Journal of the Great Rexidopholus Beowulf

"Flowers for Charles Gordon"

(April 30)

I only sought to help
but you scorned me

I did not ask for them
these gifts of mine
I never used them
these gifts of mine
to rule you, to hurt you
to beat you at your game

I only wanted to help
but you scorned me

You hate me, you kick me,
you banish me. Why?

These gifts of mine?

Lost, I sought answers
and at last them did find
with these gifts of mind
But you will not hear me
Why?

These gifts of mine!

I only wanted to help
but you scorned me

And so now I lay
these flowers for Charles
and take my leave of you
With these gifts of mine


By Wolf - 9 May 2012

I just read about Junior Seau's suicide yesterday. I used to live in San Diego and did watch a game or two and of course heard about Junior and saw him play on occassion.

I'm still crying after having read that story. Why? Because I can imagine what it was like for Junior to make the sacrifice he made, and because I may one day benefit from his sacrifice.

I wanted to share with you how empathy works, for those who have lost the skill, or haven't take the time to exercise it in this case. Please make the effort to read this, its worth it.

Junior knew he was suffering from the effects of a brain injury. He was trying to get help, but the medical industry (it used to be a field, think about that...) wouldn't listen, wouldn't do what they needed to do. And I can imagine, as it happens to me all of the time, that his reports of symptoms were ignored, depriving him of decent care and relief from his suffer, but also depriving medical science of important data that could help others.

Because of these facts, Junior had decided to donate his brain to the still existing medical field, which is now strictly relegated to research, not practice, as practice leaves no time for research. Junior wanted to commit suicide, the only way his brain could be donated to research, and almost certainly to end his suffering (I know very much how he feels, fortunately for me I'm quite strong willed - go ahead and criticize me for it, I'm alive to know that your criticism is unfounded.) But Junior had to kill himself in a way which did not harm his brain. This meant that the only way would be loss of blood to the brain. That leaves cutting the blood supply physically, or eliminating the mechanism of delivery: cutting his throat, or shooting himself in the heart.

Imagine you have this choice. Please, really put yourself in this position. You have to do it, you're suffering, and what you do can not only end your suffering, but help others, but the only way to do that is to suffer one last time. Your choices of suffering are a self inflicted cut throat (and the assurance that you complete the job getting both jugulars), or a shot to the heart which is sure to do the job, but perhaps more painful, and certainly leaves you alive longer.

The logical choice is the shot to the heart. You cannot be guaranteed you succeed in cutting both jugulars. But a shot to the heart cannot leave you in a condition that you can be saved. The bad news is that you will feel the pain, a burning explosion into your chest which will throw you backwards, twisting your neck, wrenching your back - mind you these will pale to the pain in your chest and the feeling of fading as you slowly lose blood pressure and thus oxygen to your brain. Junior felt this, the pain probably distracting him from thoughts of his loved ones, of those who would benefit from his sacrifice, perhaps he even shed tears thinking about one person he knew or knew of who might benefit, a little girl at a hospital he visited once perhaps.

Junior died in probably the most horrible and painful method I can inagine. And he did so to help people like me, perhaps you one day if something similar should happen to you - perhaps a car accident, perhaps even a simple fall in your home (mine was an accidental house fire and lack of knowledge of the presence of toxic chemicals.) He endured the worst pain imagineable before dying, something he chose to endure, and inflicted upon himself.

Junior was not "crazy." He suffered from mental issues that I can imagine were not very easy to deal with, but which did not make him "crazy" (the real definition you are thinking of is irrational or psychotic - irrational means not making logical choices/decisions due to distortion of reality; psychotic means not having a complete grasp on reality. He made a rational decision, as evidenced by how he killed himself. He was quite sane when he made that decision, which evidences both his willingness to help others, as well as the degree to which he was suffering from his mental issues.


There are several lessons here. First, I hope you have experienced the emotions Junior went through in his final moments. Empathy is important. If you can feel someone else's suffering, you can prevent yourself from causing them to suffer, or from wanting to. You should also have learned that people with brain damage live tortured lives. But most importantly I think is that you should have learned that everyone has the capability of being generous, selfless, and of making the ultimate sacrifice to help their fellow man.

This article was brought to my attention by a fellow wolf advocate. It is well written, and as you can imagine, I agree with what is said. But I'm posting this article so that you can all see I'm not crazy.

There are three possibilities you need to consider while reading this article. The real fun part for me is that if those who desparage me are to be believed, then you are witness to a conspiracy that I'm not even aware of. This post then, is perhaps the most convincing evidence that you will ever find of my credibility. The three possibilities: the author read my Livejournal and wrote an article about what I said - and a movie was made which states basically the same things; that author is wrong, the movie is wrong, and I'm wrong; or, that the article comes to conclusions that are logical and correct - just like the movie "Zeitgeist: Moving Forward" and everything I've written here in this journal.

In other words, if my "critics" are to be believed: that I'm full of shit and wrong about everything, then this article was written by someone who read my Livejournal, AND an entire movie was made based on my Livejournal. How is this possible? Well, if I'm wrong about things I wrote years before a movie and article were written (as in, I couldn't have gotten the information from the movie or article), then no one would come to the same conclusions and write an article and make a movie based on things which are wrong. And how could three different sources all be wrong in the same way if they conducted their research independently of one another? I guess its technically possible, but would be one hell of a coincidence, wouldn't it?

Really, the only possiblity here is that I've been telling you the truth. But if you still don't believe that, then you have to accept that I have enough influence to inspire a psychologist I've never heard of to write an article, and also inspired a movie and an entire movement. Quite a conundum you're in now, isn't it?

Read the article and find out for yourself. And keep in mind, if I'm right about the things written about in the article, am I perhaps right about other things?

However; when reading this article, realize one thing: there is no "ruling elite" that is to blame for what has happened. The author is absolutely correct about who has done what, but he blames the "ruling elite" as if they intentionally do this. That couldn't be further from the truth. When the author talks about "ruling elite," try substituting "capitalism as a system" instead - the article will make much more sense.

