WHEN BIGGER ISN'T BETTER... (reprise)

Earthquakes and megacities: a recipe for catastrophe

Courtesy of National Geographic

WASHINGTON, Feb 28, 2010 – Megacities are something new on the planet. Earthquakes are something very old. The two are a lethal combination, as seen in the recent tragedy in Port-au-Prince, where more than 200,000 people perished — a catastrophe that scientists say is certain to be repeated somewhere, and probably soon, with death tolls that once again stagger the mind. In 1800, there was just one city with more than a million people — Beijing. Now there are 381 urban areas with at least a million inhabitants. Urbanisation crossed a threshold last year when, for the first time, more people lived in city settings than rural ones. About 403 million people live in cities that face significant seismic hazard, according to a recent study by seismologist Roger Bilham of the University of Colorado.

 

The next Big One could strike Tokyo, Istanbul, Tehran, Mexico City, New Delhi, Kathmandu or the two metropolises near California’s San Andreas Fault, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Or it could devastate Dhaka, Jakarta, Karachi, Manila, Cairo, Osaka, Lima or Bogota. The list goes on and on. “You can name about 25 cities that are like Port-au-Prince. They’re not going to shake much but every 250 years (on average they will). So if you can name 25 of them, you’re going to have an event like this every 10 years,” said David Wald, a seismologist with the US Geological Survey. In many vulnerable cities, people are effectively stacked on top of one another in buildings designed as if earthquakes don’t happen.

   

It is not the tremor that kills people in an earthquake but the buildings, routinely constructed on the cheap, using faulty designs and, in some cities, overseen by corrupt inspectors. 

The difference between life and death is often a matter of how much sand went into the cement or how much steel into a supporting column. Earthquakes might be viewed as acts of God, but their lethality is often a function of masonry. “In recent earthquakes, buildings have acted as weapons of mass destruction,” Bilham wrote in the journal Nature. For years, earthquake scientists have shouted their warnings about the strong likelihood that a major quake would level an impoverished city and kill hundreds of thousands of people. They have said, for example, that Nepal’s Kathmandu, where masonry structures expanded so haphazardly that some eventually cantilever over narrow city streets, was every bit as vulnerable as the surrounding Himalayas are majestic. They have said that a million people could die in a major quake in Tehran, Iran.

What’s impossible, however, is knowing precisely which of these cities will be the next to crumble. Or when. For all practical purposes, scientists can’t predict earthquakes. The theory of plate tectonics, largely developed since the 1960s, explains why earthquakes happen in general. 

The major plates of the earth’s crust move constantly, creeping along at about the speed of fingernail growth. They rarely move smoothly past one another but are usually locked in place. On a strike-slip fault of the type that ruptured in Haiti, strain builds on the fault line for decades or centuries. The fault in Haiti had not ruptured in 240 years. An earthquake is a sudden, stress-relieving event. The fault is said to “break.” Scientists can map faults and estimate how much strain has accumulated since the last quake. What they can’t do is say that a given fault will break tomorrow or next year or 10 years from now. Any calculation of earthquake probabilities has a lot of slop in the numbers. “The problem is, the slop is huge on a human time scale,” said Susan Hough, a seismologist with the US Geological Survey. “We’re wired to deal with the immediate. We’re not geared to plan and stress about things likely to happen in 30 years.”

Some large earthquakes have small precursors, called foreshocks, but others happen without warning. There is one famous case of earthquake prediction, in Haicheng, China, in 1975. A local official sounded the alarm after many foreshocks and reports of snakes emerging from hibernation. But that prediction was more akin to a hunch than a scientific argument. There have been countless, less publicized instances when predicted earthquakes did not materialize. As Hough notes in her book “Predicting the Unpredictable,” the successful prediction of earthquakes was an official government mandate in Mao Zedong’s China, but no one foresaw the killer quake that took at least 240,000 lives in Tangshan in 1976.

 

Port-au-Prince had not been hit with a major quake since the days of French rule in the 18th century. Only in recent years have scientists mapped the fault that runs near the city. “Just the beginning of work had been done. But enough was known that it could produce a big earthquake,” said Carol Prentice, a geologist with the US Geological Survey. “We knew it would be bad, but I didn’t imagine that it would be this bad.” 

[Source: The Washington Post. First posted 28 February 2010]

At long last... the launch of TANAH TUJUH! (repost)

Dear Friends,

Completed the first draft in 1998... and it's taken 8 years to find a publisher who thinks the book is "excellent"! I'm very grateful to Raman Krishnan of Silverfish Books who decided to publish TANAH TUJUH ~ Close Encounters with the Temuan Mythos, thereby putting closure to Magick River's multimedia project for the Orang Asli initiated in 1999. Yeeehah!!!

Phase One was Guardians of the Forest - a 52-minute documentary produced in 2000 by Mary Maguire and directed by Alan D'Cruz (and generously funded by Andrew Bird of Verado Films, Ltd).

Phase Two was AKAR UMBI ~ Songs of the Dragon - a CD featuring the celebrated ceremonial singer Minah Angong and her funky ethnic fusion band comprising well-known local musicians. This 2002 project was made possible by a timely grant from the Japan Foundation.

Phase Three: the launch of TANAH TUJUH ~ Close Encounters with the Temuan Mythos at 2:30PM, 29 March, 2007 @ Alexis Bistro, Jalan Telawi 3, Bangsar. I've edited a special 20-minute documentary for the occasion - hope Raman can arrange projection facilities @ Alexis Bistro!

If you're able, please come and applaud... buy a copy of TANAH TUJUH hot off the press... have a cup of coffee... and celebrate with me!!!

