Freedom is slavery

“On the sixth day of Hate Week, after the processions, the speeches, the shouting, the singing, the banners, the posters, the films, the waxworks, the rolling of drums and squealing of trumpets, the tramp of marching feet, the grinding of the caterpillars of tanks, the roar of massed planes, the booming of guns — after six days of this, when the great orgasm was quivering to its climax and the general hatred of Eurasia had boiled up into such delirium that if the crowd could have got their hands on the 2,000 Eurasian war-criminals who were to be publicly hanged on the last day of the proceedings, they would unquestionably have torn them to pieces — at just this moment it had been announced that Oceania was not after all at war with Eurasia. Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Eurasia was an ally.” — George Orwell: “1984″

- –

The Norwegian Minister of Defence, Anne-Grete Strøm-Erichsen, just recently made the statement that Norwegian soldiers can’t be withdrawn from Afghanistan for at least seven years. All Norwegian political parties are in agreement: the Norwegian Afghanistan policy is not a subject for discussion. — All is said and done, really. I think it should be a subject for discussion. I could think that until my face turned blue. All the political parties with representatives in the parliament agrees: this is a non-issue. The message made to the thousands of Norwegians who do not quite agree with the Government, but feel that the Norwegian soldiers should be withdrawn from Afghanistan, is, essentially, this: “You people don’t know what you’re talking about, so please shut up and listen!! What we have here is a National political consensus, and nothing you can do or say will stop us from keeping our soldiers standing on foreign territory throughout the seven years to come.”

There have been polls stating that as many as 40% of Norwegians do not want Norwegian soldiers to take part in the war in Afghanistan. Now, that is a large minority. I believe a small majority of Norwegians are against the war in the Middle East, but it doesn’t make any difference. The war in Afghanistan is a NATO decision that all Norwegian political parties (except some fringe parties without members in the parliament) support. And that’s all there is to it.

What is more — and what has been the case ever since September 11, 2001 made Osama Bin Laden become an international celebrity — there is no saying what the war in Afghanistan is really all about. Afghanistan is the second most important front in the war against terror, but it is also a very important strategic part of the world map. I remember, back in 2002 and 2003, there was a lot of talk about all those oil pipes across the border, for example. But okay: I’m not supposed to think about what this war is all about. I figure you’ll be stupid to think about these things. The fact is: whatever is going to happen in Afghanistan, Iraq, Gaza, and the West Bank are things that are all going to happen anyway. Freedom is slavery, so grab a beer, mate, and take it easy.

All the political party leaders of this country is in favour of going to war in Farawayistan: you’d better shut up about whatever you might think about that, as you’re putting yourself in danger of being stifflippedly judged to be an enemy of the state; and you don’t want that. Your phone will be tapped, and your computer will be fixed up with electronic surveillance devices, and if you are particularly unlucky, they will have microscopic microphones and video cameras put in place inside your house. — They’re well equipped, you see. And they’ll only be doing their professional duty.

Now, the question is: who are they doing this for? Which is the social strata of the population that benefit from the information provided by secret services? Now, I’m not supposed to think about that, either, but quite simply accept that this is the way it is. Goliath watches over David, that’s all. He is big as a planet and strong as a sun, and poor David has lost his catapult and doesn’t stand a chance no more. It’s such a pity, of course (don’t we all love the underdog?!), but no one can do anything about that.

At the end of the day, the right follows the might. And there is nothing free and the helpless can do about it.

- —

Which kind of question is this..?

“How are we going to save the world, so long as our overlords insist on creating conflicts amongst ourselves, waging war, and investing in space?”

This is a question which has been bothering me ever since I wrote it down in a note book back in the summer of 2004, and actually managed to pose it to Madeleine Albright, as she visited Oslo in order to advertise her biography. She didn’t respond to my question, though. And the security guards protecting the woman on the podium had me thrown out of the bookstore in quite a forceful manner. All I did was ask a difficult question, and then hand an envelope to the woman on the podium, but okay: this was back in 2004, and the terrorist scare was all around, so. –

Nevermind.

My dream can’t be real, I suppose

Spadlet: Maybe you could write something that was informative as well as interesting. Stuff that’s too moralistic or alegorical can get a text sidelided or into cult teritory, but if you could write something that got people thinking……..

– – — -

I don’t know. I don’t think it’s about moralism, it’s about addiction. Fossil-fuels addiction. Not until the majority of the world population recognize that the consumption of oil, gas, and coal is at the heart of the matter as concerns our common future, will stories about the madness of fossil-fuels addiction be received as something other than moralistic and aggressively political pieces of prose. Now, the future is all about continued oil, gas, and coal consumption. Greenhouse gas emissions are going to keep increasing. It’s a sad fact, and not a sad fact that debutants in the art of novel writing can get away with thinking too much about, I guess.

My fucked-up world view works to make me become the greatest loser of all time; that’s what I think. I can feel how all the things that are on my mind make for stories that the sensitive dollar souls of the people belonging to the political, economic, social, and cultural elites of our times are finding too hard to swallow. The fact that authors of prose and plays are dealing with people whose souls are dollaring and hearts are pounding, is simply a given. You are supposed to write a story that can make its way to the market and create some profits to the companies that are involved in the in-house financial record making concerned with the publication of novels. The book you’ve written is not only a piece of art, it is also a commodity: a product that is supposed to be sold to consumers of such products. So you can’t be too angry at the market system, now can you? But of course you can! — If your name is already well-known, that is, and you’ve been writing about and against the consumerist culture for more than just a handful of years already. –

This is the kind of thing that most readers don’t think about. The profit-making aspect of writing. It’s as boring as it gets, I suppose.

