If I were a secret policeman... (repost)

After a few of my friends got thrown into Kamunting during Dr M's infamous Operation Lalang in October 1987, I became rather paranoid about the Malaysian police, especially the Special Branch or Malaysian secret police. Every time I heard a crackle or mysterious whir while talking on the phone I immediately suspected my line was tapped.

It wasn't a healthy state of mind, to be living under a dark cloud of Orwellian fear.

My clearest memory of the Mahathir era is how afraid people were to talk politics in public places. Every time the name "Mahathir" was mentioned, everyone would quickly look around to see if there were suspicious SB types in the vicinity. That was Dr M's greatest contribution to the nation - he turned it into a police state akin to East Germany during the Cold War period.

Talk to Dr Munawar Anees about this, if you think I exaggerate.

Don't point with cretinous pride at the KLCC Twin Towers or the colossal architecture of Putrajaya. Any tyrant with unlimited access to the public purse can build any number of monuments to their own pharaonic megalomania.

I love elephants - but not when they're painted white! Do we really need an "official residence" for our top civil servant that costs the public RM9 million a year to rent and maintain? What an atrocious scam that is!

Anyway, I decided it was stupid to live in constant anxiety about the secret police. It's true the army and police ultimately exist to protect the privileged few from the wrath of the exploited multitudes whose toil and drudgery support the system; and so long as the masses remain asleep, the status quo remains unthreatened. However, the situation dramatically changes when a few leaders become enlightened and realize the unsustainability and inherent instability of any top-heavy feudalistic social hierarchy.

One day I stumbled upon a small shop in the Chow Kit area selling trophies, medals, military insignia, and police paraphernalia. I bought a PVC wallet emblazoned with the PDRM logo and began pretending I was an undercover cop. It was astounding how swiftly that altered my perception of the police force. Each time I spotted a cop on the street or driving around in a patrol car, I experienced the pleasant buzz of bumping into someone from your hometown when you're traveling abroad. Soon, I began to harbor friendly feelings towards the police, rather than hostility.

This simple game had far-reaching consequences. I began to relive my childhood fantasies of being an undercover cop (I had been deeply impressed as a 9-year old by the Hollywood glamorization of the FBI in a movie called The FBI Story, starring James Stewart).


As a teenager I relished a long-running series of vivid dreams in which I featured as a top-ranking Bond-style secret agent and death-defying commando, narrowly escaping the most harrowing situations and invariably getting to kiss the leading lady.

Never underestimate the power of the imagination. I experienced a major shift in my attitude towards security personnel. Now, each time I was on the phone and heard some static, I'd simply assume my colleagues in Bukit Aman were on the job, recording my wit and wisdom for posterity.

It's been some years since I played this little game, but I can snap into this mode of consciousness anytime I want. It allows me some insight into the mind of the secret policeman and an empathetic glimpse of the policeman's intrinsic humanity.

In any case, as I grew older I began to see through the façade of the power structure and realized that there was no government on earth worth killing and dying for - they were all fronts for an invisible network of demented and bedeviled plutocrats. If I were a true-life James Bond, I'd opt to join the rebel forces or drop out completely.

Around that period, I had an unexpected encounter with a Special Branch officer planted in the middle-class audience at a British Council screening of Terry Gilliam's cult classic, Brazil. As the lights went on after the show, my companion expressed a bit of confusion about the whole point of the movie. I told her it illustrated the stupidity of governments. As we filed out of the British Council (which was then located near Bukit Aman), a mild-mannered Indian gentleman tapped me on the shoulder and asked if he could have a quick word with me.

"Sure," I said, and told my companion to wait in the car for me. My suspicions were confirmed when the guy introduced himself as a Special Branch officer. Our conversation lasted no more than 15 minutes but what he essentially wanted to communicate to me was that I ought to be more careful what opinions I expressed in public.

"Walls have ears," the SB guy said, which elicited a sermon from me about the questionable morality of serving an immoral government. I could sense that this guy was actually a decent bloke, just a bit jaded from having been a copper almost his entire life. He was due for retirement in a couple of years. Finally, the guy confessed to me that he was utterly demoralized by the dirty politics he had seen in the line of duty. "Sometimes I wish somebody would just press the red button and blow up the whole world. It's already too rotten to save!"

