Thursday, April 12, 2018
Debrief
More than three years ago, being homeless and jobless, I took the opportunity to start working for Damo, who ran and still runs "We, the dogbro company", or dogbro for short. Don't google it, I changed names for a variety of reason you can guess about. dogbro sells a fermented drink, praised as some sort universal remedy for all sort of ailments, especially when you listen Damo's sales talk.
I knew Damo and Dara, his girl friend at the time, from a few encounters before, mostly linked to Damo's engagement with a small political party wanting to save the planet. A real power couple, both of them outgoing, confident and quite charming initially. After working in the financial industry ages ago, I didn't want to engage anymore in any company I consider part of the problem, and dogbro ticked all the boxes for working on the solution.
The niche product offered an alternative to soft drinks, might have health benefits, it definitely tasted and felt good when I sampled it, the brewery used solar technology, bottles were reused, labels printed with vegan ink. Damo appeared to walk his talk to compete on the market with a useful product made in as sustainable ways as possible. Yeah, it meant I was working for the man again, not as independent as I want to be, but as least not for the forces of evil.
The arrangement offered cash in hand convenience, and a bed in his distribution warehouse in my favourite neighbourhood. Initially I agreed to pay by two hours of daily work for the crash pad, managed to negotiate it down to one soon, before I managed to find a sharehouse close by. Before I started with dogbro, I "planned" to go wherever fate would blow me, so it felt right to me to engage there.
Dara didn't like the idea that I lived in the warehouse, she was concerned that it would turn into a hippie hangout instead of a place of business. It looked like one anyway, while it was spacious it was cluttered with lots of things, the majority of which were not related to the business. While I lived there, I tried to keep it tidy, which was basically a mission impossible. Damo's attention span is extremely short, so he doesn't care where he drops whatever he carries into the space, forgets to put lids back onto jars he opens, to close taps and so on.
In other words, no matter how clean and organised the different spaces in the warehouse were, it took Damo usually less than an hour to transform it back into dysfunctional, cluttered spaces. A lot of time at work was spend to find items which have gone lost in the chaos. When Dara broke up with him, things turned worse, because know we shared the warehouse most nights. Party was his preferred remedy, more important than my desire and need for a good nights sleep.
The business wasn't really thriving too much, so I had enough time to start tending the garden in the front yard. The slow pace of plants growing offered a relief from random context switching when Damo's monkey mind went ape shit, which happened lots after the breakup with Dara. I ate out lots, mainly because the kitchen was most of the time in a terrible state, and due to the amount of people coming through the space everything in the fridge was considered 'communal'.
I realised that I made enough money to afford my own space in a share house, creating a retreat from the ever changing chaos at work. Many unhealthy patterns of interaction between Damo and me were already established in these early stages, but I felt strong and equanimous enough to take it not personal. Being Alexander Technique teacher should imply that I can master my reactions to stimuli, right?
Yes and no. We all assume to a certain degree that the people around us are similar to us, which would predict much less conflict than we generally experience. At some point, I read up a bit on the Myers-Briggs personality test and estimated that Damo and I probably differ in all four dimensions. While I don't think this personality test offers more than an indication, and none of us is doomed to get stuck in any of the 16 outcomes, these differences provided often a too high stimulus for me to keep calm.
"Judging" causes me the greatest troubles, or rather, being judged. It often goes together with the blame game, in my point of view an utter waste of time. However, a judgemental person usually understands any observation as judgement, which creates a large obstacle to "Talking about it" as conflict resolution. Our culture has developed a cult of judgement, based on violent communication. Finding solutions, while essential for long-term relationships, offers much less entertainment than the drama of emotionally laden conflict.
The blame game drained me, and started to reactivate old, bad habits of defence. Depending on my mood, I either reacted with cynicism, or confrontational. Sometimes I just laughed about it, but most of the time it ended in full confrontation, both of shouting at each other. Usually, a bit of time out managed to forget about the "cause" of confrontation. The fact that technically I got fired each time we had a clash like this, left me feeling quite insecure. I didn't notice at the time how much Damo enjoyed this kind of emotional exchange.
I could have noticed earlier if I connected the dots. In the breakup phase with Dara, their interactions had a similar toxic dynamic. She told me at some point that she basically tried to educate him similar to a dog, with positive and negative reinforcement. That was reflected in the way they talked to each other. Obviously, she gave up at some point, despite a few bouts of break up sex. As last resort, she threatened him with an intervention order.
