Author: Philo

human

Excerpts from The Trump Diaries: The Role of Money

The conservative movement, controlled by major corporations are the main, if not sole reason that the traditional ideals of America are being threatened and undermined, not only in the USA but in numerous countries.  The conservative movement that placed Trump and his administration into office is motivated by money, but money does not sell, ironically enough.  What does sell is unwarranted ideology. 

Patriotism, a popular/populist ideal, often signifies a love of country, but under the guise of the conservative movement and its religious affiliations, patriotism becomes less a love of country and more a fanatical support of one’s own country as defined by a particular ideology, in this case Christianity.

Nationalism is another useful ideology to the conservative movement.  Nationalism lowers the categorical criteria for making others your enemy.  The conservative party’s goal is, simply put, to create a corporatocracy using nationalistic overtones and religious ideologies to bolster the idea, much in the same way that Hitler did in Germany, making promises to a continually more desperate population made so by the very movement the population came to support. 

All of this seems to point to a particular attitude of apathy and even loathing towards the American public by corporations and their stockholders as well as the conservative movement.  The legitimacy of the Trump administration and the conservative movement that supports it hinges upon nothing more than empty, twisted laws.  The emperor has no clothes, but it is becoming against the law to point this out.

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Excerpts from The Trump Diaries: A Fascist is a Fascist

Since Trump’s taking office in 2016 there has been a slide into fear and loathing by rational, thinking people.  This fear and loathing is not unwarranted, as any thinking person can realize that his taking office signifies a dangerous trend in this country.  It is fair to say that the Trump administration has fascist tendencies if the traditional definition of fascism is used. 

The use of and belief in certain ideologies, especially political and religious, is the cornerstone of what was once considered radical conservative thinking but is now the norm for the conservative movement.  Unfortunately, the conservative movement is based upon a platform which empowers ignorance, creates fear, and will most likely, if left unchecked, lead to a corporate-fascist government if all is taken into consideration.

Trump has shown that he is more than willing to resort to more than just the symbols of violence, invoking violence against political rivals, the news media, his implied and direct support of white-supremist groups, and invoking the military against legal protesters.  

The goals of the conservative movement seem clear.  First, to dismantle the system of government as put forth by the constitution and replace it with a corporatocracy, and secondly, to destroy any opposition to the first goal.  If Grover Norquist’s claim to want to drown the government in the bathtub is true[i], then his attitude begs the question: what will the government of the United States be replaced with if not with fascism?  If fascism is the future of the United States, let’s at least call it what it is.

 

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Freedom

What is choice but an intent on not being determined? We are all set on a a path, evolutionarily. We do not choose who we are for we are nothing but an end product. That is, until we choose to be curious and create our freewill.

It is (at first) a creation of our imagination. But imagination is laid to rest by evolution.

We are enslaved by natural drive, lack of intellect, lack of curiosity, and we waste our time in the delusion that we are free without even knowing what the word means, what the concept is. Often we call ourselves free never knowing that we are lying and deceiving ourselves.

It is only our capacity for intellect that can save us from the illusion of freewill.

It is only through thinking that we make a choice. We must think ourselves free.

Note: coming up Excerpts from The Trump Diaries

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If

If you can’t be content, be happy. If you can’t be happy, be well. If you can’t be well, be funny. If you can’t be funny, be adamant.

If you can’t be adamant, be curious and if you can’t be curious, be accepting. If you can’t be accepting, be quiet. If you can’t be quiet, be nice.

If you can’t be nice, be helpful. If you can’t be helpful, be mindful. If you can’t be mindful, be useful. If you can’t be useful, be willing.

If you can’t be willing, be honest and if you can’t be honest, be alone. If you can’t be alone then do and say nothing for that is all you are good for.

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Useful

Be useful in the face of uselessness. Utilize any chance to make your world a better place, make your environment one worthy of living. Do not sit idly by, but work towards an ultimate goal, not just simple cash reward but success and happiness. Do what you must to make yourself what you believe you can be.

Be careful in the world. Be skeptical of those empty smiles and thieves and bandits of empathy. Call a spade a spade but don’t lose yourself in the cynical mistrust. Guard that which is most important: your integrity, your character, your trustworthiness. always know that to a salesman you are a dollar bill, to a friend you are one that is to be trusted, to a woman a partner, and to a man a home.

Above all be yourself and do not apologize for what you have honestly come by.

Happy

I once believed that it took a lifetime to find happiness. But now I realize that it does not exist as a state, but as a process. Like most processes happiness has troughs and hills, valleys and mountains. This is why so many of us are so unhappy: we search for the perfect happiness. But the act of searching in some meaningful way for happiness is important. In fact, it is key…key to a happy life.

I’ve written that happiness is overrated and I believe that to be true. But I believe it is only so because of how we view it. The struggle innate in the process of searching for happiness is what counts.

To not struggle to be happy is the ultimate goal This is why the struggle is key. The process of life moves in time and we part of it. Happiness itself is fleeting but the process is ongoing; it is how we live while we choose (or not) to ask why be happy. And if or when we do there will only be one answer and that is that happiness is a good in itself.

We are both lucky and unfortunate enough to desire something as unfathomable and impossible as happiness.

Not

IN a world that is more and more defined by selling information rather than products, we become a product; we are the product. This is no secret, or shouldn’t be. Our privacy means nothing. “Rights” becomes an empty and meaningless word meant to appease our sense of justice. More important becomes our use to others, how we can allow “them” to profit.

This is the society that we live in. To re-create, to find our “rights”, to get out of such a society (if you so desire) is to be ever vigilant, always working towards a clear end: to be left alone by those who will not give you that right.

To retain a vestige of our humanity we must pay the price of “not”.

-of not choosing comfort and ease as ends.

-of not accepting what is presumed to be free, of not following norms, of not accepting any hive mentality.

-of not asking questions in order to turn our heads away from facts and reality.

Remember: we are nothing if not ourselves. Know who that is and what others can do to take that away.

Aphorisms

Simply by thinking right you will go against the grain. Just the act of trying to be moral; you will become a revolutionary.

Truth is hidden and lies are out in the open because Truth is freedom and lies are slavery.

And when, or if you see this you will be alone among the blind. And when, or if you ask you will know that they have put their own eyes out.

Once right is on your side, question it to keep it strong. Once you have truth in your mind, test it to keep it pure. Talk of the heart is nothing more than the empty words of the lost and the religious.

Search for others with right morality and Truth but do not lose hope that there are not many. Walk among the numbers to find rare beauty.

Do not lose hope by not having hope. Such hope is a fool’s game played by those who are standing still and claim they are moving.

To be human; we have to learn not to be a person.

Like a Child

We fall for easy and shiny trinkets and simple, comfortable thoughts. Like a child, we rush forward towards toys and lights. We do not dismiss them for the sugary confection that they are because we do not understand or value a good life. Often, we simply do not understand what those things are. And so we accept what the hive tells us, what the tribe demands.

When we grow, if we are lucky, we walk away from the tribe and find those that have done the same. They are few, but they have all removed the limits of the tribe, self-imposed or otherwise. We learn that man is not the measure of all things. But we come to learn that his ideas can be.

And if we grow to be wise we come to realize that evolution is a blind watchmaker and not an imposing dictator of our lives. We think ourselves towards freedom and with time, we can see past the trinkets and the easy offerings. We learn to walk away from ourselves, and remember who we have become.