"It's sad to see you've become such a nihilist," I said. "I can understand your viewpoint, but I believe change is the only constant, and that the status quo is really not quite as static as most people believe."

We parted with a friendly handshake but our little unscheduled chat left me with much food for thought. I could see myself in his predicament. A decent bloke stuck for years in an indecent job, carrying out stupid orders from superiors he had no real respect for. The only way he could deal with his disillusionment was to become a crusty old cynic.

Of course, he could have quit - like my friend Johnny Goh, a former SB officer who told me he was due for a promotion in 1998, but he felt so sickened by the manner in which the police were being used against Anwar Ibrahim, he decided to resign and start a stationery business. Not everyone has the wherewithal to begin anew after decades in a particular job.

And not too many have the balls to blow the whistle on the evils inherent in the system. Nevertheless, the few that do have the clarity of mind, the courage, and the strength of their conscience to do so may well be Malaysia's only hope at this point.

I know that for every crooked cop in the PDRM, there must be at least 500 who are still straight; who still believe that the police ought to be a force for the public good, not a bunch of uniformed thugs serving a handful of white-collar gangsters. Indeed, there would be absolutely no way out of our present mess if there weren't ultimately a lot more honest citizens than criminals in our country.

Call me a perpetual fool, if you will, but I remain convinced that there will always be an inner core of decency to be found in any institution - even one that has been corrupted and twisted by years of despotic misrule. Most times, the decent chaps choose to earn their wages and keep a low profile, convinced it's beyond their power to reform their workplace, safer to simply serve out their time and collect a comfortable pension.

So let me dedicate this blogpost to my friends and fellow warriors in the Special Branch, some of whom have been diligently monitoring what I say and occasionally leaving cryptic comments on my blog. I'm sure many of you love this country as much as I do. I'm sure many of you would like to see real change happen - especially regime change, even if you may be a bit uncertain as to what these changes mean in terms of special privileges for the Malays and whatnot.

May I suggest you pause for a moment and look at the situation from a purely HUMAN perspective - forget about bangsa dan agama for a minute. I bet most of you have enough intelligence to know that sort of talk is complete hogwash anyway. Your big bosses aren't particularly religious people - they only believe in the unholy power that money buys - the money stolen from all of us.

You guys (and gals) are merely pawns in their evil game. Same as anybody else. Think on that, please, and act on what your heart prompts you to do.

Remember how the Marcos regime finally ended in the Philippines? Ferdinand's downfall was triggered by a small group of women hired by the Election Commission to monitor the vote-counting process. Realizing someone had tampered with the computers, they decided to blow the whistle by fleeing the Election Commission headquarters and running across the street to seek sanctuary in a church - where they were greeted by the international media who were only too happy to broadcast abroad the news of gross electoral fraud. Within days, Marcos had to flee Manila with whatever he and his acquisitive wife Imelda could carry by hand.

[First published 15 April 2009 as part of an essay series titled "Where Malaysia Is Headed..."

Reposted 5 August 2013]

STOP CALLING ME GOD! (a poem by Antares Maitreya)

 

I said, “Stop calling me God!”

But the frightened, confused fragments of Myself

Refused to listen or even hear.

So atomized have they been for so many cycles

They had long forgotten their own origins.

I opted then to address them not in words,

Nor in thought, for that requires language and speech,

But as epiphanies in moments of unguardedness –

As a honeyed fragrance upon a gentle breeze

Or the distant melody of a lifetime long unvisited.

In the course of linear time traversing ages, epochs, eternities

A few units of awareness began to fathom symmetries

And apparent synchronicities, and they began to perceive hidden geometries

In the subliminal architecture of form, informing the formless,

Inchoate and incoherent Primordial Chaos.

Order thus began to emerge within their apprehension,

Giving rise to general principles (albeit theoretical)

And then an eureka moment occurred, almost unexpectedly,

When a man – to be precise, a mathematician – named Mandelbrot

Discovered the fractal nature of all that exists and – voila – comprehension!