Cheers & Hugs,
Antares
~^@^~
xxxXxxx

P.S. Here's a sneak preview of the backcover blurb:

TANAH TUJUH

… is what a large number of Orang Asli tribes call our planet. The Orang Asli constitute Peninsular Malaysia’s indigenous folk and there are at least 18 distinct tribes. The word tanah means “earth” or “land” and tujuh means “seven.” So Tanah Tujuh literally translates as “Seventh Land” or “Seventh World” or “Planet Seven.”

What does 7 represent in numerology and symbology? There are 7 major keys in the octave, 7 primary colours in the chromatic spectrum, 7 main chakras in the bioenergetic system, 7 days of the week, 7 hills, 7 sisters, 7 dwarfs, 7 wonders…

Front flap:

Antares is a writer, musician, and visionary who moved out of the city in 1992 and found himself living amongst the Temuan (second largest of the peninsular Orang Asli tribes) in the Malaysian rainforest, a few miles from Gunung Raja - a mysterious, mist-enshrouded mountain revered as the birthplace of a postdiluvian humanity.

Tanah Tujuh: Close Encounters with the Temuan Mythos chronicles his initiation into a fast vanishing aboriginal cosmomythology that offers an alternative view of reality.

Copiously illustrated with sketches and photographs, a Temuan Glossary, and a foreword by eminent anthropologist, Robert Knox Dentan.

Publisher: Silverfish Books, Kuala Lumpur

[First posted 23 March 2007]

HOW THEY PULLED OFF THE 'PANDEMIC' - AN ANIMATED FILM EXPLANATION BY DAVID ICKE

David Vaughan Icke (born April 29, 1952) is an English writer and public speaker best known for his views on what he calls "who and what is really controlling the world". Describing himself as the most controversial speaker and author in the world, he has written 18 books explaining his position, dubbed New Age-conspiracism, and has attracted a substantial following across the political spectrum. His 533-page The Biggest Secret (1999) has been called the conspiracy theorist's Rosetta Stone. Icke was a well-known BBC television sports presenter and spokesman for the Green Party, when he had an encounter in 1990 with a psychic who told him he was a healer who had been placed on Earth for a purpose. In April 1991 he announced on the BBC's Terry Wogan show that he was the son of God, and predicted that the world would soon be devastated by tidal waves and earthquakes. The show changed his life, turning him practically overnight from a respected household name into an object of public ridicule. He continued nevertheless to develop his ideas, and in four books published over seven years - The Robots' Rebellion (1994), And the Truth Shall Set You Free (1995), The Biggest Secret (1999), and Children of the Matrix (2001) - set out a moral and political worldview that combines New-Age spiritualism with a passionate denunciation of what he sees as totalitarian trends in the modern world. [Wikipedia]

[First posted 21 February 2011]

Bill Gates: Philanthropist or Eugenicist?

After it was exposed that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the philanthropic brainchild of Microsoft founder Bill Gates, purchased 500,000 shares in Monsanto back in 2010 valued at more than $23 million, it became abundantly clear that this so-called benevolent charity is up to something other than eradicating disease and feeding the world’s poor. It turns out that the Gates family legacy has long been one of trying to dominate and control the world’s systems, including in the areas of technology, medicine, and now agriculture.

Bill Gates, Monsanto, and eugenics: How one of the world’s wealthiest men is actively promoting a corporate takeover of global agriculture

The Gates Foundation, aka the tax-exempt Gates Family Trust, is currently in the process of spending billions of dollars in the name of humanitarianism to establish a global food monopoly dominated by genetically-modified (GM) crops and seeds. And based on the Gates family’s history of involvement in world affairs, it appears that one of its main goals besides simply establishing corporate control of the world’s food supply is to reduce the world’s population by a significant amount in the process.

William H. Gates Sr., former head of eugenics group Planned Parenthood

Bill Gates’ father, William H. Gates Sr., has long been involved with the eugenics group Planned Parenthood, a rebranded organization birthed out of the American Eugenics Society. In a 2003 interview with PBS‘ Bill Moyers, Bill Gates admitted that his father used to be the head of Planned Parenthood, which was founded on the concept that most human beings are just “reckless breeders” and “human weeds” in need of culling.

Gates also admitted during the interview that his family’s involvement in reproductive issues throughout the years has been extensive, referencing his own prior adherence to the beliefs of eugenicist Thomas Robert Malthus, who believed that populations of the world need to be controlled through reproductive restrictions. Though Gates claims he now holds a different view, it appears as though his foundation’s initiatives are just a modified Malthusian approach that much more discreetly reduces populations through vaccines and GMOs.

Gates Foundation has invested heavily in converting Asian, African agricultural systems to GMOs

William Gates Sr.’s association with Planned Parenthood and continued influence in the realm of “population and reproductive health” is significant because Gates Sr. is co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. This long-time eugenicist “guides the vision and strategic direction” of the Gates Foundation, which is currently heavily focused on forcing GMOs on Africa via its financing of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA).

The Gates Foundation has admittedly given at least $264.5 million in grant commitments to AGRA, and also reportedly hired Dr. Robert Horsch, a former Monsanto executive for 25 years who developed Roundup, to head up AGRA back in 2006. According to a report published in La Via Campesina back in 2010, 70 percent of AGRA’s grantees in Kenya work directly with Monsanto, and nearly 80 percent of the Gates Foundation funding is devoted to biotechnology.

The same report explains that the Gates Foundation pledged $880 million in April 2010 to create the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP), which is a heavy promoter of GMOs. GAFSP, of course, was responsible for providing $35 million in “aid” to earthquake-shattered Haiti to be used for implementing GMO agricultural systems and technologies.

