Mr. Nobody, Jaco Van Dormael's Sublime Universe

In the year 2092 Nemo Nobody is 118 years old and the last mortal human. A journalist asks Nemo what life was like back when humans were mortal and Nemo replies:

"There were cars that polluted. We smoked cigarettes. We ate meat. We did everything we can't do in this dump and it was wonderful."

I haven't enjoyed a movie as much as Jaco Van Dormael's Mr. Nobody in years. It's like Vladimir Nabokov on screen. Brilliant, provoking, intelligent, playful, beautiful, pitiful, awful and awesome -- Sublime.

Rosh Hashanah, A Great Time To Be A Graceful Smoker

The Jewish Holy day of Rosh Hashanah has passed this week, and although, I am only Jewish by blood and not practice (haven't been for centuries), I do like to keep informed on these things.

Rosh Hashanah is announced by the blowing of the shofar, a wonderful ram's horn trumpet which announces the beginning of the New Year, which begins upon the seventh month of the Hebrew calendar, Tishrei. Last year, even though I live many miles away from the synagogue, I could hear the shofar.

Rosh Hashanah is the beginning of a period of time in which God goes through His accounts and sets the records in order for the coming year. At this time, He takes on the role of Judge and House Keeper. He has three books up there, the most famous being the Book of Life. According to tradition, the days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are a time of reprieve in which one still has some leniency and can have their case expunged from the death roles and moved onto the roles in the Book of Life.

It's difficult to comprehend, but only the name and the good works of each individual are listed in the Book of Life. Before God even opens it up He dons his Heavenly Hazmat suit and collects all of the sins into a filthy volume which He refuses to open and is barely able to touch. This he tosses out before He opens the Book of Life. But being written in the Book of Life is not enough. Even without one imperfect or evil record listed under one's name it does not guarantee reprieve or that one's soul is saved from damnation.

Perfect isn't good enough for God. This means that no matter how much money one gives to charity, no matter how many old widows one helps across the street, how many awards for saving drowning children, or how many jungle people one has converted and brought Bibles to they still aren't safe from the fire and brimstone.

Why bother being good if this is the case? Personally, I believe it evens the playing field in a very graceful way. This means that a person that has lived in a vegetative state for the last 20 years and has not been able to save the world with their good-deed-doing has as much chance at eternal life as a genetics researcher that has spent their life trying to isolate and eradicate certain dangerous and unrighteous populations that carry restriction markers for tobacco and coffee use (usually, Abrahamic populations). This means that the guy smoking around the corner at your local Baptist church has as much or more of a chance of getting a good write up as the pastor preaching inside.

After getting rid of all the sins, the next step is getting rid of all the good records too. In the end, all that's left is names. One's name is all they'll need to get into those Pearly Gates.

During the season of Rosh Hashanah, each page in the Book of Life is opened and sprinkled with blood. When the blood lands upon the page it completely blots out every good deed and many of the names. Some names are brightened up and show clearer, but not one other piece of information shines through the blood. Then, the cleaned names are sealed with a beautiful blue star.

But what is it that causes some names to be blotted out while others are made to shine more brilliantly and be sealed?

It's called Grace and it can't be obtained by being perfect. Usually, one must be a sinner or a stumbling fool to receive Grace. You can stand by a stream and cast symbolic stones of sin into the current, or recite Torah, or build neighborhoods of white stucco to represent purity, or prostrate yourself five times a day towards the east and fast every day for a month; or do as Americans do and chew coal tar/ Nicotine Replacement gums and candy, volunteer, diet, donate, recycle, and look pretty -- but it's all Hevel, nothing without Grace.

It doesn't matter who controls the Temple Mount or Mecca if there is no Love or Grace. These are only names and geographic locations of historic significance. Grace is larger than them and goes where it will -- usually as far away as possible from the arrogant and self-righteous ones in control of these locations, and as close as possible to those who cannot afford the price of admittance charged to be a member of most religions. If one can't afford their synagogue fees, or zakat, or tithes; chances are that this is a good time of year for them and their name if they'll accept Grace rather than guilt.

If one has a difficult time accepting Grace, then it's a great time to take up smoking cigarettes or the pipe. Back in the old days it was a well known fact that smoke created a protective barrier between God and the sinner, shielding them from view and allowing them to enter into the Holy of Holies. And the ashes represent sin turned to nothing. And some may recall that God liked to travel around in a cloud of smoke and envelope entire mountain peaks in it, or that it exudes from His nostrils on occasion, or that the smell of it is pleasant in Heaven as it represents the prayers of the saints. That old time smoke represented Grace and the covering it provides.

So, instead of casting sins away, this season, perhaps, it would be nice to emulate God by extending Grace to sinners and idiots. There are all kinds of ways to extend Grace to others. One way would be to let someone know their fly is unzipped, or to drive defensively, or smile kindly at that miserable smoker that looks guilty as they sneak a puff outside (smokers, stop looking so guilty and nervous in public! SMILE when you're smoking, and look pleasant and relaxed, for you are an emissary for the rest of the grace-puffers), be less serious around your children, be patient when waiting upon others, and never expect to be noticed or thanked.


Note: Grace doesn't mean being a spineless pushover. It means overlooking, not ignoring. It means looking forward and up, not backwards and down.

Pharmaceutical Nicotine and the State: Defining and Segregating Sacred

Only atheists, infidels, and barbarians chew Nicorette or suck synthetic coal tar derived nicotine replacement "therapies." Only unhealthy and injured people need therapy.

True believers, those that have seen beyond the veil inhale tobacco, a natural green plant that supplies nicotinic acid the natural way.

If the State Health Departments and the synthetic nicotine manufacturers are going to define tobacco as "sacred," for use only by native peoples, or rather, a few select Indians within each tribe who are deemed by the State as sacred enough to inhale for the rest of their nation; then why would anyone want anything other than the sacred stuff?

By defining tobacco as sacred, when up until recently it has been called "dirty" or the "devil's weed," or "the nation's number one health issue," the pharmaceutical industry, health departments, and religious groups that have fought so hard to make tobacco use illegal are actually saying that tobacco is holy, safe, and natural. How is it that these tobacco haters say tobacco is immoral, evil, and dangerous yet at the same time holy, sacred, and even spiritual?

In describing "sacred tobacco" these groups say it is non addictive, has no toxins, and no nicotine -- as long as it's used by a specific genetic, cultural, and religious group. How is it that tobacco smoke used by Indians, or rather a select government minority within the tribe suffers no addiction, health risk, and gets no nicotine?

And how is it sacred when used by one person or group but not another?

If tobacco is sacred and natural, then synthetic nicotine gums, candies, and patches are the dirty and sinful corruptions of greedy corporations. These products have had all the sacred sucked out of them and may need someone to light a bowl of sacred tobacco over them in order to enrich them with what they are lacking -- spirit.

By defining tobacco as sacred for the select, this confers a high status upon tobacco and implies that synthetic nicotine is for the unwashed masses, the lowly. Everyone wants to be part of the select rather than the secular and anti-people, anti-tobacco gum chewers and lozenge sucking children afraid of smoke signals rising to the heavens.

In saying that tobacco is sacred, this implies that the groups of people standing around with pipes, cigars, and cigarettes are actually initiates into a sacred group. This implies that these people are engaging in a religious gathering, communing with each other and with God. Banning these people from a daily ritual and claiming that only those with the correct genetic markers and cultural heritage may partake, may "pray" and gather peaceably is highly suspicious.

When does a company or the local state get to define which group may worship or gather, or participate in certain rituals? I suppose it does all the time. The U.S. government prohibits certain practices such as polygamy, which it doesn't need to in my opinion, as most men cringe in fear at the thought of more than one wife at a time, and most free women would rather not share their home and other resources with another woman or her children. Sarah sent Hagar out, and Rebekah and Leah weren't pleased with their arrangement either. It doesn't generally work unless a man is a king, and even then it can be a failure.

What if the government told us that only descendants of Brigham Young could practice polygamy because for them it was sacred and not harmful? Or what if the government told us that only genetic Jews or genetic Catholics could drink "sacred wine" at Passover or Easter because it is used differently than for non adherents and isn't harmful? What if bread were banned from the general population, reserved only for Baptists in their "sacred bread" ceremonies?

The pharmaceutical industry and its department of health will say that these are ridiculous examples. There is no second-hand or third-hand danger posed by wine or bread, or other cultural and religious practices such as kosher preparations or dietary restrictions. Everything has so-called second and third hand effects if we want to look hard enough, hate hard enough.

What happens if one day it is decided that corporate gasoline is deadly and the number one health issue in the country because, according to the ethanol industry and health departments funded by them, it causes all the cancer, high blood pressure, strokes, low birth weight babies, and decreases productivity due to drive time? Will the ethanol industry ban gasoline, make it prohibitively expensive, imprison people that use it, and then declare it "sacred gasoline" reserved only for the elect in Washington D.C.?

Either tobacco is sacred and doesn't have nicotine or it is evil and does have nicotine. Perhaps, the tobacco is only as sacred and non toxic as the person smoking it. What the pharmaceutical nicotine industry is saying is that it is the people it hates for not using its synthetic and empty trash. The tobacco user must be banned and hated into using a product so far inferior to tobacco that they never would have voluntarily switched over of their own free will.