The article was found here

By Bruce E. Levine
-

8 Reasons Young Americans Don't Fight Back: How the US Crushed Youth Resistance

The ruling elite has created social institutions that have subdued young Americans and broken their spirit of resistance.

July 31, 2011


Traditionally, young people have energized democratic movements. So it is a major coup for the ruling elite to have created societal institutions that have subdued young Americans and broken their spirit of resistance to domination.

Young Americans—even more so than older Americans—appear to have acquiesced to the idea that the corporatocracy can completely screw them and that they are helpless to do anything about it. A 2010 Gallup poll asked Americans “Do you think the Social Security system will be able to pay you a benefit when you retire?” Among 18- to 34-years-olds, 76 percent of them said no. Yet despite their lack of confidence in the availability of Social Security for them, few have demanded it be shored up by more fairly payroll-taxing the wealthy; most appear resigned to having more money deducted from their paychecks for Social Security, even though they don’t believe it will be around to benefit them.

How exactly has American society subdued young Americans?

1. Student-Loan Debt. Large debt—and the fear it creates—is a pacifying force. There was no tuition at the City University of New York when I attended one of its colleges in the 1970s, a time when tuition at many U.S. public universities was so affordable that it was easy to get a B.A. and even a graduate degree without accruing any student-loan debt. While those days are gone in the United States, public universities continue to be free in the Arab world and are either free or with very low fees in many countries throughout the world. The millions of young Iranians who risked getting shot to protest their disputed 2009 presidential election, the millions of young Egyptians who risked their lives earlier this year to eliminate Mubarak, and the millions of young Americans who demonstrated against the Vietnam War all had in common the absence of pacifying huge student-loan debt.

Today in the United States, two-thirds of graduating seniors at four-year colleges have student-loan debt, including over 62 percent of public university graduates. While average undergraduate debt is close to $25,000, I increasingly talk to college graduates with closer to $100,000 in student-loan debt. During the time in one’s life when it should be easiest to resist authority because one does not yet have family responsibilities, many young people worry about the cost of bucking authority, losing their job, and being unable to pay an ever-increasing debt. In a vicious cycle, student debt has a subduing effect on activism, and political passivity makes it more likely that students will accept such debt as a natural part of life.

2. Psychopathologizing and Medicating Noncompliance. In 1955, Erich Fromm, the then widely respected anti-authoritarian leftist psychoanalyst, wrote, “Today the function of psychiatry, psychology and psychoanalysis threatens to become the tool in the manipulation of man.” Fromm died in 1980, the same year that an increasingly authoritarian America elected Ronald Reagan president, and an increasingly authoritarian American Psychiatric Association added to their diagnostic bible (then the DSM-III) disruptive mental disorders for children and teenagers such as the increasingly popular “oppositional defiant disorder” (ODD). The official symptoms of ODD include “often actively defies or refuses to comply with adult requests or rules,” “often argues with adults,” and “often deliberately does things to annoy other people.”

Many of America’s greatest activists including Saul Alinsky (1909–1972), the legendary organizer and author of Reveille for Radicals and Rules for Radicals, would today certainly be diagnosed with ODD and other disruptive disorders. Recalling his childhood, Alinsky said, “I never thought of walking on the grass until I saw a sign saying ‘Keep off the grass.’ Then I would stomp all over it.” Heavily tranquilizing antipsychotic drugs (e.g. Zyprexa and Risperdal) are now the highest grossing class of medication in the United States ($16 billion in 2010); a major reason for this, according to theJournal of the American Medical Association in 2010, is that many children receiving antipsychotic drugs have nonpsychotic diagnoses such as ODD or some other disruptive disorder (this especially true of Medicaid-covered pediatric patients).

3. Schools That Educate for Compliance and Not for Democracy. Upon accepting the New York City Teacher of the Year Award on January 31, 1990, John Taylor Gatto upset many in attendance by stating: “The truth is that schools don’t really teach anything except how to obey orders. This is a great mystery to me because thousands of humane, caring people work in schools as teachers and aides and administrators, but the abstract logic of the institution overwhelms their individual contributions.” A generation ago, the problem of compulsory schooling as a vehicle for an authoritarian society was widely discussed, but as this problem has gotten worse, it is seldom discussed.

The nature of most classrooms, regardless of the subject matter, socializes students to be passive and directed by others, to follow orders, to take seriously the rewards and punishments of authorities, to pretend to care about things they don’t care about, and that they are impotent to affect their situation. A teacher can lecture about democracy, but schools are essentially undemocratic places, and so democracy is not what is instilled in students. Jonathan Kozol in The Night Is Dark and I Am Far from Home focused on how school breaks us from courageous actions. Kozol explains how our schools teach us a kind of “inert concern” in which “caring”—in and of itself and without risking the consequences of actual action—is considered “ethical.” School teaches us that we are “moral and mature” if we politely assert our concerns, but the essence of school—its demand for compliance—teaches us not to act in a friction-causing manner.

4. “No Child Left Behind” and “Race to the Top.” The corporatocracy has figured out a way to make our already authoritarian schools even more authoritarian. Democrat-Republican bipartisanship has resulted in wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, NAFTA, the PATRIOT Act, the War on Drugs, the Wall Street bailout, and educational policies such as “No Child Left Behind” and “Race to the Top.” These policies are essentially standardized-testing tyranny that creates fear, which is antithetical to education for a democratic society. Fear forces students and teachers to constantly focus on the demands of test creators; it crushes curiosity, critical thinking, questioning authority, and challenging and resisting illegitimate authority. In a more democratic and less authoritarian society, one would evaluate the effectiveness of a teacher not by corporatocracy-sanctioned standardized tests but by asking students, parents, and a community if a teacher is inspiring students to be more curious, to read more, to learn independently, to enjoy thinking critically, to question authorities, and to challenge illegitimate authorities.