Damo's promiscuity and unwillingness to remain faithful proved the primary reason for the break up. Despite him admitting to have broken more than one promise to keep his dick out of other women, he presented himself as a victim towards other people he shared this "misfortune" with. At this time, I still considered him as friend, and suggested taking a bit more responsibility for this failed relationship. As a consequence, he avoided talking about her to me.
I simply accepted that he was in a bad mood due to this, which helped ignoring a bit when ever he lashed out verbally against me. The "blame Winston" pattern got established for as good as everything not right in the warehouse. While I had initially offered to provide my expert skills, I got tasked with menial jobs, including cleaning up after him. I didn't mind it too much, being paid meant I could pay the bills.
Things got worse when Willie, an old friend of Damo, appeared. He got introduced as "loose unit", and indeed, he had even more talent than Damo to create chaos around him, without being as charming or generous as Damo usually was when he met new faces. Willie commented as "permaculture expert" about the state of front yard, before chucking his cigarette butt into it. Like Beavis and Butthead, the two of them focussed exclusively on having a good time, unlike them they added lots of alcohol and drug use in the mix.
I got the impression that Damo wanted Willie around to look reasonable, and have another person for his blame game. The average tension level at work increased, just like the off times I was given. I just scraped by financially at the time, used smoking as expensive stress relief which increased the financial pressure. Damo seemed to be able to draw in an unlimited supply of unpaid helpers, attracted by the idea to work for a planet saving business, and random women he had sex with, and did lots of cleaning work in return.
All of that made my life more complicated. I enjoyed the people coming through, but less the fact that I had introduce new people to the same procedures on a regular basis. Also, lots of reorganisation of the spaces happened on "working bees" in my absence, usually meaning that I couldn't find what I needed for my job anymore. The social aspect, however, established the "I don't pay you for sitting around" pattern. I no longer got paid for the hours I spend there, but interactions with customers or new helpers were simply subtracted as unproductive leisure time.
Damo expected a 24/7 availability, and often rang me late at night to organise pick ups, or because he lost his keys and needed me to open the door for him. This impacted me a lot in having a social life, and getting sufficient rest to keep my mood and motivation up. Occasionally I got some booze or weed, which I basically couldn't afford, and drowned my grief, concerns and worry with these unhealthy means.
The business took a dive for some months, and with no silver lining in sight Willie left for a while. He went through several boom and bust cycles since I met him, always returning with the next splendid business idea he hasn't got the stamina to materialise properly. Just like Damo, he likes to get people to work for free for him, or for favours which usually work in favour for him. Unlike Damo, he's got little skills and no real income from his various ventures. He's got full support from Damo, though, who allows him to use his space, take his drugs and drink his booze.
While I'm not too certain, I presume it was Willie who spread the idea of me being a "negative" person. While I was the primary target for the blame game, I simply pointed out who was responsible for things I got blamed for. Any form of constructive criticism got labelled as "being negative". Instead of preventing things from systematically going wrong by changing the way they were approached, my "negative attitude" became the one and only problem in need of fixing.
This made it more and more difficult for me to see every day as a new opportunity to participate in what I initially perceived as a business involved doing something good. I managed to claim some of the routine tasks, which kept me sufficiently busy without becoming too involved in the drama which happened regularly. Days without seeing Damo allowed me to minimise emotional damage, but I felt the need to drink a lot, sometimes starting already around lunch.
I find it still difficult to remember some of those drama days without the emotional maelstrom that went with them. I want to be able to forgive myself for my inertness not to have moved on earlier, and those who treated me as emotional punching ball, without forgetting what happened. Suppressing my discomfort with alcohol and weed didn't work, it turned into a band aid preventing wounds from bleeding, but also from healing.
My opportunities to generate income are severely limited due to my own choices some years ago. I coast along on the tiny safety net I set up for myself, which also means that luxuries like alcohol, tobacco and weed are off limits. Sobering up for some weeks now makes me aware how toxic in many dimensions my way of life as part of dogbro had become. I wish the story would end here, but I have a hunch that the last chapter has been written yet.
Thursday, October 25, 2012
Weather modification
Anyway, I came across a video explaining more of the mechanics of solar radiation management. In order to create clouds, you need water vapor and seeds. This can be done in two steps, first bringing out the seeds, and then using 'normal' air traffic to provide the necessary water vapor, as by-product of the normal engine exhaust.
