The Rise of Spiritual Liberty Some ideas while making change at Mickey D's
One of these days, I'm going to write a column on the late, great custom of fingering through my pocket for change... at McDonald's or anywhere else. In pursuit of the god of convenience, we've reached a wide use of credit and debit cards for purchases $10 and above at most retail stores, but the ol' drive-up window for fast food remains a holdout. "Someday," I tell anyone who'll listen, "we're going to have 'cash' cards, and the days of diddling with pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters will come to an end." In fact, I once documented a cash card named Mondex® for MasterCard®; it's a cool concept, but as yet the economy seems to be allergic to nonproprietary, universal applications.
And, duh! At least one reason is obvious: When you consider all the unclaimed value that issuers of proprietary cash cards retain—think of your Starbucks® or Panera® cards and how many you've lost, how many you've neglected to redeem—businesses are probably hooked on their own cards as a significant (essentially unearned) revenue stream.
No matter, it's not so much the practice of making physical change in coins that gets me thinking: it's the fact that so many of the customs that Boomers and their parents grew up with are going to become as quaint as virginity at the time of marriage or men with strong backs as breadwinners. Consider Ray Kurzweil's Singularity concept and the complementary notions he's expressed in The Age of Spiritual Machines. We're seeing the first signs today, and which will be set in (electronic) stone with the advent of universal cash cards, wands, or whatnots—Just say No! to biochips!—is an evolution in how we humans and our cyber-creations interconnect, meld, and exchange value.
Jobs and Potholes
Far out stuff, and I'm using it as lead-in to consideration of economic value and the seemingly hopeless mess the Kleptocons have made of our own natural human desire for "flourishment" here in the US of A. I'm talking about my friends, now, several in the editing and writing biz who are un- or underemployed, yours truly included... and so many people like my friends. Where did the jobs go? Then you look at Social Security and the raft of other entitlement systems that are underfunded by $trillions; do we really think one 25-year-old grocery bagger will be ponying up the green fees for 16 retiring Boomers? Fantasy Island!
Now that we're looking at quality of life, what about the potholes? I don't think there's a community in Michigan—my temporary strategic retreat from the Free State—whose roads shouldn't be named after Moon craters. But I've thought it over, and it's no mystery why the jobs are gone and the potholes are forever:
the cost of American-government empire
the cost of the American-government War on Drugs (WOD)
Each of these "full employment for the war machine and police state" programs costs Americans $1 trillion per year.[1] For perspective: $2 trillion/year is enough money to give 20 million individuals a job at a $100,000 annual salary each. [Come to think of it, we can't let the conventional bureaucratic welfare state of the hook either, so there goes another $trillion most likely.]
Spiritual Liberty
I don't care who you are, when you hear numbers like this it's depressing; I was feeling unusually depressed the other day, so I decided to revisit the works of my spiritual guru Eckhart Tolle.[2] Tolle's message, while not fully grasped in words alone, can be boiled down to the idea that the noise of our reactive minds/emotions interferes with genuine consciousness. Further, the road to fulfillment—fulfillment includes freedom and abundance yet is not confined to them—starts with a commitment to consciousness, i.e. a commitment to (our own) Being.
"You are here to enable the divine
purpose of the universe to unfold.
That is how important you are."
— Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
When a reader sees words like these, he/she tends to have a positive response... unlike, I'm afraid, when I perform most of my analyses and descriptions pertinent to the "libertarian revolution." In my initial- subscription reader base, I included both dedicated, cause-oriented libertarians and, basically, the kind of people I play golf and drink beer with (virtually none of whom is cognizant of the deep requirements of liberty or comfortable with the hard facts of Kleptocon tyranny that now beset the human race in general, and Americans in particular).
For my latter social group, I'm aware my writings may often appear incendiary and/or even scary. Sorry for that; I believe with the concept of spiritual liberty—by which I mean spirituality in liberty rather than liberty in spirituality—I have now opened an entire new positive approach with which to appeal to such non-cause-oriented people, i.e. the vast majority of humankind.