This is what happened when Mohammad swept through to force conversion to his new religious product. Under ordinary conditions a people like to convert of their own free will and because they are moved by some unseen spiritual pull. People generally like things as natural and easy-going as they can get it. Ideally, people prefer religions that allow for celebrations, communion with each other such as at potlucks and thanksgivings. People like a perfect mix of tradition that doesn't overwhelm spontaneity and joy. Each of us has a preference in religion which we think superior to all others. Preference is fine, but forced conversion from one religion or product to another is an act of violence and subjugation. And the anti-tobacco movement uses nearly all of the same arguments and reasons as a forceful religious movement.

In Islam, the government does not operate separately from the religious leaders. Our pharmaceutical industry is behaving like an Islamic nation, as if it is the religious head with its scientific clerics declaring what the holy writs say and sending out its terrorist converts to spread hate and fear and hardline law upon the ignorant people and State. The anti-tobacco movement is one of the most religious movements I have ever seen, and may actually be more harmful to American security, sovereignty, and health than radical Islam. If we were to tally the souls harmed by Chantix, job loss and land loss, and loss of 1st Amendment rights, the cost to society and the "pursuit of happiness" would be exorbitant.

The fact that the health departments and pharmaceutical activists are saying tobacco is sacred, says very clearly that this is religious and that the desired goal is not all that different from what radical right Islam seeks: Complete subjugation and annihilation of all adherents to other religions and products.

And tobacco smoke doesn't have any nicotine in it. When tobacco is burned it converts the nicotine to harmless nicotinic acid. This is why sacred tobacco doesn't have nicotine and isn't addictive.

And as far as not inhaling the sacred tobacco is concerned, that is a bunch of State and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation myth and homogenizing of a practice that is unique to each individual and Indian nation. As some churches don't "inhale" the wine by serving up grape juice, some Indians don't inhale the tobacco. Some Indians inhale, some don't. Some Indians smoke outside of the ceremonial use and have for time immemorial. And as there are many Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Jewish denominations and sects, so are there many unique religious practices amongst American Indians across the continent. If an Indian didn't inhale the sacred tobacco either directly from the pipe or in the air they wouldn't know of its smell which is sweet to the Creator.

If Indians are going to allow a few nosy women to line their pockets with so-called non-profit and state "health" department money while telling everyone else how and when to use tobacco, then they will further corrupt and cut the ties with their Father who gave the people tobacco along with other nicotine containing plants, namely potatoes, corn, beans, and tomatoes.

Over and over I see that the pharmaceutical industry claims it's against "corporate tobacco," not "sacred tobacco." They hide nearly nothing. Propaganda never lies, but frames the truth in such a way that it creates a response that is destructive of the audience's own best interests. What the pharmaceutical industry is engaging in is called a coercive monopoly, which is when it engages the government legal process in prohibiting competition from other sources through law. My state runs a "Quit Line" which is designed specifically to profit the pharmaceutical companies by doling out synthetic nicotine currently "marketed as" smoking cessation aids.

Already, Nicorette is changing the marketing of its products as "therapy." Yes, Nicorette wants tobacco users to quit, but it wants the tobacco user stuck on their expensive and empty product. Nicorette is spending $30 million this year, not counting the millions in advertising spent by our state anti-tobacco campaigns, to push its products, especially the new quick-dissolve mini candy lozenge (Laurie Burkitt, "Nicorette puffs $15 Million into Ad Blitz," Forbes.com, 7 Dec. 2009). I would guess that this new product is not the traditional slow-release nicotine, which many find unsatisfactory and sickening, but a rapid-release nicotine more akin to a cigarette. Are these products monitored and taxed the same way as cigarettes? They should be.

Another question I have not researched properly is how the nicotine in nicotine replacement therapies is converted to nicotinic acid, as it's not oxidized through burning. If nicotine is not oxidized or alkalized it can't be freed for use by the neuronal and muscular nicotinic receptors. If nicotine is not oxidised or alkalized it is toxic, which is why the anti-tobacco people can say it's a pesticide, which it is when in its pure nicotine form. All plants have varying degrees of built in pesticide management. According to the research I've seen so far, the nicotine used in nicotine replacement "therapy" is freebase derived from pyridine, an extract of coal tar.

The nicotine replacement companies and anti-smoking campaigns are in reality giant advertising arms of a pharmaceutical monopoly that sees people as money, and has lost nearly all sight of health or cures. Proof that this is not a health issue but a coercive monopoly issue is the outrage against such products as smokeless tobacco, and products such as Camel Dissolvables which are similar to pharmaceutical dissolvables currently "marketed as smoking cessation aids" (Bill Godshall, "Urge FDA to make NRT products more consumer friendly," SmokeFree.net, 15 Aug. 2008)). And that e-cigarette really annoys them because it looks like a cigarette, is inhaled and the vapors are harmless. If this were really a health issue the anti-smoking advocates would love such products and encourage them, rather than pushing their products as the only alternative. Even quitting smoking without using a pharmaceutical nicotine product is not encouraged by these groups.

If these fake pharmaceutical products worked, everyone and their mama would have switched years ago. If these products worked and supplied nicotinic acid in a form that doesn't cause ill side effects the pharmaceutical companies and their non-profit arms wouldn't need laws passed against their competitors. Obviously pharmaceutical nicotine is lacking and our bodies know it. If pharmaceutical nicotine were equivalent to tobacco it would have an effect upon the paranoia and hate within the anti-tobacco movement, reducing its fears of social gatherings and death.

When a person is deficient in nicotinic acid they are prone to dementia and display fear of persecution, and think in terms of apocalypse. Evidently, the nicotine gums these people are chewing aren't healing the deficiency and only causing constant head ache and tension from TMJ. These people are confused and uneducated. They simply can't comprehend anything sacred or unregulated by their monopoly as this quote from Linda Lee of the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services illustrates:

"'There is no real reason to use an unregulated product [e-cigarette] that could be dangerous'..[F]DA-approved products such as patches, gum and lozenges are already available, she said" ("Montana health officials discourage use of e-cigarettes to avoid Clean Indoor Air Act," Missoulian, 9 Jan. 2010).

These people don't understand. It's like telling people that there are all kinds of alternatives to good food such as pills and supplements which supply the necessities in food. Why on earth would anyone want to sit down with their friends and family for a good meal when they could swallow a pill, chew gum, or put on a patch? This is how it is with tobacco and the e-cigarette. People want the process, the tradition, the involvement, the experience, and the shared time together. This is why people try to use the e-cigarette, because they are trying to create the image of the original thing that they love.

Take the human desire for communion, thanksgiving, and remembrance away and there is nothing left. Take everything from wine, leaving only the alcohol and not many will want it. There's more to wine or beer and other creations of mankind than "addiction." What are all of the other ingredients to a fine wine that make it desirable? First, there is the love and labor of growing the plant, watching it grow in the sun, worrying about its exposure to bad weather and insects. Then, there is the process of fermentation which I know nothing about. Finally, there is the act of drinking it, which people do for the exact same reasons they smoke tobacco.

People drink wine at Easter, at Passover, at dinners, and other places where opening the channels of relaxation and socialization are desired. People relax alone with a glass of wine, with a book, or even to aid sleep. It is not the wine that makes one an addict. Addiction is something that cannot be defined because it lays in the spirit and soul of a person. Alcohol and other substances that people use are like guns -- benign and only servants of the person using them. If one wants to use a gun or alcohol to harm another they will. It is the person, not the object or substance that is dangerous. A gun can be a weapon used to harm others, or it can be used as a form of defense against evil or to provide food.

Who is behind the cigarette and what are they using it for? Is the tobacco user burning babies or killing people? Or is the tobacco user thinking of ways to make the world better? Who is behind the glass of wine, behind the wheel of a car, behind the science, behind the money, behind the philanthropy? Each of these things is nothing without the person behind them. Money is nothing until a person makes it work for good or for bad.

We each are a force and we each make the objects and foods we consume either holy or cursed. And what is coming out of the pharmaceutical cartels and health departments is cursed because the people behind these entities are like vampires in search of blood to feed upon. These people don't see anything other than money and numbers. They hate freedom, they hate people, they hate people not addicted to evil. These people think that health is a healthy monopoly over the lives of people.

Addiction sells its soul, it doesn't function and think. It sits alone and is dark. Addiction destroys lives. Tobacco users out on the job, in college, filing taxes, buying homes, having children, serving in the military are not addicts. These people are highly functioning individuals that contribute billions of dollars and other assets not counted in monetary terms.

It is the monopoly pharmaceutical industry that is unsacred and addicted. What they accuse the common person of is not something most of us suffer from. The pharmaceutical industry behaves as a deranged meth addict, destroying the lives of children and family. It robs and murders to get its fix. The largest health issue in America is not tobacco or food, but the giant corporations that create a society so prohibitive and stressful that people die of stress-related disease due to unhappiness. If there are gifts upon this earth that can ameliorate and offer small respites from the stress, sadness and ignorance left for us after the wolves have torn apart our feast, leaving a decrepit and decayed carcass, then these gifts should not be despised or feared.