Back in 2003, the Gates Foundation invested $25 million in “GM (genetically modified) research to develop vitamin and protein-enriched seeds for the world’s poor,” a move that many international charities and farmers groups vehemently opposed. And in 2008, the Gates Foundation awarded $26.8 million to Cornell University to research GM wheat, which is the next major food crop in the crosshairs of Monsanto‘s GM food crop pipeline.

If you control agriculture, you control the populations of the world

The Gates Foundation‘s ties with Monsanto and corporate agriculture in general speak volumes about its real agenda, which is to create a monopolistic system of world control in every area of human life. Vaccines, pharmaceuticals, GMOs, reproductive control, weather manipulation, global warming — these and many other points of entry are the means by which the Gates Foundation is making great strides to control the world by pretending to help improve and save it.

Rather than promote real food sovereignty and address the underlying political and economic issues that breed poverty, Gates and Co. has instead embraced the promotion of corporately-owned and controlled agriculture and medicine paradigms that will only further enslave the world’s most impoverished. It is abundantly evident that GMOs have ravished already-impoverished people groups by destroying their native agricultural systems, as has been seen in India.

Some may say Gates’ endeavors are all about the money, while others may say they are about power and control. Perhaps it is a combination of both, where Gates is still in the business of promoting his own commercial investments, which includes buying shares in Monsanto while simultaneously investing in programs to promote Monsanto.

Whatever the case may be, there is simply no denying that Gates now has a direct interest in seeing Monsanto succeed in spreading GMOs around the world. And since Gates is openly facilitating Monsanto‘s growth into new markets through his “humanitarian” efforts, it is clear that the Gates family is in bed with Monsanto.

“Although Bill Gates might try to say that the Foundation is not linked to his business, all it proves is the opposite: most of their donations end up favoring the commercial investments of the tycoon, not really “donating” anything, but instead of paying taxes to state coffers, he invests his profits in where it is favorable to him economically, including propaganda from their supposed good intentions,” wrote Silvia Ribeiro in the Mexican news source La Jornada back in 2010.

“On the contrary, their ‘donations’ finance projects as destructive as geoengineering or replacement of natural community medicines for high-tech patented medicines in the poorest areas of the world … Gates is also engaged in trying to destroy rural farming worldwide, mainly through the ‘Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa’ (AGRA). It works as a Trojan horse to deprive poor African farmers of their traditional seeds, replacing them with the seeds of their companies first, finally by genetically modified (GM).”

Source: Ethan A. Huff / The Liberty Beacon [31 May 2013]

This Little Animal...

... really exists! It's called a Naked Mole-Rat, from Africa.

So if you're having a bad day and feeling sorry for yourself,
remember:

Going through life is hard enough, but to go through life looking like a dick with buck teeth must be hell!


[Forwarded by Demetrious Addonnis. First posted 22 February 2008]

SPECIAL NOTICE FROM GOD

[Forwarded by my daughter Belle. First posted 7 February 2009]

"CHILDREN FULL OF LIFE" ~ a different kind of school (repost)

"In the award-winning documentary Children Full of Life, a fourth-grade class in a primary school in Kanazawa, northwest of Tokyo, learn lessons about compassion from their homeroom teacher, Toshiro Kanamori. He instructs each to write their true inner feelings in a letter, and read it aloud in front of the class. By sharing their lives, the children begin to realize the importance of caring for their classmates."

[Brought to my attention by Mooza Mohd. First posted 31 January 2013]

INVOCATION FOR BLESSINGS, GUIDANCE & PROTECTION

INVOCATION FOR BLESSINGS, 

GUIDANCE & PROTECTION

In the ineffable name of the One and the All, 
the eternal and infinite “I AM” presence within, 

Source of My Being, my Original and Ultimate Self;

In the name of the Beginningless and Endless, 
the Mystery of Mysteries, the Master of Masters, 

the Feminine and Masculine Principles 
(Sophia and Thelete, Isis and Osiris, Sita and Rama, Shakti and Shiva, 

Magdalena and Yeshu) Mother of Mothers and Father of Fathers;

We call upon the Archangelic and Angelic Realms, 
Ascended and Descended Masters of the Numinous Order of Melchizedek, 
the Silent Watchers, Gatekeepers of the Worlds Within Worlds;

Specifically we call upon Sananda the Cosmic Christ; 
Sanat Kumara the Ancient of Days; 

Metatron the Preserver of Forms; 
Lady Kuanyin the Compassionate; 
Lady Portia, embodiment of Cosmic Justice; 

and Saint Germain of the Violet Flame:

Please clarify and edify, please cleanse and purify us 
and absolve us from ignorance and karmic hindrances; 
prepare us to be empty vessels ready to receive new wine.

Violet Flame from the heart of Saint Germain, 
blessed and beloved Violet Flame of Transmutation, 
enter our hearts and flow through our physical, mental and emotional bodies.

Violet Flame from the heart of Saint Germain, 
blessed and beloved Violet Flame of Transmutation, 
enter our hearts and flow through our physical, mental and emotional bodies.

Violet Flame from the heart of Saint Germain, 
blessed and beloved Violet Flame of Transmutation, 
enter our hearts and flow through our physical, mental and emotional bodies… 
NOW!

Thank you, thank you, blessed and beloved Violet Flame, we thank you.

Violet Flame of Transmutation, as you enter our hearts and 
flow through our physical, mental and emotional bodies, burn away the debris 
and the dross accumulated through all our embodiments 

and restore us to pristine purity.

