The Politics of Oil and Oil Palm Plantations (reprise)

The ragtag Royal Sulu Army prepare to invade Sabah

Below are spontaneous comments on the Sulu invasion of Sabah I left on various conversation threads over the past week. It's a vastly complex and multi-layered issue made urgent by the outbreak of violence which has cost nearly 100 lives on both sides. Brute force is an entirely inefficient and primitive way to resolve differences. These notes serve as a starting point for a wider discussion...

Taking on the Tausugs

A few hundred years ago, the Industrial Revolution was in its early stages. Nobody in this part of the world could foresee that all those hectares of jungle would someday be viewed as prime real estate - especially if oil deposits exist just off the coast. Can't blame the Sulu or Brunei Sultans for being so generous with parceling out their lands in exchange for small favors.

The wheel of fate and fortune spins. Here we are in 2013, and the Sulu people - mostly living in poverty compared to richer folks in the north and across the waters in what is now Sabah - suddenly realize they have been given a very raw deal. But short of wresting Sabah back by force of arms, they can only appeal to an international court for justice. So it's a complex legal issue made more complicated by all the secrecy surrounding it.

For example, we read that as recently as February 2011 the Malaysian Ambassador to the Philippines actually offered RM350,000 to Sultan Jamalul Kiram III if he would extend the lease by another 100 years. This only reinforces the Sulu Sultan's insistence that padjak means "lease" - not outright sale.

Jamalul Kiram III, self-proclaimed Sultan of Sulu

Beyond any doubt there is an issue to be resolved peaceably and wisely, using a win-win formula. Malaysia has further compounded the problem by being in denial that the Sultan of Sulu and his heirs do have a legal right to cancel the lease and reclaim their ancestral lands - and they could also opt to sell the land outright for an agreed-upon sum. If I were the Sultan, I'd find the Malaysian government offer of RM350,000 for a 100-year lease extension insulting, in view of what Sabah is worth. If the Malaysian government does not recognize Jamalul Kiram III as the legitimate Sultan of Sulu, why didn't it discontinue payment of the ridiculous RM5,300 annual rent?

Not only that, rumors abound that during Mahathir's tenure, the Malaysian government was secretly financing the Muslim separatists in the southern Philippines - just as suspicion remains that the Muslim insurgents in southern Thailand are on friendly terms with Malaysia - or at least Umno and Pekida.

The only intelligent and reasonable path is to tell the truth - no matter how bad that makes Umno and Mahathir look (especially since they already look so bad it can hardly get any worse). What's done cannot be undone. If there are already 800,000 Filipinos in Sabah - a vast number with Malaysian identity cards and voting rights, what is to be done?

Accept them as our brethren and include them in our development programs? Or evict them by force? Obviously, the most compassionate solution is always the most enlightened. Sadly, the present Umno/BN regime doesn't have a clue what compassion, enlightenment and wisdom mean - all they know is how to skim fat commissions off unnecessary and environmentally ruinous mega-projects. That's why the bottom line is still... ABU!

A Malaysian armored car rushes into the fray

Warlordism, feudal traditions, monarchies trapped in a timewarp... these are the last vestiges of an era soon to be viewed as a bad dream of humanity's infancy.

Only 200 years ago the world was a very different scenario. Nobody thought it was necessary to live in harmony with Mother Nature. Natural resources were regarded as a means to immense wealth - timber, gold, diamonds, rivers and seas teeming with fish, forests filled with all manner of fauna and flora.

The Moro National Liberation Front, one of many
militant Islamic factions in southern Philippines (www.mnlf.net)

It was a time when an ambitious, strong-willed tribal chief could consolidate his power among neighboring tribes and become an even bigger chief, a panjandrum who could rule by fear and force of arms. The Dream of Empire drove men like Alexander, Genghis Khan, Attila, Charlemagne, Napoleon, Hitler, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs to audacious extremes.

Tausug youth

Well, folks, those ways cannot be sustained in the 21st century - not when the rise of a global middle-class and the spread of information and knowledge have empowered ordinary folk everywhere, who no longer feel a superstitious awe of their hereditary leaders, who have outgrown the habit of kowtowing before unsmiling despots issuing decrees from ornate thrones. Alas, in the less developed regions of the world, such anachronisms still persist - and Southeast Asia has witnessed a tectonic shift in social and political changes since 1913 - and these changes have dramatically accelerated over the last 50 years.

