"Hello Sir, what can I get you".
"I´d like a cup of tea".
"We only do Breakfast Tea mate, none of that green bollocks....."
Great to be back in Blighty!
Tuesday, 21 December 2010
Saturday, 4 December 2010
WikiLeaks & the Potential for New Histories
There are many collective questions being provoked by the WikiLeaks exposures.
How much do we really want to know?
Do we trust our leadership?
What cost for transparency?
The public seems to be buying into the call by government and mass media to stop
WikiLeaks and put Assange on trial.
When a system is under threat, it responds by attacking the assailant.
What is interesting is that it is not only the US government (one senator has
called for Assange´s assassination) who are after Assange.
Even friends of mine on the left, as well as political apathetics seem to have it in for
him.
People identify and believe in the system more than they care to admit at a dinner
party. They are happy to talk anarchical politics but when push comes to shove, and something threatens them - they get afraid. They protect. They yearn to uphold the status quo.
The justifiable problem most people have with the Leaks is with the potential human fall out.
This is without doubt a major concern. For most, the threat to an individual
life is too great a cost for information.. And it is an utterly humane stand point.
Let the state keep its secrets, that is why it is elected after all - to be the custodian of that which we don´t want to know.
But it is also philosophically bankrupt.
The notion that the machinery of the state is fundamentally sound, good or trustworthy is utter nonsense.
These machines have existed in secrecy and all too often without unaccountability for centuries, and you can find then at the heart of every war, assassination, deprivation and torture since time began.
Jesus, the last American administration sanctioned mass torture for crying out loud.
And still we would rather not know.
We rail against Assange because his revelations threaten innocents.
Yet we don´t want to look at our own complicity in the terrible deprivation of things,
upheld by our own votes.
And here is the point for me.
WikiLeaks is not about challenging (necessarily) government. It is about challenging the
the very systems that control government.
Governments come and go, but the state machine - business, the military sector,
the vested interests of the very rich & powerful - stay.
The government is essentially an illusion. It is the mask the devil wears, or the
puppet the puppet master wields.
Julian Assange is not a terrorist and he is not a freedom fighter. He is just a vessel.
The systems which have not been challenged or exposed, or held accountable for
centuries are now having to face up to a new phenomenon.
Our society is porous and the old static systems are under threat from the new
technologies.
Assange is a symptom of this, not the cause. He is just a consequence of evolution.
What he does or doesn´t do someone else will.
And if we believe that there are not misdeeds and manipulations happening behind
close doors, then we are just fools.
New frontiers are opening, and change necessarily means a degree of suffering.
That is not to justify any threat to any human life, how ever could you?
But you have to face the reality of what is happening sociologically.
And if you think that governments are best left to deal with things then you just have
to look at any page in your history manual.
There have been just wars. But so few.
The new world is unfolding before our eyes. It will not collapse under its own weight.
But it will be threatened. And there will be fall out. And there will be casualties.
But the history we come from is not the one that we have to live in. There is the
potential for new, richer histories. Do we have the courage to build them?
There needs to be more openness and accountability. It is the only way that
human greed, vanity, lust and desire for power can ever be held in check.
I am for Julian Assange.
How much do we really want to know?
Do we trust our leadership?
What cost for transparency?
The public seems to be buying into the call by government and mass media to stop
WikiLeaks and put Assange on trial.
When a system is under threat, it responds by attacking the assailant.
What is interesting is that it is not only the US government (one senator has
called for Assange´s assassination) who are after Assange.
Even friends of mine on the left, as well as political apathetics seem to have it in for
him.
People identify and believe in the system more than they care to admit at a dinner
party. They are happy to talk anarchical politics but when push comes to shove, and something threatens them - they get afraid. They protect. They yearn to uphold the status quo.
The justifiable problem most people have with the Leaks is with the potential human fall out.
This is without doubt a major concern. For most, the threat to an individual
life is too great a cost for information.. And it is an utterly humane stand point.
Let the state keep its secrets, that is why it is elected after all - to be the custodian of that which we don´t want to know.
But it is also philosophically bankrupt.
The notion that the machinery of the state is fundamentally sound, good or trustworthy is utter nonsense.
