Mind control -- epilogue

Right after I posted my reflections about the subject of "mind control", my neurons went onto a rampage and fired indiscriminately into all direction causing an eruption of ideas, notions, visions, newly arising questions and doubts. There came so much things into my mind that I had to start writing again and paragraph after paragraph appeared on the screen.

I don't want to include these additional considerations into my blog post about mind control, the post is already 3800 words long and will probably challenge the endurance and exceed the attention span of most readers. To make it a bit easier I package these additional ideas into a separate post, but I have to remind everybody who takes the burden to read this text, that all considerations are based on the preceding blog post.

Readers of the preceding post may have got the impression, that I don't take anything for granted and that I am skeptical about any claims, especially when they are made by governments and corporate media. These readers are right, and even if I join now a mass choir of voices bigger than the Washington State Mass Choir, the Montreal Jubilation Gospel Choir, or the Harlem Gospel Singers, I have to declare:

We are lied to, we are duped, fooled, tricked, swindled, deceived, cheated, misinformed and mislead.

You can take that for granted! And it is the only thing that you can take for granted. (period)

When I voiced my dismay and horror about the NATO bombing campaign in Libya, many people got very angry with me. They felt comfortable and cheerful about the successful toppling of a brutal dictator, they felt victorious, they had a party and I was the spoiler who tried to ruin the party.

I was not against the NATO bombing because I'm convinced that Gaddafi is a saint, a brilliant thinker, and an integer and responsible leader. I am against violence and weapons on principal grounds. I am against bombing raids because I imagine the bodies of people torn apart or burned to ash. I imagine pieces of flesh laying around, blood puddles, severely injured survivors bleeding to death, people groaning in pain and agony. 

I am not in the position to make a judgment about Gaddafi, I don't know him. I was intrigued when I read his Green Book, which includes many socialist ideas. I don't know, if he followed the ideals that were explained in the Green Book -- words and deeds are often different. It would not have mattered much, if Gaddafi would have been a saint, a brilliant thinker, and an integer and responsible leader. Once the bombs fall, everything changes and the rules of war override any other rules. To all the evangelists of liberation through bombing I can only say: Are you sure, that things were so much worse than now, after ten thousand people died and hungry and thirsty survivors stray between smoldering ruins? Are you sure that things were bad enough, to justify the carnage? Were you there?

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The NATO bombing campaign in Libya has polarized not only the Libyan population, but also bystanders around the world. The bombing campaign has split the world population in two distinctive parties, who cannot see eye to eye and who are separated by an ocean of mistrust, enmity, acrimony, and loathing.

The bigger and by far more powerful party is constituted by the bomb lovers. 

Bomb lovers consider bombs as a force for good, as a way to achieve positive change. Bombs represent the resolve, the courage, the firmness and determination of the bomb makers and they are a testimony of their ingenuity. Bombs are symbols of power and grandeur, they are impressive, majestic, magnificent. They can break any barriers and overcome any obstacles. Bombs ensure victory for the good and beautiful and they destroy evil and send the sinners to hell. 

Bomb lovers consider bombing as a kind of weeding. Like weeds would spread in a garden and soon overgrow and strangulate all useful plants, the social weeds, the hooligans, gangsters, evildoers, troublemakers, bums and slackers would overtake and destroy a society, if they would not be weeded out. Sometimes societies garden is not cared for and maintained properly and the social weed grows exponentially beyond a point, where individual weeds can be taken out one by one.

When this happens, large scale measures are needed to clear the weeds away. In a garden, herbicides have to be sprayed, in a society, bombs have to be rained down.

Bombing is weeding out the bad guys, it is that simple!

And one last word: We live on a small planet, crowded now by nearly seven billion humans. These humans do immense harm to the ecological systems and will soon destroy nature and maybe make any kind on life based on DNA/RNA/proteins impossible. Wouldn't it make sense to diminish the human population by weeding out the undesirable and unworthy individuals? Wouldn't this alleviate the environmental strain that is caused by humans? If nothing else, at least this point should give the naysayers and complainers, the critics of bombing campaigns food for thought!

The other party, much smaller and far less influential, are the bomb haters.

