Ika1953
Rookie
- Jun 1, 2017
- 26
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Four (different) horsemen
by Iliya Pavlovich, PhD Comparative Sociology
I admit, I am terribly late with this documentary posted on youtube on Sept. 13, 2013. The Awards garnished are absolutely impressive (Cannes, Galway, IDFA, OxDox, Santiago (de Chile), Durban Film Festival South Africa, Zurich Film Festival, London labour film Festival, Zurich, Austin, TX, winner in Teheran, IDFA, Galway, and countless others. Link available at:
I will make every effort to expand on it just a little as I feel it still needs some more substance. For most of us lay-people this documentary is revolutionary enough as it brutally introduces us to (almost) our impending doom – (what else would the four horsemen be doing?)
I will separate it into simpler chapters and expand on it as follows:
a) sex
b) banking
c) religion
d) war, conquest, famine death
There are no conspiracies, blaming of bankers or politicians (not to say they are guilt-free, they aren't.
The most serious culprit is us (yes, all of us). Our cognitive processes have been mapped out for us by this marvelous activity called advertising – and,or marketing, which has deprived us our common sense and drilled us into consumers. In spite of the advent of the Internet which gives us endless valid information we fail to employ it in a logical manner.
1950s we were the New Rome our per capita production was remarkable. Our production was almost 50% of the entire world's output. Empires are thought to last (so far without fail) about 250 years or 10 generations subdivided roughly in six ages (Pioneers, conquest, commerce, Affluence, Intellect ending with Bread and circuses, (decadence as evident in sex. Egypt, Hellenic Greece, Rome followed this same prescription. Closer to home after WWII we had an invasion of “War Brides” (Germany, England, France, etc. etc. This is not something harmful by and of itself, but only a good mile marker-landmark.. In some of my earlier works I used a more vulgar term “Vagina Wars” to stress the presence of war brides each time we embarked on peddling “freedom, market economy, and political equality” at gunpoint. Just a quick reminder that we overthrew Mosadegh of Iran, installed Shah in Shah Reza Pahlavi, who's expulsion had lead to taking of the American embassy in Teheran by the Ayatolahs (“students”). We helped Anastasio Somosa, Manuel Noriega, overthrew Salvador Allende – installed Augusto Pinochet – and all of these freedom representatives had squashed the little bit of freedom there was in their countries with our help. To weaken the Russians in Afghanistan we armed Osama Bin Laden – and even the school-children know what that gave us in return.
Back to sex (in a carefully cloaked veil of Puritan standards), how do we explain so many Asian brides (Japanese, Korean brides in the mid 1950s followed by Vietnamese.) In plainest terms we go some war against Martians and the year that war is over our servicemen bring home thousands of Martian brides – begs a question are we sexually that deprived and starved that we can only copulate with those that we conquered and defeated – as in ancient times where these were common spoils of war. Didn't we go though humanism and renaissance which have made us more noble, caring compassionate and understanding or do we get stimulated (sexually aroused in this dominating fashion? Apparently not. It has been determined with absolute certainty that debauchery, sexual hyperactivity, perversions were a fore-runner of the demise of the Roman, Ottoman and Spanish Empires – so why nt ours? Here endeth the first topic on sex.
b) Banking: FIAT (Latin for “let it be so” creating money from noting and lending it interest 1971 Nixon took away the gold standard and now only the governments can crated this FIAT money and Federal Reserve (opposed by George Washington, Benjamin Franklin John F Kennedy and many others by virtue of which non-existent money is lent to the public interest paid is a payment that needs to be made by taking on more debt. This vicious circle is endless. Now, we managed to glorify our failures on account of the failure of Communism – not on account of any true merit. In the ensuing years we became followers of Milton Freedman (along with strong alliance of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. This alliance lead to closing of the numerous coal mines in UK, on account of “redundancy”. I can hardly imagine the coal being redundant or bread being redundant.. Yet these absurdities do exist.
The deregulation lead to the banks, airlines, utilities, being broken up and re-emerging as absolute Leviathans of economy. Our banks became too big to fail, while these same banks were gambling with both FIAT money and our savings and the collected interest rates. First visible sign housing market bubble, 1980s housing crisis another bubble burst. In the plainest view our banking became the most perfect pyramid scheme. There is some indications that major lenders in the US (Welles Fargo, Bank of America, Citibank) were found to have lent money at artificially inflated rates to minorities (inner city African Americans, Latinos etc.). This has now become a criminal endeavor. Profit now justifies crime. During the 1980s each Congressman had 5 lobbyists. This now becomes a flawed oligarchy (yet another landmark towards doom)
A quick nod to the anti-democratic thoughts of Socrates. Not that he was openly against democracy but he did view it as dictatorship of the masses over some other entity (even itself) – instead he insisted that all voters be educated and vote only after properly informed of what is offered by what party, which representative. So democracy yes, brainwashed or impaired cognitive individual voting will do more irreparable damage to others and to self. We do know without shadow of a doubt that our cognition is in the hands of that humanitarian graceful prosperous entity called advertising-marketing. And what are the odds that marketing will serve anybody but the paying clients. As a matter of fact the adds are often called Essence or elements while the football game or a TV clip from sitcom is called “a filler”. Let's see how to best fill in the time between advertising sections.
