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“I'll need some information first - Pink Floyd, from “Comfortably Numb”
It doesn’t add up. All the news and talk and protests for years and years about climate change. Do the media and the vapid simulacrum of a world it projects and those who feed from its trough really care about climate chaos and the Earth?
Why isn’t Brazil's president Bolsonaro being reprimanded? Here’s the headline that got me to think that: “Bolsonaro Ignored 97% Of Deforestation Warnings: MapBiomas”.[1] Even grade school children know the significance of the Amazon rainforest, often referred to as the “lungs of the Earth.” But the ho-hum ignoring of that speaks volumes and I've yet to see a banner “stand with Rainforest”, let alone a flag with a rainforest.
And regardless of your opinion about the current main drama, the war in Ukraine, why do I keep seeing businesses and websites that “stand with Ukraine” and/or sport that country's flag, but not “stand with Mother Earth”? What about having every national flag with a picture of the Earth on it too? The geopolitical fanfare is as if war was a sports league and you have to root for one team or another, even though, for many people, it's a foreign league. Personally, I am rooting for denazification and the least harm possible; as a human being of Jewish heritage, you can't blame me.
Meanwhile, USAToday headline: “Shell reports record $9.1 billion profit as oil prices soar in first-quarter.” Why is there not Shellophobia or a generic BigOilophobia or FossilFuelophobia, instead of Russophobia? … because it sure pokes my phobia every time I get to the main road and start looking for 'What's the price today? And will I have to cut back on expenses and/or work longer hours?' Not to mention that the billions of dollars of weapons and military aid sent by the US to Ukraine proves that the economic troubles within the US are yet another prefabricated, slick simulacrum.
The information sleights of hand and warped perceptions of reality projected by mainstream media remind me of the movie The Wizard of Oz, where “the great and powerful” ominous and authoritative voice with face projected onto a screen surrounded by flames turns out to be just a bumbling old guy behind a curtain with tech-amplification. Is that not what the media-complex is, a booming voice out of touch with the rhythms of the Earth, out of touch with the reality of the masses of Peoples who feel the pinch of prices whether pro-Ukraine, pro-Russia, pro-peace, anti-war or I just wanna cover my basic expenses so I have more time for being with my family and friends, and for listening to the wind and watching the trees with their leaves doing that ancient Springtime unfolding which makes Houdini look like an amateur?
As the lyrics from the song “The Tin Man” by the band America say, “But Oz never did give nothing to the Tin Man / That he didn't, didn't already have.” So what is it that we already have but are ignoring? The Tin Man got a facsimile heart to remind him of what he already had.
What we already have is inner knowing, knowing by heart, intuition, gut feeling, the still small voice within. Yet that's been squelched for millennia by authoritative rule whose aim is to scare the heck out of people and make them not think about an inner purpose or knowing, rather keep them obedient to a great and powerful simulacrum booming, “Trust me, I got this.”
The current buzz words related to the new Disinformation Governance Board are: misinformation, malinformation, and disinformation. Before figuring what those are, what is “information”? I assume that most people think of information as accurate knowledge of varying kinds, and in a practical sense, we use information so as to make well-informed decisions and choices. And there's the catch. Sometimes you need accurate information from someone or somewhere so as to help make an informed decision, yet sometimes you have the ability to find out the appropriate information for yourself.
According to Wikipedia:
In sound-bite summary: Mis is whoopsie; Mal seeks to harm; Dis seeks to brainwash.
Yet perhaps the supreme irony of what is currently happening is reflected with the following quote: “We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.” - William J. Casey – CIA Director (1981 – 1987), at an early February 1981 meeting of newly elected President Reagan[2]
Fast-forward to 2022 and it's like the pot calling the kettle black has come home to roost but is projecting said roost onto the world-at-large with smoke-screens and fun-house mirrors.
Where to get a clear perception? Who can possibly play the arbiter?
From the roots, “in” from “within, inside” and “formation/form – to give form to, shape.” Therefore, by definition, true information is shaped from within and often requires time and effort. Yet sometimes one person's inside scoop can be helpful to others, so it gets shared. Yet again, sometimes some don't want information or truths shared because it diminishes the potency of their rule, their control of the narrative.
I, like many people, have my 5 or 15 favorite trustworthy journalists and information sources, often friends. Yet there's the conundrum in a nutshell: Who would believe me? Who to trust? Who's lying? Who's telling the truth? Whose inside scoop is genuine? … because some deluded individuals and institutions have claimed that God told them to kill innocent people, which, by definition, is decidedly not God, except according to some of the Old Testament and perhaps other such texts.
On the one hand, it's ok that some things we'll never know, whether geopolitically or about the mysteries of the cosmos. On the other hand, there are ways to find out truths or the truth. In the current climate of information, however, that's become like a needle in a haystack in the Tower of Babel. Yet if all we are clamoring about is information, we are limiting our capabilities and our abilities to improve conditions.
What is sorely lacking in this Information Age is wisdom, and deep understanding, and a full spectrum overview. The information that makes one knowledgeable can be helpful but if all it took to be wise was knowledge then we'd all be geniuses by now and there wouldn't be any of these issues to deal with.
“No one “learns” wisdom like a lesson, but lives into it.” [3]
You can't become wise for any price or at any school. And even if you do become wise, you can't rest on your laurels or invite people over to gawk at your wisdom trophy, rather you have to put that to the test every day.
So what's for lunch?
NOTES [1] See here
[2] “ASL. Primary Sources for Quote attributed to William Casey
[3] The Ladder of Lights — William G. Gray, Samuel Weiser, Inc., 1981, p.193.
Mankh (Walter E. Harris III) is an essayist and resident poet at Axis of Logic. Check out his newest book Moving Through The Empty Gate Forest: inside looking out.
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