It’s a pecuiliar situation, really. In the world of book publishing, Norway ought to be well known for it’s relatively high number of socialist and communist authors. People like Solstad, Michelet, Nygaardshaug, Økland, Wold, Lund, Køltzow (to mention just a few) who have never been in favour of the capitalist system, but still get their novels, plays and poems published. They’ve become money-makers for their publishers, that’s all. –

Now, it’s like a long gone friend of mine said: “Life is research.” And I find that my life turns out to be all about figuring out why it is impossible for people to connect with my simple world view. Or rather: connect in such a way that it’s making it absolutely impossible to relate to me and my world view. ‘Cause I can easily see reasons why some of the older folks are finding it opportuned to associating me with what might be said to be “the end of the world.” While all I’m saying that the world civilization should move to rid itself of its age old addiction to fossil-fuels. And that the people of this world (informed humanity) should start rewriting history in such a way that made it possible top move on from here to a greener future, and that: as soon as possible. I mean: while the window of opportunity is still open, and lifestyle changes might have an effect at all. This is my dream. It’s the strangest dream, of course. All about peace and love. My dream can’t be real then, but all fake, I suppose.

And here I am: pondering the impossibility of dreaming about becoming an author of fiction. Simply because I’m at total odds with the capitalist consumerist system that all of the above mentioned authors have written long stories about and against repeatedly.

My life’s too strange, really. Honestly! It’s an important factor, I know. Too many spiritual things keep occurring around and about my person, I know. And it’s making it impossible for proper book salesmen to buy me. I’m the thing that shouldn’t be. I’m cursed. My personal future could easily involve that of being accused of witchcraft, I suppose? There is nothing new under the sun, of course. I mean: why not? Life’s too social, and people get frightened, so. Oh God. Here I am entering cult territory, am I right?

Have I stared too long?

Waiting for something. Looking for someone. Is there no reason? Have I stared too long? — David Bowie

- –

Like a born again realistic-optimist, and certainly a perfect stranger just said: “I’m acutely aware of stupidity all around me yet feel oddly comfortable.” I wish I could feel that way. But I can’t. A lot of people feel this way, I know, but me, I’ve got all this systematic evil on my mind at all times, and it makes me wonder what the fuck am I at all doing here, and then somehow: I can see it now. I can feel it die, and I am tempted to say: screw this! All these people truly want me dead, and there is nothing I can do about that, except?! Uh oh. As my general view of reality and the future becomes gloomier and gloomier every day. And as my therapist remains the most important lucipher character in my life. And as my mother keeps saying that I’m wrong about everything I heard and saw throughout the latter half of 2007. As 2008 seems to be the year in which all what’s up here is a big, big silence: this deafening sound of nothingness. As 2009 is approaching at a very high speed, just killing me softly like a locomotive. As 2010 nears, and. As 2011 nears, and. As 2012 is coming up. And what will be, will be. If I’m still around by then. I’m still waiting for something. I don’t believe anything strange is going to happen. — The angels have all gone to sleep now. –

I’m staying in a bad place, where they don’t care how I am. I should have taken a big trip. I should have simply sailed away. — As I never knew the right thing to say.

(Doo wap wap wha oo)

I can remain seated, and just do my writing on this wretched computer. Maybe wait for being discovered? No, I don’t think so. I’m just waiting for a chance, I guess. To make it right, I guess. A chance that is never going to turn up, because people associate me with all the bad things that can possibly happen, and. I’m acutely aware of the stupidity around me, whipping at the cliffs here, like a gale. And I just can’t understand this. It should all be so easy, I think. As the consumption of the oil, the gas, and the coal is the stimulus part of the greenhouse effect equation, and we all ought to be in possession of the brain power needed to get our heads around that bottleneck, and come to terms with the fact that there truly are good solutions to the greenhouse effect and global warming drama. We could all start out by becoming terribly afraid of fossil-fuels. Yes: we could all decide to fear fossil-fuels like we would have feared the dinosaurs if ever they were to reappear on this planet. Hah: I think the dinosaurs are indeed reappearing in the atmosphere of this planet. In the form of an atmospheric gas chamber which is threatening to choke all the life support systems of this planet, ha!! I wish a lot more people would think like I do.

But people seem to think that whatever happens happens, and that the only thing that’s truly interesting is the money they can make from making it happen. And the governments of this world are only interested in the tax money they get from people who are working to make whatever happens happen. And all of these multinational corporations’ only worry is what is happening on the stock exchanges around the world, all knowing that all that is happening there are the byproducts of all the continued growth in human activity around the world (building and construction boom, building of new airports and construction boom, building of new supermarkets, hotels, office houses and construction boom, building of superhighways and construction boom, building new homes and construction boom, building and construction of new oil pipelines boom, and building and construction of brand new football stadiums, opera houses, ski slopes, etc., etc.). And how about the military? Interested in the up-keep of the Al Qaida scare? And the headlong invention of new forms of warfare? What is it with people? They are all off to work in the morning, and that’s it. They don’t think too much, they just do. So long as they get paid for doing it, doh! They’ll keep mining for coal and drilling for oil. They’ll keep building new and enormously destructive aluminium and silicium melting plants. They’ll keep constructing new star ships, too. As Dr. Stephen Hawking might be fully correct in saying that the future of mankind must surely have everything to do with the expansion into space.