All tobacco is sacred and traditional. All synthetic pharmaceutical nicotine gums, patches, and candies are freebase and devoid of tradition. These products are anti-American and have tossed out everything good, including joy and happiness; leaving nothing but fear, hatred, poverty, and subjugation.

image: August Macke, Franz Marc, 1910

Tolkien, Tobacco, Censorship, and Liberty

I recently received a very nice hard back edition of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings as a gift. I last read this work when I was 13 years old and have wanted to read it since the film versions came out, but never got around to it.

I like to do a little research upon an author following a reading of them. It is helpful to understand a little of the private interests and passions of an author to understand why they care so much about their literary creations, and work so hard upon them.

I found it interesting that Wikipedia's biography of J.R.R. Tolkien had to use a picture of him from 1916 in military uniform, when he was an unknown and only 24 years old. The only other picture of him on the Wikipedia bio was of Tolkien in 1911, when he was 19.

The probable reason that Wikipedia could not, or would not use a more appropriate picture of J.R.R. Tolkien, one that showed him during the time he became known to the world outside of the University of Oxford for The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings is because there aren't many close-up photos of him without a tobacco pipe in or near his mouth.

Usually, a Wikipedia entry displays, or should display the first defining photo as the one that shows the person as they are most known and recognized by the world, not as they looked in childhood or as a teen. The childhood photos, should be relegated to the section pertaining to childhood. If the bio is describing Bette Davis or some movie star known for her good looks, the defining picture should be one that shows her at her peak, not one that shows her as an old hag. A picture of the youthful Albert Einstein would not be the defining image the world has. It would look out of place and odd when we all know he had unkempt white hair. Perhaps, Einstein carried his pipe a bit lower than Tolkien which allowed for the illusion that he was a tobacco-free thinker.

J.R.R. Tolkien was born in 1892 and died in 1973, which means he lived to be 81 years old. If he hadn't smoked he would've lived forever and The Lord of the Rings would look quite different (although, in the literary world one's creation is considered to make one immortal). I wonder if writing about Hobbits smoking tobacco qualifies as 2nd or 3rd hand smoke? And why does he look so much happier with the pipe than without it? He's probably glad he's not stuck on a piece of our modern PhrankenPharma nicotine gum.

Unlike the film version, which depicts the victorious Hobbits returning to their peaceful and untouched home in the Shire, the book shows an entirely different picture. Tolkien shows that the last battle is the one closest to home.

In the final chapters of the book, the Hobbits; Frodo, Sam, Pippin, and Merry return home to the Shire after having gone to Hell and back, saving the earth from the dark evil of Sauron by tossing the Ring of power into the depths, forever cutting Sauron off.

The Hobbits return home to find gates across the roads, Rules which dictate the lives of the Shire; preventing the inhabitants from lighting fires, freely travelling, sharing food or home with strangers; and that beer and tobacco are no longer allowed for use amongst the common folk, being reserved only for the few who lord over them. Anyone that breaks a rule or speaks up is confined in the Lockholes by the Shirriffs who enforce the Rules.

There is general poverty amongst the people and the land. The homes have been burned down and ugly row houses line the road where once beautiful trees grew. The gardens have gone to weed, and the new mill belches out dirt that pollutes the river and air. The wizard, Saruman, has decided to set up a monopoly over the lives of the Shire Hobbits, which began innocently enough with a prohibition upon beer, but escalated to every aspect of life.

Merry wonders "What's the matter with this place?" ("The Scouring of the Shire," The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien).

One of the native Hobbits explains: "We grows a lot of food, but we don't rightly know what becomes of it. It's all these 'gatherers' and 'sharers', I reckon, going round and counting and measuring and taking off to storage. They do more gathering than sharing, and we never see most of the stuff again" ("The Scouring of the Shire").

"[O]n every wall there was a notice and a list of Rules. Pippin tore them down. There was no beer and very little food, but with what the travellers brought and shared out they had a fair meal; and Pippin broke Rule 4 by putting most of next day's allowance of wood on the fire.
"'Well now, what about a smoke, while you tell us what has been happening in the Shire?' he said.
"'There isn't no pipe-weed now,' said Hob; 'at least only for the Chief's men. All the stocks seem to have gone.....'" ("The Scouring of the Shire").

"'No welcome, no beer, no smoke, and lots of rules....'" ("The Scouring of the Shire").

"'There's hundreds of Shirriffs all told, and they want more, with all these new rules'" ("The Scouring of the Shire").

Sounds a bit like my town and the rest of the country. The bigger the jails, the larger the police force the more criminals are invented. In the United States of America one is lucky if they have never been arrested or jailed. At least, 1 out of every 25 people is jailed in their lifetime, far exceeding Russia or China.

Many good people are sitting in our jails and prisons at this moment, some for traffic or parking tickets. In a jail not far from me sits a grandfather who loves his grandchildren and became their guardian when the children's mother (his daughter) became a neglectful drug addict. He protested Social Services constant and intrusive visits to his house to make sure he was taking care of the children and was arrested for standing up for his rights and family. He committed no crime other than doing the right thing and for telling Social Services to stop coming to his house.

"'So things went from bad to worse. There wasn't no smoke left, save for the Men; and the Chief didn't hold with beer, save for his Men, and closed all the inns; and everything except for Rules got shorter and shorter, unless one could hide a bit of one's own when the ruffians went round gathering stuff up 'for fair distribution': which meant they got it and we didn't....'" ("The Scouring of the Shire").

The four Hobbits, returned from battles, set about "raising the Shire," and waking the inhabitants from their sleep and powerless condition. They route out Saruman's thugs, although not without some loss of life. The Shire was ready to overthrow the Rules and those that forced them to live in a world "fair" only to the greedy. When we hear the words "fair" and "unfair" we need to ask what exactly is meant by these words, for most often they are employed by mean misfits of society.

After freeing the captives from the Lockholes, Frodo is appointed Deputy Mayor until the Mayor is properly recovered from his time in prison. Frodo promptly lays off the majority of Rule enforcement:

"The only thing that he did as Deputy Mayor was to reduce the Shirriffs to their proper functions and numbers" ("The Grey Havens," The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien).

Not only did the Hobbits save the earth from Sauron, an equivalent to our Satan, but they introduced Middle-Earth to tobacco smoking. The Prologue of Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings details a bit of the history of this "art" in the section entitled "Concerning Pipe-weed":

"There is another astonishing thing about Hobbits of old that must be mentioned, an astonishing habit: they imbibed or inhaled, through pipes of clay or wood, the smoke of the burning leaves of a herb, which they called pipe-weed, or leaf, a variety probably of Nicotiana. A great deal of mystery surrounds the origin of this peculiar custom, or 'art' as the Hobbits preferred to call it....

"And certainly it was from Bree that the art of smoking the genuine weed spread in recent centuries among Dwarves and such other folk, Rangers, Wizards, or wanderers, as still passed to and fro through that ancient road-meeting. The home and centre of the art is thus to be found in the old inn of Bree, The Prancing Pony....

"Hobbits first put it into pipes. Not even the Wizards first thought of that before we did. Though one Wizard that I knew took up the art long ago, and became as skilful in it as in all other things that he put his mind to."

How much longer before this book is banned for its universal message of liberty and of overcoming evil? How much longer before it is censored and conveniently forgotten, along with so many other great works of literature? Will our children and grandchildren find this book, complete and as its author wrote it? Already, its author's image is being censored, in a way typical of Soviet Russia, when it commonly erased images of those no longer politically correct. And pipe-weed is nearly banned in favor of Saruman's Phake Pharma Nicotine monopoly of patches, gums, lozenges, inhalers, and other patented "therapies" for those that enjoy life too much.

images: J.R.R. Tolkien

Does Eating Genetically Engineered Food Make One A Cannibal?

I've been musing a bit, wondering.

Does eating food genetically engineered with human proteins/genes make one a cannibal?

Who did the proteins in genetically engineered plants with human proteins come from?

Does eating food genetically engineered with insect or animal genes mean that a vegetarian may be eating animal or insect?

Is it wrong for a Jew or Muslim to eat food with porcine or insect proteins engineered into it?

Should vegetarians and/or those of certain religions be given the freedom of choice over their bodies and what they put into them, or is patented genetic food more important than this individual right?

Hmm. This gives an interesting new meaning to that proverbial "abomination of desolation" people speak of, often meaning swine in the temple. Our body is a temple too. Perhaps, the abomination is within us, not in a building of stone. We are what we eat--corn-fed, processed, pink, and shot full of preservatives. Mmm mmm.

"Soylent Green is people!"

Tobacco Bans, Genetics, Big Pharma, Religion, and Native Peoples

Think a smoking ban is about health? Think again. It's all about genetic cleansing and Big Pharma monopoly and federal control. If it were really about health the Food and Drug Administration, a State agency, would not be mandating that manufactured cigarettes be coated in a toxic carcinogen under the guise of "fire safe." This is purposeful poisoning of those who smoke tobacco and those who choose to love and befriend them.

The U.S. government deliberately poisoned alcohol used for bootleg production during Prohibition, causing the deaths of tens of thousands. This poisoning was intended to frighten people from drinking. What it really accomplished was the killing off of those in the lower socioeconomic strata, those who could not afford to purchase high quality alcohol. And no one cares about this group, unless there is profit to be made off of them in the name of philanthropy and special interests.

