Dear Friend and Reader:
What is illusion? What is reality?В I think anyoneВ who is fully awake knows there is a slim to nothing veil between the two.В As a nation and a world swirling for the past ten years under Neptune in Aquarius, we’ve watched reality replaced by fantasy, delusion, and deceit spun wildly out of control,В В affecting our foreign policy, our economy, and the news that’s supposed to report on both.
Take for example last week’s build up to the high-stakes media battle over the role of cable news networks in reporting news on the economic crisis, where the Comedy Network’s Jon Stewart and The Daily Show challenged CNBC’s Jim Cramer of Mad Money to a show down. Yes, that’s right. The Comedy Network. In what grew to be a headlining news event Thursday night, weВ watchedВ a modern-day “High Noon” between two unlikely opponents:В a man whose profession is that of a clown, versus a financial network pundit whose financial advice might as well have come from a clown–complete with bells, whistles, and flatulent sound effects.
At the heart of the debate between Stewart and Cramer was that CNBC was deliberately manipulating the news, using the vehicles of punditry, stock advice and editorializing on its network to not only sway the market, but pimp the agenda of financial institutions and corporations to help them gain market influence. Stewart called Cramer on getting people to buy Bear Stearns (from an earlier show of “Mad Money”) while he knew full well Bear Stearns was going down. He called Cramer on how heВ bragged about manipulating newsВ to favor personal investments. And finally he questioned Cramer’s network CNBC, a financial news network, and its motivation in serving big business interests instead of being an actual news network warning consumers about bad business risks.
When you watch the debate between the two, Stewart does not flinch from taking the knife to Cramer who was confronted by truth on tape that disputed every excuse he used while on the Daily Show to defend his behavior. Stewart dragged out reel after reel of what Cramer said on his show, versus what he told Stewart in the interview. In the end theВ Money PunditВ was simply no matchВ for the Clown. It looked as though Stewart В shivved Cramer in the ribs. When he walked off the set Cramer was probably unaware that he’d been stabbed and his career might just bleed to death in the weeks to come.
This is nothing new to Stewart, who killed Tucker Carlson’s “Crossfire” show in 2004. Carlson, a conservative pundit, brought Stewart on to provide levity to the 2004 general election campaign season. Stewart, tired of the gotcha interviews and the way the right wing used cable news to shout down rational argument to debate political issues would have none of it. After calling Carlson’s “Crossfire” show damaging to America and democracy, he ended the interview by calling Carlson a dick. Five months later, “Crossfire” was canceled.
Stewart versus Cramer is a strange case indeed, but to be expected when Neptune, Chiron, and Jupiter are all in Aquarius, the sign of the people and more possibly, the people in revolt. Neptune began tuning us out when we impeached Clinton over Lewinsky. The financial free-for-all that led to our current economic demise was in high gear under Pluto in Sagittarius. Chiron began weaving its way through Capricorn and into Aquarius opening our awareness to what’s been going on behind the curtains of the Emerald City. Pluto in Capricorn, like a great clock ticking overhead, has no patience for smoke and mirrors. В Nor does it appreciate tentacles of big media forcing their agenda into our heads to buy on borrowed time and worthless credit instead of live within our means.
News has devolved to become a spectator sport with embedded journalists, news magazine shows and punditry — one person’s opinion of the news replacing actual reporting of the news. What was supposed to be an information industry and the nation’s fourth estate that investigates, discovers and reports the truth to hold together the republic hasВ now become a vehicle for entertainment, truth be damned.В You may ask and rightly, justВ where did reality go this last decade?В Its certainly not in the news.В It must have been voted off the island.
What has happened to us as a country and a society to force us to rely on the Comedy Network to provideВ fact andВ accuracy to our news and reality, challenging us to think firstВ before we believe everything the news tells us? WhyВ is it in a day and age of 24-hour news channels, pundits and financial experts, that its the clown that gives us the truth?
