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Conspiracy / An Analysis of the FBI Video of the Road Block resulting in Lavoy Finicu

« on: February 06, 2016, 11:37:22 AM »

Part 1) An Analysis of the FBI Video of the Road Block resulting in Lavoy Finicum's Death.

Peter Offermann
February 3, 2016
Email Author

This article will take a close look at some of the individual frames of the 26 minute video of this incident which was released by the FBI and OSP (Oregon State Police). It is hoped that this analysis will help clarify some of the issues surrounding this event.

The video supplied has a resolution of 720x480 pixel @ 24bits and has a frame rate of 30 frames per second.

The methodology used for the analysis was to play the video with VLC Media Player which has the ability to step through the video one frame at a time.  Each extracted frame becomes a 720x480.png file which can then be manipulated in any image editing program such as Adobe Photo Shop. I mostly used a program called ACDsee Pro 9 for enhancement as it has very good adjustments across 9 bands of light to dark. It also has a very good filter for enhancing micro contrast to bring out small details in an image. This program also allows one to zoom in to any level of detail to get a closer look.

In this document all images are reproduced at their original resolution. Any zooming of frames is from the camera itself. I do insert a few detail zooms in the original images for clarification. I reproduced the images at the original resolution to preserve the most accurate detail. you can further zoom these images on your computer and see far more detail.

Someone knowledgeable with the type of filming equipment used in such situations said the video camera used had a resolution of 96mpx. This is about double the resolution of the better video cameras available to the general public. It is difficult to tell how far away the camera was but I would estimate from the detail in the video and the 96mpx resolution that the camera platform, likely a helicopter, not a drone, was about 1000 to 1500 feet away.  Once Lavoy's truck stopped it slowly moved in a counter clockwise direction at about a 60 degree angle up and away from the location.

What I was looking for in the video was three things.

   1) Was there any information available in the images on closer review that would help clarify what happened.

   2) Was there any indication that the video had been altered or edited to remove information.

   3) Many people are confused and wish more information about when exactly the authorities began firing and how many shots they fired.

After reviewing the whole video a number of times a number of questions were raised in my mind about inconsistencies during  two time periods. I decided to first concentrate on the few seconds during these periods. They involved about 150 frames which I extracted individually and examined closely after enhancement.

The first period I examined was the period from when Lavoy's truck closely approached the road block till the time the truck stopped in the snow bank.

The story put out by the authorities was that Lavoy tried to bypass the road block to continue on his way. After concentrating on these frames I came to the conclusion this was not the case.

The first image from the video which I present below is of Lavoy's truck while he was first pulled over by the authorities along with the vehicle following him. In the photo he has his foot on the brakes. Notice the lights at the back of the truck. There are 4 brake lights, one at the rear on each side. Another at the back in the top middle of the canopy. The last is at the top center of the back of the cab.



This next frame is from a few seconds later after Lavoy takes his foot off the brake and starts to accelerate away towards where the road block is further ahead.



Notice that the lights at  top center rear of the cab and  canopy are no longer on. The tailights are still on but more difficult to see. The one on the passenger side is difficult to see at all because of the dirt at the back of the truck.

By viewing the state of these lights one can tell when Lavoy is braking the truck which will become an important issue as he approaches the road block.

Also notice the time stamp in the top left corner which has the date on the top line and hours/minutes/seconds on the line below.

The distance from where Lavoy was stopped to where the road block is located appears to be about 1 mile or slightly less. The time it took Lavoy to cover this distance suggests he was doing about 60 to 70 mph on the straight stretch and from seeing slight tapping  of the brakes as he first enters the last curve below he is probably doing 55/60 mph in the curve as shown below.



Notice the topography here. The ground slopes down to the right. The ground to the left of the highway is sloped upwards at what looks to be 35° to 40°. There are also some trees and shrubs close to the road. The curve Lavoy is just entering here gets much sharper just past the top of the picture and because of the topography Lavoy can likely not see the road more than about 200 feet ahead once he is fully into the curve.

The next frame below is from 3 seconds later and the truck brakes are not yet on. Notice he is cutting the corner sharp which further reduces his view of the road ahead. The end of the curve is just out of view at the top of the frame and he is possibly starting to accelerate into the next straight stretch.



The next frame below is about 1 second later (end of second 43 / start of second 45) when he first sees the road block that was until then in a blind spot ahead. This is where he first applies the brakes. The passengers would have seen the trucks before him and this is confirmed in the interview with the lady that was in the truck with him. She says they warned him of vehicles ahead.

I will only include a few frames between now and when the truck comes to a stop in the snow. You can confirm by viewing all the frames that he never takes his foot off the brakes until the last 20 feet of travel in the snow bank when the truck almost rolls over down towards the road. It is up on 2 wheels at a 45° angle. He was probably thrown sideways and his foot slipped off the brake.

Notice the sign on the left circled in red and use it as a reference point in the next few frames, and the still photo taken later from the road block looking back towards where Lavoy came from. This gives a very good indication of how much distance Lavoy had to stop his truck in from approximately 60 mph.



Below... About 1/4 second later Lavoy is directly opposite the sign and the noses of the 3 trucks making up the road block can just be seen at the top pointed out by the red arrow. Lavoy has had about 80 ft to decelerate at this point and he is now about 120 feet from the trucks. He is probably still doing about 50 mph. His brakes are still on.



From the time Lavoy first sees the road block until he is about 40 ft in front of the trucks as shown in the next frame is approximately 2.5 seconds. Do you think you could stop a truck traveling at 60 mph in this distance if you suddenly realized the road is blocked 2.5 seconds ahead? I know I couldn't. He would probably still be doing 30 to 40 mph when he reached the trucks  if he stayed on the road.

You can tell how much momentum he still has by how far he traveled through the deep snow with the brakes on. Deep snow is a very good absorber of momentum stopping a vehicle quickly. Imagine what would have happened if he instead hit the vehicles blocking the road. Notice about six idiots standing directly behind and among the trucks. They would have been either maimed or killed along with everyone in the truck.

If Lavoy instead went off the right low side of the road he would have become airborn and likely rolled the truck end over end. He only had a split second to decide what to do. He made the right decision and headed for the uphill bank. This is confirmed because no one was injured in what could have been a very serious collision.  Notice his brakes are still on.



Below is a photo taken afterwards looking back towards where Lavoy came from. Notice the sign which was circled in the previous frames. Notice how the trees obscure this site from the road just past the sign. Notice the orange marks  on the pavement that likely show where the uphill truck was parked.  You can also see where Lavoy's truck entered the snow.



Below you can see the brakes are still on as he enters the snow and the size of the snow spray on the uphill side gives some idea of the significant momentum he still has. The truck travels about 1.5 truck lengths past this spot before stopping.



Below are the last 2 frames in this sequence that first show the truck almost tipped on its side and then at a complete stop after it settles back onto all 4 wheels. The brakes are off at this point. Lavoy was likely thrown to the side and lost his place on the brake pedal.





This road block was installed in an incredibly dangerous fashion almost guaranteeing a serious accident. It appears to me that the intent was an ambush rather than safely stopping all traffic. Where could traffic go if the road block was 100 or 200 ft further back giving vehicles coming out of the curve plenty of room to stop? Such a location would have been just as effective and much safer.

The next frames are very suspicious. Right at the most critical moment when the truck comes to a stop and we need to see what the occupants do, the camera does this for 1.5 seconds (45 frames) while it quickly pans back down the road towards the direction Lavoy came from.



Technically it is easy to create this effect after the fact.



The first clear frame following this again shows the entry of the curve.



The camera then slowly pans upwards towards the the road block.  The time stamp says  Lavoy's truck is again visible in 3 seconds  from when the truck stops but watching the video it appears to take longer. Checking the frame count in this sequence would confirm if extra frames are added.

When Lavoy's truck first becomes visible again the driver's door is already open.  I can't see this being the case only 3 seconds after the truck stops. It appears to me some time is missing here. Directly after this is where I find some frames that have strange anomalies.

Notice in the close up of Lavoy's truck, superimposed to the right, that the bottom front of the back door window is missing and also the upright post between the driver and passenger door. The black block is supposed to represent the open driver's door but I would think that the window in the drivers door would not be this dark.

If Lavoy was standing outside on the camera side of the door it would explain the doorpost being obscured but the shadows below the door are light enough to see that there are no feet there.

2

The Kitchen Sink / Hello from Peter

« on: March 30, 2014, 01:34:20 PM »

Hello everyone...

I've mostly been solitary and not writing since you last heard from me. I've been enjoying spending quiet time at the cabin thinking about how to best get the message I want to share with the world across. Below is the start of my attempt. I am working on followups now.

It has just been published at zerohedge and a few other places http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2014-03-30/guest-post-conditioning-which-keeps-people-subservient-abusive-leadership

I plan to be out of touch with civilization except for 2 days every 2 weeks starting in the next few weeks so I will not be communicating regularly but I will drop in when I can. I still plan to implement an internet link from the cabin but at this point I have no idea how long that will take to put in place. I'm trying different options and it could be as little as a couple of weeks or not happen until next year.

Peter


Conditioning: That Which Keeps People Subservient to Abusive Leadership

by Peter Offermann

Few who are paying attention to world events, through a lens more precise than the Main Stream Media (MSM), would deny that the vast majority of humans are being badly abused by their leadership in a variety of venues ranging from local, regional, national, and international politicians and bureaucrats, financial managers, corporate controllers, religious leaders, media moguls and warlords.

The vast majority of humans appear to be oblivious to this abuse and passively accept what is being done to them. Why is that? In one word - conditioning.
The vastly increased access to information that the internet enabled is responsible for a large number of people at least becoming aware of this abuse. However even among this more aware group, taking effective action to stop the abuse is sorely lacking. Why is that? In one word - conditioning.

There is a much smaller group that are proactively attempting to counter the abuse through group protest but they are losing the struggle. Why is that? In one word - conditioning.
At 68 I am getting on in years. I have lived a full life and have had the time to reflect back on my path through life. As a result I have come to realize that most of the conditioning we are all subject to did not incapacitate me nearly as much as it did most people. I believe the realizations I have come to regarding my seeming immunity to conditioning are a necessary foundation required for people to free themselves from the tyranny that enslaves them.
With that hope in mind I would like to share some experiences from my youth that illustrate the problem (conditioning), and hint at the solution.

Our conditioning begins at the moment of our birth. Although they are not conscious of it, our parents, and family members, begin the process. Our parents have been conditioned before us and all their ‘conditioned’ traditions are passed on to us without considering their consequences. How often have you heard the excuse? “That’s just the way things are, get over it!” There is a great book by Wilhelm Reich called, “The Function of the Orgasm”, that explains the form of, and reasons for, this early in life conditioning. Yes our sexuality plays a large role.

