politics – Page 117

20 Years Since Columbine: Are We Still Nihilists?

This week saw the 20th anniversary of the Columbine High School massacre. The massacre shocked a Western World used to adult serial killers, because we didn’t believe that high schoolers could also be capable of such evil. In the aftermath of the massacre, the consensus was that the motivation for the deed came from nihilism. This essay asks: are we still nihilists?

History can be thought of as a series of attempts to solve the basic existential question of what we’re supposed to be doing here on this planet.

For many centuries, we had religion, and the struggle between good and evil, chaos and order. But then we killed God, and (as Nietzsche predicted) this threw us back into Nature, and the world of eternal struggle. This played itself out in the titanic clash of empires that was World War One, and the following clash of nations that was World War Two. After three decades of trauma, we decided that we’d had enough bloodshed, and so we tried a new narrative.

The postwar consensus was based around pure hedonism. After three decades of deprivation, something as simple as being able to buy a milkshake or a cheeseburger on demand was seen as a great pleasure that demanded appreciation. Later, the number of television channels to which one was subscribed was the sign of material fortune. The problem was, of course, that hedonism is not an answer to spiritual problems.

The Columbine High School massacre was perhaps the first major sign that the postwar consensus had failed. The prosperity the Boomers enjoyed was based on the idea that material consumption was the reason for human existence. This was great fun, but it was only ever a distraction. It never solved the basic existential dilemma.

Klebold and Harris’s actions were an example of something that this column has previously called anarcho-nihilism. This is where one proposes to destroy the pre-existing system without offering any alternative system that might replace it. One simply destroys for the sake of destroying.

Anders Breivik and Brenton Tarrant were later examples of this phenomenon. Both men wrote entire manifestos that detailed at length their grievances with the world and the way it was being run. Enemy crimes were listed exhaustively, but neither man suggested much in the way of an alternative. Both will go down in history, but neither as a builder of nations.

Anarcho-nihilism could be said to be the challenge of our time. This isn’t the same as simple nihilism, which was the problem of previous times, because nihilism didn’t always lead to a violent assault on the old order. It usually led to simple suicide, which meant that the ruling class were not particularly bothered by it. Since March 14th this year, there have been more deaths to suicide in New Zealand than to terrorism, but the latter has taken up a hundred thousand times more emotional energy.

If we are to avoid going down the path of Breiviks and Tarrants destroying the whole world in a hail of bullets, we need to assert some kind of anti-nihilism that meets the emotional needs of the masses, while not repeating the mistakes of previous attempts at this.

An idea of what form this anti-nihilism might take can be seen in the various corners of cyberspace. In 1999, The Shroomery was only just getting started. Now it is one of the most popular counter-culture websites in the world, with an Alexa ranking in the top 30,000. Here it’s possible to find all kinds of discussions about aspects of spirituality that ordinary people would have trouble being able to comprehend – at least for now.

Any anti-nihilistic movement powerful enough to truly appeal to a great number of people will have to achieve a number of things. At a minimum, it must convince people that their actions in this world, and specifically whether or not those actions increase or decrease the suffering of their fellow sentient beings, are meaningful.

Achieving this may require the promulgation of the kind of sentiment that arises as a result of the psychedelic experience, the kind that is often derided as “hippie” or “new age” but which, if examined closely, answers with awesome clarity the questions of how we got here and what we’re supposed to be doing. This might require the reinstatement of something like the Eleusinian Mysteries, so that we can collectively revel in something beyond the material.

At time of writing, in 2019, it seems like not only are we nihilists, but we are destructive ones, and not only that, but the destructive and nihilistic sentiments are getting worse. That is certainly cause for alarm, but it’s also cause to take action, and to help promote an alternative. With enthusiastic promotion of psychedelic medicines for curing spiritual illness, it may be possible for us to finally overcome the threat of nihilism, and to allow a new spirituality to rise.

If you enjoyed reading this essay, you can get a compilation of the Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2018 from Amazon for Kindle or Amazon for CreateSpace (for international readers), or TradeMe (for Kiwis). A compilation of the Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2017 is also available.

