One thing I can say about off-road camping under cedar trees is that it gently tilts the axis of your world-view. It is impossible for human hands to plant seeds of hubris in the wilds of a cedar forest; or in any other grand, natural environment for that matter. When you are standing before a majestic gathering of ancient trees, modern civilization is but an afterthought with a bitter aftertaste. The inhaled pure life-force of the scented air may have something to do with one’s sudden altered state and the realization that the world you left behind is but a nightmare of increasing miseries. The pointlessness of truth in the mouths of liars struck me the hardest on this camping trip. It would take me years to elaborate on this philosophical point, but suffice it to say that when insidious liars and propagandists perpetually hijack the truth for their own political ends, the sheep of humanity indeed are hopelessly lost to the belly of the wolf.
I don’t know why for decades I thought that my humanitarian mission in life is to wake people up to the ugly lies and the pleasantly numbing fabrications that our sociopolitical systems the world over saturate us with. No one planted that seed in me. I don’t know why I internally sprouted this care and cultivated it into a forest of agonies. I thought it the height of mass injustice for leaders, big or small, to force the majority of humanity to live and die still believing in delusional and destructive lies. This disheartening state of affairs, this manipulation of man’s experience on earth has been going on since before recorded time and nary any change has occurred in the substance of man. The unconscionable savagery is still there. It is shocking to realize that truth has been that pointless all along. And so literally, after my first arduous mountain hike under a blazing sun; and after my first night of camp-out: after my insomniac eyes wrestled with thousands of pointlessly shining stars, I awoke the following day empty of earthly mission or care. I awoke without the incessant compulsion to right the world with small hands.
And what a quiet morning moment that was. What relief, what liberation to be neither witness nor savior. A perfect bird song riding on a breeze was the only undesirable interruption. Undesirable, yes – because beautiful as it may have been, the silence that came before it was of a deeper fabric of beatitude. It was good to know the silence of the mind – ephemeral, as it may have been.
Yes my first day out hiking amongst cedars was heady to say the least. Memories of the insanities and violence of humankind came stampeding to the forefront. I climbed a tree and ejected some forcefully with every heaving upward step. High above, perched and crawling the swinging, prickly top branches, I gazed southwards, holy-land-wards, Palestine-wards. Nothing but the cleanest air between me and the stench of war crimes I knew were being committed by the deranged state of Israel. It was hard to fathom the depth of the twisted mythologies that Israelis live by. I gazed eastwards and northwards, Syria-wards, and the inhuman Wahabi violence there too was just as impossible to fathom. Westwards was the great blue Mediterranean and it felt, from my vantage point, that I had my back to the sea while a crescent of evil was attempting to forcefully encroach itself where birds sing when they’re looking for love.
Faraway agonies from Yemen, Bahrain, and every other country in the East and in the West under the hammer of injustice – all rushed at me in a giant and nauseating swarm. I was sickened to the core to also think of the daily humiliation and torture of millions of mute and helpless animals at the hands of ignorant and cruel humans. Why are humans the way they are? Unchanged, unchangeable wretches. It felt worse when I remembered that I was a feeble member of the malevolent species. Can human villainy ever be cured? I asked the same question in a hundred different ways. No answers came forth as I descended the tree in what felt like a decent back into the insatiable madness of Terra Firma.
The night convulsed me and I could not sleep – my dogs sensing my troubled energy barked intermittently when normally they would sleep a silent ten hours – their loud barking bothered my camping companions and that made me feel even worse. Eventually, I achieved shut-eye under blinding stars and when I awoke, it was late in the morning and my friends and dogs had already gone on a hike, leaving me a note. Half-deflated, half-relaxed, I sat passive on a nearby rock and the stillness surrounding me pressed gently on me, squeezed the last residues of the hectic world gently out of me; folded me slowly like s silk fan. I was empty of thoughts of the world and thoughts of self. For several minutes, only my skeletal breathing being existed. It was then that my poignant fleeting revolution took place: a short-lived moment of unwordable dimensions of understanding that was quickly sabotaged by an exquisite bird singing on a cedar branch. No I did not curse the intrusive bird, but I did not delight in it either. The folded fan simply didn’t care either way. The illuminating moment had left me without a care. Without an anxious purpose. A golden neutral.