It is widely accepted that our late childhood, and early adulthood, years are our formative ones and also when we are in our prime both intellectually and physically. Historically people took full responsibility for managing their own lives much earlier in their lives, during what we consider late childhood. There were once 14 year old admirals that oversaw large naval forces. The commitment of marriage and raising a family began much earlier. Pioneers struck out to discover and populate new mysterious lands before they reached their teens.

The most rigid and destructive conditioning is imposed on us during our schooling. Our schooling is starting earlier and lasting much longer than previously in history and while we are being ‘schooled’ we are not considered full adults with the responsibilities and freedoms such status implies.

Why is that? Could it be that control in our society is much more rigid than ever before? Those that control us realize that a rebellion of youth is the most dangerous kind. How better to minimize the impact of people in their prime than by keeping their status at ‘children’ with little access to power until well past their prime years? If people cave in to ‘slavehood’ during their prime years, how likely are they to rebel once they are past their prime; especially if they are burdened with excessive debt from their education?

I will only touch on the subject of our schooling lightly here and point out what I see as the most debilitating habits we are taught. The subject is an immense one covered well by people such as John Taylor Gatto, author of, “The Underground History of American Education”.

Disclaimer: I quit school in the early 60’s while in grade 9, at age 14. The reason being I felt I was being made dumber instead of smarter. My parent’s response was, “if you don’t go to school we will not support you.” I left home then and took on responsibility for my own life.

Even though I chose a different path than most I did not really understand intellectually why I did what I did then until recently, about a half a century later. What I did then, I did intuitively, rather than logically while accepting full responsibility for the outcome.

I first spent a few years hoboing around Canada taking whatever work I could find whenever I needed it. No job was too menial or too challenging to accept.

At 17 I took on a job that turned my life around and led to my conditioning mostly sliding off me.

This job was as a fire lookout man with the British Columbia (Canada) Forest Service. For a number of years I worked and lived on remote mountain tops, by myself, for 3 to 4 months each year. Spending that much time completely alone, and removed from civilization, especially during my formative years, had a profound effect on my perceptions about life as a human being and how I fit into society.

rendered by me from a photo by Kyle Johnson http://kjphotos.com/portfolio/outside

I didn’t have a camera in those days so the image above, which closely represents my situation, is used to illustrate the setting.

Below is a photograph of myself taken a few years later in the same general area I spent time on the lookouts. The other photos interspersed in this essay are taken by myself as I explored the mountains near my home after my lookout years.

In current society peer pressure during childhood, and early adulthood, is immense. To survive in this setting we must pay close attention to others around us for clues regarding what is and is not acceptable. Because of this pressure the bulk of our energy goes into human interactions and we are pretty much oblivious to everything but our immediate environment. “Use it or lose it”, is sage advice. Because of concentrating on human relations during their formative years most people have little if any connection to the natural world.

Try to imagine what people would be like if, as youngsters, they spent time exploring and living in nature, while being responsible for their own survival and actions, instead of hanging out at the mall or partying with their pals
.
Is it fair to say that those that hang with the crowd are unlikely to be aware of, or able to understand, large scale events not part of their immediate environment?

What about someone who is tasked with surviving in the greater world using only their own skills? Would they stand a better chance of grasping what is going on?

Is this phenomena related to the common use of a ‘rite of manhood’ by many cultures where young adults leave the security of their group to face the wilderness on their own?

Do the majority of people in modern societies never go through this enabling rite of passage and instead go from the security of their parent’s care to the security of the big brother state? Does this explain why some people never seem to reach adulthood?

Substantial time on the lookout, without peer pressure, made me realize how confining trying to fit into the crowd is. Most people don’t even sense this pressure because it is all they know. It’s like the air we breathe. It’s just there until it isn’t, then we die; unless we are prepared for an airless environment.

Most people also don’t realize how much of their time and energy it takes to be ‘social’. Being removed from ‘socializing’ is enormously stressful if it is all you know.

Many aspiring lookout men needed to come down off the mountains prematurely because they could not stand being alone. Those that adjusted to the isolation,  came to treasure the freedom of being comfortable for extended periods with just their own company. The amount of time that then becomes available for other, possibly more worthwhile pursuits, is substantial.
 
In the forefront of these benefits is having the time to look inside yourself without constantly being subjected to the opinion of others. Building friendships takes time and effort and becoming your own friend is no exception. Most of us never get the opportunity to do this.

Those that desire to control human behavior understand that people that are not comfortable with themself are much more susceptible to being controlled because they are lonely and need to seek comfort and friendship outside themselves. Virtually every sales campaign, ranging from that of the door to door salesmen to world leaders, is then enabled to easily sell you a bill of goods by convincing you that what they have to offer is going to become your best friend and make your life less lonely.

Short excursions, or holidays into nature, most often with others, fitted into a busy schedule, do little to increase our awareness of the greater reality that humans exist within. Thanks to modern technology very few of these excursions actually take people far from the human controlled environment they are conditioned to.

It is one thing to climb to the top of a mountain, conquer it, and then immediately return to civilization. It is something totally different to stay in that wilderness environment for extended periods with the time to come to know those other species that are at home in those environs. It makes one realize that humans are not the be all and end all of life on earth. Humility is born which serves us very well. In this environment one soon comes to realize those species include the earth itself. Seeing the constant breathing of weather and daily and seasonal shifts of energies makes one realize everything is made of the same stuff and ‘lives’ in it’s own unique way.

To assume the earth is a lifeless blob which we can abuse without conscious consequence is a very risky proposition.

Most people’s lives are lived out within an environment created by and for humans. Most; and more all the time, live in an urban environment.

When they holiday people generally take some technological means of travel which quickly takes them to the other place of human habitation they wish to holiday in. Because people’s travel experience is so brief, and misses the detail of the ground they pass over, most of which currently has no human habitants, it is easy for them to agree, when told by ‘experts’ that human overpopulation is a crisis.
 
Yes there are many urban places on the planet that suffer from overpopulation, and many more places on the planet that are being strip-mined to support those urban centers, but all in all there is an enormous amount of free space, capable of supporting humans, if only they were able to tear themselves away from the social centers they now depend on and cluster in.

In the early 1990’s while transitioning from life in Canada to life in Mexico I drove between Canada and Mexico every second week for 3 years while gradually weaning my clients off the services I had previously offered. I was a workaholic and saw the time on the road as my own and enjoyed it by taking different highways almost every trip. Eventually I was able to drive between Mexico and Canada while only passing through a very few towns, all smaller than about 10,000 people. Most of the distance on these trips was spent on very remote highways with no other traffic to speak of.

I can say definitively that between, Canada, the USA and Mexico there is enough uninhabited fertile land to accommodate the whole world without the residents being able to see their nearest neighbor.

This vision assumes we overcome our condition of needing to be part of the herd clustering in vast hordes, and also manage to disempower the laws of those that enslave us that currently make this land unavailable to us.

Humans are far more difficult to control if they live in small clusters, all over the place, while paying little or no attention to the MSM. The propagandists can then not create a single message that will motive the whole herd of humans to act identically by broadcasting their one piece of propaganda from a single location that reaches everyone.

Propaganda still works but it must be tailored properly to fit each unique situation in order to get consistent results. If there is no central broadcasting service the message must also be taken to each unique location individually. This is an impossible situation for our rulers and is the reason we are all so heavily conditioned to….

Need to be in close quarters with other humans.

Need the approval of others.

Think alike.

Think we must be/are part of a team.

Become isolated emotionally from ourselves and each other, even while packed on top of each other, so only big brother can offer us comfort.

Desire specialized knowledge which results in only being able to survive as part of the ‘urban’ team.

To desire a ‘carrot’ of reward that only ‘winning’, at any cost(?), within the crowd can present.
Depend on centralized services, especially sources of energy.

Depend on the rule of ‘human’ law to protect us from each other.

The most destructive conditioning takes place in our schools, right at the time we are most susceptible to it, during our formative years. During that period we have little experience of our own to compare to what we are told, and raising questions about the validity of the taught ‘truth’ is ruthlessly punished, in order to force us to depend on the wisdom of others instead of our own intuition.

We are ruthlessly regimented to follow orders so that we eventually become incapable of thinking for ourselves and become dependent on the ‘boss’ to do our thinking for us. The intellectual box we become stuck within is then defined by the boss.

Specialization in training, and limiting access to information, (compartmentalization) is critical to our conditioning. If we cannot think for ourselves, and only understand part of the puzzle, and are incapable of deducing or intuiting answers to unknowns, we are trapped within our dependence on others.

I have personally met a number of world shaker class intellectuals that are extremely brilliant in their own field but figuratively can’t tie their own shoe laces. This situation is not accidental. If only the boss has the full picture, the boss becomes the only one who can act effectively. Everyone else then becomes totally dependent on the Boss. Specialization has its place but having a well rounded toolkit of lifeskills is essential to individual freedom.

Away from civilization, where the boss is not handy to hold your hand, is a disaster waiting to happen if you cannot think for yourself. Then unless you quickly learn to identify problems before they destroy you, and also learn to fix problems you can’t avoid intuitively, without an instruction manually from the boss, you will not survive long.

Lack of education, much time spent away from conditioning influences, and conditioned humans, has changed fundamentally how I solve problems.

When faced with a problem a conditioned human will go through the channels of historical solutions until they find one that works for them.

Instead I consider the elements of the problem in place, try to intuit the workings of the device/situation, and then pinpoint what is going wrong and consider what might fix it. No manual is needed; just the ability to think a situation through for myself.

Using only this skill I have managed to live my whole life well, if not always comfortably, while being considered an essential resource by many people with far more education than myself, even in areas they have expertise in.

No one is perfect and you will make mistakes when you think for yourself. Mistakes are often painful but if you accept the possibility of making mistakes, and are willing to learn from them when you make them, you will eventually become a very robust and capable person. What doesn’t break you strengthens you.

If you are afraid of making mistakes you are stuck on the safe (?) road built by our bosses. You still might not be safe but at least you can then blame your mistakes on someone else.

I have learned far more from my mistakes than from my successes. I am now very thankful for my mistakes, even though some were very painful to navigate.

This essay is getting long so I will end it with one last point about what I learned from my life on the lookouts.

While we are thrust into the middle of ongoing intense personal inter-relationships, especially during our formative years, our attention remains strongly focused on each interaction as it occurs and the rest of the world passes us by unnoticed. We see the trees but are oblivious of the forest. This is most often a habit we carry throughout life and it is a very dangerous one in our propaganda filled world. We see each piece of new propaganda as a standalone piece of information. We have no perspective to see if how it fits into the forest makes sense. We are then at the mercy of those that would deceive us for their own purpose. All they need to do is grab our attention and they can then do with us as they like.

