web analytics

To Hell In A Handbasket

The human species is doomed to extinction. It cannot possibly survive the ongoing deterioration imposed on its societal structures. Proliferation of the species will not be its undoing; neither will outside influences such as climate change, though both will undoubtedly prove catalytic to its downfall.

The species Homo sapiens has evolved with one serious defect. It may have developed a complicated brain, but in the process it failed to rid itself of the reptilian core of that brain. That core is still the most active component. It works on the subconscious mind and is the driving factor in our competitiveness, our greed for money, power, and what we define as ‘success’. It is also responsible for our greatest weakness: a susceptibility to mass manipulation.

There are vast numbers of humans who deride any suggestion of extinction. They see themselves as the pinnacle of creation, the human brain as the ultimate Universal invention. How could a creature so clever, so ultimately intelligent, bring about its own destruction?

There are also vast numbers of humans around the planet who accept the eventual demise of Homo sapiens, even welcome it, in the (to them) certain knowledge it will be engineered by their Divinity, who will whisk them up into the Heavens in the nick of time, leaving the unbelievers to their fate.

Each of these groups, paralyzed by their own mental malaise, will substantially contribute to the demise of the species.

It won’t be Middle Eastern conflicts, or al Qaeda, that cause our extinction, it will be the affluent Western nations. The arrogance and power of America and its European allies has, over generations, bred out of their societies even the most basic foundations of common sense. Governments have become nothing more than sanctuaries for elite corruption, peopled by rich ignoramuses whose lack of intelligence and common sense make them ideal puppets for the powerful oligarchs steadily milking their nation’s assets to bolster already bulging bank accounts.

The social media, controlled by these fat-cats, has been force-feeding a steady diet of propaganda to the ordinary people for years. Those efforts are now beginning to bear fruit.

The accidental killing of a twenty-year-old girl outside a church in Florida recently is just one example, from thousands, of how human minds have been warped en masse to accept the unacceptable.

When Hannah Kelley was killed outside the church where her father is pastor, the really shocking aspect of the story was completely missed by a) the media, and b) most of America.

This man, Moises Zambrana –

– was inside the church proudly displaying his firearm to the victim’s boyfriend. Then it went off. The bullet passed through a wall and hit Hannah Kelley in the head.[1]

The question of why this man, who had come to worship his Maker, brought a gun into church, was never asked? It was merely stated that he ‘had a licence for concealed carry’, as though that made it perfectly acceptable.

There have been numerous instances of so-called ‘Christian’ churches in America welcoming guns into their midst – even blessing them! The extent to which the human mind can be twisted away from the teachings of Christianity, yet still be acceptably Christian within society, is proof to the effectiveness of mass propaganda.

We’re all aware of the effects of so-called ‘political correctness’ on our societies. Notions that begin with good intent, usually the protection of minorities, cascade out of control to become weapons with which to beat innocents, and none more so than our own children.

Not long ago, Sparrow Chat featured an article describing Texan schools and the police utilized to enforce punishment for often very minor misdemeanors. (see:“Republican Primaries Or A Gathering Of Skunks?” Sparrow Chat, January 19th 2012)

In the UK, the government is forcing schools to report children who use ‘racial slurs’, even though the child may be as young as five, and unaware of the meaning of the words they used. It’s not a new strategy. This, from the UK’s Daily Mail in 2010:

…[Principals] will be forced to list children as young as five on school ‘hate registers’ over everyday playground insults.
Even minor incidents must be recorded as examples of serious bullying and details kept on a database until the pupil leaves secondary school.
Teachers are to be told that even if a primary school child uses homophobic or racist words without knowing their meaning, simply teaching them such words are hurtful and inappropriate is not enough.
Instead the incident has to be recorded and his or her behaviour monitored for future signs of ‘hate’ bullying.
The accusations will also be recorded in databases held by councils and made available to Whitehall and ministers to help them devise future anti-bullying campaigns…[2]

Examples of this crazed authoritarianism can readily be found on forums throughout the internet. Here is one in the UK, from 2010:

…My daughter is in year 1 and is 5years old, a few weeks ago she called a mixed race child “brown” at school, the child (my daughters best friend since age 2) got upset so told the teacher, the teacher made me aware what had happened and that was that.

