July 2014 - TheTranscendenceDiaries

Questions Regarding the Latest Theories on the Origins of Humankind

July 30, 2014

Four to five weeks ago I got this idea to start listening to specific brainwave stimulating tones while sleeping in order to up my cerebral potential and increase certain aspects of consciousness. My first thought was to purchase a few Hemisync programs from The Monroe Institute, believing them to still be the leading researchers in brainwave manipulation. But after a little research (primarily looking through YouTube for Hemisync programs that might have been uploaded), I discovered that this field has made tremendous progress. The Monroe Institute is no longer the only player on the pitch. There are a variety of different theories and technologies out there now from all over the world in the field of brain and consciousness stimulation and modulation using tones, monaural tone tech, binaural beats, 532 Hz, A432 retuning tones, chakra balancing, third eye and pineal gland stimulation, subliminal affirmations, audible affirmations, meditations, etc etc.

This research still continues on my part, and I’ll report on it at a later date IF i decide that I’ve found ONE technology that I believe works better than another. So far I am enjoying and seeming to benefit from using a variety of them — every night, while sleeping. It seems to be working.

As often happens in these scenarios — especially for those of us who tend to have a broad attention span (sounds better than ADD doesn’t it?), while studying this particular field, I chanced upon other topics of research too, specifically various videos dealing with expanded consciousness. Some of you probably remember. I began posting what I was finding to Twitter and Facebook to share whenever I found anything that was particularly earth shattering. I quickly landed in the world of Sacred Geometry (which really was mind blowing), then ancient knowledge meets cutting edge new science. For weeks this is all I studied. I managed to get through every bit of new data that up until that point I was not familiar with or hadn’t already studied. And it is, I must admit, very interesting stuff. I created playlists on YouTube, so if anyone else wants to catch up with the latest research in these fields, they can just go to these Playlists.

What you’ll notice though is that the playlists tend to have a lot of cross pollination. Some of the videos clearly go into the Ancient Knowledge heading. Some of them start veering into the Conspiracy Theories heading. Some of them go into Alternative Spirituality. And still another group tends to lean more in the direction of Alternative Anthropology, Archeology or Cosmology.

The problem is due to the fact that just about everything that we think we know about ALL of these subjects is WRONG. The whole world is walking around with all of this alleged scientific or religious or historical data in their heads that we’ve learned since we were kids, but it’s all old, outdated and some of it just flat out made up bs. So once you start down this path of “catching up” in one arena, say the history of human civilization, you soon enter into the Conspiracy field — because so much of this information IS commonly known among certain circles but kept from the mainstream. But as soon as you want to learn more, go deeper, then you have to leave the broad world of Conspiracies and head into a more specific field where the actual researchers in that specific domain are doing the cutting edge research — i.e. anthropology, economics, religious studies, etc.

What I noticed is that no matter where I went and what I studied, everything seemed to lead to the same conclusion: there is a mass global conspiracy going on by a very small group of elites who know a whole lot more about the world we live and the history of this world than the common person does, and they use this knowledge to gain and keep power and control the masses. Makes sense. Nothing new there. Though much of the latest data was new to me. It was good to catch up. But further down the rabbit hole you begin to hit this — what i would call — “dead zone”…. a place where ALL the documentaries tend to freeze… they are TRYING to tell you something, they desperately WANT to tell you something… but they just aren’t sure WHAT to tell you. Because everyone has either their own viewpoint or their own agenda OR they simply don’t know anything beyond their own personal conclusion.

For example, many of these theories tend to stop at the “the elites who one might call The Illuminati control the world are all satanists who worship Lucifer who is actually The Lord of Light and not really a bad person but they are using this power and all the secret technologies they possess to keep the masses down through the New World Order and stay in control of the world” idea. Okay fine. We know that. That’s their big conclusion. Leading governments, the royals and the Catholic Church are all occultists and/or satanist. Great. We already know that. They possess secret knowledge and these are the signs and symbols of this whole charade etc etc. Okay so that’s sort of the beginner stage. But then it just stops. They tend to end there and go off into a new age lala land of outlandish presumptions or pie in the sky fairytales about how one day the people will be able to take control of the world back through either raising mass consciousness or through mass global revolution. Yep. One can see that happening as well.

But if you look carefully enough through all the various information that’s out there you start to notice one or two very interesting ideas that don’t really get dissected down too much, at least not on the surface: and that is the idea that the human race was not created by a capital G God, but rather by lower case g gods, nor were we descended from early hominids ala evolution theory, but rather we were created initially as a slave race by an extraterrestrial group of beings.

As you might remember I first came upon this idea in ONE book in 1995. That was it. Then this whole Ancient Alien theory really began to take off over the last ten to fifteen years. To the point where it has it’s own mainstream TV show — at least here in the Americas. So it’s reached the mainstream now. Back when i first read it, it seemed like such a foreign concept to me, that I must admit that I just sort of decided to leave it alone for the time being. I didn’t see how it could really help or benefit me in any way to know that. Plus it really bumped up against my own theological and spiritual viewpoints and practices.

Fast forward 19 years and here we are. You may remember a few years ago when I decided to read the whole bible. Circa 2005 to 2007. Every now and then I would post something to the social networks about how crazy it was or how illogical it was or how made up it all seemed, etc. But there were a few sticking points for sure. Such as if God made just Adam and Eve, and they had these two sons, Cain and Abel, where did these other women come from that Cain and Abel married? Things like that. Simple logical things. Obviously there is only one answer if one is to follow this path of thinking: Eve’s sons made love to Eve and she gave birth to a few females, who would have been Cain and Abel’s sisters and they in turn also became their wives as well. In other words the entire human race was borne from incest. Strange and disturbing to say the least.

But then you go deeper. You begin to study the ancient texts where the Torah (the Old Testament portion of the Bible) actually came from. And that’s where it gets really interesting. You begin to discover little known and discussed facts like the fact that the Book of Genesis is actually two or more different books combined — totally separate books written by two totally different people at two different times. But they are so similar to each other PLUS we aren’t sure which one was written first, so biblical scholars just combine them together to make one book. That’s why many of the stories in the Torah and the Bible are told twice, but often contradict each other. Most Jews and Christians aren’t even aware of this, and if they are they just decide not to think about it. Frankly this whole sphere is so filled with anomalies like this that one can easily see how and why most Christians and Jews do not bother to even acknowledge or entertain these facts — they probably don’t even bother recognizing them consciously. Only scholars do. Because It’s simply too mind boggling to most people.

Here’s one that has always boggled me and has continued to stick my attention for years: All through the beginning of the book of Genesis, this “god” continues to speak of himself as if there is more than one of him. He uses the pronouns “us” and “we” and “ourselves” as if he/she is speaking to a group of people. It’s quite odd. And it’s right there in plain site for anyone to read and see. Now before we go on let us acknowledge that 99% of religious leaders out there, people who we call pastors or preachers or priests or rabbis or ministers are NOT invested in studying or researching to gain knowledge or get to the bottom of any great mysteries. That’s not their mission or goal. Their goal is to provide spiritual or religious leadership and pastoral guidance and comfort to their congregation. So they may know certain things… but they don’t tend to know the deep scholarly stuff or the latest cutting edge academic research.

There is also the problem with anthropology. This whole theory of evolution that states that human beings evolved from lower form apes and hominids, BUT they have all these giant missing pieces — they call it “the missing link” — that WOULD prove they were right IF they could only find evidence of other species or animals that they could fit in between we Homo sapiens and these earlier hominids like homo erectus or homo habilus or cromagnun man etc. The problem is that they just don’t have any physical evidence of any of this being true.

Next let’s jump back over to the religious and history books for a moment. Turns out that real scholars — ones withOUT an agenda to prove that the religions of the world are true or accurate or even real — have known for centuries that the Judeo Christian sacred writings that we call the bible etc are actually ancient texts taken from earlier ancient texts from the Sumerians, the Phoenicians, the Babylonians, the Persians and the Medes. The Jews may think that they invented this God and these stories — the Israelites actually. But scholars know that they didn’t. They were just copying the work of other more ancient peoples that they came into contact with. Even ideas such as the creation story and the creation of human beings etc etc.

By this point scholars can even tell you WHICH ancient texts most of these writings come from. It’s incredible how much progress ALL of these different fields of study have made over the last ten to fifty years. From genetics to religious to history to anthropological studies, each of the different fields have made incredible gains in what we know about the history of the world we live and our own history.

In a nutshell, human beings were evidently first created about about 200,000 years ago initially as a slave race by the Anunnaki — a more advanced extraterrestrial race of beings who originally came from a planet known as Nibiru, which happens to actually exist in our own solar system but our scientists have just not discovered it yet. Before you scoff, bare in mind that these SAME ancient Sumerian texts also tell of there being one or two extra planets in our solar system — whereas we have always known there to just be 9 in total — and over the last ten years sure enough scientists have indeed discovered two more planets in our solar system, — I believe the first one they called Sedna and the second one just discovered this year VP2012…(but check on that…) making the total count now 11 total planets in our solar system. Who would have ever thought that the number of planets in our solar system would be different when we were adults compared to when we were children? That fact alone is enough to make anyone remotely intelligent at least consider to start to rethink everything we’ve been taught about our origins.

If one reads the Bible or the Torah with this NEW understanding of what it is actually writing about — OR better still, goes back to the original source material, the ancient texts of the Sumerians and Babylonians, and starts rereading with this new understanding of what and WHO they were actually writing about these texts make a LOT more sense. It’s not some giant wrathful vengeful God in the sky who was bored and lonely and thus created humankind out of nothingness who wants us to now worship him or he’ll send us to hell for an eternity. This is all just garbage that lower minded humans added onto these ancient writings because, one, they either forgot what the real story was, or two, as some conspiracy theorists claim, they did KNOW what the ancient texts really meant, but they hid the real meaning of the stories from the people and invented this giant god in the sky figure and all the baggage that goes along with him — like religion and heaven and hell and other such rewards and punishment ideas — in order to control the majority of the people on earth through fear of the unknown and fear of the afterlife. It makes perfect sense.

In fact, do it yourself. Go back and start rereading the Torah or the Bible based on this new idea of WHO the “gods” were and WHY they created us and HOW they created us. It all starts to make a LOT more sense.