On a lookout tasked with quickly finding dangerous anomalies, within a vast vista of forests, becoming focused on each tree individually is not productive and makes it impossible to see the whole picture. A good lookout man eventually learns to quickly scan vast vistas without focusing on anything in particular. Taking this approach to finding required data points, such as suspicious smoke, allows our intuition to come to our aid. It always amazes me how glaringly anomalies stand out when using this method.

It works just as well in any other environment, including researching on the internet. When surrounded by questionable ‘news/propaganda’ the fires stick out much more obviously when we also are aware of the apparently unrelated surrounding information that is part of webscape. The ‘trees’ of propaganda do not distract us from seeing the whole situation. If there’s no smoke there probably isn’t a fire. Our intuition can see the difference even though we logically can’t. Following our intuition instead of remaining focused on the propaganda leads us to the information that will then allow us to make sense of the situation.

Although my prognosis of our situation appears very gloomy I am not pessimistic. I see light at the end of the tunnel.

For those who managed to slog through to this point thank you for your attention.

Peter

3

Sandy Hook School Shooting / AN INDEX to show where all Questions and Points raise occured and were answered.

« on: January 29, 2013, 11:22:25 AM »

Details

The material in this thread IS AN INDEX to locate each relevant question and point made in the Investigation of the Sandy Hook School Shooting of Dec 14th, 2012 .

 This will be a thread that only holds all the questions and points raised. It will link back to where the question is raised and also to where it is answered. It will say either un-answered or answered next to it so we all have an index to see which items still need to be dealt with. Wordpress allows such answers to be answered where they were asked but this is often not where it is relevant to the conversation. I will use this new resource to assure nothing is missed.

The investigation is taking place at Fellowship of the Minds (FOTM)

This thread will be kept locked for clarity. If you feel something has been left out say so in the main thread and it will be added here.

4

Sandy Hook School Shooting / Sandy Hook School Shooting Clean Version of Investigation.

« on: January 28, 2013, 07:19:23 PM »

Details

All relevant material from the Investigation being conducted at Fellowship of the Minds (FOTM) will be added here. The thread will be kept locked in order to keep it clean. Feel free to copy and paste material from here that you want to discuss in any other thread in the Sandy Hook Board.

By clean I mean all irrelevant comments will be stripped out leaving only the timeline of the investigation and comments directly contributing to clarifying the investigation. This tread will also have live links to all relevant exhibits.

5

Sandy Hook School Shooting / Exhibits presented in the investigation of the Sandy Hook School Shooting.

« on: January 28, 2013, 07:16:06 PM »

Details

The material in this thread is to be used for presentation purposes in the Sandy Hook School Shooting of Dec 14th, 2012 Investigation.

The investigation is taking place at Fellowship of the Minds (FOTM)

It will also be linked to a clean version to be found here. http://www.doomsteaddiner.net/forum/index.php?topic=1183.0
 
The thread will be kept locked so only Evidence will be found in this thread.

Feel free to comment on any of the evidence by creating your own thread under [conspiracy]-[sandy hook shooting] it will not interfere with the investigation.

6

The Kitchen Sink / please check my article on the blog

« on: January 25, 2013, 06:10:02 PM »

http://www.doomsteaddiner.net/blog/2013/01/25/how-two-google-cache-records-with-published-dates-predating-the-events-at-sandy-hook-school-came-into-being/

i am working as fast as I can to get this out, no time to explain here.

Peter

7

Hydroponics / Making your own liquid Nutirents.

« on: December 07, 2012, 07:12:16 PM »

I will add all the information I find on making your own liquid nutrients here.

The attached pdf suggests it is very straight forward.

Mixing 10:1 water and seaweed and adding just a bit of human urine for extra nitrogen and letting it steep for 3 to 5 days at room temperature would likely be the easiest for me. Not mentioned here is Fish Fertilizer which is very highly rated. I'll add what I find about it.

8

Sustainable Energy / Zero Point Energy (ZPE)

« on: December 05, 2012, 01:30:37 PM »

Zero Point Energy (ZPE)

If there is any group on the Internet that is ridiculed more than truthers being called "Conspiracy Theorists", it is those researching, "Zero Point Energy". Besides the ridicule and lack of coverage that these two groups share, the most aggressive in each group also share an affinity for dying or disappearing mysteriously.

What is wrong with this picture? Could it be that both groups are major threats to those at the top of our society?

Non-renewable energy sources such as oil, gas and coal, and the infrastructure that supplies it to the masses in various forms, such as gasoline and electricity, are highly centralized and tightly controlled by the usual suspects, TPTB. This centralized control and distribution system makes all of us reliant on TPTB. Scarcity(?) of renewable energy resources creates high prices and generates a larg[est] proportion of TPTB's wealth and power.

The nature of the infrastructure also forces us to stay close to ‘civilization’ where energy is available.

Imagine what would happen to today’s status quo if a free or nearly free small scale portable source of power became available. Imagine something suitcase sized that could provide enough power to comfortably run a homestead, which was inexpensive to buy, never needed fuel, and lasted virtually forever because there were no moving parts. Everyone has probably seen Raiders of the Lost Ark. The Ark of the Covenant would be such a device.

If such a device became a reality it would very quickly make all TPTB’s energy holding and infrastructure worthless. TPTB fortunes and influence would be enormously reduced. The need for individuals to congregate in urban areas in order to have access to power would disappear. With portable renewable ZPE individuals and small groups could spread out and live in smaller isolated communities that do not have all the destructive psychological effects that living in tight quarters in large concentrations introduce. History clearly demonstrates that there was virtually no aggression, or psychopathy, in humans before populations were concentrated into large clans, towns, and cities.

 Would the above motivate TPTB to bring out the big guns to suppress such technology?

Like everything else ZPE related information is hidden in plain sight. All one has to do is look in order to find that an enormous amount of time and energy has been put into this field by a large number of talented individuals. There have been many devices that demonstrated ZPE or near ZPE capability. The most promising of these generally disappears rather quickly when the developer dies, disappears or is characterized as a fake and charlatan.   

At various times I have thoroughly looked through the various devices that are demonstrated in public. There are some very ingenious machines that are very close to ZPE. They all have one thing in common which I will detail later that stops them from being true ZPE.

I have thought a lot about what a successful ZPE machine would require in order to be functional. Having run a recording studio and live sound company for over a decade when younger gave me the insight to understand how sound wave forms interact causing phenomena such as phase cancellation, standing waveforms, resonances and feedback. All forms of energy are waveforms similar to sound only inhabiting different areas of the frequency spectrum. All waveforms react similar to other waveforms within the frequency spectrum they are sensitive to.

While being a Conspiracy Theorist researching historical events I stumbled across what I think are clues towards ZPE in a strange place; Christian religious symbology.

I have let my intuition rummage through these insights for a few years and also spent conscious time considering the potential. About a year ago I came to realize a specific configuration that has the potential of accessing ZPE that has not been documented before, at least not in the public realm. I have sourced the materials required to conduct tests to validate my theory and the cost is within what I can afford. At some point in the near future I will make an attempt to test my theory.

I find it often helps me clarify my intuition if I attempt to explain it to other via words and I am going to use this thread for that purpose. IF I do manage to come up with something viable I have no desire to take ownership of the technology. My intent is to put it into the public domain.

This may end up just being a waste of time but I think it is worth exploring further.

The Internet has been down here all day because of heavy snow so I have not been able to gather any links or images to illustrate the above information. Once the internet is back up I will start from here and illustrate some of what has been tried, the symbology I think is applicable and the principles I think will be successful at creating ZPE.

9

The Kitchen Sink / The Dynamics of a Dysfunctional Relationship

« on: November 18, 2012, 04:25:27 PM »

Much has been written about personal relationships that are destructive. Because such relationships often revolve around family life, with relatively few individuals involved, the dynamics at play are fairly obvious once one looks at such interactions objectively.

Currently the majority of families in western society are patriarchal in nature. When such patriarchal families become destructive it is often the patriarch that becomes the abuser. There are a number of known solutions to surviving and growing out of such destructive relationships.

Each and every human being is a member of the human race (family). Because the number of individuals involved in the 'human' family is in the billions the dynamics of interaction at work are far more difficult to comprehend. It is obvious because of the quality of life of many humans that the overall human family is also dysfunctional in nature.

I suggest that although the numbers involved in the human race are much larger than in individual human families, the dynamics that define the relationships between individuals are identical in both instances, except for in scope.

Abuses heaped on single individuals within families are identical to those heaped on whole races, societies, nations, regions, and groups within the human race.

If the dynamics are identical at both both scopes, individual family and human race, are the solutions also identical, except for in scope? I believe so.

With this hope I will explore the nature of the known problems and solutions applying to individual dysfunctional families and then extrapolate these ideas and apply them to the human race as a whole. Perhaps this exercise will shed some light on how we as races, societies, nations, regions,  groups, and  individuals can protect our selves within the dynamics that motivate the human race.

Dysfunctional family
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dysfunctional_family


A dysfunctional family is a family in which conflict, misbehavior, and often child neglect or abuse on the part of individual parents occur continually and regularly, leading other members to accommodate such actions. Children sometimes grow up in such families with the understanding that such an arrangement is normal. Dysfunctional families are primarily a result of co-dependent adults, and may also be affected by addictions, such as substance abuse (alcohol, drugs, etc.), or sometimes an untreated mental illness.[1] Dysfunctional parents may emulate or are sometimes over-correcting from their own dysfunctional parents. In some cases, a "child-like" parent will allow the dominant parent to abuse their children.[1]

Examples
Dysfunctional family members have common features and behavior patterns as a result of their experiences within the family structure. This tends to reinforce the dysfunctional behavior, either through enabling or perpetuation. The family unit can be affected by a variety of factors.[4]

Common features
Near universal
These features occur in most dysfunctional families:

Lack of empathy, understanding, and sensitivity towards certain family members, while expressing extreme empathy towards one or more members (or even pets) who have real or perceived "special needs". In other words, one family member continuously receives far more than he or she deserves, while another is marginalized.
Denial (refusal to acknowledge abusive behavior, possibly believing that the situation is normal or even beneficial; also known as the "elephant in the room.")
Inadequate or missing boundaries for self (e.g., tolerating inappropriate treatment from others, failing to express what is acceptable and unacceptable treatment, tolerance of physical, emotional or sexual abuse.)
Disrespect of others' boundaries (e.g. physical contact that other person dislikes; breaking important promises without just cause; purposefully violating a boundary another person has expressed)
Extremes in conflict (either too much fighting or insufficient peaceful arguing between family members)
Unequal or unfair treatment of one or more family members due to their birth order, gender, age, family role (mother, etc.), abilities, race, caste, etc. (may include frequent appeasement of one member at the expense of others, or an uneven enforcement of rules)

Tongue in Cheek …

Abusive Father Can't Wait To See The Art He's Inspiring His Kids To Create

CODY, WY—Describing the years of psychological torment he has in­flicted upon his two children James, 14, and Amber, 9, local tax attorney Ted Sheehan told reporters Thursday he couldn't wait to see what kind of art his abuse would inspire them to create when they grow up.