The next two days of camping and hiking were less world-weary and more personal. I counted in months how long I’ve been in the Levant: 46 months – California by now was a mere memory. I will be returning to Los Angeles shortly, but to do exactly what there? I’m no longer interested in my old career – no other career interests me either. How to pass productive time again in Los Angeles: city under the foul thumb of Zion? Not an inviting prospect in the least. I contemplated living by the beach and dedicating my full time to Plato’s: upgrading it, expanding it, finally working towards a wider readership. But it seemed like a futile endeavor in the face of my unexpected earlier illuminations and the pointlessness of, well… everything.
I am not a journalist – I have zero interest in being one. I am a blogger – a natural exposer of media lies. But I’ve lost my appetite for cyber chatter now. I’ve lost my desire for collecting and sharing information on a daily basis. I’ve lost interest in Plato’s daily routine. I’m sick of reading lies by liars in the news – the same lies told in different ways by the same liars. Thick wads of useless information taking up much too much room in my life experience. I’d like to have clean, hubris-free zones in my brain again – plenty of them. For what purpose? I don’t know. I just want them. Back!
For diamond reason I want them back!
Let me now take you down to the sewers of mainstream media, to a place where only soul-whores wallow and thrive. Let me tell you that after four and a half months of Plato’s life, four and a half months of my daily saturation and microscopic study of the filthy innards of media, I now find myself more disgusted, more suspicious and even more anti mainstream media than ever before. I now regard their crimes against ‘we the people’ as being more diabolical and more treasonous than any corrupt politician on Capitol Hill.
I now consider mainstream media as Public Enemy number one. Worse than the worst of revolting politicians – as evil as mass murderers and child rapists and slave traders. They are the real warmongers! Their victims run in the billions and their crimes are committed in multiple ways daily – and in broad daylight, no less! The media willfully lie while promising you truth – treasured, oxygenated truth. But they have no desire to inform you of the truth – they have no intention of giving you ANYTHING! What they want is your mind. What they’re after is control of your mind. What they seek is to kidnap and suppress your individuality, your good instinctive morals, and your very own ultimate inalienable right to freedom of thought. They distract you with their song and dance about ‘freedom of speech’, but what about freedom of thought?! Freedom of thought is more essential to the progress of mankind than anything – yet they will absolutely not allow you this natural and vital right.
For them, it is all about words – semantics is their weapon. Clever fuckers with university degrees have had huge success, unimaginable success – but success through mass-manipulation and the practice of the dark arts of hubris. A morally debauched success! The are responsible for all the wars erupting on our planet. And they are fully responsible for the dumbing down of Americans, for all the hostile divisions in our country; for making us a laughing stock in the eyes of better-informed yet poorer nations – for making us ridiculed and hated around the world. Our mainstream media is the most corrupt in the whole goddamn world and not a drop of respect should be given to them for all the ruinous mind-thieving they’ve committed against the American people for decades and continuing.
They lie, they fib, they tarradiddle, they whoop and wallop, they fabricate, manufacture, concoct, vamp up, vamp down, vamp sideways and upside down – they spin, they hatch, falsify, fake, exaggerate, undermine, fictionalize, doctor up, cherry-pick, misinform, deceive, devise, fob, dupe, cheat, bamboozle, befool, and out and out swindle their loyal paying readers on a continuous and daily basis. They practice shameful, immoral mass mind control on our society as a whole – generation after generation – their goal is to continue dis-empowering ‘we the people’. They are dangerous ideologues in a position of subtle but great power. They are in essence craven politicians who are too cowardly to run for office themselves.
They are insidious, smarmy impersonators of truth.
I can tell you right now I respect not a single mainstream media institution in America – not a single member of them is worthy of respect by me or by any other good American. We can vote politicians out of office, we can close down their offices, but we have no powers to do the same with our mainstream media. We are stuck with them. They are a constant source of evil that has glued itself to society under the pretense of being ‘one of us’. They are society’s elite leeches feeding off brainwashed minds. They are damn well not one of us! They are the ultimate enemy within: beware, be-fucking-ware!
Clearly, my camping trip detoxed me from their foul mind games and now that I’m back, well, readers and friends, frankly I have less interest in running Plato’s. You’ll excuse me therefore if a couple of days, maybe even more, pass every now and then without a pip-squeak from me. As much as I’ve absolutely loved running a daily newsstand, I am now realizing and rejecting my unnecessary over-exposure to the criminal msm. I will not have my brain saturating in the dark sewers of media again. I will leave that to the fucking journalists who favor the foul flavor of excrement.