What were hitherto confused fragments of Myself

Realized themselves as dynamic fractals: kaleidoscopic, ceaselessly evolving

Sparks of the Sacred Flame, magnificent mandalas, increasingly conscious,

Gloriously, radiantly emanating, then coalescing into gravitational fields

From which spring a cosmic cornucopia of entities that eat and can be eaten.

Behold your essential and eternal flux from simplicity to complexity and back,

A neverending dance of interchangeable polarities, separating quick from dead,

Expanding and contracting to generate Breath, then Rhythm and Algorithm,

Then a mother’s heartbeat lulling you to dream awhile in the amniotic sac

Of your own nascent divinity.

[First posted 13 December 2021]

Morality Questionnaire (reprise)

First published 2 December 2006, one day after I created this blog...

[A sociology student posted me these questions as a reaction to attempts by quasi-religious agencies like JAWI, the Federal Territory Religious Department, to enforce public morality by brute force.]

1. What are your views on the current morality of our Malaysian citizens and why do you think this is the case?

Morality comes from the word "more" meaning "social custom." As such, each society will have its own culturally specific, and ethno-specific, preferences and traditions. None of these traditional social customs is immutable, that is, social mores change with changing economic, educational, and technological conditions. Therefore, "morality" is NOT, in my view, a relevant issue.

HOWEVER, what we're really talking about here is the question of ETHICS. Ethicality - the innate sense of what might be called "decent" human behavior, particularly in terms of interpersonal interactions, is a universal concern and has validity beyond the confines of cultural imprinting, and beyond economic, political, social, ideological, and biological considerations.

Very few human beings on this planet are imbued with an ethical core; simply because the majority of humans are akin to farm animals, kept in a state of abject ignorance and powerlessness to alter their own destiny in order that their energy, their vitality, and their experiential data may be "harvested." Among the few who have somehow broken through their cultural and social programming and attained an ETHICAL sense (which is often accompanied by the evolvement of an AESTHETIC sensibility), there is a strong possibility of these rare individuals gaining sufficient self-awareness to ultimately achieve self-mastery.

Self-mastery implies that the individual no longer refers to any EXTERNAL AUTHORITY for instructions as to how to behave towards others. The "moral authority" is fully internalized in that the individual is no longer an ethical infant, but has indeed attained the intellectual, emotional, and spiritual maturity to govern himself or herself from the highest and most universal perspective available at any given moment.

From this standpoint, few Malaysians - indeed, few human beings, regardless of nationality - have any notion of "morality" that has not been inculcated or indoctrinated into its behavioral programmes by an outside source - whether parental, societal, governmental, or ideological. These externally imposed concepts of morality are generally control mechanisms designed to make people easier to manage as statistics rather than as individuals. They often have absolutely no basis in organic reality and function purely as BELIEF SYSTEMS. As such, they are quite unnecessary and irrelevant to existence itself, but serve the hidden agenda of the Elite or ruling class.

When people refrain from certain behaviors out of fear of punishment, that is a sure indication that they have yet to acquire an ethical sense. Their fear of "breaking the law" and incurring "the wrath of God" or being penalized by the Law is what governs their actions. The more perceptive individuals who quickly learn that their parents and governments and spiritual leaders are inclined towards hypocrisy as a way of life ("Do what I say, don't do what I do!") will be prompted to break the taboos and behave in antisocial or criminal ways - but they will do so furtively because "getting caught" would mean severe punishment. Any attempt to "correct" their negative behavior can only result in more laws and more vigorous law enforcement, which ultimately strengthens the totalitarian state we might describe as "Big Brotherism" rather than enhance people's ethical sense.

In effect, the question you pose has to be rephrased differently if you desire an authentic answer instead of a superficial, programmed response. I suggest you work with this question: WHAT IS THE ESSENTIAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN "MORALITY" AND "ETHICS" - AND ARE MALAYSIANS, SPEAKING GENERALLY, AWARE OF IT?

2. In your own point of view, do you think that there are any groups of people who need increased moral policing and why?

