The Internet = The key to our salvation

There is much debate about what technology is doing to our society. Some people believe it is increasing the power of the "powers that be" to monitor us. Some people believe it is a step in the direction of a one world government/new world order.

As much paranoia as I have about a one world government, and electronic currency the point is this; as much ability as they have to fuck with us, we have to fuck with them. For every time they monitor someones behavior, or collect information on unwilling participants, there is the opportunity to block them (or "defend" yourself) or attack them back through hacking etc.

But that's not the point. The point is that with the internet we now have billions of pieces of unregulated information available for our consumption. Of course some pieces of information are incorrect or biased, but that is up to us to distinguish. The internet is almost like a virtual anarchist society. Yes bad things happen, and bad websites "happen". But there is just as much, if not more good that can come out of it.

The major problem is that people are not using the internet to their full advantage. I have been trying to learn scottish gaelic online. There are expensive books and classes which you can take to learn the language, so why not just find the information for free. Finally people are starting to realize that while ideas can be sold, they don't need to be. For the first time in history we have all of the records, databases, literature, and collections of thoughts, theories, theologies, and ideologies which have encompassed the entirety of mankind.

The only thing between you and knowledge is a few clicks of the mouse. And if there is one cliche' out there which deserves to be repeated it is "knowledge IS power".

Counter Economics

It seems in this day and age that we are stuck with paying taxes to a government we do not approve of. Coersive taxation has taken on a new meaning. Now not only do we not approve of things they are spending our tax dollars on, but many of us do not approve of the government at all. I like ideas which make anarchism/libertarianism plausible.

Usually when people think about anarchism it is either a negative thought influenced by too many news stories and punk bands (semi-sarcastic), or they think of it positively, but have doubts or questions about how well it would actually work. We have seen fascism fall. We have seen dictatorships fall. We have seen communism and socialism fall. And we have seen capitalism under the control of the state begin to fall.

The United States is in a financial crisis. How much more proof do we need that government is not there for us? Do we have to see them give every last one of our hard earned dollars away to companies like AIG, General Motors, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Washington Mutual etc.? There is so much contrast in the U.S. government between capitalism and socialism that there is no way it could work. Two very different economic models working against eachother is what we're seeing.

Counter Economics is as described "any action based on free will which the government has prohibited". Now there are people buying drugs and prostitutes and illegal guns every day. While this is technically counter economics, the drive behind the action is to give strength to the black market for a political reason. The more things you buy from the black market, the more you work under the table, hire illegal immigrants/under the table workers, the more you have a part in the underground economy the less the government will get out of you.

The purpose of this is to slowly (or hopefully quickly) outnumber the government and have a stronger black market than the white market. This will in theory enable private security companies to strengthen and bring charges like theft for the government's taxation. It sounds a bit wild, but as long as things went according to plan, it's actually very likely.

Imagine if the security forces now had a larger market of people to sell their services to. If these security forces became the primary security for people, and people relied on them as much or more than the "police" then when police tried to go against the will of the people, the people would ask their security company to arrest the offender. At the moment it's hard to imagine private companies outnumbering the police. But if we could accomplish this then we would have taken care of two problems. The first being that we wouldn't have to pay taxes. The second is that we have essentially privatized police forces. Even if the tax payed police still existedit would still essentially be a free market for security. Much like how today we have private insurance companies, but we still have Medicare. They can function side by side well enough. But it would be preferred to have no public police force.

Here are some examples of counter economic actions:

*Selling/Traffiking, Buying Drugs, narcotics, pharmecuticals, and bootleg liquor
*Traffiking guns, ammo, or other weaponry
*Buying food directly from farmers without taxes payed
*tax evasion
*relying on private security as opposed to police

Finally, here is a short clip from Wikipedia about counter economics. They can say it better than I can: [Used without permission from Wikipedia. Fuck them.]

Konkin's agorism, as exposited in his New Libertarian Manifesto[3], postulates that the correct method of achieving a market anarchist society is through advocacy and growth of the underground economy or "black market" -- the "counter-economy" as Konkin put it—until such a point that the State's perceived moral authority and outright power have been so thoroughly undermined that revolutionary market anarchist legal and security enterprises are able to arise from underground and ultimately suppress government as a criminal activity (with taxation being treated as theft, war being treated as mass murder, et cetera).
According to Konkin's pamphlet Counter-Economics[4]:

Spiritual Anarchism

To rebel politically or socially we must also remember to rebel mentally and spiritually as well. You see, it has very little to do with being "religious". You could be a Muslim, a Christian, a Jew, a Hindu, a Buddhist, or an atheist. The basic idea is the same. We must not only look for truths and disregard the errors of the spirituality we practice, but we must use our spirituality as a divine reason to do what we do.