The Case For Cannabis: It Doesn’t Matter That High-THC Strains Now Exist

A prohibitionist argument beloved of the Police is that cannabis should stay illegal because it now contains much more THC than it used to. This is commonly employed as a counterargument to imply that, even though the dangers of cannabis use have been massively exaggerated, it should still be illegal, because the warnings have become accurate over time. This article explains why this argument is false.

This BBC article is a good example of the ridiculous propaganda that people have been exposed to over the years. It claims that “high-potency cannabis or skunk” is a completely different form of cannabis to the herbal cannabis that people usually smoke. This is done in an effort to make people think that the threat posed by legalisation is categorically more extreme than it was in the past.

It’s true that some cannabis strains today are much, much stronger than what used to exist, despite the nostalgic recollections of old hippies. Breeders have had decades to experiment with these strains, and some of them have cultivated varieties that are much higher in THC than anything that could have existed previously.

Because a high-THC strain will offer more of a buzz per unit of volume, it naturally makes for a superior product from a criminal point of view. The greater the buzz per unit of volume, the easier it is to transport, to hide and to smuggle. Black market dealers can charge more if their product gets a reputation for being superpowered, and all of this has caused high-THC strains to dominate the market in many places.

Although it’s true that a high-THC strain of cannabis can create unwanted reactions, particularly by producing a more intense experience than desired, this is only a problem if cannabis is sold on the black market. Like many of the arguments for cannabis prohibition that appeal to the harms of cannabis, further investigation shows that the harm is caused by prohibition and not by cannabis itself.

A high-THC strain of cannabis can get a person stoned faster than a low-THC strain, and perhaps also more heavily, but this is not anything close to a legitimate argument in favour of cannabis prohibition. The safest way to protect people from getting a more intense buzz than they wanted is actually to legalise cannabis, for two reasons.

Legal, properly regulated cannabis means that whatever a person consumes must be clearly labelled with a cannabinoid profile. This means that the user will know what they’re getting. If a person is inexperienced with cannabis they might want specifically to avoid a high-THC strain or to use a high-CBD strain. Even if they are experienced, they might want to know they’re using a high-CBD strain.

As mentioned elsewhere, only legal cannabis can make this possible, because only cannabis produced by legitimate white market professionals will be tested and analysed to determine its precise cannabinoid profile. Therefore, only legal cannabis can ensure that the user knows what they’re getting and can take the appropriate measures.

This approach synergises with having honest education about cannabis use at high school level. In the same way the high schoolers are educated about sex, driving and alcohol, an honest approach would see them educated about cannabis as well. Part of this approach would involve being told that high-THC strains can provoke effects that are more powerful than intended.

The second reason is that regulating cannabis makes it possible to pass a law, as has been done in some American jurisdictions, so that the recreational cannabis being sold in shops must contain a minimum percentage of CBD. This is done with the intent of minimising psychotic responses, as there is evidence that the CBD in cannabis has an anti-psychotic effect that balances that psychotogenic effect of the THC.

Regulation means that the circumstances in which people use cannabis can be controlled with a view to preventing adverse outcomes such as overdoses on super high-THC skunk. Even if it was not deemed necessary to legislate for a minimum CBD level for all cannabis, it could be ensured that the cannabis consumed publicly in cafes had such a limitation.

Prohibiting cannabis because of the fear of high-THC strains is like prohibiting alcohol because absinthe exists. It’s a dumb move that just leads to more suffering in the end. It would be much better to legalise cannabis so that people both knew how to use cannabis properly and also the chemical makeup of any strain they may wish to use.

This article is an excerpt from The Case For Cannabis Law Reform, compiled by Vince McLeod and due for release by VJM Publishing in the summer of 2018/19.

You Will Never Be Allowed Any Alternative to Neoliberalism

Workers and labourers were disappointed on Wednesday by the news that the Sixth Labour Government had ruled out a capital gains tax. Many working Kiwis felt it unfair that their labour continues to be taxed at such a high rate while unearned income remains untaxed, and felt that the Labour Party had betrayed them. As this essay will argue, they better get used to it, because New Zealanders will never be allowed an alternative to neoliberalism.

Jacinda Ardern had come to power with a promise that “neoliberalism had failed“, and gave every impression that the Labour Party would offer a new approach. The 35-year experiment of putting money above people had only delivered misery, and Ardern and her Labour Party had caused many to believe that their ascent to power would mark a change in attitude.

