I’m one of the nicest and most unassuming people you’d ever meet. All I wanted was a simple life with a woman who loves me, kids, a garden, a dog, and to be happy. I’d worked hard, for years, sorting out my personal crap and the potential was there. Then, these closet-gay fuckers called neo-cons, went out of their way to louse up my journey to happiness. On account of that fact, this ‘literary endeavor’ came into being this is an autobiographical novel assembled around various essays deliberately intended to provoke outrage, get teeth grinding, and to put really creepy bugs up stupid people’s butts. Thinking people, on the other hand, could learn a lot reading here.
In a world in which 48% of adult Americans believe modern man was ‘created’ in his present form precisely in 4004 BC or alternatively, within the past ten thousand years, and Christian fundamentalism drives the wildly popular sales of Tim LaHaye’s “Left Behind” series of books in which the ‘Anti-Christ’ manifests on Earth as the Secretary General of the United Nations, not to mention the Christian fundamentalist belief ‘Armageddon’, the Biblical war of the end of civilization set in the Middle East, must occur for the Christian faithful to advance to Heaven and now is the time…
(The Economist, Special Report on Faith and Politics), one should shudder at the “The New Wars of Religion.” And particularly moving into 2011 with the USA’s military neo-cons pushing for a war with Iran I was already acutely aware of the issues as put forward by the Economist’s writers, and I in fact have a deeper understanding of the underlying issues of Christian fundamentalism in some small regard at least, having been to Bible College as one of my several failed stops in attempts at social reintegration following my roughly one and one half years in a war zone, witnessing Man’s violence on Man.
Both the war and Bible college, in retrospect, were a very American experience. The first time I put on a flight helmet and a little later reached up and flipped the ‘Nav’ toggle switch on the small console in the gunner’s seat of a Bell UH-1H helicopter, magically the Beach Boys were singing “Good Vibrations” in my helmets headphones as I watched the jungle canopy move a few feet below the landing skids on our aircraft. I was young, I was new and it was exciting, I won’t lie to you. I was thrilled. I was not thrilled, however, one and a half years after, on my departure date of November 8th, 1971, after having participated in this corporate profiteering war against “Godless Communism.”
The subsequent mental violence I encountered at Azusa Pacific College (now university) seemed no less ugly, in retrospect, the student intellectual violence over matters of doctrine. To be honest, I have been sorting out both experiences ever since.
Do I believe in God? No. Am I an Atheist? No. Nor am I Agnostic. It seems to me that everybody has got it wrong. At least in Western Civilization, which has overtaken the world, and I would argue includes Islam and the classic Far East cultures. Any child should be able to grasp that a Human species which harvests life sustaining nature at a pace exceeding life sustaining nature’s ability to regenerate, is pointed to a wrong direction. Let’s keep it there for a moment, child and species.
The math is kinder garden. The entire Human species is complicit, or soon will be, 9 with the destruction of the last wild habitat of a possible handful of Amazon tribes not yet assimilated, to sustained economic development. Sustained economic development is the present western economic model which has overtaken the world, stemming from the Industrial Revolution of America and Europe. To deny this is tantamount to claiming the Moon is made of Green Cheese. Like I once heard a Black woman comedian claim: “Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt”
Science and Religion, the great argument, both have it wrong. Science cannot deny it has provided the means to destroy the planet through provision of technology. Religion cannot deny it has failed to instill sustainable Human values that would prevent the planet’s destruction. Environmentalism as we know it, is a joke too, just more denial. Because the planet has produced a principle of cancer, Sustained Development, where we have already reached a point of no return for civilization, as we know it.
To return to a balanced state in Nature, at the least in a presently unchanging social circumstance, most of Humanity must die. If the world’s leading scientists already know this, then they are lying to you by withholding the information or perhaps it is a ‘State Secret.’ Maybe none of them wants to be the first to stand up and say in no uncertain terms “It is all over for us.” If they do not know it, they are just plain stupid
This can all be covered up by arguing that Religion is even more stupid. That would be correct if something could be done about it. That is the problem. Nothing can be done about Religion except tell ignorant people the truth, everyone is almost certainly going to die on the present path. Of course to the ignorant Christian fundamentalists, that translates, yes, everyone except us, because we get to go to Heaven.
