Leo's Blog: Infinite Insights — Page 122
Check out this 19th century Tibetan ritual mask for sale at auction:
It's impossible to understand American politics without understanding the utterly delusional and ignorant Evangelical base and its corrupt influence on all of policy.
This ignorance drives the voting decisions of something like 25% of the US population. And even more, because its effects corrupt minds beyond self-identifying Evangelicals.
American media never explains this to you.
The following is one of realist explanations of how American politics works, from Rick Wilson, a former Republican political strategist. The key to understanding American politics is to realize how utterly shameless, stupid, cynical, and corrupt the whole thing is. It's pure manipulation for the sake of power and riches. This is what progressives don't understand. Progressives treat politics as if it's about doing some higher good. Meanwhile conservatives treat politics as an opportunity for personal profit and power. Grasping the cynicism of it is critical, because you are not dealing with honest actors, you are dealing with shameless Machiavellian manipulators.
One of the biggest challenges I had for a long time in my life in trying to understand politics is that I assumed everyone in this game was like me, an honest actor who cared about truth and what's best for society. I didn't realize how utterly shameless and intellectually bankrupt most people are. It took me years to realize this, but now that I do all of American politics makes so much sense. I just didn't think people were that shameless. Sometimes the shamelessness and shallowness of people astounds me. But to them it's just an average day.
It truly is astonishing how fundamentally broken most people's attitude toward the government is. Just utterly irresponsible, unconscious, ignorant, and selfish. Of course a government and a society cannot function with that kind of attitude. Government is not magic, it only works when people of serious character make huge sacrifices to make it work. You can't make government good by blaming others, or trying to push your ideology onto others, or trying to benefit yourself, your tribe, or your organization. That's what makes government bad.
A government can only function to the degree that its citizenry is mature, responsible, wise, truthful, selfless, and conscious. There is no hack around this. The government's corruption is a direct reflection of the citizenry's personal corruption. The only reason the government is corrupt is because the citizenry is corrupt. A corrupt citizenry is literally incapable of electing a good human being into power. The corruption isn't a bug, it's a feature! Corrupt people cannot stand purity and truth.
The greatest mistake and illusion of populism is the idea that the average citizen is not responsible for the bad functioning of government. No! The average citizen is directly responsible, but because they are so negligent in their responsibility you cannot tell them this truth, you must pander to them and point the finger at some "elites", which is exactly what keeps the government bad. To improve our government every citizen would first have to take personal responsibility for how they contribute to the problem. When you cut corners on paying your taxes, that's you personally corrupting the government.
I love the Pivot podcast with Scott Galloway and Kara Swisher. They do some quality commentary on tech and investing.
Here's a sample:
They have a Pivot Youtube Channel but it only has a small selection of clips. The full podcast is on Spotify, Apple, or Amazon.
You can also listen to it on their website:
Joseph Campbell had a big influence on me before I started Actualized.org, but back then I did not know what he was really pointing to. Now I understand it better than he did.
If your consciousness becomes high enough, the present moment will be metaphysically recontextualized as outside of time, as you will realize that time is imaginary. When you become conscious that time is imaginary your present experience will become Eternal and Absolute. Motion will still happen, but motion will not be situated in the conceptual matrix of "time", it will be Eternal. You will realize that your Consciousness has always been Eternal. In other words, you have been Conscious forever.
Believe it or not, Consciousness is so powerful that right now you are dreaming that you have not been conscious forever. Consciousness is powerful enough to dream its own finitude, its own beginning and end. When you realize that you have been dreaming the beginning and end of your consciousness, you will realize that actually you have been conscious forever, and that will be the moment you will know yourself as God.
Human consciousness is just a tiny island within an infinite ocean of CONSCIOUSNESS. Beyond the human island there is an alien island, and more islands beyond that. Islands floating in INFINITY. Death is the transcendence of the human island to explore the larger ocean.