These machines have existed in secrecy and all too often without unaccountability for centuries, and you can find then at the heart of every war, assassination, deprivation and torture since time began.
Jesus, the last American administration sanctioned mass torture for crying out loud.
And still we would rather not know.
We rail against Assange because his revelations threaten innocents.
Yet we don´t want to look at our own complicity in the terrible deprivation of things,
upheld by our own votes.
And here is the point for me.
WikiLeaks is not about challenging (necessarily) government. It is about challenging the
the very systems that control government.
Governments come and go, but the state machine - business, the military sector,
the vested interests of the very rich & powerful - stay.
The government is essentially an illusion. It is the mask the devil wears, or the
puppet the puppet master wields.
Julian Assange is not a terrorist and he is not a freedom fighter. He is just a vessel.
The systems which have not been challenged or exposed, or held accountable for
centuries are now having to face up to a new phenomenon.
Our society is porous and the old static systems are under threat from the new
technologies.
Assange is a symptom of this, not the cause. He is just a consequence of evolution.
What he does or doesn´t do someone else will.
And if we believe that there are not misdeeds and manipulations happening behind
close doors, then we are just fools.
New frontiers are opening, and change necessarily means a degree of suffering.
That is not to justify any threat to any human life, how ever could you?
But you have to face the reality of what is happening sociologically.
And if you think that governments are best left to deal with things then you just have
to look at any page in your history manual.
There have been just wars. But so few.
The new world is unfolding before our eyes. It will not collapse under its own weight.
But it will be threatened. And there will be fall out. And there will be casualties.
But the history we come from is not the one that we have to live in. There is the
potential for new, richer histories. Do we have the courage to build them?
There needs to be more openness and accountability. It is the only way that
human greed, vanity, lust and desire for power can ever be held in check.
I am for Julian Assange.
Friday, 3 December 2010
Other People´s Definition of it....
It is something about being okay about being outside love, okay about being inside
failure, or at least other people´s definition of it.
If you are always needing to be in the safe, in the warm, in the content I guess there
is always the threat of the worlds intent.
You get ripped apart by your longing, and your longing is what gives life its shape,
its romance, its character. You sacrafice your longing at your peril.
And I can´t be damn well be bothered to justify or compare whatever the hell I am going
through in this moment to the terrors & tyrannies of the world.
It is just what it is, for right or wrong, good or bad. And I feel that we have the right to live, sometimes at least, in our own moment.
Because each of us has our little sacrifices made. Each of us has our compromises. Each
of us has our little lies, our slightly bigger secrets, and our manifold imperfections.
Can you live with the imperfections? Can you thrive in the imperfection?
I don´t give a dam if our bodies are just a conspiracy of sub-atomical primates
plotting together to shape our actions. In fact I am all the better for it because there
is the dam mystery, and there my next dam justification and I will puff gladly on
this cigarette that I am not smoking, and I will look beseechingly at the stars that
I cannot see for a better tomorrow, and if you want to get in the way of these
longings, then dam you to hell with all my other damnations, someone will surely
come to rescue you anyway, but it won´t be me.
And what of forgiveness? Forgiveness for all of those fantasies of wrong doing that
just don´t matter a dam in the smaller or greater scheme of things.
But I heard wisdom once or twice in my life.
And one time it was given to me by an elderly lady, and it was about my relationship
with my father, with whom I managed to some how fall out with nearly 7 years ago
and....not say hardly a dam word since.
And it was just this - the greatest power lies in forgiveness.
And it just resonated.
And in that I knew that not only had I the power of forgiveness, but that I could forgive -
that I wanted to forgive.
Our liberations strike us like claps of holt out of nowhere.
Thank you that Empress. That lady whose so many of miles of journey arrived to help
me for that one moment.
And it just goes to show. When we allow ourselves to be blind to the good that is happening to us amongst the shit - it becomes our own choice to be miserable.
There is just good stuff everywhere, and we choose not to see it.
failure, or at least other people´s definition of it.
If you are always needing to be in the safe, in the warm, in the content I guess there
is always the threat of the worlds intent.
You get ripped apart by your longing, and your longing is what gives life its shape,
its romance, its character. You sacrafice your longing at your peril.
And I can´t be damn well be bothered to justify or compare whatever the hell I am going
through in this moment to the terrors & tyrannies of the world.
It is just what it is, for right or wrong, good or bad. And I feel that we have the right to live, sometimes at least, in our own moment.
Because each of us has our little sacrifices made. Each of us has our compromises. Each
of us has our little lies, our slightly bigger secrets, and our manifold imperfections.
Can you live with the imperfections? Can you thrive in the imperfection?
I don´t give a dam if our bodies are just a conspiracy of sub-atomical primates
plotting together to shape our actions. In fact I am all the better for it because there
is the dam mystery, and there my next dam justification and I will puff gladly on
this cigarette that I am not smoking, and I will look beseechingly at the stars that
I cannot see for a better tomorrow, and if you want to get in the way of these
longings, then dam you to hell with all my other damnations, someone will surely
come to rescue you anyway, but it won´t be me.
And what of forgiveness? Forgiveness for all of those fantasies of wrong doing that
just don´t matter a dam in the smaller or greater scheme of things.
But I heard wisdom once or twice in my life.
And one time it was given to me by an elderly lady, and it was about my relationship
with my father, with whom I managed to some how fall out with nearly 7 years ago
and....not say hardly a dam word since.
And it was just this - the greatest power lies in forgiveness.
And it just resonated.
And in that I knew that not only had I the power of forgiveness, but that I could forgive -
that I wanted to forgive.
Our liberations strike us like claps of holt out of nowhere.
Thank you that Empress. That lady whose so many of miles of journey arrived to help
me for that one moment.
And it just goes to show. When we allow ourselves to be blind to the good that is happening to us amongst the shit - it becomes our own choice to be miserable.
There is just good stuff everywhere, and we choose not to see it.
Monday, 29 November 2010
She Loves Most Those Who Enslave Themselves To Her
Song is so endlessly fascinating. It is as if it will only show itself to you if you are willing
to live in the cracks, in the places that feels slightly uncomfortable. Only when your perception gets a little skewed, or your life a little upturned does it say, ah yes, here I am again, I have found you worthy.
She is like a siren you can never quite get to, or the mistress without Royal blood.
And when you start living wrong, when you upset her, she just vanishes. No mail or telephone call to check in. Just her presence felt by her absence.
She likes it when you renounce. When you kill distractions. If you chuck out television sets.
She is jealous of all media, but seems to make exception of newspapers. She is utterly fickle,
yet somehow exacting.
And there you have it. She loves most those who enslave themselves to her. And even in that context, if she finds you hollow she gives you nothing. Well, maybe Muzak. But there´s never a shortage of that. One resource that is not peaked.
Humans after all will never run out of shit.
to live in the cracks, in the places that feels slightly uncomfortable. Only when your perception gets a little skewed, or your life a little upturned does it say, ah yes, here I am again, I have found you worthy.
She is like a siren you can never quite get to, or the mistress without Royal blood.
And when you start living wrong, when you upset her, she just vanishes. No mail or telephone call to check in. Just her presence felt by her absence.
She likes it when you renounce. When you kill distractions. If you chuck out television sets.
She is jealous of all media, but seems to make exception of newspapers. She is utterly fickle,
yet somehow exacting.
And there you have it. She loves most those who enslave themselves to her. And even in that context, if she finds you hollow she gives you nothing. Well, maybe Muzak. But there´s never a shortage of that. One resource that is not peaked.
Humans after all will never run out of shit.
Sunday, 28 November 2010
Rites of Passage
Those night sweats. Sometimes each night, and without warning, and without
reason, and worse in the cold where sheets are sodden & the bodies pimples
find themselves without friend in winter.
You´ve bought again into the wrong thing. And it didn´t come at a discounted price.
And there´s nothing going forward but austerity. And that is fine. That is how it
is. That is real life.
The exclusion of joy accepted in the name of going after it. Not fake but proper.
With the discipline and acceptance of what life is, or has named itself to be.
Food processed. Guzzled by the body in merciless hours where no one sees nothing
and for that reason has more value - but also more pathos. Those hours sweated by each
one of us in the name of dream. Always alone, and necessarily alone - it is a rite of
fucking passage.
And morning is relentless and doesn´t change its schedule for you. And winter might
wrestle with climate warming but it isn´t going with out a fight buster. And
if it does, it will be with the mother of all freezes - and you my friend, yes
you - you are not going to survive it.
I will of course. I am off to the Arctic Basin. I am going to mate with my austerity
and make new curses to the false names given to God by man.
I will breed relentlessly with the nothingness. And be enlightened in my futility. And I will
pay a glance back over my shoulder to my withering memories to make sure
they are truly dead, and have no longer cause to haunt me.
And loss? Yes loss always finds new ways to manifest. Innocence is measured
by the count-down to its ending. And for that reason it remains the most precious thing that ever existed on our little bit of rock.
I don´t care about the Sages, or the great books. That which throws a murderous
glance towards innocence will find nothing but obliteration from me. And that
makes the very nature of things my enemy. And in that I find my grievance with
God.
Not in my own fall - that is already fallen. But in that which is yet to fall, and
was given no fucking chance in the first place.
And it is not depressing or introverted. It is just the bare facts laid out cold, facts I am
okay with. Facts I will work with. There is something worth fighting for. And preserving it
is the greatest lost cause since time began. It is the most noble fight. And in that place,
and only that place, can we find holiness.
reason, and worse in the cold where sheets are sodden & the bodies pimples
find themselves without friend in winter.
You´ve bought again into the wrong thing. And it didn´t come at a discounted price.
And there´s nothing going forward but austerity. And that is fine. That is how it
is. That is real life.
The exclusion of joy accepted in the name of going after it. Not fake but proper.
With the discipline and acceptance of what life is, or has named itself to be.
Food processed. Guzzled by the body in merciless hours where no one sees nothing
and for that reason has more value - but also more pathos. Those hours sweated by each
one of us in the name of dream. Always alone, and necessarily alone - it is a rite of
fucking passage.
And morning is relentless and doesn´t change its schedule for you. And winter might
wrestle with climate warming but it isn´t going with out a fight buster. And
if it does, it will be with the mother of all freezes - and you my friend, yes
you - you are not going to survive it.
I will of course. I am off to the Arctic Basin. I am going to mate with my austerity
and make new curses to the false names given to God by man.
I will breed relentlessly with the nothingness. And be enlightened in my futility. And I will
pay a glance back over my shoulder to my withering memories to make sure
they are truly dead, and have no longer cause to haunt me.
And loss? Yes loss always finds new ways to manifest. Innocence is measured
by the count-down to its ending. And for that reason it remains the most precious thing that ever existed on our little bit of rock.
I don´t care about the Sages, or the great books. That which throws a murderous
glance towards innocence will find nothing but obliteration from me. And that
makes the very nature of things my enemy. And in that I find my grievance with
God.
Not in my own fall - that is already fallen. But in that which is yet to fall, and
was given no fucking chance in the first place.
And it is not depressing or introverted. It is just the bare facts laid out cold, facts I am
okay with. Facts I will work with. There is something worth fighting for. And preserving it
is the greatest lost cause since time began. It is the most noble fight. And in that place,
and only that place, can we find holiness.
Saturday, 13 November 2010
For Whom The Bell Tolls?
The bell is tolling and there is nothing you can do, your time has been called.
Pat down the apocalypse ash. Empty the urns they are too heavy to take. A last glimpse at the
remnants by the alter of what you have held most dear.
What does the skyline look like?
It is brilliant in its savagery. Inimitable in its endlessness. Mocking towards the survivors.
Its light pervades the ground. Even the shadows are pregnant with it by its absence.
You have entertained the darkness one too many times and now it has set in to stay.
How much we resist the changeability of things. How much we yearn for what doesn´t exist. Our stability´s. Our bourgeoise longing for order.
Love seems to ask for attachment, to take hold truly and dearly and forever. Is that why we are so in love with love? That it consistently mounts the greatest, most dashing, most futile challenge to time´s irresistible march?
Do we love love because it necessarily must die, yet dies so beautifully? Love is the greatest martyr. When it dies it becomes more powerful, more transcendent than time itself.
When love becomes idea it becomes eternal. But it doesn´t stop the pain, that it necessarily and consistently dies. Its human form perishes. Its memory dwindles.
Yes still it finds new ways to be reborn, new ways to conquer, new ways to revitalize itself. The more it is crushed the greater it becomes. The more it is found scarce the greater its return.
Love. Love love love.
Forgive me if I am attached. Forgive me for my manifold delusions, for my pitiful insights.
Because before somethings we are naked. And even in the face of the most ineffable evil, love stands unbroken.
Pat down the apocalypse ash. Empty the urns they are too heavy to take. A last glimpse at the
remnants by the alter of what you have held most dear.
What does the skyline look like?
It is brilliant in its savagery. Inimitable in its endlessness. Mocking towards the survivors.
Its light pervades the ground. Even the shadows are pregnant with it by its absence.
You have entertained the darkness one too many times and now it has set in to stay.
How much we resist the changeability of things. How much we yearn for what doesn´t exist. Our stability´s. Our bourgeoise longing for order.
Love seems to ask for attachment, to take hold truly and dearly and forever. Is that why we are so in love with love? That it consistently mounts the greatest, most dashing, most futile challenge to time´s irresistible march?
Do we love love because it necessarily must die, yet dies so beautifully? Love is the greatest martyr. When it dies it becomes more powerful, more transcendent than time itself.
When love becomes idea it becomes eternal. But it doesn´t stop the pain, that it necessarily and consistently dies. Its human form perishes. Its memory dwindles.
Yes still it finds new ways to be reborn, new ways to conquer, new ways to revitalize itself. The more it is crushed the greater it becomes. The more it is found scarce the greater its return.
Love. Love love love.
Forgive me if I am attached. Forgive me for my manifold delusions, for my pitiful insights.
Because before somethings we are naked. And even in the face of the most ineffable evil, love stands unbroken.
Friday, 12 November 2010
And What of Happiness?
And what of happiness?
What have I to add to that particular question?
Elusive?
Jesus, did you ever get close to even the potential for an original thought? And that is not the dear Messiah to whom I am asking that question...or his doubters for that reason.
I am just talking about skull crushing and complete and utter unhappiness. The one that kind be hidden from, except from the whole dam world, because that happens to be your very own twisted expertise.
The happy face the clown puts out in the hope that someone will recognize it smashable.
There is my heart. Rip it out. What? You failed? Well that is hardly surprising given the fact it is already expertly drawn out and dissected into all its deformed longings on this particular operating table.
Give me some champagne. I am crying my millionth uncried tear tonight.
Give me my rewards for the prizes I don´t deserve - they mean the most....that way i can laugh genuinely for the first time.
I need something to break.
So i chose the most beautiful, the most cherished. The weakest? The easiest? Relationships are always the easiest to break, because they are in the most private things. And we always reveal ourselves the contemptible scoundrels we are in the very places where we are most hidden.
Forgive me please because I cannot forgive you.
Life is too replete with its opposite to countenance any type of councelling.
It just intrinsically baffles itself because it plain and simply does not want to be understood at all. In any way what so ever.
There.
I am unhappy.
Can I say it any more plainly?
What have I to add to that particular question?
Elusive?
Jesus, did you ever get close to even the potential for an original thought? And that is not the dear Messiah to whom I am asking that question...or his doubters for that reason.
I am just talking about skull crushing and complete and utter unhappiness. The one that kind be hidden from, except from the whole dam world, because that happens to be your very own twisted expertise.
The happy face the clown puts out in the hope that someone will recognize it smashable.
There is my heart. Rip it out. What? You failed? Well that is hardly surprising given the fact it is already expertly drawn out and dissected into all its deformed longings on this particular operating table.
Give me some champagne. I am crying my millionth uncried tear tonight.
Give me my rewards for the prizes I don´t deserve - they mean the most....that way i can laugh genuinely for the first time.
I need something to break.
So i chose the most beautiful, the most cherished. The weakest? The easiest? Relationships are always the easiest to break, because they are in the most private things. And we always reveal ourselves the contemptible scoundrels we are in the very places where we are most hidden.
Forgive me please because I cannot forgive you.
Life is too replete with its opposite to countenance any type of councelling.
It just intrinsically baffles itself because it plain and simply does not want to be understood at all. In any way what so ever.
There.
I am unhappy.
Can I say it any more plainly?
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