- Chaos Theory is 'a revolution not of technology, like
the laser revolution or the computer revolution, but a revolution of ideas
that began with disorder in nature: from turbulence in fluids, to the
erratic flows of epidemics, to the arrhythmic writhing of a human heart
in the moments before death.' James Gleick, from Making a New Science
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- The Butterfly Effect that Gleick popularized in Chaos
Theory is pivotal now, because it underlies the fact that literally everything
is connected: And when any society ignores this fact, the resulting failures
lead directly to ruin.
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- America between World Wars One and Two was a very different
place from what exists today. It too was flawed of course, but it had
some advantages that we have long since forgotten ever existed. Because
of the semi-rural nature of this nation with its heavily centralized cities
people understood their need to know a lot about a great many more things-and
to the degree that we have now lost this wealth of 'common knowledge,'
we have trapped ourselves in insular-bubbles of specialty that have obstructed
our view of the very nature of life itself.
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- The 'seasons' of nature once ruled all of human existence
because the seasons controlled the cycles of life itself: a time to sow,
a time to reap; and above all the unspoken time to think about it all.
The source of all our food whether animals or plants was directly part
of the elements that ruled the seasons, so there were natural rhythms
built into the way most people lived.
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- Occupations were vastly different as well. When I was
young there were hundreds of occupations from which to choose, and new
professions were always possible for those with new ideas and the will
to see them through. Even in the 1950's going to 'Business School' was
considered something for those that were virtually unskilled at anything
worth doing, because "business" was seen for what it is-a tape-worm
of consumption predicated on endless schemes that left little time for
either joy or profit, so it was reserved to those of limited vision that
generally lacked 'people skills.' Of course there were exceptions, like
the Robber-Barons that were still fixated upon building their empires
without limits; until the Century of the Self was created from their fear-of-
failure, in the person of Edward Bernays, who provided 'business' with
the creative manipulation of people's most basic desires, in order to
elevate profits over all other considerations. (1)
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- That was the turning point when people began to leave
the practical world of necessities and a graduated personal understanding
of the world for the far more tempting but very shallow world of instant
gratification and radical ideas, in order to live in a dream-world where
the basics took a back seat to personal rewards; whether or not there
had actually been anything worth celebrating in the lives of these new
beings that called themselves "consumers." And the rest as they
say 'is history.'
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- In the euphoria that the end of the Second World War
brought on, the old ways of hard work and frugal living gave way to faster
living and a greater concern for the fleeting moments that supposedly
brought excitement into lives that had never thought about those heights:
That path was created for the willing by the ideas unearthed in The Century
of the Self.
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- America's public educational system too has played a
huge role in our demise today. Most of the system was modeled upon the
factory assembly lines of Henry Ford who built his cars by adding bits
and pieces to build a finished car on those assembly lines. Public school
students were treated in much the same way moving from class to
class in which each special topic was explored separately, and usually
in an unrelated manner to the whole person, or to the connected world
in which we all must struggle to survive.
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- This model made it easy to add or subtract topics from
public education, quietly at first, but you can see the results now in
the streets and alleys of any town or city in America today. The arts
were savaged first, followed by civics and government in the late 50's
to the chaos now where students graduate without being able to read or
to comprehend a single compound thought.
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- Rockefeller designed this system early on, but it was
interrupted by the GI Bill of WWII, that saw huge numbers of returning
soldiers going to college in search of a better life than what they'd
had before the war. So "the Plan" was delayed, but only until
the spoiled brats that were born during the war began to fail to challenge
themselves, unlike what so many of their parents had done: And instead
found themselves chasing the artificial high's and flashing lights that
were apparently preferable to following a much slower course to something
larger than just money. From that moment the dye was cast, and America
began to settle into this fragmented fallacy that has little to do with
those fast-lanes of adventure and 'connections' that all those glitzy
products seemed to promise. This cul-de-sac was not confined to Americans,
as this is a planet-wide phenomenon, a side-effect of the War that few
people really understood or studied.
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- This was briefly exposed during the era of the Gray Flannel
Suit, when the Corporatocracy was in its infancy. The segregation of
rising corporate-types were brutally initiated into the then burgeoning
corporate world. Their loyalties were tested by constant uprooting, and
the need to put the corporation not just first, but above all else. Their
children and their family lives were skewed in that process that contributed
to the tidal waves of flower- children that rebelled against whatever,
as a reaction to what they saw in the empty-lies of corporate life. It
was a very brief rebellion that was soon co-opted by the corporations
that turned it all into even smarter advertising, that finally turned
the last die- hards into customers and workers, as well as those politicians
that we have come "to know and hate." It was here that Americans
began to embrace all the worst parts of the hive-mind.
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- In less than a hundred years this country, and a large
part of the planet, have gone from struggling people trying to make better
lives for themselves and their children, to unrecognizable individuals
with nothing in their minds but money and the drugs of self-congratulation
as their daily diet for survival. Is it any wonder then that so many cannot
even understand the threats which their very way of life creates for them,
each and every day?
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- 'Survival' was a mainstay in the deep shadows of our
collective past: "collective" being the key to understanding
what we really lost, both as individuals and as a nation. So much has
changed in everything, from our basic views of life itself, to how we
associate or not, with the others with whom we must share this ever- shrinking
world. And above it all we seem unable to communicate with one another
having been divided along so many different fault- lines that it is now
almost impossible to breathe, much less survive! (2)
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- Finally of course it has all begun to come apart, having
followed the delusions that each new poisonous wave of self-absorbsion
has generated.This brings us back to Chaos Theory and to that Butterfly
Effect that we ignored at our own peril. Everything in this world is
'connected.' We as people share what happens to the less fortunate among
us, whether we agree with that idea or not, because the sheer numbers
of the dislocated and the starving shall begin to overwhelm even the politically
correct, along with the money- changers in their hidden chambers of seclusion.
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- We have shattered the interconnected mechanisms that
once promoted life, and crushed the individuality that once lent greater
depth and meaning to our lives. Creativity, imagination, and trust have
been casually slaughtered along with any thought of actually building
anything that lasts. We have gone from making the finest products to producing
crap that barely makes it to the use-by date: and we're proud of that
because of what that means for the Bottom Line that underlies our every
thought or deed. We have "settled" for mediocrity and semi-slavery,
for we no longer know the taste of reality or the thrill of actual freedom.
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- We began the twentieth century with a passion for building
viable futures, but we began the twenty-first century by reversing ourselves
with unspeakable wars that were designed to never end. WWII, for the USA
was global and only lasted about five years. WWII cost far less than this
nightmare that we've been fighting now for six years in just two countries:
yet we are going backward still- because we have no time to think on this;
while we are losing virtually everything we thought was forever safe-when
nothing could be further from the truth.
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- We have allowed our leaders to throw all the rules away:
and our lack of any real depth is a direct reflection of the examples
set by the outlaws that we tolerate. Apparently we have even forgotten
why: 'None are so hopelessly enslaved, as those who falsely believe that
they are free.'
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- We continue through our lives with headphones to block
out the sound, and cell phones to fill any small vacuum when we are not
in- touch with our electronic co-conspirators who are not real; in any
sense that matters. But most of all we seem to have lost even the thought
of asking questions; so now maybe we shall never understand that it is
our choices that make us who we are, and only our determination that can
free us once again!
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- kirwanstudios@sbcglobal.com
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- 1) The Century of the Self Edward Bernays 4 part
video
- http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=8339
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- 2) Endgame Revisited 2004
- http://www.kirwanesque.com/politics/articles/2004/art18.htm
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