Here’s the deal: My intention here over the next few days, weeks, months or years is not to try to explain this to you the reader or anyone else, nor to try to prove it; there’s way too much evidence now out there in such a wide variety of different fields of human study to doubt these theories. The idea of evolution, at least to me now, is a joke. But more likely it’s a hoax being perpetrated on purpose to steer us away from learning the true nature of the origins of human beings. And the same can be said about the more mainstream theories of religious origins, i.e. a God created human beings because he was bored or lonely. Again, it’s always seemed rather silly to say the least… BUT we’ve made it seem plausible by attaching higher ideals to it such as “divine consciousness” etc etc. No. None of it now to me even seems plausible now that I have learned what I have learned.

But rather than try to explain it here OR try to prove it, I will use this space here in the Transcendence Diaries to just make my own notes and ask my own questions. What I will also do is cite sources and resources so anyone can begin to study the same materials I have been studying over the last few months and years which will allow them to decide for themselves what they believe.

If you’re interested in starting to dive into this research yourself, check out this VERY basic playlist that I created here: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7Cl0OHflU1JAElAKLXd3g8JCDu2LL6_z

At the very least it gives you a starting place or launching pad.

Questions that have arisen for me are the following:

Since we’ve made so much progress in this research over the last 20 years (which I hadn’t realized), do ANY modern religious scholars KNOW what’s really up? I’m referring to Christian, Judaic & Islamic scholars associated with actual churches or religions, NOT academics… (The academics are the ones spearheading this research. Clearly they know exactly what’s what.) But what about more mainstream religious leaders who also happen to be highly intelligent and/or curious…. Do THEY know what the Torah & Bible are really talking about & really referring to? Are some of them hiding the truth from their “flock”? Or are they too as clueless as everyone else is/was? That’s what I keep coming back to…

And let us say that this now-new but once-old and readily-known theory of the origins of human beings IS true… Does that discount or exclude the idea that a capital G GOD exists? Wouldn’t these ancient beings, the Anunnaki, still have to have been created at some point in time way back when? Sure they may be way more advanced than WE are and they’ve been in existence for a lot longer in the universe than we have, but they still need an origin as well. Someone or something still would have had to create them. THIS is something to contemplate.

What it comes down to, still, for me, is that consciousness still is the most likely source of ALL creation, both matter and energy. rather than coming from or out of matter and energy, consciousness gives life shape and form to matter and energy. So yes even more advanced civilizations — some that may have created we human beings — were still at some point created from a higher consciousness, just as the universe itself was at some point.

In other words, on a deeper level, WHEN we pray — if one prays that is, just WHO are we praying to? If we were in fact genetically engineered as a slave race by a more advanced species of beings, THEY would be (and ARE according to cutting edge modern religious scholars) the “gods” that all of these holy books were written about, all of these creation stories are actually about this more advanced species — to ancient earthlings they certainly would seem like “gods”. So now when we pray, assuming all this time that it was to capital G God, are we REALLY praying to God? Or can we not even be sure really that a capital G God really exists? Frankly at this point this is something that I believe that each of us is going to have to explore on our own — within our own consciousness — in order to try to discover what turns out to be true to us. More of a psychic or meditative practice in our own personal consciousness and hopefully through which we can eventually tap into some form of a higher cosmic consciousness in order to really learn what’s really going on.

This is what I hope to do on my own through my own meditative practices and prayer. As always I will take notes here in the Diaries.

PS — I am currently reworking the book/presentation “Not Quite The Meaning of Life and Everything In Between” — something I hadn’t worked on since 2008. It’s a more visual presentation dealing with and explaining these same ideas about cosmology and consciousness etc.

Questioning the Morality of Self Defense In Israel

July 28, 2014

I know a lot of you have been patiently waiting for me to speak out openly and honestly about what we have been witnessing in Gaza, that you’ve been hoping I would for a moment lay down the gauntlet of Libran fairness and Ambassador-driven diplomacy and just speak my mind about the horrors we have been witness to in Gaza. The truth is I have tried very very hard to be fair over the last three weeks. I have been careful and cautious with my every word and deed, respectful of all parties involved. And I promise you that in every waking hour of this conflict I have done nothing but study the issues at hand and the history behind them so that when I do speak I am doing so from an educated place. Tonight I want to honor that commitment I have made to you here in the Diaries countless times, to be always radically honest over politically correct and above all to speak from both my mind and my heart.

Almost three weeks in now and still the siege and annihilation of the people of Gaza rages on by the government of Israel. Over 1,100 Palestinian people have been killed at least in less than three weeks. Shot to death. Or their bodies blown to bits. Almost all of them civilians and nearly half of them women and children. Yet it is surprisingly calm and quiet in the United States regarding the grotesque bloodshed and blatant disregard for human life that we’ve been hearing about and witnessing.

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon stated publicly that he is appalled by Israel’s actions and calls their “right to defend themselves” in how it has been practiced “an abomination.” This is a bold move for any high ranking member of the UN, for if there’s one thing that everyone knows once they reach a certain level in world governance, it is don’t mess with Israel. Yet this brave compassionate man felt he simply had no choice. He spoke the words that hundreds of millions of people all over the world are silently thinking to themselves and are often times afraid to say.

No less than ten different human rights organizations in Israel alone have sent letters to the Netenyahu government urging him to stop the slaughter of innocent men women and children — if not out of basic human compassion then for the sake of the country itself, for they are quite sure now that Israel has committed numerous war crimes. The United Nations itself held a vote last week regarding the same topic and the resulting majority concluded that Israel was indeed suspect of breaking innumerable Laws of the Geneva Convention and suspected of committing numerous war crimes. So they’ve sent a UN investigative team to Gaza to see for themselves.

Of course regardless of what their final determination will be–even if Israel is found guilty of breaking international laws of the Geneva Convention and committing the most atrocious war crimes, absolutely nothing substantial will happen to Israel for it. This is the harsh reality of life in the year 2014 in this day and age on planet earth. Israel is above the law. It is not justice or freedom or democracy that governs the world we live in today, any more than one to two to three hundred years ago; but as it has always been it is money and power. And Israel, this tiny little speck of a country, who’s legitimacy in the eyes of the Illuminati is iron clad but whose origin is controversial and questionable, is synonymous with the United States. And if there is one thing that all earthlings know at this time in our history, the rules and laws of the land, no matter how finely tuned or ingrained in the minds of the people, do not apply to the United States. Nor it’s allies. And Israel is ally número uno.

People all over the world, from nearly every country on earth, have called for protests in the streets — and everyday we see a new one pop up somewhere; and as well they are demanding a world government of any kind to step in and demand that Israel stop it’s murderous invasion of this impoverished little chunk of land. But not in America. For whatever reasons the American government has the majority of its sheople convinced that Israel has the right to kill men women and children in cold blood if they even “suspect” a Hamas militant is in the vicinity or general area. And if it turns out that there was no such militant, que sera sera. Last week Israeli soldiers killed an entire family of twenty-five people as they were sitting down to dinner to break their fast of the holiest Muslim holiday of the year, Ramadan. There were elderly people at that table eating their dinner, along with 13 children and three pregnant women. All of them innocent. All of them now dead.

Yes (I know what you’re thinking) these ARE horrors that are beyond the scope of even our imaginations here in the United States because we have it so good and for so long that we simply cannot even imagine it. Not even when we hear about it. Not even when we see images of it on the news or online. It’s as if we are glimpsing into another world, far far removed from our own. As if it’s nothing more than a movie. And yet these are people just like us. These are our little children whose bodies are being blown to bits all over the streets, where caring men from the community slowly hobble along sobbing and picking up the pieces of the tiny bodies bit by bit to place them in plastic bags. These are our mothers being shot and killed. These are our pregnant wives being blown up by mortar shells, wiping out two generations in one blow. And as well these are our fathers and sons and brothers who are dying.

How do we know this? How can we say such a thing if we aren’t Palestinian ourselves? There are so many different ways to answer those questions. First and foremost we have a decent sized Palestinian population right here in the United States. And these innocent civilians we see getting killed everyday are quite literally their brothers and sisters or mothers and fathers. I can only imagine how saddened they are in this moment, and how angry, watching as the country that they love and call home, the United States, does nothing to help their families. And on top of it their wounds made all the worse as they are forced to hear everyday how strongly supportive the president or Secretary of State is of “Israel’s right to defend itself”. Because even the slowest person in the room recognizes that haphazardly bombing and killing hundreds of innocent civilians on a daily basis is not defending one’s self.

If we ever had a chance of showing our Islamic fellow citizens the virtues of Christianity, we have surely blown it through this travesty of America valuing politics over human life.

How else do we know that these gunned down innocents in Gaza are our brothers and sisters? Because when it happened to us, on 9/11, we not only expected the world to empathize and grieve with us, we felt comforted and loved when they did. Why are we as Americans not repaying that debt in kind to these poor downtrodden victims of a cruel and merciless war? Why are we not showing the other the same empathy and compassion that was shown to us when we were attacked? Why do we not have troops on the ground as we have in so many areas of the world helping to evacuate civilians, bringing food, aid and medicine to the injured sick or dying? What is happening to the brave compassionate American heart that we all know and admire? Why isn’t it in Gaza right now helping lead refugees to safety as Israel bombs the hell out of this little sliver of an area — the people are literally blockaded in on all sides by walls and armed Israeli militants. For years it’s been called a modern day concentration camp by even the most conservative accounts. Yet the United States does nothing to help. But why?

Because the official stance of the United States government is that “we support Israel”. Of course the truth is that 90% or more everyday average Americans don’t have any idea WHY they are supposed to support Israel. They just hear it through the news media day in and day out and have been hearing it for fifty straight years. It’s a rallying cry for every prospective or serving American politician, right up there with “I believe in American Exceptionalism”. And in the constant beating of this strange illogical unexplained drum, Americans get a message perhaps subliminally that it isn’t safe to grieve or empathize or care about Palestinian people because it implies not supporting Israel.

Most of this is due to a great propaganda machine running a constant meme throughout the Americas that states in essence that to speak against Israel in any way is somehow an immoral, nearly criminal offense. Just try it. You’ll quickly see. America is a “free” country, except when it comes to speaking out against Israel in anyway. This is why you see politicians and wannabe politicians leap at the chance to wave their support flag for Israel whenever they’re on TV or giving an interview. Half of them don’t even know why they do it; they’re just trained to. Many more don’t have a clue about the history of the country nor the conflict with the Arabs, nor do they understand what all the fuss is about. They’ve just been warned plenty of times as we all have that to even dare speak out against Israel in any way is somehow a “very bad” thing.

This is propaganda and indoctrination at its finest. It is Madison Avenue advertising means taken to sociopolitical ends for the purposes of brainwashing an entire populace to be very afraid of being labeled an “anti-Semite” or a so called “holocaust denier”. Yes even if you’re intention is simply to question why Israel needs to indiscriminately kill so many innocent civilians, invariably someone will be soon calling you out as a holocaust denier.

