The quality of being

 Being is so hard to find,

because it hides in dim

places, where time and

mind muddle to make 

real, to create that sense

which holds us in sure

ground; guides, protects

and binds us to self.

Being does not know 

itself unless we draw

a shape, smooth the 

edges, tidy the frayed

parts of soul, and call

upon our inner spirit

to know the truth of 

who and what it is.

Being cannot be led

or directed, but only 

enticed once we can

recognise that it exists,

beyond the ghostly 

dregs and dross of who

and what we are, for 

in those shaded realms

we are drawn into the 

lap of endless being. 

Poetics: Quality Poems | dVerse (dversepoets.com)

PALESTINE ACHES

 

 

 

The dead have silent teeth and empty throats,
they have no voice with which to speak, to cry
of all the horrors they have seen and been and
known; to call for justice, freedom from the

power of those who kill to claim what is not
theirs, the land of others, who suffocate children
in waves of dust and shredded metal moments,
where blood and tears and destiny are driven

deep into the waiting earth; dressing broken
fragments of their lives, their souls, their
hearts, that costuming of evil which war does
primp and posture into place, for those who

are the victims, for those who cannot speak,
and for whom the only hope can be for others,
that their throats are not empty, their teeth
are not silent, their words are not crushed

beneath the boot of evil and injustice and
military might, and that in the darkened
quietness of this awful, suppurating wound,
their only hope is that the voices of the living

will be speaking out for those who lie strewn,
fleshed like scattered crops, in that harvest
which bleeds and grieves and slowly seeds
the fields of future justice in aching Palestine.

Why doctors can no longer be trusted

 

It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that younger generations of doctors are poorly trained and that an intelligent individual researching for themselves, is often better informed than the GP that they see.

 

I read somewhere that the only thing medical students are taught about vaccines are schedules and that few if any would take the time to find out, how they are made, what they contain and what they are designed to do. The word vaccine is in allopathic medicine today, the equivalent of the Holy Wafer, something to be accepted without question as a matter of blind faith.

 

This blind obsession with vaccines rides on the back of materialist reductionist mechanistic science and the deluded belief that health resides in some magic pill, potion or needle and Death and Disease can be thwarted through chemical means and the manipulations of mere mortals.

Doctors today work under the Rumsfeld doctrine - they don't know what they don't know and they don't know that they don't know. On the subject of vaccines they are brainwashed and the vaccine industry is a cult.

 

Reading the histories of infectious diseases and the massive changes made by improved living conditions provides perspective no longer taught in medical schools.

In 1977, Boston University epidemiologists John and Sonja McKinlay published a seminal work on the role vaccines (and other medical interventions) played in the massive decline in mortality seen in the twentieth century.

 

The McKinlay’s study was titled, “The Questionable Contribution of Medical Measures to the Decline of Mortality in the United States in the Twentieth Century.” Their data showed:

 

<b>“that the introduction of specific medical measures and/or the expansion of medical services are generally not responsible for most of the modern decline in mortality.”</b>

 

In 1970, Dr Edward H. Kass, of Harvard, gave a speech to the annual meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, of which he was then President. He warned his colleagues that drawing false conclusions about why mortality rates had declined so much could cause them to focus on the wrong things.

 

He said:

“…we had accepted some half truths and had stopped searching for the whole truths.

 

The principal half truths were that medical research had stamped out the great killers of the past —tuberculosis, diphtheria, pneumonia, puerperal sepsis, etc. —and that medical research and our superior system of medical care were major factors extending life expectancy, thus providing the American people with the highest level of health available in the world.

 

That these are half truths is known but is perhaps not as well known as it should be.”

<b>

Macfarlane Burnet, Nobel Prize laureate for immunology, suggested over half a century ago that genetics, nutrition, psychological and environmental factors (ecological medicine) may play a more important role in resistance to disease than the assumed benefits of artificial immunity induced by vaccination procedures (Burnet 1952 p106). </b>

 

He suggested that in years to come society may have to reassess the belief scientists were placing in vaccination.

 

He considered that genetic deterioration of the population may be a consequence of universal mass vaccination campaigns and he postulated that ‘some of our modern successes in preventative and curative medicine may on the longest view be against the best interests of the state’ (Burnet 1952 p107). Burnet (1952) believed that genetic constitution was the most important hidden variable in disease statistics.

 

<i>Early in the last century, measles killed millions of people a year. Then, bit by bit in countries of the developed world, the death rate dropped, by the 1960s by 98% or more. In the U.K., it dropped by an astounding 99.96%. And then, the measles vaccine entered the market.</i>

 

 

https://financialpost.com/opinion/lawrence-solomon-the-untold-story-of-measles

ACT OF LOVE

The fruit falls swiftly from the tree,

the bulls stand silent in the lake,

the figure crucified is seen

upon the framework of the dream.

