Written Insight - What is the Fourth Estate?

While all of our short podcast / channel essays and insights here have sharable concepts, the following is a continuation of our L-Curve series and a carrying over into how oligarchy affects the fourth estate, its associated media, its problems, and rational solutions. All of which will continue to be touched on, sometimes in very basic concept Cliff Note form, sometimes more in depth with future additional layers applied through our work going forward.

The term "Fourth Estate" traditionally refers to various media, which historically has especially been the journalistic press, as an influential and unofficial branch of government (which has actually become corporatized government) that plays a crucial role in a democratic society. The term is often used to highlight the media's role as a key player in the democratic process, serving as a check on the three official branches of government: the executive, legislative, and judicial.

The concept originated in Europe, and its roots can be traced back to the 18th century. The term "Fourth Estate", as the fourth branch after the 3 previously mentioned, underscores the significant role of the press in a democratic society, emphasizing its responsibility to serve the public interest, provide accurate and reliable information, and act as a check on power. The idea behind the Fourth Estate is that the media, through journalism and reporting, acts literally as a fourth power alongside the traditional branches of government. It is seen as a force that can hold those in power accountable, inform the public, and contribute to the functioning of a healthy democracy through an educated voting electorate. And doing so by constantly providing valuable information, analysis, criticism through information dissemination, encouraging public accountability and transparency, fostering civic engagement, serving as a watchdog, sharing respectful debate + public opinion, and most importantly, speaking truth to power. Which can only be done by honoring what is called the Journalistic Oath.

Journalists do not exist in dictatorships. Not only do they exist in a more free democratic society, they are the fourth table leg of said society, always moving it forward toward less and less dysfunction. While even then, they never have it easy, we are currently sailing through dark and stormy seas for journalism throughout the entire world. Even the more free world. Because many of the institutions they work for, are doing basically the opposite of what we just said

- not honoring their oaths, resulting in far too large an amount of the population getting either only partial information, incomplete information, skewed information, or malevolent propagandised information that equates to an oftentimes under educated voting electorate. This is the stale rotting corpse that is legacy media which to put it simply, rarely tells the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. And we'll get into why this is in the next series of insights.

Written Insight - Tax Cuts Redistribute Wealth

So before going forward we encourage you to listen to our insight from a few back on something called the L-Curve. Which they don't want you to know about. It's a secret key that unlocks the mysteries of the system. And in this insight we give you another secret cipher which you may or may not know. But it's the opposite of what is commonly thought.

The L-Curve is a visual representation of the extreme mis-distribution of wealth on the planet. As evident in third and even first world countries. In which basically 99.9% of people have little to no money and .01% have all the money - and if you've got $3 million you're still in the 99.9%.

If you go to Davos, which is a town in the Swiss Alps, which annually holds something called The World Economic Forum, where elements of the .01% of the world's rich meet, which you or I would never be invited to attend in the first place, but pretend we were... Their storefront marketing pitch is that "The World Economic Forum brings together government, businesses, and civil society to improve the state of the world". What they're really doing is conspiring about how they can continue to consolidate their power via their interconnected networks while turning everyone outside of those networks into a global slave class, helping themselves before the state of the world with some tiny spillover that would in any way help the rest of the world. The one thing they could do, over anything else, is a very basic and simple thing which they will not do through their own will. And that is allowing sensable tax policy to be implemented on them.

Poverty is a vicious cycle. When you're poor it's hard to get out of that and you get more and more desperate and do non honorable things. When you're rich, your money makes more money for you, passively. Being middle class is a most realistic goal for most of the population, landing somewhere in between. We are an American who was born in the last three months of the 1970's. From World War II to when we were born, the US had sensable tax policies which built the strongest middle class in the world. Yet, since we were born the United States has gone so far down into a funhouse mirror clown world with non-sensible tax policy, and the less free parts of the world have stupidly followed suit, that they have been going on our whole life. Specifically since around 1980, when president Ronald Wilson Regan (6 letters, 6 letters, 6 letters) changed conservative economic policy from only helping the rich into only helping the ultra rich. Trickle-down economics, which should be called golden shower economics, which has created a new generation of godzillionaire oligarchical robber barons and has been the conservative standard ever since.

Republicans hate government so much and have so little interest in using it to actually function for the people, that all they do when in office is tax cuts and deregulation. That's the best they've got. But what they never tell you is that these things only really help the oligarchs. Deregulating or removing things such as the Glass Steagall Act, Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, and abolishing inheritance taxes that create a healthy financial cyclical alchemical cycle within a democratic system. Spinning that reducing taxes stimulates economic growth which is one of their many big lies. Because they always disproportionately help corporate tax rates and only benefit extremely high-income individuals. So here goes the cipher:

Tax cuts are re-distributions of wealth from the poor, middle class, and even some of the rich, to the oligarchs.
Tax increases are re-distributions of wealth from the oligarchs to the poor, middle class, and even some of the rich.

Tax cuts, when given to everyone a little bit but mainly catering to the richest 1% of society, steal your money, to give to the oligarchs.
Tax increases, when not done to 99% and only done on the richest 1%, have a healthy redistribution of wealth from the oligarchs to you.

This is old news. It's been a long con. When you think Republicans deplorable financial policies, think RepubliCON. You are being conned by cons who claim they are helping you when in actuality they are stealing your money. When you hear someone wants to cut taxes, go one micron deeper and ask... primarily on who? If they say, we're going to give you a $500 to $5000 tax cut, but then bundled in that, we're going to give this oligarch a $50 to $500 million tax cut, there goes your wealth redistribution. And if you do actually look at what they do and not what they say, you will find they are attempting to redistribute wealth from you to an oligarch when all they really need to do to raise capital is to tax the oligarchs alone. And the proof that they are oligarchic puppets is that they never do that.

So the simple solution is to roll back Reagan's tax cuts, which would not affect 99% of society and only raise the tax rate and inheritance taxes on oligarchs. And the ironclad evidence to prove that all republicans and to be fair some of the conservative corporate democrats are puppets for the oligarchs, is that they will scream from the hills and lie through their teeth that anyone who attempts to do so are their old talking point of being marxist communists. We give credit to our friend Jason Cooper who we went to college with and pointed this out on our initial L-Curves insight - Sensible tax policy is to increase taxes on the morbid wealthy and redistribute that wealth back into society. Non sensible tax policy is to cut taxes on the morbid wealthy and increase taxes on working people.

In our last insight we gave a Lord of the Rings metaphor, so to extend that, think of the oligarchs as being Saruman and modern day Republicans as the financial Nazgul. And for a Star Wars metaphor, that oligarchs are Count Dooku and the modern day Republicans as being the financial Emperor's Royal Guard. Or to throw out another metaphor from classical literature, Robin Hood would steal from the rich to give to the poor. They have been stealing from the poor, especially the middle class, and the rich, to give to the oligarchic morbidly rich for coming up on half a century. We, and 99% of society, should prefer a kinder version of Robin Hood's original way.

Now that we've given this sobering spiel, we'll be heading over to what oligarchy does to the fourth estate and why legacy media is the past and not the future.

Written Insight - What is Oligarchy?

Everything we say is based on a hopefully forward thinking philosophical enlightenment view that people are fundamentally good and all people of a country should have the power to vote, through voting and liberal democracy, and a respect for the American constitution which should represent the majority of "We The People." This is why we choose to share insights through our work to whomever has ears to hear. Regardless of who you are or your class status. However, and as a reminder, see the website www.lcurve.org to see this as a simple graphical representation, because we live in a society where 99.9% have little of the money, and instead .01% of society, which are the godzillionaire oligarchs, have the majority of the money, the .01% of society which has the majority of the money don't think much of working people and do not want democracy. Yet, we are not naive and know that they're are others, those who intentionally support or those who have been fooled into supporting oligarchy who think the opposite of how we do. And we will reveal who they are in this insight.

Oligarchy is a small number of individuals who wield significant economic and political power in a society, often due to their substantial wealth and influence over key industries. This is a worldwide problem. The term is commonly associated with a concentration of power and influence in the hands of a small, privileged group of individuals or families. Oligarchs have considerable sway over political decisions, economic policies, and various aspects of society yet could care less about you. The characteristics of oligarchy is that it always uses its reach for the following, and put the word morbid in front of each of these - industry ownership, political influence, and international reach. This is the real deep state. Which fuels inequality, lack of transparency, and challenges the functioning of a fair and open society.

If you prefer Lord of the Rings metaphors, think of an oligarch as being Saruman. Or if you prefer Star Wars metaphors, think of an oligarch as being Count Dooku. Now we hear that and most people hear that and go yikes. Yet a very politically right wing person hears that and goes... great! Because conservatism historically defends hierarchy and works on behalf of the top of the hierarchy. While liberalism, historically, works more on behalf of the poor but really middle class. This is why democracy is inherently liberal, as it should represent everyone, regardless of class status. And over the decades, as oligarchy has re-increased, right wing politicians have worked less on behalf of the rich, and now only work on behalf of the morbidly rich. Certainly not all people are the same and we don't want equality of outcome, but we can still have a logical range of hierarchy which has minimal poverty and a powerful multicultural middle class that's not going to take anything away from urban, suburban, or rural white people.

Even though we are primarily green to blue affiliated and he's primarily red affiliated, we've just said the same thing that Alex Jones says - "The global elite want to create a slave class and make you have to eat bugs". And we'll surely do multiple future essays and insights around the concept of accurately identifying problems but implementing logical vs bat shit crazy solutions. But this can be previewed by sharing that there is a saying in comedy, which is to punch up and not down. Yet because regressivism and conservatism believes in an in group and an out group, with those in the in group being better than those in the out group, they only always implement policies that punch down at those not in the in group. We advocate for the most free society possible, across all groups, with the strongest middle class, so when we say, represent "all the people", modern day regressivism has degraded to the point that when it hears that it thinks poor or even middle class brown and black people in suburbs and cities who vote blue that are not in their minority in group and that's terrifying to them. Never mind the fact that there are more poor rural white people, in the horizontal line of the L-Curve, than any other demographic so we're also speaking on behalf of them. Yet here's the tough swallow for them... the entirety of the right wing and to be fair the most conservative elements of the left wing do not care about the lightly rich, let alone the middle class, let along the poor, and somewhat in Europe, more in the USA, and to an extreme degree in Russia, get into office only to protect white power and extreme oligarchic white wealth. Which is why if you ever see a brown or black right winger in those countries it's so hilarious cause they're so self hating. In other non-white parts of the world, which is the majority of the world's populace, very right wing politics is just about protecting power, wealth, and only representing the top of the socio economic hierarchy - regardless if it's in a country which has a primarily brown, black, or asian population.

So even though historical lite / moderate conservatism certainly deserves political respect, and is more represented in a third party or frankly the conservative side of the blue dysfunctional Democrats because the primary American conservative political party has de-evolved into a more extreme faction of the right wing which does not deserve respect - I.E. the GOP has transmuted into the train wreck of dysfunction, liberal democracy hating, GQP fascist MAGA red cult, the foundation of extreme conservatism has our whole life lied in being the defenders and foot soldiers for the oligarchs. Who always always always when in power, have enacted non-sensible tax policies who only help oligarchs, and no one else. And we'll get into that, in the next insight.

Written Insight - Income Distribution And Democratic Freedom

In a previous insight we spoke about something called the L-Curve. Which we would encourage you to listen to if you have not already done so. For it is a secret key which we have given you for your self development that decodes how modernity works which is not how we wish it would work. For through all of history, extreme morbid wealth has always and will always corrupt. It's also a foundational aspect to the problems of democratic society, because it gives a tiny amount of people, who are not honorable, and frankly also hostile to democracy, so much power.

Extreme morbid wealth has through all of history corrupted those who have it - that's been the way for thousands of years. America was founded with an enlightenment view of getting away from kings and oligarchs of old Europe. Because that was an old outdated societal operating system which sucked for basically everyone and the American founders knew that oligarchy and democratic society were diametrically opposed.

Historically, based on income, classes were separated into peasants, workers, aristocrats, nobels, and monarchy or royalty. To simplify that we'll now say that the 99.9% of people who don't have private jets and yachts and have to work for a living, the horizontal line of the L-Curve are the proletariat while the .01% of insanely morbidly rich people, the vertical line of the L-Curve, are the bourgeoisie or the oligarchs. It's a sad reality that most Americans can't even afford a $3000 medical bill, but if you're not in that camp and are quite well off with let's say as high as a few million bucks and are even first world rich, you are still part of this proletariat and far from an oligarch.

A democratic republic means a government elected by the people to represent the people. That means all the people, the majority proletariat with the tiny amount of bourgeoisie. In which we elect representatives that are to enact laws that benefit the people. Yet, if 99.9% of the proletariat don't have the majority of the money, what does that do to society? It sends us back to the medieval feudalism of old Europe, the modern version of which is a third world style dictatorship, by skewing society to only speak on behalf of the corrupted mind rotted oligarchs and their crony dictators they install, and not the people. In which you have elected representatives, comprising the three branches of government, as well as the fourth estate, the fourth branch of government which we'll get into, who pretend to represent the people in what they say but really in what they do sell out to the interests of the tiny few who have all the money, over the interests of the people.