Social media in the United States has been on fire for the last three weeks over this issue, pitting both newly made and lifelong friends against each other in hateful ways. As soon as one person voices empathy for the Palestinian people who have been mercilessly killed OR opposition to how Israel is doing it, one or two hapless goons will jump into the thread raving mad and screaming insults the likes of which we haven’t heard since we crushed neo-Nazis and white power skinheads a few years back. They are mean ruthless ignorant barbaric animals with wicked tongues of deceit and vitriol. And they will stop at nothing until they’ve quieted the thread down or scared everyone away.

Believe it or not these are often American Jews, who for whatever reason are more extremist in their radical pro-Israel rightwing views than most Israelis are. In my research over the last few weeks this is one of the many lessons I have been shocked to learn. There is a larger percentage of Israelis who empathize with the Palestinian cause and are against the rampant murder that’s been going on in Gaza over the last three weeks than there are American Jews here in the States. For more on this strange anomaly, look for the Israeli film DEFAMATION on Netflix or Youtube and watch it. It is shocking and eye opening.

While you’re at it, take the time to look for my Youtube Channel, TranscendentTV and find a playlist I created called Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. I have saved a variety of movies and documentaries to this playlist that go over the history of Zionism and the formation of Israel that will help explain what caused this conflict in the first place.

But be forewarned. Once you watch these, it is hard to forget them; once you learn these facts, it is impossible to unlearn them. Your eyes will be opened in a way that you may not enjoy. There is great injustice in the world. And it is we, the well meaning American tax payer, who have often paid for these atrocious acts of unfairness. Especially when it comes to the formation of Israel and what happened to the people who lived there before that time. Take a look at any World Atlas pre-1947 — go to the library or to your grandparents house if you have to — and look for Israel. You won’t find it. Instead, in it’s place you’ll see an area called Palestine. Which is what it was called for over a thousand years until they changed its name to Israel in 1948. And the people who lived there before? in Palestine? Yes… These are the millions of Palestinian refugees who now occupy the areas called the West Bank and Gaza who are now once again being slaughtered.

If you’re like me, and if you’re reading this I trust you might be, your heart breaks at the thought of any living thing being hurt or injured, let alone being killed or losing a child. Perhaps like me you are a Buddhist Taoist Christian, or maybe an Avatar, or maybe just an enlightened and compassionate fellow traveler and humanist. Regardless of what we call ourselves or what labels we ascribe to ourselves for comfort or peace of mind, we can all agree that murdering innocent people is wrong. It is an immoral act of the highest caliber. As Americans we consider it such a heinous crime against civilized society that it is the only crime where we deem there to be no suitable punishment for except execution. And though I do not support capital punishment for I believe that we cannot train a society that something is wrong if we turn around and do the same exact thing ourselves, I believe this illustrates just how firmly resolute we are in our shared conviction that murder is wrong and not to be tolerated in a civilized society.

And yet this is precisely what the current American White House administration wants us as citizens to support. Four young boys playing ball on the beach, killed. A United Nations shelter filled with families seeking shelter from the war, blown up. Schools filled with children, destroyed. Hospitals even, where both the sick and dying and the living breathing personnel have been blown up by air strikes, missiles or tanks. None of this is American. It is not how we were raised. It is the exact opposite of how we were raised and what we were taught about right and wrong. We are a lot of things here in America, some of them gaudy and some of them glorious. But indiscriminate killers we are not. So why are we being asked to support this slaughter of innocent people?

And as Christians… Does one even need go there? Does it even need to be mentioned how utterly inhumane and unChristian these acts are to the Christian heart? Can we even imagine how the heart of Jesus is breaking over what He is witnessing being carried out in His name? Yes as human beings we are appalled. And yes as compassionate Avatars who love precious humanity and are working to create an enlightened planet we are appalled. But as Christians… Are there any words for what we are feeling? In the so called Holy Land no less it is truly, as Ban Ki-Moon reminds us, an abomination.

We are told that we worship the same God as the Jewish people. And we trust that. It is important that there are pious Jews living all over the world who are NOT taking part in this killing of Palestinian people and claim to not support it. In fact the more religious a Jewish person is the more against this killing of Palestinians they are I have recently learned. Secular Jews claim that this is due to “a conspiracy on their part because they are waiting for the Messiah to come and He can only come to earth if Jerusalem is being shared by both Jews and Muslims living in peace and the old temple is rebuilt”. This may be true — we know there are many Christians who believe the same thing; but at least it lends a basic humanity to these people.

I urge everyone to not make this a religious issue. I am sure there are just as many religious Jews who are as appalled by this as there are Christians or Muslims. And speaking of Muslims let us not forget that Hamas is continuously firing rockets into Israel STILL, even after over one thousand of the people they were elected to serve and protect have been killed. That is NOT the peaceful Muslim way of the Holy Koran.

No, this is not a matter of religion. And it never was. Don’t let anyone fool you. This war is about land and power and resources. These are a special breed of people — godless and wild, heartless, wrathful and vengeful — who are capable of things that most of us are not. They need our prayers more than we do — clearly religion isn’t going to help them one way or another. But more than that they need our voices. If we do not speak up to voice our dissent and our disagreement with what they are doing then are we not just as guilty as they are? Have we not seen enough innocent blood shed? Have we not heard enough excuses and soundbites why neither side will agree to a ceasefire?

Every talking head of note from the United States government came on prime news shows last Sunday and this past Sunday to defend Israel’s “right to defend itself”, while at the same time expressing “grave concern for the human rights crisis that we are witnessing in Gaza”. It’s hard to have it both ways, to both be concerned about AND support the cause of the crisis. By now Americans understand that there is more money and influence tied up in supporting Israel than anywhere on earth. This is why the United States allows this carnage to continue in the name of Israel’s self defense and even goes so far as publicly defending it and financially supporting it; and yet they did nothing for the people of Rwanda or Darfur, and will do nothing for the people of Syria today. Hell, we can’t even muster more than 300 “advisor troops” for Iraq while they’re having a bloody civil war and we basically bought that country. With our own money AND our own soldiers. Clearly there is something very special and unique about Israel. [If you’re curious about what it is, buy the book They Dare To Speak Out, which explains that AIPAC, the Americans for Israel Political Action lobby in DC is THE largest lobby in the US of A. Larger than big oil or big Pharma, larger than DuPont or Monsanto, later than GE or Apple or Google or Microsoft and yes larger than the Pentagon or our precious self-defense spending. In other words, more money greases the palms of elected American officials regarding “protecting Israel” than any other single subject or corporate interest in Washington DC. And in return those elected officials promise their public displays of affection and support AND hand Israel 3 billion dollars a year of American tax payer money. It’s a brilliant system. One that overtly should be illegal and criminalized, granted. But for now this is how the system works. If you ever wondered why the United States government pretends to care about “some people” and doesn’t seem to care at all about others, now you have a better understanding….]

This also helps explain why most of our friends over the last three weeks have been too busy posting photos of their Miami vacations or their allegedly cute kids on summer break to care about the crisis in Israel and Gaza: they just don’t believe there is anything that can be done about it. Most Americans know how the system works. They know that when it comes to Israel “anything goes” and that nothing they do as Americans is going to change that.

American Jews don’t have to dig too deep to understand why people all over the world repeat slogans like “the Jews run and control the world” when for all intents and purposes it appears just like they do once one sees and understands just how this American and Israeli exchange of money and weapons for political power works. What else are people supposed to believe?

How on earth are the American people supposed to be even remotely concerned with the plight of the people of Ukraine, as the US government is desperately trying to sell, if at the same time they are being told not to give a rats ass about women and children being slaughtered in Palestine? It just doesn’t add up. So instead they shut off that part of their brain, the caring part, the compassionate humane part. We aren’t designed inside to care only about “some” people. It’s just not how we work. After eleven years of bloodshed in the Middle East with over one million people killed by our money and soldiers, combined with Israel’s killing a thousand Gazans every few years with our money and weapons, how else are the American people supposed to feel?

Frankly I’m surprised we FEEL anything at all. But surprisingly some of us still do. But not many. And that is no surprise. We have become immune to feeling for other people. That’s why despite their best efforts, the White House and their media puppets cannot get the American people to care about Ukraine. There is obviously a lot of oil and natural gas on the line in that little country for our large hungry American appetite; and there may even be reasonably sound and practical strategic reasons for the United States to be there right now — or truly…why else would they be? But the American public just does not care. And who can blame them when their government is constantly picking and choosing which humans to care about and which ones to cast aside like rag dolls? The heart becomes confused. The heart becomes calloused.

And then there’s the fear. I can recite the names of at least twenty people I’ve spoken to this week who have expressed concern for what’s happening in Gaza; from the simplest down-home middle American folk to the highest paid most notable names in society. They use words like horrible, shocking, horrific, tragedy, disgusting, haunted…and yet there are only two who have said anything publicly about it. Only two have stood up to voice their disagreement with how Israel is handling their “self defense”. One of them is a pastor at a prominent church. Not only does he have a moral obligation to do so, but he has always been willing to play the black sheep when leading a charge for human rights. But the rest are afraid to say anything. Afraid isn’t the word. Scared to death is more like it.

Since when did speaking up for human rights or for the value of human life become a crime? Since when did these noble qualities equate to being racist or anti-Jewish? Since the formation of the American based Anti-Defamation League (ADL). Again, if you’re curious about how this system of indoctrination works and why it has been so easy to systematically shut up an entire country about the sanctity of human life unless they’re Jewish, see the film Defamation noted above. Only in America can one be made to feel like an evil racist in five minutes just for speaking out against violence or murder. Countries all over the world have been having marches and protests for weeks now to try to stop Israel from bombing the people of Gaza. But in America we are simply too jaded or too frightened to do so.

But I encourage all of us to lay down our self concern for a moment and embrace our humanity. Just as we did during World War II when we fought to save a people half way around the world from potential genocide, or during the civil rights movement right here at home twenty years later, we are being called upon once again to stand up and speak out on behalf of a desperate and displaced people, a people more economically poor than we can imagine and just as beaten down and trodden upon than those we helped save during World War II. These are a people who are literally being blown to bits like puppets right in front of our eyes every minute of the day, body parts flying around on live TV like an outtake of The Walking Dead — with absolutely no concern for their safety or welfare, nor a care for their futures or how they’ll survive once the killing stops.