What Prohibition accomplished was the eradicating of countless small and local breweries, taverns, and other businesses that worked in a symbiotic relationship. These were local citizens, families that worked and lived in their local community. Prohibition accomplished the establishment of monopoly over alcohol production and distribution (Mafia). Those who knew that Prohibition would one day end swooped in and bought the bankrupt family breweries for small change, then made out like bandits when Prohibition was lifted. There is even growing speculation that Prohibition may have helped lead to the Great Depression by putting many out of home and business, thus causing less tax revenue and consumer activity amongst this silent group of new poor.

The past few years have seen a dramatic reduction in tobacco farms, and tobacco use as a result of the federal and Big Pharma-backed war on tobacco use (even the CIA/Battelle Memorial Institute are funding the anti-tobacco movement!). Like many of the family operated breweries before Prohibition, many of these tobacco farmers have been operating for several generations and proud of their product. But with tobacco prohibition rising, the State is paying them to quit in the U.S. and Canada. Now the State is ramping up its attack on Indian reservations, many of whom produce and/or sell tobacco products. The tribes of the north east in Canada and the U.S. are seeing an increase in restrictions, freedoms, and even troops threatening them.

Quite a few of the Indian reservations have been infiltrated by Marxist/Socialist ideologies, racism, and New Age corruptions of their spiritual beliefs, and elected officials more beholden to special interest money than to the people. There is also an influx of gang recruiting occurring upon the reservations. These are all purposeful strategies for weakening what may actually turn out to be the last stand against complete State and Big Pharma/Chemical control of the entire North American continent. (Note: Philip Morris, now Altria, is part of this attack on small tobacco producers, conducting a campaign against the tobacco manufacturers of New York's reservations at this very moment. Evidently, they believe they are too big to fail, and that betraying smaller tobacco producers will somehow make them look good.).

If tobacco bans are not repeats of hate movements and genetic cleansing, then why are they resorting to the same language and tactics used by these movements?

"The ugly truth is that smokers are not anything like junkies or alcoholics or prostitutes or anyone else who feels powerless over a hideous addiction. They are far worse.

"Smokers are alone the degenerates of society in that they share their poison with everyone within breathing vicinity" (Andrea Peyser, "Cancer Sticking It To Whining Nico-Fiends," 31 March 2003, emphasis added)

Why does my local Tobacco Free movement display a cartoon depicting a tobacco smoker shot dead by three gun-toting zealots because "he was packing"?

Why does the local Big State and Big Pharma funded highschool brownshirt group have T.V. commercials with dour-faced do-gooders holding pictures of camels with contorted lips and grasshoppers while their little voices say "I am not your grasshopper," and "I don't spit"? These are tried and true tactics used to subliminally tap into mankind's tendency to think of certain groups as less human, sub human, not human. Depicting a tobacco chewer as a plague insect, such as a grasshopper implies that these are only insects with no soul which should be crushed underfoot. In days past, Jews, Blacks, Tutsi, and Indians were shown as less human, more animal. It wasn't right then, and it's not right now. It's heinous and disgusting.

And speaking of spitting and contorted lips and faces. I've seen more non-tobacco users spitting and contorting than tobacco users. Yes, another sign of the past rising its ugly head. I've been spit upon, called names, and given looks of death because I am tainting the purity of the gene pool by existing. They said that about about other groups in the past too.

If tobacco bans are not about genetic cleansing then why has the local Tobacco Free site recently changed its wording for the word "group" to "cluster," a word used to describe a genetic group of people in scientific circles?

The local anti-Tobacco/pro Pharma nicotine group is pushing for an outdoor ban on tobacco chewers and smokers.

"Arguments for [non smoking] policy: Changes the social norms around tobacco use by eliminating highly visible 'clusters' of smokers....."

"Clusters," not people freely congregating and socializing. "Smokers," not people, but things that cluster and smoke. Not human.

The word "cluster" is very specific to genetics research as a way to discuss distinct groups of people who share genetic commonalities. It also has a distinctly malignant sound to it, as of disease.

There are literally hundreds, perhaps thousands, of researchers funded by tax dollars and Big Pharma trying to pinpoint and prove a genetic marker that defines those who use coffee, tobacco, and alcohol. This is barely a justifiable use of tax payer money which should not be confiscated from hard working people for such useless purposes.

When reading these "objective" and "scientific" pieces of paper one must read them as if reading a twisted form of metaphor. The geneticists have spent much time and discussion formulating their language in order to hide what it is they really are saying in order to confuse and deceive new students and older "clusters" who remember history.

It is a bit difficult to see modern racism because it does not always seem clearly defined or focused upon external traits such as skin color or religion. From a superficial level a ban upon those who use tobacco may look benign and as if it has nothing to do with a particular phylogenetic group. But the truth is that racism has moved to a microscopic, molecular, and internal level. Instead of the yellow armbands with a Star of David marking people, the markers are internal strands of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), which is divided into units called genes, which are unique to each of us.

Rather than using the word "People," or "Black," or "Blonde Haired" the words "genotype," "phylogenetic," and "cluster" are now used. Most people have the same genes/alleles, but differences/polymorphisms in the way the genetic sequences are organised. It is a language like any other, and like a language with a few basic letters and sounds, can be organised in many distinct ways. Thus, all of those with a shared allele sequence/polymorphism are a phylogenetic group, much the same way a person from a particular geographic region shares a distinct pronunciation and slang. Molecular genetics seeks to find the distinct polymorphisms for each phylogenetic group.

The language is highly suggestive of racism. The variations of sequence polymorphisms are called restriction length polymorphisms (RFLPs). The molecular biologists are busy trying to piece together these restriction polymorphisms in order to link them to particular phenotypes/families/people. When a restriction polymorphism is definitively linked to a particular trait, such as eye color, or disease it is called a restriction marker. It is claimed that identifying these "restriction markers" will help in diagnosing disease and in "isolating" genes, id. est., people.

This is exactly what went on in the first part of the 1900s. The strange science of racial purity flourished with the aid of universities and States. And the States did not merely want to rid the earth of a few diseased individuals, but also of those carrying supposedly tainted (restrictive) genetic markers. Germany and the U.S. (the U.S. was quieter, but no less avid) decided who carried the "restriction markers," which barred these people entry into society. Germany "isolated" the genes, the people in ghettos, IG Farben/Auschwitz, sanitariums, veterans homes, and hospitals.

One may believe they are safe because they are perfect -- don't drink, don't smoke, don't drink coffee, and don't eat the "wrong" foods. One may believe they are perfect because they go to church, don't waste energy, don't have the wrong skin color, vote for the correct political representatives, or whatever else. One may be perfect, but be carrying "restriction markers" all over within the secret little cells of their body.

What science doesn't tell us is that simply having a particular genetic sequence does not mean a person will die from it, or be an addict. There is such a thing as free choice, which we forget exists. Free choice is a genetic marker that each and everyone of us carries. It's the worst polymorphism of all to despots.

The direction that our wonderful science, which has been corrupted into a religion, is going is backwards. There will be no cure for cancer or other diseases. The scientists of Nazi Germany had a war on cancer, but the cure was death for millions. And in all these many, many years of scientific progress we have gotten no further than they. Our "cures" are exactly the same. Bans, blaming heredity, isolating the unwanted individuals. There will be no cure for cancer, only "therapies," which profit large corporations and the State.

There was not much cancer before the 1900s. But people have been drinking for thousands of years. People have been eating for thousands of years. People have been smoking for thousands of years, and hundreds in the Old World and Asia. People have ingested coffee for thousands of years. Why is it that a Japanese man may smoke and never get cancer, but an American man can't?

To admit the horrible truth would harm the giant monopolies and our governments who have committed crimes and made mistakes which they would rather not own up to. It is better to blame the individual for their cancer, blame their genetics and choices, better to call them "burdens" upon society than admit that there is more to cancer and its causes.

And now, that we have moved into the era of health care for all, this war on cancer, which is really a war on the individual will be ramped up. The large corporations and the State will place "restrictive markers" on as many "clusters" as they can because there is no way they will spend our money on us if they can help it. If an individual doesn't profit the State monopoly and Big Pharma, then they are a cancer and not worthy of life. Isolated. Banned.

And this is why 2nd and 3rd hand smoke were invented. There is barely a person alive that can say they have never been exposed to 2nd hand smoke, and 3rd hand smoke can be "caught" anywhere, from anyone. This creates the myth of the person who chooses to use tobacco as a virus, spreading cancer around like a flu. Thus, no matter what, the tobacco user will be the cause of all cancer, the scapegoat that must bear the sins of the people. And those who are caught anywhere near a tobacco user will be seen as carriers of the disease.

The harsh reality is that a tobacco user (or a coffee drinker or an alcoholic behind the wheel) is incapable of wiping out humanity the same way that Big Pharma and despotic states are. These people, if they ever do kill another, do it in dribs and drabs and feel extreme guilt for what they do. But large masses of "righteous" people kill large masses of innocents and feel no guilt. They tend to believe they are God's chosen and thus, have a command to kill. Somehow, the masses continually mistake Molech for God, and forget the story of Jesus and that it was a mob and the State that crucified Him.