5. Shaming Young People Who Take Education—But Not Their Schooling—Seriously. In a 2006 survey in the United States, it was found that 40 percent of children between first and third grade read every day, but by fourth grade, that rate declined to 29 percent. Despite the anti-educational impact of standard schools, children and their parents are increasingly propagandized to believe that disliking school means disliking learning. That was not always the case in the United States. Mark Twain famously said, “I never let my schooling get in the way of my education.” Toward the end of Twain’s life in 1900, only 6 percent of Americans graduated high school. Today, approximately 85 percent of Americans graduate high school, but this is good enough for Barack Obama who told us in 2009, “And dropping out of high school is no longer an option. It’s not just quitting on yourself, it’s quitting on your country.”

The more schooling Americans get, however, the more politically ignorant they are of America’s ongoing class war, and the more incapable they are of challenging the ruling class. In the 1880s and 1890s, American farmers with little or no schooling created a Populist movement that organized America’s largest-scale working people’s cooperative, formed a People’s Party that received 8 percent of the vote in 1892 presidential election, designed a “subtreasury” plan (that had it been implemented would have allowed easier credit for farmers and broke the power of large banks) and sent 40,000 lecturers across America to articulate it, and evidenced all kinds of sophisticated political ideas, strategies and tactics absent today from America’s well-schooled population. Today, Americans who lack college degrees are increasingly shamed as “losers”; however, Gore Vidal and George Carlin, two of America’s most astute and articulate critics of the corporatocracy, never went to college, and Carlin dropped out of school in the ninth grade.

6. The Normalization of Surveillance. The fear of being surveilled makes a population easier to control. While the National Security Agency (NSA) has received publicity for monitoring American citizen’s email and phone conversations, and while employer surveillance has become increasingly common in the United States, young Americans have become increasingly acquiescent to corporatocracy surveillance because, beginning at a young age, surveillance is routine in their lives. Parents routinely check Web sites for their kid’s latest test grades and completed assignments, and just like employers, are monitoring their children’s computers and Facebook pages. Some parents use the GPS in their children’s cell phones to track their whereabouts, and other parents have video cameras in their homes. Increasingly, I talk with young people who lack the confidence that they can even pull off a party when their parents are out of town, and so how much confidence are they going to have about pulling off a democratic movement below the radar of authorities?

7. Television. In 2009, the Nielsen Company reported that TV viewing in the United States is at an all-time high if one includes the following “three screens”: a television set, a laptop/personal computer, and a cell phone. American children average eight hours a day on TV, video games, movies, the Internet, cell phones, iPods, and other technologies (not including school-related use). Many progressives are concerned about the concentrated control of content by the corporate media, but the mere act of watching TV—regardless of the programming—is the primary pacifying agent (private-enterprise prisons have recognized that providing inmates with cable television can be a more economical method to keep them quiet and subdued than it would be to hire more guards).

Television is a dream come true for an authoritarian society: those with the most money own most of what people see; fear-based television programming makes people more afraid and distrustful of one another, which is good for the ruling elite who depend on a “divide and conquer” strategy; TV isolates people so they are not joining together to create resistance to authorities; and regardless of the programming, TV viewers’ brainwaves slow down, transforming them closer to a hypnotic state that makes it difficult to think critically. While playing a video games is not as zombifying as passively viewing TV, such games have become for many boys and young men their only experience of potency, and this “virtual potency” is certainly no threat to the ruling elite.

8. Fundamentalist Religion and Fundamentalist Consumerism. American culture offers young Americans the “choices” of fundamentalist religion and fundamentalist consumerism. All varieties of fundamentalism narrow one’s focus and inhibit critical thinking. While some progressives are fond of calling fundamentalist religion the “opiate of the masses,” they too often neglect the pacifying nature of America’s other major fundamentalism. Fundamentalist consumerism pacifies young Americans in a variety of ways. Fundamentalist consumerism destroys self-reliance, creating people who feel completely dependent on others and who are thus more likely to turn over decision-making power to authorities, the precise mind-set that the ruling elite loves to see. A fundamentalist consumer culture legitimizes advertising, propaganda, and all kinds of manipulations, including lies; and when a society gives legitimacy to lies and manipulativeness, it destroys the capacity of people to trust one another and form democratic movements. Fundamentalist consumerism also promotes self-absorption, which makes it difficult for the solidarity necessary for democratic movements.

These are not the only aspects of our culture that are subduing young Americans and crushing their resistance to domination. The food-industrial complex has helped create an epidemic of childhood obesity, depression, and passivity. The prison-industrial complex keeps young anti-authoritarians “in line” (now by the fear that they may come before judges such as the two Pennsylvania ones who took $2.6 million from private-industry prisons to ensure that juveniles were incarcerated). As Ralph Waldo Emerson observed: “All our things are right and wrong together. The wave of evil washes all our institutions alike.”

Here's thing. The author is correct in that the "ruling elite" has something to do with this. But, they are products of capitalism, which is to blame. Capitalism requires that things go the way they are going because capitalism can ONLY survive if the "economy" continues to "grow." But "grow" means inflation, and inflation can only happen if there are inefficiencies. So growth means destruction. The very nature of capitalism is a game, because it is a system based on competition between people rather than cooperation. So someone must "win." That's ONE person. Everyone else loses everything. So growth is the trend towards one person having everything. This of course means that concentration of wealth is necessary, designed into the system.

So, the "ruling elite" represents the "winners" in the "game" of capitalism. Unfortunately, they hold all the power and thus all the resources, meaning we depend upon them for our survival - because they control the resources we need to survive. And they aren't likely to let them go, freely.

Why? Psychopathy. Capitalism, I believe, was conceived by psychophaths, people who have no sense of empathy, no ability to put themselves in someone else's shoes, no ability to understand the consequences of their actions. These people use people, period. They exploit. And capitalism is a psychopathic system. Look at the most successful people in capitalism (the ruling elite) and you will find that they are all psychopaths (or just do as I did and research the subject and find out for yourself.)

It is my belief that psychopathy can be treated and even cured. Which I believe is the ideal mechanism by which we can wrestle power back from psychopaths - to declare them all insane and institutionalize them using current legal and political infrastructure.


