ok if your on this site you probably dont like whats going on in office we all hate bush and politicians, the votes are controlled and the media is making fools of us all nothing new right...? so why has this gone on so long? we still have the right to form a militia if the patriot act hasnt taken that away. when bush was trying to elect that woman (im not good with names) for the supreme court who was unqualified georgie jr. refused to release documented conversations between them because he said he had quote " executive privileges" in a constitution governed FOR THE PEOPLE BY THE PEOPLE There are no executive privileges. the simple fact is we have lost all sense of the word honor. the only effective way to take back the land our ancestors fought and died for (and took from the native americans but thats another rant) would be to eliminate electricity across the country jail cell dorrs and mental institution doors would fly open and all our old friends would appear (u know the ones who've been at "camp") and they'd easy to rally. its the biggest oxymoron of all time "the upper 1%" but thats who is controlling everything. think people do you really want to be dominated like this for the rest of your lives. i know i dont we cant lose hope in ourselves it is time to smite the great evil of our land and break free from their tyrannical reign its time to set things straight if we dont it will be the end of us all

The more I have researched the more I find out it's hopeless. It's just a matter of time. Americans are to distracted by the American dream and materialism to notice or do anything about it.

And don't try to talk about mutiny, you will only gain their attention. Have fun while it lasts.

I do love materialism. It rocks.

The Plebeian and freed population of Rome vastly outnumbered the Equestrian and Patrician classes, and their lives were much harder. Many had no jobs, little money and little food.

Augustus, realizing that the masses of average Romans had to be kept both fed and happy enough to remain peaceful, began the system of patronage we now refer to as "bread and circuses." He gave the people food — by means of grain distribution and legislation of food prices — and free entertainment such as chariot races, gladiators, and lavish spectacles in amphitheaters and the Circus Maximus.

Anyone else see a close resemblance to our modern civilization?? And we know what happened to the Roman Empire. Rampant Corruption, system of patronage and a distracted population!! Most people now days seem to have more in common with the sheep than with the wolves, afraid to say anything or do anything! We are being attacked by the Barbarians and all most poeple say is "How could this happen??" Well they are getting a wakeup call, let us hope it is not too late.

Just what exactly do you intend to replace our current system with?

scoobysnack you are so right !! everyone cares what to buy, as you said materials. no one cares about the war ...etc. some people might say "its not affecting me, i still drive my lexus" everyone cares for the own sake, now days people dont even think, the tv thinks for them. american dream what is it really? is it just materials or something more?

day nice have

Why on Earth would the lack of electricity make the doors open?



Are you advocating armed rebellion?

Your grammar and chatspeak hurts my eyes. ;.;

we do not need to replace anything!! we need to purge it-- it has been infiltrated by globalists and is being destroyed by democracy--america is a constitutional republic and we must remember our roots and expel the royalty our ancestors fled from-- america was not stolen from the natives it was occupied under auspices of survival and the pursuit of freedom-- this nation was founded by brilliant men who knew the threats and created a system for dealing with them-- all we need to do is utilize them-- hopefully fitzgerald is aware of his importance and position is the struggle for real "american" justice-- you fools that accept the governments version of the events of 9/11 are in denial-- another doctor from another prestigious university has come forward putting his name and career on the line-- how much longer are you going to keep your heads in the sand?

Oh Geesh....

in the end it is going to take an armed rebellion but not by civillians-- its going to take some one like smedley butler to step up to the plate and expose the elite for what they are-- slimey, sadistic,nefarious bastards and the extreme "MINORITY"-- in the end MOB RULES -- ever heard the term REGICIDE?

here the LINK--verify it for yourself
or at least offer your credentials or expertise so we can determine "who" is more credible

Still .. as I said..

Oh Geesh...

Sun, you are scary. I enjoy my life. Sorry yours sucks.

we could debate the issue of whose life sucks worse
it sure does feel good to know im not being duped-- after bush went on tv "admitting" his intelligence was wrong and it cost 30,000 iraqi lives give or take a few thousand and 20,000 injured or dead americans and all you can do is wallow in denial?

It's because people are sheep.

I recently read an article (around the time gas was $3.00/gal), where it pointed out how there were no riots or uprisings about this insane increase in gas prices. It was like no one cared enough to do anything about it. America is soft, Americans are slowly becoming the stereotypical, fat lazy bastards...and I'm sorry for them.

--Jon

Feel sorry for yourselves. I have a really good life and a family. Our government is not perfect, but it is not evil either. Enjoy your paranoia. I will go drive my vette.

LMAO!! Great response... I am right behind you in my Camaro!

Eh...that's nice. I do believe the government is corrupt, but I also believe that most governments are. If you think about it, they have to be. Patriotism and all that is propaganda, used to control the masses. This is not a conspiracy theory, this is a proven fact. Believe what you will but look at such things as the Pledge of Allegiance in classrooms. Children are taught, starting when they're very young, who their daddy is.

