann’s Poor People to name the ones that come easily to mind.

...We have to see the people around us as our sisters and brothers and understand that we are all part of the collective consciousness of the planet. This means that no one who is underprivileged or living in poverty, even if it seems that they do so out of the choices they have made, should be left alone to bear the consequences and not receive any help.

We are truly indeed one another’s keepers and we should come up with new ideas to issue in a new paradigm of creating and measuring growth and move away from the browbeaten capitalist mode of competition at all cost, and greed over human dignity. We need to centre within our beings care for the planet, our environment, all living species and, above all, place the highest value on human beings over grasping for money.

The voices represented here are based on interviews with some people whom I know and those whom I do not. In many instances, I have let the people speak for themselves and that will be their way of directly communicating with you. They are speaking, in some cases, with much more thought put in than they would in a casual interview by someone who is just performing a journalistic function.

Not all those interviewed were comfortable in communicating entirely in English, but they managed what they could and I re-checked with them what they said before writing it up as quickly as possible on the same day I spoke to them from my usually verbatim notes.

Three basic questions were asked of all I interviewed and spoke to:

What is your idea of being poor?

What is your idea of abundance?

Why are people poor/What is poverty?

...Those who were not comfortable in English mainly responded to the last questions and as the dialogue went on I clarified what they said and they responded in their own way to the first two questions as well.

I had not read Studs Terkel when I thought of this project and began it, but was pleasantly surprised and impressed by the wonderful work he did as I started to read (among others while finishing my project) -- Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression, and Working (people talking about their work).

The biggest influence on me probably came from sections of Marx’s Das Capital: Volume One, and the books by Engels, Mayhew, Orwell and London. I had studied formally philosophy and political theory as an undergraduate and over the years kept up with my reading. In graduate school I was steeped in literary theory and aesthetics. But only in recent times did I re-read many works I had studied and then some as the scales finally fell from my eyes.

The second part of this book looks at possible economic models that can be used for firms or enterprises of all sizes. There needs to be a move away from the way most businesses are run. In particular, we need to move away from how mega corporations are run with their obsession in serving profits and shareholders at the expense of the rest of the planet.

The time has come for this to change radically.

And so,

Daily grindings

Madam Sawami (Aged 64, road sweeper, unable to retain her job after reaching 65. She has since been looking for work and I have no idea if she has been successful):

"I can work only now till 67 years old. So three more years. I want to be by myself. I want independence. My children and I, problems, cannot get along. I have my own problems don’t want to hear what their problems with their husband or wife. Then I must hear their wife’s problems also.

I want flat of my own, single room. I ask the HDB (Housing Development Board, Singapore) to help me and they say – you can wait, we have to help plenty people with no house living now on the beach. You have problem, they also have problem. What kind of help, this? Why can’t government help me? I have done nothing wrong, but government can’t help me in this, just to get a single room flat for myself.

What I earn, only $1000 one month…so I can pay installment say less than $100 a month, but please don’t take away $500 a month from me for a single room flat.

As long as I can work, help myself, have enough to eat, I am happy -- no one else will help, so I must help myself.

Now, I am alone. My children all forget what I do for them when young all, now see, I am on my own.

Can you help me with my house problem, I don’t know who [to] ask…HDB don’t want to help."

 

Mr Lam (Aged 62, food stall holder at a small hawker centre from which he rented his stall. The stall closed down as it was bought over by someone who has since set up a snazzy restaurant. No idea if he has since found another place to sell food):

"I come from a poor family. Many children, I am one of the eldest. My parents had a small stationery shop, and we managed, all of us. Now, my wife and me work at this food stall. We are not rich, if I can earn say $1,500 month I am happy, it is enough. We manage.

People who are rich -- say they earn $4,500 to $5,000 or much more…are they happy? Money is one thing, happiness something else. As the eldest in my family and myself, we had to be the bread winners to help my parents and sisters and brothers.

My family have the old Chinese thinking, the older ones sacrifice education all to support the younger ones. So my education highest – secondary 2…what to do. My English not so good, but I learn on my own by using English language tapes when I was 30 years old. I worked many things, like taxi driver and clerk in office. I also try to improve my English by speaking to those with good English, environment important to learn and practice language.

Because of my and my older brothers sacrifice, my younger sisters and brothers well educated. One of my brothers just retired as a teacher, he went to university. My daughter also is fine, she is working.

English is very important, the main business language. I think the government policy is correct, importance for English and own language or second language. Must balance with language for your own culture. But English is important. Now people can learn Japanese and French in school. Other languages very important. My younger sister learn Japanese at a language school and now she works in a Japanese company.

We were poor, but what is important is good family, happiness and health. Don’t always think of money, money, money! This rich people what happiness they have? If you are rich and happy, good for you. But most of them not like that. Everyday worry, cannot sleep, always thinking about how the business good, can make it, can make more money…all the problems of business…no peace of mind. So what if you have so much money?

Some people become poor because they don’t know how to save. They spend all the time, they want nice house, car, everything. Then when employment difficult, cannot get job, how? Cannot pay installments, become financial problems. You look at the young, they only want to have good time, spend, sports car, but never think of future, no savings. Then one day, if they cannot find work, what to do?

Some become poor because they gamble, throw away money. They think they will always be young or healthy and have a job. They don’t save. Gamble, then they lose all the money, so what to do?

The future cannot tell, cannot predict, better not to waste money and think no problems one day.

Also, I think sometimes people are poor, like in many very poor countries…because of karma. Their past life, many, many years ago, something they did, now they have to pay back. Hopefully after this life, it will be better for them.

Rich people should be generous, help the poor with donations, charity, not just here but help them in other countries also. What for keep all the money and don’t share? You cannot take with you when you leave [die], so why keep and don’t want to give?

The rich cannot enjoy life sometimes, they are so busy, so busy with time and making money. No time for family, loved ones, children…what kind of life? Even those who are top people like government, the ministers, no privacy? What kind of family life can they have, always their time is for someone else…their time and appointments all planned for them…what kind of freedom do they have?

I think I have enough, if I retire now still can survive. One of my customers who is rich and live in expensive condominium. He is 70 years old, and his wife is paralysed waist down and is in a wheelchair. He has two sons, both rich. None of them have time for him and his wife…they call on the mobile phone to find out…but too busy making money. They don’t care about their parents. So what for all this money?

When this old man tell me the story, he cry, the tears in his face as he tell me what his children are like. He and the wife are so lonely."

 

Ruwan (Aged 29, foreign worker, caregiver from Sri Lanka. Due to workplace exploitation and problems he returned home and his current situation is not known):

"People are poor because they sometimes are lazy. Not always because others at fault. They sometimes don’t know how to manage life. They throw money away and waste on things like drinking and women. Sometimes it is government’s fault why people poor. Government also don’t manage properly the country then whole country can be poor.

But to me, man is poor because it is own fault. Son from a poor family can actually do well if he studies hard in school and all, but also rich man’s son doesn’t do well because he is lazy and doesn’t want to work hard. What is important is the effort you want to have in things.

Sometimes religion can help explain all this. Like in Buddhism we are told life is dukkha, lot of suffering. So also karma is also responsible for our life. But during time of Buddha we are told there was lot of evil in world. Also people have different belief like worshipping the stone and water and all. But today, to me, also the same. When we pray to the statue we are praying to a stone or we belief in luck and things.

People the same even today from Buddha’s time till now. Now also we worship trees, water and earth. But this is not always a bad thing, sometimes this because we show respect for all around us. Nothing wrong with that. We are just grateful. Just as children who respect to parents or we show respect to our rice and food and drinking water, like in Sri Lanka, it is just a good habit.

Also, we can choose what we do, so not always karma to blame. We can choose to good or evil, we are responsible for choosing, so we are responsible also our life.

Money is important but it is not the most important. I think most important is happiness. If you’re not happy what for money? Most important is happiness to enjoy life but not waste time, meaning spend time to be happy with family and friends. That is what is important.

Nowadays when people supposed to smarter than animals, actually no difference. They are same. So much killing people do, they are not so clever. Why must there be so much killing?

In Singapore, people think money is number one. Everything is about money. People here are well to do, lot of money, money needed for everything here but parents no time for children. They put their time in money not the children. Main thing here is material things.

Children here always with maid, no parents spending time with them. So just as parents put children in nurseries because they no time for them, now children also put parents in nursing home because they also no time for them…all busy earning money.

Millionaire is not happy. He has worries like who will steal his money and property. Who can he trust? Will he loose all he have. Cannot sleep, no peace of mind. Poor man can sleep, if he has just enough for family he is okay…he doesn’t have so much problems and worry. No worry about who is going to rob him.

I see that in Singapore, it is like a car. Everything supposed to work well, very efficient, like car put in petrol make sure engine working then all is fine. But people here have no life. They are not happy, they have no time for family and friends.

My working place is a nursing home. Next to me is a child nursery. So I can see everyday what happens. They parents come and put the child in the nursery. Kids crying when hungry for mothers milk, but they get other milk not from humans. The cow is their mother because that is the only milk they get.

So I notice, parents come and put children in nursery then when children grow up they put parents in nursing home. I see and understand this for I experience this everyday. Singapore clients of my nursing home say what to do, they have to work to earn living and no choice but to put parents in home. They say in Singapore without money you cannot live, nothing you can do.

The parents have no time for children, and one day the children also no time for parents.'

Wan (Izwan, aged 25, retail supervisor at a supermarket chain):

"What does being poor mean? I think if your parents cannot provide for you, then you’re poor. If you’re grown up and cannot provide for yourself, or don’t want to, then it is because you’re lazy – so again you’re poor. If you don’t want to be poor, then you must be hardworking and provide for yourself.

A lot depends on your capability and that also depends on your education level. If you grow up without much education then you are stuck with a low paying job. No education, no high paying job. Or you just have a mediocre job.

My education is ‘O’ Levels and I am trying to upgrade myself. You must upgrade and work for it, otherwise you only can blame yourself. I have two jobs, in the day time I help out here at the coffee stall next to this market. Evening time I work as a retail supervisor at a supermarket. That is the only way I can save and have enough.

With what I can earn I provide for my parents and am saving to get married and try to own my own home. Actually in Singapore you can get jobs, that’s not the problem. It is the need for money always. The cost of housing here is high. In the long run, your property is your investment, but to try to own one – maybe 30-40 years to pay the loan to just own your roof over your head. Then the interest for the loan will kill you. Trying to settle down here is hard. You have to remember you have to feed your family.

Religion to me helps in providing knowledge about the world and your life, I mean, it’s up to each person whether they want to follow what the religion says. But you must help yourself first. If you’re lazy and don’t want to help yourself, why should God help you? You help yourself, then God will help.

I think there are people who want to help those who are poor, but also a lot of wayang [Malay word implying 'theatrics'] taking place, making a big show trying to attract attention to themselves, like the charities here – the big ones – they make a big show. Also groups or companies, like that who donate want attention only just advertise themselves and promote themselves. If you’re genuine you just give, if you give don’t make a big show and all the publicity. They just want brand recognition.

I think if we have problems in Singapore, realistically speaking, most people won’t help each other. I read a lot of books on World War Two, you see what human nature is like, here or anywhere else. People tend to be selfish, they rather not help others. Focus on the individual only.

In this world you need money. To me if you have no money then you have no happiness. Money needed for everything. It can’t be avoided. The coffee and tea cups I clean up on these tables, you can drink from what is left over from them if you don’t want to pay for it. But then, someone already had to pay for it before you can drink the remainder in the glasses. Again, you need money to have anything.

In the end you must help yourself, you must be hard working and that also depends on your health. We need self responsibility in everything.

My father’s advice to me is bear your own suffering but don’t let others suffer because of you.'

 

Sam (Aged 63, barber):

"I have been barber since 1966. People are poor because sometimes they don’t want to work hard. You have choice, you can try and do your best or just give up. Work enough so that you at least have enough to eat. Some people are lazy, but they think they can get high paying job and also easy job. Younger generation now, some just don’t want to work, many don’t want to be barbers.

Some who are poor now actually only want to enjoy life, they spend money on woman and throw away money. No savings for rainy day. If I earn say $50 one day and spend $10 or $20 that day, the rest I save. Must save for old age. Don’t rely on government for everything, government here helps but in the end, you must help yourself.

Some younger ones today, no ambition, they see their father is a postman they follow him, don’t want to try and go beyond. They should study hard and upgrade and move up a little, but don’t want. In Singapore, if you cannot study well, hard to get good job. Here you must try to enter university then at least can earn $3 000-5 000 a month otherwise, how?

In Singapore you must pay for everything. Here there’s no large land area where you can have rice or things, if you cannot earn money then how to survive here? Government helps but again they cannot just give welfare always, we must also help our self. How else to pay for your food, housing and all.

To me health is important. No health you cannot work to earn money. You have money and no health, what for? No point. If you have health, not much money, still okay, can work.

One thing government here helps old people, at least the health and hospital care, they give some assistance to the aged. That’s a good thing.

Also we must respect all religions. Must have tolerance, and we must respect one another and not disturb each others belief. Again in Singapore, people do show tolerance of different religions. We should treat all people fairly, like our brothers, all are our family.

[At this point an Indonesia lady who is a foreign worker here and a friend of Sam’s family and came to visit them asked in Bahasa what the interview was about. She then added her views stating that in Indonesia and in Singapore only the poor help one another. She claimed the rich drive by and look down on the poor and blame the poor for what they are, not understanding that sometimes they can help. She then departed and the interview continued with Sam.]

Yes, I think all is a matter of attitude. Sometimes the rich here don’t want to help. They see poor people as different and separate from them. Must change the attitude. You find that people who have little to give are the ones who want to give, not always those who have plenty. We need more responsibility and kindness in our society. Not enough of it. [He used the Malay term timbang-rasa which means 'sympathy']

Have seen people in accidents and hardly the rich ones stop to help, the ordinary people seem to help mainly. But you must help, we must support each other.

Must be humble, not proud. That’s why I try to make my customers happy. I listen to them and do my best and try to provide service. In the work place must be professional, never mind what kind of work, must be the best, do your best. Younger people the attitude is different, they show they are unhappy and don’t know how to treat customers. That’s why I say, attitude is most important.

Also can’t blame God for everything. We have free choice, God gives us intelligence as humans so must think first, must think before doing things. Singapore now has some floods but actually in this case no point blaming government because it is act of God. But also there are poor people no homes have to stay on the beach. This is also wake up call for government to do more for those people who need some help.