I checked the weather forecast this morning, as I wanted to do my laundry, and it said 21-26 degree, mostly sunny. While it was relatively warm, I didn't see too much sun, but some toxic looking greyish soup most of the day. Okay, I admit, this might be just my paranoid explanation.
On a facebook group somebody linked NASA's earthview, offering satellite images of the entire planet. It doesn't only offer to show clouds, but also measures other data about the atmosphere. As I learned in the video, the seeding agents can be brought out before the actual clouds are created, in the form of aerosols.
The satellites measure the aerosol content (the coloured patches in the image) by its albedo, meaning by the reflectiveness. One concept of solar radiation management proposes to alleviate global warming by reflecting sunlight away from the earth. The coloured areas show therefor something in our atmosphere which aren't 'natural' clouds, and it's easy to see some areas that don't align with the cloud cover.
One the bigger version, it's easy to see that the patches of aerosol move east, mainly covering Victoria and the West Australian coast. The red area (highest density) increased in the last few days, making it easy assume that lots of aerial spraying happened around Perth, Melbourne and Tasmania, a bit less in the Darwin area.
As I've seen lots of photos taken of chemtrails in Victoria from the same period of time, this composite satellite image confirms that our skies are badly messed with at the moment. I can't really tell what kind of junk is sprayed on us, but these images leave little doubt that currently a lot of artificial cloud coverage is produced here.
Considering that the Earth's atmosphere is tiny and fragile, experimenting with it feels like Russian roulette to me. However, this satellite data should provide enough evidence for the doubters that weather modification in large scale already happens, without knowledge and consent of the wider population.
Saturday, April 28, 2012
Bureaucratic nightmares
Today I got convinced that this part of the world has already been converted to some sort of open citizen prison, Victoria Police acting as prison guard defending national security by harassing whoever appears to cross their path the wrong way.
I found a tiny card next to the penalty notice in my mailbox, which I nearly threw away as advertising. The card informed that L/S/C Mlikota paid me a visit, and asked to get in contact. After the second call to my local police station I got informed that some documents were waiting for me.
The police woman that gave me my charge (by contesting the penalty I now get charged in front of the Magistrate Court) acted very helpful, and didn't even ask for my ID before handing out the paper work. I'm not too sure whether police sees (and checks) incoming numbers, I'm sure she was convinced that I spoke to her about this charge on the phone earlier.
I browsed quickly through the papers, and found the same outdated legal definition from 1999 I saw already as attachment to $464 worth of fines. So I smiled at her and asked whether it is common to get charges delivered in person, as I contested a number of similar fines, and thus will get more charges soon. I pointed out to her that the current Road Code, as of 2009, has a different definition for bicycle.
I pulled out the printout of the current version, showed it her and said that this is the reason why I contested all that fines. An older police man joined the conversation, and tried to reach the constable in question. I mentioned that I don't mind to go to court to make my case, having the written law on my side. 'But he only wants to help...', unfortunately, he didn't.
It took maybe four or five statements back and forth before this happened - I usually insist on quoting the definition, and pointing out that a unicycle has ONE wheel, no gears, chains or belts. Meanwhile, the police woman looked like checking my printout online on her phone. At a distance, it looked like good cop, bad cop, luckily with a counter between us.
The accused at Parkville on Monday the 5th of December 2011 did fail to wear a securely fitted and approved bicycle helmet at Royal Parade whilst riding a unicycle. Does anybody else notice the bit of Orwellian Newspeak in this charge?
When people in uniform don't like the word of the law if you hold it under their own noses, and still insist that you must have done something wrong, because they don't err, the police state has arrived. They follow orders, not the law. I mean, with the legal situation whether I'm 'guilty' or not bases on the ability to count. Does a unicycle have two or more wheels? Does it have gears, belts or chains?
![]() |
| Not mine :( Yet identical in its setup: One wheel, no belts, gears, chains |
Coincidentally, each time I got done on the unicycle I was on my way to Occupy Melbourne, each time to different locations: Flagstaff Gardens, Father Bob's and City Square. In comparison to my harassment I witnessed much more bewildering and violent police activities in each of those (and other) locations.
Occupy inspired me to film one of those encounters with Melbourne Bike Patrol (there to fight BIKE CRIME). I failed to connect to Constable Miletta from human to human, and have already a new strategy for the next time he or his fellow bike crime fighters infringe on my right to freely move through Melbourne's public space.