What we're seeing now in Sabah is the deaththroes of insular tribalism, of fierce competition for land and natural resources. This worldview is completely at odds with scientific advances that reveal how all life is interconnected and interdependent - and that symbiotic cooperation can produce synergies that will elevate humanity to an exciting new level of consciousness that is holistic and synchronized with cosmic cycles.The younger generations are ready for this - but it appears their elders are still stuck in their petrified, doctrinaire ways of experiencing reality.

They may look like ballet dancers - but I wouldn't want to start a feud with these Moro warriors

You just have to admire the courage and perseverance of the Tausug. Far better to have such hardy warriors as our friends and allies than as our permanent enemies. If their grouse is being neglected, marginalized and impoverished for generations, it's far wiser - and less costly in the long-term - to help them out financially. I'm sure the amount squandered just to get Psy to perform for 8 minutes in Penang would have helped the Tausug regain a sense of dignity and well-being.

Tausug men in the early 20th century

Sometimes, it takes a crisis to shake us up and remind us that beyond race, religion and nationality... we are all part of the human family. Indeed, most folks who resort to violence and crime are forced to do so because nobody was paying attention to their desperate needs. Aerial attacks on a small group of Tausugs equipped with only small arms does strike me as overkill. I'm sure there are less violent strategies...

No doubt this is one complex and convoluted issue that cannot be resolved elegantly and wisely - unless everybody agrees to shift to a higher, more inclusive perspective - and this is when I start looking at Abraham and shaking my head. How could one guy cause so much bloodshed and conflict over so many generations? Obviously the Middle Eastern portal through which the Book Religions were inserted into the 3D Matrix is controlled by renegade reptilians who will do anything to keep people divided and easily misruled - and nothing does that better than monotheist dogma and entrenched dualism.

[First posted 8 March 2013]

From Manic Depression to Cosmic Rapture... (repost)

The Magickal Transmogrification
of Steven R. Schwarz

"Been there, done that: unemployed pantheist, provocative iconoclast, abusive solipsist, failed psychopath. I've stumbled on some knowledge the clever people forgot or lost or never knew." ~ Steven Schwarz

That's how Steven Randall Schwarz describes himself on his eclectic and always stimulating blog, Cosmic Rapture.

I don't recall how we first bumped into each other in Cyberspace - whether he stumbled on my blog first or vice versa - but it was love at first encounter. I instantly recognized him as a kindred spirit and thereafter we got into the habit of leaving encouraging comments on each other's blogposts.

Anyway, as though in confirmation of the soulular kinship I felt, Steven decided out of the blue in February 2012 to visit me - in the flesh, not astrally. He hadn't traveled in 15 years, he said, and was understandably nervous about the logistics of transferring the multidimensional bulk of his vast and unlimited being through what must have appeared to him like very minute apertures randomly scattered across the dull surface of what passes for 3D reality.

Nevertheless, he arrived safely through the frequency turnstiles that separate our bioregions (he lives in Sydney, I should add) - and chilled out at Magick River for close to two weeks. We spent hours sitting on my scenic veranda just drinking coffee and conversing about Life, the Universe and Everything. I wish Douglas Adams could have joined us. Perhaps he was eavesdropping from the astral, cleverly disguised as a green cicada or a cluster of cicaks.

From my perspective, it was an entirely historic (if not hysteric) encounter, indeed, an utterly cosmic reunion. Steven remembered me from the Big Bang and I recalled his role in the Lucifer Rebellion. You could say Steven Schwarz and I share quite a few mythic resonances. Steven's intrinsic seriousness (he's into quantum physics and Tibetan metaphysics) made me think of Sirius Black (a great wizard in the Harry Potter books) - why not? Schwarz means Black, after all. (Steven or Stephen, in case you're as interested in names as I am, means "crown" or "garland" which implies great accomplishment, glory or honor.)

Steven R. Schwarz, in any case, is undoubtedly one of the finest wizards I have encountered in recent lifetimes. His luminous intelligence and inventive spirit combine to produce a prodigious variety of artifacts - from quirky Edward Learish limericks and offbeat Ogden Nashian poems (labeled "vot could be verse") to darkly evocative abstracts in oil on canvas, vaguely reminiscent of Kandinsky. And, like Wassily Kandinsky, Steven Schwarz is also a gifted composer and musician.