This current war between the Clown and the Money Pundit is not just a fight over who has the bigger set of balls in journalistic integrity. In these days of the nation’s economic crisis brought on by decades of neglect for the rules, de-regulation of industry and the deification of greed, this is a fight for control over our reality. Its a proxy war over who will influence the opinion of the American public, how we behave, and what we think. Who will win: The corporate interests of cable news or the free will of people who will think for themselves?
Aquarius is playing with some crazy deuces, Jupiter and Neptune, and holds the wild card Chiron. Anything can happen.В I would wager that all bets are off — unless its the Clown that runs the house.
Yours & truly,
Fe Bongolan
San Francisco
carecare7, I learned a tarot card today. Yay!!! And I am going to look up lovecraft, too.
You make sense, it’s a reality play of sorts. We pick, we choose, we create our own reality. There’s a freedom to that.
The two sided game we were being battered with was just too maddening. I think we can do better than that.
Fe –
But do we know which side Cthulhu is really on? 😉 The side of journalism or chaos as represented by JS?
I watched Stewart with glee. It’s also interesting that Keith Olbermann was featuring the fracas as well, reporting several times on it. I think KO was a little envious for not doing it himself, but then CNBC and MSNBC are both NBC networks, so maybe a little self-preservation was involved there. He can report it but he couldn’t instigate it.
So much of what was projected (I like the Matrix analogy) has been exploding lately!
For those who would like to see some of my artistic endeavors (re: art/creation post), a modest album is here: http://picasaweb.google.com/bjwahl59/Patterns#
carecare:
Yes, you’re quite clear this and many days.
A note to all Planet Wavesians: The Cthulian beasts are starting to worry.
This brings to mind the Fool of the Tarot card which says “the foolishness of God which is greater than the wisdom of men” or some such thing.
The fool, much like the child in the Emperor’s New Clothes, often speaks clarity in times of cloudedness. This isn’t about right or wrong, it is just about clarity. The fool shines the light in a dark room. JS did that and the media beast was seen a bit clearer. The most I came away with from that program was the message that people can see the beast clearer now and perhaps make better conclusions about what it presents or represents.
How people conclude after that is still up to them (the freedom thing). Am I making sense today?
“I would so like to be kind and understanding toward the great tenacled monster that is being scoffed and taunted by mr stewart.”
Victoria:
Thanks.
I am coming to believe that the Wachowski Brothers, “The Matrix” movie series producers, and H.P. Lovecraft were on to something.
I would so like to be kind and understanding toward the great tenacled monster that is being scoffed and taunted by mr stewart, but I am going to practice a new line (new for me anyway) that I heard yesterday.
Back to your bridge you trolls, you have no power here!
Chris Moore recently pointed out that it’s always been the fool who could tell truth to power without risking death. Seems to me that Stewart is part of a long tradition, only without the funny hat. Thank goodness we still have them…
KB:
“Imagination, to me, is realizing the ocean is a structure,”
=8D Brilliant.
KristenB… I’m not even an amateur astrologer –cf Pauli’s “It’s not even (good enough to be) wrong” remark– but maybe I follow the contour of the current pressures in your chart. Is the Venusian backpaddle cradling your cat? This exasperation for the wrong/right way of splitting info, yeah I get that. It is weird to sit in committee or in dispute resolution or in a classrooom and find argument defaulting along the lines of wrong/right — long after everybody should know better.
I’ve been under the impression that most people don’t want their own freedom, much less anyone else’s. So on that score I feel no obligation — protect something for another when their instinct is to destroy it as soon as possible? Peh!
These days I spend a lot of time asking the universe to just send me one human a day. Just one is all I require, and I will continue to do what I do here (recharge the sensory arrays with active gnosis). Otherwise I’d chuck it all and let this lovely pile of bones called Gaia grind itself back to ghostpowder.
Fortunately, most days I meet two or three. One’s the minimum. So far so good.
And, my moon is conjunct south node and Neptune. And Uranus is conjunct Pluto in Virgo opposite Chiron and Saturn in Pisces.