With arms spread wide and silent eyes

they lift her high upon the boughs

and turn her face towards the south

where white-flanked cows raise shining knives

above the meek and pious brows.

With sure and steady strokes they strip

pink flesh from each initiate,

to bathe in sacred waters then

the raw-bled truth of god and men.

The wise man watches, monkey-faced

and clasps each paw in full embrace

around the pierced and bleeding feet

of Woman, raised … her Self to meet.

Then gathered in small, blackened arms

the corpse is carried to the edge

of water, sanctified and deep

wherein the Goddess counsel keeps.

To lie beneath the water’s chill

and watch through full and empty eyes

the blood-washed sacrifice above

has been her greatest act of love. 

PULL

Pull yourself together,

they said.

As if I were yarn,

loose-stretched, ragged

at the edges;

a shapeless form

on life's hard block.

But the tears had knitted

in my soul, with needles

piercing deep;

a shimmering sheet

of memories

to shawl my troubled sleep.

Pull yourself together,

they said.

As if I could take

the strands, taut-tattered,

tired and torn,

and thread them through

again, on life's hard block -

so I did.

83 (c)

Madness rules when there are no boundaries

 

A society without boundaries is madness

Roslyn Ross

Getty Images

Roslyn Ross

13 November 2022

5:08 PM

Until we know the shape of something, we cannot begin to understand what it might be or what it might mean. It is in the boundaries, the borders, and the identity of something that we find meaning, purpose, and structure. When the mind has no such boundaries the result is madness. The same applies to societies.

We know that children, particularly teenagers – despite huge resistance – require boundaries in order to feel safe enough to explore the process of their becoming. Societies, systems, and nations are the same because without the basis of order nothing is certain and in the madness of all things being possible, things become impossible.

This is not to say that boundaries (which are our beliefs, traditions, practices) should not change or be redrawn, but that removing them quickly is disorienting and dangerous. Where do we fall when there is nothing to fall against? What stops us from tumbling into some abyss when there is no defined border?

The famous poem by Yeats touches upon the need for the centre to hold. Yeats reminds us why it is important that some things hold fast in order to retain a semblance of order, without which there is chaos. The poem reflects our age where we are tearing down the structures of the past at a sickening pace, leaving individuals and society vulnerable, like some crab that has discarded its shell and now creeps, soft, weak, piteously defenceless until a new carapace can be grown; until a defined, protective border is in place.

---

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

The Second Coming – William Butler Yeats

---

We may not value many things which we have inherited from the past, but we should recognise that the fact they have been handed down means they are important in ways we do not understand.

In every act of destruction of the past, whether statues, gender roles, political systems, traditions, we are removing the borders which have helped keep our world in place. Defined beliefs like armour which preserve and protect, and which can be removed slowly, in small steps. But, where if too much is discarded too quickly, we risk everything.

And when we tinker with things we do not understand we unleash demons beyond imagining and believe that anything can and should be possible, or acceptable then we open ourselves and our world to much we may not have imagined. As the maxim has it – be careful what you wish for.

‘Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds’ are the words from ancient Hindu scripture, which Robert Oppenheimer quoted when he realised what had been created. There are more ways to create an atomic bomb than the literal.

The pace of change in the Western world, in particular over the past century, has been faster than ever before. We humans have evolved over many thousands of years with certain beliefs that have underpinned our societies. While there can and should be variations on those themes, there are basics that form the glue holding society together. One of which is that there are males and females and they come together in committed unions and create life so humanity may endure. Another is that there is more to this world than the merely material and that we have spiritual needs which demand attention. The Ten Commandments, not surprisingly, reflect the basic rules which have enabled humans to not just survive but to thrive.

A healthy society respects and preserves at least half of these rules for life – honour your father and mother; do not kill but protect life; honour the sacrament of marriage; do not steal; do not lie and do not envy others and covet what they have.

The first four rules pertain to religion and in the past century, at least in the Western world, religion has declined and been demonised and mocked, by the new Mammon which is Science. We no longer believe in honouring our parents and certainly do not honour the sacrament of marriage between a man and a woman. Even telling lies is not condemned in this age, but at times, applauded. As to coveting what others have- all too often that is deemed to be a requirement and not a failing.

So, out of the ten rules for life, or commandments as they have been called, we really only still hold to two – do not kill and do not steal. Although even here, the bed in which they lie is rotting because we do kill with abortion and euthanasia, and even stealing can be justified it seems. The Greens recently defended an article that argued it was justifiable for people on low incomes to steal from supermarkets like Woolworths and Coles. No more of this transported to the colonies for stealing a sandwich stuff.