They’ll keep chopping down hefty old rainforest trees too. They’ll keep chopping down sub-arctic trees as well. They’ll keep hating trees, that’s it. And when the summer comes, and the lunatics go out into the woods in order to light a fire, what you see is that humanity is going crazy.

I wish I was more like the perfect stranger noted above. I wish I would feel oddly comfortable. If I did that, I’d probably also be feeling up to the task of writing another novel. But as I’ve come to understand that there can be no novel off my hands and head appearing on the book market, I realize that my only fucking option is that of being seated here, writing one son-of-a-whore blog, and watch the internet grow.

I wish I was able to believe that a novel manuscript from my hands would stand a chance of making it to the market. If I did that, I’d be writing the story of a coal miner meeting God one afternoon, but deciding to work even harder and make even more coal be available on the energy market. I can also think of characters like the old woman living in small oil-heated apartment situated in a high rise apartment house in the outskirt of a this small industrial town, and thinking her days away about the value of recycling, reusing and reducing, today, in this age of light bulb switching and mountaintop removal coal mining projects. There are so many modern and up-to-date characters here. I’ve got a long list of candidate murderers, rapists, and human traffickers as well. And football players and pop stars. And well-off airports authorities beaurocrats, school children and old farts with their minds fixed on whatever took place during the second world war and what is wrong with this world in our age of foreign Pakistanis and Vietnamese running the little shops at the corners all over the town, and the Thai people running spa places, Indian and Chinese people running restaurant, and Somalians selling drugs down the road here and in the local parks. And Polich people doing so much of the building and construction working; the old farts are all thinking about where the world seems to be headed. – While the youngsters go skating, skiing, running, ball kicking, and waiting for the chance to get a drivers lisence and a gas-guzzling limo of one’s own. — It truly is a shame about the car, isn’t it? Such a lot of pollution, I mean, and such an addictive thing to own as well. Freedom on four wheels, you know.

There are so many things to write about. But I guess what is required for me to get started would be the social development of an urge to rewrite history here, in order to get ready for changing trains here. This stupid train of destruction which we’re all at now is slowly leading us from here to nowhere, I mean: we should all be on our way to a cleaner future. — And not an even filthier one, which is what our political and financial leaders of this world have in store for us. More of everything, including oil, gas, coal, and beautiful planks of tropical wood for rich people’s livingroom floors. More room for the cows of Amazonia, I mean. And more room for palm trees in respect of the greening of car travelling life. What is good news in the ears of some people sound like bad news in the airs of many others. A topic which could make for a few good novels, but hell: I’ve already wasted my last chance, I guess. I’m sorry about that, but I was being a bit too strange for my general surroundings.

Now, that’ll be the story of my life and no pity at all, I guess. Not if my home people are allowed to judge, and the people of the Norwegian state’s health and social security system get it their way. I’m just so destroyed here. All what they’ve got for me is venom. They’ll even go so far as hating me simply because over the past few years, I’ve been treated with so much hate that it really is despicable. Now, I know that I live in the last Soviet republic of this world, and also in the 51st State of America, so I have no reason to long for social justice and human rights. Not here. Not everywhere? Oh, I guess so. I believe the Biggest of all Brothers of this world are very well connected, and that they love to think of me as a dead person walking. — This is the story of my life, for God’s sake. But I guess God is dead. Or, to the very least, that he’s left the building.

And the hearts turn cold

And hard as rock. The minds turn hard as steel and heated to the extremes. What the future might bring? In the short term and in the long term? If at all we are to dare thinking about the long term? The existence of the IPCC scientific consensus, is such a terrible pity. The consensus may even be too kind on mankind, or too rosy, for realistic futures thinkers to even consider. But no matter what might be the case: most people would rather not know about the IPCC findings, but pretend the climate science just doesn’t exist. And since it exists, many people waste a lot of considerate people’s time rejecting the ugly science. They say a little warming of the planet is good for the human condition. They say there is no warming of the world that cannot be explained as natural cycles. They say it is impossible to make the connection between global warming and human activites. And what they are saying is what all human beings would have loved to believe, but can’t, because the scienitific evidence is way too strict to the point. What is happening to the atmosphere comes as a result of what is happening on ground level, and the cows are to blame for all the extra methane, of course. Now, that’s what they say, and that’s a pity. As many of us believe that mankind should start responding to the same unfortunate science that the skeptics of this world spend a lot of time reading and responding negatively to. And that’s a pity. It makes a silly wild cat like me always wonder what these skeptic’s true agenda is? And the answer must be somewhere along the line that the industrial and economic status quo suits them just fine (must be), and that any move towards changing the status quo will, for that simple reason, be vehemently subverted.