--Jon

sad, cause most of the affronts to our rights in modern times were blatently abused by Bill Clinton. And the right complained but wasn't heard very loud. "You guys just don't like Clinton".

Now I hear some of the same complaints, but against Bush. Now suddenly it's wrong? And it really is because some people hate Bush, most of the time they're trying to think up reasons why, but the important part is not Why you hate Bush, just that you hate him.

It would take me a looong time to go through and correct the problems with peoples' views in this thread. alone would take me a few paragraphs. I see at least 6 topics in that one statement.

Sad that our children hold such ignorant views. Of course I blame the Port side. Trying to get ahold of some more material on Marx. I blame him bigtime too.

ooooh your soooo cool-- and for the record there is no such thing as "paranoia" it is a manufactured term used as a distraction from guilt-- a label used to conceal details or sidestep respect-- psychiatrists are doctors in a field that cannot be comprehended and used as a tool for oppression or conning fools out of their money-- you can go ahead and enjoy your toll roads,income tax,sales tax,vaccines and fake wars but we all know what housewives do when their men aint around by the way another professor from another prestigious school has come forward to add his name to the list of doctors,generals,colonels and firefighters that DO NOT accept the lie of the official govt version of 9/11-- here isa link to the details
how is it that your opinion trumps theirs again? oh thats right,my bad,youve never stated

My first ever in depth research project surrounded why the west wanted for so long to erase African links to egypt. It was Napoleon who was so shocked that the negro had any link to a glorious past and from then, the west has always been doctoring huge chunks of Egyptian history, only for it to be finaly corrected in the seventies. To my dismay, the west has found ways to even suppres the truth on those pyramids, despite the numerous agents of archeologists...... Still our TV's and schools insit against new evidence that the pyramids are only 5000 years old. Evidence exists suggesting them to be older than 25,000 years old. Due to the levels of flood watermargins the stonewaork is imprinted with over the eons.

The fact that Egypt held a democracy for a very very long time, despite the many times of Persian invasions, famine and national friction. The democracy remained fair for a very long time. Until finally weaker rulers allowed the decline of Egyptian thinking and the constant invasions to eventually win over them. The Egyptians taxed only 10%, everyone worked as a whole country as we have seen countries work to protect themselves during the second world war..... The Egyptians were always that organized. Even their concept of slavery is a lot different to our one today and was turned into a nasty affair by the Persians. Studying those times you will see how much of a great hub of knowledge Egypt was for the world up to the UK and the Far East, as many travelled to Egypt to learn and adapt. Our Democracy began there. theirs was the first ever democracy since Atlantis. Again, our democracies are based on theirs. But with so much of history missing, we need to dig deep to understand the true wholistic values of democracy where we only follow a fraction of their values today. The pyramids may be very old, the cultures always changed and evolved....but democracy continued whenever it was used with wisdom....Humanity have no need to war....children unhindered live well together..... True, humanity only needs courage to take back their countries....if ever....


sure, we all know about historians

QUOTE

HISTORY is bunk written as propaganda by winners. Probably most dates within the last 2,000 years are as accurate as one can expect. Jewish history really starts about 2,000 BC with Abraham, and at least they used a calender borrowed from Sumer which started around 3,760 BC being the start of Jewish recorded time. Egyptian recorded history starts at 3,000 BC. It is possible to match Jewish and Egyptian events, but only if one assumes they started at the same time and an Egyptian year is 2/3 of a Jewish one. Thus the modern line of the Egyptian tourist industry and Egyptian government is their dates are correct and that modern carbon dating is wrong. The fact that the Sphinx has water marks indicating that it existed about 10,000 BC is not accepted. The Jews are not much better as all their events occurred within recorded time or so they claim. Thus while there is geological evidence that Noah's flood occurred about 11,000 BC, the date cannot be true as that is outside Jewish recorded time. The moral of all this is be highly suspicious of all dates BC.

THE ASTROLOGICAL CALENDER is harder to tamper with, but works in units of about 2160 years, being the time taken to move through an astrological star house as observed by astronomy. Today if one expects total World destruction and wishes to leave a dated reminder to future generations, then an appropriate inscription would indicate the Pisces Aquarius changeover. If one believes that the Sphinx has the head of a Lion then it was built in the age of Leo, and if it has the head of a bull it was built in the age of Taurus. However if one finds a tablet dated with the sign of a fish, it may be up to 2,000 years old, or be 26,000 years old or even 52,000 years old.

http://www.viking-z.org/d22e.htm



what i am saying is..... all we know now, is of a history of constan waring... humanity are redundant to the so called facts that people are unable to live together..... But egyptian history, where modern democracy was modelled, held peace and posterity for the majority for very long stretches of time.....

for example, in 2000 years, internal strife leaves a string of western revolutions and unheavals, mainly because the governments gave only as the public demands or revolts..... In many egyptian PRIMITIVE dynasties, there was never any internal strife beyond famine....in africa in general long before egypt, wars involved no killing.... hence the concepts of battle and slavery in egypt were so different to the rest of the world.....and always the people held the same vision enough to remarkably defeat any invasion with effortless ease..... looking at the governments of today....they only give if they have to.....only with public pressure does anything ever happen... probably this is why in 2000 years, no one country has existed continuously throughout in the west.....