This means the protective shell of such traditions which have held for millennia is pretty much in tatters. Which also means that ‘anything goes’ and that means absolutely anything. We already have people talking publicly in support of adults having sexual relationships with children; of men becoming women and vice-versa; of children being chemically and surgically altered; of sperm, egg, and womb being purchased so two men or two women can have a child – anything is possible, everything is accepted, and there are no rules to hold society together.

Not only does the centre not hold but nothing is held in place, in shape, in form and we barely conceive of the monster we have created, so well described by Yeats:

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, 

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it 

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds. 

The darkness drops again; but now I know 

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, 

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, 

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

https://www.spectator.com.au/2022/11/a-society-without-boundaries-is-madness/
 

The theory behind conspiracy

Roslyn Ross

30 August 2022

There is a lot of talk about fake news and conspiracy theories which, in the past, we would have called ‘rumours’. This is where the art of ‘cherry-picking’ becomes useful, because in rumours or conspiracy theories the ‘cherries’ are the fruit you must find.

There have always been rumours in the news cycle. They are stories that generally come to life because someone who ‘knows something’ says something to someone else – and on and on it goes. The jungle drums begin beating. It has ever been thus for humans. Social media is simply the modern version that has replaced pub gossip and chatting over the neighbour’s fence. The medium is as old as humanity.

Rumours also tap into that great human survival mechanism, intuition. Humans are connected beyond mere words. We communicate with each other at unseen and generally unacknowledged levels. Like bees in a hive, humans know things because other humans know something… That is why ‘word spreads’ so easily.

Word of mouth is not necessarily reliable, but that doesn’t mean it is completely wrong either. There are often elements of fact, truth, and reality scattered noisily between these whispers.

Social media works very hard to censor the ‘drums’ and limit the rapid exchange of information, rumour, and what we now call ‘conspiracy theories’. They have even created a new label for it: Fake News.

There are plenty of conspiracy theories running around – some more believable than others.

A few crowd-pleasing favourites that will almost certainly get you dragged off by the fact-checking police include:

Covid is a bioweapon.

A cabal of powerful people want to reset the world.

There is a shadowy plot to solve over-population.

Microchips in vaccines to track society.

Covid vaccines, in one way or another, alter human DNA.

There are probably more, but let us consider which, if any, hold a grain of truth.

The idea of vaccines as a bioweapon is one of the top trending conspiracies in 2022 riding off the Covid pandemic. It is the subject of endless videos on unrestricted sites and has spawned a whole sub-class of conspiracies.

There is no doubt that controversial ‘gain of function’ research into viruses goes on in various labs around the world. While it is claimed that gain of function research is done with the best of intentions, any student of history knows that the ‘best of intentions’ can lead to the worst possible outcomes. It occupies the same space as ‘for the greater good’, ‘a better world’, ‘for your own sake’, and ‘no good deed goes unpunished’.

Gain of function research is dangerous. It involves deliberately adding functionality to a virus or organism. It is both a natural and artificial process. For example, scientists have sought to modify E. coli to covert plastic waste to tackle environmental problems.

Could it be used as a bioweapon? Absolutely. Even more likely are the dangerous unintended consequences, which is why the subject remains controversial. Given it is widely believed that Covid escaped from the Wuhan viral lab, the next question is, does China pursue bioweapon technology? Almost certainly, despite denials. The fact is, many nations pursue bioweapon technology, and deny it.

However, it does not follow that Covid is a bioweapon.

To quote Thomas Inglesby, director of the Center for Health Security at Johns Hopkins:

‘I haven’t seen any of the vaccine companies say that they need to do this work in order to make vaccines.’ He pointed out. ‘I have not seen evidence that the information people are pursuing could be put into widespread use in the field.’

‘Gain of function’ research could certainly be part of the development process in a bioweapon. Is the belief, rumour, or conspiracy theory therefore so silly? Not at all.

There is plenty of room for speculation, particularly when Covid centres around the highly secretive Chinese communist regime which locked the world out from conducting a proper and legal investigation for nearly a year. What they were up to, we may never know – although the answer will likely be ‘an accident’. At the same time, it could simply be another pandemic wave the likes of which humanity has experienced every century.

As a conspiracy, ‘Great Reset’ has an advantage over the others in that it is backed by the largest and most powerful closed-door lobbying group in the world – the World Economic Forum.

How logical or sensible is it for people to believe that a powerful group wishes to re-organise the world, reset societies, make massive changes to how we live?

Actually, it’s perfectly valid. The difference here is not ‘denial’, it’s an open debate about whether this proposed great reset – done for the ‘sake of the environment’ – is good or terrifying. It is a question of ethics, not existence.