Imagination, to me, is realizing the ocean is a structure, a matrix, just as much as soil or rock is structure.
Fantasy is getting lost in the ocean or buried by stone which can take all sorts of forms in realm of goodness and badness, from certainty to uncertainty.
And, you? How do you feel the differences?
Mystes: Quite honestly, I’m in a weird space between reality, fantasy (I was using this term as imagination, individual creativity originally) and imagination at the moment. In fact, in fever pitch realm of something’s got to shift in my energetic realm. I have yet to reconnect after long disconnection to different level.
What I understand about myself, how it feels, is that imagining comes with a calm knowing and information is always confirmed by outer input as are my lucid events. Fantasy or wish or willing outside of alignment with spirit makes me feel sick. Reality spurs me into action, and I am one who takes quick action, always have from age of memory, 2-3 yrs.
My Venus is on the Aries point conjunct Pallas and near Eris, etc. My Mars is conjunct my Sun in Taurus just after a lunar eclipse. Venus retrograde in the sign of my natal Venus, those years have always involved major turning points, 1993/94 was fucking huge, as was 2001. This year, I have been aware the energy has been building for whatever is next since 2003, consciously, and have run out of patience, completely, so not quite the same as fantasy/wish feeling sick, but definitely absolute frustration with all definitions, etc and wondering WTF? Especially why are we still relating in a winning-losing construct?
KristenB… Do you have a sense of the difference between fantasizing and imagining? Do you have a sense of how to notice when you are doing one or the other?
One of things that the JS discussion is doing for me is understanding that imagination may be more continuous, integrated than fantasy.
Your thoughts?
What’s gone and dead is people’s ability to converse about uncomfortable subjects, from the homeless to the creep who likes them that they hate to sexuality and body image issues. In our 15 mins of fame society, everyone thinks/feels they know best, better. Guffaw. But, I don’t know what’s best for each and everyone of you who reads these posts nor you for me. Yes, it behooves me to become ever more aware, but that falls in conversational tone mode, not NEED or MUST do x, y, z. See?
That’s what we all take offense at, flogging that onto others or having it flogged onto us whether liberal or conservative no matter. Patagonia is a big corporate interest, are they bad? Has everyone herein avoided all corporations this week? Heck, PW is a corporation, and that makes it a person in the tax and law eyes {see documentary on corporations for further js style commentary}.
Okay, I return to my original point: Can we learn to communicate our worlds effectively enough to connect with others without stealing their freedom from them?
The fool is the one that does this most brilliantly, but the fool never takes an ‘us vs them’ mentality, that’s what makes the fool so wise.
So, what triggered me? “Who will win:…” Game over.
In Stewart we trust. He’s the only smart comedian in town. The press, as it is, is gone and what’s left…….is left overs loosers.
Hmm… the word “need” seems to be a trigger in my worlds these days. Last week the half-husband nearly leapt over a battery of therapists and wrestled me to the ground when I used it in a counseling session.
Pretty funny now, but at the time very useful. One might even say ‘necessary.’
One might want to; it might be useful to; perhaps you may wish to;
etc.
get a feel for the diffs between fantasy and imagination. I return to the point because, it was, after all, where I was heading. There are varying intensities and hues of focus that it behooves us to learn how to distinguish.
(Yes, behooves is another way to say ‘need.’)
What we love about Jon Stewart is that he can wade into the tentacled beast and not get lost in its fantasy. Which bespeaks a hell of an Imaginary focus. Hence the feeling tone and energy of the Real all around him.
Better?
Jon’s been doing this for a while high level all along; so I am a bit nonplussed though always been a huge fan from Day 1. He is great at it! And, sublime is the word, as is subtlety.
But, we each will continue to have our own viewpoint, as we each create our own construct. And, it is in the honoring of all viewpoints and attaining the guts to stand up and share exactly what it is we each think and feel that will make Jon’s work come full circle. The court jester has always been a valued member by those attempting to serve.