Uh. So it’s a pity about the future then. –

As the human soul seems to work in such a way that there is a general realization about the place that time has come to finally cash in. The future may seem short now, so this is every person’s last chance to make a fortune. And now that the future is looking so bad, we’d better live to seize the day. Even on other people’s expences. Seize a lot of other people’s day, and make a quick fortune. That’s good and that’s nice, and you’re worth it. Oh yes. You earned it. But now, excuse me: even if we should decide to do absolutely nothing in order to saving this planet from human overgrowth activities, it is going to take us hundreds of years to destroy this planet completely. I think we ought to be worried about that, but hey: that may simply be because I believe in reincarnation? So what?

And nobody cares if I live or if I die. Nobody cares if anyone lives or dies. We’re all going to die. And that’s the most basic fact of all facts. So. –

I don’t know what I’m doing here

I am losing all hope here. I’m sorry. And all I’ve got left in me is a whole lot of death. I’m coming to terms with the fact that I really don’t have any reason to think that things will turn out fine. And I say this as a person who has been on the wrong end of national and international politics and policy making for quite a while now. Several years. And I can easily see that the political systems of our times are not going to allow for the kind of change which is urgently needed now. I think I’ve got a lot of people with me on this point: dramatic changes are needed, but changes of the dramatic kind is nowhere near to be discovered. We’re stuck with the inept political elite of our times, and they have nothing other than excuses to provide for us, like, the introduction of carbon credits and the realization that total emissions will be rising significantly in the next 10 – 15 years. And that there seems to be nothing to do about that, except accept it and think of other things: like winning all wars in the Middle East. –

But I’ve got these simple sentences from the Prophecies of Ezechiel (Chapter 2: verses 5-7): “If so be they at least will hear, and if so be they will forbear, for they are a provoking house: and they shall know that there hath been a prophet in the midst of them. And thou, O son of man, fear not, neither be thou afraid of their words: for thou art among unbelievers and destroyers, and thou dwellest with scorpions. Fear not their words, neither be thou dismayed at their looks: for they are a provoking house. And thou shalt speak my words to them, if perhaps they will hear, and forbear: for they provoke me to anger.”

This is a message that provides me with some strength. — Especially as I have always thought about the apparent UFO sighting of Ezechiel’s as something in my line of interest.

I’ve always taken at least some interest in the great beyond: Carl Sagan, Jon Bing, Douglas Adams, the Galaxy and the Universe in general. But then, I shall also admit to having taken an interest in historic items like slave trade and witch-hunts. I’ve taken an interest in ghost stories and other bizarre forms of fiction and fantasy. Let’s just say that I shall call myself a fellow who has taken an interest in great many things throughout his life, and who is disappointed and just a little perplexed by great many of the things that are happening to me, as well as the things that are not happening in the world. I’ve been through hell and back, and should have been just fine by now. And the world should have been in a revolutionary mood of great joy and achievement as we should all be looking forward to a future which had little or nothing to do with anything other than lowering the world total of carbon dioxide emissions, protecting and preserving the rainforests, curbing the desertification, etc., and — for once in the age old history of humanity — making way for a higher level of social justice around the world, as we were all planning for a better future for all, including our children and elderlies, and — Aaaaargh!! — Have I been dreaming?!

You bet.

The way humanity keeps doing the complete opposite of what we should be doing?! It beats me. And I want my extraterrestrial friends to come and rescue me from this madhouse and this mad world, and allow me to rest just fine. In the company of gray, green, and brownish blue friends that are unknown to me at the moment, but who really are there, surely!

What is it with people?!

This has been my foremost question for ages already. Many years. Ever since I travelled to Nigeria for the first time, back in 1996, as a research student from the Institute of Social Anthropology of the University of Science and Technology, Trondheim. One hell of a question. “What is it with people?” Or like one of the leading experts of the institute, Stein Johansen, wrote it: “Quo vadis, sapiens?”

It seems to me as if people are quite ready to continue distroying the ecosystems of this planet at the highest possible speed. Such a lot of people earn themselves big salaries for doing so on a daily basis. It’s absurd, but true. Like the humouristic coal miner might say: “Global warming, huh?! We’re working on it. Harr harr.” — Or like the aluminium melting facility worker might say: “Global warming? Huh, yeah: it’s my line of work. And don’t you tell me that it’s any of your business, dude! I’ll set my dog loose on your sorry ass, biting!!” — And as the good Prime Minister would say: “We are going to buy a lot of carbon credit for sure: this is my promise to the voters. A whole lot of credits for sure.”

It strikes me that I’m not supposed to be thinking about the atmosphere of this planet, even if it’s cooking, and even if I’d like to picture this world as some giant gas chamber in which people are walking, jogging and running about, driving around and flying away like right lunatics. I’d love to be able to sit myself down and write oine of the worst misanthropic social and physical tragedy novels known to mankind, and even get it published. But it would be like cashing in on the crisis, eh? As if I was the first person to do that? Names like Gore, Lovelock, and Hawking spring to mind. I’m said to belong in the wrong category of persons, I guess. Both on a political and a philosophical level. And on a spiritual level, too?!

I’m only guessing.

