I have been thinking more about the whole thing about lying and humans the last few days. It is said that everyone lies. That if you say you don't lie, then you’re a liar. Funny. Because chances are it's probably true. But I think there is a big difference between certain kinds of lies. Maybe. maybe not. That's another story. But for many a lie is not that big of a deal. But for certain there are some people who attempt at least never to lie. They are loyal to the truth as a cause. As the most holy cause we know of. And indeed I would say that the truth would be the most holy virtue we can attempt to uphold as human beings at least right now in our present state of evolution.

Religion is considered holy, which is ironic at best, because it is a system founded on lies, or at least half truths, and wannabe truths. People fight and kill for their religious beliefs. we have all heard the phrase ‘holy war.’ Again, ironic at best. if a person is being honest with themselves chances are they probably aren't fighting a holy war. They are probably fighting for land or for their country or for the protection of their home. But they are tricked into believing they are fighting for their religion or for their God, usually by their government. Governments are notorious liars. That's their job. Military men are trained liars. That's part of their job. You learn to become an expert liar, in case you get caught, in case you are overheard by the enemy, or the people you serve. You have to lie. Think Oliver north, Ronald Reagan, George Bush Sr. think Lyndon Johnson and the Tonkin scandal during Vietnam. Think anything that has to do with government or war or military. All through the eighties the American government secretly supported Sadaam Hussein, gave him money and weapons, yes even chemical and biological ones, because they were in a war with Iran, and we wanted them to win because we were so against Iran at the time. but they did this in secret. They consistently lied about it to the American people. ask your average American on the street if they know about this and they will look at you like you are crazy. Were they wrong for lying to the people? I don't know. I'm too new to all of this to pretend I know the answer. I don't know if I will ever know the answer to that one. should governments be allowed to lie to their people? I don't know yet. That's all I can say.

Most of the documents associated with the murder of John F. Kennedy are still classified and have not been revealed to the people. So they know all this information about what really happened and they refuse to tell us. They aren't necessarily lying; they just aren't telling us the truth. Is that a lie? Well chances are they are just covering up a bunch of lies. So yea they are lying. Is that wrong? I don't know.

And that's my point. How can you expect people at this point in time to be honest, to honor or respect the truth when most of what we are told as children about the most fundamental elements of our lives like government and religion are lies? Well you cant really. You hear about George Washington chopping down the Cherry Tree and then saying ‘I cannot tell a lie’ when you are a child in elementary school. And then in college you learn that it was a made up tale. So what are you supposed to believe. We become hypnotized from a very young age to believe everything we are told until we learn that it is a lie and then to try to pretend it away, or make an excuse for it being a lie. We are told that yes most of the presidents have lied to us over and over again. That's just part of their job. It's national security. It's for the good of the country.

There is the classic John F. Kennedy sleeping with Marilyn Monroe affair and the support he received from the mob etc. there is the Nixon Watergate affair. The Ronald Reagan ‘I don't recall’ Iran contra affair; the George Bush ‘no new taxes; the president Clinton Monica Lewinsky/white water affairs; the George w. bush Enron affair and God knows what else. But we as Americans are very used to it all. it doesn’t really affect us anymore. Maybe it never did. After all, compared to other countries, we are told at least, our government is pretty honest to us. Hey we could be living in china for God sakes, or worse yet, Iraq. So I think we have it pretty good. But that's the point. How can we expect our fellow man to be honest, to always tell the truth, when the importance of truth above all else hasn’t really been established in our genetic code yet. It isn't the number one priority in our consciousness yet. That need and that desire just isn't there.

Take a look at some of our holidays for instance. Everyone loves Christmas and thanksgiving. I know I do. but it always me kind of sad too. just doesn’t sit right because it's like eating a virtual cake or making love to a virtual woman on a computer screen. You want to have a good time and celebrate but you have to suspend your disbelief and kind of hypnotize yourself into a kind of stupor in order to do so. Maybe that's why people eat and drink and shop so much during the holidays---to numb themselves from the reality of how phony it all is. Thanksgiving is a really sad affair as is Columbus day. We all know what happened to the native Americans that gave us all that food when our ancestors got off the mayflower and the other ships. We killed three million of them and forced them onto reservations so we could take their land. So that really isn't something to celebrate. Lately I have been researching the Native Americans movement that is still going very strong in this country. http://www.aimovement.org What they are asking for is that Columbus Day be rearranged to instead of being a national holiday celebrating the phony discovery of a land that was already discovered by them, that instead it be a national day of mourning dedicated to their genocide and almost total annihilation. And that we change the name to Native American day. Sounds logical enough. After all, if there were ‘native Americans’ then there really wasn't anything to discover, was there? But no ‘new Americans’ seem to really care about that too much.