In the most free and least corrupt countries in the world that have the most democratic freedom, there is a strong middle class and strong labor force. In the least free and most corrupt countries in the world, dictatorships, there is a massive miss-distribution of wealth where 99.9% of the people are dirt poor with no middle class and .01% have all the money and we're back to feudalism. This is by far most easily fixed through sensible tax policies. For the most free and least corrupt countries in the world have sensible tax policies, while the least free and most corrupt countries in the world have un-sensable tax policies. And after a stop off to give more insights on what oligarchy is we'll get into what those policies are.

Written Insight - Democracy is Priceless

The underlying theme of all of our documentary-esq work, whether we are behind the camera or in front of it, or just narrating as audio only, is hopefully self development of the individual.

So Niles, why do you occasionally touch on politics? Which is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals.

We realize politics can be dumb, is generally so exhausting, and would instead love to be talking only about higher level things. We also don't want to make all of our work solely about politics and we wish we could just fast forward to a point where politics is sane, stable, and boring, and thus we do not focus on it at all, but democracy requires not only participation, but constant vigilance, and refinement in order for it to continue.

Due to the current political landscape throughout the world and in the United States and things that have been happening our whole life, American democracy is gravely under threat from one of the two main political parties which has through the decades gone from being backwards to insanely backwards and now wants to completely ditch it.

So because we know that democracy is priceless, and we want to make sure it is there for future generations, and because of our level of development, much of which we frankly have yet to really hear anywhere else, know we must do our part to help continue to occasionally but not exclusively share political insights to you the individual, for your own development.

For a well educated voting populace, which is desperately needing to continue being developed, can only continue to happen through the self-development of each individual that takes an active part in it. And we, as hopefully part of that, are unapologetically on team pro-democracy, and highly recommend listening to our essay series on the subject, which is a work in progress, and will continue with these shorter insights.

Written Insight - The L-Curve of Income Distribution

It is crucial when diagnosing the problems with society and culture in modernity to accurately identify said problems. Because you can't solve problems until you accurately identify them. And one of the absolute main problems with our lives today and over the past numerous thousands of years since the invention of money, on both an individual and societal level, is how wealth has been distributed. Or better said, mis-distributed.

Problems with environment, energy, race, class, education, banking, health, etc... all have economic causes and this is the major broken aspect to how money, the product of our energy, is working on the global Earth spiritual school campus at this time. In medieval feudalism, the king (one bloodline) had 96% off all the money, some landed gentry consisting of a few dozen families who were loyal to the most likely un-honorable king or queen’s family, had 3%, and then all the many thousands of people of the kingdom, who were dirt poor, had 1%. And believe it or not, little has actually changed since then in terms of income distribution.

If one were to ask homo-normalice what they think the curve of income distribution looks like throughout the parts of this planet which use money having adopted commerce, they would likely suspect it looks like either a straight line in a 45 degree angle, from poor to middle class to rich. Or maybe if one was more knowledgeable in economics they would realize that the curve is now starting to get much steeper than 45 degrees. Perhaps 60 or even 70 degrees from lower left to upper right. Well, none of the above are true. The curve is actually a backwards L shape folks. With it going nearly completely horizontal all the way across and then spiking further vertical to the stratosphere when hitting the top 99.9% percentile.

The world’s income distribution, especially evident in the U.S. is not a “Bell Curve”, it is an “L-Curve”. Never heard of this before? Well that’s not surprising, as this would never be revealed on stock market publications or any level of government or corporate media but instead on an off the beaten path website called lcurve.org which takes data from the US Census Bureau, The Internal Revenue Service, and the Economic Policy Institute and translates it brilliantly into a very basic graphical representation which is easy to digest. It’s important to note its data sources were notably lacking in data within the top 1% since we have a society that works best for the morbidly ultra rich minority by the morbidly rich minority who pay legions of Saul Goodman type accountants and lawyers to hide their money in offshore accounts. This is what the "Panama Papers" helped expose.

As long as we’ve visited this L-Curve site, and it’s been for over a decade now, it’s looked like one of those basic early 2000 era websites. Very plain and mainly just text based. At the top it shows a very simple and basic graphic of a stack of hundred dollar bills, which look like a grey brick in its ultra simplistic computer graphic representation on the green ground between two stick figure people. The stack represents the average U.S. household income across the population. There is a slider at the bottom of the small graphic which when adjusted, zooms the camera out to reveal the stick figures at the 50 yard line of a US football field. As one continues to zoom out we see the football field get smaller to be a view of hills and then mountains followed by open sky and then what looks like the beginning of space. With a single horizontal line going across the field sideways and then continuing vertically up and up all the way into what seems like lower Earth orbit. On the scale of the football field graph the bottom 99.9% of the population measure their incomes as stacks of $100 bills in inches. The top .01% measure their incomes as stacks of $100 bills feet or even miles high. The millions of folks who make over $30,000 per year are in the top 1% of the planet's wealth, sure, but within that class is only the beginning of the horizontal line of the L-Curve. On the vertical line of the curve is the total wealth of the tiny amount of people in the vertical spike which nearly equals the total wealth of the rest of the population combined and in there are 6 families who alone have half the wealth on the planet.

Of course there are great rich folks out there doing some good in the world. We’re not talking about those who have a few million bucks. If you do and you’re using it to hopefully share resources to help others via your community then jolly good. But it should be noted that even most of these rich people are also getting screwed in the same bucket with the middle class and poor. For the vertical L-Curve spike shouldn't even be classified as rich. It should be classified as parasitic against the 99.9%. For most working class folks, which is you, me, and everyone we know, have zero idea how staggeringly much money a billion dollars is. It’s 1000 times larger than a million and there are currently single individuals whose net worth is capping over 200 billion dollars.

The published wealth of billionaires, who should actually be called Godzillionaris of course, is typically estimated by their holdings in their own companies. These estimates do not include their typically vast diversified investments. It's true that there are differences among different kinds of income, but political and economic power derives from wealth. Raising many questions about modern societal life. Leading us to dare ask the incredible powerful powerful powerful one word question...WHY? Why does the wealth (which we all help produce) go so disproportionately to the few at the top? Why, in a prosperous economy, is there so much poverty while at the same time having a dynamic where one individual with a dick rocket could almost single handedly pay for every college education - if he wanted to. Why has the lion’s share of the growth in economic booms gone almost exclusively to those in the vertical spike while wages have stagnated?

Many of these questions will be answered in our future insights but the L-Curve highlights political questions around the concentration of wealth producing concentration of power that is fundamentally incompatible with democracy and free and open society. For you can’t have a democracy without a strong middle class.

Written Insight - What is Spirituality?

To give a simple yet accurate answer to what spirituality is we must first accurately define what spiritual is: A standard milk toast definition of spiritual is "of related to the spirit" which is a lukewarm definition at best. Our personal definition of spiritual is... drumroll.... "full spectrum nature."

If you respect and appreciate nature, you are evolved enough to appreciate the spiritual world. The natural queendom and kingdom, of which human beings are a part. Yet most people in technological first world modernity, and I know this is ironic as we say this from our office with monitors, cameras, computers, and color grading panels, most people have little to NO IDEA about what nature is fully capable of. They associate it only as the natural material world, like one would see from a David Attenborough documentary. Which are only the physical aspects of nature. And while the physical natural world is awesome, yet brutal because being in the food chain is brutal, and material nature is beautiful and amazing and awesome, the vast vast majority of nature is the deeper, higher, larger, greater, more complex "super-natural" aspects of it - from the infinitesimally small to the galactically cosmically large. Including what is beyond the five senses and what science still has much to learn from. So the spiritual world is the full spectrum of nature, from the material to the non-physical.

Since human beings are part of the mammalian queendom kingdom, we are part of nature, and we have mental and physical software and hardware, which, for millions of years, has been designed not just to survive within nature, but to interface with the full spectrum of nature - the spiritual. Because we are absolutely spiritual beings having a human experience, not the other way around.

If we give a very simple modern definition of spirituality one of which would be "related to the human spirit", that then means we must define what the human spirit is. And we'll get more into spirit and soul in future essays and insights... but generally, it refers to matters of the human mind, heart, and will through spirit or soul and their connection to something beyond the physical or material world. The human spirit is the incorporeal part of woman man. What you are, beyond your body. Because we are not exclusively and only the meat suit that is our body. And the fact that we are spiritual beings, with a human spirit, like all lifeforms, that aspect of yourself is what can interface with the more full spectrum of nature, hence,

spirituality is our ability to interface with nature and especially the larger, deeper, higher, greater spectrum of nature. Plane and simple. Any concepts like oneness, awareness, unity, meaning, the divine, god, existence, personal growth, consciousness, searching, as above so below, seeking, moral and ethical guidance, explaining, path walking, etc... all are attempts to interface with a more full spectrum of nature. So the pursuit of a deeper connection or understanding of the self, the universe, and often a higher power or transcendent reality which inevitably involves exploring questions related to the meaning and purpose of life, the nature of existence, and one's relationship with something greater than oneself will lead us back to nature. It's a personal and often subjective journey, and it can encompass a wide range of beliefs, practices, and experiences.

This subject could be a 10,000+ hour conversation, but as we wind this simple summary down, we will say, if a system one is within is heavily removed from nature, and thus not made by nature, then problems and Sturgeon's Law set in. A lot of smart, educated, science appreciating, and intellectual secular people can be turned off by the word spiritual, because they instantly associate it with religion and the problems of religion. And it's been very intentional that we have not included religion in these definitions. Yet, although we need to define religion, and how it differs from organized religion, which we will do in a separate insight, we will say the phrase "spiritual but not religious" has validity, as spirituality may or may not be associated with organized religious systems, many of which, if we are truly honest, have had, for thousands of years, a very very dysfunctional track record. Separate from organized religion, we also have many systems that claim to be separate from organized religion yet spiritual but are in fact... also incredibly dysfunctional, if not outright garbage. One can listen to 100 "spiritual" podcasts or channels and 90 of them will be crap. So regardless of what any system is doing, big or small, organized or not, if it is not leading to deeper interconnectedness with our natural environment IE... the natural world, and is instead replacing those things with other things, we have red flags.

So, on a final note, one of the least corrupt places to look in the modern world for the least corrupt spirituality and spiritual practice, is what the still remaining indigenous cultures throughout the world are doing. As it's not hard to say, that they are much much much more in touch with nature and especially full spectrum nature.

Written Insight - An Introduction to The Seven Liberal Arts

The seven liberal arts (from Latin liberalis "free" and ars "art or principled practice") are a classification of knowledge that dates back to ancient Greece. Liberal arts takes the term art in the sense of a learned skill rather than specifically the fine arts. Such a course of study contrasts with those that are principally vocational, religious, or technical.

Although the term "liberal arts" for an educational curriculum dates back to classical antiquity in the West, the meaning of them has adjusted over time to be expanded upon, with the modern sense of the term usually covering all the natural sciences, formal sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities. They were (and still are) essential for a free person (liberalis) to be educated in, as they were believed to contribute to one's ability to engage in civic life and intellectual discourse. The seven liberal arts are typically divided into two groups: called the trivium and the quadrivium.

Trivium:

a. Grammar: The study of language, including its structure, syntax, and semantics.

b. Logic (or Dialectic): The study of reasoning, argumentation, and critical thinking.

c. Rhetoric: The art of effective communication and persuasive speaking and writing.

Quadrivium:

a. Arithmetic: The study of numbers, quantity, and mathematical operations.

b. Geometry: The study of shapes, sizes, and properties of space.

c. Music: The study of harmony, rhythm, and the mathematical aspects of sound.

d. Astronomy: The study of celestial bodies and their movements.

These seven liberal arts formed the foundation of education in the classical world and were later incorporated into the curriculum of Renaissance education. They were considered the basis for a well-rounded and intellectually capable individual and they prepared students for more advanced studies in fields like philosophy, theology, and the sciences.

Now note, those two last sentences were in the past tense, because for some reason, most modern folks dont know of this classical system. We personally make a special effort to ask most teachers we meet about the Trivium and Quadrivium and they, as modern educators, have usually never heard of them either. So even though this is a timeless foundation, and since this is the very first time you've likely heard of them, ask yourself, why might that be? We are very mixed on conspiracy theories, with some being true and far too many being hot garbage, but we do think there has been an effort to suppress this educational system from the average person - Joe sixpack or Sally soccer mom. There's absolutely been a long effort by the American wrong wing to denigrate the word liberal, when it literally means free. So more on this system and its potential suppression in future insights, because at no time in the past present or future will this system not be a foundationaly important aspect of other educational systems, emphasizing critical thinking, communication skills, a broad base of knowledge, and by far most importantly, allowing any willing individual the ability to teach themselves.