Even an atheist can realize that we have a soul. An atheist actually might have a better grip on this idea than a Christian, since atheists reject the idea that there are beings superior to us, and the world is shit compared to the spirit world. Atheists usually believe that this life is all we've got.

First I said that we must look for truths and disregard the errors of the spirituality we practice. This means that we cannot rest comfortably with faiths or practices which were taught to us. We must explore all theologies with an open mind and then put together what we believe. If you believe in evolution and creationism, or if you're a Wiccan who follows Buddha's path, that's okay. Just because no one else has put the ideas together, doesn't mean you can't. Of course people will call you a heretic or a blasphemer. But if everyone worried about that all the time, people like Jesus would never have gotten anywhere (since he was technically a heretical Jew).

Secondly I said that we must use our faith in God, Our own Souls, Buddha, Jah, Allah, Rah, Nature - to back up and enrich our social action (or unaction). I believe the spiritual advancement of the modern anarchist is something that is necessary for our creed to survive. The year 2012 is coming fast. Many believe that the end of the 5th Mayan long count calendar is a sign the world will end. Nostradamus also predicted armagedon in 2012. Many new age folks believe that it will be an end to the era of materialism, greed, and hatred.

I'm somewhere in between. I believe that the astrological and solar cycles (new solar cycle begins in 2013, age of aquarius is coming now) will bring both spiritual AND physical change to the earth. I believe that many could perish in natural disasters, but I also believe that they will happen for a reason. A way of the world saying "If you don't know me, or how I function, this is what can happen". We have moved so far away from an interconnection with our planet and it's many cycles and rythms. We have moved away from the ideas of faith or divinity. We say it's all part of advancement for the human race. But I fail to see how this antfarm they have built for us full of fake worries and bills and taxes and cubicles and Pokemon is any better than times in history where we knew our land. Where we knew our planet. Where we knew our solar system.

Now the average person knows almost nothing and relies on the idea that the people who should know, know. Instead of knowing why and when earthquakes happen, we rest on the fact that there are hired "experts" watching over us. But this leads to several problems, the most obvious being that we are usually not given sufficient warning of things like earthquakes. Maybe if we all learned our planet's ways, we would be able to evacuate ahead of time based on our personal knowledge instead of an annoying emergency broadcast on television or radio.

But either way, I think that spiritual advancement is a positive tool in anarchism. I believe it can reinforce our socio-politcal ideology. And I believe that anarchism is also a positive tool in spirituality. It gives us the thinking that we need to question the dogma and errors which exist in all faiths and practices.

My strange crossbreed of Zen, Christianity, Psychology, and Market Anarchism

I could sit here a quote the bible for hours about my kingdom not being of this world, or how we are not to obey the rule of man and so on. But instead I'll start with a breif history of how my theology and politics have evolved. I casually attended a "progressive non denominational" church until the time I was in my adolescence. I then converted to mormonism with my mother at the age of twelve. After two years (and a life time subscription to both Ensign magazine and intensive therapy) in the church, I broke away. My mother followed soon after.
I spent my teens floating between Agnosticism and Zen Buddhism. Over the next few years I began merging my eastern thought with a more western faith, and set of "anti politics". I settled somewhere between Zen buddhism, Anarcho-Capitalism, and progressive Christian thought. They all began to seem interchangable to me. With both men (Gautaum Buddha and Christ) there is a constant theme of the rejection of man's world. Many point out that their motivation was far more spiritual than political. But this just reinforces the connection I see between these schools of thought.
I believe that a supreme being (i.e. the whole of universal energy) created a sort of dream world for us to explore ourselves and eachother. When we have learned to reject illusion we return to a place of perfect perception and can see that we are one again (a.k.a. "being in the kingdom of god"). At this place we are still beings of energy, but we are at a different frequency. I believe that science and the idea of divinity/god (etc.) are not at all seperate. I believe that man has used the only way it can relate to for explaining the god-earth connection. God is seen as a "father" and jesus as a "brother". It is easy for us to understand at this level.
But whatever it is that you believe God is, those of you who do believe in a supreme creator whether it be the Christian god, Mohammad, or something more panentheist such as nature being equivilant to god is irrelavent. Faith in a "higher power" is not submission to leaders, unless it is out of threat or coersion. I do not believe in God, or follow Buddha or Jesus because of the threat of the fires of hell. I follow them because I believe that their message to be true. I believe in God because I believe he does love us unconditionally. I am not by any means forced to follow any deity or prophet.
This leaves me at a place where I am a follower by choice. This means that I choose the rule of God (a.k.a. the rule of myself) over the rule of man. I have adopted Christ and Buddha's morality. It has not been forced upon me. I could choose at any time to disgard it. To me Anarchism is the belief that one can rule for himself. That man has no right to make rule over another (casting the first stone). I have always ruled myself. Now that I have a certain set of theology it doesn't mean that I have given up my own law. What I believe is that for the politics of man you must respond with products of mankind (i.e. Anarchism). But when you are an actively spiritual person you must find a form of spiritual justification (Christian Anarchism) for your cause.
Many try to discredit the idea of acceptance of a higher power in anarchism by quoting crap from the bible to try and show contradiction. But many forget that the bible contradicts itself just as many (if not more) times. I personally do not use the bible in my spirituality. I think it is the product of man, and the number one reason why man has turned away from God. It is filled with God's threats and punishments. It portrays our creator as a vengeful, cranky, uptight son of a bitch and I don't like it. Call me heretical, call me blasphemous. But just like in the realm of man, I am an anarchist in the realm of the divine. I will not accept things blindly.
In conclusion, I believe that the battle against coersion, tyranny, and aggression is best fought with one foot in the earthly realm and one in the spiritual.