But that's the ideal situation. Sadly, people aren't as intelligent as they need to be, and can't understand that this is a health problem. Instead of trying to help those who have stolen the world's resources, to cure them and restore them as productive, cooperative members of society, people will almost certainly rise up against them and "solve" the problem with violence.

I know how to solve it without death, without strife, without pain. And you are witness to a transition, the end of this journal. I will soon be presenting my findings to those who would listen. My audience here lacks the sophistication, intelligence, and motivation to be a viable audience any longer. You cannot act upon these truths. You are incapable. But its not your fault. The article should have helped you see that.

I hope some of you have gained something from this journal. I reserve the right to post again now and then, and will likely leave this journal up for the sake of posterity, unless it begins to hamper my other efforts.

Please understand one thing: I care, I really do. I hate no one. I believe everyone who has acted against me did so because they too are victims. Yes, even Smash, and yes, even Siege. That having been said, I do have fear. Remember "The Matrix?" Remember how Neo was told to beware of anyone still plugged in because they could be agents of the system? Guess what? Smash and Siege are "agents of the system." Except that they're victims. Nevertheless, they do represent a real threat to me.

If ANY one of you wishes to talk to me, to discuss these things, even if you are one who hates me, feel free to contact me privately and ask me anything you want to ask. I cannot extend this invitation to Siege or any other psychopath because it will do no good, because I will not have any ability to trust intentions of a psychopath. However; I will offer my theories on treatment, and if Siege or any other psychopath wants treatment, they can have someone contact me and ask what the treatment is. Yes, that does mean I will talk to Smash if he wanted to talk to me. Sadly, psychopaths could possibly be reasoned with, and I could possibly help; but I cannot take the risks involved in dealing with a psychopath in my position - which sadly, is why I will have to go ahead and sue my landlord despite the fact that it will likely hurt others who have come to depend upon him (honestly, the landlord doesn't care about them - he is a psychopath after all, whereas I do - so whatever action I do take, it will be the best action to a: ensure the landlord doesn't mistreat anyone else, and b: is the best possible option for helping others, myself included.)



While I'm having fun of my own, for you, things are going to get really interesting very soon, probably not in a good way, as society begins to enter the next stage of collapse (one I might add that is crucial because here, things can continue to go really bad, or improve slightly - the worst possible scenario; or they could get much better...though that requires something that seems quite impossible: cooperation among people.

There will be some violence in the future, likely the near future. I encourage each of you to be aware of the real problem, capitalism, and to keep that in mind always through this mess we're starting to enter. The goal of this upheaval must be to eliminate capitalism, and that does NOT mean there has to be any violence. If you want to do something, make a friend, agree with someone, and most importantly, talk about these issues, think about what has been said here in the article above, this journal, and elsewhere. Discuss these things with your friends and deal in fact, not opinion. But realize that cooperation is the answer, and it is certainly the only way we citizens have any power. Find agreement with each other. Cooperate for the sake of humanity, because humanity is more important than each of us, because we are each a part of humanity.

There is hope, but we're going to have to work towards it, so be ready to give up everything in your life that you know and that has made you comfortable. After all, most of the problem is that we have become too comfortable with capitalism to see that it is destroying us.

You've said it yourself - "they" want it this way or that. "They" force us to do this or that. "They" make it so hard on us.

"They" usually refers to those who have power over us, at least, that's our perception anyway. "They" are those who know more than we do, who make decisions which affect our lives. "They" have all the answers. "They" make the rules that we have to live by. And "they" control our fate.

But who are "they" really.

Go into your bathroom, stand facing the sink, and look straight ahead of you. Assuming you have a mirror there, you will have your answer. That's right, "they" is none other than you. You are the only person with power over your life. But you are a member of a democratic society, which means you are part of a society which gives its power to its citizenry. This means that those who have power over you, who make the rules, who have all the answers, is you and everyone else.

You see, people who were born before you came together long ago and decided that living together, working together, was a good idea, that it would keep us safe, and allow us some peace of mind. Society was born. And 236 years ago, some gentlemen in New England decided we needed a society that was run by everyone. And this turned us all into "they" by giving us all equal power over each other and ourselves.

But something pretty stupid happened. We decided somewhere along the way to have an economy - a way of distributing and preserving resources for the benefit of the society and all of its members - that required we become a competitive society.

Wait a minute. So what you say. What's the big deal, right? Well, think about it. If we are a society that rules ourselves, we are also a society that rules each other. If we are also then a competitive society, would we want to then make things as easy on ourselves as possible, and as hard on others as possible at the same time? Wouldn't being competitive defeat the purpose of self-rule then, because no one would get along because we would all want to have the advantage so we could have it better than others?

And what about power? Wouldn't it be in your own best interest to have more power, since more power puts you in a better position in society - richer for example? And wouldn't having more power mean you could get more money and thus more power?


So where have "we" gone? Why do "we" no longer have power over our own lives? Because "we" don't exist anymore because "we" is a concept that exists in your mind, or not all. In other words, because you think in terms of "they," "we" cannot exist.

The point is, you don't have power over your own life because you believe you don't. You fail to realize that to have power, you must work together. If people are taking power away from you, it is only by taking allies away from you. If you want to have power over those who have taken it from you, you have to get together with others who have lost their power - and only together do you then have power, and only in numbers sufficient to overcome the power taken by those whom you wish to take power back from.

Guess what: you have to start getting along with others.

How do you do this? How do you get 300 million people who can't see eye to eye on a damn thing, to get along? And how can you make others get along with you? Well, you can't make people get along with you, but you can sure try to get along with others. And that is all you can control - yourself. You can encourage others, educate them even; but you cannot make them get along with you.

However; there is something that is key - and that is to make sure you are up to your potential, to make sure you are the best person you can be. That means making sure you are a good, productive member of society, that you are honest, that you are conservative and smart with your use of resources, that you work to improve society, to make things better for others. If you start to act like a productive member of a cooperative society, others will also, and eventually everyone will be a part of a society made up of people who care about each other and society.