Violet Flame of Transmutation, as you flow and dance through our physical, 
mental and emotional bodies, burn away all biochemical, hormonal and endocrinal imbalances and clear away all defunct and dysfunctional programs; 
burn away all unnecessary, unwholesome addictions, beliefs, 

prejudices and obsessions.

Violet Flame of Transmutation, as you flow and dance through our physical, 
mental and emotional bodies, reignite the Divine Spark of All-Being, 
All-Knowing and All-Sensing within the nucleus of every cell; 
reactivate the memory banks and all data bequeathed us by our ancestors and predecessors; reintegrate all aspects, all fragments, 
all components of our greater existence 

and restore us to the fullness and wholeness of our present being.

Violet Flame of Transmutation, as you flow and dance through our physical, 
mental and emotional bodies, fill us to overflowing with remembrance, 
understanding and compassion.

May all injuries to our physical bodies, subconscious minds and our 
emotional bodies be completely and finally healed; 
and may that healing ripple outwards to our home sweet homes, 

our beautiful countries, our beloved planet, 
our magnificent galaxy and beyond.

We thank and honor all who have served the Sacred Flame of Intelligence, 
Compassion, Love and Wisdom across the Aeons, 
especially the Archangel Michael who has valiantly held and supported us 
in all our battles, internal as well as external, 
with shadow aspects of ourselves. 
Let there be an end to cruelty, injustice, tyranny and violence 
in all planes of existence.

We thank and honor Metatron and Melchizedek for protecting and 
preserving the integrity and sovereignty of Universal Form and Spirit; 
for serving as conduits of our physical and metaphysical expression.

We thank and honor Lady Portia and Saint Germain for blessing, 
guiding and protecting us as we shift into the New Aeon, 
the Age of Aquarius; and as we quantum jump from the 3rd to the 5th dimension 
and consciously begin a new cycle of cosmic evolution.

We call upon the Chohans and Kumaras, luminaries and teachers 
of the Seven Rays, to bless and guide and protect us 
on our journey home to Oneness.

We call upon the Elohim and the Star Councils, 
emissaries and embodiments of Prime Creator, 

the Source of Life and Light and Love, 
to grant us free access to all accumulated experience 

and accompany us as we evolve beyond Duality 
and reclaim our Wholeness and Integrity.

We call upon the Elements within us and around us, 
the Devas of all Domains of Existence, 

to share our joyful celebration of a 
Unified and Coherent Field of Awareness.

We call upon thee, Keeper of the Genetic Keys and 
Guardian of the Portals of Initiation, 

to bless and guide and protect us – 
and to help us know and love ourselves.

In the name of the Beginningless and Endless, the Mystery of Mysteries, 
the Master of Masters, the Feminine and Masculine Principles 
(Sophia and Thelete, Isis and Osiris, Sita and Rama, Shakti and Shiva, 

Magdalena and Yeshu) Mother of Mothers and Father of Fathers;

In the ineffable name of the One and the All, 
the eternal and infinite “I AM” presence within, 

Source of My Being, my Original and Ultimate Self:

I am the One.

I am the All.

I AM.

WE ARE NOT ALONE.

WE ARE ALL ONE.

[Deep breath]

AUM [articulate on the outbreath till the sound gently fades away]

[First posted 12 May 2012, reposted 10 April 2014]

LOVE LETTERS LEFT UNWRITTEN

OPEN SEWERS AND DARK CREVICES (repost)

Of late I've noticed a lot of photos in the local dailies showing officials peering into suburban drains - either looking for dengue-bearing mosquito breeding spots or accumulated garbage exacerbating worsening flash floods. Now that it's become fashionable for public officials to show a keen interest in open sewers, I would like to draw their attention to the overnight proliferation of shopping and office complexes in Rawang, which provide shelter for quite a number of shady enterprises.

If you don't know where Rawang is, consider yourself fortunate. Until thirty years ago, Rawang was a charming little one-street town - surrounded by rubber estates, vegetable farms and orchards - located about 18 miles north of Kuala Lumpur. Owing to its unhealthy proximity to Malaysia's only megalopolis, Rawang has since grown like a malignant tumor into a perpetually congested, dusty, noisy, utterly graceless, tasteless, concrete conglomerate of housing estates, workshops, factories, shopping complexes, and nondescript offices. That's right, folks, Progress and Development have begun to consume the rural heartland!

And wherever "progress and development" go, you'll encounter a new breed of born-again entrepreneurs and their pyramid scams. Consider this: in the course of one week in December 2006, my dear illiterate spouse Anoora received two fantastic offers she couldn't possibly refuse.

The first was from "Merlin Distributor" congratulating her for having been picked, out of thousands of names, for a lucky draw from which she might take home a selection of attractive prizes. The leaflet showed a whole range of electrical appliances ranging from an ornamental wall clock to a vacuum cleaner, iron, fan, TV set, and DVD player.

She was requested to collect her prize in person before January 9th 2007. Well, our DVD player was starting to misbehave, so I figured it would be timely indeed to get a free replacement. So on January 8th we drove to Rawang and spent a good half hour looking for Merlin Distributor. We finally found a first floor office in a newly built business complex and were asked to wait while the assistant manager finished her tea. When she emerged after five minutes, she announced that Anoora had come too late for her prize - they were all out of lucky draw coupons! She showed me a stack of used coupons each bearing an image of one of the featured prizes. "You should have come yesterday," she said.