People may lash out at you for speaking up. They may call you names. They may accuse you of being a racist or anti-Jewish. They may insult you and scream at you. They may accuse you of not understanding the issues or not caring about the welfare of the Israeli people. But just as before, do not be afraid. Do not be intimidated. Remind yourself and others that we are not speaking out against Israel. And we are not speaking out against Jewish people — for there are just as many Jewish people around the world speaking out about this cause as any other ethnicity and religion. What we ARE speaking out against is killing innocent people and the destruction of homes and whole villages in the name of “self defense”. Surely there has got to be a better way to defend oneself than to kill thousands of innocent people. Surely there is a morality at play in the hearts of all human beings that lifts us above the animal kingdom, even when it comes to self defense. What is there left to defend if we have given away all of our humanity in the process?

Lest we forget we the American people give the country of Israel over three billion dollars ($3,000,000,000) a year of our hard earned income, in the form of OUR taxes. This is money that is NOT going to the poor people of Detroit or Louisiana or to safeguard our borders. This is money that is not going to feed our hungry or shelter our homeless. Instead it is going to Israel. Free of charge. Not a loan, but free money. And it’s been like this for decades now. Forget asking why for the time being. (For that is certainly a reasonable question when the time is right.) For now the question should be do we all really feel comfortable sponsoring such extreme and inhumane acts of killing innocent people? If the answer is resoundingly no then we have a platform to voice it and change this. Each of us needs to pick up that phone tomorrow and call the White House, our Senators and our elected members of congress and tell them to STOP THE KILLING IN GAZA OR WE WILL STOP PAYING FOR IT. I promise each of you that I will do this tomorrow. And I hope that each of you does the same.

Beyond that let us send love and appreciation to all parties involved with the hope that they feel it even for a moment in their hearts and that it somehow helps them to remember their own humanity and morality, guides them to lay down their arms and stop this madness.

Yours,

The Ambassador

Israel and Gaza: The Game Changer

July 22, 2014

Time has passed since this war begun fifteen days ago. Another 70 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed, making the estimated death till now over 300. And another 2,500 at least are injured. Just as concerning over 100,000 Gazans have led their homes with nothing but the clothes on their backs in an attempt to head to a United Nations bomb shelter. Many will not have homes when they return. They will be for all intents and purposes be destitute. But we must never forget that it was Hamas — in Gaza — who started this latest battle, by firing some 60 rockets into various cities in Israel. And it was the Palestinians who live in Gaza who voted Hamas into their current position of leadership, indirectly one could argue giving them permission or at least the means to attack Israel as they did.

Since my last report Israel began their ground invasion entering into Gaza in tanks and on foot. A whole hospital was destroyed today. And worse, the death toll for Israel now is almost 30. I’ve had time to revisit my heart of hearts in regards to Israel’s mission and method to achieve that mission, i.e. It’s right to defend itself and it’s people. So I’ve changed my mind about Israel being justified for this horror that we are all witnessing day in and day out.

In answer to all of the impassioned pleas from Israeli friends or American Jewish friends who ask “If you don’t believe our hearts break from the suffering of the Palestinians because we condone the killing of them in this war, what then would you have Israel do?” My answer would be: you know that Israel has the Iron Dome Missile Defense System. So less than 1% of rockets fired out of Gaza ever hit the ground. That’s an amazing technology. Thank God for it and thank God for the financial support of US taxpayers for all these decades. It could be MORE than just a way to engage in a bloody lopsided war with our wicked neighbors though. We could really use it to our advantage and instead of bombing Gaza and knowingly killing hundreds of innocent civilians we could instead hold an emergency press conference — EVERYONE would attend obviously — and announce to the world “Today Hamas fired 60 missiles into Israel. Luckily no one was killed or injured. But we believe this is a barbaric act and a blatant act of war. But we here in Israel are tire of war. We on the other hand refuse to stoop to their level. It is beneath us. It is against our Torah and our Ten Commandments. So we ask the international community, especially middle eastern countries who have good relations with Hamas, to do whatever it takes to immediately compel Hamas to stop firing upon us. We trust that everyone remembers what happened in 2012 when this happened and we were reluctantly forced to retaliate. Over 1200 Palestinians were killed. Many of them innocent. We would like to avoid a tragedy of the proportion from happening again. But we can only do so if Hamas ceases from this activity immediately. We ask our fellow citizens of earth to come to our aid both for the safety of our people and our neighbors in Gaza.”

Now. THAT would really be something. It would blow minds. It would instantly change the way the entire world looks at Israel. In a heartbeat. By taking the high road they could shift the entire conversation — away from sympathy for the Palestinians being slaughtered and focus it instead on Israel’s justifiable fears and their noble and humane response to being attacked.

In a word, it would be a revolutionary game changer. Something for the history books. Not just the history of Israel. But for the history of the entire human race.

Hamas needs salaries paid for 45,000 men. Qatar may pay it. As it does sometimes. Or it may instead choose to hold off on paying it until Hamas ceasefires. Israel could also ask, as part of its agreement to hold off attacking, for the Palestinians to hold a mid term election or hold a referendum election and consider voting Hamas out of leadership in Gaza. A third request could be that Israel request a two week peaceful exploratory boots on the ground investigation into Gaza to search for tunnels and other stores of rockets and armaments that they would be free to take and destroy as part of the agreement. Israel might also agree to having a neutral third party to assist them in this investigation so that force is only used if anyone’s life becomes endangered.

The ultimate goal being to have Israel be the first people in the world to finally live up to the true potential of a compassionate humankind and be that example for all of us all over the world. The US, the most brutal and active military force in the world today desperately needs a mentor and role model such as this. And so too do many other countries around the world. It’s long overdue that we each begin to encourage each other to take the higher road and not the primitive predictable barbaric road of the lower animals as we always have throughout our short history. Imagine the possibilities.

The point being: Israel does have other options when it comes to it’s stated goal of “needing to defend its people”. The Iron Dome is already doing that. Better than anyone could have ever hoped for. Kudos to the ingenious Israelis who invented it. And if the people of Israel are still frightened of these incoming missiles (which is truth be told hard to believe since they are not acting like it — especially since they literally stand right in the line of fire of said missiles target areas while watching Gaza get blown up as if it’s a spectator sport), then they could easily go into the multitude of bomb shelters that Israel has available for its people — at least for a few days. This is a major inconvenience granted. But a small thing to ask when the larger goal is going to be rising up to become the most noble admired and courageous country on earth in the eyes of the world overnight and most likely receiving a Nobel Peace Prize in the process.

Imagine that: Israel winning the Nobel Peace Prize. And deservedly. Unlike US President Obama. That would really be something. It would turn the whole conversation upside down and I believe would change humankind forever. There IS an alternative to what Israel has chosen to do. They DO have options. Just for the record let it be here noted. Israel is not out of options. They are not being forced to kill hundreds of innocent civilians. They chose to. Perhaps out of fear. Perhaps out of habit. Perhaps out of ego. Perhaps out of ignorance and not seeing a bigger picture to the bigger picture. But it wasn’t their only choice. It isn’t too late to change this game.

You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.

– Posted by The Ambassador

Thoughts On the Latest Battle Between Israel & Gaza

July 17, 2014

The last time this happened, in 2008, Princess Little Tree and I staged a BedPeace event to help bring awareness to the violence and bloodshed. We were never under the delusion that we actually accomplished anything. But we learned a hell of a lot from all the phone calls we made and research we did, and in the end believe we may have also inspired a few others to do the same. The learning is the key to ending this madness once and for all. [That footage is easily viewable on YouTube: Search for “Ed Hale and Bed Peace” etc.]

You’re right of course. It’s NOT fair, this latest skirmish between the Palestinians in Gaza and the government of Israel. Israel, being one of the world’s major super-powers and tiny little Gaza being not much more than a primitive but polished up refugee camp. Having seen both myself, the overt differences between the two are mind boggling. Big cities in Israel look and feel like Mediterranean versions of just about any other metropolitan city of the modern world; and the trash laden Gaza Strip looks like not much more than a glorified refugee camp circa the 1800s or even the Bible era in certain areas.

Israel thankfully has an extremely advanced missile defense system — nicknamed The Iron Dome — that shoots incoming missiles out of the sky before they land, essentially rendering air attacks of puny rockets futile; Gaza has none of the above, so citizens just hide in a corner somewhere hoping and praying that the newest missile that hits doesn’t hit them.

Of course that’s a completely useless and arbitrary tactic. Each and every Israeli missile fired IS going to hit and kill SOMEBODY, usually someBODIES as the case has been over the last few weeks. Today it was three young children ages 8 to 10 all from the same family up on the roof feeding the pigeons. Yesterday it was a group of four young boys playing on the beach, hence all the attention yesterday’s death toll received. The day before, it was some random moms, dads, uncles, aunts, children, etc. That’s just how it is in the Gaza Strip when you’re being bombed by Israel. This explains the shockingly out of balance numbers we hear about every day in this “war” –Israel deaths – 1, Palestinian deaths – 230.

Israel claims the reason for such skewed results — not much of a “battle” as much as a spanking by Israel — is because “Hamas fighters hide among the Palestinian civilians”. In other words, Israel can’t help but kill civilians every day because as they’re attempting to target these fighters who are firing these rockets into Israel, they’re having to fire upon innocent civilians. It’s the nature of these kinds of battles claims the Israeli government.

We as objective and compassionate observers have no reason to doubt what the Israeli government and military claims. We also have no reason to believe that Israel is deliberately targeting civilians or deliberately trying to kill them. Not only is it an abhorrently unethical act not apparent or inherent in their nature — who better to understand the plight of a displaced and oppressed people than Jewish people? — but it also works against their greater goal of creating an eventual peace between themselves and the Palestinian people they will always be forced to live with by necessity, simply because of where they decided to plant this “new home for the Jewish people”.

Nope. It truly does not seem likely that Israel itself, as a government or a nation, is intentionally killing innocent men women and children. But regardless of intention, it is a very real side effect of their military campaign. Every day more and more innocent civilians die. Israelis on the other hand go about business as usual. Javelin is there now. Presently in Jerusalem. “You wouldn’t believe how normal peaceful calm and quiet it is is here,” he wrote us yesterday. “The Israeli people have a remarkable gift at dealing with these things as if nothing abnormal is going on at all.”

“Well of course they do,” a friend of ours replied. (This was a group chat, all of us actively involved in the Peace movement in one way or another) “THEY don’t have anything to worry about. Their houses aren’t being demolished. Their children aren’t being blown to bits everyday.” And that’s very true. They’re not. For the average Israeli, they’ve become so accustomed to hearing that “Gaza is throwing some rockets over our way today, so stay in your home if you can” that they’ve developed a subconscious protective shield about the whole issue. Besides the fact that they KNOW that no actual bombs or rockets are going to hit the ground or go off anywhere near them due to the Israeli government’s advanced defense system. This would definitely make it easier to sleep at night. Banks are still open. Schools are still open. Marketplaces still open. In Gaza on the other hand, today during a brief five hour “humanitarian ceasefire” was the first time in two weeks that any banks were open.