Like most utterances from politicians, this was total shit.

The reality is that Ardern and her Labour Party are just as much puppets of globalist industrial and finance interests as their National predecessors, and this is obvious if one looks at their actions in the 18 months they have been in power.

One of the first things Labour did was to double the refugee quota, increasing the flow of cheap labour into the country at the expense of New Zealand wage earners. As this newspaper has mentioned elsewhere, neoliberals love refugees, because they work for cheap and because they destroy the solidarity of the native working classes, thereby weakening their negotiating position.

Labour has also ignored cannabis law reform their whole time in power. While Andrew Little enthusiastically fast-tracks all kinds of laws to take Kiwi freedoms away, he lacks the courage even to say that cannabis is a medicine. Neoliberals are almost always materialists, and they fear cannabis because they fear that it will turn people away from the acquisitive greed that our economies are propped up by.

Perhaps the worst slap in the face, though, was when Labour ruled out a capital gains tax. Their refusal to tax the unearned income of property speculators meant that the burden of funding the government had to come from wage earners instead. Effectively, Jacinda Ardern chose to subsidise the unearned income of the rich with the labour of the poor.

The reality for New Zealand voters, who had cast the Fifth National Government out of power after nine years of neglect, is stark. There is no alternative to neoliberalism. It doesn’t matter how much suffering the Kiwi people have to endure; it doesn’t matter if you can never own a house on the average wage. We will never be allowed, within our current political system, to put our own people above money.

A reader might object here that voters could vote for a third party if they didn’t want neoliberalism, but the system is rigged so that only Labour and National can hold power.

Not only is there an electoral threshold of 5%, which has the effect of preventing any alternative to neoliberalism from getting a foothold in Parliament, but funding for electoral broadcasts is apportioned according to party size. Labour and National together get over half of all allocated electoral broadcast funding, which entrenches both these parties and the neoliberalism they represent.

There is no alternative, within our existing system, to neoliberalism. Everything Labour and National do benefits the wealthy at the expense of the poor, and especially the wealthy with no ties to the nation. Nothing they do will benefit the Kiwi worker whose hands build our roads, tend our crops and care for our sick.

Therefore, there is no alternative to skyrocketing rents, falling wages and the mass importation of cheap labour in the form of refugees. The only way that the Kiwi nation can ever get respite from this is revolution.

The Spear of Destiny

Many people with a passing familiarity with occultism will have heard of something called the Spear of Destiny. This is an extremely powerful concept with deep importance for the future of our planet. This essay discusses the occult meaning of the Spear of Destiny, and its implications.

Like many occult concepts, there is an exoteric and an esoteric form of the Spear of Destiny.

The exoteric form is the one that people are the most familiar with. The usual story is that the Spear of Destiny was the one held by the Roman centurion Longinus, which he used to pierce the abdomen of Jesus Christ while on the cross at Calvary. This spear apparently became a valuable relic, otherwise known as the Holy Lance.

The spear came into possession of the Holy Roman Emperors around 1,000 years ago, and has remained in Central Europe ever since. It was said that Adolf Hitler was obsessed with the Spear, and set a detachment of crack Waffen-SS troops to capture it when the Nazis annexed Austria. Today, it lies in the “Worldly Treasure-chamber” of Hofberg Palace in Austria.

However, that’s not what the Spear of Destiny really is. There’s an esoteric explanation that makes a lot more sense.

The real Spear of Destiny is a metaphysical object, and it is held by the most influential person on Earth, whoever that is. There is always one person on Earth whose initiative controls the destiny of the human race, one person who is more powerful than all others. This person has the ability to rewrite reality according to their will, as long as they continue to wield the Spear.

The first to hold the Spear of Destiny may have been Gilgamesh, the first king of Sumeria and arguably the progenitor of civilisation. As the first king in the world, Gilgamesh was the first man to truly put the environment around him to order. Therefore, he was the greatest and most powerful man on Earth, at least for a time.

The Spear of Destiny then moved to the West and to the North, as it would continue to do for at least four thousand years. The next inheritor of it may have been a leader of the Akkadian Empire that arose after Sumeria, probably Sargon of Akkad. The Spear would remain in Mesopotamia for many centuries, as it was the only place that civilisation and order existed to a meaningful degree.