They actually believe that, and that only makes them equal to those scientists that believe there is a possible ‘saved by science’ future, the greatest of oxymoron. Science put us in this circumstance and asking Science to save us is like using wild land fire control technique in the urban setting: Lighting a backfire. Set fire to the bottom of the building to take fuel away from the fire raging at the top of the building. It makes about as much sense. Here we live in an existence where Sustained Economic Development’s exploitation of nature allows a Saudi prince to own an Airbus 380 super-jumbo jet as a personal flying palace, a $300 million, 240 foot double deck fuselage with a wingspan just short of the length of a football field weighing in at 560 tons. A resource devouring colossus for friends and family that is nothing short of the western world’s greatest individual expression of what I have named “Ego Priapism.”
What would be our world’s foremost collective expression of Ego Priapism?
Space exploration. What is the point of exploring Space? To create an Ark, to escape our planet wide self-destructive madness? Our Human race should be quarantined. Or we should kill the most massive ecologically destructive projects of science and technology, such as Super Jumbo jets and Space exploration and the immense resource demands of these lunacies, as an investment in intelligence.
And as an argument to the Cosmos and Mother Nature that we are worth having around. It makes more sense to make that statement, than to pander to the planet-wide life threatening technological aggressions of Science or the moral aggressions of Religion. Because in the end, they are both exactly that: The same Mental Aggressions. The bed partners that screw out of biological drive and hate, they hate themselves and hate each other with the resource raping of the entire planet, attended by technologically driven wars of faith and religion. It’s all the same thing folks. I’m calling it ‘Honky Mentality’, regardless of Race. Because it all began with the Industrial Revolution, and that happened in Honkydom In the following ‘Novel’ I am going to take a little bit of Tim LaHaye’s “Left Behind” Anti-Christ away from him, reduce this bit of Anti-Christ to a good guy that is a Devil, albeit a harmless but otherwise highly threatening to peoples common fears Devil, to make a point.
That point would be that I was able to learn more about Western Civilization’s foibles of science and religion from a man that had never been to school, completely illiterate, but spoke seven (now dying) Native American languages fluently and who was able to show me reality that does not exist for most of today’s world however, a reality that was once the predominant intelligence of at least two continents: The Americas. He showed me more real intelligence than any Western education, secular or religious, by far. It is a sometimes ‘satyrically’ MEAN read. But it is lucid, something lacking in our increasingly maddened world of the faith driven politics of Religion and the equally ignorant secular god named Science.
If there were actually such a thing as a Native American god, it would be androgynous and its name likely would be “Lucid.” Of course the typically paranoid fundamentalist Christians would note the first four letters of that Native god’s name and freak out at the idea of Lucifer. Fine by me.
It occurs to me to say an Anti-Christ might not be such a bad thing if one were to dispassionately study Christian fundamentalism. Christianity is a schizophrenic religion and the fundamentalists have the one half of it: that half following the teachings of Saint Paul. Paul’s intolerant teachings are diametrically opposed to the teachings of the Jesus who preached tolerance. It was Paul who made Jesus into the ‘Christ’ from whom we learn our cannibalistic social attitudes: concerning deferred responsibility for our behaviors and meanwhile pursuing the destruction of our planet.
It has been established in research it was Paul’s followers who put the words on Jesus lips to conform Jesus to the idea of their supremacy and disregard of living an intelligent, responsible and accountable life. These monotheists need not concern themselves with intelligent living on Earth because they all have a better place to go to. This fundamentalism, in one form or other, has been around a long time. If an Anti-Christ came along to undo a bit of Paul’s work and get people pointed more towards the original ideas of, one could say the ‘un-Christianized’ ideas of the Jesus of history, that would be a good thing. I had a Nazarene professor who had a great regard for some of the secular writers, particularly Albert Camus. He had arrived at the conclusion atheism is Christian civilization’s prodigal son, the rebellious runaway living in denial. He got that right.