It's easy to identify a person that smokes by sight and smell, much as if they were a group with a different skin color than the majority, or as if they were tattooed with a number. This makes them easy to hate and blame. No one cares because they're all poor and broken.

But the cause of cancer will not be eradicated by banning those who use tobacco. In fact, a new, but obvious group will have to be found, then another, and another. This will be the cure for our ignorance and will keep us distracted with hate and fear while feeling righteous and moral.

The truth is that cancer is a sad, sad disease and no one deserves to die of it or for it. It has many causes and most of them are linked to things we are unaware of, and nearly powerless over. Most causes of cancer can be attributed to our way of life the past hundred years, our addictions to things we have never considered addictions or dependencies, and issues that are too emotional to tackle.

In the 1950s and beyond, millions of Baby Boomers were given the life-saving polio vaccine which was grown on simian monkey kidneys which transferred a cancer-causing virus called SV-40 to those who received the vaccine. SV-40 lays dormant for many years until triggered for one reason or other, then may cause cancers of the soft tissues--lung cancer, skin cancer and others. SV-40 can be spread from one person to the next much like AIDs.

Many vaccines have been found to lead to cancer. A vaccine should be good, and they have stemmed many sicknesses, but there are often future ramifications which one does not find out until many years later.

Then there is radon, an invisible gas, which is in many homes. This too, causes lung cancer.

Exhaust from our automobiles contains many carcinogens.

Our jobs in certain industries which require exposure to chemicals and toxins may cause lung cancers.

Radiation exposure, such as via a full body scanner, or an X-ray machine can cause cancer.

Kissing someone with the HPV virus can cause cancer. In fact, all forms of warts are actually cancer viruses.

The use of immunosupressant drugs, such as are used by organ transplant patients, or by AIDs patients, or for arthritis leads to cancer.

Being born and living may lead to cancer and or death.

With the increased Chemical/Pharmaceutical push for genetically engineered grains cancer will increase even more. These genetically engineered foods usually contain an animal or human protein in them. Our bodies instinctively know when a foreign body has entered and this incites our immune system to be rid of it, the same way an organ transplant patient's body knows a foreign organ has been introduced into it.

Genetically engineered food will cause our immune systems to overreact, which will wear the body down, which will lead to more patients in the doctor's office asking for immunosupressents and allergy meds, which will lead to cancer.

Not only will genetically engineered crops harm our immunity, but they will cross breed with other crops and destroy them, putting small farmers out of business, giving the Chemical/Pharmaceutical corporations a monopoly over what we eat. The same corporate monopolies that are behind the smoking bans are also behind genetically engineered foods. They'll feed us from the cradle to the grave on their cancerous foods and their "therapies" for the sickness they have given us. But the tobacco users and others will reap the blame. And the people will be blamed for destroying the environment, while the genetically modified pollen spreads its disease to our land and farmers right under our noses.

We don't have to return to the stone age or eschew modern conveniences, but we must be more aware of what our modern and thoughtless addictions have led to. We are a nation of addicts. We think that a pill will solve our problems and that mixing unlike things, such as human with plant will give us health and nutrition. We think we can ban cancer by banning people.

It is nearly impossible to give up our lotions, foods, jobs, medicines, fertilizers, pesticides and cars. We don't have to, but we can find other ways, even if our friends and neighbors deride us and wonder if we are crazy. This author is going to try to the best of his ability to put his money where his mouth is, and also how to do without certain products. But time is running out. Once a group is banned, once a university's "pharmaceutical" grain crop sends its pollen out into the surrounding regions, once a cancer-causing virus contaminates a vaccine it is nearly too late to stop the spread of cancer upon our souls and society.

This is why I take a stand against tobacco bans. It seems that this one wall is what stands between everyone and complete monopoly over every aspect of our lives. Believe it or not, the tobacco companies devoted much time and money to combating the forces of Big Chemical and Big Pharma. According to the anti-tobacco propaganda, the tobacco companies saw the World Health Organization and the Big UN as their biggest threat, as their biggest "competition," and worked hard to keep them from implementing domination. We may never know exactly how important tobacco users and their money were in keeping America and the rest of the world free. And now, they are banned and hated by the very people they may have protected. Isn't that the way of the world.

Or, we will see how important and generous tobacco users were/are, but continue treading down the wrong road. Already, in my state, only a few short months after a smoking ban in the hospitality industry, the state has lost millions in revenue. The bars are having to lay off bartenders, most of whom are single mothers. In turn, these single mothers will lose homes, cars, nice clothes, money for their children's dance or sport activities, or tutoring, nights out with friends, etc, etc. In turn, this money may have flowed back to the fathers paying the child support. These single mothers will end up in government subsidised housing and on welfare, and the fathers will be punished by the State with fines, jail, confiscated driver's licences for not paying up. How does that save the tax payers money? A smoking ban effects the entire economy because the money doesn't merely stay in the bar or the casino. It goes out into the community, even benefiting those that hate tobacco users. Tobacco users can be highly generous and loving people, but not if their company isn't good enough for the community.

A ban on tobacco hurts our health in so many different ways. And Big Pharma Nicotine "therapy" will not save any of us in health costs because these products cause cancer, ulcers, diabetes, heart attack, brain death, and other wonders of medical madness.

I recently read a comment suggesting that the non profit status of churches be revoked to make up for lost revenue due to the tobacco bans. At the moment, this seems a plausible solution, as these groups (Christian, Jew, Muslim) quit being answerable to God by joining with the State and Big Pharma to push for the bans--at least where I live. There is no separation of Church, Corporation, and State. They're the same. They want our money to save the world, yet won't give anything back unless one sells their soul to them. And always, they blame illness upon some evil committed by the individual, thus claiming exemption from mercy or forgiveness.


The smoke of the saints. Good enough for God. Banned on earth.

image: Caravaggio, David and Goliath

Albert Jay Nock's Word To The Remnants

"Isaiah's Job" by Albert Jay Nock, The Atlantic Monthly, 1936:

One evening last autumn, I sat long hours with a European acquaintance while he expounded a political-economic doctrine which seemed sound as a nut and in which I could find no defect. At the end, he said with great earnestness: "I have a mission to the masses. I feel that I am called to get the ear of the people. I shall devote the rest of my life to spreading my doctrine far and wide among the population. What do you think?"

An embarrassing question in any case, and doubly so under the circumstances, because my acquaintance is a very learned man, one of the three or four really first-class minds that Europe produced in his generation; and naturally I, as one of the unlearned, was inclined to regard his lightest word with reverence amounting to awe. Still, I reflected, even the greatest mind can not possibly know everything, and I was pretty sure he had not had my opportunities for observing the masses of mankind, and that therefore I probably knew them better than he did. So I mustered courage to say that he had no such mission and would do well to get the idea out of his head at once; he would find that the masses would not care two pins for his doctrine, and still less for himself, since in such circumstances the popular favourite is generally some Barabbas. I even went so far as to say (he is a Jew) that his idea seemed to show that he was not very well up on his own native literature. He smiled at my jest, and asked what I meant by it; and I referred him to the story of the prophet Isaiah.

It occurred to me then that this story is much worth recalling just now when so many wise men and soothsayers appear to be burdened with a message to the masses. Dr. Townsend has a message, Father Coughlin has one, Mr. Upton Sinclair, Mr. Lippmann, Mr. Chase and the planned economy brethren, Mr. Tugwell and the New Dealers, Mr. Smith and Liberty Leaguers – the list is endless. I can not remember a time when so many energumens were so variously proclaiming the Word to the multitude and telling them what they must do to be saved. This being so, it occurred to me, as I say, that the story of Isaiah might have something in it to steady and compose the human spirit until this tyranny of windiness is overpast. I shall paraphrase the story in our common speech, since it has to be pieced out from various sources; and inasmuch as respectable scholars have thought fit to put out a whole new version of the Bible in the American vernacular, I shall take shelter behind them, if need be, against the charge of dealing irreverently with the Sacred Scriptures.

The prophet's career began at the end of King Uzziah's reign, say about 740 B.C. This reign was uncommonly long, almost half a century, and apparently prosperous. It was one of those prosperous reigns, however – like the reign of Marcus Aurelius at Rome, or the administration of Eubulus at Athens, or of Mr. Coolidge at Washington – where at the end the prosperity suddenly peters out and things go by the board with a resounding crash.

In the year of Uzziah's death, the Lord commissioned the prophet to go out and warn the people of the wrath to come. "Tell them what a worthless lot they are." He said, "Tell them what is wrong, and why and what is going to happen unless they have a change of heart and straighten up. Don't mince matters. Make it clear that they are positively down to their last chance. Give it to them good and strong and keep on giving it to them. I suppose perhaps I ought to tell you," He added, "that it won't do any good. The official class and their intelligentsia will turn up their noses at you and the masses will not even listen. They will all keep on in their own ways until they carry everything down to destruction, and you will probably be lucky if you get out with your life."


Isaiah had been very willing to take on the job – in fact, he had asked for it – but the prospect put a new face on the situation. It raised the obvious question: Why, if all that were so – if the enterprise were to be a failure from the start – was there any sense in starting it? "Ah," the Lord said, "you do not get the point. There is a Remnant there that you know nothing about. They are obscure, unorganized, inarticulate, each one rubbing along as best he can. They need to be encouraged and braced up because when everything has gone completely to the dogs, they are the ones who will come back and build up a new society; and meanwhile, your preaching will reassure them and keep them hanging on. Your job is to take care of the Remnant, so be off now and set about it."