The 37-year-old father said he could only imagine how his son and daughter's unstable upbringing might manifest itself in future writings, paintings, or music, given the way he routinely ridicules their achievements, yells at their mother in drunken fits of rage, and threatens the family with physical violence.

"My constant petty bullying alone ought to be worth a couple novels or screenplays—maybe even a solo museum exhibit," said Sheehan, noting that even when his children do get a break from his verbal abuse, they still suffer from total emotional abandonment. "We're not talking here about your ordinary, everyday withholding of approval, either. Most of the time, I'm actively undermining and belittling them. Definitely stuff that could be channeled into unique art emblematic of the isolated, tortured nature of human existence."

"After 18 years of life in that kind of menacing environment, you could easily be looking at the next Jackson Pollock and Sylvia Plath," he added. (continued…)

An abusive personality is a character flaw often based in insecurity.

Beware Insecure Men
By: Pamela Mooman http://www.life123.com/relationships/communication/understanding-men/beware-insecure-men.shtml

Insecure men can wreak havoc in any relationship; recognizing signs of insecurity and then being strong enough to deal with the situation can save wasted years and many tears in the long run.

Insecurity can manifest itself in many ways, but a couple of personality types are the most common and recognizable.

Openly Insecure Men
This type of personality can drain patience and strength from others, especially a girlfriend or life partner. Here are some traits that openly insecure men may exhibit:

Constantly clamoring for praise and reassurance
An inability to make decisions
Inappropriate social behavior and conversation
Overly polite to the point of annoyance due to fear of offending
Poor posture to the point of actually walking bent over
Occasional violent outbursts that are inappropriate in relation to triggers
Heavy drinking, alcoholism, or drug addiction

Narcissistic Men
This personality type can overwhelm and batter another, causing intense psychic pain and sometimes physical pain, as well. Despite the strong-arm tactics, however, this personality type is often born from an intense sense of insecurity. The narcissism, where the man is focused only on his pleasure and desires, develops to hide that insecurity. Here are some traits that narcissists may exhibit:

Verbally insulting and abusive
Physically and/or sexually abusive
An inability to see or validate another's point of view
Affections that run hot and cold, depending on the narcissist's mood and needs
Manipulative

Dealing with Insecure Men

Unfortunately, no one can change and grow unless they desire to themselves. Here are some tactics to try to deal with insecure men:

Talk openly with the man; point out habits that are annoying, troublesome, or painful, and then give him a chance to speak openly about his feelings, if he is willing.

If one-on-one communication is not possible, see if he is willing to try couples counseling.
If he is not, ask him if he will consider individual counseling or therapy.

Sometimes there is nothing to do but walk away from undeniable insecurity or narcissism. Whether it means simply breaking up, or it means a divorce and all of the complications that can bring, be aware that the insecure man must first want to grow for himself and let go of painful habits and old beliefs that no longer serve him.

This is where strength comes in for life partners or those dating insecure men. The trial comes whether the man is willing to help himself in order to save his relationship, or if he is not, then having to make the decision to turn away from his harmful behavior.

A sense of power over others is as addictive as any  substance that allows one to escape physical reality. Substance ‘abuse’ is often the result of finding one’s reality unacceptable. Power  ‘abuse’ is often the result of finding one’s self unacceptable. The adulation, forced or otherwise, of others reassures  the power addict of their own worth. Like other drugs ‘power’ is addictive and constant use requires ever larger doses to attain the same level of high.

Power really does corrupt as scientists claim it's as addictive as cocaine
By Daily Mail Reporter

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2136547/Power-really-does-corrupt-scientists-claim-addictive-cocaine.html#ixzz2CbtA83c3
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

More than a hundred years after noted historian Baron John Acton coined the phrase 'power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely' scientists claim the saying is biologically true.

The feeling of power has been found to have a similar effect on the brain to cocaine by increasing the levels of testosterone and its by-product 3-androstanediol in both men and women.

This in turn leads to raised levels of dopamine, the brain’s reward system called the nucleus accumbens, which can be very addictive.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2136547/Power-really-does-corrupt-scientists-claim-addictive-cocaine.html#ixzz2CbswxZBP

The Cycle of Addiction
http://www.youthaddiction.com/English/CycleAddiction.html

The life cycle of addiction begins with a problem, discomfort or some form of emotional or physical pain a person is experiencing. They find this very difficult to deal with.

We start off with an individual who, like most people in our society, is basically good. This person encounters a problem or discomfort that they do not know how to resolve or cannot confront. This could include problems such as difficulty "fitting in" as a child or teenager, anxiety due to peer pressure or work expectations, identity problems or divorce as an adult. It can also include physical discomfort, such as an injury or chronic pain.

The person experiencing the discomfort has a real problem. He feels his present situation is unendurable, yet sees no good solution to the problem. Everyone has experienced this in life to a greater or lesser degree. The difference between an addict and the non-addict is that the addict chooses drugs or alcohol as a solution to the unwanted problem or discomfort.

This person tries drugs or alcohol. The drugs APPEAR to solve his problem. He feels better. Because he now SEEMS better able to deal with life, the drugs become valuable to him. The person looks on drugs or alcohol as a cure for unwanted feelings. The painkilling effects of drugs or alcohol become a solution to their discomfort.

Inadvertently the drug or alcohol now becomes valuable because it helped them feel better. This release is the main reason a person uses drugs or drinks a second or third time. It is just a matter of time before he becomes fully addicted and loses the ability to control his drug use.

Drug addiction, then, results from excessive or continued use of physiologically habit-forming drugs in an attempt to resolve the underlying symptoms of discomfort or unhappiness.

The Addiction Progresses.

Analogous to an adolescent child in his first love affair, the use of drugs or alcohol becomes obsessive. The addicted person is trapped. Whatever problem he was initially trying to solve by using drugs or alcohol fades from memory. At this point, all he can think about is getting and using drugs. He loses the ability to control his usage and disregards the horrible consequences of his actions.

Alcohol And Drug Tolerance

In addition to the mental stress created by his unethical behavior, the addict's body has also adapted to the presence of the drugs. He will experience an overwhelming obsession with getting and using his drugs, and will do anything to avoid the pain of withdrawing from them. This is when the newly-created addict begins to experience drug cravings.

He now seeks drugs both for the reward of the "pleasure" they give him, and also to avoid the mental and physical horrors of withdrawal. Ironically, the addict's ability to get "high" from the alcohol or drug gradually decreases as his body adapts to the presence of foreign chemicals. He must take more and more, not just to get an effect but often just to function at all.

At this point, the addict is stuck in a vicious dwindling spiral. The drugs he abuses have changed him both physically and mentally. He has crossed an invisible and intangible line. He is now a drug addict or alcoholic.

How to assess an abusive relationship.

Are you attracted to abusive men? Here are the top 10 signs of an abusive man.

http://www.authorsden.com/categories/article_top.asp?catid=57&id=28889

Abusive men are often survivors of abuse themselves. Signs of an abusive man can range from emotional, verbal, physical, or sexual abuse. Frequently an emotionally abusive man is also a verbally abusive man or a combination of all abuse types. A sign of an abusive man can usually be found after a few dates if you pay attention, ask a lot of questions and do some investigating into his past.


Abusive relationships are characterized by control games, violence, jealousy and withholding sex and emotional contact. An emotionally abusive man is harder to pin-point and a skilled, abusive man can easily make you think you aren’t good enough or that everything is your fault. It is just as difficult to recover from emotional abuse as it is from physical abuse. Emotional abuse causes low self-esteem and depression. An abusive man may tell you he loves you or that he will change, so you won’t leave. However, the more times you take him back, the more control he will gain. Empty promises become the norm. Make sure you pay attention to his actions and not merely his words. As the old saying goes, “actions speak louder than words.”


Abusive relationships are never abusive in the beginning. If they were, women would dump the abusive men immediately in search of a good man.According to the American Psychological Association Force on Violence and Family, over 4 million American women experience a serious assault by a partner each year! Who can forget when heavy-weight champ Mike Tyson was convicted of raping Desiree Washington and sentenced to six years in prison. Tyson served three years before being released on parole. Thereafter, he married Robin Givens but they divorced on Valentine’s Day only a year later because Givens claimed Tyson abused her. Abusive behavior touches all ranges of society.


We have broken down the top 10 signs of an abusive man. If your partner exhibits one or more of these signs, it may be time to reevaluate your relationship and seek help or get out.


1. Jealousy & Possessiveness – Becomes jealous over your family, friends, co-workers. Tries to isolate you. Views his woman and children as his property instead of as unique individuals. Accuses you of cheating or flirting with other men without cause. Always asks where you’ve been and with whom in an accusatory manner.


2. Control – He is overly demanding of your time and must be the center of your attention. He controls finances, the car, and the activities you partake in. Becomes angry if woman begins showing signs of independence or strength.


3. Superiority – He is always right, has to win or be in charge. He always justifies his actions so he can be “right” by blaming you or others. A verbally abusive man will talk down to you or call you names in order to make himself feel better. The goal of an abusive man is to make you feel weak so they can feel powerful. Abusers are frequently insecure and this power makes them feel better about themselves.


4. Manipulates – Tells you you’re crazy or stupid so the blame is turned on you. Tries to make you think that it’s your fault he is abusive. Says he can’t help being abusive so you feel sorry for him and you keep trying to “help” him. Tells others you are unstable.


5. Mood Swings – His mood switches from aggressive and abusive to apologetic and loving after the abuse has occurred.


6. Actions don’t match words – He breaks promises, says he loves you and then abuses you.


7. Punishes you – An emotionally abusive man may withhold sex, emotional intimacy, or plays the “silent game” as punishment when he doesn’t get his way. He verbally abuses you by frequently criticizing you.


8. Unwilling to seek help – An abusive man doesn’t think there is anything wrong with him so why should he seek help? Does not acknowledge his faults or blames it on his childhood or outside circumstances.


9. Disrespects women – Shows no respect towards his mother, sisters, or any women in his life. Thinks women are stupid and worthless.


