Hi everyone,
Sometimes I find myself thinking of the easier path of non-interest in the horrors of our imperial world, of simply pursuing a nice, comfortable middle-class life – that is, after all, the easier path to take – but I can’t. If I try, it tugs at me ever so slightly, increasing in intensity the more I try to ignore it, until it eventually bowls me over completely.
This is the battle between soul and ego, that we all face. And the ego, as evil as it can be, gets a bit of an unfair reputation really, because we need ego. Without ego, we wouldn’t learn. Without ego, there would be no challenges to overcome. That’s the point of it. It shrouds and envelops our true self. Many of us – most? – merely live in ego-land, oblivious to this very fact, with the odd life event, like the death of a parent, pulling us out of it in fleeting moments, before the ego-built world pulls us back in.
The film, the Matrix, encapsulates this battle better than anything else that I’ve seen. In the film, Zion is the real world, but it’s a scorched, devastated land, whereas the Matrix is the world we know, with its material comforts and familiarity. The humans who choose to leave the Matrix understand that they will have to live in a brutal reality of insurmountable odds against an all-powerful enemy that has enslaved the human race, and without any of the comforts or beauty of the simulated Matrix world. But that is where truth lies, and that is where you are set free.
The character, Cypher, represents the people who cannot bear the truth, who prefer the mirage, the veil of illusion. He wants the taste of the fake steak so badly that he betrays the human race to get it.
Frankly, most of the world is still Cypher. I’m not saying that most people would betray humanity, but that they are not ready to accept the truth. I once knew a guy from California who, when I reeled off a bunch of crimes that the Democrats had not only supported, but designed, he essentially did the same as a child putting their fingers in his ears and shouting, “Lalalalalala, I’m not listening!!” He simply could not take it that his reality of Democrats good, Republicans BAD was a crock of shit fed to him all his life by his government, media, and society. He then proceeded to tell me that “Joe’s done a good job, man, he’s not getting enough credit.” By the way, this guy is about 50 years of age and is very well educated. He also told me that he knew “some real good people who work at Raytheon.” Raytheon is a US weapons manufacturer, which makes weapons used to murder Palestinians, including two-tonne “bunker-buster” bombs.
I don’t blame him. Really, I don’t. It’s hard to see the truth of empire, of our modern world. Especially, I can only imagine, if you grow up in the hyper-jingoistic society that is the United States, where American exceptionalism and greatness are seemingly spoon-fed to you from birth.
It’s easy to turn away. And it’s hard to keep looking. To do so and not lose your mind, I believe that you have to go beyond the mind – to understand that this is all a dance and, as horrifying as this world is in so many ways, we all need the bad in order to advance. Virtually every societal progress is born of trauma of some sort. Take Ireland’s popular support of Palestine. The primary reason for this is because Irish people were subjugated and oppressed and othered, treated as less than human, by an entity of unimaginable, asymmetrical power, much like Palestine and the Israeli-US settler colony regime. It is this inhumane, cruel treatment over centuries that has created the empathy and compassion in the Irish people at large when seeing the same occur elsewhere to another people. This is but one example of how horror can push us forwards, to help us advance.
Going back to my previous point about the Matrix and ego versus soul, unfortunately in this world, most of us don’t have the luxury of literally being unplugged from it like they do in the Matrix. Instead, we must be in the world, but understand that we are not of it. We must engage with the system of work, bills, and taxes even if we want to fight against the system, at least until a critical mass collectively decides not to. Rising inequality is also making fighting against the system harder. With higher costs of goods, rent, and everything really, far outpacing wage rises in much of the so-called developed world, working merely to exist makes finding the time to fight the system harder. I am of absolutely no doubt that this is intentional: grind us down and demonise us at the same time, telling us it’s all our own fault, whipping up culture wars as a divide-and-conquer strategy, while rigging the system to protect and enrich themselves and dangling the immigrant or the homeless person or the out-of-work person as the low-hanging fruit into which we can vent our fury.
One thing though that now makes it all tolerable and feasible to partake in without burning out: I used to work and campaign for change but my mistake was that I was so attached to the outcome. I wrote over 50 articles in 2016/17 for different publications to try to help get Jeremy Corbyn elected as prime minister in the UK, but he was smeared as anti-semitic and as a terrorist sympathiser. Two ludicrous smears, of course. His real crime for the establishment is that he wanted to reduce inequality and so, they took him out, weaponising the UK imperial media – which is virtually all of it – to do so. I was devastated by the election result, when the Conservatives won again. Since then I learned to detach myself from the outcome: to work for a goal, without being married to it. To accept my reality, whether I can change it or not. Acceptance doesn’t mean rolling over – on the contrary, it enables us to be more resilient, more focused, and more clear of mind and action.
The American Spring is unfolding before our very eyes
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” – First amendment, US Constitution.
This last week, we have witnessed an uprising across US universities, of students and professors assembling in peace against genocide. It’s now spread to 40 campuses nationwide! The response from the empire has been nothing short of Orwellian, with mass, violent police beatings and arrests in an attempt to stop the protests.
The empire has deployed all of its usual methods, including the continued, and continually ludicrous, weaponization of the term “antisemitism” in increasingly vain attempts to smear the peaceful protestors, which include significant numbers of Jewish people. Other imperial methods to muzzle the people include the White House itself condemning the students and the mainstream media doing likewise. House speaker Mike Johnson even claimed that the protests are “backed” by Hamas 😆
All the empire knows is violence and it doesn’t seem to be aware that it is inflicting serious self-harm. It is showing for all the world to see what many of us – especially Black American people – that the first amendment, and indeed any Constitution amendment, applies only when the plutocratic status quo is not threatened. It is also feeding the movement energy. With each attempt at suppression, it is only going to make it stronger. As has come to pass. With each new day, it has grown and spread across American universities.