Now I can rehearse my defence in court, and investigate how to turn the pages by asking for compensation for the continuing harassment. We don't need police to enforce laws that protect people from themselves, even if they don't exist. We rather need protection from people in uniform making their own laws.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Twitchings of a dying system
2012 has just begun, and real life manages to exceed some of the doomsday scenarios believers in the end of the world according to the Mayan calendar subscribe to. As last act in the old year, Obama signed off the NDAA, converting US citizens into property of the state. Any US citizen can now be taken by the military for indefinite detention.
The Stanford Prison Experiment provides enough evidence to rethink the idea of prisons at all, instead Alex Jones visions of a prisonplanet become reality. However, as world leader in the private prison industry, lobbying for more crime makes just perfect sense. NDAA doesn't even require crimes to be committed anymore - the government knows best, and doesn't need to tell anything.
So I can only hope that the brave people trying to employ the people's mic in Grand Central Station will resurface, and not end up in an infamous FEMA camp, most likely run by Serco or Wackenhut. NDAA retroactively 'legalised' the abhorrent treatment Bradley Manning received for shining a light on shameless human rights abuses conducted in the name of American people.
The wrath of inane governments doesn't end here. Julian Assange is now for more than 400 days in house arrest, a form of punishment Galileo received for daring to claim that the Earth spins around the Sun. Even before the American entertainment industry is granted extraordinary rights to force anyone on the planet to prove their innocence from 'piracy', the FBI took down megaupload, most likely the biggest file-sharing (cloud-storage) site on the internet.
Even more, the FBI convicted New Zealand's police to raid the mansion of the owners of megaupload, and seized their asset in a foreign country. Meanwhile, illegal assassination of Pakistanis (and most likely Iranians) with drones continues, not to mention the eternal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Within the US, civilians have now lost any human rights. Similar to Eastern Germany, the number of people employed by intelligence agencies exploded out of control, so now a sufficient number of criminals can be produced for the interest of shareholders in the private prison industry.
As computer processing and storage capacity also increases exponentially, the totalitarian dream of knowing everything about everyone comes closer to reality. Sharing counteracts the racketeering methods of corporatist fund raising, and thus becomes the target. Whether its information about personal interactions in public interest (Wikileaks), media (megaupload) or even chocolate (Occupy Melbourne's free chocolate stall was removed by the council guarded by ten police or so), sharing for free doesn't feed into the greed of those who want to dominate us.
Right now, the next official war (against Iran) is talked up, to distract from the last massive bailout Obama granted the banking mafia, and the massive debt crisis Europe experiences. How stupid of a population has been indoctrinated by state schools quenching creativity at its core? With about 17% illiteracy among the OECD nations it's safe to assume that current education fails essential targets.
When I grew up in Germany, my country wasn't involved in any war, and our 'laws' seemed to prevent us from engaging in first place. Without 'external' enemy, we could focus more on how we wanted our community to be. In peace, we could consider the future, the world we wanted to leave behind for our children. Worker's right and environmentalism were the main areas of activism - people occupied the site of planned nuclear reactors, were striking for better wages.
Any country involved in war needs to increase the average level of general fear to maintain their strategy of temporary insanity. Otherwise they might get called out on their blatant disrespect for human life and the murders committed in the name of freedom and democracy. Eleven years after 911 the business plan for the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan becomes apparent, innocent blood spilled massively for corporate profits.
Most governments in the western world are nothing but a Muppet Show nowadays, legally souvereignity has been outsourced a long time ago. Only people can stop the corporate take-over of this planet.
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
In my humble point of view, humans can organise their affairs without any formal government. Before the introduction of written language, which enabled the evil principle of bureaucrazy (typo intended), the concept of government hardly existed at all.
Of course, most historians have some objections against this point of view, and do their best to create a perception of history that never questions the usefulness of government. Leadership certainly exists in primate gangs, but it differs significantly from the infection with formalised forms of governance the human race suffers from currently.
Although I consider the nonsense of governments detrimental for the human evolution, I have arranged myself with their existance. I appreciate company and lack the survival skills of an Unabomber, which makes it virtually impossible for me to live in a place without any government.
Yet as long as humanity is infected with the inhumane idea of government, I certainly prefer democracy instead of dictatorship. Unfortunately, democracy doesn't exist on this planet, although some nations like Switzerland come a bit closer to a society where all citizens have their say in common affairs.