The phrase "moral policing" is offensive to me, but let's not quibble about semantic niceties here. In general, the stratum of society most often in need of ethical resensitization is the so-called "ruling class" (which includes hereditary rulers, politicians, bureaucrats, and the uniformed personnel employed and trained to protect their private interests). This widespread condition of hypocrisy has its origins in the distortion of truth stemming from a long history of political power coups whereby authentic authority has been systematically usurped by "pretenders to the throne" - in other words, those least qualified to rule (because they have yet to master themselves) are usually the ones most determined to seize power and pose as "moral authorities."

3. What are your views on the recent incidents involving increased moral policing by some religious authorities? (e.g. arrest of a transgendered person in a friend's house, JAWI raid on a KL nightclub, Malacca Belia 4-B campaign to spy on young people...)

No mature community would tolerate such a gross abuse of vested authority and power. Agencies such as JAWI are infested with hypocrites and serve only as a haven for acutely aberrated individuals. They definitely serve no constructive purpose and we would do well to abolish them completely.

4. What do you think is a better solution to address such situations and why?

There is really no problem and therefore no "solution" is called for. People everywhere will do what pleases them in the way of recreation - and, so long as their activities do not impinge on other people's civil liberties or become destructive, it's nobody's business what anybody does to amuse himself or herself.

5. Do you think the state or private bodies should be responsible to develop better ways to deal with those situations?

Ultimately, the state itself is an abstraction which exists only as a cover for criminal usurpation of the individual's divine right of self-governance. With clarity of mind, these "social issues" publicized in the press are red herrings, non-issues, and merely serve to distract the public from REAL problems, e.g., environmental degradation and the ruthless abuse and exploitation of "lower" lifeforms - whether these be categorized as the "less privileged" or "those not of voting age" or (in a patriarchal society, the female gender), or non-human species as a whole.

6. Do you think there are weakness in our current moral laws and why?

There is only ONE authentic, universal moral law and it simply states: DO UNTO OTHERS AS YOU WOULD BE DONE BY. All other "moral" rules are arbitrary and utterly useless; and, as such, irrelevant to life and deserve to be abolished or repealed.

7. Do you think our moral laws need corrective measure or changes to be implemented to meet the current society's needs?

Refer to above response.

8. Do you think the State should be given some power to enforce these moral laws and why?

The so-called State has already abrogated unto itself way too many powers. What matters are human beings, indeed, all living beings - not artificial rules and regulations invented to conceal criminal abuse of power usurped from the inherent divinity (the God self) within each entity. Each of us as incarnate Souls ultimately has no evolutionary alternative but to accept TOTAL RESPONSE-ABILITY for how we experience "reality."

9. Many NGOs have campaigned for certain moral laws to be repealed and demand that the State should have no role in policing morality. Do you think this is fair proposition to all parties concerned?

The NGOs are on the right track but have yet to find the right tack. Rather than engage (and waste) their energy on "doing battle" against the "power structure" they will serve themselves and others far more effectively by paying closer attention to their own evolution as sentient beings, with the focus on attaining levels of consciousness some may describe as Buddhahood or Christhood.

10. To your own reasoning, why did you sign the Joint Statement and what do you hope it can achieve?

I am essentially aligned with the NGOs' broad objective of functioning as a system of "checks and balances" to established poltical authority even if I do not always agree with their terms of reference and modus operandi. An internet petition requires only a few seconds to sign and is the least one can do to contribute to positive social change - at least, in the short term :-)

11. What do you believe constitutes a moral society?

One in which each individual has attained "enlightenment" or Buddhahood and then evolved to the next level of spiritual maturity which some choose to call "Christ consciousness." As such, the "moral society" is constantly evolving and when the point is reached where enough individuals have reclaimed their sovereign power and freed themselves from external controls, the concept of external government will cease to exist - and ETHICS will be a "hardwired" integral component of our Operating Systems.

12. What do you think Malaysians and even yourself can do to bring improvement to the situation?

Ask the questions you have asked in this electronic interview and allow for the widest possible spectrum of responses. In short, we simply have to take time out to ponder the basic existential conundrums - preferably free of the corruption and distortion of institutionalized belief systems, i.e. religious doctrines.