I am cool. Thanks. NO such thing as paranoia. I will have to call my mother who is a paranoid shcizophrenic. Oops. Sorry can't call her. She has no phone because she is paranoid. It sounds like you don't believe in mental illness.
Wierd. You believe in just about every conspiracy.

for those that think the government is corupt and evil, why do you live here? i'm not saying get out, i'm just asking why you still live here?

There were thought to be conspiracies (assassinations, plots) Like why Nefertiti suddenly "disappears". There was internal strife, in my opinion.
Plus they had fortresses against the South because there were constant threats of war (which really came from all sides). In fact, the Egyptians kept their loss to the Nubians a secret out of shame. To say there was no strife beyond famine is a bit of an exaggeration, no?
He explained that, "Nefertiti was involved in the assassination of her husband's successor, Smenkhare, and was later in conflict with King Horemhab who overthrew the monotheistic cult of his predecessor and erased all traces of it. Horemhab would never have allowed Queen Nefertari to be buried in the Valley of the Kings ," he concluded.
edit: The Egyptians were far from primitive. Even the earlier dynasties were impressive for the time. There's not even that much information because they didn't keep as many records. However, it's hard to believe that famine was the only issue.

this land is my home and has been my families home for over a century-- my ancestor actually used to own the largest land grant in texas until it was stolen from him in 1857-- a search of the official handbook of texas history includes an interesting epoch where my ancestor owned most of what is now austin and houston-- from my family the land went to mckinnley and austin through auspicious circumstances-- ill just say that the version that was handed down verbally is vastly different than what the history books say-- but a simple obsevation is all it takes to realize which version is fabricated yet there is nothing that can be done(for the time being)-- its al really interesting story but one that taught me early the govt is not a ritghteous entity knowing no honor and say the opposite of what they mean or of what the truth is

so.........just because your land got stolen you belive that the entire government is evil?

well my mothers side of my family used to be rich in Russia, and my fathers side used to be Stewards in Scotland. I'm not complaining.

Back to the topic. Yes most of us know about the crimes and corruptions. We join groups that petition our lawmakers and harrass our elected representatives and senators. We send out e-mails alerting others of news that the MSM will not print. We are constantly working on purging our government before someone else does it for us.
"The mill of the gods grinds slow, but it grinds exceeding fine"
Right now the main activity of our groups is to abolish the Patriot Act.
We are also boycotting/reducing our holiday activities to protest the slaughter in Iraq with economic impact. It seems to be working.
"Those who can DO, Those who can't talk about it.

rights blatantly abused by Clinton . . . . reference please

The government IS corrupt and evil and I left the United States. The most disturbing thing to me is that while young men are dying in Iraq to create rights and freedoms for Iraquis, their own rights and freedoms are being diluted at home. The Patriot Act is insanity or is an ingenious method to take control from the masses while misleading them to believe that the abuses against them is for their own good.

I am not a conspiracy buff. But I am able to see and analyze and form educated opinions. I personally believe that when the momentum of the European Union was mounting and the Euro passed the dollar and showed no signs of stopping, there was a fear of the U.S. losing its role as the world's leader. Unfortunately, Europe has no petroleum deposits of any significance. If the U.S. could control middle eastern oil, however, the Euro could also be controlled.

I find it incredible that American citizens are willing to sit calmly by and watch their rights be eroded. How can they believe the stupidity that is going on? Eleven men from Saudi Arabia board planes with two other men and attack the United States. So we invade Iraq and believe Bush when he says that it is to protect the U.S. But at the same time there is this deep, abiding friendship between the Bush family and the royal family of Saudi. No talk of invading them even though it is the real hotbed of terror. Bin Laden is from Saudi and still has his contact there but no, we do nothing against them. Our enemy is Iraq.
B.S.!

Corrupt is a mild term for what sits in the White House.

I was born and raised here. I don't have the money to move out of the country, and besides where would I go. I don't speak any other language. Besides this is a world problem. I think instead of running away from my problems I will stay and try to fix them, doesn't that make sense.

What scares me more then anything is the complete ignorance of the sleeping majority of America. Even reading posts on this site, you can see the victims of American propaganda. The reason I can see this is that I used to be a victim myself just four years ago. I voted Bush into office in 2000. Some people on here think just how I used to before I found out I along with most of American was living a lie. People are going to beg to have their rights taken away in exchange for absolute security. They will welcome the police state, and turn against those who support the constitution because the constitution and all it's freedoms is what is perceived as putting us at risk of terrorism. It's all a lie of course, the majority of terrorist attacks are engineered by the governments and agent provocateurs.