10. Has a history of abusing women and/or animals or was abused himself – Batterers repeat their patterns and seek out women who are submissive and can be controlled. Abusive behavior can be a generational dysfunction and abused men have a great chance of becoming abusers. Men who abuse animals are much more likely to abuse women also.


If you continue to stay in an abusive relationship because you think he will change and start treating you well, think again. An abusive man does not change without long-term therapy. Group counseling sessions are particularly helpful in helping abusive men recognize their abusive patterns.


Type A personality types seem to be more prone to abusive behavior due to their aggressive nature. Drugs and alcohol can create or further escalate an abusive relationship. Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous are excellent programs for an addict. The abuser’s partner should also seek help for their codependent behavior at Codependents Anonymous. If the abusive man is not willing to seek help, then you must take action by protecting yourself and any children involved by leaving. By staying in an abusive relationship you are condoning it. If you are scared you won’t be able to survive because of finances, pick up the phone book and start calling shelters. Try calling family, friends and associates and ask them if they can help or know of ways to help.


Once you leave, the abuser may cry and beg for forgiveness but don’t go back until you have spoken to his counselor and he has completed long-term therapy successfully. Be prepared for the abuse to increase after you leave because the abuser has lost control. The Bureau of Justice Statistics states that on the average, more than three women are murdered by their husbands or boyfriends every day so please be careful. If you partner is not willing to seek help for his abusive behavior, your only option is to leave.


Written by

Abuse Expert, Stephany Alexander, B.A., Author, Women's Speaker
Credentials:  Stephany Alexander is the founder of www.WomanSavers.com, one of the most popular women's sites on the net (top 5%) receiving millions of hits per month.

The overwhelming consensus of those knowledgeable about abusive relationships is that the only option to stop the abuse within such relationships is to leave them. There is minimal chance that an abusive partner will change. Here’s some thoughts to help assess the possibility of change allowing you to stay in such a relationship.

Help for abused and battered women: Making the decision to leave
http://www.helpguide.org/mental/domestic_violence_abuse_help_treatment_prevention.htm

As you face the decision to either end the abusive relationship or try to save it, keep the following things in mind:

If you’re hoping your abusive partner will change... The abuse will probably happen again. Abusers have deep emotional and psychological problems. While change is not impossible, it isn’t quick or easy. And change can only happen once your abuser takes full responsibility for his behavior, seeks professional treatment, and stops blaming you, his unhappy childhood, stress, work, his drinking, or his temper.

If you believe you can help your abuser... It’s only natural that you want to help your partner. You may think you’re the only one who understands him or that it’s your responsibility to fix his problems. But the truth is that by staying and accepting repeated abuse, you’re reinforcing and enabling the abusive behavior. Instead of helping your abuser, you’re perpetuating the problem.

If your partner has promised to stop the abuse... When facing consequences, abusers often plead for another chance, beg for forgiveness, and promise to change. They may even mean what they say in the moment, but their true goal is to stay in control and keep you from leaving. But most of the time, they quickly return to their abusive behavior once they’ve been forgiven and they’re no longer worried that you’ll leave.

If your partner is in counseling or a program for batterers... Even if your partner is in counseling, there is no guarantee that he’ll change. Many abusers who go through counseling continue to be violent, abusive, and controlling. If your partner has stopped minimizing the problem or making excuses, that’s a good sign. But you still need to make your decision based on who he is now, not the man you hope he will become.

If you’re worried about what will happen if you leave... You may be afraid of what your abusive partner will do, where you’ll go, or how you’ll support yourself or your children. But don’t let fear of the unknown keep you in a dangerous, unhealthy situation.

Signs that your abuser is NOT changing:

* He minimizes the abuse or denies how serious it really was.

* He continues to blame others for his behavior.

* He claims that you’re the one who is abusive.

* He pressures you to go to couple’s counseling.

* He tells you that you owe him another chance.

* You have to push him to stay in treatment.

* He says that he can’t change unless you stay with him and support him.

* He tries to get sympathy from you, your children, or your family and friends.

* He expects something from you in exchange for getting help.

* He pressures you to make decisions about the relationship.

APPLYING THE ABOVE IDEAS TO THE LARGER FOCUS OF THE HUMAN RACE

Our leaders, be they social, political, commercial, or hidden behind the curtain, are the equivalent of the powerful partner in our common societal relationship. We the masses are the preyed upon partner. Using the analysis above, are there signs the leadership class is mostly abusive in nature? My answer to this question is, “yes, overwhelmingly so”.

How can this be? These people seem so sure of themselves and live lives of luxury and freedom(?) beyond our dreams. Why would they be abusive towards others?

With the access to information that the internet made possible it has become obvious a very small group of families in the leadership class have over many generations managed to consolidate the vast majority of worldly power and wealth to themselves. They have managed to do this by forcibly indoctrinating their young to carry on their legacy. If the founders of this legacy where abusive to their kin then their abusive traits would be forwarded through each subsequent generation.

Imagine the pressure on you from your parents and peers if you were the heir to a legacy  created by those obsessed with wealth and power. The societal pressures we the masses feel are nothing compared to the pressures the children of the elite of our society feel. They may have untold wealth and luxury but they live in a meat grinder where they do as they are told or are destroyed.

Personally there isn’t enough money in the world for me to desire to be in their shoes.

With the multi-generational abuse they have been subjected to and the undeniable power and wealth they have collected, the chances of the leadership class changing their own ways are remote if not nil.

The vast majority of humans are still in denial that they are in an abusive relationship with their leaders.

The truth movement on the internet has gotten to the point of realizing they are being abused by their leaders.

The truth movement is still mostly in denial that the only viable option to surviving such a relationship is to leave it.

The truth movement is kidding itself that change within the relationship is possible.

Part of the truth movement is convinced it can overpower the abusive partner. This might be possible but what does meeting violence with violence (whether verbal or physical) accomplish? Do you then only become the dominant partner in an abusive  relationship? Is that any better than being the victim?

Escaping this relationship.

The societal infrastructure and economy we live within is the home we cohabit with our abusive partner which they control. As long as we remain within it we remain under their thumb. As long as we cooperate with them in maintaining this home we enable our continued abuse. 

For most of us stepping outside this home appears to be an insurmountable problem and our abusive partner keeps reinforcing that idea at every opportunity.

The hard truth is that regardless of how difficult this step is, it is the only direction to survival  without abuse. The situation is do or die regardless of the cost involved. We either continue to put up with abuse or we do what is necessary to remove ourselves from the abusive situation.

There is a lengthy bit of documentation, which there is not room to include here, that demonstrates clearly that abuse based on addiction continuously escalates and becomes more destructive in nature. It takes more and more of a substance to reach the same high because our body builds a tolerance to an often used substance.

The abuse we are currently seeing from our leaders is the result of their addiction to power and is not set in scope. It will continue to escalate and become worse over time. Most uncontrolled addicts continuously escalate their addiction until it finally kills them. They will generally take those that enabled them down with them.

Escaping ‘their’ house is not just a physical process, it is also spiritual in nature (combined and balanced emotional and logical realization).

After we accept that we are in an unsolvable abusive relationship the next step is to prepare to step out of it.

After we are prepared we make the step of leaving keeping in mind the information from above.

Once you leave, the abuser may cry and beg for forgiveness but don’t go back until you have spoken to his counselor and he has completed long-term therapy successfully. Be prepared for the abuse to increase after you leave because the abuser has lost control. The Bureau of Justice Statistics states that on the average, more than three women are murdered by their husbands or boyfriends every day so please be careful. If you partner is not willing to seek help for his abusive behavior, your only option is to leave.

Speaking from personal experience…. The problem of finding an alternative lifestyle appears more formidable than it actually is. With determination and perseverance it is still possible to find happiness and survivability outside of the abuser’s house.  Looking back after a period you will shake your head in wonder at how limited the reality you used to live in was.

A really important point to consider - Our common human house is much more complex than the average family. You are not the only abused person in the greater relationship. There are billions being abused just like you are. The abuser is dependent on the combined efforts of all those they abuse to keep them in their position of power. As abused individuals we can do little to help each other and escaping our self will not greatly inconvenience the abuser. However until we help ourselves we cannot help others and each and everyone of us that says enough is enough and steps out of abuse is another chink in the armor of the abuser.   Eventually as more people escape abuse it will become easier for them to effectively help those still caught in the clutches of abuse.

Forgiveness – is often mentioned as an essential component of becoming well once again after surviving abuse. A great thought I came across today on the internet. “You are not forgiving their actions, you are forgiving their debt.”  This allows you to move on in your life without being held back by your past experiences.





 

10

The Kitchen Sink / Are you still perking out there in Ocean Falls?

« on: June 13, 2012, 01:53:05 PM »

Are you still perking out there in Ocean Falls?
 
I had a real good discussion with Agelbert on TAE regarding alternate solutions to the energy/food problems faced as we transition off fossil fuels.  This would be a real good time for a solid Hydroponics Opus on the Blog.
 
RE

Yes I'm still keeping busy.

I haven't been here, or on the internet, much because of the disappointing response to the Hitler post. I knew beforehand there would be few if any that would agree with the article but I didn't expect the kind of shoot the messenger response here that is common on the internet. Those here present themselves as being open minded and capable of considering information no matter how unpalatable it is rather than just swallowing the party line. That doesn't appear to be the case on some subjects.

These kind of responses make me wonder whether it is worth trying to dialog with others on the internet.

Anyway here's what I am currently up to.

I'm putting together another new website for someone.

I previously mentioned the desire to take my garage which was filled to the gills with stuff, and barely usable, even just to park my EV, and turn it into a usable shop.

Before.....

Details

The transition...

First I had to build a woodshed to store the couple of cords of firewood I keep in case I ever want or need to use it. Although I don't currently use them I have 2 fireplace inserts in my house.

Details

Details

Then I had to put some windows in so I can see what I am doing in the workspace.

Before...

Details

After (there is also a third new window on the end wall)...

Details

Then put in and paint interior walls, build a workbench out of pallets, add cupboards, shelving and so on.

Details

There is now plenty of space to work even with the EV inside. I have a roll up door coming in next week with one of the summer residents.

Besides now having a pleasant workspace I have regained  most of my basement space which was cluttered with stuff I couldn't store properly. Work on my hydroponics modifications had ground to a halt because I had nowhere to do the work.

The whole exterior still needs to be painted, the house as well. When I first painted I had no tools and couldn't prepare the surface properly. The stuff I recently bought from the fishing guide included a good pressure washer and enough paint to do all my exteriors. Total cost for painting the house and garage < $300.

Details

The above was a lot of work but only took about a week. Besides this I am helping Dorothy set up the greenhouse for this year's crops. It's been and still is, a very cold year but we are starting to harvest some stuff. We mostly grow things you would grow outdoors elsewhere.