I find that I live on a planet on which bad news had better be spread by the rich and the famous, and not by a wild cat like myself. But then: I can also understand that my situation is a bit too peculiar to easily digest and take in. As I’m cursed with some kind of spiritual condition that can only be explained in terms that are really, really frightening, I suppose. And people tend to shy away from people who trigger feelings in others, for better or worse but most of the time for worse. And that’s what I do. I trigger feelings. It’s the strangest thing. I can’t explain it.

There’s really nothin’ else to say I, I can’t explain it

“There’s no mountain I can’t climb, there’s no tower too high, no plane that I can’t learn how to fly. What do I gotta do to get through to you, to show you there ain’t nothing I can’t take this chainsaw to.” — Eminem –

Uh.

I think I shall have to learn how to be more ignorant of all the ill-smelling things I’ve seen on the other side of that proverbial mountain, from on top of which I could see our entire future heating up and turning into eternal fire. The development needs to be stopped. We can’t allow ourselves to turn the whole world into a giant gas chamber, can we?! — Uh. Sure we can.

Now, I don’t know what I got to do to get through to you, good people. Although I think, sometimes, that in my own special way this is exactly what I’ve managed to do. It’s only that in order to speak or write about the unspeakable, you need to be a dumb ass like me: one who is quite ready to climb every mountain in order to warn people of the troubles that lie upfront here, in terms of future times. Not like tomorrow. But ten, twenty, forty, eighty, one-hundred-and-sixty years from now. But starting today. As we all know the climate systems of this planet has seriously started to go crazy. This is just the beginning, I’m afraid. And that is why I’m dead to the world, I suppose. Oh yes: I think this must be the reason why the flame in me simply had to be extinguished by the health and social services authorities of this hateful state. Love is what I can’t have. I can have all the hate in this world, it comes free on delivery, but the idea of a loving relationship is truly dead to me. I can’t be anything less than true to myself. That’s the terms of the curse that once was cast upon me, I guess, while I’m feeling left with no other option than arriving at the conclusion that the devil won. – As always, I might add?

It’s the price I have to pay for being so good as telling a version of the truth that could be emulated by Al Gore. It’s only that I’m a nobody with no job and no position in society. And when I provide the stupid answers to the question of what to do about the crisis, my answers turn out to be insensitive to the requirements of the business world, and naïve in every way. I say we need a wholesale reduction of consumption, and that we also need to do everything in our powers to protect the rainforests. This is just too little too late, I suppose, and now that everything seems to be going down the drains anyway, I guess I have become a person whose only position in the society of humans is, quite naturally, that of an outcast.

Now, while the rest of the human species seems to be lost in traffic, me, I’m lost in time. — I remember, all too well, back in 2004 and 2005 I used to believe that big changes were afoot, and that we’d all at some point be obsessed with rewriting history to make it suited for a low carbon future in which the needs of the planet’s biosphere would be in the limelight, and that everything would start to change. I thought the human species was bound to move away from the basics of the present civilization: endless growth and fossil-fuels addiction. Now, to the contrary, it seems to me like the proponents of business-as-usual and status quo have actually got it their way. It’s a very small percentage of the world population controlling every mass media outlet of this world, every financial, industrial and military institution of the world. The flow of information belongs to the rich and the powerful. Those people (or that strata of the population) who have taken it upon themselves to be the controllers of the weapons of mass destruction belonging to the nation states: an enormous lot of nuclear and conventional warheads, and an equally enormous lot of battleships, tanks, bombers, jets, and computerized rocket launchers. Hell, these people, who control an enormous lot of surveillance equipment as well, are openly planning to build a satelite controlled rocket shield in Eastern Europe. There is no end to all the metallic, military logic of the happy few. And while the planet is about to crumble under the strains involved in offering some kind of living space for billions of travellers and joy riders, the interest of every goddamn nation state of this planet takes preference before any other interest; barred, possibly, from the mighty interest of all these multinational corporations whose powers are completely out of bounds.

If humanity was supposed to start taking care of this planet, much rather than destroying it any further, it is my strong belief that human beings be allowed to claim planetary identity. As the internet revolution is gaining speed, it is should become easier and easier to making way for such an arrangement. I’m sorry to say this, and it makes me an enemy of the state, but all the nation states of this planet should start by getting in line under a planetary council which worked to facilitating for ecosystems preservation. And then, in the next phase, they should all just crumble and die. — I mean: take a look at any political map of this planet, and understand that I just can’t stand any of them. The nation state stands for me as the main distraction available to us, as at least some of us are trying to make sense of what might be the ideal reaction on the part of the human species, as the fact that the climate systems are going amok is becoming clearer and clearer. The nation states are stood right between nature itself and all possible groups of humans and it’s such a fucking pity it makes me want to puke. People should be allowed to think globally and act locally, but as a matter of fact what’s happening is the opposite. All these multinational corporations with head offices in the City of London and New York City, Berlin, Oslo, Zürich, Paris, Athens, and Abu Dhabi, Shanghai, and Tokyo think locally (controlling the policy making of nation states) and act globally. It is true. We are talking about globalization here, and all corporations are geared at always being fit for financial fights, market battles and economic warfare on a global scale, while on a local level, but never too far away from the satelite phone, the chief executives, lawyers, bargainists, orators, and important guests enjoy their cocktail parties in the modelled gardens or luxury yachts of theirs.