Eric you and nxt2h proved their points. As long as you have your material objects (Vette and Camaro) your philosphy is "please dont bother me I'm busy enjoying my material possesssions. " pathetic..

Exactly. I enjoy my life. Pathetic seems to fit you better.

You either feel insulted by someone on the interent calling you pathetic... (Not likely)

OR

well you can guess...

That last post shows that you react without thinking eric. look at your post... Now look at all the posts in this topic...

Bush definately needs to be impeached. For instance recently I have been showing my mom evidence of 9/11 not being as said. Turns out she didn't even see it on the news at the time... hehe. She didnt know till I got home that day.

So a few days ago she says to me "guess what"
"what?"
"I was talking with _______ (a friend of hers who had family members in the wtc) and she told me about these people that warned her family about 9/11 the day before," she said.
"who?" I asked.

She couldn't remeber so I said "NSA?"
"Yea! how did you know?"

I didn't know of course, though I did have my reasons. I don't have any great connections or anything, but I do have a few friends who know a little bit. You meet a lot of military people when you are joining the military. When You go to MEPS you stay in a hotel the night before so that they can wake us up at 400 lol. Anyway I shared a room with a "re-enlist-er." He was a former green beret who wanted to switch out and work on computers and networks. Anyway he told me some sites to look at, got my AKO acount set up, a few other things. He didn't open my eyes like he expected for I already believed what he was saying, but the verification was nice.I'll have OSUT at KNOX in about a month. And we'll leave it at that.

A few conclusions I have made.

1) The media will not say anything too positive. Forget right, left, liberal, and conservative. Oh wait now I'm confused you say "liberal media" And Bush is a huge liberal... Should he not then get great news stories and covering up of bad things??
By your logic of course.

The way I see it media has one purpose and that is to dumb you down period. I'll put it like this: You can exorcise to get stronger physically. You can meditate to strengthen connections in your brain, thickening the gray matter in the cortex. Not forming new cells but making new connections between cells. Has been shown to raise your IQ.(look up some meditation studies especially from harvard medical school) Now what happens when "the world" is negative? quotation marks meaning: as seen through the media. You can trust that humans are very adaptable. And that is what they must do, adapt to this horrible place There is a reason for that M 17+ sign on viloent video games. Or like when your 10 year old bro starts jump kicking you after seeing a bruce lee movie. For adults I think the effect takes a lot longer, but don't most people watch the news every day?



2) the media portrays the war in a very incorrect way. All the troops will tell you this people. I will too---heck I might end up there soon if not Syria or Iran. While the reasons (not the real ones) for war have nothing to do with Iraq or the Iraqi people the war is going on right now. Mostly while we are asleep (if they are operating in the day time). What happens if we leave right this second? The world becomes a very unstable place. Hussein was a bad guy, but he held the country together. So until they have a government and basic needs plus security then we cannot leave without doing the world an even greater injustice than starting the war in the first place.

3) Why should we leave when it is not america that we hate? America may be doomed in your eyes scoob, but the idea of America will not perish so easily.

4) Stop and think! <---I know what you are thinking right now after reading that because I think of such things. Shall I tell you what you would already know is true if you only looked at yourself? Ok right now you are thinking of your comeback. Why is it a comeback? Because before you finished reading what I wrote you decided to defeat me in a forum battle ... If you will. (I never say if you will ) And now you are thinking "Wrong, this is what I belive I only care about my car/finanscial stability." Don't you are about the constitution?

guess what... that is where they have you, your money.

(you can take they to be a paranoid made up people who can travel through time and turn invisible, but it is not the way it is meant here.I just don't really have a power structure down in my head at the moment. There seem to be more than one "group" and some have very parallel motives.)

You have to have it or you die. Right? Why should money have power over you? A walking talking form of highly evolved life... we are talking about paper here.

Now is that really all you care about? What is truly pathetic is not admitting to ones own feelings/ not reacting when they know they should.

and that is what I think.

P.S. I think that quote under your avitar is somewhat right Eric. To be more correct it should read: democrats have a low IQ, republicans have a low IQ, Anyone who submits to a groups ideals and steriotypes has a low IQ.

Did I just insult everybody? I hope not... for everyones sake.


-MuddyFrog

yeah we can! go mudfrog you know im actually glad and hopeful about your coming service for the country-- i foresee a mighty truth soldier and freedom warrior and i see you making huge waves where they count keep up the good work

I am in totall, 100% agreement with the person who began this forum. I'm happy to know there are others around the world who feel like me, I am what the Government calls an "Anarchist". My brothers i support ur ideas and goals.
"Anarchy", till the end.
f*** the system,the govenment, the industry, and above all the athuthorities in every f***'n country on this misused planet, which we hve come to call home, ironically we are the reason for its inevitable demise.