II

Apparently, then, if the Lord’s word is good for anything – I do not offer any opinion about that, – the only element in Judean society that was particularly worth bothering about was the Remnant. Isaiah seems finally to have got it through his head that this was the case; that nothing was to be expected from the masses, but that if anything substantial were ever to be done in Judea, the Remnant would have to do it. This is a very striking and suggestive idea; but before going on to explore it, we need to be quite clear about our terms. What do we mean by the masses, and what by the Remnant?

As the word masses is commonly used, it suggests agglomerations of poor and underprivileged people, labouring people, proletarians, and it means nothing like that; it means simply the majority. The mass-man is one who has neither the force of intellect to apprehend the principles issuing in what we know as the humane life, nor the force of character to adhere to those principles steadily and strictly as laws of conduct; and because such people make up the great and overwhelming majority of mankind, they are called collectively the masses. The line of differentiation between the masses and the Remnant is set invariably by quality, not by circumstance. The Remnant are those who by force of intellect are able to apprehend these principles, and by force of character are able, at least measurably, to cleave to them. The masses are those who are unable to do either.

The picture which Isaiah presents of the Judean masses is most unfavorable. In his view, the mass-man – be he high or be he lowly, rich or poor, prince or pauper – gets off very badly. He appears as not only weak-minded and weak-willed, but as by consequence knavish, arrogant, grasping, dissipated, unprincipled, unscrupulous. The mass-woman also gets off badly, as sharing all the mass-man’s untoward qualities, and contributing a few of her own in the way of vanity and laziness, extravagance and foible. The list of luxury-products that she patronized is interesting; it calls to mind the women’s page of a Sunday newspaper in 1928, or the display set forth in one of our professedly "smart" periodicals. In another place, Isaiah even recalls the affectations that we used to know by the name "flapper gait" and the "debutante slouch." It may be fair to discount Isaiah’s vivacity a little for prophetic fervour; after all, since his real job was not to convert the masses but to brace and reassure the Remnant, he probably felt that he might lay it on indiscriminately and as thick as he liked – in fact, that he was expected to do so. But even so, the Judean mass-man must have been a most objectionable individual, and the mass-woman utterly odious.


If the modern spirit, whatever that may be, is disinclined towards taking the Lord’s word at its face value (as I hear is the case), we may observe that Isaiah’s testimony to the character of the masses has strong collateral support from respectable Gentile authority. Plato lived into the administration of Eubulus, when Athens was at the peak of its jazz-and-paper era, and he speaks of the Athenian masses with all Isaiah’s fervency, even comparing them to a herd of ravenous wild beasts. Curiously, too, he applies Isaiah’s own word remnant to the worthier portion of Athenian society; "there is but a very small remnant," he says, of those who possess a saving force of intellect and force of character – too small, preciously as to Judea, to be of any avail against the ignorant and vicious preponderance of the masses.

But Isaiah was a preacher and Plato a philosopher; and we tend to regard preachers and philosophers rather as passive observers of the drama of life than as active participants. Hence in a matter of this kind their judgment might be suspected of being a little uncompromising, a little acrid, or as the French say, saugrenu. We may therefore bring forward another witness who was preeminently a man of affairs, and whose judgment can not lie under this suspicion. Marcus Aurelius was ruler of the greatest of empires, and in that capacity he not only had the Roman mass-man under observation, but he had him on his hands twenty-four hours a day for eighteen years. What he did not know about him was not worth knowing and what he thought of him is abundantly attested on almost every page of the little book of jottings which he scribbled offhand from day to day, and which he meant for no eye but his own ever to see.

This view of the masses is the one that we find prevailing at large among the ancient authorities whose writings have come down to us. In the eighteenth century, however, certain European philosophers spread the notion that the mass-man, in his natural state, is not at all the kind of person that earlier authorities made him out to be, but on the contrary, that he is a worthy object of interest. His untowardness is the effect of environment, an effect for which "society" is somehow responsible. If only his environment permitted him to live according to his lights, he would undoubtedly show himself to be quite a fellow; and the best way to secure a more favourable environment for him would be to let him arrange it for himself. The French Revolution acted powerfully as a springboard for this idea, projecting its influence in all directions throughout Europe.


On this side of the ocean a whole new continent stood ready for a large-scale experiment with this theory. It afforded every conceivable resource whereby the masses might develop a civilization made in their own likeness and after their own image. There was no force of tradition to disturb them in their preponderance, or to check them in a thoroughgoing disparagement of the Remnant. Immense natural wealth, unquestioned predominance, virtual isolation, freedom from external interference and the fear of it, and, finally, a century and a half of time – such are the advantages which the mass-man has had in bringing forth a civilization which should set the earlier preachers and philosophers at naught in their belief that nothing substantial can be expected from the masses, but only from the Remnant.

His success is unimpressive. On the evidence so far presented one must say, I think, that the mass-man’s conception of what life has to offer, and his choice of what to ask from life, seem now to be pretty well what they were in the times of Isaiah and Plato; and so too seem the catastrophic social conflicts and convulsions in which his views of life and his demands on life involve him. I do not wish to dwell on this, however, but merely to observe that the monstrously inflated importance of the masses has apparently put all thought of a possible mission to the Remnant out of the modern prophet’s head. This is obviously quite as it should be, provided that the earlier preachers and philosophers were actually wrong, and that all final hope of the human race is actually centred in the masses. If, on the other hand, it should turn out that the Lord and Isaiah and Plato and Marcus Aurelius were right in their estimate of the relative social value of the masses and the Remnant, the case is somewhat different. Moreover, since with everything in their favour the masses have so far given such an extremely discouraging account of themselves, it would seem that the question at issue between these two bodies of opinion might most profitably be reopened.

III

But without following up this suggestion, I wish only, as I said, to remark the fact that as things now stand Isaiah's job seems rather to go begging. Everyone with a message nowadays is, like my venerable European friend, eager to take it to the masses. His first, last and only thought is of mass-acceptance and mass-approval. His great care is to put his doctrine in such shape as will capture the masses' attention and interest. This attitude towards the masses is so exclusive, so devout, that one is reminded of the troglodytic monster described by Plato, and the assiduous crowd at the entrance to its cave, trying obsequiously to placate it and win its favour, trying to interpret its inarticulate noises, trying to find out what it wants, and eagerly offering it all sorts of things that they think might strike its fancy.


The main trouble with all this is its reaction upon the mission itself. It necessitates an opportunist sophistication of one's doctrine, which profoundly alters its character and reduces it to a mere placebo. If, say, you are a preacher, you wish to attract as large a congregation as you can, which means an appeal to the masses; and this, in turn, means adapting the terms of your message to the order of intellect and character that the masses exhibit. If you are an educator, say with a college on your hands, you wish to get as many students as possible, and you whittle down your requirements accordingly. If a writer, you aim at getting many readers; if a publisher, many purchasers; if a philosopher, many disciples; if a reformer, many converts; if a musician, many auditors; and so on. But as we see on all sides, in the realization of these several desires, the prophetic message is so heavily adulterated with trivialities, in every instance, that its effect on the masses is merely to harden them in their sins. Meanwhile, the Remnant, aware of this adulteration and of the desires that prompt it, turn their backs on the prophet and will have nothing to do with him or his message.

Isaiah, on the other hand, worked under no such disabilities. He preached to the masses only in the sense that he preached publicly. Anyone who liked might listen; anyone who liked might pass by. He knew that the Remnant would listen; and knowing also that nothing was to be expected of the masses under any circumstances, he made no specific appeal to them, did not accommodate his message to their measure in any way, and did not care two straws whether they heeded it or not. As a modern publisher might put it, he was not worrying about circulation or about advertising. Hence, with all such obsessions quite out of the way, he was in a position to do his level best, without fear or favour, and answerable only to his august Boss.

If a prophet were not too particular about making money out of his mission or getting a dubious sort of notoriety out of it, the foregoing considerations would lead one to say that serving the Remnant looks like a good job. An assignment that you can really put your back into, and do your best without thinking about results, is a real job; whereas serving the masses is at best only half a job, considering the inexorable conditions that the masses impose upon their servants. They ask you to give them what they want, they insist upon it, and will take nothing else; and following their whims, their irrational changes of fancy, their hot and cold fits, is a tedious business, to say nothing of the fact that what they want at any time makes very little call on one’s resources of prophesy. The Remnant, on the other hand, want only the best you have, whatever that may be. Give them that, and they are satisfied; you have nothing more to worry about. The prophet of the American masses must aim consciously at the lowest common denominator of intellect, taste and character among 120,000,000 people; and this is a distressing task. The prophet of the Remnant, on the contrary, is in the enviable position of Papa Haydn in the household of Prince Esterhazy. All Haydn had to do was keep forking out the very best music he knew how to produce, knowing it would be understood and appreciated by those for whom he produced it, and caring not a button what anyone else thought of it; and that makes a good job.