13. Any last words or thoughts?

Enjoy the infinite possiblities of being in freedom and joy!

Thank you very very much :)

You're entirely welcome!

Antares

~^@^~

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED READ: ETHICS by R. Buckminster Fuller

[First posted 1 August 2011]

TERROR AS A GEOPOLITICAL TOOL (reprise)

"Strong, credible allegations of high-level criminal activity can bring down a government. When the government lacks an effective, fact-based defense, other techniques must be employed. The success of these techniques depends heavily upon a cooperative, compliant press and a mere token opposition party." - David Martin

Whenever you come across the word TERROR check if it’s being associated with the Islamic jihad. The fanatical religionist is the latest bogeyman, very useful for the insidious purpose of injecting intense fear and paranoia into the hearts of the masses.

The intention is to make people cut off all feelings of goodwill and compassion they might otherwise feel towards other humans in particular, and other lifeforms in general. Who would wish to stop us from being loving, compassionate and noble? Who would desire to make us distrustful and anxious, readily agreeing to be microchipped and to endure all manner of “beefed up security” - including 24/7 electronic surveillance and abruptly curtailed civil rights?

People, this may sound like science fiction, but I assure you that mind-control techniques have been in use for a very long time and are sufficiently sophisticated to make it not only possible - but inevitable - that suicide killers are being programmed and trained by covert agencies and then unleashed on unsuspecting populations at strategic times and places.

Security and defence personnel like the police and military already undergo rigorous training to program them into obedient, unquestioning enforcers of official authority.

However, their training stops short of completely dehumanizing them. Those who have been processed through police or military discipline are generally still able to return to civilian life without too much trouble - unless they are shell-shocked from exposure to the apocalyptic horrors of dirty "wars" like Vietnam or Iraq. Transforming a confused and angry young person into a kamikaze killer is something a great deal more extreme. But it appears that some covert agencies are expert at it:

A recent Carol Valentine article puts forth ample evidence that MANY, if not ALL, so-called "suicide bomber" attacks supposedly carried out by "Palestinian terrorists" are in fact being perpetrated by the Mossad-supported "Hamas" and similar bogus front organizations. This assessment indeed correlates EXACTLY with information conveyed to us from a DoS source and published in a TOP VIEW bulletin on April 14: information that an alleged "suicide bomber" attack in a Jerusalem market that Friday was perpetrated - like most of these supposed "suicide bomber" attacks - by a brainwashed/mind-controlled zombie killer under the control of Israeli/CIA intelligence units.

But why would ANYONE wish to turn human beings into killer zombies via hypnotech voodoo? This practice is hardly new. In the 11th century, a Persian mystic and spiritual master named Hasan-i-Sabbah perfected a method of indoctrination whereby he was able to create an army of fearless hashishin (from which the word assassin derives). Hasan built an impregnable fortress flanked by two mountains where he created a paradisal garden...

"The garden lay in a beautiful valley nestled between two high mountains. Here he had imported exotic plants, birds, and animals from all over the world. Surrounding the garden were luxurious palaces of marble and gold, decorated with beautiful paintings and fine silk furniture. Streams of milk, wine, and honey flowed throughout this earthly paradise, while fountains gushed with wine and pure spring water.

The initiate, after being knocked out by a powerful potion mixed with hashish, would be carried into the garden. When he awoke from his slumber, he would be greeted by a host of beautiful teenage girls (houris), who sang and danced and played lovely instruments for him. As he drifted into an ecstatic daze, the girls would go to work on the initiate, giving him a full-body tongue massage, while one girl performed oral sex on him. Eventually, the bedazzled young man would climax into the girl's mouth "as softly and slowly and blissfully as a single snowflake falling." (Robert Anton Wilson, from Prometheus Rising) No wonder Hasan could demand absolute loyalty from his followers, no questions asked..." (Wes Moore)

Moore goes on to say: "Our modern day 'assassination cults' (the FBI, the CIA, etc.) have incorporated many of the Hashishins' techniques into their methodologies. In a CIA training manual titled A Study of Assassination, you find traces of the Assassins' influence throughout. Hasan-i-Sabbah is even mentioned in the document, which is a must read if there ever was one."

