Upward Spiral #4 – The Sound of My Voice, Cults and Corruption
In our fourth episode we discuss the film The Sound of My Voice, and the issues therein, including cults, the nature of history and rationality. With your usual co-hosts Ken Vallario and Eric Duffy, expect wild tangents, but there will be no spoilers in this episode, but as always Byron King will deliver another excellent [...]
Political Consultation – 2012 End of the World Campaign
One of the things that will make it hard for Obama in the coming election is that some of the criticisms the Republicans are making are true…they are a ridiculous source, that promises only a further entrenchment in the very things I dislike about Obama, but that does not make it any safer to avoid [...]
Silver Lining
After hearing news reports in the background of my distracted morning driving of European countries downsizing their governments under economic pressure I realized that there is a global deconstruction of representative government. That is what is really happening. Anybody who knows anything about economics (like me) knows that there is plenty of ‘capital’ out there, [...]
New Tactics for OWS #2 – ONE WORLD CURRENCY
HEY OCCUPY WALL STREET! PUT OUT A CALL AROUND THE WORLD FOR A SINGLE GLOBAL CURRENCY. From the beginning of my participation with Occupy Wall Street I have advocated for an absurdist approach to demands. Why? Not because I want chaos, but because the problems we face are too large for singular or systemic legislative [...]
Full Retard
The following clip is interesting for a lot of reasons, besides the absolute hilarity…but that’s my point, much of the hilarity arises from the collision of subtexts at such a high rate that it is impossible to keep a hold of just what taboos are being broken, and hence it becomes transcendental comedy. The actors [...]
Rap News has gone transcendent
The latest episode of rap news is so wonderful. It’s deep reading of our present crises and integration with historical cycles is beautiful and inspiring…these are some of the true cultural gems of our time…thank you Rap News…
Empire and Imagination
Imagination is the primary driver of compassion, as it enables us to feel what those who suffer feel. Compassion drives revolution, because shared feelings compel us to act in solidarity. Thus Imagination is the primary threat to all empires, and so every measure is taken to squash it. In our time, Imagination is squashed by [...]
Nature vs. Nurture
Our feelings about animals and industry are not solely about the animals. No, the rising distaste surrounding our treatment of animals in the meat industry reflects our own experiences within a world of concrete and steel. Humans are shuttled to and fro within a mechanized world that extracts their life essence to unknown ends, in [...]
Emotional Rescue
Until we can trust the fidelity of the channels through which we receive information we ought to guard ourselves from forming very strong opinions about events that require the highest level of contextual sophistication. In fact, when a muddled mess is presented to us as a debate we ought to assume that there are forces [...]
Confusion as Politik
Of course, this Kony 2012 ‘thing’ has been tossed around like fresh gossip at the ladies Sunday tea party. And many are confused about what the hell is going on with it, and where one is supposed to put one’s emotional weight. For my part, I see it as a manifestation of largely unconscious forces, [...]
Self Diagnosis
If I grew up in today’s world I would be diagnosed as having Attention Deficit Disorder because of my daydreaming…I would be diagnosed with Asperger’s because of my fantasy life…and I would be diagnosed with bipolar disorder because of the intense despair I felt about the way people treated one another. When I was a [...]
Iron Man – The Super Power Play
Four years ago I was somewhat active in sharing my excitement and support for Barack Obama. Now as we move toward another election, one that I feel is truly pointless because of the complete obfuscation of truth in our democracy, I am sharing campaign videos to point out the stylistic manipulations used by this administration [...]
An Inappropriate Truth #2 – The Confederacy of Dunces
In my experiences as an activist and member of intellectual groups I have noticed a tendency for the idiots in the group to band together with one another and resist the more intelligent members because they find them threatening. This makes all efforts to organize and create change subject to the debilitating loss of consciousness, [...]
Real Konversation
First of all I support any campaign to cease violence, especially of the sort practiced by this person Kony, who is unquestionably horrible in the extreme. So, for that reason I am sharing this video, but I want to state very cautiously that I do so as part of a larger project to end worldwide [...]
Addicted to Praise – Jumping the Gun
You damn right she’s ‘jumping the gun’ to use the parlance of your crimes… That smile is evidence of a lack of perspective…that smile, when it comes in response to the energy of the crowd reveals what he is..an entertainer, addicted to the thrill of the crowd, it makes him so happy that he is [...]
He who feels it…knows it…
The more I awaken to the world I live in, the more I find it impossible to stand idly by while enslavement of my fellow human beings happens at an escalating rate. There are those in the polite society I have somehow found myself in, who urge me to focus on my own success…who see [...]
Living in a Conspiratorial World…
Two items today. 1. Hilarious parody of the new Tom Hanks movie I have no interest in seeing…dealing with 911 issues, and the madness caused by thinking too much about the anomalous nature of those events. 2. More seriously, if you are interested in hacking, and what it means to the unfolding of the 21st [...]
Huge Numbers…
If you will watch the video, you will conclude, i hope, as I have, that our president is lying to us…that he is misrepresenting something that is fatal…his ineloquence is symptomatic of the difficult role presidents face today of speaking without saying anything…it is more difficult than one might assume… Look at his first statement: [...]
The Terminator
1. I’ve argued before that the current Occupy Movement is a struggle against an economic system driven by computational devices…machines. Now, we see the development of a computational/mechanized army. In other words, the machine war is becoming more real by the day…it is no longer a metaphor. 2. People who are versed in history are [...]
The Universe as an Unknown Quantity
As part of an ongoing conversation here at Akbar Lightning Headquarters, I present the following video from Youtube…As I’ve said before, as influenced as I have been by T. Winston Sayer, I cannot speak to anything factual about what I am presenting…but it is in my view, it is part of my human experience, and [...]
Another Brick in the Wall
Here is a great example of the automation of our lives…the ways in which we surrender our rights to author our own identities to an unknown set of architects who frame and therefore dictate a certain quadrant of our social reality. Many many individuals are absorbed by this practice, and allow themselves to be literal [...]