As I said: the human species should be allowed to develop planetary identities. I think this would be the most important feature necessary in order to start to deal with problems that by definition take place on a global scale. It is easy to think that human beings should reconnect with Mother Nature, but it is as good as impossible so long as nation states and financial and industrial corporations are allowed to call all the shots. And I have absolutely no reason to believe that a development away from the corporate and national rule is going to start taking place anytime soon.

Meanwhile — and probably for eternity — I’ll be stuck inside a black hole here, like a limbo, lost in time. Fearing for the future while loathing the past. I think this is going to become a feeling that is much more “normal” as the years go by and nothing much is happening in terms of climate change action and other forms of environmental restructuring. A creepy feeling.

No escape from the mass mind rape

… play it again, Jack, and then rewind the tape, and then play it again and again and again, until ya mind is locked in; believin’ all the lies that they’re tellin’ ya, buyin’ all the products that they’re sellin’ ya, they say jump and ya say how high, ya brain-dead, ya gotta fuckin’ bullet in ya head … check-a, check-a, check it out …

They’ve decided not to talk about the environment. It’s too frightening. It’s too bad for the economy. It’s too bad for the powers that be. So they’ve decided to talk more about health care. New drugs. New medicines. All the foodstuff that’s good for the heart, the stomach, the intestines, and even for the brain. They’ve decided to talk more about smoking. It’s bad for the health. They’ve also decided to talk more about cholesterol, which is bad for the heart, the body and possibly also the brain, so we should quit taking sugar. And quit smoking. Yes, definitely quit smoking. As cigarettes and sugar make you die more quickly than you would if you didn’t smoke and didn’t take sugar. The idea that the natural environments are crumbing under the feet of this ever-growing species of fossil-fuels addicts, is simply too much. So the owners and controllers of all the media outlets of this world keep preaching the same old health messages. While the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Sudan, and Gaza are frequently mentioned in the news. It is business as usual, and only God knows what’s going to happen if or when Iran gets their own nuclear warheads? Be afraid. Be very afraid. And trust us: the government will do everything necessary to protect you while you keep your body clean and your health just fine, not thinking too much about the emissions, the dust, and the exhaust fumes that are everywhere around you: those are simple by-products of the western lifestyle, which, in order to preserve and proliferate, our soldiers put their lives at risk, every day, because it’s necessary. — But don’t worry. We’re keeping a check on these terrorists, these islamo-fascists, these animals; of course we are. Just go to the store and buy some new health products, will you? It’ll sure make you feel just fine. Be a good consumer, please. It’s important. Call it a duty to our troops, if you will, although we’ve stopped being too loud about this aspect of the war economy.

I’m afraid we’re about to get ourselves landed in the scariest of all realms: that we are now making way for the development of a nihilist carpe diem culture, in which the past is a fucking disgrace and the future might even be a bigger disgrace, so you’d better not think too much about either the future or the past. And as concerns the present, well, there’s not much anyone can do about anything, really. So don’t think. Just do what you’re told, and don’t ask questions. It’s not worth it. Give up. Give in. Take it easy. And be good. Please.

Cold and steady in mood: slow to act or change

And the world is genuinely ruled by aged men who are safely seated upon big business office chairs, leading their entire lives protected by similar people who are seated in similar office chairs placed inside a disorienting range of national and transnational administrative and beaurocratic office buildings.

And the physical world is in shambles. Parts of the world is like a slaughterhouse and all of the world is in a scientifically proven state of great distruction. The world’s social systems are all in a state of great confusion, disorientation, morose and resentful silence and repression. Something is terribly wrong around here, but the so-called “family of humanity” (an extremely distorted, disintegrated and disunited species of gamblers and brutes) just don’t know what to do about it. All so very distracted.

And the world is populated by people who ever more frequently are asking themselves what they’re at all doing here? As if the human species really should have moved into the extinction phase by now. And that not a single human being should have been around no more. They all appear either to be desperate or sad, I mean. But who am I to say that? It sure feels to me as if I don’t know anything at all for certain.

“It’s a shame about the car,” this girl said. What she meant by that, I don’t know. On the one hand I am fully aware of the fact that about 30% of the total emissions comes as a result of motorised transport. On the other hand I’ve been told that there’s a taxi driver waiting for me. Ready to kill. Put my corpse in the boot and just dump it at a roadside somewhere. A hit and run accident. Perfect.

And the world remains in shambles. Thrash, litter, and garbage everywhere. Human corpses floating away in the harbours and canals of third world cities. And small stains of microscopic oil spills on every highway, every road, and every street of this world. There is one hell of a lot of tarred roads around here. Tarred roads and parking lots. About 40% of the world’s population is lost in the supermarket; the remaining 60% being poor people who are equally lost, only not in the supermarket. Who cares?

And the world is a penitential colony for more than 6 billion people, all looking to a future which appear dimmer and dimmer everytime they care to think about it. They don’t care to think too often about that. What will be will be, and carpe diem. Don’t worry about tomorrow, it will only make you feel bad. And you should not think too much about the past, either, as that will make you feel equally bad.