Today when I went to collect my daughter from school, I was asked to come into the office by the head teacher. The head advised me that my daughter had called the same girl a “Brown cow” and the girl was upset, they said as this is the 2nd time she has made a racist remarks it will be put on record and reported to the council. I was so upset! my daughter is NOT racist, she is 5years old, she has coloured family members and family friends. Now it is down on record that my child is racist…”[3]

The shocking truth of such happenings is not simply that we can virtually criminalize innocent children for everyday childhood behavior, it is that, with blind acceptance, we allow authority – in this case government at all levels – to impose these insane regulations.

Society has been brainwashed over two generations to believe that the innocent taunt of a five year old should be held on record against the child throughout its school career (and who knows how much further!). A prime example of ignorance being no defense in law?

At this point, you may well be agreeing with the illogicality of such actions, but wondering, “What has this to do with the extinction of the human race?”

In a word: technology.

Technology has become the true Divinity of the human race. While there are areas where technology has huge advantages for Homo sapiens – for example, in medical research, – over the last fifty years we have seen the development of the ultimate technological control weapon: mass media.

It can be argued that mass media controls government by informing us of its actions and decisions. That is certainly true, but as a society we have lost the means to do anything about it. The ballot box is a farce. All political parties are themselves controlled by their, and our, corporate masters. It matters not one jot whom we vote for, though our reptilian brain insists we be transfixed by mass media whenever politicians are vying with each other for their little bit of extra power.

It needs little analysis of US TV programming to recognize the changes that have occurred over the last thirty to forty years. One of the most obvious being a huge increase in violence on the screen. The intention is not to turn us violent, but to make us more accepting of violence.

Mass media can even make extinction seem attractive

Sex, on the other hand, is still tightly controlled. Heaven forbid we should all become more sexually loving towards each other!

Our rush to develop technology for profit, and the consequent thoughtless misuse of some of the hailed ‘innovations’, has created societies that no longer work together or integrate in real life. Many of our societies today are ephemeral, almost imaginary, like Facebook and other online meeting sites. Despite the multitude of technological communication devices available, we are more isolated and fragmented as a species than ever before.

The result is more and more reliance on media-formulated information, or, as is so frequently the case, mis-information. The recent sad death of Whitney Houston was whipped up by the media to such an extent that ‘a small, private, funeral service’ became a huge TV event with golden hearses and limousines.

Google has recently announced changes to what it laughably calls its ‘privacy policy’. It’s already been caught spying on owners of Apple products. No longer are we private individuals. We are data. Soon, everything we do each day of our lives will be stored in a vast database somewhere.

It’s all about control. Information is power, and the more information about us that is available to those who would run the world, the more power they gain to control us.

That may not be so bad were these individuals wise and caring. They’re not. In fact, they don’t give a damn about ordinary folks. They consider themselves way above the average man and woman in the street. They are greedy and ignorant, but they do know one basic fact: the mass of the people will believe anything if it’s told to them sufficiently often, and cleverly enough, by the media.

Every day the United States of America sends pilotless drone aircraft into the skies above Pakistan and Afghanistan to assassinate individuals they consider a potential threat to the nation, or its ‘interests’. It is cold-blooded murder. Frequently, innocent individuals are slaughtered by these drones due to mis-information, or some mistake by the drone’s controllers.

When Adolf Hitler used pilotless drones to bomb British cities, towards the end of World War II, it was considered one of the great war crimes of the twentieth century. They were known as the V1 and V2 rockets.

Americans, en masse, now consider the use of drones in Pakistan and Afghanistan as perfectly acceptable. They do so because the mass media has, over time, gently insinuated it is so. Most good citizens of America, or of any European nation, would as soon ponder the next football match result than concern themselves with the inhumanities committed by their government, in their name.