Does this mean you can't be yourself anymore? No, not at all, but it does mean you have to grow up and dispense with childish pleasures and games. This means no more trolling, no more lying, no more covering up for yourself, no more blaming others. It means taking responsibility for your own actions, being respectful and mindful of others and their needs. It means being helpful and generous. And most importantly I believe, it means thinking for yourself - making decisions based on an internal process which looks at what decision is beneficial to the most people for the longest term, instead of just thinking or doing what others do, or tell you to do.

Maturity isn't easy. But being mature has its rewards. You are your own person. No one can tell you that you are this or that. And you have freedom, true freedom. You can literally do whatever you want to do - bearing in mind that you have grown up and no longer do things that are mean or destructive because you realize that harming others harms yourself in the long run. If you don't like your job or your life, you make your own decision and you walk away from it. If you want to be an artists, you make the necessary changes and just do it - you don't wait for someone to hand you want you need to become an artist, you just do it (rather like I did in 2005 when I started making costumes.)

Maturity means not having to deal with anyone telling you what to do or how to run your life - not because there is no one around to do so, but because no one NEEDS to.

On the day after Reginald Denny was famously pulled out of his truck in East LA 20 years ago, I went to work as usual. I was working as a field engineer, my territory being the Wilshire District of West LA. I had a call to fix a copier at an office just West of the 405 on Wilshire Boulevard. At about 2pm, I tried getting a hold of my supervisor - no luck. I called the office. No luck. This was before cell phones, so I paged a few people. Finally I got a call from my supervisor.

He told me to get the heck out of there, that riots had started. I lived in Pasadena at the time. As if Hollywood had scripted it, as soon as I got outside, I noticed the National Guard had pulled up and were assembling nearby. Yup, I got the heck out of there, and quick.

My route home was Wilshire Boulevard to La Brea to the Hollywood Freeway, then on to the 110. Along the way, I would pass a couple of my clients for the last time - several were destroyed, including Sammy's Camera on La Brea. Traffic was light, but there was an unusual feeling in the air. I recall seeing another driver, both of us looking at each other and knowing something wasn't quite right. As we parted ways, I recall wondering if he would make it home, and I could see in his eyes he was probably wondering the same thing.

I lived in an area unaffected by the riots. But the experience and memories will remain with me forever.

And that's the point of things like that - to keep them in mind, to learn from such things. I learned a number of important things, including just what people are capable of in large groups. But America is stubborn, and unfortunately those lessons have been lost.


Soon we may face an event that will trigger far more widespread and violent riots. Trayon Martin, a 17 year old kid who happened to be the wrong color in the wrong neighborhood, represents a very serious resentment building towards the exercize of power. Power is not fair. The ability to control others for nothing more than your own pleasure or personal gain is simply evil, and people know this - even if it is in the back of their minds, hidden behind a brainwashed wall that stands to protect the very system which creates this inequality: capitalism. And in our minds, we know that these two things are connected.

But it is our ignorance which will start riots, not George Zimmerman's acquittal. People will be mistaken in thinking that others are to blame for the death of an innocent. People are constantly using "they" when they refer to unjust laws and when they talk of power and control and inequality. But it isn't "they" who created the injustice that led to the death of Trayvon Martin. "They" is a copout, period. The responsible parties are all of us, meaning we. And that we say "they" is a clear indicator of our inability to take personal responsibility for our part in the way things are. And curiously, the use of "they" separates you not only from the problem, but the solution - demonstrating not only that you don't accept that you helped make things the way they are, but that you are unwilling to help change things.

If people were to use the term "we" instead of "they," we wouldn't have to go through the upcoming riots.

Sadly, nothing can prevent these riots other than fate itself. It is quite likely that George Zimmerman will be acquitted, and that as a result, we will see riots. I have hope only because it is technically possible that something could happen to change these otherwise inevitable events.

Good luck to us all.

Predictions are more art than anything else, because the skills involved are complex, and because they are nearly always made without all of the possible factors being accounted for or known. Anyone can say anything about the future, and those who apply some thinking to the process can even form an opinion about the future. But to make a prediction, you must take as many factors into account as is possible.

To make a prediction about social, political, or economic issues is an immense undertaking. It requires knowledge (not information, knowledge - information committed to memory and understood in context) of history, of human behavior, of changes in human behavior and attitudes, and even awareness of such things as psychology. And since human behavior is not very predictable, at least not accurately, predictions which involve human behavior are difficult to make and often inaccurate.

But, here, today, I am going to make a prediction. Granted, it is made with caution, but it is made nonetheless. I will outline the prediction, then discuss it.

My prediction is that America will undergo a brief economic and even social recovery. But that this will be brief, and will end almost certainly in violence of some form. By brief, I mean no more than 10-15 years, but more likely closer to 3-4 years once in is recognized as a "boom."

This prediction is based on two primary factors. The obvious factor is the coming natural gas boom in the US. We will be capable of supplying a renewed economic boom reminiscent of the now-fading petroleum boom which has lasted about 105 years or so. This boom will seem like a new one, with worries of global warming all but forgotten, and we will almost certainly forgot where we are now, before the boom, and why we are here (easy, since we don't yet acknowledge this fact.)

The not-so-obvious factor is the nature of capitalism is self-preservation - of the system, not those within it mind you. Capitalism wants to survive. And because captalism is based on the false premise of unlimited resources, as long as there is a form of energy available to fuel it, capitalism will rage on as long as it has other resources to exploit - petroleum and soon natural gas merely fuel the ability of capitalism to exploit other resources, including human labor. Capitalism wants to survive, and those who gain the most from it will act to protect the mechanism by which they obtained and maintain their power, their artificial advantage over others (after all, it is only within capitalism that they have an advantage, without capitalism, they are destroyed - from their perspective.)

Every measure will be undertaken to ensure that natural gas supplies capitalism, period. Unless something happens that lets people know how obviously dangerous natural gas is, we will have this boom.


So, why am I telling you this?

Well, for two reasons. One, so that those who believe me can make preparations to have an extra edge going into and especially coming out of the boom. But more importantly, because through prediction, especially such a complex prediction, you will be provided with further reason to give me the benefit of the doubt, to believe me. If I am right about this boom, and more importantly, about its duration and aftermath, you will have far fewer reasons to disbelieve me.