A new, less taxing, less unsavory direction is needed for Plato’s. Therefore, from here on, expect less post-up of articles from me. And just so you know, there is actually hardly any news of consequential importance taking place at any given time, but the media will have you think otherwise with it’s endless regurgitations and headline bluffs . Only articles of prime importance will be posted at Plato’s – and if one doesn’t appear in the press, then I will not be posting secondary picks – I will not even be reading them. I have by now developed the skill of gleaning a whole article just from reading the headline and the writer’s name.
Maybe the extra time on hand will allow me to write more commentary and more original articles or analysis. Who knows what I will do with my sudden extra time?
Certainly not dicing for pearls in the sewers of America’s mainstream media!
Oh Enitharmon!
Let go your grip of the world!
Beautiful, Taxi. Too many lines caught my eye (and mind) to quote. Look forward to your book.
Wow! Reading this is like I am there, listening to a poet while sitting in the forest!
Sounds like you are conflicted about your impending return to the mainland next month – and I don’t blame you. Sometimes I look around at what we have become as a people, and I despair. You are absolutely right about how liars have hijacked the truth, and it is disappointing to see how few rise up to challenge them, and even would-be champions, like Rand Paul, succumbs to the call of the siren’s song.
That was such an enjoyable read! I can almost see you conflicted between your desire for the peace and joy of surrender to nature, free from the shackles of worldly turmoil, and yet drawn back to your inner desire to make a difference and change the world.
I don’t know why you say that you are not a journalist – it is not a title, it is a calling for someone to dig for the truth and make it known to as wide a swath of the masses as possible and shake them out of their stupor and wipe that drugged ignorance from their eyes – and you do that beautifully! Yes, the MSM is the (an) enemy, but only superficially so. They are tools in the hands of puppet masters who use them from behind shadowy curtains, hidden from sight. They provide a face to hate while shielding the true enemies from our feeble assaults. Yes, words are their weapons, as you say, but those are the words of Public Relations experts, and Madison Avenue whiz kids – formulaic and manufactured. Where you and others like you stand out, and render their words meaningless, is that your words come from the heart and the human soul, like the tapestry of a poet and masterful strokes of a painter. Your words evoke emotions, feelings, and passion, and those are the words that make for revolutions and change.
I believe that where you are headed with your thinking about Plato as a platform for your original essence is a wonderful outcome. The rest of us can curate worthwhile articles from the news and spark discussions over them, but true genius is about original works of art that topple walls and build citadels.
You, my friend, are uniquely gifted, and brilliantly inflamed, to raise the masses and poke out the eye of Mordor.
Is that a picture of you?
Young lady from the village. She lost a brother in the 2006 war. She likes dogs (most villagers are petrified of dogs), so we became friends. She came along on the camping trip. Her English is very limited but she speaks so sweetly.
Cloak,
I can’t tell a lie for more than 24 hours – it’s the way I was raised. When I was caught in a lie as a kid, I was given 24 hours to fess up. This was a rule in our house.
So… Yeah that’s me: 40 months ago.
Cool. It definitely sets the right mood and tone for yur article.
“the silence that came before it was of a deeper fabric of beatitude. It was good to know the silence of the mind – ephemeral, as it may have been.”
Just beautiful, Taxi. I agree with the sentiments of peacefly and Cloak. You’re an incredible writer. The essay reminds me of a quote from the Bhagavad Gita when Krishna (the guru) says to Arjuna (his disciple)–“get away from this ocean of suffering, death and misery”…. the admonition to be in the world, but not of it and that peace and joy are to be found within.
The are many non-msm sites now reporting positive and uplifting changes in the world. One of my favorites is ” Daily Good–news that inspires”–http://www.dailygood.org/
From the site: “Today, DailyGood leverages the internet to promote positive and uplifting news around the world to more than 100,000 subscribers through the daily and weekly newsletters. Readers receive a news story, an inspiring quote, and a suggested action that each person can take to make a difference in their own lives and the world around them.
Often times, watching the nightly news and reading mainstream newspapers it’s hard to remember the presence of good in the world. And yet it is constantly around us. The world is full of everyday heroes and true stories of transformation. They have helped sustain life down the ages in a multitude of ways, small, simple and profound. DailyGood aims to shine a light on these stories and in doing so to change the nature of our conversations. If it can spread a few smiles along the way it’s purpose is served.”
Regarding Los Angeles–you may be pleasantly surprised. Yes, the film industry and zionist consciousness are still very prevalent, but I’ve noticed another more evolved impulse and consciousness on the West coast —a receptivity to universalism, meditation and spirituality (not dogma) that you may find appealing.
Words fail me but I feel it.
Feeling truths is much more painful than just knowing them.
You’ve a way with words which is most satisfying….wanna say more but don’t much like typing on phone.