Can you unionize anarchists?

Good point, i'd bet the union meetings are wild. So much for a timed agenda...

"It's called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it" - George Carlin

Were all born into this world knowing nothing, we then grow up and learn what we live. Whilst this is happening we are unwillingly indoctrinated. We are then released from the machine to find ourselves in a chaotic world controlled by 1% of the worlds population. It would be a theoretical impossibility to change the nature of the world so we have to accept the world the way it is, because thats how it is. You can make your world better by being a good humanitarian and helping those around you. You can make a difference to the world but you cant change it. Sad But True.

I was raised on the edge of a swamp by a father who thought that learnign to shoot was pretty high priorty. It saved my life once.

He taught me to cook and eat what I killed out in the trees.

He taught me that "Self reliance is the greatest gift you can have". Three decades later, as of yet, no one has proved him wrong.

I don't always kill it before I grill it, some times I till it, then harvest it. Nothing like having dirt of your own. Nothing like gathering the wild.

Sorry folks, it's just that it's that time of year and I'm greatful for the bounty that I have, and the ones that I miss.

sooo...you're saying ignorance is bliss?

The only way to stop this is to be a snitch.

to be a wistle blower.

to follow your gut, and not be a tool.

to call the bluffs of people who threaten u.

and to believe the weaker individuals who claim they have been threatend.

and to lay down your own well being for societies well being.

listen to your ethics teacher.

learn to use single ply toliet paper.

Are you serious?Come on now!You have to be kidding me.I wouldn't think someone would be so stupid as to believe thats the right thing to do.

Unless you are talking about doing to the government.That's great. Say everything you know that they don't want the public knowing.

unless you have a note from God certifying that the U.S. government is evil, its an opinion.

by the way materialism and freedom is awesome. i'm off to spend time on my X-box.

dont live your lives in paranoia, because if the U.S. Gov. is trying to keep us oppressed, they are doing a piss poor job.

yeah... the other.

in business and government.... not your friends and family.

In his essay entitled “Radical Thought,” Jean Baudrillard begins the sixth paragraph with the following statement: “Say: I am real, this is real, the world is real, and nobody laughs. But say: this is a simulacrum, you are only a simulacrum, this war is a simulacrum, and everybody bursts out laughing”(2). Although the war he refers to is the Gulf War and here we are years later, it certainly applies to the world as we know it right now. This new rhetoric, the Postmodernist Baudrillardian Rhetoric, seems to unravel all things we have felt familiar, recognized as the authentic, and deconstructs Reality down to a singularity: Simulation.

Fictive reality is now more real than than the realness of Actuality.

Our conception of reality has been modified by three revolutions. The first occurred in Renaissance Period painting. Leonardo Da Vinci and his contemporaries rendered their particular representations using three-dimensional methods such as foreshortening, chiaroscuro, sfumato, and the vanishing point, creating a realism never seen before. There were only originals, no copies. Simulation then existed as a truly unique representation of the artist’s imagination illustrated upon a medium. The second change happened with the invention of the camera in the early 19th-century. The original and the copy were born, and as a result, so was the distinction between reality and representation of reality. The final revolution of reality conception is a product of the 20th-century. It is the Simulacra: a copy that takes the place of the real. Think of Mickey Mouse. Copies replace originals. No originals, only copies. No corresponding objects. Image became reality. The difference between fiction and reality completely eliminated. Things don’t need to be, events don’t need to happen--our values are wholly restructured. We now experience simulation instead of reality. Today, all mediums of media are the means of simulation and Simulacra.

Question reality; question existence, the world, the universe; question everything, even the question itself. “I think, therefore I am” no longer works. Descartes is a myth. “I think that I think--therefore I am?” is Baudrillard’s assertion. The simulacrum--imagine the real and realize the imagined--the possibility that all things are not what they appear to be, that they never were, that everything we thought was real and everything we still think is real might actually be something we cannot grasp.
On his European Graduate School faculty home page, Baudrillard posts:
It is more difficult for us to imagine the real, History, the depth of time, or three-dimensional space, just as before it was difficult from our real world perspective to imagine a virtual universe or the fourth-dimension. The Simulacra will be ahead of us everywhere. The simulacrum is never that which conceals the truth - it is the truth which conceals that there is none. Since the world is on a delusional course, we must adopt a delusional standpoint towards the world. (http://www.egs.edu/faculty/jeanbaudrillard.html)