Details

We are still getting overnight frosts regularly so had to add interior covers for extra insulation for the plants.

Details

Below are the tomatoes. The red bags promote flowering.

Details

Pole beans in the background.

Details

I've been modifying the greenhouse to make it easier to operate. It used to be a real chore to open it up on warmer days because the sides were fastened down with strapping which was nailed or screwed on. The person who formerly owned my house was a hoarder and amongst the stuff I found was most of the clothes lines from the houses that were demolished by the government in Ocean Falls in the early 80's. I put them to good use by rigging them up into a pulley system to raise the sides like blinds. The same ropes are used to quickly lash down the sides when they are down so the wind doesn't blow them out.

Details

Details

Details

My current project.......

I have a traditional kayak which isn't very useful for things other than paddling around because it is unstable. I have been checking out the sit on top fishing kayaks for several years and finally took the plunge.

I bought a Moken 10 angler http://www.yakangler.com/articles/reviews/boat-reviews/item/386-review-moken-10-angler

It only weighs 61lbs, is 10ft long and 36 inches wide. It is stable enough to standup and fish or sit sideways with your legs dangling in the water. four spots for rods and plenty of storage.  It has a built in wheel in the keel so you can walk it along by the front handle. Along with the Ocean and Link Lake I am looking forward to accessing two large local lakes which see virtually no human use because there is no access to launch a boat.  There are trails passable to this type of boat.

Here's the boat I bought which will get here next week with one of the summer residents.

Details

Notice the relatively flat back. My first project is to build an aluminum strap on transom for the small  and inexpensive minn cota 30 electric outboard I bought used.

Details

I got this used motor for $79 as an experiment. If it works out well I will buy a more expensive version that costs about $500 and has foot control for steering and speed and also electronics to extend the battery life about 5x. I have spare 155ah batteries for my EV which are perfect for this purpose. Maximum speed about 6mph with a range of about 15 miles at top speed with this size of battery. At 3mph the range is several times that. With the fancy power saving motor one battery should do the boat for a week of continuous use.

The boat has a flat well behind the seat which can comfortably hold a couple of these batteries as well as other gear. There is also storage in the front.

My plan is to finish the modifications on the hydroponics system in time for it to take over supplying vegetables once the greenhouse is done for the season. The logical time to write the hydroponics article is as I restart the system. Now that I have the space I will start work on the system again and shoot to have it fully operational again in September.

Peter

11

Economics / How Hitler defied the bankers

« on: May 22, 2012, 08:46:36 PM »

Not the History you learned in school but makes a lot of sense. There is a lot of information supporting this version of history if you care to look. This article gives a clear view of how warped our reality is by the MSM.

How Hitler defied the bankers
May 4th, 2012

In Full from http://www.radicalpress.com/ The site (not the article) is the work of Arthur Topham who lives not far from me in the small town of Quesnel and who was just arrested and had his home raided and computer seized while under arrest. He's maintained his struggle to bring the truth to the surface for almost two decades now. The Bnai Brith have had him before the farcical Canadian Human Rights Tribunal for several years trying to destroy him.

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Many people take joy in saying Wall Street and Jewish bankers “financed Hitler.” There is plenty of documented evidence that Wall Street and Jewish bankers did indeed help finance Hitler at first, partly because it allowed the bankers to get rich (as I will describe below) and partly in order to control Stalin. However, when Germany broke free from the bankers, the bankers declared a world war against Germany.

When we look at all the facts, the charge that “Jews financed Hitler” becomes irrelevant.  Los Angeles Attorney Ellen Brown discusses this topic in her book Web Of Debt…

When Hitler came to power, Germany was hopelessly broke. The Treaty of Versailles had imposed crushing reparations on the German people, demanding that Germans repay every nation’s costs of the war. These costs totaled three times the value of all the property in Germany.

Private currency speculators caused the German mark to plummet, precipitating one of the worst runaway inflations in modern times. A wheelbarrow full of 100 billion-mark banknotes could not buy a loaf of bread. The national treasury was empty. Countless homes and farms were lost to speculators and to private (Jewish controlled) banks. Germans lived in hovels. They were starving.

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Nothing like this had ever happened before - the total destruction of the national currency, plus the wiping out of people’s savings and businesses.  On top of this came a global depression.  Germany had no choice but to succumb to debt slavery under international (mainly Jewish) bankers until 1933, when the National Socialists came to power. At that point the German government thwarted the international banking cartels by issuing its own money.  World Jewry responded by declaring a global boycott against Germany.

Hitler began a national credit program by devising a plan of public works that included flood control, repair of public buildings and private residences, and construction of new roads, bridges, canals, and port facilities. All these were paid for with money that no longer came from the private international bankers.

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The projected cost of these various programs was fixed at one billion units of the national currency.  To pay for this, the German government (not the international bankers) issued bills of exchange, called Labor Treasury Certificates.  In this way the National Socialists put millions of people to work, and paid them with Treasury Certificates.

Under the National Socialists, Germany’s money wasn’t backed by gold (which was owned by the international bankers).  It was essentially a receipt for labor and materials delivered to the government.  Hitler said, “For every mark issued, we required the equivalent of a mark’s worth of work done, or goods produced.” The government paid workers in Certificates. Workers spent those Certificates on other goods and services, thus creating more jobs for more people.  In this way the German people climbed out of the crushing debt imposed on them by the international bankers.

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Within two years, the unemployment problem had been solved, and Germany was back on its feet. It had a solid, stable currency, with no debt, and no inflation, at a time when millions of people in the United States and other Western countries (controlled by international bankers) were still out of work.  Within five years, Germany went from the poorest nation in Europe to the richest.

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Germany even managed to restore foreign trade, despite the international bankers’ denial of foreign credit to Germany, and despite the global boycott by Jewish-owned industries.  Germany succeeded in this by exchanging equipment and commodities directly with other countries, using a barter system that cut the bankers out of the picture.  Germany flourished, since barter eliminates national debt and trade deficits. (Venezuela does the same thing today when it trades oil for commodities, plus medical help, and so on.  Hence the bankers are trying to squeeze Venezuela.)

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Germany’s economic freedom was short-lived; but it left several monuments, including the famous Autobahn, the world’s first extensive superhighway.

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Hjalmar Schacht, a Rothschild agent who was temporarily head of the German central bank,  summed it up thus… An American banker had commented, “Dr. Schacht, you should come to America. We’ve lots of money and that’s real banking.” Schacht replied, “You should come to Berlin. We don’t have money. That’s real banking.”

(Schacht, the Rothschild agent, actually supported the private international bankers against Germany, and was rewarded by having all charges against him dropped at the Nuremberg trials.)

This economic freedom made Hitler extremely popular with the German people.  Germany was rescued from English economic theory, which says that all currency must be borrowed against the gold owned by a private and secretive banking cartel — such as the Federal Reserve, or the Central Bank of Europe — rather than issued by the government for the benefit of the people.

Canadian researcher Dr. Henry Makow (who is Jewish himself) says the main reason why the bankers arranged for a world war against Germany was that Hitler sidestepped the bankers by creating his own money, thereby freeing the German people. Worse, this freedom and prosperity threatened to spread to other nations. Hitler had to be stopped!

Makow quotes from the 1938 interrogation of C. G. Rakovsky, one of the founders of Soviet Bolsevism and a Trotsky intimate. Rakovsky was tried in show trials in the USSR under Stalin. According to Rakovsky, Hitler was at first funded by the international bankers, through the bankers’ agent Hjalmar Schacht. The bankers financed Hitler in order to control Stalin, who had usurped power from their agent Trotsky. Then Hitler became an even bigger threat than Stalin when Hitler started printing his own money.

(Stalin came to power in 1922, which was eleven years before Hitler came to power.)

Rakovsky said:

“Hitler took over the privilege of manufacturing money, and not only physical moneys, but also financial ones. He took over the machinery of falsification and put it to work for the benefit of the people. Can you possibly imagine what would have come if this had infected a number of other states?” (Henry Makow, “Hitler Did Not Want War,” www.savethemales.com March 21, 2004).

Economist Henry C K Liu writes of Germany’s remarkable transformation:

“The Nazis came to power in 1933 when the German economy was in total collapse, with ruinous war-reparation obligations and zero prospects for foreign investment or credit. Through an independent monetary policy of sovereign credit and a full-employment public-works program, the Third Reich was able to turn a bankrupt Germany, stripped of overseas colonies, into the strongest economy in Europe within four years, even before armament spending began.” (Henry C. K. Liu, “Nazism and the German Economic Miracle,” Asia Times (May 24, 2005).

In Billions for the Bankers, Debts for the People (1984), Sheldon Emry commented:

“Germany issued debt-free and interest-free money from 1935 on, which accounts for Germany’s startling rise from the depression to a world power in five years. The German government financed its entire operations from 1935 to 1945 without gold, and without debt. It took the entire Capitalist and Communist world to destroy the German revolution, and bring Europe back under the heel of the Bankers.”

These facts do not appear in any textbooks today, since Jews own most publishing companies. What does appear is the disastrous runaway inflation suffered in 1923 by the Weimar Republic, which governed Germany from 1919 to 1933. Today’s textbooks use this inflation to twist truth into its opposite. They cite the radical devaluation of the German mark as an example of what goes wrong when governments print their own money, rather than borrow it from private cartels.

In reality, the Weimar financial crisis began with the impossible reparations payments imposed at the Treaty of Versailles. Hjalmar Schacht – the Rothschild agent who was currency commissioner for the Republic — opposed letting the German government print its own money… “The Treaty of Versailles is a model of ingenious measures for the economic destruction of Germany.  Germany could not find any way of holding its head above the water, other than by the inflationary expedient of printing bank notes.”

Schacht echoes the textbook lie that Weimar inflation was caused when the German government printed its own money.  However, in his 1967 book The Magic of Money, Schacht let the cat out of the bag by revealing that it was the PRIVATELY-OWNED Reichsbank, not the German government, that was pumping new currency into the economy.  Thus, the PRIVATE BANK caused the Weimar hyper-inflation.

Like the U.S. Federal Reserve, the Reichsbank was overseen by appointed government officials, but was operated for private gain. What drove the wartime inflation into hyperinflation was speculation by foreign investors, who sold the mark short, betting on its decreasing value. In the manipulative device known as the short sale, speculators borrow something they don’t own, sell it, and then “cover” by buying it back at the lower price.

Speculation in the German mark was made possible because the PRIVATELY OWNED Reichsbank (not yet under Nazi control) made massive amounts of currency available for borrowing.  This currency, like U.S. currency today, was created with accounting entries on the bank’s books. Then the funny-money was lent at compound interest. When the Reichsbank could not keep up with the voracious demand for marks, other private banks were allowed to create marks out of nothing, and to lend them at interest. The result was runaway debt and inflation.