Bomb haters consider bombing as destructive and they refuse to see the beneficial effects of a bombing campaign. The bomb haters don't believe, that bombs only wipe out monstrous thugs, criminals, hoodlums, terrorists (in short: creatures who deserve it in anyway to be destroyed), and they assume, that bombs inevitably also hit innocent bystanders, women, children, elderly and disabled.

Bomb haters even go so far to claim, that everybody, including the evildoers, terrorists, and bandits deserve human rights, due process and a fair trial.

Bomb haters also point out the ecological damage of bombings, the destruction of habitats and the poisoning of the ecosphere as well as the gigantic amount of materials and energy that is needed to build and deploy bombs.

Bomb haters consider bombs as symbols of a psychopathic cult of masculinity, spiced with necrophilia, satanism, and the infantile joy about blazing fires, deafening noise, destruction and chaos.

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As I was writing down arguments of both bomb lovers and bomb haters I discovered, that my feelings about this issue changed significantly while I was formulating the arguments. I am a lifelong and unwavering pacifist and abhor weapons of any kind but formulating arguments of the bomb lovers evoked a strange kind of sympathy for them.

This is the emotional power of words. Every word in our vocabulary has an emotional connotation, and so do phrases and often used sentences. One can describe bad things with positive words that stimulate positive emotions and completely change the feelings about these things alone by the right wording.

The masters of mind control are also masters of semantics and constantly change the meaning of words, rewrite the dictionaries, and invent new euphemisms and descriptive phrases.

People are not killed by bombs, they have "lost their lives". It they are enemies, they have been "taken out," "taken care of," been "terminated." If they are lucky enough not to be perceived as enemy soldiers, insurgents, or terrorists, they are "collateral damage." Prisoners are never tortured to death but parish in a "correction facility" as a result of "enhanced interrogation."

Politicians, press secretaries, TV and Radio show hosts, journalists, pundits, they never lie, they maybe "bend the truth", or "color the truth", they misspeak, misstate, misrepresent, or are misinterpreted.

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Wendy just wanted to come in and she scratched at the door. Of course I went up to let her in -- she cannot open the door by herself. Her colleague Cindy occasionally jumps at the door handle in an effort to pull it down, but until now Cindy always failed, she is not strong enough.

Wendy sits now on my lap, purring softly as always. What would she do, when a bomb falls and explodes? If she would survive, she would run for cover and hide in the darkest cave and she would stay there for a long, long time, frightened to death and deeply traumatized. I hope, that my beloved Wendy will never experience such an event.

Wendy is not intelligent enough, to consider good and evil and the positive or negative aspects of bombs. Her central executive and her working memory are tiny and her vocabulary is too small to define objects and make abstract logical conclusions. I have to admit though, that she produces an astonishing variety of funny sounds that go far beyond the usual cat language of purring, meowing, growling, hissing, whining, screaming. Her vocabulary includes chirping, tweeting, clucking, squeaking, grunting, and much more, including sound that I am unable to describe.

I love listening to her and I'm always glad when she starts talking. I'm sure that with systematic training she could develop a language out of that vocabulary which would also include grammatical rules. Grammatical rules which could then become logical rules. Due to such a systematic training and with regular exercise maybe one day I could discuss more complicated matters with my friend Wendy. But this is not a pressing issue or a problem that has to be solved urgently. For the time being our communication is not impeded too much by the lack of grammar and we understand each other perfectly.

Cats don't like to be trained. Cats don't like to comply and adhere to rules and they generally refuse to obey orders. Cats are very wary and suspicious and stubbornly reject any suggestions and any advice. One cannot command a cat and tell her or him what to do. One has to negotiate with a cat and convince her or him that the suggested move is also in the cats interest.

Cats are creatures of habit just like we humans are, and if they are used to a procedure they will repeat it again and again. In the morning my cat family waits in the kitchen till I come and open a can and fill up the food cups and in the evening when it is time for our daily walk the cats wait in front of the door till I come down from upstairs and put on my boots and then we start our adventurous journey into the adjacent forest as we did so many times before.

When we walk, my little friend sometimes follow me and sometimes go ahead and quite often take a turn and choose a route that was not in my plans. Cats are very individualistic, they have their own mind, they are cautious and skeptical. The masters of mind control would have a hard time with my cats.

The masters of mind control will have a hard time with me too!

And I hope with my readers also.

Stay skeptical, stay cautious!