Advice, please, any and all accepted

Zenaan Harkness zen at freedbms.net
Sun May 7 06:50:23 PDT 2017


On Sun, May 07, 2017 at 02:49:55PM +0200, Vasily Kolobkov wrote:
> [2017-05-07 19:33] Zenaan Harkness <zen at freedbms.net>
> >
> > part       text/plain                5060
> > On Sun, May 07, 2017 at 12:29:57AM +0000, \0xDynamite wrote:
> > > >> Given that hierarchal power structures enabled and enforced by the
> > > >> State are the major cause of the greatest collective problems
> > > >> faced by the human race, the solution to the greatest collective
> > > >> problems faced by the human race is a bigger more powerful State!
> > > 
> > > That is the solution for those who are enlightened.
> > 
> > That's the Rosicrucian position, along with the Georgian monoliths
> > "prediction" (intention) to reduce the world's population to ~500
> > million.
> > 
> > EVERY next rabit bunch of bolsheviks touting "we're all equal and we
> > few see it, let's overthrow the mighty system" will ALWAYS descend
> > into tyranny.
> > 
> > Every truth which requires "just a few -leaders- who see the -real-
> > truth" is flawed by specification - if it cannot or does not apply to
> > us all, it cannot be a universal truth.
> > 
> > The belief in universalisms is at the foundation of "empire and
> > glory", at the foundation of colonialism and despotic subjugation of
> > the billions of minority humans around the world "for the greater
> > good".
> > 
> > Can you not see this Marxos?
> 
> This one letter [1] might help. And it is a real treat for anybody
> wishing good to the people.
> 
> [1] http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7176
> 
> p.s. don't worry, it's not of the 'War and peace' scale in thickness.

Wow! Short and sweet, and 110 years old - I couldn't stop grinning as
I read it - that amazing feeling when you read something "from
generations ago" and it could almost be a post on cypherpunks.

A timeless quote:
   "this truth, in order to force a way to man's consciousness, had
   to struggle not merely against the obscurity with which it was
   expressed and the intentional and unintentional distortions
   surrounding it, but also against deliberate violence, which by
   means of persecutions and punishments sought to compel men to
   accept religious laws authorized by the rulers and conflicting
   with the truth."

And todays statutes could be considered the modern religion - the
dictates of the priests of the courts (judges/magistrates), enforced
by armed thugs controlled by the king/rulers, and all paid for by our
own taxes paid by actual consent (notwithstanding threats of court,
potential jail, and all the surrounding fear)!

   Religion - that tool reinvented throughout the ages,
   to control the masses, for the benefit of the few.

And Marxos, perhaps this quote will remind us all that there's
nothing new under the sun, but also, there is much cause for hope
when we can chuckle with the "inspired" thoughts of "enlightened ones
from the past" - just gotta watch my ego though :/

   _The aim of the sinless One consists in acting without causing
   sorrow to others, although he could attain to great power by
   ignoring their feelings._ 

(Note: It is easy to not agree with all the quotes in this letter of
Tolstoy, but those he included may be useful food for thought.)

Stating the obvious in nicely concise ways is a great start:

   In former times the chief method of justifying the use of violence
   and thereby infringing the law of love was by claiming a divine
   right for the rulers: the Tsars, Sultans, Rajahs, Shahs, and other
   heads of states. But the longer humanity lived the weaker grew the
   belief in this peculiar, God--given right of the ruler. That
   belief withered in the same way and almost simultaneously in the
   Christian and the Brahman world, as well as in Buddhist and
   Confucian spheres, and in recent times it has so faded away as to
   prevail no longer against man's reasonable understanding and the
   true religious feeling. People saw more and more clearly, and now
   the majority see quite clearly, the senselessness and immorality
   of subordinating their wills to those of other people just like
   themselves, when they are bidden to do what is contrary not only
   to their interests but also to their moral sense. And so one might
   suppose that having lost confidence in any religious authority for
   a belief in the divinity of potentates of various kinds, people
   would try to free themselves from subjection to it. But
   unfortunately not only were the rulers, who were considered
   supernatural beings, benefited by having the peoples in
   subjection, but as a result of the belief in, and during the rule
   of, these pseudodivine beings, ever larger and larger circles of
   people grouped and established themselves around them, and under
   an appearance of governing took advantage of the people. And when
   the old deception of a supernatural and God-appointed authority
   had dwindled away these men were only concerned to devise a new
   one which like its predecessor should make it possible to hold the
   people in bondage to a limited number of rulers.

   ...

   those who enjoy power propagate these new sophistries and support
   them so skilfully that they seem irrefutable even to many of those
   who suffer from the oppression these theories seek to justify.
   These new justifications are termed 'scientific'. But by the term
   'scientific' is understood just what was formerly understood by
   the term 'religious': just as formerly everything called
   'religious' was held to be unquestionable simply because it was
   called religious, so now all that is called 'scientific' is held
   to be unquestionable.

Thank you Vasily!
:D


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