Thus, according to Schacht himself, the German government did not cause the Weimar hyperinflation.  On the contrary, the government (under the National Socialists) got hyperinflation under control. The National Socialists put the Reichsbank under strict government regulation, and took prompt corrective measures to eliminate foreign speculation. One of those measures was to eliminate easy access to funny-money loans from private banks. Then Hitler got Germany back on its feet by having the public government issue Treasury Certificates.

Schacht , the Rothschild agent, disapproved of this government fiat money, and wound up getting fired as head of the Reichsbank when he refused to issue it.  Nonetheless, he acknowledged in his later memoirs that allowing the government to issue the money it needed did not produce the price inflation predicted by classical economic theory, which says that currency must be borrowed from private cartels.

What causes hyper-inflation is uncontrolled speculation. When speculation is coupled with debt (owed to private banking cartels) the result is disaster. On the other hand, when a government issues currency in carefully measured ways, it causes supply and demand to increase together, leaving prices unaffected. Hence there is no inflation, no debt, no unemployment, and no need for income taxes.

Naturally this terrifies the bankers, since it eliminates their powers. It also terrifies Jews, since their control of banking allows them to buy the media, the government, and everything else.

Therefore, to those who delight in saying “Jews financed Hitler,” I ask that they please look at all the facts.

12

Bugout Plans / Peter's Bugout

« on: May 16, 2012, 10:00:22 AM »

Sorry to be MIA, just too much stuff going on locally here to anything other that popping in briefly. I'm going to upgrade the spam blocking on the site later today and then will get back to construction projects for a few days. We've had 4 days of good weather in a row and the first warm days of the year so I went to town on things needing to be done around the place.

This thread will be about laying out my bugout.

When I first came to ocean falls everything I owned fit into the back of my Toyota truck. I had virtually no tools and the house I first rented towards purchase and eventually bought outright  was a total disaster which had been neglected for many years. It belonged to a hoarder and was filled to the rafters with mostly junk. Pipes had burst in numerous places meaning walls had to be torn apart and such. I lived in my camper for 3 months before I got a corner of the house liveable.

Most of the original reconstruction was done with a few basic handtools which was really time consuming. AS I cleaned junk out of the house I found a few tools and lots of good materials buried and over the years I bought a few inexpensive power tools to make construction of things like the hydroponics room less time consuming. I couldn't afford real construction tools so all my projects took way more time than they should have.

A local fishing guide who had been here for many years and owned several houses, a dock, and a large shop that he built, sold off all his tools and supplies a couple of weeks ago after selling the buildings. Among a lot of misc stuff I bought most of his tools, and enough paint to paint my house at least twice (the blue will become dark grey). The cost was a few pennies on the dollar. IE all the paint (25gal?) cost me $100. Among the tools a good quality compound 16" cutoff saw, a good compressor for air tools, a pressure washer, bench grinder and so on. The air compressor didn't come with any tools but I purchased a few. The greatest little tool I have bought in a long time is a palm nailer.

Most of you have probably seen nail guns but these are heavy and awkward to use also requiring special nails. The palm nailer is much smaller and utilizes standard nails. The one I got drives up to 4 in spikes. In construction they are used to drive nails in tight quaters where a hammer or nail gun won't fit. They are way faster than using a hammer and if your wrists are bad like mine from overuse you can nail all day long with little discomfort.

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Anyway now having the tools to make construction much less painful and time consuming than before I have tackled some projects I have been putting off.

As a single person living in a 5 bedroom house you would thing I would have lots of room but that isn't the case.
There is a bedroom for myself and one for guests.
One bedroom has been turned into a food storage area.
Another is used for storing hardware.
The last is a library which contains most of the information needed to selfhelp yourself if and when public services collapse.
The family room downstairs is now the hydroponics room.
There is a laundry room downstairs that now holds a freezer, washer & dryer a laorge work table and all the tools and paint. It is cramed to the point of being unusable.

I have a garage but the back half of it is filled with firewood and misc stuff with just enough room to squeeze my Polaris EV in the front. It became obvious that if I emptied out all the stuff from the garage there would be enough room for a nice little workshop in behind the vehicle. What I needed was a woodshed and a utility shed for things like the lawnmower. I've been scrounging things like pallets that get left behind by the barge when it comes in and misc wood and metal roofing and now have enough stuff to build the extra space I needed. None of the material cost me anything other than the time to scrounge them.

After about a 1.5 days with good tools I've got the woodshed mostly finished. Just a bit more work on the roofing, trimming and paint are required. I've started moving wood and other stuff out of the garage. Once it is cleaned out 3 new large windows which I scrounged will go in making it much brighter, warmer and dryer. I will need to buy a rollup door for around $300. Because my driveway is steep I can't have swing open doors which I could make myself.

The woodshed was mostly constructed of pallets and the toolshed will be completely built of them.

Once all the structural work is complete all the building will be thoroughly pressure washed to strip old loose paint and repainted with an air gun. I figure it will take 2 to 3 weeks of working half days to accomplish this. The end result will be that I have room to move again and a nice little shop for construction projects. The total cost < $500 mostly for tools which will be used for a long time and a lot of work. Costs for materials <$50.

Here's a few shots of the woodshed and the garage as it is being emptied out so I have a record of what it was like before being upgraded.

Two large opening windows will be added to this side of the garage. Eventually I will build a small lean-to greenhouse on the front out to the sidewalk.   

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One large opening window will go on the endwall.

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The back part of the garage will get a wood floor constucted on top of pallets.

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About half the stuff is cleared out. It all looks ratty now but with more light and a bit of paint it will become a pleasant space.

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Looking down on the new woodshed.

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Once it's trimmed out and painted it will look decent. The door goes into the hydroponics room.

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The pallets below will become the new toolshed sitting just behind where they are stacked.

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13

Examples / New feature - DRAFTS

« on: May 04, 2012, 08:29:57 AM »

You'll now notice a new button on the post editor page [Save as Draft] which allows you to keep a post invisible while you work on it across several editing sessions. To later find drafts to continue to work on them, or to post them, click on [Profile] on the main menu and you will see a choice on the left of the screen to access your drafts.  A list of all your drafts also shows just below the post editor window.

14

The Kitchen Sink / Civilization - really?

« on: May 02, 2012, 09:08:43 PM »

Civilization - really?

This is a rehash of a number of posts I made in 2009.
It relates to a number of recent threads here but rather than hijacking
other people's threads  I'll give it it's own space.

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A Civilization (or civilisation) is a complex society or culture group characterized by dependence upon agriculture, long-distance trade, state form of government, occupational specialization, population, and class stratification.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilization

The above definition is a common one for civilizations. The use of the term is  restricted to referring to humans. This limitation suggests a lower level description of "civilization" which raises some fundamental questions about the state of human consciousness.

Civilization: A group of living entities cooperating to survive by adapting the [external] natural environment to conform with their needs on a large scale as a group .

Un-civilized behavior is entities living by mostly adapting their own [internal] characteristics individually in order to survive within the natural environment.

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There can be large colonies of similar sentiences that are not civilizations because they do not re-organize their environment to suit themselves [cooperatively on a large scale].

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The common definition assumes that "civilized" is a superior way of life but the lower level one allows us to consider the viability of each way of life. (civilized or not)

As with anything else there are subtle nuances between these two extremes of lifestyle but simplifying the situation to black and white makes a comparison easier to understand.

There is also a deeper philosophical question embedded in such a comparison which should be considered.

Is a "civilized" sentience superior to [of greater value than] a non-civilized one?

There are 2 levels to consider.

First... An individual human can be either civilized....

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or un-civilized...

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Secondly... are the following to be considered "un-civilized" but sentient?

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CIVILIZATION AND ITS DISCONTENTS

http://www.webster.edu/~corbetre/personal/reading/civilization.html

By Sigmund Freud.
Translated from the German by James Stranchey. 92 pages.
New York: W.W. Norton & Co., Inc., 1961.
ISBN # 0-393-30158.

Comments of Bob Corbett
April 2001

After about 30 years of time lapsed, I have returned to re-read Sigmund Freud's 1930 classic Civilization and Its Discontents. I found it much more intriguing and persuasive than I did before. Perhaps I was simply too young in my own intellectual development to appreciate some of the negativity concerning human existence which Freud forces us to face. Whatever the cause of my less than memorable first read, I am delighted that I spent last week with this work and hope to return to a few other Freud classics to see if they challenge me as strongly as this one did. I have been delving into his much earlier work, The Interpretation of Dreams, but haven't yet sat down to read it systematically cover to cover with copious note taking as I did with the Civilization work.

The two works actually make a great pair to examine together. The Interpretation focuses on the inner life and development of the individual while Civilization turns away from the individual to the development of the various cultures of the world and eventually points toward the universal world which we seem today to be moving more and more toward.

After a segue in which Freud examines (and rejects) the possibility of some "oceanic" sensibility, and in which he declares strongly that human existence has no objective and independent meaning other than what humans choose to give it, Freud turns to the main question of the book:

Is civilization a benefit or harm to human beings?

Following a long and intensive inquiry into fascinating aspects of this question Freud will not come to a conclusion. He simply leaves us with greater clarity about the question and a clear insight into his over-arching theory of psycho-analysis.

The origins of civilization are in the individual. Each of us is born into a threatening world and we seek to avoid pain and gain pleasure. Thus, on Freud's view, the birth of civilization is rooted in egoism -- each of us striving in an often hostile world, to create the greatest amount of personal happiness and avoid pain as best we can.

In order to do this we ban together with other humans to form civilization, which is much more what most of us today would regard as cultures -- ways of living in close connection to other people. Thomas Hobbes certainly makes such an argument in his LEVIATHAN, and social contract theorists to this day take up the same theme. However, their argument is to say that this union with others is in our rational interest, thus is some sort of moral duty. Freud's perspective is psychological, not philosophical and moral. He is less interested in what we should do than what we do in fact do, though he framed the questions as to whether or not we should regard civilization as a benefit or harm. This "should" however, is less a moral should than an investigation to see if this course of action is likely to lead to more or less happiness. Freud seems not to believe that his choice of happiness -- the avoidance of pain and the achievement of pleasure -- is a value. Rather, this need is implanted in us by nature in the deepest instincts with which we have evolved.

As Freud sees the evolutionary development of human beings, early people strove to survive in a difficult and harsh world where there were three distinct sources of danger:

    * danger that the external world posed and in which we had to carve our survival. This would include not only such things as floods, storms and earthquakes, but many other factors such as extreme cold, extreme heat, the danger of other non-living creatures, diseases, and such items.
    * danger that came from our weak bodies that allowed us to get sick and always, eventually, to die.
    * danger that came from other human beings.