c) Religion (and terrorism) in the words of George Orwell Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. I remember seeing a film (Angel Heart) where one of the lead characters remarks “there is just enough religion in the world to kill each others many time over, but not enough to love or respect one another. Our military adventurisms have resulted in a bit of a nasty math, every time US uniforms kill 10 “terrorists” another 500 new ones would join the cause. In the aftermath of these armed conflicts we pretend that a seeming third world country will come out of feudalism and join the industrial revolution overnight as long as our corporations will pour enough money into their infrastructure – which is done only to exploit future sales of cell phone, bottled water, rice and alike. The present view seems to oppose the predominantly Muslim states so that our military evangelism has hit a brick wall. In the words of Madeline Allbright (our secretary of state) May 12 1996 She pronounced live on 60 minutes 500,000 dead Iraqi children was wroth it..... - equally available on Youtube's archives for 60 minutes programs. Let's look at the funky side of terrorism – when they (others) do something disagreeable to us it is called terrorism, when we bomb them to stone age it is called liberating them. It just so happens that in spite of all the noble directions that all religions pride themselves with, there has been absolutely no evidence that any of it has ever worked – as a matter of act it most often failed miserably just think of the Inquisition. I abstained from having to mention Daniel, Ezekiel and a few other sources that are no less important than all the scientific studies. Our Bible does warrant more attention, both the Old and the New Testament.
d) non renewable fossil fuels, will invariably lead the way to newer crisis followed by lack of drinking water, shelter, arrable land, possible melting of the ice caps. Communal sense of fellowship would also be well found in most religions but not in our lifetime – instead we are in a dire competition with one another Retail surpasses the spiritual satisfaction. Production of anti-depresants is at an all time high. Is it any wonder? It becomes easy now to see how well we executed this dance of death. With our prospects being so bleak and misplaced, we will have no choice but re-enter the cycle of war, conquest, famine, death.
These are some of the most serious failures of our modern Western values and impending doom for which I see no cure aside from a groundless hope which I place in children being born in the first years of the 21st Century. Education is our salvation and our fear. Mark Twain: “I have never let my schooling interfere with my education” Regretfully our education system is a product of our Congress (both Senators and Representatives) They will (by approving, blessing TRASH – or excluding and ridiculing people like Chomsky, Howard Zinn who they perceive as a threat to themselves and our cognitive map does not allow us to question Authority and pre-set standards as rotten as those may be.
I am happy that my lack of optimism seems well justified. Looking forward to an alternative views which will prove me dead wrong.
by Iliya Pavlovich, PhD Comparative Sociology
I admit, I am terribly late with this documentary posted on youtube on Sept. 13, 2013. The Awards garnished are absolutely impressive (Cannes, Galway, IDFA, OxDox, Santiago (de Chile), Durban Film Festival South Africa, Zurich Film Festival, London labour film Festival, Zurich, Austin, TX, winner in Teheran, IDFA, Galway, and countless others. Link available at:
I will make every effort to expand on it just a little as I feel it still needs some more substance. For most of us lay-people this documentary is revolutionary enough as it brutally introduces us to (almost) our impending doom – (what else would the four horsemen be doing?)
I will separate it into simpler chapters and expand on it as follows:
a) sex
b) banking
c) religion
d) war, conquest, famine death
There are no conspiracies, blaming of bankers or politicians (not to say they are guilt-free, they aren't.
The most serious culprit is us (yes, all of us). Our cognitive processes have been mapped out for us by this marvelous activity called advertising – and,or marketing, which has deprived us our common sense and drilled us into consumers. In spite of the advent of the Internet which gives us endless valid information we fail to employ it in a logical manner.
1950s we were the New Rome our per capita production was remarkable. Our production was almost 50% of the entire world's output. Empires are thought to last (so far without fail) about 250 years or 10 generations subdivided roughly in six ages (Pioneers, conquest, commerce, Affluence, Intellect ending with Bread and circuses, (decadence as evident in sex. Egypt, Hellenic Greece, Rome followed this same prescription. Closer to home after WWII we had an invasion of “War Brides” (Germany, England, France, etc. etc. This is not something harmful by and of itself, but only a good mile marker-landmark.. In some of my earlier works I used a more vulgar term “Vagina Wars” to stress the presence of war brides each time we embarked on peddling “freedom, market economy, and political equality” at gunpoint. Just a quick reminder that we overthrew Mosadegh of Iran, installed Shah in Shah Reza Pahlavi, who's expulsion had lead to taking of the American embassy in Teheran by the Ayatolahs (“students”). We helped Anastasio Somosa, Manuel Noriega, overthrew Salvador Allende – installed Augusto Pinochet – and all of these freedom representatives had squashed the little bit of freedom there was in their countries with our help. To weaken the Russians in Afghanistan we armed Osama Bin Laden – and even the school-children know what that gave us in return.
