(1) The Latest Video from Reese Jones and (2) Ownership: Nations and Boundaries, Passports and Empire

Dr. Guy McPherson – The Man Behind the Message

By Reese Jones

In this video, Dr. McPherson gets personal.

Why did we ask these questions amongst other personal questions that will be coming forth in the next videos?

When someone is as ardent, outspoken, and public with a lone message as ominous as that which Dr. McPherson shares with us, people are interested in knowing what makes him tick, whether he’s believable, whether he’s plain crazy or just perhaps, weirdly eccentric. They want to know who he is, the Man Behind the Message.

They may wish to judge his every word, appraise his character, and perhaps know WHY a man would do as he does, say as he says.

Most of all, they may wish to find reason to disbelieve him; to gratefully find cause to repudiate the legitimacy of his frightening proclamations.

In my humble opinion, Dr. McPherson continues to pass with flying colors; his t’s are crossed, his i’s dotted, his o’s neatly and appropriately closed. If he is crazy, then crazy will require redefinition.

I still quite fail to fully understand his courage … but he’s an Idaho boy as stalwart and robust in spirit as the pioneer stock that preceded him, willing to sacrifice almost everything he holds dear in order to be true to himself, and his word. These days, such men’s men seem to be a rare breed. Many men have appeared to have lost the verve and resilience to believe in themselves, to choose right over convenience, profit, comfort.

I’m not of course, referring to any men in this forum.

It was important to me that Dr. McPherson be a man of honor, a man of his word, this purveyor of such gloom and doom. Had he been a womanizer, an alcoholic, a liar, cheat, or thief, I might have breathed a sigh of relief.

Perhaps unfortunately for him, he’s perfect for this message, as if he was born to carry the burden, to share the grim tidings of the oncoming, onslaught of collapse with a resistant world.