In a sense, nevertheless, as I have said, it is not a rewarding job. If you can tough the fancy of the masses, and have the sagacity to keep always one jump ahead of their vagaries and vacillations, you can get good returns in money from serving the masses, and good returns also in a mouth-to-ear type of notoriety:

Digito monstrari et dicier, Hic est!

We all know innumerable politicians, journalists, dramatists, novelists and the like, who have done extremely well by themselves in these ways. Taking care of the Remnant, on the contrary, holds little promise of any such rewards. A prophet of the Remnant will not grow purse-proud on the financial returns from his work, nor is it likely that he will get any great renown out of it. Isaiah’s case was exceptional to this second rule, and there are others, but not many.

It may be thought, then, that while taking care of the Remnant is no doubt a good job, it is not an especially interesting job because it is as a rule so poorly paid. I have my doubts about this. There are other compensations to be got out of a job besides money and notoriety, and some of them seem substantial enough to be attractive. Many jobs which do not pay well are yet profoundly interesting, as, for instance, the job of research student in the sciences is said to be; and the job of looking after the Remnant seems to me, as I have surveyed it for many years from my seat in the grandstand, to be as interesting as any that can be found in the world.

IV

What chiefly makes it so, I think, is that in any given society the Remnant are always so largely an unknown quantity. You do not know, and will never know, more than two things about them. You can be sure of those – dead sure, as our phrase is – but you will never be able to make even a respectable guess at anything else. You do not know, and will never know, who the Remnant are, nor what they are doing or will do. Two things you do know, and no more: First, that they exist; second, that they will find you. Except for these two certainties, working for the Remnant means working in impenetrable darkness; and this, I should say, is just the condition calculated most effectively to pique the interest of any prophet who is properly gifted with the imagination, insight and intellectual curiosity necessary to a successful pursuit of his trade.

The fascination and the despair of the historian, as he looks back upon Isaiah's Jewry, upon Plato's Athens, or upon Rome of the Antonines, is the hope of discovering and laying bare the "substratum of right-thinking and well-doing" which he knows must have existed somewhere in those societies because no kind of collective life can possibly go on without it. He finds tantalizing intimations of it here and there in many places, as in the Greek Anthology, in the scrapbook of Aulus Gellius, in the poems of Ausonius, and in the brief and touching tribute, Bene merenti, bestowed upon the unknown occupants of Roman tombs. But these are vague and fragmentary; they lead him nowhere in his search for some kind of measure on this substratum, but merely testify to what he already knew a priori – that the substratum did somewhere exist. Where it was, how substantial it was, what its power of self-assertion and resistance was – of all this they tell him nothing.

Similarly, when the historian of two thousand years hence, or two hundred years, looks over the available testimony to the quality of our civilization and tries to get any kind of clear, competent evidence concerning the substratum of right-thinking and well-doing which he knows must have been here, he will have a devil of a time finding it. When he has assembled all he can and has made even a minimum allowance for speciousness, vagueness, and confusion of motive, he will sadly acknowledge that his net result is simply nothing. A Remnant were here, building a substratum like coral insects; so much he knows, but he will find nothing to put him on the track of who and where and how many they were and what their work was like.

Concerning all this, too, the prophet of the present knows precisely as much and as little as the historian of the future; and that, I repeat, is what makes his job seem to me so profoundly interesting. One of the most suggestive episodes recounted in the Bible is that of a prophet's attempt – the only attempt of the kind on the record, I believe – to count up the Remnant. Elijah had fled from persecution into the desert, where the Lord presently overhauled him and asked what he was doing so far away from his job. He said that he was running away, not because he was a coward, but because all the Remnant had been killed off except himself. He had got away only by the skin of his teeth, and, he being now all the Remnant there was, if he were killed the True Faith would go flat. The Lord replied that he need not worry about that, for even without him the True Faith could probably manage to squeeze along somehow if it had to; "and as for your figures on the Remnant," He said, "I don't mind telling you that there are seven thousand of them back there in Israel whom it seems you have not heard of, but you may take My word for it that there they are."

At that time, probably the population of Israel could not run to much more than a million or so; and a Remnant of seven thousand out of a million is a highly encouraging percentage for any prophet. With seven thousand of the boys on his side, there was no great reason for Elijah to feel lonesome; and incidentally, that would be something for the modern prophet of the Remnant to think of when he has a touch of the blues. But the main point is that if Elijah the Prophet could not make a closer guess on the number of the Remnant than he made when he missed it by seven thousand, anyone else who tackled the problem would only waste his time.

The other certainty which the prophet of the Remnant may always have is that the Remnant will find him. He may rely on that with absolute assurance. They will find him without his doing anything about it; in fact, if he tries to do anything about it, he is pretty sure to put them off. He does not need to advertise for them nor resort to any schemes of publicity to get their attention. If he is a preacher or a public speaker, for example, he may be quite indifferent to going on show at receptions, getting his picture printed in the newspapers, or furnishing autobiographical material for publication on the side of "human interest." If a writer, he need not make a point of attending any pink teas, autographing books at wholesale, nor entering into any specious freemasonry with reviewers. All this and much more of the same order lies in the regular and necessary routine laid down for the prophet of the masses; it is, and must be, part of the great general technique of getting the mass-man's ear – or as our vigorous and excellent publicist, Mr. H. L. Mencken, puts it, the technique of boob-bumping. The prophet of the Remnant is not bound to this technique. He may be quite sure that the Remnant will make their own way to him without any adventitious aids; and not only so, but if they find him employing any such aids, as I said, it is ten to one that they will smell a rat in them and will sheer off.

The certainty that the Remnant will find him, however, leaves the prophet as much in the dark as ever, as helpless as ever in the matter of putting any estimate of any kind upon the Remnant; for, as appears in the case of Elijah, he remains ignorant of who they are that have found him or where they are or how many. They did not write in and tell him about it, after the manner of those who admire the vedettes of Hollywood, nor yet do they seek him out and attach themselves to his person. They are not that kind. They take his message much as drivers take the directions on a roadside signboard – that is, with very little thought about the signboard, beyond being gratefully glad that it happened to be there, but with every thought about the directions.

This impersonal attitude of the Remnant wonderfully enhances the interest of the imaginative prophet's job. Once in a while, just about often enough to keep his intellectual curiosity in good working order, he will quite accidentally come upon some distinct reflection of his own message in an unsuspected quarter. This enables him to entertain himself in his leisure moments with agreeable speculations about the course his message may have taken in reaching that particular quarter, and about what came of it after it got there. Most interesting of all are those instances, if one could only run them down (but one may always speculate about them), where the recipient himself no longer knows where nor when nor from whom he got the message – or even where, as sometimes happens, he has forgotten that he got it anywhere and imagines that it is all a self-sprung idea of his own.

Such instances as these are probably not infrequent, for, without presuming to enroll ourselves among the Remnant, we can all no doubt remember having found ourselves suddenly under the influence of an idea, the source of which we cannot possibly identify. "It came to us afterward," as we say; that is, we are aware of it only after it has shot up full-grown in our minds, leaving us quite ignorant of how and when and by what agency it was planted there and left to germinate. It seems highly probable that the prophet's message often takes some such course with the Remnant.

If, for example, you are a writer or a speaker or a preacher, you put forth an idea which lodges in the Unbewußtsein of a casual member of the Remnant and sticks fast there. For some time it is inert; then it begins to fret and fester until presently it invades the man's conscious mind and, as one might say, corrupts it. Meanwhile, he has quite forgotten how he came by the idea in the first instance, and even perhaps thinks he has invented it; and in those circumstances, the most interesting thing of all is that you never know what the pressure of that idea will make him do.

For these reasons it appears to me that Isaiah’s job is not only good but also extremely interesting; and especially so at the present time when nobody is doing it. If I were young and had the notion of embarking in the prophetical line, I would certainly take up this branch of the business; and therefore I have no hesitation about recommending it as a career for anyone in that position. It offers an open field, with no competition; our civilization so completely neglects and disallows the Remnant that anyone going in with an eye single to their service might pretty well count on getting all the trade there is.

Even assuming that there is some social salvage to be screened out of the masses, even assuming that the testimony of history to their social value is a little too sweeping, that it depresses hopelessness a little too far, one must yet perceive, I think, that the masses have prophets enough and to spare. Even admitting that in the teeth of history that hope of the human race may not be quite exclusively centred in the Remnant, one must perceive that they have social value enough to entitle them to some measure of prophetic encouragement and consolation, and that our civilization allows them none whatever. Every prophetic voice is addressed to the masses, and to them alone; the voice of the pulpit, the voice of education, the voice of politics, of literature, drama, journalism – all these are directed towards the masses exclusively, and they marshal the masses in the way that they are going.

One might suggest, therefore, that aspiring prophetical talent may well turn to another field. Sat patriae Priamoque datum – whatever obligation of the kind may be due the masses is already monstrously overpaid. So long as the masses are taking up the tabernacle of Moloch and Chiun, their images, and following the star of their god Buncombe, they will have no lack of prophets to point the way that leadeth to the More Abundant Life; and hence a few of those who feel the prophetic afflatus might do better to apply themselves to serving the Remnant. It is a good job, an interesting job, much more interesting than serving the masses; and moreover it is the only job in our whole civilization, as far as I know, that offers a virgin field.