And the world is a self-oriented place. It is every person’s damn right to be self-obsessed. Not to worry about other people’s fate is a privilege belonging to each and every one of us: it’s a human right, that’s what it is! So never mind. No one can make the demand that anyone should start to care about their neighbours; never mind the fates of people leading the hopeless lives of refugees: a timeless life of eternal fatigue, under the canvasses of the crammed refugee camps in Pakistan, Thailand, Kenya, Kongo, and Sudan. Just don’t worry about that. It’s not your life, it’s theirs, and that’s perfecty alright with you, now isn’t it? And how about all those people leading a life of police harrassment and eternal squalor in the middle of the completely packed slums of all these multi-million-citizens big cities of the third world. And how about the poor people of the first world? Forget! Their poverty is their own doing! And this is the way things work.

Damn!! I’ve seen too much.

- –

On quite a different note, but still on the same topic of the general state of madness on the part of humanity in general: I’m thinking the mere existence of words spelt out loud by a couple of British scholars would certainly be enough to make any person feel a bit sullen.

“Professor Stephen Hawking, celebrated expert on the cosmological theories of gravity and black holes, believes that traveling into space is the only way humans will be able to survive in the long-term. He has said, “Life on Earth is at the ever-increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster such as sudden global warming, nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus or other dangers … I think the human race has no future if it doesn’t go into space.” Another of his famous quotes reiterates his position that we need to get off the planet relatively soon. “I don’t think the human race will survive the next 1,000 years unless we spread into space.” — “Dr. Hawking says he wants to encourage public interest in spaceflight, which he believes is critical to the future of humanity.”

On the future of this planet, Dr. James Lovelock says: “Our planet has kept itself healthy and fit for life, just like an animal does, for most of the more than three billion years of its existence. It was ill luck that we started polluting at a time when the sun is too hot for comfort. We have given Gaia a fever and soon her condition will worsen to a state like a coma. She has been there before and recovered, but it took more than 100,000 years. We are responsible and will suffer the consequences: as the century progresses, the temperature will rise 8 degrees centigrade in temperate regions and 5 degrees in the tropics. — Much of the tropical land mass will become scrub and desert, and will no longer serve for regulation; this adds to the 40 per cent of the Earth’s surface we have depleted to feed ourselves.”

Lovelock says: “We could grow enough to feed ourselves on the diet of the Second World War, but the notion that there is land to spare to grow biofuels, or be the site of wind farms, is ludicrous. We will do our best to survive, but sadly I cannot see the United States or the emerging economies of China and India cutting back in time, and they are the main source of emissions. The worst will happen and survivors will have to adapt to a hell of a climate.”

Now, the social outcomes which might follow from world-views like these could equally be a renewed resistance to change. I mean: when famous scholars like Hawking and Lovelock both say that humanity has nothing much left to hope for on this Earth of ours, the best thing to do could equally be to kill all proponents of change and do nothing of the crazy shit the environmentalists among us urge people to do, but just continue our way and just keep travelling along that primrose path of self destruction. As the end, according to Hawking and Lovelock, is (relatively) near anyway. That’s what they’re saying anyway. — So why bother?

- –

And it still is a shame about the car. In fact, it still is a shame about all of our climate gas emitting motoric and mechanical devises. It still is a shame about the greenhouse gas traps which are the millions of factories that so many people depend on in order to make the money that it takes to provide food, water, and shelter for themselves, their wives, their children, and also, perhaps, their old parents. It’s funny how people lead their lives around the world, no isn’t it? And it’s funny how people go happily to work at the garbage factories of theirs. It’s a real shame, isn’t it? Or is it? I mean: I’m feeling the vibrations between people here; and it sure seems to me like I live in a society which understands that changes are indeed needed, but also a society which simply can’t come to terms with the most realistic side-effects of a change to the better on the part of the environment. Goddamn! Life in the over-industrialized factory society of ours is like a riddle.

And all the while, the world is traditionally being ruled by the generation of old people who very often make the claim that they have seen and experienced so much it makes them smarter than young people. It’s a shame about the old people who quite naturally are park themselves up somewhere in between the spirit of change which is the prerogative of the younger generation and the actual change which would put them out of power. It’s a shame about the 50 – 80 year-old boardroom rulers of this world, who are camouflaging themselves as in favour of the kind of change that would not affect anyone who has the right to make the red phone call to the military leadership of the nation.

“Nuclear warheads, doh! What the fucking shit is this?! What’s up, man? Are these people out of their minds?”

They sure are. And they’re all surrounded by a wall of bricks, and existing in a dazzling sphere of cocktail parties and exclusive dinners, celebrating themselves and their sponsors. This is the ruling class of the world. These are the people all military-industrial complex protects and defends.

“It’s a crazy world we sent you to report from. Hapless lunatics.”