Written Insight - Mind, Heart, and Will (part 1)

The phrase "mind, heart, and will" encapsulates essential aspects of human consciousness and motivation. It basically means, what you think, what you feel, and what you do. Each component represents a distinct facet of our inner selves, and together, they play a significant role in shaping our thoughts, emotions, decisions, and actions.

Mind: The mind represents our intellectual and cognitive capacity. It encompasses our ability to think, reason, analyze, and process information. It's where we store knowledge, make sense of the world, and engage in critical thinking. Allowing us to solve problems, learn new things, and adapt to our surroundings. It's the seat of our thoughts, ideas, and creativity. A strong and well-developed mind is essential for making informed decisions, understanding complex concepts, and retention of information.

Heart: The heart symbolizes our emotional and affective dimension. It's where our feelings, passions, and empathy reside. Love, joy, sadness, anger, and all the other emotions we experience are rooted in the heart. The heart is the source of our connections with others, driving our capacity for compassion, empathy, and relationships. It guides us in making decisions based on our values and what we care deeply about. A compassionate and open heart is essential for forming meaningful relationships and for finding purpose and fulfillment in life.

Will: The will refers to our determination, self-discipline, and volition. It represents our capacity to set goals, make choices, and take action. It's where we find the strength to persevere through challenges and obstacles, to exercise self-control, and to work toward our aspirations. The will is the driving force behind our commitment and motivation, enabling us to turn our desires and intentions into concrete actions. A strong will is crucial for achieving personal and professional success, as it provides the necessary grit and determination to overcome difficulties and pursue long-term goals.

"Mind, heart, and will" represent a trinity of human consciousness and motivation and is often invoked in discussions of ethics and morality. It suggests that our decisions and actions should be guided not only by rational thinking (mind) but also by our emotional and moral compass (heart), and that we must possess the willpower to act in alignment with our values. A balanced and harmonious integration of the mind, heart, and will is crucial for personal growth, decision-making, and achieving one's fullest potential. When these aspects work in concert, they remind us of the importance of cultivating a well-rounded and balanced approach to a more holistic and fulfilled life, where intellect, emotions, and determination coexist and harmonize to drive us toward our goals and lead us to a more meaningful existence.

Written Insight: The Trifecta of Reading, Writing, and Speaking

The trifecta of reading, writing, and speaking represents three interconnected and absolutely foundationally essential skills in the realm of communication and language development. Together, they play a pivotal role in education, professional success, and personal growth. In order to write well, one must read well, and in order to speak their own words well, one must also both read well and write well. Doing so has always been and will always be essential for the aspiring or actual philosopher.

Obviously, outside of perhaps the deaf or mentally impaired, we all speak. To other individual people and rarely under special circumstances in front of audiences or if professional, in front of audiences on a regular basis. However, what far too many folks, and even well educated college graduated folks, really dont do that much of, is read. After assignments in college, the reading slows, and then into work life we only read for work related purposes or in small doses of what we see on our phones. Which will not suffice.

When we say "foundationally essential to the philosopher" we mean throughout their whole life. Speaking, reading, and writing and many dont want to hear this, but that means we should be reading books, on the regular, our whole life. "Gulp" or "Ugh!" people say... because reading a book, especially a more dense one, is work and not leisure. Sure there are trashy romance novels out there which are essentially narrative softcore porn, and there are plenty of garbage disinformation books as well. A great documentary can be vastly superior to a bad book, but as a whole, the depth of books is much more vast than the depth of what one gets from the screen. With either fiction or nonfiction. It's common knowledge that when a book is adapted into a film the book is always better than its stripped down more lite screenplay equivalent. Because the medium of pros - words on a page allow, as a whole, for a deeper well to pull and comprehend concepts from, while also increasing vocabulary, acquiring knowledge, and to inspire critical thinking.

When one finishes their work day it's much more common to want to watch than read a book isn't it? The wife and I are both hard working professionals and we are known to sit down and watch a show in a larval like state, just like many couples in their evening time. I've always read almost exclusively non fiction and she's almost exclusively always read fiction here and there, but as of late, her ratio of reading to watching has biased way more toward reading and at the time of this recording, she oftentimes prefers to spend her evenings reading now reading over watching some so so long drawn out show that half way through you wonder why you're still watching and question the time commitment you have already invested in it.

Reading is the input, and writing and speaking are output. A realistic ratio is that one likely has inputted, meaning read, 100x more than they will write. So in order to write well, and well often, one must be constantly reading. Column, articles, essays, research papers, books, novels, etc... The good news is, and we'll devote a future insight into this, is that due to technology, reading can also now mean text to speech or audiobooks which allow for the potential to increase the amount of time one can read because they allow for more of a multitasking dynamic. As listening is something you can do while gardening, or commuting, etc... Because we have spent 20+ years listening to non fiction audiobooks, that has allowed us to now spend the last 5+ years writing essays and are now also moving into these shorter insights. And there's no way we could have done that, or even think of writing feature length screenplays or novels without a prior long history of reading, and then writing, and then speaking. This trifecta represents a powerful set of skills that are integral for empowering the individual to express themselves, acquire knowledge, engage with others, navigate the complexities of modern life, and build up a unique body of work. Because if you input well, you will output well.

Written Insight: The Importance of Asking Questions

Is the majority of your time spent around boring and uninteresting people that energetically drain you? Well... you are not alone. We personally are constantly amazed how many people we interact with socially, or in any environment where it might be a getting to know others dynamic, how few people ask us much beyond the basic "how you doing?" or "what do you do?" questions. If you have a lot of people in your life that ask you multiple questions in conversation, consider yourself lucky. In America, surface level questions may be peppered a bit, but continuing questions, let alone deeper ones, are rare.

In order to have a superior exchange over the narrow canyons of average thought, discourse cannot be unilateral, if you know that word - being any doctrine or agenda that supports one-sided action. It must be a reciprocal discussion, of give and take, statement and question, to rise up out of a shallow canyon and see some level of horizon one must ask instead of only speak. For we have two ears and one mouth and they are to be used proportionately.

Women are usually better socially, and it's common for men to lose more relationships later in life and then get lonely and shrivel up and die earlier than their female counterparts. Any centrarian living in a blue zone knows that their social lives and community are a key to their life longevity. We know several men, who are very well paid working professionals and the husbands of our wife's friends, that we might see only once every few years, who on the rare occasion we see them, we ask them maybe a dozen questions over the first hour or two, and they never ask us anything. So at some point we stop asking and the conversation stops and as a result they simply dont know much about us, even though we've technically known them at a surface level for over a decade.

Due to the narcissism epidemic, many just want to talk about themselves and what’s going on in their own lives, perhaps not even tracking how much others in the conversation are interested in what they are saying. To keep another pair of ears interested during a discussion at a party, or around a dinner table, or even in a work environment, the speaking party must not just project, but also be willing to receive. Their ears must function as much if not more than their mouth. This entails asking multiple if not frequent questions of others. This is the origin of a bad date. Where two people are at a restaurant and one of them is a blabbermouth valley girl Chatty Cathy doll, unilaterally explaining away all aspects of various social minutia of their life without the reciprocation of ever wanting to know anything about the other which they are supposedly there to get to know. Shallow people just want to talk about themselves, so talking to unsophisticated members of especially the opposite sex in social environments, which pre-internet took place 99% of the time in dens of alcohol distribution, can far too often consist of just nodding and pretending looking one is interested.

Developed by the Greek philosopher, Socrates, the Socratic Method is a dialogue between a teacher and their students, instigated by the continual probing questions of the teacher, in a concerted effort to explore the underlying thoughts that shape the student's life choices. In school, university, or the professional workplace it's common for new recruits to have a fear based mindset and be scared to ask because the moment they ask reveals they don’t know something. In that environment, this will surely be to a potential group of onlookers, fellow students or colleagues. Yet, wanting to know is engaging and lowers the threshold for others to also get involved in the discourse and then usually improves the overall quality of the learning and/or work experience.

When you ask another person "get to know them" questions it shows not only that you have a growth-based mindset, but most importantly, that you care. Because the act of asking questions is a fundamental and powerful tool for human improvement, exploration, and progress - regardless of being in a formal educational context, asking gathers information, facilitates learning, drives innovation, broadens thinking, challenges held beliefs, strengthens communication, allows for problem solving, fosters creativity, encourages adaptation, improves relationships. And sometimes such things can come from the most unexpected people or places, such as from the janitor instead of the Socratic philosophy professor. Those who ask others things, regardless of status, know life provides a never ending education allowing for the ability to be informed, engaged, and enriched.

The quality of your life is the quality of your questions. Why would one ever stop asking questions? We'll get into the importance etymology, the study of the origin of words, in another insight, but it's worth noting that the etymology of Asking = AS KING.

Written Insight: Podcast Update + Channel Reboot

Our primary YouTube channel has consisted of our independent documentary film outputs - basically our directing work which is, for the most part, self financed and we shoot during our travels, with us rarely on screen, instead usually behind the camera, and sometimes heard as narrator. We also write and narrate essays which serve as incubation writings for our documentary projects, which were once included also in this channel but we came to find worked best broken out into a separate channel called "An Infinite Path" which is named after our podcast that's comprised of those audio narrated essays and release there prior to us potentially doing the long and laborious task of adding a visual component to some of those writings. We had about a year ago also experimented with rebooting this channel to also include our documentary/journalistic/cinematic style street photography, but also deemed that worked best as a separate channel called "Philosophical Photography" which corresponds to our photo blog. So we now have 3 separate channels - each updated periodically. Hooray!

In the meantime, this channel has basically remained a random collection of our past live-action film projects and things we've shot. But with us usually being the one behind the camera and thus out of sight and that is now going to change as we reboot it again, because we are now going to be making the majority of the video uploads here just like this one of us talking on screen, putting the You in YouTube, with us speaking into camera.

All of our essay writings and still and moving work have tried to have underlying themes of life insight, self development, and human beings' relationship to the natural world. This includes sub-categories such as mental health and physical health, ecology, philosophy, spirituality, pro democratic political philosophy, more authentic ways of living and being, etc... Not fluff, not gossip, not film criticism, not how to's, not gear/hardware reviews but instead areas of hopefully more philosophical deeper substance about life which our past/present future documentaries hope to focus on. Outside of travels, we also work a day job and thus spend quite a bit of time on the homefront working from our office shed which you are now seeing here. So many of these subjects that we are interested in, and have made documentary outputs surrounding, are able to be brought more efficiently to you by simply turning the camera on ourselves and having us directly talking about them. So the idea is to now use this channel with us doing so in short length videos consisting of life insights from past, present, future works that you may find valuable, filmed with the same hardware we would shoot one of our documentary projects on. Still peppering in future doco trailers, excerpts, and shorter form films here, but with those being done on a more sporadic basis while our speaking into camera here will now be the majority of the content of this channel and should allow for more value added here along with more regular content to both this channel and our related podcast as well.

We've learned a lot through our life work, study, praxis, and experiences and although we still have much to learn, creating and putting content out there, helps us learn by sharing with you.

Written Essay: Pro-Democracy Series #8: Telling People What To Do

Within any free society or in more actuality, a society that strives to honestly try and move toward being more free, there is one thing that should be paramount. And it is what was just stated....drumroll... freedom. What is freedom? An initial Webster's 1828 definition of freedom states it as: "A state of exemption from the power or control of another; liberty; exemption from slavery, servitude or confinement" - personal, civil, political, and religious. With a secondary, more simple definition being "Any exemption from constraint or control". Now within reality in modern society, we (being all individuals) should have the most freedom possible, within certain rules of course. Primarily which should contain the caveat of "not incurring injury or loss". To other property, people, and in a more sophisticated society, within aspects of nature as well. Unless you're going to live off the land and self impose being part of nature's brutal food chain by foraging and hunting, in which you need to incur occasional injury to other creatures and in most extreme cases, do viking style skull cracking followed by potential cannibalism to maintain sustenance during the brutal winter. Instead within modern political and civil society that's not the Purge, which is shared with your fellow women men, one does not have the freedom to say they're going to kill their neighbor without consequence, nor does one have the freedom to steal from their neighbor without consequence, nor does one have the freedom to kill their neighbor as an aggressor without consequence. Because all of which would be incurring injury and or loss.

Regardless of the rules set by laws, there is no way that any law maker would ever come into office by offering to limit the populace's freedom through enacting new rules and laws under their policies. So regardless of party or political orientation, one always has to market themselves on being pro freedom and in more extreme cases claim their opposition may want to even limit individual freedoms. However, a certain type of politician that is for progress (going forward) promotes real freedom from the two definitions stated prior and means it, because it's democratic freedom within a hopefully conscious and educated voting populace, while another type of politician that is for regress (going backwards), promises freedom, but has to lie about it because it's pho-authoritarian freedom which takes on another hidden element. And in this essay we give you a basic deconstruction of what that element is.