So there’s a real difference in how both sides of the conflict are able to deal with it AND what kind of feelings they will be left with once it’s over. Israelis will understandably feel annoyed, like one who gets back from a day at the park when there is one too many pesky gnats or mosquitos flying around. Palestinians on the other hand will feel devastated. Their lives destroyed. Their homes destroyed. Everything they own destroyed. Their children and parents and siblings unfairly taken from them far too soon, their lives snuffed out in an instant, randomly and arbitrarily. And so the wheels of the conflict will continue to spin, even after the trading of rocket fire ends. Because vengeance will burn in the blood and hearts of everyone who lost someone. And it will only be a matter of time before little ones grow up to be big ones who have only one goal in mind: to seek revenge for the death of their brother or sister, or mother or father, or aunt or uncle, or husband or wife.

This is a war that has raged on for far too long. We all know how it plays out. Even those of us thousands of miles away with no skin in the game know the drill. A few weeks of trading rockets and missiles back and forth. Eventually it will just peter out. A limp peace will be brokered. Both sides tired — Gaza tired of so many dead and Israel tired of so much international rage thrown at them from all over the world. Israel will suffer one or two dead at the most with little to no damage to its towns and infrastructure. Gaza will report hundreds or thousands dead, it’s towns and infrastructure demolished and once again go back to looking like even more of a war zone than it already does.

There are a TON of questions that can be asked about this latest skirmish between these two warring tribes. It’s a battle that’s been raging for millenia. No matter what country you’re from on planet earth, and no matter how far removed from the area geographically, you’re all too familiar with at least one story — if not many — about the Israelites fighting with the Philistines or the Jews fighting with the Palestinians. Everyone has their opinions. Some more educated than others. Most not very educated. Truth be told, unless you’ve been there, and unless you’ve spent countless hours studying the history of the conflict and the history of the peoples involved in the conflict, it would be very hard to understand it, or have an educated opinion about it.

Both sides have been wronged. And both sides have been wrong. Both sides have tried to reach out in peace and both sides have instead decided to attack out of anger hate rage greed or ego. It’s a ghastly affair and to a large degree it’s not either side’s fault. Great Britain and the United States have had just as much to do with the unfairness and deception attached to the whole mess as either the Jews or the Arabs. And therein lies one of the biggest problems. From the very beginning, it started out as a noble cause but in practice quickly became a very bad idea. The history of Zionism and the eventual formation of creating an Israeli state smack dab on top of a place where a whole other people already lived for hundreds of years was just a very bad idea. Only money, and lots of it, can create such historically horrible scenarios. And usually there always two sides to these scenarios… the people with the “lots of money” and the people without the “lots of money”. Think European settlers in the Americas supplanting a whole continent filled with millions upon millions of native peoples. Israel isn’t the first time we’ve seen this movie play out.

But what’s done is done. One thing we learn here on earth when and if our goal is to get to the very bottom of a story and not get hung up along the way by side-picking is that once a people with loads of money decide on something, history quickly plays to their side of the story; and the people without loads of money either die off, get killed off, quietly go away or a combination thereof. Kudos to the native Palestinian people who are still living in what we now call Israel for still being there. It hasn’t been easy. We must remember that it took over 400 years for the European settlers who established The United States and all the other countries in South America to kill off the majority of the native Americans who populated that region for over 10,000 years before they knew such a place as Europe even existed. Fought hard they did. But in the end they just had no chance. The Europeans were the minority for many years, but they were way better capitalized. Just as Israel is today.

One often hears American Jews being the harshest about the Israeli-Palestinian crisis. The other day some uneducated douchebag who lives in Florida said on Facebook, “Israel should kill every single one of those dirty Arab bastards and their “moony god””. What exactly he meant by “moony god” only he and his simple brain knows. But this wasn’t the first time I heard this kind of heartless evil language from an American Jewish person. Israeli Jews are much more sympathetic and understanding of the Palestinian people. They’re their neighbors. They live side by side with them. Work side by side with them. Often live next door to each other in the same neighborhood. They can’t afford such misguided ideas. They understand that these people, as tenacious and pesky as they might be at times, are still people. And honestly, when you go there and you’re walking about shopping or just doing your business, you can’t tell the difference between a Jewish Israeli or a Palestinian one. I made the mistake countless times, speaking Hebrew to Arabs or attempting to speak (the five words of) Arabic to a group of Jews. Both groups have been living in the area for thousands of years. (though this point will be strongly debated and argued by both sides of the issue if you dare utter it aloud… So be forewarned.)

One point that does seem valid though is this: Just what ARE the Jewish people supposed to do if Hamas or some other small band of thugs in Gaza or the West Bank decides to fire a bunch of rockets into Israel proper? Are they supposed to sit back and let them fire their rockets? The United States wouldn’t. Hell, I couldn’t even guarantee the safety of a man who broke into my own home and pulled out a weapon, let alone fired it. So this dog eat dog, attack and attack back mentality that’s haunted humankind since the beginning of recorded history is not unheard of. Nor is it that incomprehensible. Hamas did fire first. And unfortunately they just happened to do so from the Gaza Strip, where hundreds of thousands of innocent Palestinians live.

The real question we should be asking ourselves is why won’t the people of Gaza rise up and boot Hamas — and every other terrorist-prone organization — out of their towns and villages? Why let them stay? Why elect them to government? Why even tolerate them at all? If this is their method… fire some rockets into Israel KNOWING that they’re going to get shot down and thus not actually do anything, and then in return the whole of Gaza is going to get the shit bombed out of them…. why allow Hamas to stay in your town? “That’s the best you have? That’s your best idea? Fire some worthless rockets and then run and hide among the people, putting all of our lives in danger? Screw that! We have a better idea: get the hell out of here and don’t come back. Please. Thank you.”

See, I know what you’re thinking, many of you. (Even Jewish people like Jon Stewart are now publicly criticizing Israel for how ridiculously unfair this whole thing seems.) It IS unfair. And It IS freaking sad. And It IS freaking heartbreaking. I’m with you. I hear you. I read your comments and your essays and your Tweets and your status updates. I get it. I was THERE. I saw it with my own eyes. It’s a fucking human rights disaster, Palestine is. Israel a paradise; Palestine a garbage dump with no running water. And yes it’s even more disheartening to hear about 300 innocent people dying in less than two weeks — especially considering how they’re dying — getting blown up by rocket fire and missiles blasting their houses to smithereens. It sucks. Truely. But who’s fault is it? Who started it? How did it start?

Israel didn’t just arbitrarily decide to start bombing the people in the Gaza Strip for the hell of it. They, like us, have their own lives to live. They, like us, would much prefer peace to war. They, like us, hate the idea of the whole world thinking they’re evil murderers and pointing the finger at them. But they, like us, also have the right to live in peace without having to constantly worry about some missile flying over the wall and landing in a crowded marketplace in the middle of a sunny day and killing fifty or more people. They, like us, have the right to protect and defend themselves. And that usually means war. Like it or not, for better or worse, protecting and defending ourselves usually implies killing some people.

Let’s go faster now… Let’s streamline it for a bit with no concern for grammar, rhetoric or composition. Just to vent and brainstorm and get some ideas out on the table.

Okay so one idea would be the above mentioned “Gaza needs to tell Hamas to get the fuck out of here and never return”. That would certainly be a start. Of course Hamas does a lot more than just attack Jews. That’s how they got into power in the first place. They raise money from all over the Middle East and they use it for humanitarian purposes. They build schools, promote education (one can only imagine how one-sided and indoctrinated those educations are… but still, SOME kind of education is better than NO education), they help feed and clothe and house people. So Hamas is not all bad. BUT… a few good deeds does NOT justify even ONE bad deed. And firing rockets into your neighbors yard with the hopes of killing them is certainly a BAD deed.

So the Palestinian people — in both Gaza AND the West Bank — need to get Hamas out of the mix. Whatever it takes. And we all know how difficult that’s going to be. It’s akin to asking your mother in law to leave your house after she’s all moved in. Hamas moves in, brings a wad of cash and other necessities of life with them AND promises to “rid our land once and for all of these evil Jewish occupiers who have been abusing and oppressing us for decades”. Sounds great! Yay! But let’s get real for a second. Yes life has been hard since the formation of Israel in ’48. Yes a shitload of homes were bulldozed even though you and your whole family lived there. Yes thousands of acres of olive fields were destroyed and you were forced from your land. Yes you had to run and hide for fear of your life. Yes you’ve lost loved ones and friends and your heart burns with anger and thoughts of revenge. Yes it seems totally unfair and colonial and bought and paid for by the wealthy elite of planet earth. Maybe it’s all true. Maybe it’s not.

BUT THERE’S NOTHING THAT WE CAN DO ABOUT IT NOW. Number one. And number two: there are always three sides to every story. As we all know. At least those of us who know anything. That “third side” of the story is the subtle mysterious truth sitting somewhere in between one side and the other. Reconciliation is all about forgetting and forgiving. At least forgiving. Even if we can’t ever forget. And hell, in certain cases it’s best NOT to forget. One can rest assured the Jews are never going to forget the holocaust of World War II. And maybe there are tens of thousands of Palestinians who are never going to forget what it was like when they were first asked to leave their homes, or pushed out of the door of their own orchard at gunpoint, or hearing that their best friend “died in a strange accident” at the hands of a bunch of Jewish kids down the block or one of the many infamous Israeli military groups that have come and gone through the years.

While it’s true that the United Nations has issued over 230 resolutions with respect to Israel just since 2003 in regards to potential human rights violations — far more than any other country on earth, and six times that of the second placed country, Sudan, it’s also true that no one can recall how many suicide bombs have gone off in some square in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem (because there have been so many…) or how many missiles have been shot over the wall from the Palestinian side into Israel in an attempt to kill or frighten them (again because there have been so many). Both sides have been wicked and cruel and played unfairly. And most of the time these skirmishes — and that’s putting it lightly –(these are out and out wars with horrifying consequences, at least for the Palestinian people) — are caused by someone on the Palestinian side firing rockets into Israel. Israel rarely attacks first. Rarely. Not “never”. Yes we all remember the Six Day War. Point being that If one is Palestinian or just a supporter of Palestinian people THERE IS SOMETHING TO BE LEARNED HERE from these statistics. Eventually they’re going to have to learn. Or eventually there aren’t going to be any Palestinian people left. That’s the cold hard truth of it.

