These guys are one of the biggest advertisements for what’s wrong with religion.

Rabid, fundamentalist… not muslim… christians who’d put a bullet in you if they could get away with it.

Like Douglas Adams said:

“…nearly 2,000 years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change…”

Where exactly is the message of “the great white saviour” (middle-eastern origin, but don’t let that be an impediment to the Jesus-is-a-white-man industry) in the Westboro Baptist Church? Cast not the first stone, anyone?

Hah.

I am constantly reminded of when I lived with my parents when I hear the muffled arguments of my housemates upstairs.

I am reminded that, when I was 8 or 9, or even slightly older (potentially repeating the same act), I  wandered into the living room where we lived, after hearing them arguing hour after hour, and asking nicely if they would please just stop. Please stop arguing.

They never did of course.

Looks like I wasn’t the only one to have had an unpleasant night Thursday into Friday.

Of course, the book I was reading — The Fifth Sacred thing — didn’t help. I’m up to the part where the army stomps into San Francisco, which has been recreated as an ecological utopia, and they start killing people and the land.

This turned my stomach because, while I know the book is fiction, knowing that there are people out there who would gladly destroy and control rather than create, it’s very easy to see where we could go… and horribly, are going.

Take the Port of Melbourne Authority and dredging Port Philip Bay. The politicians have rolled-over to big money. The authority only gives a damn about its money income, and the bay — by all accounts — will be utterly devastated.

Why?

Because we can. Because money is more important than the world in which we live. Because the whole domination-at-all-costs behaviour pattern is now out of control.

Only after the last tree has been cut down
Only after the last river has been poisoned
Only after the last fish has been caught
Only then will you find you cannot eat money
– Cree prophecy

We only have one place to live. All the money in the world won’t change that. We have no vision, no forward thinking. Nothing can save us but ourselves, but we’re all so tied-up in this cult-of-the-individual, mortgaged up to our eyeballs in slavery to the banks, the businesses and the society, that we can’t see past the next paycheque.

It’s very late, but I just can’t get to sleep.

Things have been mulling through my head of late, partially because of the meditation, partially because of the purge-of-the-old from my life and partially because I can be a deep thinker.

And here’s what I think.

I’m sick to death of seeing and hearing about humanity’s inhumanity to everything else on this planet; Ruthless exploitation of other humans, of animals, of plant life, of land, of resources, of anything and everything. It’s all we do. We take. We’re greedy children who think the biccie jar is never going to be empty.

Stupid Humans is what we are.

We kill, murder and maim everything for profit of some kind: financial, personal, profit for our families, profit for our countries, our companies… humanity is slowly becoming psychopathic (was it ever anything else?)

This, not surprisingly, disturbs the members of the group that would prefer to have a planet to live on, and a few like-minded people around us into the future. We’d like to have somewhere to raise the kids, somewhere that we can grow old in dignity. We’d like somewhere that wasn’t constantly and consistently bombarded with images of fear, with information that told us we are worthless if we don’t use this underarm deoderant or that style of dress.

All we seem to do is kill, kill, kill. In the name of what? WMDs? Dictators? Repressive regimes? Invaders from without and within?  Profit?

It makes me sick and sad and depressed all at the same time.

This is what O’Brien meant when he said ‘…want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—for ever…’

It’s been said before, but I’ll repeat it: 1984 by George Orwell was intended as a horrifying warning NOT AS A FUCKING RULEBOOK!

And in amongst this, I’m also sick of the constant and unremitting greed of my fellow man. The Hummer ad on the side of a tram was the final sign of insanity for me: a petrol-guzzling converted army vehicle coveted by the very rich (and everyone else) because of its Status, plastered across the side of a public transport vehicle. I laughed the first time I saw it, 80% humour, 20% disgust, but now it’s 100% disgust.

I’m sick to death of hearing excuse-after-excuse for not just accepting what is flatly in front of our faces: that the oil is running out, that the water isn’t flowing the same as it was, that the climate is changing; that religion and obsession and arrogant superiority  and greed have caused us to rise to this lofty place and will ultimately be the end of us.

And you know, I do think there is a pretty good possibility of life on other planets in this universe.And you know what else I think?

I think they would rather see humanity die by its own hand than make contact with us. I don’t blame them in the slightest for this either.

Does that make me bad? Well, lock me up with the rest of the free-thinkers and dreamers. I’d rather be me than what society commands me to be.

Morons.

Who’s afraid of the net – the age online.

Is there some way that these idiot politicians can be helped to understand how the internet actually works?

I mean, honestly, statements like “Labor believes that all Australian families are entitled to a clean internet feed…” just make them sound like raving bureaucrats interested in pandering to a population with fearmongering tactics that they hope will keep them in power. Anyone that actually has an inkling of how the web works knows that this sort of thing is simply impossible.

If Labour believes that they can sanitise the web, then I’ve got a honking great bridge to sell them, cheap.

Nothing like good news to herald (is that the right word? Perhaps it’s more christmassy. A better word would be… No, Herald will do for now) the new year:

What is it with news services? Not a skerrig, not a whiff of good news, news where someone hasn’t died, been maimed, inconvenienced… not even a single story where someone, anyone has had something pleasant happen.

I mean, yes report what’s happening in the world, but surely, somewhere there has to be something nice happening? Somewhere in this planet of a billion people or thereabouts, there has to be someone that hasn’t died, been maimed or inconvenienced (well, all right, I’ll admit that the prison escapees might be veering toward the positive side of things, but imagine the stress the buggers will be under)…

Moving on.

The point I’m making is related to a previous post about that “F” word. No, not that one, the other one. Same number of letters, not quite the same connotation (unless the “F” word you’re thinking of is used in a sentence with “You’re” at the beginning, an “ED” modifier added to said word, and “Mate” on the end).

Where was I?

Yes, feeding the cat.

Fear is a survival instinct, a throwback to our ancient ancestors.

So why do we fear now? Here in the first world; what’s there to fear?

Hunger? Well, for the most part (other than a few pesky low-income earners), we don’t have to worry about that.

Violent assault? Possible but not as likely as the TV news would have us believe.

Death? Happens to everyone. What’s the big deal?

Betrayal? Find better friends.

Imagine a world where fear is not the first thing thrust down your throat whenever you open your eyes, where the images that enter our eyes are not designed to be so emotive and manipulative.