If you, like the majority, are pro-democratic, you want the most people possible to have a say in the selection of their representatives. Those whose policies actually do this are called populist. This comprises what is called the "proletariat", Who are the social class of wage-earners, those members of a society whose primary possession of significant economic value is their labor power. They make up 99.9% of society in the 3rd world and 90% of society in the first world. Then you have 1% to 10% of the society called the "bourgeoisie", who are a class of business owners and merchants which emerged in the Late Middle Ages, originally as a "middle class" between peasants and aristocracy. They are traditionally contrasted with the proletariat by their wealth, political power, and education, as well as their access to and control of cultural, social and financial capital. Who under democratic systems, also have a say, but unfortunately a very disproportionate amount of power. A long con is to make people from the proletariat think they are part of the bourgeoisie, when they are not. There are members of the proletariat who are pro-democratic and there are members of the bourgeoisie who are pro-democratic. However, when one is pro-authoritarian, they are the opposite of being pro-democratic because the pro democratic coalition wants both to have their say - that's why they can be truthful, while the pro-authoritarian minority only wants their small minority who happen to be the bourgeoisie and none of the proletariat to have a say, that's why they have to lie and spin. So we have continued and will continue to juxtapose in this series one who is pro-democracy vs one who is pro-authoritarian. As authoritarianism is a political system characterized by the rejection of political plurality, the use of strong central power to preserve the political status quo, no matter how crap, and reductions in the rule of law, separation of powers, and democratic voting.

In our country, the United States, we are not a true democracy. If we were every citizen would vote on each piece of legislation proposed both at a state and federal level. Although there are advantages to that way of governing and due to technical advances from when our country began we should move toward being more like that with perhaps some sort of system similar to the reddit upvote dynamic. All initially done on analogue paper of course and we will get much more into the heart of democracy which is "voting" later in this series. We instead are still currently a "democratically elected constitutional republic" in which we elect representatives to create and vote on legislation. And as a result, unfortunately have only two primary parties named after this system. One is the more left leaning centrist party called the Democrats who are interested in people and the other is the more right leaning party called the Republicans that's interested in property.

Although we are politically independent, meaning we do not tie ourselves to be a member of either of these specific parties, and have in the past voted across multiple parties, our voting history has primarily extended across parties that use colors such as blue and green. The green is a small third party but the blue is the Democrats, which we wish were even better because they suck ass at messaging and are still a corporate lite middle of the road party. However, they are the more balanced party (and this is a podcast one aspect of which is based in seeking balance) and are comprised of a spectrum of quite liberal people to quite moderate conservative people - who comprise part of a pro-democratic coalition, and for the most part, have representatives which actually work to represent the proletariat and are generally the more truthful of the two main parties. The other main party in the United States, the Republican party, is red and ever since we were a young tween, because we were not indoctrinated into extremist imperial religion which is the foundation of the whole party, knew it was a crew whose tactic was to divide and conquer by spreading fear and or full hate. And because they have always only really been conserved with representing the corporate bourgeoisie class it has always had to pretend it's for democracy but has never really ever quite been so and is instead just about power and control over the proletariat. Even though that's been the playbook of the party our whole life, being the less truthful of the two parties, in more recent years it has degraded heavily into becoming something that's not conservative, in the true since of the word, but has transmuted into a fascism meets idiocracy authoritarian clown show lie with every breath cult. Which is now saying some of the quiet parts out loud including sometimes openly announcing its hostility to democracy.

While we will get more into deconstructing this later in this series, a gentleman named Ethan Grey who was once in the red cult, and was strong enough to leave, gave an excellent simple deconstruction to its past and present messaging on freedom. Which the corporate legacy media (meaning even the networks outside of the full propaganda media) have, in our lifetime, done a crap job of having any direct conversation about with the American people because they are, for the most part, corporate networks who seem to be A-okay with fascism lite. Why? Sadly because they are not interested in being real hard hitting journalists that speak truth to power who fight the bourgeoisie man but instead work for the bourgeoisie man because they know they can make more money doing so. Hence, the sad state of the

fourth estate is if one wants to speak truth to power and hard call out liars has to go outside the main to do that. Which is resulting in an old paradigm fourth estate, that won't structurally fix the messaging problem, flowering a new fourth estate to take over in the old ones place. With this series being one aspect of us doing our part to help with that. So you will hear this deconstruction on an obscure podcast rather than on corporate media. By a random guy, who happens to be us - combined with Ethan, a former cult member who had the strength, will power, and spiritual development to de-program himself and get out of a cult, and deserves compliments for doing so. Here are his insights along with our insights, on the red cult's messaging on everything of importance:

1. You cannot tell them what to do.
2. They can tell you what to do.

You've watched the Republican Party champion the idea of "freedom" while you have also watched the same party openly assault various freedoms, like the freedom to vote, freedom to choose, freedom to have what books you want available at the public library, and freedom to marry who one wants and so on. If this has been a source of confusion, then your assessments of what Republicans mean by “freedom” were likely too generous. Here’s what they and other authoritarian parties throughout the world mean by freedom - for themselves and their members alone:

1. The Freedom from being told what to do.
2. The freedom to tell people what to do.

So with this in mind, let’s examine some of our political issues with an emphasis on who is telling who what to do. And there will be no ambiguity about what the world's authoritarian parties' underlying basic actions are ever again. Not what is said, but what they attempt to do. Starting with the COVID-19 pandemic, origins aside and pharmaceutical industry profits and greed and greed from maximizing profits aside, which are whole other stories, we were told by experts in infectious diseases across the world that to control the spread of the pan and if you're more conspiracy minded plandemic, it would be wise to socially distance, which on a side note is a terrible term - As we are social beings who desperately need social connection. So way better to call it "temporarily physically distance"... thus we were told by them to temporarily physically distance, wear masks in public spaces, and get vaccinated. So, in a general sense, we were being told what to do. Guess who had a big problem with that? All Republicans saw were certain people trying to tell them what to do,

which was enough of a reason to make it their chief priority to insist that they will not be told what to do. Even though what they were told to do could be said to save lives, including their own. As you can see, this is a very stunning commitment to refusing to be told what to do and in many cases was used as an excuse to do the exact opposite. So during this time we saw corporate grifting regressive collectivist dogmatic false Christian cult churches of Empire who hate science and know nothing of spirituality packed together for service without a mask in sight while we saw more true and moderate science accepting churches of unity encouraging their attendees to wear KN95's during their services as well as indigenous people hiking miles to get vaccinated.

On the room splitting subject of abortion, which we touched on prior in this series and congrats if you're still listening, claims of being "pro-life" are actually "forced birth don't care about life" by patriarchs who want to disempower women. But Republicans will nevertheless use marketing spin to claim to be the “pro-life” party because they recognize “pro-life” marketing lies can be used to tell people what to do - especially the female half of the species. The reason they lie about being “pro-life” when they are trying to tell women what to do with their bodies is not out of genuine concern for human life, but because they recognize that in this position, they can tell women what to do and claim it's about another life. That’s why when you use that same appeal “pro-life” toward asking Republicans to help pass legislation regarding doing something about gun violence in schools, it doesn’t work. Because there is no bigger subject for them than the second amendment "the right to bear arms" because on their end they are pro-violence and on your end in order to couple common sense rules with that right you are now in the position of telling authoritarian ammosexuals what to do and that’s precisely why they don’t want to do anything about it - hence you get "come and take it" and "from my cold dead hands" bumper stickers. So for a party that claims to care about life but is really an end times death cult, gun violence in schools is not a problem, but their children having to wear masks in schools is. Because somebody outside of their cult is telling their children what to do. Since the primary trait of modern American Republicanism is being selfish, someone else's dead children bother them significantly less than someone else telling their children what to do. Only *they* should do that because they are patriarchal extremist religionists who view their children as their property. Especially their daughters.

They claim to be for “small government”, but that really means a government that tells them what to do should be as small as possible but when the Republican Party recognizes it has an opportunity to tell people what to do, they are more than happy to grow government and have long had Deep State envy. Real or illusionary.

The reason Republicans are always so infatuated with the border, specifically the one connecting the USofA to Mexico, isn’t because they care about border security, it’s because they recognize it as the most glaring example of when they can tell other people what to do - specifically poor brown people. And if it's poor brown women that's extra icing on their hate cake. That's why it’s their favorite issue. You want in? Too bad. We tell you what to do and you have no say. If Republicans could do this in every social space, tell the people who aren’t like them too bad, get the fuck out - that would be something resembling their ideal society.

There are economic policies that we can demonstrate would be of obvious benefit to all voters. Including Republican ones from the proletariat who have been conned by decades of mainlining propaganda TV networks and AM hate squawk radio into acting against their own interests on behalf of the bourgeoisie. So how do Republican leaders kill potential support for these policies? Make the issue about who is telling who what to do. So for example, if we were a Labor or Green Party politician who said we're going to raise taxes on the top 1% of income earners so godzillionaires can have only 2 gulf stream jets instead of 5 gulf stream jets and in exchange we can have higher nationwide salaries for public school teachers. The framing from the red cult would be that someone outside of their party are the people telling their cult members what to do. If you want to know why Republicans can easily be talked out of proposals from green, blue, and other non-red cult parties that are shown to be of benefit to them, it is precisely because they have to entertain the idea of someone like Democrats telling their flock what to do. What should be understood here from the very beginning is that you are dealing with a worst case scenario mean and selfish bully with no heart, a corrupted mind, but a lot of will on an elementary schoolyard who says no one but them should ultimately be in the position to tell anyone what to do. Only they can do that - hence they are the authority - hence they are authrotarian.

On the issue of anthropogenic climate change, in Australia, the United Kingdom, and America, primarily influenced by Murdoch mind rotting propaganda networks in those three nations, we're now at a point where many regressives in those countries don’t regard it as a serious issue to the extent that they think it is a liberal hoax. The causes of climate change aside, in regards to the environment of our beautiful planet, there are two types of people on the subject. The type who want to use our lands, rivers, skies, and oceans as toilets and those who do not. We are on the side of both David Attenborough, the indigenous, and eviormentalists and are a strong advocate for not using them as toilets as we have been for the last couple centuries since the industrial revolution began. So when putting forth policies to support such things, and doing so involves telling Republicans to do something for the sake of the planet, you are still ultimately telling them what to do. Furthermore, you are conceiving the planet as not only a potential spiritual ecosystem, but as something alive and important that all human beings should have to share in an ecological balance. Since American Regressive's underlying foundation is based on the religions of the empire, not only do they have no interest in sharing it but think God put those things here for them to colonize, conquest, and extract for prosperity gospel profit. Which is a paramount example of their de-spiritualization.

Now here’s where things get interesting: when you explain to Republicans you want them to do something and explain it’s on the basis of benefitting other people and the environment by not using it as a toilet, then you have really crossed a line. Not only did you tell them what to do, you told them to consider other humans and living creatures. The whole point of an arrangement where you can tell people what to do, but you can’t be told what to do, is precisely to avoid having to consider others. This is why this is their ideal arrangement: so they don’t have to do that. This is why this is a very toxic school yard bully relationship with the idea of who can tell who what to do. So much so that it seems like the entire point is to conceive of a “right” kind of person who can tell other people what to do without being told what to do doesn't it? So let’s add one more component to this dysfunctional dark imperial shadow mindset for who tells who what to do.

1.There are “right” human beings and there are "wrong" ones.
2. The “right” ones get to tell the “wrong” ones what to do.
3. The “wrong” ones do not tell the “right” ones what to do.

As you can see, we've been hinting at what past essays in this pro democratic series have built upon in regards to anti-democratic authoritarian ideology. Which is who the authoritarian views as their "right people" - Which in Liberia or Sierra Leone are crazy black authoritarian warlord fascists with child soldier armies who pretend to have something to do with Christianity, in Saudi Arabia or Iran are brown extremist fundamentalist muslims that pervert Islam and smash statues from ancient Persia with sledgehammers, in Myanmar are

autocratic military state asian generals trying to weaponize Buddhism, and in the United States are "Straight only allowed White Male Anglo Saxon Protestant (WASPs) who are false Christian Supremacists and not real love thy neighbor Christians. All of which are cults so large that they prop up the accompanying caste systems structures. While in each case, the "wrong people" are everyone else in the multi-philosophical, multi-science, multi-faith, multi-ethnic worldwide pro-democratic coalition that makes up the majority of the population. Hence, if you're in the cult, you're considered "right", but if you're not in the cult, you're considered "wrong" and we'll be heading over into the nested layers of cults, in the next essay in this series.

Written Insight: The Importance of Asking Questions

Is the majority of your time spent around boring and uninteresting people that energetically drain you? Well... you are not alone. We personally are constantly amazed how many people we interact with socially, or in any environment where it might be a getting to know others dynamic, how few people ask us much beyond the basic "how you doing?" or "what do you do?" questions. If you have a lot of people in your life that ask you multiple questions in conversation, consider yourself lucky. In America, surface level questions may be peppered a bit, but continuing questions, let alone deeper ones, are rare.