Life isn’t fair. There. Now you know. Good people don’t get special treatment. They’re not immune to bad things happening to them. The universe doesn’t reward us for being good. The universe seems to be as cold and ruthless handling human beings as it is to the rest of the animal kingdom. Israel — a special country for Jewish people (whatever that means… it’s difficult to understand at times for a variety of reasons, for it isn’t a nationality, nor is it a religion for many who claim to be “not religious”…) exists now. It’s strong. It’s powerful. It has access to loads of money. In addition to the fact that it still receives even more money from the United States and American tax payers every year. There is no beating Israel. Praying isn’t going to defeat them. Good deeds aren’t going to defeat them. Denying their right to exist isn’t going to defeat them.

Can they make some improvements? Yes, certainly. Lots of them. And eventually they just might if they ever start to feel safe. In the meantime, even IF one believes that their policies are inhumane and unfair with respect to the Palestinian people, attacking them militarily is not only barbaric and unethical, it’s also futile. It’s only going to cause another world war. And at this stage in the game, with the sides so lopsided in Israel’s favor, fighting a war against them would be downright stupid. (Yes it’s reminiscent of Chechnya and plenty of other heartbreaking examples of poor people oppressed by wealthier people…) At some point Palestinians need to grow up and decide if they want to evolve and progress in the modern world, or if they want to slowly die off from poverty, despair and the occasional airstrike.

If they have a grievance with the present government that controls them and their lands — they do, plenty of them, and justifiably so, then they need to address those grievances democratically and non-violently. It is the ONLY way they will ever make progress. The United Nations has already voted to approve Palestine’s desire to become a country unto itself. Something that should have happened decades ago. But that’s water under the bridge. This is a HUGE deal. A big win. Something that can only be fantastic and do wonders for the Palestinian people. Of course Israel and the United States vetoed the UN’s vote because they’re evil imperialists who control the entire world due to having the most money and the most weapons currently; but eventually world opinion is going to trump even the United States’ UN vetoes. That we can all be sure of.

The Palestinian people can help speed this process along by showing the world that it is indeed ready to become a real country and not a primitive band of terrorists tossing bombs over walls into their neigbors’ yards. (Yep, even if you dispute the wall in the first place… Protest, demonstrate, march, sit in, occupy, write letters, hell light yourself on fire if you have to ala Tunisia or Vietnam-era Buddhists, but whatever you do, stop making war. There’s no way in hell anyone is going to take you seriously as a viable country if you keep on doing the same thing you’ve been doing all these years. Voice your opposition to Israel’s occupation of the so-called Occupied Territories; but do so peacably, elegantly, with grace AND strength. Study history and note how other countries of oppressed peoples have eventually won independence in the modern era. The simple truth of it is: if you aint got mo money, then you need to have more grace style charm and class than your opponent. Human beings will occasionally forgive being poor. But being poor AND being murderous, not likely.

Even the most compassionate among us will never fully support a people who commit violence as their primary tactic to secure their rights and independence. So what Palestinians need to do is step into the 21st century and start playing 21st century ball.

On Munich: War and Peace in Israel and Palestine

July 11, 2014

A brilliant day. Princess Little Tree spent most of the day together just enjoying each other’s company; doing things together that we haven’t in too long of a while. I shared some of my current research with her. The A440 versus 432 conspiracy. And a lot of the sacred geometry and ancient knowledge stuff I’ve been studying over the last two weeks. It’s been an intense learning period over the last 14 or so days. We made love. We lounged. Listening to special 580 hertz tones for meditation. Ate a leisurely lunch. Eventually made our way to the gym, where I worked out for the first time in years. It felt very good.

The early part of the day was spent in intense debate on social media regarding this latest skirmish between Israel and Palestine. If i am not feeling too lazy i will post a link in here that gives a full objective accounting of what actually transpired in case you don’t yet know that led to this latest round of bombing between these two forever warring peoples. its a very sad affair. For all involved.

A beautiful soul at Global Exchange, a new organization for me though they’ve been around quite a long time — I’ll be making another peace mission to Iran with them in October — sent me an excellent book entitled COUNTER RHETORIC whose basic mission is to help guide civilian diplomats like myself and activists (or for that matter anyone interested in helping further the cause of peace in Israel and the Palestinian Territories) to have a better understanding how to respond to the most common objections people have to helping the Palestinian people. For every assertion they make — there is no such thing as Palestine and there never was. — they have devised an intelligent and logical and humane response.

The irony? The book was written by a group of Jews in Israel who are completely against the occupation of the palestinian’s land there. Today I really got the chance to use what I have learned in the book. Because the highly emotional hate speech was flying today. As soon as you speak up pro-palestinian in the US, you’re acussed of being “anti’semetic”. Of course I pointed out that Palestinians are also considered “semetic peoples” as well as tens of other races and nations. So that puts an end to that argument. But what they’re really accusing a person of is being “anti-jew”. Perhaps they’re afraid to say it… anti-Jew. They believe “anti-semetic” sounds more scientific or accusatory… Not sure really. Whatever their reasoning, they should just say what they mean, “if you’re pro-palestinian then you’re anti-Jew”. Just because we want equal rights for palestinians. Truth is that most of us who are pro-Palestinian are super compassionate loving people who just want equal rights for all people and we aren’t actually “anti” anyone. As one person commented today in our heated debate, “If the tables were turned and the Israelis were the poor and impoverished Ed would probably be on that side”. To which I answered, “that sounds about right”. At our worst what some of us might be is anti-Zionism as it is being practiced in today’s world. And I believe we are justified in holding that opinion. We certainly have a right to it, at least here in democratic United States. But more importantly, Zionism has been a terrible failure. It’s taken the near genocide of one people to save another people from near genocide. It just hasn’t worked. Not yet at least.

It’s quite a small box they’ve painted themselves into. Stolen land. Tens of thousands (some say more) murdered. And millions now living in refugee camps that look more like concentration camps. No running water, hardly electricity. It’s shameful how these people live. With lush lavish posh hotels ten blocks away in the Israeli parts of the country. If Americans ever saw it, knowing how much money — in the billions every year — we give them of our hard earned income, they would at first be in shock and then be raging mad. It’s also odd when one thinks about it that the US doesn’t give any aid money to Palestine when they’re the ones who actually really need it. They’re the ones living in abject poverty, shit for hospitals, children running through filthy garbage filled streets with no shoes on their feet. And yet billions of our income tax dollars pour into Israel every year. Not because we Americans voted for that… But just because of some back room deals made decades ago that we just can’t seem to get out of. The whole mess is crazy and corrupt.

All we want to do of course is change that. By starting with simple things: access to clean water, remove this wall with armed guards that surrounds them every day of their lives, give them a new home if they can’t give them their old homes back, etc etc. Simple things. But alas I am aware like everyone else that these things won’t happen overnight and they certainly wont happen from a few dozen people arguing about it on Facebook. But the hope I always have is that perhaps even one person’s mind or heart can be shifted in the way of being more peaceful or more compassionate through these debates… and at times i do feel as though i am accomplishing that. At one point in the debate today a girl from Israel compared me to Steven Spielberg in that she does not believe me to be “anti-semetic”, but perhaps just “misinformed” due to Speilbergs making the movie Munich. Since I had never seen the film I figured i better watch it to see what kind of company I am being thrown in with.

Well… Wow. What a great film that is. Highly recommended. But besides that it also brings up many finer subtler questions about morality. In essence it is the story of how the Israeli army and secret intelligence branch Mossad sent a bunch of assassins into europe and the Middle East to kill a bunch of Palestinian men after the kidnapping and killing of 11 Israeli athletes at the Olympic Games in Munich in 1972. Before our time. The whole film is about these five Israeli men hunting down these Palestinian men — many of which had nothing to do directly with the actual killings at Munich. They are ruthless heartless bloodthirsty men. Just do their job. It’s not that they don’t think about what they’re doing. they do. But they approve of what they are doing and they seem to enjoy it. They believe they are serving their country.

It reminds one of any other country on earth presently. Certainly the United States. the rule of the human animal kingdom is “if one of your tribe is killed then you seek vengeanceThere and go kill one or more of their tribe.” that is what is happening in Israel as I type this. Israel is bombing the holy fuck out of tiny Gaza. Randomly killing men women and children, in retaliation for Hamas who is based in Gaza firing 70 rockets into Israel towns and cities this week. Which was in retaliation to a carful of Israelis who kidnapped a young Palestinian boy last week and forced him to drink gasoline and then doused him in more of it and then, yes, lit him on fire. Which was in retaliation for the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teens who people believe to have been murdered by Hammas. Though they vehemently deny having any involvement in it.

So… therein lay the first big mistake. Instead of burning a poor boy alive — can you even imagine the sheer horror and pain that poor boy experienced in the last hour of his blessed life? — the Israelis should have waited for a formal investigation, found the culprits of the kidnapping crime and put them on trial; showing the world that they in fact do want to be seen as peaceful civilized people. Many probably did their best. But not this one car load of men… So Hamas struck back. And there’s mistake number two. Hamas should have demanded that these men be turned in and be put on trial. Not fire rockets into random cities in Israel that could just kill anyone. But they didn’t. And that’s a shame. Because now there are over 100 Palestinian people dead. And because of who? One could just as easily fault Hamas and those in Gaza who permitted these attacks as they could fault the Israelis who fired back.

Violence always begets violence. Peace is never won through war or battles or violence. There is a point in the movie MUNICH where the mother of the lead assassin tells her son that she doesn’t want to hear what he did while “away on his mission”. Her words, “All we wanted was a home for Jews to live, among other Jews, in safety. Whatever you did. Whatever has to be done. It’s worth it. Because now we have this land where we can feel safe.” He had just been on a killing spree, killing around ten people, some guilty of something — even just thought crimes or plans for crimes, and some entirely innocent bystanders. It really makes one think “is this justification for murder for revenge or safety that countries use so casually a true and valid one? Or is it just more bullshit perpetrated by primitive unenlightened minds?