I worry about bringing gambling into Singapore like casinos. People become greedy and try cheat and nothing good can happen from this. You know, I have one customer who works in the security of one of the casinos. He told me that in one day they catch usually 30 people – 30 people, you know – for cheating or trying to cheat. Foreigners and Singaporeans.

People do anything sometimes for money."

 

Anon. (Aged24, university student who has since graduated):

"1. What is your idea of poverty?

Poverty is entirely thought based for me as with everything else. I can be materially rich, but very very poor inside if I'm stingy, greedy, unhappy, etc. Likewise, I can be poor materially, but if my thoughts are calm and I can find happiness -> I'm rich. And sooner rather than later, my world will change to represent that abundance.

2. What is your idea of abundance?

Abundance is also a mindset to me. First in the mind then in matter. It is an attitude of gratitude, etc, etc, etc. That leads to a wonderful life affirming philosophy regardless of the pain that life can bring. Pain is necessary but that does not mean suffering is.

3. Why are people poor/why is there poverty?

This is very complex. I cannot understand sometimes why there is suffering and such debilitating poverty in Africa, South America or even in Singapore with the cardboard mattress 'uncles and aunties' [references to elderly people]. As in life can really be a very very painful sad experience for many people.

Some of poverty is created because of institutions which destroy our birthright to abundance and freedom and prevent information from being made public (that would eventually release our reliance on many things), but also some poverty is individual, just individual laziness, over reliance on governmental subsidies/or external care/support from children/parents, and leeching off of others' work. It's a human problem at the end of the day. And we do create the institutions that are reflective of our human flaws. Until we evolve out of our ugliness, poverty and suffering will continue to exist in this world."

 

Anon. (Aged 58, hotelier, now retired):

“1. What is your idea of poverty? Poverty in my eyes, is when someone does not have a roof over his/her or their head, hardly a job, no utilities whatsoever like electricity and water, unable to have access to decent medical facilities, barely have one meal a day, unable to send their children to school etc.

2. What is your idea of abundance?

Lavish and luxurious living, wastage and use of spending in a vulgar fashion; what I mean is - there is no harm in being rich and able to afford every materialistic need that is considered essential in such an instance. But to waste on lavish parties unnecessarily, (again, not my business) but it is sad to see such living, when the less fortunate can benefit from some of these monies. Perception of "Abundance" could be seen in different ways. In my life, I would pray for good health, and perhaps, my life may seem in abundance to some or of those less fortunate than myself. Abundance is where one does not need to crave for anything else, or have any more wants in life, e.g. a healthy bank account balance, travel frequently with enough expense money, good medical benefits, own luxury vehicles, homes which is evident in most cities in any country. There is so much more that could be added on to what is my idea of abundance.

3. Why are people poor/why is there poverty?

Could be born poor, lazy with no vision or ambition to improve this situation? See how people beg on the streets, when they could easily work in a house as a housemaid, houseboy etc. Just do any kind of work rather than beg!

(I have been a hotelier for 30 years, besides being a sister, sister-in-law, housewife, mother, grandmother, and being a citizen of a country which has an average standard of living...worked hard to do what may be seen as abundance in the eyes of some).”

 

“The old principle: who does not work shall not eat, has been replaced with a new one: who does not obey shall not eat.” – The Revolution Betrayed, Leon Trotsky

Francis X. (Aged 46, lawyer)

"My response is as follows:

1. A lack of quality moments in life (moments of connection, gratitude, love and joy - especially when being of service).

2. Plenty of quality moments.

3. Being spiritually lost; out of touch with their hearts and the inner guide/voice of God. People are struck by poverty when they deny their heart and lose their way to themselves. One sure sign of this is boredom. So one ends up being poor in the midst of material plenty."

Betty L. Khoo-Kingsley (Aged 67) and in her own words -- "Convent schooled. Graduate of University of Singapore. Natural health and Environmental researcher-writer, Eco-activist, Biodynamic and Homa gardener, Author: Cancer Cured & Prevented Naturally (3^rd edition 2009).

Also a student & practitioner of Ayurveda (Science of the Spirit) and Anthroposophy (Spiritual Science) since early 1990s. And full-time Volunteer for Nature since 1994."

"My idea of Poverty :

There are two kinds of Poverty. ONE is the obvious poverty of not having the basics of living.

The Basics (traditionally) are: Food, Shelter and Clothing.

In today’s urban societies, I would define the basics as having --

a) Enough money to buy raw food that one can prepare oneself at home for breakfast and dinner. And sufficient money to buy oneself a meal at a hawker centre. Also sufficient money for public transport (bus, mass rapid transport).

b) A place to live that is the equivalent in comfort to a 2 room HDB (Housing Development Board) flat for one to two persons and a 3 room HDB for a family.

c) Clothing: I think that even the poorest among us now have more clothes than they need. However, in temperate countries where temperatures plunge in winter, the poor do not have sufficient warm clothing – especially if they cannot afford heating or are living on the streets.

Every one, in any society, deserves to have their basic needs met.

TWO – The second type of Poverty (which is much more commonplace in ruthlessly capitalistic meritocratic societies like Singapore) is what I would call a ‘Poverty MINDSET’.

This is a mindset that believes that one never has enough. If one owns a 5 room HDB, then one aspires to own a private condominium with swimming pool . For the condo dweller, he/she aspires to upgrade to a bungalow in an ‘exclusive’ district or to own two condos etc etc…

People with ‘poverty mindsets’ are continuously envying others and striving to have more money; to have bigger, better, fancier, more exclusive cars, homes, club memberships, credit cards, jewellery etc.

Their children have to be smarter, go to more exclusive kindergartens/schools/colleges etc…they aspire to holiday in far-away exclusive resorts…

Such people are morally and spiritually bankrupt…and they gravitate like sheep to evangelical religious leaders who preach what is now called ‘Prosperity Gospel’ ….so SAD!

The award-winning movie – Singapore Dreaming captures the collective ‘yearnings’ of 90+% of Singaporeans, all caught in this ‘poverty mindtrap’ .

My Idea of Abundance –

Ah, abundance is Contentment with one’s lot in life…

One may be materially ‘poor’ by the standards of those with a ‘poverty mindset', but the person who is at Peace with himself/herself, who finds purpose and fulfillment in what he/she does everyday, who has little material ‘desires’ and has many friends (and no enemies) and has a big happy family and who is thankful and feels Blessed by the Universe (or God) …that person lives a life of ‘abundance.’

* I have far less than my peers who are all graduates and retired much later than I. (I own no house, no car) as I became economically ‘unproductive' since 1994 when I went to live in Darwin [Australia] with my husband Richard. I was in my late 40s. However, I feel blessed with abundance (good health since I turned vegetarian in 1995/96 and started daily qigong, and now Homa Therapy) and have just applied to live in Malaysia [where she sometimes resides], building an eco-cottage in Tanjung Sutera family resort and creating an eco food garden there and putting in eco technologies. I am putting my money into leasing land and buying seeds and planting and teaching all to 'Balik Kampung' for natural drug-free health and happiness.

Why are People Poor?/Why is there Poverty?

If you ask the PAP (People's Action Party) government they will assert that the ‘poor’ in Singapore are only a handful and public assistance is there to help them. I totally disagree as there are many (I do not know the numbers, various NGO aid agencies may be able to help, I have lost touch although I was the founding vice chairperson of The Breadline Group in 1976 when I was a journalist – but I know from the current chairperson that the numbers of poor, sick, destitute applying for Breadline group ‘financial aid’ in addition to public assistance is on the up and up).

Morever, since I returned to live in Singapore (after my Australian husband unexpectedly passed away in 2004) and decided that for various reasons: a) going green & walking my talk b) I would have to return to ‘work’ to support my ‘car’,

I have been using buses, MRT and taxis and talk to people in buses and taxi drivers.

I learned for example from Aida, a Malay woman whom I started a conversation with on a bus, that she is a toilet cleaner. I was so surprised that this slim, neatly dressed woman who spoke such good English should be cleaning toilets (for a police station).

“I thought you were a librarian," I said. Curious, I asked her age and she answered, “Well I am 50+”

“But what did you do when you were younger," I asked.

“Well, I was a salesgirl for a cosmetic company,” and she shared that she used to earn “$1,300/-+ in those days, 30 years ago which was big money to a young single girl” but Aida now earns $700.

So, with an ever-growing younger and better educated workforce, plus the continuous ‘flooding-in’ of foreign workers (who can afford to the lower pay because their other living expenses are met by their employer, even if they have to cramp four to a room) the Aidas of our society, with their families to feed, will just get poorer and poorer.

Take the case of the poor Malay man who was crushed to death by the boom of the tree-pruning truck just a week ago. His death revealed that this 50 year-old Singaporean was earning only about $300/- a month and supporting a wife and four young men/boys (one on dialysis, another in hospital for depression and a third a slow learner). IF this poor man had not died, would we have known of the family’s plight ?

He and Aida would just be mere negligible statistics in our GDP or GNP records.

Now, why is there a rampant Poverty Mindset in Singapore, even among those who, by the homes they live in, cars they drive should be happily enjoying a comfortable middle-class lifestyle?

This is because in a Consumer-driven, competitively ruthless Capitalist society that we have become over the past 30 years. People at all levels feel driven (almost a mass neurosis, amounting to hysteria when their child can’t get into a particular school) to have more and more and more of everything – to buy and buy, to spend and spend, to show and show-off….

The Core Values that are being promoted: Greed is Good, it makes us competitive (better than our neighbour next door, better than our neighbouring countries), a shallow consumer-driven culture of Eating and Shopping only reveals how pathetic a society we have become…how impoverished we have become in the things that really matter – and that is a life well and truly lived not for Self and narrow nationalistic bounderies but seeing All as ONE on Mother Earth, one with all…..the animals, plants, insects, even minerals."

 

Jayne Tang (In her 30s, dancer):

"1. What is your idea of poverty?

• My idea of poverty is when one is constantly in fear of --"Not Having Enough"....no matter how much they have or being blessed with.

• Do not live consciously enough to be feeling blessed and being in joy of WHAT IS...e.g. Addicted to making money for the wrong reasons.

• Afraid of tossing out old ideas, stuff, things, concepts, belief systems or things or even people/loved ones that were non-supportive anymore....(so mostly become a hoarder of life...with anything they can find or be attached to....always fearing of loosing something to someone or situation/circumstances...).

• Afraid of success...cannot handle the pressure/challenges of what Successes will take...(as success brings chaos and changes...)

  2.  What is your idea of abundance?

• Knowing with deep trust that we are always being provided and blessed no-matter-what the situation of our life looks like....

• Living life without guilt and regrets...and feeling the fullness of what life can give us...

• Every situation, person, things or circumstances is/are, a gift /opportunity to transform our life for higher growth & expansion...in manifesting abundance emotionally, mentally and physically....

• Feeling blessed with most things in our life and staying in joyfulness as much as possible no matter what...that's abundance!! Cause it is all there is...it's how our perspectives of seeing in things with light & colour of abundance...like the Beautiful Sky that gives us protection from the Sun, the Trees that gives us shade...the River that flows to irrigate plants and animals to drink from it...

• Good peers, friends and associates that care for us and are always there for us, when we need them...

• Above all else, we all have abundance within us...like love, joy, peace and blissfulness....

1. Why are people poor/why is there poverty?

• Because we are afraid of deserving and being WHO WE REALLY ARE, in-terms of receiving the best of best, could be the old conditioning of our poverty consciousness from many many many generations, where our Great GrandParents/GrandParents/Parents are afraid of "Not Having Enough" or "Success"...

• It is our subconscious mind that is fearful of handling great wealth, success, great health, beauty...that we are all conditioned to take a hard way/suffering methods to achieve and receive...so we spin in a circle of poverty.

• It's our individual or collective fear that if one gets rich, another will be poor...so we rather stick to being poor mentally and that no one gets rich at all (have self sabotage all the time, in pulling ourselves down, so that we don't have to shine through or be brilliant as who we really are meant to be as in 'bigger' or wealthier, it's the FEAR OF SUCCESS that is keeping people poor...therefore there is poverty. It's also a reflection of a big part of us that we are still wanting poverty as a comfort zone in this world...or a very familiar space that has been around for eons. Whereas wealth & richness is unfamiliar and causes discomfort.)...or the deep jealousy of the rich, that the poor rather stay poor. (There are many root causes to the poverty mentality, but mainly the FEAR OF SUCCESS is the biggest culprit).

• Then of course, there is the other side of the story, where the Rich also keep taking advantage of the poor where they have less power to counter-react in time & space...so there is an enormous amount of imbalance or 'victimisation' of the poor where the resentment builds up over time and blows up into violence or warfare. Then the injustice comes also where the poor will keep justifying their poverty situation and calling up for help."

 

Ong Wooi-Hsen (Aged 43, lecturer):

"1. What is your idea of poverty?

Most people might look at this strictly from the material plane only and I believe that for some, it might be a real bread and butter issue or what Don William's might call 'the rising costs of getting by'. It is however interesting to note from two previous reports in The Straits Times in separate articles over the past three years or so when the 'happiness index' of peoples of the world is measured. It appears that North East Thailand and Bhutan have the happiest people in the world. I suspect that their isolation and the fact that they have less access to the modern material culture saves them (to some extent) the 'unlimited wants' of the modern economic man.

I'd like to extend the definition of 'poverty' to include any resource that limits a person's development in his community. Outside of spirituality in the religious context, this could include values like 'diligence', 'responsibility', 'respect', 'love' etc. Poverty could also be in the lack of skills that will disenable a person to perform effectively as a contributing member of his community.

2. What is your idea of abundance?

Abundance to me means the wealth of resouces available to an individual as he lives his life. It does not merely refer to the material wealth that some are born with or acquire. This is because material possessions and the need to acquire them is closely related to our needs and wants. Hunters and gatherers have traditionally been called 'the original affluent societies' as all the means to their access for their needs are available around them with each adult tribal member being quite self-sufficient in acquiring his needs. During times of famine, tribes break up into smaller teams or even individually to forage over larger areas to enhance the carrying capacity of the land.

The modern economic man is a victim of the division of labour in a largely artificial built-up environment. Our survival is much dependent now on school certificates, the ability to make money in a good job to enjoy the creature comforts and products created by another group of people. It is a potentially risky situation as we cannot find or manufacture these products on our own. Any breakdown in the system means the deprivation of access to that product which is deemed increasingly not a want but a need (e.g. electrionic goods).