About the lying media.
On October 10th, United States Vice-President, Spiro Agnew resigns. He is accused of bribery in the media, but the real reason for his removal, is his knowledge and disdain for the Jewish Communist mafia in control of the United States. This is revealed in the following speech he had made.
“The people who own and manage national impact media are Jewish and, with other influential Jews, helped create a disastrous U.S. Mideast policy. All you have to do is check the real policy makers and owners and you find a much higher concentration of Jewish people than you’re going to find in the population.
By national impact media I am referring to the major news wire services, pollsters, Time and Newsweek Magazines, the New York Times, Washington Post, and the International Herald Tribune. For example, CBS’ Mr (William) Paley’s Jewish. Mr Julian Goodman, who runs NBC, and there’s a Leonard Goldenson at ABC. Mrs Katherine Graham owns the Washington Post and Mr Sulzberger the New York Times. They are all Jews!
You go down the line in that fashion…. not just with ownership but go down to the managing posts and discretionary posts…. and you’ll find that through their aggressiveness and their inventiveness, they now dominate the news media. Not only in the media, but in academic communities, the financial communities, in the foundations, in all sorts of highly visible and influential services that involve the public, they now have a tremendous voice.
Our policy in the Middle East in my judgement is disastrous, because it’s not even handed. I see no reason why nearly half the foreign aid this nation has to give goes to Israel, except for the influence of this Zionist lobby. I think the power of the news media is in the hands of a few people…. it’s not subject to control of the voters, it’s subject only to the whim of the board of directors.”
William Randolph Hearst to his photographers: “You furnish the pictures and I’ll furnish the war” (whip people up into a war frenzy, he means).
Media exploitation began way back, American, and it got quite sophisticated back in the Spanish-American war of 1895-1901 – the time frame of the Hearst quote above: a time of rabid yellow journalism, media-exploitation… Citizen Kane.
Like I said in the piece above (and this goes out to Cloak and Dagger too), I actually think it’s the media that run the brainwashing therefore the media run the show according to their own ideology – politicians are the shopfront of the media owner’s ideology. Media hides in plain sight and fools everybody that they’re just ‘reporting’, when in fact, they’re conducting mass branwashing to serve themselves, entrench their political powers and consolidate their political influences. And like I said above too: politicians come and go but media remains rooted – shakable but unmovable.
They have the power to start wars. Illegal wars. That’s an elitist and most powerful position to have in a democracy – working it from behind the curtain, without an accountability mechanism; letting the politician mouthpieces take blame or glory while they get their war on. They are THE warmongers, THE puppet masters – they are not puppets or neutral witnesses – they are not elected representatives with a voter’s mandate in hand.
They have huge, huge, huge obscured from view powers.
They’ve come a long way since their early days as town-criers.
Hey Taxi
You’re burnt out. It happens. After some rest, you’ll get over it. Give yourself some time, listen to your body. You’ll be fine. You’ll be back.
Best wishes.
Thank KM.
Above all, I’m disgusted by the depth of the media scam.
This was very touching, Taxi and well written. I do completely understand where you are coming from, both about the violently aggressive heritage of our species and the media’s surreptitious role as propaganda outlet masking the worst of our instincts.
Don’t know whether you read the Book Cloud Atlas (the movie, like all Hollywood productions was a pale ghost) but there you’ll find support for your despondency about our race.No matter how many good instincts occasionally come to the fore, no matter that many tribes and countries managed to subsist peacefully for a long time, no matter how many achievements, the species racks up in its artistic heritage, ultimately it all gets destroyed because of an innate greed, lust for power and the remarkable ability to wash hands off from any culpability in misdeeds – both individually and collectively Right now we are being treated to a master class in these attributes by the charming land of zion and our own US of A.
AS for the media and its role in pulling the wool over everyone’s eyes, we need to look more closely at who owns the media and who the main players are. Not just in the US, either. A careful survey will show that there is agency at work, that’s not necessarily organized, but it acts as one when it comes to propaganda over the ignorant masses. AS to what this agency is, I have a hint: there is an affinity to the very ones who once upon a time came up with one of the best all time propaganda pieces – known as the old testament. It’s greatness lies in the subtleties of interplay between guilt and self justification, all under the guise of worshipfulness and devoutness. The modern media, taken as a whole, to include TV, print, online, books and movies, is a replay on the old themes – how to get away with bad behavior. The recipe is as old as the human race – call out the deed, attribute it to a few bad people, call for divine remedies and issue dire warnings about the fate of us all. Then continue on the same path.