Enough said! Hope you enjoy this delectable selection of lyrical, musical and visual offerings I found on Steven's fascinating blog...

Knights of Unrelenting Weirdness (now proudly displayed on my wall)

Palatable Nightmare of Varying Bluntness

one wonders why oneness

when the sum of the parts is more than the whole
and some of the parts want a starring role
one has a question, it's really quite small
for any who want to be One with the All
one wonders why oneness is set as a goal
one that one dies for, along with one's soul
a goal that's scored long after the game
when the self is forgotten along with the name
in trueness your youness is inside your head
and oneness and twoness is noneness: you're dead
for minus my myness my self can't be found
above in the sky or below in the ground
one and one's two, and one and two's three
I'll date myself before marrying me.
.......


DISCLAIMER: In writing the above, rhyming was a higher priority than revealing what I really think or believe.

the wolves that was

Once a month beneath the moon
their evil crimes recur
the wolves that was is incorrect
it is the wolves that were.

Not every wolf's a wary wolf
aware-wolf, as it were
but every wolf's a hairy wolf
with long and curly fur.

A werewolf's not a cat or dog
a mutt, a hound or cur.
He'll snarl and howl and growl a lot
but never bark or purr.

So if a werewolf lurks outside
be shaken but don't stir
everywhere where werewolves are
much bloodshed does occur.

That's why that we beware wolves
and few would not concur
it's bad to be where werewolves is
(wolves are if you prefer).

The wolves that was are wicked
with blood upon their fur
the wolves that was is incorrect
it is the wolves that were.

Shimmer in Dark Energy

Abodes of Foreboding

quack, quack, the frogs do bark

Facetious assassins deified
Insidious fedaheen exemplified
Qua?

Mutinous taxicabs glorified
Glutinous agglomerates gentrified
Quo?

Hellacious orthodontists stupefied
Stupendous dazzlement typified
Quid?

Dubious qualia emphasised
Golden marmadukes euthanized
Que?


Thanks to 'autotune' (vocoder) and a complete lack of singing ability, the so-called lyrics to the song confusingly entitled 'zombie bloodeater' are completely inaudible. Needless to say, when I wrote the words I was pissed out of my mind. So whether you want 'em or not, below please find the lyrics to 'drunken-hearted man'...

zombie bloodeater (drunkenhearted man)

Should be "drunken-minded man" but who cares
the main thing is no-one can even think of selling their wares
covered in vomit, sprawled pubes-up in a gutter
(and I don’t care what you mind about what I should or shouldn’t utter).

We all have our escapes, the question is from what?
Of course a drunken-hearted man cares not a lot
He's just some poor silly sod who's ripe for a fleecing
specially in an age of zero tolerance policing.

But what are we running from, I repeat my question
life, death, love, sex, success, what’s your suggestion?
Does it really matter? That’s another query
Though it's all the same to one who’s leery, teary, not to mention beery.

The fact is, there are many mansions in the third dimension
or the fourth, tenth, eleventh, twenty sixth, whatever your inclension.
(That should be inclination, and don’t I know it
but what do you expect from a legless drooling poet?)

So have another drink, tablet, joint, needle or snort
of whatever it is that’s your storm in any port
The creator doesn’t care if you lose a little grip
while your so-called awareness goes down with the ship.

(oh and BTW, just to confuse things still further, the lyrics as published here don't quite match up to the words as sung in the above video. Including the sequence of verses and lines within verses. The reasons are completely insignificant and insubstantial, not to mention boring. You don't want to know. But they do exist. There are reasons. And yes, they're pissweak. But still.)

Oh and here's a bit more: the description of the video in my YouTube channel:

Opens with 6 magi (not 3) attending the birth of a monster, the mother of whom is a very strange girl surrounded by singing eyes. Frightened by the magi, she takes her newborn to one of the two highest peaks in the land. From the vantage point of which she and hers enter a portal to forever and achieve immortality, mythologically speaking.


Oh and one more thing: I tried to get the YouTube caption/subtitle functionality to work but just could the fuck not.

Another Promethean Palimpsest

Ultramarine City

Voyage to Lemuria

Staring into the Abyss

[First posted 25 April 2012]

Music that has significantly changed my life...