"According to your leaflet, the last day is tomorrow," I reminded her. Her excuse was that too many people had shown up during the first few days and used up all the lucky draw coupons. Then she smiled and said, "But we do have a mystery gift to thank you for coming all the way!" Anoora was handed a gift-wrapped package that looked like it may be a clock. I decided to open it on the spot - and it turned out to be a glass bowl worth about fifty cents. I was tempted to say something sarcastic, but I thought we'd already wasted enough time at Merlin Distributor. As we turned to go, the assistant manager said: "Wait! You can also sign up for our sub-agent plan and get very special discounts on a wide range of electrical goods - but you have to buy a minimum of five units each." She showed me a plastic card and added: "The annual membership fee is only RM285 (about US$80)!"

Believe it or not, a similar episode occurred within a few days. The phone rang and some stranger asked for Anoora. I said he could talk to me but he insisted I pass her the call, so I did. After ten seconds of hearing Anoora go "Hah? Haaah? Haaaaah?" - he was quite happy to talk to me instead. He said he was calling from Etno-Aktif - a distributor of Malaysian-made goods headquartered in Penang, and announced very excitedly that my wife had been awarded a Toyota Avanza. How so? I asked. The guy said it was part of his company's application to the government for tax-exempt status. They were giving away 15 Avanzas to 3 random names in 5 states. All they required were Anoora's particulars, photocopies of her identity card and driver's licence, a passport photo, and a handful of sales receipts. Could Anoora please go to Rawang the next day and meet a certain Encik Azman bin Mohamad.

I really should have hung up when I heard the name "Rawang" - but by now I was fairly intrigued and open to the possibility that our good luck fairies had decided we deserved a new set of wheels. After all, four years ago, I won the Grand Prize in a Berjaya Lucky Draw which included a 34" TV, two tickets to a dinner show, and a night's free stay in a luxury suite.

So the next morning we packed into my van and drove to Rawang... and, guess what, Etno-Aktif was located just a little down the road from Merlin Distributor! Well, long story short... after filling out an official looking form with Anoora's banking particulars and so on, Encik Azman (who was all dressed for Friday prayers) announced that it would take anything from six months to a year to deliver the Toyota Avanza. "That's okay," I said, "we can wait."

Encik Azman continued: "Just one more thing: we are currently in the process of applying to the Ministry of Trade for special tax-exempt status, and we need to show that the vehicles have been delivered. So we'll issue you an official receipt for the Avanza, which we shall reclaim from you when you collect the car - end of June or, at the latest, December this year. Meanwhile, to ensure that you keep the receipt safe, we require that you give us a small cash deposit, fully refundable when the car is delivered. If you don't have sufficient funds for the deposit, Etno-Aktif is prepared to offer you an interest-free loan."

The "small cash deposit" requested by Encik Azman bin Mohamad amounted to RM7,500 (about US$2,100). I asked for Anoora's form back and walked out, vowing never again to respond to any "free gift" or "lucky prize" offered by anyone based in Rawang.

"Good day to you, Encik Azman," I said as I left his office. "Enjoy your Friday prayers!"

[First posted 26 January 2007, reposted 5 February 2018]

If you still believe Osama bin Laden masterminded 9/11... watch this video! (repost)

Published on 10 Sep 2013 by "Truth Collector"

[First posted 15 January 2015]

MALAISEA - A Political Overview (Revisited 20 Years Later)

In the early 1990s people were looking forward to a great future - no matter what their outlook or worldview. Rich folk believed they were going to get even richer. Poor folk felt they had a fair chance of at least getting a bit of furniture in their homes and maybe their kids would be geniuses at school and be given full scholarships all the way. Industrialists eagerly anticipated taking over the action from flagging western economies; social activists and environmentalists formed themselves into energetic little NGOs and found their opinions gaining some ground. 1996 was a jolly time to be a Malaisean! People were buying computers for their kids and everyone was getting on the Internet.

True, some of us knew a lot of stupid, ugly stuff was going on in business and politics - like everywhere else - and that the government was in the hands of highly sophisticated hoodlums descended from the great space pirate lineages. But we thought that sooner or later enough citizens would awaken from their consumerist trance and restore a measure of accountability and democracy in government. All it would take is a sizeable middle-class with access to good information and proper education - and we were definitely getting there.

AND THEN WHAT HAPPENED?

The Asian Tigers suffered a collective stroke in July 1997. Overnight, currencies like the Thai Baht, the Malaysian Ringgit, and the Indonesian Rupiah were devalued by approximately 40%. The Icarus Effect kicked in: from being among the highest flyers in the Asia-Pacific Area, the wings of the Malaisean economy suddenly melted and we plummeted feetfirst towards terra firma and almost broke our spines when we landed on hard reality. But what was really badly bruised were the inflated egos of Malaisean prime minister Mahathir Mohamad and his wheeling-dealing Wild Bunch of Umnoputras (UMNO = United Malay Nationalist Organisation; Umnoputras = the swaggering political party leadership).

As long as the economic bubble was visibly expanding, nobody wanted to look too closely at the shenanigans and shady businesses underpinning the Malaisean success story. Nobody wanted to know how much had been borrowed from which banks by whom and how in hell they hoped to ever repay their astronomical debts. Nobody wanted to cut the administrative body open and figure out how many cans would be needed to hold the wriggling worms that had gorged themselves off the fat of the land for decades.

Suddenly finding his megalomanic dream of building his very own Evil Empire and turning Malaisea into his personal Death Star project thwarted, Mahathir's paranoia took a turn for the worse. He knew his hand-picked successor to the throne, the charismatic but enigmatic Anwar Ibrahim, was more than ready to take over his job. Anwar had the support of most of the younger generation and was already holding two important posts: deputy prime minister and finance minister.