Christmas is even worse. History tells us that Jesus was actually born in September (or March according to some), most agree it was around the ninth. O.k. so why December 25^th then? Well number one, that's right around the time of Hanukah, and even more significantly, that time was already a holiday celebrated by everyone called Yule, which was a pagan holiday celebrating the return of the winter solstice and the darker, older aspect of the Goddess that most people believed in at the time, until the roman empire stole Jesus to use him as a means of controlling the people. what they did was not only steal Jesus but stole the pagan holiday as well and throw them together and made it mandatory that everyone stop celebrating Yule, stop worshipping the goddess, and start worshiping Jesus. And if you didn’t you were beaten or killed. This went on for centuries until after a thousand years or so people started getting the idea that they better just do what they say. So here we are celebrating Christmas and worshipping Jesus, who was a Jew by the way, and who preached Hellenistic Judaism as a way to unite the Jewish people to overthrow the Romans. That was his whole mission. How the hell the Romans ended up turning the whole thing around and claimed Jesus as their own when he gave up his life to try to save his people from the enslavement of them is really quite a testament to how willing people are to believe any lie they have to for their own survival. And worse yet, Jesus was or is today at least, someone who represents peace on earth.

Ironic at best. Millions of people were killed in the first thousand years in the name of Jesus. First the Romans killed thousands of people who believed in Jesus, because after all he was Jewish and the religion that came up around him was for the most part a Jewish one, a spin of Judaism. Then when they couldn’t beat them, they decided to take them for their own, and then they killed hundreds of thousands of people who wouldn’t say they believed in him. funny really.

That's what it's like right now to be a human being here on our planet. It's just a bunch of lies and half truths pieced together. No sense. No truth. Just a bunch of craziness. So yea Christmas is a pretty hard one to swallow. Add in the whole Santa clause thing and you’ve got a real clusterfuck for a holiday.

And I'm not even going to go into the whole God thing because that's a whole other matter entirely. But suffice it to say that to me if I was to imagine a human race in say one hundred or so years, a human species that survives modern times and moves on in it's evolution, I would say that it looks something like this: a people who celebrate truth above all else. A people who still have similar holidays, but rather than just be these chaotically arranged belief clusters of incongruent ideologies beaten into the people, they are instead days to celebrate our survival as a species, and the values and virtues that we hold most dear to us, such as family, honesty, loyalty, integrity, friendship, and peace. Now imagine that. That would truly be a holiday. Without lies, without fabrication, without a bloody regretful history of murder and deceit and treachery, without the need to suspend disbelief. But a true holiday. Something to celebrate.

So how do we get there? well I know for me the last ten years or so have been a slow up hill battle with it all. first trying to find a way to deal with the fact that I am stuck here at this time in history in a world full of lies that are taken as truth. That was the hardest part. When you first realize what’s going on you kind of go crazy. but then if you have the survival instinct, you start to become a passive revolutionary so to speak. You become a peaceful warrior for the new humanity. The humanity of truth and peace. You look around you and all you see is lies and war, but you can kind of tell that if we are to survive it will be through embracing those two ideals more than any others, truth and peace. So you make a silent pact with yourself that you will do everything in your power to uphold these virtues within yourself and with others, and more, you will do your best to humbly, and subtly promote these values to those around you whenever you can. 

People will start to notice that you are a good peaceful honest decent person and that you aren't necessarily religious and they will start to wonder about things. They will see that you are a patriot, a believer in the highest ideals of freedom and democracy and the pursuit of happiness for all people, but that you aren't necessarily a blind sheep ready to believe whatever your government tells you, and again they will start to wonder about things. Maybe they will start to question their own beliefs a little, more importantly maybe they will start to question mass consciousness beliefs, the ones at the core, that keep the lies and half truths embedded in our day to day lives century after century. Maybe they will start to realize that humanity can be moral without necessarily worshipping gods. Or that a people can be free and democratic but that doesn’t necessarily imply not questioning or challenging their government from time to time. 

Current Spin: Nobukazu Takemura, Sign. A very rare 1999 release recorded in Chicago with a semi-live band.