I am not saying that it is only jewish people that are behind the media’s supiness and obsequiousness to power. I am, however implying that the overtaking of almost all MSM outlets introduced an element of subversion and selfishness that gets high on its own bravura. That last aspect, that one is awfully reminiscent of certain jewish tendencies, best manifested currently in the state of Israel. Was the media perfect before jewish people took over? is everyone in the media jewish? heck, no! but it doesn’t matter. What the jewish element does, IMO (in a way that jews themselves are hardly cognizant of since it happens almost subconciously) is to infuse the medium with a toxic mix of ingredients, including, in that order, exceptionalism, lust for power, and selfishness. It’s a powerful mix because it tracks so well with what’s in all of our natures already, so in a way, the jewish success story is about the worst, and sometimes the best in our nature, as a species, though alas, the worst comes out ahead in the end. It’s almost like we are all somehow programmed to do more ill than good, and the jewish part of the program is the means to an end, like a subroutine that gets called up, just as soon as we think we are getting somewhere (yes, this is all part of my own Matrix theory).
That, I think this is what the essence of homo sapiens boils down to. The human race came this far not only because of some smarts, but because of a combination of smarts with extreme aggressiveness – perhaps more so than almost any other species. That and a unique talent to reproduce successfully, even in the face of very harsh circumstances.To me the bible gives us as good an account as any of where we came from – homo sapiens, the species that destroys.
This BTW is why I don’t like putting down the Neanderthals so much (you hear that, American?). It’s quite possible they were, counter to the way they are depicted, the gentler species, which is why Homo sapiens took over in the end. May be some day we’ll find out that the gentler parts of our nature, the more gracious parts are, in fact those 3-4% neanderthal genes. Just a thought here.
All this being said, taxi, tomorrow is another day., just as Scarlet O’hara said It’s probably a good idea to take a little break from the many stories of woe and misdeeds and do your own writing for a while. Pursue your own philosophy. And please don’t go camping any more. I like your collection here and need my daily dose of negative to keep myself in shipshape (or is it shiftshape?).
…this manipulation of man’s experience on earth has been going on since before recorded time and nary any change has occurred in the substance of man.
It’s probably only been going on since the tanakh was written (i.e. Leviticus, Deuteronomy). All written with the effect of controlling it followers into a racial separatist creed. Not every clan has a manipulator within.
I don’t see the media as the primary cause of all the ills of the nation – they are more of the voicebox of a corporate styled inner-party that is riddled with greed that wants to be served, it’s more of a nation within a nation that has succeeded in subverting the system to satisfy their insatiable needs with a conceived formula to usurp power by hook or by crook. I’d rather work in a dark salt mine today, than be a US politician.
But it seems like the USA has already been subverted and we will probably see a steady decline until it’s death -and that may be 50 years, or perhaps people will revolt and take the system back, but I don’t see it happening at all. Looking around I often think of this famous film quote ‘I see dead people – they don’t see each other, they only see what they want to see they don’t know they’re dead.’
Great and inspired writing, Taxi, I just came upon this piece by chance and very glad I did. What caught my attention was the photograph. For a second I thought it was a photo of my niece, which is just about the same age as you in the photo. The resemblance is incredible.
BTW in your piece about the cedars, another great writer was inspired by the cedars of Lebanon, it was the great French poet, Alphonse de Lamartine (1790-1869). He spent some time in Lebanon and in 1832 while in Beirut, he lost his only remaining child, Julia. Lamartine was so influenced by his trip that he staged his 1838 epic poem “La Chute d’un ange” (“The Fall of an Angel”) in Lebanon.
There are 3 cedar forests in Lebanon: Bcharreh, Gibran’s birthplace in the north, In the Barouk Mountains and the Chouf Mountains. If you visited the Bcharreh one, there’s a valley there named after Lamartine and a huge 2000-year cedar with his name plate on it.
There is so much to read from the beginning of your blog I don’t know where to start. The less I have to read about Israel, the more I like it.
Thank you for the Alphose de Lamrtine reference – I’m so on it! Thank you for that illuminating share – and it was actually the Barouk where the camping took place. I’ve been to all 3 cedar forests several times over and in all seasons. Last winter I went to snowy Bxharreh cedars which was… well, that’s another story of beauty and devastation for another time.
Thank you for your kind words, Walid.
Regarding Plato’s archives, the new design, which is currently been worked on, will have features that will make it easier to find your way through the archives – for instance, my original pieces will sit in a separate archive to the other many ‘shared’ articles.