1. Marche du soldat
2. Petit airs au bord du ruisseau
3. Pastorale



4. Marche royale
5. Petit concert



6. Trois danses (Tango, Valse, Ragtime)



7. Danse du diable
8. Great Chorale
9. Marche triomphale du diable

Ensemble de l'Orquestra de Cadaques
Dir. Vasily Petrenko


Igor Stravinsky - The Soldier's Tale (L'histoire du soldat)

Igor Stravinsky's life (1882-1971) spanned a world of musical change, and probably no other composer wrote in as many styles as did he.

His early compositions mirrored the nationalist ideals of his teacher Rimsky-Korsakov, but he quickly moved on to develop his own style. With his trio of ballets Firebird, Petrouchka, and The Rite of Spring Stravinsky almost single-handedly invented modernism. He later went through a neoclassical period, and finished his career embracing the serialism and twelve-tone principles of Schoenberg.

The Soldier's Tale comes from 1918, a lean post-war time when jazz was just beginning to emerge into the mainstream. Stravinsky was broke, deprived of his royalties because of the Revolution, and his other source of income, Diaghilev's Ballets Russes was also going through lean times.

Stravinsky invented a new style, pared down to essentials, in melody, rhythm and instrumentation. The Soldier's Tale is scored for just seven instruments: clarinet, bassoon, cornet, trombone, violin, double bass and percussion. The concert version also features four speaking parts, those of the Devil, the Soldier, a Princess and an unseen Reader. The Devil and Princess are also required to dance.

The story is a dark Faustian fable about a deserting soldier and the Devil who eventually possesses his soul. The soldier's violin becomes a symbol of both the soldier's soul and the Devil's wiles.

The story is based on an old Russian folk tale but the music is as far removed from Russian traditionalism as possible, making it a lesson for all cultures and times.

The most obvious sound here is jazz, a form of music that Stravinsky had never actually heard. He was familiar with it through scores that his friend Ernest Ansermet had brought from America.

Stravinsky also uses tango rhythms, marches, a waltz and a chorale, never faithfully but more as an artisan uses tools to fashion something new.

The Soldier's Tale opens with the "Soldier's March," a stiff parody of militarism, as befits a deserter.

Next come the "Soldier's Violin," rhythmic, repetitive, driving and typically Stravinsky. Then come the "Little Concert and Three Dances - Tango, Valse and Ragtime," the most musically elaborate of the works.

The Suite ends brilliantly with the "Devil's Dance," triumphant and diabolical. The violin theme now belongs to him and he owns the Soldier's soul. The Devil celebrates his victory.

The Soldier's Tale is a masterpiece of the miniature, dry and acerbic, dark yet witty, threatening but tongue in cheek.

There are lavish productions of The Soldier's Tale played by a full orchestra. To me, this misses the entire point. The starkness of the instruments, the dryness of the melody is what creates the mood of the piece.

[Source: The Good Music Guide]

Note: I shall forever be grateful to Peace Corps Volunteer Duncan S. Catling (who taught us English Literature from 1964-1965) for introducing me to the supreme musical inspiration of Igor Stravinsky. That's right, I started listening to Stravinsky as a horny adolescent and it has totally changed the way I view reality!

[First posted 19 March 2012]

PIRATES & PARASITES: DON'T LET THEM BRING YOU DOWN, FOLKS! (repost)

An old friend named Patrick with whom I recently reconnected after a long break sent me an email which concluded with the following sentiment:

Do you really think that this country will soon be rid of pirates and parasites? I think UMNO/BN is so entrenched that any alternative would be quashed before they get time to settle. I always say that this country has so much going for it, but it’s screwed up by politics. I should be careful with what I write for fear of getting a knock on the door by some unwelcome visitors...

It saddened me that Patrick is probably not the only one infected with this pessimistic view of the political situation. No doubt he thinks of it as "being realistic." The social circle within which Patrick moves is quite likely to share his cynicism as regards the possibility of genuine change. After all, they are mostly entrepreneurs, socialites, aristocrats and technocrats who have worked around the planet for decades as expatriates, getting paid in US dollars or euros. Whether they be based in Nigeria, Somalia, Zimbabwe, Burma, Dubai, Qatar, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Sri Lanka or Thailand, they are unlikely to be affected by the squalid conditions on the ground. Should massive trouble erupt at any point, they have the wherewithal to swiftly airlift themselves to safety.