There remains a great deal of scepticism, particularly in the press, regarding the ability of these global institutions to enact their printed wish to initiate a great reset (most news organisations have given up denying its existence). However, World Economic Forum’s projects continue to end up as domestic policy and so, like it or not, governments are falling under the influence of this organisation.

Is it by force? Probably not. This seems to be a genuine choice made by our leaders who are using the excuse of the Covid pandemic to enact Great Reset goals centred around the rise of militant environmentalism. It is a foolish act by politicians, given the soul of the Great Reset is the desire to end capitalist democracies and replace them with ‘more sustainable’ socialist states controlled by a mixture of bureaucrats and businesses.

The most powerful ideas are those proclaiming to have good intentions. It is easier to drag people along if you can convince them and yourself that this is in the best interests of everyone and that ultimately it is for the greater good.

According to Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of WEF:

‘The pandemic represents a rare but narrow opportunity to reflect, reimagine, and reset our world.’

Is the Great Reset a conspiracy or international policy? It is probably leaning toward the latter.

Population reduction holds the bizarre twin existence as both a demand from concerned eco-groups and a conspiracy by their opposition. It begins with the question, would the world benefit from reduced population? For the Climate Change alarmists (and their more rational environmental predecessors) there might be some gristle in this one. Too many humans, like too much of anything, creates a strain on global resources.

As for whether anyone is ‘actively doing something about it’, that’s where the conspiracy runs thin – unless it was coming from a secretive consortium of funeral parlours.

If not killing humans, is anyone stopping them from reproducing? Overwhelmingly the answer is ‘the cost of living’. This is not so much of a plot as a natural reaction to changing circumstance.

Global populations are at their highest point in history, so it is unsurprising that even in China and India, there has been a shift. Both have fallen below replacement level (which is normal, considering eternal growth is not possible or advisable for any species). Access to contraceptives will naturally reduce population levels, but the conspiracy goes much further to claim it is part of some plot by the elites. It is the perfect example of an observable fact being co-opted into a grand conspiracy that doesn’t exist.

The fear over microchip implants is a logical fear given the rise (and celebration) of transhumanism (which is not a conspiracy). There are companies in Sweden that already microchip their staff as part of an experiment in augmented reality and during Covid, it was discussed whether governments should look at adding vaccine passports to these chips for ‘ease’.

Microchips in vaccines can easily be dismissed as nonsense, but the underlying fear of surgical implants linked to government systems is a genuine ethical debate – so it’s no wonder the conspiracy gained traction.

This conspiracy theory might be fiction right now, but it hasn’t been ruled out as a probable future.

Lastly, if you really want to get yourself banned from social media, casually suggest that Covid vaccines ‘change your DNA’.

Interestingly, this conspiracy hinges on definitions. It is this confusion that is expanded on to turn a grain of truth into something more sinister. mRNA vaccines do manipulate the human body into producing the Spike protein to trigger an immune response. Whether this is a good thing or not remains in question, but what the vaccine does not do is permanently alter human DNA in a manner that gets passed down through the generations – which is the suggestion of most conspiracies.

The conspiracy is given extra weight when the question is changed to, can human DNA be altered? Yes. It was only a few years ago that a Chinese scientist went to jail for splicing the DNA of children (who were born) in an attempt to make them immune to certain diseases.

Could a new genetic treatment change your DNA in some way? Yes, it could. Is it likely? We don’t know. Is it possible? Yes, it is. Are the scientific answers offered to this fear a bit fluffy? Yes.

As evidenced by this selection of conspiracy theories, most revolve around a grain of truth. In essence, the most sensible thing to do in the face of what is called a ‘conspiracy theory’ is to not summarily reject it, but do a bit of work and have a good, long, hard think about whether or not it is possible, if it is likely, and decide whether these outcomes are something you would support and defend.

One thing is certain, the human capacity to be suspicious, to exercise scepticism, and to communicate feelings, thoughts, theories, doubts, fears, hopes, facts is what has enabled us to survive and generally thrive for millennia.

There is also such a thing as gut instinct and we need to remember that. Humans lie and never more so than when they have powerful vested agendas. They lie even more when there are profits at risk and when they know they can ‘sell their story’ to the public in the name of good intentions. These realities are recorded throughout our human history and we ignore and forget their truths at our peril.

When we stop asking questions, stop thinking for ourselves, and censor those who try, we are betraying the freedoms for which so many fought and died and squandering the future and hopes of our children.

Scepticism is needed more than ever in times like this. Not cynicism, but healthy, questioning, open-minded, clear-headed scepticism. Your government does not have your best interests at heart. It has its own. Become a questioner. Carpe Diem! https://spectator.com.au/2022/08/the-theory-behind-conspiracy/