Former finance minister Daim Zainuddin - Mahathir's invisible Grand Vizier, Undisputed Godfather of the Malaisean Mafia and Master Manipulator - saw the end of the Mahathir era rapidly approaching. With his entrepreneurial protégés all facing bankruptcy proceedings, Daim couldn't survive a sea change in party leadership. So he came up with a plan to discredit Anwar and stop him from cracking down on corrupt party members with heavy business connections. They would circulate rumours that Anwar was a freestyle fornicator with a penchant for anal sex and thereby force his resignation.

The plan backfired (pun unintended) when Anwar refused to take the money and run. Instead, he turned around and openly challenged Mahathir for the nation's top job. On September 2nd 1998, Mahathir sacked Anwar. Thousands of sympathizers flocked to Anwar's residence pledging their support. In less than three weeks, Anwar was leading protest processions through the streets of Kuala L'impure, the national capital. Some say the crowds reached as high as 80,000; others estimate the numbers at no more than 40,000. In any case, Anwar Ibrahim's unceremonious dismissal inspired the largest gatherings of dissenters in Malaisean history. The velvet glove was removed and Mahathir ordered Anwar's arrest on the evening of September 20th, 1998.

Since that shameful night the entire country has been plunged into moral darkness. All the excesses and weaknesses of the system have been grossly magnified; all the leaks are letting in water like crazy (and even the pipes are leaking!). There's no more pretense at democracy. The well-behaved press has been further intimidated into serving as mere conduits for government propaganda.

Over the 22 years of his beady-eyed and heavy-handed rule, Mahathir quietly castrated the royals, offering them a handsome share of the Big Business ball game as compensation while securing his own financial dynasty through his children á la Suharto of Indonesia.

By now Mahathir was the uncrowned Emperor of Malaisea - dubbed Mahafiraun (Great Pharaoh) by his detractors in Umno. When the people demonstrated, a snarling Mahathir (as home minister) greeted them with water cannons and tear gas. His specially trained goons infiltrated street marches and sparked off rioting, thereby giving the police an excuse to crack down hard on the young hotheads calling for the prime minister's resignation.

On the night of his arrest Anwar Ibrahim was brutally assaulted by the Inspector General of Police. Anwar's associates were picked up and tortured into signing affidavits claiming they had been sodomized by the erstwhile deputy prime minister. Highly paid, well-dressed witnesses came forth and denounced Anwar as a profligate. The trial judge declared all evidence of a political conspiracy irrelevant - and pressed on relentlessly for a guilty verdict on a ludicrous charge of corruption which was delivered on April 14th 1999. Anwar was given a 6-year prison term after having been held in custody for nearly 7 months without bail. The whole thing stank.

[On August 8th, 2000, Anwar Ibrahim was found guilty of sodomy by another kangaroo court and sentenced to an additional 9 years behind bars! If he had been charged in a Syariah or Islamic Court, Anwar would most likely have been acquitted, as Syariah Law states that accusations of sexual indiscretion must be corroborated by four male witnesses of indisputable integrity who must swear that they saw the deed with their own eyes!]

And this reek of evil has permeated every facet of Malaisean society. Indeed we are in grave danger of getting inured to abuse of power and moral indecency in high office. It's truly a wonder that one wicked uncle and his gang of trained hyenas could have systematically corrupted the police force, the judiciary - indeed, the entire machinery of governance, including the mass media. The only avenue of dissent left open is the Internet. To win a victory in the streets we'd need 250,000 assembled in Freedom Square. They'd have to call out the army - and, hopefully, the troops will join the people in demanding a whole new government founded on decency, justice, freedom, and truth.


The key to power has long been Divide & Rule. Mahathir is a past master at the game, pitting different ethnic interests against each other, stirring up petty quarrels within each faction, capitalizing on the base human emotions of fear and greed. Without access to the mass media, opposition groups find themselves preaching to the converted. When it comes down to it, most Malaysians still vote with their bellies, not their conscience. By banning 680,000 newly registered voters from the general election on November 29th, 1999 (in addition to the usual bribery and fraud), Mahathir managed to steer his regime to a narrow victory with a mere 105,000 vote margin. But that was enough to buy him and his business associates a little more time.

Time in which to cover their financial backsides and wear down all political opponents. "We're bullish on bouncing back!" screamed the press advertisements. "Economic recovery expected with 6 months!" boasted the well-connected pundits. Well, wander around KL and see how many public phones you can find that actually work. Check out the public transport system and see how many sweaty commuters can fit into a single overworked bus. Find out how many factory workers and construction crews have been retrenched and repatriated to Bangladesh and Indonesia. How many Filipina maids have been harassed and sent packing. These are the real indicators of the Malaisean economy - and they don't look too good. All the energy and power is concentrated within a tiny segment of society; less and less of it trickles down to the masses these days. Essential services like electricity, water, and telecommunications have all been privatized (more precisely, piratized) - and even education and health care are headed that way.

When Pak Lah stepped in as prime minister after Mahathir's compulsory retirement (Umno stalwarts could see that Dr M, like G.W. Bush today, had become a liability to his own political party), it appeared that we had underestimated the man. It was refreshing to see a PM with less of an ego problem who seemed a great deal more open to public opinion and learned advice. Indeed, by releasing Anwar Ibrahim from Sungei Buloh Prison, Pak Lah effectively took the wind out of Opposition sails. People had little anger left to discharge and gladly returned to business-as-usual.

Now, a little more than three years after Pak Lah took over, we are seeing age-old problems re-emerge - problems that have never been courageously faced and resolved once and for all. The notorious ISA and OSA remain in place to prevent hardnosed investigators from unmasking corruption and abuse of power at its source. Samy Vellu is still in cahoots with corporate highwaymen and threatening to jail anybody who reveals his secret deals with greedy concessionaires. Sensational scandals have raised many unanswered questions, and rumors implicating prominent ministers are rife. In an era when presidents and prime ministers find themselves charged with war crimes, genocide, corruption, deceit, and rape - cold-blooded murder would be just another high-profile scandal. But, unless justice is seen to be done, it could cause the ruin of an entire country. Intimidating bloggers and whistle-blowers can only postpone the inevitable.

Socially, Malaiseans are fast becoming a bunch of self-serving ruffians. We have the ethical integrity of a gnu in heat. Nobody trusts the police. Everyone has at least one cousin or uncle who's turned to crime just so he can support his family. Or drug habit. Young people with ideas are forced underground, linking up with international anarcho-punk networks. Older artists and theater practitioners have sold out - or dropped out. The best writers in the country have a hard time finding publishers who can offer a straight deal. Nobody has the money to fund a feature film - unless the plot is absolutely banal and the script insults human intelligence. True, a few adventurous souls have recently begun making powerful personal statements with low-budget digicam movies. But mediocrity and malice continue to rule with an iron hand in poor, benighted Malaisea. All it takes is one evil-minded nincompoop with access to the Malay press to get adventurous films banned, and a popular film club shut down.

Indeed we seem to be in the cultural and spiritual doldrums. The mental atmosphere is stagnant, and everywhere you turn there's a toxic stench of putrefaction and industrial pollution. The rainforests are almost non-existent now and so is the political will to conserve the environment. Indigenous tribes are being driven off their traditional lands and forced to take their place as society's lowest stratum. Their dignity and freedom - which is all they own - is being confiscated. The rest of us lost ours ages ago.

IS THERE REALLY NO HOPE FOR US?

To answer this we have to sit back, relax, and look at the Big Picture. The deadly drama playing out in Malaisea is a hologram of the spiritual crisis facing all humanity. No system of governance exists today that can stand up to thorough scrutiny; all of it ultimately leads to Big Brotherism or one of its many permutations - despotism, totalitarianism, fascism, nazism. In short, the New World Odor - yup, the familiar stench of the old feudal hierarchies, thinly concealed as the Corporate Superstate.

The only way to deflect this life-denying reality from taking complete possession of our destinies as autonomously evolving individuals with free wills is to reconnect with our inner selves and scan our deep memories for corrupted files. Clear out our neural circuits and regain our youthful innocence, so we can once again look at the twinkling stars and wonder what they are - if not our true origins. That's right, folks. We have to get cosmic and quit rolling around in our own mental excrement, trapped in our claustrophobic pigpen 3D realities. We have to get multidimensional and stay heart-centered - because our heads are too dead to appreciate the awesome mystery of life.

But first things first: we have to remove reactionary politicians from high office; yank them all out like rotten teeth. Or their poison will go to our brains and kill us in our prime.

[Written 15 April 2001, updated & posted 8 February 2007, reposted 8 January 2020]

HEY, LEAVE THE KIDS ALONE! (reprise)

Watch the rest of The Wall on YouTube!

Directed by Alan Parker
Produced by Alan Marshall
Written by Roger Waters
Narrated by Pink Floyd
Starring Bob Geldof
Christine Hargreaves
Eleanor David
Alex McAvoy
Bob Hoskins
Michael Ensign
Music by Pink Floyd
Cinematography Peter Biziou
Editing by Gerry Hambling
Distributed by MGM/UA Entertainment Company (theatrical)
Sony Music Video (SMV) Enterprises
Release date(s) 6 August 1982 (New York City)
Running time 95 minutes

[First posted 6 December 2008, reposted 15 May 2016 & 16 December 2016]

Who is Robert Anton Wilson??? (A Timely Repost)

Strange that I can't quite remember how I first came across the

Illuminatus! trilogy (aka "Operation Mindfuck") by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson, written between 1969 and 1971, but only published in 1975. Did a friend recommend them or did I stumble on these extraordinary books by "pure chance"?

I was delighted to learn many years later that the Illuminatus! trilogy had become a veritable cult classic, triggering quantum mutations amongst anarcho-punks... even inspiring the establishment of the bulldadaist and morealist Church of the SubGenius - whose pipe-smoking patron deity, Mr J.R. "Bob" Dobbs, rapidly became an underground icon in hip circles. (Pierce Brosnan's impeccable portrayal of Professor Donald Kessler, Scientific Advisor to the White House, in Tim Burton's Mars Attacks! was a subtle acknowledgment of the unstoppable spread of J.R. "Bob" Dobbs's all-pervading influence.)

"Operation Mindfuck" was very well named - boy, was my growing mind well and truly fucked. I TOTALLY LOVED IT! Kept coming back for more. While Robert Shea subsequently vanished from the radar screen, his erstwhile collaborator began to loom larger and larger on my event horizon. I acquired almost every book I could find by Robert Anton Wilson - or RAW as his hardcore readers affectionately call him.

In the early 1990s I took a detour into experiential and metaphysical areas which would now be disparaged as "New Age Zones." One of the requirements of fully entering into any new belief system is the voluntary suspension of disbelief and the conscious renunciation of cynicism and skepticism. I set aside my admiration of RAW reality for a spell in order to experience aura cleansing and light body activation. That got me real high and it was fun floating around on Cloud Ninety-Nine... but eventually I realized it was time to ground myself and grow a root. Living amongst the Temuan tribe aided that process greatly and I am eternally grateful to all indigenous people everywhere for their remarkable stoicism in the face of relentless rapacity.