If everyone just continues to kill when they are killed, or even afraid of being killed or hurt, will it ever lead to the end of killing? Or will it just perpetuate the cycle of incessant killing? The answer is clear to those of us who frequent these pages obviously. But how do we get our fellow humans to understand this fact? How do we get them to rise above this tit for tat kill or be killed mentality? A friend of mine today on Facebook, I am not kidding, has this to say about the Palestinians: “I wish they would just kill them all and send them all to their moon god and let’s be done with it”. Yep. He’s literally advocating genocide of the entire Palestinian race. Just so the so-called Israelis of present time (post 1948) can live in peace and without fear. Sure we understand his motivation for having such an extreme view. The Israelis have not necessarily been welcomed with open arms since they first came back to this homeland of theirs. But why? Because by the time they got back, after almost 2000 years, other people had moved in and had been living on the land all that time. And to them, that land had been home. And that home was then taken from them. For the sake of saving the Jews. I’ve said it before and Ill say it again. It would have made a lot more sense to put all the Jewish people in Germany — as punishment for what they did — we must remember that it wasn’t just Jews who died in WW II, over 20 million Russians died in that war, and plenty of French and English and Americans as well. Surely the Germans deserved to be displaced from their homes more than the poor palestinians. For they weren’t even involved in that war. And voila surprise surprise! BAM their homes gone. Their land taken. And a new people placed on it.

If we study our history well, we can clearly see from using the United States as an example, that the jews who live in what they presently call Israel, which used to be called Palestine, will never feel completely safe until they exterminate the majority of the palestinian people, just as the European settlers did to the native Americans here in the States. There are barely a million of them left here now. When Columbus arrived there were some 100 million of them living in North and South America. But they just wouldn’t let us live in peace, which we felt we had a right to. Why? Who the fuck knows. Because we wore clothes and they didn’t I suppose. But the real answer is because we had larger weapons than they did. And so not only did we get to take the land but we also got to write the history. I am afraid to say it, but that’s the future of the Palestinians if the Jews ever start thinking seriously about wanting to live in peace and sleep safely at night. They’re going to have to wipe them all out like so many of my American Jewish friends want them to. It’s sad to contemplate and discuss. But it’s reality.

Does that make it right? Hell no. It’s entirely wrong. That’s why we fight this noble battle for these people. That’s why they fight. Is there hope for a two state solution where Jews and Palestinians can live side by side in unity or at least in a peaceful separation? Yes, of course there is. And that’s what so many of us are working towards. How will it play out in our own lifetimes? Of this I am not 100% sure yet. Peacefully I hope and pray. But it’s going to take a lot more work and attention and sharing with those who don’t yet understand what’s going on over there.

Must sleep. As always, more later.

Does Matter Come From Mind? Or Mind Come From Matter?

July 3, 2014

A note: The post below is based on a variety of information sources and data taken from throughout human history and studied and researched over the last 25 years. The reader is assumed to have already encountered and studied the majority of this information. If one encounters something that they’re not familiar with, a suggestion might be to take a note of it and continue reading.

Two things. We’re already familiar with evolutionary theory and with creationism. The new form of creationism that’s received a lot of fanfare over the last 10 years is something they now call intelligent design. Creationism and intelligent design usually refer to both humanity and the world in general being created by some sort of a divine being capital D such as a god or goddess.

Of course there is also another theory of creationism and that is what it has now come to be known as the ancient alien theory of creationism which posits that rather than a singular God that created the entire universe, a collection of extraterrestrial beings from another world other than Earth actually created humankind. In the most popular theory about ancient alien creationism is that the human race was created as a slave race by extraterrestrial beings (simply meaning “not of this earth”) who came from Sirius B star system. We could call them “Siriuns”.

This theory is an old one. I first heard it proposed back in 1995 when we are still but children and have continued to study it over the last 20 years. There is a ton of evidence, if one is looking for it, and depending on one’s perspective, that portends to prove this ancient alien theory may be accurate. And there are a variety of different theories out there proposing that humankind was created by extraterrestrials or aliens, each with their own idea of from which star system these extraterrestrials originally came. Where they were from or where they currently live now is important, and indeed is fascinating to research and contemplate. But it’s not the main theme of this post.

Number one: Here’s an important point. Even if we were to assume that this is true – that the human race is nothing but a slave race created by more advanced extraterrestrial beings and we have now evolved beyond a slave mentality and beyond even remembering our origin – this still does not exclude the idea of an even more divine being creating the entire universe. This would’ve just happened before that time period. Someone or something still would have had to create not only the universe but the extraterrestrials who created human beings. So regardless of which theory one chooses to believe in — a God created human beings or extraterrestrials created human beings, it still does not solve the ultimate question, i.e. How did the universe itself get here and who or what might have created it?

We now assume, the majority of us at least, that the entirety of the known (and unknown?) universe is approximately 15 billion years old. Of course this exact figure is also arguable; everything is. But that’s not the question at hand either.

Number two: The real question ultimately is this: can mind ever come from matter? As evolutionary theorists propose? Or can matter only come from mind?

It is easy to be an evolutionist. The majority of intelligent people on earth now tend to believe in it. Theoretically it makes sense. And there appears to be an ever growing body of physical evidence to support it. On earth that is. Especially on earth. Fossil records etc. This is something most evolutionists seem to totally miss: almost all evidence regarding evolution theory is based on earth based life forms and materials — an infinitesimally small piece of the total universe. They totally miss the rest of the much larger picture — the hundreds of billions of other galaxies and star systems in the world we live in.

Granted, in the greater known universe, in the world of astro-physicists, a simple reading of the history of radio waves that permeate the seeming “empty space” of the universe reveals that it has been expanding — a fact that can be viewed as “evolutionary” to a certain degree. Scientists take this rate of expansion and reverse it and this is how they come to decide how long the universe has been existence. It’s just the rate of expansion times the distance covered in reverse. Eventually they reach a point where everything in the entire universe is all crammed together no bigger than the size of an atom. Before that…?

Well that’s where we get the idea of the so called Big Bang. The idea that matter itself just mysteriously and miraculously bursted into being from nothing. This is where evolutionary theory hits it’s arch nemesis, namely logic. Because we all know that nothing can come from nothing. Matter cannot come from nothing or nowhere. It can only come from something. This is how and from where Thomas Aquinas got his “a priori” / “first cause” argument. So at least according to some, it’s an impossibility to consider that all of this something came into being from nothing.

Others persist in asserting that they believe that matter can indeed miraculously come forth from absolutely nothing at all. The operating word here being “believe”. Because at this point (in human history at least) we don’t have any evidence to support either theory. The truth is we human beings simply do not know what happened before the universe began expanding. We don’t know how IT — that tiny microscopic ball of matter that expanded exponentially into everything in the known and unknown universe including ourselves — got here, or how IT came into being, or what it was before it was. We just have theories.

But beyond this argument of matter coming into being from nothing is another deeper question. The one posed before: can mind or consciousness come from matter? We have been speaking of matter. Not life. Remember, scientists postulate that it was the universe itself that first came into being 15 billion years ago. Not life. The star at the center of our solar system, what we call “the sun” (curious that we have a name for all these different stars in the universe when in reality they don’t really have names…), has only been in existence for 4.6 billion years. The earth for only 4.5 billion. The earliest life forms that we know of, simple single-celled microbes, for approximately 3.5 billion years. And human beings? Approximately only 200,000 years.

Why is this important? Because human beings, out of either ego or limited knowledge and ignorance, are the only life forms that we humans currently know of so far in our research that have “mind” or consciousness, i.e. an awareness of being. And we don’t know of any other instances where mind has come from pure unconscious matter. From a purely logical point of view it seems unlikely, mind coming from matter.

Indeed it was this quote, by philosopher Harry Palmer, that first inspired me to read all his works and then take all the Avatar Courses: “The miracle is not that there is consciousness in the universe, but that there is a universe in consciousness”. For whatever reason this made sense to my young mind at the time. I had always thought of us as being inside the universe. As parts and pieces of it. Operating inside of it. It was only then that I began to contemplate the idea that even the universe itself must be inside of consciousness, because after all the universe is just more matter and anything material at its origin must come from some form of consciousness. Matter does not just originate out of nothingness.

Sure it breeds from itself. Evolutionarily speaking, matter begets more matter, as we’ve seen from studying the evolution of life on earth and even non living matter in the near and far away universe. But initially this matter must have come into being from some form of consciousness. A mind or consciousness could not have emanated originally from lifeless matter. Or could it?

That really is the question. And the truth is we do not as of yet have the answer.

Left Does Not Equal Atheist, Religious Does Not Equal Right

July 2, 2014

Surprising for a society that is used to the 24 hour news cycle and to only relegating 15 minutes of fame for each major story no matter how important or big — 48 hours later and people of all ages colors and creeds are still bombarding social media with posts lambasting the United States Supreme Court for their ruling on Monday that “closely held companies such as Hobby Lobby could discriminate against it’s employees by not paying for their full health care coverage if any aspect of it went against their religious views — in this case specifically ‘birth control and contraception’.”

Let us not get into the case or the ruling specifically. For it is just too nuanced and complex. Not even I have been able to fully decide one way or the other which way to lean. Yet interestingly, in 1998 Justice Scalia voted AGAINST corporations being allowed to break any part of the law on religious grounds because he said it would “create a slippery slow environment in the United States that could lead to any and everybody breaking the law and claiming it was for religious reasons.” I tend to agree.

On a different note, this morning I was watching a documentary about the advanced knowledge that ancient civilizations held and that is now being kept secret from modern societies around the world. Again, that is not the point of this post. But I do find it interesting when reflecting on 18 years of schooling in America and we never studied how the entire universe and nature is comprised of matter using Phi and the Fibonacci Sequence. We may have learned OF these mathematical coincidences, mysteries, anomalies…. But the extent to which the entire universe and human body is composed of them, including DNA itself, was never brought into the classroom.

It got me to thinking about God and Intelligent Design. I closed my eyes and just felt into God…connecting more than communicating…. As I relaxed into the quiet of my mind it began to occur to me how suddenly secular the United States is becoming. We don’t go a day now without seeing someone somewhere say something negative about Christianity or religion. Precisely because of this latest Supreme Court ruling. People are angry. They deserve to be. It appears that corporations are taking over the country, even to the point of seeping into the Supreme Court of the United States, one of the most respects institutions in the world today. (But for how long if these kind of shenanigans are allowed to continue?)

But should this anger be aimed at religion? Or God? It just makes it more and more difficult for those of us who do have a close relationship with the Divine to be open about it. Besides the fact that we are made to feel insulted all the time because of this new trend of constant attacking religion and those who are religious due to “ignorance”.