Because the behaviors all stem from the same mental structures, whether secular or religious, for both.
What he could not experience at all, and at that time neither could I, was the thought there could be non-Western mental structures framing an altogether different reality. This is on account of the Western Ego, which in a way, can only see its-self in its ‘imprisment.’ This small book, a mere ‘novel’ of hard hitting social criticism through satire, sets out to explore framing that ‘other reality’
Each segment and character has a point. If you become caught up in either mirth or outrage at the more crude or rude assertions, you will miss those points. So, hate it, love it, but above all pay attention if you want to get it. Up front, here it what ‘getting it’ is all about. People who cannot look at their behaviors, cannot let go of their behaviors. Psychologically ‘imprismed’ mentality, i.e. the Western Ego, cannot see anything beyond the mirror image self. That image must be broken for any individual, or even the World, to be healed
This book is an experiment in juxtaposing idiocy with intelligence, callousness with sensitivity, the obscene with the sacred and chauvinism with feminine awareness. It is a twisted book, deliberately. What might have seemed sympathetic or even smart ideas are sometimes trashed by inverting roles. By the end, a thinking person should question not the intelligence of Humanity, but solely the intelligence of Western Civilization.
I am only good to the Indians. Whether their skins are White or Red (or Black or Yellow.) Why?
The most recent genetic research has all sorts of politically correct Social Scientists freaking out at the idea it will be misconstrued to bear out White Supremacy in intelligence. Their own lack of intelligence is to fail recognizing there are different kinds of intelligence in Humans. These politically correct scientists measure by a yardstick that is culturally biased to Western Science which originated with Western (European) mentality or intelligence, a world-wide contagious and malevolent social Phenomena Anyone can learn this mentality to one degree or another, but how useful is it?
Perhaps other people’s genetics are predisposed to an intelligence the European cultures do not know how to measure. Or perhaps it is merely a matter of how our brains are organized differently in disparate cultures. Read and think about it.
I thoroughly enjoy both your poetry and prose, not to mention moral and physical courage.
Which is why I was a bit disappointed with this piece.
"Perhaps other people’s genetics are predisposed to an intelligence the European cultures do not know how to measure"
And perhaps the center of the Earth is made of green cheese and it really is "turtles all the way down."
Our species is just a bridge, one that will be dispensed with once the purpose is served. Europeans were the midwife, the others a failed experiment which earned them a seat in the peanut gallery rather than center stage. That is all.
Speaking of cognition, you clearly possess enough of it that I think you would really enjoy this exposition on Life by Jeremy England.
quantamagazine.org/20140122-a-new-physics-theory-of-life
for a full talk (the second half gets into the weeds too much unless you have at least an ungrad background in bio or physical chemistry):
google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwixmbzi0N_OAhUIS2MKHav2DewQtwIIHjAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3De91D5UAz-f4&usg=AFQjCNFEyFExA_RXxjueusihvoHpiMMI9g&sig2=OriAp_5ZHb-aumveNewOLw
Mark, I did not realize that Ron West wrote poetry.
If you have a link to one of his pieces I'd like to check it out. I'm thinking of trying my hand at a short poem at some point. He's out of contact now, so I can't request it from him.
Thanks for the links.
James
Finally, a writer with the courage and originality to go after white Christians! And he has the intellectual rigor to rightfully mock creationists and teach geneticists and psychometrists a thing or two! He will cover Gaia worship and we can only hope he goes after the dreadful patriarchy and all our bases will be covered. Careful James, Salon.com or the Atlantic might swoop in and steal this talent! Lol.