Thomas Jefferson, a towering intellect, wrote in his Notes On The State Of Virginia the following about black people:
"They seem to require less sleep. A black, after hard labor through the day, will be induced by the slightest amusements to sit up till midnight, or later, though knowing he must be out with the first dawn of the morning. They are at least as brave, and more adventuresome. But this may perhaps proceed from a want of forethought, which prevents their seeing a danger till it be present. When present, they do not go through it with more coolness or steadiness than the whites. They are more ardent after their female: but love seems with them to be more an eager desire, than a tender delicate mixture of sentiment and sensation. Their griefs are transient. Those numberless afflictions, which render it doubtful whether heaven has given life to us in mercy or in wrath, are less felt, and sooner forgotten with them. In general, their existence appears to participate more of sensation than reflection... Comparing them by their faculties of memory, reason, and imagination, it appears to me, that in memory they are equal to the whites; in reason much inferior, as I think one [black] could scarcely be found capable of tracing and comprehending the investigations of Euclid; and that in imagination they are dull, tasteless, and anomalous... I advance it therefore as a suspicion only, that the blacks, whether originally a distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstances, are inferior to the whites in the endowments both of body and mind."
Why do I cite this? Because I want you to learn the lesson that even very intelligent people fall prey to self-deception and believe ridiculous things thanks to their biases — which are absorbed from their culture (The Social Matrix).
This kind of thing still happens today within universities, academia, science, medicine, and law. The most intelligent people today hold positions which will look equally absurd as the one above in one hundred years. The only reason those positions are not obvious today is because the majority of intellectuals hold the same positions, and most intellectuals still operate on group-think.
Materialism is one such position. Further generations of scientists and academics will laugh at the notion that consciousness is the byproduct of atoms or brains, wondering how 21st century scientists could have been so stupid.
This is how The Social Matrix warps your mind.
If Trump wins the 2024 election he and his minions will for sure attempt to create an authoritarian Christian state using a Blitzkrieg strategy. This isn't my speculation, they published a 900-page document which outlines their entire plan. It's called Project 2025. Read it, if you dare.
This is Trump's actual Christian Nationalist policy agenda for 2025. It's absolutely batshit stuff. Just flagrant corruption, authoritarianism, corporate pillage, and minority rule:
More:
Trump's 2nd term will be uniquely worse than anything in his first term. All the restraints will be gone because the entire administration will be filled with degenerates, ideological Christian morons, and capitalist wolves. Americans have no idea how disastrous a 2nd Trump term would be. Nobody is seriously talking about this. This is a plan for pure corruption and devilry. People are still in denial about this. They think Trump will just do the same old stuff, an entertaining clown-show. No! This time will be totally different. He's going hog-wild authoritarian. This will do decades of damage to the basic functions of American government. It is insane that anyone would vote for this. But most voters don't even know what they're voting for. They think they're just voting for some pro-American business tycoon who has more energy than sleepy Biden. That is complete delusion.
MAGA has told you exactly what they plan to do: turn America into anti-democratic fundamentalist Christian authoritarian oligarchic hyper-capitalist machine.
This is not a joke. If Trump wins, expect corruption on a scale you've never seen, erosion of the entire government at all levels, chaos, and finally market collapse along the lines of 2008. Because whatever these MAGA people do, only one thing is guaranteed, that it will all eventually collapse because it is utterly out of touch with reality and human decency. These Christian conservatives themselves will live to regret the demon that their ignorance has unleashed upon America.
There's been much hand-wringing of late about how Biden is too old and maybe Trump is better after all.
It's easy to get distracted because the zone is flooded with shit. I just want to remind you of what MAGA actually wants for America. MAGA wants Christian Nationalism. That's what Trump has aligned himself with. Christian Nationalists believe that America is a fundamentally Christian Nation and should be refashioned in that image, where Jesus is the #1 value. They don't merely believe in God, they believe that Jesus is your one and only King. You bow to Jesus. These people do not believe in democracy, they believe in theocracy. These people believe that the Earth is 6,000 years old. That humans and dinosaurs lived side by side. That sex before marriage should be banned. That porn should be outlawed. That birth control should be illegal. That all abortion is murder. That homosexuality and trans are demonic sins. That fundamentalist Christianity supersedes the US Constitution. That all schools should teach Jesus. That the military should be run by Christians. That only Christians should hold public office. That each household should only have one vote, that of the head of household, who is obviously male. That Jesus wants you to conceal-carry a Glock. And that God will send you to Hell if you don't follow their ways.
This isn't a joke or a strawman of their positions. This is stuff they honestly believe. They even have a slogan for it:
"Jesus, and nothing else."