Representative democracy, however, fails to deliver participation of all, and differs hardly from feudalism, which the French revolution ostensibly eradicated. The US and its phony elections in this millenium serve as perfect example why the name democracy doesn't suit the organisational structure of its society: Although both times Bush got "elected" by massive manipulations, the vote fraud was simply swept under the carpet.
The funny political games others play would not bother me too much, if the parasites of society, also called politicians, wouldn't demand some large protection racket (euphemistically called taxes). In peaceful times this protection racket partially served a decent purpose: Besides financing a luxurious life style for the god fathers and capos of the political system some of the money got spend for the community in form of infrastructure.
911 has changed the world (or so the saying goes...), and serves since 2001 as carte blanche to remove the remaining illusion of democracy. The political parasites now use this excuse not only for a redistribution of wealth within their controlled territory, but also to finance mass killings and destruction of arable soil outside their "official" sphere of regency.
People in the US, or here in Australia, or back home in Europe, hardly notice the amount of their money spend on bloodshed in the name of "freedom and democracy", nor the systematic withdrawal of governments from their traditional role to provide services to their citizens.
The mass media mind fuck works just too well. Scared into submission, artificial targets take the blame for obsolete governments: Terrorists, foreigners, disbelievers, homosexuals, communists, conspiracy buffs, native people, social loafers, binge drinking youth.
I found this interesting op-ed piece in a small American "News" site: Humankind benefits from New World Order: We need One-World government. Let's have a look at some of the myths the author tries to materialise in this piece of disgrace for journalism.
The Bilderberg Group [...] are powerful, influential, and civic-minded overachievers who enjoy each others company.So far, so good. Attentive readers have noticed already the retarded ad hominem way of argumentation. And of course the lack of any real arguments. (Feel free to check the link to the original article to see how I distorted the line of argumentation to make my point here.)The conspiracy-minded lunatic fringe argues: How come only international bankers, politicians and media heavyweights are invited? Well duh, it's only natural that the powerful would want to network with each other; I'm not holding my breath waiting for an invitation.
Some conservative nuts need a bogeyman (Bilderberg Group, Trilateral Commissions) to explain their failure to achieve anything of significance. "I'm working at Burger King because the Bilderberg Group is destroying America by outsourcing all the good jobs."
Omissions can create lies easily, and the list of participants offers only to politically/economically interested people insights what kind of "networking" happens during the Bilderberg meetings. Sorry, Britney Spears didn't come, just the Queen of England, Condi Rice, Henry Kissing and David Rockefeller might qualify as celebs during that meeting.
Now it's getting interesting. At the end of the list of "great issues" appears one item that certainly deserves a place there: poverty. Global warming might be another, the rest springs from a paranoid mind.I wish there were an international group of statesmen working to set up a one-world government. Sovereignty will one day be a thing of the past; it's a luxury this little world can no longer afford. Only a one-world government can adequately address the great issues of today: Overpopulation, terrorism, global warming, pandemics, tribal warfare, oil crisis, poverty...
It's a global mind fuck, and I won't "get with the program". I'd rather program my mind myself, than submitting myself to the idea of a global abolition of the attempt of democracy. Centralisation of power has already successfully eroded democracy in Europe, and a One-World government has no means of addressing the needs of local communities.It's a global economy, it's a global village and eventually it will be a one-world government. Don't be on the losing side of history, get with the program.
The consumerist world ridiculed the idea of Mao's blue ants. One size fits all? No fucking way, consumers define themselves by choices, we are all Induhviduals. Sure, there's the white collar and blue collar uniform, but with the freedom to choose the brand of your suit or costume, the colour of the tie, the interior of the car the illusion of identity is created.
Global village? Get real, the majority of people dwell in cities in the 21st century. The dynamics and the stratification of cities differ drastically from a village. Hardly any village would tolerate different religions, yet a city allows peaceful coexistance of a variety of believers and non-believers.
No single instance can cater for the needs of all. Each concentration of power allows abuse on a larger scale. Only by negotiating common affairs societies can develop cohesion, and offer the freedom to choose - a One-World government can only exist as dictatorship.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. I just can't rape my mind enough to stop questioning authority. In a capitalist world, I pay for those suckers representing authority, whether I want to or not. But no matter how often I read praises for the suppressors of human evolution, I won't "get with the program".