Since Patrick happens to be someone I genuinely like, he deserves a thoughtful, well-considered response rather than a flippant brush-off. So I'm going to share my formal reply to Patrick with all of you through this post.

Dear Patrick,

I can understand where you're coming from. In fact, most of my friends and relatives who have, through their own efforts and resources, attained a comfortable position in the food chain will probably echo your views on the apparent immutability of the status quo. And by "status quo" I refer not only to Malaysia but to all of humanity on this fair earth. You might as well have asked:

"Do you really think that this planet will soon be rid of pirates and parasites?"

And my response to that would be an unequivocal YES. The reason I can state this with absolute confidence is simply because I have spent the last 45 years monitoring the frequency shifts in the human psychosphere and the dramatic increase in Schumann Resonance of the planetary electromagnetic field. In plain language, the planet is a living cosmic organism and it is evolving along multidimensional Fibonacci spirals of expanding awareness, carrying along the morphogenetic fields of all lifeforms - mineral, vegetable, animal, human, and elemental - embedded within its being.

Between 1952 and 1979 the Schumann Resonance (SR) of the Earth was measured at 7.8 Hertz. It began to rise up the scale and is currently between 12 and 13 Hz. Cutting edge visionary scientists like Gregg Braden say they expect the SR to peak at 13 Hz between 2011 and 2013.


What will happen to the botanical and biological lifeforms on the planet's surface?

Some plant and animal species will vanish from the third dimension while a few new ones will spontaneously appear. As for humans, a great many will be unable to recalibrate and realign their energy fields; these will succumb and descend into various forms of psychosis and pathology. The news will be full of deadly epidemics and outbreaks of irrational violence camouflaged as interracial and interreligious conflict.

For millennia the warlords have ruled this planet and they will be resisting their own imminent extinction by attempting to drag millions of other lives with them as they go the way of the dinosaurs.

Those who have learnt to trust their heart wisdom will have little trouble accepting the incoming frequencies, thereby accelerating their own awakening on the cellular, molecular, atomic and nuclear levels. Within the next few months (that's right, I said months, not years, not decades), even as the 3D Matrix begins to get more and more unreal, the ones who can maintain their emotional equilibrium and trust completely in the Unknown will find life becoming simpler and more exquisite. They will consciously acknowledge their own integral roles in the evolutionary passion play that will take us from micro to macro perspectives, and gladly celebrate their initiation as galactic citizens.

Institutions that have enslaved the human imagination for untold generations will crumble like stale bread, even as their adherents become discombobulated and turn upon each other in desperation and panic. Armies will exhaust themselves and disintegrate through meaningless combat even as deserters begin to outnumber combatants.

Congenital liars, hypocrites and deceivers will end up their own victims. Those that persist in assigning blame and scapegoating others will find themselves devoid of a following. Empire builders will weep as grandiose monuments to their own megalomania are reduced to rubble.

The status quo is static - and reality is dynamic. In a dynamic universe, status has no value or significance. However, humble virtues such as compassion, empathy, humility, and goodwill towards others will become the only accepted currency.

Creativity rather than destructivity will regain the upper hand.


The planet has been ruled by criminal syndicates for countless millennia. This was only possible during the Kali yuga, which has just about run its course. Only inertia and long-ingrained habit are keeping oppressive social systems in apparent operation. Secret police, spy agencies, covert programs designed to keep power in the hands of a plutocratic elite will be exposed as more and more whistleblowers begin to break free from their indoctrination and implants.

Evil cannot withstand the light of publicity and will evaporate under the burning sun of an enlightened humanity.


As the democratization of human communities begins to spread like wildfire, centralized government and ancient power cabals will weaken and die. The Anunnaki bloodlines that constitute all monarchies will either transmute themselves into a force for universal good - or be forever terminated.

Don't worry about Umno. Or the Rockefeller-Rothschilds. From a macro perspective they are merely small-time street gangs that will soon become fascinating exhibits in cosmoanthropological museums. So fear them not.

Above all, FEAR NOT.

And love, love, love with a heart made whole.

All this and more will come to pass. I kid you not, my dear Patrick.

[First posted 3 March 2009]