These are not just some fringe powerless nutcases. These Christian Nationalists include powerful, rich, and politically-connected people already sitting in high places within the government, courts, media, think-tanks, law firms, lobbyist groups, etc. They are highly organized in networks amongst themselves. People like Speakers of the House Mike Johnson and Kevin McCarthy, backroom Supreme Court manipulator Leonard Leo, justices on the Supreme Court, the wives of Justice Alito and Thomas, judges across federal and state governments, and members of the House of Representatives and Senate such as Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, Kari Lake, Matt Gaetz, Devin Nunes, Jim Jordan, Charlie Kirk, etc. These people are ignorant corrupt ideologues to comical levels. Many of them are criminals, sexual abusers, scammers, thieves, propagandists, and corporate wolves. And as crazy as these people may seem to you, they take their mission of turning America into a Christian Nation dead serious — it is their sole purpose in life aside from making themselves and their friends rich. Because, after all, God wants you and your friends to be as rich as possible as you go about turning the world into a kingdom for Jesus.
So, when you vote for Trump, these are the people who you are voting for to populate the federal government. These people fundamentally believe that the separation of church and state is a sin unto Jesus. And of course, all of this Christian dogma is deeply intertwined with rampant unchecked capitalist manipulation on behalf of their rich and powerful business and corporate friends in the oil and gas industry, military industrial complex, big agriculture, big pharma, etc. They are not just going to create a Christian Nation, they will do it while making themselves, their families, and their friends filthy rich at the expense of everyone else. Oh, and sex. It's also about them getting sex. Ideology, power, money, and sex. That's the real game they are playing. That's what the whole MAGA movement is about. Of course! What else would it be about? Truth? Goodness? Helping the weak and oppressed? LOL. Don't be stupid. That would require hard inner work, consciousness, selflessness, and integrity — which none of these rats are interested in. These people are the bottom of the intellectual barrel. All they know or care about is survival.
Just last week the Louisiana government passed a law requiring the display of the Ten Commandments in all public classrooms across the state. Louisiana is the stomping ground for some of the most radical Christian Nationalists, like Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, who covertly spread their delusional ideology across the land, into every place of high office they can find.
Just last week the Supreme Court overturned the Chevron doctrine, breaking a 40 years precedent and crippling the government's ability to regulate any corporation. This is all part of the Christian Nationalist plan. The doors are now wide open for their corporate wolf friends to pillage the commons and destroy any regulation that cuts into their profits. This is bald-faced corruption, bald-faced elitism, bald-faced oligarchy, bald-faced corporatism, bald-faced minority rule. A deluded, underdeveloped, radicalized Christian minority wants to rule the majority of Americans in the name of Jesus while extracting ungodly profits for themselves. That's what MAGA really is.
This is what you're really voting for:
If you think Trump is merely a narcissistic blowhard, that's just the surface level. Trump has aligned himself with the most ignorant, corrupt, unconscious, delusional, criminal, and sexually dysfunctional segments of American society. America's fundamentalist Christians have signed a pact with the Devil in their effort to turn America into a Christian Nation. Like amateur necromancers in a cliched video game plot, these Christians resurrected the demon of Trump in the hope he will deliver to them their fundamentalist dream. Of course the Devil is no one's servant, he will just use these gullible and morally-bankrupt Christians for his own gain, but in the meantime he will allow them to do much damage to the country's bedrock institutions because that suits the Devil's own needs. For you see, healthy and robust institutions prevent the Devil from wielding his full power. The goal is to let these deluded Christian Nationalists hollow out America's regulatory agencies so that the corporate wolves can rob the public blind. And while these cretins busy themselves with grabbing money and sex, and preaching Jesus, the Devil will assume his final form and throw them all under the bus, much to their surprise and horror.
It's classic. It's Biblical. It's diabolical.
The level of depravity, corruption, and ignorance fueling this whole political movement is so shameless and audacious in its arrogance that it's hard to believe that it's afoot. And yet this is exactly what's at stake in the 2024 election. Be under no illusions, a pact has been struck between the Christians, the Devil, and the corporate wolves to hollow out the America government for their personal gain at everyone else's expense. The only question is, will you let them? Will you be their useful idiot?
NPR Article: Tracing The Rise Of Christian Nationalism
So, on the one hand you got Sleepy Joe, on the other hand you got the Devil and his minions.
The Devil never does his work alone, he recruits the gullible and the depraved to multiply his corrosive influence. And the Devil's favorite way to accomplish his work is through religion and spirituality — because no other way could be as devious and ironic.
Ta-daaa!