Babylonian kings no doubt held the Spear for some time. Hammurabi would have held it when he composed his famous set of laws. Ashurbanipal may have held it at the time of the neo-Assyrian Empire, and the neo-Babylonians held it after him. Nebuchadnezzar may have held it at about the time the dream from the Book of Daniel occurred.

At some time around 500 B.C., the Spear of Destiny left the Ancient Near East, and came to Greece in time for their Golden Age. The Spear of Destiny was certainly held by Alexander as his Macedonian armies conquered almost the entire world known to them. Alexander was probably the single most influential man who ever existed, and he made the Spear his own.

After Alexander’s Empire collapsed and the Golden Age of Greek culture began to fall away, the Spear continued its Westward motion, ending up in Italy in time for the ascent of the Roman Empire. Without doubt, it was held by Julius Caesar, who used it to become one of history’s most influential statesmen. Trajan would have held it as the Roman Empire reached its greatest influence.

Before Trajan, however, there was Jesus Christ, whose dramatic and total reformation of Abrahamism created a religious movement that would grow to become the world’s largest. Longinus may well have held the metaphysical Spear of Destiny on the date of Christ’s crucifixion, because Jesus Christ was the most influential individual of his time, and Longinus took that mantle by killing him.

The Spear of Destiny remained with the Roman Emperors for a few hundred years after Trajan. Who held it during the Dark Ages is unclear, but it can be perceived again in the possession of Charlemagne, as the Frankish king put order to much of Western Europe. The Spear spent some time in the Holy Roman Empire, which was founded by Charlemagne in 800.

William the Conqueror may have held it in 1066 during the invasion of England, and Marco Polo may have held it during his travels in the 13th century. In any case, the Mediterranean rulers of Venice, Genoa and the later Iberians appeared to be in control of the world’s destiny at this time.

As the Age of Exploration began, the Spear may have been held by Christopher Columbus, but was more likely held by his patrons, King Ferdinand of Aragon and Queen Isabella of Castile. As Iberian dominance wound down, to be replaced by Northern European control, the Spear moved to Holland.

The Spear of Destiny was held by William of Orange at the peak of the Dutch Empire, and dramatically leapt over the English Channel after the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Shortly after this event, England would combine with Scotland into “One Kingdom by the Name of Great Britain.” This soon became the British Empire, the largest and most powerful the world had ever seen.

The Spear of Destiny would remain in Britain for at least two centuries, being held at one point by Queen Victoria as the British Empire expanded into a force capable of conquering the globe. After the carnage of World War One, the Spear of Destiny became attracted across the Atlantic, probably to New York, and probably into the hands of Theodore Roosevelt.

Adolf Hitler’s supposed obsession with the Spear can be better understood in this context. The exoteric story is that “Hitler believed the power of the weapon would give him the power to conquer the world“, and that Hitler said, of seeing the Holy Lance, “I myself had once claimed it as my talisman of power and held the destiny of the world in my hands.”

The esoteric story is much different. Hitler knew of the metaphysical Spear of Destiny and wished to take it back from the Anglo-Americans. Had he succeeded in conquering Europe and bringing Britain and America to the peace table, Hitler may well have taken possession of it, and he may well then have held the destiny of the world in his hands.

History, of course, had other ideas. From the East Coast of America, the Spear seems to have travelled further West, and probably now resides in California. It’s possible that Donald Trump holds it, but it’s also possible that it’s in the possession of a Los Angeles movie or music magnate, considering the reach of American soft power.

The future, of course, is unknown. But we can predict, given the relentless Westward motion of the Spear of Destiny over the past 4,000 years, that it will at some point cross the Pacific. Most people already believe that China is destined to supplant America as the world’s foremost power, and this means that the Spear might move there in coming centuries.

This is no guarantee, of course. The Spear might pass to Japan first, or even Korea or Indonesia. Another possibility, considered by very few, is that it may pass to Australia, as the Southern Kingdom has the land area to build a monumental empire over the next few hundred years. After that it may move to India.

All that can be said for sure is that the Spear of Destiny is the single most sought after object in this section of the Great Fractal, and therefore it can be predicted that people will fight for control of it as long as human civilisation exists.