But, when someone comes along and says WE NEED/NEEDED THIS, ETC, that is just another way of taking away someone elses freedom to see the entire circus differently. See?
Opposite end member doesn’t make a blend, it makes more polarity/duality.
Kisses and dirt clods under the fingernails***
Fe underscores: “What we did, and what the Comedy Network did was make the entire eight-thousand-tentacled crap-delivery beast, the networks, point loaded fingers at itself and fire. It was sublime.”
“Point” taken. Almost makes me want to order cable.
But speaking of filters: Not really. I’ll catch it on YouTube.
***
**
*
Mystes:
“There is about a 13 minute gap between Imagination and the Real. All manner of crap tries to shove itself into that delay-space, but if you learn to keep your focus inside of the Imagined, the Real will arrive wearing every conceivable ornament.”
Understood. Especially about the crap. What you’re talking about is something we’re learning to do, but first we need to refine the filters that allow the crap in. That’s for everyone.
What Stewart did this last week was give us a high-level Code Red Crap Alert. That’s his job, as is the job of all Court Fools. An important post. What we did, and what the Comedy Network did was make the entire eight-thousand-tentacled crap-delivery beast, the networks, point loaded fingers at itself and fire. It was sublime.
KristenB writes: “The deepest truth seems to be this: reality is fantasy, vice versa, and this is true, we each live within our own construct.”
Fe says: “Is anything certain? If you live as a spirit in physical form, no. All changes. Even reality under that scenario is suspect.”
Okkkaaaayy…
First we need to examine the diffs – *not* between fantasy and reality, but between fantasy and imagination. One is a reactive, hunger-driven production; the other is freedom giving itself form.
Reality is imagination. Once that is firmly stuck in your craw, ‘fantasy’ and the fantasmagoria of the collective nightmare become infinitely more manageable. A wet compress, a footrub, slipping your hand into the mullah’s pants and giving him a little happiness — all become the Real.
There is about a 13 minute gap between Imagination and the Real. All manner of crap tries to shove itself into that delay-space, but if you learn to keep your focus inside of the Imagined, the Real will arrive wearing every conceivable ornament.
***
**
*
KristenB:
What you write about triggers in me ambivalence about the concept of “certainty”.
Is anything certain? If you live as a spirit in physical form, no. All changes. Even reality under that scenario is suspect.
Right now, we have people and countries willing to engage in politics of personal and total destruction to prove they are right. They believe they have the corner on “certainty”, because they themselves are uncertain. The very nature of the way the world has changed has brought them and us to this point, which is a brink.
But here, our belief system can change everything, from believing that what has happened is a catastrophe to believing that its a breakthrough. I’m of the latter school. Asymmetric warfare and the world’s market crash has forced us to fall through the mirrors of Alice’s world of Wonderland. It may have been painful, but we needed to. The rest of the world has been waiting.
Fe: You write beautifully, very articulate. Yes, it has been a joke for a very long time that the best news emanates from non-news channels. But, then, when most people use silence as a way to communicate, the mundane or the very intimate and personal, what can anyone expect?
We humans are mind readers, but when denial/silence is used as weapon in the face of the “uncomfortable,” exhaustion results from trying to figure out current reality – calling, questioning situations/people about truth or lies. Most just go with the flow, side stepping personal responsibility.
To access Neptune, Jupiter and Chiron, one must first visit Venus and Mars either via tea party or bar room brawl which is indeed daunting in order to figure out ones own values.
The word ‘values’ gets bantied about, but few still actually live in alignment, aka integrity [another world word most do not understand], with what they spout, so what gets spouted is then felt as a lie and the whole mess cycles like a stagnant whirlpool above a clogged drain.
The deepest truth seems to be this: reality is fantasy, vice versa, and this is true, we each live within our own construct.
So, question moves to this: Can we communicate our worlds effectively enough to connect with others without stealing their freedom from them?
Not, devolving further into realm of “I am right” and “You are wrong.”