3. Why are people poor/why is there poverty? At the strictly material level, this is the result of an unfavourable distribution of resources. Many rich nations would rather destroy their bountiful output (to keep prices competitive) than to send over the extra agricultural output to poorer nations. This makes good economic sense but it means others will be deprived and they will starve to death. There are theories that suggest that for survival of the species, we should not help the starving millions. They are just not meant to survive. Helping them survive means making a local problem become a regional and global one.

Another school of thought (backed by some formulae) suggests pessimistically that the carryiing capacity of the earth was exceeded in 1985 which means that we are living on borrowed time (as a species).

At the non-material level, poverty is a perceived notion. Henry Thoreau's experience at Walden suggests that man can subsist on quite minimal resources. While I am not promoting the extreme experience of Thoreau, I believe that Toffler's 'throw-away society' is very much a way of life for most people living in an urban environment. We can certainly consume less and generate less waste.

Sometimes, we live in poverty because we get caught up in the material culture. Sadly, we often forget that we have a choice between having a $500 wallet with $5 inside and having a $5 wallet with $500 inside. It is our human condition that we must examine our lives and acquire skills and values that will contribute in some way to meaning in our lives. Otherwise, we remain trapped in our material as well as non-material prison.

Personally, I live well. I have almost everything that I want and I continue to upgrade my life in material and non-material ways. I am mindful not to generate waste. I recycle and make use of what other people throw away (quite tastefully, I've been told). More affluent peers have asked how I manage in real surprise and I am lost for an answer. I have always thought that I was almost thriving in this urban jungle. I speak with everyone (rich or poor, powerful or desperate) as everyone has their story like I have mine. I work hard to acquire skills to be an effective contributing member of my community. As a gardener, I understand delayed gratification in that it takes time to enjoy the fruits of my labour. In reality, even if fruiting escapes me, the journey would have been worth it. If I ever lose it all, I'll just start again. I have eighty years (God willing) to leave a legacy. I hope God grants me the wisdom towards action or inaction in my quest to leave an impactful legacy in this existence.

I write this not with arrogance but with a quiet understanding in my larger definition of wealth or poverty in relation to the human condition. I have been blessed and I am ever grateful for God's grace. That sums up for me that 'gratefulness' remains one of mankind's most underrated virtues."

 

Debby Ng (Aged 28, photojournalist):

"Poverty exists when people feel disempowered. I believe it is a state of mind. That notion may seem disillusioned and naive, but consider this: I met a girl (let's call her Sabina) in Nepal who had dropped out of school because her family could no longer afford it. She was the oldest amongst her three siblings, which meant that her two siblings would not have been able to go to school as well. Her father was an alcoholic, despite being the most educated in her family - he graduated from college. Her mother worked desperately as a janitor to keep things together, but things were falling apart. They didn't own a home. They were one family amongst millions in Nepal who were grappling with life.

Then, providence. Sabina's situation was picked up by a social worker working with a foundation that offered scholarships to underprivileged women. After an assessment, Sabina was accepted as a recipient of the scholarship. She was put into a school, but that wasn't it. Staff at the foundation didn't just give Sabina a scholarship, they became her mentors. They encouraged her to work hard, instilled belief in herself, nurtured her being and her soul, thus empowering her. Just as her world was falling apart, Sabina suddenly had hope. Quantitatively, she was by all definition, "in poverty", but qualitatively, she was enabled and empowered. She could once again, dream of a future. A future was possible, although the present was pathetic.

With her empowerment, Sabina brought her education home, educating her illiterate mom, and teaching her to read and write. She taught her sisters too. She also taught her educated father, encouraged him to give up alcoholism and work to support the family. Eight years on, the family that was about to live off the streets, now own a two story apartment in the outskirts of Kathmandu, renting out the lower level for income. Sabina is a nurse, her sister teaches at an elementary school, and her mother works as an administrator at a school. If you quantified their collective income, they might still be considered to be living in poverty on many scales, but to the family, they have achieved more than they ever dreamed of. They are not rich. They can't afford luxuries. They still have to be thrifty. But they are happy, they are at peace, and they can afford to dream.

I have met many families in Nepal with similar and perhaps, even more desperate stories.

Abundance is a simple concept to me. It is simply having more than you need. Take all the things you need to survive, anything more than that, is an abundance. Most people then, live in abundance. If we could perceive that, perhaps there would be less suffering. We need to want what we have. Whether tangible, or intangible.

"1. What is your idea of poverty?

Of course, not being able to afford basic necessities such as food, housing, an education, etc. but being 'culturally impoverished' would be my idea of poverty too. Was it some Persian poet who wrote; I forget who it was that, "If you are down to your last two pennies, buy bread with one and hyacinths with the other to feed your soul", or something to that effect. Not being able to attend opera, symphonies, art exhibitions, take walks in beautiful parks or grow a lovely garden 'to feed the soul' would be just as dreadful, if not worse to me as not being able to afford groceries.

2. What is your idea of abundance?

State funding for the arts and support for artists. When we can afford art for art's sake and creativity is able to soar without artists having to worry about earning enough for their next meal. When myself as a painter and sculptor will no longer have to work on little kitschy items for quick sales just to survive.

3. Why is there poverty?

Law of the jungle? I think it will always persist as there will always be those good at acquiring wealth, and the others whose talents lie elsewhere...like artists. Perhaps we actually need poverty around so that humanity doesn't get too soft and flabby in the long run.

My personal observation each time I return to Singapore is that the contrast between Singapore and the US grows ever more pronounced.

Without meaning any offense to American sensibility; honestly, stepping off the plane into Singapore from National Airport in Washington,D.C. is like moving from the 20^th century to the 21st and from a third world country to the first world. While the US now appears steeped in poverty with an increasingly run-down infrastructure, soaring unemployment, beggars at road corners, frequent power outages, lack of basic services, lack of health care, etc., and a general air of decline and decay...Singapore flaunts ever-growing affluence -- slick, modern, squeaky clean public places, amazing new building projects, growth and abundance everywhere. I wonder if Americans are generally aware that they are now the 'new poor' lagging behind countries they tended to consider 'less developed'.

A down-side (for visitors from the US) to all this growth is how expensive a travel destination Singapore has become. I had come with the happy expectation of finding good bargains like in previous years but, alas, prices are now beyond what I would expect to pay in the US and even food and transport costs appear to have increased. Returning to live in Singapore and maintaining a similar lifestyle would also now be a sheer impossibility for a middle income earner from the US. Home and car prices in Singapore are unbelievable and beyond prohibitive!

The economic crisis in the US has affected all aspects of life and the art scene has suffered most severely. Funding and support for the arts has been the first thing to be be cut, being regarded as 'non-essential' for survival. It's extremely unfortunate that this is the case because the arts are the repository of our culture and perhaps ultimately, our humanity. I think our ancestors became sapient man the moment symbolic thought appeared and he was able to draw an animal figure on a cave wall. Diminishing the role of art in our lives is a sad and serious loss indeed."

 

“If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours ... In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness.” – Walden, Henry David Thoreau

 

Keith Wiltshire (Aged 76, retired teacher who taught in Malaysia, the United Kingdom & Singapore; resides in Bristol, UK):

"Poverty. Insufficiency of any or all of these: food, clothing, housing, health, companionship.

Abundance. Adequate amounts of all of the above.

Why is there poverty? Lack of imagination by the wealthy. SELFISHNESS (Refusal to love your global neighbour as yourself) and the sad fact that as the planet is depleted by the wealthy who are the major cause of global warming it will be the poor who suffer most from the collapse of systems which now seems inevitable.

[Just remembered: Keith had taught me English literature at an elite junior college which academically had an intensively competitive environment. Before I left he autographed a text he taught, Gulliver's Travels, and in it drew his Oxford college crest and his own motto beneath -- labore nihil delectat ("to do nothing delights me"). I still have that copy of Swift somewhere.

And from a group email sent out by him] --

Our Garden

I have been stimulated to write this to all of you by Sanjay Perera's questionnaire about poverty & affluence [abundance] - & the undeniable fact that although our income is too low to have to pay Income Tax, we are nevertheless affluent.

It has become a custom for us to hold a garden party at midsummer (which is also our wedding anniversary) so for those who have not yet attended such an event I intend to describe our back garden, where a good deal of our time is spent.

It faces due south, is about 100 yards long & 30 wide. There are two plum trees, one yellow, one red, which are as old as the house (and us), situated near the border fence, one half-way along, the other overshadowing the patio which is just outside the French windows of the house. In the centre is a magnolia tree which we have just reduced to its size when we moved in ten years ago, thus allowing more light into the garden. I have recently dug 3 new beds formerly under its (admittedly beautiful) shade.

Our garden philosophy is that anything can grow wherever it wishes unless there is a good reason why it should not - there are therefore plenty of buttercups & daisies sprinkled over the grassy area immediately beyond the patio with flowers springing up among the vegetables & various Spring flowers (daffodils, primulas, violets) under what remains of the magnolia. There are also still 2 bay trees, & 2 apple trees (one cookers, one eaters) & a sprawling tree at the end of the garden just before the laurel hedge which separates us from the 1970s houses which were erected just beyond the line of the original Roman Road from the port of Abonae (at the bottom of the hill) & Bath.

There are easily movable chairs & benches and grassy paths between the vegetable beds which are sometimes guarded, as at present by four-foot tall foxgloves with streams of tiny florets (blue, white, purple, pink) inhabited by honey-bees which are having a revival this year after years of decline in the country. The pink of camelia bushes is now over - as are the magnolia & weigelia (3 more sizable bushes), & the peonies. (There are many other colourful flowers here & there but only the Head Gardener knows the names & how to spell them!)

We have 4 compost bins into which we tip our grass cuttings, kitchen waste etc. for worms to turn into magnificent soil improver after a few months. These are all along the western edge of the garden & between them, clinging to the fence are blackberry bushes. In the middle of the southern sector of the garden are soft fruits: gooseberries, raspberries, redcurrants, loganberries (all of which are also represented in our store cupboard full of jam jars filled by Pauline last year - as well as a few remaining in our freezer). You will have gathered that, as far as possible we try to feed ourselves but are somewhat handicapped by our inability to grow rice or bananas, though we do have plenty of potato & cabbage beds & rows of beans, peas, garlic scattered among the nigella (blue flowers known colloquially as 'love in the mist").

This year's party is for the local Green Party to reflect on their election results (we only have one MP - but the Labour Party started with one, and we held our City Council seat with a different candidate). Many people told me that they would like to vote Green but would have to vote LibDem [Liberal Democrat] to keep the Tories out - so much for tactical voting!

P.S. Further reading: The Art of the Commonplace by Wendell Berry a Kentucky farmer & poet; also this poem by Louis Macneice written just before the 2nd World War started:

THE SUNLIGHT ON THE GARDEN

The sunlight on the garden
Hardens and grows cold,
We cannot cage the minute
Within its nets of gold,
When all is told
We cannot beg for pardon.

Our freedom as free lances
Advances towards its end;
The earth compels, upon it
Sonnets and birds descend;
And soon, my friend,
We shall have no time for dances.

The sky was good for flying
Defying the church bells
And every evil iron
Siren and what it tells:
The earth compels,
We are dying, Egypt, dying.

And not expecting pardon,
Hardened in heart anew,
But glad to have sat under
Thunder and rain with you,
And grateful too

For sunlight on the garden.”

To end, Thoreau's journals have some interesting stuff as in an entry on Oct. 4, 1851:

“...Minot is, perhaps, the most poetical farmer – who most realizes to me the poetry of the farmer's life – that I know. He does nothing with haste and drudgery, but as if he loved it. He makes the most of his labor, and takes infinite satisfaction in every part of it. He is not looking for a sale of his crops or any pecuniary profit, but he is paid by the constant satisfaction which his labor yields him. He has not too much land to trouble him, -- too much work to do...but simply to amuse himself and live. He cares not so much to raise a large crop as to do his work well. He knows every pin and every nail in his barn. If another linter is to be floored, he lets no hired man rob him of that amusement, but he goes slowly to the woods and, at his leisure, selects a pitch pine tree, cuts it, and hauls it or gets it hauled to the mill; and so he knows the history of his barn floor.”

Then on Oct. 6, 1851:

“To Fair Haven Pond by boat, the moon four-fifths full, not a cloud in the sky: paddling all the way. In the middle of the pond we tried the echo. As we paddled down the stream with our backs to the moon, we saw the reflection of every wood and hill on both sides distinctly. These answering reflections – shadow to substance – impress the voyager with a sense of harmony and symmetry, as when you fold a blotted paper and produce a regular figure, -- a dualism which nature loves. What you commonly see is but half. Home at ten.”

[After first click on video, click it second time at link "Watch on Youtube". For those who have the patience: try at some stage to find a quiet time, close your eyes, and focus on just listening to the audio of the video.]

ONE of Karl Marx's quotable quotes includes his comment that history repeats itself first as tragedy, then as farce. So much of the twentieth century will be remembered as tragedy. So much of the last century will also be seen as farce.

This is because while we had two world wars, we then followed them by a cold war and the idea of a mutually assured destruction which was supposed to ensure the peace. Is it any wonder that one of the hit comics to come out from the 1950s was Mad with its farcical mascot Alfred E. Neuman and the incessant intrigues of “Spy vs. Spy” an espionage spoof.

From the quasi-serious and stylish early Bond films to the movies becoming caricatures of themselves in the 80s, and in the epitome of the cold war which culminated in a sense with the farce/slapstick of Austin Powers: you knew something bizarre was afoot in the mass psyche.

Ultimately, the whole idea of a nuclear sword of Damocles masquerading as an ‘umbrella’ meant to keep the peace (sic), was meant by the controllers of our world to initiate planet earth into an armed camp scenario. The manifesto of the 20^th century is clearly the perverse obverse side to the Orwellian axiom 'war is peace', where peace would also mean war in some form.

We also had the revolutions of the 1960s which resulted in a kind of change that descended into drugs, riots and assassinations throughout the world of various leaders. The global stage was fast becoming a multifarious drama aptly expressed by Polonius as “tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral” and whatnot.

But we took it some steps further. War is peace and peace is war. We started to wage peaceful war and have war within the ambit of peace. We started blind material obsession, profit mongering and a death-wish driven consumerism (in the background, like music from the Doors, were many so-called low intensity conflicts of which Vietnam was a highly intense one).

Yet we became sophisticated. Our consumer death-wish would see us decide to ‘shop till we drop’ and have euthanasia via ‘death by chocolate’. We would allow our unbridled appetites and destructive individualism to be manipulated by the media and legislate politically various ways to allow ourselves to die (politely called ‘pulling the plug’). We also took experimentation with execution ranging from hemp rope, bullets and electricity, to chemicals with lethal injection.

We used the knowledge gained from biological and chemical warfare from world wars to start poisoning one another. Logically, it meant we ended up using stuff like DDT in pesticides and called it progress: what was used to kill other humans in battle zones seeped into the food chain and destroyed not only various life forms and upset the ecological balance, but also had a nefarious effect on people. Yes, malaria and other diseases need control but do we have to harm ourselves as well?

In the name of science and progress, we have the mash up of big capital with scientific endeavour and academic research, and we discover that scientifically – regular and extensive use of synthetic chemicals in our food (and continued mass use of pesticides) are good and profitable. Any attempts to criticize any of this is a sign of unscientific irrationality. We learn that smoking doesn't necessarily cause cancer, and radiation from electrical equipment, hand phones and worse, microwave ovens, are not only profitable with the correct perspective but anyone against it lives in the dark ages.

The point is we are in the dark ages, the age of  Kalki as the Hindus would call it. We have reached the point where we believe that science and technology are in themselves an amorphous new Acropolis of human civilization while becoming completely cut off from our spiritual roots, and we wonder why the world is the way it is. This is farce-slapstick and well beyond Polonius's combinations.

But what takes the fruit cake is our belief that the vacuous ideology of Democracy is the ultimate goal of civilization. The West will even go to war to not only defend but spread it like a virus. This is where we come to the point in the 21^st century where we go beyond Marx's dictum and have evolved our history inexorably into slapstick.

Make no mistake, slapstick is appropriately defined as that which involves “exaggerated violence and activities which exceed the boundaries of common sense”. If that isn’t a defining characteristic of the world, nothing is.

Despite all the fuss over elections in so-called democracies, the millions spent on advertising and marketing, media commentaries, stump speeches, and all sorts of promises, are people really better off?

Curiously, things are worsening economically and politically worldwide. The counterpoint to this is that the change in the Middle East is a sign that even there one finally encounters limits to what people will take. It shows just how low things have gone that people are starting to rise up in places they normally don't against their regimes anyway. This is only the beginning.

The reason is that despite the rhetoric of politicos the world is governed, not by politicians (though they may think they are in charge), but by vested interests that actually determine to a large extent (for the worse) how things go. We mean here the international banking cartel and their families and children in the form of mega corporations and defence industries world wide: most born out of wedlock.

All these not only operate in the dark, with as much lack of transparency as possible and have produced and proliferated a scientific-technological dark age. These efforts are abetted by our ignorance and unwillingness to face up to many truths about the world. Science, tainted by self serving ego and big money is sadly the willing handmaiden of corruption in its many forms.

This is the high end dark age where we have reached the point of no return and must find our way back into the light. And it is going to be a struggle. Why would the dark age perpetrators make it easy for anyone to escape their clutches? This is still not the funny part, but here it comes.

With each successive 'democratically' elected government you have the same situation which is unemployment, deep emotional imbalance in homes and the work force, divisiveness and resentment expressed through high-tech means, the rich getting richer (though some get their hands duly burnt) and the poor spreading everywhere. Even to be middle class now is to be poor in some way. Global currencies are generally running on empty and the US dollar is a joke (trying not to use 'farce' too often).

No one government dares to challenge and upset the banking and corporate cartel because they are either hostages to them or are party to their intrigues (sometimes a combination). How many governments dare to tell banks and corporations to get their act together, enforce discipline and ensure transparency in their activities unequivocally? Until laws are changed to make banking and corporate institutions accountable to governments and the public, they will never serve the interest of the people.

For governments to actually act like governments would be to risk the banks and businesses telling some governments to take a hike (and give somebody else their tax hikes, like the people), as they threaten to go pack up their stalls and go to some other market place (when some do so, experts call it 'globalization'). In other words, governments – especially democracies – shiver in their pants when confronted by the dark spirit Mammon who says it, and it alone -- the guiding spirit of the money changers of the world who are always uniting -- is responsible for the circulation of money and work opportunities for the measly citizens.

Marx was wrong in that it was not the spectre of communism that was haunting the world as it was already possessed by the dark forces of capitalism. And as in the case of most exorcisms, it isn’t secular stuff that is going to rid the world of incubi that have impregnated the world with the money changers’ teachings of neo-classical economics, greed, constant sense of lack, mindless competition, and fear mongering. Sometimes a war or two are thrown in at bargain prices.

Despite pomp and circumstance of political office as in that of the President of the United Corporations of America (USA), for instance, you see in action those who are impotent to effect any real change. Whatever change that is enacted must result in confrontation with the money changers and then who cares what your title/post is? You can talk and shout all you want in congress and parliament, but you know bloody well who runs things around here.

Democracy today is the hiding place of fear. It is the fear and subjection of people and their elected representatives in not angering too much the money changers. We have bamboozled ourselves to thinking we are in charge and that democracy means freedom and a whole lot of other niceties: but ask yourselves – how much has really changed?

Don’t be fooled by the ‘human nature’ argument. Sure, the inability of humans to govern their emotions has resulted in their having to elect others to govern them; the inability of humans to have self control has resulted in their surrendering their moral conscience to institutional religion and corporations. We even have to surrender our sense of ethics to nebulous and harmful notions of ‘corporate social conscience’ (here farce turns into slapstick) and thinking that what causes harm to humans and the planet can actually do good to one and all.

It’s like killing all that’s good in one part of the world and then going to some corner and planting a fruit tree, which in turn gets killed etc, and there will be no amount of fertile earth left to make reparations for the ambition of the money changers.

We can travel into outer space and get involved in the pornographic details of nano technology but are unable to create sustainable, healthy, ethical and abundance sharing enterprises (guess why?).

There is something wrong on Earth.

We have reached such a point of pathology that we can listen to the mainstream media with all its amorality and immorality as stories flit from heinous crimes and acts of brutal violence, to royal weddings and scores of football games. We have become so desensitized that we can discuss the destruction of a human being’s life or reputation and with aplomb switch to the weather and what stocks to invest in.

This schizophrenic tendency which is regarded as normal today, also sees in democracies huge amounts spent on annual dinners, official openings of events and launches of some damned thing or the other; but all the time we have people who are in need and want.

Here comes more farce-slapstick, where you don’t know whether your tears come from laughter: we can even use scripture to deviously say, ah, but there will always be the poor. Must we deprive others of a good time as there will always be those in dire straits. Come on and think of all the money that is splashed around, what? This is scientifically proven by economics as ‘Growth’.

There is no reason for us not to celebrate and be happy. It always helps to smile and show kindness to people around you as that tends to generate a similar response. But in public life there must always be a sense of balance, decency and morality to know that you can’t throw state money on banquets when your citizens are going through difficult times. Some call this is disgraceful, most call it democracy.

Is it any wonder then that no matter who you vote for, things are the same? Unless things actually become worse as is happening now and as it will continue. Some resolution must be in the offing as this state of international debt and swindle is obviously reaching critical mass.

Instead of clinging on to worn out and failed ideas like democracy, which hide the grip of the money changers of the world, we need to look at new ways and ideas of empowering citizens. Democratic practices in the use of elections and ensuring a broad representation of citizens in decision making will be a necessity. This will tend to provide the ethical leavening necessary to raise some sort of system that serves people and life in general. It might even reduce wars.

The changes needed to initiate most of the positive aspects indicated here involve not changes in the poorer countries, though it helps. The world changes and bringing about a just, fair, and ethical grounding to local and international affairs starts with the democracies. They are the source of so much of the world's trouble. Once the democracies change, the world will follow suit. If the people in democracies do not push for change through citizen activism and new ideas on governance and economic practice, then things are going to get a lot rougher.

And this would also require visionary and moral leaders, and those who are not afraid of the money changers. None at present seem to exist that any of us are aware of in a manifest manner. We need leaders who realize that there’s more to life than protecting one’s bank balance. We need citizens who realize that they have to stand up for what is right and that they need to let go of fear and stop allowing themselves to be kept in perpetual thralldom by the money changers.

Which also means that if you fear adversity, you will fear change. No one wants unnecessary hardship but unless we speak up and act now, difficulties can only mount.

The solutions to many of these problems are spiritual ones which involve not only acting from conscience, but understanding that there is divine purpose to everything. That when faith, compassion, common sense, forgiveness and daring are mixed judiciously, the people of the world will finally be able to chase the money changers out of the temple once and for all.

But it starts from chasing out fear from the temple of our hearts.

We are fast approaching the event horizon in history where we will have to create and adopt a new way of living that safely takes us into the time and space of post-capitalism and post-democracy.

To end, I must mention a joke from many years ago about how in the Soviet Union scientists managed to revive the embalmed Lenin (this is actually miraculous as the man’s brain and all his organs have been removed as part of the preservation process).

Vladmir Ilyich was then sequestered in a comfortable room to acclimatize to the world he was living in. As the days went by, he asked for and read voraciously many newspapers to catch up with what was happening in the USSR and the world. After several days of this routine, his handlers entered the room as usual to bring him his tray of food. But the man was gone.

There on the table, was a note: ‘We must begin again!’

We have to put aside all preconceptions and ideologies and, most of all fear, and open ourselves to the truth we have always known within but have refused to acknowledge, that indeed – we must begin again.

 

 

There has been much said about spirituality and nature. But today, it gets harder to see this clearly because with the conflicting voices coming from the rush to see capitalism through its death throes, a great deal in compassion is missing in the sound and fury of it all. In such times many turn to religion and spirituality but do not always get what they need from there either.

For instance, take Buddhism. In many ways, as it is taught today and as it is followed in many monasteries: there is a focus on meditational techniques, the doctrinal understanding of the teachings and the moral principles espoused in them. This is necessary.

But what is seen little of in many places of institutional religion and spirituality around the world are teaching emphases and being living examples, by those who proclaim them, of compassion and unconditional love; and while we’re at it, gratitude as well.

Which comes back to what did the Buddha do first thing upon attaining Enlightenment? We are told that the Master stood in front of the pipal tree under which he attained Realization, and gazed at it for seven days and seven nights without moving as an act of gratitude.

True, he had developed supernormal powers by then, but there were many things he could have done like, well, look for food or something (which is what most of us would think of doing). But he just stood there radiating love, compassion and gratitude.

This is the cornerstone of Buddhism: that with Enlightenment, or on the path to it, compassion and gratitude are defining characteristics. Especially since one has seen through the illusion of ego, you realize that you owe more to what is around than what everyone else is supposed to owe you -- this is still a novel thought for many.   

But, why a tree? Because it is a living thing. Because it was the shelter. Because it is harmless and provides a service to all life around, including for humans who know how to synergize with rather than desecrate it. Because, and this may be contrary to the view of orthodox Buddhism: it is a gift from God (yes, the Creator, the Universal, All That There Is, etc).

Again this may be shocking to some, but the Buddha never denied the existence of God nor the existence of a soul: what he did say is that it's of little use to pontificate about such matters when you should focus on actions leading to your salvation.

The Buddhist idea of anatta is a complex one. It is actually non-ego but tends to be interpreted as non-Self or no-soul. It was a revolutionary concept in the context of the time as it meant that the person you think you are is an illusion, in that the desires and projections that come from the ego generated by the senses are the cause of dissatisfaction in life. It certainly predates anything that psychoanalysis and our so-called ‘scientific’ pathological studies may provide today.

One of the reasons for veering away from traditional philosophical questions on the origin of the universe and God in Buddhism was because India at the time was full of all kinds of spiritual teachers and quacks and metaphysical speculation was the in-thing.

Yet it can also be pointed out that much of what the Buddha says was already put forward in Hindu teachings but without the former's minimal leaning on metaphysics. For all the great Teachers of the world have had the same message, it just has been adulterated through the ego and religious texts have been expurgated by those who use them, and via the institutions built on them, to instill fear and control over others.

The focus in Buddhism is on practising the teachings and less on philosophical debate. But like today, while we talk a lot about doing good, we don’t always follow it with action. Despite its talk of renunciation of many things, Buddhism is about action. You walk the talk.

Sometimes you stand in your truth by acquiring stillness and radiating gratitude to a tree. If we can’t even show gratitude to the natural world around us, can we genuinely show gratitude to people and loved ones? Or are our relations tainted by conditions: we state loudly ‘through sickness and in health’ (but mean through a ‘healthy’ bank balance too, better if it is a fat one).

Some of us know what fair weather friends are like. They are there when the going is good, there are even more of them (some of whom you never knew were your friends) when the going gets better. 

As good old Dr Samuel Johnson says: “Adversity is the state in which a man most easily becomes acquainted with himself, being especially free from admirers then.”

How true.

However, through thick and thin, earth abides. It is always there for us. The trees and plants and the natural world are always there. And we are always there to tear them down to build fancy condominiums as investment strategies and to find ways of making a buck from life. We have been led to believe and even adamantly proclaim ourselves, that what good is the world and life around us if we can’t make money from it?

Just look at the world around us to see the happy effect of this kind of indoctrination and ideology.

When the Buddha was abandoned by those who knew him as in the spiritual seekers who were his band of brothers, he had only himself and the tree. In coming to his full Awakening and realizing the Unconditioned termed Nirvana, he sets an example for the ages through demonstrating Unconditional love and gratitude to a tree.

After this act of gratitude, the first group of people the Buddha searches out to impart his teaching of love and freedom from birth and death is the band of seekers who left him. Why does the Buddha seek them out?

Because there is no discrimination against those who may have left him and if you have compassion and gratitude to all, then you have that to each person without conditions. He is also grateful for the experiences of adversity. This is something people don’t get as we tend to look at many difficulties as terrible suffering and want to run away from them only to end up sometimes in even worse conditions.

The point is not to be a sado-masochist but see in the difficulties, the challenges and lessons for growth (not the GDP, $$$ kind) as human beings evolving back to Godhead. That without the adversity and ‘abandonment’ it would be difficult to see who you truly are. As you have identified your ego self by those around you without sometimes the slightest discernment. We can be quite self conscious of what others think of us. You see yourself as represented through the eyes of others full of their own ego.

But on your own with the right spiritual balance, you can discover the Oneness of all life. You can tap into the eternal light of All That Is and there is only light and energy, as even our lame and ego driven scientific theories claim. And energy can be transformed.

If energy is devoid of fear, harm and greed, it can transform you and the world. The lesson from the natural world can also come in the form of how uncomplaining a tree, plant or animal is when left on its own within its habitat. The tree does not complain whatever the weather is, it does not react violently when it is cut down or stripped of its branches, it does not show anger when careless people carve their names on it, nor does it discriminate as to who can take the fruit from its boughs.

This is reflected in Buddhism in which we are told to let go of many things; let go of ego, fear, greed, anger, hatred, unbridled desires, intoxication and anything that is of harm to you or life. By doing so you allow yourself to be filled with love, compassion, peace and happiness – abundance enters your life, and there is indeed a lot to be grateful for.

As you can find in Matthew these words of wisdom (6:25-34):

    ²⁵"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?

²⁶"Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? ²⁷Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? ²⁸And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. ²⁹Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. ³⁰If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?

³¹"So do not worry, saying, `What shall we eat?' or `What shall we drink?' or `What shall we wear?' ³²For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. ³³But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. ³⁴Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

The words speak for themselves.

Read them carefully over a period of time. Think over them. Read them again, and yet again, and then once more.

Observe and see if there is not, over time, truth in them. If you do what you’re supposed to do caring for the world and people and life around you, you will be taken care of. The world and everything in it will turn out well. This can be practiced in daily life within the family, workplace, and society.

Difficult, sure, who on earth said it was always a walk across a field.

The earth is a demanding school for learning through adversity. Through the greatest challenges come the greatest learning and advancement and peace. And the greatest rewards. There will always be enough, you need to know how to draw from it, and that requires a paradigm shift; but all these shifts are spiritual in nature.

If you ground your energies in gratitude to the world and the miracle of life around you there will be in time a joy, peace and freedom that comes from it that cannot be measured in any form. In that moment of being here now, where you are, and not wanting to be anywhere else you see the grace of the divine flowing through you, and slowly but surely you understand why you are here and that everything will be well. When you learn such lessons, don’t be surprised to see a shooting star one night that tells you’ve been given a star for a lesson recently learnt.

But usually, the immediate response from a world of incessant handphone buzzing, stock markets, advertising and media mania, and inveterate i-padding is -- why can’t the results happen now, since you tried to be ‘good’ for one day. But the lesson is only learnt and bears fruit through patience, which the Buddha rightly proclaims is the highest austerity.

The ego wants everything now, but God tells you, all in good time. We still haven’t got it yet, but we are not in control of the universe. However, on this planet given for our learning, the results of our choices from free will are coming back to show us where we stray. If that is still unapparent, then witness the turmoil of the weather and the world. This is a time of cleansing.

Through making the right choices and doing the right thing, a balance will be regained, but until then you can prepare for much upheaval globally in every sense of the word and in each aspect of your life.

Our conscious thoughts are creating our reality. The more we live and believe in lack and the need to beggar someone else to get ‘ahead’ or sustain ourselves, the more difficult things will be till we learn from them.

There is the famous question that also underlies quantum physics as once raised by Berkeley on the impact of consciousness on what happens in the world that comes in the form: does a tree actually fall in the woods unless you are there to listen or perceive that it is so.

You may ask so what does such thinking have to do with the very real problems of the unrest in Egypt and what may take place elsewhere?

Well, sometimes the sound of one hand clapping comes from extreme satori. It is the sound and knowledge you get that the tree really is falling when it comes crashing down on your head.

There is a lesson in that somewhere.

 

Folks

as many prepare for the festivities of the coming Christmas and New Year days, a little reminder of some age old stuff that bears looking at time and again. It is like the well worn Xmas stocking -- you hang it up and hope somehow something gets in there that you like.

As we review the year we are still told that if 'Greed is not so good', then it's also not so bad. But somehow, most people seem to focus on what is good and heartwarming during the festive year end season. It is a time of giving and gratitude and Christmas sales and a busy time for the advertising and marketing industry.

After all, if 'goodness' can sell, why not? What isn't for sale anyway.

Many a person has mentioned why one needs to be 'realistic' and accept that what is spiritual is for the idealists who think what cannot be seen is real. These are the very same 'realists' who believe that there are such things as 'market forces' (invisible to the mind but can be seen through movement of stock indices and people being thrown out of work due to creating a leaner and certainly meaner work force).

Together with the commercially viable 'magic' of Christmas, you have the magical invocations of the 'free market', 'structural unemployment', and increasing 'productivity'. Yet while the workers who create that 'productivity' are 'structurally' eliminated from the 'work force', the fatcat CEOs and the like are busy planning their own bonuses.

The 'productivity' of the top, lean, mean ultracompetitive managers is shown by throwing out people from work thereby testifying to their everlasting adherence to the neo-occultist force of the 'market'. Their 'productivity' is measured through revenue 'turnover', share 'value' (through a laughably valueless US dollar), and one's golf handicap. 

Someone I know who is a CEO of a company in a conglomerate tells me how the deputy to his Group CEO is busy politicking to help bring down the boss so that the deputy can take over. 'Productivity', old chap, 'productivity'.

It's worth recalling the story of The Little Match Girl (beats saying, please read almost all of Dickens).

And while some of us look out at the world and are greatful for what we have, there are many who would look in and wonder why there is an absence of charity to all.

For the Christians among you, especially those who claim to be true believers, it should be with great understanding that you read these well known words:

"For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?" -- Matthew 16:26

But many among those who claim religiosity would also say, well good ole Matt was speaking at the time when there were no stocks and mega corporations to run. Life was simpler then. There was no SUV to maintain nor high priced condominium to covet.

They say with a straight face, that there was no real use for accountants to cook, well 'balance', the books and so forth. Those were less complicated times; you could actually believe in God and miracles, this is the twenty first century and, the usual stuff...science and technology is the new spiritualism and economists the high priests of our way of life (or 'freedom, democracy, individual rights', and all that).

Then with some hesitation, let us re-read these also unoriginal lines (compared to the 'new' things the mainstream media bombards us with everyday) --

"For I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.’
   “Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink?  When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.’" -- Matthew 25:35-40

All well and good, but later man, first the handphone beckons and will ask for Help when I really need it, right now...it's bonus time, shopping, a little relaxing. At the end of the day someone wins and someone has to lose. That's life.

Meanwhile, back in Gotham City... the United Corporations of America (a.k.a USA) continues its military adventurism abroad, and we have the strange variation of the Monroe Doctrine coming back to bite itself in the hindmost. It increasingly seems apparent that what happens in America's own backyard, that is within itself, should be of concern to Washington, D.C. (Detective Comics).

And there is that other old fashioned line that goes, 'Charity begins at home'.

So perhaps, while everyone would like to think all is well in the world as long as it's basically still OK with themselves, then please take a closer look (especially for those wanting to emulate the United Corporations of America) at what is really taking place in a country that still has the potential for greatness:

Incidentally, there is the interesting complementary tale to The Little Match Girl called the tale of The Star Money. Here the story is one in which the little girl gives away whatever she has and is rewarded by money dropping from the stars/heaven. It is essentially the Law of Attraction embedded within the story in which those who give in all goodness, only need open their arms to receive abundance (the rewards, however, are not always monetary).

Of course, to the smart science-technocrats of today, this is old hat: even as they lay on their death beds one day contemplating that if death is a constant in the third dimensional world of change and conditioning, and that if apparently there may be eleven dimensions to the universe and parallel realities and that it is theoretically possible to do time-travel -- then are there other dimensions of deathlessness and Freedom?

Good question.

On a less sentimental note for the hard core realists out there, a message/song from the one and only; and, by the way, have a good Xmas, New Year, etc -- you know the drill.

 

The sign over some of the concentration camps during the Nazi reign of terror was the infamous “Work Will Set You Free” eponymously reflected in this post’s title. What does not seem clear at the moment is the connection and logical extension of the current work paradigm the world over from the events and psychology of the concentration camp.

In other words, whatever a person’s ideological bent the work world or labour today has the characteristics in many ways of what could be found in a concentration camp.

Exaggerated you say, as you quickly whip out your iPhone to set up the next appointment and worry about getting a three month annual bonus or worse, whether your mollycoddling of your superiors will allow you a larger cubicle and perhaps your own office space; never mind those who are not sure what Skype is and are waiting to load the next lorry with rocks from a quarry wondering how long they can do this past 40 years of age: and so many of us continue in this vein of wage slavery until death finally makes us part from it all. So we hope.

But there is more to all of the above than meets the eye.

[However, it needs be clear that this post is meant mainly for those who are familiar with the issues in it. It is also meant for those who may be familiar with most of the earlier posts on this site. For those who are, for want of better expression, reading stuff like this for the first time, it is understandable if you find much here that stretches your credulity. Even for those who have thought through some of the ideas here, there may be some resistance to what is discussed. But if readers are impelled from here to start doing their own research and finding out for themselves the truths about the world we live in, then writing this post has been worthwhile.]

Most of the references in this post are made to a ground breaking book entitled The Order of Terror: The Concentration Camp by Wolfgang Sofsky, (English translation, 1999). When I first read this original book over 10 years ago, what overwhelmed me was not so much its courage and tremendous insights but the almost nauseating content due to its subject matter. It is well written and not exploitative at all as it is basically an academic (but highly readable) work. Yet despite the restrained disgust expressed by Sofsky and his clinical description and analysis of what took place in the concentration camps (CCs), one needs an intellectually strong stomach to endure reading it from beginning to end.

Needless to say, you cannot breeze through such a book as if a bestselling novel. I read it bit by bit with some trepidation of what else I would have to learn about human history. A lot of what I read -- I resisted -- and so didn’t quite absorb the ideas first time around. The book needed a second read but I did not have the strength to do so then. Ten years later and quite recently, I forced myself to read it again. It was still tough to go through but I was better prepared; and suddenly something clicked about what it said and the world we live in.

Also, we live in a world well versed with Abu Ghraib and its nefarious activities. Things like that prepare you better for reading through the horrors of the Nazi regime. Which brings me to one of the key ideas in this post: in a post-September 11 we-are-all surrounded-by-terrorists world, the need to re-visit the past to let it shed light on the present is not just a necessity, it is a duty.

I repeat – a duty.

If you have any doubt as to what happened at Abu Ghraib and what it stood for, read Philip Zimbardo’s fairly recent The Lucifer Efffect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil which is not only well researched and documented but clearly, brilliantly, and honestly written yet just as hard to read as Sofsky’s work (due to the subject matter).

The use of doublespeak by those who choose to enslave us and spread darkness as much as possible is legion. But few can have the watermark of irony and terror revealed by the choice use of words in the Nazi concentration camps’ motto “Work shall set you free” and that of the CIA’s “the truth shall set you free”.

One thing is certain, if Conrad wrote his magnificent The Heart of Darkness today, the last words of Kurtz would not be “the horror, the horror’, but “the terror, the terror” and in that he would be much closer in vision to the grand and unsettling work of H.P. Lovecraft.

Yet, we can take it as self evident that what man turns into darkness he can return back to the light.

Skulls and Bones

The basic points that Sofsky raises in The Order of Terror, revolves around the organized, bureaucratized and, in a sense, industrialized nature of the CCs. That they were created and managed not just by those who were pathological but those who in most instances were intent on running as efficient a machinery of torture and death as possible.

It is no secret that prototype IBM computer systems, or business machines, were used in cataloguing and managing the data of the internees and victims of the camps. They would have been used to manage the data of the staff and officers of the camps as well. This point is not raised by Sofksy but it is mentioned to highlight the well thought through organized structure the CCs were operating under: and that is a point Sofsky is at pains to make.

We can only wonder at this stage what computer systems and machines were used for similar purposes at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo -- though it can be imagined Apple users pointing one way and others saying, ‘Don’t look at me’. But no one can ever say that their products in data management are not tinged with blood. And most of us thought that the work of Terror was often an ad hoc thing – it isn’t. I don’t mean the crazies who go about blowing up things for a lark or a supposed Cause, I mean a systematic and systemic use of planning and calculation to unleash Terror on all of us.

In other words – organized Terror.

With all that is organized, the time factor of things cannot be ignored. So unsurprisingly, one of the things that Sofsky looks at is the manipulation of time at the CCs. In a section that deals with the management of time in the camps and its effect on prisoners, he writes (italics and bold mine):

“Social time is an objective, imposed standard time of organization, but power can arbitrarily expand, slow down, or accelerate it. Camp time was more than the external compulsion characteristic of all social time. Camp power permeated inner time-consciousness, sundering all the internal band that laces together memory, expectation, and hope. Absolute power far surpasses the familiar forms of organized temporal control. It is not satisfied simply with synchronization and coordination of events. It destroys the continuity of inner time and severs the ties between past and future, locking people into an eternal present. Far from being satisfied with controlling human bodies, it seizes hold of biographical time and the motions of the mind.” (p73 Sofsky)

Who would believe that what applies to a Nazi CC is consonant with what takes place in the working world for so many people. The situation of time being controlled in a work place scenario and countless others involving organizations, reflects power play. There may be issues of respect and hierarchy involved which may be reasonable, but the focus here and elsewhere is to what is unreasonable and a matter of imposing oneself on another as part of a power play that involves denigrating someone or a group of people or entire societies and even countries. This is also known as the zero-sum game of those who overtly or insidiously subscribe to an absolute power paradigm.

Again, while statements will be made from hereon about how people are treated under the jackboots of corporations and other controllers, please bear in mind that it is with empathy towards those of us who are reasonable and responsible members of society rather than just malingerers.

So, take the example of a job interview in many cases. The prospective employee is made to wait sometimes for quite a bit of time, before being brought before the august interview panel to whom must be shown all due deference (and more). The interviewee has to consciously ensure, unless it’s one of those jobs that want someone with an attitude, that they kowtow towards those who may deign to employ them and help them have access to a bread basket.

From the start of how the time is controlled at an interview, what is made apparent is the relation of control being imposed. The relationship is unequal in which those who choose to see you make it quite clear that they are doing you the favour…and when they let you go for whatever reasons (profit margin, need to maintain fat bonuses for greedy top executives, etc) it should not be forgotten that after all, it was not what you contributed to the firm that matters, but your tacit recognition from the start that you are a being that was afforded employment assistance/opportunity; so who do you think you are when you are disposed of like a spent object from your firm? Get real.

Before more is said on this, look at a sample of what else is quote worthy from that section on time (italics and bold mine):

“Planning is one of the tools of social power…Schedules mark beginning points, end points, phases, transitions, linear sequences or cyclic returns…The fuller the schedule, the less time that remains for unplanned incidents, deviations, the wasting of time. The more dense the temporal grid, the more intensive the use of time. Planning determines the smallest moment; it knows only maximum rapidity, precision, effectiveness. Schedules guarantee effectiveness and provide a criterion for its monitoring. In its factorylike organizational form, the camp resembles other disciplinary institutions that gain stability by regimenting everyday temporal sequences.

But absolute power has only a limited interest in a rigid institutionalization of time. It regularly departs from the standardized time tracks it has instituted. As in any formal system, the regulation of time is an effective technology of power;…[but] Terror alternates between planning and disorder; between regulation and assault…By reserving for itself the choice of deviations and special times, power secures its rule over time. The temporal law of absolute power is not calculability, but the free variation of tempo, the shift between duration and abrupt suddenness, hectic rush and waiting, rest and shock.” (p73-4 Sofsky)

These words give a clearer context on the manipulation of time by those who control or are in a position of power over others whatever the situation it may apply to. Simply witness the way, in many instances, it is built into an employment contract that people can be made or ‘asked’ to work longer hours and do more than is required. It may be necessary in certain cases to do so and employees may understand that sacrifices must be made, but how often is it the case that employers exploit, bully and treat miserably those who are working for them (apparently this aspect of the contract is written in invisible ink between the lines)?

The reason for this is because the employment and economic structure of the world is quite often one that is pyramidal in shape with an emphasis on a master-slave relationship. With computers, world wide communications and so-called globalization we have employers squeezing all arteries and veins of a person at any time of the day 365 ¼ days a year to make them serve the god-like corporation or boss man; or, to assuage their petty egos aspiring for some display of absolute power.

Your time is not your own. Once you sign the Faustian pact with your boss man you’ve in effect sold your soul to them, and they make you pay for it over and above what they pay you. In fact, soon you will have to try and be like them to rise up the ranks of the boss men and women so that you can exercise similar master-slave paradigm roles/ functions over the other lower beings in the food chain.

How many people actually live in fear of what they say and do at the work place? Is it a work place or a CC? What is in place in microcosm is an Order of Terror. Countless times in various work scenarios, I have been told by people/colleagues how if they do this or that (usually that which is reasonable) and worse, do what is right or a matter of principle, they’re putting their ‘livelihood on the line’; other memorable phrases include ‘putting my head on the block’, ‘taking a real risk’ (as opposed to just a ‘risk’), ‘exposing my back’, ‘this could be It for me’, ‘they will hang me out to dry’ or ‘I’ll be out on the streets’ (many of which make nice titles for songs, the latter phrase in particular would make a good chorus these days).

Does this really sound like a workplace, never mind a healthy and pleasant work environment? It sounds like…exactly, ‘Sieg heil’ boss man.

Before proceeding further, we need to be clear about some terms. If the word ‘terrorist’ is used, it would refer to the usual villains who take people hostage, blow up things and have a pathological tenacity in causing harm to others. But the term ‘Terror’ (with the capital ‘T’) signifies a higher order of rapscallions who are using brutal and often subtle and sophisticated means of control, and fear instilling methods over people; in that context those who perpetuate such Terror are Terrorists. They consciously, or otherwise, engender the Order of Terror.

Yet when the terrorists operate purposively or subconsciously as part of Terror, then they too are part of the network of the higher order Terrorists.

The Order of Terror, unless it appears as part of a quoted text, will be represented throughout as OT.

Work as Violence

The groundbreaking work by the late Studs Terkel, especially his books Hard Times and Working, makes it quite clear that work/labour in most cases is a form of violence. It is a daily and unremitting violence inflicted on us just as we, unfortunately, inflict it on others. In many cases, we can see that the terms ‘work’ and ‘labour’ that refer to employment are usually references to the arduous nature and terrors of the workplace. Never mind the politicking and backstabbing, the exploitation and abuse that are never ending undercurrents of the workflow; just the work effort involved daily when it is continuous and relentless, irrespective of whether it is not so physical or literally back breaking, is enough to wear out the strongest amongst us.

The violence of labour is not just the act of producing something tangible or intangible. The violence also comes in the form of the physical, mental and emotional stress it can unleash on the individual engaged in almost any form of work including what they impose on others as they try to manage their loads and stay afloat – sadly in many cases at the expense of others. Violence in labour seems in-built in the way we do things: we are led to believe it is a systemic nature of the beast called humanity and that its nature is one that is indeed brutish, nasty and short lived in good will.

But back to our man Sofsky and the CCs (italics and bold mine):

“The camp invented numerous senseless tasks that had only one purpose: to drain and emaciate individuals, to grind them down. Absolute power strips labour of its purposive structure, expanding it endlessly. It has no interest in products or results. It is oriented to the process of working itself, to the duration of the suffering. It transforms hard effort and strain into a deadly pressure for annihilation. The social relation of power overlays the objective relation of labour, shaping it almost totally. Violence is not a means of labour; labour is means of violence. The prisoners did not belong to a slave class of outsiders. They were part of the class of the expendable and superfluous, the wretched and lost.” (p 172, Sofsky)

There is a dual meaning to what Sofsky says that applies to what is explored here. On one level it is the violence that is implicit in labour (which can lead to ‘productive’ goals), and the other which is an expression of (absolute) power over others. In some cases the two are conflated. But it is no surprise to most that a lot of the deployment of labour is a power game and while not always reaching that pinnacle of the pyramid, it is an attempt in some form of trying to embody absolute power.

While it would appear often times that showing up or speaking up against the boss man is a variation of cocking-a-snook against power, the offence to the boss man usually lies at a deeper level which is the perceived antagonistic stance of the sniveling subordinate towards the boss man’s sense of absolute power.

In concrete terms what does this mean. It would include:

1. Instilling the sense of who is boss man or woman. This is not so much to maintain a semblance of stability in an organization with some kind of meaningful hierarchy, but just the obverse of absolute power. In an unobvious manner this could include a formal way of addressing someone. Some boss men are informal, but many want to see some form of humility if not subservience shown to them

2. Knowing that you should not argue with someone not because they have conclusively shown why your idea was idiotic or not as effective as theirs, but because the boss man shouldn’t be contradicted (especially in front of others). This involves the secret and not-so-secret meetings among the lesser human staff after the main meetings with the boss men; this is to clarify what the hell exactly boss man or woman wanted (absolute power usually reflects shrewd manipulative thuggery as opposed to actual natural intelligence and common sense). Not a good idea to disagree with boss man, especially in front of others, because it can be seen as a railing against absolute power (in case your mother didn’t tell you…)

3. Whatever is produced may have value, as in a safety feature for a car, but the act of the labour itself in its mechanized and industrialized form is devoid of value as it is devoid of human sincerity in it: it is an act of sheer manufacturing and fabrication. Once someone in an assembly line has become robotic and is ‘producing’ in a meaningless manner, they have been subjugated by the work flow and the boss men supervisors into a situation, as Sofksy says, of one that “overlays the objective relation of labour, shaping it almost totally” (a line that would have made Marx and Engels proud). So there may be an object produced through labour, but labour itself is ultimately valueless as it is mindlessly performed by a labour automaton exemplifying a power relationship of control and fear between worker and boss man and the work flow itself

4. Each time a person leads an overtly ‘productive’ life, through what is described in preceding paragraphs, they are a showcase for labour as violence. Take the teaching profession, where countless tasks of apparent quality control, mind numbing meetings (for the sake of holding them as a work plan for a boss man/ individual staff member/department who have a matrix of objectives that must be ticked in a box using Adobe Acrobat to show that you’re actually working). The filling of class time with dingbat activities for the sake of giving a sense of conforming to the rules of the boss man or work matrix, even if the class proper/lesson of the day is over. The constant electronic and paper form filling as part of the pretence of achieving work objectives; falsifying and exaggerating management, professional or instructional goals so as to justify one’s teaching record; mollycoddling students to ingratiate them into getting good feedback scores which shows how popular an instructor you are; assiduously providing grade inflation to pass as many as possible or make sure that there is a failure or two to fit into some form of ‘bell curve’ – euphemistically known as ‘moderation’. All this is endemic, with the necessary adjustments, to most modern forms of work these days.

5. What doesn’t seem apparent is that violence is being done to us and we are doing similar violence to ourselves and others too. In this process we become “expendable and superfluous, the wretched and lost” wherein we now have to endure spiritual distress over and above everything else. Even for the agnostics and atheists amongst us, the moment we forgo a moral and ethical dimension to our working world and our daily lives, we have begun the downward plunge into spiritual degradation. How many do we know whose health has been ruined by their work and work environment. This applies to not just those whose labour is potentially dangerous like the construction industry, but just being a check out girl at the supermarket, a food stall holder, an office executive or a telephone operator. All this adds to the stress that comes from the use and abuse of power (with intimations of absolute power) including what is transferred back by, let’s say, customers (who reflect back to others their own daily labour and spiritual trauma). So in numerous cases of such daily violence and unpleasantness, people end up succumbing to debilitating illnesses

6. How many have even died from the stress and unhealthiness of the work environment and the type of work they do. I have known people and ex-colleagues who contracted cancer from the anguish, angst, pent up rage and frustration of their daily grind (compounded by other personal issues). But the greater part of our lives is our work world and the serious illness that we procure in this way is largely a sign of our spiritual dysfunction. We have become separated from all that is meaningful, valuable, holy, humane and decent in our daily lives that make up the essence of each human being. No economy that claims to be robust is healthy when its workforce is unhealthy and undergoing torments of the kind we normally associate with the nether regions of the spiritual world.

The wretched of the earth are not just the obvious ones who have been exploited and treated as chattel throughout the ages, these wretched ones are in many cases those of us who look ourselves in the mirror while fine tuning the make up or straightening that new fangled polka dotted tie.

The Living Dead

The working men and women of the world are in many instances reduced to the walking dead. Sofsky tells that many of the inmates of the camps were reduced to nothing more than living corpses known as Muselmanner (bold and italics mine):

“It was no accident that the Muselmanner [‘walking/waking dead’] were reminiscent of the “living dead”. They were only shadows of their former selves. Their actions had sunk below the animal minimum for survival. They hardly heard or saw anything, and reacted only when shouted at or prodded. When action is extinguished, life implodes, contracting to mere existence. In action, people mark a beginning to some sequence, show who they are, express themselves, communicate to and with others. Action is the medium of identity and sociality. A person robbed of action is a nonentity, a no one...Like the pile of corpses, the Muselmanner document the total triumph of power over the human being. Although still nominally alive, they are nameless hulks...The Muselmanner is the central figure in the tableau of mass dying – a death by hunger, murder of the soul, abandonment; dead while still living.” (p199-200, Sofsky)

These are telling lines about our daily struggle to survive. Ask anyone who is living at subsistence level and just managing their loans and children’s education among a host of other things and it will be described as the struggle to survive. During difficult economic times as we are living in now many are just barely scraping by, if at all, and one has to wonder whether this is what being a human being is about.

Ask ‘how’s it going’ to those in the US which is supposed to have a rising class of poverty where one in seven people are poor. A country that despite the better inclinations of many of its citizens is busy going into further national indebtedness and still trying to play ‘soldier-soldier’ in some parts of the world. It is almost as if a nation that promoted democracy and freedom has been hijacked by those intent on using it for their own purposes to control the world as much as possible, and run everything including the host body (America) this ghastly virus (the controllers) has inhabited into the ground leaving the world itself as a monument to the living dead.

So many of us just do not have the time to think through many things, nor sit down and have a decent, or intelligent, conversation with anyone about the issues of the day that in effect determine our lives. We have abrogated our abilities as human beings to fulfill our potential by surrendering such important things to others, be it the government (who has some responsibility to cover this gap for people) or ‘intellectuals’ (usually those with a string of academic degrees), neither of whom can be relied on solely without a check and engagement from the populace.

The people on planet Earth are not in charge of their lives in so many ways, certainly not their societies, and sure as heck not their countries. The economic system of wage slavery which is the epitome of the capitalist structure has put some of the most dishonest, disgraceful, egomaniacal, bloody minded and immoral people on any planet in positions of so-called authority and, of course, power (all the time edging towards absolute control). We have given up in being able to actively engage the most important people in our lives like our loved ones, never mind our social and national responsibilities (unless it is fulfilling some task as part of the mindless muddling through of daily life as the living dead).

The common, and understandable, excuse most of us give about barely speaking up and taking part in the life of our communities, society and country is that we don’t have the time; how can we have the time when apart from personal and family issues we have to earn our daily bread with our faces forced into the grind stone? Our heads are sometimes so close to the ground eking out a living that we can become hostile to suggestions to look up and see what is being done to us, or be completely dismissive of alternatives and deliberately place ourselves in ignorance mode, rather than face what is truly happening around us.

True, some of us may be just lazy and not want to take the extra effort to confront what’s wrong in our world, but usually we ‘don’t have the time’, and how can we when we have – or rather allowed – our faces to be forced squarely into the trough and made to sound grunts of complaints or surrender to this-is-how-it-is scenario, and be just grateful to continue to see what we can find in the trough.

And how convenient this situation has been, is and will continue to be, and how much it would facilitate their attempts at control, for those who seek to dominate people and keep them at the base of a pyramid as they continue to exploit everyone by staying on top of it all.

Then there is the constant apprehension of workplace reprisal for doing what is ‘wrong’. Sofsky tellingly writes (bold and italics mine):

“Terrorstraffe (terror punishment)…Punishment is the final link in a chain of situations strung together via the social mechanism of sanction. This chain begins with a threat that forces the actors to decide among alternative paths for action: if they do what is demanded they incur no penalty; if they violate the required norm, they trigger a sanction in response…Absolute power operates in a quite different manner. It creates a “jungle of punishable offenses,” a condition of constant punishability, in which even obedience is no guarantee for avoiding sanctions, and power can intervene at will...To compound matters, many prohibitions had been kept nebulous so that supervisors could arbitrarily define what was an infraction. This absolute power to define the situation used another method: it made demands that could not possibly be met, extending the perimeters of threat to the point that behaviour in accordance with the prescribed norms was sheer impossibility.” (p215, Sofsky)

Most us would resonate with the accuracy of the words here on the use of fear tactics to ensure dominance over others in the workplace. In many contracts there are clauses that stipulate how things can be adjusted in terms of hours required, scope of work, where you are transferred to and how much responsibility can be piled upon you in a manner that is almost always in favour of the employer; and if it is ever in favour of John or Jane Doe there will be some way to circumvent that and insist that you sell your humanity to the corporation/employer for whatever pittance they pay you (pittance because your soul is priceless but there would be those who disagree).