So, how do you prepare for this?

Well, for going into the boom, you'll want to convert your gasoline powered vehicles to run on either CNG (compressed natural gas) or Flex-Fuel, i.e. CNG or gasoline. The latter, while more expensive of an investment, is a better decision because it will allow you to maximize economic efficiency related to fuel purchases. And why now? Because these conversions will become popular and quite expensive as players enter the market to take advantage of the boom. Right now, you can go to a wrecking yard and buy all you need to convert some vehicles for less than a couple hundred dollars. And even new conversion kits are relatively inexpensive. But demand will skyrocket, and soon. And when it does, you will have a hard time finding a good price on a conversion kit.

For the boom itself - play it conservative. This is the last economic book we will ever have, period. After this, America will be a third world country. Your vehicles will work, but you won't be able to put fuel in them because it won't be available. Rather than be tempted to squander the money you will surely make during this coming boom, my suggestion is to use that money to wisely invest in your future.

The safest bet is to satisfy the needs of two different futures at once - one being the future you currently presume to be the inevitiable - the continuation of things as they curretly are; and the alternative future I present, where our economy has died because it was fueled entirely by an unsustainable source of energy.

There are ways to ensure prosperity and happiness in both futures and which do not sacrifice one future for the benefit of the other. Chief among these is investing in and practicing skills which are both practical and lucrative; such as practical arts such as blacksmithing, artistic ventures that also produce tangible and important goods such as costume making (clothing) and mechanical repair and engineering disciplines.

You'll very much want to avoid anything that promises wealth. Getting rich may be all fine and good in a future where capitalism keeps going and going forever; but that future ends, and you don't know when. So it doesn't make sense to plan for that future, does it? Focus instead on practicality and happiness. Do things that will make you happy in a prosperous future, but keep you alive in a future without prosperity.

You'll also want to invest your money wisely, and in things that will have practicality in both futures. Buying stocks for long-term gain isn't wise in a future where money becomes meaningless. But buying and reselling houses might be both lucrative and useful in both futures.

Also, it might be wise to consider education more, and entertainment less. See if you can have the same positive benefits from reading up on automotive repair as you would watching "Transformers versus Zombies" or whatever.


That's enough for you to get started on your own.

Ask yourself this question. Indulge me, as a token gesture for the prior content you have enjoyed in one manner or another here. Just relax, and really consider this question: What if what I say about my health and my situation were true?

What if I really did suffer brain damage? What would it mean? Imagine for a moment that it is true. So what does it mean? What are the symptoms? Could perhaps the "unusual" behavior or whatever it is that bothers you about me be the result of this brain damage?

This is not a futile exercise. You are faced with two possibilities here: either I am actually brain damaged, or I am pretending to be or falsely claiming to be. If I were falsely claiming to be, I would not exhibit symptoms. I do in fact exhibit symptoms, so that is not a valid possibility. If I were pretending to be, I would have to be constantly aware of and acting out symptoms. This would require tremendous intellectual capabilities and organization. It would also require I kept up with all of the available research on the subject and maintained a set of behaviors at all times. Now, I do claim to have been quite intelligent, but even I was not capable of such memory feats as that. And anyone who has met me and especially spent any time in my home can confirm that this is not a possibility.

So what we are left with then is the very real possibility - no, that's not accurate, the very difficult-to-face reality that I am telling the truth. Again, I ask that you continue to indulge me, as I know there will be doubters. That's expected because it is logical.

Assuming then that I am brain damaged, I would exhibit symptoms. I'm not going to taint your thoughts with a list of those symptoms. What I will instead do is ask another favor; either accept that what you observe in me are not deviations, intentional malicious behavior, or incompetence, etc. and are instead the symptoms of the brain damage I suffered; or research the symptoms on your own and learn for yourself how everything is explained by my having suffered brain damage. Perhaps one of you could do the research and share it with others.

Again, I ask you to indulge me, to accept that this is true for this exchange. Assuming then that my brain damage is true, and the symptoms explain everything observed as "wrong" about me; then what? If my claims of injury are true, then wouldn't my claims of need, especially when matched against capability, and perception of capability, also be true? For the sake of the exercise, again assume this to be fact. If things are as bad as I say, or perhaps worse because of cognitive distortion, a symptom of brain damage, then what?

There are two big issues here now. One is my needs. I truly cannot fully take care of myself. I am not capable of being fully independent. I don't need to be in a home, that would kill me to be quite honest. But I need help. This does not mean I expect help from anyone mind you. That is definitely not the case. I do not seek help from everyone I talk to, but I do seek help. So yes, I will ask for help. And if I can't find it, I'll keep asking for it.

Then there is the other issue. I don't think I need to say it. But for the benefit of those who are not guilty, that issue is of course how people treat me. If people treat me the way they do because they do not believe that what they are reacting to is the result of brain damage, who is responsible for their actions? I didn't choose to be brain damaged, thus I didn't choose to be treated the way I have been.


As you can see if you step back and take a look at this post, at what we went through in terms of the though process of coming to a conclusion about something presented as truth but which was dismissed without due attention to whether or not it was true; there is a bit of work involved in thinking things through. But look at it this way, how long did it take? Two, maybe three minutes to read through this, meaning that's about how long it would take to think this through (well, yeah, maybe longer if you did the research). That's not much. And it wasn't difficult. And the results, if you have come to accept them, are profound. without thinking, it is easy to come to the wrong conclusion, and the result is I am treated very poorly considering my situation. By thinking through, even just spending a couple minutes, you come to realize I am injured, am in need, and at the very least, require understanding.

Please bear one thing in mind. I do not expect you to take me at my word. I present to you my situation so that you can determine, on your own, if what I say is true or not. I do not expect you to believe me, rather, I expect you to think it through and do research if necessary (for example if you were going to live with me) and come to your own conclusion. There are people out there capable of some pretty elaborate lies. They are psychopaths. I've met a few. And yes, they were able to fool me, but only because I didn't do my research when it was necessary (they came to live with me, what I fool I was for not checking out their stories.) If I am a psychopath, your research will tell you. And you only need to know that if we are involved in some way that a high enough level of trust is required.