Most of us would vehemently deny it if somebody showed us incontrovertible evidence that our fathers or husbands have been leading a double life as Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Since the state is for many an extension of the father, it's difficult for the majority to believe that our own governments are capable of sacrificing the lives of any number of citizens just to stay in power.

Operation Northwoods is solid proof that such things happen more often than we would like to know. In 1962 the Joint Chiefs of Staff proposed to fake terror attacks on their own citizens and blame it on Fidel Castro. This was to justify declaring war on Cuba. Good thing defense secretary Robert McNamara shot the atrocious idea down. But 39 years down the line with Donald Rumsfeld as defense secretary and Dick Cheney as vice-president, another preposterous false flag operation was given the green light: the world knows this scenario as the 9/11 terror attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

"The Illuminati, Freemasonry and the other secret societies use symbols and perform ceremonies that perpetuate the generational transfers of arcane knowledge that is used to keep the ordinary people in political, economic and spiritual bondage to the oldest bloodlines on earth." - Don Harkins

Lee Harvey Oswald (above) was perhaps a classic example of a programmed assassin, used as a patsy and scapegoat in the plot to assassinate John F. Kennedy, 35th US president on 22 November 1963. Deathbed disclosures by former CIA agent E. Howard Hunt implicate George H.W. Bush in the elaborate conspiracy.

Sirhan Sirhan has been languishing in jail since 5 June 1968, the night Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Investigators say Sirhan has absolutely no memory of what happened that fateful day.

Mark David Chapman shot John Lennon on 8 December 1980 outside The Dakota in New York City. He was 25 at the time and was carrying a copy of J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye, which some investigators believe was used as a programming tool by whoever set Chapman up to take out Lennon, who was perceived by the FBI to be a major threat to public sentiment over America's military program.

US military training incorporates mind-control techniques developed by MK-Ultra during the 1950s. Some say dangerous psychotropic drugs like crystal amphetamine are routinely used to desensitize airforce crews on bombing missions and afford combatant troops a false sense of invulnerability.

It's important to bear in mind that the secretive power cabals responsible for staging false flag operations like 9/11, the Madrid and Bali bombings, and the 7/7 terror attacks in London are NOT bound by national or racial considerations. We must be careful not to blame Americans or Israelis or Brits or Pakistanis or Saudis or French or Chinese or Japanese or Russians or Serbs or Albanians for these atrocities.

Although these diabolical stratagems often involve the use of covert agencies like the CIA, FBI, Mossad, MI6, KGB, ISI, ASIO, BIN, SB, or whatever - the operatives themselves are usually in the dark as to the overall plan and ultimate purpose of their clandestine commando activities. Since these power hierarchies function strictly on a need-to-know basis, only the topmost echelons of authority have access to the game plan formulated by the inner circle of power players. In effect, even as we discover more about who and what actually makes the world go round, this knowledge will be irrelevant and useless if it makes us feel antagonistic towards Americans or Jews or Arabs or any other ideological or ethnic group.

The enemy, as it turns out, is embedded within our own genetic architecture, hard-wired into the most primitive, reptilian region of our brains where our deepest, darkest fears reside. And we can experience no greater fear than the fear of our own non-existence as individualized egos.


Take the vicious, gory and totally senseless Mumbai attacks, for example. Why might the CIA, Mossad and MI6 collaborate on such an evil program to strike fear into the Indian government specifically - and the rest of the horrified world in general? What have they accomplished by wreaking such newsworthy carnage and killing nearly 200 innocent bystanders?

Today even in remote villages you will find the occasional satellite dish and hordes of relatives crowded around the TV set every night. Most humans have, in fact, been conditioned to become passive consumers of news bulletins broadcast 24/7 by commercial networks like CNN, the BBC, Fox News, Aljazeera, and so on. It has become so easy to project a specific thought-form or perception into the mass consciousness, provided one has the colossal resources required to produce, direct and stage-manage "the news."