Columbia University will relent to the pressure. It will eventually divest from all its holdings affiliated with Israel, and when it does, it will set off a chain reaction and we will witness every university doing the exact same thing. This will be catastrophic to the terrorist US-Israeli settler-colony project in occupied Palestine. This is why the reaction has been so violent and, frankly, illegal. It won’t work. I have been so elated to see what these students and professors in the US are doing and I am grateful to them for organizing intelligently and refusing to yield. The empire can’t handle it.
I believe that this is the American Spring and that Gaza will, sooner or later, galvanize the citizens of the imperial heartland and around its vassal states too, like here in Ireland or in the UK, to organize and unite for a more just world. The alternative is a much worse inequality and beginnings of dystopia that we are living through right now. This uprising is showing us all what we are truly capable of when we unite because we are far stronger together than the small band of plutocrats that divide to conquer and raid the world of its wealth, splendour, beauty, and resources. Of course, Russian and Chinese imperialism are no better. Imperialism must be resisted wherever it rears its ghastly head.
130 mass graves across Gaza
That’s according to Euromed Human Rights Monitor. The mass graves have been created inside residential neighbourhoods, stadiums, courtyards, roads, wedding halls, hospital grounds, schools, and mosques. At al-Shifa Hospital alone, a mass grave was discovered with almost 400 bodies of Palestinians, many still with medical devices still attached, such as catheters, and also with their hands tied behind their backs. There is strong belief that at least 20 people were buried alive.
With each week, new, unspeakable crimes come out. The zionist regime truly knows no bounds of depravity and cruelty. As a reminder, 98.2% of Israelis believe that their Occupation Forces have not shown enough force against the Palestinians in Gaza. Netanyahu is not the exception, he is the norm in his deranged society, despite how the imperial media is trying to manipulate us into thinking.
BRICS, the West, Palestine, the Ben Gurion Canal and one trillion cubic feet of natural gas
The BRICS group of countries is currently made up of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and, later, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, the United Arab Emirates, and Iran. In 2022 and 2023, 15 more countries applied to join too.
France’s Emmanuel Macron asked to attend a BRICS summit last year and was rejected 😆 The BRICS’ current total GDP is 32% of global GDP, whereas the G7 group of Western countries’ total GDP is 30% of global GDP. This difference is only going to grow.
This shift from a unipolar world, led and shaped by the US, to a multipolar world, with the US, China, and Russia, in particular, defining geopolitical affairs, is already well under way. This is one of the primary reasons why the US is fighting tooth and nail to arm and enable the Israeli settler colony regime. Israel enables the US to exert enormous influence in the Middle East, to divide Arab countries, sow division, and keep Iran down.
There are two other key reasons why Israel must prevail in its genocide for the US empire: one, to build the Ben Gurion Canal, in order to bypass the Egyptian Suez Canal, and control one of the most important shipping routes in the world, and two, in order to ensure Western control of the enormous gas reserves off the Gaza coast, estimated at over one trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
Personal stuff
I’ve spoken about attachments before and how our things and beliefs tend to own and rule us rather than the other way around. I was talking to my brother recently and I said to him, “I don’t really have the desire to play music live any more that I did.” He looked at me confused and said, “But that was always what you wanted to do.” And I was like, “I know! I’m trying to get it back but it won’t come back.”
This happened to me when I was a teenager too when I suddenly just didn’t want to play computer games any more. I tried to force it but it was no use. I thought about going busking this week in Dublin City but I just can’t be arsed lugging all my gear down, setting up, playing, and then lugging everything back! Now, to contextualise, I love playing the guitar and I love to create music.
I’ve realised though since talking to my brother that what I actually don’t have the desire for any more is the tedium that goes with playing live rather than playing live itself: the travelling, the carrying, the setting up, the sound check, the pressure to not screw anything up. Sometimes, it’s difficult to understand exactly what it is that is causing us problems but defining them is critical in order to be able to understand how to proceed. I actually really enjoy playing live. It’s all that other stuff. The idea of touring too – of being far from home, and merely moving from place to place as soon as you finish playing, does not appeal. Anyway, I’ve been thinking about this a lot this week, but I don’t want to close the door on playing live. Of course not. I think I will play the odd time, out in a bar or wherever, and perhaps I can do a live-stream gig now and again online. But first, I have to finish some more songs.
Otherwise, this week I’ve been trying to be more present. I’ve been doing yoga nidra sessions daily – westernized and popularized by Andrew Huberman as non-sleep deep rest. And I’ve also been trying to adopt Thich Nhat Hanh’s mindful walking and mindful eating. It’s been working and it is calming. If you ever watch Midnight Gospel on Netflix, you will see how these exercises, and those like them, help train you in going beyond our three-dimensional material reality. These are exercises that can help us to evolve to a new level of consciousness.
Thank you for reading,
Teo del Norte
I always value your work and perspective, and this one really resonated for me, lots to take away. Thank you.
I forwarded this to #McShayne2011 and he has written a rather good Twit in response to reading this today The Weekly. He is v active in citizen journalism on effects of Zionism in Australian politics and events in Palestine. Thank you for an exceptional essay this week