Also, I do not seek attention or sympathy. I seek only understanding, and from some at least, acceptance. But here's the twist: I don't seek this for solely for my own benefit. You would do well to look at things, to look at people differently. Look past the stereotypes. Look to the individual. Would you want to be looked at as a stereotype? You furries should have an easy time of this, you know what its like to be judged by a stereotype. Just as you scream out to be heard as who you are, so do I, and so does everyone else.

That said, I do realize that what I ask is a bit more than most people require. I have issues, I know that. Believe me I know. I don't get a break from them. You do. But that is why I make an effort to be better, to give more.


There is one last favor I would ask. I don't expect most of you to take me up on this, as it requires a leap of faith to make an honest effort of it. What I ask here is, what if I am right about other things? The ultimate interpretation of this question is, what if I am right about everything?

I will leave you with that.

What exactly is maturity?

On the whole, it is nothing more than having reached your developmental potential. Obviously, in some ways, you can never be fully mature. Your mind for example will always develop, even up to the moment of your death.

Maturity relates to development. Physical maturity and reproductive maturity are closely related and deal with the development of the body itself. The brain itself fully develops by an early age, about 5 or 6 I believe. But the processes of the brain continue to develop throughout life; with the most important stages of development being from birth through adolescence, when life skills are learned and identity takes shape. There is however a minimum level, for a level of intellect is required to even have a society. We are the most intelligent species on the planet, and thus have the most advanced societies. But you may not understand that we have the most advanced society because we are the most intelligent. Society depends upon intelligence. It doesn't just happen. And intellect must be maintained at a high enough level for society to continue to exist sustainably.

Emotional maturity is usually reached about the same time as physical and reproductive maturity, though some development does occur later, especially as social relationships develop. Intellectual development never ceases, but potential is reached usually after post-secondary education, college. Intellectual development is also less-clearly defined than others. True intellectual maturity is really relative though, and depends upon the overall intellectual development of society. The more advanced a society becomes, the more advanced its intellectual development should be to maintain a functional society.


So, what IS maturity? It is about being able to do what you are capable of doing. It is about potential. A 6 year old child cannot be expected to be able to weld beams on a 51 story high rise construction project. But a fully developed adult has the brainpower to know how to safely weld, and the physical strength to keep himself balanced and thus alive in such a situation.

What about moral maturity, moral development?

This is far less clearly defined by society, though it is well known about and documented in pyschological circles. Moral development relates to how a person makes moral decisions - right and wrong, good and evil, that sort of thing. It is really about who a person takes to be part of themselves when making decisions that can affect others - perspective in other words. The less mature you are, morally speaking, the fewer you take into consideration. Time is also a factor. A more mature person will consider further into the future, a less morally developed person will consider the future less, if at all.


So, what is moral maturity? When is it achieved? Again, it is less clearly defined, and relates, like intellectual maturity, to the state of society. The more developed a society is, the more mature people are. And as with intellectual maturity, there is a minimum level required for a society to function. Less advanced forms of society can exist, but they require far more "parenting" and thus are more suited to more authoritarian forms of governance. Only more intellectually and morally advanced societies can handle self-rule. A fully intellectually and morally developed society doesn't require governance at all, as only in such circumstances do things like power not need to exist because everyone, by definition, does the right thing.


But what exactly IS maturity?

It is simply making the right decision, doing the right thing. Ideally, the right thing means it benefits society, at the very least, and over the longest term possible. Nearly every decision you make can and does affect others now and in the future. Even things that may not seem to affect others do, especially if they relate to your well being or health. A decision made by a fully developed person will positively benefit everyone else for all eternity, even if in a miniscule way. This is because we are social beings, who exist in a society. And because we exist in a society, and can only continue to exist in a society, everything we do must benefit society in order to benefit ourselves. Everyone is selfish, but a fully developed person, being congnizant of the importance of society to themselves, acts to benefit himself by benefitting society as well. A fully developed person is truly logical.


But what are immature things versus mature things? What about furry and maturity? Are they mutually exclusive?

Absolutely furry does not exclude maturity. In fact, furry would be far better if it were a more mature place. Maturity relates to the benefit of decisions, not to whether or not a person does things "only a child would do." Play is what most people think of when they think of immature behavior. Or rather, most people believe that play, or pretend, are signs of immaturity. No, acting for one's own benefit at the expense of the future or others, is the only true immaturity. Children are immature because they don't know better, not because they play. So no, play is not immature. In fact, play is necessary for learning, and learning is how you become mature. So healthy play, be it passive (enjoyment such as simple pleasure in measured doses solely to recharge oneself) or active (getting out and doing playful activities such as pretending or creating or entertaining) are healthy when taken as educational activities as well as fun things to do. Donning a costume is healthy play because it affords you the opportunity to broaden your persepctive, to see from another's eyes, and to see the reaction you get when you aren't you.

Furry as a distraction, as a form of stress relief in a stressful society is healthy. Add to that participation, especially through wearing of costumes in the right way, and furry can be extremely healthy, even to all of society.

But don't mistake this for justification for what the fandom has become. Play in the wrong forms is destructive to development just as it is for developing children. When furry becomes pleasure for pleasure's sake, or a secret we keep from our loved ones, it isn't a good thing. Worse, when furry becomes a child's game - trolling for example - it becomes counterproductive - worse than if it didn't exist at all. Furry then is an example of something with the potential to be quite good for society, but which when handled improperly, immaturely, can be quite destructive.

Oh, and a thought - yes, society does judge the fandom. But that judgment is based on an unrecognized internal acknowledgment that it is is in fact destructive in its current form, as a gathering place for the immature to become even more immature. That criticism by society is supposed to drive you to act more mature, to demonstrate to society that they are wrong. Instead, furries use it as justification for even more immaturity.


So, what is maturity?

Freedom from stupidity.