This article began by stating that the human species is doomed to extinction. It is the greed of a few powerful individuals, coupled with the inability of the mass of humanity to think for itself, that will bring it about.

We have proved we are incapable of resisting the controlling influence of mass media when it is used to manipulate us en masse. We will come to believe anything if it’s told to us, as truth, and with sufficient frequency.

The human race can only sustain itself indefinitely if it works together towards a common goal. The reptilian core at the center of our brains makes us incapable of doing so, as it demands competition, not cooperation. Those wielding sufficient power to make it happen won’t be inclined to do so as their greed blinds them to all except short-term profit. By the time climate change, coupled with human proliferation, creates a serious crisis for the species, it will be too late.

Just like the dinosaurs, our failure to evolve beyond our reptilian brain will be our eventual undoing. Sadly, the gentle Orangutan probably won’t still be around to wave us goodbye.

[1] “Pastor’s daughter, 20, dies a week after being shot in the head by a stray bullet at her father’s church” Daily Mail, February 19th 2012

[2] “Pupils aged five on hate register: Teachers must log playground taunts for Government database” Daily Mail, March 4th 2010

[3] “5year old accused of being racist?” NetMums, August 2010

Mind Your Own Business, Cardinal-designate Dolan of New York

The Catholic Church, in the form of Cardinal-designate Dolan of New York (what the hell is a ‘cardinal-designate, anyway?), is upset that some of its members may now have access to insurance that covers birth control. Despite President Obama changing the law to ensure Catholic institutions, like certain hospitals and universities, aren’t financially penalized, the Catholic clergy of America are affronted by this new bill that allows for mandatory birth control and sterilization under all health care insurance.[1]

Last Friday, in a closed conference of Catholic bishops headed by Cardinal-designate Dolan, a briefing was circulated that included these comments:

“First, there is the respect for religious liberty. No government has the right to intrude into the affairs of the Church, much less coerce, the Church faithful individuals to engage in or cooperate in any way with immoral practices.

Second, it is the place of the Church, not of government to define its religious identity and ministry.

Third, we continue to oppose the underlying policy of a government mandate for purchase or promotion of contraception, sterilization or abortion inducing drugs.”[2]

The accusation of government encroaching on religious liberty, which is condemned, is followed immediately by the Church declaring its intent to encroach on the policies of government.

The Catholic Church, in the form of Cardinal-designate Dolan of New York, has a perfect right to be affronted. It is a teaching of the Catholic Church that the use of such methods is a sin. Anyone who is fool enough to believe those teachings is unlikely to be tempted to use birth control, for fear of everlasting damnation. Those who flout those teachings should leave the Catholic Church forthwith.

It’s a simple choice. Either you’re sufficiently simple-minded to believe the claptrap religious nutcases like Cardinal-designate Dolan of New York spews forth, or you do not belong to the Catholic Church.

If the latter is the case, President Obama’s new bill can be nothing but beneficial to you. If you belong to the former group, then it is totally irrelevant to you.

Anything more is just sanctimonious piety meddling in the affairs of others.

The Catholic Church, in the form of Cardinal-designate Dolan of New York, should mind its own business and leave the US government to do the same.

[1] “U.S. bishops blast Obama’s contraception compromise” Washington Post, February 11th 2012

[2] “Return to Rome Special Posting: Catholic Bishops-only internal briefing on the HHS regulations “compromise”” Patheos.com (a Catholic blog), February 11th 2012

You’re Wise Not To Vote Republican

The ongoing Republican primary elections, if they’ve achieved nothing more, have gloriously highlighted the dizzy heights candidates will scale to fool and deceive prospective voters.

The use of clever ‘spin’ tactics, the bamboozling of simple folk with so-called ‘facts’ they have no way of verifying, the promise of better times ahead, the rubbishing of an opponent, all assist in drawing away the loyalty from one candidate and placing it squarely with another.

Dictators, and authoritarian governments, rise to power by one of two means. Either they seize control by military coup, or they persuade the people to vote them into power.

