Cognitive Dissonance and the Blowback Economy

*These are a few of my blogs from 2007 / 2008, back when I pissed off EVERYONE, as opposed to now when I only piss off a select few. I was talking a few months back with Terry and Linda, The Psychic Twins, about past "predictions" and how inevitable they "seem" when you look backwards but people very quickly (and conveniently) forget how off the hook saying these things were WHEN THEY WERE FIRST SAID. I started publicly talking about an impending "housing crisis" in the Spring of 2005.

At the time this was like telling people standing in line at Walmart to go home when the signs all said, "Free weed whackers with a $10 purchase" -- and they were holding coupons for $10 off! Nobody could pass up the feed bag; at the time, NO ONE would (or could) hear what I was saying.

My "vision" has often been heretical and controversial and, to many, a source of extreme annoyance but, in hindsight, I do believe my "opinions" were closer to the truth than the common wisdom "at the time". Here are a few pieces from "way back" then.*

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Cognitive Dissonance and the Blowback Economy
(Originally Posted: November 20, 2008)

I tried to play the game. I really did. And, for awhile, anyway, I did alright (more than alright, actually) but I am an emotional guy and ultimately when a perfect storm of sadness crossed my path I crashed along the rocks and well there you go.

But the problem (as I see it) is not so much that I or maybe one or two souls just like me drop out of the world because they feel sad or pissed or confused or whatever but rather that there is a very subtle manipulation of emotions happening on a macro-level all across America. In plain English, the average American is being fucked with.

Hard.

With nary a kind word or caress or even some nice scented lube to make it just not hurt so bad and the way this is being done is kind of like this: you see one thing but hear another and since we are taught to believe in the higher power of AUTHORITY well the only thing you can really do is just go "oh I guess I didn't REALLY see what I just SAW".

The fancy Psych 101 term is "cognitive dissonance" and it is symptomatic, to me, of the age at hand. Cognitive Dissonance—our brains are fried, the wires all cross uncharted territories and even though the MK Ultraists behind the hollow throne of Corporate Daddy America have poked prodded and recorded every variant ever seen to every stimuli ever imagined, still the mass accumulation of imagery flying by in some vague horse shit what the fuck did I just see way when we've been youtubed and MTV'ed to death—well the jury is still out on how the brain will function when it reaches ouchy that just hurts me TOO MUCH status—and I am thinking that day may not be all that far off.

How will the brain and the body tied to that fancy little brain react when all the messages it has been spoon fed all its life go poof "do not look at that man behind the curtain do not look at that man behind the curtain do not . . . look" and reality intrudes in a way we have been CONDITIONED to believe could never CAN NEVER . . . happen. Well it is a sad day coming.

First cluster fuck . . . the ECONOMY. Oh my . . . a team of professional looters with giant Ryder trucks full of thousand dollar bills drive through town in broad day light while Corporate Daddy WAR BUCKS waves his magic red white and blue wand and the getaway Escalades drive off in to the Northern Virginia night.

It is a scam. SOMEBODY is having Thanksgiving and Halloween all year long and we just keep dropping golden Hershey bars in their baskets over and over again. Here little boy would you like something sweet? Something oh so yummy?

The economy is being driven to a dark side of town, the side of town where the poor people go . . . to find sustenance and maybe a song or a beer or a peck on the cheek while the masters party on the hill, champagne by the case, food and drink and pretty lace curtains all for them.

All for them.

Because that is what this song dance and patriotic flag wavin' Bible thumpin' charade is all about . . . bringing back the good old days when the rich were . . . well . . . FUCKING RICH. A gilded age.

Palaces and yachts and pretty French maids all in a row. One for you fifteen for me one for you thirty-two for me one for you one hundred and sixteen for me the square root of one for you three hundred and five thousand four hundred and two (cubed) for me . . . less for you just a teenie bit more for ME. A bigger car a bigger house maybe a title too . . . the Duke of Antioch, the Baron von Bush, the Fresh Prince of . . . oh sorry. . . the Earl of Ft Worth, the Duke of Oklahoma City, the KING of the FUCKING WORLD!

More More More.

More money for me, more stuff for me, more GIRLS for me, more love and adulation for ME . . . all for me . . . and none of those big tall black men with the giant pee pees stealing the NBA and the NFL and getting in my WAY and well really wouldn't it just be better if a little bit of applause went to some nice white boy from a good family . . . well wouldn't it?