Knowing we are unable to look away from carnage and catastrophe, TV camera crews are on constant standby to arrive at the scene of any visually horrifying incident within hours or even minutes. Bombarded as we are by daily reports of accidents, floods, earthquakes, explosions, murders and massacres, it gets harder and harder to feel positive about humanity's future. Indeed, when violent death can strike suddenly, unexpectedly, and for absolutely no reason at all, most people begin to accept the notion of a totalitarian government where stringent security measures will ensure that they are at least safe from harm - so what if they have to sacrifice their individual liberty and childhood ideals of a just and united world?

"May 13 and 9/11 have one common feature: they were cunningly and ruthlessly crafted public traumas designed to concuss, confuse, and confound the masses - and, while the voters were in temporary shock, they would be robbed of any control over their own future. That's right, folks: the name of the REAL game is "Hand over all your power!" - Antares

Some of you may remember a 1997 movie called Wag The Dog - or the 2004 remake of The Manchurian Candidate. Well, both movies do a good job of illustrating the methodology of spin and those who routinely use it to manipulate public opinion and behavior.

Instead of panicking and worrying where the world is headed, I suggest you remain perfectly calm and do some serious research into what’s REALLY going on behind the surface of what the mass media reports. Begin by clicking on these recommended links:

What is MK-Ultra?

Who's Behind All These 'Random' Bombings?

Are the CIA and MI6 working with Mossad?

What's going on in Palestine?

Osama bin Laden, interviewed on 28 September 2001: "I had no knowledge of these attacks, nor do I consider the killing of innocent women, children and other humans as an appreciable act. Islam strictly forbids causing harm to innocent women, children and other people. Such a practice is forbidden even in the course of a battle."

From The Daily Mail Online, 29 November 2008. First posted 29 November 2008. Reposted 1 August 2014, 25 July 2015 & 16 July 2018]

Carnivorous predators and the food chain: enough to drive us into vegetarianism! (reprise)

It's a dog-eat-dog world, some say, pointing at the primeval principle of kill-or-be-killed underlying all political and economic conflict. The smell of blood is all it takes to trigger a feeding frenzy among sharks. We see it around us, every single day, and so we become desensitized to the blood and gore of the abattoir (a word we borrowed from the French, because it sounds a lot more genteel than "slaughterhouse").

Few of us have had to hunt and kill and skin and gut and cook the meat we consume. We buy it from the supermarket, neatly wrapped in cellophane and kept fresh in the freezer. No protruding heads or feet to remind us what the animal looked like when it was alive. Often the meat comes in tidy, bloodless, machine-sliced fillets, ready to stick in the oven or frying pan.

That's the only way we can deal with the horror of being part of the food chain. When children become aware of what being a carnivore actually entails, many become horrified and vow to get off the bloody wheel by turning to vegetarianism.

Eating fruit and greens doesn't seem so hideous, perhaps because plants don't scream or bleed when chopped up. And, even if they do, their blood is green or colorless, and their screams are beyond our hearing range. Fruits and nuts, of course, are aesthetically the least offensive, since they grow off trees - and no matter how many fruits or nuts we consume, at least we're not harming the trees themselves.

I wish I could live on fruits and nuts - but that would require a monumental, almost fanatical, effort. And it's no fun being a fanatic about anything. Nevertheless, after an ayahuasca experience I had in July 2011, I'm beginning to feel more tolerant towards vegetarians.

Hishamuddin Hashim,
Teoh Beng Hock's  tormentor

It's not every day that I'm so vividly aware of being part of the food chain. In theory, it seems only natural that one species devours and consumes another. Animals whose flesh we find delicious usually feed off plants and grains. And because we humans consider ourselves "the crown of creation" with our access to technology, we are no longer prey to other species of carnivores - apart from our own.

Even so, we can still be killed by the tiniest lifeforms. A disease-carrying mosquito or flea, even a bunch of hostile bacteria - or something totally invisible, like a mutant strain of virus - can take us down, no problem.

Ku Nan the Barbarian

Those who have seen Apocalypse Now - Francis Ford Coppola's 1979 film adaptation of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness - will recall the spine-chilling last words of Colonel Walter E. Kurtz: "The horror... the horror!"