Hitler was lauded by the German masses because he promised to restore Germany’s pride as a nation, a pride taken away by the allied governments after World War One. Mussolini led his Fascist ‘Black Shirts’ to Rome in a bloodless coup d’etat, supported by the then King of Italy, Victor Emmanuel III.

No-one would suggest the present Republican hopefuls are comparable to Hitler or Mussolini, but the question remains as to why vast swathes of a nation’s populace flock to dubious political leaders with adulation and hero worship? Undoubtedly, in the case of both men mentioned above, they utilized propaganda to its full extent, via radio, TV, and the press. Those who failed to toe the ‘party line’ were often ruthlessly exterminated.

In practice, the modern day political campaign is not too dissimilar. It’s to be hoped Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich won’t stoop to assassinating their opponents with a bullet, but character assassinations have been commonplace during this election year.

Propaganda is as rife in North America as it was in Germany during the time of Adolf Hitler, or in Benito Mussolini’s Italy. Today, it’s just applied more subtly, having been worked out in advance by an army of psychologists and ‘spin doctors’ well paid by the ‘Superpacs’ supporting their particular candidate.

Propaganda – the party ‘line’ – doesn’t work with everyone, of course. Those who stop for a moment to think about what’s being spun at them, will soon realize how much bullshit can be spouted by a man desperate to become the most powerful being in the world.

Unfortunately, large swathes of the American populace seem unable to think for themselves, reacting with cheers and applause to even the most blatant falsehoods, or put downs of an opponent.

It’s long been obvious to any independent observer of US politics that a large percentage of right-wing support for the Republican Party emanates from areas not renowned for producing the more intelligent members of society.

Poor educational facilities, coupled with extremes of poverty, were two of the factors that caused large numbers of Germans and Italians to roar support for Hitler and Mussolini in the years following World War One.

Right-wing ideology, particularly in the US today, gives the less intelligent members of society props to support them in their very insecure lives. Not least of these, of course, is right-wing religiosity and its incumbent doctrines – anti-abortion, anti-contraception, anti-immigration, the ‘sin’ of homosexuality, and – tying all these doctrines neatly together – the fervor of nationalism. When right-wing propaganda cleverly entwines nationalism with religion i.e. ‘God’s own country’, it can bind the mind like superglue.

While all this is painfully obvious to the independent observer, without scientific evidence for support it’s barely more than a hypothesis. Such evidence is now available via a paper written by Gordon Hodson and Michael A. Busseri, two researchers at Brock University in Ontario, Canada.

Their research proves beyond doubt that those of a lower than normal intelligence are more susceptible to right-wing political ideology.

Studies have shown that individuals with lower levels of general intelligence are less trusting of other people, less sensitive to interpersonal cues, and less accurate in deciphering other people’s behaviors and intentions…research has revealed that individuals who more strongly endorse social conservatism have greater cognitive rigidity (Rokeach, 1948), less cognitive flexibility (Sidanius, 1985), and lower integrative complexity (Jost et al., 2003).

Socially conservative individuals also perform less well than liberals on standardized ability tests (Stankov, 2009). Rightwing authoritarianism (Altemeyer, 1996), a strong correlate of social conservatism (Jost et al., 2003; Van Hiel et al., 2010), is also negatively associated with g (‘g’ = lower levels of general intelligence). (McCourt, Bouchard)”

The study concludes:

…conservative ideology represents a critical pathway through which childhood intelligence predicts racism in adulthood. In psychological terms, the relation between g (‘g’ = lower levels of general intelligence) and prejudice may stem from the propensity of individuals with lower cognitive ability to endorse more rightwing conservative ideologies because such ideologies offer a psychological sense of stability and order. By emphasizing resistance to change and inequality among groups, these ideologies legitimize and promote negative evaluations of out-groups…”[1]

Or, to quote the Guardian columnist, George Monbiot, “Conservatism is linked to low intelligence.”[2]

Monbiot uses this research paper, published in the journal ‘Psychological Science’ last month, to lambaste the liberal community of the UK for a lackadaisical attitude that allows conservatism to win so readily. He may have been even more forthright had he been aware of another study just published, this time by researchers at Washington University in St Louis.