I brought it up to Princess Little Tree this morning over an espresso and she and I began discussing it. She made an excellent point. People only are being led to believe that religion is at fault… Because basically people and organizations, primarily on the right, have so completely co-opted and kidnapped all things god religion and spirituality for all of these crazy radical extreme political views and missions (that at their heart have little to do with god or religion) that now, because anyone remotely intelligent in America has shifted to the Left, (which makes perfect sense — It is hard to see how anyone sane or intelligent could or would want to be associated with the so-called right at this time… — the side effect is that this has compelled a lot of people into believing that anything that has to do with god religion or the divine is “backwards, wrong, conservative, right wing, republican, ignorant, etc”

It’s not the fault of well meaning lefties and liberals. They’re being slowly brainwashed into believing that atheism is the only way to be because religion is being used as an excuse for all kinds of craziness in the political world at the moment in America. So we are starting to see more and more atheist type comments on social media — including near daily attacks on god and religion specifically. From the left. As if being liberal and intelligent means one is automatically an atheist or anti-religion. Which of course they are not.

It IS making it more challenging to openly be spiritual or religious or just be publicly honest about being a christian or in touch with the divine etc. But I feel it’s important that we do not steer away from continuing to be open about our connection w the Divine. If anything perhaps we need to be even more open about it… To show that rationally minded well meaning intelligent liberty-focused people can still be connected to the divine, believe in god, be religious or spiritual etc.

These few crazies that support the Hobby Lobby decision for no other reason than people they believe to be in power on the so-called right are TELLING them to support it do not own god religion spirituality or the divine. They’re just using it; as a tool or a weapon. But it isn’t their’s to use.

Those of us who feel strong and bold enough to do so need to speak out and remind the world that there are still plenty of us in the United States who are deeply spiritual AND intelligent at the same time. The right wing, no matter how much they love believing they have a monopoly on religion in America, doesn’t have any more connection with God or religion than anyone else. In fact, due to the very nature of HOW they are using their supposed religiousness, one could easily assert that they don’t have a very close relationship with God at all and don’t even even remotely resemble what a religious person is or thinks or acts like. If WE don’t do this, who will?

– Posted by The Ambassador using BlogPress on an iPhone

It’s Time to Find Another Social Network — Facebook is Dying

July 2, 2014

Facebook is Painting It’s Users Into a Very Small Box…of greatly limited people and information. Out of a potential 1500 posts that the average user may see in any given hour, that same user may only see 300 posts. Why? Because unlike four to six years ago when everyone first started using Facebook, the Newsfeed is no longer just an ordered list of every status update that every friend of yours has posted today or in the last hour or two.

Instead it’s a tightly controlled and manipulated feed of only a very small sample of what only a small fraction of a user’s friends have posted, because those brainy but inexperienced and naive engineers at Facebook with too much time on their hands and not enough day to day experience in the real world have created numerous algorithms that control what used to be a very simple thing: the so-called newsfeed, rendering it nearly useless as a tool to see what everyone you know is thinking or saying at any given time during the day or night — the PRECISE REASON why people use a social network like Facebook in the first place.

First came the idea: instead of the usual newsfeed that simply shows the user a feed of everything that everyone they are friends with is posting, let’s try to create an algorithm that sorts this data for then based on what they Like and what they Comment on and other criteria so they don’t get bombarded by too many status updates. Why? Because they assumed that people might become overwhelmed if they saw EVERYTHING that people were posting. So in 2011 they launched EdgeRank, a newsfeed algorithm to secretly sort through users’ Friends’ status updates, and didn’t tell anybody.

You probably noticed that you suddenly stopped seeing updates from a ton of friends. Or not. Many people never even noticed. Which is part of the problem. Aunt Sally just had hip replacement surgery but you didn’t hear about it for a week?!?! How is this possible?!?! Because Facebook decided FOR YOU that you didn’t need to know about it. So they deleted it from your newsfeed.

Since then, year after year, they have continued to hone this algorithm, creating ever increasingly invasive technologies into it to control more and more of what users see and read — in effect creating an environment where the user sees and reads less and less.

This week it was discovered that Facebook was secretly conducting an experiment on over 700,000 users across the globe — deliberately manipulating their newsfeed without their knowledge in an attempt to CONTROL THE USER’S EMOTIONS. Yes you read that right. Google that and look for the article in The Guardian magazine that came out June 14th. This is why the average user may only see 10 to 30 percent of the status updates that their friends are actually posting.

I posted a rant about this yesterday on FB, Tumblr and Twitter. Many had no idea this was happening. Some did and were outraged. All agree they just want to see everything that their Friends are posting — without interruption and without any filtering.

There IS a way around this. But it’s tricky. You can go to MORE. Then look for a link called Most Recent. Click on that and allegedly you will be taken to the old fashioned newsfeed. But in reality you are still seeing a greatly limited and manipulated feed that is still being controlled by this algorithm. But it’s better than what they are currently calling the Newsfeed, which is anything BUT a real newsfeed.

One friend commented that we can change this by selecting to receive Notifications from the Friends we choose — which means that every time they post something we are then forced to receive a notification on our phone about it. Obviously this will not work for those of us who have a lot of Friends or Pages we like. But at least it does assure we will be notified if Uncle Charlie passes away IF we subscribe to Notifications from Uncle Charlie.

This subscribe to notifications is great for getting notifications from a few folks, but we have to be careful with it for sure or we’ll be bombarded w too many of them. I’m referring specifically to the general newsfeed, which should, by definition, just be a collection of status updates in a feed by every single “friend” we have in the order they were posted to FB.

Unfortunately as with many companies that grow large and continue on longer than they originally anticipated FB found itself having a lot of time on its hands and decided to start screwing around with this simple obvious elegant & useful system; so much so that they’ve now created a variety of algorithms that control each person’s newsfeed based on a variety of seemingly random criteria that it’s challenging for the average user to just see the old fashioned simple ordered newsfeed that we were first reared on and assume is still operating.

Problem is, it’s not.
I knew this… but didn’t pay much attention to it. Till yesterday when I became curious about not seeing enough posts from DIFFERENT people about the World Cup and other things. I kept seeing posts by the Same 10 to 20 people. Even though Princess Little Tree will be sitting right next to me and say “oh look what so and so just said on Facebook…” . But I would NOT see it. But hold on… Aren’t we looking at the same newsfeed of the same people?!?!

Frankly I was pissed and shocked when I deliberately went to More/Recent Posts and the whole newsfeed changed. BAM!!! There are all the hundreds and thousands of status updates of everyone I’m friends with, in order of their posting! Imagine that! Names I hadn’t seen in weeks and even months. I was like “wow! Yeah what ever happened to so and so?!?” Actually YOU for example. Whoever you are, reading this… I Haven’t seen a post from YOU in ages! Maybe a year! Not kidding.

Basically FB for some unknown (seemingly random until this new information leaked that they were conducting MIND CONTROL EXPERIMENTS on users) reason has all of us crammed into these tiny little boxes of very limited people and data — compared to what our real FB experience SHOULD be like. What it used to be like. What twitter for example is like — we see EVERY post by EVERYone we follow. Simple elegant useful. It may be a pain to scroll through all those thousands of Tweets… BUT it’s OUR pain and WE can control it. FB thinks it’s “helping its users have a better experience” by limiting what how and when we see. But what they’re really doing is taking control of our social network and thus our lives.

In today’s age most people do nearly everything online. If my prediction from 2007 continues to manifest — that in the near future Facebook will become ever increasingly embedded into our day to day life, eventually making it’s way into our desktop and controlling our mobile devices and our social calendar etc. — then we cannot allow Facebook to believe that THEY can control anything about our profile or our newsfeed. All aspects of these need to be in the control of the user and the user only. No algorithm. No mind control experiments. No sorting based on what THEY consider “relevant data”.

It’s bad enough that they have this completely bulls*^t policy to NOT allow 90% of Page updates to appear in newsfeeds unless the page PAYS them. That can be justified because many Pages are for profit businesses and updates “can be” viewed as advertising… Got it. So the average user can NOT and does not have a way to see status updates from FB pages. Unless they GO to every single page they Like every day etc. An experienced relatively intelligent well rounded person may Like a couple hundred Pages after a year or so on FB, so that makes that impossible. Meaning? Facebook Pages are essentially useless to both the Page owner AND the Facebook user. They’re like old fashioned entries in the old fashioned Yellow Pages now. Placeholders for a brand. But not day to day relevant in the here now. Because nobody sees what they post. Totally ass backwards and worthless.

And now they want to do that with people too. Then what’s the real USE of Facebook?!?! Think about it… If we cannot even guarantee that we will see what one of our best friends just posted on Facebook two minutes ago because Facebook has decided that it’s “not important” for us to see, then what good IS Facebook?

THIS is what happens when companies become too large and have too much time on their hands. They take something simple and useful and kill it by fiddling with it too much. It happens time and time again throughout human history. It’s a shame. But a harsh reality. And certainly no fault of the users or consumers. The only thing that the well informed and self determined user can do is FIND ANOTHER PRODUCT that suits our needs and desires better. Which is exactly what happened to MySpace and before that Friendster — for let us never forget: Facebook wasn’t a cool unique new or innovative idea. It was just a copy of a copy of a copy that happened to take off with the general public. Just as Tumblr was a copy of Facebook. Why on earth someone thought it was a valuable endeavor to take the time and energy to create a copy of Facebook (and then someone else thought it was valuable to then BUY Tumblr…) god only knows. But that’s another story.

The point is that Facebook has now emerged as the official enemy of the very users that it originally set out to try to entertain and serve. It’s one thing to be so bored that you start fiddling with your widget to the point that you render it useless or too confusing to the average user, i.e. these ridiculous newsfeed algorithms. It’s another thing entirely to knowingly conduct mind control experiments on your customers and be so bold and confident to then admit it, assuming that propel so love your product that there won’t be a backlash.

Surely there will be a backlash. What needs to happen is that every single person who uses Facebook on earth needs to choose a FACEBOOK BLACKOUT DAY to demand that Facebook commit in writing to never conduct mind control experiments on it’s users again. And while they’re at it they should abandon the Edgerank and any other algorithms they use to control users’ newsfeeds. These should be OPTIONAL. Not default.

– Posted by The Ambassador using BlogPress on an iPhone 8s Custom

TheTranscendenceDiaries

Month: July 2014

Questions Regarding the Latest Theories on the Origins of Humankind

Like this:

Questioning the Morality of Self Defense In Israel

Like this:

Israel and Gaza: The Game Changer

Like this:

Thoughts On the Latest Battle Between Israel & Gaza

Like this:

On Munich: War and Peace in Israel and Palestine

Like this:

Does Matter Come From Mind? Or Mind Come From Matter?

Like this:

Left Does Not Equal Atheist, Religious Does Not Equal Right

Like this:

It’s Time to Find Another Social Network — Facebook is Dying

Like this: