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Journal freejung's Journal: The Counterrevolution 57

Journal by freejung
You know, it's interesting, I've often heard conservatives say that "liberals hate America." I don't think I hate America. I think I love America very very much. But I define America as a continent, including all the land and plants and animals and people contained therein. Some Native Americans (the only Real Americans, regardless of what the new T-shirt says) call it "Great Turtle Island," and they lived in prosperity on it for thousands of years before we came and fucked it all up. I love that with all my heart. I don't think that's what conservatives mean when they say this. I think when they talk about "America," they are talking about what I mean when I say "the System." And I don't think I hate that either, because I don't think I hate anything, but if there is one thing I come close to hating, it's the System, which the Rastafarians call the Babylon System, and with good reason.

I just wish I could explain to them. It's just so hard. You can't really have it explained to you, you just have to see it. "Nobody can be told what the Matrix really is. You just have to see it for yourself." Doing acid helps, for some people, and I've done that. But I grew up knowing, at least to some extent, and I've learned much more since then.

Do you think fish know that water is wet? What color is air? Do you know what happened ten thousand years ago in Babylon? But of course you don't, if you don't even think Babylon existed ten thousand years ago. So how can I explain?

I'll try this. This approach is due to Daniel Quinn, from his excellent book "Ishmael," which explains all of this pretty well. It's a bit of an oversimplification, but it works well enough for illustrative purposes.

Imagine that Hitler won WWII. Imagine that he succeeded in wiping out all the Africans and the Jews and the Native Americans and the Asians, and established the Thousand Year Reich. And he burned all the books, and erased all the history, so that nobody ever knew that there was a time when everyone wasn't blonde and fair, or when there was anything other than a world fascist government. Imagine that, a thousand years in the future, a pair of tall blonde young men are strolling through the streets of what used to be Tokyo, and one of them turns to the other and says, "you know, I can't put my finger on it, but I just can't escape the feeling that we're being lied to about something."

Around ten thousand years ago in Babylon, there was a great revolution. We know this because we have archaeological evidence, assuming you believe in that sort of thing. And it's OK if you don't. It doesn't matter. Think of this as a myth. The revolutionaries were so incredibly successful that they wiped out everyone in the area who didn't agree with their radical revolutionary ideology. And it was truly radical, truly extreme, the most radical extremist ideology ever invented. They were so successful that they then proceeded to wipe out their neighbors, and then their neighbors' neighbors, and so on and so forth. And they kept on going, and every time they encountered a new people, they gave them a simple choice: join us or die. And many of them chose to fight and die, because the revolutionary ideology was so radical and extreme and, at least to them, odious, that they would rather die than accept it.

The revolutionaries won. In fact, they won so thoroughly, so completely, that there are almost none of their enemies left on the whole planet. Nearly everybody else has either joined them, or died, and their radical ideology is so incredibly pervasive that it rarely occurs to anyone to even think about questioning it, or for that matter, even noticing what it is. They have been called by many names, but the most common is simply "caucasians."

Their radical ideology is simply this: "the world was made for Man, and Man was made to conquer and rule it."

The revolutionaries were afraid, you see. They lost their faith. They were terrified that God would not provide for them, that the world God made would not take care of them, would not give them what they needed to survive. So they decided to take it all, and make it give them what they wanted, and if it wouldn't, they would crush it mercilessly, because it was theirs to do with as they pleased.

Nobody else had ever thought that before. It changed everything. And, in my view, it is completely, utterly, horribly, tragically wrong. In my view, the world was made for the glory and love of God, and Humans were made to care for and love and protect it. This is what we always believed, for millions of years, in one form or another, before these insane ultraradicals came along and put us in chains. And now we're so used to the chains, we notice them no more than a fish notices water.

What does all this have to do with the election? Well, the paradigm shift I keep talking about, it's not really anything new. In a sense, it's the oldest idea there is. The new paradigm rejects the revolutionary ideology and returns to what I believe is the system of thought humans were meant to have. It has been growing for some time now. But there has been a backlash, the revolutionaries don't want to give up their power and control, and they are trying to crush the counterrevolution. To me, Bush and his crowd are the ultimate symbol of this backlash. I think they intend to destroy the counterrevolution utterly, if they can. I don't think they can. But it's kind of a trip, to know that the most powerful forces the planet has ever seen are arrayed against you, and are intent on the total destruction of everything you love and the erasure of all that could give our species hope for ever and ever.

OK, so that's a bit overdramatic, and a bit silly. I'm sorry. But that's the only way I can explain why I feel so strongly about it. I don't know if you will understand. But that's how it is...

Incidentally, I think Jesus tried to explain all of this to us. "Consider the lilies of the field," he said. "Love thy neighbor," he said. But did we listen? Oh no, not us, we went right on ripping the lilies up out of the fields and killing off our neighbors like there was no tomorrow. And if we keep it up much longer, there probably won't be.

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The Counterrevolution More

The Counterrevolution

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  • I can't quote it exactly off the top of my head (and a quick Google search or two couldn't find it for me), but it goes something like "We don't own the Earth, the Earth owns us. It was here long before we were and it will be here long after we're gone."

    I'm sure those people who'd buy that t-shirt that you've linked to just wouldn't get that concept. I'd wager that it's far too egalitarian and humble an approach for them to comprehend. Heck, I'm probably a tree-hugging, commie bastard just for daring to sa
    • Yes, exactly. I've seen this on a bumper sticker. Maybe I'll find one and buy it and put it on my car that I use to destroy the Earth with. There's irony for you.

      It says "the Earth does not belong to us. We belong to the Earth." That pretty much sums it up right there.

  • The t-shirt reminds me of another split -- the division of Russian socialists into Bolsheviks ("the majority") and Mensheviks ("the minority"). This division was based on the results of a vote (i've forgotten the details, but Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] has some more information). The naming was completely arbitrary, but it stuck. As a consequence of this, the more moderate Menshevik line was forever associated with being the minority line.

    There's probably a moral somewhere in this story, something to do with that t-shirt,

  • Have you read any of Daniel Quinn's [ishmael.org] books?
    You may particularly like After Dachau [ishmael.org].
    • Uh- he Quoted from Ishmael. I haven't gotten around to After Dachau yet- but one day I will...
    • I have not read After Dachau. I've read Ishmael and the Story of B. Of course the story I just told is from Ishmael, though I wasn't quoting it exactly.

      When I first read Ishmael, I felt like Quinn had put into words something I've understood all my life, but never really had an explicit story to attach it to. Now I look at all of history backward, as it were, or from the other point of view -- it's the same history, but it looks very different when you're on the other end of the sword.

    • No. He is unfamiliar to me. He must be a writer in today's America. Religeous conservatism is something that I cannot get.( I am not completely sure whether he is a kind of that or not.) For me "Ishmael" means nothing but a first illegitimate son of Abraham, and happen to be a story teller of "The Whale".
      • No, Daniel Quinn is definitely not a religious conservative. But he does talk about Genesis in his book. In the book, "Ishmael" is the name of a gorilla.
      • More of a religious liberal. In his autobiography he tells about his experiences at trying to become a Trappist Monk under Thomas Merton- and ending up completely convinced of animism instead, totally leaving behind monotheism.

        The Ishmael in the title is a gorilla who is teaching lessons on ecology from the point of view of a threatened species.
  • ...at technocrat.net on this subject kinda sorta. Main page the "we're sorry no we aren't" weblog wars. My bottom line is that A- I think the schism and vitriol is real and exceedingly dangerous, B-there are reasons for it, legitimate reasons in some aspects, others not so legitimate, and C- it's being promulgated on purpose to cause the schism, to lead to "chaos", so that the PTB can use that as an excuse so "they" can "create order" out of that chaos. Just more heglian dialectic at work. I admit to a cert
    • Thanks for letting me know about this- I just joined Technocrat.net. Heck- I might even make my journal there the main blog for my Presidential campaign- assuming that I ever get over this cold and find the time to get my donation system up and running.
    • Hm. Time to go re-read Illuminatus! and the collected works of Robert Anton Wilson.
      • "And thusly was the law formulated: imposition of order equals escalation of chaos."

        Interestingly enough, the whole business I'm talking about is what Discordians call the "Curse of Greyface."

        I like the response of the Purple Sage:

        "And the Purple Sage was wroth, and waxed sorely pissed, and he cried, 'a pox upon the cursed Illuminati, may their seed take no root! May their eyes dim and their backs shrivel up, yea, like unto the backs of snails, and may the vaginal orifices of their women be clogged wi

    • I also think that pushing political party over cooperative and non threatening nationalism and independence is a big mistake

      You are quite right. Actually, I'm not really talking about political parties any more, just ideas. I should leave the politics out of it, and just talk about the ideas themselves. But it doesn't matter how much the PTB (who is that?) tries to "create order," because the imposition of order always leads to the escalation of chaos, and the more they tighten their grip, the more star s

    • That's really over the top.

      How so? Who else deserves to be called "Real Americans?" If we're going to use that label, which I don't like, they are the only ones to whom it reasonably applies. The way I see it, either everyone living on this continent is a Real American (which would be fine with me) or only the Natives are Real Americans and the rest of us are invaders. Any other distinction between Real Americans and Foreigners is just silly.

      • Well, maybe we should call them turtles [phoenixmasonry.org]. You have my deepest apologies. A virus made me do it.

        I don't know if you will understand.

        You made it extremely easy to understand...crystal clear, if you will. You may call it simplistic, but simple is what I need. And yet, there are people reading and responding that so completely refuse to see. The disparagers(?) are so shallow that their petty distractions like Dems and Republicans and gays and abortion and on and on are all they have. They know nothing beyond
        • I like that. I think it's quite true. The trick is to laugh with it.

          only through nothingness can there ever be peace.

          That's very Zen. I think you're on to something there.

          I wouldn't give up hope just yet. Actually, I found the responses to this very encouraging. You clearly get it. I know zogg gets it, we've talked about all this before. WIAK got it, and Marxist Hacker and OctaneZ have already read "Ishmael," and I'm pretty sure elmegil gets it, he's a Discordian. I don't know about On Lawn, he has hi

          • I think it's spreading rapidly right now.

            Quinn's been around for a while now out in memespace- I read Ishmael back in 1995, when Quinn won a Nebula for most socially responsible sci-fi novel of the year.

            Also, though I think a majority don't understand, I think that most people can be convinced to accept an intermediate position: the world belongs to us, but that means we should take good care of it. Sort of like you wash your car or paint your house, you see. They are kind of missing the point, but at
  • What I think you don't see is that both revolution and counter revolution are simply ways of seperating sheep for the slaughterhouse. They are Cola Wars, in every sense of the cultural clash that means so very little in our lives.

    I gave up being a rebel long ago, its a term hijacked and used as a carrot for people believing they are individuals only if they are 'fighting the power'. It has many legitimate grievances, but mostly petty ones to fuel the movement. Jello Biafra says of these counter-revolutiona
    • Jello Biafra says of these counter-revolutionaries that their cry is "give me convenience or give me death",

      ???? I don't understand this at all.

      "Rugged Individualism" is an illusion. There is no such thing as an independent individual. We are a social species, we need each other to survive. The life of the lone wolf is not a very good one, and it is often short.

      • There is no such thing as an independent individual.

        In the logic I feel you are applying here one could also say there is no such thing as a liberal either, as many people hold liberal and conservative values.

        It is a moot point to draw a comical extreme to say something doesn't exist.

    • What I think you don't see is that both revolution and counter revolution are simply ways of seperating sheep for the slaughterhouse

      I've thought about this carefully, and I think I see what you mean. To some extent, I think you are right. I've known a lot of kids I would call hippie-wannabes. They seem to think the new paradigm is some sort of fashion statement. We used to get them down on the farm I was living on in Costa Rica. Oh, sure, they talked a lot about sustainable community and protecting the en


      • Those do indeed sound like my kind of people.

        They are not rugged individualists, they are very communitarian

        Anyone who takes responsibility to learn and do for them and theirs is a rugged individual. Cutting from society is no more a way to prove one is a rugged individual than bashing Bush is a way to prove you are a liberal. In both cases you are letting others define who you are by staking claim to political real estate, and you run for the rest. In that way you are allowing others to define you. And
        • I see. OK. I just didn't understand what a rugged individualist is. It's not a metaphor I use. To me it implies someone who shuns the help and support of others. But if it means taking responsibility to learn and do, then anyone who is really serious about the permaculture/sustainable living movement is a rugged individualist. Interesting.

          For that matter, by this definition, I'm a rugged individualist. Have you ever read my story? It's linked to in the little corner box in my journal. You wanna talk about

  • Irrational fears can fuck with your head alot like acid can. I think I understand your position alot better now.

    Oh, and how can one be an American before there was a body knows as the United States of America? That doesn't make sense on any level. Must be another one of those acid things I guess.

    Since you would clearly consider me outside "the Matrix" (thats truly awful) so that I don't see the truth, its not that I don't, its that I just don't fear it the same way as you do. The Consitution is Am
    • Actually, it looks like you're so deeply buried in the matrix, that you can't see out of the red zone. The outside is just a Walmart factory.
      • Hey, iminplaya, it's good to see you again, how have you been? How's it going down there? How is the water situation going?

        You make an excellent point, though I doubt our esteemend colleague here will understand it. It's nice to see that you get it, though.

        • How's it going down there?

          Party cloudy, mid to upper 70's. You won't hear me complain about the weather. It's the only truly relevent thing in my life...Well, that and not having to drive to work. Ok, maybe those two things and a little beer every few hours.

          How is the water situation going?

          Plenty of it...in a big "lagoon" in the middle of the street in front of the house, but I love the rain. I'm thinking of starting a mosquito farm. Pics will be on their way as soon as I get one of those finger* came
      • I love the continuation of the Matrix analogy. You realize that is just a movie right? I can't possibly take your whole clique's way of thinking seriously with ideas like this.

        You understand, that since its just a movie, you're just another rambling madman, right? Right?
        • It's a metaphor, man! "Sheesh, you guys are so unhip it's a wonder your bums don't fall off." -- Zaphod

          You want sociological terminology, would that make you feel more comfortable? A culture creates a cognitive framework which defines the limits of acceptable thought, or for that matter thinkable thought. This framework rests on a narrative, often expressed in the form of a creation myth, which expresses the basic assumptions about what a human being is, what the world is, and what the proper place of a h

          • Like you said, he aint gonna get it. I'm beginning to wonder if he's just playing around. I would like to see a good devil's advocate, and he's not it. Or maybe he's saving it for a different forum. He does make the rest of us look good, doesn't he? You've had some great debates. Where are those guys? This guy is boring. He's one of those blind rats I mentioned in my other post. Quick, make another journal...I'll see ya there :-)
      • I've decided not to let you off with a wisecrack. What you and your boy are talking about here is a brand of double-bind. Your speech has alot in common with cults and groups such as the Mormon church. Especially with the introduction in freejung's post with a damned if you do and damned if you don't message. One can know about your so called "Matrix" or not, but it doesn't matter because there is nothing one can do about the situation. One is suffering either way, just some people understand the suffe
        • You don't even try, do you? You need to take the red pill.
        • Your speech has alot in common with cults and groups such as the Mormon church.

          I'll let others defend the Mormons if they want to. I'm not a member of any religious organization.

          To accept your notion that the classes are totally immobile would go against my life experience

          I'm not sure where I said that. Sure, people move around within the social order. That's fine. It doesn't matter. That's not the problem. The problem is that the social order itself is self-destructive, and also destructive of the b

        • Quinn is no Mormon- but boy are you ever stuck in the Taker Cult!
          • boy are you ever stuck in the Taker Cult!

            Hey, that gives me an idea! Maybe that's the approach we should take with these Takers -- the same way they deprogram cult members! I'm not sure exactly how this is done, but I understand a fair amount of work has been done on it.

            • It's the level we have to get to- because that's what it is, a cult. God given rights simply don't go very far into materialism. The sect of independance and individualism is only one example- all extreme materialism is definately cultish in behavior.

              Whenever you take more than you need- that is greed, and we need to combat it, perhaps even go so far as using eugenics to breed it out of the genome.
          • Hey MH? Um, sorry, I don't mean to quibble, but maybe when you're officially announcing your candidacy for President, you should run it through a spell-checker. Sorry, but I just had to point that out...
    • Irrational fears can fuck with your head

      Any kind of fear will fuck with your head, rational or irrational, but I'm not afraid. It is those who cling to the System and fear any threat to it that live in constant fear. I trust God.

      The only thing un-American is seeking to destroy that system

      Oh, don't worry, I'm not trying to destroy it. It's keeping me alive too, remember. The rapid distruction of the system would be a horrible catastrophe, and I really hope that doesn't happen. Actually, the only thing

      • You're completely wrong and wasting all of our time. But I guess I thats not possible since you did enough acid to see the "Truth".

        There's that neocon word again. It makes me smile everytime you use it. How can I consider you a threat when your incessant use of the word betrays your level of understanding?

        If you believe there is no "outside the system", and you are uncomfortable with "the system", I will give you the same advice I have given to many others since the election. Maybe you should kill
        • who the neocons are [wikipedia.org]? I am using the word in a very specific and relevant sense. I am talking about a specific group of people, and that is the common term used to refer to them. Admittedly there is some controversy surrounding the term, as all political categorizations are of necessity imprecise, but it is generally understood to whom the term refers. I'm not sure why you find it amusing.
        • Sure-Taker. That's what you'd like us to believe, that there is nothing outside of your system of taking. But some of us know better, and I didn't need any acid to find it- my relatives live it, and were living it here for 9000 years before your people came to TAKE the land from us.
          • That's what you'd like us to believe, that there is nothing outside of your system of taking.

            Well, now, to be fair, I was the one who said there was no outside of the system. But what I meant was that there is no physical outside. He was suggesting that I just leave. Where would I leave to? The Takers have Taken the whole planet.

            Of course, there's still an ideological outside of the system. Once you find that, you can start to build an outside while still on the inside, if you see what I mean. The Outsi

            • Well, now, to be fair, I was the one who said there was no outside of the system. But what I meant was that there is no physical outside. He was suggesting that I just leave. Where would I leave to? The Takers have Taken the whole planet.

              True. At least, I haven't been able to find one. There have been a few attempts to build one- like the Principality of New Utopia in the Carribean, or that guy on the oil rig in the North Sea. But one could say that those aren't true leaver attempts because they don't
              • I haven't been able to find one.

                On the brighter side, there have been many attempts, some of them successful, to build leaver or at least somewhat leaver communities within territory occupied by the takers. They say that 90% of intentional communities fail. I actually find that encouraging, because it means that 10% of them succeed. That's not bad. So it can be done. But unless you are going to colonize the surface of the ocean or move to antarctica, you are going to have to do it in occupied terrirory.

                • Yes, but unfortuneately in most cases this requires actually being able to buy the land to begin with- which Reagan's government insured would never be able to be done by the majority of the population (it was 1983 when they changed mortgage payments in the CPI formula to rent).
    • You really don't get it- you're well in the matrix because you're a Taker- freejung is talking about being a Leaver. The divide happened a long time ago- about 10,000 years or more.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Revolutionary means to try to change an old regime, fixed power structure which already exists now, try to re-distribute wealth from haves to have-nots. Counter-revolution connotes something wrong and backward images. Always counter-revolution had been producing bad by-products, always reflects the bad unfavourable side of things, side effects, backlash of the revolutionary things. And one more thing... Jesus tried to emphasise the utmost value of love and sacrifice beyond the limit of reason Moses had alr
    • Yeah, I see what you mean about the connotations of the words I was using. But I'm not so sure -- certainly in American culture, the idea of a revolution redistributing wealth from the haves to the have-nots has been demonized as communism, and the US government often supports counterrevolutionary movements in "communist" countries. As a socialist I agree that revolution has good connotations and counterrevolution has bad ones, but I am trying to shake up the commonly-held conception of events by turning th
  • I really enjoy following your journal. There was a time in my life where I did a lot of writing like that, but these days I barely have the time to put pen to paper. I do encounter more and more people who can see the matrix though, so I'm getting more full of hope.
    • Thanks ralphus! Yeah, I have lots of hope too. Many people are beginning to see the structure of our society and how it works and why it has gone wrong and how we might go about beginning to fix it. It's wonderful to see all the positive responses I've had to this JE. "Just can't live that negative way / make way for the positive day!" -- Bob Marley

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