And I'm looking forward to discovering how spirituality, especially in the Buddhist/Tolleian vein, can invigorate and elevate our freedom movement to center stage. I feel the Sacred Nonaggression Principle I have articulated is a start. [And believe me, friends, if it's the last thing I do before the year is out, I will have a book published on the SNaP. I'm totally convinced the SNaP is the liberating idea who's time has come.]
I recently responded to an email from a young independent businessman friend of mine who's suffering and cannot find a buyer for his business. What looms? I'm convinced The Power of Now reveals general answers for everyone; further, the productive model of the libertarian future as discussed in Jon Rappaport's The Secret behind Secret Societies makes it clear that our mission in life—as seekers of consciousness, of liberty, and of material well being—is to be true to our creative calling. We win the field from the unconscious, from the tyrants, by shining the light of our own creativity on them. "We outcreate them."
Here's the main part of that letter:
John,
...
Sorry about your business situation, well the whole damned economic situation generally. You have a lot going for you: hard work, the brights, clean living, sense of humor that doesn't get you in trouble (yeah, right), a stand-by-your-man kind of woman (?), etc. Well, seriously, I think you're the sort of entrepreneur that will thrive in the coming world of abundance and freedom.
No, I haven't been smoking ropey dopey; I'm definitely seeing some major movement toward the achievement of liberty. Liberty = abundance. What I hadn't realized until just recently is how so much of that libertarian revolution is a spiritual one... by which I mean the foundation of "having a lot of good things in the external world" lies in developing the "creative energy and consciousness of the internal world." If you haven't read Tolle's The Power of Now, I highly recommend you do so... soon.
The basic message of Tolle is kinda-sorta Buddhist. He would say to people who admire his peace of mind and aura of contentment and who tell him they would like to have what he has: "You have it already. You just can't feel it because your mind is making too much noise."
And I'll tell you this from personal experience: once you learn how to jettison the reactive mind—and I know yours is right up there with mine on the tendency to be reactive (always churning, judgmental, and agitated)—and tap into the "Source", then the rest of the stuff in the so-called real world works out. It would be spooky if it weren't so invariably true and almost invariably full of abundance. In fact, it's because I have become anxious over my own economic future (short and long range, both), that I revisited Tolle... and rekindled the deep understanding. Which has led to those "irons in the fire" I mentioned above: it's going to be good, real good. Even if it's not going to be good, it's going to be real good in the only way that matters.
Allright, a little out there with the Zen stuff, I know. I expect I'll use some of the text in my column this week, and I'll definitely put you on the list for hooking up for drinks or golf.
bw
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So all of the above means I'm becoming less and less concerned about the day-to-day concretes of victories/defeats for the forces of liberty. It's enough for me to realize that liberty and flourishment, like growth of consciousness, is inevitable. That doesn't mean I won't be reporting and describing the latest journalistic progress or regress of the Freedom Train. But I've now homed in on the bigger picture. It's time to lighten up... in inflammatory language if not in the content itself.
What's Really Happening Now, Though
See how I measure up in the following letter to my VIP list:
Dear Coffee Coaster Righteous Beanie VIPs:
Correspondent Mike starts out my Friday with a ref. to this podcast regarding the real possibility of impeachment and prosecution for war crimes of the Bushoviks. And why haven't the American people heard about these hearings and the movement to impeach? Did Katy (Couric) or Brian (Williams) mention anything? I think the time has come for impeachment and conviction, accompanied by a general insurrection (consistent of course with the Sacred Nonaggression Principle) as discussed more at length below.
In my subject line, I use, for the first time I think, the words 'libertarian revolution,' and the reason the phrase came so flowingly to me this morning is because Correspondent Dave had just sent me a notice of the upcoming capitulation of the Democrats to the Bushovik legal papering over of the warrantless spying crimes. The bill, which both houses are expected to approve, would exempt the telecom corporations, who were complicit in breaking the law, from civil liability. Dave points out that nobody up there is listening to us and will not be listening to us absent an insurrection. Fortunately, he also references this link to an article about a growing movement, a coalition phenomenon that seems worthy of everyone's support; perhaps at least this specific insurrection will be successful in casting out both Republican criminals and the Democrats with yellow streaks who enable them. Watch Dr. Phil tonight for a full psychological profile.