It is that kind of smalldickwhiteboy (all one word) logic that is at work behind the Neo-Con game that is going on, a Ponzi scheme where old people with tiny pensions get left holding the bag while the banker's reward themselves with a bigger better something . . . just so they can say my something is bigger and better than . . . your's.

My dick is bigger than yours. Cognitive Dissonance. You hear one thing but you SEE something else.

There is a sad day coming. The economy, the war(s), oil and global warming and everything in between . . . a fancy Fourth Reich white boy eugenicist's wettest wet dream. A scam, planned, plotted, graphed and ruthlessly carried out right before our eyes, and while the magician is pulling a quarter from your ear, the pretty assistant lifts your wallet.

Cognitive Dissonance. You hear one thing but you SEE another. Quit listening and OPEN YOUR EYES . . . there is so much to SEE and it is right before your EYES.

Yeah buildings fall down just like that . . . and crazy men with sling shots living in caves can so EASILY attack the richest country on earth . . . and, my personal favorite, spending like a drunken sailor when you have no money well hell no one will ever really notice, will they. I mean, will they?

Corporate Daddy America . . . fucking you HARD . . . protect the share holders protect the share holders protect protect protect . . . it is all a precursor to the NEW Gilded Age. So much to see, so much to QUESTION, so much to just say "oh hell NO". Oh HELL NO . . .

SO FUCKING MUCH . . .

The world is changing right before our very eyes. But the ways in which we "understand" those changes—and "what it all means"— is going through dramatic shifts. The manner in which this "shift" (from seeing things "true" versus seeing them after "being taken for a spin by the doctors of spin") takes place intellectually is facilitated, in large measure, through subtle modifications in language. Words are descriptors of things or actions or feelings. They are not the thing described but, rather, a socially agreed upon sign to point the way to others.

Words serve as a bridge between people so that they may more easily share and understand their environment. Language allows individuals to express "meaning" to others in ways that are designed to elicit similar responses in the receiver of the message. I say it and hopefully you understand pretty much what I mean because we each know those particular words or phrases.

Words are both by-products AND determinants of cognition. The words we use are developed and codified within a particular culture but the mores and emotive anchors tied to those words, as defined by the community at large, also play a large role in determining "how we think".

You may have heard the concept "the map is not the territory"; well that is particularly relevant, I think, in breaking down how and why the "doctors of spin" are successful in making rotting lemons look like a tall cool glass of lemonade. Education and the socialization process accomplish many things but one of the primary outcomes of the educational system is the development of a mental framework within which to view individuals and events.

Not only does this "mental house" store certain pre-defined limits, it also stores a repository of associations that can be layered on to a descriptor—a word or a sentence—that influences, often in very dramatic ways, the manner in which a person or event is understood.

If we change the words we use to describe events we are borrowing associations tied to one word and layering them over the thing "we see" that, before, we called something else. The thing is still the same but the descriptor is now different and the baggage that descriptor brings with it now becomes part and parcel of the way in which the "thing" before us is now understood.

You say tomato I say red vine of happiness and well things are perhaps a little different than before. If eventually the tomato becomes the red vine of happiness then the associated meanings of the new term will influence the way in which we see what used to be called a tomato. Change the name, allow the name change to saturate the community and gain acceptance, and eventually the thing (in this case the tomato) will morph before our eyes.

It now "means" something "different" even though it is still the same thing as before.

The bailout of the banks is a "prime" (sorry for the pun) example of cognitive dissonance and subtle changes in value judgments as reflected in "mass consciousness", due in large part to the manner in which the bailout is described and the connotations implicit in the language used to describe it. A big debate and highly contested vote was held to determine if the funds should be allocated to help the banks but it has now come out that prior to the vote 2 Trillion Dollars (yes that is Trillion—3 times the 700 Billion requested for the bailout) had already been given to "someone" in secret—sorry can't say who—and rather than see this for what it seems, looting the treasury, we just assume that all must be well.

Our minds recognize that we are in a sorry mess, the administration is filled with secrets and everything they touch turns to gold for the wealthy (Bush's "base", the "haves and the have mores") and pain and misery for everyone else.