If the boss man decides to promote you, he will. If he doesn’t want to, he will find some reason to justify it. You are entirely at the mercy of the boss men and they intend that you see it that way despite the pretence otherwise. Someone I know who has been with an organization for some years has been criticized for not doing enough or broadening the scope of his responsibilities and range of his work despite the boundaries he pushed, and the quality of his work. On the other hand, when he does well within the demands of the boss men/women (and the boundaries they create) he is criticized for having done things like a ‘well-oiled machine’ and not having messed up enough in his performance which would have shown that he was taking ‘risks’ and going beyond the comfort zone of his basic work load: you’re damned whichever way you look at it.

The point of this Kafkaesque situation is that you are right and doing well when the boss men tell you so. Not only is this a corollary of deciding arbitrarily what is an infraction, but also that the range of what is acceptable for you can never be determined other than what the boss men decide on a whim. This is, sometimes unbeknownst to the perpetrators, an attempt to exercise absolute power.

In case it’s still unclear, absolute power is essentially to try and have the ability to control you body, mind and soul…and destroy you one way or another if controllers so desire.

In fact, the bizarre world of Kafka’s The Trial and The Castle is far from strange considering that it is a reflection of our everyday world. It is recorded that when Kafka read drafts, or parts of the works mentioned, to his friends/co-workers (if I recall rightly) they burst out laughing knowing full well that it was also a satirical take on the bureaucratic world they existed in (as can be applied to almost any workplace).

A ridiculous bureaucracy with silly, contradictory and outright outrageous ‘rules’ and ‘decrees’ in many workplaces is but part of a system meant to exercise control over people. It is an attempt to reduce entropy through the misguided notion of many dictators and wannabes that they are in charge of the universe. That they can stop change and evolution of a person or a group of people as that change would render them, the controllers, obsolete. Then what would happen? Meaning, what would happen to them. If they can't have livelihoods as controllers, they would then have to starve as most exploiters rely on someone else’s efforts and lifeblood to survive on. They suck up the energies of others.

They are the vampires of our world and a stake needs to be driven through their ideas of edging towards absolute power before they turn more of us into the zombified living dead that they want so as to enhance their control.

This type of blood-sucking bureaucratic system is a parallel to that which pervaded the CC as Sofsky clearly points out.

It becomes clearer what Sofsky is trying to say: that not only was the whole CC idea carefully planned and executed as best as possible with bureaucratic ‘efficiency’, but that in order to systematically control, put fear into and organize mass torture and extermination, you need some form of bureaucratic control. The OT demands that there is a systematic structure of control, surveillance, monitoring and fear mongering and anxiety spreading everywhere that can be instituted and codified such that not only can you boss people around as atrociously as possible, but you dehumanize them and destroy whatever authenticity, decency or resistance they can possibly offer. This is the kind of Terror that becomes even more difficult to spot because you are indoctrinated and socialized into it from birth (some people call it being ‘normal’ or ‘the-way-things-are’).

It also becomes even harder to shake off this indoctrinated worldview of fear and need to appease controllers when the other nutcake (higher order synthesis of nut cases and fruit cakes) terrorists are busy blowing us and themselves up as part of their dramatic-statement pyrotechnics: the hyping of which allows many mainstream journalists to make a ‘living’ (through our dying).

If all this is still called ‘normal’, granted that it can be called ‘the-way-things are’, then we need to know what is the difference between this and being the living dead. George Romero’s Living Dead, day or night, is a tame reference to the world we call ‘normal’. We have been socialized into being workplace zombies, social Muselmanner, and decidedly non-vegan type consumers of our fellow beings to ‘survive’ in the world. In fact, that is what the so-called vision of a capitalistic driven world strives for: consumerism of the worst order. We consume everything, including the planet, ourselves and one another apparently to create ‘growth’; but all the while we are enacting acts of violence through our ‘productive’ activities that ensure a tragedy without the catharsis.

More importantly, we have been programmed and propagandized by most social strictures and structures with the abetment from much of the world’s mainstream media that engenders the undiscerning conformist mentality of ‘be-like-us’ through manufactured consent: where no one can defy being a zombie or show signs of being contrary to the Living Dead lifestyle (cell phone, obsession with TV, excessive social networking site usage, following the corporate diktats of advertising/marketing, etc).

Path to Perdition

The world has been fixated for decades in using GDP (gross domestic product) as measurement of economic growth thereby replacing all humane and spiritual values as a means of providing balance to what not only genuine growth is, but whether in the process we are leading even vaguely meaningful lives. The tendency to focus exclusively on the misguided notion of ‘productivity’ at all costs has led to the kind of ‘growth’ that is not only destructive all round but ruinous to our health as human beings.

Sofsky goes on to write about the extermination process of the CCs (bold and italics mine):

“A death factory is a work organization whose purpose is the annihilation of large numbers of human beings…Mass annihilation was organized on the basis of a division of labour. The process was integrated into a kind of assembly line, its stations coordinated in temporal sequence. Killing was mechanized by the installation of stationary gas chambers, into which hundreds of persons were lured and then poisoned by carbon monoxide or hydrocyanic acid fumes. The death factory was an apparatus that functioned smoothly, virtually trouble-free, working at a high capacity and speed. A death train arrived at the ramp in the morning; by the afternoon, the bodies had been burned, and the clothing brought to the storerooms.” (p259, Sofsky)

No doubt, ‘productivity’ can be applied to the above. No doubt efficiency and high volume of results are showcased by the quote. But to even ask at what ‘price’ belies the horror of what Sofsky’s words describe. Yet we have bought into this system where whatever the human, environmental and spiritual cost, there is the need to mindlessly churn out stuff to keep GDP ‘growth’ going. Never mind the non-monetary cost, anything that doesn’t add to the mechanized numerical increase of monetary measurement is just an externality (economists love this term). The human being and the whole world is an externality: so you have the dangerously ridiculous situation of mindless ‘production’ and ‘growth’ while destroying the planet and its life forms that sustain that ‘growth’ apparently for the good of the human species.

Therefore, many economists would be aptly represented as dangerous bozos.

Normally people who think like the above are clinically diagnosed with various mental issues, but up to now, we give them titles, degrees, Nobel prizes and call them ‘experts’, ‘leaders’ and ‘captains’ of industry. And so the term GDP, in honour of such illustrious ones, will be used here as gDp which signifies gross Destructive product as a more accurate way to depict their fantasy of 'growth'. [For more details on new ways of measuring growth and the blatant harmful nature of GDP as it transforms into gDp, please see the earlier posts at this site.]

While some of us struggle to bring across the facts to help the rest of the world to come to an understanding as to why GDP = gDp, a likely scenario that will develop increasingly is one where GDP as a measurement will be clung onto while different ways of measuring progress like the GPI, or Genuine Progress Indicator, may be used in tandem with it to provide ballast. But either the GPI or something similar will finally have to replace the GDP/gDp as a growth measure.

In the end, the way we destroy the natural world, its ecosystems and our selves with gDp is parallel to the death factories where we are in effect using the misguided notions of neoclassical economics meshed with fear and anxiety promoted by the controllers of the world to forge a world of Terror: maintain a system of production that creates inequality throughout the globe through exploitation of human and natural resources resulting eventually in a culling of the global population as a way of limiting population growth and further competition for resources.

The 20^th century has seen the ultimate attempt by the OT to assert its control over all of us by excessive mechanization and dehumanization of the entire planet (bold and italics). As Sofsky says:

“Along with the state monopoly on violence, rational bureaucracy, and organized work, modernity has also given rise to sites of discipline, surveillance, and conditioning. Modernity has confined human beings for life and trained them to be obedient, docile subjects. The manufacturing plant, industrial factory, and administrative office are the centres of bookkeeping and bureaucratic filing, economic exploitation and political rule. However, the military barracks, prison, penal colony, hospital, workhouse, and insane asylum – these total institutions are the laboratories of power. Here, far from the scrutiny of public surveillance, a special agenda is pursued: the transformation of human beings by other human beings…But in the concentration camp, no one was supposed to be healed, educated, or trained to obedience. Absolute power makes use of the technology of the disciplines, liberates them from their aims, and transforms them into instruments of terror. Its systematic nature is based on this transfer of the disciplines of control, on the coerced unification of action, its Gleichschaltung [“forcible coordination” or reorganizing all social, political, and cultural organizations to be controlled and run according to Nazi ideology and policy]; on minute, total surveillance and control.” (p277, Sofsky)

Again look at how our daily schedules and our entire lives have had all sequence of time come under fitting into the murderous Procustean bed of the work flow. Virtually every aspect and time frame of our existence has been absorbed and forced into the “forcible coordination” of survival, attending to material needs, and fear and trembling not only about our future and that of our loved ones, but the saturation of violence and mistrust bred across the world (played up to a scatological degree by the mass media).

The ultimate sign of victory for the “forcible coordination” of our existence to the capitalist structure of monetary growth and value is the belief that ‘time is money’ and phrases like ‘buying time’. We have lost all control of our lives when we are plugged into a system of control, like in the CC, where our entire value system and the way we ‘spend our time’ is crunched and assimilated into the living dead concept of money being the centre of gravity of the world. Space-time and gravity are no longer natural phenomena and part of cosmic laws, they have undergone with us the “forcible coordination” into adjusting to acknowledging and worshipping money and those who control it as the blasphemous multi-headed hydra at the centre of darkness.

Before examining how the OT has tried to control all of us, we need to look closer at what the ideology of control they have been carefully and successfully pulling across the globe. This may sound difficult to accept at first, but careful thought and researching and the willingness to suspend preconditioned thought will help give a different perspective to the world we are living in.

The ideology that the promoters of Terror have used to spread the gospel of hate, prejudice, destruction and domination is known to us today as ‘democracy’, not Democracy as we have a theoretical or intuitive understanding of, but ‘democracy’ as spread by major proponents of this ideology. This is why it is hard to spot and come to grips with it because it is like the most insidious of viruses – it masks itself as that which is ‘helpful’ to the individual/society but is in effect the start of a destructive consumption of life.

First, try this exercise: spend some time thinking of what you think genuine freedom and Democracy is for an individual and for a society, a nation, and the rest of the world. Write it down irrespective of whether it sounds ‘utopian’. Be honest about it as it is a private exercise. Compare what you have written (take your time with this) to what you will read further on. [Stop reading this post here, and try this exercise. After thinking through what you’ve written, then continue reading on. But, yes, I already here the objection: ‘who has the time….?’]

Below are some aspects of what ‘democracy’ as an ideology, masquerading as Democracy as a political philosophy or idea, has tried to do so as to enslave us:

1. Follow the ‘American’ way unconditionally according to the diktats of, for instance, the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld regime (you can look at this in the context of almost any US administration in living memory with arguably the exception of Kennedy’s). Bear in mind that both Bushes have openly declared that they have “hate” in their “hearts” towards their so-called ‘enemies’. This is a matter of public record, check it up. This was used at least in relation to North Korea and its nutty (no, not the lovely Thelonious Monk piece) leader. We would normally link those who call themselves ‘leaders’ and voice out hate openly for others as leaders of another sort, but certainly not of Democracy

2. This means: unimpeded access by the US and its so-called allies to (this is not in reference to the people of the countries but the network of controllers who secretly run the country, government, business, media, pharmaceuticals, etc) all countries and economies throughout the globe for what suits their own interests

3. Meaning: unimpeded access by the controlling cabal in the ‘US’ (what we term ‘America’ today is anything but America) to all natural resources of all kinds whether it is oil (which requires control of Middle East oil supplies) or any natural resource to promote ‘growth’ and GDP (gDp) at the expense of all life and human welfare

4. The ‘American’ way means a one superpower world and all those aligned to it who have as is possible complete corporate, financial, media control of the world. This is sometimes achieved through utilizing corruption and subversion of other governments elsewhere – especially those that resist the ‘American’ way openly – with the use of US fiat currency (which is worthless like any currency that is not backed by precious metals) as the dominant means of economic and political control, followed by black operations and military force. Interesting thing: if you listen to US military officers who speak their mind freely, they’ll mention that they get themselves and their men in ‘trouble spots’ largely due to the CIA’s shenanigans in various states, and their bamboozling politicians, economic bigwigs and defense department bureaucrats in US of A

5. The manipulation and control of world bodies like the UN, WTO (World Trade Organization) and World Bank which serves as a means to hold to ransom, debt, bondage and merciless exploitation people and resources of poorer states by the controllers who have ensconced themselves by hijacking a great nation like America with their viral ideology of ‘democracy’

6. Promotion of wars and the armament industry as a means of fuelling gDp and ensuring some form of global dominance. The best way is to keep the world divided through constant conflict as witnessed from wars throughout the third world and the criminal war in Vietnam which almost sent that state back into the stone age; never mind the wars with Iraq, Afghanistan and prodding of North Korea into a striptease nuclear brinksmanship

7. The need to curtail civil liberties in America which championed Democracy but has been usurped by the cabal as it spreads the ideology of ‘democracy’ via buying over politicians, corporate control of the media, suppression of anything in the media that nationally promotes spiritual learning, thinking and questioning the role of military might and imperialism or material obsession, and spread of capitalist ideology (and gDp)

8. Promote the idea that freedom means excessive and destructive individualism at the expense of everyone and everything else

9. Final solution to destroy the remnants of Democratic America’s civil liberties: creation of the Orwellian situation of permanent war, where spreading war is called spreading ‘peace’, the mind-numbing-soul-destroying promotion of double speak in spreading falsehood, false flag operations by the CIA that subverts many states and national interests by spreading ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom’ there as opposed to Democracy

10. To consolidate this in a one superpower world, you need to manufacture a massive attack on your soil: September 11^th, 2001. Create a tragic and horrific incident in which ‘two planes’ caused three high rise modern towers to collapse in a meltdown and in which, against all laws of probability, remnants of passport or identification papers were found among the wreckage belonging to the ‘hijackers’ (!)

11. Manipulation and aggravation of a permanent state of war between the Muslim states and others (all of whom also have the their fair share of fruitcase – one step above nutcake -- terrorists) as part of promoting the grander scheme of Terror

12. Further acts of terror within the US (remember those random sniper shootings of civilians post- 9-11?) to cause permanent state of siege that could possibly lead to a suspension of all civil liberties as well as the US Constitution; there is also the convenient establishment of CCs – yes, concentration camps – for US citizens (or any other ‘undesirables’) under the auspices of FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency): a search on the Net will provide visual evidence of these camps

First, reactions might be -- well this all very imaginative and not really new and things are not that bad. Really? Why is there a constant state of anxiety and terror being spread conveniently all over the world…where does all the funding come from. How convenient it is, that the state of ‘terror’ we have been put in has led to the rise of constant and heightened surveillance (understandable in some cases) of public spaces. It’s even worse for some private spaces. Paranoia is the order of the day. The Panopticon of observation keeps everyone on a macro and micro level under duress. The constant fear and anxiety spread at airports and modes of travel, and the work place fear of sabotage is very much like the war and fear mongering mentality spread through the time of WWII and most of the Cold War.