Back to sex (in a carefully cloaked veil of Puritan standards), how do we explain so many Asian brides (Japanese, Korean brides in the mid 1950s followed by Vietnamese.) In plainest terms we go some war against Martians and the year that war is over our servicemen bring home thousands of Martian brides – begs a question are we sexually that deprived and starved that we can only copulate with those that we conquered and defeated – as in ancient times where these were common spoils of war. Didn't we go though humanism and renaissance which have made us more noble, caring compassionate and understanding or do we get stimulated (sexually aroused in this dominating fashion? Apparently not. It has been determined with absolute certainty that debauchery, sexual hyperactivity, perversions were a fore-runner of the demise of the Roman, Ottoman and Spanish Empires – so why nt ours? Here endeth the first topic on sex.
b) Banking: FIAT (Latin for “let it be so” creating money from noting and lending it interest 1971 Nixon took away the gold standard and now only the governments can crated this FIAT money and Federal Reserve (opposed by George Washington, Benjamin Franklin John F Kennedy and many others by virtue of which non-existent money is lent to the public interest paid is a payment that needs to be made by taking on more debt. This vicious circle is endless. Now, we managed to glorify our failures on account of the failure of Communism – not on account of any true merit. In the ensuing years we became followers of Milton Freedman (along with strong alliance of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. This alliance lead to closing of the numerous coal mines in UK, on account of “redundancy”. I can hardly imagine the coal being redundant or bread being redundant.. Yet these absurdities do exist.
The deregulation lead to the banks, airlines, utilities, being broken up and re-emerging as absolute Leviathans of economy. Our banks became too big to fail, while these same banks were gambling with both FIAT money and our savings and the collected interest rates. First visible sign housing market bubble, 1980s housing crisis another bubble burst. In the plainest view our banking became the most perfect pyramid scheme. There is some indications that major lenders in the US (Welles Fargo, Bank of America, Citibank) were found to have lent money at artificially inflated rates to minorities (inner city African Americans, Latinos etc.). This has now become a criminal endeavor. Profit now justifies crime. During the 1980s each Congressman had 5 lobbyists. This now becomes a flawed oligarchy (yet another landmark towards doom)
A quick nod to the anti-democratic thoughts of Socrates. Not that he was openly against democracy but he did view it as dictatorship of the masses over some other entity (even itself) – instead he insisted that all voters be educated and vote only after properly informed of what is offered by what party, which representative. So democracy yes, brainwashed or impaired cognitive individual voting will do more irreparable damage to others and to self. We do know without shadow of a doubt that our cognition is in the hands of that humanitarian graceful prosperous entity called advertising-marketing. And what are the odds that marketing will serve anybody but the paying clients. As a matter of fact the adds are often called Essence or elements while the football game or a TV clip from sitcom is called “a filler”. Let's see how to best fill in the time between advertising sections.
c) Religion (and terrorism) in the words of George Orwell Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. I remember seeing a film (Angel Heart) where one of the lead characters remarks “there is just enough religion in the world to kill each others many time over, but not enough to love or respect one another. Our military adventurisms have resulted in a bit of a nasty math, every time US uniforms kill 10 “terrorists” another 500 new ones would join the cause. In the aftermath of these armed conflicts we pretend that a seeming third world country will come out of feudalism and join the industrial revolution overnight as long as our corporations will pour enough money into their infrastructure – which is done only to exploit future sales of cell phone, bottled water, rice and alike. The present view seems to oppose the predominantly Muslim states so that our military evangelism has hit a brick wall. In the words of Madeline Allbright (our secretary of state) May 12 1996 She pronounced live on 60 minutes 500,000 dead Iraqi children was wroth it..... - equally available on Youtube's archives for 60 minutes programs. Let's look at the funky side of terrorism – when they (others) do something disagreeable to us it is called terrorism, when we bomb them to stone age it is called liberating them. It just so happens that in spite of all the noble directions that all religions pride themselves with, there has been absolutely no evidence that any of it has ever worked – as a matter of act it most often failed miserably just think of the Inquisition. I abstained from having to mention Daniel, Ezekiel and a few other sources that are no less important than all the scientific studies. Our Bible does warrant more attention, both the Old and the New Testament.
d) non renewable fossil fuels, will invariably lead the way to newer crisis followed by lack of drinking water, shelter, arrable land, possible melting of the ice caps. Communal sense of fellowship would also be well found in most religions but not in our lifetime – instead we are in a dire competition with one another Retail surpasses the spiritual satisfaction. Production of anti-depresants is at an all time high. Is it any wonder? It becomes easy now to see how well we executed this dance of death. With our prospects being so bleak and misplaced, we will have no choice but re-enter the cycle of war, conquest, famine, death.
These are some of the most serious failures of our modern Western values and impending doom for which I see no cure aside from a groundless hope which I place in children being born in the first years of the 21st Century. Education is our salvation and our fear. Mark Twain: “I have never let my schooling interfere with my education” Regretfully our education system is a product of our Congress (both Senators and Representatives) They will (by approving, blessing TRASH – or excluding and ridiculing people like Chomsky, Howard Zinn who they perceive as a threat to themselves and our cognitive map does not allow us to question Authority and pre-set standards as rotten as those may be.
I am happy that my lack of optimism seems well justified. Looking forward to an alternative views which will prove me dead wrong.
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