However, the words used to describe these transfers are designed to make it seem as if this was done as a benevolent thing—to help prop up the economy and save the little guy—rather than what it really is, borderline criminality, at a minimum.

The world is sick and the disease continues to spread. Until we begin to see things (and call them out) for what they are the average American will continue to feel an ever increasing sense of malaise and paranoia. The world is not what it is reported to be . . . but it IS exactly as it appears.

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Fun with Dick and Jane and the Mean Old Man from the Bank
(Originally Posted: September 26, 2008)

Well I could sit and say "I told you so" until I was blue in the face but (to use my most famous "line" from the past year -- "it doesn't take Nostradamus") the implosion of the American "economy" was soooooo predictable that it is sort of amazing, to me, anyway, that so few people could see it coming.

There are lots of blogs and posts of mine from the past 18-24 months saying that this was inevitable. Great . . . so fucking what, smarty pants . . . if you're so fucking smart then what does it all MEAN?

Well . . . I am going to try and answer that . . . here is what I have been saying . . . why I have been saying it . . . and what I think it SUGGESTS.

Going forward . . . a strategy, if you will. But first, the hows and why.

First off--the value of homes was artificially inflated for three primary reasons: (1) speculation. People saw the value of homes rising so quickly that they wanted a piece of that happy pie. As the rush for people to jump on the gravy train expanded, then the late stragglers (the "suckers" or the "fucked" -- pick your favorite or just mix and match to suit) came in and bought over-priced homes. . . most of them on "margins", basically, interest only or no money down mortgages that could ONLY work if the laws of "economic physics" were suspended, what goes up must one day come down, and so poof . . . BUMMER DAY.

People had been burned (RECENTLY burned, with the unhappy memories fresh in their mind) in the stock market and the dot coms had already cum and dot gone (dot gummit) and so with relatively low interest rates and a free-wheeling moving about economy fueled by news of big price spikes in some of the larger cities, buying (and oh my "flipping") houses became the latest get rich quick scheme. Homes were no longer places to live, they were "investments".

Not good oh no not so fuckin' good . . .

(2) lack of regulation. One of the biggest scams of the past 10 years has been the erosion of the safeguards put into place to protect the average person, like Glass-Steagall. Without these laws in place to keep everyone on the same page it (again, the laws of "emotional physics" -- if an envelope can be pushed, someone will surely come along to push it) was only a matter of time until unregulated sharks would go swimming in the unwashed seas . . .

. . . eating the little credit seeking fishies swimming in their soon to be bloody pool.

and (3) "bait and switch" math. "Well, hell, Myrtle, we've got to buy. The damn interest rates are 4.25 % and when we bought our home in 1981 interest rates were 14 and a half percent!" Problem is this--no matter what the interest rates, if the houses cost twice as much then that 3 % savings on the interest rates really just don't matter ALL THAT MUCH. Plus banks seem pretty adept at changing the rules after the games begin so . . .

again . . . BUMMER FUCKIN' DAY.

People are upside down on their houses. The house I live(d) in (and rented) would have listed for about $560,000 when I moved in 3 years ago. It would have gone up from that the following year (2006). Now it is probably "worth" less than $300,000. *(since this was written last year, the value has dropped to $210,000 – and is probably going to continue to drop)* That is a lot of negative equity. There are soooooo many people here in California who are just ruined. But it is not just the drops in home prices that are screwing the "average guy".

The risk on these questionable loans was packaged and sold (down the river) in a variety of esoteric investment packages that probably found a home at the end of the line in your company's 401K mutual fund. Uh oh, fucked TWICE!

That's right not only is your home value tanking but your mutual fund portfolio is littered with toxic fumes coming off the stink from these loans. And now, third stick up the ass, the "let's drown the government in the bath tub" economic evangelists suddenly have found religion and have repented of their foolish ways because they need us to bail their ASS OUT and, how, you may ask, do they expect that to happen.

By raising taxes. I am all for taxes, provided I get something in return. Privitization is the neo-con wet dream but it is so contrary to what is good for the group although it sure as FUCK is good for the corporations and since corporations are all that matter . . . since they control the legislation that gets passed and how existing legislation is interpreted . . . their word IS law and now the "little people" will pony up to the trough and help the masters get back on track.