This is a most useful way of getting people mistrustful and fearful of one another and strangers. Not that there are no genuine security concerns etc. But the Terror being spread from 9-11 has been an attempt to drag humanity back to a state of wartime tension. Moreover, every surveillance camera is a reminder that things are not right and that people are not right and that the world is not right. The world and humanity may not be perfect as we well know, but there is a difference between that and being made to live under “forcible coordination” that it can never be otherwise. That is what the controllers want.

This state of tension if you like, then also encourages the other crazies to go about their business of terror. The media collaborates with them by highlighting their activities thereby ensuring that the best way to get a megaphone and ‘buy’ media time is to commit atrocities. Note: good and well being don’t often get much air time, but acts of violence and that which flirts with the prurient not only get air time, they get prime time advertising to boost it all.

Again, where does the money come from to keep supporting these groups of ‘terror’ and even terror. There are bigger players who want to keep terror groups up and running, their activities being media highlights right up to this moment and thrust upon people as part of “forcible coordination”. Terror, with its unchecked and unregulated international banking cartels and arrangements, and its abilities to print fiat currency money or debt currency as via the US Federal Reserve Bank, has ample resources to fund its pet projects.

Ask yourself, how is it that a state like North Korea which has been repeatedly stated to be bankrupt and has its population living in precarious conditions still manage to have access and maintenance of nuclear weapons coupled with haphazard saber rattling announcements. Who are the groups that are sustaining the North Koreans and keeping them from total collapse so that they can conveniently add to the potential destabilization of North East Asia and keep the world in nuclear angst ?

How is it that despite the global financial crisis, spiraling debt of the US, the never ending wars, and the rising unemployment world wide, the world financial system is still tottering but not collapsing yet: how is it being maintained, propped up and kept alive when it too seems to be turning into one of the living dead? If the global scene is not somehow manipulated and controlled by major players this system would have collapsed well before now, but it is still being controlled and puppeteered as it has always been.

Look past the curtain of current economic theory’s mumbo jumbo and see the controllers grappling over the levers behind the curtain of illusion drawn across the world from the land of Oz.

The New Slavery

On a macro scale the stage has been set to keep the world and all of us in debt through a debt based economy of fiat currencies, interest rates and squeezing every drop of labour from us till we drop dead. But on a micro scale, Terror must still be spread to dovetail with the global template of “forcible coordination” that major players are implementing through international institutions and power play.

As Sofsky unrelentingly continues (bold and italics mine):

“For its (modern terror) purposes, the small-time tormenter suffices: the conscientious bookkeeper, the mediocre official, the zealous doctor, the young, slightly anxious female factory worker. In order to spread fear and terror, all the personnel had to do was to apply the rules that had been set down. This orderly foundation of camp routine provided the soil conducive to the development of those behavioural patterns that spring from the tradition of quasi-military movements: esprit de corps, camaraderie, personal allegiance, the mentality of the emergency situation, corruption, and the lust for the kill.” (p278, Sofsky)

That last line sums up ‘American’ domestic and foreign policy for many a year and, unfortunately, much of the world has followed suit or allowed the virus from that kind of ‘democracy’ to spread to them.

What cannot be denied as well is the Kafkaesque bureaucratic nightmare of petty tyrants who impose meaningless rules and regulations to wield (absolute) power as best they can largely because the social and national atmosphere most people operate in permeates the same unto them. This system of bureaucratic control is spread on the macro level in turn by the controllers and serial invokers of ‘democracy’ who claim to be saving the world by using things like the UN, WTO, World Bank etc.

Total control by the cabal (controllers) and denizens of Terror require it to be practiced throughout all of society without exception as far as it is possible. It is part of the strategy of spreading “forcible coordination” globally. The best way is to instill a sense of fear and loathing in each layer of society, but primarily through the work place as it is the inevitable arena where we try to sustain ourselves.

To do this the cabalists of controllers need the Grand Poobahs and Great Panjandrums to exercise the diktats of control. And so Sofsky continues with (italics and bold mine):

“Without the supervisors, sentries, and administrative officials, the accomplices and accessories from the ranks of the inmates, camp terror would have been impossible. The face of modern systemic terror is not stamped by the all powerful and inviolable master, but by the unbridled actions of the sedulous servants of power. It is an inconspicuous face, quite mean and shabby, without the grimace of wild frenzy, the ecstasies of brutality, the passions of sovereignty...The triumph relished by the auxiliary was the laughter of the accomplices, the mortal anguish of the victims, the bottom line on the balance sheet of death.” (p278-9, Sofsky)

So absolute control is spread by the cabalists via set ups international and national, which is seen through by trickle down (and forced) indoctrination abetted by the mass media. The message transmitted daily and unremittingly is that people are not powerful and that the individual is not an empowered being.

The little Hitlers and Napoleans at the micro level of the work place go around determining control and spreading the gospel of the cabal through punitive sanctions and the constant threat of throwing one out of employment, or stymieing progress/promotion. We are born into the world and don’t know any better as we are imbibed with received deception (not wisdom) of control and subservience to the dark ideas of the cabal which we take as normal and the way of the world. [Under no circumstances is it being claimed that people do not choose wrong and evil themselves and that only the cabal/controllers are responsible for everything, but to qualify statements each time with this would be tedious and add to the meandering of an already lengthy post].

We learn further from Sofsky (bold and italics mine):

“Absolute power transforms deterrence into terror, terror into horror. It shapes space, time, work, and society into instrumentalities of itself, plunging its victims into the abyss of helpless anxiety. The destructive power of terror extends into the furthest corners of sociality, the deep structures of human subjectivity. It destroys not only by violence, but by starvation and misery, humiliation and murder of the soul. It is sheer destruction, pure and unadulterated…Terror concludes every struggle. It gets the job done. The reciprocity characteristic of all social power is shattered.” (p279, Sofsky)

Again on a micro level, just take a look at going from one place of employment to the next. The nihilistic philosophy of the cabalists to control, dehumanize, humiliate and disempower people pervades through almost everything. From every situation of authority (real or imagined) there is often an attempt to assert some aspect of absolute power; this is an ego based energy that seeks to use the pyramid structure of a disenfranchising hierarchy of control. Do as you are told, the boss man is always right, and we the cabal and its nether children of control can throw you out on the streets and let you starve unless you serve us as the slaves that you are.

The human power of reciprocity and responsibility towards one another through a web of connection with all life and compassion needed to give balance to the world, our societies and our lives is constantly crushed through the deleterious stamping of the OT imprimatur usually in the form of material and largely monetary (valueless fiat currencies) ‘rewards’ for selling and destroying your soul and those of others. These are the bargain basement prices of all the hells imaginable: save your skin, not your soul, by abetting the physical and spiritual destruction of others and life on the planet via the promotion of mindless monetary growth and as much as possible for sensual gratification. Reciprocity is made negative through the encouragement of an ‘eye for an eye’ way of the world, not one of mutual aid, support and nurturing to create cooperation and collaboration among people and countries.

We continue to chillingly learn (bold and italics mine):

“Terror separates labour from all production value and any moral rules. It intensifies compulsion and exploitation to the pitch of destruction; it transposes production into ravagement. The teleology of human labour is extinguished. The productive meaning of work, self-preservation of the species, is transformed into its opposite. Nowhere is human labour so directly linked with death as in the concentration camp. Here work does not secure life, it devastates it. This political economy of waste cannot be comprehended by following the principle of calculation and value enhancement. Absolute power overcomes the laws of production. It increases not wealth, but misery.” (p280, Sofsky)

Shocking as it may seem, the above is an apt description of our daily lives especially our so-called working lives. The entire economic and financial system that has been imposed on us by the cabal, and those sometimes quite unwittingly carrying out the worldview of the controllers, is one of mindless accumulation of wealth through making many things that are not needed and that have an in-built obsolescence in them; this in turn continues the destructive cycle of pure monetary ‘growth’ while destroying the planet, robbing it of life and natural resources and steadily allowing for the fear and anxiety based destruction of ourselves and our social relations. A political economy of waste.

We are usually alienated from what we do and the apparently productive processes we are involved in. So many times have employees deliberately gotten back or ‘sabotaged’ the system and the boss man by wasting time at work through idleness and Net surfing, and consuming office materiel and expenses for personal use and benefit. This is usually an act of rebellion and resentment for being pushed around and doing something we dislike and even hate but consider necessary to sustain our material needs. What is productive about this set up or the commodities that arise from it? A political economy of waste.

From the wasteful system of built in obsolescence and greed of the capitalist ideology to its mindless accumulation of money as a means of remuneration and definition of meaning to existence; and with the cat and mouse game between employer and employees who try every once in a while to monkey wrench the work place, we have a fine system of wastage and negativity. Yet another facet of a political economy of waste.

To maintain control over us, there is a need for a system of destructive sustenance that sees to it that (bold and italics mine):

“Society is permeated by the informers and accomplices of terror; the victims are driven to a life-and-death struggle for space, shoes, and bread. Although a good many examples of elementary solidarity have come to light, the extent of social indifference, mutual repulsion, and animosity in the camps was staggering. The dissociative strength of camp power shatters the basic rules of social intercourse, fundamental trust in the continued existence of the social world, the prospect of assistance, the certainties of social action, the continuity of time…The camp hurls human beings back into a primal state of nature: the struggle of all against all…The concentration camp is the modern facility of isolating and destroying the “dispensable”. The superfluous are searched out everywhere, seized, confined behind barbed wire, starved, murdered.” (p280-1, Sofsky)

What is supported throughout most societies and certainly in the economic framework of the cabal is the ‘state of nature’ scenario of ‘survival of the fittest’ and everyone struggling to stay alive through brandishing tooth and claw. We have fooled ourselves into buying into the so-called ‘free market’ myth (which is just a not-so-secret secret society code for greed, selfishness, monopoly, destructive ethos, etc as explored in an earlier blog entitled There is No Such Thing as a Free Market, which has laughably been seen as a sign of ‘freedom’.

Yet you cannot be free if you are a slave to unethical/immoral behaviour that often belies ‘market’ forces, a slave to pure monetary gain at the expense of everything else, and a slave to blind sensual drives while throwing any spiritual force within a human being off course.

And in case the message still hasn’t gotten through we are reminded that (bold and italics mine):

“Absolute power sunders the physical unity of the person, devastates spirit and soul, destroys the ability to act, drains all vitality. Prior to industrialized mass murder, it carries out a transmutation of human nature. The transformation of human beings into materiel and the fabrication of the Muselmanner, the waking dead, are its greatest triumphs. In sharp contrast with all earlier forms of power, absolute terror creates nothing. Its work is totally negative, a project of obliteration without a trace. It realizes its freedom in the complete and total annihilation of the human being.” (p281, Sofsky)

Through a system of control through the mass media, economic and financial institutions, the cabal has sought to keep us at each others’ throats through the perpetuation of fear and loathing, anxiety and obsession with destructive individual ‘rights’ which do not involve the reciprocation of duties to respect and honour the rights of others; it’s all about ‘I-me-mine’ as the advertising/marketing world keep reminding us (the destruction of reciprocity).

So some key points that can be raised from all this on the strategy of OT:

1. Use a feudal hierarchical pyramidal structure of top-down control

2. Institute capitalism as the primary economic model which leads to a system of senseless accumulation of wealth and material products maintained by the use of the media to promote consumerism and obedience to the fetishized ‘market forces’ established by the cabal’s global financial and political institutions

3. All ‘value’ is measured in terms of valueless fiat currency which is printed at whim to finance never ending wars and the creation of eternal debt

4. Keep the world and its peoples in a state of perpetual debt and wage slavery as they cannot rely on their spiritual values and ideas to build economic strength but must rely on ego and fear based energies of impending starvation from reprisals to their physical beings if they resist the cabalists structures (micro and macro)

5. Keep people busy with meaningless work, jobs and employment to just earn money to survive; keep them in debt-bondage and obsessed with sensual indulgence so that they are unable to turn away from the debilitating effects of the idiot-box-and-devices (TV and mobile phones); and turn them away from reading, thinking, and sharing intelligent ideas with one another. Counter serious examination of the state of the world and citizen participation in local, political, or any other sensible activity by a system of disenfranchisement

6. This system of disempowerment is boosted by ego driven cynicism of so-called social commentators as well as the worship of celebrities and mania over the frailties of their personal lives, and attempts to get the rest of us to be more concerned about who earns the most in business and Hollywood. In other words keep us distracted from improving and empowering ourselves through surrendering our attention to nut-cakey-fruity-case flakes and other such media-attention-grabbers

7. Obsession with material goods through the constant promotion of the latest fashion products and accelerate built-in used obsolescence in almost anything (example, computers) and mobile phones which require us to seek constant upgrading (and confuse that as ‘upgrading’ ourselves)

8. Derail us from thinking about why we are here and what is the purpose of life. Ensure that the mainstream media doesn’t focus on spiritual matters but things that engender hatred and negativity through the playing up of violence, war and dysfunctional behaviour. Constant prattling on the ‘weaknesses’ of human nature and never the strength of unity, reciprocity and challenging of absolute power and corporate controllers, that is, the media’s complicity with the agenda of the cabal to ensure that human beings are kept in a state of the living dead while thinking that the lives they are leading are supposedly ‘normal’

9. The constant disruption of time and sequencing of events in our lives due to the stress and anxiety created by the negative media reports and work place demands, coupled with personal/family ones, keeps us in a state of limbo and hectic behaviour that fits perfectly with the ‘forcible coordination’ of the controllers

But to ensure that control can be permanent and the market of global control has been cornered through a one superpower world, the cabal needs to institute a takeover by re-creating what the Nazi’s did in 1933 and 1938 (looked at in more detail below). The need to exercise absolute power by the cabal through the use of terror to establish once and for all OT. We are still living in the shadow of the near successful attempt of using the 9-11 attacks on New York to suspend all civil liberties, and eventually establish openly the FEMA CCs as a step to turning the US into a launching pad for more war, and a base for quickly consolidating and spreading world wide the ineluctable OT. For those who think what they are reading now is fanciful, be patient…it won’t be too long from your reading these words that even more stunning revelations will take place.