That was exactly how I felt when I was granted a vision of what Malaysian politics looks like from the astral perspective. We live in a multi-tiered social hierarchy defined by genetic heredity (traditional aristocracy) and financial inheritance (the nouveau riche). Those not born into one of the nine royal bloodlines have to buy their perks and privileges with hard cash.

Everybody wants to scrabble up the status ladder - and those who have to start from scratch place their hopes on their progeny. So they invest every cent they can scrape together in "higher education" for their offspring - which they believe will grant them access to the upper tiers of society through membership in various professional guilds.

Strong egos dominate, exploit and oppress the weaker ones - that's the way the world works. That's how it has always worked and that's how it will forever be.

Mahathir Mohamad,
Tyrannosaurus rex

The battlecry of the French Revolution - Liberté, égalité, fraternité - sounds noble and stirring, but it can never happen. Liberty, equality and fraternity for all means no more slave labor. We would be forced to clean up after ourselves, do our own dishes, nobody to carry bricks on their broken backs to build our dream castles!

Can you imagine: who would risk their lives balancing on precarious scaffoldings, day in and day out, to construct a 100-story skyscraper, for a measly RM100 a day? Would you do it? Would you want your children to do it? Let those foreign workers from impoverished countries do the dirty and dangerous work!

Najib Razak, cold-blooded and vicious

But why are some countries "impoverished"? Do they not have their own natural resources? A cursory probe into the history of these "impoverished" lands will reveal the same age-old pattern: the extreme gulf between the haves and the have-nots is an artificial one, created by a feudal social structure wherein the privileged few live like gods, while those at the bottom have to be content with the most basic of necessities.

Apandi Ali,
High Priest of Iniquity

In between you will find the lower, middle and upper classes constantly pushing their way upwards, towards the top of the power pyramid, presided over by a complacent and corrupt priesthood whose function is to sanctify the status quo and assure everyone it's all part of God's plan.

Is there a way out of this endless loop of energy predation, this neverending nightmare of master-slave, victor-victim relationships?

Hishammuddin Hussein,
fang-and-claw politics

Yes, of course, there is. Twenty-five centuries ago, a young prince named Siddhartha Gautama walked out of his cushioned existence in his father's palace - after he was inadvertently exposed to the horrible sight of disease, decay, death and inescapable debt.

Prince Siddhartha realized he was living in an artificial bubble of comfort, insulated from the raw reality beyond the palace walls. Unable to enjoy his creature comforts, knowing they were merely transient, Siddhartha set off quietly to live like an ascetic. He learned to meditate from a variety of spiritual masters and eventually broke free from the robotism of physical embodiment.

In short, Siddhartha awakened from his cultural trance and was henceforth called Buddha - the Awakened One. The title "Buddha" (like "Christ" or "Christos") is not a personal name - it's a state of consciousness each of us must attain if we wish to gain true liberation from the wheel of life, death and rebirth - from the feeding frenzy of the biological food chain.

It's not enough to believe in or revere what Prince Siddhartha achieved. We have to become Buddha ourselves. And that's just a start on an inner journey back to where we began, as the Source of All Energy and Consciousness. But, once we attain our own enlightenment, we will never again wallow in the abysmal ignorance of automatism. Every word we utter, every thought we bear, and every action we take will be done consciously.

We may continue to devour the flesh of other species, but we shall do so with apologetic humility and gratitude - and, in so doing, we shall consciously bless the animal whose death now feeds our life and whose body now becomes part of our bodies. The soul of the animal, thus being acknowledged and blessed, will depart in peace and continue its adventure, perhaps in different embodiments, and it may even opt to experience being human.

Zahid Hamidi, ready to pounce

For the slayer and the slain are bound in a karmic knot, so that any human who kills and devours an animal is actually granting the soul of the animal entry into the human domain.

Personally, I would rejoice in the ability to live entirely off sunshine, fresh air and love. Occasionally, as a special treat, I would allow myself to be devoured and consumed - and to, in turn, consume and devour - but only as a ritual of sacred union performed with a lover in the celebratory spirit of tantra.

[First posted 26 July 2011, reposted 19 June 2014, 2 May 2017 & 17 July 2019]