Because maturity is the result of development, and because moral and intellectual development related to decision making - developmental maturity is the achievement of the ability to make decisions correctly. Conversely, stupidity is the inability to make a decision correctly when all the factors for making a correct decision are available. Stupidity is merely lack of maturity in those who should be mature.

If you have been contacted via any method, especially if you have me on your watchlist on FA, please let me know immediately. If you have been, please save the HTML or a screenshot of the page and get it to me.

I've been told that someone is contacting people on FA who watch my account and harassed. This person could be my ex. If that is the case, I need to know right away, because he may well know where I live now, and may be trying to get to me to kill me. Whether or not he has violent intentions is not a debate I can have. Once I get this evidence, I will use it to file a federal restraining order and I will file charges for stalking. As I'm a California residence, and Siege is also to the best of my knowledge, I can easily get the restraining order and even have law enforcement investigate the matter as a violent criminal act and possibly even arrest him. The fact that he is harassing people about me 5 years after I kicked him out is quite clear evidence of stalking, and because he physically abused me, I can also bring up those facts and have him charged with domestic abuse, and it also bolsters my stalking case, and actually, makes it a felony case.


What you folks need to understand, if you don't already, is that my life is in danger if Siege is still actively stalking me. I had assumed he gave up and was letting Smash do all the work. But now it seems like Smash is merely helping Siege stalk and harass me. Those of you who are helping to harass me need to understand that you are participating in a felonious activity that can get you thrown in jail for upwards of 10 years, possibly more, especially if anything violent happens against me, in which case, you become an accessory. I mean, I really don't care...keep it up all you want, but don't say I didn't warn you. There's no reason you should be harassing me, so if you are going to continue to insist on harassing and stalking me, you should understand that you could go to jail. It's not likely, but its entirely possible. Also, since I am planning to sue Smash (and perhaps Siege too), I may very well add the more prominent trolls as co-defendants for the federal conspiracy charge.

"Obamacare," the name even being endorsed by the Obama administration itself, is the center act in the three ring circus that is American politics. At the heart of the matter is the so-called "individual mandate" which requires all Americans who are eligible to purchase health insurance. We'll look at the legal aspects of this, but first, lets examine the matter from the inside out - from the stage 2 maturity of most Americans, to the Stage 5 and beyond level of maturity required for Democracy.

At stage two are the Republicans. Here is a cabal of children, more concerned with sheer obedience and popularity (an aspect of hedonism) than with the purpose of the law. So childish are their actions and words in this that they forget two very important facts: one, "Obamacare" is precisely what "Romneycare" was to Massachusets, including, and especially, its own individual mandate. So remember that when you hear the Republicans' derogatory reference to Obamacare, and their arguments against the individual mandate. The idea was good enough for Massachusets when it was proposed and pushed through by Republicans, but when a Democratic adminstration and Congress pushed one through, they fought it all the way.

And speaking of the fight, here's the real clincher in this whole thing: the "individual mandate" in the federal version of the law, now known as "Obamacare" was the result of Republican insistence that they would not support a single payer option.

So, not only are Republicans complaining about something they originally thought of, they are also complaining about something they made Democrats put in the legislation in order to get it passed.

Mind you, Democrats are no better. They agreed to this nonsense, and are now blindly supporting it in their shortsighted, but not-so-shortsighted-as-Republicans stage of moral development because they believe it to be the right thing to do.

So, we have pre-conventional Republicans and conventional stage of moral development represented by Democrats. But what about the post-conventional moral development, what does it say about Obamacare and the individual mandate? In other words, from the perspective of society, is the individual mandate a good idea?


Absolutely not. It only considers commerce. And, as you will soon see, it is factually a violation of the US Constitution.

Democrats were closer to post-conventional moral perspective when they were proposing the single-payer option. What the single-payer option would have meant was free healthcare for all, paid for by our taxes (at a significantly lower rate than we currently pay for health insurance - yes, even lower than what you pay your employer!) and which would have eliminated at minimum 50% of the overhead of the current system, which is what the health insurance industry represents. That's right folks, commerce, business, PROFIT, means we pay twice as much for health care as we should. And I don't have to tell you that paying twice as much doesn't give us twice the quality...it gives is about 1/5th the quality we would have without the need for profit.

And most of you have forgotten what profit is. Your paycheck, that's not profit. Profit is making something out of nothing. It is charging someone for the simple notion that you provided something they believed they needed, not including compensation for the provision of that service. Your paycheck doesn't represent you profiting from your labor, it actually represents you being used and compensated less than what you are worth (because the market determines the value of your labor, and the market must make profit, therefore you are compensated at less than what you are worth so that a profit margin can be made.) Therefore, your paycheck represents profit by someone else!

But back in my day, the healthcare industry was not a for-profit industry. Services were provided at costs, and those who did the work were compensated through salaries, salaries which in this case did not represent someone else's profit. Back in my day, doctors made so much money that they golfed on Fridays because working another day would put them up into a higher tax bracket, reducing their takehome pay. Doctors were better motivated to provide care, and you didn't pay $400 to see a doctor for 15 minutes, you got a full half hour for $50 back then.

Profit is not good for society. Profit only occurs where there are inefficiencies. It is perfectly okay, morally speaking, to engage in commerce for-profit, but not when the our very lives are in the equation. Commerce-for-profit should be strictly limited to things society does not NEED. Our resources, all of our resources, are limited. Trade in profitable good should be limited to luxuries, if it even exists at all. It certainly does not need to. If that were true, we would have been born with money, right? No other species uses it.


So from the broader, post-conventional perspective, no, the individual mandate is not right, but not for the reasons Republicans site. Republicans are fighting the individual mandate not because it is unconstitutional (they ignore that document, its just an old piece of paper after all) but because it takes profit from insurance companies. As I said, profit is the result of inefficiencies. And the individual mandate reduces efficiency. Yes, more people will have insurance, but because more people have it, everyone pays less. And because everyone is paying less, the profit margin is reduced (that's why oil companies make more profit when gas prices are higher, profit is a PERCENTAGE of revenue.)


And now you know a lot more than our government does...