Can we comprehend a world on a “delusional course,” and one that bears no truth? In Baudrillard’s sense, that is the ultimate question--the question that cannot be answered, for the answer--that which we aspire to, that which we quest for, that which we feel an inexhaustible conviction to possess, may very well be Simulacra. Using Baudrillard’s logic, the answer must be Simulacra. Consider Ecclesiastes 7:24, “What exists is beyond reach and unfathomable: who can master it?” It stands to reason that we must alter our perspective exponentially if we are to maintain focus upon an expononentially altering world. And furthermore, in Ecclesiastes 8:17, “...that man is not able to discover the work which is done under the sun, for the sake of which a man labors to search but does not find it: even though a wise man thinks he knows, he shall not be able to find it.” Baudrillard’s rhetoric reflects this age-old ideology in his argument from “The Precession of Simulacra,” that “The Simulacra will be ahead of us everywhere. The simulacrum is never that which conceals the truth - it is the truth which conceals that there is none”(1). Baudrillard is saying, unabashedly, that what we seek more so than anything else--the Ultimate Truth, the Reality of All Things, the Meaning of Life--has been and will always remain unobtainable because its destination is an undefinable realm of Abstract Darkness and lacks any apparent and familiar semblance of onus probandi.

This is a new rhetoric: Something no other rhetorician had done previously. Not new as in opposing Aristotle and Plato; Vico; Burke and Perelman; or Richards and McLuhan, but new as in asserting claims to which the burden of proof, the Traditional and Established means of evidence, are applied to what is the most extraordinary abstraction-- simulation of Reality and Existence. “This thought consists in putting into place a form, a matrix of illusion and disillusion, a strange attracting force, so that a seduced reality will be able to spontaneously feed on it”(Vital Illusion 33). This “seduced reality” is a constructed simulation of a reality, what Baudrillard calls “Hyperreality.” Baudrillard explains in Simulacra and Simulation: “Abstraction today is no longer that of the map, the double, the mirror or the concept. Simulation is no longer of a territory, a referential being or a substance. It is the generation by models of a real without origin or reality: a hyperreal”(1) .

It is this hyperreality which has become the new and terrible American Dream. And it is a lucid dream, subject to selective mutation by the dreamer(s). As long as we remain in it, trust in our sensory reception eludes us. Therefore, we must go beyond the traditional and established modes of evidence and proofs if we are to comprehend and accept simulation and Simulacra as the the fundamental premise of all Postmodern Rhetoric.

Sigmund Freud said, in Civilization and Its Discontents, that: “Life, as we find it, is too hard for us; it brings us too many pains, disappointments and impossible tasks. In order to bear it we cannot dispense with palliative measures. We cannot do without auxiliary constructions” (23). What this means to me, and, it appears, to Baudrillard, is that it is because we no other alternative.

Those “palliative measures” are the things we do to alleviate our inability to rationalize radical ideas that challenge our innate faculties, the most difficult of which is conceiving of that which cannot be sensed but stands to reason because the its manifestations comprise our physical world. And the “auxiliary constructions” are the simulation and simulacrum--what the poet and Grateful Dead lyricist, Robert Hunter, called the “Hypnocrasy”(“St. Dilbert,” 1992), which he coined shortly after coming under the influence of Baudrillardian Rhetoric and philosophy. The Hypnocrasy was “so profoundly hidden that you could never understand it,” Hunter wrote, then questioned: “Is Hypnocrasy not the aspiration to know what it is? I used to believe that nothing could be known as a fact which was not arbitrary and simply observable to be so--except G-d and Love. Lost was I in my own despair of ever knowing anything for sure through the evidence of my perceptions, then I turned on the TV and in the midst of watching CNN’s Gulf War coverage and it came to me--there it was, the Hypnocrasy, right there on my TV screen.” Hunter is referring to the virtual war we all viewed and accepted as Truth and Reality.

Television is the perfect perfect medium for simulation and Simulacra, especially news broadcasts (local and network), reality shows (“Survivor,” “The Real World”), news magazines (“20/20,” “60 Minutes,” “Dateline”), cable tv documentary channels (Discovery, History Channel), and those Sunday morning round-table talk shows (“Face the Nation,” “Meet the Press”), all of which purport to deliver Truth and Reality when in fact the only thing they deliver is a tightly produced and slanted simulation of what they want want us to think is Truth and Reality. Baudrillard wrote two controversial essays on the Gulf War in 1995, “The Gulf War Did Not Take Place,” and, “The Gulf War Will not Take Place.” In “The Gulf Did Not Take Place, he exclaims:
The presumption of information and the media here doubles the political arrogance of the Western Empire. All those journalists who set themselves up as bearers of the universal conscience, all those presenters who set themselves up as strategists, all the while overwhelming us with a flood of useless images. Emotional blackmail. Fraud. We would do better to discuss the threshold of mental tolerance for simulated information, which we can say that it was deliberately crossed (76).

We accept simulation and Simulacra because it is easier. The world as we know it is a deliberate man-made construction: everything from ancient history to Disneyland to self-identity to religion, politics, and America--all are imaginary fabrications of things that in their Real state may not align with Western, Traditional, and Establishment ideology, may not fit in the order and explanation of all things, therefore the simulation and Simulacra of Truth and Reality replaces the Actualized and Unadulterated. “The realist logic which lives on the illusion is the final result” (67).