But this is a lot like taking the bratty nine year old and scolding him but then just going "fuck it" here is a play station and a wii and a wide screen TV--and hell let's just get a couple of hookers for the little guy, too, you're never to young to LEARN and well, I am just not SO SURE this reinforces socially adaptive skills.

And before the robber barons looted the Treasury we might have used those tax dollars for things like roads and schools and lunches for underprivileged children and paying down the debt and well . . . the list could go on and on but NO we needed to play at the corporate casino a while longer.

Greed is NOT good . . . not when it goes hog wild. We are on the verge of a 1929 style depression only I expect it to be much worse than 80 years ago. Recession, fuck we are so far past a recession that it isn't funny. And one other stick up the ass--inflation.

To add liquidity to the market more and more money is going to start floating in the turd pool we call a banking system. This does nothing to those at the top but those who have saved for a rainy day well . . . sorry it is raining . . . hard.

All those fifties in the freezer suddently morphed into tens.

BUMMER BUMMER BUMMER . . .

But back to "privitization" . . I know a little about deregulation and privitization first hand as I was the lone "executive contractor" on CSC's $1.1 Billion outsourcing deal with ENRON--in fact, I personally wrote the Disaster Recovery Plan for Enron hahahahaha but also TRUE.

Privitization taken to its extreme would eliminate things we currently take for granted, like fire departments and public schools. House on fire? Well make sure you have your fire prevention service provider on speed dial or else

again . . . BUMMER FUCKING DAY.

I have publicly stated for several years that the world was going to CHANGE sometime around September 15, 2008 and all this madness is the tipping point, to me, for BIG changes.

What has happened to the "average Betty and Joe" over the last 10 years is that they have been robbed, stuck up and shaken down in broad daylight and most people were too blind or greedy (but mainly BOTH) to see what was coming DOWN.

And what was stolen?

Your labor your work, the effort you made to build a better world . . . because the fruit of that labor has been roped off by the corporate KINGS and they are getting ready to exact their toll.

And that my friends, is where the fun really begins . . .

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Embracing my Inner Outlaw
(Originally Posted: September 19, 2008)

They are gathered together, the captains of killing, in their dark cars, with slippery eyes and swollen fingers, staring out at the oil-stained fields of death. They want it all. They do. They expect it all. They plan to take it.

All.

And they will--unless we stand up, unless we realize that this is no different than Germany in 1933, unless we take a stand together.

As artists we must band together to let our words and images speak truth to power. As concerned citizens, people who care, we MUST take a stand so that others in this world can live in peace.

As people of color, all colors, we have to love each other and DO what is right and fair and supports the planet and ALL people, not just rich white people.

I have dropped my connection to the white boy world—no longer will I take consulting jobs, no longer will I lend my expertise to support and help corporations. My $175.00 an hour consulting jobs—GONE. My fancy Platinum American Express Card—GONE. My belief and acceptance of the "status quo"—LONG GONE.

Because if we don't stop it now something will stop US later on. Read a history book. Take a stand. Fight the power, fight the powers that be.

The Revolution (once again) WILL NOT be televised . . .

. . . because BIG MONEY OWNS "big" media. But that does not mean that the revolution will not be BROADCAST or that our collective voices will not be heard. Blog baby blog march baby march raise your voice your collective power to the people take back the street put it to the MAN voice and make shit happen!

As Carl Jung said "there is no coming to consciousness without pain" and this is COLLECTIVE CONSCIOUSNESS (as opposed to Jung's theory of the collective unconscious) that is springing forth from the pains and trials and almost total darkness of the past eight years.

The time is at hand to truly show love to all creatures, to embrace each other from our collective goodness and humanity, black white red brown male female straight gay no matter ALL PEOPLE as one voice one heart one purpose. That is the ONLY way out--the shamanic path the path of transformation the love of self and not-self and all that IS.

We can make a difference. We really can. Because if we don't stand up for what is RIGHT, not what is EASY not what will further my career or "social standing" but for once in our lives WHAT IS FUCKING RIGHT then we deserve the shackles and blinders that this New World Order has in store.

Power to the people the free people the people of ALL nations all continents. It is only through love that we can heal it is only through action that we can show love it is only by healing ourselves that we can save the world.

And there is just this much to it--the world needs us to save ourselves so we can reach out a hand to one another. FIGHT THE POWERS THAT BE.

peace . . .