This book is devoted to this third category alone. Freud picks up human being at a much later time in evolutionary development when in fact the first two problems have been faced and incredible progress has been made precisely because human being has entered into civilization. Civilization is a relationship among individuals in which individuals give up certain aspects of their own ego interests to join with other people in creating social institutions which address the first two dangers, and to some extent the third as well.

However, this dependence-creating union carries new dangers of its own, since the social structures of civilization demand many limits on the individual which clash with fundamental and very deep evolutionary instincts.

Thus the question of the book arises: After all, and despite all the gains civilization has made in protecting us from the dangers of the world and the weakness of our own bodies, do the demands of civilization result in a net loss of happiness for the individual? Does what the individual gives up to civilization in order to get its benefits outweigh the benefits themselves? Freud investigates this question since it is being asserted by contemporary thinkers that civilization has this negative feature and Freud believes his psycho-analytic method can offer different and newer insights into assessing the positive and negative aspects of civilization.

Freud introduces what he calls a "digression" in section IV (4th of 8 sections). Actually this digression is the ground of his entire analysis of civilization and its failures and possibilities. The digression is on the nature of love and happiness and what makes it fail. Humans are fundamentally seeking happiness, following a profound, deep, ancient and irresistible instinct. Happiness is first and foremost survival and the avoidance of pain and then the pursuit of pleasure. However, two central instincts are active in humans above all others -- the desire to be loved (quite different from the desire to love) and a strong tendency toward aggression in pursuit of these ends.

Back from this digression he argues that our first strong instinct is to join with one single other of the opposite sex in a relationship that is many faceted, providing some security, the possibility of being loved, and the possibility of having children (both to contribute to the economy of the family and the possibility of extending the human race). This two-person unit quite naturally becomes a family, and finally, in an act of aggression, bands of brothers join together to resist the tyranny of the father and the larger community is on its way.

Thus the community grows and each of us becomes deeply dependant upon it at many levels. However, in order to live together in community each of us is forced to deny some of the basic and fundamental instincts of being loved, having security and being able to act upon our aggressive desires.

What happens is that in order to make this change we unconsciously shift the nature of these desires, essentially lying to ourselves at some very deep level.

This is done by a process of sublimation, or convincing ourselves that our desires are other than they are:

Instead of wanting to be loved, we come to believe we want to love. First the beloved, and then the family and eventually all of human kind. In this love of the other we may also sublimate our aggression as a threat to the community and as acts which are inconsistent with our civilized love. And thus, in the safety for all that comes with civilization the social form of organization allows various gains to be made against the major enemies of happiness:

    * against the power and harshness of the external world. We do this by creating housing, agriculture, dams, clothing and so on.
    * against the weakness of our bodies -- at least as a delaying tactic and in order to live in health. We do this, of course, by our practices of healing.
    * against the dangers from one another by the codes of civilization.

But it is in this latter move that the danger comes. How much can human being bear to give up of these fundamental instincts? What happens if the sublimation process becomes too oppressive to these inner forces of instinct? Then we run into serious person problems and problems with civilization. The very question of the book is: is civilization demanding too much of us? Are we getting relief from some of the dangers faced by human beings only to expose ourselves to even greater dangers?

Where do these dangers come from? Ironically, the very worst (most aggressive) form for most of us is not the punishing power of civilization -- which certainly is extremely strong, but rather, from our own super-ego, a powerful censor who is ourselves at some level.

Freud argues that a strong piece of evidence that our alliance to the power of the culture (civilization) is only minimally deep is the wide spread tendency of people to be able to violate cultural rules if they are quite sure they will not in any way be caught or punished. This shows that at least in regard to those particular rules, the belief in the need of them is not very deep and not one's own.

However, the super-ego is in a privileged position. It is us, thus we cannot hide our actions from it in the same way. Since the super-ego internalizes most of society's rules it can punish us with one of the strongest punishments possible: GUILT. Guilt is the super-ego's calling our attention to our own failure to live up to what we have come to know (under the pressure and bombarding propaganda of the culture) as objective good. We then are evil or sinful. This super-ego is the harshest (and for Freud) most aggressive player in this whole story, and it is the self.

Freud is quite vague and puzzled, even contradictory about what this all means. He is convinced that civilization asks much too much, demands rules it does not need for any reasonable sense of security. He doesn't give many concrete examples but he does cite the typical cultural demands of:

    * heterosexuality
    * monogamy
    * sanctioned unions

He generally asserts that clearly civilization demands too much and this excess is likely to constitute a great deal of unhappiness in many people living in it. But, when all is said and done -- would it be better for humans to leave civilization and return to some pre-social state of nature. Probably not suspects Freud. However, neither is it at all likely that we will find a perfect balance and create a society where all will live in perfect harmony. No. This conflict between the individual's deepest instincts and the structures of any social system of civilization that we are likely to encounter will never be fully resolved. Civilization will attempt to oppress the individual into its needs and the individual will never have full happiness because of this. Some will have much more unhappiness than others, but civilization is by its fundamental nature incompatible at some levels with the individuals needs.

This is the basic argument. The book has much much more in it. Many of the side arguments are simply fascinating. To deal with each of them would make this set of comments many times the size of the exposition of the main line of argument. I won't do this here. I do, however, want to call attention to one constant theme since it is of special interest to me and in radical conflict with much of contemporary ethics.

Freud believes that one of the worst pieces of advice that society gives is to love all: Love your brother as you love yourself. Freud argues that this is not only contrary to our deepest instinct of aggression, but that it is bad practical advice. This instinct is so strong, he argues, that humans are quite limited in just how much they can control it without doing significant personal damage to their own psyches and having this fact express itself in neuroses. In an argument which would shock and repel many today in the face of all the many ethnic conflicts in the world, Freud argues that the hostility that smaller cultures have against those closest to them geographically are basically good things. They allow an outlet for some of our aggression making us more able to practice more of the benefits of civilization within our own culture. And, he argues, the harm done by these wars and hostilities are actually quite small in the larger scale of this evolutionary battle for the nature of the human being. I would imagine he would include that the economic warfare of the capitalist classes against each other and the workers (as well as the planet's ecosphere itself) would well fit into this sort of relatively useful aggression.

While I cannot champion the full burden of this view, I am extremely attracted to his notion that the attempt to act with any serious sense of love or concern for all humans is not a tenable view. Freud bitterly attacks "higher principle" ethics (I can't imagine why he allows it this seeming honorific of "higher," since he argues it is misguided in the extreme) for being utopian and paying little attention to the psychological reality of human being. It is one thing to argue for the "ought" that stretches the human into civilization and creates some of these tensions which he discusses and which I analyzed above. It is quite another to push the utopian ought far beyond this in areas where there is virtually no hope at all of achieving the end, but puts the individual into the quite unhealthy and undesirable position of having the super-ego attempting to enforce a psychologically unenforceable rule.

I tried to address this problem in the paper I wrote in 1995 on MORAL OBLIGATIONS TO DISTANT OTHERS.   I had this distinction in mind when I argued that the moral principle that the is does not imply the ought was intended only in a logical sense by the philosophers, but that it needed some notion of a psychological or existential sense as well. I've been trying to figure out how to make that case better than I did at that time and I think Freud's views will be useful in working on that in the future.

Sigmund Freud produced a phenomenal book in his look at the relationship between the individual and the society. I wouldn't presume to attack him here. Since his time even the strongest proponents of his work have modified a few of the principles of psycho-analysis which he here embraces and those may have some impact on what a modern version of this thesis would look like. On the other hand, the pressures toward conformity and especially the pressures toward globalization and universality have intensified a great deal the pressures on the individual from the demon of civilization, exacerbating the difficulties of the individual to carve out enough space for him or herself. I think Freud's reflection in the 1930s would serve us quite well at this beginning of the 21st century.

This raises the questions...

Can there be sentience without "civilization"?

Our EGO suggests to us that our 'civilized' sentience is of higher value than their 'un-civilized' sentience but is that true?

Carroll Quigley's "Tragedy and Hope" clearly demonstrates the unsustainable nature of "human civilization" . Within the history he documents every complex large scale human civilization has collapsed because of similar self destructive tendencies.

These include...

Destruction of required environment through unsustainable expansion.

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Conflicts over allocation of resources.

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Decadence from overindulgence.

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All the above civilized destructive tendencies relate to the external manipulation of the environment in order to make their environment compatible with the desires of 'civilized' humans.


Some un-civilized humans...

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and most non-human sentiences...

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have learned to adapt themselves to their environment rather than to adapt their environment to themselves. IE... Birds grew wings, fish grew fins, cactus learned to conserve water, and bushmen learned to forage.

Most un-civilized sentiences (including the bushmen) have lasted far longer than any complex large scale "civilized" human society.

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Is it time for "civilized" humans to consider other options?

15

Energy / What If A Collapse Happened And Nobody Noticed?

« on: May 01, 2012, 12:47:50 PM »

Good article...

What If A Collapse Happened And Nobody Noticed?
Every once and awhile I'll be listening to a podcast with one or the other writers specializing on the subject of Peak Oil or collapse and the subject of timetables will come up. When will the collapse finally be here, the callers ask insistently, almost pleadingly, so that they can finally justify their investments in freeze-dried foods, water purification tablets and solid gold coins. Inevitably the guest will demur, and speak more in general terms. But I'm going to be the first pundit to go out on the limb and assign a timeline for the collapse. Spread it far and wide, and let's see just how good my predictive powers are. Are you ready? Here it is:

Right now.

What do they think a collapse is supposed to look like? It seems people just cannot just cannot get past the "Zombie Apocalypse" theory of collapse. They imagine hordes of disease-ridden folks dressed in rags stumbling around and fighting over cans of petrol and stripping cans of food from shelves. That's not what collapse looks like. It never has been. In fact, there's very little evidence that a Zombie Apocalypse style collapse ever occurred in the historical record. Instead we see subtle patterns of abandonment and decay that unfold over long periods of time. Big projects stop. Population thins. Trade routes shrink and people revert to barter. Things get simpler and more local. Culture coarsens. High art stagnates. People disperse. Expectations are adjusted downward. Investments are no longer made in the future and previous investments are cannibalized just to maintain the status quo. Extend and pretend is hardly a recent invention.

No, what happens in a collapse is very much more subtle than a Zombie Apocalypse. Things tend to look pretty normal for the following reasons:

1.) People and Institutions are resistant to change.
2.) The system has a formidable array of resources to preserve the status quo.
3.) Sheer momentum.
4.) Creeping Normalcy
5.) Denial

Continued...