“The world is my idea,” (445) exclaims Arthur Schopenhauer, the philosopher of disillusion, in The World as Will and Idea, and he could not have been any more poignantly correct. What he means is that although each of us perceives a similar, familiar, and common world but not one which is exactly the same for each individual. Today, there is no such thing as Reality, only our singular perceptions of what we call reality that has been manipulated and modified. Jean Baudrillard, in Simulacra and Simulation, argues this very point, and moreover, that reality is a constant construct either constructed for you or by you. Combining the assertions of these two profound observers, we arrive at a disturbing conclusion: the sublime nature, the sublime truth of reality does not exist. For, we cannot observe something without changing it. This is the primary logic behind simulation and Simulacra. Consider the many filters and augmentations words, beliefs, and images go through before they are observed or divulged. It’s all contrived production. By the time it arrives at the eye or the ear, authorities, producers, directors, editors, reporters, and the like have altered, consciously or unconsciously, the Actuality to Hyperreality.

For how many years have we been force-fed simulations of fabricated history? I was taught that Columbus discovered America, that “all men are created equal,” that we live in a democracy, that History is a factual reality; when, to the contrary, in “Vivisecting the 90s,” Baudrillard argues, “because history continues, just as stories do and our history may be just this, a long rewriting process, prolonged ad infinitum, strewn with glosses/counter-glosses ... you read History as the re-actualisation of a past in which we all are accusers and defenders, as well as complicitous. This where one ends up in a real or hyper-real situation, that of the history of historical narratives, of historiography which do pose a historical question about the re-invention of past history through the historian's discourse, a discourse which, by definition is a re-construction.

In a way, that reconstruction is also necessarily artificial”(5). “It’s all just a story, something you can spin into a plot with memorable characters and a few good lines and maybe even something approximating captivating. Aristotle said there is more truth in poetry than history. Storytelling as literature must then be truer than history”(7), Trinh T. Minh-Ha writes in Woman, Native, Other. Espousing a parallel, Baudrillardian postmodernist rhetoric, Minh-Ha continues: “If we rely on history to tell us what happened at a specific time and place, we can rely on the story to tell us not only what might have happened, but also what is happening at an unspecified time and place. But why Truth at all? Why this battle for Truth on behalf of Truth?”(38) Minh-Ha and Baudrillard both question the role of History in our incessant compulsion to determine our identity--self and collective--with the Truth and those events which comprise History. We want to believe in the truthfulness and actuality of historical fact because it provides us a concrete identification and consubstantiation, something of consequence and veracity to which we adhere in order to fulfill the desire of intrinsic self-importance and diminish the anxiety of being insignificant.

Simulation and Simulacra have always been the condition of all things. Minh-Ha conveys, “When history separated itself from story, it started indulging in accumulation and facts. Or it thought it could” (39). That indulgence became the simulation of a history of accumulation and facts that are nothing but Simulacra, and its purpose was persuasion of the masses to delineate an order between the dominant culture and the Other. The dominant culture, European Caucasians, interposed their necessity to superiority through absolute control of information. Only recently has that changed, and it’s only a relative change at that.
Simulacrum and simulation, facing a world that is unintelligible and problematic, our task is clear: we must make that world even more unintelligible, even more enigmatic. Illusion is the general rule of the universe; reality is but an exception. If the same were identical to the same, we would be faced with an absolute reality, with the unconditional truth of things. But absolute truth is the other name for Abstract Darkness. In Baudrillard’s philosophy, his Postmodern Rhetoric distinguishes itself emphatically by enshrouding the absolute, sublime, and true nature of all things in an Abstract Darkness. We cannot familiarize Abstract Darkness, so instead we accept, without question, simulation and simulacrum.

Baudrillard’s Postmodernist Rhetoric is Aristotelian in many ways. Baudrillard certainly employs invention and discovery; logos, ethos, and pathos; dialectics, enthymemes, artistic and inartistic proofs; deliberative, forensic, and epideictic persuasions: what differentiates Baudrillard’s rhetoric is how he situates Truth. The teleology of Truth, of the Real, to Baudrillard reaches a degree of abstraction that challenges the limits of human conception. We cannot deny the logic of simulation and simulacrum, it is apparent everywhere, from the Senate floor to Madison Avenue to MSNBC to “Oprah.” Jean Baudrillard is a well-respected author, teacher, and theorist. His discourses search for truth, demonstrate truth, consider possibility, and address human action.