In order to have a superior exchange over the narrow canyons of average thought, discourse cannot be unilateral, if you know that word - being any doctrine or agenda that supports one-sided action. It must be a reciprocal discussion, of give and take, statement and question, to rise up out of a shallow canyon and see some level of horizon one must ask instead of only speak. For we have two ears and one mouth and they are to be used proportionately.

Women are usually better socially, and it's common for men to lose more relationships later in life and then get lonely and shrivel up and die earlier than their female counterparts. Any centrarian living in a blue zone knows that their social lives and community are a key to their life longevity. We know several men, who are very well paid working professionals and the husbands of our wife's friends, that we might see only once every few years, who on the rare occasion we see them, we ask them maybe a dozen questions over the first hour or two, and they never ask us anything. So at some point we stop asking and the conversation stops and as a result they simply dont know much about us, even though we've technically known them at a surface level for over a decade.

Due to the narcissism epidemic, many just want to talk about themselves and what’s going on in their own lives, perhaps not even tracking how much others in the conversation are interested in what they are saying. To keep another pair of ears interested during a discussion at a party, or around a dinner table, or even in a work environment, the speaking party must not just project, but also be willing to receive. Their ears must function as much if not more than their mouth. This entails asking multiple if not frequent questions of others. This is the origin of a bad date. Where two people are at a restaurant and one of them is a blabbermouth valley girl Chatty Cathy doll, unilaterally explaining away all aspects of various social minutia of their life without the reciprocation of ever wanting to know anything about the other which they are supposedly there to get to know. Shallow people just want to talk about themselves, so talking to unsophisticated members of especially the opposite sex in social environments, which pre-internet took place 99% of the time in dens of alcohol distribution, can far too often consist of just nodding and pretending looking one is interested.

Developed by the Greek philosopher, Socrates, the Socratic Method is a dialogue between a teacher and their students, instigated by the continual probing questions of the teacher, in a concerted effort to explore the underlying thoughts that shape the student's life choices. In school, university, or the professional workplace it's common for new recruits to have a fear based mindset and be scared to ask because the moment they ask reveals they don’t know something. In that environment, this will surely be to a potential group of onlookers, fellow students or colleagues. Yet, wanting to know is engaging and lowers the threshold for others to also get involved in the discourse and then usually improves the overall quality of the learning and/or work experience.

When you ask another person "get to know them" questions it shows not only that you have a growth-based mindset, but most importantly, that you care. Because the act of asking questions is a fundamental and powerful tool for human improvement, exploration, and progress - regardless of being in a formal educational context, asking gathers information, facilitates learning, drives innovation, broadens thinking, challenges held beliefs, strengthens communication, allows for problem solving, fosters creativity, encourages adaptation, improves relationships. And sometimes such things can come from the most unexpected people or places, such as from the janitor instead of the Socratic philosophy professor. Those who ask others things, regardless of status, know life provides a never ending education allowing for the ability to be informed, engaged, and enriched.

The quality of your life is the quality of your questions. Why would one ever stop asking questions? We'll get into the importance etymology, the study of the origin of words, in another insight, but it's worth noting that the etymology of Asking = AS KING.

Written Insight: Podcast Update + Channel Reboot

Our primary YouTube channel has consisted of our independent documentary film outputs - basically our directing work which is, for the most part, self financed and we shoot during our travels, with us rarely on screen, instead usually behind the camera, and sometimes heard as narrator. We also write and narrate essays which serve as incubation writings for our documentary projects, which were once included also in this channel but we came to find worked best broken out into a separate channel called "An Infinite Path" which is named after our podcast that's comprised of those audio narrated essays and release there prior to us potentially doing the long and laborious task of adding a visual component to some of those writings. We had about a year ago also experimented with rebooting this channel to also include our documentary/journalistic/cinematic style street photography, but also deemed that worked best as a separate channel called "Philosophical Photography" which corresponds to our photo blog. So we now have 3 separate channels - each updated periodically. Hooray!

In the meantime, this channel has basically remained a random collection of our past live-action film projects and things we've shot. But with us usually being the one behind the camera and thus out of sight and that is now going to change as we reboot it again, because we are now going to be making the majority of the video uploads here just like this one of us talking on screen, putting the You in YouTube, with us speaking into camera.

All of our essay writings and still and moving work have tried to have underlying themes of life insight, self development, and human beings' relationship to the natural world. This includes sub-categories such as mental health and physical health, ecology, philosophy, spirituality, pro democratic political philosophy, more authentic ways of living and being, etc... Not fluff, not gossip, not film criticism, not how to's, not gear/hardware reviews but instead areas of hopefully more philosophical deeper substance about life which our past/present future documentaries hope to focus on. Outside of travels, we also work a day job and thus spend quite a bit of time on the homefront working from our office shed which you are now seeing here. So many of these subjects that we are interested in, and have made documentary outputs surrounding, are able to be brought more efficiently to you by simply turning the camera on ourselves and having us directly talking about them. So the idea is to now use this channel with us doing so in short length videos consisting of life insights from past, present, future works that you may find valuable, filmed with the same hardware we would shoot one of our documentary projects on. Still peppering in future doco trailers, excerpts, and shorter form films here, but with those being done on a more sporadic basis while our speaking into camera here will now be the majority of the content of this channel and should allow for more value added here along with more regular content to both this channel and our related podcast as well.

We've learned a lot through our life work, study, praxis, and experiences and although we still have much to learn, creating and putting content out there, helps us learn by sharing with you.

Written Essay: Pro-Democracy Series #7: The Underlying Foundation

So some of you are still listening... You have made it this far eha? Since you haven't left we will use this one to summarize what is the underlying foundation of the authoritarian. A minority group throughout the world that all have a very specific thing they build their lies upon while even more importantly summarizing what is the underlying foundation of the larger, pro-democracy coalition.

The reason for these listeners leaving is surely due to us bringing up in each episode of this series so far, and for very specific reasons, the two things you're not supposed to bring up in polite conversation, politics and religion. So let's define each of these now. No big deal. Politics can be said to be "a part of ethics which consists in the regulation and government of a nation or state, for the preservation of its safety, peace and prosperity; comprehending the defense of its existence and rights against foreign control or conquest, the augmentation of its strength and resources, and the protection of its citizens in their rights, with the preservation and improvement of their morals."

At this point it's of extreme importance to also define what religion is. And believe it or not, we were surprised to find how sufficient the usually C+ to B- accurate Wikipedia definition is - Religion is a range of social-cultural systems, including designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relate humanity to supernatural, transcendental, and spiritual elements. Different religions may or may not contain various elements ranging from divine sacredness, faith, and a supernatural being or beings. More simple definitions of each could be that politics is the science of government. While religion is any system of faith, worship, or practice.

The founders of our country, the United States of America, were wise to put freedom of religion and freedom of speech in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. And as a reminder, it states - "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof". Both founders James Madison and Thomas Jefferson expanded on these words. In an 1789 discussion in the house of Representatives regarding the initial draft of the First Amendment, Madison stated the critical importance of a "total separation of the church from the state" which "strongly guarded the separation between Religion & government in the Constitution of the United States", and declared "a practical distinction between Religion and Civil Government is essential to the purity of both, and as guaranteed by that Constitution." and continued in saying "We are teaching the world the great truth that governments do better without Kings & Nobles than with them. The merit will be doubled by the other lesson that Religion flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of government." In an 1802 publication and corresponding letter Jefferson wrote "Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man (meaning both female and male) & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof", thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.

So both of these gentlemen, just like the majority of the founders, just like the majority of the world's pro-democracy coalition, just like ourselves, advocate for religious freedom due to the free will of the individual. Mind, heart, and will. What you think, what you feel, and what you do. And this separation allows for the freedom to choose. How democratic, the freedom to choose what you want to do - so long as you are not incurring injury or loss on another. Which means freedom of religion as well as freedom from religion. Of no faiths and practices and all faiths and practices all available if one so chooses. Religious freedom means one can practice what they want, even to worship Moloch, Baphomet, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and you can change your mind as much as you like without the undue influence of any government or any rich and/or powerful entity. Religious freedom does not mean freedom of those who call themselves religious to have it their way or the highway. Nor does it mean one can use their religion as a cudgel to create out-groups cause that would only include some of the people and not all of the people. It is instead catered to everyone's free will choice and is synonymous with an enlightened individual with a conscious mind to have freedom of mind. Religious freedom founders such as Madison and Jefferson saw it as a way to prevent their future government from enforcing specific religious doctrine. Including freedom from corrupt and totalitarian control.

Now because we can say religion is "any system of faith, worship, or practice" and the world has billions of people, you are inevitably going to get some good and some bad under that very broad definition. Or better to classify this under true religion vs false religion. Or what we could call religion for light or religion for shadow. And this is where many times someone on the spiritual path will completely decouple religion from spirituality - although this is a whole separate essay, if not a series of essays, if not a book to expand on later. But for Cliff Notes at this point and for this purpose, and for the word "Religion" being used in the first amendment of the constitution, we'll keep any spiritual practice, even outside the world's formal organized religions, still somewhere in the grey area of being a religious practice in the broad definition stated prior, regardless of size or level of organization. Not quite knowing what shamanism was, an anthropologist once asked an indigenous person in the Amazon basin about his religion, and the man simply said, "drink this Ayahuasca with us in ceremony tonight and you'll experience my religion." And in that sense, we say that is an accurate use of the word.

Just like this indigenous man's religion, which is based in nature, all true deeper Religion will be based in nature and its external and internal natural processes, will spread love of the divine along with love for fellow men of all races and economic classes - especially the poor or the natives, will not be dogmatic, and is concerned with the spiritual self development of the individual so at its most esoteric and occult core will have a real initiation lineage. This is what we advocate for, that's why this is a pro-true religion series. However, there is another type of religion out there which is imperial and false - and a constant threat to democracy around the world. False religion replaces natures natural external and internal processes with an external hierarchy of male only deities and authorities (which is the off balanced patriarchy), promotes a "prosperity gospel" of enriching the already wealthy and not doing anything for the poor, says people are bad and born in sin, still has this manifest destiny attitude which claims God created nature to extract, (hence it's imperial and colonist), is exclusionary and divisive, and has zero interest in spiritual self-development of the individual but instead simply installs dogmatic doctrine. This false religion, or big religion, is a type of dark shadow religion of the Empire that has led to thousands of years of colonialism and imperial conquest of indigenous peoples.

Because we all need teachers in our lives to help us learn things, just like in the martial arts, there is no way one is going to advance spiritually, without good spiritual teachers and it's important to build networks and make connections along the way. One cannot only go it alone. So unfortunately, one of the largest traps for those on the spiritual path, is getting involved in cults. Which are extremely hierarchical groups led by a single authority bad leader or hierarchy of bad authority leaders who require unwavering devotion to a set of beliefs and practices that result in the loss of their members free will via what's called undue influence. That influence comes from both those authority leaders as well as other cult followers. There are many types of cults, such as multilevel marketing cults, or yoga and/or crystal and/or UFO woo cults, or organized religious cults. And a major trapfall is to think that cults are only small and medium sized, when in reality false religions are big cults comprised of millions of members that simply began as smaller sized cults and grew larger for decades or centuries based on the teachings or doctrines of certain leaders. But the primary trait they all share is excessive devotion by their members. So the more extreme one's devotion to a group, doctrine, and or ideology, the more close the mind and likely that the owner of that mind is in a cult. Not OCCULT as in hidden, but CULT which also all share the commonality of being something that you are a member of or subscribe to and then can not leave without pain. This is the foundation of every anti-democratic authoritarian in our country and throughout the world which all of the rest of their behavior radiates out from - an extreme devotion to their dark religious cult. Which they are usually indoctrinated into from birth, and then is doubled down and tripled down, and quadrupled down upon through the cult members lives - which then affect their politics.

This is the problem with false churches across America that spread an incorrect reading of dominion from the bible by engaging in dominionism - which is a skewed ideology that religious people (and by religious people they dont really mean all religious people but only mean their fellow cult members) who are supposedly called by God to exercise dominion over everything by taking control over religious and political institutions. So those within said cult, who think anyone outside of the cult is sinful or evil, will say things such as "This is a Christian Nation" which not only throws out all other faiths, it shows they don't actually want the religious freedom in the constitution, let alone a multi-racial democracy. They do not want muti-racial, multi-ethnic, muti-cultural, democracy let alone full spectrum spirituality but instead a theocracy. "Christian dominionists" and "Christian nationalists", are all secretly just "Christian supremacists" that all want to create a false narrative about the history of the founding of the United States, which has an ironclad & unbreakable separation of church and state to instead do the opposite and merge the church with the state and send us back to medieval feudalism. They are not truly conservatives, or foundationalists, they are just thirsty for a Handmaid's Tale nightmare. This is the issue with the American Christian Right / Christian Wrong. Which is not a positive spiritual movement - it is instead primarily a political block - a cult using their skewed version of religion as a front.

In the allegory "The Cave", Plato describes a group of people who have lived chained to the wall of a cave all their lives, facing a blank wall. The people watch shadows projected on the wall from objects passing in front of a fire behind them and give names to these shadows. The shadows are the prisoners' reality, but are not accurate representations of the real world. The shadows represent the fragment of reality that we can normally perceive through our senses, while the objects under the sun represent the true forms of objects that we can only perceive through reason. Socrates explains how the philosopher is like a prisoner who is freed from the cave and comes to understand that the shadows on the wall are actually not the direct source of the images seen. One prisoner in the cave who leans philosophical aims to understand and perceive the higher levels of reality. However, the other inmates of the cave do not even desire to leave their prison, for they know no better life. So when one of the prisoners in the cave moves from being unconscious to conscious enough to figure out what's going on, and climbs out of the cave to see the outside world, and takes a difficult and long acclimation period by coming out into the light, nearly blinded by it, and is eventually amazed by it, then goes back down to tell the other prisoners what he has witnessed. The returning prisoner, whose eyes have become accustomed to the sunlight, is even more blind when he re-enters the cave, just as he was when he was first exposed to the sun. The prisoners who remained, according to the dialogue, would infer from the returning man's blindness that the journey out of the cave had harmed him and that they should not undertake a similar journey. Socrates concludes that the prisoners, if they were able, would therefore reach out and kill anyone who attempted to drag them out of the cave.

Not only are we going to be highlighting cults throughout the rest of this series, we will be getting into nested cults, meaning cults within cults in an upcoming essay, but if one knows the allegory of Plato's Cave, that hits the nail on the head of what cult members' lives are like. So when someone is extremely religious and is also extremely dogmatic about it, and puts it right up front in their communications - such as mentioning it very early in conversation, or putting it on a bumper sticker, or right on their social media profile with words like "Christian" immediately followed by "conservative" we and true religion would say they are neither truly Christian or truly conservative but instead in a religious authoritarian cult which is the underlying foundation for their political authoritarian cult and they are simply signaling to other cult members that they are on their team. Because they have no individual free will or identity and instead are only given their identity through their cult allegiance. They are the opposite of individualized, but are instead collectivist. They are regressive collectivist dogmatists. Their identities are so wrapped up in their dogmas they'll do anything to prevent themselves from being unplugged, even if it means living a life of lies, because it's easy and makes them feel good to take the low road by not having to think but instead use their hearts for hate by scapegoating others. Like Gollum being corrupted by the ring, this is what darkness does to the mind.

Just like the dark cave, when you're whole family, and friendship circles, and local community are predicated around the extremist faith spread at your church, or mosque, or synagogue, or temple, if one goes through enough soul maturity to become advanced enough when growing up in an organized religious system to realize that inside a minority percentage but still sobering percentage of these places they are being lied too because the whole thing is off-balanced, dogmatic, love-lacking, patriarchal, hateful, divisive, sexually repressed, un-educated, anti-philosophical, anti-scientific indoctrination which protects power and control and wants a king, emperor, or some kind of dictator who shares those dark values. If the individual who realizes some of these things wants to leave the cave, trying to remove oneself from such a system is so incredibly painful because those in such a group would have to give up everything, be outcast, and start all over from scratch. So a cult member will do anything to not want to go through that. Even lie, cheat, steal, or vote against their own interests because the ends justify the means. And when the most extreme degree excessive devotion is tested, which is usually put under the title of "faith" when the faith is tested, one can end up in a Branch Davidians situation where you're literally more willing to let yourself and your flock and even the children within it burn alive than admit you might be incorrect on some things. Because to admit you were wrong from a foundational level would just be too painful. So because of this pain and dogma, there is almost no use trying to convince someone to leave the cult. Most of them will be taking that shit to the grave. So this is why they say, don't talk about politics or religion. Because a minority but still sizable percentage of the population is so indoctrinated into their religious cult and is thus ultra close minded about not only about their false religion but their false politics - one of which predicates the other.

It's really key for more open minded, patriotic, traveled, educated, conscious, sophisticated, nature appreciating, scientific appreciating, and philosophy appreciating developed people, secular and/or moderately religious for light and love, or some mix of any of those things, to realize how this false religion always tries to sink its talons into politics. And that it's the reason for some of the most extreme deplorable political policies across the world which lack freedom. In Pakistan, which is majority muslim, the punishment for denigrating, or insulting, or even questioning the prophet Mohamid, is death. Uganda, which is primarily Catholic, Anglican, and Pentecostal has a kill the gays law. And Israel, which is majority Jewish, has created an open air concentration camp for Palestinians. Not to mention folks indoctrinated into the religions of the Empire who surely want to burn us alive for sharing esoteric spiritual philosophy for your dear listener's self development - and this is in 2023 at the time of this writing and not 1023. So the world's religions, especially the primary organized religions of the world - which contain light but also shadow, have a responsibility to denounce the skewing of their religious teachings away from religious freedom back towards religious freedom. We ourselves have such great respect for true people of faith and especially those within the formal organized religious systems who call out and denouse such toxic ideologies within their own religions. But that takes guts and we need more of it. The 2016 documentary "The Jihadis Next Door" highlights a small group of extreme fundamentalists Muslim morons in the UK who have become radicalized. And the most important part of the documentary is when it shows all the other more moderate muslims in the UK, who are angry at the more extreme muslims for perverting the teaching of their holy books and holy profit. Similar to how good police officers surely feel about dirty corrupt police officers - which can give all police officers a bad name even though they in no way reflect the majority's, attitudes, opinions, or behaviors. So thank you pro-democratic people of faith who are Inclusive instead of exclusive for helping promote religious freedom and the separation of church and state and who have an underlying pro-democratic foundation and thus are being the good cops and not bad cops. Not to mention who are then allowing, as James Madisan once said, "religion to flourish in greater purity."

Now that we've highlighted the importance of religious freedom, we are going to head over to the next essay in this series to what an individual's free will and freedom really are.

Essay Posting

Hey folks, as wonderful conscious individuals that have subscribed to this site in the past, who now should have free access, and likely rarely visit, the intention is to allow you continuing full access to nearly all our work here for the price of $0.

With the spoken word essays, we for the last few years typically posted them to literally FOUR places each time there was a new episode. They were…

1. The main podcast public feed on this website, which aggregates out via RSS

2. The PRIVATE full members section ON THIS WEBSITE

3. The PRIVATE lite members section ON THIS WEBSITE

4. Our PRIVATE CREATOR Patreon

As you can imagine, this had been a total repetitive pain. Since our outputs have slowed because we never made enough money via memberships and instead have gone back to day job freelance work, we’re not doing Patreon anymore (for now) and only keeping the membership dynamics to this site, so that is 1 of 4 we no longer have to do. However, we’ve deemed that posting audio versions 3 total times to this site is also a bit overkill. So from now on, we are only going to post public spoken word essays to the public RSS feed, and then the written versions to the members sections. This is so the written versions are more private and only accessible here, adding a tiny bit of value for members who might want to read them instead of listen to them. We also will perhaps post written versions way down the line to our Substack if we keep it in addition to future essay volumes which we sell.

Because we are only averaging around 1 essay per month, and are not making exclusive private versions as often, on the rare occasion we still create a private essay, we will of course then release them as both spoken word and written to the private members sections exclusivly.

Essay: Clearing The Room

Comedy is great. Stand up (or sit down) comedians are in a class of their own, because there is no other art form short of a solo musician in which one puts themselves in front of a group of people, and as a single individual, provides entertainment to potentially filled rooms, or theaters, or even stadiums. And doing so through the act of joke telling - being funny. People love to laugh and be around other funny people. However, a great deal of funny people who become "professional" comedians actually grew up with difficult upbringings or rough childhoods. That almost seems to be a prerequisite to greatness within the art form. Which may be credited to a mapping of polarity dynamic where you need to have not had your life be just sunshine, rainbows, and easiness to be able to output more full spectrum and hilariously joyful material. But with the rise of all things, most of those who do it are quite so so. Mediocre at best. And these mediocre people fill stadiums because they are good at producing mindless entertainment and talking about essentially little to nothing while also outputting chuckles. However, different types of comedians have existed through the hilarity of the decades who are usually not as known, or popular, or likely paid as much, yet are the highest quality comedians. They are the most timeless whose jokes became the most memorable and potentially life influential.

Some of our personal favorites we've mentioned in the past before. Names like (and pardon us not including any ladies in this one) David Cross, George Carlin, Steve Hughes, and even Robert Anton Wilson. Who were unique voices unlike any other. Yet another and most influential on us personally was Bill Hicks. Who died way too young of pancreatic cancer in 1994 - Although he performed for nearly 20 years, by that time most of America, his home country, had never heard of him. The first half of his comedy career was on the road at small venues. His television exposure along with any sort of AM radio, which at the time in the 80's and 90's was the only real way to reach more people in the genre and thus become more known, was small. He made only two albums during his lifetime with at least another five released posthumously.

Hicks, along with some of those other names, are and were great, because they use or used comedy to talk about deeper things in life. His content was not the urine filled baby pool of fluff and shallowness and distraction but instead went deeper. Into the political, cultural, philosophical, and perhaps deepest of all, the uncomfortably truthful. All of these comedians, and especially hicks, found that comedy could be a way to somewhat bypass people's conditioning systems. Of which there may be multiple layers from childhood. We have also spoken of the quote “if you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you.” Which has had some debate around the originator but is primarily credited to Oscar Wild. This quote is likely a variant on an ancient Mongolian proverb which says “A man about to tell the truth should keep one foot in the stirrup” because in a culture awash of disinformation, telling the truth can be said to be a revolutionary act not to mention hazardous to one's health. While this is not the only death with truth quote we all know, another being “Don’t Kill Me, I’m Just The Messenger!”, the point of the otherwise they'll kill you quote, is to use a little sugar to help the medicine go down. In short, sugar coat it. Help to soften the blow. While the quote might have been speaking metaphorically about being killed, people in positions of power have been known to ruin careers or kill journalists over truth being shared about them. That's as impiral as Empire Pie. The machines of the empire and all of us complicit in it don't want to look at shadow, otherwise called darkness. Of both the culture let alone their own and how they are often complicit in the larger cultural shadow. Revealing that to them puts them on a psychiatrist's couch, where they don't want to be, and angers them due to the revealing of pain and confrontation - In Hermetic Kabbalah this is called Nachash and it is how you progress by not just confronting it but fixing the things that are causing it.

Humor can be a sign of immaturity if used to cover up real talk, but it can also be used to help with all sorts of aggravations and negative feelings - which is where the deepness lives in the dark depths of the ocean of the mind. At the same time however it's much harder to build an audience off your work when you do that as an artist. Trying to create difficult to swallow truthful content. But it will be timeless content - Like some wise person from the East once said from their meat suit, which has also been credited to Buddha - the only thing that will for sure rise is the moon, the sun, and the truth. So a main way Hicks was able to do this is he was not afraid to go up, in front of an audience, and make them a bit uncomfortable. By not only going deep but sometimes uncomfortably and truthfully deep. Never losing confidence and never adjusting his material to the crowd. Just instead being himself, with it being said that he went out of his way to make people fidget in their seats. He appeared not to care one bit about the crowd reaction, but in a deeper sense, that was all he cared about. He had so much of both mind and heart and thus his comedy came from a completely unique source, the story of what that is can be told at another time, yet always revolving around the hope of who we as human beings could become, versus the frustration of who we truthfully really are. Which is currently in a very dysfunctional state. Hicks knew we were the facilitators of our own creative evolution. Basically, he was further spiritually evolved, and thus had aspects of himself that were off at a 45 degree angle from homo-normalus and especially homo-vulgaris but still inherently wanted anyone who would listen to what he was saying to evolve with him. If one can crack a joke while being shockingly true, it also supercharges the joke. It takes jokes that would otherwise be just squared and makes them cubed. Or, if one inserts deeper spiritual philosophy into jokes that can smear them across all zeitgeists for all time. But that's not easy to do and most people don't have the eyes to see it or the ears to hear it because they are not mature enough to do so. But if an audience member is a young mind for molding or a flower for watering, and most importantly, more influential to truth than propaganda when they hear it, something that may be initially uncomfortable, and that is not dysfunctional enough to be walked out upon, will have the audience member lying in bed that night thinking about it, and be like, "that is so true!!!" And that nugget of truth was delivered to them through the parcel of comedy. Which made the data transfer of it more palpable.

So in the later half of his nearly 20 year career Hicks did become more well known, never of course becoming a household name, but becoming appreciated and respected by his peers - with many of them knowing he was special. But that was after a decade of doing small shows, on the road, many of which he would essentially clear the room with due to his truths. Eventually finding more success in the UK due to the political environment of the time being a bit less polluted with regression and also likely due to the fact that Hicks was from Texas which is full of churches full of Texicans, is hotter than the fires of hell, is the shitkicker mothership where the world's cowboys emanate out from, yet that would not stop him from still often ripping into the corporate aspects of non real religion there and in other regressive red stateness. Since Europe, having gone through their holy warring during the crusades, chucked more of their past most religious bonkers-ness than America had, they were more open to what Hicks had to say at that time and he was met with still some but less resistance there. He likely still made British audiences uncomfortable but not as much so as he would with American audiences of the time. So eventually, with an American, and especially British, and somewhat global audience, a small percentage of an international audience eventually begged for his scolding view of politics and his commentary on international chaos. Continuing to use comedy to say deeper truthful things about what the majority of (especially) Americans were doing with their lives and culture. Which if you really think about it, was primarily, mundane at best, if not even completely empty and meaningless and people were like "I don’t wanna hear this, I gotta be at work tomorrow."

So for the previously mentioned reasons around Hicks, who was in influence on our work, we have long thought that much of our material would be better communicated through music and especially stand up comedy, instead of extremely obscure narrated documentary film or obscure narrated spoken-word essay. But over the years, as our work related to these podcasts, essays, and documentaries started flying the flags of being interested in alternative areas such as spiritual philosophies, which are not welcome in the mainstream consumerist corporate culture, we came to realize that much of the alternasphere, which comprises some very good things such as indigenous & ancient wisdom, nature's medicines, anti-imperial journalism, esotericism, and permaculture, but also not so good areas such as bad pseudo woo spirituality, snake oil alternative medicine, geopolitics, pop-occultism, and especially conspirituality and conspiracy did also not contain truth but were sometimes just as untruthful as mainstream culture. Seeing how many people went off the deep end with Covid-19 has been a real eye opener for example, so if anything this latest plague, and there have been ones in the past and there will be more in the future, has made us less conspiratorial.

We have plans for a future feature length narrated piece, to be made into either a documentary or if we don't end up spending the time on the visual component, a longer form spoken-word audiobook only around patternicity of what we have seen in many of these fields and with some folks who we might call past teachers, much of whose work focuses around the alternasphere. To cut to the bone of what the thesis of that piece will be, is that the majority of what these teachers were saying along with guests you might hear on especially conspiracy related channels, were claiming to be more conscious about reality and the world's problems, but instead solely and exclusively actually just talking about politics in disguise. And not from a standpoint of being pro-democratic and having more faith in our electoral process, but in fact the opposite. Sometimes identifying problems fairly accurately, but then oftentimes if not always proposing bat shit crazy pro-authoritarian hyper off balance right-wing homo-vulgaris solutions to such problems. Much of which is completely opposite to the indigenous wisdom we have come to respect and be shown by nature - which basically teaches in its most simple form that we must re-become homo-naturalis - reconnecting to spirit and return to be caretakers instead of just takers.

While we and likely you as well, are sick and tired of being sick and tired of corporate big legacy mainstream mockingbird media gaslighting us, and that's speaking to more false balance both-sides centrist media financed by sure, if you're more conservative leaning you'll thrown in the anti Jewish dog whistle of being "Soros backed." Yet that's not even speaking of the regressive lie with every breath extreme right wrong wing propaganda media that's bankrolled by sith lords with last names such as Koch, Devos, Murdock, Walton, and Mercer. As someone whose created alternate media as both a host and guest, we have also become sick and tired of being sick and tired of hearing the majority of folks in the aforementioned not so good areas, and especially conspiracy channels - books, podcasts, etc... promoting solutions which are in alignment with a very much minority but still concerning section of what makes up red America which has become a theocratic fascist cult as well as fascist movements across the world rising to concerning levels as a backward reaction to mass migration of climate refugees. Whose even more unswallowable untruthful material has worked decades out of the Goebbels "a lie told once remains a lie but a lie told a thousand times becomes the truth" playbook and have become professional at firing up pathos emotions using hate fueled talking point ecco chambers that claim they are actually the arbiters of truth when instead they are really in up-side-down world of endless lies through projection, inversion, and confession. 

So in closing we share a reminder that we not only release these essays as a podcast feed, but also bundle them up in volumes of 25 and make them available for a modest fee at our website www.nilesheckman.com and perhaps one day many years from now on archive.org. Meaning after we get 25 of them finished we are onto the next volume. For the first three volumes, which this essay you are listening to now is going to be one of the last in Vol III, our essays in all three volumes, comprising the first 75, have typically been about more overarching themes of self-development related to our personal life philosophy of growth + balance + creativity (meaning what is inside, what is a center point of equilibrium, and what manifestes externally) and have only occasionally touched on the political in the past. However, for our fourth volume, of which we have already released half a dozen essays at the time of this writing, will solely comprise our pro-democracy political philosophy series. Because if much of the conspiracy is just politics in disguise, we might as well speak about political philosophy and decoding transparently. So while no, this is not now exclusively a political podcast, we are committing to making a 25-part series which is related to the human enactment of a spiritual idea that is democracy, peppering this series' original slow drip release via the podcast feed mixed in with other occasional stand alone new essays but will likely take us at least the next year or two in order to complete that fourth volume. And also knowing that a large percentage of our past audience has had past interest in such aforementioned not so good areas, our ongoing pro-democracy and eventually Vol IV series of essays is a bit of our own attempt to clear the room. Since truth can make us uncomfortable, and also be hard to swallow, and is also paramount, we will continue to try and create it with at least some sprinkles of comedy, even if it clears the room.

Written Essay: Pro-Democracy Series #6: Structuring Socioeconomic Hierarchy

Since almost everything outside of nature, and thus spirit and real art in culture is secretly basically about either making money or procreating (making sex) - which sometimes includes making sex for money but more often than not making money to then have a desirable status for finding someone of similar status to procreate with and thus make sex, we focused heavily on the sex element of that in the last essay in this our pro-democracy political philosophy series. This time around we are going to focus on the money aspect, specifically how it is structured. Which is SO CRUCIAL to outerstand in one's personal development, as it's a key that answers many things about one's upbringing, morality, and later life behaviors. Not to reduce people to just their politics, there is also a major tell with how one deals with economic hierarchy and their political stance. Which we are going to give you as a simple decoding to the cipher in this one that unlocks a lock of money-based culture. And most importantly, what type of structuring of it is the most free and thus democratic. Since a major tenet of our work's philosophy is balance, we will mention now it's one in the middle - with the strongest middle class. For you can't have a democracy without an educated and strong middle class.

Although democracy is still a work in progress and one could say we haven't fully achieved real democracy yet. If you are hand on heart honest regarding you or your family members ability to thrive or just barely survive in our current kleptocratic or plutocratic system, one must admit it is currently almost exclusively due to your economic class status and resources. Economics is a social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Socioeconomics is of, relating to, or involving a combination of social and economic factors. Hierarchy is any system of persons or things ranked one above another. Economic Hierarchy refers to the structure of which money is dispersed to people and the ability of those with more money to exert power over those with less. So socioeconomic hierarchy is basically the financial and thus power ranking of individual people, households, companies, and institutions. Pertaining to you dear reader or listener, that's basically how much money you have, and how similar, less, or more it is than other people in your society or country have.  

Economic hierarchy is built up of three main sections, the poor, the middle class, and the upper class. In indigenous cultures money wasn't historically and isn't really a thing. Although there was/is trade. So indigenous people have operated outside of this rather new system. Living in a great balance with their natural environment for let’s say - a million years. But thousands of years ago, as agriculture became a thing and the empire and colonialism started to happen, this extraction mindset also kicked off. Commodifying earth, air, fire, and water - the elements for profit. This is the plot of the Avatar films. With the balanced and spiritual Na'vi living in harmony and longevity within their planet Pandora vs the batshit crazy technologically advanced yet de-spiritualized Sky People who only care about extracting Pandora's resources for financial gain. 

Future or past, Queens and Kings only work in high consciousness cultures like the ancient Toltecs of Mesoamerica or ancient Egypt in the Middle East, where there was a lineage of spiritual initiation, basically meaning there were Jedi in charge - resulting in hierarchical societies run by honorable Jedi initiated into higher states of consciousness who had good hearts and loved their people resulting in societies living in peace for hundreds if not thousands of years through the precessional cycle. But as that was lost, it turned those at the top of the hierarchy from Jedi to muggles. Since human beings are fundamentally good yet dysfunctional, being a muggle doesn't mean one is bad but it does mean one will be corruptible. So outside of those Jedi philosopher queens and kings historically the majority of rulers were not nice people because power to the uninitiated corrupts - thus they were mean spirited and most of all greedy. As the empire and colonialism continued, economic classes and warring factions later developed, and so did rotten to the core kings and emperors. Keeping the vast majority of the kingdom's wealth for themselves. They were no longer in balance with living with nature like the indigenous, not needing money, to now needing money within extractive systems. As most aboriginal people didn't need warfare, "savages" had peace for thousands of years while 13 colonies of decent yet still imperial English colonists have struggled to do the same for the last 300 years. 

Perhaps after this "Unapologetically Pro-Democracy" series we'll do another series along the lines of being called "Unapologetically Anti-Empire." And since we've spent some time with indigenous people we can tell you a thing or two about that. But at this point related to democracy and its economics, through the history of the last 2000 + years of empire, in which democracy has been a rarity of freedom pushing back against that repressive machine, money has usually been structured in a very lopsided and mis-distributed way. And has thus resulted in authoritarian monarchies - meaning one family who could care less about you or your family that's running the show - and if they didn't like you it's off with your head. That then transmuted only slightly less crap into oligarchies - where government ceases to work for the people and instead just for the very wealthy. Who if they had 100 people on an island, and they wanted to deve out wealth between them to create a micro economy, one person, solely because of bloodline (monarchy) and not initiation lineage are giving 95% of the wealth, 2 other people are given the 4% of the wealth, and the other 97% of people have to fight against each other for the tiny remainder of 1% of the wealth. And that's still how it is today but instead of caesars and kings we have robber baron godzillionaires. 

In a previous private essay titled "Let's Robin Hood the L-Curve" We gave some insight on something called the L-Curve, which can be found through the website www.lcurve.org. If you think the world's distribution of wealth is a 45 degree line, think again, it's actually literally a backwards shaped L of basically a nearly horizontal line meeting a sky high vertical line, which is basically no different than it was in times of medieval distribution of wealth. Where you had a corrupt king with 97% of the wealth, some corrupt landed gentry families who were the corrupt buddies of the king with 2% of the wealth, and 99% of the people who were peasant dirt poor. Today, what separates the first and third world is how the structuring of the finances of the people is laid out. And in third world countries 99% of the people have 1% of the wealth while in first world countries there is a stronger middle class that has maybe 10% of the wealth. Yet either way we're still always fighting this corrupt robber baron class of 1000 families making up less than 1% of the population with over 90%+ of the wealth. Let's take batshit crazy North Korea for example. Where you have a slothy Jabba the Hutt character supreme emperor who's drinking caviar out of $10,000 bottles of champagne while their people starve in labor camps. In Russia, which is sometimes said to be a gas station masquerading as a country, it simply went from monarchy to now solely oligarchy. Run by the corrupt Kremlin, and the Kremlin's fossil fuel robber baron oligarchic buddies. 

The morbid royal class, or oligarchic class, or mega-corporate class, the larger and more powerful they are, have historically defrauded consumers, exploited workers, and destroyed the environment when allowed to be completely let to their own devices without rules of the game set. So if you want to know the secret sauce hidden problem with the world today, which is still very much under the empire, here's your $64,000 secret answer to the problem - GREED from the top of the socio economic-hierarchy. And here's your secret cipher code - those who are truly pro-democratic and speak the truth will have politics that speak on behalf of the middle and bottom of the socio economic hierarchy, and those who are pro-authoritarian who lie and spin will claim they care about the working class 99% of people but whose policies and actions only benefit the top of the socio-economic hierarchy. And this is what we have been calling and will continue to be calling "dark sorcery" - which are those who protect the corrupt power structures, because they secretly know that's where the vast majority of the money is. It's also what we'll continue to be calling progress - being lessening the mis-distribution of wealth, and regress being increasing the mis-distribution of wealth. As the top of the hierarchy is where the dark sorcery comes from. Because power corrupts and ultimate power rots. 

Now to sink down into polarized politics for a moment, the words conservative and liberal mean different things in different parts of the planet. So sometimes left-wing and right-wing. And in the US we, unfortunately, have a polarized winner take all two party system. One is the blue more liberal party and one is the red more conservative party. While we intentionally are going to not continue to blast out these terms through this series and instead frame things more in a truthful pro-democracy progressive stance and a untruthful pro-authoritarian regressive stance, we will say the liberal parties have typically enacted policies that speak more on behalf of the bottom and middle of the socio-economic hierarchy, which represents everyone, because they think people are fundamentally good, while the conservative parties have more enacted policies which speak on behalf of the top of the socio-economic hierarchy, which represent extremely few - because they think people are fundamentally bad and born in sin. This is why, in the United States, truth now has for the most part, an extreme, extreme, left wing bias and why democracy is inherently liberal - A liberal democracy. This is also why left wingers punch up at corporate greed and the ultra rich, while right wingers always punch down at the poor. Usually the poor and black and brown. This is why right wingers are always shitting on immigrants, let alone not even giving a toss about the plight of indigenous, still thinking to this day they are savages, while at the same time when they see Jeff Bezos, who literally looks like a James Bond villain, has spent $500,000,000 on a new yacht to use privately for himself, rather than having that money go to (hundreds of college educations for example) simply say, good for him! It's easier to protect the man than fight the man. It's easier to sell out and speak on behalf of greedy dark sorcerers by getting paid millions of dollars a year as a propagandist protecting the top of the hierarchy than it is to be a financially struggling independent journalist trying to speak truth to power against the levels of power and control. One of those is Goliath and the other is David. This is why most journalists and documentary filmmakers like ourselves are progressive pro-democracy and most propagandists are regressive pro-authoritarians. 

Wealth should be like weight. Where we don’t want people to be gaunt emaciated anorexic skinny poor where they look like a skin skeleton in a concentration camp with so little money they have to live in a back alley and freeze to death during the winter, nor should they be slothy Jabba the Hutt whales with enough money for 1000x lifetimes, but instead have a nice middle range to their frame where they have a moderate nestage for their children and with a lifetime of work, enough money to live maybe a few lifetimes. Creating little to no poverty and little to no morbid wealth. For a strong democratic free society, we should instead have a much more just distribution of wealth. Where out of the 100 people on an island, who all have various different skill sets, lead to each person not having a total equal 1% of the wealth, but some have maybe as high as 3% while others have half a percent, which varies based on hard work. Because then power is more structured across each person and everyone has a near similar voice in the democratic process. This is what pro-democracy America, which should be a healthy center point from extreme authoritarian left-wing communism or extreme authoritarian right-wing fascism, is all about. While to some extent the right vs left narrative is not the best framing, what could be said to be a better framing is up vs down, or progress vs regress.

The good news is overthrowing the monarchs and oligarchs is as American as apple pie. Although America fought a revolution against monarchy in 1776, regress likes what it was like under monarchy and tries to let oligarchy rise again, Texas has to this day long modeled itself after Russian oligarchs. Where their politics is crueler and meaner and you have a couple morbid regressive oil guys influencing nearly all the show. Yet, one of our favorite things about America is that in its 300+ year history, about once a century, we have overthrown the oligarchs. The last example of which was after the pain of the depression in the 1920's which made even more of the population poor, and WWII of the 1930's which put everything on the credit card, progressive Franklin Delano Roosevelt brought economic balance back through paying off the debt and enacting New deal policies that created the fastest growing largest middle class in the world for 40 years. Then after actor turned regressive political actor Ronald Wilson Regan (6 letters, 6 letters, 6 letters) put everything back on the credit card through Reaganomics, to then having Bidenomics reversing that and paying down the deficit. So the third round of that is the fight we are in at the time of this writing. And this is partially why we are doing our part to fight these dark sorcerers by making this series and the rest of our work.  

This doesn't mean that there isn't a majority of people from all walks of the more moderate spectrum, left leaning liberals, independence, and even moderate right leaning conservatives, which make up a pro-democracy coalition, cause there are, but it does mean that is we also, hand on heart honestly, look solely at the data on each of the two major US political parties' economic policy over the last hundred years, a primary tell of who is more democratic is how it deals with taxes within economic policy. As blue enacts higher tax rates on the wealthy because they know that's where all the money is, while lowering them on the middle class and the poor. While the red cuts taxes on the wealthy because they also know that's where all the money is and who funds their campaigns. Today's godzillionaires aren't funding parks or public works projects or donating to improve schools. They're buying private islands, sports clubs, mega yachts, penthouses on billionaire's row in NYC that are so high up you can't hear the city below, building giant Austin Powers like phallic cock rockets to joy ride into space, or paying poor brown people to shepard them up Mt. Everest, or going on rides on non James Cameron approved failing submersibles - all of which to stroke their egos. Yet most of all, they are buying up all the politicians on team red and too many on team blue. 

As concentrated wealth skyrockets, the amount the wealthiest Americans donate stays the same, barely covering inflation. Data shows that when the red cult implements their supposed tax breaks which are really stealing from the poor and middle and even some of the rich to give to the morbidly obese rich, charitable giving drops and job creation slows. They're hoarding wealth, which hinders economies and stifles the democratic process. Deficit wise, in the US, the majority of blue are trying to make the middle class strong, and make us more democratic, by increasing taxes for the wealthy which aim to correct our deficit. While Red is trying to make us more and more into a third world country by giving us tax cuts for the wealthy, increasing the deficit. So blue is more pro-democratic and financially responsible while red is more pro-authoritarian and financially irresponsible. Under red administrations the debt explodes to pay for these tax cuts which are really just stealing from the poor and middle class while under blue administrations we get financially responsible and correct the debt. Red may make the economy look good in the short term, but are just putting it on the credit card. One is short term thinking and the other is longer term thinking. So basically blue is like Robin Hood, taking from the morbidly rich who are doing perfectly fine thank you very much to give to the poor, while red is reverse Robin Hood. As tax cuts are redistribution of wealth from the poor and middle class and even some of the upper class, to the godzillionaire class. And by this godzillionaire class, we are not talking about the rich. We and likely you are rich in the grand scheme of the world. We're talking about the morbidly obese rich / the pyramid capstone. Bob Iger, the CEO of Disney makes $27,000,000.00+ per year and that pales compared to some of these modern day rulers like Mohammed bin Salman. Anywhere in the world you see this grand canyon of wealth between an aristocratic class and the people, you see less freedom and democracy. Ending up in situations where you have one Indian asshole who has his own private skyscraper mere blocks from hundreds of thousands of peasants with little to no sanitation living in shanty slums - that is not a free and just democratic society. It's just pretending to be.

Godzillionaire dark sorcerer and wrinkled Sith lord Rupert Murdoch, who runs propaganda media throughout Australia, the UK, and the US, was once quoted in saying it's not about red or blue, it's about green. Which shows that all he really cares about is money. And the playbook the robber baron class has done for over 100+ years, often via converting the green of nature to the green of money, is to get the working class people to fight against one another and not follow the money - primarily over tawdry culture wars. And this is kicked off by enraging a less traveled, less educated, and pro-authoritarian religious faction that makes up red America by disparaging all government by we the people, because they hate people, trying to create cynicism and apathy from the people around said subject, while the robber barons secretly using it to their own favor. Lobbying and passing legislation to deregulate corporations, bail out banks, and give tax breaks for Ebenezer Scrooge. The classical word misdirection example of such is the use of the word socialism. Capital means private while social means sharing, so in a system that has some private capital and some public social, the most pro-democratic societies have achieved a good balance of these two things. This is commonly seen in Scandinavian countries for example that have good social services. Yet a long con in the US has been to denigrate the social for the common worker, making a boogie man out of the word socialism, yet anyone who has ever denigrated that word is perfectly happy, surprise surprise, to privatize gains and socialize losses and actually loves socialism... for the rich. This was seen in the 2008 banking crisis by bailing out crooks on Wall Street at the expense of taxpayers. 

So to pierce further through the veil here, for those that haven't long already left this series... if you've let even a fraction of your mind be given to you by the talking points of dark sorcery overlords who protect the top of the hierarchy and thus even remotely think what we've been saying is socialist which somehow equates to Marxist garbage... guess what it actually really is - real Christianity. It is accurate to say the largest Pastafarian contingency in the United States is composed of various denominations of Christianity. So at this point we will make the Earth shattering statement, and decode, through the socio-economic hierarchy, that much of it is not actually Christianity but instead just masquerading as such.

While all faiths have their important holy books, the bible is the primary text that Christians hold dear. Now, not claiming that this text is the literal word of sky daddy, only those from dumb-fuckistan proselytize that. As we're not dogmatically claiming that the Emerald Tablet is absolutely undeniably the literal word of Hermes Trismegistus and are attempting to shout such from the rooftops on a loudspeaker like some crazy street preacher, but will instead give it some credit looking at it as a book of morals. If one actually reads it, one will find it full of some ridiculously dumb things and goofy things (Ezekiel 23:20 speaks of donkey's genitals and emissions from horses for example) but then some really wonderful things as well. We'll get into the layers of exoteric fake storefront marketing job vs esoteric real Christ in a future essay, with the most surface level fake layer being corporeal white Republican Jesus, and layer 2 being the corporeal brown hippie from Palestine. But the Christ teachings from the bible, coming from an actual enlightened, and enLIGHTened is the key word (hint hint) man or not, for the most part we think are really beautiful teachings, are all about speaking on behalf of the bottom of the socio-economic hierarchy - with compassion. Which, for your spiritual development, is your heart aspect.

Having previously shared in an essay in this series that one of the primary tenets of real Christian, and thus some level of real spiritual teaching, is both love God (meaning the divine omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent creator and thus also very importantly - its creation) as well as love thy neighbor. Far too many "christians" only claim to love their authoritarian sky daddy version of God and forget their neighbor. They instead distort the teachings to lose their morality to not love or care for others. They are divisive, hateful and only love the top of the hierarchy because of their authoritarian upbringings. Yet not only are the Jesus teachings not only criticizing that with statements like Matthew 19:24 "Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God”, they are speaking about loving thy neighbor, feeding the sick, clothing the naked, providing daily bread, defending the poor and needy, and being sympathetic to immigrants - whom most of the Israelites at the time were, as well as the golden rule. It speaks of being socially just and equitable. With ideals focused on shared communal responsibility. With dominion over the Earth being all of mankind - from all cultures and economic classes, not only Christians. It really sounds like the morals of the Jesus teachings condemned selfishness, say that poverty is morally unacceptable, and that we are simply being reminded to love one another. In thus we remind you of a second cyber key of decoding not just Christianity but any real Faith, pasta based or not.

If one is not willing to look at society from the standpoint of the middle class, let alone the poor, let alone the indigenous, let alone nature's natural animal kingdom, let alone the flora and fauna, they are not willing to look at it from the point of view of all spiritual life. But instead only rich people in an in group and not giving a toss about an underclass that will always be there. Street rats who are born street rats and will die street rats who can go die for all they care. This is what the imperial agents of the dark colonial religions of the empire have done, for thousands of years and are still doing today on behalf of their Ebenezer Scrooge overlords. Not only trying to crush the spiritual growth of each person but turn them from free sovereign within the community into an economic slave class through commerce. And this is a problem of religion, while there is good stuff at the tiny bullseye core of many of the world's faith teachings, we often don't see them acted upon because instead the world's religion's patriarchal hierarchy is the easiest place for the selfish and greedy to hide within. Always using doctrine from their texts supposedly written by divine hierarchy to just push their corruption, greed, and racial supremacy of economic hierarchy. Coating their hierarchical money greed in patriarchal hierarchical theological language to promote their relentless thirst for power and control. 

One of the main proofs for this, is that the main thing that really activated and kicked off the religious right, which should be called the religious wrong in the United States getting more involved in politics, and where we'll be heading in upcoming essays in this series, is in the 1970's the threats of losing their tax exempt status for their discriminatory practices. Instead of using government to enact rules and laws that help all of the hierarchy, from the middle out they are very happy to use government to do so just for the morbidly rich and screw everyone else. Enacting morally indefensible policies that endure vast suffering because of a vast chasm of wealth between the poor and the rich, with a hollowing out middle class. This is also why the African American churches tend to more honor the actual Christ teachings, because they're people are used to being more toward the bottom of the socio-economic hierarchy and have been shat on since about the year 1619 since they were brought over as slaves and are continuing to work toward a multi racial democracy. And why we'll be using some of the voices of African American preachers, who actually are saying some spiritual things, in future episodes of this series.

Tithing is not about giving money to the already ultra rich, ultra regressive Mormon church. Redistributing wealth upwards. It's about giving a portion of your money to charity, to help those in need who have less than you. So if you see a modest sized church with a soup kitchen line, feeding the homeless, that may be an actual real church. If you see a church that looks like a shopping mall, or Superman's fortress of solitude, which was surely built on top of an older indigenous or pagan sacred site, run. And make sure and do your patriotic duty as a freedom lover of your country to call "Christians" who don’t speak and act on behalf of the bottom of the socio-economic hierarchy CHINOS - Christians in name only or hypoChristians for their hypocrisy. 

Songs Against The Machine

Here's a short piece we shot spontaneously and unplanned last week in Washington D.C. and edited this week documenting one of many ongoing protests against the construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline.

What we love as both a street photographer and as a documentary filmmaker is that you’ll go out with a camera on a day and not be sure what you’re going to film, but when you find yourself in the right places at the right times, magic can happen.

As a filmmaker who’s basically had to edit every one of our films ourselves, we’ve come to learn a great deal about editing - which is where the documentary is oftentimes written. Since we love us some good protest photography or footage, using the edit to find a mini three act story in this one manifested around the songs that were sung. As we also got about another 1/3 of footage that didn’t make the final edit of other aspects of this protest which didn’t feature singing, and thus didn’t so much advance the narrative.