A team led by Patricia Cavazos-Rehg of WUSL studied birth rates of girls aged 15 – 17 on a state by state basis. They corroborated the findings of previous studies, that comprehensive sex education in schools is responsible for lowered birth rates among teenage girls.

Unsurprisingly, the states with the highest rate of teenage births were those ‘with higher religiosity rankings and greater political conservatism’.

“State adolescent births vary widely, and these disparities across states should be acknowledged as a major public health concern,” Cavazos-Rehg told LiveScience. She noted the difference in birthrates among girls ages 15 to 17 in Arkansas and New Hampshire. Arkansas, with high conservatism, had the highest birthrate in this study, 34.8 per 1,000 girls in this age range. New Hampshire, with high liberalism, had the lowest birthrate, 9.7. [Teen Pregnancy: A ‘Winnable’ Public Health Battle?]”[3]

Here, it would seem is irrefutable proof that conservatism is bad for the country and bad for the people. It prevents development, controls the populace by authoritarianism (both religious and political), seeks to subjugate women and persecute minorities, and takes control out of the hands of the people and places it squarely in the laps of the wealthy and powerful.

“Government of the people, by the people, for the people,” famously roared Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg, himself a Republican president. I doubt he’d own the Republican Party today.

Monbiot again:

…what we now see among their [UK & US conservative] parties – however intelligent their guiding spirits may be – is the abandonment of any pretence of high-minded conservatism. On both sides of the Atlantic, conservative strategists have discovered that there is no pool so shallow that several million people won’t drown in it. Whether they are promoting the idea that Barack Obama was not born in the US, that manmade climate change is an eco-fascist-communist-anarchist conspiracy or that the deficit results from the greed of the poor, they now appeal to the basest, stupidest impulses, and find that it does them no harm in the polls.

Don’t take my word for it. Listen to what two former Republican ideologues, David Frum and Mike Lofgren, have been saying. Frum warns that “conservatives have built a whole alternative knowledge system, with its own facts, its own history, its own laws of economics.” The result is a “shift to ever more extreme, ever more fantasy-based ideology” which has “ominous real-world consequences for American society.”

Lofgren complains that “the crackpot outliers of two decades ago have become the vital center today”. The Republican party, with its “prevailing anti-intellectualism and hostility to science” is appealing to what he calls the “low-information voter” or the “misinformation voter.” While most office holders probably don’t believe the “reactionary and paranoid claptrap” they peddle, “they cynically feed the worst instincts of their fearful and angry low-information political base”.”

It is time for those who have the capability to think for themselves to stand up and be heard. For too long the logical arguments against the religio/political nonsense spouted by the hypocrites, who endeavor to split this nation in two for their own power-hungry ends, have been allowed to go unchallenged. Even those in opposition kow-tow to the same bigoted doctrines. Never once has any US politician had the courage to stand up and confess a lack of religious zeal.

Among the so-called ‘Christian’ right-wing, perhaps the most ‘sinful’ place on earth is the European nation of Holland. Drug freedom, condoned prostitution, all part of a society often depicted as in opposition to everything conservatism holds sacred.

In the United States, the birthrate among girls ages 15 to 19 is 39.1 per 1,000 teens; in the UK it’s 24 per 1,000.

In liberal Holland, the birthrate among girls aged 15 to 19 is 4 (yes, four) per 1,000.

Are you capable of considering the implications of those statistics? Or, are you too busy preparing to cheer on Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich when they next arrive in your town?

[1] “Bright Minds and Dark Attitudes: Lower Cognitive Ability Predicts Greater Prejudice Through Right-Wing Ideology and Low Intergroup Contact” Journal of Psychological Science, January 5th 2012

[2] “Liberal Constipation” Guardian, February 6th 2012

[3] “Sex Education Less Effective in Conservative States” Live Science, February 6th 2012

Hosted By A2 Hosting

Website Developed By R J Adams