Back to the subject of the first paragraph, prosecution of the current administration for high crimes and treason: it appears the citizens' movement for justice in these matters is coalescing around a principle that was used to rectify the decades of damage wrought by perpetrators of South Africa's policy of apartheid: establishment of a process around a "Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC)." The column by Mark Green discusses it more fully, but essentially all personnel involved in illegal, unconstitutional activity regarding the war—we probably have to draw the line somewhere, because virtually every government official is guilty of violating the Constitution with laws criminalizing drugs and other consensual activities, expropriating wealth via the income tax and the Federal Reserve, election fraud, corporate-welfare handouts, violation of individual environmental and property rights, and so on—would be obliged to confess their crimes, apologize to their victims, make whatever financial restitution is judged reasonable, and retire from public life... or be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
A TRC is where I feel the insurrection, the libertarian revolution, is heading. Once established, the charter of the commission will be to investigate all crimes for which there is substantial evidence of government culpability, and (never guess) 9/11 is hanging out there like a watermelon on a low hanging limb. When the people learn the truth about 9/11, and they most certainly will do so en masse as the TRC moves forward, we're going to see so many changes in governance that our late-18th-century rebellion against colonial oppressors will seem like a lovers' spat.
Finally, and more and more consciousness is emerging along these lines, we're going to see the corresponding emergence of a new media... one that is citizen-based, citizen-funded (through voluntary associations) and citizen-focused. The demise of the MSM with its longtime iron grip on what becomes "known" is at hand: the liberation from that bonecrushing burden on knowledge, too, is part of the insurrection, the libertarian revolution. Freedom is a function of consciousness, it has a direct relation to fundamental human awareness of things... of the truth. The Kleptocorporate MSM is a tool for maintaining mass ignorance and fear: for the benefit of the elites. Truth is its enemy, as are we humans.
Practically, with the Web, we're seeing this new media emerge.
For example, that podcast on Representative Wexler questioning the attorney general and insisting on impeachment was gathered by an outfit named Brasschecktv.com, which sends out the most interesting podcasts that most of us won't see from the MSM. So far It seems to be relatively small potatoes and more toward the right... though I'm seeing right and left merging in an overwhelming grassroots movement for Constitutional Liberty. From the left, associated with the Huffington Post is OfftheBus, This link from the OfftheBus people represents an attempt to recruit citizen journalists to cover the upcoming election, and provide what we're not going to get from the MSM: the truth. No doubt organizations like that will persist following the election and eventually supplant AP and Reuters (both owned by the Rothschild banksters).
I plan to join this insurrection of knowledge, this revolution for liberty. Indeed, as founder of Coffee Coasterism—aka rational, spiritual, libertarian transhumanism—I'm there already. Please take part in this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity with me. Righteous Beanies of the World, Unite!
bw
PS: For the weekend, consider this movie directed by Rob Reiner: The Bucket List, starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman.
PS: My friends at LEAP (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition) report that the new DVD is out that seals the deal in terms of absolutely burying any moral, legal, or practical justification for the WOD. Obtain your copy for viewing or showing here.
Note, if you want to be on the Coffee Coaster Righteous Beanie VIP list, please send me an email.
But how did I do? Still scary? Well, I guess you're right; lot of righteous anger in here, but I'm working on it. I probably shouldn't have called the Bush administration Bushoviks, and they're technically not criminals until they've been convicted. But everything I'm putting down has a solid foundation in reality; lot of smoking guns there. "If this be harsh, why don't we work together in as pleasant a manner as possible, recognizing that each of us is one of God's little creatures, to achieve a meaningful condition of remediation in as efficient a process as we can."
Patrick Henry still said it better.
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[1] The one $trillion for the empire is commonly quoted number available from several sources on the Web and is probably conservative when you consider the value of lost and destroyed lives of victims. As for WOD damages, the late Peter McWilliams in his watershed book, Ain't Nobody's Business if You Do, made an estimate of approx. $1 trillion annually, which is also conservative for the same reasons: how does one compute the value of a life destroyed by a morally depraved policy of unbridled aggression? What is the level of consciousness, and therefore wealth, unfulfilled and foregone by those would-be human beings who work as savage aggressors in these two modern legitimized engines of mayhem and destruction?