Moral Dictatorship

“The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion” - George Washington

We're living in the midst of a moral dictatorship, and no one is doing a damn thing about it.

Many Americans continue to bring up that "our forefathers started this country as a Christian nation". While this is not true in a general sense, it is also known that many of our forefathers were not what we commonly think of as Christians. Many of the founders such as Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Locke, James Madison, and Abraham Lincoln belonged to progressive or non denominational Christian faiths and most if not all could be considered "Deists". According to Wikipedia Deism is: Deism is a religious and philosophical belief that a supreme god created the universe, and that this and other religious truth can be determined using reason and observation of the natural world alone, without the need for faith. Deists generally reject the notion of divine interventions in human affairs - such as by miracles and revelations. These views contrast with a dependence on revelations, miracles, and faith found in many Judeo-Christian,[1][2] Islamic and other theistic teachings.

But this is all beside the point. People assume that things like "One Nation Under God" means the Christian god. But if you go to Islamic nations, they call 'Allah' god. If you go to Jamaica the Rastafarians call 'Jah' god. It's a general name for a higher power. Like in Alcoholics Anonymous they make you accept a higher power. But never do they dare say that you must accept the Christian deity as your higher power.

In modern times when people debate political issues we actually take into account those who use religiously inspired morality. For instance many are against abortion or the death penalty based on their religious obligations.

When we begin running a Nation off of one group's moral or religious beliefs, we are truly living in a moral dictatorship. I will not divulge which political issues I am for, and which I am against. My only point in this blog entry is to make the point that moral absolutism is dangerous and politically stupid.

Taxation is the number one way that other people's morals are forced upon us. Healthcare for the impoverished, public schools, wars in foreign countries, condoms for junkies etc. All these things are special interest programs. Why do they assume that we all think they're good ideas? Whether I do or not is completely irrelavent. Personally, I rather be taxed for public schools and healthcare for the poor than wars in foreign countries. But that's just me. I believe that without coersive taxation, those of us who believe in those special interest groups will continue to support them. Especially if less of our tax dollars are being coersively taken from us.

Our government tells us what to do in every aspect of our existence either directly or through social pressure. They tell us who we can have sex with, what we can put in our bodies, how a private company can function/how big it can get, what special interest groups we have to support, what wars we have to support, whether we keep or abort a child etc.

Some people think it's okay because they haven't gone to extremes of morality yet like "If you swear, you get the death penalty", but if you look closely you can find signs that those things aren't far away.

Recently in California they were thinking about creating a law outlawing "jet black" paint on all vehicles, siting that cars with black paint get hotter, causing people to use more air conditioning, causing more pollution and global climate change. How far are we going to let them go with these things? Are you going to let them tell you how often you can breathe, or what color shirt you can wear on the second sunday of every month? This has gone from a government of forced morality, to a government of control freaks.

Every few years we're given a new reason to be afraid and fall in line with these cronies. Terrorism, Mad Cow, Avian Flu, The Economy, Swine Flu, and my favorite; Global climate change.

I will post a seperate piece on why I think that global climate change is a scam. But for now I will only speak of their place in a moral dictatorship. Now if the government wants us to do something all they have to do is relate it with global climate change, which is remeniscant of them saying "Don't buy illegal drugs because it supports terrorism". So now they'll say to us "Buy this type of car because it will stop global climate change". It's just ridiculous as hell!