You’re right. The whole thing here is absolute bedazzlement, uh. –

Only love and death

if man is 5, then the devil is 6, and if the devil is 6, then god is 7

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And 8, my dear friend, is love and death. Only love and death. Only love and death. And if it’s only love and death, then I’ll be damned. Well, I’ll be damned. Yes, I’ll be damned. — In my dreams I see this tunnel. It starts with a bend and it ends with a bend, and between those two bends there is a small eternity of straight fast driving forward. A tunnel in which I can lie myself down and think of The Pixies. This monkey’s gone to heaven, I might think, while I’m contemplating this piece of biblical poetry: if man is five, then the devil is six, and god is seven. And know, fully well, that this is a fact of life, nothing but a fact of life, and only a fact of life (haha), and that I have been caught inside that trap which is all about realizing the spiritual facts of things in this age and time, when the ruling classes of our societies are getting themselves prepared for the kind of political game that is going to leave some 144.000 chosen people behind. — As the rest of the human race will die in the millions and billions, through wars, famines, floods, and other forms of environmental devastation. What we will have on our hands is the ins-and-outs of natural and artificial selection, that’s all. And that’ll be the brutal truth, they say. The brutal truth.

As I said: I see a tunnel. It is a tunnel of love and death, and I know that I can dream about love as much as I may please to do so. But I’ve stopped doing so. As a matter of fact, I’ve come to conclude that my 13-year-old daughter is the last person who is still with me, and that she is poised to leave me alone to my own fate. Just like the rest of my entire family has aready turned its backs on me, so will she. In 2007 my family has finally done what the rest of society did back in 2005. They were only a bit slow, that’s all. Now, in 2008, it seems to me like turning your back on me is only natural. My daughter will turn her back on me as soon as I am telling her that there is an official and an unofficial truth in circulation, as concerns my life and fate. My daughter is not going to believe a word of it, but conclude that I’m going to hell, and that “my dad’s gone crazy,” and goddamit, you little motherfucker: if you ain’t got nothin’ nice to say then don’t say nothin’ –

I have spent the last four years moving in and out of mental hospitals and losing touch with society more and more. Today I can only conclude that there is no way I will ever get well. Too much has happened to me along the way. Too many bad things. Only bad things. Evil things. Unbelievable things. Things that my daughter is never going to believe. — And there’s nothing I can do about that. Just accept it.

And I’m thinking about the condition I was in when, back in 2006, I was taken to the mental hospital by force only to receive the kind of treatment that might be due for an ill-behaved youngster to go through with. — I remember, before I was taken to the mental hospital I had spent as much as five full days awake without sleep. And before that last spell of sleep another three full days of no sleep. I was psychotic from lack of sleep, and equally psychotic from lack of belief in the future of mankind, thinking the best thing to do would be arranging for a collective suicide (quick! quick!) instead of getting our asses prepared for a slow ecocide. I was absolutely senseless with lack of sleep, and running around like a demon shouting in all directions a lot of hellish gibberish. No wonder I was brought to the mental hospital, I mean. But the treatment I received there was … pure evil …

Oh, I remember how Dr. Dickson found it extremely difficult to sign my journal. He simply had to tell me that the HIV diagnosis was good news in terms of the money I’d receive from my disability pension, and staring at me like some psycho from the movies as he said so. I was being ”killed.” No, not killed. “Killed,” I said. “Killed.”

And that’s not possible. — It happened, but that’s impossible, so now what?! 

Throughout the last half of 2007 it was communicated to me several times and in several ways: vocally and by use of non-vocal means of communication. All manners of communication, I say, except from that of putting it in writing. — Why? Because it can’t possibly be. Doctors working under the rule of the Norwegian state just do not “kill” people. They don’t! They just don’t! Okay?! So therefore: it just didn’t happen, now did it? Impossible! Of course it didn’t! I was “killed” but I wasn’t. ‘Cause it just can’t be. Not in a good country Norway, for God’s sake. I mean: Amnesty International can certainly guarantee it: things like these just do not happen in Norwegian institutions like Ullevaal University Hospital. It just can’t be.

What happened (really! it did!) may have had something to do with the spiritual side of being exposed to being with, and dealing with, a person who’d just come to conclude that all of mankind could equally just go and be quick about it, and have our politico-religious ruling class go ahead and organize the perfect mass suicide for us. I don’t know. But I know that a lot of spiritual shit is going on around me at all time. Now, I’m hospitalized again, and the workers here all tell me that they “don’t wish for you to experiencing bad things.” – While at the same time they’re all acting like the official truth about my bloody bodily condition, which is a lie, is the truth, and that the unofficial truth about my condition just doesn’t exist: it’s only about things that I got to hear last summer and automn, and not something that, in real life, has any bearing what-so-ever. How I am supposed to live with this is anybody’s guess. There’s no dignity in this, so I don’t think I’ll manage.

I can sense that I’m supposed to learn to live with the official truth, which is that I’m infected with HIV/AIDS, and that I’m just going to have to forget about the fact that a number of people — medical doctors and nurses — spent the last half of last year communicating to me the story of how I have been framed. My life is Madness then. And there is nothing I can do about that. The thing is: I’ve got a choice to make. A simple choice, that’s all.

They say “it’s from your own people you’re going to have it.” And my own people — the North Norwegian people — has nothing to offer, other than death. It’s just that they can’t kill me. I’ve got to do it myself, that’s all. It is what has been communicated to me again and again, by quite a few people. — So. I say: on with the extraterrestrial agents of mine! Let them come to me in my dreams! They’ll be keeping me alive for another while, I guess. While I continue to digest all the death that my people has in store for me. Now, that’s the spirit. –

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If you want to know what it is like to be working under a system that has gone evil on the world, you should definitely read up on Steve Milgram’s psychological experiment. -