Where We Are Now: Pearl Harbor II

"How did a nation such as Germany, with a history rich in the cultural achievements of the individual man, succumb to the Nazi wave of despotism and murderous superstition? We cannot here search for first causes, but surely it will be written that liberty and decency in Germany were the victims of a collapse of leadership. Jurists, doctors, professors, civil officials, business magnates--in Germany most honored of all--generals, alike proved insensitive to or flinched before the warning signals of approaching tyranny and crime, and sold themselves, their callings, and their country into slavery" (Chief Counsel for the Prosecution at the Nuremberg Trials, Telford Taylor, Sword and Swastika: Generals and Nazis in the Third Reich).

Is our leadership selling us to the highest bidder? The problem is that after we are sold we won't see a penny, and will be the ones paying to be slaves.

Do our elected representatives represent the voters or rather, those with the biggest wallets? And if these representatives are so spineless and easily tempted by money and manipulation, then what good are they?

Do our local hospitals and health representatives represent what is best for us, or instead sell themselves to the highest bidder?

In the Bard's little corner of the world, the hospital has become a towering temple on a hill overlooking the cemetery. It grows exponentially every year and wants to create a commune neighborhood in which everyone lives like sterile little slaves.

The Bard has been perusing Dr. Matthias Rath's Health Foundation site the past couple days and is currently reading one of the historical books listed there, Rockefeller Medicine Men: Medicine and Capitalism in America by E. Richard Brown. It, along with several of the other books and documents posted on Rath's site are fantastic and highly enlightening.

So far, this Bard finds there is more to like than not at Dr. Rath Health Foundation.

The Bard does feel bad for Rath because he really did believe that a coup was going to ocurr during the last presidential election that would prevent our current president from gaining the White House and implementing the hope and change that Rath so dearly wished for. Who knows, maybe, Rath's theory of a coup was correct, but not in the way he thought. So much for hope and change, and here's to a bigger dose of more of the same.

I've noticed lately, that those who saw and warned of the dangers of the Bush administration are now silent on the present administration. I suppose, many of them were somehow deceived and really did want so dearly to put their faith in one person as savior, that they cannot believe that what they thought was good is not. I would surmise that they are silent because they are still hoping, waiting for a sign to confirm their waning faith, hoping that it's not more of the same. It must be a bit embarrassing and sad.

In a way, the electing of the latest president was one of the smartest moves ever pulled off. It essentially silenced and paralyzed certain groups of people who once fought so hard against the previous administration and were aware of its unsavory moves and motives. These people are now in a state of stasis, of silent watchfulness, no longer fighting--exactly at the moment when they should be the most active. This Bard has often pondered upon this observation.

The Bard is only over a hundred pages into Rockefeller Medicine Men, but he has learned quite a wonderful amount of history in this easy-reading book. He has learned that medicine and education as we know them were developed by the great industrialists as a way to create a workforce compliant and cheaply kept under giant industry control. These giant corporations and their philanthropies think of us as cattle.

When the people stand up for themselves and demand a little more, the corporations get frightened and agree to concede to more humane treatment. These giant corporations are deathly afraid of losing their power and of a class structure that is not highly stratified.

But it must be wondered, when the people unify into unions and other groups and demand such things as more pay, fewer hours, better treatment are they really moving up in the world? Sure, one can demand more pay and other benefits, but they're still working for the company and dependent upon them--still feeding the monopoly which lobbies elected officials who pass laws against the people.

Wouldn't it be better if instead of unions who rally for false rights (as if the company or government is God and can give us anything!), who want humane treatment, if people demanded human treatment and freedom to work when and where they wanted?

The Bard's perfect little utopia is one that looks a bit rough and unpainted, but has lots of old men and women sitting around watching, smoking pipes, reading, and talking; and where children run around in the dust at their feet playing in the sun with holes in the knees of their pants, rather than in a daycare with a bunch of other little snotty-nosed and unloved little inmates.

The Bard's perfect world isn't a commune or higher pay. His world is one that accepts that the Joneses aren't worth wasting time to keep up with, and where people compete fairly with each other. The Bard's world is one of farmers, small businesses, shops, free time, compassion for the sick, and lots of healthy arguing and disagreeing; and again, children out and about rather than hidden away "off-the-streets" in those industrial mills we call public schools. The Bard's utopia looks a bit like the United State before and after the Revolutionary War, but with washing machines, and telephones.

I think, we forget that our rights, our lives are not granted by a government or a corporation. We are born with them, and as we grow, these entities take our inborn rights away and train us in a false idea of freedom and rights in order to keep us quiet and paralyzed. It has been so long since we have known what freedom feels like that we cannot even imagine surviving in a world in which benefits and rights are not supplied by our workplace or the state. How would one support them self without a job?

In our current time it is nearly impossible to imagine not working for another. We are compelled to it because we are slaves. If a slave doesn't produce, doesn't work, he is beaten and punished. A slave will lose their home, wife, children, and owe back taxes and be locked away if they don't benefit the master. If a slave tries to work for themself, they will find that there are rules against it, such as neighborhood covenants, county and city zoning, permits, hearings, regulations and other prohibitions.

During Prohibition it was not illegal to drink alcohol. It was illegal to buy it or possess it. Our modern system of self-sufficiency is nearly this way. It's not illegal to work for one's self, but it's prohibitive to obtain land and the right to commence upon such an endeavor. We have been purposely forced to work for others, for large companies who use the money made off of us to get laws passed to make it harder for us. It is nearly a crime to not have a job in the United States of America.

It shouldn't be a crime not to have a job that creates a constant flow of cash. The Bard has figured out that he could actually live fairly comfortably on a minimal amount of money if he were not compelled to pay such high property taxes. The Bard would actually have time to find out what he could do on his own if he wasn't worried about the taxes.

More and more the Bard sees what amazingly advanced people those crazy American colonists were. They saw what we won't see. They petitioned their government for years and went unheeded and unrepresented, much as we do now. They saw that the root of their problems was monopoly interests who held more sway with Parliament than they because of a mixing of state and corporate power interests. And so, they attacked the root of the problem, the corporation.

The American colonists boycotted East India tea even though it was actually cheaper, patronizing instead the Dutch black market. They tossed the tea overboard. The colonists boycotted other British business interests even though it cost them more money. They knew that the large corporations only care about money and power. The colonists cared more about liberty and were willing to sacrifice their money to prove a point. Of course, this boycott of business couldn't be permitted and Britain sent in the troops to shut Boston down until they begged for mercy and material goods. And because those outside of Boston stood by their brothers, pledging to supply them with food and aid in their time of suffering, we now have this wonderful country--the only threat to evil that exists.

This Bard was recently reading Bernard Bernstein's report to the Kilgore Committee in 1945, which is highly interesting in light of what we see occurring in this country at the moment. In Bernstein's report he details how the giant group of chemical and pharmaceutical companies under IG Farben were the actual root behind the Nazi's power. It is interesting to note that IG Farben's plan for world domination back in the 1930s and 1940s mirrors identically what we see carrying out in forced health care and other strange laws. IG Farben/Rockefeller still exist and are hard at work against us at our universities, state capitals, and the White House.

"It is significant to note that in all those preparations for war I.G. Farben did more than merely comply with orders and requests of the Wehrmacht and Nazi Government agencies. It functioned, in fact, as though it were a research organization of the German Government...." (Bernard Bernstein, Kilgore Committee, p.31)

"The immediate objective of the document[IG Farben's Neuordnung ("New Order")]was to insure the full cooperation of the chemical companies of the conquered countries in producing for the Wehrmacht. The second objective invisaged the complete incorporation of the chemical industries of Europe, including the British Empire [can you say EU?!], within the framework of Hitler's 'New Order.' The third objective was to eliminate U.S. competition in the world market [move industry, production off shore, ban America's backbone--tobacco, auto, independence]. Finally, Farben was preparing to utilize again its vaunted economic warfare weapons, cartels, capital investments and know-how, in anticipation of a possible conflict between Germany and the U.S.A" (Bernstein, 35).

"Farben's economic blitzkrieg of the United States was specially planned" (Bernstein,36).

"The proposition must be recognized that giant industry, throwing all its weight behind despotic government, actually holds the balance of power in the conduct of successful warfare" (Bernstein, 44)

"'I.G. [Farben] is largely responsible for Hitler's policy'" (Dr. von Schnitzler qtd. in Bernstein, 44)

"These schedules thus assured that all imports would be from Germany [now China] and virtually prohibited importation from the United States" (Bernstein, 44).

It looks as if World War II never ended and IG Farben continued with the Neuordnung and got further this time than last. Last time, we woke up when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, hurtling its pilots down in suicide flames. Hitler was making moves on Britain, but we moved like the sleepy giant we are and staunched the wound.

This time, Britain's been taken. This time Hawaii and Pearl Harbor are in the Capitol. This time Toyota of Japan is committing a gentle and submissive self sacrifice rather than a Kamikaze pilot's Hawaiian crash. This time we are the Kamikaze pilots behind the wheel, crashing the last competition. This time the Neuordnung is literally touching the White House and has its hands around Lady Liberty's white neck and is about to lean over as it seduces her before sucking her blood.

We've been drugged. We're addicts laying in a stupor. Oh, my dear, precious lover, my lady, America. Wake up, wake up and weep for yourself!