In recent years I find that I am becoming more and more comfortable with the metaconceptual framework Mr Bob Wilson aka RAW calls "guerrilla ontology." To embark on this adventure, the principal prerequisite is to forswear Deadly Seriousness in favor of Maybe Logic. I'm partial to fusion and weary of fission, though tolerant of confusion; therefore I can wholeheartedly endorse and embrace any life strategy that effectively blends the mystical with the scientific, the rigorously reasonable with the hilariously irrational. I'm extremely grateful for the magnificent memes and methodologies I've imbibed from Robert Anton Wilson who, like me, began blogging in December 2006... but he didn't have time to build it up and clutter it with nifty widgets, praise Bob, because he slipped out of his "hydrocarbon-protein spacesuit" on 11th January 2007.

Of all the colorful characters created by Robert Anton Wilson, the most fascinating must be Hagbard Celine (probably modeled after RAW himself and Scientology founder, L. Ron Hubbard). In the Illuminatus! trilogy, Celine is credited with authorship of a manifesto innocuously titled 'Never Whistle While You're Pissing' in which certain Discordian Laws are succinctly expressed:

Celine's First Law

Obsession with national security creates a surveillance state that is more a threat to the citizens than the threat it seeks to confront.

National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity. 

Reflecting the paranoia of the Neocon War on Terror, Celine's First Law focuses on the fact that to have national security, one must create a secret police. Since internal revolutionaries and external foes would make the secret police a prime target for infiltration, and because the secret police would by necessity have vast powers to blackmail and intimidate other members of the government, another higher set of secret police must be created to monitor the secret police. And even higher set of secret police must then be created to monitor the higher order of secret police. Repeat ad nauseam.

This seemingly infinite regress goes on until every person in the country is spying on another, or "the funding runs out." And since this paranoid and self-monitoring situation inherently makes targets of a nation's own citizens, the average person in the nation is more threatened by the massive secret police complex than by whatever foe they were seeking to protect themselves from. Wilson points out that the Soviet Union, which suffered from this in spades, got to the point that it was terrified of painters and poets who could do little harm to them in reality.

At the same time, given the limitation of funding and scale, the perfect security state never truly emerges, leaving the populace still vulnerable from the original threat while also being threatened by the vast and Orwellian secret police.

Celine's Second Law

Wilson uses the eye in the pyramid as a symbol of the dysfunction of hierarchies. Every level except the top is blind, but the eye can see only one way.

Accurate communication is possible only in a non-punishing situation.

Wilson rephrases this himself many times as "communication occurs only between equals" (echoing a classic Scientological dictum attributed to L. Ron Hubbard). Celine calls this law "a simple statement of the obvious" and refers to the fact that everyone who labors under an authority figure tends to lie to and flatter that authority figure in order to protect themselves either from violence or from deprivation of security (such as losing one's job). In essence, it is usually more in the interests of any worker to tell his boss what he wants to hear, not what is true.

In any hierarchy, every level below the highest carries a subtle burden to see the world in the way their superiors expect it to be seen and to provide feedback to their superiors that their superiors want to hear. In the end, any hierarchical organization supports what its leaders already think is true more than it challenges them to think differently. The levels below the leaders are more interested in keeping their jobs than telling the truth.

Wilson, in Prometheus Rising, uses the example of J. Edgar Hoover's FBI. Hoover saw communist infiltrators and spies everywhere, and he told his agents to hunt them down. Therefore, FBI agents began seeing and interpreting everything they could as parts of the communist conspiracy. Some even went as far as framing people as communists, making large baseless arrests and doing everything they could to satisfy Hoover's need to find and drive out the communist conspiracy. The problem is, such a conspiracy never existed in any form. Hoover thought it did, but any agent who dared point out the lack of evidence to Hoover would be at best denied promotions, and at worst labeled a communist himself and lose his job. Any agent who knew the truth would be very careful to hide the fact.

In the end, Celine states, any hierarchy acts more to conceal the truth from its leaders than it serves to find the truth.

Celine's Third Law

Citing Lenin and his successors as examples, Wilson argues that the most tyrannical and brutal regimes in history were created by honest politicians who believed in a good cause.

An honest politician is a national calamity.

Celine recognizes that the third law seems preposterous from the beginning. While a dishonest politician is interested only in bettering his own lot through abusing the public trust, an honest politician is far more dangerous since he is honestly interested in bettering society through political action, and that means writing and implementing more and more laws.

Celine argues that creating more laws simply creates more criminals. Laws inherently restrict individual freedom, and the explosive rate at which laws are being created means that every citizen in the course of his daily life does not have the research capacity to not violate at least one of the plethora of laws. It is only through honest politicians trying to change the world through laws that true tyranny can come into being through excessive legislation.

Corrupt politicians simply line their own pockets. Honest idealist politicians cripple the people's freedom through enormous amounts of laws. So corrupt politicians are preferable, according to Celine. (If you don't believe this, migrate to Singapore :-)



WANNA WATCH A RECENTLY UNEARTHED 1991 INTERVIEW WITH RAW ON THE ILLUMINATI? CLICK HERE!

FURTHER RESEARCH:

1995 interview with Robert Anton Wilson by a prototype cyberpunk.

Robert Anton Wilson's last interview, 12 September 2005.

Review of RAW's last book, TSOG: The Thing That Ate The Constitution.

Mindbending braincleansing video produced by the Church of the SubGenius. Guaranteed to make you laugh till you fart and praise Bob.

Keep the lasagna flying, folks.

[First posted 16 May 2007, reposted 27 June 2014 & 3 June 2019]