It accelerates … and we may need the strength, passion and resilience of this man of fine measure, Dr. Guy McPherson, more than ever.

~~~

Stay tuned for our news update with Dr. McPherson, which is coming soon.

This clip is based on an interview conducted 25 July 2014. All video clips from interviews with Reese are linked here.

**

Ownership: Nations and Boundaries, Passports and Empire

by Pauline Schneider

Anyone who has not been in a cave or under a rock these past few months (or years) has, at the very least, been peripherally following the horrific events taking place in the Middle East region currently known as Israel. It was formerly known as Palestine (to borrow a phrase from one of my favorite pop stars, the artist formerly and currently known as Prince).

The conflict raging there is fearsome, horrific, tragic, and apparently without end because neither side is able to make any compromise. The situation there has rendered all discourse on the topic intolerable. If you support Palestinians you are anti-Semitic. If you support the security of Israelis to live in safety, you are a Zionist fascist. This either-or, black-white, us-them thinking renders all discussion impossible. And that is a conundrum for those few who wish to see peace come without bloodshed or depravity.

There are reasons for this conundrum, the main one being our attachment to the ideas of Empire and nations, borders and citizenship. The idea of Empire and nations stems from a foundational, ideological fallacy that humans adopted when they decided to civilize themselves and abandon their former lifestyle. The fallacy is that of ownership, that is, that land can be owned. Native Americans seemed not to have fallen into the fallacy, perhaps because of their matriarchal/matrilineal cultures: “Native Americans believe they are closely linked with the land and everything that grows on the land or lives on the land. Because of this belief, the idea of “owning” land did not exist among the Native Americans. They lived off the land, but did not consider that they owned it.”

If your first reaction to this statement is a knee-jerk, “I own my own damn land/property and no one else can take it from me,” then you aren’t alone. I confess to have been similarly conditioned by the global civilized culture in this way. However, in the interest of personal growth and gaining introspection, perspective, and perhaps empathy for the plight of many, let me suggest a thought experiment. More simply, I suggest a parallel to owning land or property.

Not long ago it was considered not only normal, indeed, vital to own one or more human slaves. The fallacy of this condition, for the owner, was that to own the other human(s) the “owner” had to pay a serious price; the price of caring for the “owned” human(s) and the price of his/her own humanity, which was depleted through the necessary actions needed to insure that the “owned” human(s) did not escape. Those actions often included violence and degradation of the “owned” human(s), which in turn caused violence and degradation to the “owner’s” soul/being.

Unfortunately the fallacy of ownership has not been eradicated with the ending of state-sponsored slavery. (Slavery continues unabated in many forms around the world, including in the USA).

The ideological fallacy of ownership is championed daily by every nation that draws a line in the sand to identify its borders and boundaries. A country draws up its borders or, more typically, has them drawn up for them by a more powerful Empire. Historically this act was conducted by the British or the French, although the USA is now playing the game. The country then demands a tariff to enter or leave and a form of identification to keep track of the money going in and out.

When you fill out that declarations form upon entering or leaving a country, it’s not about protecting you or your fellow citizens, it’s about protecting the Empire’s “ownership” of the land and its resources. It’s about protecting the Empire’s money, not your money. It’s about the fallacy of “ownership” which must be championed, defended, and protected every day, every moment, and at great cost to the Empire and the people it says it serves. Consider that the greatest bulk of your federal tax dollars go to fund wars and the manufacturing of weapons that tear children apart, acts that follow directly from the notion of “owning” land or property. There is nothing else to do but to fight to the end defending that property or gaining more.

Most people alive today cannot remember a time when we did not need a passport to travel, a time when anyone could travel anywhere without a Visa or permission or having a guard molest you when leaving your own country. Charlie Chaplin created a fantastic short video about this issue, which helps explain why he was blacklisted and exiled from the USA.

Passports and Visas are a relatively new idea. In fact, one of the most onerous and sinister memories Jews have of Nazi Germany is being asked for their “papers,” a form of identification or “passport” that “permits” a person to remain in territory “owned” by a particular Empire. If those “papers” or “passports” were not in “order,” the person would be punished in any of a number of ways, the most extreme of which included imprisonment and/or “disappearance.” The most common way of dealing with someone without “papers” is exile.

Today Empires have other ways of dealing with people or nations whose “papers” or philosophies are not “in order.” They use economic sanctions to punish and arms sales to reward. If these methods fail, a coup is arranged to remove the offending leader who does not serve the larger, more powerful Empire.

As a child I lived in Greece and I remember when the USA’s Central Intelligence Agency arranged a coup of my country’s democratically elected government, in very much the same way the USA just did recently for the Ukraine. We lived in terror for weeks wondering if war would break out as tanks and helicopters circled the city. College students stood up against the military coup and they were quickly silenced and imprisoned. Martial law was imposed. My beloved guitar teacher was so worried he left the country and moved to Canada, as did many others. Thanks, Empire of the USA.

The Empire of the USA spends a great deal in weapons manufacturing and sales to reward those who honor the fallacy of “ownership.” The land currently known as Israel receives the largest of any nation in terms of financial support and military support from the Empire of the USA. This support goes to prop up the fallacy of land ownership or, as the leaders of Israel actually call it, occupation! They, like the slave owners a century before them, have to engage in necessary actions to maintain control of the “owned” land so that it does not “escape” them, and these actions are often violent in nature and cause harm to themselves as well as to those who also claim “ownership” of the land (parallels to slavery are apparent). The fallacy of “ownership” has left these humans in this region in a violent conundrum: neither wishes to relinquish “ownership.” However, the tragic truth is that neither “owns” the land any more than the slave owners owned slaves, and as long as humans embrace and engage in the fallacy of ownership, we will see human beings tearing each other’s hearts out for a scrap of soil already soaked in blood from centuries of civilized humans claiming the same fallacy that “This land is mine, god gave this land to me.”

So I ask: How do we move away from this “ownership” thinking? Does it start with challenging the use of passports? Declining to pay our war taxes? Educating people we meet who are willing to hear? Embracing Native American culture? All of the above? What do you think?

_______

Catch a radio interview with Mark Thoma about his film, 22-After. Click here, go to the 8/10/2014 edition, and start listening at 1:38:30.