I see the results of runaway consumerism, materialism, I have my own slang for it, I operate water and sewer systems, everyday I see growth for the sake of growth, resources squandered, trees cut for no logical reason to me, winter range elk and deer are dependent upon for survival, with 10 million dollar homes now taking the space. I had to listen to a guy from the elite rich, brag that this was his 5th home, preceded to name the other states where he has taken a dump on the earth, the only answer I had, not wanting to lose my job was WOW, that's a lot of dead trees! We need a new way of thinking, Ron is not a communist, I can't speak for him but I think I know some of what he is taking about. I too sat in church, listen to some nut tell me capitalism was approved and inspired by God, after 5 minutes of this BS, I thought of running a cheese grater across my forehead, or gouge my eyes out, got up and left, never went back. I sent the quote that Sitting Bull made, I hope it came from his lips, need my way back machine to know for sure. I too related better to some of the Navajo, and Utes I grew up, around, not all, because they were poisoned by the modern approach, to finish raping the planet. As Ron would say give a think, keep a open mind, read his words, my opinion, there is great wisdom here. Ishmael
"...Perhaps other people’s genetics are predisposed to an intelligence the European cultures do not know how to measure. Or perhaps it is merely a matter of how our brains are organized differently in disparate cultures. Read and think about it..."
Yes our thinking is different. You say that to survive that 90% of the population needs to die. I say you go first and for myself I'll try another way. What if instead of just giving up we tried to marshal unused resources. A guy fertilized the oceans and got record breaking tuna in the fisheries in Alaska. The US government should be fertilizing the oceans as a common good.
scientificamerican.com/article/fertilizing-ocean-with-iron-to-save-salmon-and-earn-money
One half of all land is in desert or poor condition for normal crops but we can grow plants there that use seawater to grow in. Making food and fuel.
solar-center.stanford.edu/sun-on-earth/seawater.html
ozy.com/fast-forward/saltwater-saviors/30923
We can harness the temperature difference in the tropical sea with a vortex power plant. After one plant is built it can be used to create floating islands with the power plants electricity. The electricity can be used to make concrete (actually Carbocrete) to make more vortex islands. It’s a exponential function. Getting bigger and bigger faster and faster so that theoretically you could make enough islands with greater than first world power consumption and living standards for every person on the planet in fifteen years.
powermag.com/harnessing-energy-from-upward-heat-convection
vortexengine.ca/index.shtml
You really should read this by James Bowery it’s terribly interesting and shows the power of exponential function processes and what they can do.
jimbowery.blogspot.com/2014/05/introduction-extinction-of-human-race.html
Did you read the above link? Don’t miss it it’s a good one.
Elon Musk is rapidly pushing space launches into the super affordable. He’s landing lower stages of his two stage rocket on a barges. His fuel cost for each launch is only about $200,000. If he could reuse his rockets you see the cost coming rapidly down. In space is a vast unbelievable amount of resources. One little piddly asteroid is worth trillions and would supply the whole planet with metals at low cost for a while.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_9
1st. A new genetic engineering technique called CRISPR will dramatically increase the rate of genetic engineering of plants and animals. It is entirely possible to have fields of wheat nut trees with shells like pecans or meat melons with pesticides only in the shells. This will come much faster than you think. They're already planning gene therapy of kids using this technique.
2nd. There's lots of oil left and a huge vast amount of nuclear material that can be used in molten salt reactors. MSR can burn nuclear waste that we have piled up. We have thousands of years worth of WORLD capacity just sitting in storage cask. This doesn't even take into account all the uranium and the massive amounts of Thorium that can be burned. Thorium is more plentiful than lead.
3rd. We can grow lots of crops in places where we aren't now. They're using new tech to grow food in the desert and in saline water.
4th. There are several small nuclear fusion teams that look like they will be successful. There's also cold fusion or Low Energy Nuclear Reactions that while not completely understood work beyond any doubt. They can turn cheap nickel powder into heat and copper. Very low cost.
solar-center.stanford.edu/sun-on-earth/seawater.html
So yes you and I do think different.