We now live, paraphrasing Baudrillard’s claims in “The Precession of Simulacra,” in a culture of the hyperreal. Our lives are shaped, indeed constituted, by symbols functioning without reference to tangible objects, individual identities, or biological needs, all of which have in every important sense ceased to exist. Only signifiers are in this essentially dematerialized universe. Mere Simulacra—the distant imitations of, or pure signs for, a lost and often already phony reality (the “country breakfast” at a shopping mall, the identical decor and uniforms worn by every waiter and waitress in a franchised “Fridays” restaurant)—combine and recombine in an apparent “free play.” Yet even the interactions of Simulacra are dictated by an irresistible dna-like social code that fosters commodification, the perpetual motion of a humanly pointless but systemically self-sustaining capitalism (16).

Such a world, such a fantasyland, beguiles us while exercising a surreptitious repression. To be sure, it frees us from the tiresome myths of individuality, originality, and authenticity. “All the great humanist criteria of values,” Baudrillard exults, “all the values of a civilization of moral, aesthetic, and practical judgment, vanish in our system of images and signs” (“Precession” 8). But it also mires us in a homogeneous static state controlled by and for the illusion itself. The greater, more mysterious, more impetuous portion of our being, our non-pragmatic ambivalence, goes unacknowledged and untapped. Ontologically, we count for nothing. The system, by means of its all-powerful code— expressed especially through advertising, television, and the news media —steadily generates the arbitrary and controlling models from which all that we experience and do is derived; we are defined and coerced by endless, falsely unique replications similar to the serial imagery of Andy Warhol.

In sum, Baudrillard’s Postmodernist Rhetoric, that of simulation and simulacrum, not only derives its formation and vitality from intense observation and interpretation, it as well draws further invention and discovery through that ongoing inner conversation between our self and our other self, those times when our minds are free to wander and generate new ideas from new and different perspectives--yet not entirely far-afield from where we started.
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People have to come to trust memory over history. Memory, like fire, is radiant and immutable while history serves only those who seek to control it, those who douse the flame of memory in order to put out the dangerous fire of truth. Beware of these men for they are dangerous themselves and unwise. Their false history is written in the blood of those who might remember and of those who seek the truth.

Every moment of every day our minds are bombarded with words and thoughts and images that enter into our constant ongoing self and other-self inner conversation, that not-so-silent interior discussion assessing and evaluating all things surrounding us, affecting us, resulting in a greater awareness in some form or fashion. Our inherent desire for awareness comes from a greater desire to control one’s life or to have some semblance of feeling in control of our lives, to gain a satisfactory sense of stability and security. We cling to ideas that appeal to our conceptions of what is the better good for one’s self and family, one’s community, and for the entire population of the planet. Or do we?

Seems that we are a blighted society after all. Seems we have alienated and isolated ourselves so distantly from true nature of things that we live by the power of manipulative suggestions, misinformed thoughts, simulated experiences, perverted images, and deliberate campaigns of demented rhetoric. Seems our perceptions of things has gone awry when compared to the reality and truth. Seems we believe society saves us from corruption, yet it is a corrupt society that forms the lens through which we make value judgments. Seems we think the truth should be communicated, yet communication of the essential is controlled by those with the means to supply information. Seems we’ve become hypocritical automatons, believing what we think is the truth because someone persuasive enough has taken advantage of our obliviousness, when if we were to use our critical skills, methodically, logically, and intellectually, we would be as intelligent as we falsely believe we are.

The power of suggestion, be it through words, sounds, or images, has never been more abundant than it is today. Persuasive rhetoric overwhelms our classrooms, the internet, what we see on television, what we hear on the radio, and what we read in newspapers and magazines. These appeals persuade not through the give-and-take of argument and debate, but through the manipulation of symbols and of our most basic human emotions. For better or worse, ours is an age of false consciousness.

So, how does it happen? Why do we ‘buy the myths?’ Why are we often not entirely dissuaded by evidence pointing to the contrary? Because the evidence pointing to the contrary is not entirely dissuasive? What happens when simplistic, emotional appeals are endlessly repeated? In our society, simple syllogisms are substituted for analysis, things are known by their labels, and our heart's desire dictates what we shall see. We know that no agent or agency has jurisdiction over the truth, yet finding the truth during war-time seems a futile impossibility. Are we really hypocritical automatons believing we are smart when in fact we are false consciousness sponges? I am beginning to understand that the majority of this society fits this description. Which of the following is more true: 1) Most people seek to control life's events in order to secure a more positive, productive, and free existence; or, 2) Most people can barely manage to control their own self-centered, myopic existence.

It is within this self-centered, myopic existence that false consciousness flourishes.

Those in power need to identify with the public, and the public needs to identify with the cause--again, the hegemony of dominance. For the better good of all, we need to assess and evaluate the information provided to us instinctively. We need to unravel the messages being sent, critically and comprehensively. We need to get “there” from “here” and it needs to start sooner rather than later.

for some reason those essays remind of those lines from Poe's "A Dream Within A Dream"
-All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream-

...sorry if it seems a little cliche

pink floyd wrote the most powerfull and honest of all lifes little philosophies and it goes.

All you touch and all you see is all your life will ever be.