Global climate change is just the most recent play they're using to keep us in line, and it's pathetic that we're all buying into it.

On a final note, please discover what it is YOUR morals are. Not your parents, not your friends, and especially not your government's. And realize that even if you agree with the morals they are enforcing, imagine if someone elses morals were thrust upon you.

666 and The Antichrist/The Beast etc. [Taken from Old Blog Page]

[Warning: This is a random blog from my other blog www.myspace.com/timothyxmcveigh - It was not well thought out, but I'm putting it here to introduce you to some of my interests and to use as a marker, so this isn't a blank blog. New posts should be up within a few days.]

666 and the Antichrist Current

I am no theologan. I am not a pastor, preist, reverend, or scholar. Well maybe I am a pastor by Martin Luther's defenition. But the point is I have no credentials in Christian theology or history. My mother and I have always been into finding the most correct truth which exists, whether it destroys our preconceived ideas or strengthens them.She got me interested in studying the historical facts around biblical texts and events in Christianity before coming up with a conclusion. To me, this bridges the worlds between humanity and the divine. Using logic to support (or deny) ideology or events which happened in the bible.I keep hearing people spouting off about the Antichrist, the mark of the beast (666), the new world order and so on. People keep attributing this to Barack Obama. Well, from what I know, this seems highly unlikely.First off let's get something straight. Just like the trinity of The Father (god), the son (jesus christ), and the Holy Spirit, the trinity of evil includes three characters, not one (unless you're talking about the way in which the holy trinity works as one being). First there is Lucifer, the fallen angel (a.k.a. Satan, the Devil, the Dragon). Second there is the false prophet/idol. Third there is the Antichrist. They are not one in the same.Secondly, the Antichrist is only mentioned 5 times in the books of John. He is not a major player in the bible as many assume he is. It is mostly groups with hidden agendas who push his importance. There are also other references which people believe are directed towards the antichrist.Versus in the book of Daniel are thought to relate to the king of the Syrian section of Alexander's empire, Antiochus. He was supposidely a boastful, arrogant man who persecuted the Jews. This is the King the Maccabbes fought against, and won. He is called a "little horn" (on the head of a beast...Beast = antichrist). Also mentioned is a "self exalting king". Many relate this to Antiochus who was known as a small man with a big mouth.In the book of revelation John of Patmos (it is contended whether or not this is the same john as john the apostle, and john the evangelist), while in prison, wrote of the Mark of the Beast, or the number of the beast which is the number 666 (or six hundred, three score, and six). There are theories on this ranging from the fact that it was seen in a dream or vision which could mean that the number is actually 999 (since dreams are supposidely seen upsidedown and/or backwards), or that it's the numbers which will be used on the barcode on the implant chips which will be used in humans for a cashless society or for human monitoring, or that it will be the serial number on the new currency, or that it will be the birthday or social security prefix of the antichrist.The most agreed upon theory is that since the book of Revelation is dated somewhere between the time of the ruler Nero and the ruler Domitian, the mark of the beast is referring to one (or both) of them. Ceasar is another attributed to being the antichrist. Why? Well Aramaic has numerical values to each letter. See below...[Taken from Abovetopsecret.com]Nero Caesar in aramaic is spelled NRON KSR. Aramaic letters have numeral values like roman numerals. N= 50 R=200 O= 6 N= 50 K=100 S= 60 R=200 .....666 Every few years the label of antichrist is attributed to someone new. Napoleon, Hitler, Suddamn Hussein, George W. Bush, and most recently Barack Obama. Since Barack Obama is handsom, and intelligent, and speaks well he is thought to relate to the passage in the bible of a beast which has horns like a lamb, but speaks like a dragon. The dragon/snake/serpant is a metaphor for Satan.People believe that the antichrist will bring the world together under the guise of peace and unity, and then 3 and a half years in he will "show his fangs". Nobody can tell for sure what will happen 3.5 years into his political reign, but I would be more than surprised if he was the antichrist. The only thing which seems strange to me is the fact that exactly four years into his reign, it will be 2012, the year prophesized by the Mayans and Nostradamus as being the end of the world.I still believe that more than a physical end, this will be a spiritual transformation period, where man moves from self centered to universe centered. But this is besides the point.I am just as critical of Barack Obama's politics as the next man. But unless he moves us into a one world economy, denies us the right to buy or sell without the mark of the beast, and rules the entire world with an iron fist in the 4 or 8 years he is in power...then he will be just another "antichrist has been".Hahaha..Anyways. That's enough bible thumping for today. I'm going to go play Dungeons and Dragons now.-W.K. (A)