I hope your technology saves you, I think by the time we reach these goals you speak of, we will have destroyed the planet, I have seen both sides of the coin, I clean water for drinking and discharge, work with technology every day? We cause a lot of problems that are unexpected by the engineers, we tend to build a cart sometimes, worry about the horse later. I can safely say we uncover problems that designers never saw coming, I'm a common operator of these million dollar systems, I know of the resources taken from this earth, most of it comes from across the ponds, China, Russia, Africa, South America, hear about the pollution, or have you seen it for youself? We test the water every month, I know what it contains, think a moment about Chernobyl, the air in Beijing, take a swim in the feces in Brazil, go live in Africa, spend some time with the miners there, read up on the problems fertilizers cause to seas and fresh water, fish have to take a shit too, concentrate them in small areas, read about algae blooms, the oxygen it takes out of the water when it dies, I see the drugs that we can't treat for going back into the rivers, you know we all pee! Oops urinate, estrogen affects the fish we eat, chemotherapy, all the drugs the witch doctor prescribes, I try to clean it up so you can consume it, enough from me, now I'm getting pissed, technology causes huge amounts of by products, I know the bury it out in the western deserts, were no one can see it, yet. Ishmael
Don’t worry Ishmael, we can’t destroy the planet. We can only destroy ourselves. And then we’d probably botch that. But the Earth abides. Has for 4.55 billion years and will last for another 3-6 billion more. Take Chernobyl as an example:
worldanimalfoundation.org/earth-and-animals-magazine/2015/10/CHERNOBYL-A-NATURE-PRESERVE
“In 1986, after a fire and explosion at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant released radioactive particles into the air, thousands of people left the area, never to return. Now, researchers have found that the Chernobyl site looks less like a disaster zone and more like a nature preserve, teeming with elk, roe deer, red deer, wild boar, and wolves”…”The relative abundance of elk, roe deer, red deer, and wild boar within the exclusion zone are now similar to those in four uncontaminated nature reserves in the region, the researchers report. The number of wolves living in and around the Chernobyl site is more than seven times greater than can be found in those nature reserves…"…”These unique data showing a wide range of animals thriving within miles of a major nuclear accident illustrate the resilience of wildlife populations when freed from the pressures of human habitation," says Jim Beasley, a study co-author at the University of Georgia.”
FYI: elk in this article refers to European elk, AKA “moose” (everything in North America is misnamed: the jack rabbits aren’t really rabbits, the antelope aren’t antelope and the buffalo aren’t buffalo). Also European bison and European brown bear have also made a major comeback in the Chernobyl exclusion zone. On top of that Ukraine is currently exploring the establishment of an enormous solar panel farm in Chernobyl since they can’t use the real estate for anything else: bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-27/chernobyl-s-atomic-wasteland-may-be-reborn-with-solar-energy. The lesson of Chernobyl then is that a good sized nuclear war that wipes out major portions of the world’s human population could probably do an all right job of restoring the environment. Following this with a global pandemic like the Spanish Flu might help too. In less time than we might imagine possible most everything would be back the way it was before Man screwed it up. Perhaps this is what Mr. West is hoping for, given his assertion that “To return to a balanced state in Nature, at the least in a presently unchanging social circumstance, most of Humanity must die”. However outside of North Korea nobody with the perquisite capability seems at all anxious to start a genocidal atomic war (and the NK’s just appear to be full of nothing but bluster). So what IS the plan to eliminate most of the 7.4 Billion human beings living on the Earth and thus return to a “balanced state in Nature”? Like they taught me in the Army, “Hope is Not a Method”.
I was going to write a thoughtful, measured response to these misrepresentations of Christianity, but Lynn's response is better.
As to the charge Paul took over the Christian faith, which is something Muslims believe, I'll leave you with the response to the Muslims:
theaquilareport.com/the-problem-with-the-islamic-view-of-paul-qureshi
Thanks Jeremy, it is painful for me to see a tree cut, for a castle for two inhabitants, elk killed for antlers only, left to rot in the sun. Bear shot for a gall bladder, pollutants discharged into a river, when no one is looking, I hope the environmental science group, come up with answers. I think that is my message, earth will abide, maybe without we Homo sapiens, that's what I'm working for to avoid! Ishmael.